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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.
1Th$ Master. — If thy Will goeth forth from the Creatures , then the Creatures are forsaken in and by thee ; they are in the World, and thy Body only is with the Creatures , but in thy Spirit thou walkest with God. And if thy Will leaveth the Creatures , then the Creatures are dead in it, and live only in the JBody in the World ; and if thy Will doth not bring itself into * them, they cannot touch thy Soul. For St, Paul saith, ‘Our ‘Conversation is in Heaven;’ also, ‘Ye are the Temple of the ‘Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in you;’ so then, the Holy Qhost dwelleth in the Will, and the Creatures dwell in the Body . 11. The Scholar. — If the Holy Qhost dwell in the Will of 7 9,8 The TV ay to Qhrist . the Mind, how may I keep myself that He may not depart from me? THE MASTER. — Mark the Words of our Lord Jesus Christ; * If ‘you abide in my Word, then my Words abide in you.’ If thou dost abide with thy Will in the Words of CUrist , then His Word and Spirit abide in thee. But if thy Will goeth into the Creatures, then thou hast broken off thyself from Him, and then thou canst not any other Way keep thyself, but by abiding continually in resigned Humility, and entering into continual Repentance, so that thou art always grieved that Creatures live in thee. If thou dost thus, thou standest in a daily dying from the Creatures, and in a daily ascending into Heaven in and with thy Will again.
212 . The Scholar. — O loving Master, pray teach me how 1 may come into such a continual Repentance, How Men may come to continual Repentance , and- subsist in Temptation. The Master. — When thou leavest that which loveth thee, and lovest that which hateth thee, then thou mayest abide continually in Repentance. 13. The Scholar. — What is that which I must thus leave? The Master. — T hy Creatures in Flesh and Blood, and all other Things that love thee ; love thee because thy Will entertaineth, nourisheth, and preserveth them. These the Will must leave and account as Enemies ; and the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ together with the Reproach of the World hateth thee, which thou must learn to love, and take for a daily Exercise of thy Repentance. And then thou shalt have continual Cause to hate thyselj in the Creature, and to seek the eternal Rest, wherein thy Will may rest ; as Christ said, * In the World you shall have ‘ Tribulation, but in me you shall have Rest.’ «• 14. The Scholar. — How may I stand firm in such a Temptation as this? *■ The Master. — If every Hour thou dost once throw thyself beyond all Creatures, above all sensual Reason , into the mere Mercy of God, into the Sufferings of our Lord, and yield thyself thereinto, then thou shalt receive Power to rule over Sin, Death , and the Devil, over Hell and the World, and then thou mayest* stand firm in all Temptations.
315* The Scholar. — Poor Man that I am, what would become of me, if I should attain with my Mind to That where no Creature is ! Of the Super-Sensual Life . 99 THE MASTER. — Loving Scholar, if thy Will could break off itself for one Hour from all Creatures , and throw itself into that where no Creature Js, it would be presently clothed with the highest Splendour of God's Qlory , and would taste in itself the most sweet Love of our Lord Jesus , which no Man can express ; and it would find in itself the unspeakable Words of our Lord concerning his great Mercy. It would feel in itself that the Cross of our Lord Christ would be very pleasing to it, and it would love that more than the Honour and Goods of the World . 1 6. The Scholar. — But what would become of the Body, since it must live in the Creature ? The Master. — The Bddy would be put into the Imitation of our Lord Christ, who said, His Kingdom was not of this World. It would begin to die from without and from within; from with - it wpulfl die from the Vanity and evil Deeds of the World ; it would be an utter Enemy to all Pride and Insolence . And from within , it would die from all Evil Lusts and Envy, and would get a Mind and Will in itself wholly new, which would be continually directed towards God and Goodness. 17. The SCHOLAR. — But the World would hate and despise a Man for doing so, seeing he must contradict the World, and live and do otherwise than the World doth.
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.
