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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1anger, [proceeding] out of the originality of the mind. And secondly, the eternal holy chaste humility, which is generated out of the originality. And thirdly, the corruptible animal, wholly bestial, generated from the stars and elements, which holdeth the whole house in possession. 34. And it is here with the image of man, as St Paul said, To whom you give yourselves as servants in obedience, his servant you are, whether it be of sin unto death, or of the obedience of God unto righteousness, that driving [or property] you have. If a man yield his mind up to malice, pride, self, power, and force, to the oppressing of the miserable, then he is like the proud, haughty devil, and he is his servant in obedience, and loseth the image of God ; and out of the image cometh a wolf, dragon, or serpent to be, all according to his essences, as he standeth figured in the mind. But if he yield up himself to another swinish and bestial condition, as to a mere bestial voluptuous life, to gormandizing, gluttony, and drunkenness, and lechery, stealing, robbing, murdering, lying, cozening, and [cheating] deceit, then the eternal mind figureth him also in such an image as is like an unreasonable ugly beast and worm. And although he beareth the elementary image in this life, yet he hath indeed the image of an adder, serpent, and beast, hidden therein, which will be manifested at the breaking [or deceasing] of the body, and it belongeth not to the kingdom of God.

2Ch. 16] THREEFOLD SPIRIT AND WILL 361 35. But if he give himself up to the obedience of God, and 1 yield his mind up into God, to strive ' Or unite, against malice and wickedness, and the lusts and desires of the flesh, also against all unrighteousness of life and conversation, in humility under the cross, then the eternal mind figureth him in the image of an angel, who is pure, chaste, and virtuous, and he keepeth this image in the breaking of the body, and hereafter he will be married with the precious virgin, the eternal wisdom, chastity, and paradisical purity. 36. Here in this life he must stick between the door and the hinges, between the kingdom of hell, and the kingdom of this world, and the noble image must suffer much wrong [or be wounded], for he hath not only enemies outwardly, but also in himself; he beareth the bestial and also the hellish image of wrath in him, so long as this house of flesh 2 endureth. Therefore that causeth strife and 2 lasteth division against himself, and also without him, against the wickedness of the world, which the devil mightily 3presseth against him, and tempteth » Or driveth. him on every side, mis-leadeth, and wringeth him every where, and his own household in his body are his worst enemies ; therefore the children of God are bearers of the cross in this world, in this evil earthly image.

337. Now behold, thou child of man, (seeing thou art an eternal spirit) thou hast this to expect after the breaking [or deceasing] of thy body ; thou wilt 362 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 16 be either an angel of God in paradise, or a hellish ugly diabolical worm, beast, or dragon ; all accord1 hast behaved ing as thou hast l been inclined [or given to] here in this life ; that image which thou hast borne here in thy mind, with that thou shalt appear ; for there can no other image go forth out of thy body at the breaking [or deceasing of it], but even that which thou hast borne here, that shall appear in eternity. 38. Hast thou been a proud vainglorious, selfishly potent, and one that hast for thy pleasure sake oppressed the needy, then such a spirit goeth forth from thee, and then so it is in the eternity, where it can neither keep nor get anything for [to feed] its covetousness, neither can it adorn its body with anything, but with that which is there, and yet it climbeth up eternally in its pride, for there 2 Or working is no other 2 source in it ; and thus in its rising it party. pl reacheth unto nothing else but the stern might of the fire in its elevation ; it inclineth itself in its will continually in such a purpose as it did in this world ; as it was wont to do here, so all appeareth in its tincture, therein it climbeth up eternally in the abyss of hell.

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