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.
1Du dépari de Pâme, 17. Puisque l'homme est donc si fortement terrestre, il n'a presque aussi qu'une connoissance terrestre , à moins qu'il ne soit réengendré dans les portes de la profondeur. Il s'imagine toujours que l'ame , à la mort du corps , sort tout uniment de la bouche , et il ne comprend rien à ses profondes es» sences au-dessus des élémens. S'il aperçoit un rayon b!eu sortir de la bouche d'un homme a sa mort ^ CH. 19, f 107 ) d'où il provienne une forte odeur dans toute la chambre, alors il présume que c'est l'ame. iS. Oh! non , chère raison , ce n*est pas là l'ame; elle ne se voit, ni ne se saisit point dans les élémens extérieurs ; mais c'est l'esprit de soufre , l'esprit du troisième principe. De même que quand tu éteins une chandelle, d'où résulte une fumée et une puantour, qui n'étoit pas sensible lorsque la chandelle hrûloit ; de même il en est ici ; quand la lumière du corps se brise , Tesprit de soufre suffoque : c'est de là que sort sa vapeur et son odeur mortelle, avec son poison bouillonnant. 19. Entendez bien ceci. C'est l'esprit bouillonnant ou le fiel qui enflamme le cœur, d'où la vie est stimulée, qui s'étouffe, quand la teinture s'éteint dans le sang du cœur. La vraie ame n'a besoin d'aucun semblable départ : elle est beaucoup plus subtile que l'esprit de soufre, quoique, pendant le tems du corps , le tout soit en un seul être. 20. Mais quand l'esprit des quatre élémens se separe, alors la vraie ame qui a été insufflée à Adam, demeure dans son principe ; car elle est si subtile que rien ne peut la saisir ; elle traverse la chair et les os , ainsi que le bois et les pierres , et ne brise aucune de ces substances.
221. Voici comment elle peut être retenue. Si pendant le tems du corps , elle a fait un vœu par rapport à quelque chose, et qu'elle n'eu ait pas rappelé, alors cette même parole et celte sérieuse promesse la saisissent, ce dont nous nous tairons ici. Autre* luent, rieu ne la saisit que son propre principe , ( io8) €«• ^9' aans lequel elle est , soit le règne de l'enfer , soit le règne du ciel. 22. Elle ne part point par la boucbe, comme une substance corporelle ; elle est nue , sans corps. Aussilôl la séparalion des quatre élémens , elle va dans le centre , dans les portes de la profondeur ; et ce dont elle est velue ou couverte, cela la saisit, et la relient. Si son trésor est la volupté , la puissance, les bonneurs, la ricbesse , la méchanceté, la colère, le mensonge, la fausseté de ce monde, alors la forte puissance des essences du premier principe saisit ces choses par Tesprit sj^dérique 5 elle les relient , et opère ainsi selon la région des étoiles. Mais la région des étoiles ne peut porter l'esprit de l'arae dans sa propre forme , seulement elle en fait son bouffon , d'autant que, dans son ver , il n'y a aucun repos. Ainsi son ver d'arae est suspendu à sou trésor , comme dit le Christ : Là où est votre trésor , lu est votre cœur. .
323. De là vient qu'on voit souvent l'esprit d un homme décédé errer, ainsi que voyager dans une vraie forme de feu, aussi bien que sous d'autres formes, qui n'annoncent pas la fixité, mais l'inquiétude. Tout ce dont l'ame a été vêtue dans le tems de son corps , devient aussi son état postérieur, et elle a , dans sa figure , une semblable forme , conformément à cet élat , après la séparation du corps. Or, elle voyage aiasi , dans cette forme, dans la source des étoile», jusqu'à ce que cette même source soit aussi brisée ; car alors elle se trouve enlièremeut nue , et n'est plus vue d'aucun homme ^ mais CH. 19. ( 109 ) l'abîme profond , sans fin et sans nombre , est son éternelle demeure ; et ses œuvres, qu'elle a opérées ici , restent en figure dans sa teinture , et la suivent. 24. A-t-elle opéré le bien ici ? Alors elle se nourrit de ce bien 5 car tous les péchés restent devant elle, dans sa teinture. Si elle est réduite à ne pouvoir que se ressouvenir du royaume du ciel, «ans cependant ni le reconnoître , ni le voir , alors elle voit les raisons pour lesquelles elle est dans une telle misère ; car c'est elle qui l'a opérée elle-même, lia , toutes les douloureuses lamentations sont dans sa teinture , et sont ignées , piquantes, d'une inimitié brûlante , se rongeant en soi-même, et produisant dans les essences un éternel doute, et une volonté ennemie de Dieu. Plus elle pense à l'amendement , et plus le ver rongeur s*élève en soi-même.
