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.

primarypage 254

1scouring of the world; they upbraid it for its infirmities; if it do but reprove their faults and unrighteousness, - then it must be an hypocrite [with them]. 55. Not only the children of malice do thus, but the devil many times bringeth the children of God, by his snares, to be against it, so that in their blindness they grow furious and raging, as Saul at Jerusalem did against Stephen. Thus the poor soul must be afflicted among thorns and thistles, and continually expect when the evil world shall tear away the body. The victorious Gate of the poor Soul. 56. Now saith reason, What is the best counsel and remedy for the poor soul? What shall it do in this bath of thorns and thistles? Behold, we will shew thee the counsel of the * virgin, as1 Or wisdom it is given us for a victorious comfort, and we °f will write it for a firm Memorial to ourselves; for it may come, that we ourselves may stand in need of it, as we have already for a tedious while sweltered in this bath of thorns and thistles, wherein we also attained this garland ; and therefore we must not be silent, but set forth the gift of the virgin, which helpeth against all the 2 gates * Or power, of the devil. 57. Behold, thou poor soul in thy bath of thorns, where is thy home? Art thou at home in this 580 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 21

2world ? Wherefore then dost thou not seek the favour and friendship of the world ? Wherefore dost thou not hunt after temporal honour, after pleasure and riches, that it may go well with thee in this world ? Why dost thou make thyself a fool to the world, and art every one's owl and footstool ? Wherefore dost thou suffer thyself to be despised and abused by those that are inferior to thee, and know less than thou ? Why shouldst thou not be stately and brave with those seeming holy hypocrites ? And then thou wouldst be beloved, and nobody would abuse thee ; and thou wouldst be more safe and secure in thy body and goods, than in this way, wherein thou art but the world's owl and fool. 58. But my loving virgin saith, 0 thou my beloved companion, whom I have chosen, go with me, 1 am not of this world. I will bring thee out of this world into my kingdom, there is mere pleasant rest and welfare ; in my kingdom is mere 1 hunter, joy, honour, and glory, there is no x driver in it. oppressor.' I will adorn thee with the glory of God, and put on thee my bright ornament. I will make thee a lord in heaven, and a judge over this world ; tbou shalt help to judge the l driver in his wickedness ; he shall be laid at thy feet for a footstool, and he shall not open his jaws against thee, but he shall be barred up for ever in his fierce gate ; thou shalt eat at my table, there shall be no grudging nor want ; my fruit is sweeter and pleasanter than

3Ch. 21] THE CAINISH AND ABELLISH KINGDOMS 581 the fruit of this world, thou shalt never have any woe arise from it ; all thy doings shall be pleasant cheerfulness and amiable discourse : mere humility in great love shall shine before thee. All thy companions are so very beautiful, thou shalt have joy in them all. Wherefore dost thou esteem thy corruptible life? Thou shalt enter into an incorruptible life that shall endure eternally. 59. But I have a little against thee: I have drawn thee out of the thorny bath, wherein thou wast a wild beast, and have figured thee for my image, and yet thy wild beast standeth in the thorny bath, which I will not take into my bosom, thou standest yet in xthy wild beast; now when i in the four the world taketh its wild beast which belongeth £H5 in thereto, then I will take thee, and so every one blood< shall have its own. 60. Wherefore dost thou love that wild beast so much, which doth but afflict thee ? And besides, thou canst not take it with thee, neither doth it belong to thee, but to the world; let the world do what it will with it, stay thou with me; it is but a little while before thy beast breaketh, and then thou art unbound, and abidest with me. 61. But I also have a law in my love, viz. I not only desire [to have] thee, but also thy brothers and sisters which are in the world, who are yet in

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.

primarypage 254

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