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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.
1and if it does now purposely go on, and so form the word, and casts or speaks it forth against its brother, and enkindles in him also a hateful enmity in the Serpent's ens, the same burns in his expressed word in the fire of God's anger, and he is guilty of it, for he has enkindled it in his Raca. 64. Therefore said Christ, if you will offer your gift, go first and be reconciled to your offended brother or neighbour, for otherwise he brings his wrath into your offering, and withholds you in your desire towards God, that you canst not reach the holy ens, which else washes away the turba in your enkindled vanity. 65. For the word fool is, in itself, in the essence, nothing else but an enkindled wrathful fiery wheel, an outrageous madness; and he that so calls his neighbour without a cause, he has brought forth a word in the fire-wheel, and in the wrath of God, and is guilty of it; for the forth-produced word is arisen out of the ens of the soul and body. 66. Every word, when it is formed, doth first awaken its own ens, whence it takes its original; then it leads itself forth through the council of the five senses against its brother. Now whosoever uses such a wrathful devouring fire-word against his brother, he sows into the anger of God, and is in danger to reap the fruit which he has so sown, when it springs up and grows.
267. Therefore take heed, and beware, 0 man, what you thinkest, speakest, or desirest to do. Look well always in what zeal you stand, whether it be divine, or only of your own poisonful nature ! you father, you mother, you brother, and you sister, which proceed and come from one blood, from one ens, and mutually assimulate each with other, as a tree in its branches: think and consider what kind of sound [or tune] you introduce into the vital ens of your fellow-twigs and branches, whether it be God's loveword, or his word of anger! If ye do not destroy the introduced evil again with love, and introduce again the love-ens into the anger [to overcome and reconcile it], then the substance must come into the judgement of God, and be separated in the fire of God, like as the devil is severed from the good ens; and so shall you [be], O wicked man, with your wicked formed word [which you have conceived] out of the ens of God's anger. 68. And therefore God has introduced his holy Word out of his deepest love again into the human ens, seeing the same was introduced into Adam and Eve in the anger, that man might conceive [or form his will and doings] again in the introduced love of God in Christ Jesus, and in him destroy the wrathful anger. And therefore Christ teaches us that he is the Gate which leads us into God, that he is the Way and the Light, whereupon we may again enter into God, and in him regenerate [or quicken again to life] the holy ens.
369. And therefore Christ forbids us to be angry, or to conceive our will and word in revenge; but if anyone did curse us, we ought to bless him; and if any did strike us, him we should not resist; lest our turba should be stirred up in the new-born holy ens of Christ, and introduce the Serpent's craft, iniquity, and ens, thereinto. 70. But we should in love be as children, who understand nothing of the Serpent's craft. Therefore we declare, in divine knowledge, as a dear and precious truth, that all contention, covetousness, envy, anger, war, false desire, or whatsoever may be of the like name [and nature] does take its original out of the centre of the revenge of the wrath of God, out of the dark world, and is brought in the Serpent's ens to a substance, wherein the false Serpent's ens will behold and contemplate itself in pride. 71. Whatsoever does strive and contend in this world about selfhood, selfish interest, temporal honour, its own profit for its own advancement, the same is bred and born of the Serpent's ens; be it in either rich or poor, in superior or inferior, no order, rank or condition whatsoever excepted. All men who would be called Christians, or children of divine love, they must be born again in their first ens (which disappeared and corrupted in Adam) out of the divine love in
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.
1and if it does now purposely go on, and so form the word, and casts or speaks it forth against its brother, and enkindles in him also a hateful enmity in the Serpent's ens, the same burns in his expressed word in the fire of God's anger, and he is guilty of it, for he has enkindled it in his Raca. 64. Therefore said Christ, if you will offer your gift, go first and be reconciled to your offended brother or neighbour, for otherwise he brings his wrath into your offering, and withholds you in your desire towards God, that you canst not reach the holy ens, which else washes away the turba in your enkindled vanity. 65. For the word fool is, in itself, in the essence, nothing else but an enkindled wrathful fiery wheel, an outrageous madness; and he that so calls his neighbour without a cause, he has brought forth a word in the fire-wheel, and in the wrath of God, and is guilty of it; for the forth-produced word is arisen out of the ens of the soul and body. 66. Every word, when it is formed, doth first awaken its own ens, whence it takes its original; then it leads itself forth through the council of the five senses against its brother. Now whosoever uses such a wrathful devouring fire-word against his brother, he sows into the anger of God, and is in danger to reap the fruit which he has so sown, when it springs up and grows.
267. Therefore take heed, and beware, 0 man, what you thinkest, speakest, or desirest to do. Look well always in what zeal you stand, whether it be divine, or only of your own poisonful nature ! you father, you mother, you brother, and you sister, which proceed and come from one blood, from one ens, and mutually assimulate each with other, as a tree in its branches: think and consider what kind of sound [or tune] you introduce into the vital ens of your fellow-twigs and branches, whether it be God's loveword, or his word of anger! If ye do not destroy the introduced evil again with love, and introduce again the love-ens into the anger [to overcome and reconcile it], then the substance must come into the judgement of God, and be separated in the fire of God, like as the devil is severed from the good ens; and so shall you [be], O wicked man, with your wicked formed word [which you have conceived] out of the ens of God's anger. 68. And therefore God has introduced his holy Word out of his deepest love again into the human ens, seeing the same was introduced into Adam and Eve in the anger, that man might conceive [or form his will and doings] again in the introduced love of God in Christ Jesus, and in him destroy the wrathful anger. And therefore Christ teaches us that he is the Gate which leads us into God, that he is the Way and the Light, whereupon we may again enter into God, and in him regenerate [or quicken again to life] the holy ens.
369. And therefore Christ forbids us to be angry, or to conceive our will and word in revenge; but if anyone did curse us, we ought to bless him; and if any did strike us, him we should not resist; lest our turba should be stirred up in the new-born holy ens of Christ, and introduce the Serpent's craft, iniquity, and ens, thereinto. 70. But we should in love be as children, who understand nothing of the Serpent's craft. Therefore we declare, in divine knowledge, as a dear and precious truth, that all contention, covetousness, envy, anger, war, false desire, or whatsoever may be of the like name [and nature] does take its original out of the centre of the revenge of the wrath of God, out of the dark world, and is brought in the Serpent's ens to a substance, wherein the false Serpent's ens will behold and contemplate itself in pride. 71. Whatsoever does strive and contend in this world about selfhood, selfish interest, temporal honour, its own profit for its own advancement, the same is bred and born of the Serpent's ens; be it in either rich or poor, in superior or inferior, no order, rank or condition whatsoever excepted. All men who would be called Christians, or children of divine love, they must be born again in their first ens (which disappeared and corrupted in Adam) out of the divine love in
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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