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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.
121. He that once getteth the body of Christ, it departeth not from him, unless he spoil it as Adam did; it is only covered with the old Adam, and moreover passeth into the Mystery; and it is very possible for the soul to go out from it, therefore the soul should not be secure or careless, but watchful. 22. Therefore know, that Christ gave his disciples his true all-present eternal divine body to eat, and his blood to drink, out of which the Holy Ghost proceedeth; and the inward mouth which received it was the desirous willing of their souls; for the soul of man hungereth and thirsteth continually since the heavy fall, after such flesh and blood, and putteth the same on as the garment of God; for the soul in itself is a spirit, and hath need of a body, and there it attaineth a body, a new eternal incorruptible body into the old Adamical body. 23. Thus, you are to know, the bread which Christ gave to his disciples, was that which the outward mouth took, and gave to the belly; but the word, whereof Christ said Eat, this is my body, that same word was the eternal body of Christ, and had heavenly flesh and blood in it, and that the soul received, as a new body; and thus there was at once, in the hand of Christ, two kingdoms, viz. a heavenly and an earthly.
224. But you must know, that the heavenly cannot be comprehended or carried forth by the earthly; for the heavenly man, viz. the heavenly body of Christ, which was in the outward Christ, that all at once, and in eternity, also filled the angelical world, viz. the second Principle of God; so that without that same bodily substance God is not known at all, for the power of the Deity hath manifested itself therein, and yet the outward image remaineth standing; so that in heaven men see the human nature palpably and apprehensively standing in that form it was in here upon earth: Thou seest nothing else in it but the Majesty of the clarity of the brightness, which filleth the angelical world; and wheresoever now the Majesty is, there is the substantiality of Christ; for the Heart and Word of God hath united it in the substantiality: As we consider that the Word is every where, so is the substantiality (the body of the Word) [every where], though indeed without image; for the creature hath only the [formation or] image. 25. Behold, I give you a similitude: Consider, all things are created out of the water, and in the water was all power and virtue; for you find that all things have water, though it be a very stone, or flesh, or whatsoever it is; but the sulphur is therein with the power of nature, which formeth the substantiality.
326. Now, behold, in the whole deep, there is nothing but water, air, and fire, out of which there is the substance, viz. the body or the earth [come to be]. 27. Now, you see very well, that the sun (being but one) causeth that, and is also the virtue and majesty in this elementary substance: It all belongeth to the sun, and all desireth the sun, and the sun with its virtue affordeth the dominion [or government of everything in the universe]. 28. See, and consider this in a similitude: God is the eternal sun in the second Principle: understand the Heart, splendour, virtue, and Majesty; and the elements, fire, water, and earth, are (spoken by way of similitude) [as it were] God the Father: Now the sun standeth there as a body, as indeed it is, which resembleth the creature Christ; and the whole substance of the four elements resembleth the substantiality of the creature, wherein the splendour of the sun shineth: the sun resembleth the Word and the Majesty; and the four elements resemble the virtue of the body, and the Father, out of which the Son shineth. 29. Therefore know, that in heaven, every where all over, is the Father's virtue or power, and in the virtue the Word; and the Word hath the substantiality, which belongeth all to the person of Christ; for Christ standeth in the Father [as] an image, as the sun in the elements.
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.
121. He that once getteth the body of Christ, it departeth not from him, unless he spoil it as Adam did; it is only covered with the old Adam, and moreover passeth into the Mystery; and it is very possible for the soul to go out from it, therefore the soul should not be secure or careless, but watchful. 22. Therefore know, that Christ gave his disciples his true all-present eternal divine body to eat, and his blood to drink, out of which the Holy Ghost proceedeth; and the inward mouth which received it was the desirous willing of their souls; for the soul of man hungereth and thirsteth continually since the heavy fall, after such flesh and blood, and putteth the same on as the garment of God; for the soul in itself is a spirit, and hath need of a body, and there it attaineth a body, a new eternal incorruptible body into the old Adamical body. 23. Thus, you are to know, the bread which Christ gave to his disciples, was that which the outward mouth took, and gave to the belly; but the word, whereof Christ said Eat, this is my body, that same word was the eternal body of Christ, and had heavenly flesh and blood in it, and that the soul received, as a new body; and thus there was at once, in the hand of Christ, two kingdoms, viz. a heavenly and an earthly.
224. But you must know, that the heavenly cannot be comprehended or carried forth by the earthly; for the heavenly man, viz. the heavenly body of Christ, which was in the outward Christ, that all at once, and in eternity, also filled the angelical world, viz. the second Principle of God; so that without that same bodily substance God is not known at all, for the power of the Deity hath manifested itself therein, and yet the outward image remaineth standing; so that in heaven men see the human nature palpably and apprehensively standing in that form it was in here upon earth: Thou seest nothing else in it but the Majesty of the clarity of the brightness, which filleth the angelical world; and wheresoever now the Majesty is, there is the substantiality of Christ; for the Heart and Word of God hath united it in the substantiality: As we consider that the Word is every where, so is the substantiality (the body of the Word) [every where], though indeed without image; for the creature hath only the [formation or] image. 25. Behold, I give you a similitude: Consider, all things are created out of the water, and in the water was all power and virtue; for you find that all things have water, though it be a very stone, or flesh, or whatsoever it is; but the sulphur is therein with the power of nature, which formeth the substantiality.
326. Now, behold, in the whole deep, there is nothing but water, air, and fire, out of which there is the substance, viz. the body or the earth [come to be]. 27. Now, you see very well, that the sun (being but one) causeth that, and is also the virtue and majesty in this elementary substance: It all belongeth to the sun, and all desireth the sun, and the sun with its virtue affordeth the dominion [or government of everything in the universe]. 28. See, and consider this in a similitude: God is the eternal sun in the second Principle: understand the Heart, splendour, virtue, and Majesty; and the elements, fire, water, and earth, are (spoken by way of similitude) [as it were] God the Father: Now the sun standeth there as a body, as indeed it is, which resembleth the creature Christ; and the whole substance of the four elements resembleth the substantiality of the creature, wherein the splendour of the sun shineth: the sun resembleth the Word and the Majesty; and the four elements resemble the virtue of the body, and the Father, out of which the Son shineth. 29. Therefore know, that in heaven, every where all over, is the Father's virtue or power, and in the virtue the Word; and the Word hath the substantiality, which belongeth all to the person of Christ; for Christ standeth in the Father [as] an image, as the sun in the elements.
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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