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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.
1parole du cœur de Dieu , lorsque Dieu parla à Adam el Eve, se représenta en Adam et Eve, dans la lumière de la vie , dans son centre , et se maria avec la digne et chère vierge de la chasteté ou SOPHIE , pour demeurer éternellement près d'Adam et d'Eve, et pour les préserver des essences ignées et piquantes du démon; aussi s'ils s'étoient tournés vers cette même parole , ils auroient reçu d'elle les rayons de la trinité sainte et la sagesse de la vierge ou la SOPHIE. 110. Or, cette parole devroit éclairer l'arae , et être la lumière de l'ame, à la brisure du corps , et conduire l'ame au travers des portes des ténèbres', dans le paradis , devant la chère face de Dieu , dans le second principe , dans l'élément oii il n'jaaucun tourment. 111. Car, la parole a revêtu l'ame, et fermé le royaume de l'enfer , et là elle doit attendre jusqu'au jour de la restauration : alors au jugement dernier (quand la colère sera effacée, et fondue dans le feu ) , Vame doit recevoir de nouveau de l'élément , de son corps qu'elle a eu ici , un corps ; et non pas , toutefois un corps étranger , mais celui qu'elle a porté ici dans Télémenl caché dans les quatre éléraens, lequel doit pousser et croître comme Adam ayài/ dans la création. La porte de la délivrance. 1x2. Cette même parole a été propagée «^/ra;z«mf«e de l'un à l'autre par les deux premiers hommes j ( 48 ) en. if* savoir; dans la génération de la vie , et V enflammé^ ment de l'ame , mais dans le centre ; et un chacun a le royaume du ciel près de soi , dans sa base aifective,et peut y atteindre pourvu qu'il leveuille> car Dieu le lui a envoyé par sa grâce.
2Ii3. Mais tu dois savoir que cette même parole n^est point dans ta chair et dans ton sang. De même que ta chair ne peut pas hériter du royaume du ciel; de même il ne réside point dans ta chair , mais dans son principe , dans le centre de l'ame ;et il est l'époux de l'ame : si elle est fidèle , il repose dans son sein, et si elle est fausse, c'est elle-même qui s'exile hors de la parole. 114. Car 5 l'ame reste dans la porte qui est dans le centre, c'est-à-dire , dans la porte entre le ciel et l'enfer, et la parole est dans le ciel : or , si l'ame se laisse entraîner hors des portes , alors elle perd la parole ; mais si elle tend de nouveau devant soi vers les portes , alors elle la resaisit de nouveau 5 et la vierge sophie qui est le ministre de la parole , marche constamment avec l'ame, et l'avertit des mauvaises voies. ' ii5. Mais si l'ame est un chieti , une vipère , un serpent \ la vierge sofbi£ se retire vers la parole qui est dans le ciel , et la porte est fermée. Là , il y a une génération entière entre l'ame et la parole^ tandis qu'autrement il n'y en a qu'une moitié:alors il faut combattre, et l'ame entrera difficilement dans le ciel \ cependant cela est possible. 116. Celte même parole,quand le corps est mort , conduit de ce moadc dans le seiu d' Abrabam , dans cw. 17. ( 49 )
3le paradis , dans l'élément, dans le repos sans tourment ,^ame des hommes qui ont incliné vers elle leur base affective. Cependant l'ame sans corps n'a point la source paradisiaque , mais elle repose dans les sources brisées , dans le doux élément , dans le sein de la vierge sophie , en présence de son époux , après le long cofnbat de l'inquiétude , et elle attend son corps sans douleur. Pour elle il n'y a aitcun tems , mais elle est dans le repos ; elle ne dort point , mais elle voit sans trouble ni vacillation dans la lumière de Dieu. 117. Or, puisque les essences de l'ame étoient infectées par le poison du démon et de l'enfer , de façon que l'ame ne pouvoit point être soulagée ; elle lut donc de nouveau engendrée par la parole de la bouche de Dieu , ou par son aimable cœur. Mais pour qu'elle pût recouvrer la joie et la source paradisiaques , et inqualifier dans \e^ essences paradisiaques , et pour que son corps pût toutefois revenir de l'élément à l'ame ,' il falloit que la parole devint homme dans la chasteté virginale » et prit à soi la chair et le sang de l'homme ; qu'elle devint une ame humaine ; quVIle entrât dans la mort ainsi que dans l'abîme infernal , dans le premier principe , dans l'ame ténébreuse de l'éternité , où le ver de l'ame s'originise; qu'elle brisât la porte ténébreuse dans l'abime de l'ame , et les chaînes du démon ; qu'elle engen- • drât de nouveau l'ame au sein de l'abîme, et la présentât devant Dieu comme un nouveau fils sans péché et sans la colèrct II. 4 - - - ( So ) c«- ^^
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.
