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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.
1before men, that your Father may have praise in your works: Do all things from a sincere heart, in a pure mind, and consider you do it to Christ, and that the spirit of Christ doth it in you: Be always ready, expecting the Bridegroom: Let your heart have no leave to meditate and search into any other opinion: It is not profitable for you to know much: Let every one learn to do his own work, wherewith he may have sustenance for his body, whether he be magistrate, or lay person. 37. Let the magistrate learn righteousness, and to distinguish the false from the pure, for he is the officer of God: What he doth and judgeth, that he judgeth for God, and God through him. Let the laity be humble and mannerly before t he ordinance of God: If any wrong be done him with a high hand, and that it cannot be otherwise, let him consider that he suffereth wrong for the truth's sake, and that it is a great honour for him in Christ, in the presence of God. 38. In all your matters, conversation, dealing, and actions, always set the judgment of Go d before your eyes, and have a care that you live blameless here, for this [life] time is short; and we stand here in a field a-growing: Therefore see that you be good fruit for God, at which all the angels and hosts of heaven may be pleased, and rejoice: Bear malice to none, for that inviteth the devil to a lodging: Be sober and temperate: Let not the
2desire of this world persuade you, and though it happen sometimes, do not go on in it: Go every hour out of death into life: Crucify yourselves in true repentance and conversion from evil. 39. When you are reproached for your fearing God, and evil spoken of, and it is false and untrue, then rejoice most of all, that you are become worthy to suffer reproach for the doctrine and honour of Christ: When you are in affliction, be not dismayed, consider you are in the will of God, he will suffer no more to be laid upon you than you shall be able to bear. 40. Turn away your eyes from covetousness, from high-mindedness and state, and do not readily look after such things, that you be not captivated; for the devil catcheth his birds with state and high-mindedness, but go not into his net: Be always watchful, never be secure; for that fowler goeth constantly about to see where he can catch any one: Where honest people are mocked and scorned, go not thither, make not yourselves partakers of such wickedness, let it not enter into your ears; that the devil may not tickle your heart with that foolish laughter, and so you become infected with it. 41. Summarily, commit yourselves to God in Christ, and pray to God the Father in the Name and upon the promise of Christ, for his holy spirit; desire it upon the promise of Christ, and so you
3will receive it; for he is faithful who hath promised it: He will not deny you of it: You will receive it most certainly; only give yourself wholly up to him, that is the greatest and chiefest [thing] : Commit all to his will, and when you have it, that will teach you sufficiently what you are to do: He teacheth you to speak: He giveth you a mind and knowledge and understanding how to behave yourselves: Be not careful after what manner you should do a thing, when you are to deal with men; but commit all your doings to him, he will do that in you well enough which is well pleasing to God; and though you should be in a burning zeal, and should bring fire from heaven from the Lord of Lords upon the wicked, yet it is acceptable to him, for the wicked have awakened and kindled it. 42. But go on in the power of God, and then all your doing is well pleasing to God; for, that any defendeth himself against his enemy, upon necessity, without any other intent or desire, that is not against God; for he who hath his house on fire may quench, it; yea, God hath given leave to Israel to defend themselves. 43. But he that causeth and beginneth a war, he is the devil's officer; for all wars are driven on by the anger of God, wherein the devil dwelleth: God hath not been the author of wars, for he created us in love, that we should dwell together in paradise in friendly love, as loving children, but the
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.
1before men, that your Father may have praise in your works: Do all things from a sincere heart, in a pure mind, and consider you do it to Christ, and that the spirit of Christ doth it in you: Be always ready, expecting the Bridegroom: Let your heart have no leave to meditate and search into any other opinion: It is not profitable for you to know much: Let every one learn to do his own work, wherewith he may have sustenance for his body, whether he be magistrate, or lay person. 37. Let the magistrate learn righteousness, and to distinguish the false from the pure, for he is the officer of God: What he doth and judgeth, that he judgeth for God, and God through him. Let the laity be humble and mannerly before t he ordinance of God: If any wrong be done him with a high hand, and that it cannot be otherwise, let him consider that he suffereth wrong for the truth's sake, and that it is a great honour for him in Christ, in the presence of God. 38. In all your matters, conversation, dealing, and actions, always set the judgment of Go d before your eyes, and have a care that you live blameless here, for this [life] time is short; and we stand here in a field a-growing: Therefore see that you be good fruit for God, at which all the angels and hosts of heaven may be pleased, and rejoice: Bear malice to none, for that inviteth the devil to a lodging: Be sober and temperate: Let not the
2desire of this world persuade you, and though it happen sometimes, do not go on in it: Go every hour out of death into life: Crucify yourselves in true repentance and conversion from evil. 39. When you are reproached for your fearing God, and evil spoken of, and it is false and untrue, then rejoice most of all, that you are become worthy to suffer reproach for the doctrine and honour of Christ: When you are in affliction, be not dismayed, consider you are in the will of God, he will suffer no more to be laid upon you than you shall be able to bear. 40. Turn away your eyes from covetousness, from high-mindedness and state, and do not readily look after such things, that you be not captivated; for the devil catcheth his birds with state and high-mindedness, but go not into his net: Be always watchful, never be secure; for that fowler goeth constantly about to see where he can catch any one: Where honest people are mocked and scorned, go not thither, make not yourselves partakers of such wickedness, let it not enter into your ears; that the devil may not tickle your heart with that foolish laughter, and so you become infected with it. 41. Summarily, commit yourselves to God in Christ, and pray to God the Father in the Name and upon the promise of Christ, for his holy spirit; desire it upon the promise of Christ, and so you
3will receive it; for he is faithful who hath promised it: He will not deny you of it: You will receive it most certainly; only give yourself wholly up to him, that is the greatest and chiefest [thing] : Commit all to his will, and when you have it, that will teach you sufficiently what you are to do: He teacheth you to speak: He giveth you a mind and knowledge and understanding how to behave yourselves: Be not careful after what manner you should do a thing, when you are to deal with men; but commit all your doings to him, he will do that in you well enough which is well pleasing to God; and though you should be in a burning zeal, and should bring fire from heaven from the Lord of Lords upon the wicked, yet it is acceptable to him, for the wicked have awakened and kindled it. 42. But go on in the power of God, and then all your doing is well pleasing to God; for, that any defendeth himself against his enemy, upon necessity, without any other intent or desire, that is not against God; for he who hath his house on fire may quench, it; yea, God hath given leave to Israel to defend themselves. 43. But he that causeth and beginneth a war, he is the devil's officer; for all wars are driven on by the anger of God, wherein the devil dwelleth: God hath not been the author of wars, for he created us in love, that we should dwell together in paradise in friendly love, as loving children, but the
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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