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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.
1life: and there it is surrounded with the Majesty of God; and the fair blessed virgin (the wisdom of God) meeteth it with her garland of pearls, and crowneth the soul as a heavenly conqueror. 54. What joy is here to the angels of God, and what joy the soul attaineth there, we have no pen to describe it, nor in this world any tongue to express i t; only we wish to the Reader, and all men, that they might themselves have experience of it, for which cause we set about this writing with much toil and deep labour. 55. For we write what we ourselves have known, and have seen with spiritual eyes; we speak it not to our own boasting, but that the Reader may know, that if he will follow us, what he is to expect from it; seeing he perceiveth how the world maketh a gazing stock of the children of God: But we shall after this short life have full recompense; and moreover, this garland is more delicious than this whole world: and though it be often covered and hidden from us, yet it dieth not. 56. For as the rough winter hideth the budding and flourishing of the earth, so that reason saith, All is dead; but when the spring cometh, then it beginneth to bud and blossom again; so also it is with the noble and fair garland of Christ; when that springeth again, then it produceth lilies without number; and every spring, when the mind is renewed in Christ, it multiplieth tenfold. Of the Company and Assistance of the Holy Angels.
257. As we that are men in this world, if we be the children of God, assist and help one another in necessity and distress, and readily deliver one another from misery and trouble; thus also it is in heaven, concerning the children of God, while the soul belongeth to the fellowship of angels; they affect the company of honest, virtuous, and chaste men, that fear God, and stand by them in necessity: for the Scripture saith, They are all ministering spirits, sent forth for the service of those that are to inherit the kingdom of God. They often avert the fiery darts of wickedness: what mischief would the devil often do, if he were not opposed and hindered by the throne-princes of the legions ! How often would he terrify and cast men down headlong to the ground! 58. But the angels are our servants and keepers, if we be Christians, and not beasts; though indeed the devil setteth upon Christians most of all; how very often would many be drowned and killed by a fall, who yet receive wonderful deliverance from angels: they are ready about people, who sing and speak of God; they have great delight among little infants, so that they many times manifest themselves to an infant, and play with it, if it be the child of God.
359. How many examples are there in the Scripture, of the angels leading and conducting the children of God; especially the example of Tobiah: though our school-rabbis will rather have it cast out of the Bible [than believe it] : but consider of the three angels with Abraham, and the two angels with Lot: also how they have plainly foretold and declared the conception of highly worthy men, [as of Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, Samson, etc.] especially of John [the Baptist], and of CHRIST: consider what was done at his birth, [to the shepherds in the field] and to the wisemen [ Or Magi] of the east: and at length to Joseph [how he was directed] to go with Mary and the Babe into Egypt: whereby we may sufficiently perceive their great carefulness about us; for they are God's ministers; he sendeth them to conduct us [through this valley of misery, through this world of thistles and thorns], and to defend us from the devil: O how great joy they have for one poor soul, when it is delivered from the snares of the devil, yea, more than for ninety-nine righteous, as Christ saith. 60. Therefore we should not so suddenly despair in adversity, when we are in necessity; when often suppose that the whole world is against us, yet the choir or host of angels, and the spirit of God, are with us; it is often with us as with the Canaanitish woman, so that we cannot find the countenance of God; but we must wait for the proof, and trial must pass over the soul; the more
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.
1life: and there it is surrounded with the Majesty of God; and the fair blessed virgin (the wisdom of God) meeteth it with her garland of pearls, and crowneth the soul as a heavenly conqueror. 54. What joy is here to the angels of God, and what joy the soul attaineth there, we have no pen to describe it, nor in this world any tongue to express i t; only we wish to the Reader, and all men, that they might themselves have experience of it, for which cause we set about this writing with much toil and deep labour. 55. For we write what we ourselves have known, and have seen with spiritual eyes; we speak it not to our own boasting, but that the Reader may know, that if he will follow us, what he is to expect from it; seeing he perceiveth how the world maketh a gazing stock of the children of God: But we shall after this short life have full recompense; and moreover, this garland is more delicious than this whole world: and though it be often covered and hidden from us, yet it dieth not. 56. For as the rough winter hideth the budding and flourishing of the earth, so that reason saith, All is dead; but when the spring cometh, then it beginneth to bud and blossom again; so also it is with the noble and fair garland of Christ; when that springeth again, then it produceth lilies without number; and every spring, when the mind is renewed in Christ, it multiplieth tenfold. Of the Company and Assistance of the Holy Angels.
257. As we that are men in this world, if we be the children of God, assist and help one another in necessity and distress, and readily deliver one another from misery and trouble; thus also it is in heaven, concerning the children of God, while the soul belongeth to the fellowship of angels; they affect the company of honest, virtuous, and chaste men, that fear God, and stand by them in necessity: for the Scripture saith, They are all ministering spirits, sent forth for the service of those that are to inherit the kingdom of God. They often avert the fiery darts of wickedness: what mischief would the devil often do, if he were not opposed and hindered by the throne-princes of the legions ! How often would he terrify and cast men down headlong to the ground! 58. But the angels are our servants and keepers, if we be Christians, and not beasts; though indeed the devil setteth upon Christians most of all; how very often would many be drowned and killed by a fall, who yet receive wonderful deliverance from angels: they are ready about people, who sing and speak of God; they have great delight among little infants, so that they many times manifest themselves to an infant, and play with it, if it be the child of God.
359. How many examples are there in the Scripture, of the angels leading and conducting the children of God; especially the example of Tobiah: though our school-rabbis will rather have it cast out of the Bible [than believe it] : but consider of the three angels with Abraham, and the two angels with Lot: also how they have plainly foretold and declared the conception of highly worthy men, [as of Isaac, Jacob, Samuel, Samson, etc.] especially of John [the Baptist], and of CHRIST: consider what was done at his birth, [to the shepherds in the field] and to the wisemen [ Or Magi] of the east: and at length to Joseph [how he was directed] to go with Mary and the Babe into Egypt: whereby we may sufficiently perceive their great carefulness about us; for they are God's ministers; he sendeth them to conduct us [through this valley of misery, through this world of thistles and thorns], and to defend us from the devil: O how great joy they have for one poor soul, when it is delivered from the snares of the devil, yea, more than for ninety-nine righteous, as Christ saith. 60. Therefore we should not so suddenly despair in adversity, when we are in necessity; when often suppose that the whole world is against us, yet the choir or host of angels, and the spirit of God, are with us; it is often with us as with the Canaanitish woman, so that we cannot find the countenance of God; but we must wait for the proof, and trial must pass over the soul; the more
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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