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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.
118. But my writing here of the Oil and Water is thus to be understood : In the Enkindling of the Fire in the Flagrat (both in the Flagrat of Joy in the Ens of the Free Lubet, and in the Flagrat of the Wrathfulness in the Impression of the dark Spiritual Ens) the Essence, which the first Desire has coagulated or amassed, is consumed in the Fire Flagrat; that is, it does as it were die to its selfgood, and is taken into the Only Spirit; which here has manifested itself in the Fire of the Wrathfulness, and in the Light-fire of the Kingdom of Joy; which [Spirit] does now re-express it, or breathe it forth again out of itself as two spiritual Worlds. 19. Understand it right. These proceeds forth out of the fiery Property in the Spiration the vital Source, which according to the Free Lubet is holy and joyful, and according to the Darkness painful and wrathful. The Wrathfulness and painful Source is the Root of Joy, and the Joy is the Root of the Enmity of the dark Wrathfulness; so that there is a Contrarium, whereby the good is made manifest, and known that it is good.
220. And the mortified Essence in the Fire (which the first Desire in the Free Lubet has coagulated and made dark) proceeds forth through the Fire's Mortification as a spiritual Oil, which is the Property of the Fire and Light; and from the Mortification proceeds a Water, viz. a mortified senseless Essence, being a House of the Oil; wherein the Fire source or Spirit has its vital Region; which Oil is the Food of the Fire-source, which it draws again into itself and devours, and thereby allays the Fire-source, and introduces it into the greatest Meekness, in which the Life of the great Love arises, viz. the good Taste. So that the Fire source becomes an Humility or Meekness in the Oil through the Mortification in the Water source. 21. For no Fire-spirit can be meek without the Mortification of its own natural Propriety or peculiar Essence; But the Water, which before was an Essence, amassed out of the Free Lubet, and yet mortified in the Fire, that can change the Essence of the Fire into a meek Desire. The Fifth Chapter Of the Five Senses Love-fire (Venus)
31. The fifth form or Property is the Love-desire, viz. the holy Life, or the displayed Light-fire; which is awakened or raised up in the wrathful consuming Fire; that is, it receives its Lustre and Shine from the Fire; a Similitude whereof we have in all outward Fires: Where we see that the Light arises in the Fire, but yet has far another Source than the Fire. For the Fire is painful, but the Light is meek-, pleasant, lovely, and yields Essence. 2. The Fire causes Light, and Air; and out of the Air comes the Water by Reason of the Meekness of the Light; for the Lubet to the Fire is mortified in the Fire-blaze; and so that which is mortified in the Fire is a meek Essence, yet it is only a Spirit: But when it proceeds from the Fire in the Light, it coagulates, and is the Death of the Fire; whereby the Fire goes out; But if it be of a spiritual Nature, it is the Food and Refreshment of the Fire: And we see plainly that every burning Fire puts forth an Air, and out of the Air a Water; which Air and watery Spirit the Fire draws again into itself, for its own Life and Lustre. Else, if it cannot have it, it is soon extinct, and goes out; that is, it smothers; for the Air is its Life, and yet it begets the Air.
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.
118. But my writing here of the Oil and Water is thus to be understood : In the Enkindling of the Fire in the Flagrat (both in the Flagrat of Joy in the Ens of the Free Lubet, and in the Flagrat of the Wrathfulness in the Impression of the dark Spiritual Ens) the Essence, which the first Desire has coagulated or amassed, is consumed in the Fire Flagrat; that is, it does as it were die to its selfgood, and is taken into the Only Spirit; which here has manifested itself in the Fire of the Wrathfulness, and in the Light-fire of the Kingdom of Joy; which [Spirit] does now re-express it, or breathe it forth again out of itself as two spiritual Worlds. 19. Understand it right. These proceeds forth out of the fiery Property in the Spiration the vital Source, which according to the Free Lubet is holy and joyful, and according to the Darkness painful and wrathful. The Wrathfulness and painful Source is the Root of Joy, and the Joy is the Root of the Enmity of the dark Wrathfulness; so that there is a Contrarium, whereby the good is made manifest, and known that it is good.
220. And the mortified Essence in the Fire (which the first Desire in the Free Lubet has coagulated and made dark) proceeds forth through the Fire's Mortification as a spiritual Oil, which is the Property of the Fire and Light; and from the Mortification proceeds a Water, viz. a mortified senseless Essence, being a House of the Oil; wherein the Fire source or Spirit has its vital Region; which Oil is the Food of the Fire-source, which it draws again into itself and devours, and thereby allays the Fire-source, and introduces it into the greatest Meekness, in which the Life of the great Love arises, viz. the good Taste. So that the Fire source becomes an Humility or Meekness in the Oil through the Mortification in the Water source. 21. For no Fire-spirit can be meek without the Mortification of its own natural Propriety or peculiar Essence; But the Water, which before was an Essence, amassed out of the Free Lubet, and yet mortified in the Fire, that can change the Essence of the Fire into a meek Desire. The Fifth Chapter Of the Five Senses Love-fire (Venus)
31. The fifth form or Property is the Love-desire, viz. the holy Life, or the displayed Light-fire; which is awakened or raised up in the wrathful consuming Fire; that is, it receives its Lustre and Shine from the Fire; a Similitude whereof we have in all outward Fires: Where we see that the Light arises in the Fire, but yet has far another Source than the Fire. For the Fire is painful, but the Light is meek-, pleasant, lovely, and yields Essence. 2. The Fire causes Light, and Air; and out of the Air comes the Water by Reason of the Meekness of the Light; for the Lubet to the Fire is mortified in the Fire-blaze; and so that which is mortified in the Fire is a meek Essence, yet it is only a Spirit: But when it proceeds from the Fire in the Light, it coagulates, and is the Death of the Fire; whereby the Fire goes out; But if it be of a spiritual Nature, it is the Food and Refreshment of the Fire: And we see plainly that every burning Fire puts forth an Air, and out of the Air a Water; which Air and watery Spirit the Fire draws again into itself, for its own Life and Lustre. Else, if it cannot have it, it is soon extinct, and goes out; that is, it smothers; for the Air is its Life, and yet it begets the Air.
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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