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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159. And although the Church in Babel will prattle much here about the Election from the purpose of God, yet it hath as little knowledge thereof as the Babylonish tower, whose top should reach to heaven, [had] of God. As if it were not possible, that a child could go out of the anger into the love of God, whereas the love in the breaking of the anger doth l fully appear [or shine forth]; and it is for want of repentance, that man suffereth himself to be held by the devil. 60. And the hardening is not so wholly in the birth, that the soul (from the mother's womb) should be quite dead to God, or that God did not desire it. The anger is in the flowing [working or boiling] of the Father, and the Father is God indeed, and generateth his dear Heart and love (in the breaking of the gate in the habitation) out of himself. Should he then be at odds with himself, because his anger is under the root of his love ? Should he be at enmity against himself? His anger is his strength and omnipotence [or almightiness], and consuming fire ; and his Heart 2 Or humility, in the love is his 2 meekness ; and so now, that which approacheth and entereth into his anger, is captivated in the anger. 61. But it is possible to go out from the anger ; as his dear Heart is generated out of the anger, which [cooleth, pacifieth, or] stilleth the anger, and is rightly called the paradise or the kingdom of heaven. And his anger is not known in the

2Ch. 20] ADAM AND EVE'S GOING OUT OF PARADISE 531 heaven ; and so there also, his election goeth always over the children of love, which belong to the kingdom of heaven. And St Paul speaketh no otherwise of his Election, but meaneth [it of] them that draw near to him, and enter into his covenant, and give up themselves to him ; and these the Father draweth with the Holy Ghost, through the death of Christ into the pure element [that is] before the Father. l Fear not thou [0] Isaiah xiiv. 2. my servant Jacob, and thou 2 upright [one'] whom * honest, Thaw chnwn sincere,' CllOSen. obedient, 62. But that God (out of his purpose) should faithful one> harden the will of any, and mlike it dark, that is not true ; the spirit of God is withdrawn from the wicked, who only wrestle for the might [or power] of the fire, for he himself goeth out from God, and desireth not [to enjoy] God. God withdraweth himself from none. Man hath a free will, he may lay hold on what he will ; but he is held by two, by heaven and by hell, to which he yieldeth, he is in that. 63. Cain was not rejected in the mother's womb [or body] ; though it is plain, that God doth not love such a false [or evil] seed, yet it standeth free, it may press into the love, or into the anger,

3and 3 the one as well as the other will receive it, 3 Or both will as Paul also saith, To whom you yield yourselves re servants in obedience, his servants you are whom you obey ; whether it be in the obedience of God to righteousness, or of sin unto death. 532 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 20 64. Now God will have no malicious soul [to be] in the love, but in the anger ; and he is the l searcher of the hearts, and knoweth well what is of the hearts. . ' -n r in man, and what he will do, even while [man] is in the seed, and will not cast the Pearl before swine ; and yet the false [or evil] seed is not [come] out of his will and purpose, else he must also have willed the devil to be a devil. 65. And know you not that the band of the eternity standeth free, and maketh itself? But 2 Or bom of that which inclineth to him, is also 2 generated in God. And yet the love presseth not into the 3 AS the light anger, but the love is generated out of the 3 anger, is generated out of the and is wholly free ; and therefore the Heart of burning of the -...«..'. , . -,-, fire, and is God in the love, is another person than the 4 Father, free from the -i i • r •/>!/• -i • -i fire. and the issue, [or going forth from them] is the i8Aanotherght 5 Hol7 Ghost, who goeth not [back] again into the thing than anger. the fire. 8 AS the air 66. Then why doth not the soul of man go also goeth forth r, • i -t i> i • 11

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