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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.
1184. The Testaments of Christ are nothing else but a loving Bond or Brotherly Covenant, wherewith God in Christ bindeth himself to us and us to him. All teaching, willing, living, and doing, must imply, aim at, and refer to, that. All teaching and doing otherwise, whatsoever it be, is Babel and a Fiction; a mere graven Image of Pride in unprofitable Judgings, a disturbing of the World, and an Hypocrisy of the Devil, wherewith he blfndeth Simplicity. 185. Every Preacher void of the Spirit of Qod , who without Divine Knowledge, setteth himself up for a Teacher of Divine Things, pretending to serve God thereby, is false, and doth but serve the Belly , his Idol, and his own proud insolent Mind, in • desiring to be honoured on that Account, and esteemed Holy , or a Divine in Holy Orders. He beareth an Office, to which he is set apart and chosen by the Children of Men, who do but flatter him, and for Favour have ordained him thereunto. 1 86. Christ said, ‘\yhosoever entereth not by the Door/ that is, through his Spirit, * into the Sheepfold, but climbeth up some tyo rfhe W'ay to Qhrist . 1 — - — ■ — ; ‘other Way, the same is a Thief and a Murderer, and the Sheep ‘follow him not, for they know not his Voice.’
2187. He hath not the Voice of the Spirit of Qod, but the Voice of his own Art and Learning only ; the Mar- teacheth, and not the Spirit of Qod. But Christ saith, ‘ Every Plant which my ‘ Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be plucked up by the ‘ Roots.’ l88i How then will he that is Ungodly plant Heavenly Plants, when he hath no Seed alive in its Pozver in himself? Christ saith expressly, ‘The Sheep hear not his Voice, they follow him not.’ 189. The written Word is but an Instrument whereby the Spirit leadeth us to itself within usk That Word which will teach, must be living in the literal Word. The Spirit of Qod must be in the literal Sound ' or else none is a Teacher of God, but a mere Teacher of the Letter , a Knower of the Ifstory fSSA not of the Spirit of Qod in Christ. € 190. All that Men will serve God with, must be ^one in Faith , viz., in the Spirit. It is the Spirit that maketh the Work perfect, and acceptable in the Sight of God. All that a Man undertaketh and doeth in Faith, he doeth in the Spirit of Qod, which Spirit of Qod doth co-operate in the Work, and then it is acceptable to God. For He hath done it Himself, and His Power and Virtue is in it : It is Holy. , 191. But whatsoever is done in Self, without Faith, is but a Figure and Shell, or Husk, of a true Christian Work.
3192. If thou servest thy Brother, and doest it but in Hypocrisy, and givest him unwillingly, then thou servest not God. For thy Faith proceedeth not from Love, nor entereth into Hope, in thy Gift. Indeed thou servest thy Brother, and he for his Part thanketh God and blesseth thee, but thou blessest not him. For thou givest him thy Gift with a grudging Spirit, which entereth not into the Spirit of Qod, into the Hope of Faith ; therefore thy Gift is but half given, and thou hast but half thy Reward for it 193. The same is true of receivings. Gift. If any giveth in Faith, in Divine Hope, he blesseth his Gift by his Faith » But whoso receiveth it unthankfully, and murmureth in his Spirit, he curseth it in the Use or Enjoyment of it. Thus it is, that everyone shall have his -own; ‘ Whatsoever he soweth, that shall he ‘ also reap.’ 194. So likewise it is in the Office of teaching', ‘ whatsoever a ‘Man soweth, that also he reapeth.’ For if any Man sow good Seed from the Spirit of Christ, it sticketh in the good Heart, and bringeth forth good Fruit ; but in the wicked, who are not capable of receiving the good Seed, the Anger of God is stirred. 195. If any sow Contentions, Reproaches, and MisconstrueOf Regeneration. 9»i
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.
1184. The Testaments of Christ are nothing else but a loving Bond or Brotherly Covenant, wherewith God in Christ bindeth himself to us and us to him. All teaching, willing, living, and doing, must imply, aim at, and refer to, that. All teaching and doing otherwise, whatsoever it be, is Babel and a Fiction; a mere graven Image of Pride in unprofitable Judgings, a disturbing of the World, and an Hypocrisy of the Devil, wherewith he blfndeth Simplicity. 185. Every Preacher void of the Spirit of Qod , who without Divine Knowledge, setteth himself up for a Teacher of Divine Things, pretending to serve God thereby, is false, and doth but serve the Belly , his Idol, and his own proud insolent Mind, in • desiring to be honoured on that Account, and esteemed Holy , or a Divine in Holy Orders. He beareth an Office, to which he is set apart and chosen by the Children of Men, who do but flatter him, and for Favour have ordained him thereunto. 1 86. Christ said, ‘\yhosoever entereth not by the Door/ that is, through his Spirit, * into the Sheepfold, but climbeth up some tyo rfhe W'ay to Qhrist . 1 — - — ■ — ; ‘other Way, the same is a Thief and a Murderer, and the Sheep ‘follow him not, for they know not his Voice.’
2187. He hath not the Voice of the Spirit of Qod, but the Voice of his own Art and Learning only ; the Mar- teacheth, and not the Spirit of Qod. But Christ saith, ‘ Every Plant which my ‘ Heavenly Father hath not planted, shall be plucked up by the ‘ Roots.’ l88i How then will he that is Ungodly plant Heavenly Plants, when he hath no Seed alive in its Pozver in himself? Christ saith expressly, ‘The Sheep hear not his Voice, they follow him not.’ 189. The written Word is but an Instrument whereby the Spirit leadeth us to itself within usk That Word which will teach, must be living in the literal Word. The Spirit of Qod must be in the literal Sound ' or else none is a Teacher of God, but a mere Teacher of the Letter , a Knower of the Ifstory fSSA not of the Spirit of Qod in Christ. € 190. All that Men will serve God with, must be ^one in Faith , viz., in the Spirit. It is the Spirit that maketh the Work perfect, and acceptable in the Sight of God. All that a Man undertaketh and doeth in Faith, he doeth in the Spirit of Qod, which Spirit of Qod doth co-operate in the Work, and then it is acceptable to God. For He hath done it Himself, and His Power and Virtue is in it : It is Holy. , 191. But whatsoever is done in Self, without Faith, is but a Figure and Shell, or Husk, of a true Christian Work.
3192. If thou servest thy Brother, and doest it but in Hypocrisy, and givest him unwillingly, then thou servest not God. For thy Faith proceedeth not from Love, nor entereth into Hope, in thy Gift. Indeed thou servest thy Brother, and he for his Part thanketh God and blesseth thee, but thou blessest not him. For thou givest him thy Gift with a grudging Spirit, which entereth not into the Spirit of Qod, into the Hope of Faith ; therefore thy Gift is but half given, and thou hast but half thy Reward for it 193. The same is true of receivings. Gift. If any giveth in Faith, in Divine Hope, he blesseth his Gift by his Faith » But whoso receiveth it unthankfully, and murmureth in his Spirit, he curseth it in the Use or Enjoyment of it. Thus it is, that everyone shall have his -own; ‘ Whatsoever he soweth, that shall he ‘ also reap.’ 194. So likewise it is in the Office of teaching', ‘ whatsoever a ‘Man soweth, that also he reapeth.’ For if any Man sow good Seed from the Spirit of Christ, it sticketh in the good Heart, and bringeth forth good Fruit ; but in the wicked, who are not capable of receiving the good Seed, the Anger of God is stirred. 195. If any sow Contentions, Reproaches, and MisconstrueOf Regeneration. 9»i
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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