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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.
12. But yet the true divine Essence (understand Essence, and not the Spirit of God) is nothing else but the Understanding manifested, or the Formation of the Powers; and it consists in the Desire, that is, in the Love-desire, where one Power does experimentally and knowingly taste, smell, feel, see, and hear another, in the Essence and Source of the Property; whence the great ardent longing Desire arises. In these Properties the manifested God is understood, as in a fiery Flame of Love-desire, wherein there is a mere pleasing taste, sweet-breathing Smell, ravishing Melody, lovely and delightful Seeing, smiling and friendly Aspect, a gracious Delight, Pleasure, or Feeling: And yet it is only a spiritual Essence, where the Powers only (which have introduced themselves through the Impression into Property, and manifested themselves through the Fire in the Light) do mutually, as in a Love-play, wrestle with, and in one another, like a pleasant Song, or pregnant Harmony, or Kingdom of Joy. This is now the Spiritual Essence of God manifested; [and] how the powerful Allessential Word does manifest itself in its own peculiar Generation, wherein the melodious Play of the divine Wisdom is understood.
23. But if we would speak of the heavenly or divine Essentiality, wherein the divine Powers introduce themselves again into formations more externally, then we must say, that the Powers of the formed and manifested Word do again, in their Love-desire, introduce themselves into an external Essence, according to the Property of all the Powers; wherein they, as in a Mansion, may act their Love-play, and so have somewhat wherewith and wherein mutually to play and melodize one with another, in their wrestling Sport of Love; and this is thus to be understood. 4. As a Mineral Power lies in the Earth, and is enkindled by the Sun, whereby it begins to stir and spring, and becomes desirous of the Powers of the Sun, and attracts them into it; but in this longing Desire it amasses itself and forms itself to a Body, viz. a Root, or the like; from which Root, there grows forth in this hungry Desire such a Body, or Herb, as the first Power was; thus likewise the manifested Powers of God form themselves into an external Degree; viz. into an Essence, or Corporality; to speak in reference to the Spirit; whereas we must only understand a Spiritual Essence, but yet Corporeal or Essential, in reference to the Spirit of the Powers; as the Water is a thicker Substance than the Air; for the Air penetrates the Water. The like is to be understood concerning the divine Powers and Essence.
35. The Powers stand manifest: in an oily Property; but the oily is manifest in a watery Property; therefore the Essence of the divine Powers consists in a Spiritual Water, viz. in the holy Element, whence this World with the four Elements (as a Degree more external) was brought forth and created into a Substantial form. 6. And in this holy Element, or Spiritual Water, we understand holy Paradise, in which the manifested Powers of God work; which holy Element in the Beginning of this outward World did penetrate, and pullulate through the four Elements; in which Power there grew such Fruit, wherein the Vanity of the Wrath was not manifest; which Man negligently lost; so that the lively Buddings of the holy Element through the four Elements and the Earth ceased : for the Curse of Vanity was manifest, and did effectually work and spring forth out of the Earth.
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.
12. But yet the true divine Essence (understand Essence, and not the Spirit of God) is nothing else but the Understanding manifested, or the Formation of the Powers; and it consists in the Desire, that is, in the Love-desire, where one Power does experimentally and knowingly taste, smell, feel, see, and hear another, in the Essence and Source of the Property; whence the great ardent longing Desire arises. In these Properties the manifested God is understood, as in a fiery Flame of Love-desire, wherein there is a mere pleasing taste, sweet-breathing Smell, ravishing Melody, lovely and delightful Seeing, smiling and friendly Aspect, a gracious Delight, Pleasure, or Feeling: And yet it is only a spiritual Essence, where the Powers only (which have introduced themselves through the Impression into Property, and manifested themselves through the Fire in the Light) do mutually, as in a Love-play, wrestle with, and in one another, like a pleasant Song, or pregnant Harmony, or Kingdom of Joy. This is now the Spiritual Essence of God manifested; [and] how the powerful Allessential Word does manifest itself in its own peculiar Generation, wherein the melodious Play of the divine Wisdom is understood.
23. But if we would speak of the heavenly or divine Essentiality, wherein the divine Powers introduce themselves again into formations more externally, then we must say, that the Powers of the formed and manifested Word do again, in their Love-desire, introduce themselves into an external Essence, according to the Property of all the Powers; wherein they, as in a Mansion, may act their Love-play, and so have somewhat wherewith and wherein mutually to play and melodize one with another, in their wrestling Sport of Love; and this is thus to be understood. 4. As a Mineral Power lies in the Earth, and is enkindled by the Sun, whereby it begins to stir and spring, and becomes desirous of the Powers of the Sun, and attracts them into it; but in this longing Desire it amasses itself and forms itself to a Body, viz. a Root, or the like; from which Root, there grows forth in this hungry Desire such a Body, or Herb, as the first Power was; thus likewise the manifested Powers of God form themselves into an external Degree; viz. into an Essence, or Corporality; to speak in reference to the Spirit; whereas we must only understand a Spiritual Essence, but yet Corporeal or Essential, in reference to the Spirit of the Powers; as the Water is a thicker Substance than the Air; for the Air penetrates the Water. The like is to be understood concerning the divine Powers and Essence.
35. The Powers stand manifest: in an oily Property; but the oily is manifest in a watery Property; therefore the Essence of the divine Powers consists in a Spiritual Water, viz. in the holy Element, whence this World with the four Elements (as a Degree more external) was brought forth and created into a Substantial form. 6. And in this holy Element, or Spiritual Water, we understand holy Paradise, in which the manifested Powers of God work; which holy Element in the Beginning of this outward World did penetrate, and pullulate through the four Elements; in which Power there grew such Fruit, wherein the Vanity of the Wrath was not manifest; which Man negligently lost; so that the lively Buddings of the holy Element through the four Elements and the Earth ceased : for the Curse of Vanity was manifest, and did effectually work and spring forth out of the Earth.
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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