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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.
15o. Maintenant tu demandes : Pourquoi l'amour de Dieu ne vint pas de nouveau à son aide? Non , mon ami. Son affection s'étoit élevée jusqu'à la limite de la nature, et vouloit de là dominer au-dessus de la lumière de Dieu : sa base affective étoit deVenue , dans la colère*, une source de feu allumé. La douceur de Dieu ne peut rien là , l'esprit de souffre brûle éternellement ; aussi est-il un ennemi de Dieu , et Dieu ne peut lui aider. Car le centre est brûlant dans l'éclair ; sa volonté ne cesse pas de se porter de îà au-dessus de la douceur de Dieu. Il ne peut produire aucune autre volonté ; car sa source a atteint dans le feu la limite de la nature, et il demeure une source de feu inextinguible; le cœur de Dieu , dans la douceur , et le principe de Dieu est fermé pour lui , et cela pour l'éternité5i. En somme , Dieu ne veut avoir aucunes sources de feu dans le paradis ; elles doivent rester, dans le premier principe , dans les éternelles ténèbres. Si ces anges fussent restés comme Dieu les il ( î7<5 ) «H- ict créa , lorsque la douceur les envisagea ,' et qu'ils eussent placé dans la douceur le centre de leur affection , alors la lumière de Dieu les auroit éclairés éternellement : ils auroient mangé du verbe de Dieu ; ils seroient restés dans le premier principe, par la racine de leur origine j, comme Dieu le père lui-même ; et dans le second principe , par la volonté , dans la base affective : alors ils auroient eu la source paradisiaque , et la volonté angélique 5 ils auroient été comme amis dans le limbiO^ du ciel, et dans l'amour de Dieu. (t7i) CHAPITRE ONZIEME. De toutes les circonstances de la tentation.
2I. Maintenant , voici la plus haute question : Qu'est-ce qui a porté la base afiective du démon à s'élever si haut ? et qu'est-ce qui a fait qu'un si grand nombre d'entr'eux est tombé dans l'orgueil ? Vois. LorsqueDieu plaçale fiât dans la volonté , et voulut créer les auges , alors l'esprit sépara d'abord toutes les qualités , à la manière dont tu vois encore les diverses espèces d'étoiles , et le éïat les créa ainsi. Alors furent créés les princes , et les trônes angéliques selon chaque qualité , telle que la dureté , l'astringent , l'amer , le froid , le rude , le doux et ainsi de suite dans l'essence , jusqu'à la limite de la nature , ou jusqu'à la source de feu , comme tu en as une image dans les étoiles , en voyant combien elles sont diversifiées. 2. Enfin 5 chaque trône ou principauté angélique est devenu une grande fontaine , comme tu peux en juger par le soleil en comparaison des étoiles , et comme tu le vois à la terre couverte de fleurs. La -grande fontaine dans la source fut le prince ou le trône angélique à l'heure du tiat dans l'affection ténébreuse , là où dans chaque fontaine le centre est sorti en mille fois mille centres , ou eu infinité» r »7a ) CH. II.
3Car , dans le fiât ^ l'esprit se contempla dans la nature des ténèbres , selon le mode de l'élernelle sagesse ; alors des multitudes de propriétés qui étoient dans la nature , sortirent d'une seule fontaine , selon le mode de IVtei nelle sagesse de Dieu , ou ( comme je pourrois le représenleren similitude pour faciliter rintelligerice) tel qu'un prince angélique qui auroit engendré en un instant une infinité d'anges de soimême. Là , cependant , le prince ne les engendra point , mais les essences et les qualités par le mojen du centre daus chaque essence sortirent du prince angélique , et. l'esprit créaturUa cela par le fiât , et cela demeura substantiellement. C'est pourquoi chaque légion ou chaque essence qui étoit sortie d'une fontaine, obtint une volonté dans la fontaine, qui étoit leur prince 5 comme tu vois que les étoiles livrent toute leur volonté à la puissance du soleil ; que le soleil domine sur toutes , et qu'ainsi elles ont aussi leur principe j ce dont il ne faut pas trop parler aux docteurs. Ils croient impossible de le savoir : cependant , là, dans Dieu tout est possible, et devant lui , mille ans sont comme un jour. 3. Or , parmi ces princes angéliques , il en est un qui est tombé ; car il resta dans la quatrième forme de la matrice de la génératrice , dans la base ténébreuse , dans l'ame qui est dans le lieu où l'éclair de feu s'originise , ee cela , avec toute salégîon provenue de lui. Ainsi le mode igné l'a poussé à se porter au-dessus de la limite de la nature , et au-dessus du cœur de Dieu, et ce mode est ainsi resté fortement allumé en lui. CH. II. ( 173 )
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.
