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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.
121. Or dost thou think that we are blind? If we did not see, we should be silent; what pleasure would a he be to God? Yea, we should be found in the turba, which searcheth through all human essences and works: Or do we this piece of service for wages? Is it our 1 living? Why do we not mind our bread only, according to outward reason? 22. But seeing it is our day labour, we must do what the Father will have us, for 2 we must give an account of it in the evening; this we speak seriously, and in good earnest. 23. Thus you may well understand the contrariety of flesh and spirit, and apprehend very well that two spirits are in one another, one striving against the other; for one desireth God, the other desireth bread, and both are profitable and good. 24. But thou child of man, let this be spoken to thee: Lead thy life circumspectly, and let the spirit of thy soul be master, and thou wilt 3 have fought here a good fight, for this time is but short. 25. We all stand here in the field and grow; let every one have a care what fruit he beareth, for at the end of the harvest every work shall be put into its own granary. 1 Or trade. 2 Matt. xx. 8. 3 2 Tim. iv. 7. 26. It is better to labour a little while with toil and care in the vineyard, and to expect the great wages and refreshment, than to be a king here for a little time, and afterwards to be a lion, a wolf, a dog, a cat, a toad, serpent or worm, in 1 figure.
227. child of man! think upon this, be yet warned; we speak very seriously, out of a wonderful eye, you shall very shortly find it by experience; there is yet but a little time, for the beginning hath already found the end: this is a little 2 rose out of the beginning; *see yet, and put covetousness out of your 3 eyes, or else you shall wail and lament, and none will pity you; 4 for what a man soweth, that he must also reap; what will pomp and honour avail, when it leaveth you? 28. Here you are very potent, but afterwards you shall be impotent; 5 ye are gods, and yet you run on headlong to the devil; take pity on your own life, and on your fair heavenly image. 29. Pray be the children of God, and be not the devil's; let not the hypocrites keep you back by their 6 flattery; they do it for their bellies, for their honour's and for money's sake; they are the servants of the great Babel. 30. Examine yourselves, ask your conscience whether it be in God? That will blame you, and bid you drive the hypocrites from you, and seek the clear countenance of God, and look not through 7 a glass. 1 Or shape. 2 rose-bud. 3 Or sight. 4 Gal. vi. 7, 8. 5 John x. 34, 35. 6 Or example. 7 Or spectacles. * "see yet" (werdet doch sehend), lit., "become seeing," or "let your eyes be opened."
331. God is for you, he is in you, confess to him, come to him with the lost son; there is no other can take the turba from you; you cannot enter but through death into the other world, whither your hypocrites can never come, otherwise there is no forgiveness of sin; and though you should give all to your hypocrites, yet then you would be as much captivated in the turba as you were before. 32. It is no such matter, as that one should stand by and take away the turba from you when you give x him good words; no, no, it is a magical thing: You must be born again, as Christ saith, or else you cannot come to God; do what you will, all hypocrisy is deceit. 33. If you would serve God, you must do it in the new man, the earthly Adam can do him no acceptable service; let him sing, roar, call, confess, pray, cry, and do whatever he will, all is but fighting with a shadow; the will must be in it, the heart must wholly resign itself up into it, else it is but conjecture, and a fable of Antichrist's, wherewith the whole earth is filled. 34. The will is greater and more powerful than much crying; it is able to destroy the turba, and to enter into the image of God; it hath power to be the child of God; it can throw down mountains, and raise the dead, if it be born in God, and if the Holy Spirit give it leave.
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.
121. Or dost thou think that we are blind? If we did not see, we should be silent; what pleasure would a he be to God? Yea, we should be found in the turba, which searcheth through all human essences and works: Or do we this piece of service for wages? Is it our 1 living? Why do we not mind our bread only, according to outward reason? 22. But seeing it is our day labour, we must do what the Father will have us, for 2 we must give an account of it in the evening; this we speak seriously, and in good earnest. 23. Thus you may well understand the contrariety of flesh and spirit, and apprehend very well that two spirits are in one another, one striving against the other; for one desireth God, the other desireth bread, and both are profitable and good. 24. But thou child of man, let this be spoken to thee: Lead thy life circumspectly, and let the spirit of thy soul be master, and thou wilt 3 have fought here a good fight, for this time is but short. 25. We all stand here in the field and grow; let every one have a care what fruit he beareth, for at the end of the harvest every work shall be put into its own granary. 1 Or trade. 2 Matt. xx. 8. 3 2 Tim. iv. 7. 26. It is better to labour a little while with toil and care in the vineyard, and to expect the great wages and refreshment, than to be a king here for a little time, and afterwards to be a lion, a wolf, a dog, a cat, a toad, serpent or worm, in 1 figure.
227. child of man! think upon this, be yet warned; we speak very seriously, out of a wonderful eye, you shall very shortly find it by experience; there is yet but a little time, for the beginning hath already found the end: this is a little 2 rose out of the beginning; *see yet, and put covetousness out of your 3 eyes, or else you shall wail and lament, and none will pity you; 4 for what a man soweth, that he must also reap; what will pomp and honour avail, when it leaveth you? 28. Here you are very potent, but afterwards you shall be impotent; 5 ye are gods, and yet you run on headlong to the devil; take pity on your own life, and on your fair heavenly image. 29. Pray be the children of God, and be not the devil's; let not the hypocrites keep you back by their 6 flattery; they do it for their bellies, for their honour's and for money's sake; they are the servants of the great Babel. 30. Examine yourselves, ask your conscience whether it be in God? That will blame you, and bid you drive the hypocrites from you, and seek the clear countenance of God, and look not through 7 a glass. 1 Or shape. 2 rose-bud. 3 Or sight. 4 Gal. vi. 7, 8. 5 John x. 34, 35. 6 Or example. 7 Or spectacles. * "see yet" (werdet doch sehend), lit., "become seeing," or "let your eyes be opened."
331. God is for you, he is in you, confess to him, come to him with the lost son; there is no other can take the turba from you; you cannot enter but through death into the other world, whither your hypocrites can never come, otherwise there is no forgiveness of sin; and though you should give all to your hypocrites, yet then you would be as much captivated in the turba as you were before. 32. It is no such matter, as that one should stand by and take away the turba from you when you give x him good words; no, no, it is a magical thing: You must be born again, as Christ saith, or else you cannot come to God; do what you will, all hypocrisy is deceit. 33. If you would serve God, you must do it in the new man, the earthly Adam can do him no acceptable service; let him sing, roar, call, confess, pray, cry, and do whatever he will, all is but fighting with a shadow; the will must be in it, the heart must wholly resign itself up into it, else it is but conjecture, and a fable of Antichrist's, wherewith the whole earth is filled. 34. The will is greater and more powerful than much crying; it is able to destroy the turba, and to enter into the image of God; it hath power to be the child of God; it can throw down mountains, and raise the dead, if it be born in God, and if the Holy Spirit give it leave.
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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