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.
1i3. Et afin que quand l'ame est séparée du corps ,' elle ne puisse plus être tentée par le démon ni par l'esprit de ce monde j il ja pour l'ame un doux repos renfermé dans son propre centre , dans sa propre teinture , lequel repos réside dans l'élément caché dans le paradis, entre le royaume de ce monde et le royaume de l'enfer , pour y rester jusqu'à ce que Dieu place ce monde dans son Elher, et que le nombre des hommes et des figures soit rempli selon la profondeur de l'éternelle ame de Dieu. i4. Si maintenant nous considérons comment est née la vie temporelle et périssable, alors nous trouvons que l'ame est une cause de tous les membres de la vie de l'homme, et sans elle aucun membre corporel ne seroit engendré dans l'homme : car quand nous scrutons l'ascension et Penjlammnmant de la vie , nous trouvons forcément avec les clairs témoignages de tous les membres , que lorsque la pure lumière de l'ame s'allimie , le fi.iT se trouve alors dans une grande joie , et sépare dans un clin d'œil ^ dans la matrice , le pur de l'impur ; ce dont la teinture de l'ame dans la lumière est le maître ouvrier qui , là , est le renovateur, et le fiât le créateur. i5. Gomme maintenant l'astringente matrice , au m.oyen de la lumière, est ainsi devenue humble , lit { 256 ) CH. 14allénuée et douce , alors la terreur colérique , qui avant la lumière étoit a;nsi vénéneuse , vole audessus de soi , car elle s'élonne de la douceur de la matrice , et c'est un étonnement d'une grande joie ; cependant elle conserve son litre colérique , et ne peut pas être changée ; elle ne peut pas non plus s'éloigner de là , car elle est retenue par le fiât J mais elle se porte proroptement eu haut , et elle se fait par le fiât astringent , une pellicule qui la retient ; c'est là le fiel autour du cœur.
2i6. Mais , comme la matrice dont la terreur a disparu est maintenant délivrée de la terreur de l'angoisse , êtes! aussi douce que l'eau suave; alors l'esprit du grand monde se représente ainsi promptemeut dans la matrice, et y remplit les quatre éléinens. Il dit en soi : Maintenant j'ai la douce vierge SOPHIE. Or, le FIAT crée ou opère ce qui est là ; il sépare les élémens qui sont aussi en combat , chacun voulant avoir la vierge ou la sorHiE;et ils luttent ensemble jusqu'à ce que l'un surmonte l'autre. Le feu demeure en haut comme le plus puissant et le plus fort ; l'eau au-dessous de lui ; la terre doit rester en-dessous comme une substance très lourde , et l'air veut avoir uue région qui lui soit propre. 17. Car il dit : Je suis l'esprit et la viej je veux demeurer dans la vierge sophie. Or le fiât astringent attire tout à soi et en fait une masse et ensuite une chair -, le feu conserve la région supérieure, c'est-àdire , le cœur de Dieu ; car par leur combat les quatre élémens se séparent ; chacun se fait sa région particulière , et le fiât transforme tout e» chair ; seulement l'air ne voudront point avoir de chair, car il dit : Je ne demeure point dans une maison ; et le fiât dit : Je t'ai créé , tu es mien ; et il l'enferme dans une enceinte , qui ^sl la vessie. 18. Alors les autres régions se >)lacent successivement Premièrement l'éclair colérique ; sa région est le fiel. Au-dessous de l'éclair , le feu ; sa région esi le cœur. Au-dessous du feu , l'eau 5 sa région est ie foie. Au-dessous de l'eau , la terre ; sa région est les poumons.
319. Enfin chaque élément inqualifie âans sa source/ €t cependant aucun ne peut rien faire sans l'autre , et n'auroit aussi aucune mobilité sans l'autre ; car l'un engendre rautre,et tous les quatre n'ont qu'une origine ; c'est une seuU essence avec ses généralion^ , comme je l*ai exposé ci -dessus amplement au sujet de Ja génération des quatre élémens, lors de la création. 20. Le fiel colérique ou le terrible et vénéneux éclair de feu enflamme dans le cœur la chaleur ou le ieu , et c'est là la cause d'où ensuite tout dérive. 21. Ici , dans notre examen , l'effrojable, lamentable et douloureuse chute se trouve encore dans Vhomification , dans laquelle si la lumière de la vie s'élève de façon que le fiât renouvelle la matrice dans la teinture de l'esprit de l'ame , alors le fiât jète loin de lui , hors de ses essences, le principe de la suffocation et de la destruction , qui est dans le colérique , c'est-à-dire , l'impur du sang étouffé; il le jète de côté , et ne veut pas non plus le souffrir'dans le corps , et le fut lui-mcme l'expulse comme une ^- J7 hétérogénéité j il fait de sa visqueuse astrîngence une enceinte , c'est-à-dire , une pellicule ou un boyau pour qu'il ne puisse toucher ni la chair ni l 'esprit j il lui laisse ouvertes les portes inférieures , ef le proscrit éternellement , parce que cette impureté n'appartient point à ce règne. De même qut cela est arrivé aussi à la terre , lorsque le fiât l'a je* |ée hors de la matrice , au milieu , dans le centre , ^ur un tas [ ou fumier]^ comme ne pouvant rien valoir pour le ciel ; de même en est-il ici.
