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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.
1Do but fix thy trust and confidence upon the promise of Christ, and let thy storming be grounded in the death of Christ, in his sufferings and wounds, and in his love. Dispute no further about thy sins, for the Devil involveth himself therein and upbraideth thee for them, that thou mightest despair. If thou doubtest of the grace of God thou dost sin greatly, for he is always merciful ; there is no other will in him at all but to be merciful. He cannot do otherwise ; his arms are spread abroad day and night towards the poor sinner. Make trial in this manner, and thou wilt quickly see and feel another man, with another sense and thoughts and understanding. I speak as I know and have CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 93 found by experience ; a soldier knows how it is in the wars. This I write out of love, as one who telleth in the spirit how it hath gone with himself, for an example to others, to try if any would follow him and find out how true it is. CHAPTER XI
2GOD has set light and darkness before everyone ; thou mayest embrace which thou wilt, thou dost not thereby move God in his being. His Spirit goes forth from him and meets all those that seek him. Their seeking is his seeking, in which he desireth humanity ; for humanity is his image, which he has created according to his whole being, and wherein he will see and know himself. Yea, he dwells in man, why then are we men so long a-seeking? Let us but seek to know ourselves, and when we find ourselves we find all ; we need run nowhere to seek God, for we can thereby do him no service ; if we do but seek and love one another, then we love God ; what we do CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 95 to one another, that we do to God ; whosoever seeketh and findeth his brother and sister hath sought and found God. In him we are all one body of many members, everyone having its own office, government and work ; and that is the wonder of God.
3Before the time of this world we were known in his wisdom, and he created us that there might be a sport in him. Children are our schoolmasters ; in all our wit and cunning we are but fools to them ; their first lesson is to learn to play with themselves, and when they grow bigger they play one with another. Thus hath God from eternity in his wisdom, in our hidden childhood, played with us : when he created us in knowledge and skill we should then have played one with another ; but the Devil grudged us that and made us fall out at our sport. Therefore it is that we are always at variance, in contention ; but we have 96 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME nothing to contend about but our sport ; when that is at an end we lie down to our rest and go to our own place. Then come others to play and strive and contend also till the evening, till they go to sleep and into their own country out of which they are come. Dear children, what do we mean that we are so obedient to the Devil? Why do we so contend about a tabernacle which we have not made? Here we contend about a garment, because one brother has a fairer garment than another ; are we not all our Mother's children? Let us be obedient children, and then we shall rejoice.
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.
1Do but fix thy trust and confidence upon the promise of Christ, and let thy storming be grounded in the death of Christ, in his sufferings and wounds, and in his love. Dispute no further about thy sins, for the Devil involveth himself therein and upbraideth thee for them, that thou mightest despair. If thou doubtest of the grace of God thou dost sin greatly, for he is always merciful ; there is no other will in him at all but to be merciful. He cannot do otherwise ; his arms are spread abroad day and night towards the poor sinner. Make trial in this manner, and thou wilt quickly see and feel another man, with another sense and thoughts and understanding. I speak as I know and have CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 93 found by experience ; a soldier knows how it is in the wars. This I write out of love, as one who telleth in the spirit how it hath gone with himself, for an example to others, to try if any would follow him and find out how true it is. CHAPTER XI
2GOD has set light and darkness before everyone ; thou mayest embrace which thou wilt, thou dost not thereby move God in his being. His Spirit goes forth from him and meets all those that seek him. Their seeking is his seeking, in which he desireth humanity ; for humanity is his image, which he has created according to his whole being, and wherein he will see and know himself. Yea, he dwells in man, why then are we men so long a-seeking? Let us but seek to know ourselves, and when we find ourselves we find all ; we need run nowhere to seek God, for we can thereby do him no service ; if we do but seek and love one another, then we love God ; what we do CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME 95 to one another, that we do to God ; whosoever seeketh and findeth his brother and sister hath sought and found God. In him we are all one body of many members, everyone having its own office, government and work ; and that is the wonder of God.
3Before the time of this world we were known in his wisdom, and he created us that there might be a sport in him. Children are our schoolmasters ; in all our wit and cunning we are but fools to them ; their first lesson is to learn to play with themselves, and when they grow bigger they play one with another. Thus hath God from eternity in his wisdom, in our hidden childhood, played with us : when he created us in knowledge and skill we should then have played one with another ; but the Devil grudged us that and made us fall out at our sport. Therefore it is that we are always at variance, in contention ; but we have 96 CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME nothing to contend about but our sport ; when that is at an end we lie down to our rest and go to our own place. Then come others to play and strive and contend also till the evening, till they go to sleep and into their own country out of which they are come. Dear children, what do we mean that we are so obedient to the Devil? Why do we so contend about a tabernacle which we have not made? Here we contend about a garment, because one brother has a fairer garment than another ; are we not all our Mother's children? Let us be obedient children, and then we shall rejoice.
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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