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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.
131. Therefore the woman must not put on the seal of baptism in her own peculiar will or desire, but have it from the man, seeing she was taken from the man; that so she might become a right woman [or manness] in the man's baptism, that so the image of God in her might obtain the fire's baptism and tincture from the man. 32. For St Paul understood this very well, when he said, The Woman shall be saved by bearing of children, if she continues in the Covenant, and in the love (1 Tim. ii. 15). For the woman has her soul from the man's soul; and when she is given to the man, then she is one body with him, and brings forth children to the man; she is his woman, his instrument, a half-man; and the man a half-woman. 33. And that the man's property might again obtain the perfect love, viz. the female ens, and the woman the masculine ens, the Holy Spirit baptized the man's, viz. the fire's tincture, with the heavenly holy virgin-like tincture; and the man baptised the woman's essence in his seed with the fiery and also divine tincture. Therefore God commanded the males alone to be circumcised.
234. For in the Jews' fire-baptism the Spirit alone baptised, without water, but among the Christians the Spirit baptises through water; the Jewish women could put on the Spirit indeed in the man's fire-tincture. But now, seeing this same fire- wood 1 is become flesh, they ought now of right also to put on Christ in the flesh, and be baptised; for their heavenly disappeared virginity must also put on Christ's introduced heavenly virginity, so that they might be true manlike virgins in the spirit and essence of Christ. 1 Burning, ardent. 35. Now reason asks further, Wherefore must the male children be circumcised just on the eighth day? why must it not be either sooner, or later? Did it not lie in man's choice and power to delay the same, if it were weak? Herein is contained the mystery and wonder. Dear brethren, cease from the contention of the letter, and learn to understand the hidden mysteries; we shall deal with you in a childlike manner; do but look us in the face, from whence we come, and whence it is that we know and understand all this. 36. God commanded the boys to be circumcised upon the eighth day, and wherefore? Six days are the man in nature, the seventh is
3the day of rest in him, viz.. the heavenly disappeared ens, wherein the six spirits of nature do work; as God made the creation in six days, viz. out of the six properties of nature, and brought them to rest into the seventh, viz. into the emanation or flowing forth of the heavenly ens, which God has co-imprinted into the compaction of the creation, which is the rest, and right life, of the six properties. 37. Thus man has gotten seven days for his own, the seventh is his day of rest. Understand, the seventh property is the heavenly nature, which died in him, whereby he came into disquietness; therefore the eighth day came out of mere grace to help him, and gave itself again into his seven working days, viz. into the seven properties of his own essence; and this day is Christ, in the circumcision and in the baptism. 38. For God in this process holds the order with the regeneration of man, in manner and nature as he created him out of seven days. Understand, in six days his natural life was brought into an image out of the six properties of the inward and outward nature, and the seventh property was the Paradise, viz. the Saturday, 1 in which the six spirits of nature (in their operation) were reconciled and atoned, for it was the spiritual world. 1 Text, The Sun-evening, or the evening of atonement, according as the word will bear it. See ch. 16 of this book, par. 16, 17 etc.
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.
131. Therefore the woman must not put on the seal of baptism in her own peculiar will or desire, but have it from the man, seeing she was taken from the man; that so she might become a right woman [or manness] in the man's baptism, that so the image of God in her might obtain the fire's baptism and tincture from the man. 32. For St Paul understood this very well, when he said, The Woman shall be saved by bearing of children, if she continues in the Covenant, and in the love (1 Tim. ii. 15). For the woman has her soul from the man's soul; and when she is given to the man, then she is one body with him, and brings forth children to the man; she is his woman, his instrument, a half-man; and the man a half-woman. 33. And that the man's property might again obtain the perfect love, viz. the female ens, and the woman the masculine ens, the Holy Spirit baptized the man's, viz. the fire's tincture, with the heavenly holy virgin-like tincture; and the man baptised the woman's essence in his seed with the fiery and also divine tincture. Therefore God commanded the males alone to be circumcised.
234. For in the Jews' fire-baptism the Spirit alone baptised, without water, but among the Christians the Spirit baptises through water; the Jewish women could put on the Spirit indeed in the man's fire-tincture. But now, seeing this same fire- wood 1 is become flesh, they ought now of right also to put on Christ in the flesh, and be baptised; for their heavenly disappeared virginity must also put on Christ's introduced heavenly virginity, so that they might be true manlike virgins in the spirit and essence of Christ. 1 Burning, ardent. 35. Now reason asks further, Wherefore must the male children be circumcised just on the eighth day? why must it not be either sooner, or later? Did it not lie in man's choice and power to delay the same, if it were weak? Herein is contained the mystery and wonder. Dear brethren, cease from the contention of the letter, and learn to understand the hidden mysteries; we shall deal with you in a childlike manner; do but look us in the face, from whence we come, and whence it is that we know and understand all this. 36. God commanded the boys to be circumcised upon the eighth day, and wherefore? Six days are the man in nature, the seventh is
3the day of rest in him, viz.. the heavenly disappeared ens, wherein the six spirits of nature do work; as God made the creation in six days, viz. out of the six properties of nature, and brought them to rest into the seventh, viz. into the emanation or flowing forth of the heavenly ens, which God has co-imprinted into the compaction of the creation, which is the rest, and right life, of the six properties. 37. Thus man has gotten seven days for his own, the seventh is his day of rest. Understand, the seventh property is the heavenly nature, which died in him, whereby he came into disquietness; therefore the eighth day came out of mere grace to help him, and gave itself again into his seven working days, viz. into the seven properties of his own essence; and this day is Christ, in the circumcision and in the baptism. 38. For God in this process holds the order with the regeneration of man, in manner and nature as he created him out of seven days. Understand, in six days his natural life was brought into an image out of the six properties of the inward and outward nature, and the seventh property was the Paradise, viz. the Saturday, 1 in which the six spirits of nature (in their operation) were reconciled and atoned, for it was the spiritual world. 1 Text, The Sun-evening, or the evening of atonement, according as the word will bear it. See ch. 16 of this book, par. 16, 17 etc.
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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