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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.
1thou bringest forth a false ungodly will in thy deeds [lead a wicked life], thou art as much without God, as a Heathen that hath no desire nor will to God. 21. And if a Turk seek God with earnestness, though he walk in blindness, yet he is of the number of those that are children without understanding; and he reacheth to God with the children which do not yet know what they speak: for it lieth not in the knowing, but in the will [purpose and resolution]. 22. We are all blind concerning God; but if we put our earnest will into God [and goodness], and desire him, then we receive him into our will; so that we are born in him in our will. For by the will this world was made, also our life and all our doing stand in the will. 23. Or do you suppose we speak without knowledge, and alone [by ourselves]? No; the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ sheweth us that the innermost court [choir] of the temple shall be cast out, and given to the Heathen, who know not the name of Christ, but press with earnestness into God, and so they come to him ignorantly. 24. And this is that which Isaiah saith; / am found of them that sought me not, neither did they enquire after me. For my Name, the
2LORD [Jehovah], was not revealed unto them: and thus they are children not in name, but in will: But when the driver goeth away to his own place, then we live together as children, with our Father Adam (in Christ), out of whose loins, life, and spirit, we are all propagated, and begotten to life through Christ. 25. Or dost thou boast of thy calling, that thou art a Christian, or a Jew? Indeed, let thy conversation be accordingly, or else thou art but a Heathen in the will and in the deed. He that knoweth his Master's Will and doth it not, must receive many stripes. 26. Or dost thou not know what Christ said concerning the two sons; when the father said to one of them, go and do such a thing, and he said he would; and the other said no. And the first went away and did it not; but the other that said no, went away and did it, and so performed the will of his father; and the other that was under the name of obedience, [or who in word was obedient, or had the name to be so], did it not. 27. And we are all such, one and other, we bear the name of Christ, and are called Christians, and are within his covenant: we have said yes, we will do it; but they that do it not, are unprofitable servants, and live without the will of the Father.
328. But if the Turks (as also the Jews) do the Father's will, who say to Christ No, and know him not, Who is now their Judge, to thrust them out from the will of the Father? Is not the Son the Heart of the Father? And then, if they honour the Father, they lay hold also on his Heart: for without, or beyond his Heart, there is no God. 29. Or dost thou suppose, that I confirm [encourage] them in their blindness, that they should go on as they do? No: I shew thee thy blindness, O thou that bearest the. name of Christ! And thou judgest others, and yet dost the same thing which thou judgest in others, and so thou wilfully bringest the judgment of God upon thyself. 30. HE that saith, Love your enemies, do well to them that persecute you, doth not teach you to judge and despise; but he teacheth you the way of meekness: you should be a light to the world, that Heathens might see by your works that you are the children of God. 31. If we consider ourselves according to the true man, who is a true similitude and image of God, then we find God in us, and ourselves without God. And the only remedy consisteth herein, That we enter again into ourselves, and enter into God, in our hidden man. If we incline our wills in true earnest singleness to God, then we go with Christ out of this world, out from the stars and elements, and enter into God; for in the will of reason we are children of the stars and elements, and the spirit of this world ruleth over us.
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.
1thou bringest forth a false ungodly will in thy deeds [lead a wicked life], thou art as much without God, as a Heathen that hath no desire nor will to God. 21. And if a Turk seek God with earnestness, though he walk in blindness, yet he is of the number of those that are children without understanding; and he reacheth to God with the children which do not yet know what they speak: for it lieth not in the knowing, but in the will [purpose and resolution]. 22. We are all blind concerning God; but if we put our earnest will into God [and goodness], and desire him, then we receive him into our will; so that we are born in him in our will. For by the will this world was made, also our life and all our doing stand in the will. 23. Or do you suppose we speak without knowledge, and alone [by ourselves]? No; the Book of the Revelation of Jesus Christ sheweth us that the innermost court [choir] of the temple shall be cast out, and given to the Heathen, who know not the name of Christ, but press with earnestness into God, and so they come to him ignorantly. 24. And this is that which Isaiah saith; / am found of them that sought me not, neither did they enquire after me. For my Name, the
2LORD [Jehovah], was not revealed unto them: and thus they are children not in name, but in will: But when the driver goeth away to his own place, then we live together as children, with our Father Adam (in Christ), out of whose loins, life, and spirit, we are all propagated, and begotten to life through Christ. 25. Or dost thou boast of thy calling, that thou art a Christian, or a Jew? Indeed, let thy conversation be accordingly, or else thou art but a Heathen in the will and in the deed. He that knoweth his Master's Will and doth it not, must receive many stripes. 26. Or dost thou not know what Christ said concerning the two sons; when the father said to one of them, go and do such a thing, and he said he would; and the other said no. And the first went away and did it not; but the other that said no, went away and did it, and so performed the will of his father; and the other that was under the name of obedience, [or who in word was obedient, or had the name to be so], did it not. 27. And we are all such, one and other, we bear the name of Christ, and are called Christians, and are within his covenant: we have said yes, we will do it; but they that do it not, are unprofitable servants, and live without the will of the Father.
328. But if the Turks (as also the Jews) do the Father's will, who say to Christ No, and know him not, Who is now their Judge, to thrust them out from the will of the Father? Is not the Son the Heart of the Father? And then, if they honour the Father, they lay hold also on his Heart: for without, or beyond his Heart, there is no God. 29. Or dost thou suppose, that I confirm [encourage] them in their blindness, that they should go on as they do? No: I shew thee thy blindness, O thou that bearest the. name of Christ! And thou judgest others, and yet dost the same thing which thou judgest in others, and so thou wilfully bringest the judgment of God upon thyself. 30. HE that saith, Love your enemies, do well to them that persecute you, doth not teach you to judge and despise; but he teacheth you the way of meekness: you should be a light to the world, that Heathens might see by your works that you are the children of God. 31. If we consider ourselves according to the true man, who is a true similitude and image of God, then we find God in us, and ourselves without God. And the only remedy consisteth herein, That we enter again into ourselves, and enter into God, in our hidden man. If we incline our wills in true earnest singleness to God, then we go with Christ out of this world, out from the stars and elements, and enter into God; for in the will of reason we are children of the stars and elements, and the spirit of this world ruleth over us.
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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