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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.
118. For prince Lucifer, before the time of the created earth, sat in the heavenly ens in the angelical world in the place of this world, wherein the ens of the earth was comprehended in the Fiat, and brought into a compaction; his false imagination had tainted the limus before the compaction: it was the place of his hierarchies. Now the outward body of man was taken out of the limus of the earth in the Verbum Fiat, and formed according to the property of the human life, which was in the Word. The Word formed (by or through the Fiat) the ens or limus of the earth according to the form of the human soul-life which was in the Word; and seeing God had set himself through his Word, to be judged against the false infection and desire of the devil, to judge him and his enkindled [wickedness which he had brought to] substance, the judicial sword was already in the limus of the earth whereof Adam was made. 19. For when God created the earth he founded its time when he would keep the judgement, and sever the evil from the good, and give the evil for a habitation to the apostate prince. But seeing the good in the occluse earth was without heavenly creatures (seeing its prince was cast out); God created Adam [as] another hierarch out of this good ens, to be a ruler of this place. And hence came the devil's envy against man and all good creatures of this world.
220. But now we are here to consider of the apostacy of man, with the sword of the Cherub. For Saint Paul says: we are chosen in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was laid; and even here this saying of Paul does belong. God knew that this ens, of which Adam was to be created, was already somewhat subject to false lust by reason of the devil's introduced desire. Therefore God chose [foresaw or provided for] this limus in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world, out of which he would make man; that he would, through the judgement of the flaming sword, bring it through death, and through the fire, and wholly burn away the false infected desire of lust; and regenerate him anew in Jesus, in his deepest love in his Word in Jehovah, that is opened out of Jehovah, and introduce a new limus into the tainted one; and bring them together, quite through the judgement of the fire- sword, and purge and purify them wholly and thoroughly. 21. And here also is Christ's descension into hell, where the love of God in Christ entered into this fire-sword and changed the wrath into love; and did also destroy the sting of death which was insinuated into the limus of the earth, out of which Adam was created according to the outward humanity; and this fire-sword had its raising and original in the corruption of Lucifer.
322. For albeit Adam was created as to one part out of the heavenly essentiality (that was in the Word of man's life, which was inspired and breathed into his outward and inward limus), yet this fire-sword lay hidden as a glimmering incentive in the earthly limus of the outward body, which also assaulted Adam, so that he lusted against the command of God and the kingdom of heaven. In which incentive the devil also introduced his desire into him, and provoked him to fall; [for] which [fall], seeing God well knew that the poor man would not stand, God ordained a help and Saviour in Christ, to guide and bring him into that holy ens, whereinto he should be brought, viz. into the true sabbath and eternal rest. 23. Indeed Adam was set wholly perfect, in equal harmony and accord, and brought into Paradise, [to try] if the soul could have overcome the incentive [of vain lust]. And therefore the Tree of Temptation was represented to him, to see if it were possible for the soul to overpower this contamination of lust, and remain wholly and fully in the likeness [and harmony].
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.
118. For prince Lucifer, before the time of the created earth, sat in the heavenly ens in the angelical world in the place of this world, wherein the ens of the earth was comprehended in the Fiat, and brought into a compaction; his false imagination had tainted the limus before the compaction: it was the place of his hierarchies. Now the outward body of man was taken out of the limus of the earth in the Verbum Fiat, and formed according to the property of the human life, which was in the Word. The Word formed (by or through the Fiat) the ens or limus of the earth according to the form of the human soul-life which was in the Word; and seeing God had set himself through his Word, to be judged against the false infection and desire of the devil, to judge him and his enkindled [wickedness which he had brought to] substance, the judicial sword was already in the limus of the earth whereof Adam was made. 19. For when God created the earth he founded its time when he would keep the judgement, and sever the evil from the good, and give the evil for a habitation to the apostate prince. But seeing the good in the occluse earth was without heavenly creatures (seeing its prince was cast out); God created Adam [as] another hierarch out of this good ens, to be a ruler of this place. And hence came the devil's envy against man and all good creatures of this world.
220. But now we are here to consider of the apostacy of man, with the sword of the Cherub. For Saint Paul says: we are chosen in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was laid; and even here this saying of Paul does belong. God knew that this ens, of which Adam was to be created, was already somewhat subject to false lust by reason of the devil's introduced desire. Therefore God chose [foresaw or provided for] this limus in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world, out of which he would make man; that he would, through the judgement of the flaming sword, bring it through death, and through the fire, and wholly burn away the false infected desire of lust; and regenerate him anew in Jesus, in his deepest love in his Word in Jehovah, that is opened out of Jehovah, and introduce a new limus into the tainted one; and bring them together, quite through the judgement of the fire- sword, and purge and purify them wholly and thoroughly. 21. And here also is Christ's descension into hell, where the love of God in Christ entered into this fire-sword and changed the wrath into love; and did also destroy the sting of death which was insinuated into the limus of the earth, out of which Adam was created according to the outward humanity; and this fire-sword had its raising and original in the corruption of Lucifer.
322. For albeit Adam was created as to one part out of the heavenly essentiality (that was in the Word of man's life, which was inspired and breathed into his outward and inward limus), yet this fire-sword lay hidden as a glimmering incentive in the earthly limus of the outward body, which also assaulted Adam, so that he lusted against the command of God and the kingdom of heaven. In which incentive the devil also introduced his desire into him, and provoked him to fall; [for] which [fall], seeing God well knew that the poor man would not stand, God ordained a help and Saviour in Christ, to guide and bring him into that holy ens, whereinto he should be brought, viz. into the true sabbath and eternal rest. 23. Indeed Adam was set wholly perfect, in equal harmony and accord, and brought into Paradise, [to try] if the soul could have overcome the incentive [of vain lust]. And therefore the Tree of Temptation was represented to him, to see if it were possible for the soul to overpower this contamination of lust, and remain wholly and fully in the likeness [and harmony].
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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