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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.
116. C'est pourquoi, toi, homme, qui es un être si élevé , ne te laisse pas jouer par le démon et par Tanlechrist , qui veut éloigner de toi la divinité , et <e figure un ciel fort distant de toi. Il n'y a rien de plus près de toi que le ciel ; seulement tu restes devant la porte du ciel , et tu es passé avec Adam , du ciel paradisiaque dans le troisième principe. Cependant tu es devant la porte. Ne peux-tu agir comme réternelle mère qui, par un grand désir et son ardeur pour Dieu, est devenue Je royaume du ciel danslequel Dieu demeure , ef dans lequel le paradis se manifeste? Fais-en de même. Pose tous tes désirs dans le cœur de Dieu. Si tu pénètres avec puissance comme l'éternelle mère de la nature , alors il l'arrivera ce que le Christ dit: Le royaume du ciel souffre ifiolence , et ceux qui lui font violence V emportent. Ainsi tu te feras des amis dans le ciel avec les richesses injustes , et tu seras réellement l'image de Dieu , sa similitude , et sa propriété. Car, eu toi , sont tous les trois principes dès l'éternité , et de nouveau en toi sera engendré le saint paradis oii Dieu demeure. Où veux - tu donc aller chercher Dieu ? Ne le cherche que dans ton ame qui est de la nature éternelle , dans laquelle est le divin en^ gendrem.ent. 17. Hélas! que n'ai -je une plume digne à^un homme , et que ne puis-je tracer l'esprit de la conïjoissancc î II faut toutefois que je bégaye sur ces ,. CH. 7. ( g3 )
2grands mystères , comme un enfant qui apprend à marcher. Car , la langue terrestre ne sauroit exprimer ce que l'esprit saisit et comprend ; ainsi je veux le hasarder pour savoir si je pourrai en exciter quelques uns à chercher la perle par laquelle j'opère aussi l'œuvre de Dieu , dans mon paradisiaque jardin de roses. Car, l'attract de l'éternelle matrice me pousse aussi à écrire et à employer ainsi mes conjioissances. 18. Si donc nous voulons élever notre esprit , et chercher le ciel dans lequel Dieu demeure , nous ne pouvons pas dire que Dieu n'habitequ'au-dessusdes étoiles , et se soit ainsi enfermé dans une forteresse qui ait été faite d'eau, où personne ne puisse entrer à moins qu'o» ne la lui ouvre ; lesquelles pensées égarent entièrement les hommes. Nous ne pouvons pas dire non plus , comme plusieurs le présument , que Dieu le père,aiusi que le fils,soient avec les anges dans un ciel supérieur et enclos , et ne régissent alors ce monde - ci que par l'esprit saint qui procède du père et du fils. Toutes ces pensées n'ofirent point une vraie connoissance de Dieu. Car alors Dieu seroit partagé , et circonscriptible comme le soleil qui se meut en haut au-dessus de nous , et répand sa vertu et sa lumière sur nous , afin qu'ainsi toute la profondeur soit lumineuse , et par-tout en activité. 19. Ces sortes de pensées égarent étrangement la raison , et le royaume 4e l'antechrist est engendré dans ces pensées. L'antechrist , par le moyen de ces opinions , s'est mis à la place de Dieu , et s'est persuadé qu'il seroit un Dieu sur la terre ; il lui a prèsI ( 9^ ) *^«- 7crîl la limite de sa puissance divine , il a fermé la bouche à l'esprit de Dieu , et n'a pas voulu Teatendre parler.
330, Ainsi de grandes erreurs se montrent, en sorte que plusieurs croient à l'esprit de mensonge qui parle dans d'hypocrites et puissantes illusions , et égare les enfans de l'espérance , comme le témoigne Saint-Paul. ai. Le vrai ciel où Dieu demeure, estpar-tout , en tout lieu , ainsi qu'au milieu de la terre. Il comprend l'enfer où le démon demeure , et il n'y a rien hors de Dieu. Car , là où il étoit avant la création du monde , il y est encore , c'est-à-dire , en soimême , et il est lui - même l'essence des essences. Tout est engendré de lui et dérive de lui , et c'esk pour cela qu'il s'appelle Dieu , en sorte qu'il est seul le bien , le cœur ou ce qu'il y a de meilleur , c'est-à-dire , la lumière et la puissance d'où la nature dérive. 22. Si tu veux donc considérer Dieu , représentetoi les éternelles ténèbres qui sont hors de Dieu , car Dieu demeure en soi-même, et rien ne peut,par une puissance particulière,le saisir ; ces ténèbres ont un grand attrait pour la lumière puisque la lumière se mire dans les ténèbres , et brille en soi.Et dans ces mêmes ténèbres ou dans le désir , tu trouveras la source. Or,la source saisit la puissance de la lumière; l'ardeur rend substantielle ou maiérielle\a puissance, et la puissance substantielle ou matériel^ est l'enceinte relativement à Dieu , on bien elle est le ciel. Car dans la puissance est le paradis dans lequel CH. 7. (95) opère l'esprit qui provient du père et du fils ; tout ceci est inconcevable à la créature , mais non pas introuvable pour la base affective , car le paradis est ouvert à la base affective des âmes saintes. 23. Ainsi lu vois comment Dieu a créé tout de rien, c'est-à-dire, seulement de lui-même, et cependant l'extra-génération n'est point de son essence , mais elle prend sa source dans les ténèbres.
