Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

Gate passedSeeker and aboveModern transcription — not a facsimileJacob Boehme (1575–1624)PUBLIC DOMAIN as published. Boehme d. 1624; the Sparrow translation is 1656. Per-part determination MADE 2026-08-29: the eight front-matter segments carrying the 2009 electronic edition own introductory apparatus were withheld (three excised in full, five redacted in part where a public-domain title block or Boehme text shared the page). The remaining 5,022 segments are public domain and are open at seeker tier.905 of 1000 segments carry a modern register · 343 pp

Jacob Boehme — the works in English, and one in Frencheditor’s preface to the volume

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.

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117. Therefore the eternal Word, or Heart of God, wrought thus in the dark and spiritual matrix, which in itself, in the originalness without the light, would be [as it were] dumb [or senseless], and hath generated a corporeal and palpable [or comprehensible] similitude of its essence, in which all the forms were brought forth out of the eternal formation, and brought into essence. For out of the spiritual form, the corporeal [form] is generated, and the eternal Word hath created it by the Fiat, to stand thus. 18. Now then, out of these forms, out of the matrix of the earth, by the Fiat, in the Word, Ch. 11] CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TEMPTATION 185 went forth all the creatures of this world ; also trees, herbs, and grass, every one according to its kind ; as also worms, evil and good, as every form in the matrix of the genetrix had its original. And thus it was also with the fruits in the paradise of this world in the Garden of Eden ; when the word was spoken, Let there come forth all sorts of trees and herbs, then out of all forms [or the genetrix or womb] trees and herbs came forth and grew, which were altogether good and pleasant ; for the word in the Fiat had 1 imprinted itself in ' imaged or imagined. all the forms.

219. But then the darkness and source [or pain] were in the midst in the centre, wherein death, the wrathfulness, decay, and the corruptibility did stick ; and if that had not been, this world would have stood for ever, and Adam would not have been tempted: 2They also, like a 3 death (or a2 the darkness, . /• , -i \ T i i ,1 an(l source, or corrupting worm 01 the source) did work together, pain. and generate the Tree of Good and Evil in the3morsmidst of its seat [or place], because death stuck in the midst of the centre, by which this world will be kindled in the fire at the end of the days. And this source is even the anger of God, which by the Heart or light of God in the eternal Father is continually put into the meekness ; and therefore the Word or Heart of God is called the eternal mercifulness of the Father. 20. Seeing then all the forms of the eternal nature were to come forth [it is so come to pass], 186 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 11 as you may see in toads, adders, worms, and evil beasts ; for that is the form which sticketh in the midst in the birth of all creatures, viz. the poison [venom], or brimstone-spirit ; as we see that all creatures have poison and gall ; and the life of the creatures sticketh in the power [or might] of it [the poison] ; as you may find before in this book, in all the chapters, how the eternal nature taketh its original, how it worketh, and how [or after what manner] its essence [being or substance] is.

321. Now thus the tree of the strong [tartness, or wrath] (which is in the midst of nature) grew also in the midst of the Garden of Eden ; and was (according to the ability of its own form which it hath from the eternal quality in the originalness) the greatest and the mightiest [tree]. And here it may be seen very clearly, that God would have preserved and had man to be in paradise, for he forbad him this tree, and caused other fruit enough [besides] to grow in the forms and essences. The Gate of the Tempting. 22. St Paul saith, God foresaw [or elected] man, before the ground [or foundation] of the world was laid : Here we find the ground so very [plain or] fair, that we have a delight to write on, 1 Wisdom. and to seek the l Pearl. For behold, in the eternal wisdom of God, before the creation of the world, the fall of the devils, and also of man, appeared in the eternal matrix, and was seen. For the eternal Ch. 11] CIRCUMSTANCES OF THE TEMPTATION 187 Word in the eternal light knew very well, that if it came to manifest the fountain of the eternal birth, that then every form would break forth ; yet it was not the will of the love in the Word of the light, that the forms of the tart [sour, strong wrath] should elevate themselves above the meekness ; but it had such a mighty [or potent] form, that it is so come to pass.

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.

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Commentary

whole issue ·

Cross-estate[P-V]translated_asboehme:2:1:003

This English 'Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence' and boehme:11 are the same work in two languages — and the French is not just any translation. It is Louis-Claude de Saint-Martin's own: 'Des trois principes de l'essence divine', issued by the Périsse brothers of the rue Mercière. Saint-Martin learned German in his fifties expressly to read Boehme, and spent his last years translating him. The estate therefore holds, side by side, the text that formed the Unknown Philosopher and the form in which he gave it to France — the single most direct documentary link between the two founders of this corpus.

→ boehme:11