Fetching
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.
1cela doit être quelque chose qui saisisse le son , qui inqualifie awec le son , et qui distingue le ton qui est joué ou chanté. L'extérieur ne peut pas seul faire que l'intérieur saisisse le son et le distingue. Vois. Ici tu trouves l'ascension de la vie, et la teinture dans laquelle la vie existe. Car la teinture de l'explosion dans l'ascension de la vie , dans le brisement de la porte ténébreuse , existe dans le son ; elle a sa porte le plus près de l'éclair de feu, près des yeux ouverts , et elle saisit tout son qui retentit. 68. Car le son extérieur inqualifie avec l'intérieur, et est séparé ou distingué par les essences ; or, la teinture reçoit tout, soit bon, soit mauvais. Elle démontre par là que ni elle , ni ses essences qui l'engendrent, ne sont nées de la divinité, autrement la teinture ne laisseroit pas entrer le bien et le mal dans les essences de l'ame. 69, C'est pourquoi il nous faut ici considérer que le son dans la teinture de l'homme est plus haut que dans les animaux : car l'homme approfondit et discerne tout ce qui fait du son ; il sait d'où vient ce Mon et comment il s'originise , ce que la béte ne peut faire. Mais elle reste stupéfaite , et ne sait ce que c'est que le son. De là on conçoit comment l'ori. gine de l'homme est de l'éternel , en ce qu'il peut discerner une chose qui est dans la génération de ce qui est éternel , et qui s'en origini.e- de façon que 61 toutes les choses ont passé de l'éternel rien cq quelque chose qui est saisissable , et si là cependant il n'y a pas un rien, mais une source^ ces choses doivent , après la brisure du corps , rester en un« ( 324 ) en. i^f
2éternelle Bgnre y et non pas en esprit , puisque le cor/?* ii'esl pas de Tespiit éternel. Autrement si le corps Venoit de l'esprit, il pourroit . ussi approfondir le commencement de toutes choses , comme fait l'homme qui , dans le son qui lui est propre , saisit et discerne toutes choses. 70. Ainsi donc la maison du son de Phomme , dans laquelle est rintellîgence,doit étredePélernité, quoique par la chute (TAda m jl' homme se soit plongé dans la corruption et dans une grande privation d'intelligence 5 comme on le verra ci-aprcs. Dans cette même chute nous en trouverons autant au sujet do l'odorat; car si l'esprit n'existoit pas dans le son, l'odeur d'aucune chose ne pénétreroit dans les essences 5 attendu que l'esprilauroit son complément, et seroit entièrement rempli ; mais comme il existe dans la porte des ténèbres brjsécs par l'explosiou et le son , alors toutes les vertus de toutes choses pénètrent dans ces mêmes portes', et s'éprouvent les unes et les autres ; or, ce qui compose l'assemblagm ou le corps des essences de l'esprit , celui-ci le désire , et l'attire dans la teinture; alors la gueule oiè ta bouche y et les mains le saississent , et le jètent dans l'estomac, dans le vestibule des quatre élémens : c'est ccdontse nourrissent les essences terrestres des étoiles et des élémens. 71. Le goiit est aussi un essai et un attire^ ment Ae la teinture dans les essences de l'es- |yril,etle tact également. Si l'esprit de l'homme avec ses essences n'étoit pas dans le *o/i, il n'y ^•u'Oit aucun tact. Car lorsque l'essence astringente CH. i5. { 5x5 )
3attire à soi , elle excite dans l'éclair de Feu , ^uî se remuelui-même, l'aiguillon amer, soit en piuçant, soit en heurtant , soit en frappant. Alors par lou^t ces' stimuîans , l'aiguillon amer est' év^llé' dans Ttclair de feu ; et le mouvement se trouve là-dedans au^si bien <|^e dans la teinture. » ■%H^«»«»»1W>^*»'^"*»'^'' • . ' J (326 ) CHAPITRE SEIZIEME. De la noble base affective ; de l'inteUigence; des sens et des pensées : Du triple esprit ; de la triple volonté ; de la teinture du penchant ; ce qui est engendré dans un enfant dans le sein de sa mère. J^e plus. ^o. De l'image de Dieu ; 20. je l'image animale ; ««». de l'image de Tabîme infernal , et de la similitude du démon : toutes choses que Ton peut chercher et trouver dans chaque homme. Xa noble porte de la chère tnerge ou Sophie , et aussi la porte de la femme de ce monde , ce qui est hautement à contempler» t. ^ I nous nous considérons dans la connoissaiice qui , par l'amour divin , nous a été communiquée dans la noble vierge de la sagesse de Dieu ou la SOPHIE , non point d'après nos propres mérites , sainteté ni dignité , mais de sa pure volonté , et d'après le plan éternel et insondable des choses qui nous sont montrées daos son amour 5 alors non» CH. 16. C ^^7 ) nous reconnoîssons réellement beaucoup trop in»* dignes d'une semblable manifestation , puisque nous sommes pécheurs. Oui, npus sommes au-dessous do la gloire que nous devons avoir devant lui.
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.
