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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.
1terrible a judgement in it. The history says thus: 3. But when Jacob saw that there was plenty of corn in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you look so long about you? behold, I hear there is plenty of corn in Egypt: go down thither, and buy us corn, that we may live, and not die. Then the ten brethren of Joseph went down, that they might buy corn in Egypt. But Jacob would not suffer Joseph's brother Benjamin to go; for he said, Some mishap may befall him. (Gen. xlii. 1-4). 4. Now this is a figure, first, showing that when man finds himself in the divine anger in this famine, that as to righteousness he is in want, as Jacob and his children in the famine; then the Father says in the conscience to the soul, why do you linger so long looking about you? Go down into repentance, where there is plenty of righteousness in the death of Christ, where Christ gives righteousness for and instead of your sins, if you heartily turnest to him: And thus the Father bestows his will, and introduces it into the sinner's repentance and conversation.
25. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, that is, the humanity of Christ, he gives not to it presently therewith: he first bestows upon it its sinful brethren, that is, he gives it first his terrors into its conscience, and hides his comfort in his grace, viz. the true Benjamin, Joseph's brother, from the properties of sins,l and sends the properties of sins, viz. those wherein sins have been wrought and committed after grace, to buy this corn of Joseph, viz. of Christ. 6. The sinner must himself enter upon it, and with earnestness enter into the suffering and death of Christ, and die from his sins in the presence of grace, in the prison of God's anger, and cast himself upon Joseph's, viz. Christ's, mercy and grace, and not stay without and say, With Christ there is plenty of grace, and so tickle and comfort himself with grace. No, that quickens not the poor soul. You must go down into Egypt to your injured brother, whom you have cast into the pit, by your sins within you, and must in great humility come into his presence. Though you will not suddenly know it, till he in his mercy shall give you to know it; and then you must in Christ's power, might and glory, which he gat in his resurrection, buy corn for the poor soul, that it may live, and not die; as Jacob said to his children. 1 Sinful affections. 7. And Moses says further,
3Thus the children of Israel and others with them came to buy corn: for the famine was also in Canaan. But Joseph was the ruler of the land, and sold corn to all the people in the land. Now when his brethren came to him, they fell down with their faces to the earth before him. And he saw them and knew them, and carried himself strangely towards them, and spoke roughly with them, and said to them, Whence do you come? They said out of the land of Canaan to buy food.But though he knew them, they knew not him yet (Gen. xlii. 5-8). 8. This now is the first state and condition of the poor soul when it turns to Christ, to fetch food from him. Then he looks upon the soul in its will, totally in its essence, to see whether the free will had set itself towards him. And now if the soul be converted, then he knows it; but first he terrifies the conscience, and sets himself roughly, and seems strange towards the soul, as he did towards the Canaanitish woman (Matt. xv. 26), and hides his grace from the soul, till it shed forth its repentance, and bows its face in the presence of Christ, and acknowledge its transgressions, and totally bow down itself to the pit of judgement, and yield itself into God's anger and punishment, and to the dying of itself.
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.
1terrible a judgement in it. The history says thus: 3. But when Jacob saw that there was plenty of corn in Egypt, he said to his sons, why do you look so long about you? behold, I hear there is plenty of corn in Egypt: go down thither, and buy us corn, that we may live, and not die. Then the ten brethren of Joseph went down, that they might buy corn in Egypt. But Jacob would not suffer Joseph's brother Benjamin to go; for he said, Some mishap may befall him. (Gen. xlii. 1-4). 4. Now this is a figure, first, showing that when man finds himself in the divine anger in this famine, that as to righteousness he is in want, as Jacob and his children in the famine; then the Father says in the conscience to the soul, why do you linger so long looking about you? Go down into repentance, where there is plenty of righteousness in the death of Christ, where Christ gives righteousness for and instead of your sins, if you heartily turnest to him: And thus the Father bestows his will, and introduces it into the sinner's repentance and conversation.
25. But Benjamin, Joseph's brother, that is, the humanity of Christ, he gives not to it presently therewith: he first bestows upon it its sinful brethren, that is, he gives it first his terrors into its conscience, and hides his comfort in his grace, viz. the true Benjamin, Joseph's brother, from the properties of sins,l and sends the properties of sins, viz. those wherein sins have been wrought and committed after grace, to buy this corn of Joseph, viz. of Christ. 6. The sinner must himself enter upon it, and with earnestness enter into the suffering and death of Christ, and die from his sins in the presence of grace, in the prison of God's anger, and cast himself upon Joseph's, viz. Christ's, mercy and grace, and not stay without and say, With Christ there is plenty of grace, and so tickle and comfort himself with grace. No, that quickens not the poor soul. You must go down into Egypt to your injured brother, whom you have cast into the pit, by your sins within you, and must in great humility come into his presence. Though you will not suddenly know it, till he in his mercy shall give you to know it; and then you must in Christ's power, might and glory, which he gat in his resurrection, buy corn for the poor soul, that it may live, and not die; as Jacob said to his children. 1 Sinful affections. 7. And Moses says further,
3Thus the children of Israel and others with them came to buy corn: for the famine was also in Canaan. But Joseph was the ruler of the land, and sold corn to all the people in the land. Now when his brethren came to him, they fell down with their faces to the earth before him. And he saw them and knew them, and carried himself strangely towards them, and spoke roughly with them, and said to them, Whence do you come? They said out of the land of Canaan to buy food.But though he knew them, they knew not him yet (Gen. xlii. 5-8). 8. This now is the first state and condition of the poor soul when it turns to Christ, to fetch food from him. Then he looks upon the soul in its will, totally in its essence, to see whether the free will had set itself towards him. And now if the soul be converted, then he knows it; but first he terrifies the conscience, and sets himself roughly, and seems strange towards the soul, as he did towards the Canaanitish woman (Matt. xv. 26), and hides his grace from the soul, till it shed forth its repentance, and bows its face in the presence of Christ, and acknowledge its transgressions, and totally bow down itself to the pit of judgement, and yield itself into God's anger and punishment, and to the dying of itself.
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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