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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.
13. Thus likewise we are to consider of the divine Being; how the eternal Understanding Of the Abyss introduces itself into the Byss and Essence; viz. into an eternal Generation and Devouring, wherein the Manifestation of the Abyss consists, and is an eternal Love-play; that the Abyss so wrestles, sports, and plays with itself in its own conceived [or amassed] Byss; it gives itself into the Something, and again takes the Something into itself, and thence brings or gives forth another Thing. It introduces itself into a Lubet and Desire; moreover into Power, Strength, and Virtue, and mutually produces one Degree from the other, and through the other, that so it might be an eternal Play and Melody in itself. 4. And this we are to consider of in the fifth Form of Nature : When the Powers of the eternal Word or Understanding are made manifest
2through the eternal Spiritual Fire, in the eternal Light of the Majesty (that each Power or Property is manifest in itself, and enters into a Feeling, Tasting, Smelling, Hearing, Seeing Essence; which is effected through the Fire, where all Things become spiritful, quick and full of Life) even then one Property enters mutually into another, for they are all proceeded out of one, viz. out of the Free Lubet. Therefore also this Free Lubet is yet in all, and they all jointly desire to enter again into this Free Lubet, viz. into the One; and there, when one tastes, smells, feels, hears, and sees the other in the Essence, they embrace each other in their holy Conjunction; wherein then the real Divine Kingdom of Joy consists; so likewise the growing and flourishing Life of this World, as may be understood by way of Similitude in the Seven Properties, and the Light and Power of the Sun. 5. The divine Kingdom of Joy in the Heaven of God (viz. in God manifested in his expressed or Spirated Essence, as I might speak it to the Understanding) consists in the Love-desire, viz. in the Power which has manifested itself through the Fire in the Light: for the Fire gives to the Meek Free Lubet, Essence and Source, that it is severized, and moved, and becomes a Kingdom of Joy.
36. And thus we are to consider of the Darkness; whatsoever is a desiring Love in the Light, wherein all Things rejoice and melodize in Love, that in the Darkness is an Enmity; for the Fire is cold, and burning hot in the Darkness; moreover, bitter, astringent, compunctive; the Properties are wholly rigorous and full of Enmity and Opposition. They seek not the One, but only the Advancement of their own Might; and the greater their Elevation and Inflammation, the greater is the Joy in the Light [Kingdom of Joy]. 7. That which is good and holy in the powerful Light [Light of Power], that in the Darkness is anxious and adverse; the Darkness is the greatest Enmity of the Light, and yet it is the Cause that the Light is manifest : for if there was no Black, then White could not be manifest to itself; and if there was no Sorrow, then Joy also would not be manifest to itself. 8. Thus the Joy triumphs in itself, that it is not as the Sorrow; and the Sorrow triumphs in itself, that it is a Might and Strength of the Fire, and Light. Hence arise Pride, and Self-will; because the Dark Fire's Might gives the Essence and motive Source to the Light; which did so affect and move King Lucifer, that he exalted himself in the Root of the Fire to rule and domineer over the Fire and Light, and therefore was cast out of the Light into Darkness, and the Light withdrew from him.
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.
13. Thus likewise we are to consider of the divine Being; how the eternal Understanding Of the Abyss introduces itself into the Byss and Essence; viz. into an eternal Generation and Devouring, wherein the Manifestation of the Abyss consists, and is an eternal Love-play; that the Abyss so wrestles, sports, and plays with itself in its own conceived [or amassed] Byss; it gives itself into the Something, and again takes the Something into itself, and thence brings or gives forth another Thing. It introduces itself into a Lubet and Desire; moreover into Power, Strength, and Virtue, and mutually produces one Degree from the other, and through the other, that so it might be an eternal Play and Melody in itself. 4. And this we are to consider of in the fifth Form of Nature : When the Powers of the eternal Word or Understanding are made manifest
2through the eternal Spiritual Fire, in the eternal Light of the Majesty (that each Power or Property is manifest in itself, and enters into a Feeling, Tasting, Smelling, Hearing, Seeing Essence; which is effected through the Fire, where all Things become spiritful, quick and full of Life) even then one Property enters mutually into another, for they are all proceeded out of one, viz. out of the Free Lubet. Therefore also this Free Lubet is yet in all, and they all jointly desire to enter again into this Free Lubet, viz. into the One; and there, when one tastes, smells, feels, hears, and sees the other in the Essence, they embrace each other in their holy Conjunction; wherein then the real Divine Kingdom of Joy consists; so likewise the growing and flourishing Life of this World, as may be understood by way of Similitude in the Seven Properties, and the Light and Power of the Sun. 5. The divine Kingdom of Joy in the Heaven of God (viz. in God manifested in his expressed or Spirated Essence, as I might speak it to the Understanding) consists in the Love-desire, viz. in the Power which has manifested itself through the Fire in the Light: for the Fire gives to the Meek Free Lubet, Essence and Source, that it is severized, and moved, and becomes a Kingdom of Joy.
36. And thus we are to consider of the Darkness; whatsoever is a desiring Love in the Light, wherein all Things rejoice and melodize in Love, that in the Darkness is an Enmity; for the Fire is cold, and burning hot in the Darkness; moreover, bitter, astringent, compunctive; the Properties are wholly rigorous and full of Enmity and Opposition. They seek not the One, but only the Advancement of their own Might; and the greater their Elevation and Inflammation, the greater is the Joy in the Light [Kingdom of Joy]. 7. That which is good and holy in the powerful Light [Light of Power], that in the Darkness is anxious and adverse; the Darkness is the greatest Enmity of the Light, and yet it is the Cause that the Light is manifest : for if there was no Black, then White could not be manifest to itself; and if there was no Sorrow, then Joy also would not be manifest to itself. 8. Thus the Joy triumphs in itself, that it is not as the Sorrow; and the Sorrow triumphs in itself, that it is a Might and Strength of the Fire, and Light. Hence arise Pride, and Self-will; because the Dark Fire's Might gives the Essence and motive Source to the Light; which did so affect and move King Lucifer, that he exalted himself in the Root of the Fire to rule and domineer over the Fire and Light, and therefore was cast out of the Light into Darkness, and the Light withdrew from him.
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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