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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.
1" * e.g. “ There are as many Blasphemies in this Shoemaker’s book as there are lines : it smells of shoemaker’s pitch and blacking. May this insufferable stench be far from us.” *x\ ‘Prefatory {Memoir. a Barrister of the Inner Temple, that we owe an excellent translation of Boehme s works into English, which he produced between the years 1646 and 1662. It is -stated that Henry Moore, a Professor at Cambridge , % was instructed to examine JACOB Boehme’s works and to report against them. He examined them, but, strange to say, he pronounced in their favour ; although he owned there were some things in them which he did not then understand, and added, that those who treated Boehme with contempt were, in his opinion, ignorant and mentally blind. The Professor was convinced that Jacob Boehme had been specially awakened for the purpose of correcting and guiding those who believed merely 'in an external Christ, without regard to having the Spirit of Christ within themselves. In the month of August , 1624, the Primate GRlibORY RICHTER died,* having had the mortification of seeing one of his sons become an ardent disciple of Jacob Boehme, whose works he had copied and circulated ; and a few months later, the man whom the Primate had so ruthlessly reviled and persecuted also died.
2As to the manner of JACOB BOEHME’S death, it is stated that, while staying with a Nobleman in Silesia , he was taken with a fever produced by gastric disease. At his request he was carried back to (joei'litz , where he was attended by his old friend, Dr. Tobias KOBER. On his arrival, he told his friend that he was dying, and that he was quite willing to die according to the Will of God, adding : “ In three days’ time you will see how God will make an end of me.” This appears to have been on Thursday , the 14th November , 1624.J* On the following Sunday morning, shortly after midnight, he called his son Tobias to him, and asked him whether he could hear sounds of sweet music. Tobias said he could not ; and his father asked him to open the door of the room so that he could the better hear it. He then asked the hour, and when told he., said : “ My time is not yet ; three hours henc£ is my time” — as it proved. A little later he was overheard to say : “ Oh, Thou # According to Dr. Martensen, who quotes from Frankenberg’s Biography ; but according to Dr. Hartmann, Richter survived Jucob Boehme. There does not appear to have been miigh difference between Richter and his successor in their treatment of Boehme.
3f There appears to be some confusion as tp the date of Jacob Boehme’s death, by his Biographers. According to the M New Style ” it occurred on Sunday, the 17 th November , 1624, as recorded on his gravestone; but according to the “ Old Style” it occurred on Sunday , the 21 st November , in that year. ‘Prefatory ^Memoir . xi. strong God of Sabaoth, deliver me according to Thy. Will,” and immediately afterwards, “ Thou crucified Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, and take me to Thyself in Thy kingdom.” He afterwards gave his Wife directions as to his Manuscripts and other matters, and told her that she would not long survive him : which prediction was fulfilled, as she died of the Plague hi the following year. It is very beautifully related that towards the end his* Spirit seemed to be kept from departing solely by the loving looks of his eldest son, who constantly attended him ; but, at Six O'clock on Sunday morning, the lyth of November , 1624, he suddenly bade them Farewell, witl\a smile, and said, “ Now I enter Paradise ” — th«i supreme moment arrived — and his Spirit was gone. A FEW months before JACOB BOEHME’S death, in one of bus Letters he # wrote as follows: “ That which my Native Country casteth away, other Nations will take up.” His writings are now universally known, and . there is scarcely a civilized country in the language of which they may not be found.
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.
1" * e.g. “ There are as many Blasphemies in this Shoemaker’s book as there are lines : it smells of shoemaker’s pitch and blacking. May this insufferable stench be far from us.” *x\ ‘Prefatory {Memoir. a Barrister of the Inner Temple, that we owe an excellent translation of Boehme s works into English, which he produced between the years 1646 and 1662. It is -stated that Henry Moore, a Professor at Cambridge , % was instructed to examine JACOB Boehme’s works and to report against them. He examined them, but, strange to say, he pronounced in their favour ; although he owned there were some things in them which he did not then understand, and added, that those who treated Boehme with contempt were, in his opinion, ignorant and mentally blind. The Professor was convinced that Jacob Boehme had been specially awakened for the purpose of correcting and guiding those who believed merely 'in an external Christ, without regard to having the Spirit of Christ within themselves. In the month of August , 1624, the Primate GRlibORY RICHTER died,* having had the mortification of seeing one of his sons become an ardent disciple of Jacob Boehme, whose works he had copied and circulated ; and a few months later, the man whom the Primate had so ruthlessly reviled and persecuted also died.
2As to the manner of JACOB BOEHME’S death, it is stated that, while staying with a Nobleman in Silesia , he was taken with a fever produced by gastric disease. At his request he was carried back to (joei'litz , where he was attended by his old friend, Dr. Tobias KOBER. On his arrival, he told his friend that he was dying, and that he was quite willing to die according to the Will of God, adding : “ In three days’ time you will see how God will make an end of me.” This appears to have been on Thursday , the 14th November , 1624.J* On the following Sunday morning, shortly after midnight, he called his son Tobias to him, and asked him whether he could hear sounds of sweet music. Tobias said he could not ; and his father asked him to open the door of the room so that he could the better hear it. He then asked the hour, and when told he., said : “ My time is not yet ; three hours henc£ is my time” — as it proved. A little later he was overheard to say : “ Oh, Thou # According to Dr. Martensen, who quotes from Frankenberg’s Biography ; but according to Dr. Hartmann, Richter survived Jucob Boehme. There does not appear to have been miigh difference between Richter and his successor in their treatment of Boehme.
3f There appears to be some confusion as tp the date of Jacob Boehme’s death, by his Biographers. According to the M New Style ” it occurred on Sunday, the 17 th November , 1624, as recorded on his gravestone; but according to the “ Old Style” it occurred on Sunday , the 21 st November , in that year. ‘Prefatory ^Memoir . xi. strong God of Sabaoth, deliver me according to Thy. Will,” and immediately afterwards, “ Thou crucified Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy upon me, and take me to Thyself in Thy kingdom.” He afterwards gave his Wife directions as to his Manuscripts and other matters, and told her that she would not long survive him : which prediction was fulfilled, as she died of the Plague hi the following year. It is very beautifully related that towards the end his* Spirit seemed to be kept from departing solely by the loving looks of his eldest son, who constantly attended him ; but, at Six O'clock on Sunday morning, the lyth of November , 1624, he suddenly bade them Farewell, witl\a smile, and said, “ Now I enter Paradise ” — th«i supreme moment arrived — and his Spirit was gone. A FEW months before JACOB BOEHME’S death, in one of bus Letters he # wrote as follows: “ That which my Native Country casteth away, other Nations will take up.” His writings are now universally known, and . there is scarcely a civilized country in the language of which they may not be found.
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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