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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.
1une multitude de sciences ; de façon qu'elles sont innombrables. L'esprit de Dieu , sortant de la lumière, prêle son secours à chaque science j dans chaque science de la source , il fait , par son gracieux amour, imprégner de nouveau le centre, et dans le centre il s^engendre de nouveau une source comme une branche d'un arbre : là de nouveau s'élève une base d'affection dans l'angoisse , et l'esprit d'amour fait imprégner le tout par son amour, c'est-à-dire, chaque pensée et chaque volonté , et cela substantiellement : car la volonté s'élève si haut dans le centre qu'elle engendre le feu , et , dans le feu, est engendrée la substance et l'essentialité. 43. En effet , c'est son esprit , et c'est la limite de la volonté dans la base ténébreuse 5 or , dans l'angoisse il ne se peut rien engendrer de plus élevé que le feu ; car il est la limite de la nature^ et il engendre de nouveau l'angoisse et le tourment, comme cela se voit. Maintenant , l'angoisseuse et lénébreuse affection n'a pas en soi une substance unique , ou une seule essence , mais plusieurs , autrementelle ne pourroit engendrer aucune qualité > et cependant elle est véritablement un seul être ^ et non pas plusieurs êtres* 44. Ame chérie , l'esprit supérieur te dit : Soumets ta base affective , je te montrerai la chose ; vois ce qui saisit ta volonté , et dans quoi réside ta vie: diras-tu dans l'eau et dans la chair? Non, elle existe dans le feu, dans la chaleur : s'il n'y avoit point de chaleur, le corps se durciroit et l'eau CH. 10: ( 1^7 ) 86 dessècheroit ; ainsi l'affection et la vïe consistent dans le feu. 45. Mais , enfin , qu^est-ce que le feu ? Il est premièrement les ténèbres , la dureté, l'éternel froid , la sécheresse , où il n'y a rien qu'une éternelle faim. Dirait-on : Commefit vient le feu T
2Chère ame , ici l'esprit de Dieu , ou l'éternelle lumière , vient au secours de la faim ; car la faim résulte aussi de la lumière : dès que la puissance divine se contemple dans les ténèbres , dès lors les ténèbres so'nt soupirant après la lumière , et le désiç est la volonté. 46. Or , la volonté ou le désir dans la sécheresse ne peut pas atteindre la lumière ; là il y a dans la volonté une angoisse qui tend à la lumière» L'angoisse est attirante ; dans Pàitir.mene est la souffrance ; la souffrance rend l'angoisse plus grande, de façon que l'angoisse dans l'aslrîngence attire beaucoup plus fort -, dans cet aUiremenl en souffrance est l'aiguillon amer, ou l'amertume provenant de la souffrante-, l'angoisse ttend après l'aiguillon pat Vattirement , et ne peut cependant pas le saisir, car il se défend : or , plus l'angoisse attire , plus l'aiguillon tempête. 47. Alors l'angoisse , l'amertume et la souffrance dans l'aiguillon sont comme un esprit de souffre , et tous les esprits dans la nature sont comme des Souffres qui s'angoissent V\iû dans l'autre jusqu'à cew l 168 3 ci' >o/ que la lamîère de Dieu vienne à leur secours; alors le souffre devient un éclair , et là est sa lî« xnite , car il ne peut pas monter plus haut dans Vangoisse; c'est là le feu qui est éclair brillant dans Tame , ou aussi dans la base affective ; car Pâma atteint la puissance de la lumière y qu'elle transmet en douceur : dans ce monde, ce feu est le feu qui Lrûle ; dans l'enfer , il est immatériel : c'est le feu éternel qui brûle dans la qualité.
348. Maintenant , loi , chère ame , tu vois en miroir combien Dieu est près ^ et est lui-même le cœur de toutes choses , et donne à toutes la puissance et la vie. Lucifer a perdu tout cela ; il est devenu ainsi plein d'orgueil. Lorsque cet esprit de souffre fut créé dans la volonté de Tame de Dieu, il voulut dominer de là au-dessus de la limite de la nature , et pousser le feu au-dessus de la dou« ceur^ et pour lui tout devoit être brûlé par le feu : il vouloit être le souverain. Les étincelles do feu dans l'esprit de souffre s'élevèrent trop , et ces esprits n'ont point été jugés anges aux yeux du créateur , ou de l'esprit dans le fiât ; quoiqu'il soit venu à leur aide dans la première intention , ou lorsque le centre fut ouvert pour la production des esprits y et qu'il les aperçut comme les autres anges ^ ils ont toutefois engendré une volonté ignée, tandis qu'ils dévoient ouvrir leur centre pour la gé-» nération de leur vraie base affective , et engendrer la volonté angéliquement. 49. La première volonté d'où ils furent créés étoit de Dieu ^ et elle les créa bons ^ et la seconde CH. i3. ( 169 ) volonté que, comme obéissans , ils dévoient engendrer de leur propre centre en douceur, fut mauvaise 5 aussi leur père , par rapport à ses enfans ou productions fut chassé de la puissance de Dieu ; il perdit le royaume angélique , et demeura dans la source du feu. Dès que le mauvais résultat de son affection se fut détourné de la douceur , dès lors ils obtinrent ce qu'ils avoient voulu : car la base affective est le Dieu et le créateur de la volonté 5 elle est libre dans l'éternelle nature 5 ce qu'elle s'engendre à elle-même , elle l'a,
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.
