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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1109. For * it standeth in the gate in the centre, « the soul. viz. in the door [way] between heaven and hell ; and the Word is in the heaven. And if the soul giveth way to be drawn away from that gate, then it loseth the Word; but if the soul reach 27 418 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 17 1 incline to 1 forward again, towards the gate, then it attaineth resignation. , . , , . . / , . , - that again ; and the virgin (who is the servant of the Word) goeth continually [along] with the soul, and warneth it of the evil ways. 110. But if the soul be a dog, an adder, or serpent, then the virgin goeth away to the Word into the heaven, and then the door is shut. And then there is a whole birth between the soul and the Word, whereas else there is but half [a birth between the Word and the soul] ; and then there is need of hard striving, and [such a soul] will hardly enter into the kingdom of heaven ; yet it is possible enough. 111. This Word hath brought the souls of men which have 2 inclined their minds to it, ever since the beginning of the world (when their bodies have been dead) into the bosom of Abraham, into the element, into the rest, [which is] without source [or pain], and there the soul, [being yet] without a body, hath no paradisical source [or active property

23.0rj>pened. or Acuity], but dwelleth in the 8 broken gate, in the meek element, in the bosom of the 4 virgin, in the presence of their bridegroom, B after the long strife of unquietness, and waiteth for its body without pain. And as to the soul there is no time, but it is in stillness ; it sleepeth not, but it seeth (without disturbance) in the light of the Word. 112. But because the essences of the soul were infected with the poison of the devil, and of hell, so that the soul could not be helped again, except 2 yielded to the Word. 4 Or wisdom of God. 6 Or upon. CL 17] OF THE FALL OF ADAM AND EVE 419 it were l born anew through the Word, out of the l new-bom, or mouth of God, viz. through his beloved Heart, " (if ever it should attain the paradisical joy and source [condition or quality] again, and qualify or mingle in the 2 paradisical essences, and if ever its 2 Or be body should come out of the element again to the with par** soul) then the Word (in the virgin-chastity) must 8 become man, and take man's flesh and blood, and 3 Or be incarnate. become a human soul, and enter into death, as also in the first Principle, into the dark mind of the eternity, where the soul hath its original, into the ground of hell, and break in pieces 'the dark gate in the ground of the soul, and the chains of the devil, and generate [or beget] the soul anew again out of the ground [thereof], and present it as a new child (without sin and wrath) before God.

3113. And as the first sin did [pass or] press from one upon all, so also the regeneration [passeth] by one upon all ; and none are excluded, except they will themselves. Whosoever saith otherwise, hath no knowledge in the kingdom of God, but telleth mere stories [or speaketh but according to the history or letter only], without the spirit of life. 114. Here following we will highly and orderly set down God's great deeds of wonder, for the comforting of the sick Adam, which for the present sticketh in the press, and must suffer * anguish ; yet « squeezing this (which is set down) shall stand against all the sk»n.°P1 gates of the devil, also against all sects and schisms, 420 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 17 and that in the ground of the light, as it is given to us of God, and besides, out of the ground of the Holy Scriptures, upon the highly precious words of the promise in the Prophets, and the Psalms, as also the apostolical [writings]. And though we do not here allege the Scriptures, yet we will sufficiently prove it to every one who will not be contented with this summary description. 1 Or becoming The Gate of the l Incarnation of Jesus Christ the Son of God. The firm Articles of the Christian Faith.

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