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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.
15. And seeing this love-desire was educed out of all the properties of nature and the heavens, viz. out of the Verbum Fiat, wherein all the creatures lay from eternity in a Mystery, and [was] introduced into a separation, viz. into a sundry distinct degree, therefore now the property longed to be an image of all degrees and properties, viz. a living, rational and understanding image, according to the manifestation of this manifested property. 6. Now said the speaking Word in the Verbum Fiat, Let us make man: that is, out of the mesh 1) of all essences, out of the property of all powers and constellations, the love-desire desired a limus out of all essences for a living image: An image that may be like and resemble Us: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air; over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every worm (or creeping thing) that creeps upon the earth. 1 Mass or mixture. 7. Understand this thus: The sixth property of nature (viz. the love-desire) was produced, expressed or breathed forth out of all the properties, and was the desirous life in the joy, viz. in the light of nature. This was not itself a limus, but it was the desire to the limus; for the speaking Word which God expressed moved therein, viz. the intellectual life. God was therein manifest.
28. This manifested word of God desired, in this love-desire, a limus out of the earth and all the created essences, out of all the constellations and degrees, for a body unto itself; therefore God said, an image that may rule overfish, fowl, beasts, worms, and over the earth, and all the essences of the constellations. Now, if it must have dominion therein, then it must be thereout; for each spirit rules in its mother whence it is arisen and proceeded; and eats of its mother. 9. But here we must rightly understand this love-desire in the expressed Word. The expressed Word had, in this Venus-desire, the desire of all heavens, that is, of all entities and properties in itself, viz. the properties of the inward spiritual holy heaven, which is the mansion of the power of God; and of the outward created heaven, with the heavens of all constellations and elements; yet not essentially [or in substance], but as a spiritual desire: and these properties desired, in the spiritual desire, to be essential. 10. Now the text in Moses speaks very clearly and fully, where it says, And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. By the creating is understood the body, which is twofold, viz. a spiritual body and a corporeal; for the Venus-desire is a spiritual body;
3and that which it has attracted unto itself in the Fiat into the desire of the spiritual body, that is a fleshly body. The Verbum Fiat itself did figurise and form it into a spiritual man, out of all the three Principles, viz. according to the inward divine world, both according to the fiery-light- world and the outward world. 11. And the spiritual body is the image of God, which the Fiat clothed with the essence out of all the essences, viz. with the heavenly holy essence, the heavenly holy corporality of the inward holy love-desire. And from the outward love-desire [it was clothed] with the limus of the earth and the other elements, together with the visible constellation of the third Principle. 12. The inward holy man was in the heaven of God, and the outward man was in the outward heaven, a limus of the outward heaven, and the inward man a limus of the holy spiritual heaven. Therefore says Moses very rightly, God created man in his image, to the image of God: for in betokens that he was known by the spirit of God in this essence from eternity in the Mystery of wisdom as a constellation of magical power. Into this knowledge God introduced the essence, and created the essence to the image of the magical image of God.
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.
15. And seeing this love-desire was educed out of all the properties of nature and the heavens, viz. out of the Verbum Fiat, wherein all the creatures lay from eternity in a Mystery, and [was] introduced into a separation, viz. into a sundry distinct degree, therefore now the property longed to be an image of all degrees and properties, viz. a living, rational and understanding image, according to the manifestation of this manifested property. 6. Now said the speaking Word in the Verbum Fiat, Let us make man: that is, out of the mesh 1) of all essences, out of the property of all powers and constellations, the love-desire desired a limus out of all essences for a living image: An image that may be like and resemble Us: and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air; over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every worm (or creeping thing) that creeps upon the earth. 1 Mass or mixture. 7. Understand this thus: The sixth property of nature (viz. the love-desire) was produced, expressed or breathed forth out of all the properties, and was the desirous life in the joy, viz. in the light of nature. This was not itself a limus, but it was the desire to the limus; for the speaking Word which God expressed moved therein, viz. the intellectual life. God was therein manifest.
28. This manifested word of God desired, in this love-desire, a limus out of the earth and all the created essences, out of all the constellations and degrees, for a body unto itself; therefore God said, an image that may rule overfish, fowl, beasts, worms, and over the earth, and all the essences of the constellations. Now, if it must have dominion therein, then it must be thereout; for each spirit rules in its mother whence it is arisen and proceeded; and eats of its mother. 9. But here we must rightly understand this love-desire in the expressed Word. The expressed Word had, in this Venus-desire, the desire of all heavens, that is, of all entities and properties in itself, viz. the properties of the inward spiritual holy heaven, which is the mansion of the power of God; and of the outward created heaven, with the heavens of all constellations and elements; yet not essentially [or in substance], but as a spiritual desire: and these properties desired, in the spiritual desire, to be essential. 10. Now the text in Moses speaks very clearly and fully, where it says, And God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him. By the creating is understood the body, which is twofold, viz. a spiritual body and a corporeal; for the Venus-desire is a spiritual body;
3and that which it has attracted unto itself in the Fiat into the desire of the spiritual body, that is a fleshly body. The Verbum Fiat itself did figurise and form it into a spiritual man, out of all the three Principles, viz. according to the inward divine world, both according to the fiery-light- world and the outward world. 11. And the spiritual body is the image of God, which the Fiat clothed with the essence out of all the essences, viz. with the heavenly holy essence, the heavenly holy corporality of the inward holy love-desire. And from the outward love-desire [it was clothed] with the limus of the earth and the other elements, together with the visible constellation of the third Principle. 12. The inward holy man was in the heaven of God, and the outward man was in the outward heaven, a limus of the outward heaven, and the inward man a limus of the holy spiritual heaven. Therefore says Moses very rightly, God created man in his image, to the image of God: for in betokens that he was known by the spirit of God in this essence from eternity in the Mystery of wisdom as a constellation of magical power. Into this knowledge God introduced the essence, and created the essence to the image of the magical image of God.
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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