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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.
1how these were created or came to be, nor out of what they came to be: For they might well have thought that that which proceeded from somewhat, and that that which created this, must needs be older and higher or greater than all the stars. 33. Besides, they had the stones and the earth for an example, to shew that these must proceed from somewhat, as also men, and all the creatures upon the earth. For all give testimony that there must needs be in these things a mightier and greater power at hand, which had so created all these things, in that manner as they are. 34. But, indeed, why should I write much of the blindness of the Heathen; are not our doctors, in their crowned ornaments of hoods and cornered caps, as blind as they? Our doctors know indeed that there is a God, who hath created all this, but they know not where that God is, nor how he is. 35. When they would write of God, then they seek for him without, and absent from, this world, above only, in a kind of heaven, as if he were some image that may be likened to somewhat. Indeed they grant that that God ruleth all in this world with a spirit; but his corporeal propriety or habitation they will needs have in a certain heaven aloft, many thousand miles off. 36. Come on ye doctors! if you are in the right, then give answer to the spirit: I will ask you a few questions. 1. What do you think stood in the place of this world before the time of the world? Or, 2. Out of what do you think the earth and stars came to be? Or, 3. What do you think there is in the deep above the earth? Or, 4. From whence did the deep exist? Or, 5. How do you think man is the image of God, wherein God dwelleth? Or, 6. What do you suppose
2God's wrath to be? Or, 7. What is that in man which displeaseth God so much, that he tormenteth and afflicteth man so, seeing he hath created him? And 8. That he imputeth sin to man, and condemneth him to eternal punishment? 9. Why hath he created that wherein or wherewith man committeth sin? Surely that thing must be far worse. 10. Wherefore, and out of what, is that come to be? Or, 11. What is the cause or beginning, or the birth or geniture of God's fierce wrath, out of or from which hell and the devil are come to be? Or, 12. How comes it that all the creatures in this world do bite, scratch, strike, beat and worry one another, and yet sin is imputed to man alone? Or, 13. Out of what are poisonous and venomous beasts and worms and all manner of vermin come to be? Or, 14. Out of what are the holy angels come to be? And 15. What is the soul of man? And lastly, 16. What is the great God himself? 37. Give your direct and fundamental answer to all this, and demonstrate what you say, and leave off your verbal contentions. Now if you can demonstrate out of all your books and writings, 1. That you know the true and only God; and, 2. How he is in love and wrath: Also, 3. What that God is. And 4. If you can demonstrate that God is not in the stars, elements, earth, men, beasts, worms, leaves, herbs and grass, nor in heaven and earth; also that all this is not God himself, and that my spirit is false and wicked; then I will be the first that will burn my book in the fire, and recall and recant all whatsoever I have written, and will accurse it, and in all obedience willingly submit myself to be instructed by you. 38. I do not say that I cannot err at all. For there are some things which are not sufficiently explained, but are described, as it were, from a
3glimpse of the great God, when the wheel of nature whirled about too swiftly, so that man, with his halfdead and dull capacity or apprehension, cannot sufficiently comprehend it; though what thou findest not sufficiently explained in one place thou wilt find it done in another; if not in this book, then in the others. Now thou wilt say, It doth not become me to ask such questions; for the Deity is a Mystery, which no man can search into. Answer. 39. Hearken: If it doth not become me to ask, then it doth not become thee to judge me. Dost thou boast in the knowledge of the light, and art a leader of the blind, and yet art blind thyself? How wilt thou shew the way to the blind? In your blindness must you not both fall? But you will say, We are not blind; for we well see the way of the light. Why then do you contend or dispute about the way of the light, if none can see it rightly? 40. You teach others the way, and you are always seeking after it yourselves, and so you grope in the dark, and discern it not. Or do you suppose that it is sin for any man to ask after the way? 41. O ye blind men! leave off your contentions, and shed not innocent blood; also do not lay waste countries and cities, to fulfil the devil's will; but put on the helmet of peace, gird yourselves with love one to another, and practise meekness: Leave off pride and covetousness, grudge not the different forms of one another, also suffer not the wrathfire to kindle in you; but live in meekness, chastity, friendliness and purity, and then you are and live ALL in God.
