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.
17. Lorsque Dieu au premier jour a congloméré ensemble la masse de la terre dans la grande profondeur de ce monde , alors l'abîme ( ou la profondeui^a été net , mais ténébreux , et il n'y avoit aucune^umière dans la matrice ; mais la quintessence , c'est-à-dire , la cinquième forme a brillé , dans la matrice comme un feu , dans lequel l'esprit de Dieu a fécondé par le fiât la malrice aqueuse; alors la terre étoit entièrement vide et nue, et il n'y. avoit aucune végétation. 8. Or , comme l'écrit Moïse, Dieu dit : Que la lumière soit , et la lumière fut ; et cette lumière a été la cinquième forme dans la matrice 5 car la quintessence ne fut pas encore créée ni séparée dans la matrice jusqu'au quatrième jour où Dieu en a créé le soleil et les étoiles , et a sépuré la lumière des ténèbres. La lumière reçut donc alors en soi, en propriété , la puissance de se répandre avec éclat , et la racine de feu demeura cachée dans le centre, dans les ténèbres. 9, Au second jour Dieu créa comme une forte barrière le firmament du ciel au milieu des ténèbres delà matrice originelle , pi>ur que celle-ci ne s'enflammât plus 3 et n'engendrât plus ni terre ,*ni pierres 9 ♦ ( io6 ) en. 8. c'est pourquoi il a produit du milieu des eaux lat barrière , ou le firmament , lequel arrête la puissance du feu 5 et est devenu le ciel visible d'où sont venues les créatures , et de qui maintenant sortent les élémens , le feu , l'air et l'eau.
210. Car , au troisième jour , Dieu , par le fiât , a séparé l'eau de la terre , et l'a disposée en des placée diverses , afin qu'elle fût un rafraîchissement pour la terre , lorsque la torre deviendroit sèche. Lorsque tout cela fut fait , Dieu s'occupa de la création , et l'éternel père parla ; c'est-à-dire , qu'au maMa du FIAT 5 il op^Ta sur la terre par le fils qui est son cœur et sa splendeur : alors la vie poussa au travers de la mort 5 et il s'éleva des plantes , de l'herbe , et toute espèce d'arbres, et toute espèce de végétaux ; chacurt selon Télernelle source , comme cela avoit été auparavant. Ainsi chaque essence devint visible , et .Dieu manifesta son éternelle puissance par des multitudes de plantes , d'arbres et d'arbustes ; de façon que celui qui est né de Dieu et qui les observe, reconnoit l'éternelle puissance et la sagesse divine, et contemple , dans le moindre brin d'herbe, son ciréateur dans lequel il vit. 11. Ainsi dans un instant parut tout ce qui vit sur la ferre , et la matrice de la terre est restée comme dans la mort jusqu'au troisième jour , h cause de la grande tempête ; mais par le fiât la vie a poussé aa travers de la mort , et l'éternelle puissance et sagesse de Dieu se sont laissé voir à la terre florissante ^ frétant représentées dans le fiât. Il y a ici un grand secret^pourquol le Glirist homme a été dans la terri^ CH. 8. ( ï<^ ) jusqu'au troisième jour , et a réparé le tems de la mort , mais l'homme seroit aveugle à ceci et n'y connnoîtroit rieti. j j,»
312. On voit là, très clairement , la similitude drf monde paradisiaque. Car , quoiqu'il y ait dans une prairie plusieurs milliers de plantes les unes auprès des autres , et que l'iine soit plus forte et plus belld que l'autre , cependant aucune n'envie à l'autre sa. beauté , mais il n'y a là qu'une aimable demeura dans une seule mère ; ainsi il y a aussi une diffé-î rence dans le paradis. Là chaque créature n'éprouvei que la plus grande joie de la t^ertu et de la beauté de^ autres , et l'éterttelle puissance et sagesse divine est sans nombre et sans borne -, comme tu le trouves cidessus dans le troisième chapitre , sur l'ouverturedes rfîentres de l'éternelle vie. Il n'y a aucun livre oh tu poisses mieux chercher et plus a/«^//*«^^ trouver la divine sagesse, que quand tu marches dans une prairie végétante et florissante -, tu peux y voir , sentir , et goûter la merveilleuse puissance divine , quoique ce ne soit qu'une ^rfiilitude, et que là v^riw divine toit devenue matérielle dans le troisième principe , et que Dieu se st)inhFianifesté en image. Mais pour celui qui cherche , c'est un aimable maître d'école , et il y trouvera beaucoup de choses. i3. Au quatrième jour , Dieu a vraiment pris au cjoeur le lieu de ce monde ; car , il a créé de sa propre sagesse , dans le troisième principe , le saga maître ; savoir : le soleil et les étoiles. Et dans ces aatrês on voit vraiment la diviuité, et l'éternelle sa- • gesse de Dieu , comme dans ua miroir , quoique { io8 ) fcH. 8. Dieu lui-même ne soit pas un être visible pour nos yeux ; mais ils sont une déesse dans le troisième principe 5 laquelle finalement retourne ensonEther, etpreud sa fin.
