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.
1«ppaîser ^ tandis , cependant , qu'elle seule a revêtu de cet habit de colère Adam ei Cve , et le corps et i'ame, en se mettant elle-même contre la volonté de Dieu dans l'effroyable bain de colère , et tandis que Dieu a montré , envers elle, une si grande miséricorde, qu'il n'a pas épargné son propre cœur, jusqu'à l'envoyer dans la profondeur de la colère , et dans l'abîme de l'enfer, dans la mort et" dans la brisure des quatre élémens , pour apporter k i'homme déchu le secours du saint et éternel élément , et pour le délivrer de la colère et de la mort. 38. Mais depuis, dans la mort du Christ , îe voile de Moise a été oté de sa face. Cependant à la place de ce voile , les étoiles et les quatre élémens ont produit devant l'homme , un brouillard et un nuage par rinfecliondu démon , de façon qu'il ne voit point Mo^b en face. Car , la région de ce monde a engendré IVuiechrist , et Va mis dans le nuage dievant la face de Moïse, comme s'il [ cet anlechrjst] étoit le Christ, pour qu'ainsi la face de Moïse ne fut pas aperçue. C'est pourquoi , nous avons besoin du lys qui (le^umn au travers de la table de Moïse , percée d'outre en outre, lequel Ivs av«c sa forte odeur se répand dans la paradis de Dieu^et par la t^rtu duquel les peuples deviendront *i.pUissahs et si forts qu'ifs abandonneront l'an^techrùl, et courroritao travers de l'obscurité jusqu'à l'^fiur de là fleirr. En effet , te puissant briseur des^iportes de la profondeur a planté le Ivs .et l'a mi* dans les niarns de la noble vierge Sophie et il tH. 17. ( l'j )
2croît dans l'élément , dans les merveilles , contra l'effroyable tempête de l'enfer, et le royaume de ce inonde ; car là , plusieurs branches tomberont par terre, ce dont l'anfechrist sera aveuglé ; dans le brouillard et dans le nuage,il deviendra entièrement fou et insensé , et il agitera les quatre élémens dans la colèi*e. Ici il est nécessaire que les enfans de Dieu se réveillent du sommeil du brouillard : c'est ce qu'annonce l'esprit très sérieusement dans la lumière de la nature. 3g. Nous voulons donc donner, selon nos connoissances, une explication du péché de rhomràe, qui est tout-à-fait manifesté , qui paroît à la lumière du jour , et qui produit en nous la conviction. Ainsi , que nous serviroient les folies de l'anfechrist qui, avec la chair et le sang du Christ , ne cherche que sa cupidité , son orgueil et sa volupté ? Il nous tire le voile de Moïse sur les yeux, afin que nous ne puissions pas voir au travers de la table.percée d'outre en outre Josué ou Jésus dans la tene promise du paradis , et afin qu'il puisse avec assiii rance ne voyager que sur son effroyable et dév<?- rante bête de cupidité et d'orgueil , qui est dervenuê si forte et si grande qu'elle ombrage toute l'étendiie de la terre , et qu'elle domine épduvantablement par sa colère sur toutes les montagnes et les vallées. Voilà cependant ce que l'odeurdu lys brisera san^ mains [ou par sa simple puissance ], ce dont tes peuples s'étonneront et diront : Comment cette grande et effroyable puissance a-t-elle pu subsister •ur une base aussi frêle et aussi foible ? t» il ,.> { i6 ) cK. 17.
340. SI nous voulons donc considérer la doulou- i reuse chute d'Adam et d'Eve , nous n'avons pas besoin de poursuivre loog^tems Tinseusé anlecbrist , pour eu retirer la sagesse, il n'en a aucune. Considérons-nous nous - mêmes , et comparons l'image céleste et terrestre , l'une avec l'autre, et nous verrons à la fois le point et la base 5 nous n'avons besoin d'aucun docteur pour cela , ni d'aucun langage étranger ; cela est écrit dans notre corps et dans notre ame, et si nous le voyions, cela nous efTrajreroit tellement que nous en tremblerions , comme cela est arrivé à Adam et à Eve , lors de leur chute. 4i. Or , si nous n'envisageons pas le briseur de serpent dans la limite de séparation, dans les portes de la profondeur, eutre ce monde et le royaume do l'enfer , nous ne voyons rien qu'une pure misère , et qu'une mort 3 ce qui doit fortement nous réveiller du sommeil. 4a. Regarde - toi seulement , ame aveugle , et considère ce qu'est devenue en toi ta forme d'ange? pourquoi est-tu si colérique, si aigre, si méchante ? pouiquoi, dans ta méchanceté, t'élèves-tu encore en orgueil, en puissanceet en pompe, et te proposestu d'être une superbebéle? que fais-tu ?pourquoias« tu laissé entrer en toi l'esprit de ce monde , qui te conduit comme il veut dans Torgueiljdans la folie, dans la puissance particulière, dans la pompe, dans la cupidité et le mçnsçnge , dans la fausseté , la tromperie, et enfin dans les maladies et la corruption? 43. Qu'as -tu a attendre après ta dissolution , lorsque tu es mort ? considère-toi : qu'es-tu ? es-tu
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.
