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.
112. Mais pour que nous fassions bien comprendre au lecteur , dans un bref sommaire , ce que notre connoissance et notre haute pensée a saisi dans la lumière de la nature , nous l'exposons ainsi selon notre science : Adam étoit l'image de Dieu, selon la similitude de Dieu ; Dieu , la trinité sainte , en unité d'essence divine, avoit, par la vierge de son éternelle sagesse , conçu , dans la sagesse , d^établir cette image dans rélernel élément à la place du dé^ mon déchu. Car son plan dans l'éternelle volonté doit subsister-, il doit y avoir un trône , un prince de région dans ce lieu , pourj manifester les éternelles merveilles. i3. Ainsi Dieu créa l'image et la similitude de Féternel élément , dans lequel les merveilles s^orU ginisent , et il lui insufla l'esprit des essences de son éternelle et originelle volonté , de la porte brisée de la profondeur , de cette place d'où la roue du mouvement et du hrisemant agit dans l'ame éfernellc , et atteint la claire , vraie et pure divinité dir copurdeDieu. 14. Elle [cette image] n'est pas le cœur de Dieu ,' mais elle atteint jusqu'au cœur de Dieu , et elle puise la puissance , la lumière et la joie dans le cœur et la lumière de Dieu ; car elle est dans l'éiernelle volonté du père, d*où il engendre toujours son cœur et sa parole , de toute éternité. Or sçs es&ewc^.?, qui lui furent soufflées dans l'élément de son corps ( t)n1 I» ( ^ ) cil. 17.
2de ce qui en lui est in-intelligcnt dans les élcinelles merveilles de Dieu) étoieni le paradis, à causede la joie Lautemenr triomphanleducoupd'cciiducœuretdela lumière de Dieu. Son boire et sou manger ('loient paradisiaques, eu vertu de WAtiuenl gui Jlonvfioii dans sa. volonté. C'est par le moyeu decei élémen I qu'il at liroit en soi la puissance des élerneUes merveilles de Dieu , et engeudroit de soi 1;î ^on ^ le lon^ ou rolcrncl chant de louanges des éternelles merveilles de Dieu, en présence de la volouii*. Tout cela exisloit devaut la chaste, très noble et très sainte vierge de la sagesse de Dieu ou la sophie , comme d'aimaLles jeux et c'ctoit là vraiment le partidis. i5. M^is maintenant ma plume ne peut v'^crire ce qu'étoient ces merveilles. Je n'eu désire (jue plus ardemment d'atteindre jusqu'à elles d*ii}w, manière parfaite, et de vivre en elles. C'est donc là tout ce que, nous pouvons reconnoîlre et coniempler ici dans les lumitres de la nature, 4^ns les portes de la profondeur ; et notre triple ba.-e aCTtciive na peut pas s'élever à ces hauteurs, jusqu'à ce que le vêtement grossier soit ôté : alors nous pourrons contempler ces choses sans vaciller. 16. Mais comme alors les quatre élémeus sor^ tirent de l'élément, et firent avec la quintessence des étoiles, et avec le rœi;i des essences oi^du soleil , le troisième p:incijje, dans lequel il existe de si grandes mei veilles qu'il r.e s'e^i trouvé aucune créature qui pût les inanilcî«ler , si ce u'est seulement l'image et la ressemLLuce de Dieu [c'est-à-dire] l'hom'ne <]ui c. en noi la chasic vicii^e de la sa^cù;.^ CH. 17. ( 7 )
3de Dieu ou la sophie ; c'est pour cela que l'esprit dm ce monde se porta aiusi fortement sur P image, rechec* chant la SOPHIE, afin de manifester ici ses merveilles^ et qu'il englcba l'homme ; ce dont Adam a d'abord porté son nom d'homme , ou d'une personne mixte; 17. Mais lorsque la sagesse de Dieu vit combien l'homme étoit excité par l'esprit de ce monde à sd mêler avec les quatre élémens , alors vint le coramandement qui dit : Tu ne dois point manger da l'arbre de la counoi.ssance du bien et du mal. 18. Or, à la vérité , la connoissance du bien et du mal n'est pas manifestée dans le paradis ni dans le royaume du ciel , si ce n'est par la seule expnnsion de l'élément dans la colère. Là seulement est manifestée la connoissance du mal ; là seulement les essences sont inflammcibles ; et k'i -dedans perce* la mort. C'est pourquoi Dieu dit : Si tu en manges, tu mourras de mort. 19. Dieu entendoit le corps (\ue V homme vecevr oit de l'infection des quatre élémens. Ce corps devoit mourir; et /V^o/wraedevoit aussi dans l'instant mourit au paradis dans sa tendre base aftective virginale, ei recevoir la base affecli%'e de ce monde , dans lequel il n'y a que piqûre , déchirure , maladies , altération des essences , et enhu la mort. • 20. Mais que les quatre élémens avec le soleil cH: les étoiles pressassent ainsi sur Adam , et l'infectassent, la raison en est qu'il étoit extrait d'eux, aussi bien que de l'élément ,. et qu'il avoit en soi daîis l'origine les trois règnes , tous les trois principes. C'est pourquoi il devoit être tenté, s'il poiiil ( 8 ) CIT. 17» Toît rester dans le paradis , dans le royaume du ciel. Ainsi le fruit céleste et aussi le fruit terrestre lui furent présentés.