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.
17. When God on the first day conglomerated together the mass of the earth in the great depth of this world, then the abyss ( or the depth ) was clean, but tenebrous, and there was no light in the matrix; but the quintessence, that is to say, the fifth form shone in the matrix like a fire, wherein the spirit of God fecundated by the fiat the aqueous matrix; then the earth was entirely void and naked, and there was no vegetation. 8. Now, as Moses writes, God said: Let the light be, and the light was; and that light was the fifth form in the matrix 5 for the quintessence was not yet created nor separated in the matrix until the fourth day when God created of it the sun and the stars, and separated the light from the darknesses. The light received then in itself, in property, the power of spreading itself with splendour, and the root of fire remained hidden in the centre, in the darknesses. 9, On the second day God created like a strong barrier the firmament of the heaven in the midst of the darknesses of the original matrix, in order that this last should inflame itself no more 3 and beget no more either earth or stones 9 ♦ ( io6 ) en. 8. it is why he produced from the midst of the waters the barrier, or the firmament, which arrests the power of the fire 5 and is become the visible heaven whence the creatures came, and from which now issue the elements, the fire, the air and the water.
210. For, on the third day, God, by the fiat, separated the water from the earth, and disposed it in divers places, in order that it might be a refreshment for the earth, when the earth should become dry. When all that was done, God occupied himself with the creation, and the eternal father spoke; that is to say, that at the moment of the FIAT 5 he operated upon the earth by the son who is his heart and his splendour: then the life pushed through the death 5 and there rose plants, herb, and every species of trees, and every species of vegetables; each according to the eternal source, as that had been before. Thus each essence became visible, and God manifested his eternal power by multitudes of plants, of trees and of shrubs; so that he who is born of God and who observes them recognises the eternal power and the divine wisdom, and contemplates, in the least blade of grass, his creator wherein he lives. 11. Thus in an instant appeared all that lives upon the earth, and the matrix of the earth remained as in death until the third day, because of the great tempest; but by the fiat the life pushed through the death, and the eternal power and wisdom of God let themselves be seen in the flowering earth, having represented themselves in the fiat. There is here a great secret, wherefore the Christ man was in the earth CH. 8. ( ï<^ ) until the third day, and repaired the time of the death, but man would be blind to this and would know nothing of it.
312. One sees there, very clearly, the similitude of the paradisiac world. For, although there be in a meadow several thousands of plants the ones beside the others, and although the one be stronger and fairer than the other, nevertheless none envies the other its beauty, but there is there but a lovable dwelling in one single mother; thus there is also a difference in paradise. There each creature experiences only the greatest joy at the virtue and the beauty of the others, and the eternal power and divine wisdom is without number and without bound, as thou findest above in the third chapter, upon the opening of the centres of the eternal life. There is no book where thou mayest better seek and more certainly find the divine wisdom, than when thou walkest in a vegetating and flowering meadow; thou canst there see, feel, and taste the marvellous divine power, although it be but a similitude, and although the divine virtue be there become material in the third principle, and God have manifested himself in image. But for him who seeks, it is a lovable schoolmaster, and he will find there many things. i3. On the fourth day, God truly took to heart the place of this world; for, he created of his own wisdom, in the third principle, the wise master; to wit: the sun and the stars. And in those stars one truly sees the divinity, and the eternal wisdom of God, as in a mirror, although { io8 ) fcH. 8. God himself be not a being visible to our eyes; but they are a goddess in the third principle 5 which finally returns into its Ether, and takes its end.
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.