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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.
19. Now says Reason, How came it, that he would not ? Did not he know the Judgment of God and the Fall ? yes, he knew it well enough; but he had no sensible Perception of the Fall, but only as a bare Knowledge [or notional Theory in the Mystery of his Mind] ; the fiery Lubet which was potent in him urged him on; for it would fain be manifest in the Essence of the Wrath, viz. in the Root of Fire; the Darkness also eagerly desired to be creaturely, which drew Lucifer, its Craft's-master, in the great Potency of Fire; indeed it drew him not from without [outwardly], but in the Property and Will of his own fiery and dark Essence : The Original of the Fall was within the Creature, and not without the Creature; and so it was in Adam also : Self-will was the Beginning of Pride. 10. Thou asks, What was that which did Cause it in himself? Answer : His great
2Beauty and Glory; because the Will beheld what itself was in the fiery Mirror; this Lustrous Glance moved and affected him, so that he eagerly reached after the Properties of the Center, which immediately began effectually to work. For the astringent, austere Desire, viz. the first form or Property, impressed itself, and awakened the Compunction, and the anxious Desire : Thus this beautiful Star overshadowed its Light, and made its Essence wholly astringent, rigorous and harsh, and its Meekness and true angelical Property was turned into an Essence wholly austere, harsh, rigorous and dark; and then this bright Morning Star was undone; and as he did, so did his Legions: And this was his Fall. 11. He should have been wholly resigned in the holy Power of God, and have heard what the Lord would speak and play by his own Spirit in him; this Self-will would not do; and therefore he must now play in the Dark; yea his Will is yet opposite, although now after the Fall he cannot will [viz. to resign to the divine Will of the Light.] For his Meekness, whence the Love-will arises, is shut up and entered again into a Nothing; viz. it is retired into its own Original.
312. Now the Creature still remains, but wholly out of the Center, viz. out of the Eternal Nature; The Free Lubet of God's Wisdom is departed from him, that is, it has hid itself in itself, and lets the wrathful Fire-will stand; as happened to Adam also, when he imagined after Evil and Good, then the Free Lubet of the holy World's Essence disappeared in his Essence. 13. This was the very Death, of which God told him, that if he did eat of the free of the knowledge of Good and Evil, he should die the very same Day. Thus it was in Lucifer, he died to the holy divine World, and arose to the wrathful World of God's Anger. 14. Thou sayest, Why did not God uphold him, and draw him from the evil Inclination? 1 pray tell me wherewith. Should he have poured in more Love and Meekness into this Fire-source ? Then had his stately Light been more manifest in him, and the Looking-glass of his own Knowledge had been the greater, and his own fiery Self-will the stronger; I pray, was not his high Light and his own Self-knowledge the Cause of his Fall ? 15. Should he then have drawn him with Rebuke? Was it not his Purpose beforehand to rule the magical Ground as an Artist ? His Aim and Endeavour was for the Art, that he would play with the Center of the transmutation of the Properties, and would be and do all whatsoever he alone pleased Had he not known this, he had still remained an Angel in Humility.
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.
19. Now says Reason, How came it, that he would not ? Did not he know the Judgment of God and the Fall ? yes, he knew it well enough; but he had no sensible Perception of the Fall, but only as a bare Knowledge [or notional Theory in the Mystery of his Mind] ; the fiery Lubet which was potent in him urged him on; for it would fain be manifest in the Essence of the Wrath, viz. in the Root of Fire; the Darkness also eagerly desired to be creaturely, which drew Lucifer, its Craft's-master, in the great Potency of Fire; indeed it drew him not from without [outwardly], but in the Property and Will of his own fiery and dark Essence : The Original of the Fall was within the Creature, and not without the Creature; and so it was in Adam also : Self-will was the Beginning of Pride. 10. Thou asks, What was that which did Cause it in himself? Answer : His great
2Beauty and Glory; because the Will beheld what itself was in the fiery Mirror; this Lustrous Glance moved and affected him, so that he eagerly reached after the Properties of the Center, which immediately began effectually to work. For the astringent, austere Desire, viz. the first form or Property, impressed itself, and awakened the Compunction, and the anxious Desire : Thus this beautiful Star overshadowed its Light, and made its Essence wholly astringent, rigorous and harsh, and its Meekness and true angelical Property was turned into an Essence wholly austere, harsh, rigorous and dark; and then this bright Morning Star was undone; and as he did, so did his Legions: And this was his Fall. 11. He should have been wholly resigned in the holy Power of God, and have heard what the Lord would speak and play by his own Spirit in him; this Self-will would not do; and therefore he must now play in the Dark; yea his Will is yet opposite, although now after the Fall he cannot will [viz. to resign to the divine Will of the Light.] For his Meekness, whence the Love-will arises, is shut up and entered again into a Nothing; viz. it is retired into its own Original.
312. Now the Creature still remains, but wholly out of the Center, viz. out of the Eternal Nature; The Free Lubet of God's Wisdom is departed from him, that is, it has hid itself in itself, and lets the wrathful Fire-will stand; as happened to Adam also, when he imagined after Evil and Good, then the Free Lubet of the holy World's Essence disappeared in his Essence. 13. This was the very Death, of which God told him, that if he did eat of the free of the knowledge of Good and Evil, he should die the very same Day. Thus it was in Lucifer, he died to the holy divine World, and arose to the wrathful World of God's Anger. 14. Thou sayest, Why did not God uphold him, and draw him from the evil Inclination? 1 pray tell me wherewith. Should he have poured in more Love and Meekness into this Fire-source ? Then had his stately Light been more manifest in him, and the Looking-glass of his own Knowledge had been the greater, and his own fiery Self-will the stronger; I pray, was not his high Light and his own Self-knowledge the Cause of his Fall ? 15. Should he then have drawn him with Rebuke? Was it not his Purpose beforehand to rule the magical Ground as an Artist ? His Aim and Endeavour was for the Art, that he would play with the Center of the transmutation of the Properties, and would be and do all whatsoever he alone pleased Had he not known this, he had still remained an Angel in Humility.
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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