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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.
146. Car, le Christ n'a apporté du ciel aucune an»e étrangère dans la très bénie , céleste et pure vierge éternelle , ou Sophie ; mais de même que toutes les âmes sont engendrées, de même le Christ a reçu son amedans le corp, de soph«; savoir : dans son immaculé corp, de sainteté , qui étoit devenu la propriété de Marie. En effet nous devons dire que le pur élt'- ment , dans la miséricorde de Dieu , est devenu la propriété de Mnrie , et que, dans cet élément pur se trouve le corpe du Ch-Ut avec son ame originelle. 47- Car , aucune autre ame n'est engendrée dans aucun homme, mais bien un nouveau corps ; seulement l'ame est renouvellée par la pure divinité • et le Christ , lorsqu'il a séparé son homme saint du royaume de ce monde , a aussi par son entrée dans la mort, séparé les âmes, de l'âprelé de la colère de Dieu , et du tourment de l'originel. 48. De même que l'élément pur qui est devant Dieu , dans lequel Dieu demeure , est vraiment dans tout l'espace de ce monde , et dans tous les lieux , et a revêtu sur soi h royaume de ce monde (cest-à-dire, son ertra -génération), comme un corps, et que cependant ce corps ne comprend pas plus Télément que notre corps ne comprend notre ame ; de même le Christ a véritablement aussi revêtu sur soi dans la vierge Marie , le corps de nos essences humaines , et est devenu notre frère. Cer-i » l II •1' ( 218 ) ™- **• pendant les essences humaines ne penvent pas emZZr son éternelle divinité-. Il n'y a qne le nouverhomme engendré en Dieu , qui embrasse la djt^, et cela encore de la même man.ère que le coms fail l'ame , et non autrement.
2I C'est pourquoi le corps du Christ est .nfeneur à la divinité -.il a souffert la mort dans nos Xs essences humaines ; sa div.m.é d^homme saint , dans l'élément pur . est entrée dans la moU , n nlevé à la mort, sa puissance et a séparé du Laume de ce monde, ainsi que de la mort , du démon et de l'enfer , par sa forte puissance d.y.ne , rame naturelle que le Christ recommanda a son .:« lorsqu'il mourut sur la croix; il nous a ouÎert à tous une porte pour que nous all.ons a lu. , Tque nous nous attachions à lui en pensée et par „oL base affective : alors notre ame qu. est dans îe Père , est attirée par lui dans le pur amour du Christ. Là alors, elle place de nouveau son .mag,- „ation par le médium du Christ , en avant de not.s , dans la trinité sainte ;elle est de nouveau aUmeu.ee par le verbe de Dieu , et par là elle dev.en. de nouveau «n auge pur , séparé du royaume du domon et de ce monde , dans la mort du Christ. 50 Ainsi laraison pour la<|uelle D.eu est devenu homme , étoi. pour qu'il pût de nouveau engendrer en soi la pauvre ame de l'homme , et la déhvrer des chaînes de l'âpreté de la colère , et non po.nt à cause de ce corps bestial , qui doit se fondre de nouveau dans les quatre élémens , redevenir a CB. 22. ^ 229 ) rien ; et duquel il ne reste rien de plus que l'ombre dans la figure de toutes ses œuvres, et de tout ce qu'il a opéré.
3Si. Mais dans le nouvelliomme dont nous revêtissous notre ame dans le sein de la vierge sophie , nous refleurirons et renaîtrons 5 et dans cet état là il n'y aura pour nous aucune souffrance ni aucune mort 5 car le royaume de ce monde passe. C'est pourquoi , celui qui n'aura point cette image dans la nouvelle naissance , sera , lors de la restauration de l'esprit de l'éiernelle nature , revêtu de l'image du même cœur, c'est-à-dire, des mêmes penchans et des mêmes appuis , où il aura mis sa cuufiance ici bas : car chaque règne forme sqs images selon leurs essences , dans les volontés qui ont eu lieu ici. 52. Il faut que tu nou5 comprennes bien exaclemeul. Nous n'entendons aucun Christ étranger qui ne fû t pas notre frère ; comme il le di t lui-même dansjsa résurrection: Aile? à mes frères et à vos fièrés , et diles-leur : Je monte vers mon Dieu el vers votre Dieu. 55. Nous savons que le corps que nous portons ici, n'est pas l'image de Dieu , ni créé par Dieu ; rar le royaume de ce monde nous a rev^m.de son image lorsqu'Adam s'y livra. Nous savons que si nous sommes régénérés , notre nouvel homme n'es! point chez lui dausce monde . comme Christ dit a ses disciples : Je vous ai appeléa de ce monde , afin que tyus soyez ou je suis. Et Saint-Paul dit; Notre uiarçhe j selon le nouvel homme , est dans le ciel. ^l ïI I ( 23o ) en. 23. C'est aussi de cette même manière que nous entendons notre Emmanuel , le très saint , qui , par sa vraie image de Dieu, dans laquelle est aussi notre vraie image de Dieu, n'est point de ce monde; mais est suspendu comme nous au vieil homme mortel du royaume de ce monde jainsi dotre homme mortel est suspendu en Christ à l'image de Dieu , et c'est ce qu'il a attiré à soi, de sa mère Marie, comme le pur élément attire le royaume de ce monde.
