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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.
1210. The word Science is not so taken by me as men understand the word scientia in the Latin tongue; for I understand therein even the true ground according to sense, which, both in the Latin and all other languages is missed and neglected by ignorance; for every word in its impressure, forming, and expression, gives the true understanding of what that thing is that is so called. 211. You understand by Science some skill or knowledge, in which you say true, but do not fully express the meaning. 212. Science is the root to the understanding, as to the [1] sensibility; it is the root to the center of the [2] impressure of nothing into something; as when the will of the abyss attracts itself into itself, to a center of the impressure, viz. to the word, then arises the true understanding. [1] cogitation, consideration, or reasoning [2] or forming 213. The will is in the separability of the Science, and there separates itself out from the impressed compaction; and men first of all understand the essence in that which is separated, in which the separability impresses itself into a substance. 214. For [1] essence is a substantial power and virtue, but Science is a moving flitting one, like the senses; it is indeed the root of the senses. [1] ESSENTZ
2215. Yet in the understanding, in which it is called Science, it is not the sensing, but a cause of the sensing, in that manner as when the understanding impresses [manifests] itself in the mind, there must first be a cause which must give [bring forth] the mind, from which the understanding flows forth into its contemplation: Now this Science is the root to the fiery mind, and it is in short the root of all spiritual beginnings; it is the true root of souls, and proceeds through every life, for it is the ground from whence life comes. 216. I could not give it any other better name, this does so wholly accord and agree in the sense; for the Science is the cause that the divine abyssall will compacts and impresses itself in tonature, to the separable [various], intelligible, and perceivable life of understanding and difference; for from the impressure of the Science, whereby the will attracts it into itself the natural life arises, and the word of every life originally. 217. The distinction or separation out of the fire is to be understood as follows: The eternal Science in the will of the Father draws the will, which is called Father, into itself, and shuts itself into a center of the divine generation of the Trinity, and by the Science speaks itself forth into a word of understanding; and in the speaking is the separation in
3the Science; and in every separation there is the desire to the impressure of the [1] expression, the impressure is essential, and is called divine essence. [1] or out-speaking 218. From this essence the word expresses itself in the second separation, that is, of nature, and in that expression (wherein the natural will separates itself in its center, into a preception [sensing?]), the separation out of the fiery [1] Science is understood; for thence comes the soul and all angelical spirits. [1] one copy has essence 219. The third separation is according to the outward nature of the expressed formed word, wherein the bestial Science lies, as may be seen in the treatise of the Election of Grace, which has a [1] sharp understanding, and is one of the clearest of our writings. [1] acute or sublime FINIS
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.
1210. The word Science is not so taken by me as men understand the word scientia in the Latin tongue; for I understand therein even the true ground according to sense, which, both in the Latin and all other languages is missed and neglected by ignorance; for every word in its impressure, forming, and expression, gives the true understanding of what that thing is that is so called. 211. You understand by Science some skill or knowledge, in which you say true, but do not fully express the meaning. 212. Science is the root to the understanding, as to the [1] sensibility; it is the root to the center of the [2] impressure of nothing into something; as when the will of the abyss attracts itself into itself, to a center of the impressure, viz. to the word, then arises the true understanding. [1] cogitation, consideration, or reasoning [2] or forming 213. The will is in the separability of the Science, and there separates itself out from the impressed compaction; and men first of all understand the essence in that which is separated, in which the separability impresses itself into a substance. 214. For [1] essence is a substantial power and virtue, but Science is a moving flitting one, like the senses; it is indeed the root of the senses. [1] ESSENTZ
2215. Yet in the understanding, in which it is called Science, it is not the sensing, but a cause of the sensing, in that manner as when the understanding impresses [manifests] itself in the mind, there must first be a cause which must give [bring forth] the mind, from which the understanding flows forth into its contemplation: Now this Science is the root to the fiery mind, and it is in short the root of all spiritual beginnings; it is the true root of souls, and proceeds through every life, for it is the ground from whence life comes. 216. I could not give it any other better name, this does so wholly accord and agree in the sense; for the Science is the cause that the divine abyssall will compacts and impresses itself in tonature, to the separable [various], intelligible, and perceivable life of understanding and difference; for from the impressure of the Science, whereby the will attracts it into itself the natural life arises, and the word of every life originally. 217. The distinction or separation out of the fire is to be understood as follows: The eternal Science in the will of the Father draws the will, which is called Father, into itself, and shuts itself into a center of the divine generation of the Trinity, and by the Science speaks itself forth into a word of understanding; and in the speaking is the separation in
3the Science; and in every separation there is the desire to the impressure of the [1] expression, the impressure is essential, and is called divine essence. [1] or out-speaking 218. From this essence the word expresses itself in the second separation, that is, of nature, and in that expression (wherein the natural will separates itself in its center, into a preception [sensing?]), the separation out of the fiery [1] Science is understood; for thence comes the soul and all angelical spirits. [1] one copy has essence 219. The third separation is according to the outward nature of the expressed formed word, wherein the bestial Science lies, as may be seen in the treatise of the Election of Grace, which has a [1] sharp understanding, and is one of the clearest of our writings. [1] acute or sublime FINIS
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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