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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.
132. Car , les essences de l'ame ne sont point une propriété de ce roi , il ne les a point engendrées , n€ elles lui ; mais , par attract , il s'est représenté dans les essences de cette ame, et s'est endammé dans leur éclair de feu , dans le dessein de cbercher sa vierge ou sa sofhie, e4 de vivre en elle qui n'est rieti moins que la très sainte puissance divine. Dès que l'esprit de i'auie est de l'éternité , et qu'il aew! ia vierge avant la chnte ; alorsdésormais, l'esprit dit ^aiid monde cKerche toujours cette vierge sof^Hic daas l'esprit de l'ame , et pense qu'elfe est encore là comme avant la cbute , lorsque l'esprit du grand inonde se regarda avec tant de joie dans la vierge d'Adam , et qu'U vouloit aussi vivre , et être éternellement dans la vierge : car il «entoil sa corruptibilité ^ comme en effet îl étoit âpre en soi-même. Il ( a64 > cir. T4I vouîoit donc puiser dans l'amabilité et fa douceur de la vierge sopbie , et vivre en elle afin de ne pas périr de nouveau , mais de vivre éternellemenr. 33. Car , par le grand altract des ténèbres pour ]a lumière et la puissance de Dien, ce monde s été engendré des ténèbres , là où la sainte puissance de Dieu s'est contemplée dans les ténèbres ; c'est pour cela qu'il est resté un si grand penchant et un si grand attrait pour la puissance di< vine dans l'esprit du soleil , des étoiles et des élé" mens y et dans tontes choses» Tout s'angoisse et soupire encore après la puissance divine y et voudroit bien être délivré de la vanité du démon : or y comme cela ne peut pas être y il faut que toutes les créatures attendent jusqu'à leur dissolution y OÙ elles s'en iront dans leur Ëther , el obtiendront place dans le paradis 3 mais seulement en figure et en ombre 3 et l'esprit qui laisse perdre ici un tel attraet sera brisé.
234. Maintenant cet attraet doit être ainsi ; san& cela aucune créature ne seroit bonne y et il n'y au^ Toit dans ce monde qu'une vraie colère y et un pur enfer. Lors donc que la vierge , ou la sophie , voit dans le second principe que l'esprit de ce monde ne la peut pas atteindre y et que pourtant elle se contemple sans cesse dans l'esprit de ce monde , comme trouvant sa )oie dans la fructification , et la croissance de toutes choses ; alors il est désireux*-^ à son tour et cherche toujours la Sophie. Il élève plusieurs créatures à un grand esprit'et en sagacité; il les place dans de hauts grades ^ autant qu'il peut^ CH. 14. ( 265 ) el pertse toujours qu'on lui réengendrera cette vierge qu'il a contemplée dans Adam , avant sa chute. C'est lui aussi qui a entraîné Adam à sa chute , en ce qu'il vouloit demeurer dans sa vierge ; il combattit ainsi en Adam, par son grand attraet , de façon qu'il tomba en sommeil; c'est-à-dire, ii s'établit avec violence dans la teinture d'Adam , à cause de la vierge sophie : il vouloit inquallfier en elle, et vivre éternellement en elle, d'où la teinture fut fatiguée ; et la sophie s'éloigna. 35. Alors Adam succomba et devint sans force ; ce qui s'appelle sommeil : cela a été l'arbre de la tentation pour éprouver s'il seroit possible qu'Adam vécût éternellement dans la vierge sophie , et engendrât de soi , à son tour, la vierge, et ainsi de suite un royaume angélique.
336. Mais comme cela ne pouvoit pas être , à cause du triomphe de Tesprit de c-e monde, alors la tentation extérieure fut entreprise d'abord par l'arbre du fruit de ce monde. Là, Adam devint entièrement un homme de ce monde ; il mangea et but des essences terrestres ; il s'infecta avec l'esprit de ce monde 3 il en devint la propriété. En effet maintenant on peut voir journellement comment cet esprit possède un enfant dans le corps de la mère> daus V1iomification\ car il ne sait où chercher la vierge , ou la sophie , ailleurs que dans l'homme où il l'a contemplée en premier lieu. 37. C'est pourquoi il combat ainsi violemment dans plusieurs hommesdont la coraplexion est forte, et dans qui souvent la vierge sophie se contemple. l 266} di: 14. II imagine toujours qu'il va oblenîr la sôphie ; qu'elle doit être engendrée pour lui 5 et plus Tame se défend devant lui, et se porle vers le cœur de Dieu pour s'y donner en propriété , là où l'aimablo vierge sophie, non-seulement se contemple librement , mais daigne même quelque fois , pour plusieurs heures, se placer dans son siège ou dans la teinture de l'ame; plus l'esprit de ce monde devient puissaut et désireux. 38. C'est alors que le roi on la lumière du soleil devient aussi en esprit un royaume si joyeux , si triomphant, si jubilant^ et se réjouissant si fort qu'il remue toutes les essences des étoiles , et qu'il les porte à leur plus haut degré , pour s'engendrer éminemment. Alors donc tous les centres des astres s'élèvent , et la gracieuse vierge s'y con* temple : là , alors , les essences de l'ame dans la lumière de la vierge sophie , peuvent , dans les centres des astres , voir ce qu'il y a daas la sourc» ék Vuwie , et dans son origine.
