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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.
1any Heart and power of God, but it would be an eternal stillness: But since the eternity doth desire the life, it cannot be generated any other way: and being it is thus generated, it is therefore most beloved eternally: and therefore the earnest strong birth may not, and cannot, cease in all eternity, in respect of the life, which is the spirit of God. 28. Therefore behold thy self and all creatures, and consider thy self, consider also heaven and hell in the anger and wrath of God: and thou shalt find it thus, and no otherwise. Though indeed here we need an angelical tongue, and thou an angelical light in the mind, and then we should well understand one another; this world apprehendeth it not. Concerning the seventh Form of the Eternal Nature. The Revealed Gate of the Essence of all Essences. 29. My beloved Reader, if you would understand the high Mysteries, you need not first put an academy upon your nose, nor use any [such] spectacles, nor read the books of many artists and scholars: for the high Mysteries are not to be sought after, searched out, and found, only in the high schools or universities: whatsoever reason seeketh in the art of this world, without the divine understanding, is vain and fictitious; it findeth nothing but this world, and not half of that either; it always goeth round about in seeking, and findeth in the end only pride and hypocrisy, in finding the wisdom of the world.
230. Seek you nothing else but the Word and Heart of God, (which is Incarnate, or become man) in the crib among the oxen in the stable, in the dark night: if you find it, you find Christ (viz. the Word, in the Father) together with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: moreover, the eternal nature, also the angelical world and paradise: and then you will find your reason (which hath so long led you reeling, as a drunken man) to be very blind. You need not break your mind with high thoughts, for with such high fancies and conceits you will not find the ground: do but only incline your mind and thoughts, with your whole reason, into the love and mercy [the Barmhertzigkeit] of God, so that you be born out of the Word and Heart of God in the centre of your life, so that his light shine in the light of your life, that you be one with him. 31. For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the eternal Word in the Father (who is the glance, or brightness, and the power of the light eternity) must become man, and be born in you, if you will know God: otherwise you are in the dark stable, and go about groping and feeling, and look always for Christ, at the right hand of God, supposing that he is a great way off; you cast your mind aloft above the stars and seek God, as the sophisters teach you, who represent God as one afar off, in heaven.
332. But as the devil would (in his fiery source [or property]) fly up above the Heart of God, and yet remaineth still in the four forms in the eternal nature in the darkness, so it is also with blind reason, which sitteth in the dark, and seeketh God in the darkness. 33. If you would find him, seek him in his source or property, which is everywhere; all is full of God, and he shineth in the darkness; God is in your dark heart, though in another Principle; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; the Holy Spirit of God is the key in the centre: go out from the desire of the flesh, in a true earnest repentance, and put all your will, reason, and thoughts into the mercy [the Barmhertzigkeit] of God; and so the Word of God (viz. his beloved Heart) will get a form in you: and then you stand before the crib where Jesus is born: and then incline yourself towards the Child, and offer him your heart, and Christ will be born in you. 34. And then you must first into Jordan: and the Holy Ghost will baptize you: and there the heaven standeth open to you, and the Holy Ghost hovereth over you: but you must into the wilderness, and be tempted of the devil (understand it rightly: the devil will make attempts upon you,
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.
1any Heart and power of God, but it would be an eternal stillness: But since the eternity doth desire the life, it cannot be generated any other way: and being it is thus generated, it is therefore most beloved eternally: and therefore the earnest strong birth may not, and cannot, cease in all eternity, in respect of the life, which is the spirit of God. 28. Therefore behold thy self and all creatures, and consider thy self, consider also heaven and hell in the anger and wrath of God: and thou shalt find it thus, and no otherwise. Though indeed here we need an angelical tongue, and thou an angelical light in the mind, and then we should well understand one another; this world apprehendeth it not. Concerning the seventh Form of the Eternal Nature. The Revealed Gate of the Essence of all Essences. 29. My beloved Reader, if you would understand the high Mysteries, you need not first put an academy upon your nose, nor use any [such] spectacles, nor read the books of many artists and scholars: for the high Mysteries are not to be sought after, searched out, and found, only in the high schools or universities: whatsoever reason seeketh in the art of this world, without the divine understanding, is vain and fictitious; it findeth nothing but this world, and not half of that either; it always goeth round about in seeking, and findeth in the end only pride and hypocrisy, in finding the wisdom of the world.
230. Seek you nothing else but the Word and Heart of God, (which is Incarnate, or become man) in the crib among the oxen in the stable, in the dark night: if you find it, you find Christ (viz. the Word, in the Father) together with the Father, Son, and Holy Ghost: moreover, the eternal nature, also the angelical world and paradise: and then you will find your reason (which hath so long led you reeling, as a drunken man) to be very blind. You need not break your mind with high thoughts, for with such high fancies and conceits you will not find the ground: do but only incline your mind and thoughts, with your whole reason, into the love and mercy [the Barmhertzigkeit] of God, so that you be born out of the Word and Heart of God in the centre of your life, so that his light shine in the light of your life, that you be one with him. 31. For Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the eternal Word in the Father (who is the glance, or brightness, and the power of the light eternity) must become man, and be born in you, if you will know God: otherwise you are in the dark stable, and go about groping and feeling, and look always for Christ, at the right hand of God, supposing that he is a great way off; you cast your mind aloft above the stars and seek God, as the sophisters teach you, who represent God as one afar off, in heaven.
332. But as the devil would (in his fiery source [or property]) fly up above the Heart of God, and yet remaineth still in the four forms in the eternal nature in the darkness, so it is also with blind reason, which sitteth in the dark, and seeketh God in the darkness. 33. If you would find him, seek him in his source or property, which is everywhere; all is full of God, and he shineth in the darkness; God is in your dark heart, though in another Principle; knock, and it shall be opened unto you; the Holy Spirit of God is the key in the centre: go out from the desire of the flesh, in a true earnest repentance, and put all your will, reason, and thoughts into the mercy [the Barmhertzigkeit] of God; and so the Word of God (viz. his beloved Heart) will get a form in you: and then you stand before the crib where Jesus is born: and then incline yourself towards the Child, and offer him your heart, and Christ will be born in you. 34. And then you must first into Jordan: and the Holy Ghost will baptize you: and there the heaven standeth open to you, and the Holy Ghost hovereth over you: but you must into the wilderness, and be tempted of the devil (understand it rightly: the devil will make attempts upon you,
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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