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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120. Therefore you must know for certain, that Eve was created out of all Adam's essences. But there were no more ribs nor members broken from Adam ; which appeareth by the feebleness and weakness of the woman, and also by the command of God, who said, Thy will shall be in subjection under thy man [or husband], and he shall be thy lord [or ruler]. Because the man is whole and perfect, except a rib, therefore the woman is a help for him, and must help him to do his work in humility and subjection ; and the man must know - that she is very weak, being out of his essences ; he must help her in her weakness, and love her as his own essences : In like manner the woman must put her essences and will into [the essences and will of] the man, and be friendly towards her man [or husband] ; that the man may take delight in his own essences in the woman ; and that they two might be but one only will. For they are one flesh, one bone, one heart, and generate children in one [only] will, which are neither the man's nor the woman's alone, but of both together, as if they were from one only body. And therefore the severe commandment of God is set before the children, that they should with earnestness and 234 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 13 1 Note, the Author lived not so long to perform his purpose upon the Book of Exodus. 2 Klee. Trifolium. 3 spiritum. <0r habitation.

2subjection honour their father and mother, upon pain of temporary and eternal punishment : l Of which I will write concerning the Tables of Moses. Concerning the Propagating of the Soul. The Noble Gate. 21. The mind hath from the beginning of the world had so very much to do about this gate, and hath continually so searched therein, that I cannot reckon the wearisome heap of writers [about it]. But in the time of the lily this gate shall flourish as a bay-tree [or laurel-tree] ; for its branches will get sap from the virgin, and therefore will be greener than 2 grass, and whiter than the [whitest] roses, and the virgin will bear the pleasant smell thereof upon her pearly garland, and it will reach into the paradise of God. 22. Seeing then the mystery presenteth itself to us, therefore we will open the blossom of the sprout : Yet we would not have our labour givei to the wolves, dogs, or swine, which root in 01 garden of delight, like [wild] boars, but to thos that seek, that the sick Adam may be comforted. 23. Now if we will search after the tincture, what it is in its highest degree, we shall find the 3 spirit : For we cannot say, that the fire is th( tincture, nor the air either. For the fire is wholly contrary to the tincture ; and the air doth stifle it ; it is a very pleasant 4 refreshment ; its root, out of which it is generated, is indeed the fire : But Ch. 13] OF THE CREATING OF THE WOMAN 235

3I may rightly mention the seat where it sitteth, I cannot say otherwise, but that it is between the three Principles, viz. [between] the kingdom of God, the kingdom of hell, and the kingdom of this world, in the midst, and [it] hath none [of the three] for its own, and yet it is generated from all three : And it hath as it were a several Principle, which yet is no Principle, but a bright pleasant habitation. Neither is itself the spirit, but the spirit dwelleth in it, and it so reneweth the spirit, that l it becometh clear and visible. Its true name 1 the spirit. is Wonderful, and none can name [that name], but he to whom it is given, he nameth it only in himself, and not without [or outwardly], it hath no place of its rest in the substance, and yet resteth continually in itself, and giveth virtue and beauty to all things, as the 2 glance of the sun giveth light, 2 Or sunshine. virtue and beauty to all things in this world ; and it is not the thing itself, though indeed it worketh in the thing, and maketh the thing grow and blossom, and yet it is found really [to be] in all things, and it is the life and heart of all things, but it is not the spirit which is generated out of the essences.

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