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.
1est sur la terre comme un pauvre ; et , cependant, il est riche dans le ciel. Qui enverras.tu vers lui pJur le réconcilier avec toi ? La mère de Jésus ? O ! non homme; cela ne sert à rien : ce n'est pas là qu'il se trouve. II n'absoudra point ta méchanceté en venu de tes vaines courbettes : il ne connoît point les lettres que tu lui envoies par les saints qui sont devant lui dans le perpétuel repos , dans l'élément céleste. 78. Leur esprit. d'ame est dans le repos, dans la paisible joie devant Dieu , et ne laisse point venir à soi tes grossiers péchés pour faire fréquentation avec eux; mais leur imagination el toute leur volonté sont dans le cœur de Dieu. Or , l'esprit du premier principe , sa source originelle dit : Seigneur, quand vengeras-tu noire sang ? Et la douceur de Jésus-Christ répond : Demeurez en repos jusqu'à ce que viennent ici vos Aères qui ont été égorgés dans Babel, pour le témoignage de Jésus. 79. Ils ne font aucune intercession pour toi ; aussi cela ne sert de rien ; il en est anirement. Tu' dois être engendré de nouveau par un sincère repentir et par la pénitence. Tu dois descendre de la bête ; traverser à pied le torrent de Cédron avec Christ , dans ses souffrances et dans sa mort, et ressusciter avec lui de son tombeau: il faut que tuy ailles toi-même 5 personne autre ne peut le sauver j il te faut entrer dans la naissance delésus-Ghrist [ et êlre conçu de l'esprit saint par son médium. Ton arae doit être engendrée ou repompée des quatre éléuieus^ dans la parole , el devenir un nouvel homma C û8 ) en. in.
2en Christ^ dans un pur et saint élément , dans l'eau de l'élément de l'éternelle vie : tes fictions et tes inventions anticlirétienncs , ne te servent de rien ; car on dit : Telle qu'est la foi d'un peuple , tel est aussi le Dieu qu'il a pour le bénir. 80. Si parmi tes prédécesseurs il en est qui après leur mort ont apparu avec des prodiges ( choses sur quoi tu bâtis ), cela est provenu delà foi des vivans , et de son pouvoir sur leur teinture : foi c[u\ est assez forte pour renverser des montagnes. Mais une foi fausse, quand elle est forte, peut aussi éveiller les merveilles dans le premier principe, comme cela se voit daus les incantations , et par les faux évocateurs de signes devant Pharaon ; telle qu'ëtoit leur foi , tel étoit le résultat. 81. Et comme la croyance des vivans étoit encore un peu bonne et pure , à l'égard du royaume de Dieu , et ne cherchoitpointainsi la gourmandise et la pompe , ils se portoient alors par leurfoi jusqu'à» ciel , dans l'élément , jusqu'auprès des saints qui ainsi apparoissoient naturellement aussi aux saints vivans dans une ferme foi , dans leur élément, avec des prodiges qui cependant n'étoient saisis que par la foi , et auxquels les impies n'avoient point de part. 82. Car, une teinture saisit l'autre, de sorte que les saints dans l'élément étoient aussi très zélateurs de la forte fdi , particulièrement ceux qui sur la terre en avoient converti plusieurs h la justice. Puisque chacun est suivi des œuvres de sa foi , ils étoient aussi suivis d'une volonté plus ardente de convertir CH. 18. ( 8g ) les hommes ; c'est pourquoi dans la teinture du saint élément , une foi saisit l'autre, etilarrivoit des merveilles par la forte commémoration des saints.
383. Dieu le permit par rapport aux payens , afin qu'ils vissent que les morts saints étoient dans Dieu , et qu'il y avoit encore une autre vie après celle-ci ' et afin que ces payens se convertissent ; c'est pour cela que Dieu laissoit arriver des prodiges. 84. Mais dans la base de l'origine , iîn'en est pas ainsi , pour qu'un mort pût, du sein du royaume du ciel, aider un vivant, et qu'il dût entreprendre d'exposer devant Dieu les misères des vivans , et prier pour eux : car c'eût été une grande offense au cœur de Dieu, qui, sans intercession,répand sur tous les hommes sa miséricorde avec des bras étendus et qui n'a d'autre langage que ces mots : renez à moi, vous tous qui êtes fatigués, et qui êtes chargés^ et je vous soulagerai. A moi, tous, dit-il, venez, c'est ce que je ferai volontiers. Déplus; c'est mon plaisir de faire du bien aux enfans des hommes. 85. Qui donc parmi ces saints entreprendra de marcher avant la source bienveillante de la miséricorde , et de prier pour ceux qui les invoquent , comme si l'amour étoit mort dans le cœur de Dieu, et qu'il ne voulût pas secourir celui qui l'invoque,' tandis que , quoiqu'on en dise , ses bras sont sans cesse et toujours tendus pour secourir tous ceux qui se convertissent à lui de tout leur cœur. «6. Toi , antechrist menteur, tu dis : La foi seule ne justifie pas les âmes. Cependant tes œuvres in. I I ( 90 ) en. i5;
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.
