Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
159. Seeing then that God is a jealous God, and a consuming fire, and also a merciful God, every free will with its introduced centre has its own judge born in itself; either divine love, or divine anger; for when a thing begins, it goes into a time, but when this time is apprehended of the end, viz. of the eternity, then it is in its own eternal [beginning and end], whence it has introduced itself into a compaction, so confirmed to eternity. 60. Therefore, the free will has its own judgement, either for the good or [for the] evil, in itself: It has its own judgement in itself: it has God's love and anger in it; what it amasses and desires, that it forms in itself; and does so form only its own self in its own lubet into a centre. 61. For thus the world has likewise its original, namely, in the free will of the two eternal Principles, both from the dark fire-lubet, and also from the divine light fire-lubet. The free will introduced itself in the Verbum Fiat into distinct and several entities; and that even according to the possibility of the eternal pregnatress. As the will in the Verbum Fiat conceived itself in each place in the pregnatress, even such an ens was brought forth, and out of the ens arose its spirit according to the ens, viz. from God's spiration or motion [Breathing or stirring up] in the Principles.
262. But seeing the Principles were together as one, no thing was ever amassed or formed in the free will but the same has a good and an evil in it, according to the nature and power of the eternal pregnatress, to light and darkness. 63. But now every spirit arises with its free will first out of the compaction of its centre, and is, after its effected birth, free, and may draw into itself either out of God's love, or anger, and introduce its will as it pleases. But this is the main thing: as the mother (viz. the ens) is, whereof the spirit is born, even such a lubet arises also in the spirit. 64. Now the spirit has understanding, and the ens has none; also it [ the spirit] has a law, for it knows what is evil and good, what is right and wrong. Also God has given it laws, that it should break the lust [to evil], and with the understanding of the light rule over the lubet of the darkness. 65. Now if it does not, but departs with the lubet out of the understanding into a self-lubet, then the lubet or lust does amass itself into a substance, whereof a new, false will is again born. And this same is a bastard before God and the eternal nature; for it arises not out of the law and right of the eternal nature, but out of self. And upon this the judgement of the eternal nature does pass; and at its end (when the centre of the spirit shall step again into the beginning) it will be spewed out from the free will of eternity.
366. Understand us but aright: The first free will, which was breathed into Adam, was good; indeed it was both from God's love and anger, viz. from the centre of the eternal pregnatress, of the eternal spiritual nature; but it had the understanding in it to rule and govern itself so it might stand and subsist eternally. 67. But the crafty distemper or infection introduced by the devil was in the ens of the earth whence [whereof] Adam's outward body was formed. Into this earthly ens the devil brought his desire by the Serpent, viz. by the Serpent's crafty ens, so that the lubet arose in the ens of the body, whereinto the first free will of the inspired soul entered, and assumed the lubet of the body, and introduced this lubet into a desire to substance.
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.
159. Seeing then that God is a jealous God, and a consuming fire, and also a merciful God, every free will with its introduced centre has its own judge born in itself; either divine love, or divine anger; for when a thing begins, it goes into a time, but when this time is apprehended of the end, viz. of the eternity, then it is in its own eternal [beginning and end], whence it has introduced itself into a compaction, so confirmed to eternity. 60. Therefore, the free will has its own judgement, either for the good or [for the] evil, in itself: It has its own judgement in itself: it has God's love and anger in it; what it amasses and desires, that it forms in itself; and does so form only its own self in its own lubet into a centre. 61. For thus the world has likewise its original, namely, in the free will of the two eternal Principles, both from the dark fire-lubet, and also from the divine light fire-lubet. The free will introduced itself in the Verbum Fiat into distinct and several entities; and that even according to the possibility of the eternal pregnatress. As the will in the Verbum Fiat conceived itself in each place in the pregnatress, even such an ens was brought forth, and out of the ens arose its spirit according to the ens, viz. from God's spiration or motion [Breathing or stirring up] in the Principles.
262. But seeing the Principles were together as one, no thing was ever amassed or formed in the free will but the same has a good and an evil in it, according to the nature and power of the eternal pregnatress, to light and darkness. 63. But now every spirit arises with its free will first out of the compaction of its centre, and is, after its effected birth, free, and may draw into itself either out of God's love, or anger, and introduce its will as it pleases. But this is the main thing: as the mother (viz. the ens) is, whereof the spirit is born, even such a lubet arises also in the spirit. 64. Now the spirit has understanding, and the ens has none; also it [ the spirit] has a law, for it knows what is evil and good, what is right and wrong. Also God has given it laws, that it should break the lust [to evil], and with the understanding of the light rule over the lubet of the darkness. 65. Now if it does not, but departs with the lubet out of the understanding into a self-lubet, then the lubet or lust does amass itself into a substance, whereof a new, false will is again born. And this same is a bastard before God and the eternal nature; for it arises not out of the law and right of the eternal nature, but out of self. And upon this the judgement of the eternal nature does pass; and at its end (when the centre of the spirit shall step again into the beginning) it will be spewed out from the free will of eternity.
366. Understand us but aright: The first free will, which was breathed into Adam, was good; indeed it was both from God's love and anger, viz. from the centre of the eternal pregnatress, of the eternal spiritual nature; but it had the understanding in it to rule and govern itself so it might stand and subsist eternally. 67. But the crafty distemper or infection introduced by the devil was in the ens of the earth whence [whereof] Adam's outward body was formed. Into this earthly ens the devil brought his desire by the Serpent, viz. by the Serpent's crafty ens, so that the lubet arose in the ens of the body, whereinto the first free will of the inspired soul entered, and assumed the lubet of the body, and introduced this lubet into a desire to substance.
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.
No commentary for this page.