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 spirit ruled powerfully over the spirit of this world, over the stars, and over the sun and moon, and over the elements. 21. This must be Adam's condition ; and thus he was a true and right image and similitude of God. He had no such hard bones in his flesh fas / "- we now have], but they were strength, and such [a kind of] virtue ; also his blood was not out of the tincture of the 2 aquastrish matrix, but it was out of the heavenly matrix. In brief, it was altogether heavenly, as we shall appear [and be] at the Day of the Resurrection. For the purpose of God standeth, the first image must return and come again and continue in paradise ; and seeing it could be done in no other form, [way, or manner], nor [that which was lost] be restored again, therefore God would rather spend his own Heart ; his eternal will is unchangeable, that must stand. 22. And when God had created man, then he planted a garden in Eden towards the east, and placed him therein, and caused to spring up and grow all manner of fruit, delightful to behold, and all sorts of trees good to eat of ; and the Tree of Life in the midst of the garden, and the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil. And when God had placed man in the garden, he commanded him, and said, You sliall eat of every tree in the garden, but of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil thou shalt not eat; for in the day that thou eatest Ch. 10] THE CREATION OF MAN, AND HIS SOUL 163

2thereof, thou shalt die the death. Here the veil lieth upon Moses, and they must be sharp [or piercing] eyes that can behold the face of Moses. God hath not without cause let Moses write this so very mystically [hiddenly and obscurely]. 23. For what needed God to care so much for the biting of an apple, as to destroy so fair a creature for it ? Doth he not forgive many greater sins ? And he so exceedingly loved man, that he spared not his only Son, but let him become man, and gave him unto death. And could he not forgive a small sin ? Seeing he was omniscient [or knew all things], therefore why did he let the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil grow ? 24. Reason judgeth thus, that if God would not have had it so, Adam should not have eaten of it, or else he should not have forbidden that tree only ; sure he made it for a stumbling-stock to him. Thus the reason of one [sort or] party judgeth. The reason of the other party will mend the matter, which is indeed somewhat the wiser, but not much : They say, God tempted Adam, [to try] whether he would continue in his obedience or not; and when he became disobedient, then God threw mighty anger and wrath upon him, and cursed him to death ; and that his wrath could not be quenched, except he be reconciled in such a manner. This reason of this party maketh God to be a mere unmercifulness, like an evil man of this world, who yet will be reconciled, when he hath 164 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 10

31 For which the curse came. 2 Or macrocosm. once revenged himself sufficiently ; and this reason hath no knowledge at all of God, nor of paradise. 25. 0 beloved soul ! it is a very l heavy business, at which the very heavens might well stand amazed. In this temptation there is a very great matter hidden in Moses, which the unenlightened soul understandeth not : God did not regard a bit of an apple or pear, to punish so fair a creature for it : The punishment cometh not from his hand, but from the 2 spiritus majoris mundi, from the spirit of the great world, from the third Principle. God intended most mercifully towards man, and therefore he spared not his own Heart, but let it become man, that he might deliver man again. You ought not to have such thoughts. God is love, and the good in him is no angry thought ; and man's punishment was not but from himself, as you shall [find or] read in its due place. TJie Secret Gate of the Temptation of Man. 26. Since many questions fall to be in this place (for the mind of man seeketh after its native country again, out of which it is wandered, and would return again home to the eternal rest) and since it is permitted to me in my knowledge, I will therefore set down the deep ground of the fall, wherein men may look upon the eyes of Moses : If you be born of God, then it may well be apprehended by you, but the unenlightened mind cannot hit the mark ; for if the mind desire th to see what

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