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.
15i. Ainsi la matière est séparée en membres par le FIAT. Quand le fiât tire ainsi maintenant le sang de la mère dans la masse ou la matière , il Tétouffe, et la teinture du sang devient fausse et tout-à-fait angoisseuse ; car l'essence astringente , c'est-à-dire > le FIAT s'effraie ; toute la joie que le fiât astringent avoit acquise dans la teinture du sang, disparoît , et le FIAT dans l'effroi commence à trembler dans l'es* sence astringente : l'astringent dans cet effroi s'enfuit comme un éclair, et voudroit s'éloigner de l'essence et s'envoler ; mais il est retenu par le fiat. Il est dur maintenant, et couenneux à cause de l'eisence , car l'essence dans son astringence le rend coriace , c'est lui qui enveloppe maintenant l'enfant 5 cela est la peau de l'enfant 5 et la teinture se porte promplement, au-dessus de soi , en effroi y et veut s'éloigner , et cependant ne le peut pas non plus: car elle est dans l'extra - génération des essences , mais elle s'étend promptement , au-dessus de soi , avec effroi. Elle prend avec elle la force de toutes les essences ; là-dedans , l'esprit des étoiles et des élémens se figurise ; il se remplit par là en fuyant ; il pense qu'il a la sophie ; il veut marcber avec elle , mais le fiât les saisit tous et les arrête^ et pense que le verbe de Dieu est là en concours , et «i que ce verbe doit créer Adam. 11 se corrobore dans la puissante force de l'astringent qui est en éruption ; il crée de nouveau le plus haut du corps ou la tête. De cet astringent en éruption qui tend toujours à s'éloigner , et qui cependant ne le peut pas , vient le crâne qui renferme le centre supérieur. Kt CH. i3. ( 443 )
2de l'échappement de la teinture, bors des essences dans le centre supérieur , par le moyen de l'érup! tion , viennent ainsi du corps , dans ia tête et dans le centre supérieur , les veines et le col. 52. Ainsi toutes \es veines dans tout le co^ps viennent d. Va^tringent eneffroi,e\ de l'c'^rouffemerf, lorsque Vastringent en effroi sort de toutes \^& es' «ences et veut s'éloigner , et que le fiât le retient par sa forte puissance. C'est pourquoi une veine a toujours une antre essence que l'autre , à cause du premier échappement, où l'essence des étoiles et des élémens se représente. Or , le fiât retient le tout et le crée: il suppose que le verbe de Dieu est la avec la forte puissance de Oieu ^ là ou le FIAT devoit créer le ciel et la terre. La porte de la grande affliction et de la aoufrance, 53. L'esprit de la vierge , ou de sophie , nous montre de nouveau le mystère , et le grand secret : car 1 étouffement du sang dans la matrice , particulièrement dans le fruit , est la première mort des essences; c'est là qu'elles sont séparées du ciel de façon que là la vierge ne peut pas être engendrée , elle qui devoit être engendrée de la puissance céleste en Adam , sans la femme, et aussi sans la brisure de son corps. Ici commence dans l'homme e règne astral et élémentaire; là, ils saisissent homme et inquaUfient avec l.ii ; là , ils le forment , e disposent, le nourrissent et le soignent : ce que 1 on hra au sujet de Cain. 0 1 homme, pense ici à ( 244) CB. l3. ,'jV' CI toi to. ; combien tu es élr.i.ement serre , e. comb.e» ,„ acquiers .le souffrances dans le corps de ta .«ère (Et vous, iuriscousul.es, remarquez de quel esLit V0U5 tenez la lumière , et le pouvoir de ,uger , pense-y Wen , car cela est profond. ) [ Ce passas» paroU avoir été interpolé, ]
3Continuation tur riiomiflcalioD. 54. Et quand le fiât tient ainsi en soi Vastrin^ Jce en efroi , de façon que les élémens la remplissent -, ce même [ remplissement ] devient les o* durs. Là le fut figure l'homme entier avec ses formes corporelles; le tout selon la première utte des deux teintures , telles qu'elles se combattent l'une et l'autre dans le jeu d'amour, lorsque la semence est semée. Celle des teintures , soit la mas. culine , soit la féminine , qui obtient la supériorité, estcelleselonlaquellele sexe est figuré dans 1 homme, et la figuration arrive très vite dans la tempête de rangoisseuse terreur ; là le sang s'étouffe -, alors rhomme astral et élémentaire va en haut , et rhomme céleste va en bas. Car, dans la terreur, raiguillon amer est engendré ; il tempête et fait rage dans la dure astringence effrayée , dans la grande angoisse du sang étouffé. 55 Dansle troisième mois,les femmes l'éprouvent bien* lorsque cela arrive dans le fruit. Combien de tourmens , de picotemens dans les dents dans les xeins , et ainsi de Juite ! Cela leur vient de la teinturc étouffée dans le fruit , et de leur sang étouffe cH. i3. ( a45 ) dans la matrice , puisque la mauvaise teinture mf/unlijîe avec la bonne teinture de leur corps. C'est pourquoi , de la manière dont la teinture souffre de ]a peine dans la matrice , de celte même manière aussi les mères souffrent de la peine dans les bons membres *, savoir : dans les os durs , dans les dents , dans les côtes , comme cela leur est bien connu.
