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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.
1to me for one to say, I pronounce or declare to thee the Forgiveness of thy Sins , when my Syoul is wholly shut up in Sin ? Whosoever saith thus to a Sinner so shut up , erreth ; and he that receiveth it without the Voice of God within himself confirming tjie^i^tne, deceiveth himself. None can forgive Sins but Qod only . * 141. The Preacher hath'not Forgiveness of Sins in his own Power; But it is the Spirit of Christ in the Voice of the Priest that hath the Power, provided the Priest himself is a Christian . 142. What good did it to those that heard Christ Himself teaching on Earth, when he said, ‘ Come unto me all ye that are ‘weary and heavy laden, and 1 will give you Rest’? What good did this blessed Promise to those that heard it, if they laboured not, nor weit heavy laden ? What became of the Refresh 7 nent or Rest then ? Seeing they had dead Ears, and heard only the outward Christ , and not the Word of the Divine Poiver, certainly they were not refreshed . Just so much good the Bestial Ma?i hath of his Absolution and Sacraments . 143. The Covenant is open in the Sacraments ; and in the Office or Ministry of teaching also the Covenant is stirred ; the Soul doth receive it, but in that Property only of which the Mouth of the Soul is.
2144. That is, the outward Beast receiveth Bread and Wine , whifch it may have as well at Home. And the fiery Soul receiveth the Testament according to its Property , viz., in the Anger of GOD it receiveth the Substance of the eternal World, but according to the Property of the dark World; it receiveth therefore, as the Scripture saith, to its own Judgment or Condemnation . For as the Mouth is, so is the Food which is taken in by the Mouth. And after this Manner also it is, that the Wicked shall behold Christ at the last Judgment as a severe Judge ; but the Saints shall behold Him as a loving Immanuel . 145. God's Anger standeth open in his Testaments towards the Wicked; but towards the Saints the Heavenly Loving Kin<F ness , and in it the Power of Christ in the Holy Name Jesus , 6 — 2 84 ^The Way to Qhrist. r - standeth open. What good then doth the Holy Thing do to the Wicked, who cannot enjoy it? Or what is it there, that can take away his Sins, when his Sin is only stirred and made manifest thereby ? 146. The Sacraments do not take away Sin ; neither are Sins forgiven thereby. But it is thus : When Christ ariseth, then Adam dieth in the Essence of the Serpent ; as when the Sun riseth, the Night is swallowed up in the Day, and the Night is no more : Just so are Sins forgiven. 147. The Spirit of Christ eateth of his Holy Substance , the
3inward Man is the Receiver of the Holy Substance ; he receiveth what the Spirit of Christ bringeth into him, viz., the Temple of God, Christ's Flesh and Blood. But what doth this concern a Beast ? Or what doth it concern the Devils ? Or the Soul that is in the Anger of God ? These eat of the Heavenly Bipod, that is in the Heaven wherein they dwell, which is the Jiiyss, or Bottomless Pit. " 148. And thus it is also in the Office or Ministry of Preaching : The Ungodly Man heareth what the outward Soul of the outward World preacheth ; that He receiveth, vis., the History ; and if there be Straw or Stubble in that which is taught, he sucketh the Vanity out of that. Yea, if the Preaching be mere Calumny, Railing, and uncharitable Abuse, as is sometimes the Case, then his Soul sucketh the venomous Poison, and the murdering Cruelty of the Devil from it, wherewith it tickleth itself, and is pleased with learning how to judge and condemn others.
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.
1to me for one to say, I pronounce or declare to thee the Forgiveness of thy Sins , when my Syoul is wholly shut up in Sin ? Whosoever saith thus to a Sinner so shut up , erreth ; and he that receiveth it without the Voice of God within himself confirming tjie^i^tne, deceiveth himself. None can forgive Sins but Qod only . * 141. The Preacher hath'not Forgiveness of Sins in his own Power; But it is the Spirit of Christ in the Voice of the Priest that hath the Power, provided the Priest himself is a Christian . 142. What good did it to those that heard Christ Himself teaching on Earth, when he said, ‘ Come unto me all ye that are ‘weary and heavy laden, and 1 will give you Rest’? What good did this blessed Promise to those that heard it, if they laboured not, nor weit heavy laden ? What became of the Refresh 7 nent or Rest then ? Seeing they had dead Ears, and heard only the outward Christ , and not the Word of the Divine Poiver, certainly they were not refreshed . Just so much good the Bestial Ma?i hath of his Absolution and Sacraments . 143. The Covenant is open in the Sacraments ; and in the Office or Ministry of teaching also the Covenant is stirred ; the Soul doth receive it, but in that Property only of which the Mouth of the Soul is.
2144. That is, the outward Beast receiveth Bread and Wine , whifch it may have as well at Home. And the fiery Soul receiveth the Testament according to its Property , viz., in the Anger of GOD it receiveth the Substance of the eternal World, but according to the Property of the dark World; it receiveth therefore, as the Scripture saith, to its own Judgment or Condemnation . For as the Mouth is, so is the Food which is taken in by the Mouth. And after this Manner also it is, that the Wicked shall behold Christ at the last Judgment as a severe Judge ; but the Saints shall behold Him as a loving Immanuel . 145. God's Anger standeth open in his Testaments towards the Wicked; but towards the Saints the Heavenly Loving Kin<F ness , and in it the Power of Christ in the Holy Name Jesus , 6 — 2 84 ^The Way to Qhrist. r - standeth open. What good then doth the Holy Thing do to the Wicked, who cannot enjoy it? Or what is it there, that can take away his Sins, when his Sin is only stirred and made manifest thereby ? 146. The Sacraments do not take away Sin ; neither are Sins forgiven thereby. But it is thus : When Christ ariseth, then Adam dieth in the Essence of the Serpent ; as when the Sun riseth, the Night is swallowed up in the Day, and the Night is no more : Just so are Sins forgiven. 147. The Spirit of Christ eateth of his Holy Substance , the
3inward Man is the Receiver of the Holy Substance ; he receiveth what the Spirit of Christ bringeth into him, viz., the Temple of God, Christ's Flesh and Blood. But what doth this concern a Beast ? Or what doth it concern the Devils ? Or the Soul that is in the Anger of God ? These eat of the Heavenly Bipod, that is in the Heaven wherein they dwell, which is the Jiiyss, or Bottomless Pit. " 148. And thus it is also in the Office or Ministry of Preaching : The Ungodly Man heareth what the outward Soul of the outward World preacheth ; that He receiveth, vis., the History ; and if there be Straw or Stubble in that which is taught, he sucketh the Vanity out of that. Yea, if the Preaching be mere Calumny, Railing, and uncharitable Abuse, as is sometimes the Case, then his Soul sucketh the venomous Poison, and the murdering Cruelty of the Devil from it, wherewith it tickleth itself, and is pleased with learning how to judge and condemn others.
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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