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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.
1good Virtue of the Earth, for the Earth likewise shallbecome Crystalline , and the Divine Light shine in every Thing that hath a Being , Essence , or Substance . And as the Earth shall perish and never return, so also the gross Flesh of Man shall perish and not live for ever. But alt Things must appear before the Judgment , and in the Judgment be separated by the Fire; yea, both the Earth and also the Ashes of the human Body . For when God shall once move the spiritual World , every Spirit shall attract its spiritual Substance to itself. A good Spirit and Soul shall draw to itself its good Substance , and an evil one its evil Substance. But we must here understand by Substance such a material Power jmd Virtue , the Essence of which is mere Virtue , like a material Tincture (such a Thing as hath all Figures, Colours and Virtues in it, and is at the same time transparent ), the (jrossness whereof is perished in Things. 47. The Scholar. — S hall we not rise again with our visible Bodies , and live in them for ever ? See the 40 Questions of the Soul , 21 Question , 12 Verse. The Master. — W hen the visible World perisheth, then all that which hath come out of it, and hath been external , shall perish with it. There shall remain of the World only the Heavenly Crystalline Nattire and Form , and of Man also only the spiritual Earth ; for Man shall be then wholly like the spiritual World \ which as yet is hidden.
248. TlIE SCHOLAR. — Shall there be Husband and Wife, or Children or Kindred , in the Heavenly Life , or shall one associate with another, as they do in this Life ? The Master. — W hy art thou so fleshly -minded? There will be neither Husband nor Wife , but all will be like the Angels of God \ viz., masculine Virgins . There will be neither Son nor Daughter , Brother nor Sister , but all of one Stock and Kindred \ For all are but One in Christ , as a Tree and its Branches are One , though distinct as Creatures ; but God is All in All. Indeed, there will be spiritual Knowledge of what every one hath been , and done , but no possessing or enjoying , or Desire of possessing earthly Things, or enjoying fleshly Relations any more. 49. The Scholar. — S hall they all have that eternal Joy and (glorification alike ? The Master. — T he Scripture saith, ‘ Such as the People is, ‘such 13 their God/ And in another Place, ‘ With the Holy thou ‘ art Holy, and with the perverse thou art perverse/ And St. Paul saith, ‘In the Resurrection one shall differ from another in ‘ Glory, as do the Sun, Moon and Stars/ Therefore know, that Of the Super-Sensual Life . 1 1 1 — — 3
3the Blessed shall indeed all enjoy the Divine Working in and upon them ; but their Virtue , and Illumination, or Qlory, shall be very different, according as they have been endued in this Life with different Measures and Degrees of Power and Virtue in their painful Working. For the painful Working of the Creature in this Life-Time is the opening and begetting of Divine Power, by which that Poiver is made movable and operative. Now those who have wrought with Christ in this Life-Time, and not in the Lust of the Flesh, shall have great Power and transcendent Calorification in and upon them. But others, who have only expected, and relied upon, an imputed Satisfaction , and in the meanwhile have served their Belly-Qod, and yet at last have turned, and obtained Qrace f those, I say, shall not attain to so high a Degree of Power and Illumination. So that there will be aft great a Difference of Degrees between them, as is between the Sun, MooIT.^md Stars ; or between the Flowers of the Field in their Varieties of Beauty, Power, and Virtue. 50. TH£ SCHOLAR. — How shall the World be judged, and by whom ? The MASTER. — Jesus Christ, that Word of (fid which became Man shall by the Power of His Divine Stirring or Motion separate from Himself all that belongeth not to Him, and shall wholly manifest His Kingdom in the Place or Space where this World now as ; for the separating Motion worketh all over the Universe, through all at once.
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.
1good Virtue of the Earth, for the Earth likewise shallbecome Crystalline , and the Divine Light shine in every Thing that hath a Being , Essence , or Substance . And as the Earth shall perish and never return, so also the gross Flesh of Man shall perish and not live for ever. But alt Things must appear before the Judgment , and in the Judgment be separated by the Fire; yea, both the Earth and also the Ashes of the human Body . For when God shall once move the spiritual World , every Spirit shall attract its spiritual Substance to itself. A good Spirit and Soul shall draw to itself its good Substance , and an evil one its evil Substance. But we must here understand by Substance such a material Power jmd Virtue , the Essence of which is mere Virtue , like a material Tincture (such a Thing as hath all Figures, Colours and Virtues in it, and is at the same time transparent ), the (jrossness whereof is perished in Things. 47. The Scholar. — S hall we not rise again with our visible Bodies , and live in them for ever ? See the 40 Questions of the Soul , 21 Question , 12 Verse. The Master. — W hen the visible World perisheth, then all that which hath come out of it, and hath been external , shall perish with it. There shall remain of the World only the Heavenly Crystalline Nattire and Form , and of Man also only the spiritual Earth ; for Man shall be then wholly like the spiritual World \ which as yet is hidden.
248. TlIE SCHOLAR. — Shall there be Husband and Wife, or Children or Kindred , in the Heavenly Life , or shall one associate with another, as they do in this Life ? The Master. — W hy art thou so fleshly -minded? There will be neither Husband nor Wife , but all will be like the Angels of God \ viz., masculine Virgins . There will be neither Son nor Daughter , Brother nor Sister , but all of one Stock and Kindred \ For all are but One in Christ , as a Tree and its Branches are One , though distinct as Creatures ; but God is All in All. Indeed, there will be spiritual Knowledge of what every one hath been , and done , but no possessing or enjoying , or Desire of possessing earthly Things, or enjoying fleshly Relations any more. 49. The Scholar. — S hall they all have that eternal Joy and (glorification alike ? The Master. — T he Scripture saith, ‘ Such as the People is, ‘such 13 their God/ And in another Place, ‘ With the Holy thou ‘ art Holy, and with the perverse thou art perverse/ And St. Paul saith, ‘In the Resurrection one shall differ from another in ‘ Glory, as do the Sun, Moon and Stars/ Therefore know, that Of the Super-Sensual Life . 1 1 1 — — 3
3the Blessed shall indeed all enjoy the Divine Working in and upon them ; but their Virtue , and Illumination, or Qlory, shall be very different, according as they have been endued in this Life with different Measures and Degrees of Power and Virtue in their painful Working. For the painful Working of the Creature in this Life-Time is the opening and begetting of Divine Power, by which that Poiver is made movable and operative. Now those who have wrought with Christ in this Life-Time, and not in the Lust of the Flesh, shall have great Power and transcendent Calorification in and upon them. But others, who have only expected, and relied upon, an imputed Satisfaction , and in the meanwhile have served their Belly-Qod, and yet at last have turned, and obtained Qrace f those, I say, shall not attain to so high a Degree of Power and Illumination. So that there will be aft great a Difference of Degrees between them, as is between the Sun, MooIT.^md Stars ; or between the Flowers of the Field in their Varieties of Beauty, Power, and Virtue. 50. TH£ SCHOLAR. — How shall the World be judged, and by whom ? The MASTER. — Jesus Christ, that Word of (fid which became Man shall by the Power of His Divine Stirring or Motion separate from Himself all that belongeth not to Him, and shall wholly manifest His Kingdom in the Place or Space where this World now as ; for the separating Motion worketh all over the Universe, through all at once.
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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