1is upon the earth as a poor man; and, nevertheless, he is rich in heaven. Whom wilt thou send to him to reconcile him with thee? The mother of Jesus? O no, man; that serves for nothing: it is not there that he is found. He will not absolve thy wickedness in virtue of thy vain bowings: he knows not the letters that thou sendest him by the saints who are before him in perpetual repose, in the celestial element. 78. Their spirit of soul is in repose, in the peaceable joy before God, and lets not thy gross sins come to it to hold frequentation with them; but their imagination and all their will are in the heart of God. Now, the spirit of the first principle, its original source says: Lord, when wilt thou avenge our blood? And the sweetness of Jesus-Christ answers: Abide in repose until there come hither your brothers who have been slaughtered in Babel, for the testimony of Jesus. 79. They make no intercession for thee; also that serves for nothing; it is otherwise. Thou must be begotten anew by a sincere repentance and by penitence. Thou must descend from the beast; cross on foot the torrent of Cedron with Christ, in his sufferings and in his death, and rise again with him from his tomb: thou must go thither thyself 5 no other can save thee; thou must enter into the birth of Jesus-Christ [ and be conceived of the holy spirit by his medium. Thy soul must be begotten or repumped out of the four elements ] in the word, and become a new man C û8 ) en. in.
2in Christ, in a pure and holy element, in the water of the element of eternal life: thy fictions and thy antichristian inventions serve thee for nothing; for it is said: Such as is the faith of a people, such also is the God that it has to bless it. 80. If among thy predecessors there are some who after their death have appeared with prodigies ( things upon which thou buildest ), that came from the faith of the living, and from its power over their tincture: a faith which is strong enough to overturn mountains. But a false faith, when it is strong, can also awaken the marvels in the first principle, as that is seen in incantations, and by the false evokers of signs before Pharaoh; such as was their faith, such was the result. 81. And as the belief of the living was still a little good and pure, in regard to the kingdom of God, and sought not thus gourmandise and pomp, they carried themselves then by their faith unto heaven, into the element, unto near the saints who thus appeared naturally also to the living saints in a firm faith, in their element, with prodigies which nevertheless were seized only by faith, and in which the impious had no part. 82. For, one tincture seizes the other, so that the saints in the element were also very zealous of the strong faith, particularly those who upon the earth had converted several to justice. Since each is followed by the works of his faith, they were also followed by a more ardent will to convert CH. 18. ( 8g ) men; that is why in the tincture of the holy element, one faith seizes the other, and there came marvels by the strong commemoration of the saints.
383. God permitted it in respect of the pagans, so that they might see that the dead saints were in God, and that there was still another life after this one; and so that these pagans might convert themselves; it is for that that God let prodigies come to pass. 84. But in the base of the origin, it is not so, that a dead man could, from the bosom of the kingdom of heaven, aid a living one, and that he should undertake to expose before God the miseries of the living, and pray for them: for that would have been a great offence to the heart of God, who, without intercession, sheds upon all men his mercy with outstretched arms and who has no other language than these words: Come to me, all you who are weary, and who are laden, and I will relieve you. To me, all, says he, come, it is what I will do willingly. Moreover; it is my pleasure to do good to the children of men. 85. Who then among these saints will undertake to walk before the benevolent source of mercy, and to pray for those who invoke them, as if love were dead in the heart of God, and as if he would not succour him who invokes him, whilst, whatever one may say of it, his arms are unceasingly and always stretched out to succour all those who convert themselves to him with all their heart. «6. Thou, lying antichrist, thou sayest: Faith alone does not justify souls. Nevertheless thy works in. I I ( 90 ) en. i5;
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.