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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.
113 1. But if Heaven in Man be not open, and the Man stand without Heaven flattering himself, and say, I am still without , but Christ will take me in through his Qrace ; is not his Merit mine ? Such a one is in Vanity and Sin with the outward Man, and with the Soul in Hell , viz., in the Anger of God. 132. Therefore learn to understand rightly what Christ hath taught us, and done for us. He is our Heaven ; He must get a Form in us, or else we shall not be in Heaven. Thus then the Sbul’s inward Man , with the Holy Body of Christ , viz., in the New Birth , is in Heaven , and the outward mortal Man is in the World \ of which Christ spake, saying, ‘My Sheep are in my ‘Hand, and none shall pluck them away; the Father who ‘ gave them to me is greater than all/ 6 3 2 The TV ay to Qhrist . — . Chapter VI. Of the Right and of the Wrong going to c Church , receiving the Sacraments, and Absolution. B ELOVED Brethren, we will teach you faithfully, not with flattering Lips to please the Antichrist , but from our Pearl , the Virtue , Power, and Spirit of Christ in us, from a Christian Essence and Knozvledge ; not from the Husk and History , but from a New-born Spirit, from Christ's Knowledge , as a Branch growing on the Vine Christ ; from the Measure of that Knowledge which ris opened in us, according to the Will and Counsel of God.
2134. Men tie us in these Days to the History,^ andj&.r\he> material Churches of Stone ; which Churches are indeed good in their Kind, if Men did also bring the Temple of Christ into them. They teach moreover that their Absolution is a Forgiving of Sins, and that the Supper of the Lord taketh away Sin : Also that Jthe Spirit of (jod cometh into Men through their Ministry . All which hath a proper Meaning, if it was rightly understood ; and if Men did not cleave merely to the Husk . 135. Many a Man goeth to Church twenty or thirty Years, heareth Sermons , receiveth the Sacraments , and heareth Absolution read or declared, and yet is as much a Beast of the Devil and Vanity at the last as at the first. A Beast goeth into the Church , and to the Supper, and a Beast cometh out from thence again. 136. How will he eat that hath no Mouth? can any Man eat that Food which is so shut up that he cannot get it ? How will he drink that can come at no Water? Or how will he hear that hath no Hearing?
3137. What good End doth it answer, for me to go to the material Churches of Stone , and there fill my Ears with emjjty Breath? Or to go to the Supper , and feed nothing byt the earthly Mouth, which is mortal and corruptible ? Cannot I feed and satisfy that with a Piece of Bread at Home? What good doth it to the Soul, which is an immortal Life, to have the Bestial Man observe the Form, and venerate the Shell, of Christ's Institution, if it cannot obtain the Kernel thereof? For St. Paul saith of the Supper , — £ You receive it to Condemnation, 4 because ye discern not the Lord’s Body/ 138. The Covenant stands firm, and is stirred in the Use of thq Institution/ Christ proffereth His Spirit to us in His Word (vis., in His preached Word) and his Body and Blood in the Of ‘Regeneration . 83 • Sacrament , and His Absolution in a Brotherly Reconciliation one to another. 139. But what good doth it to a Beast to stand and listen, who hath no Hearing to receive the inward living Word , nor any (ground wherein to lay the Word , that it may bring forth Fruit? Of such Christ saith, ‘The Devil plucketh the Word ‘ out of their Hearts, lest they should believe and be saved/ But how can he do so ? Because the Word findeth no Plate in the Hearing Mind to take Root in. 140. And thus it is with Absolution also : what Benefit is it
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.
113 1. But if Heaven in Man be not open, and the Man stand without Heaven flattering himself, and say, I am still without , but Christ will take me in through his Qrace ; is not his Merit mine ? Such a one is in Vanity and Sin with the outward Man, and with the Soul in Hell , viz., in the Anger of God. 132. Therefore learn to understand rightly what Christ hath taught us, and done for us. He is our Heaven ; He must get a Form in us, or else we shall not be in Heaven. Thus then the Sbul’s inward Man , with the Holy Body of Christ , viz., in the New Birth , is in Heaven , and the outward mortal Man is in the World \ of which Christ spake, saying, ‘My Sheep are in my ‘Hand, and none shall pluck them away; the Father who ‘ gave them to me is greater than all/ 6 3 2 The TV ay to Qhrist . — . Chapter VI. Of the Right and of the Wrong going to c Church , receiving the Sacraments, and Absolution. B ELOVED Brethren, we will teach you faithfully, not with flattering Lips to please the Antichrist , but from our Pearl , the Virtue , Power, and Spirit of Christ in us, from a Christian Essence and Knozvledge ; not from the Husk and History , but from a New-born Spirit, from Christ's Knowledge , as a Branch growing on the Vine Christ ; from the Measure of that Knowledge which ris opened in us, according to the Will and Counsel of God.
2134. Men tie us in these Days to the History,^ andj&.r\he> material Churches of Stone ; which Churches are indeed good in their Kind, if Men did also bring the Temple of Christ into them. They teach moreover that their Absolution is a Forgiving of Sins, and that the Supper of the Lord taketh away Sin : Also that Jthe Spirit of (jod cometh into Men through their Ministry . All which hath a proper Meaning, if it was rightly understood ; and if Men did not cleave merely to the Husk . 135. Many a Man goeth to Church twenty or thirty Years, heareth Sermons , receiveth the Sacraments , and heareth Absolution read or declared, and yet is as much a Beast of the Devil and Vanity at the last as at the first. A Beast goeth into the Church , and to the Supper, and a Beast cometh out from thence again. 136. How will he eat that hath no Mouth? can any Man eat that Food which is so shut up that he cannot get it ? How will he drink that can come at no Water? Or how will he hear that hath no Hearing?
3137. What good End doth it answer, for me to go to the material Churches of Stone , and there fill my Ears with emjjty Breath? Or to go to the Supper , and feed nothing byt the earthly Mouth, which is mortal and corruptible ? Cannot I feed and satisfy that with a Piece of Bread at Home? What good doth it to the Soul, which is an immortal Life, to have the Bestial Man observe the Form, and venerate the Shell, of Christ's Institution, if it cannot obtain the Kernel thereof? For St. Paul saith of the Supper , — £ You receive it to Condemnation, 4 because ye discern not the Lord’s Body/ 138. The Covenant stands firm, and is stirred in the Use of thq Institution/ Christ proffereth His Spirit to us in His Word (vis., in His preached Word) and his Body and Blood in the Of ‘Regeneration . 83 • Sacrament , and His Absolution in a Brotherly Reconciliation one to another. 139. But what good doth it to a Beast to stand and listen, who hath no Hearing to receive the inward living Word , nor any (ground wherein to lay the Word , that it may bring forth Fruit? Of such Christ saith, ‘The Devil plucketh the Word ‘ out of their Hearts, lest they should believe and be saved/ But how can he do so ? Because the Word findeth no Plate in the Hearing Mind to take Root in. 140. And thus it is with Absolution also : what Benefit is it
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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