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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.
15. She would fain see the dress of the daughters of the land, which dress is no other than the heathenish wisdom and philosophy; and would draw the same into Christ's kingdom, and would live under Christ's purple mantle, in those rites and customs, and trim herself therewith, and thereby quite forget that her tents and habitations are without the city of these peoples' customs, as Jacob dwelt without, before the city of Hamor (Gen. xxxiii. 18); and also Christ said, His kingdom was not of this world (John xviii. 36). 6. But this Christendom would set her heart upon the kingdom of this world, and so, in the dress of a virgin, trim herself with many churches, priests and ceremonies, under the habit of a virgin; but in this departure from the simplicity and humility of Christ, she would but gad abroad in the world, and look after fleshly whoredom; as Dinah did, which is a type of fleshly Christendom, which is always born after the true children of Christ: as Dinah was born after the twelve patriarchs. That is: 7. When Christendom is born and manifested among a people, it begets in that place, first, the twelve patriarchs, viz. the ground of the Apostolic doctrine. But when she mixes again with the heathenish wise men, and with the lust of the flesh, then that place begets a Dinah, viz. a whoredom with Christ; that is, a seeming Christian, yet the heart is but a whore; and then this whore goes abroad gadding to find the habitations of that people. That is:
28. She seeks again the heathenish ground, and mixes herself with the heathen, and is with child by the heathenish philosophy, and brings forth a bastard, half Christian and half heathenish, viz. a new sect or doctrine, which does not fully agree in form with the first customs of that people among whom it did spring forth; and yet in her heart is no whit better than they. 9. And then this people raise themselves up against that strange opinion, and cry out in anger, These have deflowered our sister Dinah, and have made her a whore, and are enraged against the newfound opinion, as the sons of Jacob against Shechem; and with fighting and the sword, with storming and cursing, run on against the deflowerer of their sister Dinah, and murder him; and not only him, but all the males that are with him, as Jacob's sons did the Hamorites. And then the innocent must thus suffer with the guilty; to signify that they all of them, both the one and the other, live in such religious whoredom. For the whore, for whose sake they take vengeance, is their sister, and born of their stock, as Dinah their sister was, and they came of one mother.
310. We see here eminently the type of contentious Christendom, how Christendom would be headstrong and furious in opinions, and that, in great blindness; and not know wherefore, and would not see themselves, that they thus rage in their own whoredom, and strive not about the power of true Christianity, as about the true Christian life; but about their contrived opinions, as about their sister Dinah, which goes abroad gadding from them, and gazes upon the strange opinions; and cry out upon the opinion for a whore, and yet see not how they should help their sister's heart, wherein sticks the lust of whoredom. As Jacob's sons did not see how to help the evil, that their sister might save her credit; and though Hamor and Shechem sent to them to give her a dowry, and would marry their sister, and love her, and be circumcised, and become one people with them, and would perform all love, faithfulness and friendship towards them, yet all this did not help.
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.
15. She would fain see the dress of the daughters of the land, which dress is no other than the heathenish wisdom and philosophy; and would draw the same into Christ's kingdom, and would live under Christ's purple mantle, in those rites and customs, and trim herself therewith, and thereby quite forget that her tents and habitations are without the city of these peoples' customs, as Jacob dwelt without, before the city of Hamor (Gen. xxxiii. 18); and also Christ said, His kingdom was not of this world (John xviii. 36). 6. But this Christendom would set her heart upon the kingdom of this world, and so, in the dress of a virgin, trim herself with many churches, priests and ceremonies, under the habit of a virgin; but in this departure from the simplicity and humility of Christ, she would but gad abroad in the world, and look after fleshly whoredom; as Dinah did, which is a type of fleshly Christendom, which is always born after the true children of Christ: as Dinah was born after the twelve patriarchs. That is: 7. When Christendom is born and manifested among a people, it begets in that place, first, the twelve patriarchs, viz. the ground of the Apostolic doctrine. But when she mixes again with the heathenish wise men, and with the lust of the flesh, then that place begets a Dinah, viz. a whoredom with Christ; that is, a seeming Christian, yet the heart is but a whore; and then this whore goes abroad gadding to find the habitations of that people. That is:
28. She seeks again the heathenish ground, and mixes herself with the heathen, and is with child by the heathenish philosophy, and brings forth a bastard, half Christian and half heathenish, viz. a new sect or doctrine, which does not fully agree in form with the first customs of that people among whom it did spring forth; and yet in her heart is no whit better than they. 9. And then this people raise themselves up against that strange opinion, and cry out in anger, These have deflowered our sister Dinah, and have made her a whore, and are enraged against the newfound opinion, as the sons of Jacob against Shechem; and with fighting and the sword, with storming and cursing, run on against the deflowerer of their sister Dinah, and murder him; and not only him, but all the males that are with him, as Jacob's sons did the Hamorites. And then the innocent must thus suffer with the guilty; to signify that they all of them, both the one and the other, live in such religious whoredom. For the whore, for whose sake they take vengeance, is their sister, and born of their stock, as Dinah their sister was, and they came of one mother.
310. We see here eminently the type of contentious Christendom, how Christendom would be headstrong and furious in opinions, and that, in great blindness; and not know wherefore, and would not see themselves, that they thus rage in their own whoredom, and strive not about the power of true Christianity, as about the true Christian life; but about their contrived opinions, as about their sister Dinah, which goes abroad gadding from them, and gazes upon the strange opinions; and cry out upon the opinion for a whore, and yet see not how they should help their sister's heart, wherein sticks the lust of whoredom. As Jacob's sons did not see how to help the evil, that their sister might save her credit; and though Hamor and Shechem sent to them to give her a dowry, and would marry their sister, and love her, and be circumcised, and become one people with them, and would perform all love, faithfulness and friendship towards them, yet all this did not help.
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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