Fetching
One moment.
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.
1When Boehme says, " God is called a consuming fire and a jealous God according to the first Principle," he very evidently means, according to. the first Principle as manifested, and by those who stand in it and are of its nature: that is, are of the false imagination. He says much that merits deep reflection as to the danger of awaking the fire in the Turba, that is, in the wrath. Instances of this we find in the imprecatory Psalms, in the command to slaughter the heathen inhabitants of Canaan; in Elisha cursing the children who mocked him, etc. The truly divine command is, " Overcome evil with good." But sometimes the spirit of patience gives way under great strain, and the wrath is appealed to to vindicate the right. But this could never be done by the true imagination, such as was the Lord's. He says of those who would awake the wrath, " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of"; and He predicted, "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword." In the false imagination the sword is permitted; but there is always a " more excellent way" for such as have grace to find and take it. All that we can know about God we know of Him as manifested in His Son, as love and light and life. If we think we know Him as to the first Principle (that is, as apart from the Son) as manifested might and compelling force showing itself ostensibly such, this we only know in a false imagination. Yet in that imagination it is real, and can only seem not so, only be put into the hiddenness, after the true
2imagination has arisen. Regeneration. There is much more that ought to be said, but space forbids. I must conclude this very imperfect Introduction by a few words of Boehme's teaching as to Regeneration. Put briefly, that process of regeneration consists in finding out how to pass from the fire to the light, from the false imagination to the true. There is only one way, the way of death. We must cease to think and act according to the false imagination. By doing this we do actually put it into death, that is, into the hiddenness. The difficulty of doing this increases with every day lived in the false imagination, for every day confirms and strengthens the habit of the false. There is a difficulty, of course, in awaking to the fact that that which seems to us so real, so universally admitted and practised, is a false imagination; but the idea once seen is instantly grasped. As to knowledge, we may pass from death to life in a moment; but knowledge is not at once and immediately power. We have now to face the much longer and harder task of eradicating old habit, and — with the best will in the world — this is never done without long and very earnest effort; and it might be said that the difficulty increases as the square of the time we have remained in the habit.
3We have said that the process is " death." Scripture calls it " birth": a new birth. But death and birth are the two sides of a single act: one, the leaving of the old; the other, entering the new. The product of regeneration is a " new creation." To the old, false imagination sin is proper; that is, is its propriety, and so long as we stand in the false imagination, no amount of tinkering of it up, or attempts to put on the fruits of the true upon the false, will be of any avail. For a hope of heaven, or even to win a reputation for respectability on earth, men will " do" many things; not from a real love of the things, but from a desire for what is believed will be their reward. So the cup of cold water must be given " because ye belong to Christ," which can only be done by those who love Christ, and not because Christ will reward the act. Every good act has its reward; but the reward is always according to the spirit which prompted the act, and not according to the mere act itself. Thus though men constantly try to simulate regeneration, they can never succeed; because God sees the heart, the motive at the root of the act; and a right act may have a wrong motive. Regeneration is therefore, as Boehme so constantly says, a matter of very great and real earnestness; far greater than is required to put on the external appearance of the fruits of regeneration. We must take our false imagination,
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.
1When Boehme says, " God is called a consuming fire and a jealous God according to the first Principle," he very evidently means, according to. the first Principle as manifested, and by those who stand in it and are of its nature: that is, are of the false imagination. He says much that merits deep reflection as to the danger of awaking the fire in the Turba, that is, in the wrath. Instances of this we find in the imprecatory Psalms, in the command to slaughter the heathen inhabitants of Canaan; in Elisha cursing the children who mocked him, etc. The truly divine command is, " Overcome evil with good." But sometimes the spirit of patience gives way under great strain, and the wrath is appealed to to vindicate the right. But this could never be done by the true imagination, such as was the Lord's. He says of those who would awake the wrath, " Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are of"; and He predicted, "They that take the sword shall perish with the sword." In the false imagination the sword is permitted; but there is always a " more excellent way" for such as have grace to find and take it. All that we can know about God we know of Him as manifested in His Son, as love and light and life. If we think we know Him as to the first Principle (that is, as apart from the Son) as manifested might and compelling force showing itself ostensibly such, this we only know in a false imagination. Yet in that imagination it is real, and can only seem not so, only be put into the hiddenness, after the true
2imagination has arisen. Regeneration. There is much more that ought to be said, but space forbids. I must conclude this very imperfect Introduction by a few words of Boehme's teaching as to Regeneration. Put briefly, that process of regeneration consists in finding out how to pass from the fire to the light, from the false imagination to the true. There is only one way, the way of death. We must cease to think and act according to the false imagination. By doing this we do actually put it into death, that is, into the hiddenness. The difficulty of doing this increases with every day lived in the false imagination, for every day confirms and strengthens the habit of the false. There is a difficulty, of course, in awaking to the fact that that which seems to us so real, so universally admitted and practised, is a false imagination; but the idea once seen is instantly grasped. As to knowledge, we may pass from death to life in a moment; but knowledge is not at once and immediately power. We have now to face the much longer and harder task of eradicating old habit, and — with the best will in the world — this is never done without long and very earnest effort; and it might be said that the difficulty increases as the square of the time we have remained in the habit.
3We have said that the process is " death." Scripture calls it " birth": a new birth. But death and birth are the two sides of a single act: one, the leaving of the old; the other, entering the new. The product of regeneration is a " new creation." To the old, false imagination sin is proper; that is, is its propriety, and so long as we stand in the false imagination, no amount of tinkering of it up, or attempts to put on the fruits of the true upon the false, will be of any avail. For a hope of heaven, or even to win a reputation for respectability on earth, men will " do" many things; not from a real love of the things, but from a desire for what is believed will be their reward. So the cup of cold water must be given " because ye belong to Christ," which can only be done by those who love Christ, and not because Christ will reward the act. Every good act has its reward; but the reward is always according to the spirit which prompted the act, and not according to the mere act itself. Thus though men constantly try to simulate regeneration, they can never succeed; because God sees the heart, the motive at the root of the act; and a right act may have a wrong motive. Regeneration is therefore, as Boehme so constantly says, a matter of very great and real earnestness; far greater than is required to put on the external appearance of the fruits of regeneration. We must take our false imagination,
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.
No commentary for this page.