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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.
1this world in man: Sometimes covetousness; sometimes he sets the eyes upon pride, state, and beauty; sometimes he catcheth the spirit with the lust and imagination towards men or women, according to their sex, and tickleth the heart with wanton lust; sometimes they are lulled fast asleep. 26. But when the preacher is a sophister, and a malicious slanderer or railer; or perhaps many times in performance of his office, and from a good meaning, he rebuketh men according to their deserts; there the devil sets open every door and gate, and tickleth the hearts [of the hearers] therewith; and the heart wisheth still more and more of that, that is very fine [to keep them from falling asleep]. 27. And when such people go from church, they can repeat every word very readily, and that best of all which tends to the disgrace of others: With that they feast themselves the whole week long; it is more acceptable to them than the Word of God. 28. Behold, this is a devil in an angelical form; when they suppose, that if they do but run to church together, then such are very good Christians. But if they have learnt no more but to scorn, mock, and deride others, and bring it home to their families, it had been better they had all that time been wallowing in the mire, or that they had been fast asleep, and then the devil would not have defiled their souls in the church of stone with wantonness and scorn: O how happy a sleep it
2is in the church, when the preacher inviteth the devil into the heart for a guest! It is better to sleep than to imagine wantonness, or to fill the heart with revilings and scorn. 29. O you sophisters! that fill your sermons with reviling of your forefathers that are dead long ago; you that out of envy often revile honest hearts according to your own pleasure; how will you be able to stand with your lambs? Whereas you should have led them into fresh green pastures, into the ways of Christ, viz. into love, chastity, and humility, but you have filled them with revilings; it were better you were in a stable or hog's sty with your revilings, than in a pulpit, and there you would seduce nobody. 30. 1 speak not this out of a desire [to reproach anybody], but I do only what I ought to do, I despise none, I only discover the smoky pit of the devil, that it may be seen what is in man, as well in one as in another, unless he be regenerated anew, and then he resisteth the spirit of the devil, and thrusteth it away from him.
331. The other devil is more crafty and cunning than this, but is also a glistering angel with cloven feet; when he seeth that the poor soul is afraid, and desireth to repent and amend, then he saith, Pray, and be devout; Repent for once and away; but when the soul goeth about to pray, he slippeth into its heart, and taketh away the understanding of the heart, and putteth the heart into mere doubting, as if God did not hear it: he represents sin before the heart, and saith, To-morrow it will be better, leave off, you will not now be heard. 32. Thus the heart standeth and repeateth over the words of a prayer, as if it were learning somewhat without book; and the devil taketh away the virtue and efficacy of them out of the heart, so that the soul cannot reach the centre of nature: as Christ saith, The devil taketh the word out of your hearts, that you may not believe and be saved. 33. Then again the soul standeth and saith, it hath prayed. But it hath not prayed. It hath only rehearsed words, not in the spirit of the soul in the centre where the fire is to be struck [or kindled], but in the mouth, in the spirit of this world; and they vanish in the air, or else as words wherewith God's name is taken in vain: But here this should be observed, Thou shalt not use the name of God in vain, and unprofitably in thy mouth, for God will not leave him unpunished that useth his Name in vain.
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.
1this world in man: Sometimes covetousness; sometimes he sets the eyes upon pride, state, and beauty; sometimes he catcheth the spirit with the lust and imagination towards men or women, according to their sex, and tickleth the heart with wanton lust; sometimes they are lulled fast asleep. 26. But when the preacher is a sophister, and a malicious slanderer or railer; or perhaps many times in performance of his office, and from a good meaning, he rebuketh men according to their deserts; there the devil sets open every door and gate, and tickleth the hearts [of the hearers] therewith; and the heart wisheth still more and more of that, that is very fine [to keep them from falling asleep]. 27. And when such people go from church, they can repeat every word very readily, and that best of all which tends to the disgrace of others: With that they feast themselves the whole week long; it is more acceptable to them than the Word of God. 28. Behold, this is a devil in an angelical form; when they suppose, that if they do but run to church together, then such are very good Christians. But if they have learnt no more but to scorn, mock, and deride others, and bring it home to their families, it had been better they had all that time been wallowing in the mire, or that they had been fast asleep, and then the devil would not have defiled their souls in the church of stone with wantonness and scorn: O how happy a sleep it
2is in the church, when the preacher inviteth the devil into the heart for a guest! It is better to sleep than to imagine wantonness, or to fill the heart with revilings and scorn. 29. O you sophisters! that fill your sermons with reviling of your forefathers that are dead long ago; you that out of envy often revile honest hearts according to your own pleasure; how will you be able to stand with your lambs? Whereas you should have led them into fresh green pastures, into the ways of Christ, viz. into love, chastity, and humility, but you have filled them with revilings; it were better you were in a stable or hog's sty with your revilings, than in a pulpit, and there you would seduce nobody. 30. 1 speak not this out of a desire [to reproach anybody], but I do only what I ought to do, I despise none, I only discover the smoky pit of the devil, that it may be seen what is in man, as well in one as in another, unless he be regenerated anew, and then he resisteth the spirit of the devil, and thrusteth it away from him.
331. The other devil is more crafty and cunning than this, but is also a glistering angel with cloven feet; when he seeth that the poor soul is afraid, and desireth to repent and amend, then he saith, Pray, and be devout; Repent for once and away; but when the soul goeth about to pray, he slippeth into its heart, and taketh away the understanding of the heart, and putteth the heart into mere doubting, as if God did not hear it: he represents sin before the heart, and saith, To-morrow it will be better, leave off, you will not now be heard. 32. Thus the heart standeth and repeateth over the words of a prayer, as if it were learning somewhat without book; and the devil taketh away the virtue and efficacy of them out of the heart, so that the soul cannot reach the centre of nature: as Christ saith, The devil taketh the word out of your hearts, that you may not believe and be saved. 33. Then again the soul standeth and saith, it hath prayed. But it hath not prayed. It hath only rehearsed words, not in the spirit of the soul in the centre where the fire is to be struck [or kindled], but in the mouth, in the spirit of this world; and they vanish in the air, or else as words wherewith God's name is taken in vain: But here this should be observed, Thou shalt not use the name of God in vain, and unprofitably in thy mouth, for God will not leave him unpunished that useth his Name in vain.
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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