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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.
1all earthly fruit was manifest therein. Therefore Moses distinguishes the Tree, and says, the Tree of Life; thereby he understands the property of the eternal life in the Tree, viz. the second Principle. And by the words, of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, he understands [means] the wrath of the anger of God, which was manifest by the essence of the outward world, in earthliness in this Tree, of which Adam should not eat; for he should have eaten [or eat] with the inward mouth, and not with the earthly desire but with the heavenly; for he had such fruit growing for him which the inward mouth could enjoy; indeed the outward mouth did also eat thereof; but not into the worm's carcass. 14. For as the light swallows [avalleth] up the darkness, so the celestial swallowed up the terrestrial, and changed it again into that whence it proceeded; or as the eternity swallows up the time, and in it is as a nothing. So likewise there were two centres in Adam's mouth. For the kingdom of God stands in power; and Adam also, before his Eve, stood in the kingdom of God, for he was male and female, with both divine heavenly tinctures; and neither the fire's nor the light's tincture or desire should be manifest in him, for they should stand in equal weight [in the true temperature] resigned in [or to] God.
215. But in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil the properties, viz. of God's love and anger, and also the earthliness (as it is at this day in the curse), were peculiarly manifest, each in itself, and did eagerly put themselves forth; that is, they were departed out of the likeness, out of the equal harmonious accord. And all the three Principles were each of them in an especial manner manifest in this Tree, and therefore Moses calls it, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 16. Reason says, Wherefore did God suffer this Tree to grow, seeing man should not eat thereof? Did he not bring it forth for the fall of man? And must it not needs be the cause of man's destruction? This is that about which the high schools contend, and understand it not; for they go about to seek and apprehend the inward in the outward, and it remains hidden and dead unto them, they understand not what man is. 17. Man, according to body and soul, was created out of all the three Principles; and was placed in the Principles, in the properties of the inward and outward world, in equal number, weight and measure; none of the Principles did exceed the other; there was an agreeing harmony; the divine light tempered all the properties, so that there was a mutual melody and play of unanimous love between them.
318. The fiery dark- world rejoiced in the holy light- world, and the light- world in the outward [world], as in its manifestation. Again, the outward world joyed itself in both the inward worlds; as in its life; and there was a mere pleasing harmonious will, pleasure and sweet delight between them. The Mercury, viz. the sounding, hearing and feeling life, viz. the manifestation of the divine Word in the Fiat, did mutually penetrate all essences, in a very exceeding joyful property. 19. The property or essence of all the three worlds reached with the desire after the light [or set their desire upon the light] ; and in the light the expressed Word was holy. This holy Word gave its power and virtue to the sound of the inward dark fire- world; and also into the sound of the outward elemental world, viz. it gave itself into the inward fiery Word or life, and also into the outward earthly life. 20. Thus the holy divine Word was predominant through all the three Principles of the human property, and there was an equal accord; and no enmity or opposite will was manifest between the Principles, but a mere harmonious affection and inclination of will, pleasing relish, ravishing melody, sweet smell, a friendly smiling, and most pleasant aspect, a meek and kind sense, and mutual fruition of delight.
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.
1all earthly fruit was manifest therein. Therefore Moses distinguishes the Tree, and says, the Tree of Life; thereby he understands the property of the eternal life in the Tree, viz. the second Principle. And by the words, of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil, he understands [means] the wrath of the anger of God, which was manifest by the essence of the outward world, in earthliness in this Tree, of which Adam should not eat; for he should have eaten [or eat] with the inward mouth, and not with the earthly desire but with the heavenly; for he had such fruit growing for him which the inward mouth could enjoy; indeed the outward mouth did also eat thereof; but not into the worm's carcass. 14. For as the light swallows [avalleth] up the darkness, so the celestial swallowed up the terrestrial, and changed it again into that whence it proceeded; or as the eternity swallows up the time, and in it is as a nothing. So likewise there were two centres in Adam's mouth. For the kingdom of God stands in power; and Adam also, before his Eve, stood in the kingdom of God, for he was male and female, with both divine heavenly tinctures; and neither the fire's nor the light's tincture or desire should be manifest in him, for they should stand in equal weight [in the true temperature] resigned in [or to] God.
215. But in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil the properties, viz. of God's love and anger, and also the earthliness (as it is at this day in the curse), were peculiarly manifest, each in itself, and did eagerly put themselves forth; that is, they were departed out of the likeness, out of the equal harmonious accord. And all the three Principles were each of them in an especial manner manifest in this Tree, and therefore Moses calls it, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 16. Reason says, Wherefore did God suffer this Tree to grow, seeing man should not eat thereof? Did he not bring it forth for the fall of man? And must it not needs be the cause of man's destruction? This is that about which the high schools contend, and understand it not; for they go about to seek and apprehend the inward in the outward, and it remains hidden and dead unto them, they understand not what man is. 17. Man, according to body and soul, was created out of all the three Principles; and was placed in the Principles, in the properties of the inward and outward world, in equal number, weight and measure; none of the Principles did exceed the other; there was an agreeing harmony; the divine light tempered all the properties, so that there was a mutual melody and play of unanimous love between them.
318. The fiery dark- world rejoiced in the holy light- world, and the light- world in the outward [world], as in its manifestation. Again, the outward world joyed itself in both the inward worlds; as in its life; and there was a mere pleasing harmonious will, pleasure and sweet delight between them. The Mercury, viz. the sounding, hearing and feeling life, viz. the manifestation of the divine Word in the Fiat, did mutually penetrate all essences, in a very exceeding joyful property. 19. The property or essence of all the three worlds reached with the desire after the light [or set their desire upon the light] ; and in the light the expressed Word was holy. This holy Word gave its power and virtue to the sound of the inward dark fire- world; and also into the sound of the outward elemental world, viz. it gave itself into the inward fiery Word or life, and also into the outward earthly life. 20. Thus the holy divine Word was predominant through all the three Principles of the human property, and there was an equal accord; and no enmity or opposite will was manifest between the Principles, but a mere harmonious affection and inclination of will, pleasing relish, ravishing melody, sweet smell, a friendly smiling, and most pleasant aspect, a meek and kind sense, and mutual fruition of delight.
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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