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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.
18. As is come to pass among the Jews and Christians, that afterwards, in the zeal of their idolatry and whoredom, they have slain and murdered the prophets and ministers of Jesus Christ, which are sent from God (Ronl. xi. 3); that they might live in their pride and Sodomitical whoredom, till God has given them up to a perverse mind in their hearts (Rom. i. 28), that they are become wholly evil before him. Then is their measure full, and the horrible punishment follows. As may be seen by the castaway Jews, which for such abominations' sake were driven out of their country and kingdom; as also by the Christians, who in the fair country of the east were the best Christians, and now must have the Alcoran instead of Christ, and their country horribly wasted in the anger of God. 9. Thus it goes now also with you, you warring Babylon and titulary Christendom, full of idolatry and earrings of pride, which have lain for a long time under the oak, and the magnet of that oak has drawn to it all your abominations, idolatry, and proud evil life, that the earth can cover them no longer; but they now stand naked before the face of God, therefore also your judgement is near at hand. 10. The prophets call you and reprove you, but you rave for
2your sister Dinah, viz. for your fleshly kingdom, full of pride, which you have built with your idolatry and fleshly love, and murder your brethren for your sister's whoredom's sake, viz. for the Pharisaical whoredom's sake; and do not discern how you should remedy your sister's whoredom, that she may be married; and you take your sister with her bastard, which in the presence of God and all the world stand in shame, to you again, and will have her called a virgin. If you did give her to Shechem for a wife, and let him be circumcised, and would live with him in peace, then would your sister's whoredom be covered. 11. But your wrath, O Lord, makes it to be thus: for the misdeed is too much, and the earth can no more cover it under the oak, in spiritu mundi, it stands naked before your face. Therefore, you wise children, flee out of Babel (Jerusalem); the overthrow thereof, and the earnest judgement, draws near, the measure is full, the anger burns, sin has killed the understanding, that they no more perceive or feel the understanding, 1 and these children are blind concerning it, and always say, This is a golden time, it will be good for us, and not so come to pass. Your prophets among you are esteemed fools and madmen, till that be done unto you, and till you yourself do what they have said unto you.
312. Beware now, and leave off to war about the whore, that the Lord may call you with Jacob, and bring you again to his holy altar in Christ Jesus. Put away the idols, viz. the opinions, and build your heart to be an altar in the temple of Jesus Christ; then will you be brought away from the murders, and the fear of God will come upon those men who would pursue you, as is to be seen by Jacob. But if thou will not leave off to make war about the whore, then will thou, together with the whore, come to shame and desolation. 13. But learn to know her: she gives Shechem occasion to uncleanness, for she runs out of her house, and seeks lovers. Behold her pride, tear her earrings from her neck, wherewith she boasts, and then she will no more thus show her folly. Bereave her of her idols, bury them, with Jacob: build yourself an altar in you, and bring your children to the offering. Bid them not strive for Dinah, but leave Dinah to the man with whom she has bedded; else it is in vain to make war for her virginity, for it is manifest to all people that she has played the whore. 14. Mark what is told you, it is high time, her shame can no more be covered, for she has brought forth the bastard. Do you not see it? and do you not know the whore with her child? Then you are blind. 1 Have no more sense or understanding.
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.
18. As is come to pass among the Jews and Christians, that afterwards, in the zeal of their idolatry and whoredom, they have slain and murdered the prophets and ministers of Jesus Christ, which are sent from God (Ronl. xi. 3); that they might live in their pride and Sodomitical whoredom, till God has given them up to a perverse mind in their hearts (Rom. i. 28), that they are become wholly evil before him. Then is their measure full, and the horrible punishment follows. As may be seen by the castaway Jews, which for such abominations' sake were driven out of their country and kingdom; as also by the Christians, who in the fair country of the east were the best Christians, and now must have the Alcoran instead of Christ, and their country horribly wasted in the anger of God. 9. Thus it goes now also with you, you warring Babylon and titulary Christendom, full of idolatry and earrings of pride, which have lain for a long time under the oak, and the magnet of that oak has drawn to it all your abominations, idolatry, and proud evil life, that the earth can cover them no longer; but they now stand naked before the face of God, therefore also your judgement is near at hand. 10. The prophets call you and reprove you, but you rave for
2your sister Dinah, viz. for your fleshly kingdom, full of pride, which you have built with your idolatry and fleshly love, and murder your brethren for your sister's whoredom's sake, viz. for the Pharisaical whoredom's sake; and do not discern how you should remedy your sister's whoredom, that she may be married; and you take your sister with her bastard, which in the presence of God and all the world stand in shame, to you again, and will have her called a virgin. If you did give her to Shechem for a wife, and let him be circumcised, and would live with him in peace, then would your sister's whoredom be covered. 11. But your wrath, O Lord, makes it to be thus: for the misdeed is too much, and the earth can no more cover it under the oak, in spiritu mundi, it stands naked before your face. Therefore, you wise children, flee out of Babel (Jerusalem); the overthrow thereof, and the earnest judgement, draws near, the measure is full, the anger burns, sin has killed the understanding, that they no more perceive or feel the understanding, 1 and these children are blind concerning it, and always say, This is a golden time, it will be good for us, and not so come to pass. Your prophets among you are esteemed fools and madmen, till that be done unto you, and till you yourself do what they have said unto you.
312. Beware now, and leave off to war about the whore, that the Lord may call you with Jacob, and bring you again to his holy altar in Christ Jesus. Put away the idols, viz. the opinions, and build your heart to be an altar in the temple of Jesus Christ; then will you be brought away from the murders, and the fear of God will come upon those men who would pursue you, as is to be seen by Jacob. But if thou will not leave off to make war about the whore, then will thou, together with the whore, come to shame and desolation. 13. But learn to know her: she gives Shechem occasion to uncleanness, for she runs out of her house, and seeks lovers. Behold her pride, tear her earrings from her neck, wherewith she boasts, and then she will no more thus show her folly. Bereave her of her idols, bury them, with Jacob: build yourself an altar in you, and bring your children to the offering. Bid them not strive for Dinah, but leave Dinah to the man with whom she has bedded; else it is in vain to make war for her virginity, for it is manifest to all people that she has played the whore. 14. Mark what is told you, it is high time, her shame can no more be covered, for she has brought forth the bastard. Do you not see it? and do you not know the whore with her child? Then you are blind. 1 Have no more sense or understanding.
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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