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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.
1If we be earnest and watchful in our fight, we shall be victorious over the first death, and on such the second death can have no power, which is the effect of the judgment: But having overcome that; then, when Christ who is our life (in the faith of the Son of God) shall appear, we shall also appear with him in glory. How excellent a thing is it now, to understand the things expressed in the Holy Scriptures, that they may not be a dead letter having no comfort in them, for none can rejoice to die except he feel the virtue of the life of Christ, killing sin in the mortal flesh; for therefore we must serve the Lord with fear and rejoice in him with trembling, because it it not safe for us to have our outward spirit wherein is the life of sin to rejoice without trembling. How cheerful would men be in soul and conscience, to run the ways of God's commandments, if they had killed sin, that they might rejoice to die; and so were filled with assured hope to enjoy the crown of victory which is laid up for them, and which Christ, through whom we have victory, shall give us. How does it comfort an afflicted soul to consider, that afflictions, though they be grievous for a time, are not to be compared with the eternal joys that are laid up for us. But if the transcendent sayings of the holy Apostles and Prophets be not understood, they are but dead to us and so are we to them.
2To conclude, let the reader know that more than half this book was translated into English by my dear kinsman, Mr John Ellistone, who departed this life at Gestingthorp in the county of Essex, on the 22nd of August 1652, about one of the clock in the morning: and so went into the mystery, where his soul enjoys the fruits of his labours of love, which those shall also do that walk in the same path, and I among the rest may in my appointed time be found in Christ worthy and capable to come to the innumerable company of angels, though now I deserve to be accounted One of the unworthiest of the children of men, JOHN SPARROW. De Mysterio Magno OF THE GRAND MYSTERY THAT IS Of the Manifestation of the Divine Word through the Three Principles of the Divine Essence The First Chapter What the Manifested God is: and of the Trinity 1. IF we would understand what the new birth is, and how it is brought 1 to pass, then we must first know what man is, and how he is the image of God; and what the divine indwelling 2 is; also what the revealed God is; of whom man is an image.
32. When I consider what God is, then I say, He is the One; in reference to the creature, as an eternal Nothing; he has neither foundation, beginning, nor abode; he possesses nothing, save only himself; he is the will of the abyss; he is in himself only one; he needs neither space, nor place; he begets himself in himself; from eternity to eternity; he is neither like nor resembles any thing; and has no peculiar place where he dwells; 3 the eternal wisdom or understanding is his dwelling; he is the will of the wisdom; the wisdom is his manifestation. 3. In this eternal generation we are to understand three things, viz. 1. An eternal will. 2. An eternal mind of the will. 3. The egress 4 from the will and mind, which is a spirit of the will and mind. 4. The will is father; the mind is the conceived 5 of the will, viz. the seat or habitation of the will, or the centre to something; and it is the will's heart; and the egress of the will and mind is the power and spirit. 1 Wrought, or effected. 2 Or how God dwells in man, and fills all things with his presence. 3 Or no sundry habitation above the stars in an empyrean heaven, as reason fancies. 4 Efflux, effluence, the proceeding-forth. 5 Comprehension or receptacle. 5. This threefold 1 spirit is one only essence, and yet it is no essence, but the eternal understanding, an original of the something:
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.
1If we be earnest and watchful in our fight, we shall be victorious over the first death, and on such the second death can have no power, which is the effect of the judgment: But having overcome that; then, when Christ who is our life (in the faith of the Son of God) shall appear, we shall also appear with him in glory. How excellent a thing is it now, to understand the things expressed in the Holy Scriptures, that they may not be a dead letter having no comfort in them, for none can rejoice to die except he feel the virtue of the life of Christ, killing sin in the mortal flesh; for therefore we must serve the Lord with fear and rejoice in him with trembling, because it it not safe for us to have our outward spirit wherein is the life of sin to rejoice without trembling. How cheerful would men be in soul and conscience, to run the ways of God's commandments, if they had killed sin, that they might rejoice to die; and so were filled with assured hope to enjoy the crown of victory which is laid up for them, and which Christ, through whom we have victory, shall give us. How does it comfort an afflicted soul to consider, that afflictions, though they be grievous for a time, are not to be compared with the eternal joys that are laid up for us. But if the transcendent sayings of the holy Apostles and Prophets be not understood, they are but dead to us and so are we to them.
2To conclude, let the reader know that more than half this book was translated into English by my dear kinsman, Mr John Ellistone, who departed this life at Gestingthorp in the county of Essex, on the 22nd of August 1652, about one of the clock in the morning: and so went into the mystery, where his soul enjoys the fruits of his labours of love, which those shall also do that walk in the same path, and I among the rest may in my appointed time be found in Christ worthy and capable to come to the innumerable company of angels, though now I deserve to be accounted One of the unworthiest of the children of men, JOHN SPARROW. De Mysterio Magno OF THE GRAND MYSTERY THAT IS Of the Manifestation of the Divine Word through the Three Principles of the Divine Essence The First Chapter What the Manifested God is: and of the Trinity 1. IF we would understand what the new birth is, and how it is brought 1 to pass, then we must first know what man is, and how he is the image of God; and what the divine indwelling 2 is; also what the revealed God is; of whom man is an image.
32. When I consider what God is, then I say, He is the One; in reference to the creature, as an eternal Nothing; he has neither foundation, beginning, nor abode; he possesses nothing, save only himself; he is the will of the abyss; he is in himself only one; he needs neither space, nor place; he begets himself in himself; from eternity to eternity; he is neither like nor resembles any thing; and has no peculiar place where he dwells; 3 the eternal wisdom or understanding is his dwelling; he is the will of the wisdom; the wisdom is his manifestation. 3. In this eternal generation we are to understand three things, viz. 1. An eternal will. 2. An eternal mind of the will. 3. The egress 4 from the will and mind, which is a spirit of the will and mind. 4. The will is father; the mind is the conceived 5 of the will, viz. the seat or habitation of the will, or the centre to something; and it is the will's heart; and the egress of the will and mind is the power and spirit. 1 Wrought, or effected. 2 Or how God dwells in man, and fills all things with his presence. 3 Or no sundry habitation above the stars in an empyrean heaven, as reason fancies. 4 Efflux, effluence, the proceeding-forth. 5 Comprehension or receptacle. 5. This threefold 1 spirit is one only essence, and yet it is no essence, but the eternal understanding, an original of the something:
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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