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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.
1office, who chiefly manageth the office in the Baptism, and maketh in the water of the soul a water of life in his virtue; and one [other testament] (for poor sinners that are more in years, to understand it) in the Word of life, as in flesh and blood, where the Word, viz. the Heart of God chiefly manageth the office, and feedeth with his body, and giveth his blood for drink; which testament with flesh and blood belongeth to the tincture of the fire-life, to the soul; and the testament of water belongeth to the spirit-life, viz. to the other tincture, and yet is but one man: But before the birth of Christ, the devil used great treachery, and wrought much mischief with man, in that he spiritually possessed them, [as may be read concerning the idol oracles], and here [in the Baptism] his trade and handicraft was laid aside; for Christ erected for the children a laver of Regeneration in the Holy Ghost, (for a child hath not faith as yet, also there are very few that learn [or are taught] what faith is), that there might be one testament that might preserve poor ignorant man.
237. Not that the Holy Ghost alone baptizeth, indeed he chiefly manageth the office, and taketh the virtue of the Number Three wherewith he baptizeth; and so when the baptizer saith, / baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; then the Holy Ghost taketh hold in the Number Three, and baptizeth in the water of the soul, in the water of life, which is in the blood of the tincture, which containeth the spirit-life, viz. the second centre of nature; and so the spirit of the soul receiveth the virtue and office of the Holy Ghost, and here lieth the Mysterium Magnum, [the Great Mystery] . 38. Dear brethren in Babel, do not so dance about on the outside of the Mystery, enter in, or else ye are not the ministers of Christ; if you cannot apprehend this, yet continue in the faith on the Word: But when you say Christ's testaments are only signs and not substance, then you are the Antichrist, and deny the Deity, and are not capable of the office: You cannot baptize the child, but the congregation of God, (which hath the faith), baptizeth it: A keeper of sheep, or a keeper of swine, that simply believeth that baptism is a great hidden Mystery, wherein the holy Number Three baptizeth, and that himself is but the servant, minister, or instrument, which performeth only the outward work, he in his simplicity baptizeth much better than you do. 39. You great school rabbis and masters, that
3sit aloft, let this be told you: There is one coming who will baptize you with the fire of wrath, because you deny his power and virtue: You have a hard bit [to chew] of Christ's testaments: If you will not go forth from your councils into the temple of Jesus Christ you must be quite cast away. 40. In times of old you were very many of you; for you propagated yourselves, and not the office of Christ: But you are now become very thin in Germany; where you were a thousand, you are now scarce a hundred of you: If you will not leave off your human wit and your own inventions, God will so cast you away, that where you are now a hundred, there shall not remain ten of you, nor a less number. Awake from your sleep, lest you thus go down into perdition into the abyss. 41. You say we laugh you to scorn: It may be you think so, for there is one that laugheth you to scorn whom we know, who sheweth it to us: He will suddenly awake: be not so secure and careless: Consider of it; for none taketh any thing to himself, unless it be given him of God; neither will this be spoken in vain. 42. O beloved and worthy Christendom, observe it well: Do not say, If our teachers lead us
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.
1office, who chiefly manageth the office in the Baptism, and maketh in the water of the soul a water of life in his virtue; and one [other testament] (for poor sinners that are more in years, to understand it) in the Word of life, as in flesh and blood, where the Word, viz. the Heart of God chiefly manageth the office, and feedeth with his body, and giveth his blood for drink; which testament with flesh and blood belongeth to the tincture of the fire-life, to the soul; and the testament of water belongeth to the spirit-life, viz. to the other tincture, and yet is but one man: But before the birth of Christ, the devil used great treachery, and wrought much mischief with man, in that he spiritually possessed them, [as may be read concerning the idol oracles], and here [in the Baptism] his trade and handicraft was laid aside; for Christ erected for the children a laver of Regeneration in the Holy Ghost, (for a child hath not faith as yet, also there are very few that learn [or are taught] what faith is), that there might be one testament that might preserve poor ignorant man.
237. Not that the Holy Ghost alone baptizeth, indeed he chiefly manageth the office, and taketh the virtue of the Number Three wherewith he baptizeth; and so when the baptizer saith, / baptize thee in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost; then the Holy Ghost taketh hold in the Number Three, and baptizeth in the water of the soul, in the water of life, which is in the blood of the tincture, which containeth the spirit-life, viz. the second centre of nature; and so the spirit of the soul receiveth the virtue and office of the Holy Ghost, and here lieth the Mysterium Magnum, [the Great Mystery] . 38. Dear brethren in Babel, do not so dance about on the outside of the Mystery, enter in, or else ye are not the ministers of Christ; if you cannot apprehend this, yet continue in the faith on the Word: But when you say Christ's testaments are only signs and not substance, then you are the Antichrist, and deny the Deity, and are not capable of the office: You cannot baptize the child, but the congregation of God, (which hath the faith), baptizeth it: A keeper of sheep, or a keeper of swine, that simply believeth that baptism is a great hidden Mystery, wherein the holy Number Three baptizeth, and that himself is but the servant, minister, or instrument, which performeth only the outward work, he in his simplicity baptizeth much better than you do. 39. You great school rabbis and masters, that
3sit aloft, let this be told you: There is one coming who will baptize you with the fire of wrath, because you deny his power and virtue: You have a hard bit [to chew] of Christ's testaments: If you will not go forth from your councils into the temple of Jesus Christ you must be quite cast away. 40. In times of old you were very many of you; for you propagated yourselves, and not the office of Christ: But you are now become very thin in Germany; where you were a thousand, you are now scarce a hundred of you: If you will not leave off your human wit and your own inventions, God will so cast you away, that where you are now a hundred, there shall not remain ten of you, nor a less number. Awake from your sleep, lest you thus go down into perdition into the abyss. 41. You say we laugh you to scorn: It may be you think so, for there is one that laugheth you to scorn whom we know, who sheweth it to us: He will suddenly awake: be not so secure and careless: Consider of it; for none taketh any thing to himself, unless it be given him of God; neither will this be spoken in vain. 42. O beloved and worthy Christendom, observe it well: Do not say, If our teachers lead us
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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