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.
175. Or, ce qui est sans fin a la possibilité de pouvoir s'incliner vers lui , étant encore dans la première essence. Toutefois , tu ns dois entendre ici aucune aulre universalité ; car Dieu seulement est l'universalité , et la plus grande profondeur par-tout. Mais ce qui est dans l'infini , cela est partagé, et est dans l'aperçu de la multiplicité , là où l'universalité se contemple en soi et par soi-même eninfinilé dans les éternelles ténèbres, qui sont imprégnées. Ces mêmes coups d'œil existent tous dans l'origine de feu , et peuvent dans les ténèbres imprégnées , c'est-à-dire , dans l'astringence de la froidure , et dans l'éclair de feu , apercevoir de nouveau, et vivifier leur pencbant j ou bien concevoir de nouveau en raison des ténèbres et de l'angoisse de l'ame , une volonté d'aller dans la douceur de Dieu , au travers de l'aigu qui est dans l'éclair. 76. Car , l'aigu dans l'éclair est toujours le centre pour l'engendrement dans le second principe auquel, maintenant, le ver s'unit dans l'étincelle pour s'engendrer , soit de l'essence aiguë dans l'éternelle froidure , par le moyen de l'éclair qui est dans l'âpreté du feu , soit de l'aigu dans la renaissance de la douceur en Dieu ; cela devient sa demeure , et sans retour: car la douceur ne va point en arrière dans la colère ténébreuse et dans la Iroide essence , dans le CH. 14. ( 285 ) premier attract qui est de toute éternité avant la vo* lonté reconçue; mais elle vient à son secours ^ et elle l'éclairé. Ce que l'aigu reçoit de la forte puissance de Dieu, est vivant, dans la puissance et la lumière , éternellement avec Dieu.
277. Maintenant , la profondeur des ténèbres est aussi grande que la demeure delà lumière ; ces deux classes ne restent pas l'une à part de l'autre, mais elles sont unies l'une à l'autre , et aucune n'a ni commencement m fin j il n'y sl pour elles aucune limite ni lieu, mais la renaissance aiguë est la fin et la limite , et est la marque de séparation entre ces deux principes. 78. Il n'y a aucun dessous ni dessus ; seulement la renaissance, bors des ténèbres, dans la douceur, s'appelle le dessus : et il y a une telle barrière entre jeux qu'aucun ne saisit l'autre; car c'est une génération ou un principe , un ferme centre , la limite jde séparation , de façon que l'un ne peut pas aller dans l'autre , excepté l'aigu éclair du feu delà forte puissance de Dieu ,qui est dans le centre de la renaissance , qui voit seulement dans le ver des ténèbres, et fait, en épouvantant les ténèbres, l'éternel angoisseux tourment, l'ascension dans le feu , et cependant n'atteint rien au-delà de Tanguisse; et dans l'angoisse , la lueur colérique. Or , tout céqui maintenant est corporisé dans la base affective colérique,' dans les coups d'œil de l'infinité, et ne met pas sa volonté dans la corporisation précédente, ou dans Je centre de la renaissance dans la douceur deDieu^ C ^86 ) . en. \4. cela demeure dans Tame ténébreuse dans l'éckir de feu. 7<> Ainsi celte même créature n'a aucune autre volonté en soi , et ne peut non pl^js en puiser dans aucune autre chose jcariln'y a pins rien en elle que la volonté de toujours s'élever au-dessus du centre dans sa propre puissance non^régénérée, et de dominer dans la forte pq^issance du feu sur la douceur de Dieu ; et cependant elle ne peut y atteindre.
380. Ici est la source d'où la aéaturc des ténèbres tirera volonté d'être au -dessus de la divinité , tel que le démon ; et telle est la source de Forgueil parti» eu lier ou de V amour propre: car telle qu^cst la source dans la créature, telle est aussi la^créature, attendu que la créature vient des essences , et que la source ou son ver est de l'étemelle volonté de l'ame ténébreuse. Ôï.Or, cette volonté n'est pas la volonté de Dieu , et aussi n'est-elle pas Dieu ; mais la volonté reconçue dans la base aileclive, pour la dbuceur, est la volonté de Dieu engendrée de nouveau, laquelle est dans le centre de la génération , dans l'aigu du brisement des ténèbres ; dans la douce amabilité du royaume de joie ; dans l'e-xpansion de la Itimière; dans la réimprégnation de la volonté , et do l'engendrement de la puissance dô Téternelle toute science et sagesse dans l'amour. C'est là ce qu'est Dieu : ce qui écoule de Ini est sa volonté , que l'essepce ou j l'aigu fiât crée 5 et Dieu demeure «H. i4- ( ^87 ) dans le second principe , là où de l'éternel centre i de l'éternelle volonté , est éternellement engendré le royaume de Dieu sans fin et sans nombre , ainsi qu'il suit ci-après. La porte du fils de Dieu^ le très gracieux lys dans les merveilles. 82, Si donc l'éternelle volonté s'imprègne toujours ainsi de toute éternité , elle a aussi Téternel désir d'engendrer le iils dont elle est enceinte 5 et cette même volonté d'engendrer , engendre éternellement le fils dont la volonté est enceinte; or, le fils est l'éternelle puissance de la douceur que la volonté saisit de nouveau en soi , et il exprime la profondeur de la divinité, elles éternelles merveilles «t sagesses de Dieu.