1word of the heart of God, when God spoke to Adam and Eve, represented itself in Adam and Eve, in the light of the life, in its centre, and married itself with the worthy and dear virgin of the chastity or SOPHIA, to dwell eternally near Adam and Eve, and to preserve them from the fiery and stinging essences of the demon; also if they had turned themselves toward this same word, they would have received of it the rays of the holy trinity and the wisdom of the virgin or the SOPHIA. 110. Now, this word should enlighten the soul, and be the light of the soul, at the breaking of the body, and conduct the soul through the gates of the darknesses, into paradise, before the dear face of God, into the second principle, into the element where there is no torment. 111. For, the word has clothed the soul, and shut the kingdom of hell, and there it must wait until the day of the restoration: then at the last judgement ( when the anger shall be effaced, and melted in the fire ), the soul must receive anew of the element, of its body that it has had here, a body; and not, nevertheless a foreign body, but that which it has borne here in the element hidden in the four elements, which must push forth and grow as Adam had in the creation. The gate of the deliverance. 1x2. This same word has been propagated substantially from the one to the other by the two first men; ( 48 ) en. if* to wit; in the generation of the life, and the inflaming of the soul, but in the centre; and each one has the kingdom of heaven near himself, in his affective base, and can attain thereto provided that he will it; for God has sent it him by his grace.
2Ii3. But thou must know that this same word is not in thy flesh and in thy blood. Even as thy flesh cannot inherit the kingdom of heaven; so it resides not in thy flesh, but in its principle, in the centre of the soul; and it is the spouse of the soul: if it be faithful, he reposes in its bosom, and if it be false, it is itself that exiles itself out of the word. 114. For 5 the soul remains in the gate which is in the centre, that is to say, in the gate between heaven and hell, and the word is in heaven: now, if the soul let itself be drawn out of the gates, then it loses the word; but if it tend anew before itself toward the gates, then it seizes it again anew 5 and the virgin Sophia who is the minister of the word, walks constantly with the soul, and warns it of the evil ways. ' ii5. But if the soul be a dog, a viper, a serpent; the virgin Sophia withdraws toward the word which is in heaven, and the gate is shut. There, there is an entire generation between the soul and the word, whilst otherwise there is but a half of one: then it must combat, and the soul will enter with difficulty into heaven; nevertheless that is possible. 116. This same word, when the body is dead, conducts from this world into the bosom of Abraham, into cw. 17. ( 49 )
3paradise, into the element, into the repose without torment, the soul of the men who have inclined toward it their affective base. Nevertheless the soul without body has not the paradisiacal source, but it reposes in the broken sources, in the sweet element, in the bosom of the virgin Sophia, in the presence of her spouse, after the long combat of the disquiet, and it awaits its body without pain. For it there is no time, but it is in the repose; it sleeps not, but it sees without trouble nor vacillation in the light of God. 117. Now, since the essences of the soul were infected by the poison of the demon and of hell, so that the soul could not be relieved; it was then begotten anew by the word of the mouth of God, or by his amiable heart. But so that it might recover the paradisiacal joy and source, and inqualify in the paradisiacal essences, and so that its body might nevertheless return from the element to the soul, it was needful that the word should become man in the virginal chastity, and take to itself the flesh and the blood of man; that it should become a human soul; that it should enter into the death as well as into the infernal abyss, into the first principle, into the tenebrous soul of eternity, where the worm of the soul originises itself; that it should break the tenebrous gate in the abyss of the soul, and the chains of the demon; that it should beget anew the soul in the bosom of the abyss, and present it before God as a new son without sin and without the anger. II. 4 - - - ( So ) c«- ^^
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.