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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150. And behold, I tell you a Mystery ; as all whatsoever Adam was guilty of must stand yet [and be manifested] in this world on the body of Christ, and must be seen in this world, so also you shall see this temple (before the time that the incorruptible shall wholly swallow up the corruptible) in the lily in the wonders ; where the l anger * fierceness i i TI -n-i .11-1 and tyranny. opposeth the lily, till it be reconciled in love, and till the 2 driver be put to open shame (as was done 2 oppressor. also in the death 'of Christ) which the Jews hope for. But their sceptre is broken, and the life standeth in the birth of Christ ; yet they come from the ends of the world, and go out from Jericho again into the holy Jerusalem, and eat with the Lamb ; this is a Wonder ; but the 3 driver is taken captive, and therefore we speak 3 persecutor, iTli. suppressor, thus wonderfully ; and at present we shall not be oppressor, or understood, till the 3 hunter is destroyed; and then our life cometh to us again, and standeth in the 4 valley of Jehosaphat. 4 Or victory. 700 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 25 The other Gate of the Sufferings of Christ.

251. It is clearly shewn to us, wherefore the man Christ must thus suffer himself to be mocked, despised, scourged, crowned [with thorns], and crucified ; also why he must endure to be cried out upon for one that had a devil ; and wherefore he must be so spoken against by the wise and prudent ; also wherefore the simple people only hung to him, and but some few of the honourable and rich of this world. Though indeed we shall not please every one, yet we speak not our own words, but we speak (in our knowledge and driving in the spirit) that which is shewn us of God : Therefore uDderstand [and consider] it aright. 1 innocent. 52. Behold, the l guiltless man Christ was set in our stead, in the anger of the Father ; he must reconcile [and satisfy] not only all that which Adam had made himself guilty of, by his going forth from paradise into the kingdom of this world, and so fell foully in the presence of God, and was scorned of all the devils ; but [he must make atonement for] all that which was done afterwards, and which is still done, or [will be] done by us. 53. And this we set before your eyes, in the knowledge of God, and in true earnest sincerity ; not that we will despise any man, and exalt ourselves ; we would rather be banished from this world, than that we should seek our own praise in pride ; that is but dung and dross, and the spirit Ch. 25] CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 701

3of knowledge would not stay with us ; this ought well to be considered. Therefore we will write (in our knowledge)^ for ourselves, and leave the event to God. 54. Behold, when Adam entered into this world, pride wrought in him ; he would be as God, as Moses saith, the serpent (the devil) persuaded him to it. He [man] would have the third Principle working and flowing in him, and thereby he lost God, and the kingdom of heaven. But that it is true that pride acted in man, look upon (7am, he would be lord alone, he would not that his brother should be accepted before God, fearing that he should then get the dominion, and therefore he slew him. 55. And so Cain and his successors have set up a potent kingdom, from whence dominion proceedeth, whereby one brother aspireth above another, and have made them slaves. And thus horrible tyranny hath been hatched, and the potent hath done whatsoever he listed ; he hath oppressed the needy at his pleasure ; he hath got to him the kingdom of the earth, and therewith exerciseth tyranny, wickedness, and wrong, and yet men must say to him, It is right ; he hath contrived all sorts of policy and cunning devices, and made laws of them [and established them for right], and afterwards sold them to others for rights, and hath brought up his children with wickedness and falsehood. He hath beaten down 702 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