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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.
189. And seeing then that I am generated out of the nature of God, therefore is it my mother, and the food of my soul; and my soul is the food of God: for I am his praise [and glory] which he receiveth from my spirit: for my soul openeth his wonders, through his working, and so is a joy in Ternario Sancto [holy Trinity]. 90. 1 speak not only of myself, but of all men and creatures, wherein his wonders stand open, both in his love and anger. For the devils themselves stand in the wonders of God: for they open the seals of the anger: and all standeth to the joy and glory of God. THE FIFTH CHAPTER Of the precious and most Noble Virgin, the Wisdom of God: and of the Angelical World. The Two Gates in Ternarium Sanctum, highly to be Considered. 1. THOU sophister, I know thou wilt accuse me of pride, because I (being a mean simple man in this world) soar so high into the deep. But it is said, that you look only upon the wisdom of this world; I do not esteem or care for it, for it affordeth me no joy at all. But I rejoice at this, that my soul moveth in the wonders, to the praise of God, so that I know his wondrous works, in which my soul delighteth as in its mother. Now every spirit speaketh of its own mother, whose food it eateth, and in whose source [or property] it liveth.
22. Now since I know the wonders, shall I be silent? Am I not born to it, as also all the creatures, that they should open the wonders of God? Therefore now I labour in my [employment], and another in his, and thou, proud sophister, in thine. 3. We stand all in God's field, and we grow to God's glory, and to his works of wonder, as well the wicked as the virtuous; but every fruit groweth in its own property: when the mower shall cut it down, then every fruit shall come into its own barn, and every property receiveth that which is its own; and then the field in its essences (out of which we are grown) shall be manifested: for there are two centres in the eternity, and each centre shall bring in its own crop. 4. Therefore consider, O man, what you judge, that you fall not upon the sword of the spirit of God, and that your work be not blown up [kindled] in the fire of wrath: for look upon the Image in the Revelation, which beareth the sword in its mouth: surely it signifieth the spirit of God, concerning which Christ said, When he cometh he shall reprove the world of sins, of righteousness, and of judgment. 5. Of sins, because they live in hypocrisy, and are not obedient to the spirit of God, nor believed in him, that he might manifest heavenly wonder in them, but they continue under the wrath in the first centre, and will not be regenerated, and do open [or manifest] no other wonders, but such as are in the wrath in mere hypocrisy.
36. And of righteousness, Christ saith, Because I go to the Father. He hath destroyed death, and opened the heavenly gate for the soul, and is gone again to his Father, and hath called us to him; but the dissembling hypocrite will not come, he taketh more delight in his pride: therefore the spirit reproveth him, and rebuketh him to his face, and layeth all his false ways open to the light, that he might see, and beware. 7. But he striketh down the wonders of the reproof to the ground, till the spirit reproveth him of judgment, because the prince of this world (who held men captive) is judged: And thou, sophister, runnest on wittingly (for thy own profit, transitory voluptuousness, and honour's sake) to the devil, and canst not see the open gate, which the spirit sheweth thee, therefore he reproveth thee, and sheweth it to thy face. 8. And if you will not, for all that, then it is as was said: We have piped unto you, but you have not danced; we have called you, but you are not come to us; I have been hungry after you, but you have not fed me; you are not grown in my garden of roses, therefore you are none of my food; your heart hath not been found in my praise, therefore you are not my food. And this bridegroom passeth by; and then cometh the other, and gathereth, what he findeth, into his barn; you should consider that. [Further Information touching the Holy Trinity.]
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.
189. And seeing then that I am generated out of the nature of God, therefore is it my mother, and the food of my soul; and my soul is the food of God: for I am his praise [and glory] which he receiveth from my spirit: for my soul openeth his wonders, through his working, and so is a joy in Ternario Sancto [holy Trinity]. 90. 1 speak not only of myself, but of all men and creatures, wherein his wonders stand open, both in his love and anger. For the devils themselves stand in the wonders of God: for they open the seals of the anger: and all standeth to the joy and glory of God. THE FIFTH CHAPTER Of the precious and most Noble Virgin, the Wisdom of God: and of the Angelical World. The Two Gates in Ternarium Sanctum, highly to be Considered. 1. THOU sophister, I know thou wilt accuse me of pride, because I (being a mean simple man in this world) soar so high into the deep. But it is said, that you look only upon the wisdom of this world; I do not esteem or care for it, for it affordeth me no joy at all. But I rejoice at this, that my soul moveth in the wonders, to the praise of God, so that I know his wondrous works, in which my soul delighteth as in its mother. Now every spirit speaketh of its own mother, whose food it eateth, and in whose source [or property] it liveth.
22. Now since I know the wonders, shall I be silent? Am I not born to it, as also all the creatures, that they should open the wonders of God? Therefore now I labour in my [employment], and another in his, and thou, proud sophister, in thine. 3. We stand all in God's field, and we grow to God's glory, and to his works of wonder, as well the wicked as the virtuous; but every fruit groweth in its own property: when the mower shall cut it down, then every fruit shall come into its own barn, and every property receiveth that which is its own; and then the field in its essences (out of which we are grown) shall be manifested: for there are two centres in the eternity, and each centre shall bring in its own crop. 4. Therefore consider, O man, what you judge, that you fall not upon the sword of the spirit of God, and that your work be not blown up [kindled] in the fire of wrath: for look upon the Image in the Revelation, which beareth the sword in its mouth: surely it signifieth the spirit of God, concerning which Christ said, When he cometh he shall reprove the world of sins, of righteousness, and of judgment. 5. Of sins, because they live in hypocrisy, and are not obedient to the spirit of God, nor believed in him, that he might manifest heavenly wonder in them, but they continue under the wrath in the first centre, and will not be regenerated, and do open [or manifest] no other wonders, but such as are in the wrath in mere hypocrisy.
36. And of righteousness, Christ saith, Because I go to the Father. He hath destroyed death, and opened the heavenly gate for the soul, and is gone again to his Father, and hath called us to him; but the dissembling hypocrite will not come, he taketh more delight in his pride: therefore the spirit reproveth him, and rebuketh him to his face, and layeth all his false ways open to the light, that he might see, and beware. 7. But he striketh down the wonders of the reproof to the ground, till the spirit reproveth him of judgment, because the prince of this world (who held men captive) is judged: And thou, sophister, runnest on wittingly (for thy own profit, transitory voluptuousness, and honour's sake) to the devil, and canst not see the open gate, which the spirit sheweth thee, therefore he reproveth thee, and sheweth it to thy face. 8. And if you will not, for all that, then it is as was said: We have piped unto you, but you have not danced; we have called you, but you are not come to us; I have been hungry after you, but you have not fed me; you are not grown in my garden of roses, therefore you are none of my food; your heart hath not been found in my praise, therefore you are not my food. And this bridegroom passeth by; and then cometh the other, and gathereth, what he findeth, into his barn; you should consider that. [Further Information touching the Holy Trinity.]
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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