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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.
12. For here the Gentiles, and the children of Ham at Sodom and Gomorrah; and in the whole region thereabouts, did now begin to exercise their domineering power; among whom Abraham was only a stranger, and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, as in a wilderness, where he kept cattle. But the Gentiles did tear and rend for the kingdom of this world, and for the external might and power, striving how one people might rule over another, whose will and dominion has continued even to this day, and has received its beginning from the heathen, and the children of Ham, viz. From Babel, from the divided tongues. 3. When the powers of the formed word, viz. the properties of nature, did divide themselves, and each introduced itself into a selfishness, then strife and enmity did arise among them. For the centre of the nature of the dark world has obtained his dominion in the fallen property of man; for men were as dead to the kingdom of God, viz. in the love and humility, and lived at present to the outward stars and the four elements.
24. Also the devil had built his stronghold in the Serpent's ens in man; therefore they sought only after that which made them great and potent in the world. And yet we may see how the devil did only fool and ape them, in the wrath of God, so that they slew one another, and esteemed temporal pleasure higher than their life, which is the greatest folly under the sun, that man should bring his life into death's danger, for a poor silly pride's sake, whereas yet he knows not whether he shall hold and possess that for which he murders, kills, and slays. 5. And we see how soon the devil, in his envy and pride, ruled in them; for though they had the whole earth before them to possess, and many countries and islands were uninhabited, yet they undertake war, that so they might but domineer over one another, and rob and plunder one another. Thus the devil, as man's enemy, brought them into his pride, that they might serve him. 6. 'Tis not in vain that Christ calls him a prince of this world: he is a prince according to the property of the wrath of the dark world therein; in and according to the same property he rules man in body and soul, in will, and mind. 7. For all war and contention does arise out of the nature and property of the dark world, viz. From the four elements of the anger of God, which produces in the creature, pride, covetousness, envy,
3and anger. These are the four elements of the dark world, wherein the devils, and all evil creatures live; and from these four elements arises war. 8. For although God bade the people of Israel to drive out the heathen, and wage war, yet the command was wholly from the angry zealous God, viz. from the fire's property, for the heathen had stirred up the wrath and indignation which would devour them. But God, so far as he is called God, desires no war; yea, he cannot desire anything that is evil or destructive, for he is, according to the second Principle, viz. according to the light, alone good and giving, and gives himself to all things. 9. But according to the dark world's nature he is an angry zealous God, and a consuming fire, if his wrath be awakened. According to this property he desires to consume all that moves and enkindles itself therein; and from this property God bade Israel fight, and smite the heathen. For his anger was set on fire in them; and they were as wood cast into the fire, which the fire desires to consume. 10. Therefore the wrath of God bade one nation slay another, that it might even out of his wrath be taken away. Otherwise the fire of his anger would have enkindled itself as happened to the five kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus the wrath of God did satiate itself in the life of the wicked, which it devoured into itself in that they slew one another.
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.
12. For here the Gentiles, and the children of Ham at Sodom and Gomorrah; and in the whole region thereabouts, did now begin to exercise their domineering power; among whom Abraham was only a stranger, and dwelt in the plain of Mamre, as in a wilderness, where he kept cattle. But the Gentiles did tear and rend for the kingdom of this world, and for the external might and power, striving how one people might rule over another, whose will and dominion has continued even to this day, and has received its beginning from the heathen, and the children of Ham, viz. From Babel, from the divided tongues. 3. When the powers of the formed word, viz. the properties of nature, did divide themselves, and each introduced itself into a selfishness, then strife and enmity did arise among them. For the centre of the nature of the dark world has obtained his dominion in the fallen property of man; for men were as dead to the kingdom of God, viz. in the love and humility, and lived at present to the outward stars and the four elements.
24. Also the devil had built his stronghold in the Serpent's ens in man; therefore they sought only after that which made them great and potent in the world. And yet we may see how the devil did only fool and ape them, in the wrath of God, so that they slew one another, and esteemed temporal pleasure higher than their life, which is the greatest folly under the sun, that man should bring his life into death's danger, for a poor silly pride's sake, whereas yet he knows not whether he shall hold and possess that for which he murders, kills, and slays. 5. And we see how soon the devil, in his envy and pride, ruled in them; for though they had the whole earth before them to possess, and many countries and islands were uninhabited, yet they undertake war, that so they might but domineer over one another, and rob and plunder one another. Thus the devil, as man's enemy, brought them into his pride, that they might serve him. 6. 'Tis not in vain that Christ calls him a prince of this world: he is a prince according to the property of the wrath of the dark world therein; in and according to the same property he rules man in body and soul, in will, and mind. 7. For all war and contention does arise out of the nature and property of the dark world, viz. From the four elements of the anger of God, which produces in the creature, pride, covetousness, envy,
3and anger. These are the four elements of the dark world, wherein the devils, and all evil creatures live; and from these four elements arises war. 8. For although God bade the people of Israel to drive out the heathen, and wage war, yet the command was wholly from the angry zealous God, viz. from the fire's property, for the heathen had stirred up the wrath and indignation which would devour them. But God, so far as he is called God, desires no war; yea, he cannot desire anything that is evil or destructive, for he is, according to the second Principle, viz. according to the light, alone good and giving, and gives himself to all things. 9. But according to the dark world's nature he is an angry zealous God, and a consuming fire, if his wrath be awakened. According to this property he desires to consume all that moves and enkindles itself therein; and from this property God bade Israel fight, and smite the heathen. For his anger was set on fire in them; and they were as wood cast into the fire, which the fire desires to consume. 10. Therefore the wrath of God bade one nation slay another, that it might even out of his wrath be taken away. Otherwise the fire of his anger would have enkindled itself as happened to the five kingdoms of Sodom and Gomorrah. Thus the wrath of God did satiate itself in the life of the wicked, which it devoured into itself in that they slew one another.
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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