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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148. Yet he soweth the Pearl in his afflicting anguish, and the devil covereth it in him, that he may not know it, neither doth he know himself; he soweth into the kingdom of God, and knoweth not his own seed, but the seed of sin, and of the hunter. And so he consenteth not to the sins which he committeth ; but the devil with his 4 sect * followers [or associates] overpower him, so that the Adamical man in the anger doth that which the new-born [man] in the holy element willeth not ; now though he doth it, yet the new man in the image doth it not, but the old man in the » Or in the 6 anger. And therefore there is in him a continual striving four . „ , , , • n elements. stnic, and he runneth continually to repentance ; Ch. 21] THE CAINISH AND ABELLISH KINGDOMS 577 where yet the hidden man in the l anger cannot 1 Or in the reach the lily, but the hidden man [doth it]. ££$? 49. Therefore he standeth often in doubt and impatience ; and in such a man there is great strife; he knoweth not himself. He seeth and knoweth nothing else but his wickedness, and yet is born in God ; for his spirit continually breaketh the gate of the darkness, but then the anger in him doth hold him back that he cannot enter in, but yet sometimes he reacheth a glimpse, from whence the soul is cheered, and the Pearl is sown in a very dark valley.

250. And then when he considereth the sweet foretaste of the Pearl which he had, then the soul would fain go through, and it seeketh the Pearl ; but then cometh the black spirit, and covereth it from him, and then the storm and strife about the Pearl beginneth, each would have its right; the soul would have it, and then the devil covereth it, and casteth the wrath and 2 sin before it, that a Or infimithe soul should behold itself therein; then there way to the falleth to be weakness and neglect, so that the poor P( soul becometh weary, faint, and timorous, and so sitteth still, and thinketh continually of some other way to abstinence [or 3 amendment], how it might 3 comfort or best get the Pearl. rest' 51. But the 4 hunter is a cunning artist, who « driver, or cometh then with the region of this world, with worldly lusts of the flesh, with temporal honour and riches, and holdeth them before the poor soul, 37 578 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 21 1 husks, or that it might bite at his l swine's apples ; thus he crabs. leadeth many a one for a long while, with his chains, captive in the anger of God.

352. But if the noble grain of mustard-seed be sown, then the noble virgin of God preserveth it, and maketh the poor soul continually careful to endeavour for abstinence, and to enter into fight with the devil. 0 what a wonderful way is it the children of God go in this miserable house of flesh ! which the reason of the hypocrites neither comprehendeth, nor can believe ; only they that have tried it, know it. 53. Though indeed the high precious knowledge is not [attained], except one hath overcome in the storm, and hath vanquished the devil, so that the soul hath once attained the heavenly gate, and gotten the garland of victory, which the lovely virgin of chastity setteth up, as a triumphant ensign of its conquest in its dear Champion, Christ, * Or the and there riseth up the 2 wonderful knowledge, yet knowledge in the wonders not in perfection. which neither eye hath seen, 54. For the old enemy is subtle, and strong, nor ear heard, . nor ever who still assaulteth the soul again, to try now he entered into m. •» a •••*•» 11 the heart to may afflict and deceive it ; 11 he cannot overwhelm it with sins, then he beginneth an outward war 3 Or iniquity, with it, and stirreth up the children of 3 malice against it, so that they contemn, mock, deride, vilify it, and do all manner of evil to it ; and so they lay wait for its body and goods, they jeer, reproach, and scorn it, and account it as the offCh. 21] THE CAINISH AND ABELLISH KINGDOMS 579

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