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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.
1Such things as these are only mentioned in the Scripture; the knowledge whereof would make the soul delighted whether there be health of body or not; and it is far surpassing all other books: because they set down all things necessary to eternal salvation so plainly that the meanest capacity may learn them, and it will be the greater condemnation that men neglect so great salvation as is there discovered; they were written by those who knew exactly the mysteries of salvation, and do direct us into the paths thereof: how excellent is the understanding of them then, and how acceptable and profitable are those writings that expound them clearly: But we are for the most part willing to let the understanding of them go, or at most desire a literal knowledge only; for, those that mention the mystical exposition of things, are suspected to be deceivers; as if, though men do not so well apprehend divine and natural mysteries as they might do, we shall judge them for offering to search after, and but complaining of the want of such learning, as does teach the understanding of them. Whereas our Saviour himself taught his disciples the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. And the Apostle Paul taught the mysteries of the Gospel, of Godliness, of Christ, of Faith, and of the Resurrection.
2To them that were without, all things were done in parables (Mark iv. 11), but Christ expounded the meaning of them apart to his disciples. The Scriptures instruct us, not only as to the mere relation of things done, but so that the man of God may be made perfect and ready to every good work: This man of God is the inward man, the child of God, the hidden man of the heart; Christ in us; whose flesh and blood, except we eat and drink, we have no part in him; these words of spirit and life he spake when he was yet alive upon the earth before his suffering, which made his disciples cry out this is a hard saying who can bear it; not considering that his heavenly Divine flesh and blood was in their
3souls, and that they did there eat and drink thereof; for they had part in him though they knew not how, at that time; yet the mortal flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, being the old man of corruption, which is earth, and to earth shall return. These are great mysteries, and as well after they are made known as before; for they are the hidden secret operations of spiritual things, and the spirit of man only of all earthly creatures is capable to understand them; there are indeed lying wonders, spiritual wickednesses in high places, that make up the mystery of iniquity; these only deceive the soul ofman by their working in the heart in the love of them, to the bringing forth their evil fruits, and not the knowing of them in the mystery, for therein they were well known to the Apostles. If men pretend they know mysteries and are not able to teach them, they are to blame, but not those that seek after them and speak what they find, and stir up others not to rest contented with that which they have, when they may get more rich treasure by searching after it. The history of Christ, and of all other things mentioned in the Scriptures, are infallibly true, that he was born of the Virgin Mary, that he is the Saviour of the world, was crucified at Jerusalem, rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven;
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.
1Such things as these are only mentioned in the Scripture; the knowledge whereof would make the soul delighted whether there be health of body or not; and it is far surpassing all other books: because they set down all things necessary to eternal salvation so plainly that the meanest capacity may learn them, and it will be the greater condemnation that men neglect so great salvation as is there discovered; they were written by those who knew exactly the mysteries of salvation, and do direct us into the paths thereof: how excellent is the understanding of them then, and how acceptable and profitable are those writings that expound them clearly: But we are for the most part willing to let the understanding of them go, or at most desire a literal knowledge only; for, those that mention the mystical exposition of things, are suspected to be deceivers; as if, though men do not so well apprehend divine and natural mysteries as they might do, we shall judge them for offering to search after, and but complaining of the want of such learning, as does teach the understanding of them. Whereas our Saviour himself taught his disciples the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven. And the Apostle Paul taught the mysteries of the Gospel, of Godliness, of Christ, of Faith, and of the Resurrection.
2To them that were without, all things were done in parables (Mark iv. 11), but Christ expounded the meaning of them apart to his disciples. The Scriptures instruct us, not only as to the mere relation of things done, but so that the man of God may be made perfect and ready to every good work: This man of God is the inward man, the child of God, the hidden man of the heart; Christ in us; whose flesh and blood, except we eat and drink, we have no part in him; these words of spirit and life he spake when he was yet alive upon the earth before his suffering, which made his disciples cry out this is a hard saying who can bear it; not considering that his heavenly Divine flesh and blood was in their
3souls, and that they did there eat and drink thereof; for they had part in him though they knew not how, at that time; yet the mortal flesh and blood shall not inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, being the old man of corruption, which is earth, and to earth shall return. These are great mysteries, and as well after they are made known as before; for they are the hidden secret operations of spiritual things, and the spirit of man only of all earthly creatures is capable to understand them; there are indeed lying wonders, spiritual wickednesses in high places, that make up the mystery of iniquity; these only deceive the soul ofman by their working in the heart in the love of them, to the bringing forth their evil fruits, and not the knowing of them in the mystery, for therein they were well known to the Apostles. If men pretend they know mysteries and are not able to teach them, they are to blame, but not those that seek after them and speak what they find, and stir up others not to rest contented with that which they have, when they may get more rich treasure by searching after it. The history of Christ, and of all other things mentioned in the Scriptures, are infallibly true, that he was born of the Virgin Mary, that he is the Saviour of the world, was crucified at Jerusalem, rose again from the dead, ascended into heaven;
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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