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.
1par le reflet du soleil. Mais lorsque l'esprit saint vient dans Tame , alors il l'engendre de i oiveau ; elle devient un enfant du paradis; elle obtient la clef du paradis , et elle peut en contempler Fint trieur. 28. Mais le corps animal n'j peut rien voir , et aussi n'apparliient-il pas à cet intérieur, il appartient à la terre 5 il faut qu'il passe par la putréfaction et il doit s'élever en Christ à la fin du jour, dans une nouvelle puissance qui est semblable au paradis : alors il peut aussi demeurer dans le paradis , mais non pas sans celle condition 5 il doit auparavant déposer le troisième principe , c'est-à-dire , celte enveloppe dans laquelle le père Adam et la mère Eve ont été enfermés , et dans laquelle ils espéroicnt devenir savans, Porsqu'ils porteroient sur eux manifeslement tous ces trois principes. S'ils les avoient tous deux portés cachés dans eux , et qu'ils fussent demeurés uns , cela eût été avantageux pour nous. Ceci est réservé lorsque nous parlerons de la chute. 29- Il y a donc dans l'essence de toute les essences trois diflerentcs sources qui , cependant, ne sont point séparées , comme si une source éloit loin de l'autre, mais c'est comme une essence l'une dans l'autre; et cependant aucune ne saisit l'autre. De même que dans les trois élémens , le feu , Pair et l'eau sont tous trois l'un dans l'aulre , et aucune no sajsit l'autre , et de même qu'un élément engendre l'autre , et n'est pas , cependant , le même être , la même source ; de même aussi il y a trois principes l'un dans l'autre, et l'un engendre l'aulre, et cepenCH. 9.' (137) dant aucun ne comprend l'autre , et aucun aussi n'est de la substance de l'autre. Zm profondeur dans le centre,
23o. Comme cela a été dit souvent, Dieu est l'être de tous les êtres ; dans lui il y a deux essences en %ine , éternelles , sans fin , et sans extraction 5 savoir: I<^. L'éternelle lumière qui est Dieu , ou le bon; et 2**. les ténèbres éternelles qui sont le tourment , et cependant il n'y auroit là aucun tourment , si la lumière n'existoit pas : la lumière fait que les ténèbres s'angoissent après la lumière , et celle angoisse est la source de la colère .de Dieu , ou du feu infernal dans lequel les démons demeurent , ce qui fait que Dieu se nomme un Dieu jaloux et colérique. Ce sont deux principes de l'origine desquels nous connoissons seulement la génération, l'alliance indissoluble qui est ainsi qu'il suit. 3i. Dans l'origine des ténèbres il y a astringence et âprelé. L'aslringence est la cause de la lumière ; car l'astringence est une convoitise , un attract , qui est la première base de la volonté pour la lumière, et qui n'est cependant pas saisissable ; Tattract dans la volonté forme l'aiguillon que la convoitise attire , c'est le premier mouvement. Or , l'aiguillon ne peut pas souffrir l'altract dans la volonté ; mais il se défend , il s'élève au-dessus de soi , et ne peut pas cependant s'échapper de-là; car il est engendré dans l'altract ; mais comme il ne peut pas s'en aller de-là , et qu'aussi il ne peut pas supporter l'altract ,
3alors il ja là une grande angoisse, une concnpiscenœ pour la lumière, semblable à une roue tournanle et qui se brise. L'angoisse dans son amertume s'élevé eu fureur vers la lumière , mais ne peu. pas la 6a.s.r Malgré la volonté qu'elle a dans son angoisso de s élever au-dessus de l6 himière,elle n'y parvient po.nt;mais elle est imprégnée par la lumière,et n'atteint qu'un éclair luisant : or, quand cet éclair parvient dans l'astringence , ou la dureté ( c'est-à-dire dans les ténèbres ), elle s'effraie, et s'en va aussil lot dans son liiher,et cependant les ténèbres demeurent dans le centre. Dans cet effroi la duteté ou asfnngence devient douce , atténuée , foible ; et 1 éclair se produit dans l'amertume qui s'élève ainsi dans aiguillon ; de celte façon l'aiguillon s'envisage dans la mère , et il effraie la mère avec l'éclair en sorte qu'elle se reconnoi. vaincue, et lorsque J aiguillon se fortifie dans la mère e. la trouve ainsi adoucie 11 s'étonne bien davantage, perd sa prow pnéte colérique , e. sUr-le-cbamp il devient blanc , clûir et s'élève très délicieusement , tressaillant d une grande joie et dans une vive volonté ; et la n.ere de l'astringence , par le moyen de la lumière , devient douce, souple, liante et substantielle jusl qu a se tourner en eau : car elle «e perd pas l'essence ne la qualité astringente ; c'est pourquoi l'essence al.ire toujours de plus en plus à soi de la douceur, de façon que,du rien,il vient quelquechose;à savoir: i eau. 32. Maintenant, comme il est dit ci-dessns quand la joie s^élcve de la mère , lorsque la lumière c». 9. i 139 )
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.
