The Signature of All Things, by Jacob Boehem, [1912], at sacred-texts.com
The Signature of All Things, by Jacob Boehem, [1912], at sacred-texts.com
HOW ADAM IN PARADISE, AND HOW LUCIFER WAS A FAIR ANGEL, AND HOW THEY WERE CORRUPTED AND SPOILED THROUGH IMAGINATION AND PRIDE
1. We will give an occasion of consideration to the earnest searcher and seeker, and if he apprehends our meaning he shall indeed be able to find the noble philosopher's stone, but so that he be chosen thereto by God, and his life also stands in the heavenly Mercury, otherwise we are a mystery to him; and we will represent it to him in similitudes, in the most manifest, and yet mystical manner.
2. When Adam was created in paradise, the heavenly Mercury did then lead him; his life burned in a pure oil, therefore his eyes were heavenly; and his understanding did excel nature, for his light shined in the oil of the divine essentiality; the external waterish property was not manifest in his oil; he was iliastrich, that is, angelical, and became in the Fall cogastrish, that is, the watery nature in the mortal property was manifest in his oil, and penetrated, so that the mercury in him became an anxious poison, which before in his oil was an exaltation of joyfulness.
3. For the salnitral flagrat in the impression in the coldness, viz. according to the saturnine property, was thereby elevated, and got the dominion, as a cold poison, which arises in the impression of death, from whence the darkness was generated in the oil, and Adam died to the divine light; to which the devil persuaded 1 him by 2 the serpent, that is, by the essence and property of the serpent; for the kingdom of wrath, and also the outward kingdom was manifest in the serpent; for it was more subtle than any beast of the field, and this subtlety Eve desired; for the serpent persuaded her that her eyes should be opened, and she should be as God, and know good and evil.
4. Which also was the will of the devil, that he would know evil: And in the enkindling to the knowledge in Mercury he became corrupt and dark; for he entered with the imagination,
according to his condition, knowledge, and desire, into the fiery byss; and Adam, according to his knowledge and desire, went into the cold byss into the impression, into the procreated watery property in the salniter, where both kingdoms stand separated: He desired to prove and taste the watery mercury, in which is the mortal poison; and Lucifer [desired] the fiery Mercury, which gives strength and might; from whence his pride arose, viz. out of the fiery Mercury: But both, viz. Lucifer, and also Adam, lost the oil of the meekness of the divine essentiality.
5. Now we are to consider of the serpent, which deceived Adam with its craft; how it was, and what its subtlety was after which Adam and Eve did imagine; why they did eat of the forbidden tree which was evil and good, and how they did eat death thereby; and what their salvation and restoration is naturally and properly; what evil and good are, what the property of the eternal life, and then the property of eternal death is; what the cure is, whereby the sickness introduced by Adam, and its death, may be healed, and restored both to the temporal and eternal life.
6. Let the reader attend to the sense and meaning; for we have not the ability to give this into his hands; that only belongs to God; but the gates shall stand open for him, if he will enter in; if not, flattery 1 avails him not.
7. The devil was a fair angel, and the serpent the subtle beast, and man the likeness of the Deity; now all three were corrupted 2 by imagination and pride, and got the curse of God for their false lust [or cunning].
8. All whatever is eternal proceeds originally from one ground, as angels and souls; but the serpent is not out of the eternal ground, but out of the beginning, as we have before given you to understand, how with the enkindling of the fire in the salnitral flagrat two kingdoms separate, viz. eternity and time; and how the eternity dwells in the time, but yet only in itself; but yet so nigh to the time, as fire and light which are in one another, and yet make two kingdoms; or as darkness and light dwell in each other, and the one is not the other. The like we are to consider of the inchoative poisonful mercury in the devil, and in man, and in the serpent also; how an oil corrupts, and yet the essence or being of God is not hereby at all corrupted, but enters into itself, viz. into the nothing; and the creaturely mercury, which arises, or is begotten with the beginning of the
creature in the creature, goes out of itself, 1 that is, out of the eternal into time, viz. into the beginning of the creature; it desires its own self, that is, the beginning; and will be its own, or of a selfish property, and forsakes the eternity, into which it should be wholly confined, and resigned with its desire, and bring its hunger thereinto; and then its poison-source would not be manifest.
9. For whatever hungers after the eternal nothing, viz. after the quiet meek liberty of God, that is not manifest to itself, but it is manifest in the still liberty, viz. in God; for as the hunger is, such is also the essence in the hunger; each hunger or desire makes itself an essence according to the property of the hunger or desire.
10. Thus the devil makes [or causes] in himself his darkness; for he went with his desire into himself, into the property of the centre to the desire, and forsook the eternity, viz. the nothing, that is, the lubet of love; so that he enkindled himself in his poisonful mercury, that is, in the forms to life in himself, and became an anxious fire-source in the darkness; as wood that is burnt to a coal, which only glows, and has no more any true light in it, also no oil or water; so it went with him. Now in his own property, viz. in his life's forms, there springs forth nothing but a stinging envious property, where one form hates and annoys the other, and yet they so beget each other.
