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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.
155. And the superior were likewise as weak and impotent as the inferior, if it were not enkindled by the light of the sun: the same is the heart of all external powers; and it is the open punctum even to the tenth number. If we were not so blind as to contemn all that we see not with our calves' eyes, it were right and requisite to reveal it; but seeing God has hidden the pearl, and also himself from the sight of the wicked, therefore we will let it alone. Yet hint enough to our school-fellows: we will not give our pearl unto beasts. 56. Thus we understand what the outward heaven is, namely the powers or conception of the water. The word or power Fiat, which began with the beginning of the world, is yet still a creating; 1) it yet continually creates the heaven out of the water: and the spirit of God still moves upon the water; and the holy water is yet continually separated from the water under the firmament. 57. This holy water is that of which Christ told us, that he would give us it to drink; that should spring up in us to a fountain of eternal life. The holy heavenly corporality does consist therein; it is the body of Christ which he brought from heaven; and by the same, introduced heavenly paradisical essentiality into our dead or decayed body; and quickened ours in his; understand, in the aim 2) of the covenant in the essence of Mary; as shall be mentioned hereafter.
258. In this heavenly essence the Testaments 3) of Christ do consist; and this holy essence of the heavenly holy virginity, with the holy tincture, has destroyed death; and bruised the head of the serpent's might in the wrath of God; for the divine power is the highest life therein. 1 Or creating. 2 Mark or limit. 3 Baptism, and the Supper. 59. Thus we understand how the holy heaven, wherein God dwells, moves in the Fiat or the created [heaven], and that God is really present in all places; and inhabits all things: but he is comprehended of nothing. He is manifest in power in the inward heaven of the holy essentiality, viz. in the element. This holy element (in the beginning or inchoation of the four elements) did penetrate through the earth; and sprang [or budded] forth in the holy power's property, and bore fruits, of which man should have eaten in a heavenly manner. But when it did disappear in man, the curse entered into the earth, and so Paradise was quashed in the four elements; and continued retired in itself in the inward [element]. There it stands yet open unto man, if any will depart from this world's essence and enter into it upon the path which Christ has made open.
360. The punctum of the whole created earth belonged unto the centre of Sol, 1) but [does] not any more, at present: he is fallen, he who was a king: the earth is in the curse, and [has] become a peculiar centre; whereunto all whatsoever is engendered in the vanity, in the four elements, does tend and fall: all things fall unto the earth; for the Fiat 2) is yet in the deep, and creates 3) all earthly essence together unto the judgement of God, for separation. 61. We mean not that the earth came wholly 4) from the place of the sun; but from the whole sphere, out of both the internal spiritual worlds; but it [i.e. our meaning] has another A B C, in that the earth belongs unto the judgement of God for separation; even then it shall be manifest wherefore it is said: it belongs unto the punctum of Sol. 1 Ad centrum Solis, to the centre of the sun. 2 Or creation. 3 Or draws or concretes. 4 Or only. 62. For the worst must be a cause of the best. The eternal joy consists in this: that we are delivered from pain. God has not eternally rejected his holy essence; but only the iniquity which mixed itself therein. But when the crystalline earth shall appear, then will be fulfilled this Saying: it appertains to the punctum of Sol. Here we have hinted enough to the understanding of our school-fellows; further we must here be silent. The Eleventh Chapter Of the Mystery of the Creation
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.
155. And the superior were likewise as weak and impotent as the inferior, if it were not enkindled by the light of the sun: the same is the heart of all external powers; and it is the open punctum even to the tenth number. If we were not so blind as to contemn all that we see not with our calves' eyes, it were right and requisite to reveal it; but seeing God has hidden the pearl, and also himself from the sight of the wicked, therefore we will let it alone. Yet hint enough to our school-fellows: we will not give our pearl unto beasts. 56. Thus we understand what the outward heaven is, namely the powers or conception of the water. The word or power Fiat, which began with the beginning of the world, is yet still a creating; 1) it yet continually creates the heaven out of the water: and the spirit of God still moves upon the water; and the holy water is yet continually separated from the water under the firmament. 57. This holy water is that of which Christ told us, that he would give us it to drink; that should spring up in us to a fountain of eternal life. The holy heavenly corporality does consist therein; it is the body of Christ which he brought from heaven; and by the same, introduced heavenly paradisical essentiality into our dead or decayed body; and quickened ours in his; understand, in the aim 2) of the covenant in the essence of Mary; as shall be mentioned hereafter.
258. In this heavenly essence the Testaments 3) of Christ do consist; and this holy essence of the heavenly holy virginity, with the holy tincture, has destroyed death; and bruised the head of the serpent's might in the wrath of God; for the divine power is the highest life therein. 1 Or creating. 2 Mark or limit. 3 Baptism, and the Supper. 59. Thus we understand how the holy heaven, wherein God dwells, moves in the Fiat or the created [heaven], and that God is really present in all places; and inhabits all things: but he is comprehended of nothing. He is manifest in power in the inward heaven of the holy essentiality, viz. in the element. This holy element (in the beginning or inchoation of the four elements) did penetrate through the earth; and sprang [or budded] forth in the holy power's property, and bore fruits, of which man should have eaten in a heavenly manner. But when it did disappear in man, the curse entered into the earth, and so Paradise was quashed in the four elements; and continued retired in itself in the inward [element]. There it stands yet open unto man, if any will depart from this world's essence and enter into it upon the path which Christ has made open.
360. The punctum of the whole created earth belonged unto the centre of Sol, 1) but [does] not any more, at present: he is fallen, he who was a king: the earth is in the curse, and [has] become a peculiar centre; whereunto all whatsoever is engendered in the vanity, in the four elements, does tend and fall: all things fall unto the earth; for the Fiat 2) is yet in the deep, and creates 3) all earthly essence together unto the judgement of God, for separation. 61. We mean not that the earth came wholly 4) from the place of the sun; but from the whole sphere, out of both the internal spiritual worlds; but it [i.e. our meaning] has another A B C, in that the earth belongs unto the judgement of God for separation; even then it shall be manifest wherefore it is said: it belongs unto the punctum of Sol. 1 Ad centrum Solis, to the centre of the sun. 2 Or creation. 3 Or draws or concretes. 4 Or only. 62. For the worst must be a cause of the best. The eternal joy consists in this: that we are delivered from pain. God has not eternally rejected his holy essence; but only the iniquity which mixed itself therein. But when the crystalline earth shall appear, then will be fulfilled this Saying: it appertains to the punctum of Sol. Here we have hinted enough to the understanding of our school-fellows; further we must here be silent. The Eleventh Chapter Of the Mystery of the Creation
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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