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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.
1were together, and had each of them a special gift and knowledge in God, yet they would all be but one in the root of Christ, and would every one desire only the love of God in Christ: What disciple or scholar will exalt himself above his master? We are one body in Christ, why then should one member contend with the other about the food? When the desirous mouth feedeth, then all the members receive strength and virtue; every member hath its own office or work in opening the wonders of God: we do not all bring one and the same words, but one spirit in Christ, every one hath that which is his own imparted to him, what he shall open in God, that the great mysteries of God may be made manifest, and the wonders which have been foreseen from eternity in his wisdom might be revealed: to which end the soul was created of God. 35. 1 know, and the spirit sheweth it to me, that thou, Antichristian sophister, wilt object against me, that even among the Apostles there hath been strife and contention about the words of Christ: It is true indeed, and it was Satan's masterpiece to sift Christ's disciples, and the disciples of those disciples, so soon as they became secure: for they were men as well as we, and one was stronger in spirit than another, according as they did search [or examine] themselves, and raise up themselves in God: for they lived among evil men, and many times must apply themselves to the world, and must give the weak milk to
2drink, at which others many times stumbled in their reason, and grew hot and zealous, and reproved one another for it; as may be seen about Cornelius, when Peter went in to the heathens, and the other Apostles supposed that the kingdom of God belonged only to Israel. 36. But you are to know, that the love of God is so humble [pliable], that when it hath kindled the soul itself, itself is subject to the soul; but no soul will enjoy that, but those that are humbled in the love of God, and constantly go forth from their desires, that the spirit of God may live in them, and that they may have an eye unto him: the soul is permitted to be zealous, but it doth better to live in meekness, in which it entereth into the Majesty [of God], and is a totally beloved child; what doth it avail me that I pour out fire upon my brother, and so burn myself therein? It is more blessed to continue under the cross in patience and in meekness, than to bring fire from heaven. 37. Christ is come to seek and to save that which was lost; not to awaken his anger against us, but that he might help us out of the jaws of the devil; and hath regenerated us in himself to be a living creature in God, and hath brought us quite through the fire of his Father's anger. He hath broken the bands, that we might follow him in love and meekness, as children should follow their parents: Therefore he teacheth us faithfully what we should do, and how we should pray. [Of the Lord's Prayer.]
338. The prayer which he hath taught us is an instruction and teaching of all whatsoever we should do and leave undone; and what we should ask and expect from God: and is always rightly to be understood according to the Three Principles, which we will here make a short introduction to, though it cannot be confined or concluded, for the spirit in the prayer comprehendeth in it the whole eternity, also nature and every thing; so that no tongue can sufficiently expound it. The more it is considered, the more is found in it. Yet we will venture upon it, and give the reader an introduction; not to tie or limit the spirit: for it riseth up in every one's soul, as virtue and power is given from the wonders of God. And so it is also with the Gospel, that is not tied to any exposition: The more any search into it, the more they find therein: for the spirit of God itself teacheth us to pray aright, and also presenteth us to God. For we know not what we should say; our whole business of praying and conversion consisteth only in the will and purpose that we give ourselves up into God; God the Holy Ghost himself maketh the springing and growing up through himself in God, he driveth forth the blossom of the new body of the soul, out from the divine centre forth through the soul, so that 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.
1were together, and had each of them a special gift and knowledge in God, yet they would all be but one in the root of Christ, and would every one desire only the love of God in Christ: What disciple or scholar will exalt himself above his master? We are one body in Christ, why then should one member contend with the other about the food? When the desirous mouth feedeth, then all the members receive strength and virtue; every member hath its own office or work in opening the wonders of God: we do not all bring one and the same words, but one spirit in Christ, every one hath that which is his own imparted to him, what he shall open in God, that the great mysteries of God may be made manifest, and the wonders which have been foreseen from eternity in his wisdom might be revealed: to which end the soul was created of God. 35. 1 know, and the spirit sheweth it to me, that thou, Antichristian sophister, wilt object against me, that even among the Apostles there hath been strife and contention about the words of Christ: It is true indeed, and it was Satan's masterpiece to sift Christ's disciples, and the disciples of those disciples, so soon as they became secure: for they were men as well as we, and one was stronger in spirit than another, according as they did search [or examine] themselves, and raise up themselves in God: for they lived among evil men, and many times must apply themselves to the world, and must give the weak milk to
2drink, at which others many times stumbled in their reason, and grew hot and zealous, and reproved one another for it; as may be seen about Cornelius, when Peter went in to the heathens, and the other Apostles supposed that the kingdom of God belonged only to Israel. 36. But you are to know, that the love of God is so humble [pliable], that when it hath kindled the soul itself, itself is subject to the soul; but no soul will enjoy that, but those that are humbled in the love of God, and constantly go forth from their desires, that the spirit of God may live in them, and that they may have an eye unto him: the soul is permitted to be zealous, but it doth better to live in meekness, in which it entereth into the Majesty [of God], and is a totally beloved child; what doth it avail me that I pour out fire upon my brother, and so burn myself therein? It is more blessed to continue under the cross in patience and in meekness, than to bring fire from heaven. 37. Christ is come to seek and to save that which was lost; not to awaken his anger against us, but that he might help us out of the jaws of the devil; and hath regenerated us in himself to be a living creature in God, and hath brought us quite through the fire of his Father's anger. He hath broken the bands, that we might follow him in love and meekness, as children should follow their parents: Therefore he teacheth us faithfully what we should do, and how we should pray. [Of the Lord's Prayer.]
338. The prayer which he hath taught us is an instruction and teaching of all whatsoever we should do and leave undone; and what we should ask and expect from God: and is always rightly to be understood according to the Three Principles, which we will here make a short introduction to, though it cannot be confined or concluded, for the spirit in the prayer comprehendeth in it the whole eternity, also nature and every thing; so that no tongue can sufficiently expound it. The more it is considered, the more is found in it. Yet we will venture upon it, and give the reader an introduction; not to tie or limit the spirit: for it riseth up in every one's soul, as virtue and power is given from the wonders of God. And so it is also with the Gospel, that is not tied to any exposition: The more any search into it, the more they find therein: for the spirit of God itself teacheth us to pray aright, and also presenteth us to God. For we know not what we should say; our whole business of praying and conversion consisteth only in the will and purpose that we give ourselves up into God; God the Holy Ghost himself maketh the springing and growing up through himself in God, he driveth forth the blossom of the new body of the soul, out from the divine centre forth through the soul, so that 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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