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.
180. This motion is in itself like a turning wheel ; not that there is such a turning and winding, but it is so in the properties; for the desire attracts into itself, and the motion thrusts forwards out of itself, and so the will , being in this anguish, can neither get inwards nor outwards, and yet is drawn both out of itself and into itself; and so it remains in such a [1] posture as would go into itself and out of itself, that is, over itself and under itself, and yet can go no whither, but is an anguish, and the true foundation of hell, and of God's anger; for this anguish stands in the dark sharp motion. [1] form, manner, or condition 81. In the creation of the world the sulphur spirit, with the matter of the sulphureous [1] nature was produced out of this ground; which sulphur spirit is the natural life of the earthly and elementary creatures. [1] or property 82. The wise heathen have in some measure understood this ground, for they say, that in [1] Sulphur, [2] Mercury, and [3] Sal, all things in this world consist; wherein they have not looked upon the matter only, but upon the spirit, from which such matter proceeds: for the ground of it consists not in salt, quicksilver, and brimstone, they mean not so, but they mean the spirit of such properties; in that, everything indeed consists, whatsoever lives and grows and has being in this world, whether it be spiritual or material.
2[1] Spiritual corporeality [2] the Word or speaking [3] the gross palpable corporeality. [1] Sulphur, [2] Mercury, and [3] Sal 83. For they understand by Salt, the sharp magnetical desire of nature; and by Mercury, they mean the motion and separation of nature, by which everything is [1] figured with its own signature; and by Sulphur, they mean the perceiving [sensible] [2] willing and growing life. [1] or marked with its own image or shape [2] desiring vegetable life 84. For in the sulphur-spirit, wherein the fiery life burns, the oil lies; and the quintessence lies in the oil, viz. the fiery Mercury, which is the true life of nature, and which is an effluence from the word of the divine power and motion, wherein the ground of heaven is understood; and in the quintessence there lies the tincture, viz. the paradisical ground, the outflown word of the divine power and virtue, wherein the properties lie in [1] equality. [1] temperature or harmony 85. Thus, by the Third property of nature, which is the anguish, we mean the sharpness and painfulness of the fire, viz. the burning and consuming; for when the will is put into such a sharpness it will always consume the cause of that sharpness; for it always [1] strives to get to
3the Unity of God again, which is the rest; and the Unity thrusts itself with its effluence to this motion and sharpness; and so there is a continual conjoining for the manifestation of the divine will , as we always find in these three, viz. in salt, brimstone, and oil, a heavenly in the earthly; and whosoever does but truly understand it, and considers the spirit, shall find it so. [1] or throngs after, presses 86. For the soul of a thing lies in the sharpness, and the true life of the sensual nature and property lies in the motion, and the powerful spirit which arises from the tincture lies in the oil of the Sulphur: Thus a heavenly always lies hidden in the earthly, for the invisible [1] spiritual world came forth with and in the creation. [1] viz. the light and dark world; God's love and wrath The Fourth Property ( The Sun ) 87. The Fourth property of the eternal nature is the spiritual fire, wherein the light, that is, the Unity, is made manifest; for the [1] glance of the fire arises and proceeds from the outflown Unity, which has incorporated and united itself with the natural desire; and the burning property of fire, viz. the heat proceeds from the sharp devouringness of the first three properties; which comes to be so as follows. [1] shining, luster, or brightness
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.
180. This motion is in itself like a turning wheel ; not that there is such a turning and winding, but it is so in the properties; for the desire attracts into itself, and the motion thrusts forwards out of itself, and so the will , being in this anguish, can neither get inwards nor outwards, and yet is drawn both out of itself and into itself; and so it remains in such a [1] posture as would go into itself and out of itself, that is, over itself and under itself, and yet can go no whither, but is an anguish, and the true foundation of hell, and of God's anger; for this anguish stands in the dark sharp motion. [1] form, manner, or condition 81. In the creation of the world the sulphur spirit, with the matter of the sulphureous [1] nature was produced out of this ground; which sulphur spirit is the natural life of the earthly and elementary creatures. [1] or property 82. The wise heathen have in some measure understood this ground, for they say, that in [1] Sulphur, [2] Mercury, and [3] Sal, all things in this world consist; wherein they have not looked upon the matter only, but upon the spirit, from which such matter proceeds: for the ground of it consists not in salt, quicksilver, and brimstone, they mean not so, but they mean the spirit of such properties; in that, everything indeed consists, whatsoever lives and grows and has being in this world, whether it be spiritual or material.
2[1] Spiritual corporeality [2] the Word or speaking [3] the gross palpable corporeality. [1] Sulphur, [2] Mercury, and [3] Sal 83. For they understand by Salt, the sharp magnetical desire of nature; and by Mercury, they mean the motion and separation of nature, by which everything is [1] figured with its own signature; and by Sulphur, they mean the perceiving [sensible] [2] willing and growing life. [1] or marked with its own image or shape [2] desiring vegetable life 84. For in the sulphur-spirit, wherein the fiery life burns, the oil lies; and the quintessence lies in the oil, viz. the fiery Mercury, which is the true life of nature, and which is an effluence from the word of the divine power and motion, wherein the ground of heaven is understood; and in the quintessence there lies the tincture, viz. the paradisical ground, the outflown word of the divine power and virtue, wherein the properties lie in [1] equality. [1] temperature or harmony 85. Thus, by the Third property of nature, which is the anguish, we mean the sharpness and painfulness of the fire, viz. the burning and consuming; for when the will is put into such a sharpness it will always consume the cause of that sharpness; for it always [1] strives to get to
3the Unity of God again, which is the rest; and the Unity thrusts itself with its effluence to this motion and sharpness; and so there is a continual conjoining for the manifestation of the divine will , as we always find in these three, viz. in salt, brimstone, and oil, a heavenly in the earthly; and whosoever does but truly understand it, and considers the spirit, shall find it so. [1] or throngs after, presses 86. For the soul of a thing lies in the sharpness, and the true life of the sensual nature and property lies in the motion, and the powerful spirit which arises from the tincture lies in the oil of the Sulphur: Thus a heavenly always lies hidden in the earthly, for the invisible [1] spiritual world came forth with and in the creation. [1] viz. the light and dark world; God's love and wrath The Fourth Property ( The Sun ) 87. The Fourth property of the eternal nature is the spiritual fire, wherein the light, that is, the Unity, is made manifest; for the [1] glance of the fire arises and proceeds from the outflown Unity, which has incorporated and united itself with the natural desire; and the burning property of fire, viz. the heat proceeds from the sharp devouringness of the first three properties; which comes to be so as follows. [1] shining, luster, or brightness
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.