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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1there watching, as a cat watcheth for a mouse, saying, 0 ! who can tell, whether that be true or no, which thou teachest, thou hast not seen it ; neither hath any come from the dead, and told it thee. There are many dead, that have taught just as thou dost; and yet doth not the world stand in its old l course, at one time as at another? They were counted fools, and so art thou, and after thee again things will be still as they were before. To what purpose then is thy care and pains ? 16. At length 2he cometh with a subtle snare, and saith, through the spirit of the great world in the mind, in himself, O, the heavens have caused thee to be born to it, that thou dost such foolish tricks, and would play juggling feats in thee, thy gifts are not from God ; God hath never spoken with thee ! And what canst thou know then ? Leave off, let it alone, thou mayest be a Christian well enough, and be quiet ; let the priests teach, 8 livings, pay, they have their 3 wages for it. What hast thou or hire for it. to do with it ? Beloved Reader, with these blows this pen was once thrown to the ground, and the driver would have broken it, but the breath of God took it up again ; therefore it shall write what happened to it, to be an example for all wellwishers ; and it is an exceeding precious one.

217. Now when the devil had thus thrown it down, then it was silent, and desired not only to write no more, but the devil rushed in upon it, and beat it along, and would have broken it. He came forth Ch. 24] OF TRUE REPENTANCE 667 with his sour apples, and held them before the soul of this pen, and would have it eat of his dainties ; also he strowed sugar upon them [as he did for Eve]. If he had gotten the soul again into his chains, how would he have been revenged on it ! as was afterwards known in the storm, where his mind was known very well. Now when it was thus, the lily faded and lost its fragrant smell, the Pearl did hide itself, and the virgin of the Pearl stood mourning, and the noble mind sank down in great unquietness. 18. Indeed the driver said at the beginning, that it should have rest with being quiet ; but it was rest only to flesh and blood, and yet it was no quietness either, but a furtherance to the hunting. But when the mind found itself in great unquietness of soul, it recollected the soul, and sought the Pearl which the soul had before, and supposed that

3it lay as a treasure in the l case of the soul, but » Or cabinet it was gone ; and then the mind sought that [Pearl] in body and soul, and behold it was not there, it could not be found ; and there was nothing to be seen but the devil's sour apples, which were strowed before the soul, that it should feed on them. But the soul stood in great perplexity, and would not eat of its evil fruit ; it called its virgin, but she sat as if she were asleep. 19. Thus the soul stood with great longing and desire ; also was many times in great combat with the hunter, who would still throw it to the ground. When it set itself in opposition against him, then 668 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 24 1 Barmhertzigkeit, mercifulness. 2 Note, No pen in this world can sufficiently describe it. 3 the wisdom of God.

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