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.
12. Mais puisque son éternelle volonté et son plan 6ont de nous faire du bien , et de nous découvrir ses secrets d'après son conseil , nous ne devons pas nous y opposer, ni enfouir dans la terre le talent qui nous a été donné : car nous devons en rendre compte lors de la manifestation de son avenir. Ainsi nous voulons travailler dans notre vigne , en recominiander de plus en plus les fruits à Dieu , et écrire ceci pour notre mémorial , en le lui recommandant^ or nous ne pouvons chercher ni imaginerau de-là de ce que nous atteignons , mais seulement dans la lumière de la nature , attendu que c'est là que se trouve notre porte ouverte j non pas d'après notre plan et nos combinaisons , ni comme nous voulons et quand nous voulons ; mais d'après le don de Dieu , quand et comme il le veut. Nous ne pouvons pas non plus en saisir la plus petite éteincelle ^ à moins que les portes de la profondeur ne soient ouvertes dans notre base affective; car là l'esprit très désireux , ardent et enflammé, va comme yn feu auquel le corps terrestre est volontiers soumis , ne se bissant décourager par aucune fatigue dans ce qui peut servir à la désireuse et ardente base affective ; quand même il n'auroit rien à attendre du monde que mépris et dédain pour son travail , il doit cepen. dant cire obéissant à son maître , puisque son maître est puissant ^ et lui dans l'impuissance ; que soii. C 328 ) CIT. î^.
2maître le condiiî! et le nourrit , et que lui , dans son peu d'intelli^mce , ne sait ce qu'il fait, mais qu'il Vit comnic tous les animaux , et que c'est aussi sa volonto de vivre ainsi. Or il doit sujvre la clière tase affective qui recherche la scigesse de Dieu ; et la base affective doit suivre la lumière de la nature: car Dieu se manifeste dans ceffe même lumière sans quoi nous ne connoitrions rien de lui. 3. Si 5 maintenant, nous considérons notre base affective dans la lumière de la nature ; ce qu'elle est ; ce qui nous rend zv\ôs ; ce qui brille là , comme une lumière, et est ardent comme u»! feu ; ce qui désire de recueillir dans une place où nous n'avons point semé, et de moissonner dans un p^vs on le corps n'est point chez lui; alors la chère vieroc do la sn^esse de Dieu ou Sophie nous rencontre dans le siège médiane , dans le centre de la vie , et dit : k lumière, la puissance, la domimition sont à moi, les portes de la connoissance sont à moi. Je vis dans la lumière de la nature , e» sans moi tu ne peux rieu Voir ni reconnoîfre de ma puissance. Je suis ton épouse dans la lumière; et ton ardeur pour ma puissance est mon propre attirement en moi ; je suis assise sur mon trône, mais tu ne me connois pas 5 je suis en loi , et ton corps n'est pas en moi ; je discerne, et tu n'en vois rien, je suis la lumière des peuséej,, et la racine des pensées n'est pas en moi , mais près de moi. Je suis l'épouse de la racine, mais elle a revêtu un manteau grossier; je ne me couche point dans ses bras jusqu'à ce qu'elle l'ait ôté : Alors je reposerai éternellement dans ses bras 5 j'ornerai la tir. i6. t 32g ) racine avec maivertu ; je lui donnerai ma belle forme,* et j'en ferai mon époux avec ma belle perle.
34. Il J a trois choses qtii possèdent l'ame et qui la réfiiftsent ; mais l'ame en elle-même est la volonté désireuse , et les trois choses sont les trois règnes , ou les trois principes. L'un est éternel , le second est aussi éternel, et le troisième est périssable : l'un n'a aucun commencement ; le second est engendré dans l'éternel et le non-commençant ; le troisièiTfe a un commencement et une fin, et se brise de nouveau. 5. C'est ainsi que l'ame éternelle dans le grand et inscrulable abîme est de toute éternité l'indissoluble alliance, l'esprit dans la source, qui s'ènf;endre toujours de lui-même, et ne périt jamais, lià-dedans , dans le centre de l'abîme , est la volonté reconçue pour la lumière. Or , la volonté est le désir ; le désir attire à soi , et ce qui est Attiré produit les ténèbres dans la volonié ; de façon qu'ainsi, dans la premièrevolonté, il s'engen^lro de nouveau une seconde volonté de s'envoler hors des ténèbres. Cette seconde volonié est la base affective qui se contemple dans les ténèbres. Ce coup d'oeil divise les ténèbres, qui alors se trouvent dans le son , et en explosion ; car là le coup d'œil s'aiguise , et est , par ce moyen , élernellement dans les téi èbres brisées ; de façon qu'ainsi lt*s ténèbres restent élernellement (iaiîs le sùn rigide. La volonté reconcue est-libre dans hi dispersiofï des ténèbres ; elle demeure hors des ténèbreg en soi-même, et hors du coup d'œil qui est le briC 33o ) ÇH^ jg^
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.
