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.
1g. Aussi est-il très clair qu'avant la malédiction , il n'avoit point poussé de semblables ronces et épines venimeuses, avec des fruits empoisonnés. Et il n'y auroit eu aucun animal au«si colérique et aussi méchant, si Dieu n'avoit maudit la terre, c'eslà-dire , ne l'eût bannie de l'élément ; car Dieu dit : A cause de toi^ que la terre soit maudite. C'est donc en effet de là que la désobéissance et la malice des animaux à l'égard de l'homme sont provenues: aussi sont-ils si colériques et si médians , que l'homme doit se garantir de leur fureur. Lorsque Dieu cependant, dans la créalion , lui donna tout en sa puissance , toutes les bctes des champs dévoient lui être sujèlcs, ce qui maintenant est bien le contraire; car l'homme est devenu pour elles le loup qui les dévore, et elles sont des lions pour lui. Il n'y a que combats entre les uns et les autres ; à peine peut-il contenir les bêtes privées jet beaucoup moins les bêtes sauvages. 10. Il nous faut reconnoître aussi qu'il y avoit une grande différence parmi les bêtes avant la malédiction ; car quelques unes , savoir : les privées éloient très approchées de l'élément , et avec elles , l'homme auroii trouvé sa joie , et sa récréation. Au contraire, quelques autres ; savoir : les sauvages éloient plus rapprochées des quatre élémens , et elles auroient fui de l'homme; or les causes de ces merveilles , étoient dans les essences , et éloient . in I' t .t 1* ( 58 ) CH. 18. Tues et reconnues parfailement dans la lumière de Ja vie, dans la connoissance de la vierge sophie. U n'y avoit rien de si profond que l'homme ne pût sonder et voir très certainement : qu'il lève seulement le voile , et il verra dans la terre promise avec Josué, au travers de la table gravée d'outre en outre.
2I !. Et Dieu dit: Tu mangeras ion pain à la sueur de ton front , Jusqu'à ce que tu redeviennes terre.lci y tout est clair et lumineux 5 car il avoit perdu le fruit céleste qui auroit poussé pour lui sans fatigue. Or , maintenant il devoit travailler la terre , semer et planter , de façon qu'il façonnoil le fruit dans les quatre élémens dans l'inquiétude , la fatigue et l'indigence ; car tant que l'élément ou la vertu de l'élément , poussa au travers de la terre , il y avoit toujours une racine permanente du fruit ; mais lorsque l'élément s'éloigna par la malédiction, alors il j eut une froide mort et un épuisement dans la racine, et il fallut toujours la replanter. Ainsi commença la vie fatigante de l'homme, à laquelle nous devons à présent nous livrer et nous soumettre. 12. Dieu lui auroit bien produit des créatures qui eussent pris soin des animaux dans tous les tems , vu que l'homme auroit bien pu rester dans le paradis , dans la ^rme d'ange ; et d'autant qu'il y a d'ailleurs des créatures sans ame dans les quatre élémens : Dieu auroit bien pu enfin imposer à une autre race , le travail de soigner les animaux , laquelle eût été aussi terrestre -, mais il vit bien que CR. i8. ( % ) l'homme ne sauroit pas subsister ; c'est pourquoi, le fardeau lui lut aussitôt imposé , comme Moïse en a écrit. • iS. Mais si Dieu avoit voulu que l'homme fut bestial f il l'auroit créé ainsi au commpri émeut, et ne lui auroit donné aucun commaudenu^nt ; il ne l'auroit pas non plus tenté , puisque la bête n'a aucune loi.
