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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.
143. For such was the Earth also, until the Curse of Gorr broke forth. The Holy Property of the Spiritual World sprung up through the Earth, and brought forth Holy Paradisaical^ Of Regeneration. Fruits, tvhich Man could then cat in a Magical Paradisaical Manner. 44. And had neither need of Teeth , nor Entrails in his Body. For as the Light swalloweth up Darkness, and as the Fire devoureth Water, and yet is not filled therewith, just such a Centre Man also had for his Mouth to eat withal, according to the Manner of Eternity. 45. And he could also generate his like out of himself, without any dividing or opening of his Body and Spirit, in such a Manner as God generated the outward World ; Who did not divide himself ; but did in his Desire, viz., in the Word Fiat, manifest himself, and broyght that same Desire into a Figure according *to the eternal Spiritual Birth. So also Man was created an Image and Likeness of God in that respect, according k^dTinue and Eternity, out of both Time and Eternity , yet in and for an immortal Life which was without Enmity or Contrariety.
246. But the Devil having himself been a Prince and Hierarch in the Place of this World, and cast out for his Pride into the darJc, anguishing, painful and hostile Property and Source, into the Wrath of God, envied Man the Glory of being created in and for the Spiritual World , the Place which he himself once possessed ; and therefore brought his Imagination or Desire into the Image of Man, and made it so lusting, that the dark World, and also the outward World arose in Man, and departed from the equal Agreement and Temperature wherein they stood, and so one predominated over the other. 47. And then the Properties were each of them separately made manifest in itself, and each of them lusted after that which was like itself. That which was out of the Birth of the dark World, and also that which was out of the Birth of the light World, would each of them eat of the Limbus of the Earth , according to its Hunger ; and so Evil and Cjood became manifest in Adam. 48. And when the Hunger of the Properties went into the from whence the Properties of the Body were extracted, then the Fiat drew such a Branch out of the Earth, as the Properties could eat of in their awakened Vanity ; for this was possible. 49. For the Spirit of the strong and great Magical Power of fTime and Eternity was in Adam, from which the Earth with its Properties was breathed forth ; and so the Fiat, vis., the strong Desire of the eternal Nature, attracted the Essence of the Earth.
3. And thus God let the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil grow for Adam, according to his awakened Properties ; for the great Power of the Soul and of the Body caused it. jo The IV iy to Qhrist . 50. And then Man must be tried, whether he woul"d stand and subsist in his own Powers, before the Tempter the Devil, and before the Wrath of the eternal Nature ; and whether the Soul would continue in the equal Agreement of the Properties in true Resignation under God’s Spirit, as an Instrument of God’s Harmony, a tuned Instrument of Divine Joyfulness for the Spirit of God to strike upon. This was tried by that Tree, and this severe Commandment was added, ‘ Thou shalt not eat * thereof, for on that Day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt * surely die.’ 5 1. But it being known to God that Man would not stand, and that he had already imagined ^nd lusted after (food and Evil, God said, ‘ It is not good for Man to be alorte, we will ‘ make him an Help-meet for him.’
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.
143. For such was the Earth also, until the Curse of Gorr broke forth. The Holy Property of the Spiritual World sprung up through the Earth, and brought forth Holy Paradisaical^ Of Regeneration. Fruits, tvhich Man could then cat in a Magical Paradisaical Manner. 44. And had neither need of Teeth , nor Entrails in his Body. For as the Light swalloweth up Darkness, and as the Fire devoureth Water, and yet is not filled therewith, just such a Centre Man also had for his Mouth to eat withal, according to the Manner of Eternity. 45. And he could also generate his like out of himself, without any dividing or opening of his Body and Spirit, in such a Manner as God generated the outward World ; Who did not divide himself ; but did in his Desire, viz., in the Word Fiat, manifest himself, and broyght that same Desire into a Figure according *to the eternal Spiritual Birth. So also Man was created an Image and Likeness of God in that respect, according k^dTinue and Eternity, out of both Time and Eternity , yet in and for an immortal Life which was without Enmity or Contrariety.
246. But the Devil having himself been a Prince and Hierarch in the Place of this World, and cast out for his Pride into the darJc, anguishing, painful and hostile Property and Source, into the Wrath of God, envied Man the Glory of being created in and for the Spiritual World , the Place which he himself once possessed ; and therefore brought his Imagination or Desire into the Image of Man, and made it so lusting, that the dark World, and also the outward World arose in Man, and departed from the equal Agreement and Temperature wherein they stood, and so one predominated over the other. 47. And then the Properties were each of them separately made manifest in itself, and each of them lusted after that which was like itself. That which was out of the Birth of the dark World, and also that which was out of the Birth of the light World, would each of them eat of the Limbus of the Earth , according to its Hunger ; and so Evil and Cjood became manifest in Adam. 48. And when the Hunger of the Properties went into the from whence the Properties of the Body were extracted, then the Fiat drew such a Branch out of the Earth, as the Properties could eat of in their awakened Vanity ; for this was possible. 49. For the Spirit of the strong and great Magical Power of fTime and Eternity was in Adam, from which the Earth with its Properties was breathed forth ; and so the Fiat, vis., the strong Desire of the eternal Nature, attracted the Essence of the Earth.
3. And thus God let the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil grow for Adam, according to his awakened Properties ; for the great Power of the Soul and of the Body caused it. jo The IV iy to Qhrist . 50. And then Man must be tried, whether he woul"d stand and subsist in his own Powers, before the Tempter the Devil, and before the Wrath of the eternal Nature ; and whether the Soul would continue in the equal Agreement of the Properties in true Resignation under God’s Spirit, as an Instrument of God’s Harmony, a tuned Instrument of Divine Joyfulness for the Spirit of God to strike upon. This was tried by that Tree, and this severe Commandment was added, ‘ Thou shalt not eat * thereof, for on that Day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt * surely die.’ 5 1. But it being known to God that Man would not stand, and that he had already imagined ^nd lusted after (food and Evil, God said, ‘ It is not good for Man to be alorte, we will ‘ make him an Help-meet for him.’
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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