The Clavis exists because readers asked for it: "since the lovers desire a Clavis, or key of my writings, I am ready and willing to pleasure them in it, and will set down a short description of the ground of those strange words". This is a author writing a lexicon of his own coinages in his own lifetime, which is rarer than it sounds and is the reason this issue is worth reading before the others. Where a later editor would reconstruct what Boehme meant, Boehme states it.
Open to all
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9. But since the lovers desire a Clavis, or key of my writings, I am ready and willing to pleasure them in it, and will set down a short description of the ground of those strange words; some of which are taken from nature and [1] sense, and some are the words of strange [2] masters, I have tried according to sense, and found them good and fit.
[1] ex sensu [2] artists or mystical authors
10. Reason will stumble, when it sees heathenish terms and words used in the explanation of natural things, supposing we should use none but scripture phrase (or words borrowed from the Bible); but such words will not always ply and square themselves to the fundamental exposition of the properties of nature, neither can a man express the ground with them: also the wise heathen and jews have hidden the deep ground of nature under such words, as having well understood that the knowledge of [1] nature is not for every one, but it belongs to those only, whom God by nature has chosen for it.
[1] naturally inclined to it
11. But none need stumble at it; for when God reveals his Mysteries to any man, he then also brings him into a mind and faculty how to express them, as God knows to be most necessary and profitable in every [1] age, for the setting of the confused tongues and opinions upon the true ground again: Men must not think that it comes by chance, or is done by human reason.
[1] or seculum
12. The [1] revelations of divine things are opened by the inward ground of the spiritual world, and brought into visible forms, just as the Creator will manifest them.
[1] or manifestations
13. I will write but a short description of the divine [1]manifestation, yet as much as I can comprehend in brief; and expound the strange words for the better understanding of ourbooks; and set down here the sum of those writings, or a modelor epitome of them, for the consideration and help of beginners: The further exposition of [2] it is to be found in the other books or revelation.
[1] or revelations [2] the divine manifestation or revelation
THE CLAVIS or
An explanation of some principal points and expressions
How God is to be considered without nature and creature
14. MOSES says, The Lord our God is but one only God. In another place it is said, Of him, through him, and in him are all things: in another, Am not I he that fills all things? And ina nother, Through his Word are all things made, that are made. Therefore we may say that he is the original of all things: He is the eternal unmeasurable Unity.
15. For example, when I think what would be in the place of this world, if the four elements and the starry firmament, and also nature itself, should perish and cease to be, so that no nature or creature were to be found any more; I find there would remain this eternal Unity, from which nature and creature have received their original.
16. So likewise, when I think with myself what is many hundredthousand miles above the starry firmament, or what is in that place where no creature is, I find the eternal unchangeable Unity is there, which is that only Good, which has nothing either before or after it, that can add anything to it, or take anything away from it, or from which this Unity could have its original: There is neither ground, time, nor place, but there is the only eternal God, or that only Good, which a man cannot express.
A further Consideration, How this one God is Threefold
17. The Holy Scripture shows us that this only God is threefold, viz. one only [1] threefold essence, having three manners of workings, and yet is but one only essence, as may be seen in the outflown power and virtue which is in all things, if any do but observe it: but it is especiall y represented to us in fire, light, and air; which are three several [2] sorts of workings, and yet but in one only ground and substance.
[1] or triune [2] subsistent forms
18. And as we see that fire, light, and air, arise from a candle (though the candle is none of the three, but a cause of them), so likewise the eternal Unity is the cause and ground of the eternal[1] Trinity, which manifests itself from the Unity, and brings forth itself, First, in desire, or will; Secondly, pleasure, or delight; Thirdly, proceeding, or outgoing.
[1] Father, Son, Holy Spirit
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9. But since the lovers desire a Clavis, or key of my writings, I am ready and willing to pleasure them in it, and will set down a short description of the ground of those strange words; some of which are taken from nature and [1] sense, and some are the words of strange [2] masters, I have tried according to sense, and found them good and fit.
