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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.
15 IHVH (Jod, He, Vau, He, or tetragrammaton) 53. The other letters without the five vowels, do all proceed from the name TETRAGRAMMATON, viz. out of the centre of the eternal nature, out of the Principle; and do denote and speak forth the differences 1 of the formed wisdom, viz. of the formed word in the three Principles, wherein the whole creation lies; they are the sense of the creation, viz. the property of the powers, and the true revealed God in the word of nature. Understand this further thus: 54. When as the lubet of man, viz. the free will of man, does conceive or form itself into a desire, then it conceives the whole Alphabet; for the desire is the Fiat, and the lubet to the desire, is the contemplation of the free will, viz. the formed word of wisdom, wherein the free will does behold itself and contemplate whereinto it will introduce the lubet of the wisdom, either into evil or good; and when the free will has thus beheld itself, it does conceive with the lubet in the letters, viz. in the sense of nature, and composes the senses of the letters together, and forms the lubet into a word; the same stands in an internal form, viz. in a conceived thought.
255. And even then the free will takes the H, viz. the spirit of the forth-breathing, and brings the formed thought before the counsel of the five senses, who behold the formed word, and prove the same, whether it be apt or not; if it does but please them, then the H, viz. the breathing spirit, takes the word, and brings it upon the tongue into the mouth; there is the chief framer, viz. the Fiat, which is the divine instrument, and figures the senses of the properties out of the letters, as the free will has set and composed them into a substance to the sounding or pronouncing, manifestation or expression. 56. Now mark and observe us here, very exactly; how every word is formed or brought in the mouth to substance, 2 viz. to the expression; how the chiefworker and contriver, viz. the Fiat which is in the senses, does shape and figure it; and how the tongue co-operates or frames itself therewith, when it takes it; and by what way it brings it forth, whether through the teeth, or above, or with open mouth; also how the tongue does frame itself in the conjunction of the word; which sense it does again draw back, and will not wholly cast forth, as there is many a sense which is not half put forth, but many, fully, and many again are drawn halfbackwards towards the heart. And now as the word was formed, so is also the thing in its form and property which is named by the word, (provided that the free will gives it also
3a right name, and does not impose a strange name on it, out of malice or ignorance); so it is externally noted, and internally in the compaction of the senses it has such a virtue, or ill malignant property. 1 Varieties. 2 Note, when a word is formed or expressed, it is brought to substance. 57. Now whosoever has the understanding of the senses, viz. of the spirits of the letters, so that he does understand how the senses are set or compounded in the lubet, he understands it in the framing of the word, when the same is formed or brought forth to substance; and is able to understand the sensual [natural or essential] language of the whole creation, and understands whence Adam gave names unto all things; and from whence the spirit of God has prophesied in the Ancient. 58. This is now the ground of the head languages. When as all people spoke in one language, then they understood one another. But when they would not use the natural 1 genuine tongue; then the true and right understanding was put out in them; for they brought the spirits of the genuine tongue of sense into an external gross form, and framed the subtle spirit of the understanding into a gross form, and learnt to speak out of the form only; as at this day all nations speak only from this same form of their contrived sensual tongue. 1 Text, sensual.
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.
15 IHVH (Jod, He, Vau, He, or tetragrammaton) 53. The other letters without the five vowels, do all proceed from the name TETRAGRAMMATON, viz. out of the centre of the eternal nature, out of the Principle; and do denote and speak forth the differences 1 of the formed wisdom, viz. of the formed word in the three Principles, wherein the whole creation lies; they are the sense of the creation, viz. the property of the powers, and the true revealed God in the word of nature. Understand this further thus: 54. When as the lubet of man, viz. the free will of man, does conceive or form itself into a desire, then it conceives the whole Alphabet; for the desire is the Fiat, and the lubet to the desire, is the contemplation of the free will, viz. the formed word of wisdom, wherein the free will does behold itself and contemplate whereinto it will introduce the lubet of the wisdom, either into evil or good; and when the free will has thus beheld itself, it does conceive with the lubet in the letters, viz. in the sense of nature, and composes the senses of the letters together, and forms the lubet into a word; the same stands in an internal form, viz. in a conceived thought.
255. And even then the free will takes the H, viz. the spirit of the forth-breathing, and brings the formed thought before the counsel of the five senses, who behold the formed word, and prove the same, whether it be apt or not; if it does but please them, then the H, viz. the breathing spirit, takes the word, and brings it upon the tongue into the mouth; there is the chief framer, viz. the Fiat, which is the divine instrument, and figures the senses of the properties out of the letters, as the free will has set and composed them into a substance to the sounding or pronouncing, manifestation or expression. 56. Now mark and observe us here, very exactly; how every word is formed or brought in the mouth to substance, 2 viz. to the expression; how the chiefworker and contriver, viz. the Fiat which is in the senses, does shape and figure it; and how the tongue co-operates or frames itself therewith, when it takes it; and by what way it brings it forth, whether through the teeth, or above, or with open mouth; also how the tongue does frame itself in the conjunction of the word; which sense it does again draw back, and will not wholly cast forth, as there is many a sense which is not half put forth, but many, fully, and many again are drawn halfbackwards towards the heart. And now as the word was formed, so is also the thing in its form and property which is named by the word, (provided that the free will gives it also
3a right name, and does not impose a strange name on it, out of malice or ignorance); so it is externally noted, and internally in the compaction of the senses it has such a virtue, or ill malignant property. 1 Varieties. 2 Note, when a word is formed or expressed, it is brought to substance. 57. Now whosoever has the understanding of the senses, viz. of the spirits of the letters, so that he does understand how the senses are set or compounded in the lubet, he understands it in the framing of the word, when the same is formed or brought forth to substance; and is able to understand the sensual [natural or essential] language of the whole creation, and understands whence Adam gave names unto all things; and from whence the spirit of God has prophesied in the Ancient. 58. This is now the ground of the head languages. When as all people spoke in one language, then they understood one another. But when they would not use the natural 1 genuine tongue; then the true and right understanding was put out in them; for they brought the spirits of the genuine tongue of sense into an external gross form, and framed the subtle spirit of the understanding into a gross form, and learnt to speak out of the form only; as at this day all nations speak only from this same form of their contrived sensual tongue. 1 Text, sensual.
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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