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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.
1only tyrants, proud, covetous, obstinate, stubborn, blood-thirsty people, which practise only how to get away that which is another's, and seek after power and honour? The very Heathen are not so malicious: We will not make ourselves partakers with them: God dwelleth every where, he is as well with us as with them: We will lead an honest, virtuous, and pious life, and call upon the only true God, who hath created all things, and go out from their contentious disputations: We will continue in one sort of opinion, and then our country will continue in peace; when we all believe in one God, then there is no strife, but then we have all one and the same will, and may live in love one among another. 91. See here, beloved Christian, this is that which hath so advanced the Turk, and brought him to that great strength, so that their might is climbed up into the number thousand: They rule in one opinion and love towards [or over] the whole world; for they are a tree of nature, which standeth also in the presence of God; but it groweth no higher than to the number thousand, for then its wild heart gettefch a countenance, having eyes, [or he will then come to see] . 92. Thou Antichrist shalt not devour him with thy dragon's mouth, as may be seen in the Revelation: He possesseth his kingdom to the end: but when thou shalt be gone down into the pit, and that Christ himself shall feed his lambs, then will
2he come to be [of the fold] of the lambs, when thy murdering sword is broken; thou shalt not be broken with spears, or weapons of war, thou hypocrite, but thy lies shall stifle thee. 93. He that goeth about to slay Antichrist, is Antichrist's beast, upon which he rideth: he will be but the more potent in contention; for the hearts of people turn away from the truth, and go out from God into contention: and there every one looketh after the wonders of the contention, and runneth after the eloquent sermons, and so cometh out from Christ into opinions, and seeketh ways in the darkness, wherein there is no light: thus the devil ruleth in the Antichrist, and leadeth the children astray into by-ways of human invention, so that they see no more in the light of Christ. 94. Thus it happened also to the mighty countries over which the Alcoran ruleth, where they departed from Christ, and fell into opinions, and then there grew to them a tree out of nature in their heart, and they fell upon one opinion, and so lived in that wild tree. 95. But the Antichristian kingdom liveth in many trees; they run from one to another, and know not which is the best; for they are gone forth from the paradise of Christ, they boast of the doctrine of Christ, and deny the power thereof, and thereby they testify that Christ is not in them: nay, they desire not to have him in them: they
3thrust him, with his body and blood, with his humanity, out of the congregation, they will have a sign from him, whereby they may in their pride possess his place, and so keep up their rich fat bellies: Christ, in this outward life upon earth, was poor, and had not whereon to lay his head: But they in Christ's place will be rich and fat: they say, He is in heaven, we will therefore erect a stately glorious pompous kingdom to his honour, that we may enjoy good times, and honour in his office. We are the highest in this world, for we are God's stewards, we manage the office of Christ, and have the Mysterium Magnum: How dare any speak against us? We will quickly make them hold their peace.
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.
1only tyrants, proud, covetous, obstinate, stubborn, blood-thirsty people, which practise only how to get away that which is another's, and seek after power and honour? The very Heathen are not so malicious: We will not make ourselves partakers with them: God dwelleth every where, he is as well with us as with them: We will lead an honest, virtuous, and pious life, and call upon the only true God, who hath created all things, and go out from their contentious disputations: We will continue in one sort of opinion, and then our country will continue in peace; when we all believe in one God, then there is no strife, but then we have all one and the same will, and may live in love one among another. 91. See here, beloved Christian, this is that which hath so advanced the Turk, and brought him to that great strength, so that their might is climbed up into the number thousand: They rule in one opinion and love towards [or over] the whole world; for they are a tree of nature, which standeth also in the presence of God; but it groweth no higher than to the number thousand, for then its wild heart gettefch a countenance, having eyes, [or he will then come to see] . 92. Thou Antichrist shalt not devour him with thy dragon's mouth, as may be seen in the Revelation: He possesseth his kingdom to the end: but when thou shalt be gone down into the pit, and that Christ himself shall feed his lambs, then will
2he come to be [of the fold] of the lambs, when thy murdering sword is broken; thou shalt not be broken with spears, or weapons of war, thou hypocrite, but thy lies shall stifle thee. 93. He that goeth about to slay Antichrist, is Antichrist's beast, upon which he rideth: he will be but the more potent in contention; for the hearts of people turn away from the truth, and go out from God into contention: and there every one looketh after the wonders of the contention, and runneth after the eloquent sermons, and so cometh out from Christ into opinions, and seeketh ways in the darkness, wherein there is no light: thus the devil ruleth in the Antichrist, and leadeth the children astray into by-ways of human invention, so that they see no more in the light of Christ. 94. Thus it happened also to the mighty countries over which the Alcoran ruleth, where they departed from Christ, and fell into opinions, and then there grew to them a tree out of nature in their heart, and they fell upon one opinion, and so lived in that wild tree. 95. But the Antichristian kingdom liveth in many trees; they run from one to another, and know not which is the best; for they are gone forth from the paradise of Christ, they boast of the doctrine of Christ, and deny the power thereof, and thereby they testify that Christ is not in them: nay, they desire not to have him in them: they
3thrust him, with his body and blood, with his humanity, out of the congregation, they will have a sign from him, whereby they may in their pride possess his place, and so keep up their rich fat bellies: Christ, in this outward life upon earth, was poor, and had not whereon to lay his head: But they in Christ's place will be rich and fat: they say, He is in heaven, we will therefore erect a stately glorious pompous kingdom to his honour, that we may enjoy good times, and honour in his office. We are the highest in this world, for we are God's stewards, we manage the office of Christ, and have the Mysterium Magnum: How dare any speak against us? We will quickly make them hold their peace.
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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