Fetching
One moment.
Fetching
One moment.
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.
1B ELOVED Reader, this is no jesting Matter ; he that accounteth it so, hath not tried it, neither hath he yet passed the Judgment ; but his Conscience is still asleep. And though it should be deferred to his latter Days, which is very dangerous, yet he must pass through this Judgment, or fiery Trial. Happy is he that passeth through it in the Time of his Youth , before the Zkw'/buildeth his Fort of Prey strong ; he may afterwards prove a Labourer in the heavenly Vineyard, and sow his Seed in the Qarden of Christ ; where he shall reap the Fruit in due Time. This Judgment continueth a long while upon m%ny a poor Soul; several Years, if he doth not earnestly and early put on the Armour of Christ; but stayeth till the Judgment of Tribulation first drive him to Repentance. But to him that cometh of himself, of his own earnest Purpose , and endeavoureth to depart from his evil Ways, the Temptation or Trial will not be so hard, neither will it continue so long. Yet he must stand out valiantly, until Victory be gotten over the Devil ; for he Shall be mightily assisted, and all shall end in the best for him. — So that afterwards when the Day breaketh in his Soul, he turneth it to the great Praise and Glory of God, that his grand Enemy *and Persecutor was overcome in the Conflict. 24 The JVay to Qhrist. Short PRAYERS' When the noble Sophia {or eternal Wisdom) kisseth the Soul with her Love , and offereth her Love to it.
2O MOST gracious and deep Love of God in Christ Jesus ! I beseech thee grant me thy Pearl , impress it into my Soul, and take my Soul into thy Arms. O thou sweet Love ! I confess I am unclean before thee. Take away my Uncleanness through thy Death , and carry the Hunger and Thirst of my Soul through' thy Death in thy Resurrection, in thy Triumph! Cast my whole Selfhood down to the Ground in thy Death ; take it Captive*, and (Carry my Hunger through in thy Hunger . „ O Highest Love, hast thou not appeared in me? Stay r> in me, and inclose me in thee. Keep me in thee, so that I may not be able to depart from thee. Fill my Hunger with thy Love , feed my Soul with thy Heavenly Substance , give it thy Blood to drink, and water it with thy Fountain . O great Love ! Awaken my disappeared Image in me, which as to the Kingdom of Heaven disappeared in my Father Adam . By that Word which awakened the same Image in the Seed of the Woman in Mary , quicken it, I beseech thee.
3O thou Life and Poiuer of the Deity, who hast promised us saying: ‘We will come to you, and make our Abode in you/ O sweet Love ! I bring my Desire into this Word of thy Promise . Thou hast promised also, that thy Father will give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him for it ; therefore I now bring the Desire of my Soul into that thy Promise , and I receive thy Word into my Hunger . Increase thou in me my Hunger after thee. Strengthen me, O sweet Love , in thy Strength : Quicken me in thee, that rjjy Spirit may taste thy Sweetness. O do thou believe by thy Power in me, for without thee I can do nothing . O sweet Love ! I beseech thee through that Love wherewith thou didst overcome the Anger of God, and didst change it into Love and Divine Joy ; I pray thee, also change the Anger in my Soul by the same great Love , that I may become obedient unto thee, and that my Soul may love thee therein for ever. O change my Will into thy Will, bring thy Obedience into my Disobedience, that I may become obedient unto thee. O great Love of Jesus Christy I humbly fly to thee, bring the Hunger of my Soul into thy Wounds , from whence thou didst shed thy Holy Blood , and didst quench the Anger with Love . I Of ’True Repentance . bring rpy Hunger into thy open Side, from whence qame forth Water aftad Blood , and throw myself wholly into it ; be thou mine and quiclren me in thy Life, and let me not depart from 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.
1B ELOVED Reader, this is no jesting Matter ; he that accounteth it so, hath not tried it, neither hath he yet passed the Judgment ; but his Conscience is still asleep. And though it should be deferred to his latter Days, which is very dangerous, yet he must pass through this Judgment, or fiery Trial. Happy is he that passeth through it in the Time of his Youth , before the Zkw'/buildeth his Fort of Prey strong ; he may afterwards prove a Labourer in the heavenly Vineyard, and sow his Seed in the Qarden of Christ ; where he shall reap the Fruit in due Time. This Judgment continueth a long while upon m%ny a poor Soul; several Years, if he doth not earnestly and early put on the Armour of Christ; but stayeth till the Judgment of Tribulation first drive him to Repentance. But to him that cometh of himself, of his own earnest Purpose , and endeavoureth to depart from his evil Ways, the Temptation or Trial will not be so hard, neither will it continue so long. Yet he must stand out valiantly, until Victory be gotten over the Devil ; for he Shall be mightily assisted, and all shall end in the best for him. — So that afterwards when the Day breaketh in his Soul, he turneth it to the great Praise and Glory of God, that his grand Enemy *and Persecutor was overcome in the Conflict. 24 The JVay to Qhrist. Short PRAYERS' When the noble Sophia {or eternal Wisdom) kisseth the Soul with her Love , and offereth her Love to it.
2O MOST gracious and deep Love of God in Christ Jesus ! I beseech thee grant me thy Pearl , impress it into my Soul, and take my Soul into thy Arms. O thou sweet Love ! I confess I am unclean before thee. Take away my Uncleanness through thy Death , and carry the Hunger and Thirst of my Soul through' thy Death in thy Resurrection, in thy Triumph! Cast my whole Selfhood down to the Ground in thy Death ; take it Captive*, and (Carry my Hunger through in thy Hunger . „ O Highest Love, hast thou not appeared in me? Stay r> in me, and inclose me in thee. Keep me in thee, so that I may not be able to depart from thee. Fill my Hunger with thy Love , feed my Soul with thy Heavenly Substance , give it thy Blood to drink, and water it with thy Fountain . O great Love ! Awaken my disappeared Image in me, which as to the Kingdom of Heaven disappeared in my Father Adam . By that Word which awakened the same Image in the Seed of the Woman in Mary , quicken it, I beseech thee.
3O thou Life and Poiuer of the Deity, who hast promised us saying: ‘We will come to you, and make our Abode in you/ O sweet Love ! I bring my Desire into this Word of thy Promise . Thou hast promised also, that thy Father will give the Holy Spirit to those that ask him for it ; therefore I now bring the Desire of my Soul into that thy Promise , and I receive thy Word into my Hunger . Increase thou in me my Hunger after thee. Strengthen me, O sweet Love , in thy Strength : Quicken me in thee, that rjjy Spirit may taste thy Sweetness. O do thou believe by thy Power in me, for without thee I can do nothing . O sweet Love ! I beseech thee through that Love wherewith thou didst overcome the Anger of God, and didst change it into Love and Divine Joy ; I pray thee, also change the Anger in my Soul by the same great Love , that I may become obedient unto thee, and that my Soul may love thee therein for ever. O change my Will into thy Will, bring thy Obedience into my Disobedience, that I may become obedient unto thee. O great Love of Jesus Christy I humbly fly to thee, bring the Hunger of my Soul into thy Wounds , from whence thou didst shed thy Holy Blood , and didst quench the Anger with Love . I Of ’True Repentance . bring rpy Hunger into thy open Side, from whence qame forth Water aftad Blood , and throw myself wholly into it ; be thou mine and quiclren me in thy Life, and let me not depart from 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.
No commentary for this page.