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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.
139. And hence arose that command unto the Jews, that they should sanctify and rest, even externally, on the Saturday, viz. the Sabbath, to signify the inward holy eternal Sabbath, in which the spirit of God works in man and every creature, in each according to its property; for every created being rests in him. 40. And therefore he commanded the male children to be circumcised on the eighth day, viz. in himself; for he himself is this eighth day which circumcises. For before Christ's humanity the process went in the form of nature; but seeing now Christ has fulfilled the nature of man, and given himself into the seven days of man's property, children may now be baptised every [or any] day. 41. We see here a very excellent figure, by the beginning [or first institution] of the circumcision and Covenant of the fire-baptism, against the makers of the reason-conclusions upon the letter, who will needs have it, that some children are damned from the womb, and even therefore, because they are taken and born out of the corrupt ens of nature: for Ishmael, who was by nature a mocker, and captivated in the poisonful and corrupt Adamical ens, even he must be the first man which Abraham circumcises; who was baptised in the Covenant.
242. Ye reason- wise, I pray you set this looking-glass before your eyes, and think what you do with your conclusions concerning predestination! We show it you in humility. If you will not see, it shall be shown you with fire, which is certainly known. For Christ came for Ishmael's sake, and for those that are like to him, to help, and save them, if they would themselves. But in Isaac shall the seed be called, viz. the eighth day, which is come to help the other six days, and introduce them again into the seventh, viz. into the day of rest. 43. Dear brethren, be instructed aright: The God of love, he will not the death of the poor corrupt man, but has poured forth his best treasure (which he had in himself; and is himself) in grace over all men; like as the sun does shine unto the good, and evil. But the wicked does corrupt and spoil the treasure in himself; 1 and will not receive it; but takes in the ens of the Serpent, full of vanity, and is baptised with the fire of God's anger in the will of self. 1 His precious image. 44. But if he went with his own will into the death of Christ, and desired from the bottom of his heart to die unto his selfhood and own will, in God's mercy, and cast his whole trust and confidence in God, and thought that he had nothing of his own, in this earthly cottage,
3but that he was only a servant and steward of God and his neighbour in all that he has and possesses, and forsook the propriety [and selfish interest] thereof in his mind, he would soon be baptised with the Holy Spirit, and put on Christ in his will. 45. But these mischievous earthly temporal goods, temporal honour, and pleasure of the flesh, captivate him in the ens of the Serpent, so that he is not capable of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 46. Also the self-elected, unfitted, and unprofitable teachers [trained up in the school of the disputing reason, and chosen by the favour of man] are wholly blind herein, and teach only of the husk or outward vessel of the regeneration. They will needs be outwardly adopted children [forsooth! by an external imputation of grace], albeit they live only in the will of self; they will preach the Holy Spirit into the beast of self will, which yet is no ways capable of the [Holy] Spirit. They understand nothing fundamentally, either of the baptism, or the Lord's Supper; the new birth is strange unto them; they deny the divine essential in-dwelling in God's children, viz. the Temple of God, and so stand before the Jews, when they should declare unto them, What Christ is IN US, and what baptism and the Lord's Supper is, just as pictured Christians, or as idols.
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.
139. And hence arose that command unto the Jews, that they should sanctify and rest, even externally, on the Saturday, viz. the Sabbath, to signify the inward holy eternal Sabbath, in which the spirit of God works in man and every creature, in each according to its property; for every created being rests in him. 40. And therefore he commanded the male children to be circumcised on the eighth day, viz. in himself; for he himself is this eighth day which circumcises. For before Christ's humanity the process went in the form of nature; but seeing now Christ has fulfilled the nature of man, and given himself into the seven days of man's property, children may now be baptised every [or any] day. 41. We see here a very excellent figure, by the beginning [or first institution] of the circumcision and Covenant of the fire-baptism, against the makers of the reason-conclusions upon the letter, who will needs have it, that some children are damned from the womb, and even therefore, because they are taken and born out of the corrupt ens of nature: for Ishmael, who was by nature a mocker, and captivated in the poisonful and corrupt Adamical ens, even he must be the first man which Abraham circumcises; who was baptised in the Covenant.
242. Ye reason- wise, I pray you set this looking-glass before your eyes, and think what you do with your conclusions concerning predestination! We show it you in humility. If you will not see, it shall be shown you with fire, which is certainly known. For Christ came for Ishmael's sake, and for those that are like to him, to help, and save them, if they would themselves. But in Isaac shall the seed be called, viz. the eighth day, which is come to help the other six days, and introduce them again into the seventh, viz. into the day of rest. 43. Dear brethren, be instructed aright: The God of love, he will not the death of the poor corrupt man, but has poured forth his best treasure (which he had in himself; and is himself) in grace over all men; like as the sun does shine unto the good, and evil. But the wicked does corrupt and spoil the treasure in himself; 1 and will not receive it; but takes in the ens of the Serpent, full of vanity, and is baptised with the fire of God's anger in the will of self. 1 His precious image. 44. But if he went with his own will into the death of Christ, and desired from the bottom of his heart to die unto his selfhood and own will, in God's mercy, and cast his whole trust and confidence in God, and thought that he had nothing of his own, in this earthly cottage,
3but that he was only a servant and steward of God and his neighbour in all that he has and possesses, and forsook the propriety [and selfish interest] thereof in his mind, he would soon be baptised with the Holy Spirit, and put on Christ in his will. 45. But these mischievous earthly temporal goods, temporal honour, and pleasure of the flesh, captivate him in the ens of the Serpent, so that he is not capable of the baptism of the Holy Spirit. 46. Also the self-elected, unfitted, and unprofitable teachers [trained up in the school of the disputing reason, and chosen by the favour of man] are wholly blind herein, and teach only of the husk or outward vessel of the regeneration. They will needs be outwardly adopted children [forsooth! by an external imputation of grace], albeit they live only in the will of self; they will preach the Holy Spirit into the beast of self will, which yet is no ways capable of the [Holy] Spirit. They understand nothing fundamentally, either of the baptism, or the Lord's Supper; the new birth is strange unto them; they deny the divine essential in-dwelling in God's children, viz. the Temple of God, and so stand before the Jews, when they should declare unto them, What Christ is IN US, and what baptism and the Lord's Supper is, just as pictured Christians, or as idols.
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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