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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.
161. Vois, lorsqu'Adam entra dans ce monde, il fut dès lors aux {irises avec l'orgueil. Il vouloit être égal à Dieu , comme Moïse dit que le serpent , le démon le lui suggéra. Il vouloit ouvrir en soi trois principes en bouillonnement, en source. Par là il perdit Dieu et le royaume du ciel. Mais quanta ce qu'il est vrai que l'orgueil le travailla , considère Caïn , qui vouloit seul être souverain ; il ne vouloit pas quo son frère Abel fut accueilli de Dieu, danslacrainte qu'il n'obtint la domination 5 c'est pourquoi il le tua. 62. Ainsi Caïn et ses successeurs ont bâti un puissant règne , d'où dérive le despotisme , en aorte qu'un frère s'élève toujours au-dessu& de l'autre , et en fait son esclave. Là se trouve aussi l'effroyable tyrannie par laquelle le puissant a fait tout ce qui lui plaisoit. Il a opprimé le misérable à sa volonté ; il a attiré à soi le règne de la terre , et il exerce par là la tyrannie et la fourberie, et encore ne faut-il pas lui dire que cela est injuste. Il a inventé toutes les subtilités ; il s'en est fait un droit j il \e^ a vendues aux autres comme étant la justice , et a élevé ses enfans dans la fourberie. Il a détruitla conscience et la bonne affection dans P homme simple 5 il a inventé des droits qui circulent dans ses lois selon son impulsion,et qui sont contraires à la lu mière de la nature. C'est par la calomnie qu'il a étabU sa en. iS» (328 ) force. Par là il a effrayé le simple ; visant toujours ^ ce que sa puissance devînt plus graude.
263. Ainsi la fausseté a produit la fausseté , et l'inférieur aussi est devenu faux. Au lieu de la vérité, c'est le mensonge qui a été sa monnoie ; il a fausse^ ment aussi trompé ses supérieurs, d'où sont résultée des juremens, des malédictions^ des vols, des meurtres , en sorte que l'un regarde l'autre comme un faussaire et un trompeur , comme un menteur et un injuste ; car ils le sont en effet , et ils ont changé des paroles contre des paroles. Far là , les uns et les autres , soit par leurs mensonges , soit par leurs vérités , ils se sont transmis » ou préparé le sel amer du démon qui est dans la colère de Dieu ; eu sorte que le nom de Dieu a été blasphémé et prophané , et que le monde est reconnu dans la colèro de Dieu , pour être une fosse de mort. 64. Toutefois il devoit naître de ce peuple injuslQ ^ne race ou une génération pour le royaume du ciel, et il n'y avoit aucun vivant sur la terre qui ne fût souillé par ces vices. Peut-être que nous , qui avions du repentir et de la souffrance par rapport à cette fâcheuse bête rapportée ci - dessus , et qui désirions de sortir de ces vices , nous aurions eu dans l'amour de Dieu la possibilité de revenir de pouveau en faveur devant Dieu. Mais à la vérité non pas autrement qu'en ce même Christ ; et nous voyons en outre journellement parmi les chrétiens régénérés , que le vieux corps terrestre est enfoncé dans de semblables méchancetés , et que quoique cii. 25. ( 329 )
3nous voulussions bien en sortir entièrement , cependant nous ne le pouvons pas ; car la colère nous tient prisonniers dans le vieil homme : or dans ceci Je démon est le maître. II pousse souvent les corps par, l'esprit de ce monde, dans de funestes vices que l'homme ne s'étoil pas proposés auparavant ; car la méchanceté des impies enflamme, par leurs malédictions et leurs faussetés , la colère du vieil homme, et cela quand bien même il seroit né de Dieu intérieurement , ce qui fait qu'il n'est pas connu. 65. C'est pourquoi comme notre fausseté et nos injustices ainsi que nos vices sont tous devant Dieuj qu'ils brillent dans la teinture , et que nous ne pouvions pas nous délivrer d'un pareil mal , alors Christ a chargé sur lui toutes nos humiliations ; il s'est laissé juger et regarder comme un possédé du démon , comme un sorcier , un imposteur et un trompeur , comme voulant usurper la couronne impériale , ainsi que les grands prêtres l'en accusoient faussement ; il s'est laissé railler , flageller , frapper a la face, conspuer et couronner ironiquement d'une couronne d'épines 5 et comme sur la terre nous ne nous communiquons les uns avec les antres que des faussetés; que par là lepuissant fait ce qu'il veut, pour satisfaire sa colère 5 que nous nous nuisons les uns aux autres par des méchancetés , des dédains , des railleries , et en nous envoyant à Satan , pour nous enlever les uns aux autres l'honneur et le bien par fourberie j ainsi il falloit bien que le Christ prît tout cela sur soi. ( 350 ) CH. 25.