1Th$ Master. — If thy Will goeth forth from the Creatures , then the Creatures are forsaken in and by thee ; they are in the World, and thy Body only is with the Creatures , but in thy Spirit thou walkest with God. And if thy Will leaveth the Creatures , then the Creatures are dead in it, and live only in the JBody in the World ; and if thy Will doth not bring itself into * them, they cannot touch thy Soul. For St, Paul saith, ‘Our ‘Conversation is in Heaven;’ also, ‘Ye are the Temple of the ‘Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in you;’ so then, the Holy Qhost dwelleth in the Will, and the Creatures dwell in the Body . 11. The Scholar. — If the Holy Qhost dwell in the Will of 7 9,8 The TV ay to Qhrist . the Mind, how may I keep myself that He may not depart from me? THE MASTER. — Mark the Words of our Lord Jesus Christ; * If ‘you abide in my Word, then my Words abide in you.’ If thou dost abide with thy Will in the Words of CUrist , then His Word and Spirit abide in thee. But if thy Will goeth into the Creatures, then thou hast broken off thyself from Him, and then thou canst not any other Way keep thyself, but by abiding continually in resigned Humility, and entering into continual Repentance, so that thou art always grieved that Creatures live in thee. If thou dost thus, thou standest in a daily dying from the Creatures, and in a daily ascending into Heaven in and with thy Will again.
212 . The Scholar. — O loving Master, pray teach me how 1 may come into such a continual Repentance, How Men may come to continual Repentance , and- subsist in Temptation. The Master. — When thou leavest that which loveth thee, and lovest that which hateth thee, then thou mayest abide continually in Repentance. 13. The Scholar. — What is that which I must thus leave? The Master. — T hy Creatures in Flesh and Blood, and all other Things that love thee ; love thee because thy Will entertaineth, nourisheth, and preserveth them. These the Will must leave and account as Enemies ; and the Cross of our Lord Jesus Christ together with the Reproach of the World hateth thee, which thou must learn to love, and take for a daily Exercise of thy Repentance. And then thou shalt have continual Cause to hate thyselj in the Creature, and to seek the eternal Rest, wherein thy Will may rest ; as Christ said, * In the World you shall have ‘ Tribulation, but in me you shall have Rest.’ «• 14. The Scholar. — How may I stand firm in such a Temptation as this? *■ The Master. — If every Hour thou dost once throw thyself beyond all Creatures, above all sensual Reason , into the mere Mercy of God, into the Sufferings of our Lord, and yield thyself thereinto, then thou shalt receive Power to rule over Sin, Death , and the Devil, over Hell and the World, and then thou mayest* stand firm in all Temptations.
315* The Scholar. — Poor Man that I am, what would become of me, if I should attain with my Mind to That where no Creature is ! Of the Super-Sensual Life . 99 THE MASTER. — Loving Scholar, if thy Will could break off itself for one Hour from all Creatures , and throw itself into that where no Creature Js, it would be presently clothed with the highest Splendour of God's Qlory , and would taste in itself the most sweet Love of our Lord Jesus , which no Man can express ; and it would find in itself the unspeakable Words of our Lord concerning his great Mercy. It would feel in itself that the Cross of our Lord Christ would be very pleasing to it, and it would love that more than the Honour and Goods of the World . 1 6. The Scholar. — But what would become of the Body, since it must live in the Creature ? The Master. — The Bddy would be put into the Imitation of our Lord Christ, who said, His Kingdom was not of this World. It would begin to die from without and from within; from with - it wpulfl die from the Vanity and evil Deeds of the World ; it would be an utter Enemy to all Pride and Insolence . And from within , it would die from all Evil Lusts and Envy, and would get a Mind and Will in itself wholly new, which would be continually directed towards God and Goodness. 17. The SCHOLAR. — But the World would hate and despise a Man for doing so, seeing he must contradict the World, and live and do otherwise than the World doth.
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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