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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.
130. But seeing he has freely and willingly broken himself off from God's love-will, he has now God's anger-will in him, wherein he must be a manifestor and worker of the dark world's property, for it also would be creatural. Here it has a right captive,that can artificially act in ape's-sport; and now, as the dark world is in its property in its desire such also is its hierach or creatural prince. 31. And here it is very requisite for us to know aright how man came to fall. Man was created in the stead and place of extruded Lucifer, understand the inward spiritual man. He wa created in the same heaven, according to the inward human soul, and should possess the hierarchy which Lucifer had lost; and hence the devil's envy against man is arisen. 32. But seeing God did well know that the devil would tempt him, and not beteem him that honour, the deepest love of God (viz. the high name Jesus out of JEHOVAH) has freely given itself herein, to regenerate this hierarchy which Lucifer had defiled; and to purge it through the fire, and to introduce his highest love thereinto; and to overcome the wrath (which Lucifer had awakened) with love, and change it again into divine joy, viz. into a holy heaven; in which place the Last judgement stands [or unto which end the Last judgement is appointed]. And this is that which Saint Paul says, Man was chosen [or elected] in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was laid.
233. And for this end God created man out of three Principles in one, that [being] he did not live wholly in the place of Lucifer, that so he might help him. for God saw very well, according to the property of his wrath, that man would fall; but he would bring him again through and in the name Jesus through the corruptible death, into the royal kingdom whence Lucifer was fallen; in whose stead the man Christ, God and man in one person, should sit as a hierarch, high priest, or the great prince of men, in the name and power of Jesus out of JEHOVAH. 34. Therefore we are here rightly to consider of the fall of man, how he stood in Paradise and was tempted, and what the Paradise was. Man stood in three Principles, which indeed stood in man himself; viz. in body and soul, in equal accord and harmony; but not [so] without him, for the dark- world has another desire than the light-world; so also the outward world has another desire than the dark-and-light-world. Now the image of God stood between three Principles, all which three did set their desire upon this image, each would be manifest in Adam, and have him in their dominion for a ruler, and manifest their wonders through him. 35. But he, man, should have introduced his desire only into the sixth property of the divine manifestation, wherein he was created to an image of God;
3he should be wholly resigned to God; he should live only in the manifested divine Word, obedience to God, and not enter into [his] own will, but introduce his desire into God's will, viz. into the sixth property; that so the manifested Word of God might be his will, knowing, and doing: even as the holy angels do so live and rejoice only in the divine will, and melodise in the Holy Ghost, as he does open and manifest himself in them, according to the divine wisdom; and thus they live, will and act with a child-like mind and will. 36. Paradise, or the garden in Eden, did indeed stand with its properties in equal concord as to man. But the properties were in themselves an awakened hunger, each in itself; which verily the divine light did again introduce into a temperature. But the devil, in his enkindled envy, opposed man, and insinuated his venomous imagination into the human property, and enkindled the human properties in the centre in the first Principle of the soul's property, wherein the soul stands in like essence and being with the angels and devils.
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.
130. But seeing he has freely and willingly broken himself off from God's love-will, he has now God's anger-will in him, wherein he must be a manifestor and worker of the dark world's property, for it also would be creatural. Here it has a right captive,that can artificially act in ape's-sport; and now, as the dark world is in its property in its desire such also is its hierach or creatural prince. 31. And here it is very requisite for us to know aright how man came to fall. Man was created in the stead and place of extruded Lucifer, understand the inward spiritual man. He wa created in the same heaven, according to the inward human soul, and should possess the hierarchy which Lucifer had lost; and hence the devil's envy against man is arisen. 32. But seeing God did well know that the devil would tempt him, and not beteem him that honour, the deepest love of God (viz. the high name Jesus out of JEHOVAH) has freely given itself herein, to regenerate this hierarchy which Lucifer had defiled; and to purge it through the fire, and to introduce his highest love thereinto; and to overcome the wrath (which Lucifer had awakened) with love, and change it again into divine joy, viz. into a holy heaven; in which place the Last judgement stands [or unto which end the Last judgement is appointed]. And this is that which Saint Paul says, Man was chosen [or elected] in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was laid.
233. And for this end God created man out of three Principles in one, that [being] he did not live wholly in the place of Lucifer, that so he might help him. for God saw very well, according to the property of his wrath, that man would fall; but he would bring him again through and in the name Jesus through the corruptible death, into the royal kingdom whence Lucifer was fallen; in whose stead the man Christ, God and man in one person, should sit as a hierarch, high priest, or the great prince of men, in the name and power of Jesus out of JEHOVAH. 34. Therefore we are here rightly to consider of the fall of man, how he stood in Paradise and was tempted, and what the Paradise was. Man stood in three Principles, which indeed stood in man himself; viz. in body and soul, in equal accord and harmony; but not [so] without him, for the dark- world has another desire than the light-world; so also the outward world has another desire than the dark-and-light-world. Now the image of God stood between three Principles, all which three did set their desire upon this image, each would be manifest in Adam, and have him in their dominion for a ruler, and manifest their wonders through him. 35. But he, man, should have introduced his desire only into the sixth property of the divine manifestation, wherein he was created to an image of God;
3he should be wholly resigned to God; he should live only in the manifested divine Word, obedience to God, and not enter into [his] own will, but introduce his desire into God's will, viz. into the sixth property; that so the manifested Word of God might be his will, knowing, and doing: even as the holy angels do so live and rejoice only in the divine will, and melodise in the Holy Ghost, as he does open and manifest himself in them, according to the divine wisdom; and thus they live, will and act with a child-like mind and will. 36. Paradise, or the garden in Eden, did indeed stand with its properties in equal concord as to man. But the properties were in themselves an awakened hunger, each in itself; which verily the divine light did again introduce into a temperature. But the devil, in his enkindled envy, opposed man, and insinuated his venomous imagination into the human property, and enkindled the human properties in the centre in the first Principle of the soul's property, wherein the soul stands in like essence and being with the angels and devils.
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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