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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.
1pleasure of God, that you press earnestly and strongly through, and leave the abominations to the devil upon his neck, and come very humbly, praying as a sinful child to God: he is the Father of the lost son, you have vainly rioted and spent your beauty and righteousness with the devil, and with the Antichristian whore, you are amongst the swine at Babel; and having lost your goods you eat grains and husks with the swine; you are naked and torn, and are not worthy to be called his son: Consider and imagine this in yourself, for it is true, and so come with true conversion out of the filth and mire of the swine to our ancient loving Father, and pray for his grace and favour, that he would but make thee as one of his hired servants in his court: acknowledge to him thy evil deeds, and that thou art not worthy to be called his son. Behold, dear soul, observe it, it is the very precious truth.
220. When you thus enter into yourself, and search out your abominations, and the husks of the devil, and of the world, which you have so long devoured, and consider of God and his mercy, then turn not again into the hogsty; and say not, I am ashamed to come before my good old Father; I dare not come into his sight, for great shame and abomination; for I was a glorious son, and now am a naked swineherd; but consider that your Father taketh more care about you who are his lost prodigal son, than you do about his favour and love, which you have wilfully trifled away. 21. Frame but a loving, humble, submissive, obedient will and purpose, and come, come away from the swine, leave the husks to the world, let the swine devour them and feed themselves fat: but enter you into yourself, and knock at your evil heart: break in through the doors and gates: and though all swine cry, and devils should howl for their keeper, yet come you to your Father with any humble demeanour and words, you need not trouble yourself about the adorning of them with accurate eloquence; for though you have no more words than the poor publican, it is no matter, it lieth not in them, but in an earnest constant purpose without ceasing: and though hell should break in pieces, and body and soul part asunder, yet stand still, and go not forth again out of the doors of the Father.
322. For as soon as you will open the door in your soul, and will go out of the mire, towards the ancient Father, that he doth but perceive that it is you his son, and that you are returned to him, then he saith; This is my son which was lost, for whom my heart was troubled, and is entered into the humanity, into this world, and hath sought him, and now I have found him. 23. And there he sendeth the Holy Ghost to meet him, and falleth kindly about his neck, and receiveth him with joy, and for a token of his love, he putteth the seal and the ring of the Holy Trinity, in the suffering and death of Christ, on to the hand of the soul: and there he bringeth the blessed virgin of his wisdom, the new angelical garment (viz. the flesh of Christ) and putteth it on to the soul; and all the servants of God (viz. the holy angels in the house of the Father) must rejoice and be merry with the lost Son; and there the ancient Father slayeth the fatted calf, and feedeth his son at his table (of the heavenly substantiality), with the power and with the flesh of his obedient Son Christ, and giveth him to drink of the water of eternal life, in the blood of Christ, in the first mother, out of which the soul hath been created; and there is joy in heaven among the ninety-nine angels, or holy souls, which are with God, that a dear brother is come into their society.
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.
1pleasure of God, that you press earnestly and strongly through, and leave the abominations to the devil upon his neck, and come very humbly, praying as a sinful child to God: he is the Father of the lost son, you have vainly rioted and spent your beauty and righteousness with the devil, and with the Antichristian whore, you are amongst the swine at Babel; and having lost your goods you eat grains and husks with the swine; you are naked and torn, and are not worthy to be called his son: Consider and imagine this in yourself, for it is true, and so come with true conversion out of the filth and mire of the swine to our ancient loving Father, and pray for his grace and favour, that he would but make thee as one of his hired servants in his court: acknowledge to him thy evil deeds, and that thou art not worthy to be called his son. Behold, dear soul, observe it, it is the very precious truth.
220. When you thus enter into yourself, and search out your abominations, and the husks of the devil, and of the world, which you have so long devoured, and consider of God and his mercy, then turn not again into the hogsty; and say not, I am ashamed to come before my good old Father; I dare not come into his sight, for great shame and abomination; for I was a glorious son, and now am a naked swineherd; but consider that your Father taketh more care about you who are his lost prodigal son, than you do about his favour and love, which you have wilfully trifled away. 21. Frame but a loving, humble, submissive, obedient will and purpose, and come, come away from the swine, leave the husks to the world, let the swine devour them and feed themselves fat: but enter you into yourself, and knock at your evil heart: break in through the doors and gates: and though all swine cry, and devils should howl for their keeper, yet come you to your Father with any humble demeanour and words, you need not trouble yourself about the adorning of them with accurate eloquence; for though you have no more words than the poor publican, it is no matter, it lieth not in them, but in an earnest constant purpose without ceasing: and though hell should break in pieces, and body and soul part asunder, yet stand still, and go not forth again out of the doors of the Father.
322. For as soon as you will open the door in your soul, and will go out of the mire, towards the ancient Father, that he doth but perceive that it is you his son, and that you are returned to him, then he saith; This is my son which was lost, for whom my heart was troubled, and is entered into the humanity, into this world, and hath sought him, and now I have found him. 23. And there he sendeth the Holy Ghost to meet him, and falleth kindly about his neck, and receiveth him with joy, and for a token of his love, he putteth the seal and the ring of the Holy Trinity, in the suffering and death of Christ, on to the hand of the soul: and there he bringeth the blessed virgin of his wisdom, the new angelical garment (viz. the flesh of Christ) and putteth it on to the soul; and all the servants of God (viz. the holy angels in the house of the Father) must rejoice and be merry with the lost Son; and there the ancient Father slayeth the fatted calf, and feedeth his son at his table (of the heavenly substantiality), with the power and with the flesh of his obedient Son Christ, and giveth him to drink of the water of eternal life, in the blood of Christ, in the first mother, out of which the soul hath been created; and there is joy in heaven among the ninety-nine angels, or holy souls, which are with God, that a dear brother is come into their society.
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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