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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.
1purged (or proved) by the fire. Also at the end, when the books of the essence shall be opened, they shall he judged according to their works. For the work, be it evil or good, does embrace the soul, unless the soul does wholly depart [from the evil] and destroy it again, by reconciliation of his offended and wronged brother, and drown the substance in the blood and death of Christ, else there is no remedy. 48. Therefore a man must well consider what he will speak; for he speaks from the formed ens of God's manifestation; and well bethink and ponder with himself before he intends [or conceives in the will] to do anything; and by no means consent unto any false back-bitings, nor approve by a yea, neither privately nor openly. 49. For all forged tales and sharp taunts proceed from the Serpent's ens; all cursings, and swearings, and stinging girds, proceed from the Serpent's ens; yea, though they be but in jest, yet the Serpent's ens has stuck itself with them to the good, and compacted them with the word. Therefore Christ says, swear not at all: let your speech be, yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these comes of evil; that is, it is born of the Serpent's ens.
250. All cursers and swearers have introduced their free will, and will introduce the poor soul into the vanity of the Serpent's ens, and form their curses and oaths, with all their lewd wanton talk, which is wrought in the Serpent's ens, and sow into God's anger; and on the contrary, all God's children who are in right earnest do form their words in the holy ens; especially the prayer, when the free will of the soul does amass or conceive itself in the holy ens (which is opened by Christ's humanity), then it forms the true essential word of God in itself, so that it comes to substance. 51. Therefore Saint Paul says, the Spirit of God does mightily intercede for us in the Sight of God, as it pleases Him; for the Spirit of God is formed in the desire of the holy word; He is taken (or apprehended), and this taking or receiving is that which Christ said, He would give us his flesh for food, and his blood for drink. 52. The soul's will takes Christ's ens, and in Christ's ens the Word of Christ became man, which the soul's desire or Fiat does receive or impress into its holy ens [that] disappeared in Adam. And here Adam arises in Christ, and becomes Christ [the second Adam or the Anointed one] according to the heavenly ens and divine Word, and from this ens of Christ proceeds forth divine knowledge, out of the Word of God.
353. Thus the children of God are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwells in them, and so they speak God's word; and without this there is no true knowing or willing, but mere fable and Babel, a confusion of the crafty Serpent. 54. Therefore Christ called the Pharisees, a seed of serpents, and a generation of vipers, and although they were the High Priests, yet he knew them to be so in their essence, for they had formed their will in the Serpent's ens. They carried the words of Moses in their mouth, and therein they mixed the Serpent's ens; as many still do to this day; where the incarnate devil carries God's word upon his tongue; and yet does only hide the Serpent's ens thereby, and introduces the diabolical ens into the literal word, whence Babel, the mother of all spiritual whoredom, is born, a mere verbal contention and wrangling about words, where the ens of the devil and the Serpent does oppose the divine ens in the formed divine Word. 55. But so it must be, that the formed and conceived word in God's children may be stirred up, whetted and exercised, and the truth come forth to light. Dear brethren: this is the inheritance which we have received from Adam and Eve; and that is the cause that the body must die, and wholly putrify, and enter again into its first ens; for the Serpent's ens must be wholly done away: it cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
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.
1purged (or proved) by the fire. Also at the end, when the books of the essence shall be opened, they shall he judged according to their works. For the work, be it evil or good, does embrace the soul, unless the soul does wholly depart [from the evil] and destroy it again, by reconciliation of his offended and wronged brother, and drown the substance in the blood and death of Christ, else there is no remedy. 48. Therefore a man must well consider what he will speak; for he speaks from the formed ens of God's manifestation; and well bethink and ponder with himself before he intends [or conceives in the will] to do anything; and by no means consent unto any false back-bitings, nor approve by a yea, neither privately nor openly. 49. For all forged tales and sharp taunts proceed from the Serpent's ens; all cursings, and swearings, and stinging girds, proceed from the Serpent's ens; yea, though they be but in jest, yet the Serpent's ens has stuck itself with them to the good, and compacted them with the word. Therefore Christ says, swear not at all: let your speech be, yea, yea; nay, nay; for whatsoever is more than these comes of evil; that is, it is born of the Serpent's ens.
250. All cursers and swearers have introduced their free will, and will introduce the poor soul into the vanity of the Serpent's ens, and form their curses and oaths, with all their lewd wanton talk, which is wrought in the Serpent's ens, and sow into God's anger; and on the contrary, all God's children who are in right earnest do form their words in the holy ens; especially the prayer, when the free will of the soul does amass or conceive itself in the holy ens (which is opened by Christ's humanity), then it forms the true essential word of God in itself, so that it comes to substance. 51. Therefore Saint Paul says, the Spirit of God does mightily intercede for us in the Sight of God, as it pleases Him; for the Spirit of God is formed in the desire of the holy word; He is taken (or apprehended), and this taking or receiving is that which Christ said, He would give us his flesh for food, and his blood for drink. 52. The soul's will takes Christ's ens, and in Christ's ens the Word of Christ became man, which the soul's desire or Fiat does receive or impress into its holy ens [that] disappeared in Adam. And here Adam arises in Christ, and becomes Christ [the second Adam or the Anointed one] according to the heavenly ens and divine Word, and from this ens of Christ proceeds forth divine knowledge, out of the Word of God.
353. Thus the children of God are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwells in them, and so they speak God's word; and without this there is no true knowing or willing, but mere fable and Babel, a confusion of the crafty Serpent. 54. Therefore Christ called the Pharisees, a seed of serpents, and a generation of vipers, and although they were the High Priests, yet he knew them to be so in their essence, for they had formed their will in the Serpent's ens. They carried the words of Moses in their mouth, and therein they mixed the Serpent's ens; as many still do to this day; where the incarnate devil carries God's word upon his tongue; and yet does only hide the Serpent's ens thereby, and introduces the diabolical ens into the literal word, whence Babel, the mother of all spiritual whoredom, is born, a mere verbal contention and wrangling about words, where the ens of the devil and the Serpent does oppose the divine ens in the formed divine Word. 55. But so it must be, that the formed and conceived word in God's children may be stirred up, whetted and exercised, and the truth come forth to light. Dear brethren: this is the inheritance which we have received from Adam and Eve; and that is the cause that the body must die, and wholly putrify, and enter again into its first ens; for the Serpent's ens must be wholly done away: it cannot inherit the kingdom of God.
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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