Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
1155. We may very well observe and consider the hidden spiritual world by the visible world: for we see that fire, [1] light, and air, are continually begotten in the deep of this world; and that there is no rest or cessation from this begetting; and that it has been so from the beginning of the world; and yet men can find no cause of it in the outward world, or tell what the ground of it should be: but reason says, God has so created it, and therefore it continues so; which indeed is true in itself; but reason knows not the Creator, which does thus create without ceasing; that is, the true [2] Archaeus, or separator, which is an effluence out of the invisible world, viz. the outflown Word of God; which I mean and understand by the word fiery Mercury. [1] or water [2] distinguisher or divider 156. For what the invisible world is, in a spiritual working, where light and darkness are in one another, and yet the one not comprehending the other, that the visible world is, in a substantial working; whatsoever powers and virtues in the outflown word are to be [1] understood in the inward spiritual world, the same we understand also in the visible world, in the stars and elements, yet in another Principle of a more holy [2] nature. [1] or conceived [2] kind, quality, or condition
2157. The four elements flow from the Archaeus of the inward ground, that is, from the four properties of the eternal nature, and were in the beginning of time so outbreathed from the inward ground, and compressed and formed into a working substance and life; and therefore the outward world is called a Principle, and is a subject of the inward world, that is, a tool and instrument of the inward [1] master, which [1] master is the word and [2] power of God. [1] artificer or workman [2] or virtue 158. And as the inward divine world has in it an [1] understanding life from the effluence of the divine knowledge, whereby the angels and souls are meant; so likewise the outward world has a rational life in it, consisting in the outflown powers and virtues of the inward world; which outward [rational] life has no higher understanding, and can teach no further than that thing wherein it dwells, viz. the stars and four elements. [1] or intellectual 159. The spiritus mundus is hidden in the four elements, as the soul is in the body, and is nothing else but an effluence and working power proceeding from the sun and stars; its dwelling wherein it works is spiritual, encompassed with the four elements. 160. The spiritual house is first a sharp magnetical power and virtue, from the effluence of the inward world, from the first property of the eternal nature; this is the ground of all salt and powerful virtue, also of all forming and substantiality.
3161. Secondly, it is the effluence of the inward motion, which is outflown from the second [1] form of the eternal nature, and consists in a fiery nature, like a dry kind of water source, which is understood to be the ground of all metal and stones, for they were created of that. [1] species, kind, or property 162. I call it the fiery Mercury in the spirit of this world, for it is them over of all things, and the separator of the powers and virtues; a former of all shapes, a ground of the outward life, as to the motion and sensibility. 163. The third ground is the perception in the motion and sharpness, which is a spiritual source of Sulfur, proceeding from the ground of the painful will in the inward ground: hence the spirit with the five senses arises, viz. seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling; and is the true essential life, whereby the fire, that is, the fourth form, is made manifest. 164. The ancient wise men have called these three properties Sulfur, Mercurius, and Sal, as to their materials which were produced thereby in the four elements, into which this spirit does coagulate, or make itself substantial. 165. The four elements lie also in this ground, and are nothing different or several from it; they are only the manifestation of this spiritual ground, and are as a dwelling place of the spirit, in which this spirit works.
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.
1155. We may very well observe and consider the hidden spiritual world by the visible world: for we see that fire, [1] light, and air, are continually begotten in the deep of this world; and that there is no rest or cessation from this begetting; and that it has been so from the beginning of the world; and yet men can find no cause of it in the outward world, or tell what the ground of it should be: but reason says, God has so created it, and therefore it continues so; which indeed is true in itself; but reason knows not the Creator, which does thus create without ceasing; that is, the true [2] Archaeus, or separator, which is an effluence out of the invisible world, viz. the outflown Word of God; which I mean and understand by the word fiery Mercury. [1] or water [2] distinguisher or divider 156. For what the invisible world is, in a spiritual working, where light and darkness are in one another, and yet the one not comprehending the other, that the visible world is, in a substantial working; whatsoever powers and virtues in the outflown word are to be [1] understood in the inward spiritual world, the same we understand also in the visible world, in the stars and elements, yet in another Principle of a more holy [2] nature. [1] or conceived [2] kind, quality, or condition
2157. The four elements flow from the Archaeus of the inward ground, that is, from the four properties of the eternal nature, and were in the beginning of time so outbreathed from the inward ground, and compressed and formed into a working substance and life; and therefore the outward world is called a Principle, and is a subject of the inward world, that is, a tool and instrument of the inward [1] master, which [1] master is the word and [2] power of God. [1] artificer or workman [2] or virtue 158. And as the inward divine world has in it an [1] understanding life from the effluence of the divine knowledge, whereby the angels and souls are meant; so likewise the outward world has a rational life in it, consisting in the outflown powers and virtues of the inward world; which outward [rational] life has no higher understanding, and can teach no further than that thing wherein it dwells, viz. the stars and four elements. [1] or intellectual 159. The spiritus mundus is hidden in the four elements, as the soul is in the body, and is nothing else but an effluence and working power proceeding from the sun and stars; its dwelling wherein it works is spiritual, encompassed with the four elements. 160. The spiritual house is first a sharp magnetical power and virtue, from the effluence of the inward world, from the first property of the eternal nature; this is the ground of all salt and powerful virtue, also of all forming and substantiality.
3161. Secondly, it is the effluence of the inward motion, which is outflown from the second [1] form of the eternal nature, and consists in a fiery nature, like a dry kind of water source, which is understood to be the ground of all metal and stones, for they were created of that. [1] species, kind, or property 162. I call it the fiery Mercury in the spirit of this world, for it is them over of all things, and the separator of the powers and virtues; a former of all shapes, a ground of the outward life, as to the motion and sensibility. 163. The third ground is the perception in the motion and sharpness, which is a spiritual source of Sulfur, proceeding from the ground of the painful will in the inward ground: hence the spirit with the five senses arises, viz. seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling; and is the true essential life, whereby the fire, that is, the fourth form, is made manifest. 164. The ancient wise men have called these three properties Sulfur, Mercurius, and Sal, as to their materials which were produced thereby in the four elements, into which this spirit does coagulate, or make itself substantial. 165. The four elements lie also in this ground, and are nothing different or several from it; they are only the manifestation of this spiritual ground, and are as a dwelling place of the spirit, in which this spirit works.
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.
No commentary for this page.