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.
168. Il en est ainsi dans les anges qui sont de* meures dans le royaume céleste , dans le véritable paradis ; ils demeurent dans le premier principe , dans l'alliance indissoluble , et leur nourriture est la puissance divine ^ leur imagination , ou les tableaux qu'ils se forment sont la volonté de la sainte triplicité dans la divinité ; la confirmation de leur volonté, de leur vie, et de leurs actes est la puissance de l'esprit saint. Ce qu'il opère dans la génération du paradis , cela fait leur joie ; ils chantent les louanges du paradis , au sujet de ses fruits salutaires , et de l'éternelle génération. Toute leur oeuvre est un accroissement de la joie céleste , un attract du cœur de Dieu , de saints amusemens dans le paradis , une volonté du père éternel. La fin pour laquelle Dieu les a créés, c'est pour qu'il fût manifesté , et qu'il se réjouît dans ses créatures et les créatures en lui , afin que les aimables et éternels jeux du royaume de joie se trouvassent ainsi dans l'alliance indissolube , dans le centre de la multiplication , ou dans l'éternelle nature. 69. Ce saint jeu d'amour a été souillé par Lucifer lui-même ( ainsi nommé depuis l'extinction de sa lumière, et le renversement de son trône, ayant été un prince et un roi de plusieurs légions 5 ) il est devenu un démon , et il a perdu sa belle et glorieuse image. Car il est aussi bien que les autres anges , créé de l'éternelle nature , de l'éternelle et indissoluble alliance , et il a été dans le paradis ; il a aussi senti et vu Tengendrement de la sainte divinité , Pengendrement du second principe, ou du CR. 4. ( ^9 ) cœur de Dieu , et la confirmation de l'esprit saint , il s'étoit nourri aussi du verbe de Dieu,el par cette nourriture il seroit demeuré un ange.
270. Mais comme il vit qu'il étoit un prince existant dans le premier principe , il méprisa la génération du cœur de Dieu , et sa douce et gracieuse influence , et il se proposa d'être un puissant et terrible dominateur dans le premier principe ; il voulut opérer dans la puissance du feu ; il dédaigna la douceur du cœur de Dieu dans laquelle son imagination ne voulut point s'établir. C'est pourquoi il ne lui fut plus possible de se nourrir de la parole de Dieu , et par-là il éteignit sa lumière : par cette raison il produisit à l'instant un dégoût dans le paradis et fut rejeté de son trône de prince , avec toutes les légions qui dépendoient de lui. 71. Et comme il avoit laissé le cœur de Dieu s'éloigner de lui , le second principe lui fut fermé. Ainsi il perdit Dieu , le royaume céleste , toutes les connoissances , toutes les joies et les délices paradisiaques ; il perdit aussi à l'instant l'image de Dieu , et la confirmation de l'esprit saint. Comme il méprisa le second principe dans lequel il avoit été ange et image de Dieu , tout s'éloigna de lui -, il demeura dans la vallée ténébreuse , et son imaginative n'eut plus le pouvoir de s'élever en Dieu , mais elle resta dans les quatre angoisses de l'éternelle origine. 72. Quand il éleva son imagination , il alluma en lui la source ou la racine du feu ; et lorsque la racine du feu chercha l'eau , ou la vraie mère de l't'lernclle nature , elle rencontra la sévère aslrinlî ( 60 ) CH. 4*
3gence et la mère dans la. mort angoîsseuse. L'ai- -guillon amer transforma l'engendrement en un serpent colérique et tempêtant , vraiment terrible , s'élevant en soi-même, élant une élernelle inimitié dans l'alliance indissoluble , une opposition en soimême 5 un perpétuel doute de tout bien ; sa base affective cherchant toujours à être comme une roue brisante, empiétante ; sa volonté s'élèvant toujours vers la puissance du feu , pour souiller le cœur de Dieu, et cependant ne le pouvant jamais atteindre. 73. En effet, il est continuellement renfermé dans le premier principe comme dans une mort éternelle ; et cependant il s'élève toujours ; se flattant d'atteindre le cœur de Dieu , et de le dominer. Car son aiguillon amer dans la génération monte ainsi éternellement dans la source de feu , et lui donne l'orgueilleuse volonté de tout posséder , mais ils n'obtient rien. Sa nourriture est la source d'eau très angoîsseuse , qui est la mère , ou comme Pesprit de souffre. Voilà ce dont se nourrit son alliance indissoluble. Son rafraichissement est l'éternel feu ; une éternelle froidure dans la mère astringente ; une éternelle faim dans l'amertume ; une soif élernelle dans la source de feu ; son ascension est sa descension. Plus il s'élève en volonté , plus sa chute est grande , comme quelqu'un qui se tenant sur le sommet d'un rocher , voudroit je jet 1er dans un abîme sans fond 5 plus il perce dans cet abîme plus sa chute est profonde , et cependant il ne trouve aucun fond. 7i. Ainsi le démon est un éternel ennemi da en. 4. ( 61 )
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.
