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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.
15. Thus an earthly body is now sown into the earth, and the earth receives it as its own property. But the ens which is from the eternity (which cannot be destroyed) lies in this earthly-sown body. Nothing is broken or dissolved but the gross beast, viz. the being [or substance] of time. As a fixed metal is not destroyed [or corrupted] in the earth, even so also the fixed part of the human body; and as the artist brings forth an excellent gold out of the earth, so likewise the human gold lies buried in the earth, and waits only for the artist to raise it up. 6. And as there is a various and manifold diversity of metalline property in the earth, so likewise of the ens of human property. Therefore all things shall be proved through the fire. What kind of property everyone has in this time assumed to himself and impressed on his body (viz. with the desire of the Fiat), that shall be tried in the fire, whether or no he has impressed a fixed steadfast property from the divine ens into himself or a hellish bestial one. All this shall be tried and proved in the fire of God; and as the ens is, in each body, such a fire also shall be enkindled in the same ens. 7. And as quicksilver does evaporate in the fire, even so shall all the wicked devilish serpentine works, which have been impressed out [brought forth] of the dark world and devil's desire.
28. Now if a man has in this lifetime impressed into himself [a] divine ens, by earnest faith and divine desire, (understand, introduced [this] by the human soul into the mortal part of the limus of the earth), then it lies shut up in the mortal part, yet as a glimmering incentive which longs and labours to burn and shine, or as the precious gold lies shut up in a gross drossy ore, or in lead, and waits only for the artist to come and release it, even so likewise shall be the delivery and releasement of man's body out of the earth. 9. Now also we do herein understand the body of sickness, and also the physician [or curer thereof] ; for when the heavenly ens did disappear and was captivated with the earthly, as the gold in the lead, then the outward astrum awakened in the body. And now as the outward astrum does mutually destroy and ruin one another's ens, and change it into another ens, according to the greatest and most predominant power; so likewise the human mind (which is a magical astrum) is hereby governed and ruled, and the body also; and is thereby brought into strange desire and lust; whereby man does weaken, plague and perplex himself; and one introduced ens does martyr, weaken and annoy another, both through meat, and thoughts, or cumbring molesting care. 10. As we plainly see that man for the most part does rack and plague himself in the astral mind with the desire about that which cannot be his own, which stands not open in his astrum;
3and his astrum cannot apprehend, take, or receive it. About this the false introduced desire from the strange astrum does plague, perplex and spend itself day and night, whence the great covetousness does arise, that man does desire and introduce that into his astrum which is a hurtful poison and plague unto him; and yet with such [infoisted] strange matter cannot make any fixed steadfast [thing or being] in him which may subsist in eternity. 11. All whatsoever the own peculiar astrum (viz. the life's right astrum) does impress [or foist] into itselffrom [or of ] a strange astrum, is false, and an adverse will; whence enmity (viz. the great envy in nature) does arise, that the human mind wills to domineer over the strange ens; and if he cannot get it, yet that strange in-foisted, introduced ens burns in him in a spiritual manner, as a poisonful hungry fire of envy, that doth not freely beteem [ Or vouchsafe] that to any, that it wills to possess itself. 12. And though it comes about that it may, through the Serpent's craft, draw it to itself or possess it, yet it has no fundamental seat [or true root] in its right life's astrum; for it is not capable of it. But the desire does advance and set it up as a king, and vaunt itself therewith as an absolute peculiar god, which has taken upon itself might over others, and sets itselfupon strange authority and domination. Whence the pride of riches and self-assumed honours and domination does arise;
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.
15. Thus an earthly body is now sown into the earth, and the earth receives it as its own property. But the ens which is from the eternity (which cannot be destroyed) lies in this earthly-sown body. Nothing is broken or dissolved but the gross beast, viz. the being [or substance] of time. As a fixed metal is not destroyed [or corrupted] in the earth, even so also the fixed part of the human body; and as the artist brings forth an excellent gold out of the earth, so likewise the human gold lies buried in the earth, and waits only for the artist to raise it up. 6. And as there is a various and manifold diversity of metalline property in the earth, so likewise of the ens of human property. Therefore all things shall be proved through the fire. What kind of property everyone has in this time assumed to himself and impressed on his body (viz. with the desire of the Fiat), that shall be tried in the fire, whether or no he has impressed a fixed steadfast property from the divine ens into himself or a hellish bestial one. All this shall be tried and proved in the fire of God; and as the ens is, in each body, such a fire also shall be enkindled in the same ens. 7. And as quicksilver does evaporate in the fire, even so shall all the wicked devilish serpentine works, which have been impressed out [brought forth] of the dark world and devil's desire.
28. Now if a man has in this lifetime impressed into himself [a] divine ens, by earnest faith and divine desire, (understand, introduced [this] by the human soul into the mortal part of the limus of the earth), then it lies shut up in the mortal part, yet as a glimmering incentive which longs and labours to burn and shine, or as the precious gold lies shut up in a gross drossy ore, or in lead, and waits only for the artist to come and release it, even so likewise shall be the delivery and releasement of man's body out of the earth. 9. Now also we do herein understand the body of sickness, and also the physician [or curer thereof] ; for when the heavenly ens did disappear and was captivated with the earthly, as the gold in the lead, then the outward astrum awakened in the body. And now as the outward astrum does mutually destroy and ruin one another's ens, and change it into another ens, according to the greatest and most predominant power; so likewise the human mind (which is a magical astrum) is hereby governed and ruled, and the body also; and is thereby brought into strange desire and lust; whereby man does weaken, plague and perplex himself; and one introduced ens does martyr, weaken and annoy another, both through meat, and thoughts, or cumbring molesting care. 10. As we plainly see that man for the most part does rack and plague himself in the astral mind with the desire about that which cannot be his own, which stands not open in his astrum;
3and his astrum cannot apprehend, take, or receive it. About this the false introduced desire from the strange astrum does plague, perplex and spend itself day and night, whence the great covetousness does arise, that man does desire and introduce that into his astrum which is a hurtful poison and plague unto him; and yet with such [infoisted] strange matter cannot make any fixed steadfast [thing or being] in him which may subsist in eternity. 11. All whatsoever the own peculiar astrum (viz. the life's right astrum) does impress [or foist] into itselffrom [or of ] a strange astrum, is false, and an adverse will; whence enmity (viz. the great envy in nature) does arise, that the human mind wills to domineer over the strange ens; and if he cannot get it, yet that strange in-foisted, introduced ens burns in him in a spiritual manner, as a poisonful hungry fire of envy, that doth not freely beteem [ Or vouchsafe] that to any, that it wills to possess itself. 12. And though it comes about that it may, through the Serpent's craft, draw it to itself or possess it, yet it has no fundamental seat [or true root] in its right life's astrum; for it is not capable of it. But the desire does advance and set it up as a king, and vaunt itself therewith as an absolute peculiar god, which has taken upon itself might over others, and sets itselfupon strange authority and domination. Whence the pride of riches and self-assumed honours and domination does arise;
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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