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.
1dans le jardin d*Eden , après qu'il l'eut revêtu dé Thabit extérieur ; là il dit : Fois; Adam est devenu comme r un de nous. Le Christ dcvoit prendre sur lui toutes ces ignominies , ainsi que tous les tourniens dans lesquels Adam étoit entré. L'homme Christ , le héros dans le combat, devoit les porter seul devant son père céleste j c'est alors qu'il fut l'agneau de Dieu, et que, comme un agneau patient, il fut suspendu à la croix , à notre place 5 car nous devions éternellement 6tre suppliciés dans notre engendremeut en croix. Alors le prince de l'éternelle vie fut élevé de terre dans une grande patience , comme uii docile agneau à la boucherie ; et il se plaça devant son père , comme s'il étoit lui-même le coupable. La porte des grands secrets, 46. Ici , mon cher lecteur , si tu es engendré dé Dieu , ouvre largement les yeux de ton esprit, afîa que le roi de gloire entre en toi , et éclaire ton en^ tendement : remarque toutes les syllabes; car elles «ont <un grand prix j elles ne sont pas muettes , ni amenées k la lumière par un centre aveugle. Vois ici sont suspendus à la croix Dieu et l'homme/ îà étoit la Irinité sainte; là étoient les trois principes 5 et le héros étoit combattant. Maintenant qui étoit ce héros combattant? Vois; lorsque le Christ eut tout accompli , il dit : Mon père, je recommandé mon esprit entre tes mains ; et il inclina sa tête et il expira. 47. Vois : à son père est le royaume, la puissance et la souveraineté, tout est eu lui, et tout est sieu, II. %i :Sai ill ( 3»a ) CH. aSL'amour est son coeur , la colère est «on étemella puissance ; l'amour est sa lumière , la colère se» éternelles ténèbres, qui sont un autre principe, dans lequel sont les démons.
248 Or , l'amour devint homme 5 il se revêtit de notre ame humaine; l'ame fut éclairée de la lumière , et elle éloit par sa racine dans la colère , ou dans la forte puissance du père. Alors le nouvel homme dans l'amour recommanda l'ame au père dans sa puissance , et abandonna le corps terrestre, provenu des étoiles et des élémens , ou le royaume de ce monde. Alors l'ame ne fut plu. dans le royaume de ce monde, dans la source de la vie, mais dans la mort ; car le royaume de ce monde, ou le stimulant de la vie, l'air enfin, aTo.t passé. 49. Alors l'ame se trouvoit réduite à ce qu elle est elle-même , dans s. propre racine, dans le père-, et nous serions restés là , dan» U colère, dans 1 enfer ténébreux } mais le père de lumière, dan. sa «dnteté , prit l'ame en soi , dans a «"»'•*• 50. Alors l'ame fut revêtue de l'amour dans U parole , qui rendit gracieux et propice 1. père colérique . dans la source la plus intérieure de l ame. ■Ainsi, dans ce clin d'oeil, Te paradis perdu s éleva de nouveau dans les essences de l'ame ; ce qu. fit nue la terre de l'extra - génération des élément ?rembla,e. que le soleil, le roi de la vie «lanste ftoisième principe, perdit son éclat; «rJ'él"'* un autre soleil dans la mort. Entendez que , dans l. colère du père, la lumière fut brillante dans 1 ame , Gonune U claire étoiU du niâtiB.
35t. Ainsi le corps dont l'ame du (jhrist étoit tevêtue, fut l'élément pur devant Dieu, ce dont lé soleil de ce monde est engendré; et ce même corps enveloppa le monde entier : alors la nature de cô inonde trembla, et les rochers se fendirent 5 car la mort colérique avoit Coagulé ou formé les rochers dans le vut ; et pour lors la vie sainte entra dans la mort colérique , ce dont les rochers se fendirent pour témoigner que la vie avoit de nouveau résisté a la mort, et avoit fleuri au travers de la mort S«. Alors aussi les corps saints sortirent de leurs tombeaux. Considère ceci attentivement. Ceux oui «voient mis leur confiance dans le messie , avoient reçu 1 élément pur. dans la promesse , comme ut nouveau corps : et quand maintenant le héros pronu. entra, par la mort, dans la vie, «qu'il eut lé émentpour corps, alors leurs âmes furemactivée. et[«^/«^„j dans le héros en qui elles «voient mi. leur espérance ; ils se revêtirent, dans le corps du Christ , de leur nouveau corps , et vécurent en lui , dans sa puissance. Ce furent les saints patriarche, et les prophètes, qui dans ce monde avoient été revêtus du briseur de serpent , dans la parole de Dieu , dans laquelle ils avoient prophétisé de lui , et opéré des merveilles; ce sont ces hommes là, dis-,e, qui furent alors animés de la puissance du Christ, car la puissance du Christ avoit poussé au ravei-s de la mort , et avoit réconcilié le père , dan. lequel lesamesétoient retenues prisonnières, dansl. colèrejetalorsilsentrèrent,avecleChri,t,dansl.vi. ( 324 ) ^^' ^'
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.
