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.
1sèment çt Paigu : le son est la demeure de \1 volonté ou de la base aflfocuve conhuuellement conçue et le son et l'aigu du coup d'œil deviennent affranchis des ténèbres dans la demeure de la volonté; le coup d'oeil élève la volonté; la volonté triomphe dans l'aigu du coup d'œil : elle se contemple à l'infini dans l'aigu du son, dans le coup d œil de la lumière , hors des ténèbres , dans le brisement. Or , dans cette même infinité du coup d œil , il y a de nouveau dans chaque aperçu du total, dans la parcelle, dans chaque reOet , uu centre dont Vengendrement est semblable à celui qui s^opère dans le tout : ces parcelles sont les penfiées ; le total est la base affective d'où les pensées procèdent : c'est pourquoi les pens^^es sont changeantes, et non pas en êtres; mais la base affective est complète et substantielle. 6. Ainsi , mon cher lecteur , notre ame est aussi ^alIlance indissoluble que Dieu souffla en Adam de lame éternelle, par le fiât, en esprit bouiU ionnant ; et nos éternelles essences ne sont qu'une parcelle ou une étincelle de l'ame éternelle , qui a en soi le centre du brisemeni , et dans le hri^ sèment l'aigu. Or , celte même volonté conduit le coup d'œil dans le brhement ; l'.igu du brisement des ténèbres est dans le coup d'œil de la volonté, et la volonté est notre base affective : le coup d'œil . est comme les yeux dans l'éclair de feu ; il se contemple en nous daus nos essences , et aussi hors de nous ; car il est libre , et il a deux portes ouvertes : l'une dans les ténèbres , et l'autre en. iB. ( 33i )
2dans la lumière. En effet,quoiqu'il luise constammene dans les ténèbres , cependant il brise les ténèbres , et se fait tout lumière en soi ; et là où il est , là il voit, comme nos pensées qui peuvent voir dans une chose à plusieurs milles , quoique le corps en soit loin , et souvent n'ait jamais été dans l'endroit. 7. Le coup d'œil va au travers du bois et des pierres, au travers de la moelle et des os ; et rien 21e peut le retenir: car il disperse par-tout les ténèbres, sans déchirure du corps d'aucune chose, et la volonté est le coursier sur lequel il monte. ( Ici on doit taire plusieurs choses à cause de Tenchantement démoniaque ; sans cela nous en découvririons encore ici beaucoup : car le nécromancien est né ici. ) 8. Mais en un mot la première volonté dans l'ame est de la forte angoisse , et son coup d'œil dans l'origine est l'amer et fort éclair de feu dans l'aigu qui fait le mouvement, le son et le voir dans l'éclat de l'aigu de l'éclair ; de façon que les coups d'œil reconçus dans la pensée , ont en eux une lumière dont ils voient lorsqu'ils courre^t comme un éclair. ' 9. Il ne convient pas à cette première volonté de regarder derrière soi dans l'abîme de la colère , dans lequel est l'âpre méchanceté; mais devant soi , dans le centre du brisement , hors des ténèbres, dans la lumière ; car dans la lumière il n'y a qu'une pure douceur et humilité, une bienveillance et un amical désir de sortir de soi, par le moyop de ( 332 ) CH. ifiJ
3la "volonté reconçne , et de se manifester , ainsi ^xi(^ sau cher trésor, aJlendu que, dans la volonté reconçue pour k génération de la lumière, il n'y' a aucune source d'angoisse , mais un jMir désir* d'amour. En effet, le coup d'œil s'élève en soiDiêmohors des ténèbres, et désire la lumière, et le désir attire la lumière en soi : alors , au lieu d'angoisse , c'est une joie qui s'exhale , une gaîié douce en soi , un ^léable délice 5 car la volontt^ xeconçue dans la lumière est imprégnée , ou enceinte, et son fruit dans le corps oo la circonscrip-^ iion est la puissance , que la volonté désire d'engendrer et dans lequel elle souhaite de vivre. Or le^désir fait sortir le fruit hors de la volonté imprégnée; il rapporte devant la volonté , et la volonté se conUinple dans le fruit , dans un amour au -dessus de tout nombre et de toute expression. Alors dans celte immensité d'amour, dans la volonté aperçue sortent les hautes bénédictions, les faveurs, le bienêtre , les agréables inclinations , le goût de la joie les bienfaits de la douceur, et ce que ma plume ne peut pas écrire. La base affective voudroit bien être libre de la vanité et vivre là dedans sans variation. 10. Ce sont deux portes l'une dans l'autre. L'iniéiieureva dans l'abîme, et la supérieure dans le paradis : à ces deux portes il faut joindre maintenant la troisième ou celle des élémens avec les' quatre issues ; ellepénètre là avec le feu , l'air, l'eaii et la terre. Leur règne c'est le soleil et les étoiles qui inqualifient avec la première volonté, et leur désir est de se remplir , de devenir graiidset de se saturer. t?Tr. xl. X 333 î
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.
