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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.
14. The Incarnation and Birth of Jesus Christ the Son of God ; also of his Suffering, Death, and Resurrection. 5. The six Points treating of the Three W or Ids how they are in one another as one ; and yet make Three Principles, viz.. Three Births or Centres. 6 . The Mysterium Magnum , which is an Interpretation upon Genesis. And in them he shall find all that he can ask, and that as deep as the Mind of Man is able to reach. I have written this ior the true Israelites , that is, for the Hungry and Thirsty Hearts that long after the Fountain of Christ , who are my Fellow -Members in the Spirit of Christ : But not for the Ishmaelites and Scorners , for they have a Book within them, wherewith they vex, .persecute, and Suppress the Children of Christ that are under the Cross ; and yet, though it be unwillingly and unwittingly to themselves, they must be Servants to such Children of Christ. OF REGENERATION Chapter L Showing how Man should consider himself. C HRIST said, * Except ye turn and become as ChUdren, ‘ ye shall not see the Kingdom of God.’ Again, he said to Nicodeinus ; ‘ Except a Man be born again, of ‘ Water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the ‘ Kingdom of God ; for that which is born of the Flesh * is Flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.’
22. Also the Scripture positively declareth, that ‘ the Fleshly ‘-neural Man receiveth not the Things of the Spirit of God, for ‘ they are Foolishness unto him, neither can he know or conceive ‘ them.’ J 3. Now seeing that all of us have Flesh and Blood and are mortal , as we find by Experience, and yet the Scripture saith, that 'We are the Temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in ‘ us,’ and that ‘ the Kingdom of God is within us,’ and that ‘ Christ must be formed in us ;’ also that ‘ He will give us his * Flesh for Food, and his Blood for Drink And that, ‘ Who- * soever shcfll not eat of the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink ‘ his Blood hath no Life in him.’ Therefore we should seriously consider, what kind of Man in us it is, that is capable of being thus like the Deity. 4. For it cannot be said of the mortal Flesh that turneth to Earth again, and liveth in the Vanity of this World, and continually lusteth against God, that it is the Temple of the Holy Qhost; much less can it be said that the New Birth cometh to pass in this earthly Flesh, which dieth and putrifieth, and is a continual House of Sin. Yet seeing that it remaineth certain, that a true Christian of Christ, and that the New-Birth is the Temple of the Holy Qhost which dwelleth in us, and that the New Man only, that is born of Christ, partaketh of the Flesh and Blood of Christ; it appeareth that it is not so easy a Matter to.be a Christian.
36 . And that Christianity doth not consist in the mere knowing pf the History, a,yd applying the Knowledge thereof to ourselves, saying that ‘ Christ died for us, and hath destroyed Death and * turned it into Life in us, and that He hath paid the Ransom for ‘ us, so that we need do nothing but comfort ourselves therewith, ‘ and stedfastly believe that it is so.’ 7. For we find of ourselves that Sin is living , lusting , strong, 64 The JVay to Qhrist . and powerfully working in the Flesh , and therefore it must be somewhat else, which doth not co-operate with Sin in the Fleshy nor Willeth it, that is the New -Birth in Christ . 8. For St, Paul saith, 4 There is no Condemnation to them ‘that are in Christ Jesus/ And further, 4 Should we that are 4 Christians be yet Sinners ? God forbid, seeing we are dead to 4 Sin in Christ/ 9. 'Besides, the Man of Sin cannot be the ‘Temple of the 4 Holy Ghost and yet ‘ there is no Man that sinneth not, for 4 God hath shut up all under Sin/ As the Scripture saith, 4 No 4 one living is righteous in thy Sight, if thou imputest his Sins 4 to him. The righteous Man falleth* seven Times a Day and yet it cannot be meant that the righteous falleth and Sinneth, but his mortal and sinful Man . For the righteousness of a Christian in Christ cannot Sin. , f 10. Moreover, St. Paul saith, ‘OurjConversation is in Heaven,
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.
