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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.
140. Si donc maintenant le saint est en tout lieu , et que notre ame soit un esprit , alors rien ne s'oppose à ce que notre ame saisisse ce qni est saint , et qu'elle le possède eu propriété; et si elle en devient propriétaire , alors elle attire le pur élément dans lequel Dieu demeure. 41. Ainsi nous pouvonsdire aussi de Marie qu'elle a embrassé la sainte , céleste , éternelle vierge sopniE de Dieu , et qu'elle s'est revêtue du pur et saint élément ainsi (pie du paradis ; et cependant elle a été véritablement une vierge dans ce monde en- *rendréi£ et provenue de Joachim et d'Anne. Or , elle n'a point élénommée une viergesainte et pure selon sa oénération terrestre. La chair qu'elle tenoit de Joachim et d'.\nne n'éloit point sans tache ; mais sa sainteté et sa pureté sont selon la vierge céleste ou bOPiiiK. En outre elle n'a point porté en soi la vierge céleste par aa propre puissance ; car l'ange lui dil; Ctt. 22. ( 225 ) L'esprit saint viendra sur vous , et la vertu du très haut vous obombrera , c'est pourquoi le saint qui naîtra de vous , sera nommé le fils de Dieu.
242. Ici entendez bien. La vertu ou puissance est la vierge céleste ou sophie ; car elle est la miséricorde de Dieu ; et le saint est dans ceci le centre ; c'est-àjjire,que l'éternelle génération de la trinilé sainte et de l'esprit saint, qui sort du centre de Dieu, a obombré l'humanité de Marie. Tu ne dois pas croire que l'humanité altérée a saisi en propriété la divinité sainte, de façon qu'on puisse dire : Que Marie, dans son humanité perdue , soit semblable à Dieu. Non. L'élément pur avec le paradis sont toujours inférieurs à Dieu ; et quoiqu'ils soient engendrés de sa puissance , ils sont cependant substantiels , et Dieu est pur esprit. Car le nom de Dieu s'originise dans le centre de l'esprit , et non dans le ciel : il n'y a que la lumière dans le centre qui soit la chose sainte et n'ait point de centre ; car elle est la limite ou le terme final de tous les êtres. 43. Ainsi nous pouvons dire de Marie , qu'elle a reçu le gage céleste, qui éloit inconnu à la nature, et qui ne fut point connu dans son homme extérieur ; ce gage est la chaste vierge céleste de Dieu , ou la SOPHIE , et dans elle était la parole éternelle du Dieu de l'éternelle nature qui demeure éternellement dans le père, de laquelle l'esprit saint sort éternellemeut , et dans laquelle est comprise l'universelle divinité. 44. Nous ne pouvons pas dire que la vierge céleste ( 2i6 ) CH. az. de miséricorde , lorsqu'elle enlra dans Marie , d'après le plan de Dieu, soit devenue .erres Ire î lais:ous'disousquel'a,nedeMarieasa.s.la
3vierge céleste , e. quela vierge céleste a revêtu 1 ama de Marie du nouveau corps pur , céleste , de 1 été- ™ent pur de la chaste vierge de Dieu ou de la miséricorde de Dieu , comme un nouvel homme regc^ „éré et qu'elle a conçu là le sauveur de tout le «onde , et l'a engendré dans ce «onde. C'est pour- „„oi il dit aux Juifs : Je suis d'en haut ; ma.s vous . TOUS êtes d'en bas , de ce monde. Je ne su.s pomt de ce monde. El il dit aussi à Pila.e : Mon royaume n'est pas de ce monde. 45 Or, voici ce qu'il te faut savoir : de même que Marie a porté dans le vieil homme terrestre ou Se royaume de ce monde , l'image céleste ou le nouvel homme engendré de la m.sér.corde de Dieu ; qu'elle a eu en soi cette image en propriété -, et que cependant le vieil homme ne saas.sso.t pouU le nouveau ; de même aussi dans le corps da la vierge Marie, la parole de Dieu est entrée dans la céleste matrice , dans l'éternelle vierge de D.eu , ou lasoi.u«,etesl devenue là un homme céleste del'élément saint et paradisiape , dans la personne du iio.vel homme de la vierge Marie, réengendré. Cet homme céleste ensemble avec l'éternelle d.vuu- ,é, a été engendré aussitôt dans la propre ame de la Vierge Marie ; et par l'approche de sa div.n.te , .1 a ramené l'ame de Marie dans le père saint , de façon que les âmes des hommes, qui s'étoient séparées CH. 2». ( 2i7 ) de la divinité sainte, sont maintenant enfantées de nouveau dans l'ame du Christ, et remises dans la voie du cœur 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.