168. It is thus with the angels who have remained in the celestial kingdom, in the veritable paradise; they dwell in the first principle, in the indissoluble alliance, and their nourishment is the divine power; their imagination, or the pictures they form for themselves, is the will of the holy triplicity in the divinity; the confirmation of their will, of their life, and of their acts is the power of the holy spirit. What it operates in the generation of paradise, that makes their joy; they sing the praises of paradise, on the subject of its salutary fruits, and of the eternal generation. All their work is an increase of the celestial joy, an attraction of the heart of God, holy amusements in paradise, a will of the eternal father. The end for which God created them is that he might be manifested, and that he might rejoice in his creatures and the creatures in him, in order that the lovable and eternal games of the kingdom of joy might thus be found in the indissoluble alliance, in the centre of the multiplication, or in the eternal nature. 69. That holy game of love was defiled by Lucifer himself ( so named since the extinction of his light, and the overthrow of his throne, having been a prince and a king of several legions 5 ); he became a demon, and he lost his fair and glorious image. For he is as well as the other angels created of the eternal nature, of the eternal and indissoluble alliance, and he was in paradise; he also felt and saw the begetting of the holy divinity, the begetting of the second principle, or of the CR. 4. ( ^9 ) heart of God, and the confirmation of the holy spirit; he had nourished himself also of the verb of God, and by that nourishment he would have remained an angel.
270. But as he saw that he was a prince existing in the first principle, he despised the generation of the heart of God, and its sweet and gracious influence, and he proposed to himself to be a powerful and terrible dominator in the first principle; he would operate in the power of the fire; he disdained the sweetness of the heart of God wherein his imagination would not establish itself. It is why it was no longer possible for him to nourish himself of the word of God, and thereby he extinguished his light: for that reason he produced on the instant a disgust in paradise and was cast from his throne of prince, with all the legions which depended upon him. 71. And as he had let the heart of God remove from him, the second principle was closed to him. Thus he lost God, the celestial kingdom, all the knowledges, all the paradisiac joys and delights; he lost also on the instant the image of God, and the confirmation of the holy spirit. As he despised the second principle wherein he had been angel and image of God, all removed from him; he remained in the tenebrous valley, and his imaginative had no longer the power to raise itself into God, but it remained in the four anguishes of the eternal origin. 72. When he raised his imagination, he kindled in himself the source or the root of the fire; and when the root of the fire sought the water, or the true mother of the eternal nature, it met the severe astrin- ( 60 ) CH. 4*
3gency and the mother in anguishing death. The bitter sting transformed the begetting into a choleric and storming serpent, truly terrible, rising in itself, being an eternal enmity in the indissoluble alliance, an opposition in itself 5 a perpetual doubt of all good; its affective base seeking always to be like a breaking, encroaching wheel; its will rising always towards the power of the fire, to defile the heart of God, and nevertheless never being able to reach it. 73. In effect, he is continually shut up in the first principle as in an eternal death; and nevertheless he rises always, flattering himself that he attains the heart of God, and dominates it. For his bitter sting in the generation mounts thus eternally into the source of fire, and gives him the proud will to possess all, but he obtains nothing. His nourishment is the very anguishing source of water, which is the mother, or like the spirit of sulphur. That is what his indissoluble alliance nourishes itself with. His refreshment is the eternal fire; an eternal coldness in the astringent mother; an eternal hunger in the bitterness; an eternal thirst in the source of fire; his ascension is his descension. The more he rises in will, the greater is his fall, like one who, holding himself upon the summit of a rock, would cast himself1 into a bottomless abyss 5 the more he pierces into that abyss the deeper is his fall, and nevertheless he finds no bottom. 7i. Thus the demon is an eternal enemy of the en. 4. ( 61 )
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.