Fetching
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.
1et s'expose à la confusion ; car elle rejeté rincomxnensuiabilité divine comme a fait Tautechrist qui place seulement la divinité au-dessus du ciel étoile afin qu'il demeure lui même le Dieu de la terre , voyageant sur la grande bête laquelle doit toutefois bientôt aller d'ici dans l'originel étang de souifre , dans le royaume du roi Lucifer. Car le tems^arrivo où la bête sera manifestée et vomie ; ce qui sera suffisamment entendu ici des enfans d'espérance dans l'amour. Mais , pour les serviteurs de l'antechrist il y a sur cela un sceau , et un mur, jusqu'à ce qu'ils aient comblé la mesure de la colère de la prostitution ; alors Babel , la prostitutée de la grande bête , recevra son salaire ; elle rougira de la couronne qu'elle a acquise ; les yeux des aveugles seront ouverts; et elle paroîtra comme une méprisable prostituée qui prépare pour chacun la damnation. Xa très profonde porte de la trinité ^ pour les enfan» , de Dieu, 23. Si tu élèves ton sens et ton esprit , et que tu voyages sur le char del'ame , comme cela a été dit ; si tu te contemples , ainsi que toutes les créatures , et que tu considères comment la génération de la vie- est provenue , aussi bien que la lumière de ta vie 5 de sorte que tu peux voir le soleil dans son brillant , et même aussi , sans la lumière du soleil y voir par ton imagination , dans le grand espace , ou l'œil de ton corps ne peut pas atteindre j si ensuite CH. 4. ( 41 )
2tu réfléchis quelle est la raison pour laquelle tu es plus intelligent que les autres créatures , puisque lu peux sonder toutes choses , pour savoir ce qu'il y a eu elles ; si tu considères en outre d'où sont proveuus les élémens , le feu , et l'air ; comment le feu est dans l'eau , et s'engendre dans l'eau , et comment la lumière de ton corps s'engendre dans l'eau, alors 5 pourvu que tu sois né de Dieu , tu pourras atteindre à la connoissance de ce qu'est Dieu et l'éternelle génération. 24. Car , tu vois , tu sens , et tu comprends que toutes ces choses doivent avoir une racine plus élevée ; d'où elles procèdent -, qui n'est point devant les yeux , mais cachée. Si tu regardes principalement le ciel étoile qui existe sans variation , tu dois réfléchir d'où il est ainsi provenu , et pourquoi il subsiste ainsi sans se briser , sans se porter ni en haut ni eu bas ; quoiqu'on efîet il n'y ait ni haut ni bas. Or , si tu réfléchis à ce qui contient tout, et et d'où tout est provenu , alors tu trouveras l'éternel engendrement qui n'a aucun commencement , et tu trouveras l'origine du premier principe 5 savoir : particulièrement l'éternelle alliance iudissolube 5 et secondement , tu verras la séparation qui a fait que du premier est venu le monde matériel , avec les étoiles et les élémens , lequel contient en soi le troisième principe ou le plus extérieur. Car , dans le règne élémentaire "de toutes choses, tu trouveras une raison pour laquelle elles peuvent s'engendrer ainsi, et le mode selon lequel elles doivent procéder. Mais tu ne trouveras pas que la première raison , ( 42 ) ca. 4.
3d'où cela est ainsi provenu , soit parce qu'il y a deux principes originels. Car, dans le monde visible, tu rencontres, la corruption , et tu aperçois qu'il a ua commencement puisqu'il prend fin. 25. En troisième lieu tu trouves dans toutes chose» une force supérieure, qui est relèvement^ la vie et l'accroissement de chaque chose , et tu reconnoia là-dedans leur admirable et salutaire propriété, et d'où elles tirent leur mouvement : en effet, considère une herbe ou une plante , et examine ca qu'est sa vie , et d'où elle croît ; alors tu trouveras dans son origine l'astringence , l'amertume , le feu et l'eau. Or , si tu sépares ces quatre choses , et qu'ensuite tu les remètes ensemble , tu n'y verras , cependant , ni croissance, ni sensibilité , mais elles demeureront mortes , comme étant séparées de leur mère particulière, qui les a engendrées au commencement ; encore moins pourras - tu tirer d'elles leur douce odeur , non plus que leurs couleurs. 26. Tu vois donc là qu'il y a une éternelle racine qui donne cela, et quand tu porterois là-dedans des couleurs et du végétal , tu n'y pourrois porter , cependant , ni odeur ni puissance , et tu trouverois que dans l'origine de l'odeur et du végétal , il doit y avoir un autre principe qui n'est pas le tronc luimême; car le principe tire son origine de la lumière de la nature. 27. Maintenant va plus loin , et jusqu'à la vie terrestre àe l'homme 5 tu ne verras , ne saisiras et ne reconnoîlras par tes organes visuels , rien de plus que de la chair et du sang , ce qui te rend semblabU * û CH. 4. ( 43 )
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.