314. C'est pourquoi, toutes les objections qui s'accumulent dans la raison, ne sont autre chose que d'adroites facéties du démon qui voudroil bien soutenir que Dieu a voulu la chute de l'homme. Il y a aussi des gens qui osent dire : Que Dieu l'avoit voulu 5 et qu'il avoit anné la langue du serpentpour séduire Eve. Cette opinion retombe entièrement sur eux puisqu'ils confirment la parole mensongère du démon, el qu'ils fout de Dieu un menteur. i5. Oui, à la vérité, selon le premier principe de' l'abîme infernal , il a voulu la chute de l'homme; mais ce règne ne s'appelle pas Dieu [ce qui doit tranquiliser sur la proposition précédente: ]. Il jr a encore entre, un autre princip^e et une forme enceinte; car dans le second principe où brille Dieu , il ne l'a pas voulu. Tout est bien de Dieu ; mais le premier principe est le lien de l'éiernité , qui se produit soimême. De là , Dieu le père s'élève de toute éternité dans le second principe , dans lequel il engendre son cœur et son fils; et là, et non ]^as dans le premier, l'esprit saint sort du père et du fils , et l'homme est créé pour le second piucipe. 16. C'est pourquoi aussi , le cœur du sccoaci m\ ( 60 ) CH- ï^.
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.
1g. Also is it very clear that before the malediction, there had pushed forth no such venomous brambles and thorns, with poisoned fruits. And there would have been no animal so choleric and so wicked, if God had not cursed the earth, that is to say, had not banished it from the element; for God said: Because of thee, let the earth be cursed. It is then in effect thence that the disobedience and the malice of the animals in regard to man are proceeded: also are they so choleric and so wicked, that man must guard himself from their fury. When God nevertheless, in the creation, gave him all in his power, all the beasts of the fields were to be subject to him, which now is indeed the contrary; for man is become for them the wolf that devours them, and they are lions for him. There are only combats between the one and the other; hardly can he contain the tame beasts, and much less the wild beasts. 10. We must recognise also that there was a great difference among the beasts before the malediction; for some, to wit: the tame ones were very near to the element, and with them, man would have found his joy, and his recreation. On the contrary, some others; to wit: the wild ones were nearer to the four elements, and they would have fled from man; now the causes of these marvels, were in the essences, and were . in I' t .t 1* ( 58 ) CH. 18. seen and recognised perfectly in the light of the life, in the knowledge of the virgin Sophia. There was nothing so profound that man could not sound and see very certainly: let him only lift the veil, and he will see into the promised land with Joshua, through the table graven through and through.
2I !. And God said: Thou shalt eat thy bread in the sweat of thy brow, until thou become earth again. Here all is clear and luminous 5 for he had lost the celestial fruit which would have pushed forth for him without fatigue. Now, at present he was to work the earth, sow and plant, so that he fashioned the fruit in the four elements in the disquiet, the fatigue and the indigence; for so long as the element or the virtue of the element, pushed through the earth, there was always a permanent root of the fruit; but when the element withdrew by the malediction, then there was a cold death and an exhaustion in the root, and it had always to be replanted. Thus began the fatiguing life of man, to which we must at present give ourselves and submit ourselves. 12. God would indeed have produced him creatures that should have taken care of the animals at all times, seeing that man might well have remained in paradise, in the form of an angel; and inasmuch as there are besides creatures without soul in the four elements: God might well at last have imposed upon another race, the labour of tending the animals, which would have been also terrestrial; but he saw well that CR. i8. ( % ) man would not know how to subsist; that is why, the burden was at once imposed upon him, as Moses has written of it. iS. But if God had willed that man should be bestial, he would have created him thus at the beginning, and would have given him no commandment; he would not either have tempted him, since the beast has no law.
314. That is why all the objections that accumulate in reason are nothing other than adroit jests of the demon who would indeed maintain that God willed the fall of man. There are also people who dare to say: That God had willed it 5 and that he had animated the tongue of the serpent to seduce Eve. This opinion falls back entirely upon them since they confirm the lying word of the demon, and since they make of God a liar. i5. Yes, in truth, according to the first principle of the infernal abyss, he willed the fall of man; but this reign is not called God [ which must set the mind at rest upon the preceding proposition: ]. There is still between, another principle and a pregnant form; for in the second principle where God shines, he did not will it. All is well of God; but the first principle is the bond of eternity, which produces itself. Thence, God the father raises himself from all eternity into the second principle, in which he begets his heart and his son; and there, and not in the first, the holy spirit goes forth from the father and from the son, and man is created for the second principle. 16. That is why also, the heart of the second m\ ( 60 ) CH- ï^.
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.