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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142. There then saith the bridegroom, Come ! On the other hand, saith the poor soul, / cannot yet, Ch. 19] ENTERING OF THE SOULS TO GOD 491 my lamp is not yet trimmed. Nevertheless it holdeth the Saviour fast by the thread [of faith], and setteth its imagination [or desire] (through the thread of faith and confidence) further into the Heart of God ; where then at last it is ransomed out of the putrefaction, through the passion of Christ. 43. But what its putrefaction is, my soul doth not desire to try by participating with them ; for it is their abominable sins, which are kindled in the anger of God ; there must the poor soul * bathe, l Or swim, till it cometh into the rest, through the small faith ; where its clarification [or glorification] shall not in eternity be like the true-born saints. Although indeed they are redeemed out of hell, and have fruition of the heavenly joy ; yet the greatest joy standeth in the earnest regeneration, wherein there springeth up paradisical virtue [or power] and wonders.

244. And thy worldly bravery, glory, beauty, and riches, will not exalt thee before God, as thou supposest, nor yet thy office which thou didst bear here, be it the kingly or priestly office ; if thou desirest to be in heaven, then thou must (through thy Saviour) be new born ; thou must endeavour to bring thy subjects unto righteousness, and then thou wilt shine (with thy office) as bright as the lustre of heaven, and thy works will follow thee. 0 Man ! consider thyself in this. 45. But thou earthly Babel, what shall I write 492 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 19 much of thee for ? Indeed I must shew thee the ground, that thy hypocrisy may be brought to light, and that the devil may not continue (in such a manner) to stand in an angelical form, and in the voluptuous kingdom of this world (in man) be a god, which is his highest endeavour.

346. Behold, thou callest thyself a Christian, and thou boastest [that] thou art a child of God ; this thou confessest with thy mouth, but thy heart is a thief and a murderer; thou endeavourest after nothing else but honour and riches, and thy conscience regardeth little by what means thou attainest them [whether by hook or by crook]. Thou hast a will, one day, to enter into earnest repentance, but the devil keepeth thee back, that thou canst not ; thou sayest to-morrow, [to-morrow], and that is always so, from time to time ; and thou thinkest with thyself, if I had my chest full, then I would give to him that hath need, [and become another man]. If I had but enough to serve my turn [beforehand], that I may not come to want myself. This is thy purpose till thy end, which the devil persuadeth thee that it is far off from thee. 47. In the meanwhile, thou consumest the sweat and blood of the needy, and thou gatherest all his miseries and necessities on a heap in thy soul ; thou takest his sweat to maintain thy pride therewith, and yet thy doings must be accounted holy ; thou givest scandal to the poor, so that by Ch. 19] ENTERING OF THE SOULS TO GOD 493 thy example and doings, he cometh to be vile [and wicked], and to do that which is not right in the presence of God ; he curseth thee, and therewith causeth himself to perish also ; and thus one 1 abomination generateth another, but thou art the 1 one sin bringeth|

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