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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.
1O my noble Vine, I beseech thee give Sap to me thy Branch; that I may bud and grow in thy Strength and Sap , in thy Essence ; beget in me true Strength by thy Strength. O sweet Love, art thou not my Light? Enlighten thou my poor Soul in its close Prison, in Flesh and Blood. Bring it into the right Way. Destroy the Will of the Devil , and bring my Body through the whole Course of this World, through the Chamber of Death, into thy Death and Rest ; that at the last Day it rnay arise in thee from thy Death , and live in thee forever. O teach mb what I must do in thee : I beseech thee be thou my tvilling , knowing ; and doing ; and let me go no whither without thee.' I yi^ld myself wholly up to thee. A men. A PRAYER. For obtaining the Divine Working , Protection , and Government ; showing also how the Mind should work with and Jn God , in Christ the Free o f Fife. O THOU Living Fountain, in Thee I lift up the Desire of my Soul, and cry with my Desire to enter through the IFfe of my Saviour Jesus Christ into thee.
2O thou Life and Power of God, awaken thyself in the Hunger of my Soul with thy Desire ofl.ove, through the Thirst which Jesus Christ had upon the Cross after us Men, and carry my weak Strength through by thy mighty Hand in thy Spirit ; be thou the Working and Will in me with thine own Strength. Blossom in the Strength of Jesus Christ in me, that I may bring forth Praise unto thee, the true Fruit of thy Kingdom. O let my Heart and Desire never depart from thee more. But I swim in Vanity, in this Valley of Misery, in this outward Earthly Flesh and Blood. And my Soul and noble Image , which is according to thy Similitude, is encompassed with Enemies on every Side ,* with the Desire of the Devil against me, with the Desire of Vanity in Flesh and Blood ; also with all the Opposition of wicked Men who know not thy Name. And I swim with my outward Life in the Properties of the Stars and Elements , having *my Enemies lying in wait for me everywhere, inwardly and outwardly , together with Death, the Destroyer of this vain Life. I fly therefore to thee, O holy Strength of Go D, seeing thou hast i6 t The JVay to Qhrist .
3manifested thyself with thy loving Mercy in our Humanity, through thy holy Name Jesus , and hast also given ifc/to be a Companion and Guide in us. I beseech thee let His Angels that minister to Him, attend upon the Souls of me and mine, and encamp themselves about us, and defend us from the fiery Darts of the Desire of that Wicked One, which he shooteth into us daily by the Curse of the Anger of God which is awakened in our Earthly Flesh. Keep back by thy Divine Strength the malignant Influence of the Slat's in their Opposition ; wherein the Wicked Enemy of Mankind mingleth himself with his Desire and Imagination , in order to poison us in Soul and Flesh, and to bring us into false and evil Desires , as also into Infirmity and Misery . Turn away these evil Influences by thy holy Power Jesus from our Souls and Spirits, that they may not touch us ; and let thy good and hoi y Angel stand by us to turn away their noxious Effects from our Bodies. %
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.
1O my noble Vine, I beseech thee give Sap to me thy Branch; that I may bud and grow in thy Strength and Sap , in thy Essence ; beget in me true Strength by thy Strength. O sweet Love, art thou not my Light? Enlighten thou my poor Soul in its close Prison, in Flesh and Blood. Bring it into the right Way. Destroy the Will of the Devil , and bring my Body through the whole Course of this World, through the Chamber of Death, into thy Death and Rest ; that at the last Day it rnay arise in thee from thy Death , and live in thee forever. O teach mb what I must do in thee : I beseech thee be thou my tvilling , knowing ; and doing ; and let me go no whither without thee.' I yi^ld myself wholly up to thee. A men. A PRAYER. For obtaining the Divine Working , Protection , and Government ; showing also how the Mind should work with and Jn God , in Christ the Free o f Fife. O THOU Living Fountain, in Thee I lift up the Desire of my Soul, and cry with my Desire to enter through the IFfe of my Saviour Jesus Christ into thee.
2O thou Life and Power of God, awaken thyself in the Hunger of my Soul with thy Desire ofl.ove, through the Thirst which Jesus Christ had upon the Cross after us Men, and carry my weak Strength through by thy mighty Hand in thy Spirit ; be thou the Working and Will in me with thine own Strength. Blossom in the Strength of Jesus Christ in me, that I may bring forth Praise unto thee, the true Fruit of thy Kingdom. O let my Heart and Desire never depart from thee more. But I swim in Vanity, in this Valley of Misery, in this outward Earthly Flesh and Blood. And my Soul and noble Image , which is according to thy Similitude, is encompassed with Enemies on every Side ,* with the Desire of the Devil against me, with the Desire of Vanity in Flesh and Blood ; also with all the Opposition of wicked Men who know not thy Name. And I swim with my outward Life in the Properties of the Stars and Elements , having *my Enemies lying in wait for me everywhere, inwardly and outwardly , together with Death, the Destroyer of this vain Life. I fly therefore to thee, O holy Strength of Go D, seeing thou hast i6 t The JVay to Qhrist .
3manifested thyself with thy loving Mercy in our Humanity, through thy holy Name Jesus , and hast also given ifc/to be a Companion and Guide in us. I beseech thee let His Angels that minister to Him, attend upon the Souls of me and mine, and encamp themselves about us, and defend us from the fiery Darts of the Desire of that Wicked One, which he shooteth into us daily by the Curse of the Anger of God which is awakened in our Earthly Flesh. Keep back by thy Divine Strength the malignant Influence of the Slat's in their Opposition ; wherein the Wicked Enemy of Mankind mingleth himself with his Desire and Imagination , in order to poison us in Soul and Flesh, and to bring us into false and evil Desires , as also into Infirmity and Misery . Turn away these evil Influences by thy holy Power Jesus from our Souls and Spirits, that they may not touch us ; and let thy good and hoi y Angel stand by us to turn away their noxious Effects from our Bodies. %
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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