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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112. But if thou leavest them off, and passest with the desire of thy heart into the mercy of God, then thou goest into heaven, into God the Father, and thou walkest in the body of Christ in the pure element ; and the Holy Ghost goeth forth out of thy soul, and leadeth thee into all truth ; and the old corrupt man doth but hang to thee, which thou shalt destroy in death, and with thy love in Christ still overcome, and captivate the anger of the Father in thy soul ; and thou shalt spring up with thy new man through death, and appear in the same at the Last Judgment-day. Ch. 26] OF THE FEAST OF PENTECOST 733 The lGate to Babel. i the Gate bv which Babel 13. When we .consider with ourselves the many first entfll sects and controversies in religion, and from whence they come and take their original, it is as clear as the sun, and it manifesto th itself indeed, and in truth ; for there are great wars and insurrections stirred up for the cause of [religion or] faith ; and there arise great hatred and envy about it, and they persecute one another for opinions sake ; because another is not of his opinion, he sticks not to say, he is of the devil ; and this is yet the greatest misery of all, that this is done by / the learned in the high schools [or universities] I of this world. 14. And I will shew thee, simple man, their venom and poison ; for behold, every one among the laity looketh upon them, and thinketh, Sure it

2must needs be right if our 2 priest sayeth it ; he is = minister, a minister of God ; he sitteth in God's stead, it is preacher, or the Holy Ghost that speaketh out of him. But St te John saith, Try the spirits ; for every one's teaching is not to be believed; and Christ saith, By their works thou shalt know them ; for a good tree bringeth forth good fruit, and an evil tree bringeth forth evil fruit ; also he teacheth us plainly, that we should not gainsay the prophecy that is of God, but we should learn to try them by their fruits. 15. We speak not of perfect works done by the body, which is captivated in the spirit of this 734 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 26 world, but [we speak] of their doctrines, that we [must] try them, whether they be generated of God. For if that spirit teacheth blasphemies, slanders, and persecutions, then it is not from God, but it proceedeth from the covetousness and haughtiness of the devil. For Christ teacheth us meekness, and to walk in brotherly love, wherewith we may overcome the enemy, and take away the might of the devil, and destroy his kingdom. 16. But when any fall to firing, killing with the sword, to undo people, ruin towns and countries, there is no Christ, but the anger of the Father,

31 Or the coal, and it is the devil that bloweth the x fire. For the kingdom of Christ is not found in such a way, but in power; as the examples of the Apostles of Christ declare, who taught no revenge, but they suffered persecution, and prayed to God, who gave them signs and great wonders, so that people flocked to them ; and so the Church of Christ grew mightily, so that it overshadowed the earth. Now who is the destroyer of this Church ? Open thy eyes wide and behold ; it is daylight, and it must come to the light, for God would have it so, for the sake of the lily. It is the pride of the learned. 17. When the Holy Ghost spake in the saints with power and miracles, and converted people powerfully, then they flocked to them, they honoured them greatly, they respected them, and submitted to them as if they had been gods. Now Ch. 26] OP THE FEAST OF PENTECOST 735 this was well doue to the saints, for the honour was given to God, and so humility and love grew among them^ and there was all-loving reverence, as becometh the children of God, and as it ought to be.

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