Fetching
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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.
1My dear Mind, thou supposest thou art very sound, but thou art so beaten that thou feelest thy disease no more. Art thou not very near unto death ? How then canst thou account thyself to be sound ? O my dear Soul, boast not of 5 66 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME thy soundness. Thou liest fettered in heavy bonds, yea, in a very dark dungeon ; thou swimmest in a deep water which rises up to thy very lips, and thou must continually expect death. Besides, the Oppressor, thine own corrupt nature, is behind thee with a great company of thy worst enemies, whereby he draws thee continually down by his chains towards the horrible deep, the abyss of hell ; and his crew assault thee, and run upon thee on all sides, as hounds upon their quarry. Then says Reason, Why do they so ? O my dear Soul, they have great cause for it ; thou hast been their hind, and thou art broken out of their park ; besides thou art so strong that thou hast broken down their park-wall and taken possession of their dwelling. Thou art their worst enemy and they thine ; and if thou wast but gone out of their enclosure they would be content, but thou being in it still the strife continues, and has no end till the CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 67 Ancient of Days comes, who will part you asunder.
2Dost thou suppose that I am mad that I write thus. If I did not see and know it I should be silent. Dost thou still say thou art in the garden of roses ? If thou thinkest thou art there, see well whether thou art not in the Devil's pasture, and art his most beloved hind which he fattens to the slaughter for his food. O dear Soul, turn, and let not the Devil capture thee ; regard not the scorn of the world ; all thy sorrow must be turned into great joy. And though in this world thou hast not great honour, power and riches, that is nothing ; thou knowest not whether to-morrow it will come to be thy turn to die. Why then dost thou contend and strive so much after worldly honour that is transitory ? Rather endeavour after the tree of paradise, which thou mayst carry with thee and wherein thou shalt rejoice eternally for its growth and fruit. 6S CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME Oh! is not that a blessed welfare when the soul dares to look into the Holy Trinity, wherewith it is filled, so that its powers grow and blossom in paradise, where songs of praise break forth, where the ever-growing fruit springs up endlessly according to thy desire, where there is no fear, envy, nor sorrow, where there is love one of another, where everyone rejoices in the form and beauty of another ?
3Beloved Mind, if thou hast a desire to this way and wouldst attain it, then thou must use great earnestness ; it must be no lip-labour, with the heart elsewhere. No, thou canst not attain it thus. Thou must collect thy mind with all thy purposes and reason, wholly together in one will and resolution, and desire to turn from thy abominations ; and thou must set thy thoughts upon God and goodness with a steadfast confidence in his mercy. Then thou wilt attain it. CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 69 Thou must continue steadfast in this resolute purpose ; and though thou gainest no strength into thy heart, and though the Devil should beat down thy tongue so that thou canst not pray to God, yet thou must continually hold and go on in this thought and purpose. The more thou pressest forward the weaker the Devil is ; the more earnestly thou pressest forth from the Devil and thy sins, the more mightily does the kingdom of God press into thee. Have a care that thou dost not depart from this thy will before thou hast received the jewel, the pearl of divine wisdom and knowledge ; though it holds off from morning till night, and still from day to day, if thy earnestness be great, then thy jewel will also be great which thou shalt receive in thy victory. None knows what it is but he that has found it by experience. It is a most precious guest ; when it enters into the soul there is a very wonderful triumph 70 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME
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.
1My dear Mind, thou supposest thou art very sound, but thou art so beaten that thou feelest thy disease no more. Art thou not very near unto death ? How then canst thou account thyself to be sound ? O my dear Soul, boast not of 5 66 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME thy soundness. Thou liest fettered in heavy bonds, yea, in a very dark dungeon ; thou swimmest in a deep water which rises up to thy very lips, and thou must continually expect death. Besides, the Oppressor, thine own corrupt nature, is behind thee with a great company of thy worst enemies, whereby he draws thee continually down by his chains towards the horrible deep, the abyss of hell ; and his crew assault thee, and run upon thee on all sides, as hounds upon their quarry. Then says Reason, Why do they so ? O my dear Soul, they have great cause for it ; thou hast been their hind, and thou art broken out of their park ; besides thou art so strong that thou hast broken down their park-wall and taken possession of their dwelling. Thou art their worst enemy and they thine ; and if thou wast but gone out of their enclosure they would be content, but thou being in it still the strife continues, and has no end till the CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 67 Ancient of Days comes, who will part you asunder.
2Dost thou suppose that I am mad that I write thus. If I did not see and know it I should be silent. Dost thou still say thou art in the garden of roses ? If thou thinkest thou art there, see well whether thou art not in the Devil's pasture, and art his most beloved hind which he fattens to the slaughter for his food. O dear Soul, turn, and let not the Devil capture thee ; regard not the scorn of the world ; all thy sorrow must be turned into great joy. And though in this world thou hast not great honour, power and riches, that is nothing ; thou knowest not whether to-morrow it will come to be thy turn to die. Why then dost thou contend and strive so much after worldly honour that is transitory ? Rather endeavour after the tree of paradise, which thou mayst carry with thee and wherein thou shalt rejoice eternally for its growth and fruit. 6S CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME Oh! is not that a blessed welfare when the soul dares to look into the Holy Trinity, wherewith it is filled, so that its powers grow and blossom in paradise, where songs of praise break forth, where the ever-growing fruit springs up endlessly according to thy desire, where there is no fear, envy, nor sorrow, where there is love one of another, where everyone rejoices in the form and beauty of another ?
3Beloved Mind, if thou hast a desire to this way and wouldst attain it, then thou must use great earnestness ; it must be no lip-labour, with the heart elsewhere. No, thou canst not attain it thus. Thou must collect thy mind with all thy purposes and reason, wholly together in one will and resolution, and desire to turn from thy abominations ; and thou must set thy thoughts upon God and goodness with a steadfast confidence in his mercy. Then thou wilt attain it. CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 69 Thou must continue steadfast in this resolute purpose ; and though thou gainest no strength into thy heart, and though the Devil should beat down thy tongue so that thou canst not pray to God, yet thou must continually hold and go on in this thought and purpose. The more thou pressest forward the weaker the Devil is ; the more earnestly thou pressest forth from the Devil and thy sins, the more mightily does the kingdom of God press into thee. Have a care that thou dost not depart from this thy will before thou hast received the jewel, the pearl of divine wisdom and knowledge ; though it holds off from morning till night, and still from day to day, if thy earnestness be great, then thy jewel will also be great which thou shalt receive in thy victory. None knows what it is but he that has found it by experience. It is a most precious guest ; when it enters into the soul there is a very wonderful triumph 70 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME
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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