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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1Testament, for the soul in his covenant is dipped Ch. 23] THE PRECIOUS TESTAMENTS OF CHRIST 645 and washed in that water, and it is rightly the bath [or laver] of regeneration, for by its dipping in the holy waterr it is received and quickened by the holy water, and cometh (in the covenant of Christ) into the soul of Christ; indeed not fully into his soul, but into his body, and becometh the brother of the soul of Christ ; for Christ's soul is a creature, (as our souls are), and is in the body of the mercifulness in the Trinity, being surrounded therewith, and hath the same in it for food and strength [or refreshment]. So also our souls in the covenant, if they be faithful and continue in God, they are the brethren of Christ's soul. 25. For Christ hath taken this pledge (viz. our soul) from us men in Mary ; at which we rejoice in eternity, that the soul of Christ is our brother, and the body of Christ our body, in the new man. And should I not rejoice that my soul is in the body of Christ, and that the soul of Christ is my brother, and that the Holy Trinity is the food and virtue [or strength] of my soul ? Who can judge me, lay hold of me, and l destroy me, when I » spoil or hurt am (in my true man) in God ? When, as I am immortal in my new man, wherefore should I be much afraid in the earthly man, which belongeth to the earth ? Let everything take its own, and then my soul will be 2 freed from the 3 driver. 2 Or rid of

226. Or what shall I say ? Must I not in this ™r' body (which I here in the earthliness carry about corruption. me) through the new man, reveal the wonders of 646 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Oh. 23 God, that so his wonders might be manifested ? I speak not only concerning myself, but concerning all men, good and bad ; every one must manifest 1 God's. the great wonders (wherein he standeth) in l his kingdom, whether it be in love or anger, (after the breaking [or dissolution] of this world) it must all stand in the figure. For at present this world » Or seed- standeth in the creating, and in the 2 sowing, and is like a field which beareth fruit. 27. Thus we every one of us labour and finish our day's work, every one in his own field, and in 3 Or be in his the harvest every one shall stand 3 by his labour, employment. . . . and enjoy his fruit which he hath sown ; therefore 4 diving or my hand shall not be weary of 4 digging : this we searching. J . J , speak seriously, according to its high worth in the wonders of God, known in the counsel of the 6 the wisdom 6noble virgin. of God. 8 Celebration Of the 6 Use of the highly precious Testaments tion. of Christ the Son of God. 28. Christ began the use of the Baptism by John, who was his forerunner, and John was born into this world before Christ, which hath its signification, therefore open thy eyes. As the water is in the originality, and a cause and beginning of the life, and [then] in the water

3n£r of?he ^7 tne tincture) the 7 sulphur is first generated, body. wherein the life becometh stirring, and the 8 tincthe HfeDUlg ° ture generateth again the sulphur and the water, wherein afterwards the blood in the tincture cometh Ch. 23] THE PRECIOUS TESTAMENTS OP CHRIST 647 to be ; thus now, as the beginning of the life is, so must also the l order in the regeneration be, that » Or ordithe poor soul first receive the water of eternal life, and be baptized therein, and then God giveth it the grain of mustard-seed of the Pearl, that so, if it receive the same, it may become a new fruit in God. 29. And therefore he sent his 2 angel hither 2 Or before him, that he should baptize with the water gc of the eternal life ; for so 3 can the eternal body 3 came or (into which the soul must enter, and in its tincture, in its blood, be new-born again) be translated into the body of Christ ; to describe which, a great space is requisite. But I will finish here briefly, and mention it more in another book. And now we will handle the matter of the use [or celebration], for it is very hard to be apprehended by the simple. And therefore we will deal with him after a childish manner, to try whether he may come to see, and find the Pearl, for all shall not find what we in the love of God have found ; though indeed we could earnestly wish that all might have it, yet there is a great matter between it ; viz. the 4 swelled, 4 the vapour1_ J Ml

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