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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.
1I. Ayant écrit jusqu'ici de l'origine de l'essence de loures les essences , comment tout a pris son commencemeni ; et ayant montré ce qui demeure é.eruellemenl.ainsi que ce qui est passager I.OUS voulons maintenant exposer plus amplement ce qu ,1 y a de plus utile pour l'homme dan. ce qu Jl don faire et omelire ; nous voulons enseiifer auss. par-là ce que Dieu a toujours dit par son éternelle parole, par sou esprit samt , par Moïse et les prophètes ; aussi hion que ce que la bouche du Christ et ses apôlres ont dit ; ce que Diei* veut que nous, hommes, nous fassions, et ce dont il veut que nous nous abilenions. 2. Puisque nous , pauvres hommes adamiques , nous sommes passés avec noire père Adam et notre mère Eve, de l'héritage impérissable et incorruptible , de notre vraie patrie , dans une hôtellerie étrangère , dans laquelle nous ne sommes II. ,^ ( 210 ) CH. 22*
2point cher nous ; mais seulement comme des pèlerins ; et que là , nous devons toujours non» altendre , dans une grande souffrance, à ce que notre liôle étranger nous chasse , et nous dérobe nos propriétés , nos œuvres et les fruits de notre industrie , en sorte que nous nageons réellement dans une profonde mer de douleurs ; que nous nous baignons dans un bain inconnu d'épines et de ronces ; que nous savons très certainement et que nous voyons journellement devant nos yeux que nous sommes maintenant un peuple de voyageurs dans cette auberge ; que nous devons sans cesse présumer que le destructeur va venir et porter le ravage dans notre cœur, dans', notre esprit, et dans nos vertus^ ainsi que nous dépouiller de notre chair , de notre sang , et de nos biens j alors il nous est vraiment utile d'apprendre à connoître et à savoir le chemin de noire vraie patrie, afin que nous puissions , év/ler ces grandes et douloureuses misères, et eiitrer dans réternelle hôtellerie qui est notre propriété, et dont personne ne peut nous chasser. 3. Mais puisqu'il y en a deux de ces hôtellerits qui sont sans fin , et dont on ne sort point, et que Tune consiste en une joie éternelle , dans une grande clarté et perfection , dans un pur amour et clans la douceur ; et que l'autre consiste àatis une grande et éternelle perplexité, dans l'angoisse, le tourment, la faim et la soif, où jamais ne parvient aucun rafraîchissement de l'amour de Dieu ; 4. Alors il nous est utile d'apprendre , avec un r.H. 22. (ait) grand zèle , à connoître le vrai cliemîn de l'entrée dans la joie éternelle, afin que nous ne hurlions pas éternellement avec les chions du démon dans rbôtelleric angoisseuse.
35.0rdonclorsqne nousportons nos regards autour de nous , au ciel , sur la terre , vers les étoiles et les élémens , nous ne voyons aucune voie que nous puissions reconnoîlre, et où nous puissions entrer pour notre repos. 6. Nous ne voyons d'autre voie que celle de l'entrée de notre vie, et tout auprès d'elle la fin de notre vie, où noire corps va dans la terre. Tous nos travaux, nos arts et nos souverainetés passent en héritage à un autre, qui se tourmente aussi avec toutes ces choses , seulement pendant un peu de tems; alors il vient se joindre à nous^ et cela dure depuis le commencement du monde , et du^ fera jusqu'à sa fin. 7. Dans notre misère ^r///^//^ , nous ne pouvons jamaisreconnoîtreoù notre espritdemeure, quand le corps se brise, et devient cadavre, à moins que'nous ne soyons de nouveau régénérés de ce monde. Alors nous pouvous bien demeurer dans ce monde , selon notre corps, et vivre, selon noire esprit et notro hase affective , dans un autre monde, qui est élernel, parfait et toujours nouveau , dans lequel notre esprit et notre ame se revêtiront d'un nouvelhomme poury exister éternellement: or, dans ceci, nou« reconnoissons d'abord ce que nous sommes , et ou est notre demeure. 3. Car comme nous voyous clairement , et qu§ ( 2tS ) ™- *
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.
1I. Having written thus far of the origin of the essence of all essences, how all took its commencement; and having shown what remains eternally, as well as what is passing, we will now expose more amply what there ,1is most useful for man in what he must do and omit; we will teach also thereby what God has always said by his eternal word, by his holy spirit, by Moses and the prophets; as well as what the mouth of Christ and his apostles have said; what God wills that we, men, should do, and what he wills that we should abstain from. 2. Since we, poor adamic men, are passed with our father Adam and our mother Eve, from the imperishable and incorruptible inheritance, from our true fatherland, into a foreign inn, in which we are II. ,^ ( 210 ) CH. 22*
2at home; but only as pilgrims; and since there, we must always expect, in a great suffering, that our foreign host chase us, and rob us of our properties, of our works and of the fruits of our industry, so that we swim really in a deep sea of pains; that we bathe ourselves in an unknown bath of thorns and of brambles; that we know very certainly and that we see daily before our eyes that we are now a people of travellers in this inn; that we must unceasingly presume that the destroyer will come and carry ravage into our heart, into our spirit, and into our virtues, as well as strip us of our flesh, of our blood, and of our goods; then it is truly useful to us to learn to know and to know the way of our true fatherland, so that we may avoid these great and painful miseries, and enter into the eternal inn which is our property, and from which no one can chase us. 3. But since there are two of these inns which are without end, and from which one goes not out, and since the one consists in an eternal joy, in a great clearness and perfection, in a pure love and in sweetness; and since the other consists in a great and eternal perplexity, in anguish, torment, hunger and thirst, where never arrives any refreshment of the love of God; 4. Then it is useful to us to learn, with a r.H. 22. (ait) great zeal, to know the true way of the entrance into the eternal joy, so that we may not howl eternally with the dogs of the demon in the anguishing inn.
35.0Now then when we bear our regards around us, to heaven, upon the earth, toward the stars and the elements, we see no way that we may recognise, and where we may enter for our repose. 6. We see no other way than that of the entrance of our life, and quite near it the end of our life, where our body goes into the earth. All our labours, our arts and our sovereignties pass in inheritance to another, who torments himself also with all these things, only for a little time; then he comes to join himself to us, and that lasts from the beginning of the world, and will do so until its end. 7. In our present misery, we can never recognise where our spirit dwells, when the body breaks itself, and becomes a corpse, unless we be anew regenerated from this world. Then we can indeed dwell in this world, according to our body, and live, according to our spirit and our affective base, in another world, which is eternal, perfect and always new, in which our spirit and our soul shall clothe themselves with a new man to exist there eternally: now, in this, we recognise first what we are, and where is our dwelling. 3. For as we see clearly, and as ( 2tS ) ™- *
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.