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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.
1choses élevées avec la chair et le sang , ou avec Taf sagesse mondaine des écoles superbes ; pense ait contraire que cette science est semée par Dieu même , dans les grands et les petits , c'est-à-dire ^ dans tous les hommes jtout ce que tu as à faire, c'est de retourner vers le père ainsi que l'enfantprodigue. Alors, il te recevra comme un enfant chéri, et te revêtira d'un nouveau vêtement , c'est-a-dire , de la noble vierge Sophie , et mettra à la main de t onesprit un anneau (du grand mystère ) , et ce n'est que dans ce même vêtement (de la nouvelle génération) que tu auras la puissance de parler de l'éternelle génération divine. 16. Mais si tu ne l'as pas obtenue , et que tu veuilles beaucoup raisonner de Dieu , tu es un voleur et un meurtrier , et tu ne îe diriges point ver* l'entrée de la bergerie du christ , mais au contraire , tu l'assailles avec l'antechrist et les voleurs, et tu ne fais que massacrer , dérober et chercher ta propre gloire et ta satisfaction ; tu es loin du royaume de Dieu ; Part de tes superbes écoles ne te sert de rien; c'est un poison pour toi que d'être placé dans de grandes dignités par la faveur des hommes. Tu es assis sur le siège de la pestilence ^ et tu n'es qu'un? instrument de l'antechrist. Mais si tu étois régénéra et que tu enseignasses par l'esprit saint , alors ton siège seroit doux et agréable à Dieu ; tes brebis entendroient ta voix ; tu les conduirois au pâturaga et au principal pasteur qui est Jésus-Christ 5 Dieu les nourriroit par ta main. C'est pourquoi prencl^t garde d'enseigner et de parler de Dieu sans la con-^ I> i ( 58 ) «»• ^- naissance de son esprit saint, afin que tu ne sois pas reconnu pour être un menteur.
217. L'éternel engendrement est un engendremeni sans commencement 5 il n'a ni nombre ni fin 5 sa profondeur est insondable , et l'alliance de la vie no peut se rompre. L'esprit sydérique et élémentaire ne peut pas la montrer , encore moins la saisir ; seulement il la sent , et en offre un éclat dans la base affective qui est le char de l'ame , et ce par quoi elle marche dans le premier principe, dans son propre siège , dans r engendremeni du père ; car elle est de sa même essence, mais entièrement dénuée , et a, cependant, la figure du corps dans sa propre forme spirituelle ; elle reconnoît et voit dans la lumière de Dieu le père , laquelle lumière est sou éclat ou son fils , pourvu que celle ame soit régénérée dans la lumière de Dieu , dans Péternelle génération dans laquelle elle vil et demeure éternellement. 18. Que l'homme entende bien. Dieu le père a fait l'homme. ( Cette corporisation au commencement vint de l'élément ou de la racine des quatre élemens, de laquelle ils proviennent, et qui est la cinquième essence cachée aux quatre. Delà descendit le ténébreux cahos avant le tems de la terre j lequel cahos est l'origine de la source d'eau, et delà a été formé ce monde avec les étoiles , et les élémens ainsi que le ciel du troisième principe. 19. Mais l'ame de l'homme lui a été purement soufflée de la génération originelle du père. (Laquelle génération est avant la lumière de la vie , c'est-à-dire , CH. 4. t 2^9 ) dans les quatre angoisses , desquelles la lumière d«r Dieu s'allume , et là oîi naît le nom de Dieu. ) Elle^ lui a été soufflée par l'esprit bouillonnant qui est l'esprit saint qui sort du père , de la lumière du père 5 c'est pourquoi l'ame est la propre essence de Dieu.
320. Et si elle veut s'élever à l'inverse , dans l'angoisse des quatre formes de l'origine, et inqualijien violemment dans l'origine du feu , par orgueil (comme se sachant puissante), alors elle devient un démon. Car, le démon, avec ses légions , a «ne semblable origine ; il s'est réduit par orgueil à vivre dans le feu de la colère, et est demeuré ui* démon. 21. Mais si l'ame élève et porte sa pensée dans la lumière, dans la douceur et l'humilité et n'emploie point sa puissante force de feu à inqualifier de la. même manière que l'a fait Lucifer, alors elle est substantée p -ir le verbe de Dieu , et elle tire sa force^ sa vie et sa puissance du verbe de Dieu , qui est le cœur de Dieu. Son âpre source particulière, originelle, provenant de l'éternelle génération de la vie, devient un paradis gracieux , aimable , humble ^ doux, danslequelse manifeslenlla joie, le tressaillement et la fontaine de l'éternelle louange. Vaus cet état , l'ame est un ange et un enfant de Dieu ; c'est là que se trouve l'éternellegéuération de l'alliance indisfioluble, et alors l'ame a le pouvoir d'en parler, caic'est sa propre essence; maisnon pasdela génération, infinie , car il n'y a là ni commencement , ni fin. 22. Mais si elle entreprend de parler d'espace et de çommensurabililé y alors elle se Uvre au meusonga fi. ( 40 ) CH. 4*
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.
