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.
169. Enfin la première ardeur et le premier désir ( ou l'âpre génération dans la première volonté ) , ainsi que l'ame ténébreuse , restent en elles-mêmes; elles y ont le reflet de l'éclair de feu qui est toujours subsistant dans l'ame ténébreuse ; et cette même ame ténébreuse est éternellement en angoisse: en outre , dans l'éclair elle est sans interruption dans un état de brisement , d'attract , d'ascension et de désir de monter au-dessus de la douceur. Ainsi , dans le brisement parle feu de l'éclair, dans l'aigu de l'éclair , dans l'essence , l'allract s'élève comme uu centre ou un principe. La porte de Dieu le père, 70. Ainsi donc dans l'aigu de l'éclair de feu , la lumière qui est dans l'ame éternelle, et qui veut être délivrée à^s ténèbres , s'élève de la volonté reconçue , vers la douceur et la lumière \ ainsi cet affranchissement des ténèbres est une douceur et un bien être pour la base affective , en ce qu'elle est délivrée de l'angoisse et qu'elle se liouve dans l'aigu de l'éclair de feu qui brise les ténèbres astringentes et les rend claires et lumineuses par sa splendeur. 71. Or , dans cette lueur de l'aigu se trouve maintenant la toute puissance ; car il brise en soi-même ' Jes ténèbres , et produit des joies et une grande ( ftSa ) eir. fjfi.
2douceur , comme quelqu'un qui passeroit d'irn feu âDgoisseux dans de douces délices. Comme dono l'éclair est en soi si fortement rapide , plus grand et plus prompt qu'une pensée , et qu'ainsi en soimême , liors des ténèbres , dans son enjîammemênty il voit dans la lumière; il s'effraie lui-même si fort qu'il laisse tomber en bas la puissance qti'il avoit dans le feu , et cet effroi arrive dans l'aigu de l'éclair qui est maintenant l'explosion d'une grande joie. Ici la volonté reconçue désire cette explosion du feu dans la douceur. Or , ce désir est ratlirentené de la joie ; Vattirement est V inqualification dans la volonté , et ce qui est attiré rend la volonté imprégnée ou enceinte : car cela est en elle , et la volonté le retient. 72. Or , il n'y a rien que la volonté puisse tirer à soi par l'aigu ou l'essence , sinon , la douceur , le délivrement des ténèbres 5 cela est le désir de la volonté , et là dedans se trouve l'aimable délice que la volonté tire à soi , et l'attirant dans la volonté , imprègne la volonté , de façon qu'elle est enceinte. 73. Maintenant la volonté reconçue est enceinte de joie daùs la douceur ; elle désire de l'engendrer de soi sans interruption, pour se réjouir de nouveau et à cause du goût agréable qu'elle trouve dans \a joie ; e( ce ftiême désir d'engendrer saisit la douceur dans la joie qui se trouve dans la volonté enceinte , et i! apporte de nouveau l'essence ou l'atfract de la voîoUté , hors de la volonté, devant la volonté. Car ce qui est conçu, Je désir l'attire hori de la volotilé imprégnée, devant lar volonté; et en. 14. l 283 )
3ce qui est attiré est aménité , puissance , joie et douceur. Enfin , le désir de l'éternelle volonté est tout entier de manger, ou d'attirer en soi de nouveau cette puissance et d'en être rassasié. Il ne souhaite rien de plus élevé ou de plus délectable ; car, en elle est le complément de la joie et de la douceur la plus éminente. 74. Or , dans cette même puissance qui est dans Dieu le père , comme il est dit ci-dessus , se trouve la science totale de ce qui est dans l'origine , dans l'éternité, là où l'éclair brille en mille fois mille, ou sans nombre. Car celte vertu puissante de la joie dans les délices est sortie de l'aigu du coup d'œil ; et le tout-puissant voit de nouveau dans l'aigu , au-dessus des ténèbres , dans l'éternel aigu , dans l'ame ténébreuse. Or , la base affective s'incline vers la puissance , et désire la puissance ; et la puissance ne retourne plus en arrière dans les ténèbres ; mais elle s'y contemple. De-là vient que l'éternelle l3ase alfective est toujours aspirante après la puissance : la puissance est l'aigu ; l'aigu est l'attirant , et s'appelle l'éternel fiât , qui crée là , et corporise ce que veut l'éternelle volonté dans la douceur toute puissante ( laquelle est la force et le brisement des ténèbres , et le développement du principe ). Il opère là ce que la volonté aperçoit dans l'éternelle science, ce qu'en soi elle se propose de faire , ce qui s'incline vers la douceur, ce que cette volonté souhaite de créer par le fiat aigu ( c'est-à-dire l'éternelle essence ). C'est là maintenant la volonté de Dieu. Ce q^ui s'incline \eiè ( 284 ) CH. 14' lui, et désire être à hii^tout ce qui se porte vers lui, dans sa puissance, dans un nombre mille et milla fois répété , ou à l'infini j il veut le créer dans la douceur,
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.