1and exposes itself to confusion; for it rejects the divine incommensurability as the antichrist has done, who places the divinity only above the starry heaven, in order that he may himself remain the God of the earth, travelling upon the great beast which must nevertheless soon go from here into the original pond of sulphur, into the kingdom of the king Lucifer. For the time arrives when the beast shall be manifested and vomited; which shall be sufficiently heard here by the children of hope in love. But, for the servants of the antichrist there is upon that a seal, and a wall, until they shall have filled up the measure of the anger of the prostitution; then Babel, the prostitute of the great beast, shall receive her wages; she shall blush at the crown she has acquired; the eyes of the blind shall be opened; and she shall appear as a contemptible prostitute who prepares for each one damnation. The most profound gate of the trinity, for the children of God. 23. If thou raisest thy sense and thy spirit, and travellest upon the chariot of the soul, as that has been said; if thou contemplatest thyself, as well as all the creatures, and considerest how the generation of the life proceeded, as well as the light of thy life 5 so that thou canst see the sun in its brilliance, and even also, without the light of the sun, see by thy imagination into the great space, where the eye of thy body cannot reach; if then CH. 4. ( 41 )
2thou reflectest what is the reason wherefore thou art more intelligent than the other creatures, since thou canst sound all things, to know what there is in them; if thou considerest moreover whence proceeded the elements, the fire, and the air; how the fire is in the water, and begets itself in the water, and how the light of thy body begets itself in the water, then 5 provided thou be born of God, thou wilt be able to attain to the knowledge of what God and the eternal generation are. 24. For, thou seest, thou feelest, and thou comprehendest that all these things must have a higher root, whence they proceed, which is not before the eyes, but hidden. If thou lookest principally at the starry heaven which exists without variation, thou must reflect whence it thus proceeded, and wherefore it subsists thus without breaking, without carrying itself either upward or downward; although in effect there be neither high nor low. Now, if thou reflectest upon what contains all, and whence all proceeded, then thou wilt find the eternal begetting which has no beginning, and thou wilt find the origin of the first principle 5 to wit: particularly the eternal indissoluble alliance 5 and secondly, thou wilt see the separation which made that of the first came the material world, with the stars and the elements, which contains in itself the third or most exterior principle. For, in the elementary reign of all things, thou wilt find a reason wherefore they can beget themselves thus, and the mode according to which they must proceed. But thou wilt not find that the first reason, ( 42 ) ca. 4.
3whence that thus proceeded, is so because there are two original principles. For, in the visible world, thou meetest corruption, and thou perceivest that it has a beginning since it takes an end. 25. In the third place thou findest in all things a superior force, which is the raising, the life and the increase of each thing, and thou recognisest therein their admirable and salutary property, and whence they draw their movement: in effect, consider a herb or a plant, and examine what its life is, and whence it grows; then thou wilt find in its origin the astringency, the bitterness, the fire and the water. Now, if thou separatest those four things, and then puttest them together again, thou wilt see there, nevertheless, neither growth nor sensibility, but they will remain dead, as being separated from their particular mother, which begot them in the beginning; still less wilt thou be able to draw from them their sweet odour, any more than their colours. 26. Thou seest then there that there is an eternal root which gives that, and even wert thou to carry therein colours and vegetable, thou couldst not carry there, nevertheless, either odour or power, and thou wouldst find that in the origin of the odour and of the vegetable there must be another principle which is not the trunk itself; for the principle draws its origin from the light of nature. 27. Now go further, and even to the terrestrial life of man 5 thou wilt see, seize and recognise by thy visual organs nothing more than flesh and blood, which renders thee like * û CH. 4. ( 43 )
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.