11. And so was the serpent likewise, yet not by its own aspiring haughtiness; but when God said; Let all sorts of beasts come forth, each according to his property [or kind], then came forth beasts out of every property of nature, as it was manifest in the separation, when God moved himself to the creation; for the devil would domineer over the love and meekness of God, and put his desire also into the anger, 2 that is, into the austere might, where the poison-life arises, viz. into the fiat of the wrathful property, out of which form are proceeded vipers, serpents, toads, and other venomous worms; not that the devil has made them, that he cannot; only as the desire was in the impression of the fiat, such also was the creature in the evil and good.
12. For in the impression of the fiat, in the original of the outward Mercury, viz. of the life, which is manifest to itself internally, was the separation, where God and the world separate, viz. God inwardly, 3 the world outwardly, 4 as a similitude
of the abyss, or a looking-glass of eternity; even there the inward wrath, from whence God is called an angry zealous God, and a consuming fire, manifested itself externally in figures, as in a similitude of the inward birth in the centre; like as the eternal lubet, which he is himself, stirs up [awakens] and causes the desire to the nature of the eternal manifestation, and gives in itself into the desire, and turns the wrath of the desire into joyfulness.
13. Thus it is also with the serpent's craft: 1 In the highest Mercury is the highest sharpest proof of all things; the more poisonful a thing is, the more sharply it proves a thing; for the sharpest 2 taste and smell consists in the great poison, viz. in a dying source.
14. And the eternal light is generated 3 out of the Father's sharpness, that it attains the shining, and goes forth with its own source through the sharpness out of the anguish-source again into the liberty, viz. into the nothing, where the light, by reason of the fire's-source and property, becomes also a desire, which is the desire of the divine love and joyfulness; in which desire Mercurius, the eternal word, or the understanding of eternity, or deity, is rightly considered and named: And this efflux from the fire (understand from the eternal magical spiritual fire) is a procreation, viz. of the word of the power, colours, and virtue: And this desire of the same mercury, or word, does also modelise 4 the power into its own desire, and makes it essential; which is the meekness and the love, which quenches the wrath of the Eternal Father, viz. of the eternal nature's desire with love, and changes it into joyfulness, where the name of God has its original from eternity. This immassed essentiality causes 5 two properties, viz. one oleous, which is heavenly essence, a cause of the shining of the light; and also a powerful [property] from the motion of the eternal impression, or desire of the Father after the birth of the Son; from whence the divine air (as the power through the shining of the light) proceeds forth out of this love-fire, which is the Spirit of God.
15. In like manner know this, that the eternal love (understand the essence, viz. the heavenly essentiality) has given itself forth into the creation with the verbum fiat, to set 6 the Father's anger, viz. the form of the eternal nature, into the highest joyfulness, and to set forth the likeness of the eternal
generation; and where the nature of the wrath was most elevated through the fiat, there also the desire did most incline itself towards the liberty, to be free from the wrath, and to bring it into the kingdom of joy, 1 from whence the great and deep knowledge is arisen, and also the most precious and highest tincture; understand the desire of the wrathful hunger received that into itself after which it hungered, 2 viz. the liberty; for all things were created good in the beginning; also the devil was good while he was an angel; so also the serpent [was good in its creation before the curse].
16. But seeing the devil went into the highest fire's desire, God departed from him, as a light that is put out, or extinguished in a candle; and afterwards he lived according to his own desire.
17. But seeing he knew that there was such a tincture in the serpent, and the serpent being created out of the beginning of time, therefore he insinuated 3 with his desire into the serpent, and took possession of the serpent's tincture, and wrought forth his desire through the serpent against man, to introduce him to long after the serpent's property: For the serpent's tincture was from both originals, viz. out of the deadly mercury from the dying in the fire, viz. from the coldness in the impression; and then also from the wrathful [fiery property in the impression]. The cold impression is earthly, which arises from the wrath, viz. from the dying in the wrath, in the impression; and the fiery [impression] arises from the quick poison of mercury, in which property the spirit's life consists.
18. Thus Adam and Eve were infected with the devil's desire through the serpent, viz. through the earthly, deadly property of the serpent; and also [through] the wrathful poisonful living property of God's wrath according to the devil's own property; and was inflamed in his divine oil, that is, in the heavenly essentiality.
19. Even then the divine light, which shined out of the divine body of the heavenly essentiality, was extinct to him; for the curse seized upon the soul. Now God's cursing is a withdrawing, 4 viz. the divine power, which was in the body, departed into its own principle; and his holy oil (wherein the power of God dwelt, and had made a kingdom of joy, viz. the paradise) became a poison.
20. For the earthly part according to the mortifying of the
water, viz. the cogastrish property, was manifest; and forthwith mercury, viz. the coldness in the death's property, got the dominion, whereas before he was as it were swallowed up in the divine power: Thus Adam died unto God, and lived to death; here it was necessary that God should regenerate him; and therefore the serpent was cursed, because it had served, and willingly obeyed the devil.
