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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.
1eternity, in the ground and abyss; and it is God himself, viz. the divine working perceptibility, sensation, [2]invention, science, and love; that is, the true knowledge, understanding in the working Unity, from which spring the five senses of the true life. [1] or Jehova is the sensual name of the working Deity [2] finding knowledge 32. Each letter in this name intimates to us a peculiar virtue and working, that is, a [1] form in the working power. [1] difference or distinction 33. For I is the effluence of the eternal, indivisible Unity, or the sweet gracefulness [wholeness, holiness] of the ground of the divine power of becoming [1] somethingness. [1] I, l-hood, self, or selfness 34. E is a threefold I, where the Trinity shuts itself up in the Unity; for the I goes into E, and joins IE, which is an outbreathing of the Unity in itself. 35. H is the Word, or [1] breathing of the Trinity of God. [1] or speaking 36. O is the circumference, or the Son of God, through which the IE and the H, or breathing, out-speaks; from the compressed light of the power and virtue. 37. V is the joyful effluence from the [1] breathing, that is, the proceeding spirit of God. [1] or speaking 38. A is that which is proceeded from the power and virtue, viz. the wisdom; a subject of the Trinity; wherein the Trinity works, and wherein the Trinity is also manifest.
239. This name is nothing else but an out-speaking, or expression of the threefold working of the holy Trinity in the Unity of God. Read further of this in the Exposition of the Table of the three Principles of the Divine Manifestation. Of the Divine Wisdom 40. The Holy Scripture says, The wisdom is the breathing of the divine power, a ray and breath of the Almighty; also it says, God has made all things by his wisdom; which we understand as follows. 41. The wisdom is the outflown Word of the divine power, virtue, knowledge, and holiness; a subject and resemblance [reflection or image] of the infinite and unsearchable Unity; a substance wherein the Holy Ghost works, forms, and models; I mean, he forms and models the divine understanding in the wisdom; for the wisdom is the passive, and the spirit of God is the active, or life in her, as the soul in the body. 42. The wisdom is the great Mystery of the divine nature; for in her the powers, colors, and virtues are made manifest; in her is the variation of the power and virtue, viz. the understanding: she is the divine understanding, that is, the divine [1] vision, wherein the Unity is manifest. [1] or contemplation
343. She is the true divine chaos, wherein all things lie, viz. a divine imagination, in which the [1] ideas of angels and souls have been seen from eternity, in a divine type and resemblance; yet not then as creatures, but in resemblance, as when a man beholds his face in a glass: therefore the angelical and human idea did flow forth from the wisdom, and was formed into an image, as Moses said, "God created man in his image"; that is, he created the body, and breathed into it the breath of the divine effluence, of divine knowledge, from all the three Principles of the divine manifestation. [1] forms or images Of the Mysterium Magnum 44. The [1] Mysterium Magnum is a subject of the wisdom, where the breathing word, or the working willing power of the divine understanding, flows forth through the wisdom, wherein also the Unity of God together flows out, to its manifestation. [1] or Great Mystery 45. For in the Mysterium Magnum the eternal nature arises; and two [1] substances and wills are always understood to be in the Mysterium Magnum: the first substance is the Unity of God, that is, the divine power and virtue, the outflowing wisdom. [1] essences or beings
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.
1eternity, in the ground and abyss; and it is God himself, viz. the divine working perceptibility, sensation, [2]invention, science, and love; that is, the true knowledge, understanding in the working Unity, from which spring the five senses of the true life. [1] or Jehova is the sensual name of the working Deity [2] finding knowledge 32. Each letter in this name intimates to us a peculiar virtue and working, that is, a [1] form in the working power. [1] difference or distinction 33. For I is the effluence of the eternal, indivisible Unity, or the sweet gracefulness [wholeness, holiness] of the ground of the divine power of becoming [1] somethingness. [1] I, l-hood, self, or selfness 34. E is a threefold I, where the Trinity shuts itself up in the Unity; for the I goes into E, and joins IE, which is an outbreathing of the Unity in itself. 35. H is the Word, or [1] breathing of the Trinity of God. [1] or speaking 36. O is the circumference, or the Son of God, through which the IE and the H, or breathing, out-speaks; from the compressed light of the power and virtue. 37. V is the joyful effluence from the [1] breathing, that is, the proceeding spirit of God. [1] or speaking 38. A is that which is proceeded from the power and virtue, viz. the wisdom; a subject of the Trinity; wherein the Trinity works, and wherein the Trinity is also manifest.
239. This name is nothing else but an out-speaking, or expression of the threefold working of the holy Trinity in the Unity of God. Read further of this in the Exposition of the Table of the three Principles of the Divine Manifestation. Of the Divine Wisdom 40. The Holy Scripture says, The wisdom is the breathing of the divine power, a ray and breath of the Almighty; also it says, God has made all things by his wisdom; which we understand as follows. 41. The wisdom is the outflown Word of the divine power, virtue, knowledge, and holiness; a subject and resemblance [reflection or image] of the infinite and unsearchable Unity; a substance wherein the Holy Ghost works, forms, and models; I mean, he forms and models the divine understanding in the wisdom; for the wisdom is the passive, and the spirit of God is the active, or life in her, as the soul in the body. 42. The wisdom is the great Mystery of the divine nature; for in her the powers, colors, and virtues are made manifest; in her is the variation of the power and virtue, viz. the understanding: she is the divine understanding, that is, the divine [1] vision, wherein the Unity is manifest. [1] or contemplation
343. She is the true divine chaos, wherein all things lie, viz. a divine imagination, in which the [1] ideas of angels and souls have been seen from eternity, in a divine type and resemblance; yet not then as creatures, but in resemblance, as when a man beholds his face in a glass: therefore the angelical and human idea did flow forth from the wisdom, and was formed into an image, as Moses said, "God created man in his image"; that is, he created the body, and breathed into it the breath of the divine effluence, of divine knowledge, from all the three Principles of the divine manifestation. [1] forms or images Of the Mysterium Magnum 44. The [1] Mysterium Magnum is a subject of the wisdom, where the breathing word, or the working willing power of the divine understanding, flows forth through the wisdom, wherein also the Unity of God together flows out, to its manifestation. [1] or Great Mystery 45. For in the Mysterium Magnum the eternal nature arises; and two [1] substances and wills are always understood to be in the Mysterium Magnum: the first substance is the Unity of God, that is, the divine power and virtue, the outflowing wisdom. [1] essences or beings
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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