1appease; whilst, nevertheless, it alone has clothed with that habit of anger Adam and Eve, and the body and the soul, in putting itself against the will of God into the frightful bath of anger, and whilst God has shown, toward it, so great a mercy, that he has not spared his own heart, even to sending it into the profundity of the anger, and into the abyss of hell, into the death and into the breaking of the four elements, to bring to fallen man the succour of the holy and eternal element, and to deliver him from the anger and from the death. 38. But since, in the death of the Christ, the veil of Moses has been taken from his face. Nevertheless in the place of that veil, the stars and the four elements have produced before man, a fog and a cloud by the infection of the demon, so that he sees not Moses in the face. For, the region of this world has begotten the antichrist, and has put him in the cloud before the face of Moses, as if he [ this antichrist] were the Christ, so that thus the face of Moses should not be perceived. That is why, we have need of the lily which grows through the table of Moses, pierced through and through, which lily with its strong odour spreads itself into the paradise of God, and by the virtue of which the peoples will become so powerful and so strong that they will abandon the antichrist, and will run through the obscurity even to the odour of the flower. In effect, the powerful breaker of the gates of the profundity has planted the lily and has put it in the hands of the noble virgin Sophia and it tH. 17. ( l'j )
2grows in the element, in the marvels, against the frightful tempest of hell, and the kingdom of this world; for there, several branches will fall to the ground, whereat the antichrist will be blinded; in the fog and in the cloud, he will become entirely mad and senseless, and he will agitate the four elements in the anger. Here it is necessary that the children of God awake from the sleep of the fog: it is what the spirit announces very seriously in the light of nature. 3g. We will then give, according to our knowledges, an explication of the sin of man, which is quite manifested, which appears at the light of the day, and which produces in us the conviction. Thus, of what service to us would be the follies of the antichrist who, with the flesh and the blood of the Christ, seeks only his cupidity, his pride and his voluptuousness? He draws the veil of Moses over our eyes, so that we may not be able to see through the table, pierced through and through, Joshua or Jesus in the promised land of paradise, and so that he may with assurance travel only upon his frightful and devouring beast of cupidity and of pride, which is become so strong and so great that it overshadows all the extent of the earth, and that it dominates frightfully by its anger over all the mountains and the valleys. Behold nevertheless what the odour of the lily will break without hands [or by its simple power ], whereat the peoples will be astonished and will say: How has this great and frightful power been able to subsist upon a base so frail and so feeble? t» il ,.> { i6 ) cK. 17.
340. If we will then consider the painful fall of Adam and of Eve, we have no need to pursue long the senseless antichrist, to draw wisdom from it, he has none. Let us consider ourselves, and compare the celestial and terrestrial image, the one with the other, and we shall see at once the point and the base 5 we have need of no doctor for that, nor of any foreign language; that is written in our body and in our soul, and if we saw it, that would affright us so much that we should tremble at it, as that happened to Adam and to Eve, at their fall. 4i. Now, if we envisage not the bruiser of the serpent in the limit of separation, in the gates of the profundity, between this world and the kingdom of hell, we see nothing but a pure misery, and but a death 3 which must strongly awake us from the sleep. 4a. Look at thyself only, blind soul, and consider what thy form of angel is become in thee? why art thou so choleric, so sour, so wicked? why, in thy wickedness, dost thou raise thyself still in pride, in power and in pomp, and proposest thou to be a superb beast? what dost thou? why hast thou let enter into thee the spirit of this world, which conducts thee as it will into pride, into folly, into particular power, into pomp, into cupidity and lying, into falsehood, deceit, and at last into maladies and corruption? 43. What hast thou to expect after thy dissolution, when thou art dead? consider thyself: what art thou? art thou
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.