IN THIS LITTLE-

Book, a Preface by the translator.

A decorative woodcut initial 'L' featuring an ornate floriated pattern of vine scrolls and foliage within a square frame.

LIKING THIS LITTLE BOOK as much as I did, I thought it should be gifted with a Latin translation. original: "Latinitate donandũ." The translator is likely referring to the Theologia Germanica, which was originally written in a German dialect. Translating it into Latin made it accessible to the entire European "Republic of Letters." The style is brief and pregnant with meaning: you might compare it to a garden—a small one, certainly, but so densely planted that no ash tree, no lime, or plane tree, nor in fact any of those trees grown for pleasure rather than fruit, can be seen there; instead, it is full of every kind of fruit-bearing tree. In this same way, this little book does not stroke the reader with any seductive artifice of speech, nor with any disguise or charms, nor with "little flowers" of rhetoric original: "flosculis orationis." A common Renaissance term for flowery, over-embellished writing.; rather, it delivers pure teachings, and those of the most fruitful kind, which are most conducive to the instruction of a ChristianChristiani institutionẽ: the spiritual and moral formation of a believer. However, because of its brevity, it is somewhat obscure; for that reason, it should be read neither just once, nor with a yawn. I add this as well: if anyone wishes to read this little book, let them do so in order to know [the truth], and not to show off The text ends mid-sentence here. The translator is warning against reading mystical theology merely to appear intellectually superior or to win arguments, rather than for personal transformation.