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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.
115. We see this very emphatically set forth unto us in Sem, Ham, and Japhet: that it is so, that the spirit would not that the children of God should mix themselves with the very carnal or bestial people; for after the deluge the spirit divides the three brethren into three families, and would that each family should remain apart by itself. 16. for therefore came the deluge upon the earth, and destroyed these mixed people, and afterwards made a separation amongst them, according to the nature of the three Principles; that each property might possess its choir and line in the nature of the wonders; but yet it would not do. So that at last the spirit divides them with the confusion of the languages at Babel, that so they might come into a several division; for the properties of the tree did there divide and spread forth themselves into seventy-and-seven, viz. into the wonder of the nature of the formed word. 17. Now says Moses, And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that all their thoughts and imaginations in their hearts were only evil continually. Then it repented God that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his very heart. And he said, I will destroy man which I have created from off the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and all the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them (Gen. vi. 5-7).
2These are marvellous and wonderful sayings, that the spirit says it repented God that he had made man, and the creatures. Who would understand this without divine knowledge; that anything should grieve the unchangeable God! Reason would be ready to say, has he not known aforehand what would be? How can his will, which is himself, grieve and repent? 18. Here we must go into the centre. In God there is no grieving or repentance; nothing can grieve or trouble him. But there is a grieving in his expressed formed Word; for it repents the formed Word in the devils that the ens of light is turned into an ens of darkness. It grieves the devil that he did not continue an angel. Also it repents the wicked man eternally that he stood not in the divine ens in the formed Word, and has turned the power of the Word into malice and iniquity. Also there is a grieving in the formed Word in nature, over all kinds of creatures, that the property of the wrath in the curse of the anger does rule and domineer in the formed expressed Word. It grieves the love-ens of the Word, that the devil and wrath domineers in it, and corrupts and destroys many. 19. Now when God says it repents him, it is to be understood according to the creation of the formed Word, not according to the eternal-speaking Word, which is unchangeable, but according to the good property in the creation, that it must be laden with evil against its will.
3For the spirit says in Moses, And it grieved him in his heart. Yes ! it did truly grieve or trouble him in his HEART. The good ens of the earth, which went also along with it into a compaction, which is from the spiritual world's property, from the holy word, the same was in the sin [or fall of man] captivated in death, and shut up in the curse in the earth. Now the formed Word grieved at it, and troubled or affected the eternal-speaking Word, viz. God's heart. 20. For our soul cries unto God's heart, viz. unto the eternalspeaking Word, and moves, troubles or affects the same, that it should move itself in us according to its love. Now the human word works in the divine; and stirs the divine; so that the divine [word] enters into our sorrow for sin, and helps us to repent of our sins. For the spirit in Moses said, when Lamech had begotten Noah, This same shall comfort us in our labour. 21. This was now the spirit of the beginning and end of all things; it repented through nature of the iniquity of man, and [grieved] at the captivity of the vanity of the creatures; and wrought repentance into the holy eternal- speaking Word. The spirit in the formed Word of the whole creation of this world said, It grieves me, that I have brought me into such an evil property in the creatures: And wrought repentance into the living eternal- speaking Word, from whence the out-breathed formed Word has flown forth and proceeded.
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.
115. We see this very emphatically set forth unto us in Sem, Ham, and Japhet: that it is so, that the spirit would not that the children of God should mix themselves with the very carnal or bestial people; for after the deluge the spirit divides the three brethren into three families, and would that each family should remain apart by itself. 16. for therefore came the deluge upon the earth, and destroyed these mixed people, and afterwards made a separation amongst them, according to the nature of the three Principles; that each property might possess its choir and line in the nature of the wonders; but yet it would not do. So that at last the spirit divides them with the confusion of the languages at Babel, that so they might come into a several division; for the properties of the tree did there divide and spread forth themselves into seventy-and-seven, viz. into the wonder of the nature of the formed word. 17. Now says Moses, And the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great upon the earth, and that all their thoughts and imaginations in their hearts were only evil continually. Then it repented God that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his very heart. And he said, I will destroy man which I have created from off the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and creeping thing, and all the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them (Gen. vi. 5-7).
2These are marvellous and wonderful sayings, that the spirit says it repented God that he had made man, and the creatures. Who would understand this without divine knowledge; that anything should grieve the unchangeable God! Reason would be ready to say, has he not known aforehand what would be? How can his will, which is himself, grieve and repent? 18. Here we must go into the centre. In God there is no grieving or repentance; nothing can grieve or trouble him. But there is a grieving in his expressed formed Word; for it repents the formed Word in the devils that the ens of light is turned into an ens of darkness. It grieves the devil that he did not continue an angel. Also it repents the wicked man eternally that he stood not in the divine ens in the formed Word, and has turned the power of the Word into malice and iniquity. Also there is a grieving in the formed Word in nature, over all kinds of creatures, that the property of the wrath in the curse of the anger does rule and domineer in the formed expressed Word. It grieves the love-ens of the Word, that the devil and wrath domineers in it, and corrupts and destroys many. 19. Now when God says it repents him, it is to be understood according to the creation of the formed Word, not according to the eternal-speaking Word, which is unchangeable, but according to the good property in the creation, that it must be laden with evil against its will.
3For the spirit says in Moses, And it grieved him in his heart. Yes ! it did truly grieve or trouble him in his HEART. The good ens of the earth, which went also along with it into a compaction, which is from the spiritual world's property, from the holy word, the same was in the sin [or fall of man] captivated in death, and shut up in the curse in the earth. Now the formed Word grieved at it, and troubled or affected the eternal-speaking Word, viz. God's heart. 20. For our soul cries unto God's heart, viz. unto the eternalspeaking Word, and moves, troubles or affects the same, that it should move itself in us according to its love. Now the human word works in the divine; and stirs the divine; so that the divine [word] enters into our sorrow for sin, and helps us to repent of our sins. For the spirit in Moses said, when Lamech had begotten Noah, This same shall comfort us in our labour. 21. This was now the spirit of the beginning and end of all things; it repented through nature of the iniquity of man, and [grieved] at the captivity of the vanity of the creatures; and wrought repentance into the holy eternal- speaking Word. The spirit in the formed Word of the whole creation of this world said, It grieves me, that I have brought me into such an evil property in the creatures: And wrought repentance into the living eternal- speaking Word, from whence the out-breathed formed Word has flown forth and proceeded.
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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