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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.
11 fly unto thee, thou righteous Judge, through tbfe Anguish of my Redeemer Jesus Christ , when He did sweat the bloody Sweat on the Mount of Olives for my Sake, and was scourged by Pontius Pilate for me, and suffered a Crown of Thorns to be pressed upon His Head, so that His Blood came forth. O righteous God, hast thou not set Him in my Stead ? He was innocent, but I guilty, for whom He suffered, wherefore should I despair under thy Wrath ? O blot out thy Anger in me through His Anguish, Passion and Death; I give myself wholly into His Anguish, Passion and Death ; I will stand still in His Anguish and Passion before thee, do with me what thou pleasest, only let me not depart from His Anguish. Thou hast freely given me His Anguish, and drowned thy Wrath in Him: And though I have not accepted it, but am departed from Him and become faithless, yet thou hast given me this precious Pledge in my Flesh and Blood. For He hath taken my Flesh and Soul upon His Heavenly Flesh and Blood , and hast satisfied the Anger in my Flesh and Soul in Him, with His heavenly Blood. Therefore receive me now in His Satisfaction , and put His A nghish. Passion and Death in thy Wrath, which is kindled in me, and break thy Judgment in me in the Blood of His Love.
2O great Love ! in the Blood and Death of Jesus Christ , I beseech thee break the strong Fort of Prey which the Devil hath made and built up in me, where he resisteth me in the Way of thy Qrace. Drive him out of me, that he mav not overcome me for no one living can stand in thy Sight, if thou withdraw tby.. Hand from him. , O come thou Breaker-through the A nger of GOD, destroy its Power, and help my poor Soul to fight and overcome it. 0 bring me into Victory, and uphold me in thee ; break in Pieces its Seat in my Vanity, that is kindled in my Soul and Flesh. Of True ‘Repentance .
3O mortify the Desire of my Vanity in Flesh and Blood, which the Devil hath now kindled by his false Desire , by hellish Anguish and Desperation. O quench it with thy Water of eternal Life , and bring my Anguish forth though thy Death. I wholly sink myself down into thee; and though Soul and Body should this Hour faint and perish in thy Wrath, yet I will not let thee go. Though my Heart saith utterly, No , No, yet the Desire of my Soul shall hold fast on thy Truth, which neither Death nor the Devil shall take away from me. For the ‘ Blood of Jesus Christ ‘ the Son of God cleanseth us from all our Sins.’ This I lay hold on, and let the Anger of God do what it will with my Sin, and let the Devil roar over my Soul in his Fort of Prey which he hath mifde, as much as he will : Neither the Devil, Death nor Hell, shall pull me out of my Saviour s Wounds . Thou must at lengfh be confounded in me, thou malicious Devil, and thy Fort of Prey must be forsaken, for I will drown it in the Love of Jesus Christ , gmd then dwell in it if thou canst. Amen. An Information in Temptation.
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.
11 fly unto thee, thou righteous Judge, through tbfe Anguish of my Redeemer Jesus Christ , when He did sweat the bloody Sweat on the Mount of Olives for my Sake, and was scourged by Pontius Pilate for me, and suffered a Crown of Thorns to be pressed upon His Head, so that His Blood came forth. O righteous God, hast thou not set Him in my Stead ? He was innocent, but I guilty, for whom He suffered, wherefore should I despair under thy Wrath ? O blot out thy Anger in me through His Anguish, Passion and Death; I give myself wholly into His Anguish, Passion and Death ; I will stand still in His Anguish and Passion before thee, do with me what thou pleasest, only let me not depart from His Anguish. Thou hast freely given me His Anguish, and drowned thy Wrath in Him: And though I have not accepted it, but am departed from Him and become faithless, yet thou hast given me this precious Pledge in my Flesh and Blood. For He hath taken my Flesh and Soul upon His Heavenly Flesh and Blood , and hast satisfied the Anger in my Flesh and Soul in Him, with His heavenly Blood. Therefore receive me now in His Satisfaction , and put His A nghish. Passion and Death in thy Wrath, which is kindled in me, and break thy Judgment in me in the Blood of His Love.
2O great Love ! in the Blood and Death of Jesus Christ , I beseech thee break the strong Fort of Prey which the Devil hath made and built up in me, where he resisteth me in the Way of thy Qrace. Drive him out of me, that he mav not overcome me for no one living can stand in thy Sight, if thou withdraw tby.. Hand from him. , O come thou Breaker-through the A nger of GOD, destroy its Power, and help my poor Soul to fight and overcome it. 0 bring me into Victory, and uphold me in thee ; break in Pieces its Seat in my Vanity, that is kindled in my Soul and Flesh. Of True ‘Repentance .
3O mortify the Desire of my Vanity in Flesh and Blood, which the Devil hath now kindled by his false Desire , by hellish Anguish and Desperation. O quench it with thy Water of eternal Life , and bring my Anguish forth though thy Death. I wholly sink myself down into thee; and though Soul and Body should this Hour faint and perish in thy Wrath, yet I will not let thee go. Though my Heart saith utterly, No , No, yet the Desire of my Soul shall hold fast on thy Truth, which neither Death nor the Devil shall take away from me. For the ‘ Blood of Jesus Christ ‘ the Son of God cleanseth us from all our Sins.’ This I lay hold on, and let the Anger of God do what it will with my Sin, and let the Devil roar over my Soul in his Fort of Prey which he hath mifde, as much as he will : Neither the Devil, Death nor Hell, shall pull me out of my Saviour s Wounds . Thou must at lengfh be confounded in me, thou malicious Devil, and thy Fort of Prey must be forsaken, for I will drown it in the Love of Jesus Christ , gmd then dwell in it if thou canst. Amen. An Information in Temptation.
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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