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.
1yexalloDs par lequel tu troubles les saints dans leur repos. En effet Dieu ne cesse pas de l'appeler sans cela , et ta vierge sophie te recherche avec des désirs ardens. Viens seulement ; elle est à toi , tu n'as pas besoin de lui envoyer des légats étrangers. Il n'en est pas ici comme dans les cours. Le ChrisI ne demande pas mieux que d'augmenter sans cesse son ciel dans sa joie. Pourquoi l'idée de (es péchés te retarde-t-elle si long-tems ? ne sais-lu pas que la miséricorde du seigneur est plus grande que le ciel et la terre ? que fais- tu donc ? Il n'y a rien de plus près de toi que la miséricorde de Dieu ; ce n'est que dans ta vie pécheresse et impénitente que tu es près du démon , et non pas auprès du Christ. Quelque chose que tu dises j et quand même tu lui enverrois cent mille légats, ai tu es toi-même un impie, tu n'es qu'auprès du diable , et il n'y a point de remède pour toi. Tu n'as autre chose à faire qu'à ressusciter avec le Christ , et qu'à te régénérer dans le corps de Jésus-Christ , par la vertu de l'esprit saint , dans le père , dans ta propre ame. Si tu veux célébrer une léte y fais-le pour le bénéfice et le soutien du malheureux, afin que Dieu soit loué dans ton amour, et cela sera bon. Mais quel profit feras-tu avec le riche glouton qui ne se porte là que par orgueil et par pisiveté ? Dieu ne sera pas loué là , et aussi le paradis ne croîtra pas dans de pareilles fêtes. 96. ^e te repose pas sur l'hypocrisie de l'an lechrist ^ c'est un menteur et un cupide , et de plus un séducteur. Il n'a d'autre Dieu que son ventre ; ç'çst un voleur Rêvant Pieu 3 il dévçre le pain ^ui ^^' ^^' ( 343 )
2appartient à Tindigent. C'est le limier du diable ; apprends à le bien connoître; c'est l'avis que je te donne. Car il te lue vraiment et lout-à-fait s'il engloutit ou enchaîne la volonté par ses hypocrisies et par ses feintes. 97. Puis donc que nous parlons de la vraie résurrection du Christ , nous vous exposerons ausfi son hi,ionque pendant les quarante jours après sa resurreclion , et avant son ascension. Comme nous savo„s qu',1 est devenu un vrai souverain du ciel , de i enfer et de la terre , nous vous observerons également que le royaume de ce monde avec loutes l€B essences et qualiiés ont du lui être assujétis 5 et quoiqu il n'ait pas toujours procédé d'une manière visib.e parmi ses disciples , cependant ,1 s'est souvent '«outré a eux visiblement, sensiblement et en leur iwesence selon le règne de ce monde, selon le corps qu il avoit eu ici • qui a voit été absorbé par le |»ouveau et qu'il devoit aussi rétablir. Car Dieu est ie seigneur de tous \^s êtres , et tout doit se trans- -Hier a sa volonté , par ce moyen il pouvoit montrer a ses disciples son véritable corp. dans les marque* des clous , qui , dans le saint Christ , sont dans T ' '"'" '^'P' P^"^ *'^^«^«i^é ' ^0»"»"° un signe de triomphe plu^ brillant que l'étoile du malin 38. Par là il forlifia la foible foi de .^, disciples , et leur montra qu'il étoit aussi le souverain dJ royaume de ce monde j que tout ce que nous senions bâtissons, plantons, mangeons et buvons 3i I a dans la plénitude de sa toute puissance : qu'il peut tout bénir et multiplier, qu'ainsi il n'est pLia 4k^ ( 344 ) CH. 25.
3séparé de nous 5 mais que de iiitme qu'une fleur pousse de la terre; de mcrae sa parole, son esprit , et sa puissance poussent dans toutes choses. Et si notre base affective incline vers lui , alors nous sommes bénis par lui dans le corps et Tame. Hors cela la malédiction et la colère de Dieu sont dans toutes choses , et nous mangeons de la mort dans tous les fruits. C'est pourquoi nous prions que Dieu veuille bien bciiiren Christ , notre boire et notre manger, ainsi que le corps et l'ame ; et cela est juste. 99. Secondement , nous vous rappelons que le Christ a marché pendant quarante jours sur la terre après sa résurrection , ( entendez dans le royaume de ce monde ) tandis qu'il étoil en même tems dans le ciel; mais il portoit l'image, sans clarté extérieure devant les jeux des hommes, et ilavoit entièrement le corps et tout Têlre qui fut suspendu à la croix , excepté qu'il n'avoit pas la source du principe terrestre. Mais à part cela il avoit toute l'essence en chair et en sang. El cependant la chair extérieure demeuroit dans la puissance de la chair céleste. Nous le voyous , par la manière dont il entra au milieu de ses disciples autraversdes portes fermées, et passa avec son corps autravers du bois et des pierres. Ainsi tu conçois que ce monde est devant lui comme un rien, et qu'il a la puissance sur toute chose. 100. El en outre nous t'ajoutons que ces quarante jours sont les jours d'Adam dans le paradis avant son sommeil , avant que la femme fût extraite de lui 2 et lorsqu'ilétoildans la tentation païadisiaque» CH. 25. ( 34^ )
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.