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.
1Of the departure of the soul, 17. Since man is then so strongly terrestrial, he has also almost only a terrestrial knowledge, unless he be rebegotten in the gates of the depth. He imagines always that the soul, at the death of the body, goes out quite simply from the mouth, and he comprehends nothing of its deep essences above the elements. If he perceives a blue ray go out of the mouth of a man at his death, CH. 19, f 107 ) whence there comes a strong odour into all the chamber, then he presumes that it is the soul. iS. Oh! no, dear reason, that is not the soul; it is neither seen, nor seized at all in the exterior elements; but it is the spirit of sulphur, the spirit of the third principle. Just as when thou extinguishest a candle, whence there results a smoke and a stench, which was not sensible when the candle burned; likewise it is here; when the light of the body breaks itself, the spirit of sulphur suffocates: it is thence that its vapour and its mortal odour go out, with its boiling poison. 19. Understand this well. It is the boiling spirit or the gall which inflames the heart, whence life is stimulated, which stifles itself, when the tincture extinguishes itself in the blood of the heart. The true soul has need of no like departure: it is much more subtle than the spirit of sulphur, although, during the time of the body, the whole be in one single being. 20. But when the spirit of the four elements separates itself, then the true soul which was insufflated into Adam, abides in its principle; for it is so subtle that nothing can seize it; it traverses the flesh and the bones, as well as wood and stones, and breaks none of these substances.
221. Behold how it can be retained. If during the time of the body, it has made a vow in respect of something, and has not recalled it, then this same word and this serious promise seize it, whereof we shall be silent here. Otherwise, nothing seizes it but its own principle, ( io8) €«• ^9' in which it is, be it the reign of hell, be it the reign of heaven. 22. It departs not by the mouth, like a corporeal substance; it is naked, without body. Immediately upon the separation of the four elements, it goes into the centre, into the gates of the depth; and that wherewith it is clothed or covered, that seizes it, and retains it. If its treasure be voluptuousness, power, honours, riches, wickedness, anger, lying, the falseness of this world, then the strong power of the essences of the first principle seizes these things by the sidereal spirit 5 it retains them, and operates thus according to the region of the stars. But the region of the stars cannot bear the spirit of the soul in its own form, only it makes of it its buffoon, inasmuch as, in its worm, there is no repose. Thus its worm of soul is suspended to its treasure, as Christ says: There where is your treasure, there is your heart. .
323. Thence it comes that one often sees the spirit of a deceased man wander, as well as journey in a true form of fire, as well as under other forms, which announce not fixity, but disquiet. All wherewith the soul has been clothed in the time of its body, becomes also its posterior state, and it has, in its figure, a like form, conformably to this state, after the separation of the body. Now, it journeys thus, in this form, in the source of the stars, until this same source be also broken; for then it finds itself entirely naked, and is no more seen of any man; but CH. 19. ( 109 ) the deep abyss, without end and without number, is its eternal dwelling; and its works, that it has operated here, remain in figure in its tincture, and follow it. 24. Has it operated good here? Then it nourishes itself with this good 5 for all the sins remain before it, in its tincture. If it be reduced to being able only to remember the kingdom of heaven, without however either recognising it, or seeing it, then it sees the reasons for which it is in such a misery; for it is itself that has operated it. There, all the painful lamentations are in its tincture, and are igneous, stinging, of a burning enmity, gnawing themselves in themselves, and producing in the essences an eternal doubt, and a will hostile to God. The more it thinks of amendment, the more the gnawing worm raises itself in itself.
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.