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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165. Are we not lords in his kingdom? And being in his ministry [service or worship] we are the most holy and best. Who may compare himself with us ? He is ascended into heaven, and he hath given us his dominion on earth. The keys of Peter, he must be [deputy, viceroy, vicar, or] keeper of the city, and those he hath left us to [open] the kingdom of heaven and of hell. Who will take them away from us ? We can get into heaven well enough, though we be evil, it matters not, we have the keys that can open it ; we are priests in power [or ministers having authority], we will let those in that make much of us [fatten us], and give much to our kingdom ; and then the Christian Church will be in great honour [glory, and esteem], when they so highly honour her ministers [or servants] ; that will well please our Lord [and Master]. Where is there such a kingdom as we have ? Should not that [kingdom] be crowned with the 1most glorious crown of this 1 with riches, world ? And should not all bend and crouch treasure of i f '. n this world. before it? 66. Yes indeed, say they, we ourselves confess

2that we are evil wicked men, but this 2 order2 holy orders, maketh us holy. Our office is holy, we are the ministers, true ministers of Christ in his service ; and although SIJtLtution of we be evil [mere natural wicked carnal] men, yet our office remaineth holy ; and the highest dignity is due to us for our office sake. As Aaron (with his worship of the calf) must be called holy in his 454 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 18 office, although they forgat Moses, and rose up 1 their glut- (from 1 eating and drinking) to dance and to play ; tony and drunkenness, and so also Aaron must be highly honoured [and reverenced] for his ministry or service to the calf.

367. But that the kingdom of Christ on earth in Babel might stand in great earnest [zeal], they say, We will ordain a holy divine service [and worship of God], that may be diverse [or separated and set apart] from the world, and procure there, that our laws may be in force [and put in execution by them]. We will impose great fasting days, and holy days of feasting, that the world also may have a looking-glass of holiness, and highly honour and reverence us, and acknowledge that our ministry [or worship], which we perform [when we pray] before God, is holy ; we must be the holy priests of God ; whosoever judge th otherwise, we will condemn them ; and we do right in it, and do God good service by it. For though an angel should come from heaven, and preach any other doctrine than we, he is accursed, as Paul saith. 68. Whatsoever we have 2 ordained at the convention of the chief fathers, [rulers, elders or presbyters], with the whole consent of our concilium [or council], that is holy ; for it is written, Thou shalt not curse the chief [or ruler] of thy people. And when our hearts (before the 3 challenge, light of nature) 3 condemn us, or that we must accuse, and -i-ii II/»/-NT affright us. stand ashamed of ourselves before God, and 2 Or concluded. Ch. 18] PROMISED SEED OF THE WOMAN 455

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