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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1his holy body to be a clear eternal day, whereinto no night ever came, but the light of God the Father and of the Lamb shone therein. 76. Thou shouldst not think that the soul of Christ these forty hours was in any other place 1 AS fire goeth than in the Father, l and in his body, where it out in the iron . , , . by the water's sprang up in great meekness upon the persecution MiihiCgof8it°,r [it had], as a rose, or fair flower out of the earth; " as also our souls in our rest, in the body of Jesus Christ, at the Last Judgment-day in the destruction of this world, shall in the new body break forth again out of the old ; and in the meanwhile the soul groweth up in the holy element, in the "ourap- body of Christ, till 2our forty hours also come about, and not one hour longer than the appointed time is. Thus is the body of Christ in the power or virtue of the Father (through the soul) risen again and gone forth, and hath in it the light of the Holy Trinity. 77. It was not needful that the stone should be rolled away [from the grave], but to convince the blind Jews, that they might see it was but folly in them to go about to detain or shut up God ; also because of the disciples' weak reason, that they might see that he was risen for certain ; for [when the stone was rolled away], they could go into the grave and see it themselves.

278. Also the angel appeared to them there, and comforted them. Thus will Christ comfort his afflicted ones, who are afflicted for his sake ; yea Ch. 25] CHRIST'S DEATH AND RESURRECTION 713 he is [present] with them, as he was with Mary Magdalene, and with the two disciples going to Emmaus. 79. Thou must know that no stone or rock can keep or retain his body, he pierceth and penetrateth through all things, and breaketh nothing; he comprehendeth all things, and the thing comprehendeth not him ; he comprehendeth this world, and the world comprehendeth not him ; he is hurt by nothing, the whole fulness of the Deity is in him, and is not included in anything ; l he 1 Note. appeareth a creature, in our human form, in the same 2 dimensions that our bodies have, and yet his a circum- . . scription and body hath no end or limit ; he is the whole princely bigness. throne of the whole Principle. 80. When he was here upon earth in the earthly man, his outward body was circumscribed and limited, as our bodies are, but the inward body is unlimited, for we also (in the resurrection in the body of Jesus Christ) are unlimited, yet visible and palpable or comprehensible, in the heavenly flesh and blood, as the Prince of Life himself is ; 8 we can in « Note. the heavenly figure [or shape] be great or little, and yet nothing be hurt or wanting in us ; there is no need of compressing the parts of that body.

381. 0 dear Christians, leave off your contentions about the body of Jesus Christ ; he is everywhere in all places, * yet in the heaven ; and the heaven 4 Note. (wherein God dwelleth) is also everywhere. God dwelleth in the body of Jesus Christ, and in all 714 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 25 holy souls of men, even when they depart from this outward body ; and if they be regenerated, then they are in the body of Jesus Christ, even while they are in this earthly body. A soul here in our body upon earth hath not the body of Christ in a palpable substance, but in the word of power [or virtue], which comprehendeth all things. In Christ indeed body and power are one [thing], but we must not understand [this of the four elementary] creature, [which is] in this world. 1 Or wit- 82. And the spirit * signifieth, that if you do not leave off this contention, you shall have no other firTde?oSed sign [given 7OU] than tne 2 sign of JSlias, in fire, the unbeiiev- jn zeaj • the zeal shall devour you, and your coning captains * J

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