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Eleven books by a shoemaker of Görlitz who wrote, by his own account, because he could not help it. Ten of them stand here in the seventeenth-century English of John Sparrow, who translated Boehme within a generation of his death and whose prose is itself now four hundred years old; where that English has drifted out of reach, the facing pane carries a modern register — the same text with archaic inflection and spelling normalised by rule, never paraphrased. Nothing is reworded, and where no register appears beside a passage it is because the rules found nothing to change.
The eleventh book is not in English at all, and it is the reason this note exists.
Des trois principes de l'essence divine, printed at Paris in 1802, is the same work as Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence, which stands here as the second book — the same twenty-seven chapters in the same order, opening `Du premier principe de l'essence divine` against Sparrow's `Of the first Principle of the Divine Essence`. Its translator was Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin, who gave the last years of his life to putting Boehme into French, and who has a shelf of his own in this Lycaeum.
That makes a closed circuit inside this archive, and it is worth naming plainly. Saint-Martin translates Boehme. La Iniciación, printed in Montevideo a hundred and forty years later, traces its own descent through Saint-Martin. A reader can therefore follow one thread from a German mystic of 1619, through the French philosopher who carried him into another language, to a Spanish-language monthly of the 1940s that claimed them both — and read every step of it in the original.
The two are shelved as one work rather than two because that is what they are. They are not set as facing panes: an English translation of 1619 and a French translation of 1802 are two independent readings of a lost German original, and pairing them line by line would assert a correspondence neither translator ever claimed.
14. From such a revelation of powers, in which the will of the eternal One contemplates itself, flows the understanding and the knowledge of the something (Ichts),^ as the eternal will contemplates itself in the something (Ichts), and in wisdom introduces itself into delight in a likeness and image. 5. This image is the Mystenum magnum, viz. the creator of all beings and creatures ; for it is the separator in the efflux of the will, which makes the will of the eternal One separable; it is the separability in the will, from which powers and qualities arise. 6. These powers again are in efflux of themselves, each power bringing itself into individual will according to the virtue of that same power. From thence arises the multiplicity of wills, and from this also the creaturely life of eternity has taken its origin, viz. angels and souls. And yet it cannot be said that by this a Nature or creation is understood, but the eternal imaged existence of the divine word and will, as the Spirit of God has in such a counter stroke, 1 Ichts the opposite of Nichts (nothing) is "I," self-consciousness. — Hegel, Hist, of Phil, vol. iii. p. 286. 204 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION in the powers of wisdom, sported with himself in such formation of similitude. .
27. As the mind of man in the understanding introduces itself by the senses into a counterstroke of an exact likeness, and by sense flows forth and disposes into images, which images are the thoughts of the mind, wherein the will of the mind works, and thus by desire brings itself into a sharpness, as into a magnetic appropriation, from which joy and sorrow arise ; 8. So also, in regard to the eternal mind of perceptibility, we are to understand that the outgoing of the one will of God has, through the Word, introduced itself into separability, and the separability has introduced itself into receptibility, as into desire and craving for its self -revelation, passing out of the Unity into plurahty. 9. Desire is the ground and beginning of the nature of perceptibility of the particular will. For therein is the separability of the Unity brought into receptibility, whence the separabilities of the wills are brought into perceptibility of a self-hood, wherein the true, creaturely, perceptible, angeHc, and soulic life is understood. 10. For the will of the eternal One is imperceptible, without tendency to anything ; for it has nothing to which it could tend, save only towards itself. Therefore it brings itself out of itself, and carries the efflux of its unity into plurality, and into assumption of selfhood, as of a place of a Nature, from which qualities take their rise. For every ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 205
3quality has its own separator and maker within it, and is in itself entire, according to the quality of the eternal Unity. 11. Thus the separator of each will develops in its turn qualities from itself, from which the infinite plurality arises, and through which the eternal One makes itself perceptible, not according to the unity, but according to the efflux of the unity. But the efflux is carried to the greatest sharpness with magnetic receptivity, to the nature of fire ; in which fiery nature the eternal One becomes majestic and a light. Thereby [by fire] the eternal power becomes desireful and effectual, and [fire] is the original condition of the sensitive life, where in the Word of power, in the efflux, an eternal sensitive life has its origin. For if life had no sensitiveness, it would have no will nor efficacy; but pain makes it effectual and capable of will. And the light of such kindling through fire makes it joyous, for it is an anointment of painfulness.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
14. From such a revelation of powers, in which the will of the eternal One contemplates itself, flows the understanding and the knowledge of the something (Ichts),^ as the eternal will contemplates itself in the something (Ichts), and in wisdom introduces itself into delight in a likeness and image. 5. This image is the Mystenum magnum, viz. the creator of all beings and creatures ; for it is the separator in the efflux of the will, which makes the will of the eternal One separable; it is the separability in the will, from which powers and qualities arise. 6. These powers again are in efflux of themselves, each power bringing itself into individual will according to the virtue of that same power. From thence arises the multiplicity of wills, and from this also the creaturely life of eternity has taken its origin, viz. angels and souls. And yet it cannot be said that by this a Nature or creation is understood, but the eternal imaged existence of the divine word and will, as the Spirit of God has in such a counter stroke, 1 Ichts the opposite of Nichts (nothing) is "I," self-consciousness. — Hegel, Hist, of Phil, vol. iii. p. 286. 204 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION in the powers of wisdom, sported with himself in such formation of similitude. .
27. As the mind of man in the understanding introduces itself by the senses into a counterstroke of an exact likeness, and by sense flows forth and disposes into images, which images are the thoughts of the mind, wherein the will of the mind works, and thus by desire brings itself into a sharpness, as into a magnetic appropriation, from which joy and sorrow arise ; 8. So also, in regard to the eternal mind of perceptibility, we are to understand that the outgoing of the one will of God has, through the Word, introduced itself into separability, and the separability has introduced itself into receptibility, as into desire and craving for its self -revelation, passing out of the Unity into plurahty. 9. Desire is the ground and beginning of the nature of perceptibility of the particular will. For therein is the separability of the Unity brought into receptibility, whence the separabilities of the wills are brought into perceptibility of a self-hood, wherein the true, creaturely, perceptible, angeHc, and soulic life is understood. 10. For the will of the eternal One is imperceptible, without tendency to anything ; for it has nothing to which it could tend, save only towards itself. Therefore it brings itself out of itself, and carries the efflux of its unity into plurality, and into assumption of selfhood, as of a place of a Nature, from which qualities take their rise. For every ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 205
3quality has its own separator and maker within it, and is in itself entire, according to the quality of the eternal Unity. 11. Thus the separator of each will develops in its turn qualities from itself, from which the infinite plurality arises, and through which the eternal One makes itself perceptible, not according to the unity, but according to the efflux of the unity. But the efflux is carried to the greatest sharpness with magnetic receptivity, to the nature of fire ; in which fiery nature the eternal One becomes majestic and a light. Thereby [by fire] the eternal power becomes desireful and effectual, and [fire] is the original condition of the sensitive life, where in the Word of power, in the efflux, an eternal sensitive life has its origin. For if life had no sensitiveness, it would have no will nor efficacy; but pain makes it effectual and capable of will. And the light of such kindling through fire makes it joyous, for it is an anointment of painfulness.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.
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