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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.
1It is stated that this Cross was soon removed and destroyed by the Townspeople ; whose descendants have, however, done ample honour to Jacob Boehme’s memory. In the year 1875, on the tercentenary of his birth, a Great Festival was held at Qoerlitz, at which thousands were present. His Portrait has been received and hung with honour in the Council Hall ; his House is distinguished by having a plate affixed to it, recording the fact that he lived and died therein; and over his Grave there has been placed a huge monumental block, which is, like his Works, sufficiently substantial to endure for Ages to come. “ % I T has frequently been asserted by very able Commentators upon Jacob Boehme, that to no one are-his works essential — -with the exception of his “ Way to Christ,” which is the least metaphysical of any of thdtn — any further than a knowledge of Physics is essential to an Agriculturalist; who without any such knowledge can cultivate the ground and reap its fruits. In like manner the Christian can cultivate an Prefatory {Memoir . holy Spirit and reap its fruits without any knowledge of the Mysteries of Nature such as Boehme has penetrated and revealed to us.
2a Jacob Boehme’s Works are, as the Rev. W. Law long ago asserted, “just as they should be for those that are fit for them,” and this is the true standpoint from which to regard them. No one has ever studied them in vain ; and Freher , who is regarded as one of Jacob Boehme’s most able Commentators, read all Boehtne's books in the original more than ten times over, though not without the greatest disgust imaginable in the beginning.
3During Jacob Boehmd’s lifetime he was frequently questioned by his friends and followers in their anxiety respecting the state of the soul immediately after death ; and upon this subject he has written, some very impressive passages, as in a case where the Soul, not having passed through regeneration in this life, had at a the hour of its departure clung by Faith to the Promise of Forgiveness and Salvation. He writes : “ When the hour of Death approaches and the Conscience awakens, such a Soul trembles in great Fear of Hell, and would like to be saved ; but there is only very little of the saving power of Faith within her, while before her is nothing but (a past of) injustice and falsehood, earthly lust, and the tears and sighs of the downtrodden. *Her desire turns to a certain extent towards God, but the sins she has committed are in her way, and there arises in her a great doubt and unrest. Many a Soul then clings to the saving power, as it were by a thin thread. When, then, .death actually occurs and separates the Soul from the Body, the poor Soul will then cling to that thread and refuse to let go her hold of it, but all her essences are still deeply immersed in the Wrath of God. She is tormented by her gross sins, and the thread of Faith (the umbilical cord) of the new-born being is vqjy feeble. Therefore when the Bridegroom says ‘ Come !’ the poor Soul answers * I cannot, my lamp is not yet ready but she clings to the thread, and puts her imaginaion into the Heart of God, and thus she becomes ultimately redeemed by the suffering of the Christ in her from the pool of putrefaction.*
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.
1It is stated that this Cross was soon removed and destroyed by the Townspeople ; whose descendants have, however, done ample honour to Jacob Boehme’s memory. In the year 1875, on the tercentenary of his birth, a Great Festival was held at Qoerlitz, at which thousands were present. His Portrait has been received and hung with honour in the Council Hall ; his House is distinguished by having a plate affixed to it, recording the fact that he lived and died therein; and over his Grave there has been placed a huge monumental block, which is, like his Works, sufficiently substantial to endure for Ages to come. “ % I T has frequently been asserted by very able Commentators upon Jacob Boehme, that to no one are-his works essential — -with the exception of his “ Way to Christ,” which is the least metaphysical of any of thdtn — any further than a knowledge of Physics is essential to an Agriculturalist; who without any such knowledge can cultivate the ground and reap its fruits. In like manner the Christian can cultivate an Prefatory {Memoir . holy Spirit and reap its fruits without any knowledge of the Mysteries of Nature such as Boehme has penetrated and revealed to us.
2a Jacob Boehme’s Works are, as the Rev. W. Law long ago asserted, “just as they should be for those that are fit for them,” and this is the true standpoint from which to regard them. No one has ever studied them in vain ; and Freher , who is regarded as one of Jacob Boehme’s most able Commentators, read all Boehtne's books in the original more than ten times over, though not without the greatest disgust imaginable in the beginning.
3During Jacob Boehmd’s lifetime he was frequently questioned by his friends and followers in their anxiety respecting the state of the soul immediately after death ; and upon this subject he has written, some very impressive passages, as in a case where the Soul, not having passed through regeneration in this life, had at a the hour of its departure clung by Faith to the Promise of Forgiveness and Salvation. He writes : “ When the hour of Death approaches and the Conscience awakens, such a Soul trembles in great Fear of Hell, and would like to be saved ; but there is only very little of the saving power of Faith within her, while before her is nothing but (a past of) injustice and falsehood, earthly lust, and the tears and sighs of the downtrodden. *Her desire turns to a certain extent towards God, but the sins she has committed are in her way, and there arises in her a great doubt and unrest. Many a Soul then clings to the saving power, as it were by a thin thread. When, then, .death actually occurs and separates the Soul from the Body, the poor Soul will then cling to that thread and refuse to let go her hold of it, but all her essences are still deeply immersed in the Wrath of God. She is tormented by her gross sins, and the thread of Faith (the umbilical cord) of the new-born being is vqjy feeble. Therefore when the Bridegroom says ‘ Come !’ the poor Soul answers * I cannot, my lamp is not yet ready but she clings to the thread, and puts her imaginaion into the Heart of God, and thus she becomes ultimately redeemed by the suffering of the Christ in her from the pool of putrefaction.*
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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