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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11. IV /T~Y beloved Reader, we tell thee this, -1-VJL that all things from the original of the essence of all essences (everything from its originality) hath its driving [or impulsion] in its own form ; and it always maketh that very thing, with which the spirit is impregnated ; the body must always labour in that wherein the spirit is kindled. When I consider and think, why I write thus [many wonders], and leave them not for other sharper wits, I find that my spirit is kindled in this matter, whereof I write ; for there is a living running fire of these things in my spirit, and thereupon (let me purpose what I will) yet this thing continually moveth and swimmeth on the top, and so I am captivated therewith in my spirit ; and it is laid upon me as a work which I must exercise. Therefore seeing it is my work that my 658 Ch. 24] OF TRUE REPENTANCE 659 spirit driveth, 1 will write it down for a Memorial, in such a manner as I know it in my spirit, and 1 in such a manner as I attained to it, and I will set 1 th« way how down no 2 strange thing, which myself have not a ^he^thing tried [and known], that I be not found 3 a liar con- *™ JJJH. cerning myself before God. « Or to write

22. Now then, if there be any that have a desire " to follow me, and would fain have this knowledge whereof I write, I advise him that he follow me in this following table [pattern or way], not presently with the pen, but with the labour of the mind, and then he shall find how I could come to write thus ; whereas I was not taught from the schools of this world, but only a little of this mean hand-writing, as may be seen here. 3. But now seeing I have in hand the articles of repentance, therefore I certify the Reader, that in my earnestness this pen was given me, which the hunter would have broken, with whom I began an earnest storm, insomuch that he had cast me down to the ground under his feet, but the breath of God helped me up ; so that I stand up, and have the first pen in my mind still, wherewith I will write further, though the devil for malice should storm hell. 4. Therefore now, if we will speak of this most serious article, we must go from Jerusalem to Jericho, and see how we lie among murderers, who have so wounded us, and beaten us, that we are half dead, and we must look about us for the 660 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 24

3Samaritan with his beast, that he may dress our wounds, and bring us into his inn. 0, how lamentable and miserable it is, that we are so beaten by the murderer (the devil) that we are half dead, and yet feel our smart no more ! 0, if the Physician would come, and dress our wounds, that our soul might revive and live, how should we rejoice ! Thus speaketh the desire, and hath such longing hearty wishes ; and although the Physician is present, yet the mind can nowhere apprehend him, because it is so very much wounded, and lieth half dead. 5. My dear mind, thou supposest thou art very sound, but thou art so beaten, that thou feelest thy disease no more. Art thou not very near unto death, how then canst thou account thyself to be sound ? 0, my dear soul, boast not of thy soundness, thou liest fettered in heavy bonds, yea in a very dark dungeon ; thou swimmest in a deep water, which riseth up to thy very lips, and thou must continually expect death. Besides, the 1 Or corrupt l hunter is behind thee with a great company of nature. . r J thy worst enemies, whereby he draweth thee continually down by his chains into the horrible deep, into the abyss of hell, and his crew thrust thee on behind thee, and run upon thee on all sides, yelling and hunting, as if they had the hind they hunt after. 6. Then saith reason, Wherefore do they so? 0, my dear soul, they have great cause for it ; behold, thou hast been their hind, and thou art

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