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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.
1pleasing to Qod, but what He Himself doth by the Will, as his Instrument For there is but One only Qod in the Essence of all Essences , and all That which worketh with Him in that Essence , is one Spirit with Him ; but that which worketh in itself, in its own Will, is in itself only and not in His Dominion . It is indeed under that universal Dominion of Nature, whereby He holdeth Of "True Resignation . subject fro Him every Life evil and good, but not under that special Divine (government in Himself, which comprehendeth the food only. ‘ Nothing is Divine, which walketh and worketh not in ‘ the Will of God.’ 23. Christ saith, * Every Plant which my Heavenly Father hath ‘ not planted, shall be rooted out and burned in the Fire.’ All the Works of Man which he hath wrought without the Will of God, shall be burnt up in the last Fire and given to the Wrath of God, viz., to the Pit of Darkness, to recreate itself withal. For Christ saith, ‘ He that is not with me is against me, and he that ‘ gathereth not with me scattereth.’ Whosoever worketh, and doth it not in a resigned Will with Confidence in God, doth but make desolate and scatter ; it is not acceptable to Gob. For nothing is pleasing to Him but that which He Willeth with His Spirit, and doth by His own Instrument.
224. Therefore, whatsoever is done by the Conclusions of human Self, in Matters of Religion, is a mere Fiction. It is Babel, and but a W'ork of the Stars, and of the outward World, and not acknowledged by God to be His Work. It is only the Play of the wrestling Wheel of Nature, wherein Good and Evil wrestle one with the other ; what the one buildeth the other destroyeth. And this is the great Misery of the vain Turmoils of Men, the Issue whereof must be left to the fudgment of God. 25. Whosoever therefore stirreth or laboureth much in such Turmoil, worketh but for the Judgment of God ; for no whit of it is perfect and permanent. It must all be separated in the Putrefaction. For that which is wrought in the Anger of God will be received thereby, and kept in the Mystery of its Desire to the Day of God’S fudgment, when Evil and food shall be severed. 26. But if a Man turn and go forth from himself, and enter into the Will of fod, then also that food which hath been wrought in and by him, shall be freed from the Evil which he hath wrought As Isaiah saith, ‘though your Sins be as red as Scarlet, yet if ye ‘turn and repent, they shall become as Wool, yea, as white as ‘ Snow.’ For the Evil shall be swallowed up in the Wrath of God into Death, and the food shall spring forth, as a Sprout, out of the wild Earth. 48 The JVay to Qhrist . Chapter III.
3W HOSOEVER therefore intendeth to do any good and perfect Work , wherein he hopeth eternally to rejoice. let him depart from himself viz., from his own Desire and enter into Resignation , into the Will of God, and work with God. And then though the earthly Desire of Self in Flesh and Blood cleaveth to him, yet if the Will of the Soul doth not receive that Desire into it, Self cannot perform, any Work. For the resigned Will continually destroyeth the Substance of Self again, so that the Anger of God cannot reach it. And if it should happen to reach it sometimes, as may be the Case, yet the resigned Will , prevaileth witft its superior Power ; and then it beareth the Figure of a Victorious Work in the Wonders, and may inherit the Filiation or Childship. Therefore it is not good to speak or do any Thing, when Reason is kindled in and by the Desire of Self. Because that Desire springeth from, and worketh in, the Anger of God ; by which a Man would suffer Loss. For his Work is brought into that Anger and kept there to the Great Day of God’s Judgment. 2. Every evil or false Desire, whereby a Man deviseth how to gather to himself by Craft much worldly Gain from his Neighbour to his Neighbour’s Hurt, is taken into the Anger of God and belongeth to the Judgment. Wherein all Things shall be made manifest , and every Power and Essence , every Cause and Effect, both in good and evil, shall be presented to everyone in the Mystery of the Revelation.
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.
1pleasing to Qod, but what He Himself doth by the Will, as his Instrument For there is but One only Qod in the Essence of all Essences , and all That which worketh with Him in that Essence , is one Spirit with Him ; but that which worketh in itself, in its own Will, is in itself only and not in His Dominion . It is indeed under that universal Dominion of Nature, whereby He holdeth Of "True Resignation . subject fro Him every Life evil and good, but not under that special Divine (government in Himself, which comprehendeth the food only. ‘ Nothing is Divine, which walketh and worketh not in ‘ the Will of God.’ 23. Christ saith, * Every Plant which my Heavenly Father hath ‘ not planted, shall be rooted out and burned in the Fire.’ All the Works of Man which he hath wrought without the Will of God, shall be burnt up in the last Fire and given to the Wrath of God, viz., to the Pit of Darkness, to recreate itself withal. For Christ saith, ‘ He that is not with me is against me, and he that ‘ gathereth not with me scattereth.’ Whosoever worketh, and doth it not in a resigned Will with Confidence in God, doth but make desolate and scatter ; it is not acceptable to Gob. For nothing is pleasing to Him but that which He Willeth with His Spirit, and doth by His own Instrument.
224. Therefore, whatsoever is done by the Conclusions of human Self, in Matters of Religion, is a mere Fiction. It is Babel, and but a W'ork of the Stars, and of the outward World, and not acknowledged by God to be His Work. It is only the Play of the wrestling Wheel of Nature, wherein Good and Evil wrestle one with the other ; what the one buildeth the other destroyeth. And this is the great Misery of the vain Turmoils of Men, the Issue whereof must be left to the fudgment of God. 25. Whosoever therefore stirreth or laboureth much in such Turmoil, worketh but for the Judgment of God ; for no whit of it is perfect and permanent. It must all be separated in the Putrefaction. For that which is wrought in the Anger of God will be received thereby, and kept in the Mystery of its Desire to the Day of God’S fudgment, when Evil and food shall be severed. 26. But if a Man turn and go forth from himself, and enter into the Will of fod, then also that food which hath been wrought in and by him, shall be freed from the Evil which he hath wrought As Isaiah saith, ‘though your Sins be as red as Scarlet, yet if ye ‘turn and repent, they shall become as Wool, yea, as white as ‘ Snow.’ For the Evil shall be swallowed up in the Wrath of God into Death, and the food shall spring forth, as a Sprout, out of the wild Earth. 48 The JVay to Qhrist . Chapter III.
3W HOSOEVER therefore intendeth to do any good and perfect Work , wherein he hopeth eternally to rejoice. let him depart from himself viz., from his own Desire and enter into Resignation , into the Will of God, and work with God. And then though the earthly Desire of Self in Flesh and Blood cleaveth to him, yet if the Will of the Soul doth not receive that Desire into it, Self cannot perform, any Work. For the resigned Will continually destroyeth the Substance of Self again, so that the Anger of God cannot reach it. And if it should happen to reach it sometimes, as may be the Case, yet the resigned Will , prevaileth witft its superior Power ; and then it beareth the Figure of a Victorious Work in the Wonders, and may inherit the Filiation or Childship. Therefore it is not good to speak or do any Thing, when Reason is kindled in and by the Desire of Self. Because that Desire springeth from, and worketh in, the Anger of God ; by which a Man would suffer Loss. For his Work is brought into that Anger and kept there to the Great Day of God’s Judgment. 2. Every evil or false Desire, whereby a Man deviseth how to gather to himself by Craft much worldly Gain from his Neighbour to his Neighbour’s Hurt, is taken into the Anger of God and belongeth to the Judgment. Wherein all Things shall be made manifest , and every Power and Essence , every Cause and Effect, both in good and evil, shall be presented to everyone in the Mystery of the Revelation.
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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