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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.
137. For the children of nature are servants in the kingdom of grace, not lords in self-will; they must not with the own self will enter upon the inheritance of the kingdom of Christ; for it lies not in any man's own willing, weening, running or going, to will and take the same in their own self- will's ability; but it lies in God's mercy (Rom. ix. 16). It is a kingdom of grace, not a kingdom hereditary to one generation of men only. But God gave it of grace to Abram in his seed. 38. The mocker Ishmael must be cast from the blessed inheritance, for he was not born of the line of inheritance, viz. out of God's special gift, as Isaac was, who represented the person of Christ. For Christ alone should be the heir of God's blessing, who had the same out of the right of nature; all the rest, one with another, must be as his sojourners: for Japheth must dwell in Shem's tent, not as a lord and master of the tent, but as a servant.
239. For the person of Isaac also, according to his innate Adamical nature, was no otherwise therein than as a servant; but that he was chosen to be heir, the same was from God, who bestowed it on him as a vicar or deputy of his Lord, who should spring forth out of him; whose property, given of God, he did carry in himself as in the place or mansion of the Covenant. Understand, he bare Christ in himself in the Covenant of God, and to him alone the goods did belong, out of the right of nature, for he was God's child by divine nature, and an heir of all whatsoever God had created. 40. But unto all others the heavenly goods did not belong out of a natural right, for they had lost the right of nature in Adam, and attained thereunto only by the free gift and gracious donation of the giver, even by the mercy of God; therefore Ishmael was cast out from the inheritance of Abraham's peculiar goods; for the figure of Christ's kingdom to come was here represented. 41. And we may yet see this clearly, sufficiently and fully set forth, in that Abraham lay with an Egyptian strange maid, and begat a son of her out of his seed, viz. out of the essence of his body and soul, and yet afterwards rejected this son from the inheritance; so that we plainly see here the figure of the right children's inheritance, that none can come to the adoption [or true childship of God], unless he be born out of this Covenant, out of Christ's flesh and spirit.
342. The old Adamical man, as to its own self-will out of the Serpent's ens, is wholly rejected and cast away; he is nothing profitable [or wholly unfit] for the kingdom of God, he is only an instrument, whereby God proves and exercises his children, as a besom wherewith the house is swept. 43. The soul must forsake its own will unto all eternity, and must have a new body born or generated in it out of the heavenly ens, which heavenly ens did disappear in Adam as to God, and was introduced again thereinto out of Christ's spirit. 44. The gross introduced bestial property is also alike rejected from the kingdom of God in all men who are born of Adam's sinful seed, as well in Isaac and Abraham as in Ishmael; but the ens in the Covenant shall live for ever, and at the Last Day it shall again put on the true man created in Adam out of the limus of the earth, which is of the kingdom of this world's essence; yet not the grossness of the earth, but the ens of the formed word, which has given forth itself into a creation. 45. The inward ens of Christ (which the soul puts on it for a heavenly body out of Christ's spirit, and out of his flesh and blood) is spiritual. It is a spiritual body, which dies not at the death of the outward man; yea, it is not buried; neither does it arise again; but in Christ it is dead and buried, and risen again, for all, and in all, and lives eternally, for he is passed from death to life.
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.
137. For the children of nature are servants in the kingdom of grace, not lords in self-will; they must not with the own self will enter upon the inheritance of the kingdom of Christ; for it lies not in any man's own willing, weening, running or going, to will and take the same in their own self- will's ability; but it lies in God's mercy (Rom. ix. 16). It is a kingdom of grace, not a kingdom hereditary to one generation of men only. But God gave it of grace to Abram in his seed. 38. The mocker Ishmael must be cast from the blessed inheritance, for he was not born of the line of inheritance, viz. out of God's special gift, as Isaac was, who represented the person of Christ. For Christ alone should be the heir of God's blessing, who had the same out of the right of nature; all the rest, one with another, must be as his sojourners: for Japheth must dwell in Shem's tent, not as a lord and master of the tent, but as a servant.
239. For the person of Isaac also, according to his innate Adamical nature, was no otherwise therein than as a servant; but that he was chosen to be heir, the same was from God, who bestowed it on him as a vicar or deputy of his Lord, who should spring forth out of him; whose property, given of God, he did carry in himself as in the place or mansion of the Covenant. Understand, he bare Christ in himself in the Covenant of God, and to him alone the goods did belong, out of the right of nature, for he was God's child by divine nature, and an heir of all whatsoever God had created. 40. But unto all others the heavenly goods did not belong out of a natural right, for they had lost the right of nature in Adam, and attained thereunto only by the free gift and gracious donation of the giver, even by the mercy of God; therefore Ishmael was cast out from the inheritance of Abraham's peculiar goods; for the figure of Christ's kingdom to come was here represented. 41. And we may yet see this clearly, sufficiently and fully set forth, in that Abraham lay with an Egyptian strange maid, and begat a son of her out of his seed, viz. out of the essence of his body and soul, and yet afterwards rejected this son from the inheritance; so that we plainly see here the figure of the right children's inheritance, that none can come to the adoption [or true childship of God], unless he be born out of this Covenant, out of Christ's flesh and spirit.
342. The old Adamical man, as to its own self-will out of the Serpent's ens, is wholly rejected and cast away; he is nothing profitable [or wholly unfit] for the kingdom of God, he is only an instrument, whereby God proves and exercises his children, as a besom wherewith the house is swept. 43. The soul must forsake its own will unto all eternity, and must have a new body born or generated in it out of the heavenly ens, which heavenly ens did disappear in Adam as to God, and was introduced again thereinto out of Christ's spirit. 44. The gross introduced bestial property is also alike rejected from the kingdom of God in all men who are born of Adam's sinful seed, as well in Isaac and Abraham as in Ishmael; but the ens in the Covenant shall live for ever, and at the Last Day it shall again put on the true man created in Adam out of the limus of the earth, which is of the kingdom of this world's essence; yet not the grossness of the earth, but the ens of the formed word, which has given forth itself into a creation. 45. The inward ens of Christ (which the soul puts on it for a heavenly body out of Christ's spirit, and out of his flesh and blood) is spiritual. It is a spiritual body, which dies not at the death of the outward man; yea, it is not buried; neither does it arise again; but in Christ it is dead and buried, and risen again, for all, and in all, and lives eternally, for he is passed from death to life.
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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