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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.
111. After the astrum 2) are the four elements, which also have their original out of this fountain; which also have their spiration [or outbreathing] out of themselves; they also speak forth their properties out of themselves, and they are as a body of the stars. For they speak or breathe forth from themselves a corporeal essence; and the stars do breathe forth a spiritual essence out of themselves: and this twofold essence rules mutually in the visible world, as body and soul. 1 Or by, or with. 2 Next the stars. 12. And we give you this rightly to understand: In each element there lies a whole astrum; the fire has a whole astrum in itself; and also the air, water, and earth, but it is not manifest in them. Therefore God has enclosed [or encircled] the place of this world with a manifest astrum, that it might enkindle the other astrum in the four elements, that the manifest astrum might work in the hidden mystery, viz. in the astrum of the four elements, and procreate wonders. For so a wonderful figure and property may be produced out of a thing, which otherwise is impossible for nature to do, in its own [naked] self. 13. Also we are to know, that there is an astrum in the divine magic, which is the fountain of the eternal mind of the abyss, whence nature and all essences are arisen. Likewise there is an astrum in the manifest heavenly world, and also an astrum in the dark hellish world.
2And these astrums 1) are but one only astrum, but they are severised into distinct degrees and principles; that which in the outward world is open and manifest in the figure, the same is manifest in power in the spiritual world, and not in forms. 1 Or constellations. 14. And we understand, that the Verbum Fiat on the fourth day moved the fourth property of nature, viz. the fifth essence, and opened it out of the sulphureous property out of the fire-flagrat, viz. out of the third property. And thus an astrum became manifest in the air, which are the visible stars; and an astrum in the fire, which is the rational life of all creatures; and an astrum in the water, which is the vegetative life; and an astrum in the earth, which is the wrathful earthly life. 15. The fiery [astrum] gives soul; and the airy, spirit; the watery affords the mansion of the soul and the spirit, viz. blood, wherein the tincture of the fire and light dwells; and the earthly gives flesh. And every of the four astrums gives a spirit and body according to its property. Only, God has thus associated one unto another, that the one might be manifest in the other, and be jointly together one body; like as all the four elements are only one element, but they divide themselves into four properties according to the centre of nature.
316. Therefore astrums do procreate out of themselves their officer, viz. the outward nature, that is, the soul of the outward world, as a constantly enduring mind; wherein lies the omnipotency, as a manifest Great Mystery. In this officer God has awakened and raised a king, or as I might set it down by way of similitude, a nature-god, with six councillors, which are his assistants; that is, the sun, with the other six planetic stars, which were spoken forth out of the seven properties out of the place of Sol; and in the speaking were introduced into a rolling sphere, according to the property of the eternal generation in the centre of nature. And this was opened in seven degrees out of the birth; where the first degree of the motion in the light of nature, (from the inward spiritual fire-and-light- world), was the sun, which receives its lustre from the tincture of the inward fire-and-lightworld: it stands as an opened punctum to the fire-world. See Threefold Life of Man, ch. 4: pars. 16-49.
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.
111. After the astrum 2) are the four elements, which also have their original out of this fountain; which also have their spiration [or outbreathing] out of themselves; they also speak forth their properties out of themselves, and they are as a body of the stars. For they speak or breathe forth from themselves a corporeal essence; and the stars do breathe forth a spiritual essence out of themselves: and this twofold essence rules mutually in the visible world, as body and soul. 1 Or by, or with. 2 Next the stars. 12. And we give you this rightly to understand: In each element there lies a whole astrum; the fire has a whole astrum in itself; and also the air, water, and earth, but it is not manifest in them. Therefore God has enclosed [or encircled] the place of this world with a manifest astrum, that it might enkindle the other astrum in the four elements, that the manifest astrum might work in the hidden mystery, viz. in the astrum of the four elements, and procreate wonders. For so a wonderful figure and property may be produced out of a thing, which otherwise is impossible for nature to do, in its own [naked] self. 13. Also we are to know, that there is an astrum in the divine magic, which is the fountain of the eternal mind of the abyss, whence nature and all essences are arisen. Likewise there is an astrum in the manifest heavenly world, and also an astrum in the dark hellish world.
2And these astrums 1) are but one only astrum, but they are severised into distinct degrees and principles; that which in the outward world is open and manifest in the figure, the same is manifest in power in the spiritual world, and not in forms. 1 Or constellations. 14. And we understand, that the Verbum Fiat on the fourth day moved the fourth property of nature, viz. the fifth essence, and opened it out of the sulphureous property out of the fire-flagrat, viz. out of the third property. And thus an astrum became manifest in the air, which are the visible stars; and an astrum in the fire, which is the rational life of all creatures; and an astrum in the water, which is the vegetative life; and an astrum in the earth, which is the wrathful earthly life. 15. The fiery [astrum] gives soul; and the airy, spirit; the watery affords the mansion of the soul and the spirit, viz. blood, wherein the tincture of the fire and light dwells; and the earthly gives flesh. And every of the four astrums gives a spirit and body according to its property. Only, God has thus associated one unto another, that the one might be manifest in the other, and be jointly together one body; like as all the four elements are only one element, but they divide themselves into four properties according to the centre of nature.
316. Therefore astrums do procreate out of themselves their officer, viz. the outward nature, that is, the soul of the outward world, as a constantly enduring mind; wherein lies the omnipotency, as a manifest Great Mystery. In this officer God has awakened and raised a king, or as I might set it down by way of similitude, a nature-god, with six councillors, which are his assistants; that is, the sun, with the other six planetic stars, which were spoken forth out of the seven properties out of the place of Sol; and in the speaking were introduced into a rolling sphere, according to the property of the eternal generation in the centre of nature. And this was opened in seven degrees out of the birth; where the first degree of the motion in the light of nature, (from the inward spiritual fire-and-light- world), was the sun, which receives its lustre from the tincture of the inward fire-and-lightworld: it stands as an opened punctum to the fire-world. See Threefold Life of Man, ch. 4: pars. 16-49.
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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