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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1[breaketh or] dissolveth, and the tincture flieth away like a glance or shadow ; and then the source [or springing up] of the fire is out, and the body becometh stiff. 32. But alas ! the life hath many greater and more powerful enemies ; especially the four elements and the constellations [or stars]. As soon as [any] one element becometh too strong, the tincture flieth from it, and then the life hath its end : If it be overwhelmed with water, it groweth cold, and the fire goeth out, then the flash flieth away like a glance or shadow : If it be overwhelmed with earth, viz. with impure matter, then the flash groweth dark, and flieth away : If it be overwhelmed with air. that it be stopped, then the tincture is stifled, and the springing essences, and the flash breaketh into a glance, and goeth into its ether. But if it be overwhelmed with fire or heat, the flash is enflamed, and burneth up the tincture, from whence the blood becometh dark, and swarthy, or black, and the flash goeth out in the meekness. 33. 0 how many enemies hath the life among the constellations [or stars], which qualify [or mingle their influence] with the tincture and elements. When the planets and the stars have their conjunctions, and where they cast their poisonous rays into the tincture, there ariseth in the life of the meek tincture, stinging, tearing, and torturing. For the sweet [or pleasant] tincture (being a sweet and pleasing refreshment) cannot

2212 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [CL 12 endure any impure thing. And therefore when such poisonous rays are darted into it, then it resisteth and continually cleanseth itself; but as soon as it is overwhelmed, that it is darkened, then the flash goeth out, the life breaketh, and the body falleth away, and becometh a cadaver, carcase [or dead corpse] ; for the spirit-is the life. 34. This I have here shewn very briefly and summarily, and not according to all the circumstances, that it might thereby be somewhat understood [by the way, what] the life [is]. In its due place all shall be expounded at large, for herein is very much contained, and there might be great volumes written of it; but I have set down only this, that the overcoming and the sleep might be apprehended. The Gate [or Exposition] of the heavenly Tincture, how it was in Adam before the Fall, and how it shall be in us after this Life. 35. Great and mighty are these secrets, and that seeketh and findeth them, hath surpassing joy therein ; for they are the true heavenly bread for the soul. If we consider and receive the knowledge of the heavenly tincture, then there riseth up the knowledge of the divine kingdom of joy, so that we wish to be loosed from the vanity, and to live in this birth ; which yet cannot be, but we must finish our day's work. 36. Reason saith : Alas ! If Adam had not Ch. 12] OPENING OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE 213

3lusted, he had not fallen asleep : if I had been as he I would have stood firm, and have continued in paradise. Yes, beloved reason, you have hit the matter well, in thinking so well of thyself! I will shew thee thy strength, and the gate ; and do but thou consider how firm thou shouldst stand, if thou didst stand as Adam did before the tempting tree. 37. Behold, I give you a true similitude : Suppose that thou wast a young man, or young maid [or virgin] (as Adam was both of them in one [only] person), how dost thou think thou shouldst stand ? Suppose thus, set a young man of good complexion, beautiful, and virtuous ; and also a fair chaste modest virgin [or young maid], curiously featured, and put them together ; and let them not only come to speak together, and converse lovingly one with another, but so that they may also embrace one another ; and command them not to fall in love together, not so much as in the least thought, also not to have any inclination to it, much less any infection in the will ; and let these two be thus together forty days and forty nights, and converse with one another in mere joy ; and command them further, that they keep their will and mind stedfast and never 1 conceive one thought to desire one another and 1 Or propose . in thought. not to infect [themselves] with any essence or property at all, but that their will and inclination be most stedfast and firm to the command ; and 214 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 12

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