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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.
123. This is now the figure of the kingdom of Christ, who had opened himself to Abraham in the love, how he would sit in judgement over the world; and how the might and dominions is given unto him of God, that he should destroy the devil's kingdom upon the earth, and give all wicked men unto the anger of God to be devoured. For when he had manifested himself to Abraham, and confirmed the Covenant of righteousness, he then sent these two angels, viz. God's truth and judgement, to Sodom, to blot out and destroy the children of Ham, viz. the malicious, vile, rebellious, half-devil's-men; that so the devil's kingdom might be lessened, and not grow so great upon the earth, and hinder his kingdom. The inward figure stands thus: 24. It rained brimstone and fire from the Lord from heaven, says Moses: This was not the inward hellish fire, which at the end of days shall purge the floor; otherwise the four elements would have been changed: it was only a figure of the future. The original of the brimstone and fire was generated in turba magna in the third Principle: it was only a sword of vengeance. The inward fire consumes earth and stones, and all elements: but this was only [such] a fire as is generated in the tempest in turba magna in the egest, [ excrement] which the constellation casts forth from itself which is a materia thereunto.
2Although it be no palpable matter of substance, yet it is a spiritual substance, in which Mercurius does enkindle itself in the Salniter, viz. in the fire-crack, where then also the flagrat or fire-crack does fix itself into a substance or essence, which is brimstone. 25. For the three [first properties], viz. Sulphur, Mercurius, and the Salt-sharpness, are in the original (as they are yet a spirit) only one thing. But when Mercurius, viz. the sound of the formed Word, does move itself in the Principle, viz. in its first original by an opposition or contrary aspect, then he is terrified in himself: that is, the motion stirs the original of the heat and cold, viz. the original of the first Principle according to the cold and hot fire; which is the beginning of the contrariety and horror; from whence the fire-flash or salnitral flagrat does arise; where also the three first, viz. the heat, the cold, and the sound, do each impress and introduce itself into a peculiar substance in the flagrat, viz. the heat into brimstone, and the cold into a saltish property, and Mercurius into a watery property. And yet they were not wholly separated, and each of them of another or sundry substance by itself; but fixed together according to one property.
326. The like also we are here to understand concerning the brimstone-fire: the wrath of the first Principle, viz. God's anger according to the eternal nature, did behold the outward nature in the third Principle with an aspect, [ darting flash] which is called turba magna, being a turba in the soul of the outward world in the spirit of nature, whence the outward nature does inflame and enkindle itself; and the three first [properties or prime Ternary of nature] do fix themselves into a substance, viz. into Brimstone, Salt, and into a Mercurial poisonful water, in which the flagrat or flash of the fire did enkindle and impress itself; and so being enkindled did rain upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and upon the plain of the country, and destroyed all. This is it which is said, The Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
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.
123. This is now the figure of the kingdom of Christ, who had opened himself to Abraham in the love, how he would sit in judgement over the world; and how the might and dominions is given unto him of God, that he should destroy the devil's kingdom upon the earth, and give all wicked men unto the anger of God to be devoured. For when he had manifested himself to Abraham, and confirmed the Covenant of righteousness, he then sent these two angels, viz. God's truth and judgement, to Sodom, to blot out and destroy the children of Ham, viz. the malicious, vile, rebellious, half-devil's-men; that so the devil's kingdom might be lessened, and not grow so great upon the earth, and hinder his kingdom. The inward figure stands thus: 24. It rained brimstone and fire from the Lord from heaven, says Moses: This was not the inward hellish fire, which at the end of days shall purge the floor; otherwise the four elements would have been changed: it was only a figure of the future. The original of the brimstone and fire was generated in turba magna in the third Principle: it was only a sword of vengeance. The inward fire consumes earth and stones, and all elements: but this was only [such] a fire as is generated in the tempest in turba magna in the egest, [ excrement] which the constellation casts forth from itself which is a materia thereunto.
2Although it be no palpable matter of substance, yet it is a spiritual substance, in which Mercurius does enkindle itself in the Salniter, viz. in the fire-crack, where then also the flagrat or fire-crack does fix itself into a substance or essence, which is brimstone. 25. For the three [first properties], viz. Sulphur, Mercurius, and the Salt-sharpness, are in the original (as they are yet a spirit) only one thing. But when Mercurius, viz. the sound of the formed Word, does move itself in the Principle, viz. in its first original by an opposition or contrary aspect, then he is terrified in himself: that is, the motion stirs the original of the heat and cold, viz. the original of the first Principle according to the cold and hot fire; which is the beginning of the contrariety and horror; from whence the fire-flash or salnitral flagrat does arise; where also the three first, viz. the heat, the cold, and the sound, do each impress and introduce itself into a peculiar substance in the flagrat, viz. the heat into brimstone, and the cold into a saltish property, and Mercurius into a watery property. And yet they were not wholly separated, and each of them of another or sundry substance by itself; but fixed together according to one property.
326. The like also we are here to understand concerning the brimstone-fire: the wrath of the first Principle, viz. God's anger according to the eternal nature, did behold the outward nature in the third Principle with an aspect, [ darting flash] which is called turba magna, being a turba in the soul of the outward world in the spirit of nature, whence the outward nature does inflame and enkindle itself; and the three first [properties or prime Ternary of nature] do fix themselves into a substance, viz. into Brimstone, Salt, and into a Mercurial poisonful water, in which the flagrat or flash of the fire did enkindle and impress itself; and so being enkindled did rain upon Sodom and Gomorrah, and upon the plain of the country, and destroyed all. This is it which is said, The Lord rained brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven.
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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