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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.
1No. 9 I will keep my P earl in myself, and dwell in the Heaven in thee, in thy extinguished , but now in me, revived , Humanity ; and reserve my Pearl for Paradise , until thou puttest away this Earthliness from thee, and then I will give it thee to possess. But I will readily present to thee my pleasant Countenance , and the sweet Rays of the Pearl \ during the Time of this Earthly Life. I will dwell with the Pearl itself in the inner Choir , and be thy faithful loving Bride . I cannot espouse myself with thy Earthly Flesh, for I am a Heavenly Queen, and my Kingdom is not of this World. Yet I will not cast thy outwai'd Life away, but refresh it often with my Rays of Love; for thy outward Humanity shall return again. But I cannot admit to my Embraces the Beast of Vanity , neither did God create it in Adam with a Purpose to have it so gross and earthly. But in Adam thy Desire , through the Power of its strong Lust, formed this Bestial (jrossness from and with all the Essences of the awakened Vanity of the Earthly Property, wherein Heat and Cold, Pain and Enmity , Division and Corruption, subsist.
2Now, my dear Love and Bridegroom , do but yield thyself up into my Will; I will not forsake thee in this Earthly Life in thy Danger. Though the Anger of God should pass upon thee, so that thou shouldst grow affrighted and disheartened, or shouldst fhink that I had deserted thee, yet I will be with thee and preserve thee, for thou thyself knowest not what thine Office is. Thou must in this Life’s Time work and bear Fruit. Thou art the Root . of this Pearl-Tree ; Branches must be produced out of thee, which must all be brought forth in Anguish. But I come forth together with thy Branches in their Sap , and produce Fruit upon thy 3 3 6 r Tthe Way to Qhrist . - — — .... — - — ~jZ
3taking's, and all ray Doings. Work thou so in me, that P may begin all Things to the Glory of thy Name, and accomplish them in Thy Love for the Good and Service of my Neighbour. Send thy Holy Angel along with me, to turn the Temptations of the Devil and corrupt Nature away from me. Preserve me from the Malice of evil Men , make all my Enemies reconcilable to. me, and bring my Mind into thy Vineyard, that I may labour in my Office and Employment, and behave as thy obedient Servant therein. Bless me, and all that I am to go about and do this Day, with the Blessing of thy Love and Mercy. Continue thy Qrace and Love in Jesus Christ upon me, and give me a Mind cheerfully to follow thy Leadings and execute thine Appointment. Let thy Holy Spirit guide me in my Beginning, and m/Progress, on to my last End, and be the Willing, Working , and Accomplishing of all in me. Amen. % " An Evening Prayer, When we have finished our daily Employment , and are going to Rest.
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.
1No. 9 I will keep my P earl in myself, and dwell in the Heaven in thee, in thy extinguished , but now in me, revived , Humanity ; and reserve my Pearl for Paradise , until thou puttest away this Earthliness from thee, and then I will give it thee to possess. But I will readily present to thee my pleasant Countenance , and the sweet Rays of the Pearl \ during the Time of this Earthly Life. I will dwell with the Pearl itself in the inner Choir , and be thy faithful loving Bride . I cannot espouse myself with thy Earthly Flesh, for I am a Heavenly Queen, and my Kingdom is not of this World. Yet I will not cast thy outwai'd Life away, but refresh it often with my Rays of Love; for thy outward Humanity shall return again. But I cannot admit to my Embraces the Beast of Vanity , neither did God create it in Adam with a Purpose to have it so gross and earthly. But in Adam thy Desire , through the Power of its strong Lust, formed this Bestial (jrossness from and with all the Essences of the awakened Vanity of the Earthly Property, wherein Heat and Cold, Pain and Enmity , Division and Corruption, subsist.
2Now, my dear Love and Bridegroom , do but yield thyself up into my Will; I will not forsake thee in this Earthly Life in thy Danger. Though the Anger of God should pass upon thee, so that thou shouldst grow affrighted and disheartened, or shouldst fhink that I had deserted thee, yet I will be with thee and preserve thee, for thou thyself knowest not what thine Office is. Thou must in this Life’s Time work and bear Fruit. Thou art the Root . of this Pearl-Tree ; Branches must be produced out of thee, which must all be brought forth in Anguish. But I come forth together with thy Branches in their Sap , and produce Fruit upon thy 3 3 6 r Tthe Way to Qhrist . - — — .... — - — ~jZ
3taking's, and all ray Doings. Work thou so in me, that P may begin all Things to the Glory of thy Name, and accomplish them in Thy Love for the Good and Service of my Neighbour. Send thy Holy Angel along with me, to turn the Temptations of the Devil and corrupt Nature away from me. Preserve me from the Malice of evil Men , make all my Enemies reconcilable to. me, and bring my Mind into thy Vineyard, that I may labour in my Office and Employment, and behave as thy obedient Servant therein. Bless me, and all that I am to go about and do this Day, with the Blessing of thy Love and Mercy. Continue thy Qrace and Love in Jesus Christ upon me, and give me a Mind cheerfully to follow thy Leadings and execute thine Appointment. Let thy Holy Spirit guide me in my Beginning, and m/Progress, on to my last End, and be the Willing, Working , and Accomplishing of all in me. Amen. % " An Evening Prayer, When we have finished our daily Employment , and are going to Rest.
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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