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.
116. It is why, thou, man, who art a being so elevated, let thyself not be played with by the demon and by the antichrist, who would remove the divinity from thee, and figures thee a heaven very distant from thee. There is nothing nearer to thee than the heaven; only thou remainest before the gate of the heaven, and thou hast passed with Adam, from the paradisiac heaven into the third principle. Nevertheless thou art before the gate. Canst thou not act like the eternal mother which, by a great desire and its ardour for God, has become the kingdom of the heaven wherein God dwells, and wherein paradise manifests itself? Do the same. Set all thy desires in the heart of God. If thou penetratest with power like the eternal mother of nature, then it will arrive to thee what the Christ says: The kingdom of the heaven suffers violence, and those who do it violence carry it away. Thus thou wilt make thyself friends in the heaven with the unjust riches, and thou wilt be really the image of God, his similitude, and his property. For, in thee, are all the three principles from eternity, and anew in thee shall be begotten the holy paradise where God dwells. Where wilt thou then go to seek God? Seek him only in thy soul which is of the eternal nature, wherein is the divine begetting. 17. Alas! that I have not a pen worthy of a man, and that I cannot trace the spirit of the knowledge! I must nevertheless stammer upon these ,. CH. 7. ( g3 )
2great mysteries, like a child who learns to walk. For, the terrestrial tongue could not express what the spirit seizes and comprehends; thus I will hazard it to know whether I may excite some to seek the pearl by which I also operate the work of God, in my paradisiac garden of roses. For, the attraction of the eternal matrix pushes me also to write and to employ thus my knowledges. 18. If then we would raise our spirit, and seek the heaven wherein God dwells, we cannot say that God inhabits only above the stars, and has thus shut himself in a fortress which was made of water, where no one can enter unless it be opened to him; which thoughts entirely lead men astray. Nor can we say either, as several presume, that God the father, as well as the son, are with the angels in a superior and enclosed heaven, and then rule this world here only by the holy spirit which proceeds from the father and from the son. All these thoughts offer no true knowledge of God. For then God would be divided, and circumscribable like the sun which moves on high above us, and sheds its virtue and its light upon us, in order that thus all the depth may be luminous, and everywhere in activity. 19. These sorts of thoughts strangely lead reason astray, and the kingdom 4of the antichrist is begotten in these thoughts. The antichrist, by means of these opinions, has set himself in the place of God, and has persuaded himself that he would be a God upon the earth; he has pre-I ( 9^ ) *^«- 7scribed the limit of his divine power, he has closed the mouth to the spirit of God, and has not wished to hear it speak.
330, Thus great errors show themselves, so that several believe in the spirit of lying which speaks in hypocritical and powerful illusions, and leads astray the children of hope, as Saint Paul testifies. ai. The true heaven where God dwells is everywhere, in every place, as well as in the middle of the earth. It comprehends hell where the demon dwells, and there is nothing outside of God. For, there where he was before the creation of the world, he is still, that is to say, in himself, and he is himself the essence of essences. All is begotten of him and derives from him, and it is for that that he is called God, so that he alone is the good, the heart or what there is of the best, that is to say, the light and the power whence nature derives. 22. If thou wouldst then consider God, represent to thyself the eternal darknesses which are outside of God, for God dwells in himself, and nothing can, by a particular power, seize him; those darknesses have a great attraction for the light since the light mirrors itself in the darknesses, and shines in itself. And in those same darknesses or in the desire, thou wilt find the source. Now, the source seizes the power of the light; the ardour renders substantial or material the power, and the substantial or material power is the enclosure relatively to God, or else it is the heaven. For in the power is paradise wherein CH. 7. (95) operates the spirit which proceeds from the father and from the son; all this is inconceivable to the creature, but not unfindable for the affective base, for paradise is open to the affective base of the holy souls. 23. Thus thou seest how God created all of nothing, that is to say, only of himself, and nevertheless the extra-generation is not of his essence, but it takes its source in the darknesses.
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.