140. If then now the holy is in every place, and if our soul is a spirit, then nothing opposes that our soul should seize what is holy, and possess it in property; and if it becomes proprietor of it, then it draws the pure element in which God dwells. 41. Thus we can say also of Mary that she embraced the holy, celestial, eternal virgin SOPHIA of God, and that she clothed herself with the pure and holy element as well as with the paradise; and nevertheless she was truly a virgin in this world begotten and come of Joachim and of Anne. Now, she was not named a holy and pure virgin according to her terrestrial generation. The flesh that she held from Joachim and from Anne was not without stain; but her holiness and her purity are according to the celestial virgin or SOPHIA. Besides she bore not in herself the celestial virgin by her own power; for the angel said to her: Ctt. 22. ( 225 ) The holy spirit shall come upon you, and the virtue of the most high shall overshadow you, that is why the holy one who shall be born of you, shall be named the son of God.
242. Here understand well. The virtue or power is the celestial virgin or sophia; for she is the mercy of God; and the holy is in this the centre; that is to say, that the eternal generation of the holy trinity and of the holy spirit, which goes out of the centre of God, has overshadowed the humanity of Mary. Thou must not believe that the altered humanity has seized in property the holy divinity, so that one may say: That Mary, in her lost humanity, is like to God. No. The pure element with the paradise are always inferior to God; and although they be begotten of his power, they are nevertheless substantial, and God is pure spirit. For the name of God originises itself in the centre of the spirit, and not in heaven: there is only the light in the centre which is the holy thing and has no centre; for it is the limit or the final term of all beings. 43. Thus we can say of Mary, that she received the celestial pledge, which was unknown to nature, and which was not known in her exterior man; this pledge is the chaste celestial virgin of God, or the SOPHIA, and in her was the eternal word of the God of the eternal nature which dwells eternally in the father, from which the holy spirit goes out eternally, and in which is comprised the universal divinity. 44. We cannot say that the celestial virgin ( 2i6 ) CH. az. of mercy, when she entered into Mary, according to the plan of God, became terrestrial; but we say that the soul of Mary seized the
3celestial virgin, and that the celestial virgin clothed 1 the soul of Mary with the new pure, celestial body, of 1 the pure element of the chaste virgin of God or of the mercy of God, as a new regenerated man; and that she conceived there the saviour of all the world, and begot him into this world. That is why he says to the Jews: I am from above; but you, you are from below, of this world. I am not of this world. And he says also to Pilate: My kingdom is not of this world. 45 Now, here is what thou must know: just as Mary bore in the old terrestrial man or in the kingdom of this world, the celestial image or the new man begotten of the mercy of God; that she had in herself this image in property; and that nevertheless the old man seized not the new; likewise also in the body of the virgin Mary, the word of God entered into the celestial matrix, into the eternal virgin of God, or the sophia, and became there a celestial man of the holy and paradisiac element, in the person of the new man of the virgin Mary, rebegotten. This celestial man together with the eternal divinity, was begotten at once in the proper soul of the virgin Mary; and by the approach of his divinity, .1 he brought back the soul of Mary into the holy father, so that the souls of men, which had separated themselves CH. 2». ( 2i7 ) from the holy divinity, are now brought forth anew in the soul of Christ, and put back into the way of the heart 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.