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One moment.
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.
2DES TROIS PRINCIPES DE L'ESSENCE DIVINE. DES TROIS PRINCIPES DE L'ESSENCE DIVINE; CaEZ SE VEND A paris; 'L A R A N , Imprimeur -Libraire , place du Panthéon , aux ci - devant Ecoles de Droit. Idibeai, palais du Tribunal, galeries de Bois. A LYON,
3Chez lès*ïtecçs Périsse, Imprimeurs-Libraires , rue Mercière, n®. i5. Ok trouve chez les mêmes Libraires, V Aurore naissante y du même Auteur. o u DE L^ÉTERNEL ENGENDREMENT SANSORIGINE. De l'homme; d'où il a été créé et pour quelle fin. Comment tout prend son commencement dans le tems; comment tout poursuit son cours, et ce que tout redeviendra à la un : Par JACOB BÉHME, du vieux Seidenhourg ^ nommé le philosophe Teutonlque ^ Traduit de l'Allemand, sur Pédit. d'Amsterdam, de 1682; Par le Philosophe inconnu. TOME PREMIER. A P A R ï S^, DE L'IMPRIMERIE DE LARAN. AN 10. — 1802, AVERTISSEMENT DU TRADUCTEUR. V \- J5 r Ouvrage qui est le second de Jacob Béhmey a été écrit en 1619, sept ans après r Aurore naissante , dont j'ai publié^ Vannée dernière , la traduction française. Il paroH avoir sur son aînée quelques avantages : celui d'être moins informe y et celui d'ajouter aux richesses dont elle est pourvue y plusieurs trésors absolument neufs. On peut même le regarder comme un tableau complet de toute la doctrine de l^ auteur , quoique tous ses autres ouvrages offrent des développemens intéressans de quelques uns des germes qui ne sont que semés dans celui-ci. Il ne faut pas croire y cependant, que soit quant au fonds , soit quant d la forme , Une laisse rien à désirer. On y verra reparoitre les inconvéniens que l'on rencontre dans tous les écrits de Jacob Bêhme i savoir : des obscurités atla^ cheés d la profondeur des objets dont il a eu d parler^ et cela sur -tout dans les premiers ^ AVERTISSEMENT chapitres de cet ouvrage , parce que cest là où il a eu à exposer les bases fondamentales et très abstraites de sa doctrine.
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.
2OF THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE. OF THE THREE PRINCIPLES OF THE DIVINE ESSENCE; CaEZ SOLD AT paris; 'L A R A N , Printer-Bookseller , place du Panthéon , at the former Schools of Law. Idibeai, palace of the Tribunal, wooden galleries. AT LYONS,
3At the brothers Périsse's, Printers-Booksellers , rue Mercière, n°. i5. There is found at the same Booksellers, the Aurora nascent, by the same Author. O R OF THE ETERNAL BEGETTING WITHOUT ORIGIN. Of man; whence he was created and to what end. How all takes its beginning in time; how all pursues its course, and what all shall become again at the end: By JACOB BÖHME, of old Seidenburg, called the Teutonic philosopher, Translated from the German, upon the Amsterdam edition, of 1682; By the unknown Philosopher. FIRST VOLUME. AT P A R I S, FROM THE PRINTING-HOUSE OF LARAN. YEAR 10. — 1802, ADVERTISEMENT OF THE TRANSLATOR. V \- The5 Work which is the second of Jacob Böhme's was written in 1619, seven years after the Aurora nascent, whereof I published, last year, the French translation. It appears to have over its elder some advantages: that of being less shapeless, and that of adding to the riches wherewith she is provided, several treasures absolutely new. One may even regard it as a complete picture of the whole doctrine of the author, although all his other works offer interesting developments of some of the germs which are but sown in this one. It must not be believed, however, that whether as to the ground or as to the form, it leaves nothing to be desired. There will be seen to reappear in it the inconveniences one meets in all the writings of Jacob Böhme, to wit: obscurities attached to the profundity of the objects whereof he has had to speak, and that above all in the first ^ ADVERTISEMENT chapters of this work, because it is there that he has had to set forth the fundamental and very abstract bases of his doctrine.
Our translation, period-faithful. Citable as our translation, never as the source.
Saint-Martin's French rendering of Boehme's 'Von den drei Principien göttlichen Wesens'. The same work stands in this estate in English as boehme:2. The title page also advertises 'L'Aurore naissante, du même Auteur' from the same booksellers — Saint-Martin's translation of the Aurora, whose English counterpart the estate holds as boehme:1. Reading the two versions against each other shows what a Martinist made of a German shoemaker's theosophy.
→ boehme:2