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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.
19. And the magical impregnation [or conception] and birth did stand in this fiery love-desire, for the tincture penetrated through both essences, through the inward and outward, and did awaken (or stir up) the desire; and the desire was the Fiat, which the love-lubet [or imagination] took [conceived], and brought into a substance. Thus the likeness of the express image was formed in this substance, being a spiritual image according to the first. [Just] as the Fiat had conceived and formed the first image, viz. Adam, so also the likeness was conceived out of the first for propagation; and in this conception the magical birth was also forthwith (effected), where, in the birth, the spiritual body became external. 10. Understand, if it had been that Adam had stood in the trial, then the magical birth had been thus [effected] : not by a sundry peculiar issue from Adam's body, as now, but as the sun throughshines the water, and rends or tears it not. Even so [in like manner] the spiritual body, viz. the birth, had been brought forth, and in its coming forth had become substantial, without pains, care and distress, in a great joyfulness and delight, in a manner as both seeds of man and woman do receive in their conjunction a pleasant aspect. Even so also the magical impregnation and birth, had been a virginlike image, wholly perfect according to the first.
211. Which afterwards, when Venus' s matrix was taken from Adam, and formed into a woman, must be done through anguish, trouble, smart, pangs and distress; as God said to Eve, / will multiply your sorrows when you conceive, you shall now bring forth children with sorrow, and your will shall be subject to your husband. Wherefore? Because it was sprung forth from the man's will. Eve was half the Adam, viz. the part wherein Adam should have loved and impregnated himself; the same, when as he stood not, was taken from him in his sleep, and formed into a woman: therefore when Adam saw her, he said, She shall be called woman, because she is taken out of man. 12. Man should have walked naked upon the earth, for the heavenly [part] penetrated the outward, and was his clothing. He stood in great beauty, glory, joy and delight, in a child-like mind; he should have eaten and drunk in a magical manner; not into the body, as now, but in the mouth there was the separation; for so likewise was the fruit of Paradise. 13. All things were made for his sport and delight; no sleep was in him; in or to him the night was as the day; for he saw with pure eyes in peculiar light [in his own genuine innate light] .
3The inward man, viz. the inward eye, saw through the outward; as we in the other world shall need no sun, for we [shall] see in the divine sight, in the light of the peculiar nature. No heat nor cold had touched them; there had also no winter been manifest upon the earth, for in Paradise there was an equal temperature. 14. The tincture of the earth had been their delight and pastime; they had had all metals for their play, until the time that God had changed the outward world: no fear or terror had been in them, also no law from anything or to anything; for all had been free unto them. Adam had been their chief prince; and they had lived in the world and also in heaven, inhabiting in both worlds at once; Paradise had been through the whole world. 15. But seeing the divine providence did well know that Adam would not stand, seeing the earth was corrupted by its former prince; in that the wrath of God had moved itself; and amassed [or took] the essence into an impression; therefore God created all manner of fruits and beasts, also all sorts of medicines [ or sovereign healing] for the future sickness of man; and likewise all kinds of meat, that the man might have food, and raiment also in this world.
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.
19. And the magical impregnation [or conception] and birth did stand in this fiery love-desire, for the tincture penetrated through both essences, through the inward and outward, and did awaken (or stir up) the desire; and the desire was the Fiat, which the love-lubet [or imagination] took [conceived], and brought into a substance. Thus the likeness of the express image was formed in this substance, being a spiritual image according to the first. [Just] as the Fiat had conceived and formed the first image, viz. Adam, so also the likeness was conceived out of the first for propagation; and in this conception the magical birth was also forthwith (effected), where, in the birth, the spiritual body became external. 10. Understand, if it had been that Adam had stood in the trial, then the magical birth had been thus [effected] : not by a sundry peculiar issue from Adam's body, as now, but as the sun throughshines the water, and rends or tears it not. Even so [in like manner] the spiritual body, viz. the birth, had been brought forth, and in its coming forth had become substantial, without pains, care and distress, in a great joyfulness and delight, in a manner as both seeds of man and woman do receive in their conjunction a pleasant aspect. Even so also the magical impregnation and birth, had been a virginlike image, wholly perfect according to the first.
211. Which afterwards, when Venus' s matrix was taken from Adam, and formed into a woman, must be done through anguish, trouble, smart, pangs and distress; as God said to Eve, / will multiply your sorrows when you conceive, you shall now bring forth children with sorrow, and your will shall be subject to your husband. Wherefore? Because it was sprung forth from the man's will. Eve was half the Adam, viz. the part wherein Adam should have loved and impregnated himself; the same, when as he stood not, was taken from him in his sleep, and formed into a woman: therefore when Adam saw her, he said, She shall be called woman, because she is taken out of man. 12. Man should have walked naked upon the earth, for the heavenly [part] penetrated the outward, and was his clothing. He stood in great beauty, glory, joy and delight, in a child-like mind; he should have eaten and drunk in a magical manner; not into the body, as now, but in the mouth there was the separation; for so likewise was the fruit of Paradise. 13. All things were made for his sport and delight; no sleep was in him; in or to him the night was as the day; for he saw with pure eyes in peculiar light [in his own genuine innate light] .
3The inward man, viz. the inward eye, saw through the outward; as we in the other world shall need no sun, for we [shall] see in the divine sight, in the light of the peculiar nature. No heat nor cold had touched them; there had also no winter been manifest upon the earth, for in Paradise there was an equal temperature. 14. The tincture of the earth had been their delight and pastime; they had had all metals for their play, until the time that God had changed the outward world: no fear or terror had been in them, also no law from anything or to anything; for all had been free unto them. Adam had been their chief prince; and they had lived in the world and also in heaven, inhabiting in both worlds at once; Paradise had been through the whole world. 15. But seeing the divine providence did well know that Adam would not stand, seeing the earth was corrupted by its former prince; in that the wrath of God had moved itself; and amassed [or took] the essence into an impression; therefore God created all manner of fruits and beasts, also all sorts of medicines [ or sovereign healing] for the future sickness of man; and likewise all kinds of meat, that the man might have food, and raiment also in this world.
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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