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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.
1174- Knowledge serves only to this End, viz., to know that we have lost the Divine Power, in Adam, and are become now inclined to Sin ; that we have evil Properties in us, and that doing Evil pleaseth not God ; so that with our Knowledge we might learn to do Right. Now if we have the Power of God in us, and desire with all our Hearts to act and to live aright, then our Knowledge is but our Sport, or Matter of Pleasure, wherein we rejoice. 175. For true Knowledge is the Manifestation of the Spirit of Qod through the eternal Wisdom. He knoweth what He will in His Children ; He showeth his Wisdom and Wonders by his Children, as the Earth putteth forth its various Flowers. 176. Now if we dwell one with another, like humble Children , in the Spirit of Christ, one rejoicing at the Gift and Knowledge of another, who would judge or condemn us? WhowjudgdffT o? condemneth the Birds in the Woods, .that praise the Lord of all Beings with various Voices, every one in its own Essence? Doth the Spirit of Qod reprove them for not bringing their Voices into one Harmony? Doth not the Melody of therm-all proceed from His Power, and do they not sport before Him.
2177. Those Men therefore that strive and wrangle about the Knowledge and Will of Qod, and despise one another on that Account, are more foolish than the Birds in the Woods, and the wild Beasts that have no true Understanding. They are more unprojitable in the Sight of the Holy God than the Flowers of the Field, which stand still in quiet Submission to the Spirit of Qod, and suffer Him to manifest the Divine Wisdom and Power through them. Yea, such Men are worse than Thistles and Thorns that grow among fair Flowers, for they at least stand still and are quiet, whereas those Wranglers are like the ravenous Beasts and Birds of Prey, which fright the other Birds from singing and praising God. 178. In short ; they are the Issue, Branches or Sprouts of the Devil in the Anger of God, who, notwithstanding must by their very tormenting be made to serve the LORD ; for by their plaguing and persecuting, they press out the Sap through the Essence of the Children of Qod so, that they move and stir themselves in the Spirit of Qod, with praying and continual sighing, in which Exercise of their Powers the Spirit of Qod moveth Himself in them. " . 179. For thereby the Desire is exerted, and so the Children of Cjod grow green, flourish, and bring forth Fruit ; for the Children of Qod, are manifested in Tribulation ; as the Scripture saith, ‘ When thou chastiseth them, they cry fervently to thee.’ Of 7 \ Regeneration . 89 ____ » Chapter VIII.
3Wherein Christian 'Religion consisteth, and how Men should serve God and their Brethren . A LL Christian Religion wholly consisteth in this, to learn to know ourselves : Whence we are come, and What we are ; how we are gone forth from the Unity into Dissension , Wickedness , Unrighteousness ; how we have awakened and stirred up these Evils in us ; and how we may be delivered from them again, and recover our original Blessedness . 18 1. First how we were in the Unity , when we were the * Cttiidrm of Qod in Adam before he fell. Secondly , how we are now in Dissension and pisunion , in Strife and Contrariety. Thirdly * whither we go when we pass out of this corruptible condition ; whither with the immortal , and whither with the mortal Part. 182. And lastly , how we may come forth from Disunion and Vanity , and enter again into that one Tree, Christ in us, out of which we all sprung in Adam. In these Four Points all the necessary Knowledge of a Christian consisteth. 183. So that we need not strive about any Thing; we have no Cause of Contention with each other. Let everyone only exercise himself in learning how he may enter again into the Love of Qod and his Brother.
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.
1174- Knowledge serves only to this End, viz., to know that we have lost the Divine Power, in Adam, and are become now inclined to Sin ; that we have evil Properties in us, and that doing Evil pleaseth not God ; so that with our Knowledge we might learn to do Right. Now if we have the Power of God in us, and desire with all our Hearts to act and to live aright, then our Knowledge is but our Sport, or Matter of Pleasure, wherein we rejoice. 175. For true Knowledge is the Manifestation of the Spirit of Qod through the eternal Wisdom. He knoweth what He will in His Children ; He showeth his Wisdom and Wonders by his Children, as the Earth putteth forth its various Flowers. 176. Now if we dwell one with another, like humble Children , in the Spirit of Christ, one rejoicing at the Gift and Knowledge of another, who would judge or condemn us? WhowjudgdffT o? condemneth the Birds in the Woods, .that praise the Lord of all Beings with various Voices, every one in its own Essence? Doth the Spirit of Qod reprove them for not bringing their Voices into one Harmony? Doth not the Melody of therm-all proceed from His Power, and do they not sport before Him.
2177. Those Men therefore that strive and wrangle about the Knowledge and Will of Qod, and despise one another on that Account, are more foolish than the Birds in the Woods, and the wild Beasts that have no true Understanding. They are more unprojitable in the Sight of the Holy God than the Flowers of the Field, which stand still in quiet Submission to the Spirit of Qod, and suffer Him to manifest the Divine Wisdom and Power through them. Yea, such Men are worse than Thistles and Thorns that grow among fair Flowers, for they at least stand still and are quiet, whereas those Wranglers are like the ravenous Beasts and Birds of Prey, which fright the other Birds from singing and praising God. 178. In short ; they are the Issue, Branches or Sprouts of the Devil in the Anger of God, who, notwithstanding must by their very tormenting be made to serve the LORD ; for by their plaguing and persecuting, they press out the Sap through the Essence of the Children of Qod so, that they move and stir themselves in the Spirit of Qod, with praying and continual sighing, in which Exercise of their Powers the Spirit of Qod moveth Himself in them. " . 179. For thereby the Desire is exerted, and so the Children of Cjod grow green, flourish, and bring forth Fruit ; for the Children of Qod, are manifested in Tribulation ; as the Scripture saith, ‘ When thou chastiseth them, they cry fervently to thee.’ Of 7 \ Regeneration . 89 ____ » Chapter VIII.
3Wherein Christian 'Religion consisteth, and how Men should serve God and their Brethren . A LL Christian Religion wholly consisteth in this, to learn to know ourselves : Whence we are come, and What we are ; how we are gone forth from the Unity into Dissension , Wickedness , Unrighteousness ; how we have awakened and stirred up these Evils in us ; and how we may be delivered from them again, and recover our original Blessedness . 18 1. First how we were in the Unity , when we were the * Cttiidrm of Qod in Adam before he fell. Secondly , how we are now in Dissension and pisunion , in Strife and Contrariety. Thirdly * whither we go when we pass out of this corruptible condition ; whither with the immortal , and whither with the mortal Part. 182. And lastly , how we may come forth from Disunion and Vanity , and enter again into that one Tree, Christ in us, out of which we all sprung in Adam. In these Four Points all the necessary Knowledge of a Christian consisteth. 183. So that we need not strive about any Thing; we have no Cause of Contention with each other. Let everyone only exercise himself in learning how he may enter again into the Love of Qod and his Brother.
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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