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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.
171. Thus all things stand to the judgement of the great God, and in this time they must be in contest, that one may be manifest in the other. But then in the great harvest every thing shall have its own seat in itself; when strife shall be taken up and cease, and all things must stand to the honour and admiration of the wonderful works of the great God, who alone knows whereunto every thing shall be good, and for what he will use it. The Twenty-Ninth Chapter Shows how the Adamical Tree has put forth and opened itself out of its Stock, and introduced itself into Boughs, Branches, Twigs, and Fruit; out of which Pullulation or Manifestation the Invention of all Arts and Governments is Arisen The Deep Gates out of the Centre of the Eternal and also the Temporal Nature, showing how the Eternal Wisdom has introduced itself into a formal [Visible and Ideal] Contemplation. 1. THE eternal divine understanding is a free will, not arisen either from any thing or by any thing; it is its own peculiar seat, and dwells only and alone in itself; un-apprehended of any thing; for beyond and without it is nothing, and that same NOTHING is only ONE; and yet it is also as a nothing to itself. It is one only will of the abyss, and it is neither near nor far off; neither high nor low; but it is ALL, and yet as a Nothing. For there is in itself no contemplation, sensation or perceivancy whereby it might find a likeness in itself.
22. Its finding is its own forth-proceeding, so that it beholds itself in the egress, for that which is proceeded forth is its eternal lubet [imagination, desire, or magia], sensation, and perceivancy; and it is called the divine wisdom. Which wisdom the unsearchable abyssal will apprehends in itself to its centre of lubet, [ imagination, desire, or magia] viz. to an eternal mind of the understanding; which understanding the free will forms in itself to its own likeness, [or express image] viz. to an eternalspeaking, living [working] word, which the free will does speak or breathe forth out of the formed wisdom of the lubet. 3. And the forth-breathing [or spiration] is the spirit or mouth of the understanding in the formed will of the wisdom, which does distinguish [or variously severise] the speaking Word, so that the mind, and the understanding of the mind, becomes manifest and revealed; in which manifestation the free lubet or wisdom is, in the speaking or forthbreathing, formed of the free will, by the spirit, into diversity and variety. 4. In which formation the powers of the divine properties do
3arise; so that it is truly said and declared concerning God, that he is the eternal will, understanding, mind, counsel, power, and wonder; in [or with] which wonders of powers he has moved and formed himself from eternity. In which formation consists the invisible spiritual world, wherein the Spirit of God has melodised and sported with itself from everlasting, which also has neither ground, limit, bounds nor original. 5. For it is the divine vision of the formed wisdom. Its centre is the formed will, viz. the Word, forth- speaking out of all powers; and its life is the spirit which proceeds in the speaking or breathing, which distinguishes and forms the lubet of the wisdom. So that the formed wisdom plays before the life of the Deity, as little children play before their parents, who have begotten them out of their essence for their joy, and in them the parents take their delight and pastime. 6. Thus likewise are we to understand the being or essence of eternity; which being or essence the eternal free will has, in the forth-breathing Word, introduced into a desire, viz. to an external comprehensiveness, in which comprehensibility the beginning of the corporeal being is arisen, viz. the centre of the formed nature; wherein the desire has amassed, formed and introduced itself into properties, viz. into darkness and light, into pain and source, into joy and sorrow.
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.
171. Thus all things stand to the judgement of the great God, and in this time they must be in contest, that one may be manifest in the other. But then in the great harvest every thing shall have its own seat in itself; when strife shall be taken up and cease, and all things must stand to the honour and admiration of the wonderful works of the great God, who alone knows whereunto every thing shall be good, and for what he will use it. The Twenty-Ninth Chapter Shows how the Adamical Tree has put forth and opened itself out of its Stock, and introduced itself into Boughs, Branches, Twigs, and Fruit; out of which Pullulation or Manifestation the Invention of all Arts and Governments is Arisen The Deep Gates out of the Centre of the Eternal and also the Temporal Nature, showing how the Eternal Wisdom has introduced itself into a formal [Visible and Ideal] Contemplation. 1. THE eternal divine understanding is a free will, not arisen either from any thing or by any thing; it is its own peculiar seat, and dwells only and alone in itself; un-apprehended of any thing; for beyond and without it is nothing, and that same NOTHING is only ONE; and yet it is also as a nothing to itself. It is one only will of the abyss, and it is neither near nor far off; neither high nor low; but it is ALL, and yet as a Nothing. For there is in itself no contemplation, sensation or perceivancy whereby it might find a likeness in itself.
22. Its finding is its own forth-proceeding, so that it beholds itself in the egress, for that which is proceeded forth is its eternal lubet [imagination, desire, or magia], sensation, and perceivancy; and it is called the divine wisdom. Which wisdom the unsearchable abyssal will apprehends in itself to its centre of lubet, [ imagination, desire, or magia] viz. to an eternal mind of the understanding; which understanding the free will forms in itself to its own likeness, [or express image] viz. to an eternalspeaking, living [working] word, which the free will does speak or breathe forth out of the formed wisdom of the lubet. 3. And the forth-breathing [or spiration] is the spirit or mouth of the understanding in the formed will of the wisdom, which does distinguish [or variously severise] the speaking Word, so that the mind, and the understanding of the mind, becomes manifest and revealed; in which manifestation the free lubet or wisdom is, in the speaking or forthbreathing, formed of the free will, by the spirit, into diversity and variety. 4. In which formation the powers of the divine properties do
3arise; so that it is truly said and declared concerning God, that he is the eternal will, understanding, mind, counsel, power, and wonder; in [or with] which wonders of powers he has moved and formed himself from eternity. In which formation consists the invisible spiritual world, wherein the Spirit of God has melodised and sported with itself from everlasting, which also has neither ground, limit, bounds nor original. 5. For it is the divine vision of the formed wisdom. Its centre is the formed will, viz. the Word, forth- speaking out of all powers; and its life is the spirit which proceeds in the speaking or breathing, which distinguishes and forms the lubet of the wisdom. So that the formed wisdom plays before the life of the Deity, as little children play before their parents, who have begotten them out of their essence for their joy, and in them the parents take their delight and pastime. 6. Thus likewise are we to understand the being or essence of eternity; which being or essence the eternal free will has, in the forth-breathing Word, introduced into a desire, viz. to an external comprehensiveness, in which comprehensibility the beginning of the corporeal being is arisen, viz. the centre of the formed nature; wherein the desire has amassed, formed and introduced itself into properties, viz. into darkness and light, into pain and source, into joy and sorrow.
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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