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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111. And here we must accurately consider wherein every region rejoiceth ; for the sun and stars apprehend not the divine light, as the essences of the soul [do] (and yet only that soul which standeth in the new birth) ; but 2 they taste the a the sun r . n . -and stars. sweetness which hath imprinted [or imaged] itselt in the tincture ; for the blood of the heart, wherein the soul moveth, is so very sweet, that there is nothing to be compared to it. Therefore hath God by Moses forbidden man to eat the flesh in its blood ; for the life standeth in it. For the bestial life ought not to be in man, that his spirit be not infected therewith. 12. The three regions receive every one of them 348 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 16 their light, with the springing up of the tincture in the blood ; and each [region] keepeth its tincture. The region of the stars keepeth the light of the sun ; and the first Principle [keepeth] 1 That is, the the l fire-flash ; and the essences of the holy souls kindling of receive the most dear and precious light of the the abyss. virgin, yet in this body only her rays, wherewith she fighteth in the mind against the crafty assaults of the devil, as St Peter witnesseth. And although the dear light stayeth for a while in many in the new birth [or regeneration], yet it is not steady in the house of the stars and elements, in the outward birth, but it dwelleth in its [own] centre in the mind. 1 Or language. The Gate of 2 Speech.

213. Seeing now that the mind standeth in free will, therefore the will disco vereth itself according to that which the regions have brought into the essences, whether it be evil or good ; whether it be fitting for the kingdom of heaven, or for the kingdom of hell ; and that which the glimpse [or flash] apprehendeth, it bringeth that into the will of the mind. And in the mind standeth the king, and the king is the light of the whole body ; and he hath five counsellors, which sit [all together] in the 3 Or sound of 8 noise of the tincture ; and each of them trieth the kindling. i • •> i T • i • • c that which the glimpse with its infection natn brought into the will, whether it be good or evil ; and these counsellors are the five senses. Ch. 16] THREEFOLD SPIRIT AND WILL 349 14. First the king giveth it to the eyes, to see 1 Or sendeth. whether it be good or evil ; and the eyes give it to the ears, to hear from whence it cometh, whether out of a true, or out of a false region, and whether it be a lie or truth ; and the ears give it to the nose (the smell), that must smell, whether that which is brought in (and standeth before the king) cometh out of a good or 2 evil essence ; and the 2 Or false. nose giveth it to the taste, which must try whether it be pure or impure, and therefore the taste hath the tongue, that it may 3spit it out again if it be30rspew. 4 impure ; but if it be a thought to [be expressed 4 Or false.

3in] a word, then the lips are the door-keepers, which must keep it shut, and not let the tongue forth, but must bring it into the region of the air, into the 5 nostrils, and not into the heart, and s Text. Biaae . n . , . . i •, or Breath. still e it, and then it is dead. 15. And when the taste hath tried it, and if it be good for the essences of the soul, then it giveth it to the feeling, which must try what quality it is of, whether hot or cold, hard or soft, thick or thin, and then the feeling 6 sendeth it into the 6 Or giveth. heart, [presenting it] before the flash of the life, and before the king of the light of life ; and the will of the mind 7 pierceth further into that thing, 7 flasheth or , , , , r . . discovereth. a great depth, and seetn what is therein, [considering] how much it will receive and take in of that thing, and when it is enough, then the will giveth it to the spirit of the soul, viz. to the eternal 8 emperor, who bringeth it (with his strong and " chief ruler. 350 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 16 austere might) out of the heart, in the sound upon the tongue under the roof of the mouth, 1 divideth, or and there the spirit * distinguisheth according to separateth. -n i i T i r the senses, as the will hath discovered [or manifested] it, and the tongue l distinguisheth it in the noise.

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