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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.
174. And do not think that mankind hath such a beginning, as we must say of ourselves, according to the creation: no, the image hath appeared in God from eternity in the virgin of wisdom; but not in substance [or distinction] ; it was no woman, nor man, but it was both; as Adam was both, before Eve was, which [divided distinction] signifieth the earthly, and also the bestial man; for nothing subsisteth in eternity, unless it hath been from eternity. 75. O ye children of God, open the eyes of your inward man, and see rightly: If you be new born in God, then you put on that very eternal image, and the man Christ is become man in that very image, viz. in the eternal virgin; for no mortal virgin is pure; and he was conceived by the Holy Spirit in a pure virgin, and in respect of our soul which he should assume, he is also [become man] in the mortal virgin: for Mary had all the Three Principles in her: and the image of the eternal virgin consisted in the divine and eternal substantiality; it was indeed without substance, but in the man Christ, it came to be a substance. 76. We do not say concerning the outward Virgin Mary, that she was not the daughter of Joachim and Anna; as the ancients have erred, to whom the light of God hath not so shone, because they sought their own profit therein.
277. For Mary was begotten of the seed of Joachim and Anna, like other persons; but she was the blessed among women: in her the eternal virgin, in Ternario Sancto, which was from eternity, discovered itself: not that it entered into hex from without; no, it is quite otherwise. Here God and man became one again: What Adam lost, was here revived again; understand it rightly: The Word of the Lord, Verbum Domini, the Word of the Father on the cross, came into Mary, understand, into the earthly Mary. 78. Now, where the Word is, there is [also] the virgin [or wisdom of God] ; for the Word is in the wisdom: and the one is not without the other, or else the eternity would be divided. 79. And now when the Word in Mary, in her flesh and blood, entered into her matrix, then the Fiat was in the matrix, but it did not in one moment create a complete earthly man, nor a heavenly either; but it began the Incarnation [or becoming man] ; for the divine nature is neither augmented nor diminished, but is always complete. 80. But now this, that the eternal virgin, that was without substance, gave in itself together with the becoming man [or Incarnation], and the true soul of Christ was out of Mary's essences, conceived in the eternal virgin: and in the eternal virgin, God became man, and so the eternal virgin came into substantiality, for it gat the human soul into it. Thus the human soul of Christ stood in the earthly essences, as also in the virgin of the
3eternal wisdom in Ternario Sancto, in the Trinity of God: for the Word of the Lord was in it [or her, the virgin], and God and man became one person. 81. In this person [which was God and man] were all the Three Principles open, undivided; the virgin, in Ternario Sancto, giveth the heavenly body, and Mary the earthly [body] : and the Word was in the centre upon the cross, in the Number Three; whereas we say that the Word is become flesh, and it is so. 82. Behold! the virgin of eternity hath no flesh, nor hath had any from eternity, (except in Adam before the Fall, which afterwards came to be earthly), but it took human flesh upon it: understand [it thus], the Word, together with the whole Deity, was in the virgin: For without the Word there were no understanding in the eternal virgin. 83. For the spirit of God was in the Word, and he was the understanding, but the Word was as a heavenly figure, a figure of the Number Three; but not in the working; as indeed the flesh worketh not, but the spirit in the flesh [worketh] . 84. And the living Word, which dwelleth in the eternal virgin, attracted to it the flesh of Mary; understand it thus, the Word attracted the flesh, (viz. the essences [or faculties] out of the body of Mary) into the eternal virgin: and so in nine months there was a complete man, with soul, spirit, and flesh.
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.
174. And do not think that mankind hath such a beginning, as we must say of ourselves, according to the creation: no, the image hath appeared in God from eternity in the virgin of wisdom; but not in substance [or distinction] ; it was no woman, nor man, but it was both; as Adam was both, before Eve was, which [divided distinction] signifieth the earthly, and also the bestial man; for nothing subsisteth in eternity, unless it hath been from eternity. 75. O ye children of God, open the eyes of your inward man, and see rightly: If you be new born in God, then you put on that very eternal image, and the man Christ is become man in that very image, viz. in the eternal virgin; for no mortal virgin is pure; and he was conceived by the Holy Spirit in a pure virgin, and in respect of our soul which he should assume, he is also [become man] in the mortal virgin: for Mary had all the Three Principles in her: and the image of the eternal virgin consisted in the divine and eternal substantiality; it was indeed without substance, but in the man Christ, it came to be a substance. 76. We do not say concerning the outward Virgin Mary, that she was not the daughter of Joachim and Anna; as the ancients have erred, to whom the light of God hath not so shone, because they sought their own profit therein.
277. For Mary was begotten of the seed of Joachim and Anna, like other persons; but she was the blessed among women: in her the eternal virgin, in Ternario Sancto, which was from eternity, discovered itself: not that it entered into hex from without; no, it is quite otherwise. Here God and man became one again: What Adam lost, was here revived again; understand it rightly: The Word of the Lord, Verbum Domini, the Word of the Father on the cross, came into Mary, understand, into the earthly Mary. 78. Now, where the Word is, there is [also] the virgin [or wisdom of God] ; for the Word is in the wisdom: and the one is not without the other, or else the eternity would be divided. 79. And now when the Word in Mary, in her flesh and blood, entered into her matrix, then the Fiat was in the matrix, but it did not in one moment create a complete earthly man, nor a heavenly either; but it began the Incarnation [or becoming man] ; for the divine nature is neither augmented nor diminished, but is always complete. 80. But now this, that the eternal virgin, that was without substance, gave in itself together with the becoming man [or Incarnation], and the true soul of Christ was out of Mary's essences, conceived in the eternal virgin: and in the eternal virgin, God became man, and so the eternal virgin came into substantiality, for it gat the human soul into it. Thus the human soul of Christ stood in the earthly essences, as also in the virgin of the
3eternal wisdom in Ternario Sancto, in the Trinity of God: for the Word of the Lord was in it [or her, the virgin], and God and man became one person. 81. In this person [which was God and man] were all the Three Principles open, undivided; the virgin, in Ternario Sancto, giveth the heavenly body, and Mary the earthly [body] : and the Word was in the centre upon the cross, in the Number Three; whereas we say that the Word is become flesh, and it is so. 82. Behold! the virgin of eternity hath no flesh, nor hath had any from eternity, (except in Adam before the Fall, which afterwards came to be earthly), but it took human flesh upon it: understand [it thus], the Word, together with the whole Deity, was in the virgin: For without the Word there were no understanding in the eternal virgin. 83. For the spirit of God was in the Word, and he was the understanding, but the Word was as a heavenly figure, a figure of the Number Three; but not in the working; as indeed the flesh worketh not, but the spirit in the flesh [worketh] . 84. And the living Word, which dwelleth in the eternal virgin, attracted to it the flesh of Mary; understand it thus, the Word attracted the flesh, (viz. the essences [or faculties] out of the body of Mary) into the eternal virgin: and so in nine months there was a complete man, with soul, spirit, and flesh.
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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