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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.
176. Here the root of everything will be inquired after, whence it cometh, and out of what it is grown; whether it bear the 2 ordinance of God, and whether it hath its original in the heavenly Fiat, or in the hellish Fiat from the anger. There every one must give an account of his 3 condition; whether he hath thrust himself into office, out of covetousness and pride, and made himself a magistrate, or whether his government be ordained of God. 77. Therefore, ye rulers and potentates of the world, look to it, and see whether you be the ordinance of God, and are placed in the right, divine order. Have a care how you deal with the distressed inferior; for now he standeth before your eyes, and complaineth of you, saying, that you have been the cause of all his sins and wickedness. 1 Or magistrates. 2 Or stamp. 3 Or state. 78. For there one will cry out and accuse the other, saying, that he hath caused me to commit such abominations, and will curse him; the inferior his superiors, and the superiors their superiors: the prince will accuse his false counsellors, and his counsellors the priests, because they did not reprove their courses, but soothed and flattered them for ambition and honour's sake.
279. How will you be able to stand, ye 1 high schools and doctors; all you who have set up yourselves in Christ's stead, and so proudly 2 contended about Christ's cup, about Christ's doctrine and glory; and have provoked and stirred up the princes of your country, who are the ordinance of God, to war and bloodshed, for a few 3 words' sake, which you yourselves have 4 forged? 80. Where is Christ's teaching and spirit of love, who said, 5 Love one another, thereby shall they know that ye are my disciples? Where is your love? Look upon your bloody instigations, wherewith you have involved them in war, and led the world astray from love and 6 unanimity. 81. You have made rents and divisions, so that kings have been at variance and enmity for your pride's sake; in that you have wrested the words of Christ, and have not regarded whether you have had Christ's spirit and 7 will, or no; and therefore you, above all others, shall give a severe account; for you have known the Lord's will, and have not done it; you have run and intruded yourselves into Christ's office, merely to get profit, favour and honour; you have not regarded the spirit of God, therefore the spirit calleth you Babel, a confusion of all that live. 1 Or universities. 2 Or disputed. 3 terms of art. 4 Or contrived. 5 John xiii. 34, 35. 6 Or concord. 7 Or meaning.
382. You have set the whole world at variance; and though you should teach them love, you have taught them contention and strife, so that one brother hath hated and persecuted another for your 1 fables' sake. O! how is the name of Christ 2 blasphemed for your contentions' sake! Whither will you go, and where will you abide, when this shall be set before your eyes, and the whole world cry, woe, woe, woe to you? 83. Here the angels, who are the reapers, shall divide all into two heads, and place the 3 honest at the right hand, and the wicked at the left, viz. at the eye of anger; for the Principle of light is here called the right hand, and the Principle of fire the left. 84. And thus the tribunal, or seat of judgment, will be set: All the great shepherds whom God hath sent forth for a light to the world, who have reproved and taught, as the patriarchs who taught of the promise of Christ, with the prophets and apostles, shall be placed at the right hand of the Judgment; and Moses, and all teachers of the 4 Law, at the left hand of the Judgment. 85. For Moses and Elias, and all those exceeding precious teachers of the Law, bear the fiery sword, and require God's justice; and those at the right hand, God's mercy. 1 opinions or doctrines, which you have set down for orthodox. 2 reproached or scandalized for the sake of your disputations. 3 Or righteous. 4 and lawgivers.
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.
176. Here the root of everything will be inquired after, whence it cometh, and out of what it is grown; whether it bear the 2 ordinance of God, and whether it hath its original in the heavenly Fiat, or in the hellish Fiat from the anger. There every one must give an account of his 3 condition; whether he hath thrust himself into office, out of covetousness and pride, and made himself a magistrate, or whether his government be ordained of God. 77. Therefore, ye rulers and potentates of the world, look to it, and see whether you be the ordinance of God, and are placed in the right, divine order. Have a care how you deal with the distressed inferior; for now he standeth before your eyes, and complaineth of you, saying, that you have been the cause of all his sins and wickedness. 1 Or magistrates. 2 Or stamp. 3 Or state. 78. For there one will cry out and accuse the other, saying, that he hath caused me to commit such abominations, and will curse him; the inferior his superiors, and the superiors their superiors: the prince will accuse his false counsellors, and his counsellors the priests, because they did not reprove their courses, but soothed and flattered them for ambition and honour's sake.
279. How will you be able to stand, ye 1 high schools and doctors; all you who have set up yourselves in Christ's stead, and so proudly 2 contended about Christ's cup, about Christ's doctrine and glory; and have provoked and stirred up the princes of your country, who are the ordinance of God, to war and bloodshed, for a few 3 words' sake, which you yourselves have 4 forged? 80. Where is Christ's teaching and spirit of love, who said, 5 Love one another, thereby shall they know that ye are my disciples? Where is your love? Look upon your bloody instigations, wherewith you have involved them in war, and led the world astray from love and 6 unanimity. 81. You have made rents and divisions, so that kings have been at variance and enmity for your pride's sake; in that you have wrested the words of Christ, and have not regarded whether you have had Christ's spirit and 7 will, or no; and therefore you, above all others, shall give a severe account; for you have known the Lord's will, and have not done it; you have run and intruded yourselves into Christ's office, merely to get profit, favour and honour; you have not regarded the spirit of God, therefore the spirit calleth you Babel, a confusion of all that live. 1 Or universities. 2 Or disputed. 3 terms of art. 4 Or contrived. 5 John xiii. 34, 35. 6 Or concord. 7 Or meaning.
382. You have set the whole world at variance; and though you should teach them love, you have taught them contention and strife, so that one brother hath hated and persecuted another for your 1 fables' sake. O! how is the name of Christ 2 blasphemed for your contentions' sake! Whither will you go, and where will you abide, when this shall be set before your eyes, and the whole world cry, woe, woe, woe to you? 83. Here the angels, who are the reapers, shall divide all into two heads, and place the 3 honest at the right hand, and the wicked at the left, viz. at the eye of anger; for the Principle of light is here called the right hand, and the Principle of fire the left. 84. And thus the tribunal, or seat of judgment, will be set: All the great shepherds whom God hath sent forth for a light to the world, who have reproved and taught, as the patriarchs who taught of the promise of Christ, with the prophets and apostles, shall be placed at the right hand of the Judgment; and Moses, and all teachers of the 4 Law, at the left hand of the Judgment. 85. For Moses and Elias, and all those exceeding precious teachers of the Law, bear the fiery sword, and require God's justice; and those at the right hand, God's mercy. 1 opinions or doctrines, which you have set down for orthodox. 2 reproached or scandalized for the sake of your disputations. 3 Or righteous. 4 and lawgivers.
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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