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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.
1Of the Two Principles, viz. God's Love, and Anger; of Darkness, and Light; very necessary for the Reader to consider of. Of the Five Senses. Of the Essence of Corporality. The Seventh form of Nature. Luna (Moon) and Saturnus. Beginning End. Of the Holy Trinity, and Divine Essence. Of the Creation of Angels, and their Dominion. Of the Fall of Lucifer, with his Legions. Of the Creation of Heaven and the Outward World. Chapter 11: Of the Mystery of the Creation. Chapter 12: Of the Six Days' Works of the Creation. Chapter 13: Of The Creation of the Fourth Day. Chapter 14: Of the Creation of the Fifth Day. Chapter 15: Of the Sixth Day's Work of the Creation . Chapter 16: Of the Difference of the Heavenly and Earthly Man. Chapter 17: Of Paradise. Chapter 18: Of the Paradisical State showing how it should have been if Adam had not fallen. Chapter 19: Of the building (framing) of the Woman; showing how Man was ordained to the outward Natural Life. Chapter 20: Of the Lamentable and Miserable Fall and Corruption of Man. Chapter 21: Of the Impression and Original of the Bestial Man; and of the Beginning and Ground of his Sickness and Mortality. Chapter 22: Of the Original of Actual Sin, and the Awakening of God's Anger in the Human Property. Chapter 23: Chapter 24: Chapter 25: Chapter 26: Chapter 27: Chapter 28: Chapter 29: Chapter 30: Chapter 31: Chapter 32: Chapter 33: Chapter 34:
2How God re-called Adam and his Eve when they were entered into Sin and Vanity, and awakened in the Serpent's Ens; and laid upon them the Order of this toilsome laborious world, and ordained the SerpentBruiser for a Help (or Saviour) to them. Of the Cause and Rise of the Curse of the Earth, and of the Body of Sickness. How God drove Adam out of Paradise, and laid the Cherub before the Garden. Of the Propagation of Man in this World, and of Cain, the First-born, The Murderer of his Brother. Of Cain's and Abel's offering and of the False and Antichristian Church, and also of the True Holy Church. Of Cain's Killing of his Brother, viz. of the Proud, Haughty, Antichristian, hypocritical Church upon the Earth; and also of the True Christendom hidden under this Antichristian Church. 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. Of the Line of the Covenant. Of Enoch's Wonderful Line. Of the Covenant between God and Noah. Of the beginning of the Second monarchy, and of the Covenant of God with Noah, and all Creatures . How Noah cursed his Son Ham, and of the Mystical Prophecy Concerning his Three Sons and their Posterity. Alphabetical index of names, places, etc. Author's Preface
31. WHEN we consider the visible world with its essence, and consider the life of the creatures, then we find therein the likeness of the invisible spiritual world, which is hidden in the visible world, as the soul in the body; and see thereby that the hidden God is nigh unto all, and through all; and yet wholly hidden to the visible essence. 2. We have an example hereof in the mind of man, which is an invisible fire, that is inclined to light and darkness, viz. to joy and sorrow; and yet in itself is none of these, but only a cause thereto; an invisible, incomprehensive sourcive, fire; and yet as to its own essence is included in nothing, save only in the will of life. 3. The body cannot comprehend the mind; but the mind comprehends the body; and brings it to love, or dislike; 1 this likewise is to be understood of the Word and power of God; which is hidden to the visible sensible elements: and yet dwells through and in the elements; and works through the sensible life and essence, as the mind in the body. 1. Or sufferance and sorrow. 4. For the visible sensible things are an essence of the invisible: from the invisible and incomprehensible the visible and comprehensible is proceeded: the visible essence is come to be from the expression or spiration of the invisible power: the invisible spiritual Word of divine power works with and through the visible essence, as the soul 2 with and through the body. 2 In.
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.
1Of the Two Principles, viz. God's Love, and Anger; of Darkness, and Light; very necessary for the Reader to consider of. Of the Five Senses. Of the Essence of Corporality. The Seventh form of Nature. Luna (Moon) and Saturnus. Beginning End. Of the Holy Trinity, and Divine Essence. Of the Creation of Angels, and their Dominion. Of the Fall of Lucifer, with his Legions. Of the Creation of Heaven and the Outward World. Chapter 11: Of the Mystery of the Creation. Chapter 12: Of the Six Days' Works of the Creation. Chapter 13: Of The Creation of the Fourth Day. Chapter 14: Of the Creation of the Fifth Day. Chapter 15: Of the Sixth Day's Work of the Creation . Chapter 16: Of the Difference of the Heavenly and Earthly Man. Chapter 17: Of Paradise. Chapter 18: Of the Paradisical State showing how it should have been if Adam had not fallen. Chapter 19: Of the building (framing) of the Woman; showing how Man was ordained to the outward Natural Life. Chapter 20: Of the Lamentable and Miserable Fall and Corruption of Man. Chapter 21: Of the Impression and Original of the Bestial Man; and of the Beginning and Ground of his Sickness and Mortality. Chapter 22: Of the Original of Actual Sin, and the Awakening of God's Anger in the Human Property. Chapter 23: Chapter 24: Chapter 25: Chapter 26: Chapter 27: Chapter 28: Chapter 29: Chapter 30: Chapter 31: Chapter 32: Chapter 33: Chapter 34:
2How God re-called Adam and his Eve when they were entered into Sin and Vanity, and awakened in the Serpent's Ens; and laid upon them the Order of this toilsome laborious world, and ordained the SerpentBruiser for a Help (or Saviour) to them. Of the Cause and Rise of the Curse of the Earth, and of the Body of Sickness. How God drove Adam out of Paradise, and laid the Cherub before the Garden. Of the Propagation of Man in this World, and of Cain, the First-born, The Murderer of his Brother. Of Cain's and Abel's offering and of the False and Antichristian Church, and also of the True Holy Church. Of Cain's Killing of his Brother, viz. of the Proud, Haughty, Antichristian, hypocritical Church upon the Earth; and also of the True Christendom hidden under this Antichristian Church. 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. Of the Line of the Covenant. Of Enoch's Wonderful Line. Of the Covenant between God and Noah. Of the beginning of the Second monarchy, and of the Covenant of God with Noah, and all Creatures . How Noah cursed his Son Ham, and of the Mystical Prophecy Concerning his Three Sons and their Posterity. Alphabetical index of names, places, etc. Author's Preface
31. WHEN we consider the visible world with its essence, and consider the life of the creatures, then we find therein the likeness of the invisible spiritual world, which is hidden in the visible world, as the soul in the body; and see thereby that the hidden God is nigh unto all, and through all; and yet wholly hidden to the visible essence. 2. We have an example hereof in the mind of man, which is an invisible fire, that is inclined to light and darkness, viz. to joy and sorrow; and yet in itself is none of these, but only a cause thereto; an invisible, incomprehensive sourcive, fire; and yet as to its own essence is included in nothing, save only in the will of life. 3. The body cannot comprehend the mind; but the mind comprehends the body; and brings it to love, or dislike; 1 this likewise is to be understood of the Word and power of God; which is hidden to the visible sensible elements: and yet dwells through and in the elements; and works through the sensible life and essence, as the mind in the body. 1. Or sufferance and sorrow. 4. For the visible sensible things are an essence of the invisible: from the invisible and incomprehensible the visible and comprehensible is proceeded: the visible essence is come to be from the expression or spiration of the invisible power: the invisible spiritual Word of divine power works with and through the visible essence, as the soul 2 with and through the body. 2 In.
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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