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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.
120. We understand indeed in such powers of growing things three kinds of spiritus in different centra, but in one corpus. The first and external spiritus is the coarse sulphur, salt and mercury, which is a substance of four elements, or of the stars according to the property of their roughness. It makes the corpus, and impresses itself or compacts itself into a substance, or draws that which is internal out of the spiritual separator into itself, as also the elements from without, and coagulates itself therewith ; whence immediately the signature or sign is effected by the separator. It forms the visible corpus according to the property of the greatest power of the spiritus mundi, viz. according to the constellation of the stars or property of the planets and now enkindled elements. 21. The second spiritus, which has a centrum, of its own, is found in the oil of sulphur, which is called the fifth essence, viz. a root of the four elements. This spiritus is the softening and joy of the coarse, painful spirit of sulphur and salt; and receives its nourishment, firstly, from within, from the light of Nature, from the efflux of spiritual gentleness, from the inward spiritual fire and light. And, secondly, it receives its nourishment from without, from the sun and from the subtle power of the spiritus mundi, and is the true cause of gi'owing life, a joy of Nature, as is the sun in the elements.
222. The third sjnritus is the tincture, a counterstroke of the divine Mysterium magnum, in which all powers are in equality, and is rightly called paradise or divine dehght. It is a mansion of divine ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 209 power, a mansion of the eternal soul, whence all external powers spring, after the manner of air from fire. 23. For the tincture is nothing else than a spiritual fire and light, in which fire and light is a single and united being. But because it has within it its separator, as the emanated divine will to manifestation, it is the highest reason for which the first separation of qualities comes about in the existence of this world, and belongs by its own quality to eternity. For its origin is the holy power of God. And it has a special centrum, viz. the most inward ground of the creature, which indeed is hidden to the mortal creature on this account, that man brought false will against it. Hence arose the curse of the earth at the fall of man. Yet this high, holy principle in its own centrum presses forth through all the beings of this world, and flows forth into the outer powers, as the sun into the elements. But the creature cannot touch the centrum of this power, unless it be done by divine permission, as comes to pass in the new birth.
324. Such a revelation is seen in all living and growing things. All things have their subsistence in these three principles or beginnings. You see an example in a herb of the earth, which has its nourishment from within and without, viz. from the earth, and from without from the sun and stars, whereby the spiritus of the earth together with the external spiritus fashions itself. When the herb sprouts forth, it is in such power that this is reaHzed. Thus the outward separator in 210 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION sulphur, salt and mercury signs itself externally with the shape and form of the herb; for it is the herb's motion and sensation, and makes itself corporeal. 25. So that when I see a herb standing, I may say with truth: This is an image of the Earthspirit, in which the upper powers rejoice, and regard it as their child; for the Earth-spirit is but one being with the upper, outward powers. And when the herb is grown up, it blossoms; and with the blossom the oleous spirit signs itself with beautiful colours. And with the lovely smell of the blossom, the tincture or the third principle signs itself. 26. Here then we understand that the inward, hidden spirit of the elements has revealed itself, and brings itself also into the form of the fruit. For the earth would have no such smell, neither colours nor such vii'tue, if the hidden power of the divine efflux did not manifest itself.
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.
120. We understand indeed in such powers of growing things three kinds of spiritus in different centra, but in one corpus. The first and external spiritus is the coarse sulphur, salt and mercury, which is a substance of four elements, or of the stars according to the property of their roughness. It makes the corpus, and impresses itself or compacts itself into a substance, or draws that which is internal out of the spiritual separator into itself, as also the elements from without, and coagulates itself therewith ; whence immediately the signature or sign is effected by the separator. It forms the visible corpus according to the property of the greatest power of the spiritus mundi, viz. according to the constellation of the stars or property of the planets and now enkindled elements. 21. The second spiritus, which has a centrum, of its own, is found in the oil of sulphur, which is called the fifth essence, viz. a root of the four elements. This spiritus is the softening and joy of the coarse, painful spirit of sulphur and salt; and receives its nourishment, firstly, from within, from the light of Nature, from the efflux of spiritual gentleness, from the inward spiritual fire and light. And, secondly, it receives its nourishment from without, from the sun and from the subtle power of the spiritus mundi, and is the true cause of gi'owing life, a joy of Nature, as is the sun in the elements.
222. The third sjnritus is the tincture, a counterstroke of the divine Mysterium magnum, in which all powers are in equality, and is rightly called paradise or divine dehght. It is a mansion of divine ON THE DIVINE INTUITION 209 power, a mansion of the eternal soul, whence all external powers spring, after the manner of air from fire. 23. For the tincture is nothing else than a spiritual fire and light, in which fire and light is a single and united being. But because it has within it its separator, as the emanated divine will to manifestation, it is the highest reason for which the first separation of qualities comes about in the existence of this world, and belongs by its own quality to eternity. For its origin is the holy power of God. And it has a special centrum, viz. the most inward ground of the creature, which indeed is hidden to the mortal creature on this account, that man brought false will against it. Hence arose the curse of the earth at the fall of man. Yet this high, holy principle in its own centrum presses forth through all the beings of this world, and flows forth into the outer powers, as the sun into the elements. But the creature cannot touch the centrum of this power, unless it be done by divine permission, as comes to pass in the new birth.
324. Such a revelation is seen in all living and growing things. All things have their subsistence in these three principles or beginnings. You see an example in a herb of the earth, which has its nourishment from within and without, viz. from the earth, and from without from the sun and stars, whereby the spiritus of the earth together with the external spiritus fashions itself. When the herb sprouts forth, it is in such power that this is reaHzed. Thus the outward separator in 210 ON THE DIVINE INTUITION sulphur, salt and mercury signs itself externally with the shape and form of the herb; for it is the herb's motion and sensation, and makes itself corporeal. 25. So that when I see a herb standing, I may say with truth: This is an image of the Earthspirit, in which the upper powers rejoice, and regard it as their child; for the Earth-spirit is but one being with the upper, outward powers. And when the herb is grown up, it blossoms; and with the blossom the oleous spirit signs itself with beautiful colours. And with the lovely smell of the blossom, the tincture or the third principle signs itself. 26. Here then we understand that the inward, hidden spirit of the elements has revealed itself, and brings itself also into the form of the fruit. For the earth would have no such smell, neither colours nor such vii'tue, if the hidden power of the divine efflux did not manifest itself.
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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