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. Christ teacheth us and warneth us faithfully of the times that were to come, wherein they shall say, Lo here is Christ, or, Lo there he is ; he is in the wilderness; he is in the chamber; go not forth, believe it not ; for as the lightning breaketh forth in the east, and shineth to the west, so will the coming of the Son of Man be. 13. Therefore, 0 child of man, see whether it be not so ; where the false pastors [or shepherds], without the divine calling, always wrangle [strive, contend, and dispute] ; and every one of them saith, follow me, here is Christ, there is Christ, J Or come and and they judge [and condemn] one another, and ™ give one another over to the devil ; they abandon unity, and forsake the love wherein the spirit of God is 2 generated ; and cause bitterness, and lead - acteth or » • i i . i 1-11 rvi • ''orketh. astray the simple plain people, to think that Christ is such a wrangling shepherd [pastor, priest, or minister], and doth so grapple with 8 his opponents, 3 tho adverse in raising war and murder, as they do ; and that 134 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 9 the spirit of God must needs be in such doings [which are accounted zeal for God] ; and that this must be the way to paradise.

214. Christ said, Love one another, thereby shall men know that ye are my disciples ; if any smite thee on one cheek, turn to him the other cheek also ; if you be persecuted for my names sake, then rejoice, for your reward is great in the kingdom of heaven : But now there is nothing taught but mere ignominy [reproach, and revilings] : they that are dead many hundred years ago, and are in the judgment of God, and some also may be in paradise, these must be judged, and condemned, and cursed by the wrangling shepherds [or contentious priests]. Doth the Holy Ghost speak by them, as they cry out and say he doth ? Whereas they are still full of gall and bitterness, and nothing but covetousness and vengeance is kindled in them, and they are far from the way of paradise. 15. Therefore, thou child of man, take heed, let not your ears be tickled : When you hear the false shepherds [or pastors] judge and condemn the children of Christ, that is not the voice of Christ, but of Antichrist ; the way to paradise hath quite another entrance ; your heart must with all your power and strength be directed to God [or goodness] ; and as God desireth that all men should be saved, so his will is that we should help to bear one another's burthen [and bear with one another], and friendly, soberly, and modestly meet one Ch. 9] OF PARADISE, ETC. 135

3another with entreaties in the Holy Ghost, and seek with earnestness the [salvation and] welfare of our neighbour in humility, and wish heartily that he might be freed from vanity, and enter with us into the l garden of roses. J into the 16. The knowledge that is in the infinite God iug pleasant is various and manifold, but every one should pe rejoice in the gifts and knowledge of another, and consider, that God will give such superabundant knowledge in the paradisical world, of which we have here (in the variety and difference of gifts) but a type : Therefore we must not wrangle nor contend about gifts and knowledge ; for the spirit giveth to every one according to his essence in the wonderful God, to express that [gift he hath] after his own form [or manner] ; for that [form], in the perfection of love in paradise, will be a very inward hearty sport of love, where every one shall speak from his knowledge of the great wonders of the 2 holy birth. 2 the holy 17. 0, what 3 sharp thorns the devil hath bringing* brought into the sport of love, that we practise i°bitter en such proud contention in the noble knowledge, insomuch that men bind up the Holy Ghost with laws! What are laws in the kingdom of Christ, who hath made us free, that we should walk in him in the Holy Ghost? To what purpose are they invented, but for the pleasure of Antichrist, who thereby doth strut in might and pomp, and is God on earth ? 0 fly from him, thou child of

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