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.
15i. Thus the matter is separated into members by the FIAT. When the fiat draws thus now the blood of the mother into the mass or the matter, it stifles it, and the tincture of the blood becomes false and altogether anguishing; for the astringent essence, that is to say, the FIAT takes fright; all the joy that the astringent fiat had acquired in the tincture of the blood, disappears, and the FIAT in the fright begins to tremble in the astringent essence: the astringent in this fright flees as a flash, and would withdraw from the essence and fly away; but it is retained by the fiat. It is hard now, and rindy because of the essence, for the essence in its astringency renders it coriaceous, it is that which envelops now the child 5 that is the skin of the child 5 and the tincture carries itself promptly, above itself, in fright, and will withdraw, and nevertheless can no more do it: for it is in the extra-generation of the essences, but it stretches itself promptly, above itself, with fright. It takes with it the force of all the essences; therein, the spirit of the stars and of the elements figurises itself; it fills itself thereby in fleeing; it thinks that it has the Sophia; it will walk with her, but the fiat seizes them all and stops them, and thinks that the word of God is there in concurrence, and that this word must create Adam. 11 corroborates itself in the powerful force of the astringent which is in eruption; it creates anew the highest of the body or the head. Of this astringent in eruption which tends always to withdraw, and which nevertheless cannot, comes the skull which encloses the superior centre. And CH. i3. ( 443 )
2of the escape of the tincture, out of the essences into the superior centre, by means of the eruption, come thus from the body, into the head and into the superior centre, the veins and the neck. 52. Thus all the veins in all the body come from the astringent in fright, and from the stifling, when the astringent in fright goes forth from all the essences and will withdraw, and that the fiat retains it by its strong power. That is why one vein has always another essence than the other, because of the first escape, where the essence of the stars and of the elements represents itself. Now, the fiat retains the whole and creates it: it supposes that the word of God is there with the strong power of God, there where the FIAT was to create the heaven and the earth. The gate of the great affliction and of the suffering, 53. The spirit of the virgin, or of Sophia, shows us anew the mystery, and the great secret: for 1the stifling of the blood in the matrix, particularly in the fruit, is the first death of the essences; it is there that they are separated from heaven so that there the virgin cannot be begotten, she who was to be begotten of the celestial power in Adam, without the woman, and also without the breaking of his body. Here begins in man the astral and elementary reign; there, they seize man and inqualify with him; there, they form him, dispose him, nourish him and tend him: which 1one shall read touching Cain. 0 1man, think here upon ( 244) CB. l3. ,'jV' CI thee thyself; how straitly thou art pressed, and how many sufferings thou acquirest in the body of thy mother. (And you, jurisconsults, remark of what spirit y0u5 hold the light, and the power of judging, think upon it well, for that is profound. ) [ This passage appears to have been interpolated, ]
3Continuation upon the homification. 54. And when the fiat holds thus in itself the astringence in fright, so that the elements fill it; this same [ filling ] becomes the hard bones. There the fiat figures the entire man with his corporeal forms; the whole according to the first struggle of the two tinctures, such as they combat one and the other in the play of love, when the seed is sown. That of the tinctures, whether the masculine, or the feminine, which obtains the superiority, is that according to which the sex is figured in 1man, and the figuration happens very quickly in the tempest of the anguishing terror; there the blood stifles itself; then the astral and elementary man goes upward, and the celestial man goes downward. For, in the terror, the bitter sting is begotten; it storms and rages in the hard astringency affrighted, in the great anguish of the stifled blood. 55 In the third month, the women prove it well when that happens in the fruit. How many torments, of prickings in the teeth, in the reins, and so forth! That comes to them from the tincture stifled in the fruit, and from their blood stifled cH. i3. ( a45 ) in the matrix, since the bad tincture inqualifies with the good tincture of their body. That is why, in the manner in which the tincture suffers pain in the matrix, in that same manner also the mothers suffer pain in the good members; to wit: in the hard bones, in the teeth, in the ribs, as this is well known to them.
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.