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.
1i3. And so that when the soul is separated from the body, it may no more be tempted by the demon nor by the spirit of this world, there is for the soul a sweet repose enclosed in its own centre, in its own tincture, which repose resides in the element hidden in paradise, between the kingdom of this world and the kingdom of hell, to remain there until God place this world in its Ether, and that the number of men and of figures be filled according to the profundity of the eternal soul of God. i4. If now we consider how the temporal and perishable life is born, then we find that the soul is a cause of all the members of the life of man, and without it no corporeal member would be begotten in man: for when we scrutinise the ascension and the inflaming of the life, we find perforce with the clear testimonies of all the members, that when the pure light of the soul kindles itself, the FIAT finds itself then in a great joy, and separates in the twinkling of an eye, in the matrix, the pure from the impure; whereof the tincture of the soul in the light is the master workman who, there, is the renovator, and the fiat the creator. i5. As now the astringent matrix, by means of the light, is thus become humble, lit { 256 ) CH. 14attenuated and sweet, then the choleric terror, which before the light was thus venomous, flies above itself, for it is astonished at the sweetness of the matrix, and it is an astonishment of a great joy; nevertheless it preserves its choleric title, and cannot be changed; it cannot either withdraw from there, for it is retained by the fiat; but it carries itself promptly upward, and it makes for itself by the astringent fiat, a pellicle which retains it; that is the gall about the heart.
2i6. But, as the matrix whence the terror has disappeared is now delivered from the terror of the anguish, and is as sweet as the suave water; then the spirit of the great world represents itself thus promptly in the matrix, and fills therein the four elements. It says in itself: Now I have the sweet virgin SOPHIA. Now, the FIAT creates or operates what is there; it separates the elements which are also in combat, each willing to have the virgin or the SOPHIA; and they struggle together until the one overcome the other. The fire dwells above as the most powerful and the strongest; the water beneath it; the earth must remain underneath as a very heavy substance, and the air will have a region of its own. 17. For it says: I am the spirit and the life; I will dwell in the virgin Sophia. Now the astringent fiat draws all to itself and makes of it a mass and then a flesh; the fire preserves the superior region, that is to say, the heart of God; for by their combat the four elements separate themselves; each makes for itself its particular region, and the fiat transforms all into flesh; only the air will not have any flesh, for it says: I dwell not in a house; and the fiat says: I have created thee, thou art mine; and it encloses it in an enclosure, which is the bladder. 18. Then the other regions place themselves successively. Firstly the choleric flash; its region is the gall. Beneath the flash, the fire; its region is the heart. Beneath the fire, the water 5 its region is the liver. Beneath the water, the earth; its region is the lungs.
319. Finally each element inqualifies in its source, and nevertheless none can do anything without the other, and would also have no mobility without the other; for the one begets the other, and all four have but one origin; it is one single essence with its generations, as I have exposed it above amply touching the generation of the four elements, at the creation. 20. The choleric gall or the terrible and venomous flash of fire kindles in the heart the heat or the fire, and that is the cause whence afterwards all derives. 21. Here, in our examination, the frightful, lamentable and painful fall is found again in the homification, in which if the light of the life rise so that the fiat renew the matrix in the tincture of the spirit of the soul, then the fiat casts far from it, out of its essences, the principle of the suffocation and of the destruction, which is in the choleric, that is to say, the impure of the stifled blood; it casts it aside, and will not either suffer it in the body, and the fiat itself expels it as an ^- J7 heterogeneity; it makes of its viscous astringency an enclosure, that is to say, a pellicle or a bowel so that it may touch neither the flesh nor the spirit; it leaves open to it the inferior gates, and proscribes it eternally, because this impurity belongs not to this reign. Even as that happened also to the earth, when the fiat cast it out of the matrix, into the midst, into the centre, upon a heap [ or dunghill], as being able to be worth nothing for heaven; so is it here.
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.