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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.
1gî. C'est pourquoi la providence divine , lorsqu'Adam tomba dans Tattract, environna en lui ces vertus et ces puissances avec la force du premier principe, c'est-à-dire, avec la forte puissance do î'aigu de Dieu , afin que la source du premier et du troisième principe ne pût pas ainsi le toucber si facilement. El cela arriva dans le sommeil d'Adam, k>rsk]ue Dieu bâlit Adam pour ce monde ; d'où Saint Paul dit aussi : Que l'homme naturel a été créé dans la vie corruptible de ce monde; ce qui est arrivé dans la tentation d'Adam , au tems où Dieu tira do lui sa femme naturelle: Mais avant cela, il étoit \ine image céleste; et il doit le redevenir , lorâ de sa restauration au jour du jugement. 98. Or , quand même on Verrôit le démon et lo monde tempêter contre ceci , cela n'est paà moins Je fondement de la vérité hautement Reconnue dans ks merveiilles de Dieu , et non point des fables et dss opinions , comme colles du monde hjpocritô et orgueilleux ^ qui dispute actuellement sur la coupé de Jésus-Christ , ne 'cherchant que sa pompe et son élévation 5 qu*à défendre sa propre gloire, éa Sagesse prétendue et s'a tupidité , et qu'à soigner son homme charnel ^ ainsi que fait la folio tH. 17. ( ^9 ) épouse, en Babîlône , montée sur la bêle méchante y par qui les malheureux sont dévorés. ( Quoique nous parlions en ce lieu du premier Adam 5 cepen-* dant le second dans la chair ne reçoit que des dérisions pour récompense. ) Aussi l'esprit dit-il maintenant à Babel , qui est dans la confusion : Je t'ai vomie ; an tems de la colère tu boiras de la coupe de ton orgueil , et ta source s'élèvera daus l'éternité* De la voix de Dieu dans le jardin d^£den. Conjerence entre Dieu et V Homme sur le péché,
294. Lorsqu'après la manducalion de la pomme y Adam et Eve se considérèrent , ils furent frappés de leur forme bestiale et de leur image monstrueuse , ils sentirent en eux la colère de Dieu , et i'âpreté des étoiles et des élémens ; car ils s'aperçurent de leur estomac et de leurs boyaux, dans lesquels ils avoieïit entassé des fruits terrestres , qui commencèrent à inqualifier , et ils virent leut honte bestiale : alors leur base affective s'éleva Vers le paradis y et ne le trouvant plus, ils coururent , tremblans et effrayés , et se glissèrent derrière les arbres ; car la colère avoit touché l'esprit de leurs essences par les fruits terrestres. Alors la voix de Dieu vint dans le centre de la porte de la profondeur , et appela Adam, en disant : Adam, où es-tu? Ëtilrépondif : Je suis ici , et j'ai peur ; car je sui* nu. Et le Seigneur lui demanda : Qui est-ce qui t'a appris que tu es nu ; si tu n'as pas mangé de l'arbce doul '- 81 •''■1 ( 4<^ ) en. 17. )e Tavoîs dit : Tu n'en dois pas mauger. Adam ré, pliqua : La femme m'en a donné, et j'en ai n^angé. El Dieu demanda à la femme : Pourquoi as-!u fail ceci ? Et elle rt'pondit : Le serpent m'a trompée, de façon que j*ai mangé. 95. On voit ici très particulièrement que le démon avoit perdu son image angélique; il vient maintenant 5 dans une forme de serpent , avec ses fourLeries meurtrières , et il trompe la femme. Comme il n'auroit pas pu entièrement renverser Adam, il presse vivement la femme, el lui promet qu'elle acquerrera de l'intelligence, qu'elle possédera le royaume de ce monde , et qu'elle sera j par là y comme Dieu.
