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.
1I. Oi maintenant , on considère la séparation et rexplosion dans le troisième principe de ce monde , comment est sorti le ciel étoile , comment chaque étoile a en soi une forme et une propriété particulière, oîi l'on remarque dans chacune un centre parliculier , de façon qu'ainsi chacune est fixe et son propre régulateur^ et que chacune domine dans la matrice de ce monde , inqualifie et engendre selon le genre qu'elle a dans la matrice -, si nous considérons ensuite le soleil qui est leur roi , leur cœur et leur vie^ sans la lumière et la puissance duquel elles ne pourroient opérer aucune œuvre , mais demeureroient dans l'âpre et ténébreuse mort , et ne seroient, dans ce monde, rien autre chose qu'une rude astringence colérique ; si , en outre, nous regardons les élémens , le feu , l'air et l'eau , comment ils s'engendrent sans cesse l'un dans l'autre , et comment la constellation domine là comme dans son domaine , et que nous contemplions la mère d'où proviennent toutes ces choses , alors nous arrivons à la séparation et à l'éternelle mère , la génératrice de toutes choses. CB. 6. Xt! h
2a. Et en effet, nous aurions clairement ceci devant les yeux, dans nous-mêmes, et dans toutes choses si nous n'étions pas insensés, aveugles et opiniâtres, et que nous ne nous laissassions pas mener comme des écoliers , mais que nous nous attachassions au maître qui est le maître des maîtres. Car nous voyons que tout ceci sort de l'éternel mère ; que telle qu'elle est dans son éternelle génération , tel aussi elle a engendré ce monde, et qu'aussi de cette même manière chaque créature est engendrée ; et de même que dans son explosion elle est en un© multiplication , dans laquelle chaque source a de nouveau en soi un centre de la génératrice , et une distinction , mais non une séparation les unes des autres ; de même aussi ce monde est né de l'éternelle mère ; il est aussi maintenant une génératrice semblable à rélernelle mère et non séparée d'elle ', mais cette génératrice est provenue d'une manière matérielle , et a reçu par le soleil une autre lumière et une autre vie , qui n'est pas le sage maître luimême; mais le sage maître qui est Dieu la contient, de manière qu'elle est dans l'éternelle matrice, et cependant n'est pas l'éternelle sagesse elle-même. 3. Puisque cette génération a un commencement par la volonté de Dieu , et retourne dans son Ether , elle n'a pas la puissance de la sagesse , mais elle bâtit sans cesse selon son mode. Elle vivifie , et elle tue : elle produit , selon que cela se rencontre , le méchant , le tortu , le boiteux , ou bien le bon , le beau, le puissant ; elle donne la vie et la mort. Elle donne la puissance et la force , et elle la brise en^ f 7^ y en, e:
3suite , el cela sans une sagesse préméditée ; d'où il est clair qu'elle n'est point la prévision et la sagesse divine elles-mêmes, comme les payens l'annoncent, et se sont imprudemment extasiés , sur la puissance [ûfe cetee nature rnatérielle ]. • 4. Si nous voulons donc voir sa base, nous n'avons qu'à contempler la première mère dans sa gé*- nération , alors nous verrons et nous trouverons tout. Car de même que la première mère ( en nous souvenant comment elle est dans l'origine sans la lumière) est astringente, ténébreuse, dure, froide, et est cependant dans la génération de l'esprit d'eau; de même aussi on trouvera comment ce monde matériel est provenu lorsque Dieu créa au premier jour le ciel et la terre. 5. Or , le ciel vient de la matrice astringente laquelle dans le paradis est l'esprit d'eau , c'est de ce paradisiaque ciel que le ciel a été créé comme l'écrit Moïse : que le ciel a été créé au milieu des eaux ; et cela fut bien. A cette même heure la terre , les pierres , ainsi que tous les métaux naquirent à la fois de cette matrice, tandis que la matrice de ce monde étoit encore ténébreuse. 6. Car lorsque la matrice fut mue', et qne le prince Lucifer voulut dominer dans le feu, l'astringente ténébreuse matrice attira à la fois tout ce qui s'étoit opéré dans l'engendrement j c'est de laque sont venus la terre , les pierres , les métaux , le souffre , et )e sel. Le trône du prince Lucifer lui fut fermé par là , et pour lui il resta dans le centre intérieur , pri-^ «osipier dans l'extérieur:. eu. 6. ( 79 ) . 7. Mais pour que ces choses pussent s'opérer dans la matrice , c'est la puissance qui est dans la matrice qui en fut le mobile 5 car une pierre n'est autre chose qu'une eau , un mercure , un sel , et un souf* fre dans lesquels il y a une huile cachée»
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.