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.
132. For, the essences of the soul are not a property of this king, he has not begotten them, nor they him; but, by attract, he has represented himself in the essences of this soul, and has kindled himself in their flash of fire, in the design of seeking his virgin or his Sophia, an4d of living in her who is nothing less than the most holy divine power. Since the spirit of the soul is of eternity, and that it had the virgin before the fall; then henceforth, the spirit of the great world seeks always this virgin Sophia in the spirit of the soul, and thinks that she is still there as before the fall, when the spirit of the great world looked at itself with so much joy in the virgin of Adam, and that it would also live, and be eternally in the virgin: for it felt its corruptibility, as in effect it was harsh in itself. It ( a64 > cir. T4I would then draw from the amiability and the sweetness of the virgin Sophia, and live in her so as not to perish anew, but to live eternally. 33. For, by the great attract of the darkness for the light and the power of God, this world has been begotten of the darkness, there where the holy power of God contemplated itself in the darkness; it is for that that there has remained so great an inclination and so great an attraction for the divine power in the spirit of the sun, of the stars and of the elements, and in all things. All is in anguish and sighs still after the divine power, and would indeed be delivered from the vanity of the demon: now, as that cannot be, all the creatures must wait until their dissolution, where they will go into their Ether, and will obtain place in paradise 3 but only in figure and in shadow 3 and the spirit which lets such an attract be lost here will be broken.
234. Now this attract must be thus; without that no creature would be good, and there would be in this world only a true anger, and a pure hell. When then the virgin, or the Sophia, sees in the second principle that the spirit of this world cannot attain her, and that nevertheless she contemplates herself without ceasing in the spirit of this world, as finding her joy in the fructification, and the growth of all things; then it is desirous in its turn and seeks always the Sophia. It raises several creatures to a great spirit and in sagacity; it places them in high grades, as much as it can, CH. 14. ( 265 ) and thinks always that this virgin will be re-begotten for it, that virgin which it contemplated in Adam, before his fall. It is it also that has drawn Adam to his fall, in that it would dwell in his virgin; it combated thus in Adam, by its great attract, so that he fell into sleep; that is to say, it established itself with violence in the tincture of Adam, because of the virgin Sophia: it would inqualify in her, and live eternally in her, whence the tincture was wearied; and the Sophia withdrew. 35. Then Adam succumbed and became without force; which is called sleep: that has been the tree of the temptation to prove whether it were possible that Adam should live eternally in the virgin Sophia, and beget of himself, in his turn, the virgin, and so on an angelic kingdom.
336. But as that could not be, because of the triumph of the spirit of this world, then the exterior temptation was undertaken first by the tree of the fruit of this world. There, Adam became entirely a man of this world; he ate and drank of the terrestrial essences; he infected himself with the spirit of this world 3 he became the property of it. In effect now one may see daily how this spirit possesses a child in the body of the mother, in the h1omification; for it knows not where to seek the virgin, or the Sophia, elsewhere than in man where it contemplated her in the first place. 37. That is why it combats thus violently in several men whose complexion is strong, and in whom often the virgin Sophia contemplates herself. l 266} di: 14. It imagines always that it is going to obtain the Sophia; that she must be begotten for it 5 and the more the soul defends itself before it, and carries itself toward the heart of God to give itself there in property, there where the amiable virgin Sophia, not only contemplates herself freely, but deigns even sometimes, for several hours, to place herself in her seat or in the tincture of the soul; the more the spirit of this world becomes powerful and desirous. 38. It is then that the king or the light of the sun becomes also in spirit a reign so joyous, so triumphant, so jubilant, and rejoicing itself so strongly that it stirs all the essences of the stars, and that it bears them to their highest degree, to beget itself eminently. Then therefore all the centres of the stars rise, and the gracious virgin contemplates herself therein: there, then, the essences of the soul in the light of the virgin Sophia, can, in the centres of the stars, see what there is in the source of the soul, and in its origin.
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.