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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117. For the ''locus or space of this world was sal place of , . TITT •• -\ i • i i this world, as their angelical [dominion orj kingdom, where they creating Word were in the place of this world. itseif!P' 18. But though we speak of the paradisical essence, and also of the Principle of this world, of its power and wonderful birth, and what the divine and eternal wisdom is, yet it is impossible for us to 8 fountain or utter and express it [all] ; for the 8 lake of the deep well-spring. 111- -•/•,-, • i can be comprehended in no spirit (whether it be angel or man) ; therefore the innumerable eternal 9 Or working. 9 birth and wisdom maketh a wonderful eternal joy in paradise. This innumerable power and wisdom may now also be known by us men, in the third Principle, if we will take it into our consideration ; • narrowness or a corner. Ch. 5] OP THE THIRD PRINCIPLE 73 if we look upon the starry heaven, the elements and living creatures, also upon trees, herbs, and grass, we may behold in the material world the similitude of the paradisical incomprehensible world ; for this world is proceeded out of the first root, wherein stand both the material, and also the paradisical spiritual world, which is without beginning or transitoriness.

219. And now if we meditate and consider of the original of the four elements, we shall clearly find, see, and feel the original in ourselves, if we be men and not beasts, full of malice and gainsayings against God and the l matrix of this world. For » mother, the . . , . ,, , . - eternal nature, the original is as well known in man, as m the or root. deep of this world ; although it seemeth wonderful to the unenlightened man, that any should [be able] to speak of the original of the air, fire, water, and earth, as also of the starry heaven ; he supposeth this impossible to be known ; thus he 2 swimmeth 2 giideth in his own mother, and desireth not to know it, thoughts neither was it good for man to know it ; but since in the fall of Adam hath cast us headlong into it, it is highly necessary for us to know it, that we may fly from the bestial man, and learn to know the true man. 20. And if you open the eyes of your mind, you will see that fire is in water, as may be seen in a storm of lightning, and yet it is no durable fire, though it be true fire, which setteth houses on fire, and burneth them. So also you may see that there 74 THE THREE PRINCIPLES' [Ch. Or womb. The temporary matrix is the temporary nature, and the eternal matrix is the eternal nature. a Or awakened. 3 astringent attraction. goeth forth from it a mighty forcible air, and that they are in one another ; and besides, you see that water is generated in the storm.

321. But you will not find this root here, you must look into the l matrix, and there it is wholly manifest, and you may know it in all things, for the matrix of this world standeth in the eternal matrix, from which paradise and the kingdom of heaven have their original. Now as the eternal matrix is a birth that goeth forth, where, in the original, there is harshness, darkness, hardness, and anguish, so you may see, that when the spirit of God hath 2 kindled the inward matrix, then it becometh stirring, working, and active. 22. For there is in the original, first, 3 harshness, which attracteth, shutteth up, maketh darkness, and sharp cold ; but the tartness cannot endure the attracting ; for the attracting in the cold maketh in the bitterness a sting [or prickle], which rageth and resisteth against the hard death, but not being able to come away out of the tartness (being its mother wherein it standeth), therefore it rageth very horribly, as if it would break the harshness [in pieces] ; it flieth out upwards and sideways, and yet findeth no rest, till that the birth of the harshness fall into an aching horrible essence, like a brimstone-spirit, very rough, hard, stinging in itself [or kindling in itself], like a whirling wheel, and that the bitterness flieth up very swiftly, from whence proceedeth a twinkling flash ; at which the Ch. 5] OF THE THIRD PRINCIPLE 75

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