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.
175. Now, what is without end has the possibility of being able to incline itself toward him, being still in the first essence. Nevertheless, thou must understand here no other universality; for God only is the universality, and the greatest profundity everywhere. But what is in the infinite, that is divided, and is in the perceiving of the multiplicity, there where the universality contemplates itself in itself and by itself in infinity in the eternal darknesses, which are impregnated. These same glances exist all in the origin of fire, and can in the impregnated darknesses, that is to say, in the astringency of the coldness, and in the flash of fire, perceive anew, and vivify their inclination; or else conceive anew by reason of the darknesses and of the anguish of the soul, a will to go into the sweetness of God, through the sharp which is in the flash. 76. For, the sharp in the flash is always the centre for the begetting in the second principle to which, now, the worm unites itself in the spark to beget itself, either of the sharp essence in the eternal coldness, by means of the flash which is in the harshness of the fire, or of the sharp in the new birth of the sweetness in God; that becomes its dwelling, and without return: for the sweetness goes not backward into the tenebrous anger and into the cold essence, into the CH. 14. ( 285 ) first attract which is from all eternity before the will reconceived; but it comes to its succour, and it enlightens it. What the sharp receives of the strong power of God, is living, in the power and the light, eternally with God.
277. Now, the profundity of the darknesses is as great as the dwelling of the light; these two classes remain not the one apart from the other, but they are united the one to the other, and neither has beginning nor end; there is for them no limit nor place, but the sharp new birth is the end and the limit, and is the mark of separation between these two principles. 78. There is no beneath nor above; only the new birth, out of the darknesses, into the sweetness, is called the above: and there is such a barrier between them that neither seizes the other; for it is a generation or a principle, a firm centre, the limit of separation, so that the one cannot go into the other, except the sharp flash of the fire of the strong power of God, which is in the centre of the new birth, which sees only into the worm of the darknesses, and makes, in affrighting the darknesses, the eternal anguishing torment, the ascension in the fire, and nevertheless attains nothing beyond the anguish; and in the anguish, the choleric gleam. Now, all that now is corporised in the choleric affective base, in the glances of the infinity, and puts not its will in the preceding corporisation, or in the centre of the new birth in the sweetness of God, C ^86 ) . en. \\4. that dwells in the tenebrous soul in the flash of fire. 7<> Thus this same creature has no other will in itself, and can no more draw any from any other thing; for there is nothing more in it than the will always to raise itself above the centre in its own unregenerated power, and to rule in the strong power of the fire over the sweetness of God; and nevertheless it cannot attain thereto.
380. Here is the source whence the creature of the darknesses will draw the will to be above the divinity, such as the demon; and such is the source of particular pride or of self-love: for such as is the source in the creature, such also is the creature, seeing that the creature comes from the essences, and that the source or its worm is of the eternal will of the tenebrous soul. Ôï. Now, this will is not the will of God, and also is it not God; but the will reconceived in the affective base, for the sweetness, is the will of God begotten anew, which is in the centre of the generation, in the sharp of the breaking of the darknesses; in the sweet amiability of the kingdom of joy; in the expansion of the light; in the re-impregnation of the will, and of the begetting of the power of the eternal all-science and wisdom in the love. That is what God is: what flows from him is his will, which the essence or the sharp fiat creates 5 and God dwells «H. i4- ( ^87 ) in the second principle, there where of the eternal centre and of the eternal will, is eternally begotten the kingdom of God without end and without number, as follows hereafter. The gate of the son of God, the most gracious lily in the marvels. 82, If then the eternal will impregnates itself always thus from all eternity, it has also the eternal desire to beget the son wherewith it is with child 5 and this same will to beget, begets eternally the son wherewith the will is with child; now, the son is the eternal power of the sweetness which the will seizes anew in itself, and he expresses the profundity of the divinity, and the eternal marvels and wisdoms of God.
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.