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.

primarypage 135

141. Behold, thou seeking mind, that which thou seest before thy eyes, that is not the * element, neither in the fire, air, water, nor earth ; neither are there four, but one only, and that is fixed and invisible, also imperceptible : For the fire which burneth is no element, but [it is] the fierce [stern wrath], which cometh to be such in the kindling of the anger, when the devils fell out of the l element : The element is neither hot nor cold, but it is the inclination [to be] in God, for the Heart of God rising up. is Barm [that is, warmth] and its 2 ascension is attractive and always finding ; and then the hertz [that is, the heart] is the holding the thing before itself, and not in itself ; and then the ig [the last syllable of the German word Barm-hertz-ig (that is, warm-hearted, or merciful) expounded according to the language of nature] is the continual dis1 That one pure, holy, eternal element. Ch. 14] BIRTH AND PROPAGATION OF MAN 277 covering of the thing, and this is altogether ewig [eternal] ; and that is the ground of the inward element, which maketh the anger substantial, so that it was visible and palpable, which [anger] Lucifer with his legions did awaken ; and thereupon he now remaineth to be prince in the anger [or wrath] (in the kindled element) as Christ (according to this form) calleth him a prince of this world.

242. And the element remaineth hidden to the anger and l fierceness [or wrath], and standeth in l paradise ; and the l fierce wrath goeth still out from the element; and therefore God hath captivated the devils with the element in the x fierce wrath, and he keepeth them [in] with the element; and the l fierce wrath cannot [touch or] comprehend 2it, like the fire and the light; for the 2 the element, light is neither hot nor cold, but the x fierce wrath is hot ; and the one holdeth the other, and the one generateth the other. 43. Here observe ; Adam was created out of the element, out of the attracting of the heart of God, which is the will of the Father, and therein is the virgin of the divine virtue [or power], and the outward regimen (which in the kindling parted itself into four parts) would fain have had the same [virgin] in itself; that is, the fierceness of the devil would fain have dwelt in the Heart of God, and have domineered over it, and have opened a centre there, which the fierceness without the light cannot do; for every centre was generated 278 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Gil. 14 and opened with the kindling of the light. Thus the fierceness would fain be over the meekness, and therefore hath God caused the sun to come forth, so that it hath thus opened four centres, viz. the going forth out of the element.

344. And when the light of the sun appeared in the fierce [sourness or] harshness, then the harshness became thin and l sweet, even water, and the fierceness in the fire-flash was extinguished by the water, so that the anger stood still, yet the will could not rest, but went forth in the mother, out of the water, and moved itself, which is the air: 2 coagulated. And that which the fierce sourness had 2 attracted to it, that was thrust out of the element, in the water, as you see that earth swimmeth in the water. 45. Thus the evil child panteth after the mother, and would get to be in the mother in the element, and yet cannot reach her. But in Adam that [child] did perceive the element ; and thereupon the four elements have drawn Adam to them, and supposed then that they had the mother ; because the virgin there shewed herself in the living spirit of Adam. 46. Hereupon now the spirit of the stars and elements would continually [get] again into the element ; for in the element there is meekness and 8 Viz. in the rest ; and in the 8 kindling thereof there is mere ' enmity and contrary will, and the devil ruleth also therein ; and they would fain be released from that abominable and naughty guest, and they seek with Ch. 14] BIRTH AND PROPAGATION OF MAN 279 great anxiety after l deliverance, as Paul saith, All 1 creatures groan together with us, to be freed from vanity.

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.

primarypage 135

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