21. Thus we understand what lies hid in the greatest anguish, viz. in the strongest mercury, viz. an oil, which cures and tinctures all diseases; but the cold poison, viz. the death's source must be done away, and put into a fiery [property] which is desirous of the light; for God created all things good in the beginning, but through his cursing or withdrawing the evil came in: For when God's love-desire dwelt in the outward world's-source, and penetrated it, as the sun the water, or the fire an iron, then the outward world was a paradise, and the divine essence sprang forth and budded through the earthly, the eternal life through the mortal; but when God cursed it for man's sake, the mortal [life 1] was manifest in man, and also in the fruit of which man should eat, which property before was only manifest in the "tree of the knowledge of good and evil," on which Adam and his wife were tempted, whether their desire would enter into the eternity, viz. into God's essence, or into the essence of time, into the living or mortal oil, in which source the soul's spirit would live, that is, burn.
22. Thus by God's curse, or withdrawing, the heavenly body was shut up, and the anger-source set open, and so [the heavenly body] lies still shut up: But seeing man by the eternal mercury, that is, by the word of divine power, was in one part formed out of eternity into body and soul, none could disclose 2 the poison-death, and destroy the mortal mercury, and change it again into the light's-source, viz. into the source of the divine joyfulness, but only the very divine Mercury, viz. the power and the word of life itself: For the serpent's poisonful earthly property was manifest and stirred up in man; therefore when God's word did pity the corruption of man, and did again embrace him, 3 he said, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head," and thou (understand the serpent's poison or fire) shalt sting him in the heel.
23. Herein now lies the philosopher's stone, [to know] how the seed of the woman bruises the serpent's head, which is done in the spirit and essence temporally and eternally; the sting of
the serpent is God's anger-fire, and the woman's seed is God's love-fire, which must be again awakened, and illustrate 1 the anger, and deprive the wrath of its might, and put it into the divine joyfulness, and then the dead soul, which lay immersed in God's curse, does arise: When the poisonful Mercury, which resembles God's anger, is tinctured with love, then the death's anguish in Mercury is changed into the highest joyfulness and desire of love, which does again make a love-essence in itself, viz. an heavenly body out of the earthly: When Mercury is changed into an heavenly source, it desires no longer [or more] the earthly mortal life; [it desires] not the four elements, but only the one, wherein the four are contained, as it were swallowed up; as the light holds the darkness swallowed up in itself, and yet the darkness is in it, but not manifest in the light; as God dwells in time, and the time comprehends him not, unless it be translated and wrapped up into eternity, that the divine light does again shine in its source, and then the time is manifest with its wonders 2 in the eternity.
24. In this manner also is the process of the wise men with the precious stone: There is no nearer consideration of the same than to consider [and know] how the eternal word, viz. the heavenly divine Mercury in the divine power, is become man, and has slain death, and the anger in man, viz. changed the Mercury into the divine joyfulness, whereby the human Mercury, which before lay shut up in God's anger, viz. in the source of death, does with its new enkindled desire, which now is called faith in the Holy Ghost, attract divine essentiality, viz. Christ's body to itself, and sets itself in divine power and light above the anger of God, and the poison of the serpent, and bruise the head of the anger, viz. the poison of death with the life of divine joyfulness: That is, the anger was master, but in the light it became a servant, which now must be a cause of the joyfulness, as it is most plain, clear, and manifestly made known and shewn to us in the mercurial life.
25. Now observe the process, and meditate on it, ye dear children of wisdom, and then you shall have enough temporally and eternally; 3 do not as Babel does, which amuses and comforts itself with the philosopher's stone, and boasts of it, but keeps only a gross mason's stone shut up in poison and death, instead of the precious philosopher's stone: 4 What is it for Babel to have the stone, when it lies wholly shut up in Babel? It is as if a
lord bestowed a country upon me, which indeed was mine, but I could not take possession of it, and remained still a poor man notwithstanding, and yet I boasted of the dominion, and so had the name, and not the power: Even thus it goes with Babel about the precious stone of the new-birth in Christ Jesus.
26. In the sweet name, Jesus Christ, the whole process is contained, what, and how the new-birth is out of death into life, which is very clearly understood in the language of nature: For the name Jesus is the property of the free lubet of eternity, which yields itself into the pregnant centre, viz. into the Father's property, and figures itself in the centre in the Father's property, viz. in the Father's fire, to a word of eternal power.
27. Understand, the Father, viz. the Father's fiery forms, do figure [shape] this divine voice essentially in itself in the lubet of the liberty; that is, the Father's fiery property makes itself in the divine essence of the eternal love to a mercury of joyfulness; for the Father's property is the fire-source, and the Son's, viz. the eternal lubet's property, is the love-source; and yet also there would be no desire of love, if the Father's fire did not enkindle it, and make it movable, viz. desirous; from the fire arises the desire.
28. The Father of all essences begets this holy desire through his fire-source, which is now his heart of love, which gives in his fire the shining lustre and splendour; even there the wrath in the fire's property dies from eternity to eternity, and is changed into a love-desire.
