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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.
1that may mistake this text, as the spirit sheweth me, therefore you must know, that when the soul is born anew, in the Word and in the spirit of Christ (in this [life] time), then also the first substantiality (viz. the inward body of the soul, which Adam had in Paradise) out of the eternal virgin (wherein he was created man) becometh new born, and getteth the flesh of Christ. 77. This new body, in which the new regenerate soul sticketh, sticketh in the old corrupt flesh, and is incomprehensible and immortal: But the Old Man [which is] conceived from the spirit of this world, must perish in the earth: It goeth into its mother, who must bring it forth, and present it at the Last [Judgment] Day: but after the sentence of Christ, it goeth into the ether, and is only as a figure to [for or before] the eternal New Man; for in that figure all a man's works follow him. 78. So also they that be alive at the hour of the last Judgment, the Old Man will fall away from them, with the perishing of the world, and pass into the ether: For all the bodies of the wicked shall be presented there in the mother, viz. in the spirit of this world; and the souls shall hear the sentence: and then their bodies also pass away with the mother, and stand as a. figure: and their works follow them into the Abyss. THE NINTH CHAPTER Concerning the Threefold Life. Also of the Inclination [Driving or impulsion ] and whole Government of Man in this World. Highly to be Considered.
21. IT is shewn to me, what the devil's intention is, how he will endeavour to smother these high and precious writings: therefore be watchful, ye children of God, believe not the sophisters too much, who cry out, heretic! heretic! To the fire with them. That is not the voice of the Holy Ghost, but the voice of the Antichrist, and of the dragon: for these writings will exceedingly discover the devil's smoking pit; and not only so, but they shew also the whore of Babel very plainly, like a whore put to open shame. 2. But (because the men of the spirit of this world take care only for their belly, and are loth to lose their honour, credit, reputation and goods, but had rather part with God and the kingdom of heaven) we shall be persecuted by the whore through the instigation of the devil: therefore be watchful, ye children of God, and look not upon that which is high, and hath great authority; but regard the wellfare of your souls. This we leave you for the last [farewell] . 3. Christ saith, No one kindleth a light, and setteth it under a cover, or under a bushel, but setteth it upon a table, that all that are in the house may see by the light thereof. Thus must we also do, and must not bury our talent (which is so dearly bestowed upon us) in the earth; for we must give an account thereof at the Day of the Judgment of God, as the spirit of the mother intimateth to us.
34. If this knowledge [or understanding] of this spirit shall happen to fall upon any, they will be then certain what it is. We need no letters of commendation; Christ is our letter of commendation, which is sufficient for us. None ought to call themselves after my name: All of us that know Christ, put on him, and are members of his body: we call ourselves Christians and children of God, and brethren and sisters one of another. 5. Therefore now, when we consider the dominion [or course] of our life, we find a powerful strife therein, which the devil hath with the soul, and also which the spirit of this world hath with the soul. For there is a knowledge in the spirit of this world; indeed there is no divine understanding in it, but there is an apprehension planted in the matrix, viz. in the centre of nature. 6. For this world, before the creation, stood from eternity in the eternal wisdom, as an invisible figure, and is now created as a proper Principle of its own, to the end that it might bring all its wonders and works into essence, that they may appear in their figure after the time [of this world] .
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.
1that may mistake this text, as the spirit sheweth me, therefore you must know, that when the soul is born anew, in the Word and in the spirit of Christ (in this [life] time), then also the first substantiality (viz. the inward body of the soul, which Adam had in Paradise) out of the eternal virgin (wherein he was created man) becometh new born, and getteth the flesh of Christ. 77. This new body, in which the new regenerate soul sticketh, sticketh in the old corrupt flesh, and is incomprehensible and immortal: But the Old Man [which is] conceived from the spirit of this world, must perish in the earth: It goeth into its mother, who must bring it forth, and present it at the Last [Judgment] Day: but after the sentence of Christ, it goeth into the ether, and is only as a figure to [for or before] the eternal New Man; for in that figure all a man's works follow him. 78. So also they that be alive at the hour of the last Judgment, the Old Man will fall away from them, with the perishing of the world, and pass into the ether: For all the bodies of the wicked shall be presented there in the mother, viz. in the spirit of this world; and the souls shall hear the sentence: and then their bodies also pass away with the mother, and stand as a. figure: and their works follow them into the Abyss. THE NINTH CHAPTER Concerning the Threefold Life. Also of the Inclination [Driving or impulsion ] and whole Government of Man in this World. Highly to be Considered.
21. IT is shewn to me, what the devil's intention is, how he will endeavour to smother these high and precious writings: therefore be watchful, ye children of God, believe not the sophisters too much, who cry out, heretic! heretic! To the fire with them. That is not the voice of the Holy Ghost, but the voice of the Antichrist, and of the dragon: for these writings will exceedingly discover the devil's smoking pit; and not only so, but they shew also the whore of Babel very plainly, like a whore put to open shame. 2. But (because the men of the spirit of this world take care only for their belly, and are loth to lose their honour, credit, reputation and goods, but had rather part with God and the kingdom of heaven) we shall be persecuted by the whore through the instigation of the devil: therefore be watchful, ye children of God, and look not upon that which is high, and hath great authority; but regard the wellfare of your souls. This we leave you for the last [farewell] . 3. Christ saith, No one kindleth a light, and setteth it under a cover, or under a bushel, but setteth it upon a table, that all that are in the house may see by the light thereof. Thus must we also do, and must not bury our talent (which is so dearly bestowed upon us) in the earth; for we must give an account thereof at the Day of the Judgment of God, as the spirit of the mother intimateth to us.
34. If this knowledge [or understanding] of this spirit shall happen to fall upon any, they will be then certain what it is. We need no letters of commendation; Christ is our letter of commendation, which is sufficient for us. None ought to call themselves after my name: All of us that know Christ, put on him, and are members of his body: we call ourselves Christians and children of God, and brethren and sisters one of another. 5. Therefore now, when we consider the dominion [or course] of our life, we find a powerful strife therein, which the devil hath with the soul, and also which the spirit of this world hath with the soul. For there is a knowledge in the spirit of this world; indeed there is no divine understanding in it, but there is an apprehension planted in the matrix, viz. in the centre of nature. 6. For this world, before the creation, stood from eternity in the eternal wisdom, as an invisible figure, and is now created as a proper Principle of its own, to the end that it might bring all its wonders and works into essence, that they may appear in their figure after the time [of this world] .
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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