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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1same l ignominy must our dear Lord Christ bear i shame or upon his shoulders. Or do ye think again, that we re are mad ? Truly our folly will be set before your eyes at the Last Judgment, and thither we appeal. 31. And as Adam must carry the untoward gross body, that the spirit of this world had put upon him, and was scorned of all devils, because he had changed his angelical [body] into a monstrous vizard, so Christ must carry his heavy wooden cross, and was for our sakes scorned of all these wicked people. 32. A.nd as the fierce [wrathful] essences of the anger of God pressed into Adam, whereby he entered into death, (of which God spake, saying, If thou eatest of the Tree, thou shalt die the death, understand the death in the flesh, even while they were in the earthly life), so the sharp nails must pierce through the hands and feet of Christ, and so he must enter into death ; and as there is in the human essences (before the light of God) a crossbirth, so when the light of God shineth therein, 692 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 25 1 parted asunder, or broken. 2 upon the brain-pan of a man s skull, and of a woman's skull, thus, 3 Or thieves. 4 Adam. all is turned into a pleasant flourishing blossom, wherein the sharp essences are not found or perceived.

233. And when Adam with his soul entered into the fourth form, into the spirit of this world, then that cross -birth was stirred ; and when his wife was made out of his essences, he was l divided in that cross-birth ; and so the woman hath the one half of the cross, and the man the other half; which you may see 2in the skull, as also in the essences ; and therefore Christ must die upon the cross, and destroy death on the cross. 34. And as the soul of Adam hung between two evil kingdoms, between the kingdom of this world, and the kingdom of hell, so Christ hung on the cross between two 3 murderers ; and thus Christ must restore again all that Adam had lost. And as the one malefactor turned and desired to be with Christ in his kingdom, so the one kingdom, viz. the earthly man, must also turn again, and the poor soul must enter into Christ again through the earthly death, and spring up again, like this murderer [thief, or malefactor], on the cross, who desired the kingdom of Christ. 35. And thus you may well believe, that all whatsoever happened in the fall of Adam, whereby Adam is fallen, the same was the second Adam fain to bear upon his shoulders, for * he was fallen into the anger of God ; and now if that must be allayed and reconciled, then the second Adam Oh. 25] CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 693

3must set himself therein, and yield his outward body with all essences therein ; and he must go through death, into hell, into the anger of the Father, and reconcile it with his love ; and so himself must undergo that hard condition, wherein we must have been in eternity. 36. And now when this earnest business was taken in hand, that the Saviour of the world hung on the cross, as a curse, and wrestled with earth and hell, he said, / thirst. 0 that great thirst ! The fierce wrathful kingdom was weary, as also the kingdom of this world, they desired strength ; and the kingdom of heaven thirsted after our souls ; it was a thirst of all the three Principles. 37. And when he saw John with his mother under the cross ; he said, Behold, that is thy mother-, and to her he said, Behold, that is thy Son ; and instantly that disciple took her to him. His mother signifieth his eternal new humanity, which he had l received in his mother (viz. in the 1 assumed, holy Ternary) which we should take to us, and refresh ourselves with his mother ; and therefore he shewed her to John, of which very much might be written ; but this shall be expounded in another place. 38. And this is as clear as the sun, that as the poor soul in us hangeth between two kingdoms, which both keep it altogether imprisoned, so must Christ hang between two malefactors ; take this 694 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 25

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