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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.
1he has been translated in the Spirit of Christ. Now this Word which became man does repent at the vanity and wickedness of men; that its children of the new Covenant will not give willing obedience to the Spirit of Christ. 1 Therefore this prophetical mouth does now disclose and put forth itself for it is the time of its manifestation, and proclaims the great deluge of God's anger, and the flaming sword of Elias, who also was translated into the Mystery; for he must draw forth his sword in the turba. 1 Suffer the Spirit of Christ to draw them. 28. Let this be told you, Babel: he complains mightily against your bestial unchastity and tyranny; against your own usurped power, force and violence wherewith you art proud and wanton, and hast thereby set up yourself in God's government. He will drown you with your tyranny and bestial wantonness in the fire of anger. Seeing you wilt not repent you of your vanity, therefore he repents through you, with the turba; and will drown your turba, that so his repenting may be made manifest in his children, and also his refreshing comfort and consolation might be manifested out of his repentance.
229. for without God's repenting there is in us no true sorrow or repentance for the vanity; for the natural spirit desires not to repent, yea, if it could be more wrathful, malicious, evil and vain, it would please, love and delight itself therein; for it is nature's spirit, strength and might. But the Word of God, which in the creation did impress and give itself into the human ens for a sovereign powerful [and holy] life, the same [incorporated engrafted Word of life], if it be stirred and moved, doth repent and grieve that it has such an evil beast in nature on it; that says, It repents me that I have created the evil beast in nature. 30. But this sorrow is not a sorrow to annihilation, as if he would have no more to do with the creature, but it is a sorrow which sads and moves God's heart, viz. the holy divine Word, and sets the natural spirit a time for to repent, that so it might enter into divine sorrow; but ifit does not, then he will drown the natural spirit in its evil will and ways, as came to pass in the deluge. 31. God said, The earth is corrupt, and full of perverseness; and the end of all flesh is come before me, I will destroy them. Here again is a great mystery, in that God said, the earth was corrupt before him; that all flesh had corrupted its way; and that the earth was filled with perverseness through them [and lo: he would destroy them] .
3The earth was afore with Cain accursed according to the vanity's property; but now he says also in this place, all flesh has corrupted its way, the end of all flesh is come before me. This is not so mean and slight a thing as one would look on it to be; for the spirit complains against all flesh, that all things were become vain in his sight, and full of perveseness. 32. Now says reason, a beast does not sin, it does according to its nature's property; how can any perverseness be attributed to it? So far does reason go, and further it knows not; also it understands nothing of the divine Mystery. It understands nothing of the formed Word that has formed itself through the nature of time. It says only, God has created and made: and considers not that all things are created in the Word, that the Word has introduced and compacted itself into an ens. Also it will know nothing of the eternal spiritual nature of divine manifestation; it understands nothing of the ground or original of the outward visible world, with its creatures; when it says, God has made all things out of nothing, then it means that he has so spoken it forth, and yet it is wholly blind and senseless in it. It looks only upon the outward colour, and knows not from whence it takes its original; thus it is only learned in the external colour, and prats of the painted work of the outside and shell; and concerning the ens whence the colour arises, it is dumb and senseless.
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.
1he has been translated in the Spirit of Christ. Now this Word which became man does repent at the vanity and wickedness of men; that its children of the new Covenant will not give willing obedience to the Spirit of Christ. 1 Therefore this prophetical mouth does now disclose and put forth itself for it is the time of its manifestation, and proclaims the great deluge of God's anger, and the flaming sword of Elias, who also was translated into the Mystery; for he must draw forth his sword in the turba. 1 Suffer the Spirit of Christ to draw them. 28. Let this be told you, Babel: he complains mightily against your bestial unchastity and tyranny; against your own usurped power, force and violence wherewith you art proud and wanton, and hast thereby set up yourself in God's government. He will drown you with your tyranny and bestial wantonness in the fire of anger. Seeing you wilt not repent you of your vanity, therefore he repents through you, with the turba; and will drown your turba, that so his repenting may be made manifest in his children, and also his refreshing comfort and consolation might be manifested out of his repentance.
229. for without God's repenting there is in us no true sorrow or repentance for the vanity; for the natural spirit desires not to repent, yea, if it could be more wrathful, malicious, evil and vain, it would please, love and delight itself therein; for it is nature's spirit, strength and might. But the Word of God, which in the creation did impress and give itself into the human ens for a sovereign powerful [and holy] life, the same [incorporated engrafted Word of life], if it be stirred and moved, doth repent and grieve that it has such an evil beast in nature on it; that says, It repents me that I have created the evil beast in nature. 30. But this sorrow is not a sorrow to annihilation, as if he would have no more to do with the creature, but it is a sorrow which sads and moves God's heart, viz. the holy divine Word, and sets the natural spirit a time for to repent, that so it might enter into divine sorrow; but ifit does not, then he will drown the natural spirit in its evil will and ways, as came to pass in the deluge. 31. God said, The earth is corrupt, and full of perverseness; and the end of all flesh is come before me, I will destroy them. Here again is a great mystery, in that God said, the earth was corrupt before him; that all flesh had corrupted its way; and that the earth was filled with perverseness through them [and lo: he would destroy them] .
3The earth was afore with Cain accursed according to the vanity's property; but now he says also in this place, all flesh has corrupted its way, the end of all flesh is come before me. This is not so mean and slight a thing as one would look on it to be; for the spirit complains against all flesh, that all things were become vain in his sight, and full of perveseness. 32. Now says reason, a beast does not sin, it does according to its nature's property; how can any perverseness be attributed to it? So far does reason go, and further it knows not; also it understands nothing of the divine Mystery. It understands nothing of the formed Word that has formed itself through the nature of time. It says only, God has created and made: and considers not that all things are created in the Word, that the Word has introduced and compacted itself into an ens. Also it will know nothing of the eternal spiritual nature of divine manifestation; it understands nothing of the ground or original of the outward visible world, with its creatures; when it says, God has made all things out of nothing, then it means that he has so spoken it forth, and yet it is wholly blind and senseless in it. It looks only upon the outward colour, and knows not from whence it takes its original; thus it is only learned in the external colour, and prats of the painted work of the outside and shell; and concerning the ens whence the colour arises, it is dumb and senseless.
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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