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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.
110. For there is some Qood in every Thing, which holdeth the . Evil captive and shut up in the Thing ; but he can walk and rule only in the evil Part or Property ; when it stirreth up an evil Desire in itself, and bringeth its Desire into Wickedness. This indeed the inanimate Creatures cannot do’ ; but Man can do it through the inanimate Creature , if he bring the Centre of his Will, with the Desire out of the eternal Centre, into it, which is the Qround of Enchantment, and false Magic. The Will of the Devil can also enter into that Evil whereinto Man bringeth the Desire of his Soul, which is born also out of the Eternal Nature. 11. For the Original of the Soul and of Angels, out of the Eternal .Nature is the same. But Ahe Devil hath no further Power over the Time, or temporary Condition , of this World, than in the great Turba, or Turba Magna, the Curse; wheresoever That kindleth itself in the eternal and temporal Wrath, the^e he is busy, as in Wars, Fighting, and Strife, as al^o in great Tempests without Water. In the Fire he proceeded as far as the Turba (Mischief or Hurt) goeth in great Showers or Tempests of Thunder, Lightning and Hail ; but he cannot direct them, for he is not Lord or Master in them, but Servant only.
212. Thus the Creature stirreth up with its Desire, Qood and Evil, Life and Death. The human Angelical Desire standeth in the Centre of the eternal Nature which is without Beginning; and wherein it kindleth itself, whether in Qood or Evil, it accomplished its Work in that. 13. Now God created every Thing for and in That wherein it should be, the Angels for and in Heaven, and Man for and in Paradise. If therefore the Desire of the Creature goeth forth from its own Mother, then it entereth into the contrary Will and into Enmity, and it is tormented with the Contrariety therein, and so a false Will ariseth in a good; and then the good Will entereth into its nothing again, viz., into the End of Nature and Creature, and so leaveth the Creature in its own Evil or Wickedness, as appeared by Lucifer and also by Adam ; and had not the Will of the Love of God met with Adam and of mere Mercy entered,, into the Huma?iity or human Nature again, there could be no good Will in Man.
314. Therefore all Speculation and Enquiry about God's Will is a vain Thing, unless the Mind be converted. For when the Mind standeth captivated in the Self -Desire af the earthly Lifg, it cannot comprehend what the Will of God is; it runneth on but in Self, from one Way into another, and yet findeth no Rest ; for Self-Desire evermore bringeth Disquiet. But when it sinketh itself wholly into the Mercy of God, desiring to die from itself, and to have God’s Will for a Guide to the Understanding, so Of ’True "Resignation . ^ i that it* acknowledgeth and esteemeth itself as nothmg, and Willeth nothing but what God Willeth , then shall it both know and do the Will of God. And if the Desire of Anger in the earthly Flesh should go along or join with the Devil's Imagination , and assault thb Will of the Soul, yet the resigned Desire crieth to God and saith, Abba , loving Father , deliver me from Evil : And then, though the earthly Will should grow too strong in the Wrath of God by the Infection of the Devil , th <z*Desire of Anger would work but in or upon itself According to what St. Paul saith, ‘Now if I Sin, I do it not, but Sin that dwelleth
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.
110. For there is some Qood in every Thing, which holdeth the . Evil captive and shut up in the Thing ; but he can walk and rule only in the evil Part or Property ; when it stirreth up an evil Desire in itself, and bringeth its Desire into Wickedness. This indeed the inanimate Creatures cannot do’ ; but Man can do it through the inanimate Creature , if he bring the Centre of his Will, with the Desire out of the eternal Centre, into it, which is the Qround of Enchantment, and false Magic. The Will of the Devil can also enter into that Evil whereinto Man bringeth the Desire of his Soul, which is born also out of the Eternal Nature. 11. For the Original of the Soul and of Angels, out of the Eternal .Nature is the same. But Ahe Devil hath no further Power over the Time, or temporary Condition , of this World, than in the great Turba, or Turba Magna, the Curse; wheresoever That kindleth itself in the eternal and temporal Wrath, the^e he is busy, as in Wars, Fighting, and Strife, as al^o in great Tempests without Water. In the Fire he proceeded as far as the Turba (Mischief or Hurt) goeth in great Showers or Tempests of Thunder, Lightning and Hail ; but he cannot direct them, for he is not Lord or Master in them, but Servant only.
212. Thus the Creature stirreth up with its Desire, Qood and Evil, Life and Death. The human Angelical Desire standeth in the Centre of the eternal Nature which is without Beginning; and wherein it kindleth itself, whether in Qood or Evil, it accomplished its Work in that. 13. Now God created every Thing for and in That wherein it should be, the Angels for and in Heaven, and Man for and in Paradise. If therefore the Desire of the Creature goeth forth from its own Mother, then it entereth into the contrary Will and into Enmity, and it is tormented with the Contrariety therein, and so a false Will ariseth in a good; and then the good Will entereth into its nothing again, viz., into the End of Nature and Creature, and so leaveth the Creature in its own Evil or Wickedness, as appeared by Lucifer and also by Adam ; and had not the Will of the Love of God met with Adam and of mere Mercy entered,, into the Huma?iity or human Nature again, there could be no good Will in Man.
314. Therefore all Speculation and Enquiry about God's Will is a vain Thing, unless the Mind be converted. For when the Mind standeth captivated in the Self -Desire af the earthly Lifg, it cannot comprehend what the Will of God is; it runneth on but in Self, from one Way into another, and yet findeth no Rest ; for Self-Desire evermore bringeth Disquiet. But when it sinketh itself wholly into the Mercy of God, desiring to die from itself, and to have God’s Will for a Guide to the Understanding, so Of ’True "Resignation . ^ i that it* acknowledgeth and esteemeth itself as nothmg, and Willeth nothing but what God Willeth , then shall it both know and do the Will of God. And if the Desire of Anger in the earthly Flesh should go along or join with the Devil's Imagination , and assault thb Will of the Soul, yet the resigned Desire crieth to God and saith, Abba , loving Father , deliver me from Evil : And then, though the earthly Will should grow too strong in the Wrath of God by the Infection of the Devil , th <z*Desire of Anger would work but in or upon itself According to what St. Paul saith, ‘Now if I Sin, I do it not, but Sin that dwelleth
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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