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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.
1patience, till Christ shall settle it again upon the cross, in the rainbow, [in the eternal substantiality, or in the eternal covenant] : For he sitteth on the rainbow, and his body, his substance, is the fullness of heaven [or the heaven is full of his substance]. 92. The three colours in the rainbow are the Three Principles, the fourth [colour] is his body in Ternario Sancto; [or in the inward heavenly working power in the angelical world, in the eternal substantiality, wherein the divine Trinity worketh] . 93. O how great are the wonders! he that comprehendeth them hath great joy thereon, there can nothing be named that is like these hidden secret mysteries, no tongue can express them: For what is better than to have God for his spouse, to be in God with one 's will; and after this [life] time to be wholly in substance a heavenly body and a clarified or glorified soul? 94. O great depth, why art thou so hidden to men? It cometh from hence: because they love the devil, and the haughty proud fierceness, more than thee; and therefore they are not able thus with fierceness to enter into thee. O mercy of God! bring again the tree which thou hast planted: Why should thy wrath boast that it hath borne more fruit upon thy tree than thy
2love? Build again the ruined city, Jerusalem, that thy kingdom may come, and thy will be done. Who will give thee thanks in hell? Draw us yet in with thy spirit, into thy praise [or temple, where they sing of thy praise] . How long shall hell drop with fatness? Behold! it hath opened its jaws, and would devour us all: Come yet, and build the city of thy court, that we may dwell near thee, that thy wonders may leap for joy, when thy love-spirit judgeth: Tarry not, O Lord, for thy tree is become old for sorrow; [that is, the number of virtuous people is small] : Bring yet forth the new green branches, which against the devil's will spring up through his kingdom: Let the day break forth: Wherefore shall the night of the anger keep back the lily-twig ? O Lord, thy tree groweth through the whole world; therefore awaken us, O Lord, that we may eat of its fruit. Of the Amen. So be it. And Close [of the Prayer in the Language of Nature]. 95. A- is the first letter, and presseth forth out of the heart, and hath no nature [or fierceness in the pronunciation] ; but we clearly understand herein, the seeking, longing, or attracting of the eternal will without nature, wherein nature is generated, which hath been from eternity. For the will desireth the heart, and the heart desireth the will, they are Father and Son; and the virtue, which goeth forth from them, is the spirit of the eternal life, of which we formerly made mention. [in this book.]
396. Now, as the A- is generated out of the heart, viz. out of the eternal will, and thrust forth out of the will, so out of A- afterwards cometh the whole alphabet with four and twenty numbers [letters]; for the A- beginneth to number, and compriseth the whole number in the [syllable] -men: These are the wonders and works of God, which appear in the spirit above nature, viz. in the brightness of the Majesty; which you may understand thus: We are with our soul in a strange inn, viz. in the spirit of this world, which holdeth it captive, and so it could not come into God, if God were not become man, who hath brought our soul into the Word, as into the living power of God, in himself; but now we are branches on that tree, and must attract the sap of the tree into us, if we would spring from the tree; else, if we only imagine [and reach] after the air and sun, then our branch withereth: Our will must be put or grafted into the tree, and that is [the ground of true] prayer. 97. When we pray, then the will goeth into the tree, and attracteth the sap of the tree into the hungry, thirsty and dry soul; and then there groweth out of that sap a body, and then saith the soul with great joy, -men, that is, it is mine; that is to say, yes, it is done, take what thy will desireth: This is faith, and not [the knowledge or]
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.
1patience, till Christ shall settle it again upon the cross, in the rainbow, [in the eternal substantiality, or in the eternal covenant] : For he sitteth on the rainbow, and his body, his substance, is the fullness of heaven [or the heaven is full of his substance]. 92. The three colours in the rainbow are the Three Principles, the fourth [colour] is his body in Ternario Sancto; [or in the inward heavenly working power in the angelical world, in the eternal substantiality, wherein the divine Trinity worketh] . 93. O how great are the wonders! he that comprehendeth them hath great joy thereon, there can nothing be named that is like these hidden secret mysteries, no tongue can express them: For what is better than to have God for his spouse, to be in God with one 's will; and after this [life] time to be wholly in substance a heavenly body and a clarified or glorified soul? 94. O great depth, why art thou so hidden to men? It cometh from hence: because they love the devil, and the haughty proud fierceness, more than thee; and therefore they are not able thus with fierceness to enter into thee. O mercy of God! bring again the tree which thou hast planted: Why should thy wrath boast that it hath borne more fruit upon thy tree than thy
2love? Build again the ruined city, Jerusalem, that thy kingdom may come, and thy will be done. Who will give thee thanks in hell? Draw us yet in with thy spirit, into thy praise [or temple, where they sing of thy praise] . How long shall hell drop with fatness? Behold! it hath opened its jaws, and would devour us all: Come yet, and build the city of thy court, that we may dwell near thee, that thy wonders may leap for joy, when thy love-spirit judgeth: Tarry not, O Lord, for thy tree is become old for sorrow; [that is, the number of virtuous people is small] : Bring yet forth the new green branches, which against the devil's will spring up through his kingdom: Let the day break forth: Wherefore shall the night of the anger keep back the lily-twig ? O Lord, thy tree groweth through the whole world; therefore awaken us, O Lord, that we may eat of its fruit. Of the Amen. So be it. And Close [of the Prayer in the Language of Nature]. 95. A- is the first letter, and presseth forth out of the heart, and hath no nature [or fierceness in the pronunciation] ; but we clearly understand herein, the seeking, longing, or attracting of the eternal will without nature, wherein nature is generated, which hath been from eternity. For the will desireth the heart, and the heart desireth the will, they are Father and Son; and the virtue, which goeth forth from them, is the spirit of the eternal life, of which we formerly made mention. [in this book.]
396. Now, as the A- is generated out of the heart, viz. out of the eternal will, and thrust forth out of the will, so out of A- afterwards cometh the whole alphabet with four and twenty numbers [letters]; for the A- beginneth to number, and compriseth the whole number in the [syllable] -men: These are the wonders and works of God, which appear in the spirit above nature, viz. in the brightness of the Majesty; which you may understand thus: We are with our soul in a strange inn, viz. in the spirit of this world, which holdeth it captive, and so it could not come into God, if God were not become man, who hath brought our soul into the Word, as into the living power of God, in himself; but now we are branches on that tree, and must attract the sap of the tree into us, if we would spring from the tree; else, if we only imagine [and reach] after the air and sun, then our branch withereth: Our will must be put or grafted into the tree, and that is [the ground of true] prayer. 97. When we pray, then the will goeth into the tree, and attracteth the sap of the tree into the hungry, thirsty and dry soul; and then there groweth out of that sap a body, and then saith the soul with great joy, -men, that is, it is mine; that is to say, yes, it is done, take what thy will desireth: This is faith, and not [the knowledge or]
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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