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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.
121. for man was, on the sixth day, taken and created unto a divine likeness and image in the sixth manifestation of the seven properties of the divine harmonious manifestation in the expressed power, which has diffused and manifested itself through the fifth property, viz. through the fiery love-desire. His true life's-centre was the fifth property of the eternal nature, viz. the fiery love-desire; which held the fire and darkness hidden [or shut up] in itself, and used it to its joy and delight. 22. But it is very needful for us to understand aright in this place, whence the desire to fall away from the equal accord did arise, both in the hierarch Lucifer, and also in Adam, the second hierarch or royal prince in the divine image. 23. When the eternal only God once moved himself through the eternal spiritual nature, viz. in the eternal great abyssal Mystery, and comprised [or amassed] this Mystery into a circumference or place, to manifest his great wonders; and introduced the eternal wisdom into a formal visible contemplation, and manifested all the seven properties of the inward eternal spiritual world, and introduced them into a creation of the angels; then all the properties were moved and affected and each desired to be in a creatural form, in the place, so far as the Verbum Fiat had put itself forth [or given itself in] to motion and manifestation.
224. And the angelical princes also, with their legions, were taken and created out of the properties in the Verbum Fiat, even from the first centre where the eternal lubet betakes itself into a desire, and introduces itself into nature, unto the most external manifestation, each hierarchy in its heaven or property. 25. But seeing Lucifer was, in his creation or formation of the properties, apprehended in the Principle of the property where the enkindling fire arises, where the light is manifest, thereupon he became so aspiring in himself as the most mighty prince; and being in the root of his creatural original he understood the great magical constellation, viz. the Mystery of the ground of all being, but yet in the dark property, which yet was now moved and affected; which magical constellation also desired to be [or would be] manifest and creatural in the dark world, thereupon it set its desire upon this mighty prince and hierarch. 26. And he, Lucifer, turned himself away from the divine light into the fiery Mystery, towards the darkness, whence the fire arises. And so the magical astrum of the Grand Mystery of the dark world apprehended him; for his desire, which the Verbum Fiat had extroduced through the fire in the light, turned itself back again thereinto, and would be like the creator of all beings, and change himself and the essence according to his own pleasure.
327. Thus he contemned the meekness in the light, viz. the second Principle, which [arises] through the fire-death, (where the wrath, of the spiritual essentiality of the wrathful dark property, dies in the fire; and out of which death of devoration the second Principle, viz. the holy love-world of great meekness and humility, is generated), and went back into the first Principle, viz. In magiam naturae, into the original of the eternal nature; and would be an omniscient artist: he would rule and domineer in and above the whole creation, and be a co-former in all properties. 28. Thus the light was extinct to him, for he made his angelical essence, which stood in great meekness and in fiery love-desire, wholly rough, austere, cold, wrathful and fiery, in the dark wrathful property; and the properties of enmity instantly arose in him, for in the light they could not be manifest; but when the light extinguished they were manifest, and he became a devil; and was driven out of the angelical world, out of his own heaven of the second Principle. 29. Thus we are to know, that the fall befell him from his creature, for he had not turned away his creatural desire from the divine meekness and love, in pride and stubborn will, to rule in the matrix of the pregnatress, which took him as a player, he had remained an angel. Had he continued under God's love-spirit and will, then his anger-spirit and will had not captivated him.
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.
121. for man was, on the sixth day, taken and created unto a divine likeness and image in the sixth manifestation of the seven properties of the divine harmonious manifestation in the expressed power, which has diffused and manifested itself through the fifth property, viz. through the fiery love-desire. His true life's-centre was the fifth property of the eternal nature, viz. the fiery love-desire; which held the fire and darkness hidden [or shut up] in itself, and used it to its joy and delight. 22. But it is very needful for us to understand aright in this place, whence the desire to fall away from the equal accord did arise, both in the hierarch Lucifer, and also in Adam, the second hierarch or royal prince in the divine image. 23. When the eternal only God once moved himself through the eternal spiritual nature, viz. in the eternal great abyssal Mystery, and comprised [or amassed] this Mystery into a circumference or place, to manifest his great wonders; and introduced the eternal wisdom into a formal visible contemplation, and manifested all the seven properties of the inward eternal spiritual world, and introduced them into a creation of the angels; then all the properties were moved and affected and each desired to be in a creatural form, in the place, so far as the Verbum Fiat had put itself forth [or given itself in] to motion and manifestation.
224. And the angelical princes also, with their legions, were taken and created out of the properties in the Verbum Fiat, even from the first centre where the eternal lubet betakes itself into a desire, and introduces itself into nature, unto the most external manifestation, each hierarchy in its heaven or property. 25. But seeing Lucifer was, in his creation or formation of the properties, apprehended in the Principle of the property where the enkindling fire arises, where the light is manifest, thereupon he became so aspiring in himself as the most mighty prince; and being in the root of his creatural original he understood the great magical constellation, viz. the Mystery of the ground of all being, but yet in the dark property, which yet was now moved and affected; which magical constellation also desired to be [or would be] manifest and creatural in the dark world, thereupon it set its desire upon this mighty prince and hierarch. 26. And he, Lucifer, turned himself away from the divine light into the fiery Mystery, towards the darkness, whence the fire arises. And so the magical astrum of the Grand Mystery of the dark world apprehended him; for his desire, which the Verbum Fiat had extroduced through the fire in the light, turned itself back again thereinto, and would be like the creator of all beings, and change himself and the essence according to his own pleasure.
327. Thus he contemned the meekness in the light, viz. the second Principle, which [arises] through the fire-death, (where the wrath, of the spiritual essentiality of the wrathful dark property, dies in the fire; and out of which death of devoration the second Principle, viz. the holy love-world of great meekness and humility, is generated), and went back into the first Principle, viz. In magiam naturae, into the original of the eternal nature; and would be an omniscient artist: he would rule and domineer in and above the whole creation, and be a co-former in all properties. 28. Thus the light was extinct to him, for he made his angelical essence, which stood in great meekness and in fiery love-desire, wholly rough, austere, cold, wrathful and fiery, in the dark wrathful property; and the properties of enmity instantly arose in him, for in the light they could not be manifest; but when the light extinguished they were manifest, and he became a devil; and was driven out of the angelical world, out of his own heaven of the second Principle. 29. Thus we are to know, that the fall befell him from his creature, for he had not turned away his creatural desire from the divine meekness and love, in pride and stubborn will, to rule in the matrix of the pregnatress, which took him as a player, he had remained an angel. Had he continued under God's love-spirit and will, then his anger-spirit and will had not captivated him.
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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