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One moment.
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.
104. Or, il ne nous faut pas croire que l'homme saint en Christ soit mort 5 car il ne meurt pas , mais bien l'homme mortel du royaume de ce monde , qui cria sur la croix : Mon Dieu ! mon Dieu ! pourquoi n% avezvous abandonné ? Et nous voyons clairement la grande puissance de l'homme saint dans le Christ > jorsque ce qu'il avoit pris de mortel de ce monde , s'en alla dans la mort ; combien le saiîit , le tout puissant soutint un rude choc avec la mort, jusqu'à faire trembler les démens , et obscurcir l'éclat du soleil ou la lumière de la nature de ce monde , comme si elle alloit se briser. Là le vivant conquérant en Christ , combattit avec la colère -, il nlla dans Venfer de la colère^e Dieu 5 il sépara de la colère de Dieu ,de la source infernale, l'ame qu'il avoit reamimaiidé€ à son père. Et c*esl là ce que David dit : t« ne laisseras pas mon ame dans l'enfer ni ne permettras pas que ton saint éprouve la corruption. • 55. La divinité a pénétré dans i'ame humaine, cl là elle a rompu Tépée du chérubin 3 noBS savons cir. aa. ( aSi ) qu'Adam a introduit son ame dans la prison de la colère , qu'ensuite toutes les âmes ont éié engendrées d'Adam, et ont été loiiJes comme en nne racine , retenues prisonnières dans la colère de la mort jusqu'au Christ y de même aussi nous voyons que le noble conquérant Christ a brisé ici la mort dans l'ame humaine , qu'il a introduit Tame , par sa mort , dans sa nouvelle humanité éternelle, et l'a établie dans un éternel mariage.
256. De même qu'Atlam a ouvert les portes de la colère ; de même la divinité du Christ a ouvert les portes de l'éternelle vie. Ainsi tous les hommes peuvent entrer jusque dans Dieu Ipar cette porte ouverte. Car ici le troisième principe est brisé, et le jugement vient sur le prince des ténèbres qui nous a tenus si long-tems en prison dans la mort. 57. Mais comme l'intelligence de l'homme est si lente , nous pourrions bien n'être pas encore assez entendus ; c'est pourquoi nous Voulons encore exposer particulièrement et brièvement ce que sont ces grands mystères. Car nous savons ce que nous avons à attendre d'un opposant, c'est - à - dire, du pri«ce de ce monde , qui ne dormira point , et ne cessera point de veiller, pour tâcher d'écraser ce noble grain de sénevé. 58. Vois , toi , noble ame, qui as dtjsiru le royaume de Dieu , nous parlons avec toi , et non point av(?c l'anlechrist en Babel , qui ue désire que le royaume de ce monde. Fais al (en lion , le sommeil A I ( a32 ) CH. 22; est passé , Tépoux vient ; car l'épouse dit : Fiais. Prends donc garde, ne l'arrêre point à la main qui conduit cette plume , c'est une autre plume qui a écrit 5 et ni loi , ni moi ne la connoissent ; car la base affective , si elle est fidèle, atteint jusqu'à la divinité. Ne t'estime donc pas si peu -, si lu es engendrée de Dieu , tu es plus grande que ce monde. 59. Remarque que l'ange dit à Marie : Tu seras enceinte, et tu engendreras un fils , à qui tu donneras le nom de Jésus ; il sera grand et sera nommé le fils du très haut : le seigneur Dieu lui donnera le trône de son père David ; il sera éleruellemenl un roi établi sur la maison de Jacob, et son règne sera sans fin.