1a multitude of sciences; so that they are innumerable. The spirit of God, going forth from the light, lends its succour to each science; in each science of the source, it makes, by its gracious love, the centre to be impregnated anew, and in the centre there is begotten anew a source like a branch of a tree: there anew rises a base of affection in the anguish, and the spirit of love makes the whole to be impregnated by its love, that is to say, each thought and each will, and that substantially: for the will rises so high in the centre that it begets the fire, and, in the fire, is begotten the substance and the essentiality. 43. In effect, it is its spirit, and it is the limit of the will in the tenebrous base 5 now, in the anguish nothing can be begotten more elevated than the fire; for it is the limit of nature, and it begets anew the anguish and the torment, as this is seen. Now, the anguishing and tenebrous affection has not in itself one single substance, or one single essence, but several, otherwise it could beget no quality; and nevertheless it is truly one single being, and not several beings. 44. Dear soul, the superior spirit says to thee: Submit thy affective base, I will show thee the thing; see what seizes thy will, and in what thy life resides: wilt thou say in the water and in the flesh? No, it exists in the fire, in the heat: if there were no heat, the body would harden and the water CH. 10: ( 1^7 ) 86 would dry up; thus the affection and the life consist in the fire. 45. But, in fine, what is the fire? It is firstly the darkness, the hardness, the eternal cold, the dryness, where there is nothing but an eternal hunger. Would one say: How comes the fire T
2Dear soul, here the spirit of God, or the eternal light, comes to the succour of the hunger; for the hunger results also from the light: as soon as the divine power contemplates itself in the darkness, thenceforth the darkness is sighing after the light, and the desire is the will. 46. Now, the will or the desire in the dryness cannot attain the light; there there is in the will an anguish that tends to the light. The anguish is attracting; in the attraction is the suffering; the suffering renders the anguish greater, so that the anguish in the astringency attracts much more strongly; in this attraction in suffering is the bitter sting, or the bitterness proceeding from the suffering; the anguish tends after the sting by the attraction, and yet cannot seize it, for it defends itself: now, the more the anguish attracts, the more the sting storms. 47. Then the anguish, the bitterness and the suffering in the sting are as a spirit of sulphur, and all the spirits in nature are as sulphurs which are in anguish one within the other until l 168 3 ci' >o/ the light of God come to their succour; then the sulphur becomes a flash, and there is its limit, for it cannot mount higher in the anguish; that is the fire which is a brilliant flash in the soul, or also in the affective base; for the soul attains the power of the light which it transmits into sweetness: in this world, this fire is the fire that burns; in hell, it is immaterial: it is the eternal fire that burns in the quality.
348. Now, thou, dear soul, thou seest in a mirror how near God is, and is himself the heart of all things, and gives to all the power and the life. Lucifer has lost all that; he became thus full of pride. When this spirit of sulphur was created in the will of the soul of God, he would rule from thence above the limit of nature, and push the fire above the sweetness, and for him all was to be burned by the fire: he would be the sovereign. The sparks of fire in the spirit of sulphur rose too high, and these spirits have not been judged angels in the eyes of the creator, or of the spirit in the fiat; although he came to their aid in the first intention, or when the centre was opened for the production of the spirits, and that he perceived them like the other angels, they have nevertheless begotten a fiery will, whilst they were to open their centre for the generation of their true affective base, and beget the will angelically. 49. The first will whence they were created was of God, and it created them good, and the second CH. i3. ( 169 ) will that, as obedient, they were to beget from their own centre in sweetness, was evil 5 also their father, in relation to his children or productions was driven from the power of God; he lost the angelic kingdom, and remained in the source of the fire. As soon as the evil result of his affection had turned away from the sweetness, thenceforth they obtained what they had willed: for the affective base is the God and the creator of the will 5 it is free in the eternal nature 5 what it begets to itself, it has it,
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.