29. Thus observe it; the free lubet's property is here in the fire's property called Christ, which signifies in the language of nature a potent champion, 1 depriving the wrath of its power, a shining of the light in the darkness, a transmutation, where the love-lubet rules over the fire-lubet, viz. over the wrath, the light over the darkness: Here the seed of the woman (understand of the free lubet, in which there is no source) bruises the head of the wrath of the eternal nature, viz. of the eternal desire; for the fire's property is rightly called the head, for it is the cause of the eternal life; and the liberty, viz. the free lubet, or the nothing, is rightly called the woman; for in the nothing, viz. in the liberty of all source, 2 consists the birth of the Holy Trinity of the Deity.
30. Now the fire gives life, and the free lubet gives essence into the life, and in the essence is the birth, where the Father, viz. the eternal ground, begets his essence, viz. his heart out
of the abyss in himself, that is, out of the abyss in himself into a byss; the Son is 1 the Father's byss: Thus the Father remains in himself, as touching his own property only, the byss of the eternal nature; and the Son remains in the Father, the byss of the power and kingdom of joy; a resemblance whereof you see in the fire and light: And thus the Son tinctures the Father with the liberty, viz. with the nothing; and the Father tinctures (the Son) the nothing, that there is an eternal life therein, and no more a nothing, but a sound or voice of the manifestation of the eternity.
31. Thus, dear philosophers, observe here the ground how you should tincture; seek not the Son without the Father to tincture therewith: It must be one body; 2 the serpent-bruiser lies therein beforehand; for the seed of the woman has not bruised the serpent's head without the humanity, but in the humanity: The source of the divine lubet (understand of the love) manifested itself through a resurrection 3 in the human essence, and became manifest in the human life, and tinctured the wrath of death with the blood of the divine tincture, and there the wrath of death was changed into a source of divine love and joyfulness: Thus the love bruised the head of the anger and the oleous poison in Mercury, and deprived the wrath of its dominion, and sublimed the wrath into the highest joyfulness; even there the anger, and the astringent cold death, were made open shew of 4 in a fiery love: Then it was said, "Death, where is thy sting? Hell, where is thy victory? God be thanked who has given us victory."
32. Now it behoves the wise seeker to consider the whole process with the humanity of Christ from his opening in the womb of his mother Mary, even to his resurrection and ascension; and so he may well find the Feast of Pentecost with the joyful spirit, wherewith he may tincture, cure, and heal whatever is broken and destroyed: We declare it in the ground of truth, as we have highly known it; for the rose in the time of the lily shall blossom in May when the winter is past, 5 for blindness to the wicked, and for light to the seeing.
33. God be for ever praised, who has granted us eyes to see through the poisonful heart of the basilisk, and see the day of restitution of all whatever Adam lost.
34. Now we will come to the process of Christ, and go with him out of eternity into time, and out of time into eternity, and bring again the wonders of time into eternity, and openly set forth the pearl, for honour unto Christ, and scorn to the devil; he that sleeps is blind, but he that wakes sees what the May 1 brings.
35. Christ said, "Seek, and you shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: "You know that Christ signifies in a parable concerning the wounded Samaritan, that he fell among murtherers, who beat him and wounded him, and pulled off his clothes, and went away, and left him half dead, till the Samaritan came, and took pity on him, dressed him, and poured oil into his wounds, and brought him into the inn: This is a manifest and lively representation of the corruption of man in paradise, and also of the corruption of the earth in the curse of God, when paradise departed from it.
36. Now wilt thou be a magus? Then thou must become the Samaritan, otherwise thou canst not heal the wounded and decayed; for the body which thou must heal is half dead, and sorely wounded; also its right garment is torn off, so that it is very hard for thee to know the man whom thou wilt heal, unless thou hast the eyes and will of the Samaritan, and seekest nothing else thereby but to restore the loss of the wounded.
37. Now consider! The eternal word manifested itself in Adam with divine living essentiality, with the heavenly Mercury, but when the soul's-fire in Adam, by the infection of the devil, poisoned the will's spirit in Adam, and introduced it through the property of the serpent into earthly deadly lust, then the heavenly Mercury of the heavenly essence withdrew, that is, the soul's will departed from it with its desire, and introduced its hunger into the earthly mortal essence, viz. into the property of the cold Mercury, which had made stones and earth. Adam's spirit would prove this [Mercury], and have the knowledge in evil and good, and so this Mercury of the four elements immediately drew him into its poison, and effectually wrought in him, and robbed him of the divine property, stung, and wounded him with heat and cold, and made him half dead, and stripped him of his angelical rayment, viz. the garment in the pure element, where the heavenly source penetrates the four elements, and tinctured them in Adam's body: Then he needed no other garment, for heat and cold were as it were swallowed up in him; as the day holds the night swallowed up in itself, and yet the
night dwells in the day, but it is not manifest: Thus it went with man when the property and source of the night seized on him, then it domineered in him; and thus it went also with the earth when God cursed it.
38. Now wilt thou be a magus? Then thou must understand how to change the night again into the day; for the source of the night, viz. of the darkness, is the anguish-source of death; and the source of the day, viz. of the light, is the life, and the lustre in the life; now Christ has again enkindled this shining in the humanity, and quickened man again in himself: Now if thou wilt tincture, then thou must change that which is shut up, and closed in the death of the night again into the day, for the day is the tincture, and yet the day and night lie in each other as one essence.
