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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.
16. Now Adam had the virgin of divine wisdom in him, but when he fell, then it continued immovable in its own Principle, and Adam 2 departed from it. 7. But know that Christ became man in that virgin [which was] in the earthly Mary, for the Word of the Lord brought that with it into the body of Mary. 8. And here you must understand that Christ became flesh in the water of eternal life, 3 which flesh the whole Deity filleth, and also in the 4 essences of the earthly Mary. 9. But Mary was blessed with the heavenly virgin, and so Christ became man in a pure vessel, and the earthly man hung to him. 10. For it was for the sake of the soul which he was to receive from 5 Mary, that he must receive Mary's flesh, yet in the blessing, in the heavenly virgin only. 1 That is, a bestial, animal, mortal man. 2 Or forsook it. 3 Col. ii. 9. 4 substance, or properties. 5 the soul of Mary. 11. The tincture of the blood in the heavenly virgin was heavenly; for the 1 earthly had not been able to pass through the wrath of God, and through death, much less would it have had power to rise out of the grave. 12. That Word which became flesh had the water of eternal life, which proceeded from the divine Majesty, and yet it was in Mary's blood: and here for further information we direct you to our third book, where it is described at large.
213. And thus we tell you, we shall have a body consisting of flesh and blood, such a body as Christ had; for Christ by his incarnation is 2 become man in us. 14. When we are born anew of water, and of the spirit, then in Christ's spirit we are born anew of Christ's flesh and blood, we put on Christ. 15. Christ is born in the converted sinner, and he in Christ becometh the child of God; this is the body we shall have in heaven. 16. No gross bestial flesh, as we have in the old Adam, but subtle flesh and blood, such flesh as can pass through wood and stone, unhurt by the stone, 3 as Christ came in to his disciples, the door being shut: It is such a body as hath no turba or fragility; hell cannot * retain it, it is like eternity; and yet it is real flesh and blood, which our heavenly 4 hands shall touch and feel, and take hold of; also a visible body, as that is which we have here in this world. 1 earthly tincture, or substantial virtue. 2 Or born in us men. 3 John xx. 19, 26. 4 John xx. 27. 1 John i. 1. * "retain it" (ergreiferi), "seize hold of it." 17. Now consider, how is it possible that such a body as we carry about us here can be 1 capable of the divine Majesty? It must certainly be such a body as is like the Majesty, that the Majesty can shine forth from it, out of the tincture and water of eternal life.
318. Here indeed we are as it were 2 dumb to the apprehension of reason, yet we are well enough understood by our brethren; this belongeth to the 3 children. A wolf desireth to fill his mouth with such a piece of flesh as will fill his belly; we speak not of such flesh, but such as Christ hath given us in his 4 Testament, and left for a remembrance, and as an earnest 5 that he will remain for ever with us; we in him, and he in us. 19. Therefore we say that we shall have God's body and Christ's body, which filleth heaven; not that we shall stick in that which is his creature, but be joined one to another as members, brethren, and children. 20. There is but one life in us all; there is nothing mortal, all proceed from the eternal one; there is nothing that beginneth, but the wonders only, one essentiality is come out of the eternal: we are as gods, we are true children of God, proceeding from his essences in body and soul. 1 comprehend, or receive. 2 Or not intelligible. 3 Such as love God, and are born of him. 4 Last Supper. 5 John vi. 58. 1 Thes. iv. 17. John xv. 4. THE THIRTY-FOURTH QUESTION What is the miserable and horrible Condition of the damned?
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.
16. Now Adam had the virgin of divine wisdom in him, but when he fell, then it continued immovable in its own Principle, and Adam 2 departed from it. 7. But know that Christ became man in that virgin [which was] in the earthly Mary, for the Word of the Lord brought that with it into the body of Mary. 8. And here you must understand that Christ became flesh in the water of eternal life, 3 which flesh the whole Deity filleth, and also in the 4 essences of the earthly Mary. 9. But Mary was blessed with the heavenly virgin, and so Christ became man in a pure vessel, and the earthly man hung to him. 10. For it was for the sake of the soul which he was to receive from 5 Mary, that he must receive Mary's flesh, yet in the blessing, in the heavenly virgin only. 1 That is, a bestial, animal, mortal man. 2 Or forsook it. 3 Col. ii. 9. 4 substance, or properties. 5 the soul of Mary. 11. The tincture of the blood in the heavenly virgin was heavenly; for the 1 earthly had not been able to pass through the wrath of God, and through death, much less would it have had power to rise out of the grave. 12. That Word which became flesh had the water of eternal life, which proceeded from the divine Majesty, and yet it was in Mary's blood: and here for further information we direct you to our third book, where it is described at large.
213. And thus we tell you, we shall have a body consisting of flesh and blood, such a body as Christ had; for Christ by his incarnation is 2 become man in us. 14. When we are born anew of water, and of the spirit, then in Christ's spirit we are born anew of Christ's flesh and blood, we put on Christ. 15. Christ is born in the converted sinner, and he in Christ becometh the child of God; this is the body we shall have in heaven. 16. No gross bestial flesh, as we have in the old Adam, but subtle flesh and blood, such flesh as can pass through wood and stone, unhurt by the stone, 3 as Christ came in to his disciples, the door being shut: It is such a body as hath no turba or fragility; hell cannot * retain it, it is like eternity; and yet it is real flesh and blood, which our heavenly 4 hands shall touch and feel, and take hold of; also a visible body, as that is which we have here in this world. 1 earthly tincture, or substantial virtue. 2 Or born in us men. 3 John xx. 19, 26. 4 John xx. 27. 1 John i. 1. * "retain it" (ergreiferi), "seize hold of it." 17. Now consider, how is it possible that such a body as we carry about us here can be 1 capable of the divine Majesty? It must certainly be such a body as is like the Majesty, that the Majesty can shine forth from it, out of the tincture and water of eternal life.
318. Here indeed we are as it were 2 dumb to the apprehension of reason, yet we are well enough understood by our brethren; this belongeth to the 3 children. A wolf desireth to fill his mouth with such a piece of flesh as will fill his belly; we speak not of such flesh, but such as Christ hath given us in his 4 Testament, and left for a remembrance, and as an earnest 5 that he will remain for ever with us; we in him, and he in us. 19. Therefore we say that we shall have God's body and Christ's body, which filleth heaven; not that we shall stick in that which is his creature, but be joined one to another as members, brethren, and children. 20. There is but one life in us all; there is nothing mortal, all proceed from the eternal one; there is nothing that beginneth, but the wonders only, one essentiality is come out of the eternal: we are as gods, we are true children of God, proceeding from his essences in body and soul. 1 comprehend, or receive. 2 Or not intelligible. 3 Such as love God, and are born of him. 4 Last Supper. 5 John vi. 58. 1 Thes. iv. 17. John xv. 4. THE THIRTY-FOURTH QUESTION What is the miserable and horrible Condition of the damned?
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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