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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.
1key of the prison ; yield thyself up to him in obedience, righteousness, humility, purity and truth. And seek not so eagerly after the kingdom of this world ; it will stick close enough to thee without that. Then the pure Virgin, the Wisdom of God, will meet thee in the height and depth of thy mind, and will lead thee to him who has the key to the gate of the deep. Thou must stand before him and he will give thee to eat of the heavenly manna which will quicken and refresh thee. Thou wilt be strong, and wilt break through the gate of the deep as the morning star, and though thou liest captive here in the night yet the rays of the dawn will appear to thee in paradise, where thy pure Virgin stands, waiting for thee with the joy of the angels, who will kindly receive thee in thy newborn mind and spirit. And though indeed here thou must walk, as to thy body, in the dark night, yet the noble Virgin will help thee still. 62 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME Look well to it, close not thy mind and understanding ; when thy mind says, Turn, then know that so thou art called by the Wisdom of God ; turn instantly, and consider where thou art lodged, in how hard a house of bondage thy soul lies imprisoned ; seek thy native country from whence thy soul is wandered and whither it should return again.
2Then if thou wilt follow the counsel of the Wisdom of God thou wilt find in thyself, not only after this life, but also in this life in thy regeneration, that Wisdom will very worthily meet thee. And thou wilt see out of what kind of spirit this author has wrote. CHAPTER VIII MY beloved Reader, I tell thee this, that everything has its impulse in its own form. It always makes that very thing with which the spirit is impregnated ; and the body must always labour in that wherein the spirit is kindled. When I consider and think why I thus write many wonders and leave them not for other sharper wits, I find that my spirit is kindled in this matter whereof I write ; for there is a living running fire of these things in my spirit, and thereupon (let me purpose what I will) yet they continually come uppermost, so that I am made captive thereby, and it is laid upon me as a work which I must do. Therefore, seeing it is my work wherein my spirit drives, I will 63 64 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME write it down for a memorial in such a manner as I know it in my spirit and as I attained to it ; I will set down no other thing than that I myself have tried and known, that I be not found a liar before God.
3Now, then, if there be any that have a desire to follow me and would fain have the knowledge whereof I write, I advise him to accompany me in this way, not at present with the pen, but with the labour of his mind ; and then he shall find how I could come to write thus. Seeing I have in hand the matter of repentance, therefore I certify the reader than in my earnestness this pen was given me, which the Oppressor would have broke. With him I began an earnest fight, insomuch that he would have cast me down to the ground under his feet had not the Spirit of God helped me, so that now I stand up. Therefore, if we will speak of this most serious matter, we must go from Jerusalem CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 6$ to Jericho, and see how we lie among murderers who have so wounded and beaten us that we are half dead ; and must look about us for the Samaritan with his beast, that he may dress our wounds and bring us into his inn. O how lamentable and miserable it is, that although we are so beaten by the murderer that we are half dead, yet we feel our smart no more ! Oh, if the physician would come and dress our wounds, that our soul might revive and live, how we should rejoice ! Thus speaks desire, and has such longing heartfelt wishes ; yet although the physician is here, the mind can in no wise apprehend him, because it is so much wounded and lies half dead.
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.
1key of the prison ; yield thyself up to him in obedience, righteousness, humility, purity and truth. And seek not so eagerly after the kingdom of this world ; it will stick close enough to thee without that. Then the pure Virgin, the Wisdom of God, will meet thee in the height and depth of thy mind, and will lead thee to him who has the key to the gate of the deep. Thou must stand before him and he will give thee to eat of the heavenly manna which will quicken and refresh thee. Thou wilt be strong, and wilt break through the gate of the deep as the morning star, and though thou liest captive here in the night yet the rays of the dawn will appear to thee in paradise, where thy pure Virgin stands, waiting for thee with the joy of the angels, who will kindly receive thee in thy newborn mind and spirit. And though indeed here thou must walk, as to thy body, in the dark night, yet the noble Virgin will help thee still. 62 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME Look well to it, close not thy mind and understanding ; when thy mind says, Turn, then know that so thou art called by the Wisdom of God ; turn instantly, and consider where thou art lodged, in how hard a house of bondage thy soul lies imprisoned ; seek thy native country from whence thy soul is wandered and whither it should return again.
2Then if thou wilt follow the counsel of the Wisdom of God thou wilt find in thyself, not only after this life, but also in this life in thy regeneration, that Wisdom will very worthily meet thee. And thou wilt see out of what kind of spirit this author has wrote. CHAPTER VIII MY beloved Reader, I tell thee this, that everything has its impulse in its own form. It always makes that very thing with which the spirit is impregnated ; and the body must always labour in that wherein the spirit is kindled. When I consider and think why I thus write many wonders and leave them not for other sharper wits, I find that my spirit is kindled in this matter whereof I write ; for there is a living running fire of these things in my spirit, and thereupon (let me purpose what I will) yet they continually come uppermost, so that I am made captive thereby, and it is laid upon me as a work which I must do. Therefore, seeing it is my work wherein my spirit drives, I will 63 64 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME write it down for a memorial in such a manner as I know it in my spirit and as I attained to it ; I will set down no other thing than that I myself have tried and known, that I be not found a liar before God.
3Now, then, if there be any that have a desire to follow me and would fain have the knowledge whereof I write, I advise him to accompany me in this way, not at present with the pen, but with the labour of his mind ; and then he shall find how I could come to write thus. Seeing I have in hand the matter of repentance, therefore I certify the reader than in my earnestness this pen was given me, which the Oppressor would have broke. With him I began an earnest fight, insomuch that he would have cast me down to the ground under his feet had not the Spirit of God helped me, so that now I stand up. Therefore, if we will speak of this most serious matter, we must go from Jerusalem CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 6$ to Jericho, and see how we lie among murderers who have so wounded and beaten us that we are half dead ; and must look about us for the Samaritan with his beast, that he may dress our wounds and bring us into his inn. O how lamentable and miserable it is, that although we are so beaten by the murderer that we are half dead, yet we feel our smart no more ! Oh, if the physician would come and dress our wounds, that our soul might revive and live, how we should rejoice ! Thus speaks desire, and has such longing heartfelt wishes ; yet although the physician is here, the mind can in no wise apprehend him, because it is so much wounded and lies half dead.
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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