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.
1l'autre; Dans Féclaic dp feu l'une sent l'autre pat Relèvement ovL l'expansioo» Fftr le inoirvement l'une entend l'autre. Dans l'esseuf^e l'une gaâte > l'autre. J^arJ'aimdble source^graci^se, qui, par la douceMç jde' la lumière ) sort de l'essence de l'esprit doux et amer (maintenant l'esprit d'eaii)^ l'une odore l'autre^ et de cette sixième forme dans lagéu^ratiou vienf une sixième essence existant par elle-même, qui est indivisible. Là l'une engendre l'autre. Aucuue u'esf ni ne peut être sans Pautre , et sans c^tte, génération et cette essence il n'y auroit rien. Car les six formes ont chacune en soi les sextuples puis3ances essentielles , et c'est comme s'il n'y av.oit qu'une seule chose et rien de plus. Seulement chaque forme a son espèce particulière. Car, remarquez bien , i3. Quoique dans Pastrîngence , il y ait amer* tume, feu , ton , eau ; et que de la source d'eau, provienne l'amour ou l'huile d'où la lumière s'élève et brille , cependant l'astringence conserve sa première propriété ; de même l'amertume , sa propriété ; le ton ou^Te léoSl'efîTeiîr^sa propriété 5 le f^surmontement^dans la première astringence angoisseuse (savoir la rétrogradation au-dessous de soi, ou l'esprit d'eau ) , sa propriété ; la source qui s'élève ou le gracieux amour allumé par la lumière dans l'amer astringent (et désormais douce source d'eau), sa propriété, et cependant aucune essence n'est séparable de l'autre ; mais tout ensemble est une essence , et chaque forme ou en^ gendrement prend soa caractère , sa puissance , soa I. a tl ^Hîi
2ôpéffttîôli ) 'é(yil élk^eMêht ^^ âé toutes lél fbtmCfSy' et col!ifiéti( kk gén^ratîbii de toutes à !a fois ^ èH pstrticiilîéreïiaétlt la qtiatrièroe forine , dans is«>a êngendrèMent ; sàvdir : faêcefidant , et le [précipUê* irien/] , et ensfuite par la roue tournante dans l'essence astringente , l'oblique sortant de chaque côtés comme une + , ou , selon que je le poui^rois dire , sortant d'un point ters l'orient , Toccident , le nord tX le midi. Car dn mouvement , du bouillonmement et dé l'ascension de ramertumé dans l'éclair de feu , résulte une génération cruciale , attends que le feu va au-dessui de soi j l'èau au-dessout de soi, eire$$ence de Pamertume horbostalémen^ (ï9) ^mmtm^mmtmtmtmmt^ ♦ CHAPITRE TROISIÈME. De l^xpansion ou génération infinie, xnultipla et innombrable de l'éternelle nature. ï. LiKCT EUR, comprenez bien mon écrit. Noua n'avons pas le pouvoir de parler de la génération de Dieu ; car elle n'a de toute éternité jamais eu aucua commencement. Seulement nous avons le pouvoir de dire de Dieu notre père , ce et comment il est , et comment est l'éternel engendrement. a. Quoiqu'il ne soit pas très bon pour nous de connoître la sévère, âpre et onginelIegénération( de laquelle science etconnoissancenos premiers pareus nousont apporté aussi le sentiment et la [saisissahi^ lUè] par la tromperie et l'insinuation du démon )j cependant cette connoissance nous est grandement nécessaire pour que nous apprenions par là à connoître le démon,car il vit dans le plus sévère engendrement, qui est notre propre ennemi; que nos premiers parens ont éveillé en nous, et nous ont transmis; que nous portons en nous, et que nous sommes nousmêmes.