1in the garden of Eden, after he had clothed him with the exterior habit; there he said: See; Adam is become as one of us. The Christ was to take upon him all these ignominies, as well as all the torments into which Adam was entered. The man Christ, the hero in the combat, was to bear them alone before his celestial father; it is then that he was the lamb of God, and that, as a patient lamb, he was suspended to the cross, in our place 5 for we were eternally to 6be tortured in our begetting in cross. Then the prince of the eternal life was raised from the earth in a great patience, as a docile lamb to the slaughter; and he placed himself before his father, as if he were himself the guilty one. The gate of the great secrets, 46. Here, my dear reader, if thou art begotten of God, open widely the eyes of thy spirit, that the king of glory may enter into thee, and enlighten thy understanding: remark all the syllables; for they are of a great price; they are not mute, nor brought to the light by a blind centre. See: here are suspended to the cross God and the man; there was the holy trinity; there were the three principles 5 and the hero was combating. Now who was this combating hero? See; when the Christ had accomplished all, he said: My father, I recommend my spirit into thy hands; and he inclined his head and he expired. 47. See: to his father is the kingdom, the power and the sovereignty, all is in him, and all is his, II. %i :Sai ill ( 3»a ) CH. aSThe love is his heart, the anger is his eternal power; the love is his light, the anger his eternal darknesses, which are another principle, in which are the demons.
248 Now, the love became man 5 it clothed itself with our human soul; the soul was enlightened by the light, and she was by her root in the anger, or in the strong power of the father. Then the new man in the love recommended the soul to the father in his power, and abandoned the terrestrial body, come of the stars and of the elements, or the kingdom of this world. Then the soul was no more in the kingdom of this world, in the source of the life, but in the death; for the kingdom of this world, or the stimulant of the life, the air finally, had passed. 49. Then the soul found herself reduced to what she is herself, in her own root, in the father; and we should have remained there, in the anger, in 1 the tenebrous hell; but the father of light, in his sanctity, took the soul into himself, in a «"»'•*• 50. Then the soul was clothed with the love in the word, which rendered gracious and propitious 1. the choleric father, in the most interior source of the soul. Thus, in this twinkling of an eye, the lost paradise rose again in the essences of the soul; which made that the earth of the extra-generation of the elements trembled, and that the sun, the king of the life in the third principle, lost its splendour; «rJ'él"'* another sun in the death. Understand that, in the anger of the father, the light was shining in 1 the soul, as the clear star of the morning.
35t. Thus the body wherewith the soul of the Christ was clothed, was the pure element before God, whereof the sun of this world is begotten; and this same body enveloped the whole world: then the nature of this world trembled, and the rocks were rent 5 for the choleric death had coagulated or formed the rocks in the void; and for then the holy life entered into the choleric death, whereof the rocks were rent to testify that the life had anew resisted the death, and had flowered through the death S«. Then also the holy bodies went out of their tombs. Consider this attentively. Those who had put their confidence in the messiah, had received 1 the pure element in the promise, as a new body: and when now the promised hero entered, by the death, into the life, and when he had the element for body, then their souls were activated and«^/«^„j in the hero in whom they had put their hope; they clothed themselves, in the body of the Christ, with their new body, and lived in him, in his power. These were the holy patriarchs and the prophets, who in this world had been clothed with the bruiser of the serpent, in the word of God, in which they had prophesied of him, and operated marvels; it is these men, say I, who were then animated with the power of the Christ, for the power of the Christ had pushed through the death, and had reconciled the father, in whom the souls were held prisoners, in the anger; and then they entered, with the Christ, into the life. ( 324 ) ^^' ^'
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.