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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.
124. Lorsque Dieu s'est mu dans la première ma* trJce pour la création des anges , il lésa créés dans le paradis , dans la sainte et lumineuse matrice qui vraiment est telle , et non autre. Or , cette matrice est restée entièrement cachée avec son pouvoir igné, ténébreux , astringent et amer. Car , la lumière de Dieu l'a de toute éternité , maintenue aimable, claire , et délectable. Mais lorsque Dieu s'est mu pour la création , elle a été manifestée , car , les anges ont été créés de l'alliance indissoluble , de la matrice , et corporisés par le bouillonnant esprit de Dieu. 25. Or , lorsque Dieu eut créé les grands et puissans princes angéliques , et cela dans le lieu de la quatrième forme dans la matrice , où la source du feu s'originise, ils n'y sont pas restés , et n'ont point porté leur imagination devant eux dans la cinquième forme dans laquelle se trouve V engendrement du paradis , mais ils ont élevé en eux-mêmes leur imagination en arrière , et ont créé dans la matrice , une volonté do dominer dans le feu sur le paradis et la lumière de Dieu. Car, la matrice ignée, ou l'abîme infernal s'est mu ainsi âprement dans la création ; c'est là que Lucifer , le grand prince , a puisé sa volonté et y a persévéré, se proposant d'être lui-même ainsi un grand et terrible souverain dans tout soa domaine. 26. Ainsi j le démon a remué la matrice , et la forme ignée a remué le démon ; car , elle vouloit être aussi créaturelte comme toules les formes dans la matrice , là où, dans une luraièrp douce et claire, s'élève la gracieuse source de l'amour dans laquelle liabite le second principe éternellement.
227. Lorsque cette tempête arriva dans la création , dans le premier principe , la matrice fut très gonflée et très enflammée , et chaque forme travailla dans la matrice. Mais comme alors , la colère et la fureur s'élevèrent , et que ce lieu ne pouvoit subsister ainsi dans le paradis , Dieu remua encore plus fort ce lieu dans la matrice , qui devint encore plus enflammée 5 cela devint le bain du démon , et la quatrième forme resta dans l'éclair de feu , qui se refléchit en arrière dans la mère , et trouva l'esprit da Dieu en opération , et à l'instant sa qualité colérique se perdit dans une grande joie , et devint blanche , claire et lumineuse. 28. Et , à ce même lieu , se trouve le fiât par le<^ quel Dieu a créé le ciel et la terre. Car , avant le fiât ^ le troisième principe n'étoit pas manifesté , mais seulement le paradis dans le lieu de ce monde. 29. Mais , lorsque Dieu vit que le grand prince Lucifer vouloit dominer dans ce lieu , dans la puis" sance du feu , dans la matrice ; il lui ferma la cinquième forme dans la matrice du paradis ; car , il est également emprisonné quant à sa forme hitélieure et quant à sa forifie extérieure. 30. Car , lorsque la matrice fut devenue de nouveau souple j morte ^ et soumise par la lumière as^ CH. 5. ( 7^ )
3cendante , elle se tourna matériellement en eau ) comme nous le voyons à présent 5 et dans cet enflammement , avant la lumière du soleil , lorsque la matrice étoit encore dans la dure colère , la matrice a attiré en esprit d'eau tout ce qui avoit été opéré ; de-là sont venus les rochers et les pierres , et la terre ténébreuse qui avant le tems de la création n'étoit qu'un calios. A celte même heure^le troisième principe et le ciel igné , sortirent dans la cinquième forme de la matrice , par le fiât que Dieu le père prononça par son cœur , ou son fils ( c'est-à-dire ) , par et dans l'explosion de son esprit qui convoit snr la matrice , et ce fiât produisit dans la cinquième forme le ciel igné dans la matrice , comme Moïse l'expose clairement. Car, la matrice est dans l'origine l'esprit d'eau dans la première forme, et lorsr qu'elle devint matérielle dans le lieu de ce monde , l'esprit couva sur l'eau dans la matrice céleste , qui maintenant est matérielle ( d'où est provenue l'eau matérielle ) , et forma les créatures, 3i. Ainsi , par cette explosion de la matrice matérielle , la colère a été de nouveau éteinte et est revenue en sa place , et le démon est demeuré à l'origine de la matrice ténébreuse , et a été jeté par la création de la terre hors de son haut siège ( où est maintenant le ciel étoile igné ) , ce qui ne peut être changé dans l'éternité. W»^^»** ^^ ^^«^^^^i^^i"»^ (76) CHAPITRE SIXIEME. De la séparation dans la création en trois principes.
