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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.
124. Nous exposons clairement ici au lecteur, ami de Dieu , dans la grande profondeur , ce qu*est l'élément pur dans lequel notre corps a été avant la chute d'Adam, et qui existe encore dans la nouvelle naissance. C'est la corporelle céleste qui n'est pas tout simplement et purement un esprit dans lequel demeure la claire divinité , et n'est pas la pure divinité ; mais est engendrée des saintes essences du père, lorsqu'il entre sans cesse et éiernellement dans l'éternelle base afToctive en soi-même par les éternelles portes , par la volonté leconçue, où il engendre son éternelle parole. a^. Ainsi le pur élément est le harm ou u^arnij chaleur [voyez ma note dans PJurore naissantey ch.8 : lîo. 73], dans les essences de /'aWircm/'i/f pour la parole. Les essences sont le paradis , et le harm est l'élément. Or , comme Dieu le père prononce toujours l'éternelle parole 5 alors l'esprit saint sort du prononcé , et l'extra-prononcé est l'éternelle sagesse , et est une jeune vierge ou la sophie. Le pur élément ou le barw. est son cor^s, dans lequel l'esprit saint s'aper<joit au travers de la sagesse extra-proïioncée. Le coup d'œil de la lumière de Dieu dans l'esprit saint s'appelle hertz^ lecœur , et reçoit l'élément dans les essences du paradis , afin que cet élément devienne substantiel ; alors ceci s'appelle iV. La grande et forte puissance ignée du père s'élance comme un éclair dans les essences ; ceci s'appelle keit , et est semblable à une puissance ou à un son cm 22. ( 219 ) qui pénètre, et ne sépare pas la substance pénétrée. Le tout ensemble s'appelle harmhertzigkeit ^ miséricorde , et est devant Dieu. Or Dieu , la sainte trinité , fait là son habitation.
226. La vierge sophie de la sagesse de Dieu , qufe Dieu le père prononce par la parole , est l'esprit du pur élément , et est à cause décela nommée une vierge , en ce qu'elle est ainti chaste , et n'engendre rien ; mais comme l'esprit enflammé dans le corps de l'homme n'engendre rien , mais ouvre tous les mystères , et que c'est le corps qui engendre : il en est de même ici. La sagesse ou l'éternelle vierge de Dieu , ouvre toutes les grandes merveilles dans le saint élément :car là sont les essences dans lesquelles s'élèvent les végétations du paradis. 27. Et si nous consitlérons , en outre , l'éternelle alliance dans laquelle la divinité s'engendre de toute élernité, alors cela s'appelle l'éternel Limbusde Dieu , dans lequel est l'essence de toutes les essences. 28. Car dans la racine du Limbns^ dans l'angoisse ténébreuse sont la colère et les ténèbres , et la première cause des essences. Puisque donc jious avons parlé de cela amplement ci-dessus , nous le laisserons ici en cet état ; car nous pourrions n'être pas entendus. C'est pourquoi nous allons traiter cfe notre Emmanuel. 29. Ainsi , mon cher lecteur , sachez que notre père Adam est passé de celle gloire dans Texlragénération de la substance de ce monde. Four qu'il puisse mdiateuant recevoir du soulagement , V\ ( 220 ) CH. 1». il faut que la miséricorde lui soit de nouveau engendrée , comme on l'a vu ; et dans celte miséricorde de Dieu , l'homme est prévu , pn-destiné ^ pour y vivre éternellement , avant que le fondement du monde fût posé. Car , par son ame , il est de celle volonté éternelle de Dieu le père, de qui cette miséricorde est engendrée. La porte d'Emmanuel.
35o. Ainsi, clirre ame cliit'iienno , sache combien lu as élé secourue , rt considîrc altcnlivenjent cette porte, elle est imporlanle. Car Moïse, et tous les prophètes , témoignent de ceci. C'est-àdire , de noire saint par la régénération. Ne t'endors point ici dans ta lecture, c'est là la plus belle porle de ce livre , et plus tu la liras, plus elle te sera précieuse. 3i. Si nous savons donc que nous avons perdu notre homme céleste, dans notre première chiHc, nous savons aussi qu'il y a pour nous dans'^la miséricorde de Dieu un nouvel engendré , dans lequel nous pouvons et devons habiter , si nous voulons être enfans de Dieu , et hors duquel nous sommes les enfans de la colère de Dieu. 32. Et, ainsi que les prophètes en ont écrit, le nouvel homme qui nous est né Me Dieu est le fils de la vierge ; conçu , non pas des désirs de la chair tcrresire et du sang , non plus que de la semence do l'homme , mais de l'esprit saint; et engendré de la pure, divine et chaste vierge, Sophie j fH. 22. f 221 ) et il a élé manifesté dans ce monde dans notre chair et notre sang ; il est entré avec sou corps saint dans la mort ; il a séparé de l'élément céleste Je terrestre , ainsi que la puissance colérique ; il a réhabilité de nouveau l'ame ; il a ouvert de rechef les portes de la lumière de Dieu , en sorte que l'ame égarée peut encore , par les essences du père , atteindre , dans le saint éiémenl , la lumière de Dieu.
