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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.
172. For they lie shut up under the veil of Christ, as Christ did under the Levitical priesthood under Moses; and as the Children of Israel under the Law were not justified through the Law, but through him who was hidden under the Law, and thus they are now hidden under the true knowledge, and lie as it were shut up in the mother's womb. 73. But the angel of the great counsel calls them by their mother, Hagar, viz. by the kingdom of nature; that she (the mother and her child) should return home to Sarah, viz. to the free, that is, to the one only God, who has born his Son of the free. Thus they come as it were under the veil in the mother's womb to the free, viz. to the one only God; who has born unto them, of the free [woman], the true Lord, (unto whose goods they, being strangers, are received in grace), as sojourners. 74. For as Ishmael did not go to Isaac for the inheritance, which did of right belong to Isaac (because the Lord was in him, who freely bestowed it upon him, and set him as a steward), but would have it of the Father; even so the Turks have turned themselves from Isaac, viz. From the Son, to the Father, and will have the inheritance of God from the Father. 75. Now the Father is manifested [to us] in the Son; and when they now do call upon the Father, he hears them only in his Son, viz. in his voice manifest in the human property, and they yet serve the Son in the Father.
276. For we men have no other God at all without Christ the Son; for the Father has manifested himself towards us with his voice in the Son, and hears us only through his voice manifested in the Son. 77. Now when the Turks worship the Father, he hears them in the Son, and receives them to adoption only in the Son, in whom God has only alone once more manifested himself in the human property, and in no other property besides. 78. Now says reason, how can they attain to the adoption of Christ, when as they will not have the Son to be the Son of God, and say, that God has no Son. Hear, O man, Christ said, Whosoever speaks a word against the Son of man, to him it shall be forgiven; but he that blasphemes the Holy Ghost, to him it shall never be forgiven (Matt. xii. 32): that is, as much as if he should say: 79. Whosoever reproaches the humanity of Christ in ignorance, [considering of it] as his own flesh, to him it may be forgiven; for he knows not what the humanity of Christ is. But he that blasphemes the Holy Ghost, viz. the only God, who has manifested himself in the humanity, wherein Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are one only God, he has no forgiveness for evermore. That is, he that rejects the only God, he has quite broken himself off from him, into an ownhood of self. 80. Now the Turks do not blaspheme the Holy Spirit, who manifested himself in the humanity, but they reproach the humanity, and say a creature cannot be God.
381. But that God has wrought, and done wonders in Christ, that they confess, and blaspheme not the Spirit which has wrought in Christ, viz. in the humanity. Blindness is happened unto them, so that they walk under a veil. 82. Now says reason, God has taken away the candlestick from them, and rejected them. Hear, O man, what was the cause that God (as he threatened by St John) did take away the candlestick from them, and shut them up under the veil. Thinkest you that it was done without his foreknowledge, without his will? No, it was done with his will. 83. He permitted the kingdom of nature to give them a doctrine of reason; seeing Christendom became blind in their reason, in respect of Christ's person, and did wrangle and jangle about Christ's humanity, and put all manner of scorn, reproach and disgrace upon his person; as it fell out among the Arians, when they denied his deity, and the bishops in their covetousness did apply his merits in his humanity for the belly's sake to their belly orders, and did practice all manner of lewdness and profaneness, even with swearing, cursing, and juggling and sorcery by his suffering and holy wounds; so that there the holy name of God, which had manifested itself in the humanity, was abused; thereupon God did hide himself from them in their understanding, so that first they became blind with the Arians in respect of the deity of Christ.
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.
172. For they lie shut up under the veil of Christ, as Christ did under the Levitical priesthood under Moses; and as the Children of Israel under the Law were not justified through the Law, but through him who was hidden under the Law, and thus they are now hidden under the true knowledge, and lie as it were shut up in the mother's womb. 73. But the angel of the great counsel calls them by their mother, Hagar, viz. by the kingdom of nature; that she (the mother and her child) should return home to Sarah, viz. to the free, that is, to the one only God, who has born his Son of the free. Thus they come as it were under the veil in the mother's womb to the free, viz. to the one only God; who has born unto them, of the free [woman], the true Lord, (unto whose goods they, being strangers, are received in grace), as sojourners. 74. For as Ishmael did not go to Isaac for the inheritance, which did of right belong to Isaac (because the Lord was in him, who freely bestowed it upon him, and set him as a steward), but would have it of the Father; even so the Turks have turned themselves from Isaac, viz. From the Son, to the Father, and will have the inheritance of God from the Father. 75. Now the Father is manifested [to us] in the Son; and when they now do call upon the Father, he hears them only in his Son, viz. in his voice manifest in the human property, and they yet serve the Son in the Father.
276. For we men have no other God at all without Christ the Son; for the Father has manifested himself towards us with his voice in the Son, and hears us only through his voice manifested in the Son. 77. Now when the Turks worship the Father, he hears them in the Son, and receives them to adoption only in the Son, in whom God has only alone once more manifested himself in the human property, and in no other property besides. 78. Now says reason, how can they attain to the adoption of Christ, when as they will not have the Son to be the Son of God, and say, that God has no Son. Hear, O man, Christ said, Whosoever speaks a word against the Son of man, to him it shall be forgiven; but he that blasphemes the Holy Ghost, to him it shall never be forgiven (Matt. xii. 32): that is, as much as if he should say: 79. Whosoever reproaches the humanity of Christ in ignorance, [considering of it] as his own flesh, to him it may be forgiven; for he knows not what the humanity of Christ is. But he that blasphemes the Holy Ghost, viz. the only God, who has manifested himself in the humanity, wherein Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, are one only God, he has no forgiveness for evermore. That is, he that rejects the only God, he has quite broken himself off from him, into an ownhood of self. 80. Now the Turks do not blaspheme the Holy Spirit, who manifested himself in the humanity, but they reproach the humanity, and say a creature cannot be God.
381. But that God has wrought, and done wonders in Christ, that they confess, and blaspheme not the Spirit which has wrought in Christ, viz. in the humanity. Blindness is happened unto them, so that they walk under a veil. 82. Now says reason, God has taken away the candlestick from them, and rejected them. Hear, O man, what was the cause that God (as he threatened by St John) did take away the candlestick from them, and shut them up under the veil. Thinkest you that it was done without his foreknowledge, without his will? No, it was done with his will. 83. He permitted the kingdom of nature to give them a doctrine of reason; seeing Christendom became blind in their reason, in respect of Christ's person, and did wrangle and jangle about Christ's humanity, and put all manner of scorn, reproach and disgrace upon his person; as it fell out among the Arians, when they denied his deity, and the bishops in their covetousness did apply his merits in his humanity for the belly's sake to their belly orders, and did practice all manner of lewdness and profaneness, even with swearing, cursing, and juggling and sorcery by his suffering and holy wounds; so that there the holy name of God, which had manifested itself in the humanity, was abused; thereupon God did hide himself from them in their understanding, so that first they became blind with the Arians in respect of the deity of Christ.
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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