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.
112. But so that we may make the reader well comprehend, in a brief summary, what our knowledge and our lofty thought has seized in the light of nature, we expose it thus according to our science: Adam was the image of God, according to the similitude of God; God, the holy trinity, in unity of divine essence, had, by the virgin of his eternal wisdom, conceived, in the wisdom, to establish this image in the eternal element in the place of the fallen demon. For his plan in the eternal will must subsist; there must be a throne, a prince of region in this place, to manifest there the eternal marvels. i3. Thus God created the image and the similitude of the eternal element, in which the marvels originise themselves, and he insufflated into it the spirit of the essences of his eternal and original will, of the broken gate of the profundity, of that place whence the wheel of the movement and of the breaking acts in the eternal soul, and attains the clear, true and pure divinity of the heart of God. 14. It [this image] is not the heart of God, but it reaches even to the heart of God, and it draws the power, the light and the joy in the heart and the light of God; for it is in the eternal will of the father, whence he begets always his heart and his word, from all eternity. Now its essences, which were breathed into it in the element of its body ( t)n1 I» ( ^ ) cil. 17.
2of what in him is un-intelligent in the eternal marvels of God) were paradise, because of the joy loftily triumphant of the glance of the heart and of the light of God. His drink and his food were paradisiacal, in virtue of the element which flowed in his will. It is by means of this element that he drew into himself the power of the eternal marvels of God, and begot of himself 1the song, the long or eternal chant of praises of the eternal marvels of God, in the presence of the will. All that existed before the chaste, very noble and very holy virgin of the wisdom of God or the Sophia, as amiable games; and that was truly paradise. i5. But now my pen cannot write what those marvels were. I desire the more ardently to attain even to them in a perfect manner, and to live in them. That is then all that we can recognise and contemplate here in the lights of nature, 4in the gates of the profundity; and our triple affective base cannot raise itself to those heights, until the gross garment be taken off: then we shall be able to contemplate these things without vacillating. 16. But as then the four elements went forth from the element, and made with the quintessence of the stars, and with the wheel of the essences or of the sun, the third principle, in which there exist such great marvels that there was found no creature that could manifest them, save only the image and the resemblance of God [that is to say] man who has in him the chaste virgin of the wisdom CH. 17. ( 7 )
3of God or the Sophia; it is for that that the spirit of this world carried itself thus strongly upon the image, seeking the SOPHIA, in order to manifest here its marvels, and that it englobed man; whereof Adam has firstly borne his name of man, or of a mixed person; 17. But when the wisdom of God saw how much man was excited by the spirit of this world to mingle himself with the four elements, then came the commandment which says: Thou must not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. 18. Now, in truth, the knowledge of good and evil is not manifested in paradise nor in the kingdom of heaven, save by the sole expansion of the element in the anger. There only is manifested the knowledge of the evil; there only the essences are inflammable; and therein pierces the death. That is why God said: If thou eat of it, thou shalt die the death. 19. God understood the body that man would receive of the infection of the four elements. This body was to die; and man was also in the instant to die to paradise in his tender virginal affective base, and to receive the affective base of this world, in which there is only pricking, rending, maladies, alteration of the essences, and at last the death. • 20. But that the four elements with the sun and the stars should press thus upon Adam, and infect him, the reason of it is that he was extracted from them, as well as from the element, and that he had in himself in the origin the three reigns, all the three principles. That is why he was to be tempted, whether he could ( 8 ) CIT. 17» remain in paradise, in the kingdom of heaven. Thus the celestial fruit and also the terrestrial fruit were presented to 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.