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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1he grudged that his brother should have anything ; especially when he saw that he was accepted before God, that vexed him, and he thought that Abel should come to be lord on earth ; in his sacrifice, he regarded not the fear of God, though he, as a seeming holy man [or hypocrite] sacrificed also ; but he regarded only the 1 region. 1 the highest place of 83. And here the antichristian kingdom took its earthly dominion. beginning, where men 2 give God good words, and > Or speak their heart is possessed with covetousness, and seek StoeGeJ. after nothing but power and authority, to domineer over the needy and miserable, who trust and rely upon God. Therefore Antichrist hath his god in his chest, and in the strength of his power, and behind his cloak there hangeth a fox. He prayeth, yet he desireth nothing else but the kingdom of this world ; his heart doth not leave off to persecute and to hunt poor Abel. But Abel prayeth to the Lord, and his heart inclineth itself to the love of God, in the true image, for he desireth the kingdom of heaven, and the blessing of God here, for his 3 maintenance. 3 necessity, or -VT , , ., , . subsistence of 84. JNow the devil cannot endure that a holy the body. Church should grow up in his dominions, he will murder Abel still, as he did then ; because Cain feared not God, therefore the devil gat an access

2to him, and stirred up the inbred wrath in Cain against Abel, that he slew him. Here surely all the devils danced at it, and thought, Now is the kingdom ours again ; whereat Adam and Eve were 540 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 20 much amazed and affrighted, when they saw that he whom they accounted for a prince, became a murderer ; and, as the history saith, they copulated [or knew one another] no more in seventy years after. 85. Now it being thus, therefore they sought for quite another Treader upon the Serpent ; also now they inclined their heart to God, so that seventy years after this murder, they begat a very upright [virtuous] holy son that feared God, (who established again the pure Church of the fear of' God and promised Seed of the Woman), whose name was Seih ; who also begat a very upright [virtuous] son, whose name was Enos, and then men began to preach openly [or plainly] of God ; and the Christian Church always rose up like a small flock, in spite of all the ragings of the devils. 86. But Cain exalted himself to be a lord over his kindred ; from whence arose the dominion, and rule or government of this world, all (according to the influence of the stars) generated per spiritum 1 Or macro- majoris mundi [by the spirit of the * great world], and is not, as Cain supposed, so ordained by the clear Deity.

387. It is true indeed, when the world became so evil, malicious, and murderous, then there must needs be judges and magistrates, that the fierce wrath might be stopped by punishment and fear ; but if thou hadst continued in love, then thou shouldst have had no lords, but loving brothers and cosm. Ch. 20] ADAM AND EVE'S GOING OUT OF PARADISE 541 sisters. 0 Cain \ thy potent kingdom cometh not from God, but hath its influence from the starry heaven in anger, which domineereth over thee, and many times giveth thee tyrants, who consume thy sweat in pride, and this thou hast for thy paradise. 88. St Paul writeth very well, that there is no [power, authority, or] magistracy, but of God ; but he sayeth, it is an 1 avenger of the wicked, and 1 Or for the , i • • -i • i i punishment beareth not the sword in vain ; herein thou hast of evil doers. ground enough, that God useth the worldly government, and the sword thereof, for the wicked's sake, under which thou must now (for the sake of sin) bear thy yoke, because thou art a continual devourer and murderer ; do but behold thyself, together with the avenging sword, perhaps thou wilt see thyself.

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