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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128. Seeing now we have spoken of the tincture, as of the house of the soul, so we will speak also of the soul, what it is, and how it can be propagated, wherein we can the better bring the tincture to 1 light. The soul is not so subtle >s the tincture ; but it is powerful and hath great might [or ability]. It can by the tincture (if it rideth upon the virgin's bride-chariot 2in the tincture) turn mountains upside-down, as Christ said ; which is done in the pure faith, in the place where the tincture is master, which doth it, and the soul giveth the thrust; whereas yet no power can be discerned. Even as the earth 3moveth upon the heavenly tincture, whereas there is not more than one only tincture in the heaven, and in this world, yet [it is] of many sorts, according to the essence of every thing. In the beasts it is not as in men, also not in fishes as in beasts ; also in stones and gems otherwise ; also otherwise in angels, and in the spirit of this world. 29. But in God, angels, and in the virgin-like souls (understand pure souls) it is alike ; where yet it is only 4 for God. The devil hath also a tincture, but a false one (and it standeth not in the fire) wherewith he can gripe that man in the heart that letteth him in, as a [sly soothing] flattering false thief, that insinuateth himself, desiring to steal, concerning whom Christ warneth us, that we should watch. Ch. 13] OF THE CREATING OF THE WOMAN 239

230. And now if we will speak of the soul, and of its substance and essences, we must say that it is the l roughest [thing] in man ; for it is the origin- J Or crudest, ality of the other substances [or things]. It is digested, or fiery, harsh, bitter, and strong, and it resembleth a great [and] mighty power, its essences are like brimstone : Its gate or seat out of the eternal originality is between the fourth and the fifth forms in the eternal birth, and in the 2 unbeginning 2 Or indissoluble band. band, of the strong might of God the Father, where the eternal light of his Heart (which maketh the second Principle) generateth itself, and if * it * the soul, wholly lose the bestowed virgin of the divine virtue [or power] (out of which the light of God generateth itself, which is given to the soul to be its pearl, as is mentioned above) then it becometh, and is, a devil, like all other [devils] in essences, form, and in 4 quality also. 4 active . property. 31. But if it put its will D forward into meekness 6 into true (viz. into the obedience of God) then it is in the resi^ationsource [or of the quality and property] of the Heart

3of God, and receiveth divine virtue, and then all its rough essences become angelical and joyful ; and then its rough essences are very serviceable to it, and are better and more profitable to it, than that it were altogether sweet in the originality ; in which [being sweet] there would be no strength, nor such mighty power as in the harsh, bitter, and fiery [essences]. 32. For the fire in the essence cometh to be a 240 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 13 1 pleasant or l soft meek light, and is nothing else but a zealous delightful. [or eager] kindling of the tincture, and the harsh essence causeth that the divine virtue can draw it to itself, and taste it, for in the [sour or] harsh essence the taste doth consist, in nature : In like manner the bitter essence serveth to [make] the moving rising joy, fragrancy and growing ; and out of these forms the tincture goeth forth, and it is the house of the soul ; as the Holy Ghost [goeth forth] from the Father and the Son, so also the tincture goeth forth from the light of the fiery soul, and then also from its virtuous [or powerful] 2 is like. essences, and so it 2resembleth the Holy Ghost, but yet the Holy Ghost of God is a degree higher ; for he goeth forth from the centre of the light wholly in the fifth form, from the Heart of God, at the end of nature.

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