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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.
1now what is this gospel? it is the gospel of Christ which they had received: if we knew Christ we should soon understand his gospel, and how they had received it, and know how justly they are accursed that preach any other: and when we know Christ as fully as his Apostles did, we shall understand from him more than we can find from their writings, though theirs, and the Prophets, all preaching the gospel, direct us to Christ and tell us where he is and what he is. The Apostle John says: The Word was God, and all things were made by it, and in it was life, and the life was the light of men, and that was the true light which lights every man that comes into the world. This Word Moses calls the commandment, which is in our hearts that we may do it. Paul calls it Christ, the word of faith which they preach; near us in our hearts and mouths. James calls it the engrafted word which is able to save our souls, and advises to lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and to receive it with meekness; by this it may be discerned, that the word which enlightens everyone is engrafted even in those that have filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, which is to be all laid apart, or that engrafted word cannot be received though it be able to save our souls, and seeing it is Christ in us, none does question but it will save us, being received: and this is the word by which hearing, obeying, or receiving comes, and by that hearing comes faith (Rom. x. 17), that is, Christ comes to be born in us: thus we see, where Christ is, what he is, and the powerful efficacy of him; and to know this feelingly and so receive this word is receiving the Gospel, the glad tidings of salvation which shall be to all men, that embrace him; and the preaching and declaring this, is that Gospel; that sound which is gone into all the earth (Ps. xix. 4; Rom. x. 18); it is the eternal Gospel: whosoever preaches any other besides it is accursed.
2Now what this word has and does effect, and how, in the whole creation and in every creature, in all men, and in ourselves, is the Mysterium Magnum which this author declares exactly upon Genesis, wherein all mysteries are couched, there is not the least jot or tittle of all the rest of the books of Scripture that want a mystery, which may be apprehended, by observing how this author lays them open in this part; and will serve as an introduction to the understanding the whole Book of God, in nature and Scripture; and then we may read how our names are written in the Book of Life, which is the best and most comfortable lesson that any can learn, and then we shall not need that this author or any man teach us, for we shall all be taught of God, as is promised and firmly expected that it will be accomplished. These things considered, and the author's serious admonitions to walk in the ways of holiness, self-denial, resignation, the new-birth, killing of our outward will and desires which rebel against God, might perhaps satisfy, and allay the stirring thoughts of them that suppose some evil purpose was intended in the disclosing of these deep mysteries, when as it is given to none to understand such things but to disciples of Christ;
3neither can so great a revelation as this author has expressed enter into any heart that is not given up to follow Christ, and to forsake his own will, living in continual repentance, and taking up his cross daily, which he has earnestly called upon all to do, in his book of The Way to Christ, and here and there his writings are strewed with such counsel as with sweet smelling flowers, curious both for shapes and colours, why therefore should his books be scandalised as wicked; it cannot but be acknowledged they have appeared to be dictated by the Holy Ghost, to the apprehensions of some that desire to walk in the fear of God and in the narrow path that leads unto life, and have found much furtherance in that way from his writings, the comfort whereof shall never be taken from them: If his writings were thoroughly weighed, men would not need that this testimony should be given of him. But there are some that in words are so full of reproachings and bitter terms against their brethren, whose words or writings do not please their palate; that they revile one another and return bitterness for bitterness, evil for evil; whereas Michael the Archangel when he strove with the devil about the body of Moses durst not use a railing accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke thee;
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.
1now what is this gospel? it is the gospel of Christ which they had received: if we knew Christ we should soon understand his gospel, and how they had received it, and know how justly they are accursed that preach any other: and when we know Christ as fully as his Apostles did, we shall understand from him more than we can find from their writings, though theirs, and the Prophets, all preaching the gospel, direct us to Christ and tell us where he is and what he is. The Apostle John says: The Word was God, and all things were made by it, and in it was life, and the life was the light of men, and that was the true light which lights every man that comes into the world. This Word Moses calls the commandment, which is in our hearts that we may do it. Paul calls it Christ, the word of faith which they preach; near us in our hearts and mouths. James calls it the engrafted word which is able to save our souls, and advises to lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, and to receive it with meekness; by this it may be discerned, that the word which enlightens everyone is engrafted even in those that have filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness, which is to be all laid apart, or that engrafted word cannot be received though it be able to save our souls, and seeing it is Christ in us, none does question but it will save us, being received: and this is the word by which hearing, obeying, or receiving comes, and by that hearing comes faith (Rom. x. 17), that is, Christ comes to be born in us: thus we see, where Christ is, what he is, and the powerful efficacy of him; and to know this feelingly and so receive this word is receiving the Gospel, the glad tidings of salvation which shall be to all men, that embrace him; and the preaching and declaring this, is that Gospel; that sound which is gone into all the earth (Ps. xix. 4; Rom. x. 18); it is the eternal Gospel: whosoever preaches any other besides it is accursed.
2Now what this word has and does effect, and how, in the whole creation and in every creature, in all men, and in ourselves, is the Mysterium Magnum which this author declares exactly upon Genesis, wherein all mysteries are couched, there is not the least jot or tittle of all the rest of the books of Scripture that want a mystery, which may be apprehended, by observing how this author lays them open in this part; and will serve as an introduction to the understanding the whole Book of God, in nature and Scripture; and then we may read how our names are written in the Book of Life, which is the best and most comfortable lesson that any can learn, and then we shall not need that this author or any man teach us, for we shall all be taught of God, as is promised and firmly expected that it will be accomplished. These things considered, and the author's serious admonitions to walk in the ways of holiness, self-denial, resignation, the new-birth, killing of our outward will and desires which rebel against God, might perhaps satisfy, and allay the stirring thoughts of them that suppose some evil purpose was intended in the disclosing of these deep mysteries, when as it is given to none to understand such things but to disciples of Christ;
3neither can so great a revelation as this author has expressed enter into any heart that is not given up to follow Christ, and to forsake his own will, living in continual repentance, and taking up his cross daily, which he has earnestly called upon all to do, in his book of The Way to Christ, and here and there his writings are strewed with such counsel as with sweet smelling flowers, curious both for shapes and colours, why therefore should his books be scandalised as wicked; it cannot but be acknowledged they have appeared to be dictated by the Holy Ghost, to the apprehensions of some that desire to walk in the fear of God and in the narrow path that leads unto life, and have found much furtherance in that way from his writings, the comfort whereof shall never be taken from them: If his writings were thoroughly weighed, men would not need that this testimony should be given of him. But there are some that in words are so full of reproachings and bitter terms against their brethren, whose words or writings do not please their palate; that they revile one another and return bitterness for bitterness, evil for evil; whereas Michael the Archangel when he strove with the devil about the body of Moses durst not use a railing accusation, but said, the Lord rebuke thee;
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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