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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.
1• I lie before thee as a dying Man, whose Life is passing from his Lips, as a small Spark going out ; kindle it, O Lord, and raise up the Breath of my Soul before thee. Lord, I wait for I2J. The TV ay to Qhrist . Thy Promise, which Thou hast made, saying, ‘As I live, I will not ‘ the Death of a Sinner, but that he shall turn and live.’ I sink myself down into the Death of my Redeemer Jesus Christ , and Wait for thee, whose Word is Truth and Life. Amen. ■> In this, or the like Manner, everyone may confess his Sins, as he himself findeth on examining his Conscience, what Sins he hath brought his Soul into. Yet if his Purpose be truly earnest , to use a Form is needless, for the Spirit of Qod, which at that Instant is in the Will of the Mind, will itself make the Prayer for him, in his Interior. For it is the Spirit of God which in a true earnest Desire worketh Repentance , and intercedeth for the Soul before God, through the Death of Christ.
2But I will not hide from the beloved Reader, who hath a Christian Intent, how it commonly useth to go with those who are in such a firm Purpose and Resolution. Though indeed it goeth otherwise with one than with another, according as his Purpose is more or less earnest and strong. For the Spirit of God is not bound, but useth divers Ways or Processes accordingly as he knoweth to be fittest for everyone. Yet a Soldier who hath been in the Wars can tell how to fight, and instruct another who may happen to be in the like Condition.
3Now when such a Heart with strong Resolution and Purpose doth thus come before God, and enter into Repentance, it happeneth to it as to the Canaanitish Woman ; that is, it seems as if God would not hear. The Heart remaineth without Comfort ; its Sins, Pollies, and Neglects, also present themselves before it, and make it feel itself unworthy of any. The Mind is as it were speechless ; the Soul groaneth in the Deep; the Heart receiveth Nothing, nor can so much as pour forth its Co?ifession before God ; but it is as if the Heart and Soul were quite shut up. The Soul would fain go towards God, but the P'lesh keepeth it Captive : The Devil too shutteth it up strongly, and represented to it the Way of Vanity again, and tickleth it with the Lusts of the Flesh, and saith inwardly to it, ‘ Stay awhile ; do this or that first ; get ‘ a Sufficiency of Money or Goods beforehand, that thou mayest ‘not stand in need of the World, and afterwards enter into ‘ Repentance and an holy Life; it will be Time enough then.’ O how many Hundreds perish in such a Beginning, if they go back again into Vanity ; and become as young Qrafts broken off with the Wind, or withered by the Heat !
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.
1• I lie before thee as a dying Man, whose Life is passing from his Lips, as a small Spark going out ; kindle it, O Lord, and raise up the Breath of my Soul before thee. Lord, I wait for I2J. The TV ay to Qhrist . Thy Promise, which Thou hast made, saying, ‘As I live, I will not ‘ the Death of a Sinner, but that he shall turn and live.’ I sink myself down into the Death of my Redeemer Jesus Christ , and Wait for thee, whose Word is Truth and Life. Amen. ■> In this, or the like Manner, everyone may confess his Sins, as he himself findeth on examining his Conscience, what Sins he hath brought his Soul into. Yet if his Purpose be truly earnest , to use a Form is needless, for the Spirit of Qod, which at that Instant is in the Will of the Mind, will itself make the Prayer for him, in his Interior. For it is the Spirit of God which in a true earnest Desire worketh Repentance , and intercedeth for the Soul before God, through the Death of Christ.
2But I will not hide from the beloved Reader, who hath a Christian Intent, how it commonly useth to go with those who are in such a firm Purpose and Resolution. Though indeed it goeth otherwise with one than with another, according as his Purpose is more or less earnest and strong. For the Spirit of God is not bound, but useth divers Ways or Processes accordingly as he knoweth to be fittest for everyone. Yet a Soldier who hath been in the Wars can tell how to fight, and instruct another who may happen to be in the like Condition.
3Now when such a Heart with strong Resolution and Purpose doth thus come before God, and enter into Repentance, it happeneth to it as to the Canaanitish Woman ; that is, it seems as if God would not hear. The Heart remaineth without Comfort ; its Sins, Pollies, and Neglects, also present themselves before it, and make it feel itself unworthy of any. The Mind is as it were speechless ; the Soul groaneth in the Deep; the Heart receiveth Nothing, nor can so much as pour forth its Co?ifession before God ; but it is as if the Heart and Soul were quite shut up. The Soul would fain go towards God, but the P'lesh keepeth it Captive : The Devil too shutteth it up strongly, and represented to it the Way of Vanity again, and tickleth it with the Lusts of the Flesh, and saith inwardly to it, ‘ Stay awhile ; do this or that first ; get ‘ a Sufficiency of Money or Goods beforehand, that thou mayest ‘not stand in need of the World, and afterwards enter into ‘ Repentance and an holy Life; it will be Time enough then.’ O how many Hundreds perish in such a Beginning, if they go back again into Vanity ; and become as young Qrafts broken off with the Wind, or withered by the Heat !
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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