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.
157. Nature [1] arises in the outflown word of the divine perception and knowledge; and it is a continual framing and forming of sciences and perception: whatsoever the word works by the wisdom, that nature frames and forms into properties: Nature is like a carpenter, who builds a house, which the mind figured and contrived before in itself; so it is here also to be understood. [1] or consists 58. Whatsoever the eternal mind [1] figures in the eternal wisdom of God in the divine power, and brings into an idea, that, nature frames into a property. [1] or models 59. Nature, in its first ground, consists in seven properties; and these seven divide themselves into infinite. The First Property 60. The First property is the desire which causes and makes [1] harshness, sharpness, hardness, cold, and substance. [1] or astringency The Second Property 61. The Second property is the stirring or attraction of the desire; it makes [1] stinging, breaking, and dividing of the hardness; it cuts asunder the attracted desire, and brings it into multiplicity and variety; it is a ground of the bitter pain, and also the true root of life; it is the [2] Vulcan that strikes fire. [1] or pricking [2] Faber or smith The Third Property
262. The Third property is the perceptibility and feelingness in the breaking of the harsh hardness; and it is the ground of anguish, and of the natural will, wherein the eternal will desires to be manifested; that is, it will be a fire or light, viz. a flash or shining,wherein the powers, colors, and virtues of the wisdom may appear: in these three first properties consists the foundation of anger, and of hell, and of all that is [1] wrathful. [1] grim, fierce, cruel, odious, or evil The Fourth Property 63. The Fourth property is the fire, in which the Unity appears, and is seen in the light, that is, in a burning love; and the wrath in the [1] essence of fire. [1] operation or property The Fifth Property 64. The Fifth property is the light, with its virtue of love, in and with which the Unity works in a natural substance. The Sixth Property 65. The Sixth property is the sound, voice, or natural understanding, wherein the five senses work spiritually, that is, in an understanding natural life. The Seventh Property 66. The Seventh property is the subject, or the [1] contence of the other six properties, in which they work, as the life does in the flesh; and this seventh property is rightly and truly called the ground or place of nature, wherein the properties stand in one only ground. [1] compass, conclusion, comprising, or continent The First SUBSTANCE in the Seven Properties
367. We must always understand two substances in the seven properties: we understand the first, according to the abyss of these properties, to be the divine [1] Being; that is, the divine will with the outflowing Unity of God, which together flows forth through nature, and brings itself into the receivingness to sharpness, that the eternal love may become working and sensible thereby, and that it may have something which is passive, wherein it may manifest itself, and be known; and of which also it might be desired and beloved again, viz. the [2]aching passive nature, which in the love is changed into an eternal joyfulness: and when the love in the fire manifests itself in the light, then it inflames nature, as the sun a plant, and the fire [3] iron. [1] essence or substance [2] or painful [3] a red-hot iron The Second SUBSTANCE 68. The Second substance is nature's own substance, which is [1] aching and passive, and is the tool and instrument of the agent; for where no passiveness is, there is also no desire of deliverance, or of something better; and where there is no desire of something better, there a thing rests within itself. [1] painful 69. And therefore the eternal Unity brings itself by its effluence and separation into nature, that it may have an object, in which it may manifest itself, and that it may love something, and be again be loved by something, that so there may be a perceiving, or sensible working and will
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.
157. Nature [1] arises in the outflown word of the divine perception and knowledge; and it is a continual framing and forming of sciences and perception: whatsoever the word works by the wisdom, that nature frames and forms into properties: Nature is like a carpenter, who builds a house, which the mind figured and contrived before in itself; so it is here also to be understood. [1] or consists 58. Whatsoever the eternal mind [1] figures in the eternal wisdom of God in the divine power, and brings into an idea, that, nature frames into a property. [1] or models 59. Nature, in its first ground, consists in seven properties; and these seven divide themselves into infinite. The First Property 60. The First property is the desire which causes and makes [1] harshness, sharpness, hardness, cold, and substance. [1] or astringency The Second Property 61. The Second property is the stirring or attraction of the desire; it makes [1] stinging, breaking, and dividing of the hardness; it cuts asunder the attracted desire, and brings it into multiplicity and variety; it is a ground of the bitter pain, and also the true root of life; it is the [2] Vulcan that strikes fire. [1] or pricking [2] Faber or smith The Third Property
262. The Third property is the perceptibility and feelingness in the breaking of the harsh hardness; and it is the ground of anguish, and of the natural will, wherein the eternal will desires to be manifested; that is, it will be a fire or light, viz. a flash or shining,wherein the powers, colors, and virtues of the wisdom may appear: in these three first properties consists the foundation of anger, and of hell, and of all that is [1] wrathful. [1] grim, fierce, cruel, odious, or evil The Fourth Property 63. The Fourth property is the fire, in which the Unity appears, and is seen in the light, that is, in a burning love; and the wrath in the [1] essence of fire. [1] operation or property The Fifth Property 64. The Fifth property is the light, with its virtue of love, in and with which the Unity works in a natural substance. The Sixth Property 65. The Sixth property is the sound, voice, or natural understanding, wherein the five senses work spiritually, that is, in an understanding natural life. The Seventh Property 66. The Seventh property is the subject, or the [1] contence of the other six properties, in which they work, as the life does in the flesh; and this seventh property is rightly and truly called the ground or place of nature, wherein the properties stand in one only ground. [1] compass, conclusion, comprising, or continent The First SUBSTANCE in the Seven Properties
367. We must always understand two substances in the seven properties: we understand the first, according to the abyss of these properties, to be the divine [1] Being; that is, the divine will with the outflowing Unity of God, which together flows forth through nature, and brings itself into the receivingness to sharpness, that the eternal love may become working and sensible thereby, and that it may have something which is passive, wherein it may manifest itself, and be known; and of which also it might be desired and beloved again, viz. the [2]aching passive nature, which in the love is changed into an eternal joyfulness: and when the love in the fire manifests itself in the light, then it inflames nature, as the sun a plant, and the fire [3] iron. [1] essence or substance [2] or painful [3] a red-hot iron The Second SUBSTANCE 68. The Second substance is nature's own substance, which is [1] aching and passive, and is the tool and instrument of the agent; for where no passiveness is, there is also no desire of deliverance, or of something better; and where there is no desire of something better, there a thing rests within itself. [1] painful 69. And therefore the eternal Unity brings itself by its effluence and separation into nature, that it may have an object, in which it may manifest itself, and that it may love something, and be again be loved by something, that so there may be a perceiving, or sensible working and will
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.