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. i L n'y a rien d'extraordinaire , comme il esi dit au commencement du précédent chapitre, qu'un homme parle , écrive et enseigne sur la création du inonde , quoiqu'il n'y ait point été présent; il suffit qu'il en ait la vraie connaissance en esprit j car alors il voit toutes choses comme dans un miroir , dans la mère ou la génératrice. En effet, chaque chose est dans une autre, et plus il cherche, plus il trouve; son entendement n'a pas besoin de s'élancer hors de ce monde, il trouve tout dans ce monde, sur-tout en soimême, ainsi que dans tout ce qui vit et se meut. Quoi que ce soi t qu'il contemple et qu'il approfondisse, ily trouve l'esprit avec le FiAT,et la puissance divine se mire dans toutes choses comme il est écrit : LaparoU €8iprèa de ioi^oui,dans tes lèvrea et dans ton cœur. Car, quand la lumière de Dieu pointe dans le centre de l'esprit de Pâme , alors Pesprit de l'ame voit comme dans un clair miroir, la création du monde, parfaitement bien , et il n'y a rien d'éloigné pour lui. CH. 8. ( >o3 ) 2. Je veux adresser le lecteur à la création , ellemême ; il peut y creuser , il y trouvera que tout est ainsi ; et il verra des choses encore plus merveilleuses , que personne ne peut ni écrire ni proférer, pourvu toutefois qu'il soit né de Dieu. Nous ne devons pas dan§ notre intelligence , et dans nos connoissances , considérer Dieu opérant dans la création , comme un homme qui manipule quelque chose , ainsi qu'un potier fait un vase avec de l'argile , ou un sculpteur une figure , à sa volonté , et qu'il brise si elle ne lui plaît pas. Non, les œuvres de Dieu dans la création du monde ont été toutes fixes , bonnes et parfaites ; comme Moïse écrit : Et Dieu regarda tout ce qu'il avoit fait , et il vit que cela étoit bon.
23. Car il n'a pas pris un morceau de terre l'un après l'autre , ou bien plusieurs morceaux de terre à la fois pour en faire des animaux. Cette opinion ne pourroit pas se soutenir , et seroit plutôt la pensée d'une brute qne d'un homme ; mais , comme cela esèdit ci-dessus , après que le démon fut tombé avec ses légions, lui qui avoit eu son siège angélique et son trône dans le lieu de ce monde ; qui avoit existé corporellement selon le mode de l'esprit, dans le premier principe ; qui étoit tout imprégné de la lumière du second ; demeurant vraiment dans le paradis et dans la puissance divine; après, dis-je, qu'il; fut tombé par orgueil , et privé de la lumière de Dieu , s'étant cramponné à sa propre mère la racine de feu , se persuadant qu'il pourroit dominer sur la douceur du co^r de Dieu , alors sa demeure ( >04 ) CH. 8. fut fixée dans le premier principe , dans la matrice ténébreuse ignée ; et Dieu créa l'extra-généralion de la malrice en un principe; et, dans réieruelle maJrice , dans sa volonté désiranle , il ouvrit le centre ou la génération de la vie. Dans ce moment, ( selon Je mode dont réiemelle divinité s'engendre sans cesse de loule éternité ) s'est élevé , d'après Tordre de la divinité , le Iroisième principe dans lequel la divinité demeure comme cachée, mais cependant, se peignant puissamment dans toute chose, ce qui est inapercevahle au démon > et ne lui porte aucun profit.