39. Now says reason, How may I begin to do it? 1 Look upon the process, how God began with the humanity, when he would tincture the same.
40. Christ came into this world in the shut-up human form, and brought into the enclosed fortress of death the tincture of life, viz. the Deity; he came into the world as a pilgrim in our poor form; he became ours, that he might tincture us in himself: But what did he do? Did he live in joy? Did he behave and carry himself as a lord? No; he entered into death, and died, and put away the night's-source in him through us: But how did he do it? He assumed the essence of our soul and body unto the divine essence, and quickened our essence with the divine, that our essence entered again with its will and desire into the divine essence, and then the heavenly fiat was moved again in the humanity; for the humanity inclined itself again into the liberty, viz. into the free lubet of the Deity.
41. This being done, the man Christ was tempted forty days, so Iona as the first Adam was alone in paradise, and was tempted: Then the outward earthly food was taken from him, and the humanity must eat with its desire of God's essence; there was represented unto him all whatever the first Adam had amused himself in, and whereinto he imagined, and wherein he was captivated, as in the death of the night. This the devil, being a prince of this world, now represented unto him in the property of death, as he had represented it to Adam through the serpent, whereon Adam and his wife did amuse themselves, and entered thereinto with the imagination.
42. Now behold! What did Christ do when he was to undergo
the combat of this trial, when the human essence was to enter again with its desire into the Deity, and eat of God's bread, that is, of the divine essentiality? He went to Jordan, and was baptized of John. With what? With the water in Jordan, and with the water in the word of life, viz. the divine essence, which must tincture our mortal essence in the outward humanity of Christ, from whence the divine hunger arose in the human essence, that he desired to eat of God's bread: Therefore the Spirit of God took him and carried him into the wilderness, and there the Father's property in the wrath did oppose him through the prince in the wrath; and there God's bread, and also the bread of God's anger according to the death's desire, was tendered to him; now it was tried, whether the soul, which was generated and created out of the Father's property, would after this tincturation of baptism enter again into the love-desire, viz. into the nothing out of all source.
43. What is hereby intimated to the magus? A mystery is hinted to him: If .he will do wonders with Christ, and tincture the corrupt body to the new-birth, he must first be baptized, and then he gets an hunger after God's bread, and this hunger has in it the verbum fiat, viz. the archeus 1 to the new generation, that is, the Mercury: But I do not speak here of a priest's baptism; the artist must understand it magically; God and man must first come together ere thou baptizest, as it came to pass in Christ: The Deity first entered into the humanity, but the humanity could not presently comprehend it, till it was quickened through baptism, and the hunger, viz. the dead Mercury in the human essence, was again stirred up in the heavenly part.
44. And here began again the human eating; viz. the Mercury received again divine property and will; and then the inward Mercury (understand man's property) did eat in the taste of the divine word of God's essence: And the four elemental properties did eat of the night's property so long, till the human Mercury sublimed its life, and changed the four elements into one: And the life tinctured death, which was done on the cross: Then the four elements departed from him; that is, he died to time, viz. to the night, that is, to the four elements, and arose in the pure element, and lived to eternity.
45. The magus must keep and observe this process also with his alchymy. Dost thou ask how? I will not put it into thy mouth by reason of the wicked, who is not worthy of it: Observe
only the baptism, that thou baptizest the dead Mercury, which lies in the heavenly essentiality, enclosed and shut up in impotency with its own baptism, [and mark] of what essence he is in a thing; 1 but thou must have this divine water, and also the earthly; for the earthly Mercury cannot else receive the divine [Being] except the divine Mercury receives of its power, whereupon it stirs and hungers: Then the heavenly [Mercury] seeks, but yet finds not divine essence about it for its food; thereupon it brings its will through the desire of death into itself, viz. into the verbum fiat, which has made and produced it, and sets its hunger upon the same; whereupon the divine essence inclines itself to it, and will become joyfulness in him; even then arises the beginning of the new body out of the divine essentiality, which the desire nourishes and brings up; and when the new life is born, viz. the day, then the four elements die: And then the new body is shut up in the dark death, and on the third day it rises again from death; for the night is swallowed up in the grave, and the morning rises.
46. If thou didst understand this, then hadst thou the pearl: But my intent and purpose is otherwise; I will shew thee Christ along with it, and also this pearl; therefore none shall find it but he that loves Christ.
47. Thou sayest, Tell me the baptism? and I have already told it thee. Every hunger is a desire after its property; now if thou givest again the property of death to the hunger of death, then death encreases; but if thou givest him heavenly property, then death receives it not, for hell is against heaven; therefore thou must give death and the anger of God to death, and in this anger give him heavenly essence, viz. the baptism, and so the baptism will swallow up the death into itself, and then the anger dies in the death through the baptism, but not presently; thou must first keep the process of Christ, and suffer the baptized to preach, that is, appear in his divine form and colours; exceedingly persecute and plague him, and give him no rest; for so the right Mercury becomes working and active; and when he has shewn all his wonders through the old Adam, then thou must cast the old and new man into God's great anger, and slay the old man, ventilate him, and hang him naked 2 on the cross, and again take him thence, and lay him into the putrefaction, viz. into the grave.
