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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.
112. Also he sat in his angelical form in the good holy essence, as to the generation of the divine meekness; and therein exalted himself to domineer in the will of his wrath above the meekness, as an absolute peculiar god, contrary to the right of eternity. 13. But when the speaking eternal Word in love and anger, for his malicious iniquity's sake, did move itself in the properties, viz. in the essence wherein Lucifer sat, to cast this wicked guest out of his habitation into eternal darkness; then the essence was compacted: for God would not permit or allow that he should any longer have these manifested powers, wherein he was a prince; but created them into a coagulation, and spewed him out of them. 14. And in this impression or conjunction the powers, viz. the watery and oily properties, were compacted; not that Lucifer did compact or create them; but [they were compacted by] the speaking Word of God, which dwelt in the manifested powers and properties: the same took away the disobedient child's patrimony, and cast him out as a perjured wretch, out of his inheritance into an eternal prison, into the house of darkness and anger; wherein he desired to be master over the essence of God's love, and rule therein as a juggler and enchanter, and mix the holy with unholy, to act his juggling feats and proud pranks thereby.
215. And we see very clearly with quick-sighted eyes, that thus it is: for there is nothing in this world so evil but it has a good in it: the good has its rise originally out of the good or heavenly property, and the evil has its descent from the property of the dark world; for both worlds, viz. light and darkness, are in each other as one. 16. And therefore they also went along together into the compaction or coagulation; and that from the degrees of the eternal nature, viz. from the properties to the fire-life, and also from the properties in the oily and spiritual watery light-essence. 17. For the metals are in themselves nothing else but a water and oil, which are held by the wrathful properties, viz. by the astringent austere desire; that is, by a Saturnine martial fiery property, in the compaction of Sulphur and Mercury, to be one body [or congealed bulk]. But if I wholly destroy this body, and severise {separate} each into its own property, then I clearly find therein the first creation. I. SATURNUS: SAL 18. As first, according to the astringent desire of the Fiat, viz. of the first form to nature, according to the property of the dark world, I find a hardness and coldness; and further according to this astringent property, secondly a deadly baneful stinking water, from the astringent impression; and thirdly, in this stinking water, a dead earth;
3and fourthly, a sharpness like to salt, from the native right and quality of the astringency. This is now the coagulated essence of the first form of nature, according to the dark world; and it is the stony substance (understand the grossness of the stones and of all metals); so likewise of the earth, wherein the mortal part (or the close-binding death) is understood. II. MERCURIUS 19. Secondly, I find according to the second form and property of the dark nature and world essence, in the compaction of the metals and stones, a bitter compunctive raging essence, viz. a poison; which makes a strong harsh noisome taste in the earth and stinking water; and it is the cause of growth, viz. the stirring life: its property is called Mercurius; and in the first form the astringency is called Sal. III. SULPHUR 20. Thirdly, I find the third property, viz. the anguish, which is the sulphurous-source, in which consists the various dividing of the properties, viz. of the essence. IV. SALNITER 21. Fourthly, I find the fire or heat, which does awaken the salniter in the sulphurous-source, which severises the compaction; and that is the flagrat. This is the original raiser of the salniter out of the brimstony, watery and earthy property; for it is the awakener of death, viz. [the awakener] in the mortal property, and the first original of the life in the fire: and even to the fire the property of the dark world reaches, and no farther. V. OIL
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.
112. Also he sat in his angelical form in the good holy essence, as to the generation of the divine meekness; and therein exalted himself to domineer in the will of his wrath above the meekness, as an absolute peculiar god, contrary to the right of eternity. 13. But when the speaking eternal Word in love and anger, for his malicious iniquity's sake, did move itself in the properties, viz. in the essence wherein Lucifer sat, to cast this wicked guest out of his habitation into eternal darkness; then the essence was compacted: for God would not permit or allow that he should any longer have these manifested powers, wherein he was a prince; but created them into a coagulation, and spewed him out of them. 14. And in this impression or conjunction the powers, viz. the watery and oily properties, were compacted; not that Lucifer did compact or create them; but [they were compacted by] the speaking Word of God, which dwelt in the manifested powers and properties: the same took away the disobedient child's patrimony, and cast him out as a perjured wretch, out of his inheritance into an eternal prison, into the house of darkness and anger; wherein he desired to be master over the essence of God's love, and rule therein as a juggler and enchanter, and mix the holy with unholy, to act his juggling feats and proud pranks thereby.
215. And we see very clearly with quick-sighted eyes, that thus it is: for there is nothing in this world so evil but it has a good in it: the good has its rise originally out of the good or heavenly property, and the evil has its descent from the property of the dark world; for both worlds, viz. light and darkness, are in each other as one. 16. And therefore they also went along together into the compaction or coagulation; and that from the degrees of the eternal nature, viz. from the properties to the fire-life, and also from the properties in the oily and spiritual watery light-essence. 17. For the metals are in themselves nothing else but a water and oil, which are held by the wrathful properties, viz. by the astringent austere desire; that is, by a Saturnine martial fiery property, in the compaction of Sulphur and Mercury, to be one body [or congealed bulk]. But if I wholly destroy this body, and severise {separate} each into its own property, then I clearly find therein the first creation. I. SATURNUS: SAL 18. As first, according to the astringent desire of the Fiat, viz. of the first form to nature, according to the property of the dark world, I find a hardness and coldness; and further according to this astringent property, secondly a deadly baneful stinking water, from the astringent impression; and thirdly, in this stinking water, a dead earth;
3and fourthly, a sharpness like to salt, from the native right and quality of the astringency. This is now the coagulated essence of the first form of nature, according to the dark world; and it is the stony substance (understand the grossness of the stones and of all metals); so likewise of the earth, wherein the mortal part (or the close-binding death) is understood. II. MERCURIUS 19. Secondly, I find according to the second form and property of the dark nature and world essence, in the compaction of the metals and stones, a bitter compunctive raging essence, viz. a poison; which makes a strong harsh noisome taste in the earth and stinking water; and it is the cause of growth, viz. the stirring life: its property is called Mercurius; and in the first form the astringency is called Sal. III. SULPHUR 20. Thirdly, I find the third property, viz. the anguish, which is the sulphurous-source, in which consists the various dividing of the properties, viz. of the essence. IV. SALNITER 21. Fourthly, I find the fire or heat, which does awaken the salniter in the sulphurous-source, which severises the compaction; and that is the flagrat. This is the original raiser of the salniter out of the brimstony, watery and earthy property; for it is the awakener of death, viz. [the awakener] in the mortal property, and the first original of the life in the fire: and even to the fire the property of the dark world reaches, and no farther. V. OIL
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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