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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.
1Si quelqu'un vous frappe sur une Joue ^ présentez-lui ^ussi r autre 5 si vous êtes persécutés à cause de mon nom y réjouissez'vous-en , votre récompense sera grande dftns le royaume céleste. Mais à présent, on n'enseigne que l'injure ; il faut aussi que l'on juge ceux qui sont morts depuis plus de mille ans ^ qui sont dans le jugement de Dieu , et en partie même dansle paradis; il faut qu'ils soient maudits par des pasteurs de disputes. L'esprit saint pourroit - il parler par eux, comme ils le crient, lorsqu'ils ne sont pleins que de fiel et d'amertume , et qu'il n'j a en eux que )alousie et que rage , et qu'ils sont loin de la voie du paradis ? i5. C'est pourquoi , ô ! fils de l'iiomme , observeloi dans ce monde, ne laisse pas séduire tes oreilles quand tu entends les faux pasteurs prononcer sur les cil fans du Christ ; ce n'est point la voix de Christ y mais celle de l'antechrist. Le chemin du paradis a bien une autre entrée. Ton cœur doit *e diriger vers Dieu de tcKites ses forces. Et comme Difiu veut que tous les hommes soient secourus , et que l'un porte le fardeau de l'autre, chacun doit approcher de l'autre avec amitié , et une sage vénération dans l'esprit saint. Chacun doit rechercher le salut de son prochain avec zèle et humilité, et désirer sincèrement qu'il se délivre de la vanité > et aille avec lui dans le jardin de rose. 16. La counoissance est multipliée dans le Dieu infini. Mais chacun doit se réjouir des connoissances et des dons des autres , et penser que Dieu nous a donné ^ dans le monde paradisiaque , H^e Qounoift ni. g* ( tSi )
2sance très surabondante , dont nous n*avons loi qu'une image dans les ^ns partagés. C'est pourquoi J10U5 ne devons pas disputer au sujet des dons e^ des connoissances. Car, chacun eu vertu de l'essence qu'il a dans le Dieu merveilleux , reçoit de l'esprit le ppuvoir d'exprimer c^^pn selonsaforme. En effet, dans le paradis , dans le parfait amour , ces dont seront un attrayant jeu d'amour, où chacun parlera de ses connoissances des grande? merveilles, dan^ la sainte génération. 17. O ! quelles épines le démon a apporté dans c^ jeu d'amour I Faut- il que nous introduisions de telles disputes d'orgueil dans ces nobles connoissances y et que l'on lie l'esprit saint avec des lois f Que sont les lois dans le royaume de Christ , qui nous a faits libres , pour que nous marchions en lui dans l'esprit saint? Pour quel autre objet sont-elles inventées que pour le plaisir de l'antechrist ,afin qu'il puisse marcher dans sa puissance et en pompe , et é\jG un Dieu sur la terre ? O ! fujez-le, vous, (iJ^ de l'homme , le tems est venu de réveiller l'aute-* christ de son sommeil : Christ vient avec son beau lys du paradis , dans la vallée de Josaphat. Il es| tems de préparer les lampes , pour ceux qui veulent aller aux noces de l'agneau. J^a poru. 18. Le paradis consiste dans la puissance divine ^ et n'est rien de corporel ni de saisissable \ mais s^ çorpor/éité ou sa J saisissahilité J isst sçmblabb è 1!>. ( l32 ) CH.^7 celle des anges , où il y a une claire essence visible, comme si elle éloil matérhUe ; et elle est en effet substantielle comme si elle étoit matérielle , mais purement figurée de la puissance où tout est Iransparenl et brillant , où le centre de la généralion est dans toute chose ; c'est pourquoi la génération est sans fin et sans nombre.
