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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.
112. Therefore to you, O you governor in the office of the Joseph of this world, in every state, condition and degree, this is told you, and set before your eyes: that though you call yourself a Joseph, you do not yet govern as a Joseph; that is, not as a Christian, but as a child of the stars and elements; you govern no otherwise than the brethren of Joseph, who will not that God should choose Joseph for a governor. They will be governors themselves, and will rather kill Joseph than wait to try what God would do with Joseph's dream or vision; they would not suffer that Joseph should tell their injury to his father; but would do what they thought fit. For they said among themselves, We are the elder, and should govern; what will the least and youngest persuade us to? We possess the government in a just way by the right of nature; the power and authority is ours, we will dispatch Joseph out of the way, and cast him into the pit, and then we shall do what we will. 13. Thus do you also, you governest Christendom in all
2states and degrees. The stars, and the evil averted Adam in his own will, governs through you in God's office in the kingdom of this world; you have only cast the mantle of Christ over it, that men should not know you, that you are the evil Adam, and governest with the starry wit and ingenuity, and through the subtlety and policy of the devil, in mere self-willed ways of your own, to advance your own ostentation, pomp, might, authority and stately proud glory. 14. O hearken! are you a Christian? then are you dead with Christ to the wicked false will of Adam, and of the devil's pride. But if your will and life be heathenish, why do you then boast yourself to be a Christian' why do you make wars for lands, countries, cities and villages, if you be not with Joseph called and instituted of God to be a governor? Why do you in Christ's kingdom enslave the country, if you are a prince and minister in God's office, and serve him? 15. Are you your own lord upon earth, and do what your own will lists? Then you do not what God will, also you govern
3not from heaven, but from the world, and with the world's might. But whence have you that in Christ's kingdom, and from what power and authority, that you, in God's office, draw to yourself the sweat of the poor and miserable, and takest away his strength and virtue, and lettest him starve in want? Also, that you squeeze or crush him down with your burden, that you may but possess much riches, and heap up much for yourself; with which you make yourself potent, and lift up your mind into pride. Whence have you that in Christ's kingdom, that you will be better than the members of your own body? Whereas in Christ we are one, viz. one tree with many twigs and branches, and Christ alone is our sap and virtue, and takes care for us all in common: for the officer as well as the branch; no otherwise than the twig upon which the fruit grows.
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.
112. Therefore to you, O you governor in the office of the Joseph of this world, in every state, condition and degree, this is told you, and set before your eyes: that though you call yourself a Joseph, you do not yet govern as a Joseph; that is, not as a Christian, but as a child of the stars and elements; you govern no otherwise than the brethren of Joseph, who will not that God should choose Joseph for a governor. They will be governors themselves, and will rather kill Joseph than wait to try what God would do with Joseph's dream or vision; they would not suffer that Joseph should tell their injury to his father; but would do what they thought fit. For they said among themselves, We are the elder, and should govern; what will the least and youngest persuade us to? We possess the government in a just way by the right of nature; the power and authority is ours, we will dispatch Joseph out of the way, and cast him into the pit, and then we shall do what we will. 13. Thus do you also, you governest Christendom in all
2states and degrees. The stars, and the evil averted Adam in his own will, governs through you in God's office in the kingdom of this world; you have only cast the mantle of Christ over it, that men should not know you, that you are the evil Adam, and governest with the starry wit and ingenuity, and through the subtlety and policy of the devil, in mere self-willed ways of your own, to advance your own ostentation, pomp, might, authority and stately proud glory. 14. O hearken! are you a Christian? then are you dead with Christ to the wicked false will of Adam, and of the devil's pride. But if your will and life be heathenish, why do you then boast yourself to be a Christian' why do you make wars for lands, countries, cities and villages, if you be not with Joseph called and instituted of God to be a governor? Why do you in Christ's kingdom enslave the country, if you are a prince and minister in God's office, and serve him? 15. Are you your own lord upon earth, and do what your own will lists? Then you do not what God will, also you govern
3not from heaven, but from the world, and with the world's might. But whence have you that in Christ's kingdom, and from what power and authority, that you, in God's office, draw to yourself the sweat of the poor and miserable, and takest away his strength and virtue, and lettest him starve in want? Also, that you squeeze or crush him down with your burden, that you may but possess much riches, and heap up much for yourself; with which you make yourself potent, and lift up your mind into pride. Whence have you that in Christ's kingdom, that you will be better than the members of your own body? Whereas in Christ we are one, viz. one tree with many twigs and branches, and Christ alone is our sap and virtue, and takes care for us all in common: for the officer as well as the branch; no otherwise than the twig upon which the fruit grows.
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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