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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.
116. Thus the female property was, in the Fiat, extracted out of Adam's essence, as his dearest rose-garden, and he kept the limbus, heavenly and earthly [celestial and terrestrial], according to the eternal Father's manifested property, viz. the fire-soul's matrix's property; and the woman [kept] the part of the spirit's soul's property; the woman had the centre of the angelical world in her disappeared part of the soul-like property, viz. the manifested loveword, viz. the fifth property of the eternal nature; and the man had in his limbus the divine fire-world, viz. the centre of the light-world, the centre of all essences. 17. The man's limbus, which he kept when the woman was made out of him, was the Father's property, according to all essences; and the woman out of [or proceed from] the man was the Son's property, according to all essences, understand, the heavenly part [both of the limbus and matrix]. Therefore Christ became man in the woman's part, and brought the man's part again into the holy matrix, so that the limbus and the female matrix were again one image [or person], viz. a manly virgin, above and in all the three Principles, as a creatural-formed God, in whom the eternal unformed God dwelt, with universal fullness, both in the formed, and outside the formed [divine creature or God-man] . for thus was Adam also, before his Eve, and so must we also be in Christ, if we would be the image and temple of God.
218. Now when the pregnant matrix was taken from Adam, the woman was every way formed with such members for propagation as she is at this day; and so Adam also. For before, when Adam was male and female, he needed no such members; for his birth was magical, his conception moving in the matrix [was to be] done through imagination; for the Fiat was manifest in him. 19. And the bestial worm's carcass of the bowels, with the formation of other inward principal members pertaining to the earthly life, was hung upon Adam instead of the female matrix, and the like worm's carcass was also hung upon the woman, instead of the heavenly limbus, that they might stuff in a deal of vanity, and live like the beasts, seeing they did so eagerly lust after evil and good.
320. Reason will object against me, and say: God created Adam in the beginning such a man, and even with all members, as he now is. Which, notwithstanding, it cannot make out or demonstrate, seeing the soul is ashamed of this bestial property. Also I would fain know of this self-full reason, whether or no such an Adam (if he were created so miserable, destitute, naked and bare, unto this bestial life) were created to eternal life, without defect, and also without need, distress, and death? And whether this sink [or fill your carcass of earthly flesh and blood] were the Paradise and temple of God; and how could he have been able to defend himself from hurt and ruin? For such a beast-like man may be drowned in the water, and burnt in the fire, and also crushed to pieces with rocks and stones. 21. But says thou, God did well know that it would be so with Adam, therefore he created him so at the very first? Against this the Scripture declares, saying, God created man in his image, yea, to the image of God created he him; not to the bestial image. What sin would God have imputed or charged upon man, if he had created him in a bestial image? what then would the new birth avail him [to what end then should he be born again] ? The new birth contains in real sum, this: That the angelical image must be born again, which God created in Adam. God formed Adam in the image of God, and though
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.
116. Thus the female property was, in the Fiat, extracted out of Adam's essence, as his dearest rose-garden, and he kept the limbus, heavenly and earthly [celestial and terrestrial], according to the eternal Father's manifested property, viz. the fire-soul's matrix's property; and the woman [kept] the part of the spirit's soul's property; the woman had the centre of the angelical world in her disappeared part of the soul-like property, viz. the manifested loveword, viz. the fifth property of the eternal nature; and the man had in his limbus the divine fire-world, viz. the centre of the light-world, the centre of all essences. 17. The man's limbus, which he kept when the woman was made out of him, was the Father's property, according to all essences; and the woman out of [or proceed from] the man was the Son's property, according to all essences, understand, the heavenly part [both of the limbus and matrix]. Therefore Christ became man in the woman's part, and brought the man's part again into the holy matrix, so that the limbus and the female matrix were again one image [or person], viz. a manly virgin, above and in all the three Principles, as a creatural-formed God, in whom the eternal unformed God dwelt, with universal fullness, both in the formed, and outside the formed [divine creature or God-man] . for thus was Adam also, before his Eve, and so must we also be in Christ, if we would be the image and temple of God.
218. Now when the pregnant matrix was taken from Adam, the woman was every way formed with such members for propagation as she is at this day; and so Adam also. For before, when Adam was male and female, he needed no such members; for his birth was magical, his conception moving in the matrix [was to be] done through imagination; for the Fiat was manifest in him. 19. And the bestial worm's carcass of the bowels, with the formation of other inward principal members pertaining to the earthly life, was hung upon Adam instead of the female matrix, and the like worm's carcass was also hung upon the woman, instead of the heavenly limbus, that they might stuff in a deal of vanity, and live like the beasts, seeing they did so eagerly lust after evil and good.
320. Reason will object against me, and say: God created Adam in the beginning such a man, and even with all members, as he now is. Which, notwithstanding, it cannot make out or demonstrate, seeing the soul is ashamed of this bestial property. Also I would fain know of this self-full reason, whether or no such an Adam (if he were created so miserable, destitute, naked and bare, unto this bestial life) were created to eternal life, without defect, and also without need, distress, and death? And whether this sink [or fill your carcass of earthly flesh and blood] were the Paradise and temple of God; and how could he have been able to defend himself from hurt and ruin? For such a beast-like man may be drowned in the water, and burnt in the fire, and also crushed to pieces with rocks and stones. 21. But says thou, God did well know that it would be so with Adam, therefore he created him so at the very first? Against this the Scripture declares, saying, God created man in his image, yea, to the image of God created he him; not to the bestial image. What sin would God have imputed or charged upon man, if he had created him in a bestial image? what then would the new birth avail him [to what end then should he be born again] ? The new birth contains in real sum, this: That the angelical image must be born again, which God created in Adam. God formed Adam in the image of God, and though
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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