Dialogues on the supersensual life
From the translator's preface:
Works of Jacob Behmen, the " Teutonic Theosopher," translated into English, were first printed in England in the seventeenth century, between 1644 and 1662. In the following century, a complete edition in four large volumes was produced by some of the disciples of William Law.
This edition, completed in the year 1781, was compiled in part from the older English edition, and in part from later fragmentary translations by Law and others. It is not easily accessible to the general reader, and, moreover, the greater part of Behmen's Works could not be recommended save to those who had the time and power to plunge into that deep sea in search of the many noble pearls which it contains. Behmen's language and way of thought are remote and strange, and in reading his thought one has often to pass it through a process of intellectual translation.
This is chiefly true of his earlier work, the " Aurora " or "Morning Redness." But among those works which he wrote during the last five years of his life there are some written in a thought language less difficult to be understood, yet containing the essential teaching of this humble Master of Divine Science.
From these, I have selected .some which may, in a small volume, be useful. It seemed that for this purpose it would be best to take the " Dialogues of the Supersensual Life," including as one of them the beautiful, really separate, Dialogue, called in the Complete Works, " The way from darkness to true illumination." In the case of neither of these works is the translation used is that of the seventeenth century.
The first three dialogues are a translation made by William Law, one of the greatest masters of the English language, and found in MS. after his death. This translation from the original German is not exactly literal, but rather a liberal version, or paraphrase, the thought of Behmen being expanded and elucidated, though in no wise departed from. The dialogue called "
The way from darkness to true illumination" was taken by the eighteenth-century editors from a book containing translations of certain smaller treatises of Behmen then lately printed at Bristol and made, as they say, " in a style better adapted to the taste and more accommodated to the apprehension of modern readers." I do not know who was the translator, but the work seems to be excellently well done. It will be well to say a few words first as to the life, then as to the leading ideas of Jacob Behmen. This name is more correctly written Jacob Boehme, but I prefer to retain the more easily pronounced spelling of Behmen, adopted by the Editors of both the complete English editions. Jacob Behmen's outward life was simplicity itself.
He was born in the year I575 Seidenberg, a village among pastoral hills, near Gbrlitz in Lusatia, a son of poor peasants. As a boy he watched the herds in the fields and was then apprenticed to a shoemaker, being not enough robust for rural work.
One day, when the master and his wife were out, and he was alone in the house, a stranger entered the shop and asked for a pair of shoes. Jacob had no authority to conclude a bargain and asked a high price for the shoes in the hope that the stranger would not buy them. But the man paid the price, and when he had gone out into the street, called out "Jacob, come forth." Jacob obeyed the call, and now the stranger looked at him with a kindly, earnest, deep, soul-piercing gaze, and said, "Jacob, thou art as yet but little, but the time will come when thou shalt be great and become another man, and the world shall marvel at thee.
Therefore be pious, fear God, and reverence his Word; especially read diligently the Holy Scriptures, where thou hast comfort and instruction; for thou must endure much misery and poverty, and suffer persecution. But be courageous and persevere, for God loves, and is gracious unto thee." So saying, the stranger clasped his hand, and disappeared.
After this Jacob became even more pensive and serious and would admonish the other journeymen on the work-bench when they spoke lightly of sacred things. His master disliked this and dismissed him, saying that he would have no "house-prophet" to bring trouble into his house.
Thus Jacob was forced to go forth into the world as a travelling journeyman, and, as he wandered about in that time of fierce religious discord, the world appeared to him to be a "Babel."
He was himself afflicted by troubles and doubts, but clave to prayer and to Scripture, and especially to the words in Luke xi. ; " How much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to them that ask him." And once, when he was again engaged for a time by a master, he was lifted into a state of blessed peace, a Sabbath of the Soul, that lasted for seven days, during which he was, as it were, inwardly surrounded by a Divine Light. "
The triumph that was then in my soul I can neither tell nor describe. I can only liken it to a resurrection from the dead."
Reading From chapter One
Dialogues on the Supersensual Life — Chapter I
A true Christian, born anew of the Spirit of Christ, lives in the simplicity of Christ and has no strife or contention with any man about religion. Christendom that dwells in Babel strives endlessly about the manner in which men ought to serve God and glorify Him, how they are to know Him, and what He is in His essence and will. They preach with certainty that whoever is not one and the same with them in every particular of knowledge and opinion is no Christian, but a heretic.
Yet a Christian is of no sect. He can dwell in the midst of sects and even appear in their services without being bound to any. He has but one knowledge, Christ within him. He seeks but one way, the desire always to do and teach what is right. He places all his knowing and willing into the life of Christ. He sighs and wishes continually that the will of God might be done in him, and that God’s kingdom might be manifested through him. His faith is a desire after God and goodness, wrapped in a sure hope, trusting in the words of promise, and living and dying therein. Yet as to the true man, he never dies.
For Christ has said: “Whosoever believeth in me shall never die, but hath pierced through from death to life. Rivers of living water shall flow from him,” meaning good doctrine and works. Therefore I say that whoever fights and contends about the letter is all Babel. The letters of the Word proceed from, and stand in, one root, which is the Spirit of God. As the various flowers stand together in the earth and grow about one another, they do not fight about their difference of color, smell, or taste. They suffer the earth, the sun, the rain, the wind, the heat, and the cold to do with them as they please, and yet each flourishes in its own way.
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