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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.
1Furthermore, he must firmly Persuade himself that GOD in Christ Jesus will much more readily hear him and receive him to Grace, than he will come ; and that God in the Love of Christy in the most dear and precious Name JESUS, cannot will any Evil That there is no angry Countenance at all in this Name , but that ft is the highest and deepest Love and Faithfulness , the greatest Sweetness of the Deity, in the great Name JEHOVAH, which He hath manifested in our Humanity corrupted as it is, and perished as to the Heavenly Part , which in Paradise disappeared through Sin. And He wa s therefore moved in His Heart to flow into us with His sweet Love , that the A'ager of His Father, which was kindled in us, might be quenched and turned into Love by it. All which was done for the poor Sinner’s 'Sake, that he might obtain an open Gate o^ Grace again. In this Consideration he must firmly imagine to himself that this very Hour and Instant he standeth before the Face of the Holy Trinity , and that GOD is really present within and without him, as the Holy Scripture witnesseth, saying, ‘Am not I He ‘that filleth all Things?’ And in another Place, ‘The Word is ‘near thee, in thy Mouth, and in thy Heart.’ — Also, ‘We will ‘ come unto you, and make our Abode with you.’ And, ‘ Behold, ‘ I am with you alway, even to the End of the World.’ And again, ‘The Kingdom of God is within you.’
2Thus he must firmly know and believe, that inwardly he standeth really before the Face of Jesus Christ , even before the Holy Deity , on whom his Soul hath turned its Back ; and must resolve that he will this very Hour turn the Eyes and Desire of his Soul towards God again, and with the poor lost and returning Son come to the Father . He must, with the Eyes of his Mind cast down in Fear and deepest Humility, begin to conjess his Sins and Unworthiness before the Face of God in Manner following. Of True Repentance . I'l A Short Form of Confession before the Face of God. Everyone , as his Case and Necessity requireth, may order and enlarge this Confession as the Holy Ghost shall teach him. I will only set down a short Direction. O THOU great unsearchable God, Lord of all Things;
3Thou, who in Christ Jesus , of great Love towards us, hath manifested thyself with thy Holy Substance in our Humanity : I, poor unworthy sinful Wretch, come before thy Presence, which thou hast manifested in the Humanity of Jesus Christy though I am not worthy to lift up mine Eyes to thee, acknowledging and confessing before thee, that I am guilty of Unfaithfulness, and breaking off from thy great Love and* Qrace , which thou hast freely bestowed upon us. I have left the Covenant \ which of mere Grace thou hast made with me in Baptism , in which thou didst receive me to be a Child and Heir of Eternal Life, and have brought my Desur into the Vanity of this World, and defiled my Soul therewith, and made it altogether Bestial and Earthly . So that my Soul knoweth not itself, because of the Mire of Sin ; but accounteth itself a strange Child before thy Face, not worthy to desire thy Grace. I lie in the Quilt and Filth of Sin, and the Vanity of my corrupt Flesh, Up to the very Lips of my Soul, and have but a small Spark of the living Breath left in me, which desireth thy Grace. I am dead in Sin and Corruption, so that in this woeful Condition I dare not lift up mine Eyes to thee.
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.
1Furthermore, he must firmly Persuade himself that GOD in Christ Jesus will much more readily hear him and receive him to Grace, than he will come ; and that God in the Love of Christy in the most dear and precious Name JESUS, cannot will any Evil That there is no angry Countenance at all in this Name , but that ft is the highest and deepest Love and Faithfulness , the greatest Sweetness of the Deity, in the great Name JEHOVAH, which He hath manifested in our Humanity corrupted as it is, and perished as to the Heavenly Part , which in Paradise disappeared through Sin. And He wa s therefore moved in His Heart to flow into us with His sweet Love , that the A'ager of His Father, which was kindled in us, might be quenched and turned into Love by it. All which was done for the poor Sinner’s 'Sake, that he might obtain an open Gate o^ Grace again. In this Consideration he must firmly imagine to himself that this very Hour and Instant he standeth before the Face of the Holy Trinity , and that GOD is really present within and without him, as the Holy Scripture witnesseth, saying, ‘Am not I He ‘that filleth all Things?’ And in another Place, ‘The Word is ‘near thee, in thy Mouth, and in thy Heart.’ — Also, ‘We will ‘ come unto you, and make our Abode with you.’ And, ‘ Behold, ‘ I am with you alway, even to the End of the World.’ And again, ‘The Kingdom of God is within you.’
2Thus he must firmly know and believe, that inwardly he standeth really before the Face of Jesus Christ , even before the Holy Deity , on whom his Soul hath turned its Back ; and must resolve that he will this very Hour turn the Eyes and Desire of his Soul towards God again, and with the poor lost and returning Son come to the Father . He must, with the Eyes of his Mind cast down in Fear and deepest Humility, begin to conjess his Sins and Unworthiness before the Face of God in Manner following. Of True Repentance . I'l A Short Form of Confession before the Face of God. Everyone , as his Case and Necessity requireth, may order and enlarge this Confession as the Holy Ghost shall teach him. I will only set down a short Direction. O THOU great unsearchable God, Lord of all Things;
3Thou, who in Christ Jesus , of great Love towards us, hath manifested thyself with thy Holy Substance in our Humanity : I, poor unworthy sinful Wretch, come before thy Presence, which thou hast manifested in the Humanity of Jesus Christy though I am not worthy to lift up mine Eyes to thee, acknowledging and confessing before thee, that I am guilty of Unfaithfulness, and breaking off from thy great Love and* Qrace , which thou hast freely bestowed upon us. I have left the Covenant \ which of mere Grace thou hast made with me in Baptism , in which thou didst receive me to be a Child and Heir of Eternal Life, and have brought my Desur into the Vanity of this World, and defiled my Soul therewith, and made it altogether Bestial and Earthly . So that my Soul knoweth not itself, because of the Mire of Sin ; but accounteth itself a strange Child before thy Face, not worthy to desire thy Grace. I lie in the Quilt and Filth of Sin, and the Vanity of my corrupt Flesh, Up to the very Lips of my Soul, and have but a small Spark of the living Breath left in me, which desireth thy Grace. I am dead in Sin and Corruption, so that in this woeful Condition I dare not lift up mine Eyes to thee.
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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