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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.
1and other earthly good fruits, that so the desire of the true man, created out of the limus of the earth, who shall arise from death, might, in the enkindling of the offering in the fire, have a substance whereinto it might give itself and imaginate itself; and so in the property of the holy fire it might be able to enter with its will into the aim of the Covenant, which stood before God in the figure, until [the promise] of the woman's seed was fulfilled and accomplished. 26. In which seed the dear and precious name of Jesus did open itself out of Jehovah, and did again awaken the heavenly life in the disappeared ens in the humanity, and offered up this whole image, in the Person of Christ, to the anger-fire of the Father, and with the holy love-fire regenerated and enkindled in the human life, did bring it quite through the anger, viz. through the fire of the eternal nature of the Father's manifestation, and changed the anger-fire into a lovefire. And this was just thus pre-figured in the offering; for the love-fire enkindled the offering, and in the offering was yet the curse of the earth, as well as in the human free will; and when the offering was offered, it was a sin-offering, whereby the free will of man's soul was propitiated [reconciled with] before God.
227. Now if sin shall be reconciled and appeased, then it must be brought into the anger, viz. into the judgement of God, into the sword of the Cherub, that it may cut off the same, which [Cherub] is the sword of God's anger: and ifthen the human will be wholly sinful and altogether capable of the fire of anger, then God enkindles the sin-offering (in which the anger-fire lay hidden in the curse), with the holy fire, that the human will, which was apprehended in the angerfire, might be atoned in the love-fire. 28. For the love-fire of God tinctures the soul's desire in the offering, as a tincture tinges brass and iron and changes them into gold. Even thus the human soul's free will, which was inspired wholly pure and spotless into man, was tinctured and again purified before God, that so it might enter into God's mercy. For the mercy was hidden in the love-fire, viz. in the aim of the Covenant, in the name of Jesus in God; in which Covenant and name the anger of God was reconciled and atoned in the offering, and laid down its angerburning flames, and suffered the soul's free will to pass quite through it. 29. But as touching the offering in itself; with the wood, fire, light, and smoke, understand it thus: Abel offered of his flock, without doubt, sheep, or oxen, as Moses did the like, namely, the fat of them; now the offering (viz. the wood and smoke) on the outward part as to
3the matter was earthly; and so was man, as to the outward body, earthly; and in the earthliness lay the curse, both in man and in the offering. 30. But when the offering was enkindled it was spiritual, for from the wood proceeded the fire which took the offering and consumed it; and out of the consumptiveness went forth first from the fire the smoke, and afterwards the light. This was the figure whereinto man's and also God's imagination entered, as a compaction or conjunction. 31. In the enkindled consuming fire was the desire of the angry Father, viz. a conjunction of the eternal nature's fire with the temporal fire; the eternal is magical, and the temporal is the substance and matter of the magical, viz. its reception [Or amassment]. And in the enkindled light was the holy love-fire, which is also magical, as subtle as a will, which did also immass itself in the enkindled light; and in the forth-proceeding smoke, which is an elemental sulphur and mercury, viz. a life of the quality, the smell or taste went forth also, which signifies the human power of the body, and the outward spirit of nature.
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.
1and other earthly good fruits, that so the desire of the true man, created out of the limus of the earth, who shall arise from death, might, in the enkindling of the offering in the fire, have a substance whereinto it might give itself and imaginate itself; and so in the property of the holy fire it might be able to enter with its will into the aim of the Covenant, which stood before God in the figure, until [the promise] of the woman's seed was fulfilled and accomplished. 26. In which seed the dear and precious name of Jesus did open itself out of Jehovah, and did again awaken the heavenly life in the disappeared ens in the humanity, and offered up this whole image, in the Person of Christ, to the anger-fire of the Father, and with the holy love-fire regenerated and enkindled in the human life, did bring it quite through the anger, viz. through the fire of the eternal nature of the Father's manifestation, and changed the anger-fire into a lovefire. And this was just thus pre-figured in the offering; for the love-fire enkindled the offering, and in the offering was yet the curse of the earth, as well as in the human free will; and when the offering was offered, it was a sin-offering, whereby the free will of man's soul was propitiated [reconciled with] before God.
227. Now if sin shall be reconciled and appeased, then it must be brought into the anger, viz. into the judgement of God, into the sword of the Cherub, that it may cut off the same, which [Cherub] is the sword of God's anger: and ifthen the human will be wholly sinful and altogether capable of the fire of anger, then God enkindles the sin-offering (in which the anger-fire lay hidden in the curse), with the holy fire, that the human will, which was apprehended in the angerfire, might be atoned in the love-fire. 28. For the love-fire of God tinctures the soul's desire in the offering, as a tincture tinges brass and iron and changes them into gold. Even thus the human soul's free will, which was inspired wholly pure and spotless into man, was tinctured and again purified before God, that so it might enter into God's mercy. For the mercy was hidden in the love-fire, viz. in the aim of the Covenant, in the name of Jesus in God; in which Covenant and name the anger of God was reconciled and atoned in the offering, and laid down its angerburning flames, and suffered the soul's free will to pass quite through it. 29. But as touching the offering in itself; with the wood, fire, light, and smoke, understand it thus: Abel offered of his flock, without doubt, sheep, or oxen, as Moses did the like, namely, the fat of them; now the offering (viz. the wood and smoke) on the outward part as to
3the matter was earthly; and so was man, as to the outward body, earthly; and in the earthliness lay the curse, both in man and in the offering. 30. But when the offering was enkindled it was spiritual, for from the wood proceeded the fire which took the offering and consumed it; and out of the consumptiveness went forth first from the fire the smoke, and afterwards the light. This was the figure whereinto man's and also God's imagination entered, as a compaction or conjunction. 31. In the enkindled consuming fire was the desire of the angry Father, viz. a conjunction of the eternal nature's fire with the temporal fire; the eternal is magical, and the temporal is the substance and matter of the magical, viz. its reception [Or amassment]. And in the enkindled light was the holy love-fire, which is also magical, as subtle as a will, which did also immass itself in the enkindled light; and in the forth-proceeding smoke, which is an elemental sulphur and mercury, viz. a life of the quality, the smell or taste went forth also, which signifies the human power of the body, and the outward spirit of nature.
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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