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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1element [of the body] ; and then he was a fleshly man, and gat the fierceness of the first Principle, which the strong breaking-through to God, in the gate of the deep, did make to be hard l gristles and 1 Or joints, bones. 88. And we are seriously and highly to know (for it is seen in the light of life) that the marrow in the bones hath the noblest and highest tincture, wherein the spirit is sweetest, and the light clearest; which may be known in the fire, if you be not blind with your gainsaying; and it is accurately known, that those 2 places (where the hard bones 2 passages or now are) were wonders and virtue [or power], which have broken the gates of the darkness, in which [power] the angelical man in the light stood. 89. Therefore the providence of God, when Adam fell into longing [desire or lust], environed that virtue and strength with the might of the first Principle (viz. with the might of the stars and sharpness of God) that the source [or quality] of the first and third Principles might not so easily touch it ; and this was done in Adam's sleep, when God built Adam to [or for] this world, from whence Saint Paul also saith, That the natural man was created in the corruptible life of this world; which was done at the temptation of Adam, at that time when God made his natural wife out of him. But he was a holy image before, and 8he must be the samenheAdamicai again in his restoration at the last day. 408 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 17

21 Or inventions, conceits, and notions. 2 gormandizing. 3 Adam and Eve. * qualify or mingle in them. 90. Though the devil and this world rage and rave against this, yet it is nevertheless the ground of truth, highly known in the wonders of God, and not from the fables or suppositions, such as the proud seeming holy or hypocritical world now ground their l babble upon, about the Cup of Jesus Christ, for the advancing of their pomp and haughtiness, their own honour and supposed wisdom, for their pleasure, and the 2 filling of their bellies, like the proud bride in Babylon, who rideth upon the evil beast, which devoureth the miserable ; therefore thus saith the spirit against Babel in the confusion, I have spewed thee out ; in the time of the wrath, thou shalt drink of the cup of thy pride, and thy source [or torment] shall rise up in eternity. Of the Voice of God in the Garden of Eden, and the Conference between God and those z two, about Sin. 91. So now when Adam and his Eve (after the biting of the apple) beheld themselves, then they perceived the monstrous image and bestial form, and they felt in themselves the wrath of God, and the fierceness of the stars and elements ; for they took notice of the stomach and guts, into which they had stuffed the earthly fruit, which began to * take effect, and they saw their bestial shame ; and then they did lift up their minds towards paradise, but they found it not ; they ran trembling

3Ch. 17] OF THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE 409 with fear, and crept behind the trees ; for the wrath had stirred (their essences in the spirit) with the earthly fruit, and then came the voice of God in the centre of the gates of the deep, and called Adam, and said, Adam, Where art thou? And he said, Here am I: And I am afraid, for I am naked. And the Lord said, Who hath told thee that thou art naked? Hast thou eaten of the Tree, whereof I said unto thee, that thou shouldest not eat thereof? And he said, The woman gave to me, and I did eat. And he said unto the woman, Why hast thou done so? And she said, The serpent beguiled me, so that I did eat. 92. Here it may be seen very plainly, that the devil had lost his angelical image ; and cometh now in the form of a serpent, with his murderous lying, and * beguileth the woman. Because he had not 1 Or been able to overthrow Adam wholly, therefore he setteth upon the woman ; and promiseth her 2 wisdom, and the riches of this world, and that she 2 cunning, should be therein like God ; the devil mingled lies skill. and truth together, and said, She shall be as God ; but he meant, according to the kingdom of this world, and according to the first Principle of the [fierce] wrath, and let paradise out ; but Eve understood it, that she should continue in the paradise, in the divine and pleasant joy.

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