14. The Incarnation and Birth of Jesus Christ the Son of God ; also of his Suffering, Death, and Resurrection. 5. The six Points treating of the Three W or Ids how they are in one another as one ; and yet make Three Principles, viz.. Three Births or Centres. 6 . The Mysterium Magnum , which is an Interpretation upon Genesis. And in them he shall find all that he can ask, and that as deep as the Mind of Man is able to reach. I have written this ior the true Israelites , that is, for the Hungry and Thirsty Hearts that long after the Fountain of Christ , who are my Fellow -Members in the Spirit of Christ : But not for the Ishmaelites and Scorners , for they have a Book within them, wherewith they vex, .persecute, and Suppress the Children of Christ that are under the Cross ; and yet, though it be unwillingly and unwittingly to themselves, they must be Servants to such Children of Christ. OF REGENERATION Chapter L Showing how Man should consider himself. C HRIST said, * Except ye turn and become as ChUdren, ‘ ye shall not see the Kingdom of God.’ Again, he said to Nicodeinus ; ‘ Except a Man be born again, of ‘ Water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the ‘ Kingdom of God ; for that which is born of the Flesh * is Flesh, and that which is born of the Spirit is Spirit.’
22. Also the Scripture positively declareth, that ‘ the Fleshly ‘-neural Man receiveth not the Things of the Spirit of God, for ‘ they are Foolishness unto him, neither can he know or conceive ‘ them.’ J 3. Now seeing that all of us have Flesh and Blood and are mortal , as we find by Experience, and yet the Scripture saith, that 'We are the Temples of the Holy Ghost, who dwelleth in ‘ us,’ and that ‘ the Kingdom of God is within us,’ and that ‘ Christ must be formed in us ;’ also that ‘ He will give us his * Flesh for Food, and his Blood for Drink And that, ‘ Who- * soever shcfll not eat of the Flesh of the Son of Man, and drink ‘ his Blood hath no Life in him.’ Therefore we should seriously consider, what kind of Man in us it is, that is capable of being thus like the Deity. 4. For it cannot be said of the mortal Flesh that turneth to Earth again, and liveth in the Vanity of this World, and continually lusteth against God, that it is the Temple of the Holy Qhost; much less can it be said that the New Birth cometh to pass in this earthly Flesh, which dieth and putrifieth, and is a continual House of Sin. Yet seeing that it remaineth certain, that a true Christian of Christ, and that the New-Birth is the Temple of the Holy Qhost which dwelleth in us, and that the New Man only, that is born of Christ, partaketh of the Flesh and Blood of Christ; it appeareth that it is not so easy a Matter to.be a Christian.
36 . And that Christianity doth not consist in the mere knowing pf the History, a,yd applying the Knowledge thereof to ourselves, saying that ‘ Christ died for us, and hath destroyed Death and * turned it into Life in us, and that He hath paid the Ransom for ‘ us, so that we need do nothing but comfort ourselves therewith, ‘ and stedfastly believe that it is so.’ 7. For we find of ourselves that Sin is living , lusting , strong, 64 The JVay to Qhrist . and powerfully working in the Flesh , and therefore it must be somewhat else, which doth not co-operate with Sin in the Fleshy nor Willeth it, that is the New -Birth in Christ . 8. For St, Paul saith, 4 There is no Condemnation to them ‘that are in Christ Jesus/ And further, 4 Should we that are 4 Christians be yet Sinners ? God forbid, seeing we are dead to 4 Sin in Christ/ 9. 'Besides, the Man of Sin cannot be the ‘Temple of the 4 Holy Ghost and yet ‘ there is no Man that sinneth not, for 4 God hath shut up all under Sin/ As the Scripture saith, 4 No 4 one living is righteous in thy Sight, if thou imputest his Sins 4 to him. The righteous Man falleth* seven Times a Day and yet it cannot be meant that the righteous falleth and Sinneth, but his mortal and sinful Man . For the righteousness of a Christian in Christ cannot Sin. , f 10. Moreover, St. Paul saith, ‘OurjConversation is in Heaven,
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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