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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.
126. For a sincere Christian doth not wholly know himself, he seeth nothing but his vices, in which the devil striveth against him, they are continually before him; but in this world he knoweth not his sanctity [or holiness]; for Christ hideth such people under his cross, so that the devil doth not see them. Therefore be watchful and sober, and resist the subtle devil, that you may live eternally. THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER Of Praying and Fasting, and due Preparation to the Kingdom of God. What Praying is, and bringeth to Effect: What the Power of it is, and what the final use and benefit of it is. 1. FOR the instruction and comfort of the sincere simple Christianity, and for a constant awakening of ourselves, that we might be found worthy to hear the voice of the noble bridegroom, who calleth his bride, and will bring her home ! A very lovely Gate. 2. A hungry spirit that is weary and faint, is desirous of the still meekness and rest, that it may go forth from the source [force or power] of the driver, and may satiate itself with meekness and stillness, and so with that which is the desire of its life, whereby it may sustain its body.
23. Thus, my dearly beloved mind, thou art generated out of the eternal still meekness, and wert (before the time of this world) in the wisdom of God, [in the eternal virgin]; the meekness of the love of God was thy source [or property], and thou wast a fruitful rain in thy still eternal mother [the eternal nature], where thou wast not yet created a spirit: Consider thyself, how great unquietness thou art now in: Thou art immeasurably hungry, thou always thirsteth after the food, and source [or property] of thy mother: O that the time of refreshment were come ! This doth the poor soul wish and pant after: One day crieth to another, the morning crieth to the evening, and the night longeth after the day, and there is no place nor rest (from the driver [persecutor, tormentor]) for the poor soul, the driver taketh hold of its very throat; and though it hideth itself, yet it findeth no place nor rest free from the source [or property] of its driver: He driveth it further and further, till it findeth the bosom of its mother, where it layeth down itself, and is as one that is escaped in a great battle, who dareth not lift up his head for fear of the enemy.
34. My dear children in Christ, and all you that have given up yourselves in Christ, to the kingdom of heaven, you elect in Christ; thus it is with our souls: Our souls stick in such great unquietness; and as it is with a soldier in a fight, who is continually in expectation of death, where the enemies press upon him on every side, and strike at him, and continually desire his death; or, as it is with one that is fallen into a deep sea, and swimmeth there, and seeth no shore, and continually expecteth death, where the water goeth into his mouth, who sigheth and desireth help from above; or, like one that is falling into a deep pit, where no help is discerned, who also expecteth help from above. 5. So it is also with the poor soul, it is fallen into a dark dungeon, and swimmeth in a dangerous and deep water, where it is encompassed with enemies on every side, who all strike at it: Every one would murder it, and it seeth no help about it; if it searcheth through its body, through its flesh and blood, also through marrow and bones, it findeth they all are its enemies, which leadeth it into the abyss. 6. The spirit of this world (in flesh and blood) draweth it, and boweth it down to the ground, in the deep of the waters, and continually desireth to drown it; for it would only maintain and pamper the bestial life.
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.
126. For a sincere Christian doth not wholly know himself, he seeth nothing but his vices, in which the devil striveth against him, they are continually before him; but in this world he knoweth not his sanctity [or holiness]; for Christ hideth such people under his cross, so that the devil doth not see them. Therefore be watchful and sober, and resist the subtle devil, that you may live eternally. THE SIXTEENTH CHAPTER Of Praying and Fasting, and due Preparation to the Kingdom of God. What Praying is, and bringeth to Effect: What the Power of it is, and what the final use and benefit of it is. 1. FOR the instruction and comfort of the sincere simple Christianity, and for a constant awakening of ourselves, that we might be found worthy to hear the voice of the noble bridegroom, who calleth his bride, and will bring her home ! A very lovely Gate. 2. A hungry spirit that is weary and faint, is desirous of the still meekness and rest, that it may go forth from the source [force or power] of the driver, and may satiate itself with meekness and stillness, and so with that which is the desire of its life, whereby it may sustain its body.
23. Thus, my dearly beloved mind, thou art generated out of the eternal still meekness, and wert (before the time of this world) in the wisdom of God, [in the eternal virgin]; the meekness of the love of God was thy source [or property], and thou wast a fruitful rain in thy still eternal mother [the eternal nature], where thou wast not yet created a spirit: Consider thyself, how great unquietness thou art now in: Thou art immeasurably hungry, thou always thirsteth after the food, and source [or property] of thy mother: O that the time of refreshment were come ! This doth the poor soul wish and pant after: One day crieth to another, the morning crieth to the evening, and the night longeth after the day, and there is no place nor rest (from the driver [persecutor, tormentor]) for the poor soul, the driver taketh hold of its very throat; and though it hideth itself, yet it findeth no place nor rest free from the source [or property] of its driver: He driveth it further and further, till it findeth the bosom of its mother, where it layeth down itself, and is as one that is escaped in a great battle, who dareth not lift up his head for fear of the enemy.
34. My dear children in Christ, and all you that have given up yourselves in Christ, to the kingdom of heaven, you elect in Christ; thus it is with our souls: Our souls stick in such great unquietness; and as it is with a soldier in a fight, who is continually in expectation of death, where the enemies press upon him on every side, and strike at him, and continually desire his death; or, as it is with one that is fallen into a deep sea, and swimmeth there, and seeth no shore, and continually expecteth death, where the water goeth into his mouth, who sigheth and desireth help from above; or, like one that is falling into a deep pit, where no help is discerned, who also expecteth help from above. 5. So it is also with the poor soul, it is fallen into a dark dungeon, and swimmeth in a dangerous and deep water, where it is encompassed with enemies on every side, who all strike at it: Every one would murder it, and it seeth no help about it; if it searcheth through its body, through its flesh and blood, also through marrow and bones, it findeth they all are its enemies, which leadeth it into the abyss. 6. The spirit of this world (in flesh and blood) draweth it, and boweth it down to the ground, in the deep of the waters, and continually desireth to drown it; for it would only maintain and pamper the bestial life.
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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