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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.
1and out of the same ens in the formed nature the Word becomes a creatural life; and brings itself forth out of the compaction of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt out of the body, that is, it manifests itself in a plain, visible being; to which end God has created nature and creature. 2. Thus each creature has a centre to its re-expressing, or breathing forth of the formed Word, in itself both the eternal and the temporal creatures; the unrational, as well as man. For the first ens was spoken forth out of God's breath through the Wisdom, out of the centre, to fire and light, and taken into the Fiat, and brought into a compaction. 3. This same ens is out of the eternity, but the compaction of the four elements is out of time. Thus an eternal [ens] lies hidden in everything in the time, in all things with life or without life, in elements and creatures, in vegetative and un- vegetative. The first ens is in every thing, whence the form of compaction (which is arisen from the time) was spoken forth out of the spiritual world's being, as an eternal ens out of the eternal- speaking Word, through the Wisdom, into a time, viz. into a formed essence according to the spiritual ens; which ens cannot be destroyed by any element or thing whatsoever.
24. And although the elemental compaction, viz. the body (which the ens has attracted to itself; that is, breathed it forth from itself as an external degree) does vanish and come to nothing, (for it has a temporal beginning), yet the first ens cannot perish. As we also see that all things enter again into their mother from whence they are arisen and come forth, viz. into the four elements. 5. Now in this consideration we find the true ground of sin's original: Seeing that the living, powerful, understanding, speaking Word was breathed forth out of all the three Principles into the ens of man's image, for his understanding, that he should and could rule the properties of the compaction of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt; but he has now introduced this understanding, viz. the speaking, powerful Word again into the compaction of time, viz. into the earthly limus; where also the Fiat of time is awakened in the body, and has taken the understanding, viz. the inspired breath [sound or harmony], captive in itself; and placed itself master over the understanding.
36. So that we do now see, by woeful experience, how it is now with us; that when we would speak (albeit the understanding Word does [idea or] conceive itself in the inward ens, and desires to manifest the truth), yet the awakened vanity in the earthly limus of the body does soon forthwith catch it, and [cunningly blends] and works it forth into its own property [or serpentine subtlety] ; so that the word of the human understanding does breathe forth lies, iniquity, malice, falsehood, and such cunning vanity and foppery, in which voice the devil's desire does mix itself, and makes it to a substance of sin, which the kingdom of God's anger does receive. 7. For in what property every word does form and manifest itself in man's speech, when he speaks it forth, let it be either in God's love, viz. in the holy ens, or in the ens of God's anger, of the same it is again received when it is spoken. The false word proceeding from the false ens being infected by the devil, and sealed to destruction, is also taken into the Mystery of the wrath, viz. into the property of the dark world. Every thing enters with its ens into that whence it takes its original.
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.
1and out of the same ens in the formed nature the Word becomes a creatural life; and brings itself forth out of the compaction of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt out of the body, that is, it manifests itself in a plain, visible being; to which end God has created nature and creature. 2. Thus each creature has a centre to its re-expressing, or breathing forth of the formed Word, in itself both the eternal and the temporal creatures; the unrational, as well as man. For the first ens was spoken forth out of God's breath through the Wisdom, out of the centre, to fire and light, and taken into the Fiat, and brought into a compaction. 3. This same ens is out of the eternity, but the compaction of the four elements is out of time. Thus an eternal [ens] lies hidden in everything in the time, in all things with life or without life, in elements and creatures, in vegetative and un- vegetative. The first ens is in every thing, whence the form of compaction (which is arisen from the time) was spoken forth out of the spiritual world's being, as an eternal ens out of the eternal- speaking Word, through the Wisdom, into a time, viz. into a formed essence according to the spiritual ens; which ens cannot be destroyed by any element or thing whatsoever.
24. And although the elemental compaction, viz. the body (which the ens has attracted to itself; that is, breathed it forth from itself as an external degree) does vanish and come to nothing, (for it has a temporal beginning), yet the first ens cannot perish. As we also see that all things enter again into their mother from whence they are arisen and come forth, viz. into the four elements. 5. Now in this consideration we find the true ground of sin's original: Seeing that the living, powerful, understanding, speaking Word was breathed forth out of all the three Principles into the ens of man's image, for his understanding, that he should and could rule the properties of the compaction of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt; but he has now introduced this understanding, viz. the speaking, powerful Word again into the compaction of time, viz. into the earthly limus; where also the Fiat of time is awakened in the body, and has taken the understanding, viz. the inspired breath [sound or harmony], captive in itself; and placed itself master over the understanding.
36. So that we do now see, by woeful experience, how it is now with us; that when we would speak (albeit the understanding Word does [idea or] conceive itself in the inward ens, and desires to manifest the truth), yet the awakened vanity in the earthly limus of the body does soon forthwith catch it, and [cunningly blends] and works it forth into its own property [or serpentine subtlety] ; so that the word of the human understanding does breathe forth lies, iniquity, malice, falsehood, and such cunning vanity and foppery, in which voice the devil's desire does mix itself, and makes it to a substance of sin, which the kingdom of God's anger does receive. 7. For in what property every word does form and manifest itself in man's speech, when he speaks it forth, let it be either in God's love, viz. in the holy ens, or in the ens of God's anger, of the same it is again received when it is spoken. The false word proceeding from the false ens being infected by the devil, and sealed to destruction, is also taken into the Mystery of the wrath, viz. into the property of the dark world. Every thing enters with its ens into that whence it takes its original.
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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