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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.
116. And as God, in his heavenly Virgin (out of which the heavenly substantiality is espied, and attaineth substance in the tincture of the fire) is a substance; which substance, God (with the Word and Heart, with the receiving in of the tincture out of Mary's blood, in which the soul dwelt) did, with the word Fiat, as with the eternal astringent matrix, comprehend, and let them together become flesh and blood after a human way and manner; (understand, as the eternal substantiality, with the wisdom, viz. the eternal virginity, hath given itself into the perished tincture and matrix of Mary, wherein was the promised Word, which gave itself also in the eternal substantiality into the perished tincture [or life], and so became a New Man, being strange and unknown to the earthly man); so this
2New Body of Christ, (understand the inward Christ, which the outward man which was mortal covered), gave itself under bread and wine, as an outward [thing] into the tincture of the souls of the Apostles, and became man in the Apostles, in the tincture of the soul; and that is the New Body which Christ hath brought us from heaven; [of which he said, None goeth to heaven, but he that is come from heaven]; so that when we wholly yield up ourselves to him in obedience, and with our old will go out from ourselves into his will, and so come into Christ's congregation, and desire his flesh and blood, with all his benefits, then he giveth us this body and blood to eat and to drink, which the inward man born of God receiveth: for the body of Christ is everywhere present in substance: it containeth the Second Principle: [that is, the angelical world, according to which God is called Merciful, and the eternal good] . 17. For, to say that Christ feedeth the soul with spirit without body, is not true; the Holy Ghost maketh not a Principle, but the eternal substantiality in which the Holy Ghost dwelleth, and goeth out from thence in a form of many thousand innumerable essences, even that which is so gone forth, is the virgin of chastity, viz. the eternal wisdom, in which all the wonders of this world were beheld from eternity. 18. Understand us rightly, according to its high and precious worth; that substantiality, wherein
3the virgin of God consisteth, Adam had on him: for the spirit of this world was given him, and breathed into him therein; but the essences were paradisical, and sprung up through the [one pure] element, which the substantiality containeth, and that substantiality the spirit of this world, in Adam, took into itself, into its power, [as the water taketh the light (in a flaming red hot iron) into it, and quencheth it] . 19. First the heavenly substantiality had the power [or predominancy], but afterwards, when Adam went back with his lust into the earthly [substantiality], then the earthly [substantiality] got the power and predominancy, and that is the cause that our perished heavenly substantiality is become earthly: and therefore must God, with the heavenly substantiality, in us become man, and in the heavenly virgin and in the earthly, God is become man, and hath put on upon our souls the heavenly substantiality again, viz. his heavenly body: yet our earthly must pass away, but the heavenly remaineth standing for ever. 20. And yet, nevertheless, we are captivated poor sinners with the old Adam, into which the devil hath an entrance, and we go many times out from the fair image, understand, the soul turneth its will often into the outward man; and therefore God hath, appointed this Testament [The Lord's Supper], so that when we turn again to him, he then giveth our soul the new garment again, viz. the New Body, and reneweth and feedeth it.
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.
116. And as God, in his heavenly Virgin (out of which the heavenly substantiality is espied, and attaineth substance in the tincture of the fire) is a substance; which substance, God (with the Word and Heart, with the receiving in of the tincture out of Mary's blood, in which the soul dwelt) did, with the word Fiat, as with the eternal astringent matrix, comprehend, and let them together become flesh and blood after a human way and manner; (understand, as the eternal substantiality, with the wisdom, viz. the eternal virginity, hath given itself into the perished tincture and matrix of Mary, wherein was the promised Word, which gave itself also in the eternal substantiality into the perished tincture [or life], and so became a New Man, being strange and unknown to the earthly man); so this
2New Body of Christ, (understand the inward Christ, which the outward man which was mortal covered), gave itself under bread and wine, as an outward [thing] into the tincture of the souls of the Apostles, and became man in the Apostles, in the tincture of the soul; and that is the New Body which Christ hath brought us from heaven; [of which he said, None goeth to heaven, but he that is come from heaven]; so that when we wholly yield up ourselves to him in obedience, and with our old will go out from ourselves into his will, and so come into Christ's congregation, and desire his flesh and blood, with all his benefits, then he giveth us this body and blood to eat and to drink, which the inward man born of God receiveth: for the body of Christ is everywhere present in substance: it containeth the Second Principle: [that is, the angelical world, according to which God is called Merciful, and the eternal good] . 17. For, to say that Christ feedeth the soul with spirit without body, is not true; the Holy Ghost maketh not a Principle, but the eternal substantiality in which the Holy Ghost dwelleth, and goeth out from thence in a form of many thousand innumerable essences, even that which is so gone forth, is the virgin of chastity, viz. the eternal wisdom, in which all the wonders of this world were beheld from eternity. 18. Understand us rightly, according to its high and precious worth; that substantiality, wherein
3the virgin of God consisteth, Adam had on him: for the spirit of this world was given him, and breathed into him therein; but the essences were paradisical, and sprung up through the [one pure] element, which the substantiality containeth, and that substantiality the spirit of this world, in Adam, took into itself, into its power, [as the water taketh the light (in a flaming red hot iron) into it, and quencheth it] . 19. First the heavenly substantiality had the power [or predominancy], but afterwards, when Adam went back with his lust into the earthly [substantiality], then the earthly [substantiality] got the power and predominancy, and that is the cause that our perished heavenly substantiality is become earthly: and therefore must God, with the heavenly substantiality, in us become man, and in the heavenly virgin and in the earthly, God is become man, and hath put on upon our souls the heavenly substantiality again, viz. his heavenly body: yet our earthly must pass away, but the heavenly remaineth standing for ever. 20. And yet, nevertheless, we are captivated poor sinners with the old Adam, into which the devil hath an entrance, and we go many times out from the fair image, understand, the soul turneth its will often into the outward man; and therefore God hath, appointed this Testament [The Lord's Supper], so that when we turn again to him, he then giveth our soul the new garment again, viz. the New Body, and reneweth and feedeth it.
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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