360. Comprends ceci : Marie devoit être enceinte dans le corps, c'est-à-dire, dans son propre corps , non pas dans un corps étranger, accepté par elle. Elle n'en a point pris d'étranger , comme pourroit l'annoncer l'ignorant dans nos écritures, qui ne comprend pas le royaume de Dieu. Aussi ce n'est pas là la base que les anciens ( qui, en effet, ont été très haut) ont posée; ils n'ont point dit qup Marie eût été cachée de toute éternité dans le ternaire saint jqu'elle soit entrée;,à cette époque, dans Je sein d'Anne , et qu'elle ne soit pas de la semence de Joachim , et de la chair et du sang d'Anne. 61. Ils disent qu'il s'agit d'une vierge éternelle de la trinifé, et que de cette vierge est né le Christ , puisqu'il n'est point provenu de la chair et du sang d'un homme, et qu'il n'est point venu de ce monde, mais du ciel, cooime il le témoigne lui-même» CH. 21. f 233 ) Il dit qu'il est sorti de Dieu , et qu'il retourne à Dieu, et il dira Nicodême : Personne ne va au ciel , que le fils de l'homme , qui est venu du ciel , et qui est dans le ciel.
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.
104. Now, we must not believe that the holy man in Christ is dead 5 for he dies not, but rather the mortal man of the kingdom of this world, who cried upon the cross: My God! my God! why have you abandoned me? And we see clearly the great power of the holy man in the Christ, when that which he had taken of mortal from this world, went away into death; how much the holy one, the all-powerful sustained a rude shock with death, even to making the elements tremble, and darkening the brightness of the sun or the light of the nature of this world, as if it were going to break itself. There the living conqueror in Christ, combatted with the anger; he went into the hell of the anger of God 5 he separated from the anger of God, from the infernal source, the soul that he had recommended to his father. And it is there what David says: Thou wilt not leave my soul in hell nor wilt thou permit that thy holy one prove corruption. • 55. The divinity has penetrated into the human soul, and there it has broken the sword of the cherub 3 we know cir. aa. ( aSi ) that Adam introduced his soul into the prison of the anger, that afterward all souls have been begotten of Adam, and have been all as in one root, retained prisoners in the anger of death until the Christ; likewise also we see that the noble conqueror Christ has broken here the death in the human soul, that he has introduced the soul, by his death, into his new eternal humanity, and has established it in an eternal marriage.
256. Just as Adam opened the gates of the anger; likewise the divinity of Christ has opened the gates of eternal life. Thus all men can enter even into God by this opened gate. For here the third principle is broken, and the judgment comes upon the prince of the darkness who has held us so long in prison in death. 57. But as the intelligence of man is so slow, we might well not be yet enough understood; that is why we will still expose particularly and briefly what these great mysteries are. For we know what we have to expect from an opponent, that is to say, from the prince of this world, who will not sleep, and will not cease to watch, to try to crush this noble grain of mustard. 58. See, thou, noble soul, who hast desired the kingdom of God, we speak with thee, and not at all with the antichrist in Babel, who desires only the kingdom of this world. Give attention, the sleep A I ( a32 ) CH. 22; is passed, the bridegroom comes; for the bride says: Come. Take heed then, stop not at the hand which conducts this pen, it is another pen which has written 5 and neither thou, nor I know it; for the affective base, if it be faithful, reaches even to the divinity. Esteem thyself then not so little; if thou art begotten of God, thou art greater than this world. 59. Remark that the angel says to Mary: Thou shalt be with child, and thou shalt beget a son, to whom thou shalt give the name of Jesus; he shall be great and shall be named the son of the most high: the lord God shall give him the throne of his father David; he shall be eternally a king established over the house of Jacob, and his reign shall be without end.
360. Comprehend this: Mary was to be with child in the body, that is to say, in her own body, not in a foreign body, accepted by her. She took no foreign one, as the ignorant man in our scriptures might announce, who comprehends not the kingdom of God. Also that is not the base that the ancients ( who, in effect, have been very high ) laid; they did not say that Mary had been hidden from all eternity in the holy ternary; that she entered, at that epoch, into the bosom of Anne, and that she is not of the seed of Joachim, and of the flesh and of the blood of Anne. 61. They say that it is a question of an eternal virgin of the trinity, and that of this virgin was born the Christ, since he came not of the flesh and of the blood of a man, and since he came not from this world, but from heaven, as he testifies it himself. CH. 21. f 233 ) He says that he is gone out of God, and that he returns to God, and he will say to Nicodemus: No one goes to heaven, but the son of man, who is come from heaven, and who is in heaven.
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.