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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.
115. For the devil's desire drew forth the compunctive stinging thorny sharp subtlety out of the centre of nature, and introduced it through the enkindling of the fire into the heavenly salniter, viz. into that property wherein he sat and was an angel; and here that very craft came forth along in the same ens into a compaction in the Fiat. 16. For the Serpent's ens was, as to one part, viz. as to the heavenly, a great power; as also there was a great heavenly power in the devil, for he was a prince of God; and so he brought his extracted subtlety and lies into a powerful ens, desiring to play his enchanting feats thereby as a peculiar [uncontrollable] god. 17. This the learned searchers of nature do in like manner understand, viz. that there lies excellent art, and also virtue, in the ens of the Serpent. If the devil's poison be taken from it, the greatest cure doth then lie in it for the healing of all fiery venomous hurts and distempers; also [the best antidote] against poison, and all whatsoever that has the semblance of a fiery poison; for therein the divine power lies in a fiery hunger, but hidden in the curse of the anger of God.
218. As God does dwell hiddenly in the cursed earth, so likewise is it here. Notwithstanding, it is given to the wise godly searcher of the art, and he need not be astonished or afraid of the curse; for he shall rule in divine power in faith over all creatures. If he were not so much captivated in a bestial and proud manner in the Serpent's essence our sense and meaning might be opened unto him, and he might here well find the arcanum [or secret] of the world. 19. This crafty Serpent was now in external show and semblance an exceeding well-favoured, comely, handsome, neat, fine, brave, pretty beastling, accurately dressed, and set forth according to the pride of the devil. Not that we are to conceive that the devil was a creator of the Serpent; but the Fiat was manifest in it according to God's great good power, arid also very potently manifest according to the power of his wrathful anger. 20. This Serpent was a living figure of the Tree of Temptation; like as the Tempting Tree was a dumb power [or lifeless resemblance], so the Serpent was a living power. And therefore the Serpent applied itself to this Tree, as to its likeness, even the likeness of its essence. Which the devil saw, and possessed the Serpent in the part of his infected and introduced poison, and armed its tongue, and spoke out of its great subtlety to Eve, so that she knew not the horrible enemy, and very hideous ugly guest, the devil.
321. And the devil therefore brought the Serpent to the Tree of Temptation, seeing he saw that Eve was taken much with beholding of the Tree, and fain would eat of its fruit, that so he might make Eve monstrous by the Serpent [Or, form strange imaginations of pride, in seeing the fair Serpent] ; and the true eye-mark [to reach the real understanding of the Serpent's deceiving Eve] is this: 22. Eve did now long after the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; for Adam had introduced this lust into his ens whence Eve was created. But now the command stood against it, and she feared God, and would not do contrary to the prohibition; therefore the devil cunningly insinuated into the Serpent's ens, viz. into the greatest subtlety; and yet craftily put forth the great power and wit in the Serpent's essence, that Eve might see and know how prudent, wise and subtle the Serpent was; and hung there upon the forbidden tree, and it did it no hurt; and she looked upon the Serpent and set her mind amusing after it, in manner as a woman with child does amuse herself and strangely or monstrously form herself [in her mind] and brings such a figure upon the child. Even so did Eve amuse herself upon the wit and craft of the Serpent, and also upon its nimble agility and art, whereupon she longed to eat of the Tree; for the Serpent persuaded her by the devil's voice and speech, and pretended that it had its craft and art from the Tree.
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.
115. For the devil's desire drew forth the compunctive stinging thorny sharp subtlety out of the centre of nature, and introduced it through the enkindling of the fire into the heavenly salniter, viz. into that property wherein he sat and was an angel; and here that very craft came forth along in the same ens into a compaction in the Fiat. 16. For the Serpent's ens was, as to one part, viz. as to the heavenly, a great power; as also there was a great heavenly power in the devil, for he was a prince of God; and so he brought his extracted subtlety and lies into a powerful ens, desiring to play his enchanting feats thereby as a peculiar [uncontrollable] god. 17. This the learned searchers of nature do in like manner understand, viz. that there lies excellent art, and also virtue, in the ens of the Serpent. If the devil's poison be taken from it, the greatest cure doth then lie in it for the healing of all fiery venomous hurts and distempers; also [the best antidote] against poison, and all whatsoever that has the semblance of a fiery poison; for therein the divine power lies in a fiery hunger, but hidden in the curse of the anger of God.
218. As God does dwell hiddenly in the cursed earth, so likewise is it here. Notwithstanding, it is given to the wise godly searcher of the art, and he need not be astonished or afraid of the curse; for he shall rule in divine power in faith over all creatures. If he were not so much captivated in a bestial and proud manner in the Serpent's essence our sense and meaning might be opened unto him, and he might here well find the arcanum [or secret] of the world. 19. This crafty Serpent was now in external show and semblance an exceeding well-favoured, comely, handsome, neat, fine, brave, pretty beastling, accurately dressed, and set forth according to the pride of the devil. Not that we are to conceive that the devil was a creator of the Serpent; but the Fiat was manifest in it according to God's great good power, arid also very potently manifest according to the power of his wrathful anger. 20. This Serpent was a living figure of the Tree of Temptation; like as the Tempting Tree was a dumb power [or lifeless resemblance], so the Serpent was a living power. And therefore the Serpent applied itself to this Tree, as to its likeness, even the likeness of its essence. Which the devil saw, and possessed the Serpent in the part of his infected and introduced poison, and armed its tongue, and spoke out of its great subtlety to Eve, so that she knew not the horrible enemy, and very hideous ugly guest, the devil.
321. And the devil therefore brought the Serpent to the Tree of Temptation, seeing he saw that Eve was taken much with beholding of the Tree, and fain would eat of its fruit, that so he might make Eve monstrous by the Serpent [Or, form strange imaginations of pride, in seeing the fair Serpent] ; and the true eye-mark [to reach the real understanding of the Serpent's deceiving Eve] is this: 22. Eve did now long after the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; for Adam had introduced this lust into his ens whence Eve was created. But now the command stood against it, and she feared God, and would not do contrary to the prohibition; therefore the devil cunningly insinuated into the Serpent's ens, viz. into the greatest subtlety; and yet craftily put forth the great power and wit in the Serpent's essence, that Eve might see and know how prudent, wise and subtle the Serpent was; and hung there upon the forbidden tree, and it did it no hurt; and she looked upon the Serpent and set her mind amusing after it, in manner as a woman with child does amuse herself and strangely or monstrously form herself [in her mind] and brings such a figure upon the child. Even so did Eve amuse herself upon the wit and craft of the Serpent, and also upon its nimble agility and art, whereupon she longed to eat of the Tree; for the Serpent persuaded her by the devil's voice and speech, and pretended that it had its craft and art from the Tree.
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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