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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.
13. And we see, that each kind has a spirit and body according to the degree of its astrum; for we understand, that out of one astrum many kinds of creatures do proceed: the cause whereof is that each astrum has again its degrees in itself. For there is in each astrum whatsoever all the astra have; but yet in sundry distinct degrees in the manifestation; and therefore the properties in each astrum are manifold: so also divers sorts of creatures are proceeded from each astrum. The spirit of each kind is from the astrum, but all kinds must use the four elements; for they arise out of that fountain whence all the astra do originally proceed. 4. On the fifth day Jupiter has the dominion of the first hour of the day among the planets; and that, because he has his original in the creation of the astrum out of the fifth degree of nature, viz. out of the power of the sulphureous and salnitral oil; and that on the fifth day this Jovial property was opened and educed, out of the fourth day's property, as a pleasant powerful life out of all the constellations; unto which life God created all creatures, except man, each out of the property of his constellation, out of his degree. So that they might all live in the soul of the outward nature, and be under the government of one officer; which is the outward constellation wherein the sun is chief regent.
25. Each constellation has its compaction of Sulphur and Mercury; the Sulphur gives essence, and Mercurius gives spirit into the essence; and from both these Sal is generated, viz. out of the sharp Fiat according to the property of Sulphur and Mercury. And out of these three properties, viz. out of Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal, all creatures entered into a life and creatural being. And now such as the Sulphur was on each place in every punctum in the property, as was taken or conceived in the Fiat, in the motion of the fifth property, in all the elements, even such a creature was opened or brought forth. As the compaction was coagulated in each punctum, so each kind had its spirit and seed in itself to generate and bring forth again. 6. The two sexes, viz. the male and its female, arise from the separation of the watery and fiery tincture in Sulphur, for the separation was in the Verbum Fiat, where, out of one sulphur, in one only punctum, two sexes came forth out of one essence, viz. the fiery property in itself to a male, and the light's or water's property to a female, where then both tinctures severed. 7. And as we see that the fire cannot burn without the water, and the water were a nothing without the fire, and they mutually beget one another, and also do again vehemently desire each other; and their right life consists in their conjunction, in that they have produced each other, and afterwards do enter into and mutually embrace each other as one;
3where also they are again changed in the fire into one; and yet do again proceed forth from the fire in one essence, viz. in an oleous property, in which they stand in the bond of the highest lovedesire; for their light shines in the oil. And as the fire-world desires the light-world, and the light-world the fire-world, as father and son, the like also is to be understood of the two sexes. 8. The female is from the male, as the tincture of the light and water is from the fire; and they jointly belong together in nature as one. Thus the one may not be without the other, and they have a very ardent longing after each other, for the tincture of the light, viz. Venus's tincture desires the fire's tincture, and the fire the light's, as its pleasing 1) delight. 1 Meekning. 9. For Venus gives essence, and the fire takes the essence to its life, and yields out of the received essence the light; and in the fiery light the oil, and out of the oil again the water and essence. And hence it is that all creatures do desire copulation, each with its own kind; and so they do generate a third, viz. an assimulate, according to two in one: every ens brings forth a similitude according to itself.
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.
13. And we see, that each kind has a spirit and body according to the degree of its astrum; for we understand, that out of one astrum many kinds of creatures do proceed: the cause whereof is that each astrum has again its degrees in itself. For there is in each astrum whatsoever all the astra have; but yet in sundry distinct degrees in the manifestation; and therefore the properties in each astrum are manifold: so also divers sorts of creatures are proceeded from each astrum. The spirit of each kind is from the astrum, but all kinds must use the four elements; for they arise out of that fountain whence all the astra do originally proceed. 4. On the fifth day Jupiter has the dominion of the first hour of the day among the planets; and that, because he has his original in the creation of the astrum out of the fifth degree of nature, viz. out of the power of the sulphureous and salnitral oil; and that on the fifth day this Jovial property was opened and educed, out of the fourth day's property, as a pleasant powerful life out of all the constellations; unto which life God created all creatures, except man, each out of the property of his constellation, out of his degree. So that they might all live in the soul of the outward nature, and be under the government of one officer; which is the outward constellation wherein the sun is chief regent.
25. Each constellation has its compaction of Sulphur and Mercury; the Sulphur gives essence, and Mercurius gives spirit into the essence; and from both these Sal is generated, viz. out of the sharp Fiat according to the property of Sulphur and Mercury. And out of these three properties, viz. out of Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal, all creatures entered into a life and creatural being. And now such as the Sulphur was on each place in every punctum in the property, as was taken or conceived in the Fiat, in the motion of the fifth property, in all the elements, even such a creature was opened or brought forth. As the compaction was coagulated in each punctum, so each kind had its spirit and seed in itself to generate and bring forth again. 6. The two sexes, viz. the male and its female, arise from the separation of the watery and fiery tincture in Sulphur, for the separation was in the Verbum Fiat, where, out of one sulphur, in one only punctum, two sexes came forth out of one essence, viz. the fiery property in itself to a male, and the light's or water's property to a female, where then both tinctures severed. 7. And as we see that the fire cannot burn without the water, and the water were a nothing without the fire, and they mutually beget one another, and also do again vehemently desire each other; and their right life consists in their conjunction, in that they have produced each other, and afterwards do enter into and mutually embrace each other as one;
3where also they are again changed in the fire into one; and yet do again proceed forth from the fire in one essence, viz. in an oleous property, in which they stand in the bond of the highest lovedesire; for their light shines in the oil. And as the fire-world desires the light-world, and the light-world the fire-world, as father and son, the like also is to be understood of the two sexes. 8. The female is from the male, as the tincture of the light and water is from the fire; and they jointly belong together in nature as one. Thus the one may not be without the other, and they have a very ardent longing after each other, for the tincture of the light, viz. Venus's tincture desires the fire's tincture, and the fire the light's, as its pleasing 1) delight. 1 Meekning. 9. For Venus gives essence, and the fire takes the essence to its life, and yields out of the received essence the light; and in the fiery light the oil, and out of the oil again the water and essence. And hence it is that all creatures do desire copulation, each with its own kind; and so they do generate a third, viz. an assimulate, according to two in one: every ens brings forth a similitude according to itself.
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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