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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1Ch. 23] THE PRECIOUS TESTAMENTS OP CHRIST 655 of Christ is the food of the new man, which the soul hath put on from the body of Jesus Christ, and the body and the blood of Jesus Christ feedeth the new man ; and if the new man abideth faithful in the body of Jesus Christ, then the noble Pearl of the l light of God is given to him, so that he can i or divine see the noble virgin of the wisdom of God ; and lg *' that virgin taketh the Pearl into her bosom, and goeth continually with the soul into the new body, and warneth the soul of the false [or evil] way. But what manner of Pearl this is, I would that all men might know it. But how much it is known, is plain before our eyes. It is brighter than the splendour of the sun, and of more worth than the whole world ; but how clear soever it is, yet it is also secret. 46. Now then reason asketh, What doth the wicked receive who is unregenerated ? I answer, Hearken, my beloved reason, what St Paul saith, Because he distinguisheth not the body of Christ, therefore he receiveth it to his own judgment. As the Prophet saith, They draw near to me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me ; and as is before mentioned, whosoever goeth away from God, entereth into his wrath.

247. How wilt thou receive the holy body in the love, if thou art a devil ? Hath not the devil also been an angel ? Wherefore went he away from God ? If thy old man [captivated] in the wrath be only on thy soul, and no new [man], then thy 656 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 22 1 Or he that made the Testament. 3 God. soul receiveth the wrath of God, and thy old man receiveth the elementary bread and wine. The noble Pearl is not cast before swine ; indeed the Testament is there, and the l Testator inviteth thee to it, but thou makest a mockery of it ; he would fain help thee, and thou wilt not. 48. I say not that thou receivest the wrath of God in the bread and in the wine, but in thy false confidence ; thou art with thy body and soul in the anger, and wilt not go out from it. Wherefore then dost thou approach often to the covenant of God, seeing thou art captivated of the devil ? Dost thou think that 2 he will adorn thy hypocrisy, and will hang his Pearl on thee ? Thou art a wolf, and howlest with the dogs ; thy mouth prayeth,

31 «in Schaick. and thy soul is 3 abominably wicked [and naught] ; when it goeth from the Testament of Christ, it entereth into the stall of robbery again, and is a murderer ; it howleth with the dogs ; it is a perfidious whore ; when it goeth away from the covenant, it steppeth into whorish corners, into the den of thieves ; and there they stand, and pretend great holiness. 0, this day is a holy day to me, I must not sin. And yet they think, to-morrow or next day they will go thither again, 49. 0 thou knave, if thou bringest not another man than such to it, stay away from the Testament of Christ ; thou art but a murderer, and dost scandalize thy neighbour, so long as thou art in such a way ; thy prayer is false, it cometh not from Ch. 23] THE PRECIOUS TESTAMENTS OF CHRIST 657 the bottom of the heart ; thy heart desireth only the pleasures of this world, and the l driver receiveth 1 hunter, perthy prayer, he is thy god ; therefore consider what the devil. thou dost. 50. 0 Babel, we have a great deal to say to thee, but not here ; thou shalt once be talked with in the anger, at which the elements shall shake and tremble ; go forth (it is high time) that the anger may be allayed. 42 THE TWENTY-FOURTH CHAPTER Of true Repentance : How the poor Sinner may come to God again in his Covenant, and how he may be released of his Sins. The Gate of the Justification of a poor Sinner before God. A clear Looking-Glass.

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