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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.
171. For if we will enter into the kingdom of heaven, we must be children, and not cunning, and wise, in the understanding of this world; we must depart from our own reason, and enter into obedience to our [eternal] first mother, and so we shall receive the spirit and life of our mother, and then also we shall know her habitation. 72. No wit of our own attaineth the crown of the Mystery of God, it is indeed revealed in the Scriptures of the Saints, but the spirit of this world apprehendeth it not. Herein no doctors (though they have studied never so much) have any ability in their own wit, to attain the crown of God's secret Mysteries. 73. There is none can in his own power apprehend any thing of the depths of God, and teach it to another; but they are all children, and scholars in their A. B. C. And though we write and speak highly thereof, yet the understanding is not our own, but is of the mother's spirit, which speaketh out of its children, what it will; it revealeth itself in many forms, in one otherwise than in another, for its wondrous wisdom is a deep without number, and you ought not to marvel that the children of God have not one manner of speech and word, for everyone speaketh out of the wisdom of the mother, whose number is without ground and infinite.
274. But the limit is the Heart of God, they all run thither, and that is the trial [or touchstone ] whereby you shall know, whether the spirit speaketh from God, or from the devil: for the devil hath also his matrix, and his children therein, who also speak out of the spirit of their mother. 75. Here behold the flattering hypocrites, the proud vain-glorious boasters, who account themselves masters, and sufficient able expounders of the Scriptures of the Saints, who say, We have studied in the mysteries of the Scriptures of the Saints, and we understand them sufficiently; and moreover [we have studied and taken our degrees in the university and] can make conclusions, and determine, Thus we will believe, thus we will have the Scripture to be understood. And they decree strict laws, and severe punishment, against those that will not stick to their laws, which they execute under the shelter and protection of a worldly power. 76. Is not this lifting up of himself, in his own lust and glory, above God, as the prophet Daniel speaketh concerning the hypocritical Antichrist? Take heed of those, ye children of God; they speak from themselves, and not from the spirit of God; they have not the children's filial spirit of humility (in obedience and love) towards their mother, much less towards her children: They devour the children's bread, and get their living with deceit.
311. They are the true murderers and wolves, who in their conceived opinions, and proud conceits, stir up wars and bloodshed, and set up all manner of wickedness and abominations: they are the great proud whore of Babel, who ride in the hearts of princes; through them is poured out the vials of the wrath of God; and yet they call themselves the lambs and sheep of Christ. 78. 0 ye wolves ! where is your child's garment? If you have sufficiently learnt the hidden Mysteries of God, you are no children and scholars [that go to school] : but [if you have] then live in the wonders of the mother, in her humility and purity in God's works of wonder, and we will believe you: Put off your proud robe and gown, and receive us poor A. B. C. scholars into the bosom of our mother, and teach us our mother tongue, and then we shall live together in unity as brethren. But what shall they say of you? The Spirit of the mother declareth concerning you, that you are the proud whore of Babel, riding upon the dragon, in the Revelation of Jesus Christ; there in your looking-glass. The Gates of this World; [Also concerning the Language of Nature.] 79. Reason always asketh, Out of what is the earth and stones, also the elements and stars [constellations], generated? We cannot know this in the reason and art of this world, neither can the books of the doctors teach it, we know it only in our dear mother, we see it in the light of the mother: but
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.
171. For if we will enter into the kingdom of heaven, we must be children, and not cunning, and wise, in the understanding of this world; we must depart from our own reason, and enter into obedience to our [eternal] first mother, and so we shall receive the spirit and life of our mother, and then also we shall know her habitation. 72. No wit of our own attaineth the crown of the Mystery of God, it is indeed revealed in the Scriptures of the Saints, but the spirit of this world apprehendeth it not. Herein no doctors (though they have studied never so much) have any ability in their own wit, to attain the crown of God's secret Mysteries. 73. There is none can in his own power apprehend any thing of the depths of God, and teach it to another; but they are all children, and scholars in their A. B. C. And though we write and speak highly thereof, yet the understanding is not our own, but is of the mother's spirit, which speaketh out of its children, what it will; it revealeth itself in many forms, in one otherwise than in another, for its wondrous wisdom is a deep without number, and you ought not to marvel that the children of God have not one manner of speech and word, for everyone speaketh out of the wisdom of the mother, whose number is without ground and infinite.
274. But the limit is the Heart of God, they all run thither, and that is the trial [or touchstone ] whereby you shall know, whether the spirit speaketh from God, or from the devil: for the devil hath also his matrix, and his children therein, who also speak out of the spirit of their mother. 75. Here behold the flattering hypocrites, the proud vain-glorious boasters, who account themselves masters, and sufficient able expounders of the Scriptures of the Saints, who say, We have studied in the mysteries of the Scriptures of the Saints, and we understand them sufficiently; and moreover [we have studied and taken our degrees in the university and] can make conclusions, and determine, Thus we will believe, thus we will have the Scripture to be understood. And they decree strict laws, and severe punishment, against those that will not stick to their laws, which they execute under the shelter and protection of a worldly power. 76. Is not this lifting up of himself, in his own lust and glory, above God, as the prophet Daniel speaketh concerning the hypocritical Antichrist? Take heed of those, ye children of God; they speak from themselves, and not from the spirit of God; they have not the children's filial spirit of humility (in obedience and love) towards their mother, much less towards her children: They devour the children's bread, and get their living with deceit.
311. They are the true murderers and wolves, who in their conceived opinions, and proud conceits, stir up wars and bloodshed, and set up all manner of wickedness and abominations: they are the great proud whore of Babel, who ride in the hearts of princes; through them is poured out the vials of the wrath of God; and yet they call themselves the lambs and sheep of Christ. 78. 0 ye wolves ! where is your child's garment? If you have sufficiently learnt the hidden Mysteries of God, you are no children and scholars [that go to school] : but [if you have] then live in the wonders of the mother, in her humility and purity in God's works of wonder, and we will believe you: Put off your proud robe and gown, and receive us poor A. B. C. scholars into the bosom of our mother, and teach us our mother tongue, and then we shall live together in unity as brethren. But what shall they say of you? The Spirit of the mother declareth concerning you, that you are the proud whore of Babel, riding upon the dragon, in the Revelation of Jesus Christ; there in your looking-glass. The Gates of this World; [Also concerning the Language of Nature.] 79. Reason always asketh, Out of what is the earth and stones, also the elements and stars [constellations], generated? We cannot know this in the reason and art of this world, neither can the books of the doctors teach it, we know it only in our dear mother, we see it in the light of the mother: but
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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