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.
124. When God moved himself in the first matrix for the creation of the angels, he created them in paradise, in the holy and luminous matrix which truly is such, and not otherwise. Now, that matrix remained entirely hidden with its igneous, tenebrous, astringent and bitter power. For, the light of God has from all eternity maintained it lovable, clear, and delectable. But when God moved himself for the creation, it was manifested, for the angels were created of the indissoluble alliance, of the matrix, and corporised by the boiling spirit of God. 25. Now, when God had created the great and powerful angelic princes, and that in the place of the fourth form in the matrix, where the source of the fire originises itself, they remained not there, and carried not their imagination before them into the fifth form wherein is found the begetting of paradise, but they raised in themselves their imagination backward, and created in the matrix a will to dominate in the fire over paradise and the light of God. For, the igneous matrix, or the infernal abyss moved itself thus harshly in the creation; it is there that Lucifer, the great prince, drew his will and persevered in it, proposing to himself to be thus himself a great and terrible sovereign in all his domain. 26. Thus the demon stirred the matrix, and the igneous form stirred the demon; for, it would be also creaturely like all the forms in the matrix, there where, in a sweet and clear light, rises the gracious source of love wherein the second principle dwells eternally.
227. When that tempest arrived in the creation, in the first principle, the matrix was much swollen and much inflamed, and each form laboured in the matrix. But as then the anger and the fury rose, and as that place could not subsist thus in paradise, God stirred yet more strongly that place in the matrix, which became yet more inflamed 5 that became the bath of the demon, and the fourth form remained in the flash of fire, which reflected itself backward into the mother, and found the spirit of God in operation, and on the instant its choleric quality lost itself in a great joy, and became white, clear and luminous. 28. And, at that same place, is found the fiat by which God created the heaven and the earth. For, before the fiat, the third principle was not manifested, but only paradise in the place of this world. 29. But, when God saw that the great prince Lucifer would dominate in that place, in the power of the fire, in the matrix, he closed to him the fifth form in the matrix of paradise; for, he is equally imprisoned as to his interior form and as to his exterior form. 30. For, when the matrix was become anew supple, dead, and subdued by the ascending light, CH. 5. ( 7^ )
3it turned itself materially into water, as we see at present 5 and in that inflaming, before the light of the sun, when the matrix was still in the hard anger, the matrix drew into spirit of water all that had been operated; thence came the rocks and the stones, and the tenebrous earth which before the time of the creation was but a chaos. At that same hour the third principle and the igneous heaven issued in the fifth form of the matrix, by the fiat which God the father pronounced by his heart, or his son ( that is to say ), by and in the explosion of his spirit which brooded upon the matrix, and that fiat produced in the fifth form the igneous heaven in the matrix, as Moses sets it forth clearly. For, the matrix is in the origin the spirit of water in the first form, and when it became material in the place of this world, the spirit brooded upon the water in the celestial matrix, which now is material ( whence proceeded the material water ), and formed the creatures. 3i. Thus, by that explosion of the material matrix, the anger has been anew extinguished and is returned into its place, and the demon has remained at the origin of the tenebrous matrix, and was cast by the creation of the earth out of his high seat ( where now is the igneous starry heaven ), which cannot be changed in eternity. W»^^»** ^^ ^^«^^^^i^^i"»^ (76) CHAPTER THE SIXTH. Of the separation in the creation into three principles.
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.