12. But since his eternal will and his plan 6are to do us good, and to discover to us his secrets according to his counsel, we must not oppose ourselves to it, nor bury in the earth the talent that has been given us: for we must render account of it at the manifestation of his coming. Thus we will work in our vineyard, recommend more and more its fruits to God, and write this for our memorial, recommending it to him; now we cannot seek nor imagine beyond what we attain, but only in the light of nature, seeing that it is there that our gate is found open; not according to our plan and our combinations, nor as we will and when we will; but according to the gift of God, when and as he wills it. We cannot either seize the least spark of it, unless the gates of the profundity be opened in our affective base; for there the very desirous, ardent and kindled spirit goes as a fire to which the terrestrial body is willingly submitted, letting itself be discouraged by no fatigue in what can serve the desirous and ardent affective base; even though it had nothing to expect from the world but contempt and disdain for its labour, it must nevertheless be obedient to its master, since its master is powerful, and it in impotence; that its C 328 ) CIT. î^.
2master conducts it and nourishes it, and that it, in its little intelligence, knows not what it does, but that it lives as all the animals, and that it is also its will to live thus. Now it must follow the dear affective base which seeks the wisdom of God; and the affective base must follow the light of nature: for God manifests himself in this same light without which we should know nothing of him. 3. If 5 now, we consider our affective base in the light of nature; what it is; what renders us blind; what shines there, as a light, and is ardent as a fire; what desires to gather in a place where we have not sown, and to reap in a country where the body is not at home; then the dear virgin of the wisdom of God or Sophia meets us in the middle seat, in the centre of the life, and says: the light, the power, the domination are mine, the gates of the knowledge are mine. I live in the light of nature, and without me thou canst see nor recognise nothing of my power. I am thy spouse in the light; and thy ardour for my power is my own attraction in me; I am seated upon my throne, but thou knowest me not 5 I am in thee, and thy body is not in me; I discern, and thou seest nothing of it, I am the light of the thoughts, and the root of the thoughts is not in me, but near me. I am the spouse of the root, but it has put on a gross mantle; I lie not down in its arms until it have taken it off: Then I shall repose eternally in its arms 5 I shall adorn the tir. i6. t 32g ) root with my virtue; I shall give it my fair form, and I shall make of it my spouse with my fair pearl.
34. There are three things which possess the soul and which refuse it; but the soul in itself is the desirous will, and the three things are the three reigns, or the three principles. The one is eternal, the second is also eternal, and the third is perishable: the one has no beginning; the second is begotten in the eternal and the non-beginning; the third has a beginning and an end, and breaks itself anew. 5. It is thus that the eternal soul in the great and inscrutable abyss is from all eternity the indissoluble alliance, the spirit in the source, which begets itself always of itself, and never perishes. Therein, in the centre of the abyss, is the will reconceived for the light. Now, the will is the desire; the desire draws to itself, and what is attracted produces the darknesses in the will; so that thus, in the first will, there is begotten anew a second will to fly away out of the darknesses. This second will is the affective base which contemplates itself in the darknesses. This glance divides the darknesses, which then find themselves in the sound, and in explosion; for there the glance sharpens itself, and is, by this means, eternally in the broken darknesses; so that thus the darknesses remain eternally in the rigid sound. The reconceived will is free in the dispersion of the darknesses; it dwells out of the darknesses in itself, and out of the glance which is the breaC 33o ) ÇH^ jg^
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.