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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1is the 2 spring of the fifth form in the centre ; as in 2 Or fountain. the eternal centre, the Heart and light of God [is], which hath no ground ; but this [centre] of the stars and elements hath its ground in the fourth form in the dark mind, in the rising up of the awakened [or kindled] flash of the fire. 51. Thus the soul is generated between both the centres, between the centre of God (understand [between the centre] of the Heart or light of God, where it is generated out of an eternal place), and also between the [propagated or] out-sprung centre of this world ; and it [the soul] hath its beginning from both, and qualifieth with both ; and therefore 220 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 12 thus it hath all three Principles, and can live in all three. 52. But it was the law and will of the virgin, 1 mouideth, or that as God ruleth over all things, and l imprinteth imageth. . himself everywhere, and giveth virtue and life to all, and yet the thing comprehendeth him not, although he be certainly there ; so also should the 2 Or have con- soul 2 stand still, and the form of the virgin should tinned in true . ..,,,.. resignation, govern in the soul, and crown it with the divine light ; the soul should be the comely young man which was created, and the virtue [or power] of God [should be] the fair virgin ; and the light of God [should be] the fair [orient] pearl and crown, (^/ wherewith the virgin would adorn the young man.

253. But the young man desired to have the virgin to be his own, which could not be, because she was a degree higher in the birth than he ; for the virgin was from eternity, and the bridegroom was given to her, that she should have joy and delight with him in God. 54. But now when the young man could not obtain this of the virgin, then he reached back after the worm in his own centre. For the form of this world pressed very powerfully upon him, which also was in the soul, and [this form] would fain have had the virgin to be its own, that he might 3 Or woman, make her his 3 wife (as was done in the fall ; yet the wife was not from the pearl, but out of the spirit of this world) ; for it (viz. the nature of this world) continually groaneth [or longeth] after the virgin, Ch. 12] OPENING OF THE HOLY SCRIPTURE 221 that it might be delivered from vanity ; and it meaneth to qualify [or mingle] with the virgin ; but that cannot be, for the virgin is of a higher 1 birth. l Or descent. 55. And yet when this world shall break in pieces, and be delivered from the vanity of the

3worm, it shall not obtain the virgin ; but 2 it must a this world, continue without spirit and 3 worm, under its own * Or soul, shadow, in a fair and sweet rest, without any wrestling [struggling] or desiring : For thereby it cometh into its highest degree and beauty, and ceaseth [or resteth] eternally from its labour. For the worm which here tormenteth it, goeth into its own Principle, and no more toucheth the shadow nor the figure of this world to eternity, and then the virgin governeth with her bridegroom. 56. My beloved Reader, I will set it you down more plainly ; for every one hath not the 4 Pearl, to apprehend the virgin; and yet every 4 Or the lieht one would fain know how the fall of Adam was. Behold, as I mentioned just now, the soul hath all the three Principles in it ; viz. the most inward, [which is] the worm or brimstone-spirit and the source according to which it is a spirit ; and then [it hath] the divine virtue, which maketh the worm meek, bright, and joyful, according to which the worm or spirit is an angel, like God the Father himself (understand, in such a manner and birth) ; and then also it hath the Principle of this world ; wholly undivided in one another, and yet none [of 222 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 12 the three Principles] comprehendeth the other, for they are three Principles, or three births.

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