48. And then Christ will arise from death, and appear; but
only his own know him: He walks about in heavenly form, and sometimes in his own [form which he had here] until the Feast of Pentecost, for now here is tried in him the highest perfection, whether he will persist in the angel's form, and eat only of the divine essence; and then comes the Holy Ghost, and proceeds with his power out of the whole corpus, viz. out of the body and soul, which then tinctures the dead and broken being; as it may be seen in the Day of Pentecost, where Saint Peter tinctured three thousand souls at once with his heavenly Mercury, and delivered them out of death.
49. Dear seekers, herein lies the pearl; had you the universal, then you could also tincture as Saint Peter did, but your covetous death withholds you and shuts you up; for you seek only covetousness and temporal honour in the pleasure of the flesh, to generate yourselves in the night's property; therefore the pearl hides itself from you; yet the day shall again appear when the wrathful anger of God is fulfilled, satisfied and appeased in the blood of the saints, and turned to a love-life; and the time is near.
50. Every creature keeps in its generation and propagation to its own kind; the male to the female, and the female to the male: Now God said to Adam and Eve after the Fall, "The seed of the woman shall bruise the serpent's head;" he said not [the seed] of the man: Herein lies the baptism of nature: The male has the fire-spirit, and the female the water-spirit to the tincture; now the Mercury is a fire-life, and makes himself a body according to his hunger and desire; now the chief of the work is in the beginning to give the fire-hunger a love-virgin out of its kind for its consort, that so his wrathful hunger may be changed into a love, and then they sleep together in their own marriage bed: Now the devil is an enemy of this wedlock, who soon comes with a strange desire, and tempts these married people, but dares not lay an hand of violence on them, but only afflicts and plagues them with a false strange desire; now if they yield their desire to his will, and his desire overcomes them, then they become enemies to one another, and bring forth a false child; for Christ said, "An evil tree bringeth forth evil fruits, and a good tree good fruits."
51. Therefore the artist must beware, and keep himself from such anger, and yet must prepare a cross for this married couple;
for he is their foe and friend, that so they both in their marriage bed of love might lift up their desire to God, and so with their desire God's essence may be pregnant in their desire, and then in their copulation they shall beget such a child, which they 1 (understand the mother, viz. the female) shall nourish in their belly, till it be ripe.
52. In the meantime let the mother take heed she bear no love to any other besides her consort, and also not imagine after strange things, else she will imprint a spot or mark on the child; she must continue simply in one love, till the child be perfect as to its body, which comes to pass in the fourth month; yet according as the parents are of one or other property, so strife and contrariety will arise in the essence in the child, when the child is to receive its soul's life.
53. But when the essence is in its wresting combat, the artist must assist the soulish, viz. the fiery property, till the soul's spirit attains its life, then he appears in the woman's form and lustre: Now the artist supposes that he has the child that is born, but there belongs a further time to it, till the soul grows strong, and then it appears and shews itself in its red and white coat.
54. But there is yet a wonderful process behind; when the soul's life is born, then the new soul casts away the vegetable life of the parents (which is propagated and inherited to the body from the parents’ vegitta, wherein the body of the child congealed 2 and grew till the time of the soul), and the life of the four elements dies, and the life in the one element arises; the child is hidden in the dark death, and the artist supposes it to be dead, but he must have patience till the child be born.
55. The course of Christ upon the earth is a real type how the new child is nourished in the mother's womb after its conception, as is before mentioned, and attains a vegetable life, and grows up to the time of its right soul's and spirit's life; and how the child arises from the parents’ essence; and how in the enkindling of its right, viz. of its own life, it casts away the parents’ vegitta and working; and how a new plant, viz. a new peculiar operation, does now arise according to the new enkindled spirit's property, whereby the child is more noble than its parents, understand as to its outward life.
56. But perhaps some rude clownish sophister might meet with this treatise, and draw a strange understanding from it, in that I write of a soul in the vegetative life; but let him know that we do not understand the image of God, which was formed into a likeness according to God [to be] in metals, stones, and herbs; but we understand the magical soul, how the eternity, viz. the Deity, imprints and pourtrays itself into its likeness, according to the model of its wisdom in all things, and how God fills all in all; we understand the summum bonum, the good treasure which lies hidden in the outward world's essence as a paradise.
57. When Christ in his childhood grew up in human and divine property till he was twelve years old, he went with his mother Mary to the feast at Jerusalem, and went into the Temple among the Scribes, asked them, and hearkened to them, and gave answer to the questions of the teachers; but when his parents returned home, supposing him to be among the company, he remained purposely behind among the doctors, and followed not the intent of his parents, but the divine will, till they came back again, and sought him; and then his mother said to him, "My son, why hast thou dealt so with us? Lo! thy father and I have been seeking thee sorrowing. Then he said unto them, How is it that you have sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business? And he went home with them, and was subject unto them."
