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.
185. Et alors , c'est une chose palpable , visible et reconnoissable , qu'Adam, avant son sommeil et avant sa femme , n'avoit eu aucune forme bestiale - car il n'étoil ni femme , ni homme, mais une vierge sans forme bestiale ; il n'avoit point de parties génitales, ni de mamelles; aussi n'en avoil-ij pas besoin. Il auroit , sans douleur ou sans ouverture de son corps , engendré dans l'amour de la chasteté , une vierge telle qu'il étoit , et qu'il auroit pu être , de ftçonque toute la région de l'homme angélique seroil sortie d'un seul , d'une seule /ontaine (ainsi que cela fut pour les anges) , s'il avoit résisté à la tentation ;de même que tous ceux qui viennent au seul chef des pasteurs, pour leur repos, sont délivrés de la mort et des tourmens de l'enfer , par un seul homme, 86. Ici nous trouvons maintenant, comment Adam et Eve ont entendu la voix de Dieu dans le jardin. Car , l'élément qui est devant Dieu a tremblé au péché avec lequel Vhomme a inqualirié^ el le péché a été manifesté d'abord dans Adam ellESe, dans l'élément de la base affective , où la crainte et l'effroi saisirent les essences do l'ame. Car , le premier principe de l'apreté a été stimulé : on peut dire de lui ( s'il est permis de s'exprimer ainsi ), qu'on a jeté du bois dans sa source de feu. Or , dans l'enJlammemênt il s'est élevé en opposition parmi les essences, ou une formeest devenue contraire àl'autre /■ r, •1 c'esl-à-dire , que Vastringence et le froid a réveillé, par son altract , raiguillon amer el le malêtre dans l'esprit , dans les essences de la teinture du sanc ; et le tempêtement amer et relèvement ont éveillé le feu.
287. Au lieu d'apporter la joie et les délices paradisiaques , cela est devenu un esprit de soufre, qui est dans l'angoisse et dans l'effroi du brisement , et qui allume la teinture du sang, d'où arrivent le déchirement, le picottement , le martyre et la douleur. Si l'esprit de soufre allume trop fortement le feu , alors il briile la teinture , de façon que Ja lumière de la vie s'éteint , et que le corps tombe en bas, comn^e un cadavre mort. Mais si l'astringence s'enflamme par le dur attract, alors la teinture devient dure , ténébreuse et froide parl'attract et la coagulation : alors la lumière de la vie s'éteint aussi , et le corps périt. Il en est de même aussi de l'eau. Si la teinture s'enflamme dans la douceur, elle devient grasse , épaisse et gonflée , tout-à-fait morbifique , ainsi que ténébreuse et douloureuse ; et en elle l'éclair de la vie est comme le piqueron d'une ronce. Ainsi donc la vie de l'homme est partent environnée d'ennemis, et la pauvre ame est toujours au milieu de quantité de chaînes dans sa dura prison ; elle craint toujours , lorsque le corps se brisera , de tomber au pouvoir de l'exécuteur dans le royaume du démon. 88. Ainsi dans Adam et Eve,après la manduaation de la pomme dans le jardin d'Eden,s'est élevé le premier fruit dans les portes de la profoûdeur^où l'ame ciî. 17. (,37 ) est devant Dieu,et inqudlifie avec la juste volonté dii père, qui met sa volonté à découvert dans le brise" ment des ténèbres , dans la lumière de la douceur , et engendre toujours de toute éternité^ dans la puissance de la douceur et de la volonté , son cœur ou son fils, c'est-à-dire, son éternelle parole,
389. C'est ainsi que l'homme angélique devoit aussi mettre en avant sa volonté dans les portes brisées de* ténèbres, par la volonté du père, avec lequel l'ame inqualifie dans la douceur du cœur de Dieu. Alors la source des ténèbres dans la colère ne l'auroit pas touché ; mais il seroit resté un prince conquérant du paradis , et triomphateur de l'enfer et du royaume de ce monde. 90. Mais lorsqu'il eut mis son imagination dans le règne de ce monde, alors la claire et pure inclination de l'ame attira à soi , dans la volonté , le règne gonflé de l'extra-génération ; ainsi l'ame paradisiaque et pure devint ténébreuse, et l'éléttient du corps reçut la masse ou concrétion mesch , laquelle attira dans l'élément la volonté de l'ame , ou de la base affective ; ainsi il devint un homme charnel , et il reçut la colère du premier principe ,' laquelle transforma en fortes jointures et en os , le violent brisement opéré , dans les portes de la profondeur attenantes à Dieu. 91. C'est ce qu'il faut hautement et sérieusement recouuoiire : car on voit dans la lumière de la Vie> comment dans les os la moelle a la teinture la plus liante et la plus noble , et que, dans elle , est l'esprit^ le plu$ doux et la lumière la plus claire ^ ce qua; :i 'i ( 5a y cff. \^: vous pouvez juger au moyen du feu , si toutefois vous ne tenez pas en aveugle à vos opiniâtres contradictions ; et il est parfaitement reconnu que ce» endroits où sont maintenant les os durs, ont été des puissances merveilleuses, qui ont ouvert les portes des ténèbres , dans lesquelles puissancei Fbomme angélique a existé dans la lumière.