319. Je t'en donnerai une image prise de l'esprit de l'homme , d'où s'engendrent des pensées sans fin et sans nombre ; carchaque pensée a de nouveau un cenire pour engendrer d'autres pensées : loi est le paradis , d'éternités en élernilés. Mais , puisque la lumière de Dieu est éternelle , et brille sans altération et sans interruption ; de même aussi il y a dans la pensée une essence iucommutable où toute chose s'élève dans une pure perfection , et dans un grand amour. 20. Car l'esprit de connoissance annonce ceci ; savoir : que dans le paradis il y a des végétations comme dans le monde , de la même fijrme , «Tais non pas de la même source , ni de la même saisiasabilieé-, car la substance ou le corps est la puissance substantielle dans le limbus céleste ; or , la racine est dans la matrice dans laquelle 'il n'y a ni terre ni pierres , attendu que c'est un autre principe. Là le feu est Dieu le père -, la lumière est Dieu le fils ; Tair est Dieu le Saint-Esprit, et la puissance d*où tout s'élève, est le ciel et le paradis. 21. Comme nous voyons qu'il croît de la terre toutes sortesde plantes et de fruils,qui reçoivent leur force -du »oleil et des astres 5 de même le ciel ou CH. 9. ( *^ )
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.
1If anyone strikes you upon one cheek, present him also the other 5 if you are persecuted because of my name, rejoice in it, your recompense shall be great in the celestial kingdom. But at present, one teaches only insult; it is necessary also that one judge those who have been dead more than a thousand years, who are in the judgement of God, and in part even in paradise; it is necessary that they be cursed by pastors of disputes. Could the holy spirit speak by them, as they cry, when they are full of nothing but gall and bitterness, and when there is in them nothing but jealousy and rage, and when they are far from the way of paradise? i5. It is why, O son of man, observe thyself in this world, let not thy ears be seduced when thou hearest the false pastors pronounce upon the children of the Christ; that is not the voice of Christ, but that of the antichrist. The road of paradise has quite another entrance. Thy heart must direct itself towards God with all its forces. And as God wills that all men be succoured, and that the one bear the burden of the other, each must approach the other with friendship, and a wise veneration in the holy spirit. Each must seek the salvation of his neighbour with zeal and humility, and desire sincerely that he deliver himself from vanity, and go with him into the garden of roses. 16. The knowledge is multiplied in the infinite God. But each must rejoice at the knowledges and at the gifts of the others, and think that God has given us, in the paradisiac world, a know- ni. g* ( tSi )
2ledge very superabundant, whereof we have here but an image in the divided senses. It is why we10 must5 not dispute upon the subject of the gifts and of the knowledges. For, each by virtue of the essence he has in the marvellous God receives from the spirit the power to express each thing according to his form. In effect, in paradise, in the perfect love, those gifts shall be an attractive game of love, where each shall speak of his knowledges of the great marvels, in the holy generation. 17. O what thorns the demon has brought into that game of love! Must we introduce such disputes of pride into these noble knowledges, and must one bind the holy spirit with laws? What are the laws in the kingdom of Christ, who has made us free, in order that we may walk in him in the holy spirit? For what other object are they invented than for the pleasure of the antichrist, in order that he may walk in his power and in pomp, and be a God upon the earth? O flee him, you, children of man; the time is come to awaken the antichrist from his sleep: Christ comes with his fair lily of paradise, into the valley of Jehoshaphat. It is time to prepare the lamps, for those who would go to the nuptials of the lamb. The gate. 18. Paradise consists in the divine power, and is nothing corporeal nor seizable; but its corporeity or its seizability is like 1!>. ( l32 ) CH.^7 that of the angels, where there is a clear visible essence, as if it were material; and it is in effect substantial as if it were material, but purely figured of the power where all is transparent and shining, where the centre of the generation is in every thing; it is why the generation is without end and without number.
319. I will give thee an image of it taken from the spirit of man, whence thoughts beget themselves without end and without number; for each thought has anew a centre to beget other thoughts: there is paradise, from eternities to eternities. But, since the light of God is eternal, and shines without alteration and without interruption; even so also there is in the thought an incommutable essence where every thing rises in a pure perfection, and in a great love. 20. For the spirit of knowledge announces this; to wit: that in paradise there are vegetations as in the world, of the same form, but not of the same source, nor of the same seizability; for the substance or the body is the substantial power in the celestial limbus; now, the root is in the matrix wherein there is neither earth nor stones, seeing that it is another principle. There the fire is God the father; the light is God the son; the air is God the Holy Spirit, and the power whence all rises is the heaven and paradise. 21. As we see that there grow of the earth all sorts of plants and of fruits, which receive their force from the sun and from the stars 5 even so the heaven or CH. 9. ( *^ )
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.