58. In this figure we have the type of the wills of the inward and outward world, how they are in one another, and against one another, and yet are but one: Even as in Christ there were two kingdoms manifest; one which was wrought unto God's will, and broke the outward world's will of its parents, in that Christ tarried behind contrary to the will of his parents, at which they were troubled, which the divine will in Christ knew well enough; and the other kingdom, viz. of his parents’ will, broke the divine will, that he went home with them, and was obedient to them according to their will.
59. This figure shews the magus, that he shall find two wills in his purpose, which he thinks to carry on; one will not be obedient and subject unto him, viz. the divine will; and yet if its own peculiar external will shall rightly apply itself thereunto, and only seek the dear child Jesus with Mary, with desire and earnest sorrow, and not earthly pleasure of the flesh, then the divine will will be obedient to him, and go home with him, and be used according to his good pleasure.
60. Secondly, it shews him the twofold working and will in all things; and if he will be a magus, and according to his will turn the will and essence of the good property out of the inward into the outward, then he must be first capable of the inward, viz. of the divine will, otherwise he cannot change the inward will into the outward; as Christ was not obedient to the external will of his mother till she sought him with grief and sorrow of heart, and turned her will into God's will, and wrestled in his compassion with God's will, as Jacob the whole night, till the Lord blessed him, and God said unto him, Thou hast wrestled with God and man, and hast overcome, or got the victory.
61. Also let the magus know, that he need not go about to implant the right will to perfection from without into his purpose; it is already in all things; only he must introduce a divine desirous will according to the thing's property into that thing which he takes in hand, which wrestles with the divine will as Jacob, and blesses the will introduced to God's will, that the divine will yields itself freely into the hunger, or inclines itself to the desire, and makes the imperfect will (which earnestly presses into his compassion) perfect, and then it is rightly said, Thou hast wrestled with God, and hast overcome; then thy purpose obtains a transformed body, which is heavenly and earthly.
62. Observe it! It is the first beginning to baptism, and so you are fit and prepared to the baptism, and not otherwise, else you baptize only with the water of the outward world; but the true magus baptizes with the outward and inward water: If he has a right divine desire in him, then God's will in his baptism is the first glimmering tinder in Mercury, so that the life enkindles death, viz. the Mercury shut up in death, and he gets divine desire; even then Mercury begins to hunger after divine essence, and does his first miracle, and turns the water into wine, as Christ did after his baptism: This is the first tincturation in the dead corpus in the power of baptism, that the vegitta, or working energetical life, obtains another property, viz. an hunger of love, wherewith she embraces her bridegroom, viz. the fire-source, that he is enkindled in her love, and changes his cold deadly wrath and will into a fiery love-will: Then the mortal water turns into wine (a sharpness of a fire and water-taste), out of which at last comes an oil to another baptism, after the manner and disposition of the artist, viz. according as he intends and begins; after the magus has joined the virgin and young man together, then Christ, viz. the bridegroom,
is led with his bride into the desert, and tempted of the devil.
63. Here is the trial whereby the artist is proved by God what he seeks with his baptism; for here is the proof in paradise to try whether the bridegroom be not too bad; for the virgin casts her love upon him, and invites him; if he receives it with desire, and gives his will thereinto, then she gives him her heart and will wholly: This is the heavenly tincture, which gives itself into the enkindled anger of God (viz. into the curse of the earth when God cursed it), that is, into the Mercury enclosed in death, which is the bridegroom, for the seed of the woman, viz. the heavenly tincture, must bruise the head of the serpent, viz. the poisonful Mercury, in the property of death, and change his poison into wine, and then the virgin receives the seed of the bridegroom, and not before.
64. The desert is the earthly outward body, where Mercury is tempted; when the devil appears to Mercury, and plagues him, and assaults him in his fiery essence, then must the virgin come to help him, and give him her love: Now if the Mercury eats of the virgin-like love, that is, of God's bread, then he may stand before the devil; and at last the angels come to him, and serve him; the illuminated magus will well understand what is meant by the devil.
65. Hereby let the magus in the temptation (seeing the whole marriage stands in the devil's temptation) have a careful eye upon his purpose; and if the angels do not appear in forty days’ space, then is his purpose in vain; therefore let him look, that he suffer not too fierce a devil to tempt, and also not too weak, lest Mercury become light, and desire to continue in his own poisonful death's property, and devour the baptism as a wolf, and the old one remains.
66. As soon as he espies the forms of angels, let him bring Christ out of the desert, and let the bridegroom eat again his own food, and dismiss the devil, that he may no longer plague him, and then Christ will do many wonders and signs, at which the artist will wonder and rejoice: Then he has nothing to do, the bride is in the bridegroom, they are already married, 1 he need only make their bed ready, they will warm it well enough themselves; the bridegroom embraces the bride, and the bride the bridegroom; and this is their food and pastime till they beget a child.
67. But if the artist will needs be so diligent as to warm the
married couple's bed, then let him have a care he do not anger and enrage them in their love; what he begins he must go on with; only the bridegroom is wonderful: He has continually two wills, viz. an earthly hunger after God's anger, and an hunger after his bride; therefore he must always have his own earthly food given him, but not into his belly, but magically, that so he may satisfy only his own will's-hunger; his food is his mother that begets him, as it is before mentioned.
