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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.
1The Light- World ; hence God the Son, the Word, the Heart of God, is called a Loving and Merciful God. The Third Principle, This World of four Elements, which is produced out of the two Inward Worlds, and ia a Glass of them ; wherein Light and Darkness, Good and Evil are mixed, it ia not Eternal, but hath a Beginning and an End. Of the Third Principle, viz. The Visible World; whence that proceeded; and what the Creator is. 133. This visible world is sprung from the spiritual world before mentioned, viz. from the outflown divine power and virtue; and it is a subject or object resembling the spiritual world: the spiritual world is the inward ground of the visible world; the visible subsists in the spiritual. 134. The visible world is only an effluence of the seven properties, for it proceeded out of the six working properties; but in the seventh (that is, in paradise) it is in rest: and that is the eternal Sabbath of rest, wherein the divine power and virtue rests. 135. Moses says, God created heaven and earth, and all creatures, in six days, and rested on the seventh day, and also commanded [1] it to be kept for a rest. [1] or to rest on it 136. The understanding lies hidden and secret in those words.Could not he have made all his works in one day? Neither can we properly say there was any day before the sun was; for in the deep there is but one day [in all].
2137. But the understanding lies hidden in those words. He understands by each day' s working, the creation or manifestation of the seven properties; for he says, In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The First Day 138. In the FIRST [1] motion, the magnetical desire compressed and compacted the fiery and watery Mercury with the other properties; and then the grossness separated itself from the spiritual nature: and the fiery became metals and stones, and partly salnitre, that is, earth: and the watery became water. Then the fiery Mercury of the working became clean, and Moses calls it heaven; and the Scripture says, God dwells in heaven: for this fiery Mercury is the power and virtue of the firmament, viz. an image and resemblance of the spiritual world, in which God is manifested. [1] the first day 139. When this was done, God said, Let there be light; then the inward thrust itself forth through the fiery heaven, from which a shining power and virtue arose in the fiery Mercury, and that was the light of the outward nature in the properties, wherein the [1] vegetable life consists. [1] or growing The Second Day
3140. In the SECOND day's work, God separated the watery and fiery Mercury from one another, and called the fiery the firmament of Heaven, which came out of the midst of the waters, viz. of Mercury, whence arose the male and female [1] kind, in the spirit of the outward world; that is, the male in the fiery Mercury, and the female in the watery. [1] or sex 141. This separation was made all over in everything, to the end that the fiery Mercury should desire and long for the watery, and the watery for the fiery; that so there might be a desire of love betwixt them in the light of nature, from which the conjunction arises therefore the fiery Mercury, viz. the outflown word, separated itself according both to the fiery and to the watery nature of the light, and thence comes both the male and female kind in all things, both animals and vegetables. The Third Day 142. In the THIRD day's work, the fiery and watery Mercury entered again into conjunction or mixture, and embraced one another, wherein the salnitre, viz. the separator in the earth, brought forth grass, plants, and trees; and that was the first generation or production between male and female. The Fourth Day 143. In the FOURTH day's work the fiery Mercury brought forth its fruit, viz. the fifth essence, a higher power or virtue of life than the four elements, and yet it is in the elements: of it the stars are made.
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.
1The Light- World ; hence God the Son, the Word, the Heart of God, is called a Loving and Merciful God. The Third Principle, This World of four Elements, which is produced out of the two Inward Worlds, and ia a Glass of them ; wherein Light and Darkness, Good and Evil are mixed, it ia not Eternal, but hath a Beginning and an End. Of the Third Principle, viz. The Visible World; whence that proceeded; and what the Creator is. 133. This visible world is sprung from the spiritual world before mentioned, viz. from the outflown divine power and virtue; and it is a subject or object resembling the spiritual world: the spiritual world is the inward ground of the visible world; the visible subsists in the spiritual. 134. The visible world is only an effluence of the seven properties, for it proceeded out of the six working properties; but in the seventh (that is, in paradise) it is in rest: and that is the eternal Sabbath of rest, wherein the divine power and virtue rests. 135. Moses says, God created heaven and earth, and all creatures, in six days, and rested on the seventh day, and also commanded [1] it to be kept for a rest. [1] or to rest on it 136. The understanding lies hidden and secret in those words.Could not he have made all his works in one day? Neither can we properly say there was any day before the sun was; for in the deep there is but one day [in all].
2137. But the understanding lies hidden in those words. He understands by each day' s working, the creation or manifestation of the seven properties; for he says, In the beginning God created heaven and earth. The First Day 138. In the FIRST [1] motion, the magnetical desire compressed and compacted the fiery and watery Mercury with the other properties; and then the grossness separated itself from the spiritual nature: and the fiery became metals and stones, and partly salnitre, that is, earth: and the watery became water. Then the fiery Mercury of the working became clean, and Moses calls it heaven; and the Scripture says, God dwells in heaven: for this fiery Mercury is the power and virtue of the firmament, viz. an image and resemblance of the spiritual world, in which God is manifested. [1] the first day 139. When this was done, God said, Let there be light; then the inward thrust itself forth through the fiery heaven, from which a shining power and virtue arose in the fiery Mercury, and that was the light of the outward nature in the properties, wherein the [1] vegetable life consists. [1] or growing The Second Day
3140. In the SECOND day's work, God separated the watery and fiery Mercury from one another, and called the fiery the firmament of Heaven, which came out of the midst of the waters, viz. of Mercury, whence arose the male and female [1] kind, in the spirit of the outward world; that is, the male in the fiery Mercury, and the female in the watery. [1] or sex 141. This separation was made all over in everything, to the end that the fiery Mercury should desire and long for the watery, and the watery for the fiery; that so there might be a desire of love betwixt them in the light of nature, from which the conjunction arises therefore the fiery Mercury, viz. the outflown word, separated itself according both to the fiery and to the watery nature of the light, and thence comes both the male and female kind in all things, both animals and vegetables. The Third Day 142. In the THIRD day's work, the fiery and watery Mercury entered again into conjunction or mixture, and embraced one another, wherein the salnitre, viz. the separator in the earth, brought forth grass, plants, and trees; and that was the first generation or production between male and female. The Fourth Day 143. In the FOURTH day's work the fiery Mercury brought forth its fruit, viz. the fifth essence, a higher power or virtue of life than the four elements, and yet it is in the elements: of it the stars are made.
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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