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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.
16. When I take up a Stone, or Clod of Earth, and look upon it, then I see that which is above, and that which is below, yea, the whole World therein; only that in each Thing one Property happeneth to be the chiefest and manifest, according to which it is named. All the other Properties are jointly therein, only in distinct Degrees and Centers, and yet all the Degrees and Centers are but one only Center. There is but one only Root whence all Things proceed; it only separates itself in the Compaction, where it is coagulated: Its Original is as a Smoke or vaporous Breath from the great Mystery of the expressed Word, which stands in all Places in the re-expressing, that is, in the re-breathing (or echoing forth) a Likeness according to itself; an Essence according to the Spirit. 7. But now we cannot say that the outward World is God, or the Speaking Word, which in itself is devoid of such Essence; or likewise that the outward Man is God : But it is all only the expressed Word, which has so coagulated itself in its Re-conception to its own Expression, and does still continually coagulate itself with the four Elements, through the Spirit of the Desire, viz. of the Stars, and brings itself into such a Motion and Life, in the Mode and Manner as the Eternal Speaking Word makes a Mystery, which is spiritual in
2itself. Which Mystery I call the Center of the Eternal Nature; where the Eternal Speaking Word brings itself into a Generation, and also makes such a spiritual World in itself, as we have materially in the expressed Word. 8. For I say, The inward World is the Heaven wherein God dwells; and the outward World is expressed out of the inward, and has only another Beginning than the inward, but yet out of the inward; it is expressed from the inward (through the Motion of the Eternal Speaking Word) and closed into a Beginning and End. 9. And the inward World stands in the Eternal Speaking Word, the Eternal Word has spoken it (through the Wisdom) out of its own Powers, Colours, and Virtue, into an Essence, as a great Mystery, from Eternity; which Essence also is only as a Spiration from the Word in the Wisdom, which has its Re-conception to Generation in itself, and with the Conception does likewise coagulate itself, and introduces itself into Forms, after the Manner of the Generation of the Eternal Word; as the Powers, Colours, and Virtue generate themselves in the Word through the Wisdom, or, as I might say, out of the Wisdom in the Word.
310. Therefore there is nothing nigh unto, or far off from God ; one World is in the other, and all are only one: but one is Spiritual, the other Corporeal ; as Soul and Body are in each other, and also Time and Eternity are but one Thing, yet in distinct Beginnings. The spiritual World in the internal [Principle] has an eternal Beginning, and the outward a temporal; each has its Birth in itself. But the Eternal Speaking Word rules through and over all, yet it can neither be apprehended or conceived, either by the spiritual or external World, that it should stand still; but it works from Eternity to Eternity, and its Work is conceived; for it is the formed Word; and the working Word is its Life, and incomprehensible, for it is without all Essence, as a bare Understanding only, or a Power that brings itself into Essence [expresses itself in the essence]. 11. In the inward spiritual World the Word conceives itself into a spiritual Essence as one only Element, wherein the four lie hid. But when God, viz. the Word, moved this one Element, then the hidden Properties manifested themselves, as there are four Elements. Note by the compiler
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.
16. When I take up a Stone, or Clod of Earth, and look upon it, then I see that which is above, and that which is below, yea, the whole World therein; only that in each Thing one Property happeneth to be the chiefest and manifest, according to which it is named. All the other Properties are jointly therein, only in distinct Degrees and Centers, and yet all the Degrees and Centers are but one only Center. There is but one only Root whence all Things proceed; it only separates itself in the Compaction, where it is coagulated: Its Original is as a Smoke or vaporous Breath from the great Mystery of the expressed Word, which stands in all Places in the re-expressing, that is, in the re-breathing (or echoing forth) a Likeness according to itself; an Essence according to the Spirit. 7. But now we cannot say that the outward World is God, or the Speaking Word, which in itself is devoid of such Essence; or likewise that the outward Man is God : But it is all only the expressed Word, which has so coagulated itself in its Re-conception to its own Expression, and does still continually coagulate itself with the four Elements, through the Spirit of the Desire, viz. of the Stars, and brings itself into such a Motion and Life, in the Mode and Manner as the Eternal Speaking Word makes a Mystery, which is spiritual in
2itself. Which Mystery I call the Center of the Eternal Nature; where the Eternal Speaking Word brings itself into a Generation, and also makes such a spiritual World in itself, as we have materially in the expressed Word. 8. For I say, The inward World is the Heaven wherein God dwells; and the outward World is expressed out of the inward, and has only another Beginning than the inward, but yet out of the inward; it is expressed from the inward (through the Motion of the Eternal Speaking Word) and closed into a Beginning and End. 9. And the inward World stands in the Eternal Speaking Word, the Eternal Word has spoken it (through the Wisdom) out of its own Powers, Colours, and Virtue, into an Essence, as a great Mystery, from Eternity; which Essence also is only as a Spiration from the Word in the Wisdom, which has its Re-conception to Generation in itself, and with the Conception does likewise coagulate itself, and introduces itself into Forms, after the Manner of the Generation of the Eternal Word; as the Powers, Colours, and Virtue generate themselves in the Word through the Wisdom, or, as I might say, out of the Wisdom in the Word.
310. Therefore there is nothing nigh unto, or far off from God ; one World is in the other, and all are only one: but one is Spiritual, the other Corporeal ; as Soul and Body are in each other, and also Time and Eternity are but one Thing, yet in distinct Beginnings. The spiritual World in the internal [Principle] has an eternal Beginning, and the outward a temporal; each has its Birth in itself. But the Eternal Speaking Word rules through and over all, yet it can neither be apprehended or conceived, either by the spiritual or external World, that it should stand still; but it works from Eternity to Eternity, and its Work is conceived; for it is the formed Word; and the working Word is its Life, and incomprehensible, for it is without all Essence, as a bare Understanding only, or a Power that brings itself into Essence [expresses itself in the essence]. 11. In the inward spiritual World the Word conceives itself into a spiritual Essence as one only Element, wherein the four lie hid. But when God, viz. the Word, moved this one Element, then the hidden Properties manifested themselves, as there are four Elements. Note by the compiler
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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