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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.
159. Here our want is very much, the heavy Fall presseth us hard. O, there is very much herein hidden, which would be too long to describe. For the will of God should be done, and not the will of the flesh, and of the devil. And therefore it is that we are so doubtful in prayer, because the poor soul runneth on in the will of the flesh, and of the devil. If it did live in innocence we should have this skill perfect, and there would be no doubting in our prayers, but an acting and accomplishment of them: [This the Apostles of Christ wanted, when they asked why they could not cast out the dumb devil] . We do really swim here in misery, which the spirit of the wonders sheweth us. The Fourth Petition. Gib uns unser taglich Brot heute. Give us our daily Bread today. 60. Gib, there the will sticketh in the heart, and presseth outwards, and the mouth catcheth it; that is, the soul would be fed: what the word giveth forth, that the soul taketh; for that belongeth to it, it will have that. 61. Uns, with this syllable the soul desireth
2food for all its [fellow] members, viz. for all souls, as if they were but one tree with many branches, whereof every branch must have sap and virtue from the stock: and so it desireth to have this in common, out of the virtue of God, for the life of all souls: for it attracteth that with all its desire to it, and in all [others], as a loving brother; it willeth to have it in common, and not alone to itself in covetousness, as the devil did. 62. Un-, with this syllable the will of the soul goeth into the eternal wisdom, wherein, before the creation in the seed, it was discerned, in the eternal will: -ser, with this syllable it taketh the original of nature in the will, where one form in the original generateth, filleth, and preserveth the other: and that is the band of the soul, whereby it eternally liveth and subsisteth: and that the will of the soul desireth, else it would be dissolved. For a spirit desireth no more than to retain its band, and to fill it with virtue, that it may flow forth. 63. And here lieth the key of the greatest hidden secret of the Being of all Beings. Beloved doctors, if you were learned you would seek here; and if you understand nothing here, nor will to understand, then you are not learned, but are only tellers of stories, which the simple, if he did use himself to
3it, would perform as well as you: This is the true doctorship in the Holy Ghost: the outward [in the learning of the school of reason] is but a foppery, and puffeth up into a high mind. 64. Tag-, with this syllable the heavenly number is understood, as wherein the spirit on the cross in the holy matrix comprehendeth the genetrix in the multiplication, where the will of the spirit recreateth, confirmeth, and strengtheneth itself: -lich, in this syllable the soul's will quickeneth itself in the light and virtue of the Majesty of God; and strengtheneth the soul with the heavenly number, which springeth up out of the Majesty infinitely: and herein the soul is acknowledged for an angel, and liveth in the hand of God. 65. Brot, here the corporeal substance springeth up, and our misery: for Brot [bread] is generated
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.
159. Here our want is very much, the heavy Fall presseth us hard. O, there is very much herein hidden, which would be too long to describe. For the will of God should be done, and not the will of the flesh, and of the devil. And therefore it is that we are so doubtful in prayer, because the poor soul runneth on in the will of the flesh, and of the devil. If it did live in innocence we should have this skill perfect, and there would be no doubting in our prayers, but an acting and accomplishment of them: [This the Apostles of Christ wanted, when they asked why they could not cast out the dumb devil] . We do really swim here in misery, which the spirit of the wonders sheweth us. The Fourth Petition. Gib uns unser taglich Brot heute. Give us our daily Bread today. 60. Gib, there the will sticketh in the heart, and presseth outwards, and the mouth catcheth it; that is, the soul would be fed: what the word giveth forth, that the soul taketh; for that belongeth to it, it will have that. 61. Uns, with this syllable the soul desireth
2food for all its [fellow] members, viz. for all souls, as if they were but one tree with many branches, whereof every branch must have sap and virtue from the stock: and so it desireth to have this in common, out of the virtue of God, for the life of all souls: for it attracteth that with all its desire to it, and in all [others], as a loving brother; it willeth to have it in common, and not alone to itself in covetousness, as the devil did. 62. Un-, with this syllable the will of the soul goeth into the eternal wisdom, wherein, before the creation in the seed, it was discerned, in the eternal will: -ser, with this syllable it taketh the original of nature in the will, where one form in the original generateth, filleth, and preserveth the other: and that is the band of the soul, whereby it eternally liveth and subsisteth: and that the will of the soul desireth, else it would be dissolved. For a spirit desireth no more than to retain its band, and to fill it with virtue, that it may flow forth. 63. And here lieth the key of the greatest hidden secret of the Being of all Beings. Beloved doctors, if you were learned you would seek here; and if you understand nothing here, nor will to understand, then you are not learned, but are only tellers of stories, which the simple, if he did use himself to
3it, would perform as well as you: This is the true doctorship in the Holy Ghost: the outward [in the learning of the school of reason] is but a foppery, and puffeth up into a high mind. 64. Tag-, with this syllable the heavenly number is understood, as wherein the spirit on the cross in the holy matrix comprehendeth the genetrix in the multiplication, where the will of the spirit recreateth, confirmeth, and strengtheneth itself: -lich, in this syllable the soul's will quickeneth itself in the light and virtue of the Majesty of God; and strengtheneth the soul with the heavenly number, which springeth up out of the Majesty infinitely: and herein the soul is acknowledged for an angel, and liveth in the hand of God. 65. Brot, here the corporeal substance springeth up, and our misery: for Brot [bread] is generated
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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