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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.
121. And we see here very clearly, that Adam knew nothing of this naked bestial property in his innocency; but if it had been manifest in him, surely he had then known it. But now God says to him, Who has told you it; have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat? Did not I charge and command you that you should not awaken the property of nakedness in you? Wherefore have you by lust brought yourself into the bestial property? Did not I create you in the angelical property? Wherefore are you then become a beast in my power? Have not I made you in and through my word? Why has your own free will changed my word? 22. And he said, The woman which you did join with me, gave me, and I did eat of the tree. And God said to the woman, wherefore have you done this? And she said, the Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat (Gen. iii. 12, 13). Herein it is plainly and clearly laid open, that the devil, in the ens of the Serpent, did deceive man, as it is before mentioned; and that they both, Adam and his wife, were made monstrous by the Serpent. 23. For God said to the Serpent (by whose property the devil had made himself a seat and habitation in man's image): Because you have done this, be you accursed above all cattle, and above all the beasts of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life (Gen. iii. 14).
224. But here the veil lies before the face of Moses, who passes by the Serpent, and does not describe what it was. But seeing how God said unto it, that it should go upon the belly, and eat earth, and no law was given to it in the beginning, thereupon we are here well able to find what it was; seeing it was the most subtle beast among all the beasts, and slew Eve her virgin-like chastity, that she lusted after the bestial copulation. Thereupon we understand in the Serpent's property the desire of [carnal] brutal copulation, and all unchastity, wanton uncleanness, and bestial whoredom of man. 25. for it, viz. the Serpent in its inward limus whereinto the devil introduced his desire, was [Or had been ] a virgin-like ens; understand, in the good part of the heavenly ens, which was taken in the Verbum Fiat, and brought into a creatural image according to each property; as also the devil's ens, before his creature [ship], was a virgin-like ens of angelical property. 26. This Serpent's ens was modelised and engrafted in Adam and Eve, for the desire of Eve took hold of this bestial property, and imprinted it into herself, as a blemish [or foul mark], into the right pure virginity, into the pregnant matrix. Therefore God cursed the image of the outward Serpent, and bid it go upon the belly, and eat earth; and herewith also the mark [or blemish] of the impressed monstrous Serpent [was enstamped] in man.
327. For as now the outward Serpent must go upon the belly and eat earth, which had brought its figure into the matrix in Eve's belly, so must now the belly of Eve eat of the cursed earth, and the matrix goes as a subtle Serpent upon its belly, and beguileth the limbus of the fire's tincture. Thus it longeth after its belly and Serpent-creeping, whereas it is only that this Serpent's matrix might exercise whoredom, and effect a bestial work. As Eve did deceive Adam, so that he did eat of the fruit, and as the outward Serpent was cursed, so also the Serpent's matrix of the bestial property in Eve [was accursed], from whence all her children are corrupted, and are all born of a monstrous matrix, which is a deflowered maid in the sight of God; for Adam had already corrupted it when as he stood in both tinctures; but when Eve was separated from Adam it came with her into act. 28. And God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall sting it on the heel (Gen. iii. 15). Now the ground does lie herein; for God did not mean hereby the outward bestial serpent without man, which hides itself in holes and crannies of the rocks, and inhabites in the rude solitary places [of the earth], but the monstrous bestial Serpent in man, which was figured in the woman's matrix.
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.
121. And we see here very clearly, that Adam knew nothing of this naked bestial property in his innocency; but if it had been manifest in him, surely he had then known it. But now God says to him, Who has told you it; have you eaten of the tree whereof I commanded you that you should not eat? Did not I charge and command you that you should not awaken the property of nakedness in you? Wherefore have you by lust brought yourself into the bestial property? Did not I create you in the angelical property? Wherefore are you then become a beast in my power? Have not I made you in and through my word? Why has your own free will changed my word? 22. And he said, The woman which you did join with me, gave me, and I did eat of the tree. And God said to the woman, wherefore have you done this? And she said, the Serpent beguiled me, and I did eat (Gen. iii. 12, 13). Herein it is plainly and clearly laid open, that the devil, in the ens of the Serpent, did deceive man, as it is before mentioned; and that they both, Adam and his wife, were made monstrous by the Serpent. 23. For God said to the Serpent (by whose property the devil had made himself a seat and habitation in man's image): Because you have done this, be you accursed above all cattle, and above all the beasts of the field; upon your belly shall you go, and dust shall you eat all the days of your life (Gen. iii. 14).
224. But here the veil lies before the face of Moses, who passes by the Serpent, and does not describe what it was. But seeing how God said unto it, that it should go upon the belly, and eat earth, and no law was given to it in the beginning, thereupon we are here well able to find what it was; seeing it was the most subtle beast among all the beasts, and slew Eve her virgin-like chastity, that she lusted after the bestial copulation. Thereupon we understand in the Serpent's property the desire of [carnal] brutal copulation, and all unchastity, wanton uncleanness, and bestial whoredom of man. 25. for it, viz. the Serpent in its inward limus whereinto the devil introduced his desire, was [Or had been ] a virgin-like ens; understand, in the good part of the heavenly ens, which was taken in the Verbum Fiat, and brought into a creatural image according to each property; as also the devil's ens, before his creature [ship], was a virgin-like ens of angelical property. 26. This Serpent's ens was modelised and engrafted in Adam and Eve, for the desire of Eve took hold of this bestial property, and imprinted it into herself, as a blemish [or foul mark], into the right pure virginity, into the pregnant matrix. Therefore God cursed the image of the outward Serpent, and bid it go upon the belly, and eat earth; and herewith also the mark [or blemish] of the impressed monstrous Serpent [was enstamped] in man.
327. For as now the outward Serpent must go upon the belly and eat earth, which had brought its figure into the matrix in Eve's belly, so must now the belly of Eve eat of the cursed earth, and the matrix goes as a subtle Serpent upon its belly, and beguileth the limbus of the fire's tincture. Thus it longeth after its belly and Serpent-creeping, whereas it is only that this Serpent's matrix might exercise whoredom, and effect a bestial work. As Eve did deceive Adam, so that he did eat of the fruit, and as the outward Serpent was cursed, so also the Serpent's matrix of the bestial property in Eve [was accursed], from whence all her children are corrupted, and are all born of a monstrous matrix, which is a deflowered maid in the sight of God; for Adam had already corrupted it when as he stood in both tinctures; but when Eve was separated from Adam it came with her into act. 28. And God said, I will put enmity between you and the woman, between your seed and her seed; it shall bruise your head, and you shall sting it on the heel (Gen. iii. 15). Now the ground does lie herein; for God did not mean hereby the outward bestial serpent without man, which hides itself in holes and crannies of the rocks, and inhabites in the rude solitary places [of the earth], but the monstrous bestial Serpent in man, which was figured in the woman's matrix.
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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