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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1But Boehme did not mean to give way. He well knew that in Dresden, then capital of the province, he would find supporters, who would receive his book gladly. He writes (15th March 1624) "... I was asked to speak " before a number of high personages at the Court of " the Prince Elector, and have consented to do so at the " end of the Leipzig fair." [33rd Epistle, Ellistone, 1649.] He wrote an answer and protest — still preserved — to the Town Council of Gorlitz, against the calumnies and falsehoods spread by the Primarius. This the magistrates declined to consider, because the parson forbade them to do so, and, moreover, continued to storm and rave. Boehme writes on the 2nd of April 1624: — "I must tell " you, sir, that yesterday the pharisaical devil was let " loose, cursed me and my little book, and condemned the " book to the fire. He charged me with shocking vices ; " with being a scorner of both Church and Sacraments, " and with getting drunk daily on brandy, wine, and INTRODUCTION xlix " beer ; all of which is untrue ; while he himself is a " drunken man."

2On the 9th of May, Boehme left for Dresden, where he spent two months as the guest of the Court physician, Dr Hinkelmann, and where he found among the nobility and high clergy a most friendly welcome, while the strife still raged in Gorlitz. " My wife," writes Boehme from Dresden on the 13th of June, "need not have any " window-shutters put up. If they wish to break them " (the windows), they may ; it will only shew the fruits " of the high-priest's influence. ... If the high-priest " means to storm the house, let him do so ; it will only " make evident to the whole country that he is an " agitator, and that will be great honour indeed for him " and his. He also deserves commendation before the " Prince Elector for having, through his servants, laid " violent hands on my house and broken the windows." Towards the end of Boehme's stay in Dresden, the Prince Elector appointed three Professors of Theology, and several other learned doctors, to examine his opinions. The report which the Prince expected from them turned out to be a mere request that " His Highness " would please to have a little patience, and allow the " man sufficient time for a clearer exposition of his ideas. " They failed as yet to understand him, but hoped that " he would after a while become more intelligible ; then " only would they give a judgment, not before."

3Wiesner, in whose presence two other professors, Gerhard and Meissner, exchanged opinions, relates that Gerhard said: "I would not for the whole world be " party to the man's condemnation." — " Neither would " I, brother," replied Meissner ; " who knows what lies " behind it all ? We cannot judge that which we have not understood, nor are able to understand, whether it " be right, or black or white." When Boehme was allowed to " go in peace," and left Dresden apparently in favour with the Prince Elector himself, he returned home, but soon accepted an invitad 1 tion from Herr von Schweinitz, at whose country-seat he began the writing of his last work, the 177 Theosophic Questions.

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