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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.
12. If I should sit and hear sermons preached all my life long, and did hear them always preach of the kingdom of heaven and the New Birth, with their singing and repetitions, and stay there, and go no further, I should be never the nearer. If a stone be cast into the water and then taken out again, it is a hard stone as it was before, and retaineth its quality [form, condition, or nature] : But if it be cast into the fire, then it getteth another quality in itself; so also thou, 0 man, though thou runnest to church, and wouldst seem to be a minister of Christ, that is not enough; if you rest there, you are never the better. 3. Also, it is not enough that you learn all books, to rehearse them without book, and did yearly and daily read all writings, and could say the whole Bible without book, yet you are not a hair's breadth the better in the sight of God, than a keeper of swine, who all that while did nothing but feed the swine; or than a poor prisoner in a dark dungeon, who all that while hath not seen the daylight. 4. Talking availeth nothing, nor that you know how to speak much of God, and despise the simple, as the flattering hypocrites upon the Antichristian beast do, who forbid the light to them that see, as hath been done to this hand. But it is as Christ saith, Except you turn, and become as one of these children; you shall not see the kingdom of heaven in eternity: you must be bom anew, if you would see the kingdom of God: that is the
2right means. 5. There needs no art or eloquence about it, you need neither books nor cunning: a shepherd is as fit for it as a learned doctor, and very much fitter: for he goeth forth from his own reason into the mercy of God, he hath no great, wise [or deep] reason, therefore he doth not go to that for counsel, but he goeth simply with the poor publican, into the temple of Christ: whereas, on the contrary, the high and learned first set the university before their eyes, and study first with what opinion they will enter into the temple of Christ. They first set men's opinions before them, and will seek God in this or that opinion, one in the Pope's opinion, another in Luther 's, a third in Calvin 's, a fourth in Schwenckfeld's, &c. There is no end of opinions. 6. And thus the poor soul stayeth without the temple of Christ, standing in doubt: it knocketh and seeketh, and continually doubteth that it is not in the right way.
37. O thou poor confounded soul in Babel, what dost thou do? Leave off all opinions, by what name soever they are called in this world, they are all no other than the contention of reason: the New-Birth and the Noble Stone is to be found in no contention, neither in any wisdom of reason: you must forsake all in this world (let it be as glistering as it will) and enter into yourself, and only gather all your sins (which have captivated you) together on a heap, and cast them into the mercy of God, and fly to God, and pray to him for forgiveness, and the illumination of his spirit: there needs no long disputing, but earnestness, and then heaven must break asunder, and hell tremble; it cometh just so to pass; you must set aside all your sins, and reason, and whatsoever cometh in the way, and resolve, that you will not let him go, except he bless you; as Jacob wrestled with God the whole night. 8. Though thy conscience should say, No, God will have none of thee; yet do thou say, I will have him, I will not leave him, till I am carried to my grave: Let my will be as thy will, O Lord I will as thou wilt: and though all the devils encompassed thee round about, and should say, Hold, it is enough at once; thou must say, No; my mind [thought and purpose] and will shall not depart from God, they shall be eternally in God: his love is greater than all my sins: although thou devil, and thou world, have the mortal body in your prison, yet I have
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.
12. If I should sit and hear sermons preached all my life long, and did hear them always preach of the kingdom of heaven and the New Birth, with their singing and repetitions, and stay there, and go no further, I should be never the nearer. If a stone be cast into the water and then taken out again, it is a hard stone as it was before, and retaineth its quality [form, condition, or nature] : But if it be cast into the fire, then it getteth another quality in itself; so also thou, 0 man, though thou runnest to church, and wouldst seem to be a minister of Christ, that is not enough; if you rest there, you are never the better. 3. Also, it is not enough that you learn all books, to rehearse them without book, and did yearly and daily read all writings, and could say the whole Bible without book, yet you are not a hair's breadth the better in the sight of God, than a keeper of swine, who all that while did nothing but feed the swine; or than a poor prisoner in a dark dungeon, who all that while hath not seen the daylight. 4. Talking availeth nothing, nor that you know how to speak much of God, and despise the simple, as the flattering hypocrites upon the Antichristian beast do, who forbid the light to them that see, as hath been done to this hand. But it is as Christ saith, Except you turn, and become as one of these children; you shall not see the kingdom of heaven in eternity: you must be bom anew, if you would see the kingdom of God: that is the
2right means. 5. There needs no art or eloquence about it, you need neither books nor cunning: a shepherd is as fit for it as a learned doctor, and very much fitter: for he goeth forth from his own reason into the mercy of God, he hath no great, wise [or deep] reason, therefore he doth not go to that for counsel, but he goeth simply with the poor publican, into the temple of Christ: whereas, on the contrary, the high and learned first set the university before their eyes, and study first with what opinion they will enter into the temple of Christ. They first set men's opinions before them, and will seek God in this or that opinion, one in the Pope's opinion, another in Luther 's, a third in Calvin 's, a fourth in Schwenckfeld's, &c. There is no end of opinions. 6. And thus the poor soul stayeth without the temple of Christ, standing in doubt: it knocketh and seeketh, and continually doubteth that it is not in the right way.
37. O thou poor confounded soul in Babel, what dost thou do? Leave off all opinions, by what name soever they are called in this world, they are all no other than the contention of reason: the New-Birth and the Noble Stone is to be found in no contention, neither in any wisdom of reason: you must forsake all in this world (let it be as glistering as it will) and enter into yourself, and only gather all your sins (which have captivated you) together on a heap, and cast them into the mercy of God, and fly to God, and pray to him for forgiveness, and the illumination of his spirit: there needs no long disputing, but earnestness, and then heaven must break asunder, and hell tremble; it cometh just so to pass; you must set aside all your sins, and reason, and whatsoever cometh in the way, and resolve, that you will not let him go, except he bless you; as Jacob wrestled with God the whole night. 8. Though thy conscience should say, No, God will have none of thee; yet do thou say, I will have him, I will not leave him, till I am carried to my grave: Let my will be as thy will, O Lord I will as thou wilt: and though all the devils encompassed thee round about, and should say, Hold, it is enough at once; thou must say, No; my mind [thought and purpose] and will shall not depart from God, they shall be eternally in God: his love is greater than all my sins: although thou devil, and thou world, have the mortal body in your prison, yet I have
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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