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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.
1God: and therefore they were cast out of the uppermost centre into the nethermost, viz. into death, where is nothing but mere darkness, and they cannot reach the light of God. 44. For, to the light of God, there belongeth a comprehension of humility, wherein the desire of love is generated, which apprehendeth the Heart of God; and this Lucifer hath not, but mere anger, envy, and highmindedness, and a continual desire to fly up above the Heart of God, and to domineer in the stern might: and therefore he is thrust out from the divine Principle, into the centre of darkness; and that is his eternal kingdom. 45. And here is clearly shewn to the theolo gists, who undertake to preach of the will of God, that their devices, about ways to God, are mere fables, when they make laws, and set down things, as the means whereby the light of God may be attained: For it only consisteth in this, and it lieth in our imagination [purpose or resolution], that we frame our will into humility, wherein the love is generated, which penetrateth to the Heart of God, as into that which is its own, where the human soul is then born in God, so that it embraceth the will of God, to do that which is the will of God. 46. For all men's doings without the will of God, are nothing else but graven images [foolery, human tradition] of natural skill, which remain in the anguish of the centre: and it is a seeking, where
2nothing is to be found; like one that maketh a costly piece of work, which himself taketh pleasure in. 47. So also such works stand before God, as a figure, which yet remain in the figure eternally; but, to the true regeneration, to the attaining of the Heart of God, there belongeth only an earnest will, and submission, where reason lets go all that it hath invented and contrived, and dependeth merely on the Word of the Lord, viz. on the Heart of God; and so the spirit is conceived and born in the love of God. 48. And we have already clearly shewn you, that everything is generated out of the will, and everything hath its propagation again in the will; for the will is the master [artificer] of every work: for it hath its first original to nature from God the Father, and passeth through nature to his Heart, which is the end of nature, which dwelleth there in the still eternal liberty without nature, and is in nature as a peculiar Principle of its own, in itself. 49. Thus the original of nature hath the second Principle, out of which proceed those things or substances that may be altered; but the Principle of the Heart of God doth not [alter or change]. 50. Therefore I still say, and it is the very truth; that whatsoever is built, invented, and taught, concerning the way to God, (if it proceed not out
3of the humility of love, and goeth on to the comprehending [or purpose] of the will, to the Heart of God) is only an 1 invented work, in the wonders of God: whereby the wonders of God, which stand in the hidden seals, are brought to light: and the builders [or contrivers] are but labourers in the wonders of God, in the great building, to the glory of God, which [building] shall appear in the wonders, at the change of time, when all things shall enter into the ether [receptacle or devourer]. 51. Yet we do not judge, nor condemn, the desirous seeker, who seeketh in blindness, and knoweth not what he doth; seeing he laboureth in the building of the great wonders of God, [with a blind zeal] . For he shall find his reward in the end, inasmuch as he hath had a will to press into God, and yet sticketh in the building. 52. And when the building shall appear before God, at the end of time, then the artificer or workmaster shall also appear before God. But do we alone say this? Doth not the Scripture in the Revelation of Jesus Christ say; That our works shall follow us; where every one shall reap what he hath sown? 53. Therefore leave off your calumnies and blasphemies, and your fine contrived ways to God; and forsake the covetousness and highmindedness of the devil, and enter into the way of love, which consisteth in humility (towards the Heart 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.
1God: and therefore they were cast out of the uppermost centre into the nethermost, viz. into death, where is nothing but mere darkness, and they cannot reach the light of God. 44. For, to the light of God, there belongeth a comprehension of humility, wherein the desire of love is generated, which apprehendeth the Heart of God; and this Lucifer hath not, but mere anger, envy, and highmindedness, and a continual desire to fly up above the Heart of God, and to domineer in the stern might: and therefore he is thrust out from the divine Principle, into the centre of darkness; and that is his eternal kingdom. 45. And here is clearly shewn to the theolo gists, who undertake to preach of the will of God, that their devices, about ways to God, are mere fables, when they make laws, and set down things, as the means whereby the light of God may be attained: For it only consisteth in this, and it lieth in our imagination [purpose or resolution], that we frame our will into humility, wherein the love is generated, which penetrateth to the Heart of God, as into that which is its own, where the human soul is then born in God, so that it embraceth the will of God, to do that which is the will of God. 46. For all men's doings without the will of God, are nothing else but graven images [foolery, human tradition] of natural skill, which remain in the anguish of the centre: and it is a seeking, where
2nothing is to be found; like one that maketh a costly piece of work, which himself taketh pleasure in. 47. So also such works stand before God, as a figure, which yet remain in the figure eternally; but, to the true regeneration, to the attaining of the Heart of God, there belongeth only an earnest will, and submission, where reason lets go all that it hath invented and contrived, and dependeth merely on the Word of the Lord, viz. on the Heart of God; and so the spirit is conceived and born in the love of God. 48. And we have already clearly shewn you, that everything is generated out of the will, and everything hath its propagation again in the will; for the will is the master [artificer] of every work: for it hath its first original to nature from God the Father, and passeth through nature to his Heart, which is the end of nature, which dwelleth there in the still eternal liberty without nature, and is in nature as a peculiar Principle of its own, in itself. 49. Thus the original of nature hath the second Principle, out of which proceed those things or substances that may be altered; but the Principle of the Heart of God doth not [alter or change]. 50. Therefore I still say, and it is the very truth; that whatsoever is built, invented, and taught, concerning the way to God, (if it proceed not out
3of the humility of love, and goeth on to the comprehending [or purpose] of the will, to the Heart of God) is only an 1 invented work, in the wonders of God: whereby the wonders of God, which stand in the hidden seals, are brought to light: and the builders [or contrivers] are but labourers in the wonders of God, in the great building, to the glory of God, which [building] shall appear in the wonders, at the change of time, when all things shall enter into the ether [receptacle or devourer]. 51. Yet we do not judge, nor condemn, the desirous seeker, who seeketh in blindness, and knoweth not what he doth; seeing he laboureth in the building of the great wonders of God, [with a blind zeal] . For he shall find his reward in the end, inasmuch as he hath had a will to press into God, and yet sticketh in the building. 52. And when the building shall appear before God, at the end of time, then the artificer or workmaster shall also appear before God. But do we alone say this? Doth not the Scripture in the Revelation of Jesus Christ say; That our works shall follow us; where every one shall reap what he hath sown? 53. Therefore leave off your calumnies and blasphemies, and your fine contrived ways to God; and forsake the covetousness and highmindedness of the devil, and enter into the way of love, which consisteth in humility (towards the Heart 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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