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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1fire to sit in a temperate place of refreshment ; and tli us the flash in itself is so fierce and sudden, yea fiercer and more sudden than a thought, and out of the darkness in itself (in its kindling) seeth into the light ; and then is so very much terrified, that it lets its power (which it had in the fire) sink down. And this terror [or shriek or crack] is made in the sharpness of the flash ; and this now is the terror [shriek or crack] of great joy ; and there the re-comprehended will desireth the crack or joy in the meekness ; and the desiring is the attracting of the joy, and the attracting is the infecting [or mingling] in the will; and that 292 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 14 [which is] attracted maketh the will swell [or be impregnated], for it is therein, and the will holdeth it [fast]. 71. Now here is nothing which the will with the sharpness or essence could draw to it, but the meekness, the deliverance from the darkness ; this is the desire of the willing, and therein then standeth the pleasant joy, which the will draweth to itself; and the attracting in the will impregnateth the will, that it becometh full.

272. And thus the comprehended will is swelled [or impregnated] by the joy in the meekness, which it desireth (without intermission) to generate out of itself, for its own joy again, and for its sweet taste [or relish] in the joy. And the same will to generate, comprehendeth the meekness in the joy (which standeth in the swelled [or impregnated] will) and it bringeth the essences (or the attracting) of the willing again out of the will, before the will ; for the desiring draweth forth the swelling [or impregnation] out of the swelled [or impregnated] will, before the will ; and that [which habitation, is] drawn forth is the pleasant virtue, xjoy, and meekness. And this now is the desiring of the eternal will (and no more) but to eat and to draw again this virtue into it, and to be satiated therewith, and [it can] desire nothing higher or more 1 refreshing : for therein is the perfection [or fulness] of the highest *joy and meekness. Ch. 14] BIRTH AND PROPAGATION OF MAN 293 73. And so in this virtue (which is in God the Father, as is before mentioned) standeth the omniscience [or all knowledge] of what is in the originality in the eternity; where the flash then 1 discovereth itself in many thousand thousands 1 Or sparkieth 2 without number. For this virtue of joy in the 2^^ [refreshment or] habitation, is proceeded from the sharpness of the flash, and (in the sharpness of

3the al] -mightiness over the darkness) seeth [or looketh] again in the eternal sharpness in the dark mind ; and that mind inclineth itself to the virtue and desireth the virtue, and the virtue goeth not back again in the darkness, but 3beholdeth itself 3 As the sun therein, from whence [it is] that the eternal mind water!" the is continually longing [panting or lusting] after the virtue [or power] ; and the virtue is the sharpness, and the sharpness is the attracting. This is called the 4 eternal Fiat, which there createth and 4 Note, corporizeth what the eternal will in the almighty meekness (which there is the might and the breaking [or destroyer] of the darkness, and the building of the Principle), and what the will in the eternal [skill or] knowledge discovereth, and in itself conceiveth [apprehendeth, or purposeth], to do. And whatsoever giveth itself up to the meekness, that will the will create by the sharp Fiat which is the eternal essence. And this now is the will of God, whatsoever inclineth itself to him, and desireth him, that same he will create in the meekness; even all whatsoever (out of the many thousand 294 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 14 1 Or his. 8 enter into resignation. 8 Or these infinite sparks. 4 Or bitterness of the frost. 6 Or unite themselves. 6 In true resignation. 7 Or recalling. thousands, out of the infiniteness) inclineth itself in l its virtue to him.

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