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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1yieideth itself standeth. Jt it trade in the kingdom ot heaven, to, or con- . i i • i «• i -n • -i -i • • i verseth with, then the kingdom of hell is dead in it ; not that it is ceased, but the kingdom of heaven is predominant, and the kingdom of fierceness is changed into joy ; so also, if it trade in the kingdom of wrath, then that is predominant, and the kingdom of heaven is as it were dead ; although indeed (in itself it doth not vanish) yet the soul is not in it. 91. Thus also the temptation was to try, which kingdom in the soul might overcome, and therefore the food and drink was withdrawn from the earthly body, and the kingdom of heaven was predominant in him, in the holy Ternary, and in his Deity, and the kingdom of wrath and the kingdom of the devil were against him. And there the new-washed and half-regenerated soul stood in the midst, and was pulled at by both kingdoms, as Adam in paradise. 92. The Deity in Christ in the holy Ternary said, Eat of the Word of the Lord, and go forth from the outward man, rest in the kingdom of heaven, and live in the new man, and then the old man is dead, for the new man's sake ; on the Ch. 22] THE NEW REGENERATION IN CHRIST 627 contrary, the devil said to the soul, Thy earthly body doth hunger (because there is no bread for it) therefore make bread of stones, that thou mayest live ; and the strong soul in Christ as a Champion stood and said, Man liveth not by bread alone, but

2by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God : And he rejected the earthly bread and life, and put his imagination into the Word of God, and did eat of the Word of the Lord, and then the soul in the kingdom of heaven was predominant, and the earthly body was as it were dead for the kingdom of heaven's sake ; whereas yet it was not dead, but it became the servant of the heavenly body, and lost its potent * dominion. i regimen, or 93. And now when the kingdom of hell had this government mighty blow, and was thus overcome, then the devil lost his right in the soul ; yet he said in himself, Thou hast a 2 right in the earthly body. a Or jurisdicAnd somewhat was permitted to him ; and then etrtM^body. he took the body with the soul, and set them upon the pinnacle of the temple, and said, Cast thyself down (for thou art powerful and canst do all things) and then the people shall see that thou art God, and hast overcome. This is the right fluttering spirit, wherewith the devil would fain always fly above the thrones over the Deity, and yet goeth but in himself into the hellish fire> and apprehendeth not the Deity. 94. And 3here also was Adam tempted, [to try] « Or herein, whether he would steadfastly put his imagination 628 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 22 1 Or submit to it. 2 allegeth Scripture.

3into the Heart of God, and then he should have continued in paradise ; but when he turned away his mind from the Heart of God into the spirit of this world, and would fly out beyond the humility, and would be like God, then he went forth beyond the throne of God, in the spirit of the fierceness of the anger. Therefore here the soul of Christ must be accurately tempted, [to try] whether it would (seeing it had retained the heavenly bread) fly out also in pride in the might of the fire ; or whether it would in humility look only upon the Heart of God, and *give itself up to that, that it might be carried only in the will of God, and become an angel in humility, and not rely only upon itself, to fly in its own might [or power]. 95. And here the devil's master-piece is seen, in that he 2 useth the Scripture, and saith, The angels will bear ihee up ; whereas here the matter was not about the body, but about the soul, which he would bring into pride, that it might tear itself off from the love of God, and rely upon the angels bearing it up ; and that it should break itself off again from the new body (which can fly well enough with that) and leap down in the old body, and rely upon the angels, and so should fly out from God into the spirit of this world again. 96. But here his valour is seen ; though he stood (with his earthly body) upon the pinnacle of the temple, yet he committed his earthly body to God, and trusted in him, and that he was everywhere

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