34. Mais le troisième principe est une image du inonde paradisiaque , qui est spirituel , et qui y demeure caché , et ainsi la divinité s'est manifestée» Comme le monde spirituel des anges n'est pas resté dans ce lieu , alors Dieu a donné à ce lieu un autre principe , dans lequel , cependant , une lumière s'élève 5 et qui est une aimable demeure ; car le plan de Dieu doit subsister , quand même les premiètes créatures devroienl rester dans les ténèbres. • 5. Ainsi on ne doit point considérer la matrice de ce monde , avec les étoiles et les élémens comme si Dieu n'y résidoit pas. Sa puissance et son éternelle sagesse se sont représentées dans toutes choses par le fiât. Il est lui-même le maître ouvrier, et dans le fiât toutes choses ont éclos , chacune dans son essence , dans sa vertu et dans sa propriété. 6. Car de même que dans le firmament , chaque étoile a une propriété différente des autres ;de mémo en est-il de la mère d'où la quintessence des étoiles cii. 8. ( io5 ) #• est sortie ; car lorsque la ^brme ignée des étoiles s'est séparée d'elle , elle n'a pas été pour cela séparée du premier éternel droit de génération , mais elle a conservé son éternelle vertu ; sewXcmcwi la puissance de feu engendrée , a été séparée d'elle , de façon qu'elle est une aimable demeure , et une douce mère de ses enfans.
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. THERE is nothing extraordinary, as is said at the beginning of the preceding chapter, that a man should speak, write and teach upon the creation of the world, although he was not present at it; it suffices that he have the true knowledge of it in spirit; for then he sees all things as in a mirror, in the mother or the generatrix. In effect, each thing is in another, and the more he seeks, the more he finds; his understanding has no need to dart out of this world, he finds all in this world, above all in himself, as well as in all that lives and moves. Whatever it be that he contemplates and fathoms, he finds there the spirit with the FIAT, and the divine power mirrors itself in all things as it is written: The word is8 near to thee, yes, in thy lips and in thy heart. For, when the light of God points in the centre of the spirit of the soul, then the spirit of the soul sees as in a clear mirror, the creation of the world, perfectly well, and there is nothing remote for it. CH. 8. ( >o3 ) 2. I will address the reader to the creation itself; he may dig there, he will find that all is thus; and he will see things yet more marvellous, which no one can either write or utter, provided nevertheless that he be born of God. We must not in our intelligence, and in our knowledges, consider God operating in the creation, like a man who manipulates something, as a potter makes a vase with clay, or a sculptor a figure, at his will, and which he breaks if it pleases him not. No, the works of God in the creation of the world have been all fixed, good and perfect; as Moses writes: And God looked upon all that he had made, and he saw that that was good.
23. For he did not take a morsel of earth one after the other, or else several morsels of earth at once to make animals of them. That opinion could not sustain itself, and would be rather the thought of a brute than of a man; but, as is said above, after the demon fell with his legions, he who had had his angelic seat and his throne in the place of this world; who had existed corporeally according to the mode of the spirit, in the first principle; who was all impregnated with the light of the second; dwelling truly in paradise and in the divine power; after, I say, he fell by pride, and was deprived of the light of God, having clung to his own mother the root of fire, persuading himself that he might dominate over the sweetness of the heart of God, then his dwelling ( >04 ) CH. 8. was fixed in the first principle, in the tenebrous igneous matrix; and God created the extra-generation of the matrix into a principle; and, in the eternal matrix, in its desiring will, he opened the centre or the generation of the life. In that moment, ( according to the mode whereby the eternal divinity begets itself without cease from all eternity ) there rose, after the order of the divinity, the third principle wherein the divinity dwells as it were hidden, but nevertheless, painting itself powerfully in every thing, which is imperceptible to the demon and brings him no profit.
34. But the third principle is an image of the paradisiac world, which is spiritual, and which dwells there hidden, and thus the divinity has manifested itself. As the spiritual world of the angels remained not in that place, then God gave to that place another principle, wherein, nevertheless, a light rises 5 and which is a lovable dwelling; for the plan of God must subsist, even though the first creatures should remain in the darknesses. 5. Thus one must not consider the matrix of this world, with the stars and the elements, as if God did not reside there. His power and his eternal wisdom have represented themselves in all things by the fiat. He is himself the master workman, and in the fiat all things have hatched, each in its essence, in its virtue and in its property. 6. For even as in the firmament each star has a property different from the others; even so is it with the mother whence the quintessence of the stars cii. 8. ( io5 ) #• issued; for when the igneous form of the stars separated itself from her, she was not for that separated from the first eternal right of generation, but she preserved her eternal virtue; only the begotten power of fire was separated from her, so that she is a lovable dwelling, and a sweet mother of her children.
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.