Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
111. And although they told them, that if they would be circumcised, and be one people with them, they would give them their sister, yet they were furious in killing and slaying; to signify that this is a figure of future Christendom, which would arise out of this stock. As we see that it so comes to pass before our eyes, that men strive about the gadding separated opinions, and kill and murder one another for them; and yet this is but for the opinion's sake of false whoredom, which the titulary Christendom has taken up, wherein they trim themselves in hypocrisy and whoredom, and look not how their sister might he helped, who is gone astray in a strange opinion. But they take their swords, and would slay the new opinion, and snatch their sister, who is with child with another opinion, forcibly again with her bastard out of Hamor's house, and slay Hamor and Shechem and all their males. 12. And though they would unite themselves with them, as with the true Christian ground, viz. with the chief Articles of Christian doctrine, yet it avails not; they will, against all faith and promise, slay and kill, and keep their opinions, which they have contrived in their ease and pampered jollity, with their fat bellies and heathenish festivals. As it is seen at this day in the contentions and opinions.
213. Men of self-love have introduced their Christianity into a fleshly kingdom, and finely trimmed it with laws, ceremonies and opinions, and have covered it with Christ's purple mantle, and yet live in mere spiritual whoredom under it, with a hypocritical show. But their hearts constantly beget this lustful Dinah, which runs abroad from the simplicity and humility of Christ, and plays the whore with the idols of fleshly lust, viz. with pride and covetousness, merely with their own honour and reputation, and a voluptuous life; quite contrary to the true Christian ground. 14. But seeing the spirit of Christ dwells yet always in his Christendom, he often stirs up men which do thus acknowledge and see the sleep and whoredom of the titulary Christendom in their Sodomitical life, and turn away from them, and search in the Scriptures, and also in the light of nature, whether this their fleshly ground can subsist in the presence of God; and when they see that it is false, then they fall upon some other ground, and reprove the whoredom of the titulary Christendom.
315. And when the hypocrites in their voluptuous glory hear and see these things, that thereby they are blemished and defiled, and that their God Mausim is made manifest; then they cry, O, there's a heretic, he deflowers our sister Dinah, viz. our opinion, and makes the Church a whore. And though some should offer to give a good account of his ground and opinion, and reconcile and marry himself with the true Christian ground, and marry with their sister Dinah, viz. to espouse the first true virgin Christian ground, and to be of one and the same heart and will with them in the Christian ground, all this avails not; they snatch their sister, viz. the name of a Christian from them, and had rather keep the deflowered damsel with her bastard by them, whose shame the truth has discovered; than they may see how to help their sister's shame, that she may attain the wedlock with Christ.
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.
111. And although they told them, that if they would be circumcised, and be one people with them, they would give them their sister, yet they were furious in killing and slaying; to signify that this is a figure of future Christendom, which would arise out of this stock. As we see that it so comes to pass before our eyes, that men strive about the gadding separated opinions, and kill and murder one another for them; and yet this is but for the opinion's sake of false whoredom, which the titulary Christendom has taken up, wherein they trim themselves in hypocrisy and whoredom, and look not how their sister might he helped, who is gone astray in a strange opinion. But they take their swords, and would slay the new opinion, and snatch their sister, who is with child with another opinion, forcibly again with her bastard out of Hamor's house, and slay Hamor and Shechem and all their males. 12. And though they would unite themselves with them, as with the true Christian ground, viz. with the chief Articles of Christian doctrine, yet it avails not; they will, against all faith and promise, slay and kill, and keep their opinions, which they have contrived in their ease and pampered jollity, with their fat bellies and heathenish festivals. As it is seen at this day in the contentions and opinions.
213. Men of self-love have introduced their Christianity into a fleshly kingdom, and finely trimmed it with laws, ceremonies and opinions, and have covered it with Christ's purple mantle, and yet live in mere spiritual whoredom under it, with a hypocritical show. But their hearts constantly beget this lustful Dinah, which runs abroad from the simplicity and humility of Christ, and plays the whore with the idols of fleshly lust, viz. with pride and covetousness, merely with their own honour and reputation, and a voluptuous life; quite contrary to the true Christian ground. 14. But seeing the spirit of Christ dwells yet always in his Christendom, he often stirs up men which do thus acknowledge and see the sleep and whoredom of the titulary Christendom in their Sodomitical life, and turn away from them, and search in the Scriptures, and also in the light of nature, whether this their fleshly ground can subsist in the presence of God; and when they see that it is false, then they fall upon some other ground, and reprove the whoredom of the titulary Christendom.
315. And when the hypocrites in their voluptuous glory hear and see these things, that thereby they are blemished and defiled, and that their God Mausim is made manifest; then they cry, O, there's a heretic, he deflowers our sister Dinah, viz. our opinion, and makes the Church a whore. And though some should offer to give a good account of his ground and opinion, and reconcile and marry himself with the true Christian ground, and marry with their sister Dinah, viz. to espouse the first true virgin Christian ground, and to be of one and the same heart and will with them in the Christian ground, all this avails not; they snatch their sister, viz. the name of a Christian from them, and had rather keep the deflowered damsel with her bastard by them, whose shame the truth has discovered; than they may see how to help their sister's shame, that she may attain the wedlock with Christ.
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.
No commentary for this page.