1elevated things with the flesh and the blood, or with the worldly wisdom of the superb schools; think on the contrary that this science is sown by God himself, in the great and the small, that is to say, in all men; all that thou hast to do is to return towards the father like the prodigal child. Then he will receive thee as a cherished child, and will clothe thee with a new vestment, that is to say, with the noble virgin Sophia, and will put upon the hand of thy spirit a ring ( of the great mystery ), and it is only in that same vestment ( of the new generation ) that thou wilt have the power to speak of the eternal divine generation. 16. But if thou hast not obtained it, and thou wouldst reason much of God, thou art a thief and a murderer, and thou directest thyself not towards the entrance of the sheepfold of the christ, but on the contrary, thou assailest it with the antichrist and the thieves, and thou dost nothing but massacre, steal and seek thy own glory and thy satisfaction; thou art far from the kingdom of God; the art of thy superb schools serves thee for nothing; it is a poison for thee to be placed in great dignities by the favour of men. Thou art seated upon the seat of the pestilence, and thou art but an instrument of the antichrist. But if thou wert regenerated and taughtest by the holy spirit, then thy seat would be sweet and agreeable to God; thy sheep would hear thy voice; thou wouldst conduct them to the pasture and to the principal pastor who is Jesus Christ 5 God would nourish them by thy hand. It is why take I> i ( 58 ) «»• ^- heed of teaching and of speaking of God without the knowledge of his holy spirit, in order that thou be not recognised for being a liar.
217. The eternal begetting is a begetting without beginning 5 it has neither number nor end 5 its depth is unfathomable, and the alliance of life cannot break. The sidereal and elementary spirit cannot show it, still less seize it; only it feels it, and offers a splendour of it in the affective base which is the chariot of the soul, and that whereby it walks in the first principle, in its own seat, in the begetting of the father; for it is of his same essence, but entirely destitute, and has, nevertheless, the figure of the body in its own spiritual form; it recognises and sees in the light of God the father, which light is his splendour or his son, provided that soul be regenerated in the light of God, in the eternal generation wherein it lives and dwells eternally. 18. Let man hear well. God the father made man. ( That corporisation in the beginning came of the element or of the root of the four elements, whence they proceed, and which is the fifth essence hidden to the four. Thence descended the tenebrous chaos before the time of the earth; which chaos is the origin of the source of water, and thence has been formed this world with the stars, and the elements as well as the heaven of the third principle. 19. But the soul of man was purely breathed into him from the original generation of the father. ( Which generation is before the light of the life, that is to say, CH. 4. t 2^9 ) in the four anguishes, whereof the light of God kindles itself, and there where the name of God is born. ) It was breathed into him by the boiling spirit which is the holy spirit which issues from the father, from the light of the father 5 it is why the soul is the own essence of God.
320. And if it would rise inversely, into the anguish of the four forms of the origin, and inqualify violently in the origin of the fire, by pride ( as knowing itself powerful ), then it becomes a demon. For, the demon, with his legions, has a like origin; he reduced himself by pride to live in the fire of the anger, and has remained a demon. 21. But if the soul raises and bears its thought into the light, into the sweetness and the humility, and employs not its powerful force of fire to inqualify in the same manner as Lucifer did, then it is sustained by the verb of God, and it draws its force, its life and its power from the verb of God, which is the heart of God. Its own harsh, original source, proceeding from the eternal generation of the life, becomes a gracious, lovable, humble, sweet paradise, wherein manifest themselves the joy, the thrilling and the fountain of the eternal praise. In that state, the soul is an angel and a child of God; it is there that is found the eternal generation of the indissoluble alliance, and then the soul has the power to speak of it, for it is its own essence; but not of the generation, infinite, for there is there neither beginning nor end. 22. But if it undertakes to speak of space and of commensurability, then it delivers itself to lying fi. ( 40 ) CH. 4*
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.