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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.
1and remaineth eternally to be the liberty. There is one God, one Will, one Spirit, one Lord, which together is called Wonder, Counsel, Power, and is become Man; who is called the Prince of Peace, Saviour, and Conqueror; and it is done to the end, that his dominion may be great, and that peace may have no end, saith Isaiah the prophet of God. THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER Concerning God's Blessing in this World. A very good and necessary Revelation for those that are weak in Faith. 1. DEAR children, if we be converted from our reason, and give up [or submit] ourselves into the will of God, that he may do with us, and make us, what he will, then, when we put our trust in him, we go in to our true Father, and are his children. 2. And now, as a father careth for his children, so also God our Father doth for us, as Christ hath faithfully taught us, saying, First endeavour after the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof anl then all other things shall be afforded [or added to you] you. Also, Behold the fowls of heaven, they sow not, neither do they spin, neither do they gather into the barn; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them; and are you not more worth than these? Oye of little faith ! 3. The soul knoweth that this garment (of earthly flesh and blood) is a strange garment, wherein it is heartily and deeply ashamed before the Majesty of God, and therefore it doth so much doubt of God's grace, when it prayeth;
2it always thinketh its sins are so many that it cannot reach into the Majesty of God. 4. And such pain the devil putteth it to, who always openeth his smoky pit, with the anger, and draweth the smoke into the will of the soul, that it keepeth back, and is afraid of God: The devil always presenteth God as a severe judge. 5. Thus the poor soul keepeth back, and entereth into the spirit of this world, and seeketh a livelihood and maintenance: It thinketh God lets things go as they will, and that things prosper with those that build upon, and trust in, themselves. For, when the soul thus sticketh in reason without God, it supposeth that it must use carking and caring to bring it to pass; it thinketh there is no other way, it must be done thus, the labour of the hands (or else cunning and subtlety) must do it; from whence so many [strong delusions] potent evils do arise. 6. Dear children, be rightly informed. The outward earthly life is fallen home to the spirit of this world, the belly needeth earthly food, and the body earthly clothing, and a house to dwell in; after these things the outward spirit must endeavour: it should labour and take pains; for in the sweat of thy face shalt thou (earthly man) eat thy bread, till thou return to earth from whence thou wast taken, saith God in Moses. 7. For the body was taken from the matrix of the earth, and hath imagined [or put its mind] into the earth, and the earth hath captivated
3that again, so that it hath eaten earthly fruit; and so is turned to earth, from whence it was taken. 8. For God took it from the earth, that is [he took] a Mesch, a mass or concretion of red earth, [* Adam from Adamah], from the fire's centre, and from the water's centre, viz. from both the mothers of nature, and breathed into it the breath from without by the spirit of the great world, and the soul from within out of the second Principle into the Heart. 9. The soul doth not dwell quite in the outward, only it is captivated with the outward: Its will is entered into the outward, and there is impregnated with the outward dominion, and so the outward dominion is come into the soul. 10. And that was it which God did forbid to man, that he should not lust after earthly fruit, power, and virtue; neither was there any necessity that drave him to it, for he was in paradise, and had paradisical food, without want and death; and as God dwelleth in the earth, and yet the earth knoweth him not, and apprehendeth him not; so also man; he could have dwelt in the matrix of the earth and yet have been with the soul in God, and the will of the soul had brought divine food to the soul: but now, being turned away, the soul eateth of the centre of nature, and the outward spirit eateth of the earth: but if the soul turn, and go with its will into the love of God, then it eateth of God's word, and the outward body eateth of the blessing of God.
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.
1and remaineth eternally to be the liberty. There is one God, one Will, one Spirit, one Lord, which together is called Wonder, Counsel, Power, and is become Man; who is called the Prince of Peace, Saviour, and Conqueror; and it is done to the end, that his dominion may be great, and that peace may have no end, saith Isaiah the prophet of God. THE SEVENTEENTH CHAPTER Concerning God's Blessing in this World. A very good and necessary Revelation for those that are weak in Faith. 1. DEAR children, if we be converted from our reason, and give up [or submit] ourselves into the will of God, that he may do with us, and make us, what he will, then, when we put our trust in him, we go in to our true Father, and are his children. 2. And now, as a father careth for his children, so also God our Father doth for us, as Christ hath faithfully taught us, saying, First endeavour after the kingdom of God, and the righteousness thereof anl then all other things shall be afforded [or added to you] you. Also, Behold the fowls of heaven, they sow not, neither do they spin, neither do they gather into the barn; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them; and are you not more worth than these? Oye of little faith ! 3. The soul knoweth that this garment (of earthly flesh and blood) is a strange garment, wherein it is heartily and deeply ashamed before the Majesty of God, and therefore it doth so much doubt of God's grace, when it prayeth;
2it always thinketh its sins are so many that it cannot reach into the Majesty of God. 4. And such pain the devil putteth it to, who always openeth his smoky pit, with the anger, and draweth the smoke into the will of the soul, that it keepeth back, and is afraid of God: The devil always presenteth God as a severe judge. 5. Thus the poor soul keepeth back, and entereth into the spirit of this world, and seeketh a livelihood and maintenance: It thinketh God lets things go as they will, and that things prosper with those that build upon, and trust in, themselves. For, when the soul thus sticketh in reason without God, it supposeth that it must use carking and caring to bring it to pass; it thinketh there is no other way, it must be done thus, the labour of the hands (or else cunning and subtlety) must do it; from whence so many [strong delusions] potent evils do arise. 6. Dear children, be rightly informed. The outward earthly life is fallen home to the spirit of this world, the belly needeth earthly food, and the body earthly clothing, and a house to dwell in; after these things the outward spirit must endeavour: it should labour and take pains; for in the sweat of thy face shalt thou (earthly man) eat thy bread, till thou return to earth from whence thou wast taken, saith God in Moses. 7. For the body was taken from the matrix of the earth, and hath imagined [or put its mind] into the earth, and the earth hath captivated
3that again, so that it hath eaten earthly fruit; and so is turned to earth, from whence it was taken. 8. For God took it from the earth, that is [he took] a Mesch, a mass or concretion of red earth, [* Adam from Adamah], from the fire's centre, and from the water's centre, viz. from both the mothers of nature, and breathed into it the breath from without by the spirit of the great world, and the soul from within out of the second Principle into the Heart. 9. The soul doth not dwell quite in the outward, only it is captivated with the outward: Its will is entered into the outward, and there is impregnated with the outward dominion, and so the outward dominion is come into the soul. 10. And that was it which God did forbid to man, that he should not lust after earthly fruit, power, and virtue; neither was there any necessity that drave him to it, for he was in paradise, and had paradisical food, without want and death; and as God dwelleth in the earth, and yet the earth knoweth him not, and apprehendeth him not; so also man; he could have dwelt in the matrix of the earth and yet have been with the soul in God, and the will of the soul had brought divine food to the soul: but now, being turned away, the soul eateth of the centre of nature, and the outward spirit eateth of the earth: but if the soul turn, and go with its will into the love of God, then it eateth of God's word, and the outward body eateth of the blessing of God.
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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