[1] ex sensu [2] artists or mystical authors
10. Reason will stumble, when it sees heathenish terms and words used in the explanation of natural things, supposing we should use none but scripture phrase (or words borrowed from the Bible); but such words will not always ply and square themselves to the fundamental exposition of the properties of nature, neither can a man express the ground with them: also the wise heathen and jews have hidden the deep ground of nature under such words, as having well understood that the knowledge of [1] nature is not for every one, but it belongs to those only, whom God by nature has chosen for it.
[1] naturally inclined to it
11. But none need stumble at it; for when God reveals his Mysteries to any man, he then also brings him into a mind and faculty how to express them, as God knows to be most necessary and profitable in every [1] age, for the setting of the confused tongues and opinions upon the true ground again: Men must not think that it comes by chance, or is done by human reason.
[1] or seculum
12. The [1] revelations of divine things are opened by the inward ground of the spiritual world, and brought into visible forms, just as the Creator will manifest them.
[1] or manifestations
13. I will write but a short description of the divine [1]manifestation, yet as much as I can comprehend in brief; and expound the strange words for the better understanding of ourbooks; and set down here the sum of those writings, or a modelor epitome of them, for the consideration and help of beginners: The further exposition of [2] it is to be found in the other books or revelation.
[1] or revelations [2] the divine manifestation or revelation
THE CLAVIS or
An explanation of some principal points and expressions
How God is to be considered without nature and creature
14. MOSES says, The Lord our God is but one only God. In another place it is said, Of him, through him, and in him are all things: in another, Am not I he that fills all things? And ina nother, Through his Word are all things made, that are made. Therefore we may say that he is the original of all things: He is the eternal unmeasurable Unity.
15. For example, when I think what would be in the place of this world, if the four elements and the starry firmament, and also nature itself, should perish and cease to be, so that no nature or creature were to be found any more; I find there would remain this eternal Unity, from which nature and creature have received their original.
16. So likewise, when I think with myself what is many hundredthousand miles above the starry firmament, or what is in that place where no creature is, I find the eternal unchangeable Unity is there, which is that only Good, which has nothing either before or after it, that can add anything to it, or take anything away from it, or from which this Unity could have its original: There is neither ground, time, nor place, but there is the only eternal God, or that only Good, which a man cannot express.
A further Consideration, How this one God is Threefold
17. The Holy Scripture shows us that this only God is threefold, viz. one only [1] threefold essence, having three manners of workings, and yet is but one only essence, as may be seen in the outflown power and virtue which is in all things, if any do but observe it: but it is especiall y represented to us in fire, light, and air; which are three several [2] sorts of workings, and yet but in one only ground and substance.
[1] or triune [2] subsistent forms
18. And as we see that fire, light, and air, arise from a candle (though the candle is none of the three, but a cause of them), so likewise the eternal Unity is the cause and ground of the eternal[1] Trinity, which manifests itself from the Unity, and brings forth itself, First, in desire, or will; Secondly, pleasure, or delight; Thirdly, proceeding, or outgoing.
[1] Father, Son, Holy Spirit
He then defends the vocabulary against the objection he expects: "Reason will stumble, when it sees heathenish terms and words used in the explanation of natural things, supposing we should use none but scripture phrase". Some of his words, he says, "are the words of strange masters, I have tried according to sense, and found them good and fit" — with the marginal gloss on "masters" reading "artists or mystical authors". A devotional writer arguing that Scripture's vocabulary is insufficient for the description of nature, and borrowing from alchemy to fill the gap.
The ascent is performed rather than described: "when I think with myself what is many hundred thousand miles above the starry firmament, or what is in that place where no creature is, I find the eternal unchangeable Unity is there". He arrives at a Unity with "neither ground, time, nor place", "which a man cannot express". The method is negation by exhaustion of place — keep going until nothing creaturely remains — and it lands on an inexpressible One.
shares a method with On the Divine Names and the Mystical Theology — trans. C. E. Rolt
That arrival is the same move this house holds twice over in Dionysius, whose translators reach the "Super-Essential" by stripping every predicate away, and once in Plotinus, whose One is likewise beyond speech. The three are not in contact here and the comparison is the reader's to make, not a claim about influence: Boehme is a seventeenth-century Lutheran shoemaker and reads no Greek. What the pages share is a procedure and its terminus, arrived at independently — which is the more interesting fact of the two.
shares a method with The Enneads — trans. Stephen MacKenna