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.
185. And then, it is a thing palpable, visible and recognisable, that Adam, before his sleep and before his wife, had had no bestial form; for he was neither woman, nor man, but a virgin without bestial form; he had no genital parts, nor breasts; also he had no need of them. He would have, without pain or without opening of his body, begotten in the love of the chastity, a virgin such as he was, and as he could have been, so that all the region of the angelic man would have gone forth of one alone, of one single fountain ( as that was for the angels ), if he had resisted the temptation; even as all those who come to the sole chief of the pastors, for their repose, are delivered from the death and from the torments of hell, by one single man. 86. Here we find now, how Adam and Eve have heard the voice of God in the garden. For, the element which is before God has trembled at the sin wherewith man has inqualified, and the sin has been manifested firstly in Adam and Eve, in the element of the affective base, where the fear and the fright seized the essences of the soul. For, the first principle of the harshness has been stimulated: one may say of it ( if it be permitted to express oneself thus ), that wood has been cast into its source of fire. Now, in the inflaming it has risen in opposition among the essences, or one form has become contrary to the other /■ r, •1 that is to say, that the astringency and the cold has awakened, by its attract, the bitter sting and the malaise in the spirit, in the essences of the tincture of the blood; and the bitter storming and the raising have awakened the fire.
287. Instead of bringing the paradisiacal joy and delights, that is become a spirit of sulphur, which is in the anguish and in the fright of the breaking, and which kindles the tincture of the blood, whence come the rending, the pricking, the martyrdom and the pain. If the spirit of sulphur kindle the fire too strongly, then it burns the tincture, so that the light of the life is extinguished, and that the body falls down, as a dead corpse. But if the astringency kindle itself by the hard attract, then the tincture becomes hard, tenebrous and cold by the attract and the coagulation: then the light of the life is extinguished also, and the body perishes. It is the same also with the water. If the tincture kindle itself in the sweetness, it becomes fat, thick and swollen, quite morbific, as well as tenebrous and painful; and in it the flash of the life is as the prickle of a bramble. Thus then the life of man is everywhere environed with enemies, and the poor soul is always in the midst of a quantity of chains in its hard prison; it fears always, when the body shall break, to fall into the power of the executor in the kingdom of the demon. 88. Thus in Adam and Eve, after the manducation of the apple in the garden of Eden, is risen the first fruit in the gates of the profundity, where the soul ciî. 17. (,37 ) is before God, and inqualifies with the just will of the father, who puts his will uncovered in the breaking of the darknesses, in the light of the sweetness, and begets always from all eternity, in the power of the sweetness and of the will, his heart or his son, that is to say, his eternal word,
389. It is thus that the angelic man was also to put forward his will in the broken gates of the darknesses, by the will of the father, with which the soul inqualifies in the sweetness of the heart of God. Then the source of the darknesses in the anger would not have touched him; but he would have remained a conquering prince of paradise, and triumpher over hell and over the kingdom of this world. 90. But when he had put his imagination into the reign of this world, then the clear and pure inclination of the soul drew to itself, into the will, the swollen reign of the extra-generation; thus the paradisiacal and pure soul became tenebrous, and the element of the body received the mass or concretion mesch, which drew into the element the will of the soul, or of the affective base; thus he became a carnal man, and he received the anger of the first principle, which transformed into strong joints and into bones, the violent breaking operated, in the gates of the profundity adjoining God. 91. It is what must be loftily and seriously recognised: for one sees in the light of the life how in the bones the marrow has the highest and the noblest tincture, and that, in it, is the sweetest spirit and the clearest light; which :i 'i ( 5a y cff. \^: you can judge by means of the fire, if nevertheless you hold not blindly to your obstinate contradictions; and it is perfectly recognised that those places where now the hard bones are, have been marvellous powers, which have opened the gates of the darknesses, in which powers the angelic man has existed in the light.
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.