68. In brief, the whole work which men speak so much and wonderfully of consists in two things, in an heavenly and in an earthly; the heavenly must make the earthly in it to an heavenly: The eternity must make time in it to eternity: The artist seeks paradise; if he finds it, he has the great treasure upon the earth: But one dead man does not raise another; the artist must be living, if he will say to the mountain, Arise, and cast thyself into the sea.
69. When the incarnation of the child begins, then first of all Saturn takes it, and then it is dark and disesteemed, and is contemned and derided, that such a mystery should lie hid in such a mean form; there Christ walks in a poor simple form upon the earth, as a pilgrim, and has not so much room and propriety in Saturn as to lay his head: He goes as a stranger, as if he were not there at home.
70. After this the moon takes it, and then the heavenly and earthly properties are mixed, 1 and the vegetative life arises, and then the artist rejoices; but he is yet in danger.
71. After the moon Jupiter takes it, who makes an understanding in Mercury, viz. a pleasant habitation, and gives him its good will; and in Jupiter his enclosed life, viz. Mercury is quickened, who takes it with its orb, and forces it into the highest anguish: And then Mars apprehends it, and gives the fire-soul to Mercury; and in the flagrat of Mars the highest life enkindles itself, and separates itself into two essences, viz. out of the love into a body, and out of the fire into a spirit; then the life of love in the fiery flagrat sinks downwards, and appears beautiful, but it is Venus, a woman: Then the artist supposes that he has the treasure, but the hungry Mercury devours Venus, and the child turns to a black raven; then Mars afflicts Mercury in himself, till he grows faint, and yields himself to death: Then the four elements depart from him, and the sun receives the child into its property, and sets it forth in a virgin-like body in the pure element; for in the property of Mars the light is
enkindled, and the right life is born, and stands in the pure element; no anger nor death can destroy it.
72. It seems strange in the eyes of reason, that God has kept such a process with the restoring of man in Christ, that he appeared in such a poor disesteemed form in the human property, and was reviled, mocked, scorned, scourged, crucified and slain; and that he was buried, and rose again out of the grave, and walked forty days upon the earth before he entered into his invisible kingdom. Reason is so blind, that it understands nothing of the eternal birth, it knows nothing of paradise, how Adam was in paradise, and how he fell, and what the curse of the earth is: If it understood this, the whole process were manifest to it: As the eternal birth is in itself, so is also the process with the restoration after the Fall, and so likewise is the process of the wise men with their philosopher's stone, there is not the least tittle of difference betwixt them; for all things originally arise out of the eternal birth, and all must have one restoration in one and the same manner.
73. Therefore if the magus will seek paradise in the curse of the earth, and find it, then must he first walk in the person of Christ; God must be manifest in him, understand in the internal man, that he may have the magical sight: He must deal with his purpose as the world did with Christ, and then he may find paradise, wherein is no death.
74. But if he be not in this birth of restoration, and walks not himself in the way wherein Christ walked upon the earth, if he steps not forth into the will and spirit of Christ, then let him give over and leave off his seeking; he finds nothing but death, and the curse of God. I tell him plainly and faithfully, for the pearl of which I write is paradisical, which God does not cast before swine, but gives it to his children for their play and delight.
75. And though much might be mentioned here, that even reason might obtain open eyes, yet it is not to be done; for the wicked would grow worse, and more full of pride; therefore seeing he is not worthy of paradise, and also cannot enter thereinto, no heavenly jewel shall be given him: And therefore God hides it, and permits him to whom he reveals it, to speak of it no otherwise than magically; therefore no one attains it, unless he himself be a magus in Christ, unless paradise be manifest in his internal man; and then he may find, if he be born to it, and chosen by God.
56:1 Or led.
56:2 Or through.
57:1 Or the riddle.
57:2 Spoiled, undone.
58:1 Or outwards.
58:2 Or set his desire upon the anger.
58:3 Text, into himself.
58:4 Out of itself.
59:1 Or wit, or subtlety.
59:2 Quickest, keenest.
59:3 Or begets itself.
59:4 Or form, or immass.
59:5 Affords, yields, produces
59:6 Bring, turn, or sublime.
60:1 Or joyfulness.
60:2 Or receives that which it hungers after.
60:3 Crept.
60:4 Or is a banishing.
61:1 Part or property.
61:2 Open, or exclude.
61:3 Or took his part.
62:1 Shine through, irradiate.
62:2 Or works and effects.
62:3 Here and for ever.
62:4 Or noble stone of the wise men.
63:1 One that breaks through irresistibly.
63:2 Or void of all source.
64:1 Or becomes.
64:2 Corpus.
64:3 Or awakening, or stirring itself up.
64:4 Or victoriously triumphed over.
64:5 Or the blooming spring of the paradisical new-birth in man.
65:1 Or pleasant spring.
66:1 Or what shall I first do to effect it?
67:1 Work-master, or faber.
68:1 Or whose essence is in everything.
68:2 Or openly. Text, in the air.
70:1 Or she shall.
70:2 Curdled.
73:1 Or in wedlock.
74:1 Blended.