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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.
1upon the body of Christ, but will have it merely spiritual. The other part will have the mouth of the Adamical mortal man full of it, and therewith comprehend and receive it. And so there is no right knowledge or understanding in either party; and they sit at table, but without knowing anything as the brethren of Joseph did, who knew not Joseph, where indeed their faith feeds, but their understanding knows not Joseph in his feast or banquet. 2 69. Now then says reason, seeing the Jews, Turks, and ignorant unknowing heathen, have no mouth to eat such food with, and that Christ says, Whosoever eats not the flesh of the Son of Man, he has no life in him (John vi. 53); therefore they must all of them be damned. O Israel, how blind are you here, and know as little as they, or as Joseph's brethren knew of Joseph. 70. The Turks, Jews, and strange nations, whose desire and prayer goes to the only God, have indeed a mouth, but not so as a Christian has: for as the desire, viz. the mouth, is, such is also the food in the mouth. They desire the spirit of God, and such is also their eating: in that manner as before Christ's humanity, in the Father and the Son, viz. in the Word.
271. But a Christian has an incarnate mouth: for the soul's 3 desire, or much more, the substantial Christ or Christus, viz. the Virgin Sophia, has a mouth from the substantial Word. But the other have one from the un-substantial Word; they desire the property of God the Father,4 viz. of the only God, and they do apprehend it also: but here grace is not manifest. 1 Or mouth-Christian. 2 Or, mess of food. 3 Or, soulish. 4 Or, to be like God the Father: our heavenly Father. 72. But seeing the Father has given man to his Son Christ (John vi. 37), as Christ says (John xvii. 6), and has manifested the grace in Christ, and invites them all in Christ, and that there is no salvation without Christ; 1 therefore he gives to them also the earnest crying prayer, which Christ receives from his Father and apprehends it in himself and eats it, and fills them with his humanity, suffering, death, and shedding of his blood, and so they are with their spirit in Christ substantially, but in themselves as hidden to them. 73. For they desire not any way the flesh of the Son of Man, and therefore they have not in their selfhood any mouth for Christ's flesh and blood, for they have no desire to it; but with their spirit they are substantially in Christ: but their inward in Adam faded Paradisical humanity (which faded in Adam), wherein the incorporated grace in Paradise lies, remains hidden in them, and without a stirring life.
374. For Christ dwells not substantially therein, as in a true Christian. But their faith's substance is hidden in Christ to the day of the restoration of that which is lost in Adam, when their Paradisical image, which is not manifested in this time, will put on their faith's substance, in God's bestowed grace, which proceeds from one upon all, out of Christ's spirit; for that incorporated grace, viz. the inspoken or inspired Word, stands also in them, and pants after Christ's substantiality. 75. But seeing their substantiality is in the Word, without this place, state and condition, in Christ, where Christ in himself fulfills their faith to God, therefore also will their substantial faith in God put on that incorporated Word in the Paradisical image, together with the same, at the revelation or manifestation of Jesus Christ; and herewith also the whole man. 76. For the Scripture says, Of grace are you saved, and that not of yourselves (Eph. ii. 8), not by your knowing, but through God's mercy and compassion [are you saved]. 2 It lies not in knowing, as if the knowing could receive Christ; but it lies in the gift, viz. in the grace, which Christ gives to the unknowing into their faith in God, as well as to the knowing into their desire: it is done to both of grace.
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.
1upon the body of Christ, but will have it merely spiritual. The other part will have the mouth of the Adamical mortal man full of it, and therewith comprehend and receive it. And so there is no right knowledge or understanding in either party; and they sit at table, but without knowing anything as the brethren of Joseph did, who knew not Joseph, where indeed their faith feeds, but their understanding knows not Joseph in his feast or banquet. 2 69. Now then says reason, seeing the Jews, Turks, and ignorant unknowing heathen, have no mouth to eat such food with, and that Christ says, Whosoever eats not the flesh of the Son of Man, he has no life in him (John vi. 53); therefore they must all of them be damned. O Israel, how blind are you here, and know as little as they, or as Joseph's brethren knew of Joseph. 70. The Turks, Jews, and strange nations, whose desire and prayer goes to the only God, have indeed a mouth, but not so as a Christian has: for as the desire, viz. the mouth, is, such is also the food in the mouth. They desire the spirit of God, and such is also their eating: in that manner as before Christ's humanity, in the Father and the Son, viz. in the Word.
271. But a Christian has an incarnate mouth: for the soul's 3 desire, or much more, the substantial Christ or Christus, viz. the Virgin Sophia, has a mouth from the substantial Word. But the other have one from the un-substantial Word; they desire the property of God the Father,4 viz. of the only God, and they do apprehend it also: but here grace is not manifest. 1 Or mouth-Christian. 2 Or, mess of food. 3 Or, soulish. 4 Or, to be like God the Father: our heavenly Father. 72. But seeing the Father has given man to his Son Christ (John vi. 37), as Christ says (John xvii. 6), and has manifested the grace in Christ, and invites them all in Christ, and that there is no salvation without Christ; 1 therefore he gives to them also the earnest crying prayer, which Christ receives from his Father and apprehends it in himself and eats it, and fills them with his humanity, suffering, death, and shedding of his blood, and so they are with their spirit in Christ substantially, but in themselves as hidden to them. 73. For they desire not any way the flesh of the Son of Man, and therefore they have not in their selfhood any mouth for Christ's flesh and blood, for they have no desire to it; but with their spirit they are substantially in Christ: but their inward in Adam faded Paradisical humanity (which faded in Adam), wherein the incorporated grace in Paradise lies, remains hidden in them, and without a stirring life.
374. For Christ dwells not substantially therein, as in a true Christian. But their faith's substance is hidden in Christ to the day of the restoration of that which is lost in Adam, when their Paradisical image, which is not manifested in this time, will put on their faith's substance, in God's bestowed grace, which proceeds from one upon all, out of Christ's spirit; for that incorporated grace, viz. the inspoken or inspired Word, stands also in them, and pants after Christ's substantiality. 75. But seeing their substantiality is in the Word, without this place, state and condition, in Christ, where Christ in himself fulfills their faith to God, therefore also will their substantial faith in God put on that incorporated Word in the Paradisical image, together with the same, at the revelation or manifestation of Jesus Christ; and herewith also the whole man. 76. For the Scripture says, Of grace are you saved, and that not of yourselves (Eph. ii. 8), not by your knowing, but through God's mercy and compassion [are you saved]. 2 It lies not in knowing, as if the knowing could receive Christ; but it lies in the gift, viz. in the grace, which Christ gives to the unknowing into their faith in God, as well as to the knowing into their desire: it is done to both of grace.
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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