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.
1how these were created or came to be, nor out of what they came to be: For they might well have thought that that which proceeded from somewhat, and that that which created this, must needs be older and higher or greater than all the stars. 33. Besides, they had the stones and the earth for an example, to shew that these must proceed from somewhat, as also men, and all the creatures upon the earth. For all give testimony that there must needs be in these things a mightier and greater power at hand, which had so created all these things, in that manner as they are. 34. But, indeed, why should I write much of the blindness of the Heathen; are not our doctors, in their crowned ornaments of hoods and cornered caps, as blind as they? Our doctors know indeed that there is a God, who hath created all this, but they know not where that God is, nor how he is. 35. When they would write of God, then they seek for him without, and absent from, this world, above only, in a kind of heaven, as if he were some image that may be likened to somewhat. Indeed they grant that that God ruleth all in this world with a spirit; but his corporeal propriety or habitation they will needs have in a certain heaven aloft, many thousand miles off. 36. Come on ye doctors! if you are in the right, then give answer to the spirit: I will ask you a few questions. 1. What do you think stood in the place of this world before the time of the world? Or, 2. Out of what do you think the earth and stars came to be? Or, 3. What do you think there is in the deep above the earth? Or, 4. From whence did the deep exist? Or, 5. How do you think man is the image of God, wherein God dwelleth? Or, 6. What do you suppose
2God's wrath to be? Or, 7. What is that in man which displeaseth God so much, that he tormenteth and afflicteth man so, seeing he hath created him? And 8. That he imputeth sin to man, and condemneth him to eternal punishment? 9. Why hath he created that wherein or wherewith man committeth sin? Surely that thing must be far worse. 10. Wherefore, and out of what, is that come to be? Or, 11. What is the cause or beginning, or the birth or geniture of God's fierce wrath, out of or from which hell and the devil are come to be? Or, 12. How comes it that all the creatures in this world do bite, scratch, strike, beat and worry one another, and yet sin is imputed to man alone? Or, 13. Out of what are poisonous and venomous beasts and worms and all manner of vermin come to be? Or, 14. Out of what are the holy angels come to be? And 15. What is the soul of man? And lastly, 16. What is the great God himself? 37. Give your direct and fundamental answer to all this, and demonstrate what you say, and leave off your verbal contentions. Now if you can demonstrate out of all your books and writings, 1. That you know the true and only God; and, 2. How he is in love and wrath: Also, 3. What that God is. And 4. If you can demonstrate that God is not in the stars, elements, earth, men, beasts, worms, leaves, herbs and grass, nor in heaven and earth; also that all this is not God himself, and that my spirit is false and wicked; then I will be the first that will burn my book in the fire, and recall and recant all whatsoever I have written, and will accurse it, and in all obedience willingly submit myself to be instructed by you. 38. I do not say that I cannot err at all. For there are some things which are not sufficiently explained, but are described, as it were, from a
3glimpse of the great God, when the wheel of nature whirled about too swiftly, so that man, with his halfdead and dull capacity or apprehension, cannot sufficiently comprehend it; though what thou findest not sufficiently explained in one place thou wilt find it done in another; if not in this book, then in the others. Now thou wilt say, It doth not become me to ask such questions; for the Deity is a Mystery, which no man can search into. Answer. 39. Hearken: If it doth not become me to ask, then it doth not become thee to judge me. Dost thou boast in the knowledge of the light, and art a leader of the blind, and yet art blind thyself? How wilt thou shew the way to the blind? In your blindness must you not both fall? But you will say, We are not blind; for we well see the way of the light. Why then do you contend or dispute about the way of the light, if none can see it rightly? 40. You teach others the way, and you are always seeking after it yourselves, and so you grope in the dark, and discern it not. Or do you suppose that it is sin for any man to ask after the way? 41. O ye blind men! leave off your contentions, and shed not innocent blood; also do not lay waste countries and cities, to fulfil the devil's will; but put on the helmet of peace, gird yourselves with love one to another, and practise meekness: Leave off pride and covetousness, grudge not the different forms of one another, also suffer not the wrathfire to kindle in you; but live in meekness, chastity, friendliness and purity, and then you are and live ALL in God.
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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