1I. IF now one considers the separation and the explosion in the third principle of this world, how the starry heaven issued, how each star has in itself a particular form and property, where one remarks in each a particular centre, so that thus each is fixed and its own regulator, and that each dominates in the matrix of this world, inqualifies and begets according to the kind it has in the matrix; if we consider next the sun which is their king, their heart and their life, without the light and the power of which they could operate no work, but would remain in the harsh and tenebrous death, and would be, in this world, nothing else than a rude choleric astringency; if, moreover, we look at the elements, the fire, the air and the water, how they beget themselves without cease the one in the other, and how the constellation dominates there as in its domain, and if we contemplate the mother whence proceed all these things, then we arrive at the separation and at the eternal mother, the generatrix of all things. CB. 6. Xt! h
2a. And in effect, we should have this clearly before the eyes, in ourselves, and in all things, if we were not senseless, blind and obstinate, and if we let ourselves not be led like schoolboys, but attached ourselves to the master who is the master of masters. For we see that all this issues from the eternal mother; that such as she is in her eternal generation, such also has she begotten this world, and that also in that same manner each creature is begotten; and even as in her explosion she is in a multiplication, wherein each source has anew in itself a centre of the generatrix, and a distinction, but not a separation the ones from the others; even so also this world is born of the eternal mother; it is also now a generatrix like the eternal mother and not separated from her; but that generatrix proceeded in a material manner, and received by the sun another light and another life, which is not the wise master himself; but the wise master who is God contains her, so that she is in the eternal matrix, and nevertheless is not the eternal wisdom herself. 3. Since that generation has a beginning by the will of God, and returns into its Ether, it has not the power of wisdom, but it builds without cease according to its mode. It vivifies, and it kills: it produces, according as that is met with, the wicked, the crooked, the lame, or else the good, the fair, the powerful; it gives life and death. It gives the power and the force, and it breaks it after- f 7^ y en, e:
3wards, and that without a premeditated wisdom; whence it is clear that she is not the divine foresight and wisdom themselves, as the pagans announce, and have imprudently gone into ecstasies upon the power [of that material nature ]. 4. If we would then see her base, we have only to contemplate the first mother in her generation, then we shall see and we shall find all. For even as the first mother ( remembering how she is in the origin without the light ) is astringent, tenebrous, hard, cold, and is nevertheless in the generation of the spirit of water; even so also one will find how this material world proceeded when God created on the first day the heaven and the earth. 5. Now, the heaven comes from the astringent matrix which in paradise is the spirit of water; it is of that paradisiac heaven that the heaven was created as Moses writes: that the heaven was created in the midst of the waters; and that was good. At that same hour the earth, the stones, as well as all the metals were born at once of that matrix, whilst the matrix of this world was still tenebrous. 6. For when the matrix was moved, and the prince Lucifer would dominate in the fire, the astringent tenebrous matrix drew at once all that had operated in the begetting; it is thence that came the earth, the stones, the metals, the sulphur, and the salt. The throne of the prince Lucifer was closed to him thereby, and for him he remained in the interior centre, prisoner in the exterior. eu. 6. ( 79 ) . 7. But in order that these things might operate in the matrix, it is the power which is in the matrix which was the mover of them 5 for a stone is nothing else than a water, a mercury, a salt, and a sulphur wherein there is a hidden oil.
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.