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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.
168. And out of this substance another new self-full will did now arise, viz. a bastard, a false serpent-child; and this bastard, Adam did originally propagate to his Eve, and Eve to her son Cain, and so one man to another. Thus we have now in this earthly flesh this same false will proceeded from the Serpent's substance, whereinto the devil introduces his desire, and tempts us, and continually makes us lust and long after the devilish property [viz. pride, covetousness, envy, and anger], that so his desire, which he insinuates into the false bastard in us, might become substantial and essential; out of which such a whorish and devilish serpentine seed is continually begotten; and out of the same false ens [or seed] a devil's will [is begotten]. 69. Thus the devil rides in and upon man, in and upon body and soul. But now the first introduced free will, which God breathed into Adam, lies yet in all men, for it is the true real soul, the centre of the fire and light, a spark of the divine power and omnipotence, but wholly hemmed in and captivated in this wicked introduced bastard.
270. Therefore God has again in-hested [ Imputed, introduced recalled or really promised into the soul] and incorporated the aim of his new Covenant, in the Word of the divine holy power, in the name of Jesus, into the property of the lightful fire (viz. into the disappeared heavenly holy ens, which did disappear in the darkness), that the first free will (which now lies captive in the child of the whore and Serpent) should introduce its desire into this aim of the promised Covenant (which he has fulfilled in Christ's humanity), and with the desire of the soul's free will re-introduce the holy ens of Christ (which he [Christ] in the seed of Mary introduced into our disappeared ens) into its disappeared heavenly ens. And if it does bring it so to pass, then out of this introduced ens of Christ arises Christ's spirit, which destroys the false will of the Serpent's bastard in the flesh, and tramples upon its head. 71. Now says reason, God gives this holy new ens of Christ to whom he will, and suffers whom he please to harden and remain captive in the Serpent's ens. Yes, very right: He gives none this holy ens into the self-will of his Serpent's child; there belongs far another earnestness thereto; for selfhood cannot now any more take any thing of God.
372. But this is the process which the free will must go, if it will receive the holy ens: it must wind itself out of the Serpent's desire (out of its selfish-self and somethingness), and wind itself into God's mercy; and become a deadly mortifying enemy to the fleshly desire in itself: It must wholly forsake and depart from the self-full desire of the flesh; and bring its hunger wholly and only into the mortification of its selfish somethingness, desiring and endeavouring continually and willingly to die to its iniquity and false desire (which sticks in the flesh, in the Serpent's child), and in Christ's ens arise with a new will. 73. This desire, which departs from the Serpent's ens, and hungers after God's mercy, receives Christ's ens into itself, whence a new will is born, which bruises the head of the Serpent in the flesh, for it is the new birth out of God in Christ Jesus. 74. But if you will say, you cannot desire any good, that is not true. [We reply:] you alone suffer the Serpent's will in your right eternal soul's will to hold you; and with the soul's will do play the whore with the Serpent's will in the flesh; from whence arises God's election.
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.
168. And out of this substance another new self-full will did now arise, viz. a bastard, a false serpent-child; and this bastard, Adam did originally propagate to his Eve, and Eve to her son Cain, and so one man to another. Thus we have now in this earthly flesh this same false will proceeded from the Serpent's substance, whereinto the devil introduces his desire, and tempts us, and continually makes us lust and long after the devilish property [viz. pride, covetousness, envy, and anger], that so his desire, which he insinuates into the false bastard in us, might become substantial and essential; out of which such a whorish and devilish serpentine seed is continually begotten; and out of the same false ens [or seed] a devil's will [is begotten]. 69. Thus the devil rides in and upon man, in and upon body and soul. But now the first introduced free will, which God breathed into Adam, lies yet in all men, for it is the true real soul, the centre of the fire and light, a spark of the divine power and omnipotence, but wholly hemmed in and captivated in this wicked introduced bastard.
270. Therefore God has again in-hested [ Imputed, introduced recalled or really promised into the soul] and incorporated the aim of his new Covenant, in the Word of the divine holy power, in the name of Jesus, into the property of the lightful fire (viz. into the disappeared heavenly holy ens, which did disappear in the darkness), that the first free will (which now lies captive in the child of the whore and Serpent) should introduce its desire into this aim of the promised Covenant (which he has fulfilled in Christ's humanity), and with the desire of the soul's free will re-introduce the holy ens of Christ (which he [Christ] in the seed of Mary introduced into our disappeared ens) into its disappeared heavenly ens. And if it does bring it so to pass, then out of this introduced ens of Christ arises Christ's spirit, which destroys the false will of the Serpent's bastard in the flesh, and tramples upon its head. 71. Now says reason, God gives this holy new ens of Christ to whom he will, and suffers whom he please to harden and remain captive in the Serpent's ens. Yes, very right: He gives none this holy ens into the self-will of his Serpent's child; there belongs far another earnestness thereto; for selfhood cannot now any more take any thing of God.
372. But this is the process which the free will must go, if it will receive the holy ens: it must wind itself out of the Serpent's desire (out of its selfish-self and somethingness), and wind itself into God's mercy; and become a deadly mortifying enemy to the fleshly desire in itself: It must wholly forsake and depart from the self-full desire of the flesh; and bring its hunger wholly and only into the mortification of its selfish somethingness, desiring and endeavouring continually and willingly to die to its iniquity and false desire (which sticks in the flesh, in the Serpent's child), and in Christ's ens arise with a new will. 73. This desire, which departs from the Serpent's ens, and hungers after God's mercy, receives Christ's ens into itself, whence a new will is born, which bruises the head of the Serpent in the flesh, for it is the new birth out of God in Christ Jesus. 74. But if you will say, you cannot desire any good, that is not true. [We reply:] you alone suffer the Serpent's will in your right eternal soul's will to hold you; and with the soul's will do play the whore with the Serpent's will in the flesh; from whence arises God's election.
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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