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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.
19. When a man is thus a Christian in such a process and way, then he has given up all whatsoever he has of temporal goods, or is able to do, as also his own will, to God, who brings him first into Christ's image, and makes him conformable to Christ, and takes nothing away from him of that which he had before of natural right, viz. the disposal of temporary goods; but he takes away the authority and power of his own nature, viz. his evil self will which Adam had brought away from God and introduced into a creaturely selfness of his own willing and working in earthly things, whereby Adam bereaved God his Lord of the government in him, and made the essence and things of this world his own; as if he had made it, and would not be God's servant therein, and be his fellow-branches' guardian and nourisher, and give them his virtue, will, essence and substance, but says, [It is] Mine; that is, it is mine own, I will keep it only for myself and it shall remain with me. And would not work therewith in the life of his brethren, and give them also of his life and power; and bereave them also (through that appropriation of it to be mine) of the power in the kingdom of nature, viz. of the growth [and fruits] of the earth which God gave in common, and would only fill his own body, and thereby be accounted great, and a lord of his miserable despised fellow-branches, whom he wickedly bereaves of the sap wherewith they should strengthen their life, and brings it
2into a propriety [calling it mine] . This authority God takes away from a Christian, and makes him a guardian and nourisher of his brethren again, viz. a steward of his Lord: He lets him possess the temporary goods which he had, so far as he possessed them in a natural right with righteousness and truth, and makes him a Joseph therein. 10. This Joseph now says not, This is mine, that village, city, country, principality, kingdom, empire; also that house, land, field, money; those goods, those cattle, that woman, that child, is mine. But he says with his whole heart and conscience from a new good Christian will, It is all my God's and his children's. He has set me as a ruler, disposer, and steward of it, that I should manage it to that purpose which he will have me. I should sustain myself and his children, the needy, with it; and I should be their curator or guardian, and give them also my power, virtue and understanding of the divine gift; and instruct, tutor or take care of them for their good. And as God governs me with his spirit, so also should I that am his officer in this world, with my understanding and office, govern my fellowmembers in such power and virtue, and take care of them. For all that I rule over is not mine, but God's and theirs; but I should do to them as God does to me.
311. To such a one God givesJoseph's understanding and wisdom, and governs the house of this world by him; be he in what state and condition soever, therein he sits in the office of God, and is only a servant or minister of the office, and a guardian over divine creatures, for the right Christian government of his will is in heaven, his conversation is alike in heaven and on earth; as the Scripture says, Our conversation is in heaven (Phil. iii. 20). For according to the inward ground of his soul and spirit he is in Christ in God, viz. in the eternal speaking Word, from which Adam's will had turned itself away, and turned itself out into this world, which will Christ has turned in again into the eternal Word. And so now he governs with that reinturned will through and in the outward substance and matters of this world, viz. in the formed outspoken or expressed Word, as a servant, minister and instrument of the eternal speaking Word in its secret mystery of wisdom, viz. in the visible creaturely word.
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.
19. When a man is thus a Christian in such a process and way, then he has given up all whatsoever he has of temporal goods, or is able to do, as also his own will, to God, who brings him first into Christ's image, and makes him conformable to Christ, and takes nothing away from him of that which he had before of natural right, viz. the disposal of temporary goods; but he takes away the authority and power of his own nature, viz. his evil self will which Adam had brought away from God and introduced into a creaturely selfness of his own willing and working in earthly things, whereby Adam bereaved God his Lord of the government in him, and made the essence and things of this world his own; as if he had made it, and would not be God's servant therein, and be his fellow-branches' guardian and nourisher, and give them his virtue, will, essence and substance, but says, [It is] Mine; that is, it is mine own, I will keep it only for myself and it shall remain with me. And would not work therewith in the life of his brethren, and give them also of his life and power; and bereave them also (through that appropriation of it to be mine) of the power in the kingdom of nature, viz. of the growth [and fruits] of the earth which God gave in common, and would only fill his own body, and thereby be accounted great, and a lord of his miserable despised fellow-branches, whom he wickedly bereaves of the sap wherewith they should strengthen their life, and brings it
2into a propriety [calling it mine] . This authority God takes away from a Christian, and makes him a guardian and nourisher of his brethren again, viz. a steward of his Lord: He lets him possess the temporary goods which he had, so far as he possessed them in a natural right with righteousness and truth, and makes him a Joseph therein. 10. This Joseph now says not, This is mine, that village, city, country, principality, kingdom, empire; also that house, land, field, money; those goods, those cattle, that woman, that child, is mine. But he says with his whole heart and conscience from a new good Christian will, It is all my God's and his children's. He has set me as a ruler, disposer, and steward of it, that I should manage it to that purpose which he will have me. I should sustain myself and his children, the needy, with it; and I should be their curator or guardian, and give them also my power, virtue and understanding of the divine gift; and instruct, tutor or take care of them for their good. And as God governs me with his spirit, so also should I that am his officer in this world, with my understanding and office, govern my fellowmembers in such power and virtue, and take care of them. For all that I rule over is not mine, but God's and theirs; but I should do to them as God does to me.
311. To such a one God givesJoseph's understanding and wisdom, and governs the house of this world by him; be he in what state and condition soever, therein he sits in the office of God, and is only a servant or minister of the office, and a guardian over divine creatures, for the right Christian government of his will is in heaven, his conversation is alike in heaven and on earth; as the Scripture says, Our conversation is in heaven (Phil. iii. 20). For according to the inward ground of his soul and spirit he is in Christ in God, viz. in the eternal speaking Word, from which Adam's will had turned itself away, and turned itself out into this world, which will Christ has turned in again into the eternal Word. And so now he governs with that reinturned will through and in the outward substance and matters of this world, viz. in the formed outspoken or expressed Word, as a servant, minister and instrument of the eternal speaking Word in its secret mystery of wisdom, viz. in the visible creaturely word.
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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