Concerning the three principles of the divine essence / by Jacob Boehme, translated by John Sparrow, revised by C. J. B., with an introduction by Dr Paul Deussen, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Kiel.

Jakob Böhme

Date:: 1910

Credit: Concerning the three principles of the divine essence / by Jacob Boehme, translated by John Sparrow, revised by C. J. B., with an introduction by Dr Paul Deussen, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Kiel. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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$INTRODUCTION' “ My knowledge is not, as yours, the outcome of fancy or opinion ; but I have living knowledge through vision and experience.”—Jacob Boehme {contra Tylckm, ii. 53). IT has been affirmed by Goethe, in a well-known passage of his writings, that the main theme of the world’s and of mankind’s history is the struggle between faith and infidelity. But what is faith, and what is infidelity ? Has not the infidelity of one age, after meeting with revilings and provoking persecutions, yet often become later the faith of another age ? There- fore, we would reinterpret or rectify Goethe’s statement by suggesting that the main and essential theme of history consists in the struggle of the living with the dead. Again and again we observe the same world’s drama unfolding itself. When a great truth arises that opposes time-consecrated traditions, how few, beside the very noblest minds of the day, are able to seize upon it, and to become its martyrs, until it wins at last, after long strife, and becomes the common possession of man- kind ! Then again we see how, in the grasp of the multitude, that which was living becomes dead; how that which was deeply thought and felt, turns into empty forms and meaningless words; how that which was originally treasured for its own sake is degraded ^ Jacob Boehme: His Life and Philosophy. An Address delivered at Kiel, 8th May 1897, by Dr Paul Deussen, Professor of Philosophy in the University of Kiel, Enlarged and published in aid of a fund for the raising of a Memorial-monument to Jacob Boehme. Kiel, 1897. Translated by Mrs D. S. Hehner, and here printed by the author’s special permission. [The references are to the English editions of J. B.’s works.]$