15o. Now thou askest: Why did the love of God not come again to his aid? No, my friend. His affection had risen even to the limit of nature, and would from thence rule above the light of God: his affective base had become, in the anger, a source of kindled fire. The sweetness of God can do nothing there, the spirit of sulphur burns eternally; also is he an enemy of God, and God cannot aid him. For the centre is burning in the flash; his will ceases not to carry itself from thence above the sweetness of God. He can produce no other will; for his source has attained in the fire the limit of nature, and he remains a source of inextinguishable fire; the heart of God, in the sweetness, and the principle of God is shut for him, and that for eternity5i. In sum, God will have no sources of fire in paradise; they must remain, in the first principle, in the eternal darkness. If these angels had remained as God il ( î7<5 ) «H- ict created them, when the sweetness envisaged them, and had they placed in the sweetness the centre of their affection, then the light of God would have enlightened them eternally: they would have eaten of the word of God; they would have remained in the first principle, by the root of their origin, like God the father himself; and in the second principle, by the will, in the affective base: then they would have had the paradisiacal source, and the angelic will 5 they would have been as friends in the limbus of heaven, and in the love of God. (t7i) CHAPTER ELEVENTH. Of all the circumstances of the temptation.
2I. Now, here is the highest question: What has carried the affective base of the demon to rise so high? and what has caused that so great a number of them fell into pride? See. When God placed the fiat in the will, and would create the angels, then the spirit first separated all the qualities, in the manner in which thou seest still the divers species of stars, and the fiat created them thus. Then were created the princes, and the angelic thrones according to each quality, such as the hardness, the astringent, the bitter, the cold, the rude, the sweet and so forth in the essence, even to the limit of nature, or to the source of fire, as thou hast an image thereof in the stars, in seeing how diversified they are. 2. In fine 5 each angelic throne or principality became a great fountain, as thou mayest judge by the sun in comparison of the stars, and as thou seest it in the earth covered with flowers. The great fountain in the source was the prince or the angelic throne at the hour of the fiat in the tenebrous affection, there where in each fountain the centre went forth into a thousand times a thousand centres, or into infinity. r »7a ) CH. II.
3For, in the fiat, the spirit contemplated itself in the nature of the darkness, according to the mode of the eternal wisdom; then multitudes of properties that were in nature, went forth from one single fountain, according to the mode of the eternal wisdom of God, or (as I might represent it in similitude to facilitate the intelligence) such as an angelic prince who should have begotten in an instant an infinity of angels of himself. There, however, the prince begot them not, but the essences and the qualities by means of the centre in each essence went forth from the angelic prince, and the creatural spirit created that by the fiat, and that remained substantially. That is why each legion or each essence that was gone forth from a fountain, obtained a will in the fountain, which was their prince 5 as thou seest that the stars deliver all their will to the power of the sun; that the sun rules over all, and that thus they have also their principle; whereof one must not speak too much to the doctors. They believe it impossible to know it: nevertheless, there, in God all is possible, and before him, a thousand years are as a day. 3. Now, among these angelic princes, there is one who is fallen; for he remained in the fourth form of the matrix of the generatrix, in the tenebrous base, in the soul which is in the place where the flash of fire originises, and that, with all his legion proceeded from him. Thus the fiery mode has pushed him to carry himself above the limit of nature, and above the heart of God, and this mode has thus remained strongly kindled in him. CH. II. ( 173 )
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.