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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.
19. Then must the virgin-child supplicate the fire- soul, and tender it the love, that it should only forsake the monster of the Serpent. Here then arises strife and opposition; for the part of the fire-soul has introduced the Serpent's monster into it, and desires also to have its joy therein, and loves the evil beast. 10. Then Sophia, viz. the second Principle, viz. the part of the light- world, does speak against it. And hence comes up the strife betwixt the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent; and then man goes up and down in sorrow and sadness, trouble and perplexity; sometimes the virgin-child prevails, and sometimes the Serpent-child. 11. And then the devil stirs up and incenses all monsters against the virgin-child, to strike it, to mock it, scorn it, revile, and laugh it to shame, and make it ridiculous; that it may by no means be known, lest the devil's kingdom should become manifest. 12. Thus the virgin-child must be exercised by this, in the spirit of Christ, and suffer itself to be whipped, persecuted and injuriously reproved, and often called 'one possessed by the devil'; be cursed, and continually accounted an off-scouring of the world, until the outward beast has finished its course in its constellation. And then the Cherub cuts off the gross beast, and lets it fall even unto the judgement of God. And then the part of the fire-soul must forthwith force through the judgement of this sword.
213. Now if the fire-soul has taken in [ Impressed] much vanity into itself, viz. much of the Serpent's craft and lust, then the part of the fire-soul must stand under this sword, until the fire of God's anger consumes this introduced vanity, which to many a one is purgatory [ Refining fire] enough; which this present too, too wise world will not believe, and will be only an adopted child from without, and so have an external washing away of sins in grace; but it has another ABC here: God will not let the Serpent's ens, neither in body nor soul, come into Paradise. 14. The fire-soul must subsist in the fire of God, and be so pure as the clear refined gold, for it is the husband of the noble [virgin] Sophia, [which is] from the woman's seed; it is the fire's tincture, and Sophia the light's tincture. If the tincture of the fire be wholly and thoroughly pure, then its Sophia will be given to it; and so Adam receives again into his arms his most precious and endeared bride, which was taken from him in his sleep, and is not any longer man or woman, but a branch on Christ's pearl-tree, which stands in the Paradise of God. 15. To the description whereof we need an angel's tongue, and yet we are understood well enough by our school-fellows. We have not written this for swine;
3for none but those only who have been by and at the marriage of the lamb do understand what kind of entire inward great joy and lovedelight is therein; and how dearly the bride receives her bridegroom in his pure, clear and bright fire's-property; and how she gives him her love-kiss: unto others this is dumb. 16. When reason hears one speak of Paradise, then it understands only a certain place apart: and it is even so. There was a certain place which was called the Garden in Eden, where Adam and Eve were tempted, and from which place they were driven, after the fall. But yet the whole world was such a Paradise before the curse; yet, seeing God knew the fall, the holy Paradise was only opened unto them in one certain place, for to what end should the whole world bring forth paradisical fruit, seeing there was no creature upon the earth that was capable to enjoy the same? 17. But Adam and Eve were, however, brought into Paradise, that, although this first body should fall and come to ruin, yet they and their children might, by the new regeneration in the spirit of Christ, enter in again through this fire-sword. This mystery is exceeding great.
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.
19. Then must the virgin-child supplicate the fire- soul, and tender it the love, that it should only forsake the monster of the Serpent. Here then arises strife and opposition; for the part of the fire-soul has introduced the Serpent's monster into it, and desires also to have its joy therein, and loves the evil beast. 10. Then Sophia, viz. the second Principle, viz. the part of the light- world, does speak against it. And hence comes up the strife betwixt the seed of the woman and the seed of the Serpent; and then man goes up and down in sorrow and sadness, trouble and perplexity; sometimes the virgin-child prevails, and sometimes the Serpent-child. 11. And then the devil stirs up and incenses all monsters against the virgin-child, to strike it, to mock it, scorn it, revile, and laugh it to shame, and make it ridiculous; that it may by no means be known, lest the devil's kingdom should become manifest. 12. Thus the virgin-child must be exercised by this, in the spirit of Christ, and suffer itself to be whipped, persecuted and injuriously reproved, and often called 'one possessed by the devil'; be cursed, and continually accounted an off-scouring of the world, until the outward beast has finished its course in its constellation. And then the Cherub cuts off the gross beast, and lets it fall even unto the judgement of God. And then the part of the fire-soul must forthwith force through the judgement of this sword.
213. Now if the fire-soul has taken in [ Impressed] much vanity into itself, viz. much of the Serpent's craft and lust, then the part of the fire-soul must stand under this sword, until the fire of God's anger consumes this introduced vanity, which to many a one is purgatory [ Refining fire] enough; which this present too, too wise world will not believe, and will be only an adopted child from without, and so have an external washing away of sins in grace; but it has another ABC here: God will not let the Serpent's ens, neither in body nor soul, come into Paradise. 14. The fire-soul must subsist in the fire of God, and be so pure as the clear refined gold, for it is the husband of the noble [virgin] Sophia, [which is] from the woman's seed; it is the fire's tincture, and Sophia the light's tincture. If the tincture of the fire be wholly and thoroughly pure, then its Sophia will be given to it; and so Adam receives again into his arms his most precious and endeared bride, which was taken from him in his sleep, and is not any longer man or woman, but a branch on Christ's pearl-tree, which stands in the Paradise of God. 15. To the description whereof we need an angel's tongue, and yet we are understood well enough by our school-fellows. We have not written this for swine;
3for none but those only who have been by and at the marriage of the lamb do understand what kind of entire inward great joy and lovedelight is therein; and how dearly the bride receives her bridegroom in his pure, clear and bright fire's-property; and how she gives him her love-kiss: unto others this is dumb. 16. When reason hears one speak of Paradise, then it understands only a certain place apart: and it is even so. There was a certain place which was called the Garden in Eden, where Adam and Eve were tempted, and from which place they were driven, after the fall. But yet the whole world was such a Paradise before the curse; yet, seeing God knew the fall, the holy Paradise was only opened unto them in one certain place, for to what end should the whole world bring forth paradisical fruit, seeing there was no creature upon the earth that was capable to enjoy the same? 17. But Adam and Eve were, however, brought into Paradise, that, although this first body should fall and come to ruin, yet they and their children might, by the new regeneration in the spirit of Christ, enter in again through this fire-sword. This mystery is exceeding great.
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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