1vexations by which thou troublest the saints in their repose. In effect God ceases not to call thee without that, and thy virgin sophia seeks thee with ardent desires. Come only; she is thine, thou hast no need to send her strange legates. It is not here as in the courts. The Christ asks nothing better than to increase without ceasing his heaven in his joy. Why does the idea of thy sins retard thee so long? knowest thou not that the mercy of the lord is greater than the heaven and the earth? what doest thou then? There is nothing nearer to thee than the mercy of God; it is only in thy sinful and impenitent life that thou art near the demon, and not near the Christ. Whatever thing thou sayest; and even though thou shouldst send him a hundred thousand legates, if thou art thyself an impious man, thou art but near the devil, and there is no remedy for thee. Thou hast no other thing to do than to rise again with the Christ, and to regenerate thyself in the body of Jesus-Christ, by the virtue of the holy spirit, in the father, in thy own soul. If thou wilt celebrate a feast, do it for the benefit and the support of the unhappy, in order that God be praised in thy love, and that will be good. But what profit wilt thou make with the rich glutton who bears himself there only by pride and by idleness? God will not be praised there, and also the paradise will not grow in such feasts. 96. Rest not upon the hypocrisy of the antichrist; it is a liar and a covetous one, and moreover a seducer. It has no other God than its belly; it is a thief before God 3 it devours the bread which ^^' ^^' ( 343 )
2belongs to the indigent. It is the hound of the devil; learn to know it well; it is the advice that I give thee. For it kills thee truly and altogether if it swallows up or enchains the will by its hypocrisies and by its feints. 97. Since then we speak of the true resurrection of the Christ, we will set forth to you also his history during the forty days after his resurrection, and before his ascension. As we know that ,1 he is become a true sovereign of the heaven, of hell and of the earth, we will observe to you equally that the kingdom of this world with all the essences and qualities must have been subjected to him 5 and although he has not always proceeded in a visible manner among his disciples, nevertheless ,1 he has often shown himself to them visibly, sensibly and in their presence according to the reign of this world, according to the body that he had had here, which had been absorbed by the new and which he was to re-establish also. For God is the lord of all beings, and all must transform itself to his will, by this means he could show to his disciples his true body in the marks of the nails, which, in the holy Christ, are in T ' '"'" '^'P' P^"^ *'^^«^«i^é ' ^0»"»"° a sign of triumph more brilliant than the star of the morning 38. Thereby he fortified the feeble faith of his disciples, and showed them that he was also the sovereign of the kingdom of this world; that all that we sow, build, plant, eat and drink 3i I a in the plenitude of his omnipotence: that he can bless and multiply all, that thus he is no more 4k^ ( 344 ) CH. 25.
3separated from us 5 but that even as a flower pushes out of the earth; even so his word, his spirit, and his power push in all things. And if our affective base inclines toward him, then we are blessed by him in the body and the soul. Outside that the malediction and the anger of God are in all things, and we eat of the death in all the fruits. It is why we pray that God will bless in Christ, our drink and our eating, as well as the body and the soul; and that is just. 99. Secondly, we recall to you that the Christ walked during forty days upon the earth after his resurrection, ( understand in the kingdom of this world ) whilst he was at the same time in the heaven; but he bore the image, without exterior clearness before the eyes of men, and he had entirely the body and all the being which was suspended to the cross, except that he had not the source of the terrestrial principle. But apart from that he had all the essence in flesh and in blood. And nevertheless the exterior flesh remained in the power of the celestial flesh. We see it, by the manner in which he entered in the midst of his disciples through the closed doors, and passed with his body through the wood and the stones. Thus thou conceivest that this world is before him as a nothing, and that he has the power over every thing. 100. And besides we add thee that these forty days are the days of Adam in the paradise before his sleep, before the woman was extracted from him 2 and when he was in the paradisiacal temptation CH. 25. ( 34^ )
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.