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.
124. We expose clearly here to the reader, friend of God, in the great depth, what is the pure element in which our body was before the fall of Adam, and which exists still in the new birth. It is the celestial corporeity which is not quite simply and purely a spirit in which dwells the clear divinity, and is not the pure divinity; but is begotten of the holy essences of the father, when he enters unceasingly and eternally into the eternal affective base in himself by the eternal gates, by the will reconceived, where he begets his eternal word. a^. Thus the pure element is the barm or warm, heat [ see my note in the Aurora nascent, ch.8 : no. 73 ], in the essences of the attraction for the word. The essences are the paradise, and the barm is the element. Now, as God the father pronounces always the eternal word 5 then the holy spirit goes out of the pronounced, and the extra-pronounced is the eternal wisdom, and is a young virgin or the sophia. The pure element or the barm is her body, in which the holy spirit perceives itself through the extra-pronounced wisdom. The glance of the light of God in the holy spirit is called hertz, the heart, and receives the element into the essences of the paradise, so that this element may become substantial; then this is called iV. The great and strong igneous power of the father darts like a flash into the essences; this is called keit, and is like a power or a sound cm 22. ( 219 ) which penetrates, and separates not the substance penetrated. The whole together is called barmhertzigkeit, mercy, and is before God. Now God, the holy trinity, makes there his habitation.
226. The virgin sophia of the wisdom of God, that God the father pronounces by the word, is the spirit of the pure element, and is because of that named a virgin, in that she is thus chaste, and begets nothing; but as the inflamed spirit in the body of man begets nothing, but opens all the mysteries, and it is the body which begets: it is the same here. The wisdom or the eternal virgin of God, opens all the great marvels in the holy element: for there are the essences in which rise the vegetations of the paradise. 27. And if we consider, besides, the eternal alliance in which the divinity begets itself from all eternity, then that is called the eternal Limbus of God, in which is the essence of all essences. 28. For in the root of the Limbus, in the tenebrous anguish are the anger and the darkness, and the first cause of the essences. Since then we have spoken of that amply above, we shall leave it here in this state; for we might not be understood. That is why we are going to treat of our Emmanuel. 29. Thus, my dear reader, know that our father Adam is passed from that glory into the extra-generation of the substance of this world. So that he may now receive solace, V\ ( 220 ) CH. 1». the mercy must be begotten for him anew, as one has seen; and in this mercy of God, man is foreseen, predestined, to live there eternally, before the foundation of the world was laid. For, by his soul, he is of this eternal will of God the father, of whom this mercy is begotten. The gate of Emmanuel.
35o. Thus, dear christian soul, know how much thou hast been succoured, and consider attentively this gate, it is important. For Moses, and all the prophets, testify of this. That is to say, of our salvation by the regeneration. Fall not asleep here in thy reading, it is the fairest gate of this book, and the more thou readest it, the more precious it will be to thee. 3i. If we know then that we have lost our celestial man, in our first fall, we know also that there is for us in the mercy of God a new begotten one, in which we can and must dwell, if we will be children of God, and out of which we are the children of the anger of God. 32. And, as the prophets have written of it, the new man who is born to us of God is the son of the virgin; conceived, not of the desires of the terrestrial flesh and of the blood, no more than of the seed of man, but of the holy spirit; and begotten of the pure, divine and chaste virgin, Sophia; fH. 22. f 221 ) and he has been manifested in this world in our flesh and our blood; he is entered with his holy body into death; he has separated from the celestial element the terrestrial, as well as the choleric power; he has rehabilitated anew the soul; he has opened afresh the gates of the light of God, so that the strayed soul can still, by the essences of the father, reach, in the holy element, the light of God.
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.