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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.
188. The eternal Unity (which I also in some of my writings call the liberty) is the soft and still tranquillity, being amiable, and as a soft comfortable ease, and it cannot be expressed how soft a tranquillity there is without nature in the Unity of God; but the three properties (in order) to nature are sharp, painful , and horrible. 89. In these three painful properties the outflown will consists [stands], and is produced by the Word or divine breathing, and the Unity also is therein; therefore the wi II longs earnestly for the Unity, and the Unity longs for the sensibility, viz. for the fiery ground:thus the one longs to get into the other; and when this longing is, there is as it were a [1] cracking noise or flash of lightning, as when we strike steeland a stone together, or pour water into fire: this we speak by way of similitude. [1] crashing 90. In that flash the Unity feels the sensibility, and the will receives the soft tranquil Unity; and so the Unity becomes a shining glance of fire, and the fire becomes a burning love, for it receives the [1] ens and power from the soft Unity : in this kindling the darkness of the magnetical compressure is pierced through [permeated] with the light, so that it is no more known or discerned, although it remains in itself eternally in the compressure. [1] or entity
291. Now two eternal Principles arise here, viz. the darkness, harshness, sharpness, and pain dwelling in itself; and the feeling, power and virtue of the Unity in the light; upon which the scripture says, that God (that is, the eternal Unity) dwells in a light to which none can [1] come. [1] or approach 92. For so the eternal Unity of God manifests itself through the spiritual fire, in the light, and this light is called Majesty; and God(that is, the supernatural Unity) is the power and virtue of it. 93. For the spirit of this fire receives ens [or virtue] to shine, from the Unity, or else this fiery [1] ground would be but a painful, horrible hunger, and pricking desire; and it is so indeed, when the will breaks itself off from the Unity, and will live after its own desire, as the devils have done, and the false soul still does. [1] or spirit 94. And thus you may here perceive two Principles: the first is the ground of the burning of the fire, viz. the sharp, moving, perceivable, painful darkness in itself; and the second is the light of the fire, wherein the Unity comes into mobility and joy; for the fire is an object of the great love of God's Unity.
395. For so the eternal delight becomes perceivable, and this perceiving of the Unity is called love, and is a burning or life in the Unity of God; and according to this burning of love, God calls himself a merciful loving God; for the Unity of God loves and pierces through the [1] painful will of the fire (which at the beginning arose in the breathing of the word, or outgoing of the divine delight), and changes it into great joy. [1] aching 96. And in this fiery will of the eternal nature stands the soul of man, and also the angels; this is their ground and center; therefore, if any soul breaks itself off from the light and love of God, and enters into its own natural desire, then the ground of this darkness and painful [1] property will be manifest in it; and this is the hellish fire, and the anger of God, when it is made manifest, as may be seen in Lucifer; and whatsoever can be thought to have a being [2] anywhere in the creature, the same is likewise without the creature everywhere; for the creature is nothing else but an image and figure of the separable and various power and virtue of the universal Being. [1] or source [2] or everywhere
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.
188. The eternal Unity (which I also in some of my writings call the liberty) is the soft and still tranquillity, being amiable, and as a soft comfortable ease, and it cannot be expressed how soft a tranquillity there is without nature in the Unity of God; but the three properties (in order) to nature are sharp, painful , and horrible. 89. In these three painful properties the outflown will consists [stands], and is produced by the Word or divine breathing, and the Unity also is therein; therefore the wi II longs earnestly for the Unity, and the Unity longs for the sensibility, viz. for the fiery ground:thus the one longs to get into the other; and when this longing is, there is as it were a [1] cracking noise or flash of lightning, as when we strike steeland a stone together, or pour water into fire: this we speak by way of similitude. [1] crashing 90. In that flash the Unity feels the sensibility, and the will receives the soft tranquil Unity; and so the Unity becomes a shining glance of fire, and the fire becomes a burning love, for it receives the [1] ens and power from the soft Unity : in this kindling the darkness of the magnetical compressure is pierced through [permeated] with the light, so that it is no more known or discerned, although it remains in itself eternally in the compressure. [1] or entity
291. Now two eternal Principles arise here, viz. the darkness, harshness, sharpness, and pain dwelling in itself; and the feeling, power and virtue of the Unity in the light; upon which the scripture says, that God (that is, the eternal Unity) dwells in a light to which none can [1] come. [1] or approach 92. For so the eternal Unity of God manifests itself through the spiritual fire, in the light, and this light is called Majesty; and God(that is, the supernatural Unity) is the power and virtue of it. 93. For the spirit of this fire receives ens [or virtue] to shine, from the Unity, or else this fiery [1] ground would be but a painful, horrible hunger, and pricking desire; and it is so indeed, when the will breaks itself off from the Unity, and will live after its own desire, as the devils have done, and the false soul still does. [1] or spirit 94. And thus you may here perceive two Principles: the first is the ground of the burning of the fire, viz. the sharp, moving, perceivable, painful darkness in itself; and the second is the light of the fire, wherein the Unity comes into mobility and joy; for the fire is an object of the great love of God's Unity.
395. For so the eternal delight becomes perceivable, and this perceiving of the Unity is called love, and is a burning or life in the Unity of God; and according to this burning of love, God calls himself a merciful loving God; for the Unity of God loves and pierces through the [1] painful will of the fire (which at the beginning arose in the breathing of the word, or outgoing of the divine delight), and changes it into great joy. [1] aching 96. And in this fiery will of the eternal nature stands the soul of man, and also the angels; this is their ground and center; therefore, if any soul breaks itself off from the light and love of God, and enters into its own natural desire, then the ground of this darkness and painful [1] property will be manifest in it; and this is the hellish fire, and the anger of God, when it is made manifest, as may be seen in Lucifer; and whatsoever can be thought to have a being [2] anywhere in the creature, the same is likewise without the creature everywhere; for the creature is nothing else but an image and figure of the separable and various power and virtue of the universal Being. [1] or source [2] or everywhere
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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