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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.
19. Puisque nous sommes dans un si effroyable danger en ce monde ; que nous sommes environnes d ennemis de tous les côtés , et que nous ne pouvons marcher en ëùreté dans notre pèlerinage , d'autant que nous portons en nous le plus cruel ennemi j que nous le voilons et que nous ne voulons pas apprendre à le connoître , quoiqu'il soit cependant l'hôte le plus pernicieux , et qu'il nous jète dans la colère de Dieu, étant vraiment lui-même la colère de Dieu qui nous plonge dans l'étemel feu colérique, et dans réternelle angoisse inextinguible; il est donc nécessaire que nous apprenions à bien connoître cet ennemi j ce qu'il est j qui il est, et pourquoi ils est ; comment il vient en nous j quel est en nous son droit et sa propriété, ainsi que son entrée et son autorité en nous ; comment il s'associe avec notre propre ennemi qui demeure en nousjcomment ils se favorisent et s'appuient l'un et l'autre ; comment ils sont tous deux ennemis de Dieu et nous épient continuellement pour nous perdre et pour nous détruire. xiv r R i F A C E
2. lo. De plus, il est haulenient essentiel «Te nous envisager , et d'apprendre à nous conïioîtBB , par la grande raison que nous savons et que nous voyons que nous devons mourir et sinpérir à cause de notre propre ennemi , qui est à la fois le nôtre et celui de Dieu,et qui demeure en nous, et est vraiment la moitié de l'homme. Et s'il devient assez puissant en nous pour y obtenir la supériorité et le premier rang , il nous livre à tous les démons, dans Tabîme, pour demeurer avec eux perpétuellement dans les ténèbres éternelles , et dans des angoisses et des tourmens qui ne s'appaiseront jamais. En effet , il nous jète dans la maison de solitude , dans rélernel oubli de tout bien , dans ropposition à Dieu , de façon que nous combattons éternellement Dieu et toutes les créatures. 11. Nous avons encore une raison plus importante de chercher à nous connoître ; comment nous sommes dans le bi«n et le mal ; d'autant que nous avons la promesse de Téternelle vie, que si nous soumettons notre ennemi personnel et le démon , nous devons être enfans de Dieu, et vivre éternellement dans Dieu, dans son royaume , près de lui et dans lui , piès des saints anges , dans une joie perpé- » E l'a u t t ij r. xt luelle , dans la lumière , dans la gloire dans la [bén({/ice/ice]y dans les bonnes grâces , dans la douceur, sans aucune communicatîèn , et sans aucune connoissance du mal. En outre nous a\rons la promesse , que si nous avons soumis notre propre ennemi , et que nous Tayons enfoui en terre , nous devons au dernier jugement nous remontrer dans un nouveau corps , dans lequel il ny aura aucune angoisse ; et vivre éternellement avec Dieu dans un amour parfait , dans la joie , les délices et la sainteté.
3la. Nous savons aussi, et nous connoissons que nous avons en nous lame raisonnable et immortelle , qui est dans lamour de Dieu , et que si elle ne succombe pas sous son adversaire, mais que comme un conquérant céleste , elle le renverse sous ses pieds , Dieu et son esprit saint la protégeront, et lui donneront l'inlelligenceet la puissance pour vaincre tous ses ennemis, qu'ils combattront pour elle , et que lors de sa victoire sur le mal , elle sera glorifiée comme un digne conquérant , et recevra la plus belle couronne céleste. ( 2 tim. 4:7, 8. apoc. 2 : 10 ). i5. Or , puisque Phomme sait qu'il est aussi un être mixte, partagé entre le bien et ]e mal, «t que Tun et Tautre est sa possession; qu'il xv) P 11 É F A C E
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.
19. Since we are in so frightful a danger in this world; since we are environed by enemies on all sides, and since we cannot walk in safety in our pilgrimage, the more so as we bear in us the cruellest enemy; since we veil him and will not learn to know him, although he is nevertheless the most pernicious guest, and since he casts us into the anger of God, being truly himself the anger of God which plunges us into the eternal choleric fire, and into the eternal inextinguishable anguish; it is then necessary that we learn to know that enemy well; what he is; who he is, and wherefore he is; how he comes into us; what is in us his right and his property, as well as his entrance and his authority in us; how he associates himself with our own enemy who dwells in us; how they favour and support one another; how they are both enemies of God and spy upon us continually to lose us and to destroy us. xiv r R i F A C E
2. lo. Moreover, it is highly essential to envisage ourselves, and to learn to know ourselves, by the great reason that we know and that we see that we must die and perish because of our own enemy, who is at once ours and God's, and who dwells in us, and is truly the half of man. And if he becomes powerful enough in us to obtain there the superiority and the first rank, he delivers us to all the demons, in the abyss, to dwell with them perpetually in the eternal darknesses, and in anguishes and torments which shall never be appeased. In effect, he casts us into the house of solitude, into the eternal forgetfulness of all good, into opposition to God, so that we combat eternally God and all the creatures. 11. We have yet a more important reason to seek to know ourselves; how we are in the good and the evil; the more so as we have the promise of eternal life, that if we subdue our personal enemy and the demon, we must be children of God, and live eternally in God, in his kingdom, near him and in him, near the holy angels, in a perpetual joy, OF THE AUTHOR. xt in the light, in the glory, in the [bén({/ice/ice], in the good graces, in sweetness, without any communication, and without any knowledge of the evil. Moreover we have the promise that if we have subdued our own enemy, and have buried him in earth, we must at the last judgement show ourselves again in a new body, wherein there shall be no anguish; and live eternally with God in a perfect love, in joy, delights and holiness.
3la. We know also, and we recognise that we have in us the reasonable and immortal soul, which is in the love of God, and that if she succumbs not under her adversary, but that like a celestial conqueror she overthrows him beneath her feet, God and his holy spirit will protect her, and will give her the intelligence and the power to vanquish all her enemies, that they will combat for her, and that upon her victory over the evil she shall be glorified as a worthy conqueror, and shall receive the fairest celestial crown. ( 2 tim. 4:7, 8. apoc. 2 : 10 ). i5. Now, since man knows that he is also a mixed being, divided between the good and the evil, & that the one and the other is his possession; that he xv) P 11 E F A C E
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.