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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.
124. But it was not possible: therefore Christ must afterwards come into this place, and be tempted forty days in the wilderness, in Adam's ens, and in his new introduced heavenly ens, to see whether the fire-soul would stand in perfect purity. And seeing it did now stand in Christ, the new introduced heavenly ens did destroy the sword in the death of the outward body of Christ, and brought the outward body which he, in Mary, received from her seed, quite through this sword of the anger of God, into the holy ens. And in this power the outward body did arise from death, and got victory over death and this fire-sword, and took the fire-sword into its power; wherewith, at the end of the world, he will purge his floor; as a judge over devils and men, as well as of the earth. 25. for the main ambition was about the fire- sword, for king Lucifer had changed it from the pure clear light into fire, wherewith he willed to domineer and rule as a God. But God sent to him another prince and king, who took it from him, and thrust him from this throne, and should turn this sword in the ens of the earth again into the divine property, and cast out and judge the devil with this sword.
226. And there is not such a silly and narrow meaning of the firesword as hitherto has been generally understood. Although it has been hidden by the counsel of God, yet we should now open our eyes and deeply consider what this manifestation imports; that it does even foretell and signify the judgement of this sword; that he will come, who carries it in his mouth; and it is also a messenger [declaring] that Babel shall [soon] come to its end by this sword, and be given to this sword to be devoured. 27. Now says reason. Wherefore did not God examine this ens afore, out of which he created the earth, and man out of the same earth, before he created the earth and man? Forsooth, dear reason, here you have hit the matter right; God's omnipotence and omniscience must serve your turn, whereby you are able to bring all things into God's will, as rational fancy dictates. Hearken, O reason, do you know whence the earth is generated? You say, through the Word, viz. in the Verbum Fiat, I say so too. Now, what was this Word? Here look upon the earth and the whole creation, and you wilt see what the desire of the Word has brought into being or essence out of the spiritual ens. You will everywhere see good, and evil, and find out God's love and anger. 28. The Word was a full spiration from the spiritual fire- and lightworld, according to which God calls himself a strong, jealous, angry God, as to the fire, and a merciful, loving God as to the light.
329. Now if God should have quelled [taken away] the first Principle, viz. the fire-source, in the ens of the earth (out of which it was created), whence should the light have its might? Does not the Father, viz. the fire-world, beget the Son, viz. the light-world? But now, seeing the Word in the fire-world was vehemently enkindled by God's motion to the creation, as we may see by the coagulation of the stones, (if we were not blocks, and had only calfish understandings), where-with then should this fire, but especially the enkindled ens in the coagulation, be reduced and brought again into the light, into the equal temperature and harmony? God's love alone must then do it. 30. Now, how will [or can] a creature, viz. a fire-soul or angel, come into a creatural being or formation, if the fire-source were not moved and stirred in an especial manner. Like would only then remain in like; and if it be only a mere likeness, then it has its sport with and in itself; as it was from [and in] eternity. And therefore the unchangeable God has moved himself according to the fire and light, and stirred up the fire's property, that he may make him a play and melody, viz. a formed Word out of himself, that there might be a play before and in the unformable Word.
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.
124. But it was not possible: therefore Christ must afterwards come into this place, and be tempted forty days in the wilderness, in Adam's ens, and in his new introduced heavenly ens, to see whether the fire-soul would stand in perfect purity. And seeing it did now stand in Christ, the new introduced heavenly ens did destroy the sword in the death of the outward body of Christ, and brought the outward body which he, in Mary, received from her seed, quite through this sword of the anger of God, into the holy ens. And in this power the outward body did arise from death, and got victory over death and this fire-sword, and took the fire-sword into its power; wherewith, at the end of the world, he will purge his floor; as a judge over devils and men, as well as of the earth. 25. for the main ambition was about the fire- sword, for king Lucifer had changed it from the pure clear light into fire, wherewith he willed to domineer and rule as a God. But God sent to him another prince and king, who took it from him, and thrust him from this throne, and should turn this sword in the ens of the earth again into the divine property, and cast out and judge the devil with this sword.
226. And there is not such a silly and narrow meaning of the firesword as hitherto has been generally understood. Although it has been hidden by the counsel of God, yet we should now open our eyes and deeply consider what this manifestation imports; that it does even foretell and signify the judgement of this sword; that he will come, who carries it in his mouth; and it is also a messenger [declaring] that Babel shall [soon] come to its end by this sword, and be given to this sword to be devoured. 27. Now says reason. Wherefore did not God examine this ens afore, out of which he created the earth, and man out of the same earth, before he created the earth and man? Forsooth, dear reason, here you have hit the matter right; God's omnipotence and omniscience must serve your turn, whereby you are able to bring all things into God's will, as rational fancy dictates. Hearken, O reason, do you know whence the earth is generated? You say, through the Word, viz. in the Verbum Fiat, I say so too. Now, what was this Word? Here look upon the earth and the whole creation, and you wilt see what the desire of the Word has brought into being or essence out of the spiritual ens. You will everywhere see good, and evil, and find out God's love and anger. 28. The Word was a full spiration from the spiritual fire- and lightworld, according to which God calls himself a strong, jealous, angry God, as to the fire, and a merciful, loving God as to the light.
329. Now if God should have quelled [taken away] the first Principle, viz. the fire-source, in the ens of the earth (out of which it was created), whence should the light have its might? Does not the Father, viz. the fire-world, beget the Son, viz. the light-world? But now, seeing the Word in the fire-world was vehemently enkindled by God's motion to the creation, as we may see by the coagulation of the stones, (if we were not blocks, and had only calfish understandings), where-with then should this fire, but especially the enkindled ens in the coagulation, be reduced and brought again into the light, into the equal temperature and harmony? God's love alone must then do it. 30. Now, how will [or can] a creature, viz. a fire-soul or angel, come into a creatural being or formation, if the fire-source were not moved and stirred in an especial manner. Like would only then remain in like; and if it be only a mere likeness, then it has its sport with and in itself; as it was from [and in] eternity. And therefore the unchangeable God has moved himself according to the fire and light, and stirred up the fire's property, that he may make him a play and melody, viz. a formed Word out of himself, that there might be a play before and in the unformable Word.
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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