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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.
168. Behold, O man! Adam was our father, and also our mother: Now, we have all of us Adam's flesh, soul, and spirit; for we are all begotten out of one and the same flesh, soul, and spirit, and are all of us members of him, (as the branches are members of the tree), and he brought us into death. 69. He had the fair virgin of the wisdom of God in him, which is every where, and is the fullness of all things, as God himself is, which he lost: He should have left it us as an inheritance, yet he went out from it: But the second Adam, Christ, came forth from God, and was the heart of God, and had the fair virgin in him: He took our flesh and soul into his virgin, and that became flesh, soul, and spirit; flesh of our flesh, and soul of our soul; and yet remained God: Our flesh stood in Christ, in Ternario Sancto, he received from us, in the virgin of God, the eternal, and also the earthly flesh; though indeed it was only the earthly source [and property], for nothing that is corruptible entereth into God. 70. When the Word came into [became] the flesh, it then became heavenly; as in Adam it was become earthly; for the flesh of Christ was in the eternal will brought into the Word, so that the flesh and the Word was one undivided Person: Now, the business is done in the eternal will, out of which Adam was gone away, and God brought us, in the soul of Christ, into that will again.
271. Now Christ's soul is our soul, for it is Adam's soul; and Christ's flesh is our flesh, for he took it on him from our humanity; and the fair virgin of God in Christ is our virgin, for Christ hath put the same into our souls; and so now, if we give up ourselves wholly into Christ, then Christ liveth in us, and we in him: though the outward mortal body hangeth to us, yet Christ liveth in us, and will at the end of the world present us wholly pure, without blemish, in his flesh. 72. Thus we are one body in him, for he is our body in God; and Adam is our body in this world: There is no such gross untoward body in God, but a body in power, with heavenly flesh and blood; where our will is, there is our heart also: God is in us, and when we enter into his will, then we put his wisdom on to us, and in the wisdom Christ is a man. Thus we enter into his humanity, and are a New Man in the life of Christ, in the soul of Christ, in Christ's flesh, in the tincture of Christ, in the Majesty of Christ; and Christ is in his Father, and his Father is the eternity, and the end of nature. 73. And whither wilt thou go further, thou poor man? Let not the devil and Antichrist befool thee: No man hath any power in God, unless he be in the will of God, in God's love in Christ, and then he hath the soul and flesh of Christ; but if he have that, then he is not a covetous wretch,
3nor a flattering hypocrite, and one that selleth the kingdom of heaven for money; as Simon Magus offered to give money to St. Peter, that he would give him the power, that on whomsoever he laid hands, they should receive the Holy Ghost: Then, saith Peter, Be thou accursed with thy money: Dost thou suppose that the gifts of God will be sold for money? 74. And where then have you your power and authority, ye sophisters, to sell the kingdom of heaven, and usurp it into your power? Ye are not Christ's disciples, but the disciples of Antichrist, the whore of Babel: No priest is capable of the office, unless he be in the will of God, his absolution is no absolution; but? the congregation of Christ, to whom he giveth up himself, absolveth him: The sophister is as useful to the church, as a fifth wheel is to a waggon. 75. Thou sophister, how wilt thou impart the Mysterium Magnum, which thou hast not? The congregation or church hath it; and the repentant sinner that cometh to thee hath it, and thou art a sophister, and art fitter to be in a stall of oxen, than in the church: How can the devil absolve a sorrowful sinner? And thou only servest thy idol, the belly. 76. O thou blind world, how art thou blinded? Thou supposest thou oughtest not to dare to meddle with the Mysterium Magnum, and that
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.
168. Behold, O man! Adam was our father, and also our mother: Now, we have all of us Adam's flesh, soul, and spirit; for we are all begotten out of one and the same flesh, soul, and spirit, and are all of us members of him, (as the branches are members of the tree), and he brought us into death. 69. He had the fair virgin of the wisdom of God in him, which is every where, and is the fullness of all things, as God himself is, which he lost: He should have left it us as an inheritance, yet he went out from it: But the second Adam, Christ, came forth from God, and was the heart of God, and had the fair virgin in him: He took our flesh and soul into his virgin, and that became flesh, soul, and spirit; flesh of our flesh, and soul of our soul; and yet remained God: Our flesh stood in Christ, in Ternario Sancto, he received from us, in the virgin of God, the eternal, and also the earthly flesh; though indeed it was only the earthly source [and property], for nothing that is corruptible entereth into God. 70. When the Word came into [became] the flesh, it then became heavenly; as in Adam it was become earthly; for the flesh of Christ was in the eternal will brought into the Word, so that the flesh and the Word was one undivided Person: Now, the business is done in the eternal will, out of which Adam was gone away, and God brought us, in the soul of Christ, into that will again.
271. Now Christ's soul is our soul, for it is Adam's soul; and Christ's flesh is our flesh, for he took it on him from our humanity; and the fair virgin of God in Christ is our virgin, for Christ hath put the same into our souls; and so now, if we give up ourselves wholly into Christ, then Christ liveth in us, and we in him: though the outward mortal body hangeth to us, yet Christ liveth in us, and will at the end of the world present us wholly pure, without blemish, in his flesh. 72. Thus we are one body in him, for he is our body in God; and Adam is our body in this world: There is no such gross untoward body in God, but a body in power, with heavenly flesh and blood; where our will is, there is our heart also: God is in us, and when we enter into his will, then we put his wisdom on to us, and in the wisdom Christ is a man. Thus we enter into his humanity, and are a New Man in the life of Christ, in the soul of Christ, in Christ's flesh, in the tincture of Christ, in the Majesty of Christ; and Christ is in his Father, and his Father is the eternity, and the end of nature. 73. And whither wilt thou go further, thou poor man? Let not the devil and Antichrist befool thee: No man hath any power in God, unless he be in the will of God, in God's love in Christ, and then he hath the soul and flesh of Christ; but if he have that, then he is not a covetous wretch,
3nor a flattering hypocrite, and one that selleth the kingdom of heaven for money; as Simon Magus offered to give money to St. Peter, that he would give him the power, that on whomsoever he laid hands, they should receive the Holy Ghost: Then, saith Peter, Be thou accursed with thy money: Dost thou suppose that the gifts of God will be sold for money? 74. And where then have you your power and authority, ye sophisters, to sell the kingdom of heaven, and usurp it into your power? Ye are not Christ's disciples, but the disciples of Antichrist, the whore of Babel: No priest is capable of the office, unless he be in the will of God, his absolution is no absolution; but? the congregation of Christ, to whom he giveth up himself, absolveth him: The sophister is as useful to the church, as a fifth wheel is to a waggon. 75. Thou sophister, how wilt thou impart the Mysterium Magnum, which thou hast not? The congregation or church hath it; and the repentant sinner that cometh to thee hath it, and thou art a sophister, and art fitter to be in a stall of oxen, than in the church: How can the devil absolve a sorrowful sinner? And thou only servest thy idol, the belly. 76. O thou blind world, how art thou blinded? Thou supposest thou oughtest not to dare to meddle with the Mysterium Magnum, and that
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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