1king and the sharp: the sound is the dwelling of 1the will or of the affective base continually conceived and the sound and the sharp of the glance become enfranchised from the darknesses in the dwelling of the will; the glance raises the will; the will triumphs in the sharp of the glance: it contemplates itself to infinity in the sharp of the sound, in the glance of the light, out of the darknesses, in the breaking. Now, in this same infinity of the glance, there is anew in each perceiving of the total, in the parcel, in each reflection, a centre whose begetting is like to that which operates in the whole: these parcels are the thoughts; the total is the affective base whence the thoughts proceed: that is why the thoughts are changing, and not in beings; but the affective base is complete and substantial. 6. Thus, my dear reader, our soul is also the indissoluble alliance that God breathed into Adam of the eternal soul, by the fiat, in boiling spirit; and our eternal essences are but a parcel or a spark of the eternal soul, which has in itself the centre of the breaking, and in the breaking the sharp. Now, this same will conducts the glance into the breaking; the sharp of the breaking of the darknesses is in the glance of the will, and the will is our affective base: the glance is as the eyes in the flash of fire; it contemplates itself in us in our essences, and also out of us; for it is free, and it has two open gates: the one in the darknesses, and the other en. iB. ( 33i )
2in the light. In effect, although it shine constantly in the darknesses, nevertheless it breaks the darknesses, and makes itself all light in itself; and there where it is, there it sees, as our thoughts which can see into a thing many miles off, although the body be far from it, and often has never been in the place. 7. The glance goes through the wood and the stones, through the marrow and the bones; and nothing 21can retain it: for it disperses everywhere the darknesses, without rending of the body of any thing, and the will is the courser upon which it mounts. ( Here one must keep silence of several things because of the demoniac enchantment; without that we should discover here yet much more: for the necromancer is born here. ) 8. But in a word the first will in the soul is of the strong anguish, and its glance in the origin is the bitter and strong flash of fire in the sharp which makes the movement, the sound and the seeing in the brightness of the sharp of the flash; so that the glances reconceived in the thought, have in them a light wherewith they see when they run like a flash. 9. It suits not this first will to look behind itself into the abyss of the anger, in which is the harsh wickedness; but before itself, into the centre of the breaking, out of the darknesses, into the light; for in the light there is but a pure sweetness and humility, a benevolence and a friendly desire to go forth from itself, by means of ( 332 ) CH. ifiJ
3the will reconceived, and to manifest itself, as its dear treasure, seeing that, in the will reconceived for the generation of the light, there is no source of anguish, but a pure desire of love. In effect, the glance rises in itself out of the darknesses, and desires the light, and the desire draws the light into itself: then, instead of anguish, it is a joy which exhales itself, a sweet gaiety in itself, an agreeable delight 5 for the will reconceived in the light is impregnated, or with child, and its fruit in the body or the circumscription is the power, which the will desires to beget and in which it wishes to live. Now the desire makes the fruit go forth out of the will impregnated; it brings it before the will, and the will contemplates itself in the fruit, in a love above all number and all expression. Then in this immensity of love, in the perceived will there go forth the high benedictions, the favours, the well-being, the agreeable inclinations, the taste of the joy, the benefits of the sweetness, and what my pen cannot write. The affective base would indeed be free of vanity and live therein without variation. 10. They are two gates the one in the other. The interior goes into the abyss, and the superior into paradise: to these two gates must now be joined the third or that of the elements with the four issues; it penetrates there with the fire, the air, the water and the earth. Their reign is the sun and the stars which inqualify with the first will, and their desire is to fill themselves, to become great and to saturate themselves. t?Tr. xl. X 333 î
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.