1that must be something which seizes the sound, which inqualifies with the sound, and which distinguishes the tone which is played or sung. The exterior cannot alone make that the interior seize the sound and distinguish it. See. Here thou findest the ascension of the life, and the tincture in which the life exists. For the tincture of the explosion in the ascension of the life, in the breaking of the tenebrous gate, exists in the sound; it has its gate nearest to the flash of fire, near the opened eyes, and it seizes every sound that resounds. 68. For the exterior sound inqualifies with the interior, and is separated or distinguished by the essences; now, the tincture receives all, whether good, whether evil. It demonstrates thereby that neither it, nor its essences which beget it, are born of the divinity, otherwise the tincture would not let the good and the evil enter into the essences of the soul. 69, That is why we must here consider that the sound in the tincture of man is higher than in the animals: for man sounds and discerns all that makes a sound; he knows whence this sound comes and how it originises itself, which the beast cannot do. But it remains stupefied, and knows not what the sound is. Thence one conceives how the origin of man is of the eternal, in that he can discern a thing which is in the generation of what is eternal, and which originises itself therefrom; so that 61if all things have passed from the eternal nothing into something which is seizable, and if there nevertheless there is not a nothing, but a source, these things must, after the breaking of the body, remain in an ( 324 ) en. i^f
2eternal figure, and not in spirit, since the body is not of the eternal spirit. Otherwise if the body came from the spirit, it could also sound the beginning of all things, as does man who, in the sound which is proper to him, seizes and discerns all things. 70. Thus then the house of the sound of man, in which is the intelligence, must be of eternity, although by the fall of Adam man has plunged himself into corruption and into a great privation of intelligence 5 as one will see hereafter. In this same fall we shall find as much touching the smell; for if the spirit existed not in the sound, the odour of no thing would penetrate into the essences 5 seeing that the spirit would have its complement, and would be entirely filled; but as it exists in the gate of the darknesses broken by the explosion and the sound, then all the virtues of all things penetrate into these same gates, and prove one another; now, what composes the assemblage or the body of the essences of the spirit, this one desires it, and draws it into the tincture; then the maw or the mouth, and the hands seize it, and cast it into the stomach, into the vestibule of the four elements: it is thereof that the terrestrial essences of the stars and of the elements nourish themselves. 71. The taste is also an essay and an attraction of the tincture in the essences of the spirit, and the touch likewise. If the spirit of man with its essences were not in the sound, there would be no touch. For when the astringent essence CH. i5. { 5x5 )
3draws to itself, it excites in the flash of fire, which stirs itself, the bitter sting, whether in pinching, whether in striking, whether in beating. Then by all these stimulants, the bitter sting is awakened in the flash of fire; and the movement is found therein as well as in the tincture. » ■%H^«»«»»1W>^*»'^"*»'^'' • . ' J (326 ) CHAPTER SIXTEENTH. Of the noble affective base; of the intelligence; of the senses and of the thoughts: Of the triple spirit; of the triple will; of the tincture of the inclination; what is begotten in a child in the bosom of its mother. Moreover. ^o. Of the image of God; 20. of the animal image; ««». of the image of the infernal abyss, and of the similitude of the demon: all things that one may seek and find in each man. The noble gate of the dear virgin or Sophia, and also the gate of the woman of this world, which is loftily to be contemplated. t. If we consider ourselves in the knowledge which, by the divine love, has been communicated to us in the noble virgin of the wisdom of God or the SOPHIA, not at all according to our own merits, holiness nor dignity, but of her pure will, and according to the eternal and unfathomable plan of the things which are shown us in her love 5 then we CH. 16. C ^^7 ) recognise ourselves really far too unworthy of such a manifestation, since we are sinners. Yes, we are beneath the glory that we must have before him.
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
This work carries, in the author's own voice, both a set of hostile comparisons drawn against named peoples and an explicit refusal of any such boundary, and the Press publishes both rather than either alone. At Ch.25 §85 he calls the Jews blind; at Ch.17 §106 he warns of a coming visitation of the Jews and the Turks; and at Ch.26 §32-33, asked whence the Turks are grown, he answers "From thy perverted sense" — laying the rise of Mahomet at the door of christian pride and disputation. Against these stands Ch.25 §72, which opens the grace with no boundary at all: all men are invited to it, of whatever race, "whether Turks, Jews, Pagans, Christians", and no one is excluded. The same chapter that indicts turns the indictment inward at §105-106 — each believes not to dwell in Babel, and the author includes himself — and §33 concludes that God should be as near the one as the other. The contradiction is the author's, it is not resolved by him, and removing either half would misrepresent the work. Operator ruling, 2026-08-29.
This work carries, in the author's own voice, both a set of hostile comparisons drawn against named peoples and an explicit refusal of any such boundary, and the Press publishes both rather than either alone. At Ch.25 §85 he calls the Jews blind; at Ch.17 §106 he warns of a coming visitation of the Jews and the Turks; and at Ch.26 §32-33, asked whence the Turks are grown, he answers "From thy perverted sense" — laying the rise of Mahomet at the door of christian pride and disputation. Against these stands Ch.25 §72, which opens the grace with no boundary at all: all men are invited to it, of whatever race, "whether Turks, Jews, Pagans, Christians", and no one is excluded. The same chapter that indicts turns the indictment inward at §105-106 — each believes not to dwell in Babel, and the author includes himself — and §33 concludes that God should be as near the one as the other. The contradiction is the author's, it is not resolved by him, and removing either half would misrepresent the work. Operator ruling, 2026-08-29.
This work carries, in the author's own voice, both a set of hostile comparisons drawn against named peoples and an explicit refusal of any such boundary, and the Press publishes both rather than either alone. At Ch.25 §85 he calls the Jews blind; at Ch.17 §106 he warns of a coming visitation of the Jews and the Turks; and at Ch.26 §32-33, asked whence the Turks are grown, he answers "From thy perverted sense" — laying the rise of Mahomet at the door of christian pride and disputation. Against these stands Ch.25 §72, which opens the grace with no boundary at all: all men are invited to it, of whatever race, "whether Turks, Jews, Pagans, Christians", and no one is excluded. The same chapter that indicts turns the indictment inward at §105-106 — each believes not to dwell in Babel, and the author includes himself — and §33 concludes that God should be as near the one as the other. The contradiction is the author's, it is not resolved by him, and removing either half would misrepresent the work. Operator ruling, 2026-08-29.