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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 great Love and sweet Strength Jesus , thou Fountain of # Divine Sweetness , flowing out of the great eternal Name JEHOVAH, I cry with the Desire of my Soul to come into thee. My St>ul crieth to come into that Spirit , from which it was breathed into the Body, and which hath formed it in the Likeness of GOD. It desireth in its Thirst to get the sweet Fountain which springeth from JEHOVAH into itself, to refresh God’s Breath of Fire, which itself is, that so the sweet Love of JESUS may rise in its Breath of Fire , through the Fountain JESUS springing out of JEHOVAH. That CHRIST the Holy One may be manifested and become Man in my disappeared Image of Heavenly Spiritual Corporeality , and that my poor Soul may receive its beloved Bride again into its Arms, with whom it may rejoice for ever. O IMMANUEL! Thou Wedding-Chamber , God and Man, I yield myself up into the Arms of thy Desire towards us, in us; it is Thyself whom I desire. O blot out the Anger of thy Father with thy Love in me, and manifest thy Strength in my Weakness, that I may overcome and tame the Evil of Flesh and Blood , and serve thee in Holiness and Righteousness .
2O thou great and most holy Name and Majesty of God, JEHOVAH, which hast stirred thyself with thy most sweet Power JESUS, in the Limit of the Covenanted Promise to our Father Adam, in the Woman" s Seed ; in the Virgin Mary, in our disappeared Heavenly Humanity , and brought the Living Essen - tiality of thy Holy Power in the Virgin Wisdom of God, into our Humanity, which was extingttished as to thee ; and hast given it to us, to be our Life , Regeneration , and Victory ; I entreat thee 1 with all my Strength, beget a new Holy Life in me, by thy sweet Power JESUS, that I may be in thee and thou in me ; that so Of \ True Repentance . thy K%igdorn may be made manifest in me, and the Will and Conversion of my Soul may be in Heaven . 0 gresft and incomprehensible God, thou who fillest all Things, be thou my Heaven in which my new Birth in CHRIST JESUS may dwell: Let my Spirit be the stringed Instrument, Harmony, Sound, and Joy of thy Holy Spirit . Strike the Strings in me, in thy Regenerate Image , and carry through my Harmony ipto thy Divine Kingdom of Joy , in the great Love of God, in the Wonders of thy Glory and Majesty, in the Communion of the Holy Angelical Harmony. Build up the Holy City Zion in me, in which as Children of Christ we all live together in one City, which is Christ in us. I^to thee I wholfy plunge myself, do with me*what thou pleasest. Amen . A PRAYER.
3To be used by a Soul in "Tribulation under the Cross of Christ , when it is assaulted by its outward Enemies ; who persecute and hate it for being in the Spirit of Christy and slander and reproach it as an Evil-Doer. P OOR Man that I am ; I walk full of Anguish and Trouble in my Return towards my Native Country, from whence I wandered in Adam, and am going back again through the Thistles and Thorns of this troublesome World. O GOD my Father, the Briars tear me on every Side, and I am afflicted and despised by my Enemies. They scorn my Soul, and revile it as an Evil Doer , who hath broken Faith with them; they deride my walking towards thee, and account it foolish. They think I am Senseless , because I walk in this Strait and Thorny Rath, and go not along with them in their Hypocritical Broad Way.
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 great Love and sweet Strength Jesus , thou Fountain of # Divine Sweetness , flowing out of the great eternal Name JEHOVAH, I cry with the Desire of my Soul to come into thee. My St>ul crieth to come into that Spirit , from which it was breathed into the Body, and which hath formed it in the Likeness of GOD. It desireth in its Thirst to get the sweet Fountain which springeth from JEHOVAH into itself, to refresh God’s Breath of Fire, which itself is, that so the sweet Love of JESUS may rise in its Breath of Fire , through the Fountain JESUS springing out of JEHOVAH. That CHRIST the Holy One may be manifested and become Man in my disappeared Image of Heavenly Spiritual Corporeality , and that my poor Soul may receive its beloved Bride again into its Arms, with whom it may rejoice for ever. O IMMANUEL! Thou Wedding-Chamber , God and Man, I yield myself up into the Arms of thy Desire towards us, in us; it is Thyself whom I desire. O blot out the Anger of thy Father with thy Love in me, and manifest thy Strength in my Weakness, that I may overcome and tame the Evil of Flesh and Blood , and serve thee in Holiness and Righteousness .
2O thou great and most holy Name and Majesty of God, JEHOVAH, which hast stirred thyself with thy most sweet Power JESUS, in the Limit of the Covenanted Promise to our Father Adam, in the Woman" s Seed ; in the Virgin Mary, in our disappeared Heavenly Humanity , and brought the Living Essen - tiality of thy Holy Power in the Virgin Wisdom of God, into our Humanity, which was extingttished as to thee ; and hast given it to us, to be our Life , Regeneration , and Victory ; I entreat thee 1 with all my Strength, beget a new Holy Life in me, by thy sweet Power JESUS, that I may be in thee and thou in me ; that so Of \ True Repentance . thy K%igdorn may be made manifest in me, and the Will and Conversion of my Soul may be in Heaven . 0 gresft and incomprehensible God, thou who fillest all Things, be thou my Heaven in which my new Birth in CHRIST JESUS may dwell: Let my Spirit be the stringed Instrument, Harmony, Sound, and Joy of thy Holy Spirit . Strike the Strings in me, in thy Regenerate Image , and carry through my Harmony ipto thy Divine Kingdom of Joy , in the great Love of God, in the Wonders of thy Glory and Majesty, in the Communion of the Holy Angelical Harmony. Build up the Holy City Zion in me, in which as Children of Christ we all live together in one City, which is Christ in us. I^to thee I wholfy plunge myself, do with me*what thou pleasest. Amen . A PRAYER.
3To be used by a Soul in "Tribulation under the Cross of Christ , when it is assaulted by its outward Enemies ; who persecute and hate it for being in the Spirit of Christy and slander and reproach it as an Evil-Doer. P OOR Man that I am ; I walk full of Anguish and Trouble in my Return towards my Native Country, from whence I wandered in Adam, and am going back again through the Thistles and Thorns of this troublesome World. O GOD my Father, the Briars tear me on every Side, and I am afflicted and despised by my Enemies. They scorn my Soul, and revile it as an Evil Doer , who hath broken Faith with them; they deride my walking towards thee, and account it foolish. They think I am Senseless , because I walk in this Strait and Thorny Rath, and go not along with them in their Hypocritical Broad Way.
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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