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.
1thou art not capable of it, and that the priest only is capable of it; but if thou art in Christ, thou hast all free [unto thee], thou hast his covenant, [together] with the Baptism and Sacrament, and the body and blood of Christ therein; but the covenant belongeth to the believers, and not to the sophisters; Christ's disciples, and again their disciples, and successors, have baptized; and the believing church or congregation have broken bread in houses, and where they could, and have fed upon the body and blood of Christ: The Temple of God was everywhere, wheresoever Christians were met together. 77. We do not mention this for the pulling down of churches, in which Christ's office is exercised; but we shew you the hypocrites, who bind you wholly to them, that you may go out from them, and go to the congregation of Christ, into the temple of Christ, and that you may not rest satisfied merely with the churches of stone walls, for they are only a heap of stones, which is a dead thing; but Christ's Temple is living. 78. You are all agreed about the church, and go diligently thither, but none will enter into the temple of Christ: But pray go into the temple of Christ, and then of dead you will become living: There is no other remedy, neither in heaven, nor in this world: It must be so, or else you remain in darkness.
279. Not that we judge so rigorously, for the will of God standeth open for all men, by what name soever they are called: A Heathen may be saved, if he turn to the living God, and with true reliance yield himself up to the will of God, for then he cometh into the will of God, though he knoweth not what the kingdom of Christ is; and in the will of God, there is the Heart of God, and Christ hath the Heart of God in him, for such an one doth truly believe: Yea, one that is dumb and deaf is saved, that never heard of God at all, if he incline his imagination unto obedience, into the will and righteousness of God. 80. Who will judge such an one ? Wilt thou, sophister, do it? Thou who makest [Articles of] Faith out of opinions? What need opinions? Opinions are not the spirit of Christ, which is a quickening spirit; but Christ's spirit testifieth to our spirits, that we are the children of God: It is in us; what need we then seek so long after opinions? We say, that in all [sorts of] opinions there is heresy, as also Antichrist. But if you have the words of Christ, cleave to them sincerely, not only to the letter, but to the living Word, which is God and man. That is the Scripture which you should read and preach out of Christ's spirit, and not out of conjecture: but if you cannot apprehend that, why then do you teach so much, and contrive opinions? Do you suppose God to be a liar, as you are, that he should hold
3your invented opinions to be his Word, whereas you are but dead to God? He that hath an opinion whether a thing be or no, he is in doubt: Now doubting is not believing, but is a dangerous way to go. 81. But now the troubled soul, which is thus tossed to and fro, from one conceit and opinion to another, when it perceiveth every one to cry out, Here is Christ, Here is Christ; follow me: the other party are heretics, and speak from a false spirit: The soul then asketh, To what party shall I turn and apply myself? Whither shall I go, that I may hear the right gospel preached? Where shall I find Christ? They all curse and judge one another, and yet I hear them all speak from the Bible, and confirm their doctrine from thence, and teach the way of God: What shall I do? For I find them to be so spiteful and bitter one against another, and they ride up and down in the hearts of princes, and stir up wars and persecutions for the cause of faith and religion, and deliver one another up to the devil, and say one of another, that the devil speaks out of this and that man, he is a heretic, fly away from him. The Gate o/TMMANUEL. 82. Behold, dear soul, how faithfully Christ warneth us concerning these times, concerning which we have been hitherto blind: For these false
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.
1thou art not capable of it, and that the priest only is capable of it; but if thou art in Christ, thou hast all free [unto thee], thou hast his covenant, [together] with the Baptism and Sacrament, and the body and blood of Christ therein; but the covenant belongeth to the believers, and not to the sophisters; Christ's disciples, and again their disciples, and successors, have baptized; and the believing church or congregation have broken bread in houses, and where they could, and have fed upon the body and blood of Christ: The Temple of God was everywhere, wheresoever Christians were met together. 77. We do not mention this for the pulling down of churches, in which Christ's office is exercised; but we shew you the hypocrites, who bind you wholly to them, that you may go out from them, and go to the congregation of Christ, into the temple of Christ, and that you may not rest satisfied merely with the churches of stone walls, for they are only a heap of stones, which is a dead thing; but Christ's Temple is living. 78. You are all agreed about the church, and go diligently thither, but none will enter into the temple of Christ: But pray go into the temple of Christ, and then of dead you will become living: There is no other remedy, neither in heaven, nor in this world: It must be so, or else you remain in darkness.
279. Not that we judge so rigorously, for the will of God standeth open for all men, by what name soever they are called: A Heathen may be saved, if he turn to the living God, and with true reliance yield himself up to the will of God, for then he cometh into the will of God, though he knoweth not what the kingdom of Christ is; and in the will of God, there is the Heart of God, and Christ hath the Heart of God in him, for such an one doth truly believe: Yea, one that is dumb and deaf is saved, that never heard of God at all, if he incline his imagination unto obedience, into the will and righteousness of God. 80. Who will judge such an one ? Wilt thou, sophister, do it? Thou who makest [Articles of] Faith out of opinions? What need opinions? Opinions are not the spirit of Christ, which is a quickening spirit; but Christ's spirit testifieth to our spirits, that we are the children of God: It is in us; what need we then seek so long after opinions? We say, that in all [sorts of] opinions there is heresy, as also Antichrist. But if you have the words of Christ, cleave to them sincerely, not only to the letter, but to the living Word, which is God and man. That is the Scripture which you should read and preach out of Christ's spirit, and not out of conjecture: but if you cannot apprehend that, why then do you teach so much, and contrive opinions? Do you suppose God to be a liar, as you are, that he should hold
3your invented opinions to be his Word, whereas you are but dead to God? He that hath an opinion whether a thing be or no, he is in doubt: Now doubting is not believing, but is a dangerous way to go. 81. But now the troubled soul, which is thus tossed to and fro, from one conceit and opinion to another, when it perceiveth every one to cry out, Here is Christ, Here is Christ; follow me: the other party are heretics, and speak from a false spirit: The soul then asketh, To what party shall I turn and apply myself? Whither shall I go, that I may hear the right gospel preached? Where shall I find Christ? They all curse and judge one another, and yet I hear them all speak from the Bible, and confirm their doctrine from thence, and teach the way of God: What shall I do? For I find them to be so spiteful and bitter one against another, and they ride up and down in the hearts of princes, and stir up wars and persecutions for the cause of faith and religion, and deliver one another up to the devil, and say one of another, that the devil speaks out of this and that man, he is a heretic, fly away from him. The Gate o/TMMANUEL. 82. Behold, dear soul, how faithfully Christ warneth us concerning these times, concerning which we have been hitherto blind: For these false
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.