169. Finally the first ardour and the first desire ( or the harsh generation in the first will ), as well as the tenebrous soul, remain in themselves; they have therein the reflection of the flash of fire which is always subsisting in the tenebrous soul; and this same tenebrous soul is eternally in anguish: besides, in the flash it is without interruption in a state of breaking, of attract, of ascension and of desire to mount above the sweetness. Thus, in the breaking by the fire of the flash, in the sharp of the flash, in the essence, the attract rises as a centre or a principle. The gate of God the father, 70. Thus then in the sharp of the flash of fire, the light which is in the eternal soul, and which will be delivered from the darknesses, rises from the will reconceived, toward the sweetness and the light; thus this enfranchisement from the darknesses is a sweetness and a well-being for the affective base, in that it is delivered from the anguish and that it finds itself in the sharp of the flash of fire which breaks the astringent darknesses and renders them clear and luminous by its splendour. 71. Now, in this gleam of the sharp is found now the omnipotence; for it breaks in itself the darknesses, and produces joys and a great ( ftSa ) eir. fjfi.
2sweetness, as one who should pass from an anguishing fire into sweet delights. As then the flash is in itself so strongly rapid, greater and prompter than a thought, and that thus in itself, out of the darknesses, in its inflaming, it sees in the light; it takes fright at itself so strongly that it lets fall down the power that it had in the fire, and this fright happens in the sharp of the flash which is now the explosion of a great joy. Here the reconceived will desires this explosion of the fire in the sweetness. Now, this desire is the attraction of the joy; the attraction is the inqualification in the will, and what is attracted renders the will impregnated or with child: for that is in it, and the will retains it. 72. Now, there is nothing that the will can draw to itself by the sharp or the essence, save, the sweetness, the deliverance from the darknesses 5 that is the desire of the will, and therein is found the amiable delight which the will draws to itself, and the attracting in the will, impregnates the will, so that it is with child. 73. Now the reconceived will is with child of joy in the sweetness; it desires to beget it of itself without interruption, to rejoice itself anew and because of the agreeable taste that it finds in the joy; and this same desire to beget seizes the sweetness in the joy which is found in the will with child, and it brings anew the essence or the attract of the will, out of the will, before the will. For what is conceived, the desire draws it out of the will impregnated, before the will; and en. 14. l 283 )
3what is attracted is amenity, power, joy and sweetness. Finally, the desire of the eternal will is entirely to eat, or to draw into itself anew this power and to be satiated with it. It wishes nothing more elevated or more delectable; for, in it is the completion of the joy and of the most eminent sweetness. 74. Now, in this same power which is in God the father, as is said above, is found the total science of what is in the origin, in eternity, there where the flash shines in a thousand times a thousand, or without number. For this powerful virtue of the joy in the delights is gone forth from the sharp of the glance; and the almighty sees anew in the sharp, above the darknesses, in the eternal sharp, in the tenebrous soul. Now, the affective base inclines itself toward the power, and desires the power; and the power returns no more backward into the darknesses; but it contemplates itself therein. Thence comes it that the eternal b3ase affective is always aspiring after the power: the power is the sharp; the sharp is the attracting, and is called the eternal fiat, which creates there, and corporises what the eternal will wills in the all-powerful sweetness ( which is the force and the breaking of the darknesses, and the development of the principle ). It operates there what the will perceives in the eternal science, what in itself it proposes to do, what inclines itself toward the sweetness, what this will wishes to create by the sharp fiat ( that is to say the eternal essence ). That is now the will of God. What inclines itself toward ( 284 ) CH. 14' him, and desires to be his; all that carries itself toward him, in his power, in a number a thousand and a thousand times repeated, or to infinity; he will create it in the sweetness,
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.