33. Quoique j'écrive ici comme s'il v avoit ainsi un commencement dans l'éternelle génération , cependant il n'y en a point , mais l'éternelle nature s'engendre ainsi sans commencement. On ne doit { 20 ) en. 3. point entendre mon écrit créaturellement y comme de la naissance d*un homme ( qui est l'image de Dieu } , quoique cela soit ainsi dans Péternelle es« sence , mais sans commencement et sans fin ; et l'objet de mon écrit , est que l'homme apprenne à se connoître lui-même , ce qu'il est , ce qu'il a été dans l'origine , et comment il est un homme éternel, saint, et puissant, qui n'auroit jamais connu la porte de l'âpre engendrement dans l'éternité, s'il ne s'éloit pas laissé séduire par l'impression du démon , et s'il n'eût pas mangé de ce fruit défendu. C'est là ce qui l'a fait devenir un homme nud et dépouillé , ayant la forme d'animal , et lui a fait perdre l'habit céleste de la puissaucedivine^or, maintenant > il vit dans le salniter infecté, dans le royaume du démon y et mange des nourritures empoisonnées. [ F'oyez le Mena du mot salniter , dans P Aurore naissante , cTia* pitre II. ] Ainsi il nous est nécessaire d'apprendre h nous connoître ; ce que nous sommes , et comment nous pourrions nous délivrer du rigide et âpre en» gendrement , et revivre dans un nouvel homme , né de nouveau en Chris, tnotre régénérateur , et qui ressemblât au premier homme avant la chute..
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.
1the other. In the flash of fire the one feels the other by the raising or the expansion. By the movement the one hears the other. In the essence the one tastes the other. By the lovable gracious source which, by the sweetness of the light, issues from the essence of the sweet and bitter spirit ( now the spirit of water ), the one smells the other; and of that sixth form in the generation comes a sixth essence existing by itself, which is indivisible. There the one begets the other. None is nor can be without the other, and without that generation and that essence there would be nothing. For the six forms have each in themselves the sextuple essential pow3ers, and it is as if there were but one single thing and nothing more. Only each form has its particular species. For, remark well, i3. Although in the astringency there be bitterness, fire, tone, water; and although from the source of water proceed the love or the oil whence the light rises and shines, nevertheless the astringency preserves its first property; likewise the bitterness, its property; the tone or the sound its property 5 the surmounting in the first anguishing astringency ( to wit the retrogradation beneath itself, or the spirit of water ), its property; the source which rises or the gracious love kindled by the light in the bitter astringent ( and henceforth sweet source of water ), its property, and nevertheless no essence is separable from the other; but all together is one essence, and each form or begetting takes its character, its power, its I. a tl ^Hîi
2operation ) and the raising of all the forms, and how the generation of all at once, and particularly the fourth form, in its begetting; to wit: the ascendant, and the [precipitement], and then by the turning wheel in the astringent essence, the oblique issuing from each side like a +, or, according as I might say it, issuing from a point towards the orient, the occident, the north and the midday. For of the movement, of the boiling and of the ascension of the bitterness in the flash of fire, results a cruciform generation, seeing that the fire goes above itself, the water beneath itself, and the essence of the bitterness horizontally (ï9) ^mmtm^mmtmtmtmmt^ ♦ CHAPTER THE THIRD. Of the infinite, multiple and innumerable expansion or generation of the eternal nature. ï. READER, comprehend well my writing. We have not the power to speak of the generation of God; for it has from all eternity never had any beginning. Only we have the power to say of God our father, what and how he is, and how is the eternal begetting. a. Although it be not very good for us to know the severe, harsh and original generation ( of which science and knowledge our first parents brought us also the sentiment and the [seizability] by the deception and the insinuation of the demon ); nevertheless that knowledge is greatly necessary to us in order that we may learn thereby to know the demon, for he lives in the most severe begetting, who is our own enemy; whom our first parents awakened in us, and transmitted to us; whom we bear in us, and which we are ourselves.
33. Although I write here as if there were thus a beginning in the eternal generation, nevertheless there is none, but the eternal nature begets itself thus without beginning. My writing must not { 20 ) en. 3. be understood creaturely, as of the birth of a man ( who is the image of God ), although that be so in the eternal essence, but without beginning and without end; and the object of my writing is that man may learn to know himself, what he is, what he was in the origin, and how he is an eternal, holy, and powerful man, who would never have known the gate of the harsh begetting in eternity, if he had not let himself be seduced by the impression of the demon, and if he had not eaten of that forbidden fruit. It is that which made him become a naked and despoiled man, having the form of an animal, and made him lose the celestial habit of the divine power; now, at present, he lives in the infected salniter, in the kingdom of the demon, and eats poisoned nourishments. [ See the sense of the word salniter, in the Aurora nascent, chapter II. ] Thus it is necessary for us to learn to know ourselves; what we are, and how we might deliver ourselves from the rigid and harsh begetting, and live again in a new man, born anew in Christ our regenerator, and resembling the first man before the fall.
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.