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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.
1The Master. — If it may but kindle a Fire in thee, thou shalt feel how it consumeth thy Selfhood, that which thou callest /, and rejoiceth so exceedingly in thy Fire, that thou wouldest rather suffer thyself to be killed, than to enter again into thy something. Its Flame also is so great, that it would not leave thee, though it should cost thy temporal Life ; it would go with thee in its Fire into Death ; nay if thou wentest into Hell, it would even destroy Hell for thy Sake. 34. The Scholar. —Loving Master, I can no longer endure 104 Way to Qhrist . that any Thing should divert me from this Love ; how shall I find the nearest Way to it ? THE MASTER. — Where the Way is hardest, there walk thou, and take up what the World rejecteth ; and what the World doth, that do not thou. Walk contrary to the W< orld in all Things, and then thou takest the nearest Way to it. 35. The Scholar.— If I should walk contrary to the World in every Thing, I must needs live in mere Misery and Unquietness , and f should also be accounted a Fool. The Master. — I do not bid thee do Harm to any ; but because the World loveth only Deceit and Vanity, and walketh in false and wicked Ways ; therefore if t thou wilt act a quite contrary Part to the Ways thereof in all Things, walk only in the Right Way. For the Right Way is contrary to all the Ways of the World. r ^ *'■"
2But whereas thou sayest thou shouldest live in mere Anguish and Trouble : that indeed will be so according to the Flesh ; and will give thee Occasion of continual Repentance-, and in such 'Anxiety the Love will most readily kindle its Fire. «, What thou sayest also, viz., ‘ that thou shouldest be accounted a 'fool,' is true ; for the Way to the Love of Goi) is Folly to the World, but Wisdom to the Children of Qod. When the World perceiveth this Fire of Love kindled in the Children of Qod, it saith they are turned Fools ; but to the Children of Qoditls the greatest Treasure ; so great that no Life can express, nor Tongue describe, what the Fire of the inflaming Love of God is. It is brighter than the Sun, and sweeter than any Thing. It is far more nourishing and vital than any Meat or Drink, and more pleasant than all the Joy of this World. Whosoever getteth it is richer than any King on Earth, more noble than any Emperor, and more potent and strong than all Authority and Power. Whither the blessed and damned Souls go, ‘when,, they depart from their Bodies ; and how Heaven and Hell are in Man. 36. Then the Scholar asked his Master further saying, Whither go the Souls, both of the Saved and Damned, when they leave these mortal Bodies ?
3His Master answered , The Soul needeth no going forth ; only the outward mortal Life and the earthly Body do at Death separate themselves from the Soul. The Soul hath Heaven and Hell in itself before ; as it is written, ‘ The Kingdom of God cometh Of the Super-Sensual Life . 105 ~ • i not with outward Observation ; neither shall they say, lo here, 4 or lo there, it is, for behold, the Kingdom of God is within you/ And whether of the two States , viz., either Heaven or Hell , shall be manifested in the#Soul, in that it standeth. 37. The Scholar. — Doth it not enter into Heaven or Hell , as a Man entereth into a House, or goeth through a Door or Passage, into another Place? The Master. — No, there is no such Kind of entering f for Heaven and Hell are present everywhere, and it is but the turtiing of the Will either into God’s Love , or into his Anger , that introduced into them. And that cometh to pass in this Life, according to the saying of St. Paul, 4 Our Conversation is in Heaven and Christ saith also, 4 My Sheep hear my Voice, and I know ‘them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal Life, •'Ufld nor*e $Jhall pluck them out of my Hand/ 38. The SCHOLAR. — How cometh this entering of the Will into Heaven or Hell to pass ?
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.
1The Master. — If it may but kindle a Fire in thee, thou shalt feel how it consumeth thy Selfhood, that which thou callest /, and rejoiceth so exceedingly in thy Fire, that thou wouldest rather suffer thyself to be killed, than to enter again into thy something. Its Flame also is so great, that it would not leave thee, though it should cost thy temporal Life ; it would go with thee in its Fire into Death ; nay if thou wentest into Hell, it would even destroy Hell for thy Sake. 34. The Scholar. —Loving Master, I can no longer endure 104 Way to Qhrist . that any Thing should divert me from this Love ; how shall I find the nearest Way to it ? THE MASTER. — Where the Way is hardest, there walk thou, and take up what the World rejecteth ; and what the World doth, that do not thou. Walk contrary to the W< orld in all Things, and then thou takest the nearest Way to it. 35. The Scholar.— If I should walk contrary to the World in every Thing, I must needs live in mere Misery and Unquietness , and f should also be accounted a Fool. The Master. — I do not bid thee do Harm to any ; but because the World loveth only Deceit and Vanity, and walketh in false and wicked Ways ; therefore if t thou wilt act a quite contrary Part to the Ways thereof in all Things, walk only in the Right Way. For the Right Way is contrary to all the Ways of the World. r ^ *'■"
2But whereas thou sayest thou shouldest live in mere Anguish and Trouble : that indeed will be so according to the Flesh ; and will give thee Occasion of continual Repentance-, and in such 'Anxiety the Love will most readily kindle its Fire. «, What thou sayest also, viz., ‘ that thou shouldest be accounted a 'fool,' is true ; for the Way to the Love of Goi) is Folly to the World, but Wisdom to the Children of Qod. When the World perceiveth this Fire of Love kindled in the Children of Qod, it saith they are turned Fools ; but to the Children of Qoditls the greatest Treasure ; so great that no Life can express, nor Tongue describe, what the Fire of the inflaming Love of God is. It is brighter than the Sun, and sweeter than any Thing. It is far more nourishing and vital than any Meat or Drink, and more pleasant than all the Joy of this World. Whosoever getteth it is richer than any King on Earth, more noble than any Emperor, and more potent and strong than all Authority and Power. Whither the blessed and damned Souls go, ‘when,, they depart from their Bodies ; and how Heaven and Hell are in Man. 36. Then the Scholar asked his Master further saying, Whither go the Souls, both of the Saved and Damned, when they leave these mortal Bodies ?
3His Master answered , The Soul needeth no going forth ; only the outward mortal Life and the earthly Body do at Death separate themselves from the Soul. The Soul hath Heaven and Hell in itself before ; as it is written, ‘ The Kingdom of God cometh Of the Super-Sensual Life . 105 ~ • i not with outward Observation ; neither shall they say, lo here, 4 or lo there, it is, for behold, the Kingdom of God is within you/ And whether of the two States , viz., either Heaven or Hell , shall be manifested in the#Soul, in that it standeth. 37. The Scholar. — Doth it not enter into Heaven or Hell , as a Man entereth into a House, or goeth through a Door or Passage, into another Place? The Master. — No, there is no such Kind of entering f for Heaven and Hell are present everywhere, and it is but the turtiing of the Will either into God’s Love , or into his Anger , that introduced into them. And that cometh to pass in this Life, according to the saying of St. Paul, 4 Our Conversation is in Heaven and Christ saith also, 4 My Sheep hear my Voice, and I know ‘them, and they follow me, and I give unto them eternal Life, •'Ufld nor*e $Jhall pluck them out of my Hand/ 38. The SCHOLAR. — How cometh this entering of the Will into Heaven or Hell to pass ?
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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