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.
161. See, when Adam entered into this world, he was from thenceforth at grips with the pride. He would be equal to God, as Moses says that the serpent, the demon suggested it to him. He would open in himself three principles in boiling, in source. Thereby he lost God and the kingdom of heaven. But as to that it is true that the pride worked him, consider Cain, who would be sole sovereign; he would not that his brother Abel should be accepted of God, in the fear that he should obtain the domination 5 it is why he killed him. 62. Thus Cain and his successors have built a powerful reign, whence derives the despotism, so that a brother raises himself always above the other, and makes of him his slave. There is found also the frightful tyranny by which the powerful has done all that pleased him. He has oppressed the miserable at his will; he has drawn to himself the reign of the earth, and he exercises thereby the tyranny and the knavery, and still one must not tell him that that is unjust. He has invented all the subtleties; he has made of them a right; he has sold them to others as being the justice, and has raised his children in the knavery. He has destroyed the conscience and the good affection in the simple man 5 he has invented rights which circulate in his laws according to his impulsion, and which are contrary to the light of the nature. It is by the calumny that he has established his en. iS» (328 ) force. Thereby he has affrighted the simple; aiming always at that his power should become greater.
263. Thus the falsehood has produced the falsehood, and the inferior also is become false. Instead of the truth, it is the lie which has been his money; he has falsely also deceived his superiors, whence have resulted oaths, maledictions, thefts, murders, so that the one regards the other as a forger and a deceiver, as a liar and an unjust man; for they are so in effect, and they have changed words against words. Thereby, the one and the other, whether by their lies, or by their truths, they have transmitted to themselves, or prepared the bitter salt of the demon which is in the anger of God; so that the name of God has been blasphemed and profaned, and that the world is recognised in the anger of God, to be a pit of death. 64. However there was to be born of this unjust people a race or a generation for the kingdom of heaven, and there was no living being upon the earth who was not soiled by these vices. Perhaps that we, who had repentance and suffering in respect of this troublesome beast reported above, and who desired to go out of these vices, we should have had in the love of God the possibility of returning anew into favour before God. But in truth not otherwise than in this same Christ; and we see besides daily among the regenerated christians, that the old terrestrial body is sunk in like wickednesses, and that although cii. 25. ( 329 )
3we would well go out of them entirely, nevertheless we cannot; for the anger holds us prisoners in the old man: now in this the demon is the master. He pushes often the bodies by the spirit of this world, into fatal vices that the man had not proposed to himself before; for the wickedness of the impious enkindles, by their maledictions and their falsehoods, the anger of the old man, and that even though he were born of God interiorly, which makes that he is not known. 65. It is why as our falsehood and our injustices as well as our vices are all before God; as they shine in the tincture, and as we could not deliver ourselves from such an evil, then Christ has charged upon him all our humiliations; he has let himself be judged and regarded as one possessed of the demon, as a sorcerer, an impostor and a deceiver, as willing to usurp the imperial crown, according as the high priests falsely accused him of it; he has let himself be mocked, scourged, struck in the face, spit upon and crowned ironically with a crown of thorns 5 and as upon the earth we communicate to one another nothing but falsehoods; as thereby the powerful does what he wills, to satisfy his anger 5 as we hurt one another by wickednesses, by disdains, by railleries, and by sending one another to Satan, to take from one another the honour and the goods by knavery; thus it was needful that the Christ should take all that upon himself. ( 350 ) CH. 25.
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.