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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.
157. The word of the letter is a prepared instrument [or work] : what kind of trumpeter takes it in hand to play thereon, even such a sound it gives. Is not, I pray, the great Babel built out of this work? Every one has sounded the trumpet of the letter as his own air and tone has been in him; and so it has been approved and received by each trumpeter, and brought into a substance; and this same substance is the great Babylon, where evil and good are built into a building. 58. But if men had not introduced any exposition upon the Apostolical word, and [had not] brought or contrived the same into other forms, then the instrument had remained pure. But the unilluminated mind has set itself up to be a master therein, and bowed the same according to its own imagination and well-liking; for the human pleasure has thereon set itself and formed and expounded the same according to the [rule of ] fat [benefices for the] belly ['s sake] and worldly pleasures. And thus the spirit is extinct; and 'tis turned to an antichristian order and custom. Men have taken and formed the word as an organ, and so they have brought it into a fashion and custom, that a man must play thereon, and others must hear the sound and tune which he makes;
2and thus for the most part such organists are only used who strike the organ from without, and make a fine contrived and composed piece, which they willingly and readily hear. But the organ sounds only as the master strikes it [plays on it] . 59. But to this Christ says, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Also, Whosoever is of God, he hears God's word. Christ said, The Son of man speaks nothing out what he hears the Father speak in him. So likewise must a teacher of Christ hear the Father's Spirit in Christ speak in him; he must hear God's word in the Spirit of Christ in him; as David says, / will hear what the Lord speaks in me. He must be a temple of God, in whom God dwells, and from whom he speaks, being only an instrument thereto. For Christ said, We will come to you, and make our abode in you. Also, / will put my Word into your mouth, says the prophet. Also, The Lord is nigh you, namely in your mouth, and heart. Here the Spirit of God speaks of the living Word; and not of a bell without a clapper. 60. This, the Spirit of Christ in his children does teach, and reproves the wooden clapper in the right bell, which has hung itself up to be a clapper in the bell of the divine word, and yet has no power to make the bell sound. This, Cain, in his offering, can by no means brook, that one should tell him his offering doth not please God.
361. He sets forth himself with very fair glozing and glistering outside shows, and has made himself such a brave glorious form; moreover, he is chosen of the high schools and worldly might thereto. And if a mean layman, without human calling, should come thereinto (as Christ, who was accounted for a carpenter's son), and offer to reprove such a high priest in such great dignity, honour and respect, the same the world believes not that it is from God that he is sent. 62. The great bear thinks presently, This is only a sheep, which I will take into my mouth and devour him. What, shall a sheep reprove me, who am a bear? Will a disesteemed sheep nullify my reputation and esteem among men, and dare to quetch at me? I will soon rid him out of the way, and so defile him that he shall not be known that he is a sincere and single-hearted lamb of Christ, and speaks from Christ's Spirit. I will so wallow and mire him in the dirt, disgrace, and scorn, that he shall be held for a filthy beast, or a very defiled swine. 63. In the meantime I live in my delicious days of pleasure, and remain lord over soul and body. But if the sheepling shall offer to stir, and show more than a sheepling of Christ, then I will help the butcher drive it to the slaughter-house.
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.
157. The word of the letter is a prepared instrument [or work] : what kind of trumpeter takes it in hand to play thereon, even such a sound it gives. Is not, I pray, the great Babel built out of this work? Every one has sounded the trumpet of the letter as his own air and tone has been in him; and so it has been approved and received by each trumpeter, and brought into a substance; and this same substance is the great Babylon, where evil and good are built into a building. 58. But if men had not introduced any exposition upon the Apostolical word, and [had not] brought or contrived the same into other forms, then the instrument had remained pure. But the unilluminated mind has set itself up to be a master therein, and bowed the same according to its own imagination and well-liking; for the human pleasure has thereon set itself and formed and expounded the same according to the [rule of ] fat [benefices for the] belly ['s sake] and worldly pleasures. And thus the spirit is extinct; and 'tis turned to an antichristian order and custom. Men have taken and formed the word as an organ, and so they have brought it into a fashion and custom, that a man must play thereon, and others must hear the sound and tune which he makes;
2and thus for the most part such organists are only used who strike the organ from without, and make a fine contrived and composed piece, which they willingly and readily hear. But the organ sounds only as the master strikes it [plays on it] . 59. But to this Christ says, Every plant, which my heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be rooted up. Also, Whosoever is of God, he hears God's word. Christ said, The Son of man speaks nothing out what he hears the Father speak in him. So likewise must a teacher of Christ hear the Father's Spirit in Christ speak in him; he must hear God's word in the Spirit of Christ in him; as David says, / will hear what the Lord speaks in me. He must be a temple of God, in whom God dwells, and from whom he speaks, being only an instrument thereto. For Christ said, We will come to you, and make our abode in you. Also, / will put my Word into your mouth, says the prophet. Also, The Lord is nigh you, namely in your mouth, and heart. Here the Spirit of God speaks of the living Word; and not of a bell without a clapper. 60. This, the Spirit of Christ in his children does teach, and reproves the wooden clapper in the right bell, which has hung itself up to be a clapper in the bell of the divine word, and yet has no power to make the bell sound. This, Cain, in his offering, can by no means brook, that one should tell him his offering doth not please God.
361. He sets forth himself with very fair glozing and glistering outside shows, and has made himself such a brave glorious form; moreover, he is chosen of the high schools and worldly might thereto. And if a mean layman, without human calling, should come thereinto (as Christ, who was accounted for a carpenter's son), and offer to reprove such a high priest in such great dignity, honour and respect, the same the world believes not that it is from God that he is sent. 62. The great bear thinks presently, This is only a sheep, which I will take into my mouth and devour him. What, shall a sheep reprove me, who am a bear? Will a disesteemed sheep nullify my reputation and esteem among men, and dare to quetch at me? I will soon rid him out of the way, and so defile him that he shall not be known that he is a sincere and single-hearted lamb of Christ, and speaks from Christ's Spirit. I will so wallow and mire him in the dirt, disgrace, and scorn, that he shall be held for a filthy beast, or a very defiled swine. 63. In the meantime I live in my delicious days of pleasure, and remain lord over soul and body. But if the sheepling shall offer to stir, and show more than a sheepling of Christ, then I will help the butcher drive it to the slaughter-house.
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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