396. Le démon mêla ensemble le mensonge et la vérité, et dit : Tu seras comme Dieu. Mais sa pensée ne portoit que sur le royaume de ce monde et sur le premier principe de la colère, et illaissoit le paradis de côté. Or Eve entendit qu'elle resteroit dans le paradis , dans l'aimable et divine joie. 97. C'est pourquoi il n'est p£f s bon de jaser avec le démon ; c'est un meurtrier et un menteur dès Je commencement de sou règne , et en outre un voleur : il ne vient quepo.ur massacrer et voler, comme on le voit en cette circonstance ^ et Iç démon est la principale causç Je la cLutc : car il se servit de sucre avec Adam , pour qu'il imaginât d'après lo royaume de ce monde. Quoiqu'Adam ne voulût point de lui ; cependant il se glissa dans les e&^ sentes ëk la colère , et répandit devant lui un sucre, paradisiaque en apparence , mais qui étoit vrai-^ CH. 17. ( 41 ) ment infernal% de façon qu'Adam conçut un désir.
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.
1gî. That is why the divine providence, when Adam fell into the attract, environed in him those virtues and those powers with the force of the first principle, that is to say, with the strong power of the sharp of God, so that the source of the first and of the third principle could not thus touch him so easily. And that happened in the sleep of Adam, when God built Adam for this world; whence Saint Paul says also: That the natural man has been created in the corruptible life of this world; which happened in the temptation of Adam, at the time when God drew from him his natural woman: But before that, he was a celestial image; and he must become it again, at his restoration at the day of the judgement. 98. Now, even though one should see the demon and the world storm against this, that is none the less the foundation of the truth loftily recognised in the marvels of God, and not at all fables and opinions, like those of the hypocritical and proud world which disputes at present upon the cup of Jesus-Christ, seeking only its pomp and its elevation 5 and to defend its own glory, its pretended wisdom and its stupidity, and to tend its carnal man, as does the mad tH. 17. ( ^9 ) spouse, in Babylon, mounted upon the wicked beast, by whom the wretched are devoured. ( Although we speak in this place of the first Adam 5 nevertheless the second in the flesh receives only derisions for recompense. ) Also the spirit says now to Babel, which is in the confusion: I have vomited thee; in the time of the anger thou shalt drink of the cup of thy pride, and thy source shall rise in eternity. Of the voice of God in the garden of Eden. Conference between God and Man upon the sin,
294. When after the manducation of the apple Adam and Eve considered themselves, they were struck at their bestial form and at their monstrous image, they felt in them the anger of God, and the harshness of the stars and of the elements; for they perceived their stomach and their bowels, in which they had heaped terrestrial fruits, which began to inqualify, and they saw their bestial shame: then their affective base rose toward paradise, and finding it no more, they ran, trembling and affrighted, and glided behind the trees; for the anger had touched the spirit of their essences by the terrestrial fruits. Then the voice of God came into the centre of the gate of the profundity, and called Adam, saying: Adam, where art thou? And he answered: I am here, and I am afraid; for I am naked. And the Lord asked him: Who is it that has taught thee that thou art naked; if thou hast not eaten of the tree whereof '- 81 •''■1 ( 4<^ ) en. 17. I had said to thee: Thou must not eat of it. Adam replied: The woman gave me of it, and I have eaten of it. And God asked the woman: Why hast thou done this? And she answered: The serpent deceived me, so that I ate. 95. One sees here very particularly that the demon had lost his angelic image; he comes now 5 in a form of a serpent, with his murderous knaveries, and he deceives the woman. As he could not entirely overthrow Adam, he presses the woman keenly, and promises her that she will acquire intelligence, that she will possess the kingdom of this world, and that she will be, thereby, as God.
396. The demon mingled together the lie and the truth, and said: Thou shalt be as God. But his thought bore only upon the kingdom of this world and upon the first principle of the anger, and he left paradise aside. Now Eve understood that she would remain in paradise, in the amiable and divine joy. 97. That is why it is not good to chatter with the demon; he is a murderer and a liar from the beginning of his reign, and besides a thief: he comes only to massacre and to steal, as one sees it in this circumstance; and the demon is the principal cause of the fall: for he used sugar with Adam, so that he might imagine according to the kingdom of this world. Although Adam would have nothing of him; nevertheless he glided into the essences of the anger, and spread before him a sugar, paradisiacal in appearance, but which was truly CH. 17. ( 41 ) infernal, so that Adam conceived a desire.
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.