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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.
131. And though all the Devils should press hard upon it, and enter with their Desire into the fleshly Mind> yet the Will of the Soul must stand still and hide itself in the Death of Christy Willing and desiring nothing but the Mercy of God. 32. t No Hypocritical Flattery, or outward Comforting ourselves, availeth at all ; as when Men will cover Sin and Iniquity in the Flesh with the Satisfaction of Christ , and remain in Self still. Christ saith, ‘ Except ye turn and become as Children, ye shall ‘not see the Kingdom of God.’ The Mind must become as wholly new, as in a Child, that knowe^h nothing of Iqin. Christ saith also, 1 Ye must be born anew, or else ye shall not see the ‘ Kingdom of God/ There must arise a Will wholly nez£, in the Death of Christ. It must be brought forth o\fc of Christ's Incarnation or entering into the Hufnanity, and rise in Christ's Resurrection . * 33. Now before this can be done, the Will of the Soul must die in the Death of Christ ; for in Adam it received the Son of the Bond-Woman, viz.. Sin, into it. This the Will must first cast out, and the poor captive Soul must wrap itself up in the Death of Christ earnestly , with all the Power it hath , so that the Son of the Bond - Woman, viz., the Sin that is in it, may die in the Death of Christ.
234. In very deed Sin must die in the Will of the Soul, or else there can be no Vision of God. For the earthly Will, in Sin and the Wrathful Nature, shall not see God, It is the Regenerated Nature only that is capable of the Divine Vision, or Enjoyment. The Soul must put on the Spirit and Flesh of Christ ; it cannot inherit the Kingdom of God in this earthly Tabernacle . For the Kingdom of Sin hangeth to it outwardly, which must putrify in the Earth, and rise again in ?iew Pozver. 35. Hypocrisy, Flattery, and verbal Forgiveness, avail nothing. We must be Children , not by outzvard Imputation , but by being born of Qod from within, in the new Man, which is resigned in and to God. 36. All such Flattery of ourselves by saying, 4 Christ hath paid * the Ransom, and made Satisfaction for Sin/ and that he died for our Sins , if we also do not die from Sin in him, and put on his Merit in new Obedience, and live therein, is a false and vain Comfort. 37. He that is a bitter Enemy and Hater of Sin, can and may comfort himself with the Sufferings of Christ . He that doth not willingly see, hear , or taste Sin , but is at Enmity with it, and would willingly always do that which is well and right, if he knew Of 'True Resignation, 55 but what he ought to do ; such a one hath indeed put on the Spirit and Will of Christ , and is His true Disciple .
338. But the outward Flattery of being accounted a Child of God by Imputation or external Application , is false and vain. The Work done in, or by, the outward Flesh only, doth not make the Child of Qod, but the working of Christ in the Spirit maketh, and indeed is , the Child of Qod ’ Which inward working is so powerful that it shineth forth as a new Light , in the outward Life*; and proveth itself to be the Child of Qod by its external Conduct and Actions. 39. For if the Eye of the Soul be Light , then the whole Body is Light in all its Members. • Now if any boast himself to be the Child of Cpody and yet suffereth the Body to burn in Sins , he is no true Child , nor capable of the Inheritance ; but lieth bound by tfie Chains of the Devil in gross Darkness . And if he doth not find in himself an earnest and sincere Desire of Welldoing in Love, then his Pretence to the Childship is but an Invention of Reason proceeding from Self He cannot see God, unless he be born anew , and show forth by his Poiver and Life , that he is His true Child. For there is no Fire but hath Light in it ; and if the Divine Fire be in the Mind, it will shine forth , and the Mind will do that which God will have to be done. 40. But perhaps thou wilt say, ‘ I have a Will indeed to do so; ‘ I would willingly do it, but I am so hindered that I cannot ’
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.
131. And though all the Devils should press hard upon it, and enter with their Desire into the fleshly Mind> yet the Will of the Soul must stand still and hide itself in the Death of Christy Willing and desiring nothing but the Mercy of God. 32. t No Hypocritical Flattery, or outward Comforting ourselves, availeth at all ; as when Men will cover Sin and Iniquity in the Flesh with the Satisfaction of Christ , and remain in Self still. Christ saith, ‘ Except ye turn and become as Children, ye shall ‘not see the Kingdom of God.’ The Mind must become as wholly new, as in a Child, that knowe^h nothing of Iqin. Christ saith also, 1 Ye must be born anew, or else ye shall not see the ‘ Kingdom of God/ There must arise a Will wholly nez£, in the Death of Christ. It must be brought forth o\fc of Christ's Incarnation or entering into the Hufnanity, and rise in Christ's Resurrection . * 33. Now before this can be done, the Will of the Soul must die in the Death of Christ ; for in Adam it received the Son of the Bond-Woman, viz.. Sin, into it. This the Will must first cast out, and the poor captive Soul must wrap itself up in the Death of Christ earnestly , with all the Power it hath , so that the Son of the Bond - Woman, viz., the Sin that is in it, may die in the Death of Christ.
234. In very deed Sin must die in the Will of the Soul, or else there can be no Vision of God. For the earthly Will, in Sin and the Wrathful Nature, shall not see God, It is the Regenerated Nature only that is capable of the Divine Vision, or Enjoyment. The Soul must put on the Spirit and Flesh of Christ ; it cannot inherit the Kingdom of God in this earthly Tabernacle . For the Kingdom of Sin hangeth to it outwardly, which must putrify in the Earth, and rise again in ?iew Pozver. 35. Hypocrisy, Flattery, and verbal Forgiveness, avail nothing. We must be Children , not by outzvard Imputation , but by being born of Qod from within, in the new Man, which is resigned in and to God. 36. All such Flattery of ourselves by saying, 4 Christ hath paid * the Ransom, and made Satisfaction for Sin/ and that he died for our Sins , if we also do not die from Sin in him, and put on his Merit in new Obedience, and live therein, is a false and vain Comfort. 37. He that is a bitter Enemy and Hater of Sin, can and may comfort himself with the Sufferings of Christ . He that doth not willingly see, hear , or taste Sin , but is at Enmity with it, and would willingly always do that which is well and right, if he knew Of 'True Resignation, 55 but what he ought to do ; such a one hath indeed put on the Spirit and Will of Christ , and is His true Disciple .
338. But the outward Flattery of being accounted a Child of God by Imputation or external Application , is false and vain. The Work done in, or by, the outward Flesh only, doth not make the Child of Qod, but the working of Christ in the Spirit maketh, and indeed is , the Child of Qod ’ Which inward working is so powerful that it shineth forth as a new Light , in the outward Life*; and proveth itself to be the Child of Qod by its external Conduct and Actions. 39. For if the Eye of the Soul be Light , then the whole Body is Light in all its Members. • Now if any boast himself to be the Child of Cpody and yet suffereth the Body to burn in Sins , he is no true Child , nor capable of the Inheritance ; but lieth bound by tfie Chains of the Devil in gross Darkness . And if he doth not find in himself an earnest and sincere Desire of Welldoing in Love, then his Pretence to the Childship is but an Invention of Reason proceeding from Self He cannot see God, unless he be born anew , and show forth by his Poiver and Life , that he is His true Child. For there is no Fire but hath Light in it ; and if the Divine Fire be in the Mind, it will shine forth , and the Mind will do that which God will have to be done. 40. But perhaps thou wilt say, ‘ I have a Will indeed to do so; ‘ I would willingly do it, but I am so hindered that I cannot ’
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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