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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.
1centre, to the manifestation of God's works of wonder. 23. Thus also we give you to consider how the condition of the wicked soul is, which thus in covetousness, haughtiness, in tyranny, and mere falsehood and wickedness, departeth from the body, when all that still sticketh in the will of the soul unconverted from it; in those very works the soul must eternally swim [or swelter], for that is its substance which it hath here made [to itself], neither doth it desire any other: And though it offereth to hate it, and seeketh in the centre for abstinence [to avoid it], yet it awakeneth but the fire-root thereby, which kindleth and increaseth this substance; for the meekness [viz. the water of eternal life] is not in its will, whereby it might quench. the fire, and turn itself from the evil into the will of God: and though it seek for that, yet there is no finding of it. 24. Then cometh sorrow and lamentation upon it, and kindleth the evil substance many hundred times more, so that the soul desireth to cast itself down headlong, and yet falleth continually deeper into the centre of the abyss.
225. It is with that soul as with one that dreameth that he is in great torment and anguish, and seeketh help every where, and yet cannot find it, and so in the end despaireth and giveth himself over to the driver [or tormentor], when he seeth no remedy, to do what he will with him: And thus the poor soul falleth into the devil's arms, and neither dare nor can go any further: but what he doth, that it must do also. 26. It must be God's enemy, and in highmindedness, in its falsehood and wickedness which it committed here, fly out in the fire above the princely thrones of angels; and that is its recreation in its foolish sport; and being it hath constantly [here on earth in the body] made itself a fool, there also it remaineth to be a fool and a juggler. 27. For every damned soul goeth forth (in its here practised false wicked matters) in the anger of God, as a stout, proud devil; that which it hath here acted, that it doth there also; for that very matter of folly is its treasure, and therein is its will also, and its heart, as Christ saith.
328. But those souls which at the end narrowly escape the devil, and but then first enter into the will of God, when the body is deceasing, they are as one that is escaped from a fight, for they are quite naked, and have little of the body of the heavenly substantiality; and they are very humble, and love to lie down in rest, and so in the stillness wait for the Last Judgment, hoping with the clarification [transfiguration or renovation] of the heavens to have joy with all the souls: and although they have joy with them, yet they see their substance under them, and are very humble in the Majesty: for their dwelling and delight is only paradise, viz. in the one element, but not Majesty; for the clarification or glory is different, all according as the holiness and love is. 29. But the zealous souls in the wonders of God, which here under the cross wrought the wonders of God in obedience to his will, which are mighty in the power of God, which have put on the body of God, that is, Christ's body, and walked therein in righteousness, and truth, all their doings [works, matters, or essences] also follow them in their strong will and desire; and they have unspeakable joy in the love and mercifulness 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.
1centre, to the manifestation of God's works of wonder. 23. Thus also we give you to consider how the condition of the wicked soul is, which thus in covetousness, haughtiness, in tyranny, and mere falsehood and wickedness, departeth from the body, when all that still sticketh in the will of the soul unconverted from it; in those very works the soul must eternally swim [or swelter], for that is its substance which it hath here made [to itself], neither doth it desire any other: And though it offereth to hate it, and seeketh in the centre for abstinence [to avoid it], yet it awakeneth but the fire-root thereby, which kindleth and increaseth this substance; for the meekness [viz. the water of eternal life] is not in its will, whereby it might quench. the fire, and turn itself from the evil into the will of God: and though it seek for that, yet there is no finding of it. 24. Then cometh sorrow and lamentation upon it, and kindleth the evil substance many hundred times more, so that the soul desireth to cast itself down headlong, and yet falleth continually deeper into the centre of the abyss.
225. It is with that soul as with one that dreameth that he is in great torment and anguish, and seeketh help every where, and yet cannot find it, and so in the end despaireth and giveth himself over to the driver [or tormentor], when he seeth no remedy, to do what he will with him: And thus the poor soul falleth into the devil's arms, and neither dare nor can go any further: but what he doth, that it must do also. 26. It must be God's enemy, and in highmindedness, in its falsehood and wickedness which it committed here, fly out in the fire above the princely thrones of angels; and that is its recreation in its foolish sport; and being it hath constantly [here on earth in the body] made itself a fool, there also it remaineth to be a fool and a juggler. 27. For every damned soul goeth forth (in its here practised false wicked matters) in the anger of God, as a stout, proud devil; that which it hath here acted, that it doth there also; for that very matter of folly is its treasure, and therein is its will also, and its heart, as Christ saith.
328. But those souls which at the end narrowly escape the devil, and but then first enter into the will of God, when the body is deceasing, they are as one that is escaped from a fight, for they are quite naked, and have little of the body of the heavenly substantiality; and they are very humble, and love to lie down in rest, and so in the stillness wait for the Last Judgment, hoping with the clarification [transfiguration or renovation] of the heavens to have joy with all the souls: and although they have joy with them, yet they see their substance under them, and are very humble in the Majesty: for their dwelling and delight is only paradise, viz. in the one element, but not Majesty; for the clarification or glory is different, all according as the holiness and love is. 29. But the zealous souls in the wonders of God, which here under the cross wrought the wonders of God in obedience to his will, which are mighty in the power of God, which have put on the body of God, that is, Christ's body, and walked therein in righteousness, and truth, all their doings [works, matters, or essences] also follow them in their strong will and desire; and they have unspeakable joy in the love and mercifulness 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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