1by the reflection of the sun. But when the holy spirit comes into the soul, then it begets it anew; it becomes a child of paradise; it obtains the key of paradise, and it can contemplate the interior of it. 28. But the animal body can see nothing there, and also it belongs not to that interior, it belongs to the earth 5 it must pass by putrefaction and it must rise in Christ at the end of the day, in a new power which is like paradise: then it can also dwell in paradise, but not without that condition 5 it must beforehand lay down the third principle, that is to say, that envelope wherein the father Adam and the mother Eve were shut, and wherein they hoped to become learned, when they should bear upon them manifestly all those three principles. If they had borne them both hidden in themselves, and had remained one, that would have been advantageous for us. This is reserved for when we shall speak of the fall. 29- There are then in the essence of all essences three different sources which, nevertheless, are not separated, as if one source were far from the other, but it is as one essence the one in the other; and nevertheless none seizes the other. Even as in the three elements, the fire, the air and the water are all three the one in the other, and none seizes the other, and even as one element begets the other, and is not, nevertheless, the same being, the same source; even so also there are three principles the one in the other, and the one begets the other, and neverCH. 9.' (137) theless none comprehends the other, and none also is of the substance of the other. The depth in the centre.
23o. As has been said often, God is the being of all beings; in him there are two essences in one, eternal, without end, and without extraction 5 to wit: I<^. The eternal light which is God, or the good; and 2**. the eternal darknesses which are the torment, and nevertheless there would be there no torment, if the light existed not: the light makes that the darknesses anguish themselves after the light, and that anguish is the source of the anger of God, or of the infernal fire wherein the demons dwell, which makes that God names himself a jealous and choleric God. These are two principles of whose origin we know only the generation, the indissoluble alliance which is as follows. 3i. In the origin of the darknesses there is astringency and harshness. The astringency is the cause of the light; for the astringency is a covetousness, an attraction, which is the first base of the will for the light, and which is nevertheless not seizable; the attraction in the will forms the sting which the covetousness draws, it is the first movement. Now, the sting cannot suffer the attraction in the will; but it defends itself, it rises above itself, and cannot nevertheless escape from thence; for it is begotten in the attraction; but as it cannot go away from thence, and as also it cannot bear the attraction,
3then there is there a great anguish, a concupiscence for the light, like a turning wheel which breaks itself. The anguish in its bitterness rises in fury towards the light, but cannot 6seize it. Despite the will it has in its anguish to rise above the6 light, it attains not thereto; but it is impregnated by the light, and attains only a shining flash: now, when that flash comes into the astringency, or the hardness ( that is to say into the darknesses ), it is affrighted, and goes away at once into its Ether, and nevertheless the darknesses remain in the centre. In that fright the hardness or astringency becomes sweet, attenuated, feeble; and 1the flash produces itself in the bitterness which rises thus into a sting; in that fashion the sting envisages itself in the mother, and it affrights the mother with the flash, so that she recognises herself vanquished; and when the sting fortifies itself in the mother and finds her thus softened 11 it is astonished much more, loses its choleric property, and on the instant it becomes white, clear and rises most deliciously, thrilling with a great joy and in a lively will; and the mother of the astringency, by means of the light, becomes sweet, supple, binding and substantial even to turning into water: for she loses not the essence nor the astringent quality; it is why the essence draws always more and more to itself of the sweetness, so that, of the nothing, there comes something; to wit: the water. 32. Now, as is said above, when the joy rises from the mother, when the light c». 9. i 139 )
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.