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.
146. For, the Christ has brought from heaven no foreign soul into the very blessed, celestial and pure eternal virgin, or Sophia; but just as all souls are begotten, likewise the Christ received his soul in the body of Sophia; to wit: in her immaculate body of holiness, which had become the property of Mary. In effect we must say that the pure element, in the mercy of God, has become the property of Mary, and that, in this pure element is found the body of Christ with his original soul. 47- For, no other soul is begotten in any man, but rather a new body; only the soul is renewed by the pure divinity; and the Christ, when he separated his holy man from the kingdom of this world, has also by his entrance into death, separated the souls, from the harshness of the anger of God, and from the torment of the original. 48. Just as the pure element which is before God, in which God dwells, is truly in all the space of this world, and in all places, and has clothed upon itself the kingdom of this world ( that is to say, its extra-generation ), like a body, and that nevertheless this body comprehends no more the element than our body comprehends our soul; likewise the Christ has truly also clothed upon himself in the virgin Mary, the body of our human essences, and is become our brother. Ne- » l II •1' ( 218 ) ™- **• vertheless the human essences cannot embrace his eternal divinity. There is only the new man begotten in God, who embraces the divinity, and that still in the same manner that the body does the soul, and not otherwise.
2I That is why the body of Christ is inferior to the divinity; it suffered death in our human essences; his divinity of holy man, in the pure element, is entered into death, has taken from death its power and has separated from the kingdom of this world, as well as from death, from the demon and from hell, by his strong divine power, the natural soul that the Christ recommended to his father when he died upon the cross; he has opened to us all a gate so that we may go to him, and that we may attach ourselves to him in thought and by our affective base: then our soul which is in the Father, is drawn by him into the pure love of Christ. There then, it places anew its imagination by the medium of Christ, before us, into the holy trinity; it is anew nourished by the word of God, and thereby it becomes anew a pure angel, separated from the kingdom of the demon and of this world, in the death of Christ. 50 Thus the reason for which God became man, was so that he might beget anew in himself the poor soul of man, and deliver it from the chains of the harshness of the anger, and not at all because of this bestial body, which must melt anew into the four elements, become again a CB. 22. ^ 229 ) nothing; and of which there remains nothing more than the shadow in the figure of all its works, and of all that it has operated.
3Si. But in the new man wherewith we clothe our soul in the bosom of the virgin sophia, we shall reflower and be reborn 5 and in that state there will be for us no suffering nor any death 5 for the kingdom of this world passes. That is why, he who shall not have this image in the new birth, shall be, at the restoration of the spirit of eternal nature, clothed with the image of the same heart, that is to say, of the same inclinations and of the same supports, wherein he shall have put his confidence here below: for each reign forms its images according to their essences, in the wills which have had place here. 52. Thou must comprehend us5 well exactly. We understand no foreign Christ who was not our brother; as he says himself in his resurrection: Go to my brothers and to your brothers, and tell them: I mount toward my God and toward your God. 55. We know that the body that we bear here, is not the image of God, nor created by God; for the kingdom of this world has clothed us with its image when Adam gave himself to it. We know that if we are regenerated, our new man is not at home in this world, as Christ says to his disciples: I have called you out of this world, so that you may be where I am. And Saint-Paul says: Our walk, according to the new man, is in heaven. ^l ïI I ( 23o ) en. 23. It is also in this same manner that we understand our Emmanuel, the very holy one, who, by his true image of God, in which is also our true image of God, is not of this world; but is suspended like us to the old mortal man of the kingdom of this world; thus our mortal man is suspended in Christ to the image of God, and it is that which he has drawn to himself, from his mother Mary, as the pure element draws the kingdom of this world.
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.