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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.
167. At this we do exceedingly rejoice, that the time is born that we are lead from the Tower of Babel, and are able to see the holy God in the sensual language, Hallelujah! The Tower is broken, and fallen down at which our fathers have built themselves to death; and yet have not built it up; the foundation thereofshall not be any more laid, while the earth stands: says the spirit of wonders. 68. The hidden mystery of the Tower, and the divided languages, is this: Mankind had framed the sensual language of the holy Spirit into a dumb form; and used the formed word of the human understanding, only in a form, as in a contrived vessel or vehiculum; they spoke only with the outward contrived vessel, and understood not the word in its own proper language of sense; they understood not that God was in the speaking Word of the understanding; as at this day the like comes to pass, and is.
269. But seeing God had, in the beginning of the creation, incorporated himself with his word into man's image, viz. into the properties of the senses, and would not be without sense, or in one only conceived form: and likewise seeing that all things do stand in growth, seeding and harvest, even now was the time of the human tree's blooming, where the spirit of the senses did put forth itself in its properties with blossoms; and manifested the properties through the blossoms, and out of the blossoms brought forth the fruit; and like as every blossom does open and put forth itself at the outmost part, or highest of the stalk or branches of the tree or stock, even so the spirit [of nature] drove the children of men to the extremest height, that they also would build them a high tower, like to a high tree or tall stalk; for it would manifest its blossom, and fruits also, in the highest of the stalk; and upon the tower which they would build up unto heaven the sensual spirit opened itselfwith the blossom. 70. For man's will was, that they would ascend up to God; and the God of [nature, or] sense put forth himself in the same desire and will, for they sought him only in a circumscribed [local, outward] manner; and even so he applied himself to them in a conceived form of sense, out of the contrived formed tongues and languages, wherein notwithstanding they were dumb and knew him not.
371. They were entered with the sense, viz. with the mental spirit, 1 into nature, and nature had captivated them in the understanding. 1 Or the spirit of their mind. Therefore God also manifested himself to them with the sensual spirit in the contrived form of the tongues, out of the seventy-two properties, through the three Principles, viz. through a threefold sensual Alphabet, according to the three worlds' property; viz. through three times four and twenty letters; and they brought the sensual spirit of the letters, in their contrived form, through the tongue out of each letter, through the three Principles, viz. into three properties of tongues and languages, according to the property of the Trinity of the Deity. 72. And hence arise seventy-two languages out of one only sensual tongue, wherein all speeches and languages are contained, and each tongue and language fell upon its people; according as every family of the stock of the human tree had a property out of the formed word, even such a language befell them out of their sense, viz. out of the same property of the formed word. 73. For the sense of man's speech, that he is able to speak, does come unto him originally out of the divine Word, which introduced itself with the Verbum Fiat into a creation. Now this Word brought forth itself through the compacted properties according to their compaction, nature, kind, form and property; for so distinct and various
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.
167. At this we do exceedingly rejoice, that the time is born that we are lead from the Tower of Babel, and are able to see the holy God in the sensual language, Hallelujah! The Tower is broken, and fallen down at which our fathers have built themselves to death; and yet have not built it up; the foundation thereofshall not be any more laid, while the earth stands: says the spirit of wonders. 68. The hidden mystery of the Tower, and the divided languages, is this: Mankind had framed the sensual language of the holy Spirit into a dumb form; and used the formed word of the human understanding, only in a form, as in a contrived vessel or vehiculum; they spoke only with the outward contrived vessel, and understood not the word in its own proper language of sense; they understood not that God was in the speaking Word of the understanding; as at this day the like comes to pass, and is.
269. But seeing God had, in the beginning of the creation, incorporated himself with his word into man's image, viz. into the properties of the senses, and would not be without sense, or in one only conceived form: and likewise seeing that all things do stand in growth, seeding and harvest, even now was the time of the human tree's blooming, where the spirit of the senses did put forth itself in its properties with blossoms; and manifested the properties through the blossoms, and out of the blossoms brought forth the fruit; and like as every blossom does open and put forth itself at the outmost part, or highest of the stalk or branches of the tree or stock, even so the spirit [of nature] drove the children of men to the extremest height, that they also would build them a high tower, like to a high tree or tall stalk; for it would manifest its blossom, and fruits also, in the highest of the stalk; and upon the tower which they would build up unto heaven the sensual spirit opened itselfwith the blossom. 70. For man's will was, that they would ascend up to God; and the God of [nature, or] sense put forth himself in the same desire and will, for they sought him only in a circumscribed [local, outward] manner; and even so he applied himself to them in a conceived form of sense, out of the contrived formed tongues and languages, wherein notwithstanding they were dumb and knew him not.
371. They were entered with the sense, viz. with the mental spirit, 1 into nature, and nature had captivated them in the understanding. 1 Or the spirit of their mind. Therefore God also manifested himself to them with the sensual spirit in the contrived form of the tongues, out of the seventy-two properties, through the three Principles, viz. through a threefold sensual Alphabet, according to the three worlds' property; viz. through three times four and twenty letters; and they brought the sensual spirit of the letters, in their contrived form, through the tongue out of each letter, through the three Principles, viz. into three properties of tongues and languages, according to the property of the Trinity of the Deity. 72. And hence arise seventy-two languages out of one only sensual tongue, wherein all speeches and languages are contained, and each tongue and language fell upon its people; according as every family of the stock of the human tree had a property out of the formed word, even such a language befell them out of their sense, viz. out of the same property of the formed word. 73. For the sense of man's speech, that he is able to speak, does come unto him originally out of the divine Word, which introduced itself with the Verbum Fiat into a creation. Now this Word brought forth itself through the compacted properties according to their compaction, nature, kind, form and property; for so distinct and various
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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