Masonic, Occult and Esoteric Online Library
The Signature of All Things
By Jacob Boehme
Signatura Rerum- Chapter XI
OF THE PROCESS OF CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERING, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION: OF THE WONDER OF THE SIXTH KINGDOM IN THE MOTHER OF ALL BEINGS: HOW THE "CONSUMMATUM EST" WAS FINISHED, AND HOW LIKEWISE IT IS SYMBOLICALLY ACCOMPLISHED IN THE PHILOSOPHIC WORK
1. This now is thus to be considered; We are to know, that the essence of this world, together with man, consists in two properties, viz. in fire and light, that is, in love and anger: Now the fire is twofold, and the light is also twofold, viz. a cold fire from the impression, and an hot fire from the power of Mercury in Sulphur; and so likewise there is a cold light from the cold fire, and a warming light from the hot fire; the cold light is false, and the hot light is good; not that it is false in its property, only in the impression, in the cold Sulphur; in the sharpness of the wrath it turns to a false desire, viz. to a false love, which is contrary to the meekness; for its desire is Saturn and Mars.
2. It puts forth its sun (understand its lustre of life) in Mars, and the warming light (which also receives its fiery sharpness in the impression in Sulphur from Mars) brings its desire again into the liberty, viz. through the dying in the fire, through the anguish: It wholly and freely gives itself forth in the dying of the fire, 1 and forsakes the property of the wrath.
3. And so it becomes a general joy, and not its own only, even like the sun that gives forth its shining lustre universally: The sunshine is neither hot nor cold; only Mercury in the spirit of the great world makes in Mars and Saturn's property a heat therein; for the sun enkindles their desire, upon which they grow so very hungry, eager, desirous, and operative, that even a fire is found to be in the light, which heat is not of the light's own property, but of the soul of the great world, which does so sharpen the pleasant light in its splendor, that it is unsufferable to the eye.
4. And we are highly to consider and know, that if another fire-desire, which is not like to the outward life in Mercury, would rule in the austere wrath of the outward nature, that then it would be an enmity contrary to the austere, cold, bitter, and fiery dominion and life, and that they would exalt [or exasperate] their wrath, eagerly desiring to be rid of it: Even as it so came to pass when the divine love-desire did manifest itself with its great meekness to the false, cold, proud, and austere fire-desire of the Saturnalians, Martialists, and especially of the false Mercurialites: It was a great opposition and enmity to them, that love should rule in the death of poison, and dwell therein, this they could not, nor would not endure; for heaven was come into hell, and would overcome the hell with love, and take away its might; as it is to be seen in the person of Christ; he loved them, and did them all manner of good, and healed their plagues [or diseases], but in that he was not arisen from their wrathful might, and that he said he was descended from above, and was God's Son; this was unsavoury to the cold, hot fire's might, that he should rule with love over them.
5. Even thus it goes in the philosophic work; when the wrathful forms of the earthliness, viz. the outward Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, see the heavenly champion with the virgin's property among them, and perceive that he has far another desire than they, then they are angry in themselves; for the love-desire, when it casts a glimpse on the fire-flagrat, awakes their fire-flagrat, and then the wrath proceeds forth from the anxiety into love; from whence arises a death's flagrat in the love; but seeing there can be no death therein, the love condescends in the fire-flagrat, and gives forth [or diffuses] itself into their desire, and leaves its essence; so that in their desire they reach after its property in the death's flagrat; this is a poison to death, and a pestilence to hell; and in this property 1 death was deprived of its power in the humanity; for Christ, when he shed his heavenly blood in the flagrat of death, and left it in death, the wrath of God was driven to retain the heavenly love-essence in itself: Even there the fire-desire in the enkindled humanity was changed into a love-desire, and out of the anguish of death proceeded 2 a joy and strength of divine power.
6. But I will hereby give the well-wisher fundamentally to understand how it went with Christ, and how in like manner it goes with his philosophic work; both have wholly one process. Christ overcame the wrath of death in the human property, and changed the anger of the Father into love in the human property; the philosopher likewise has even such a will, he wills to turn the wrathful earth to heaven, and change the poisonful Mercury into love; therefore observe us here right; we will not write here parabolically, but wholly clear as the sunshine.
7. God would change the humanity (after it was become earthly, and had awakened the poisonful Mercury in the love-property, which [poisonful Mercury] had devoured the love, and changed it into itself) again into the divine heavenly property, and make heaven of the human earth, of the four elements only one in one desire, and change the wrath of God in the human property into love.
8. Now his anger was a might of the fire and wrath, and was inflamed in man, and therefore there must be right earnestness to withstand the same, and change it again into love: The love must enter into the anger, and wholly give itself in unto the wrath; it would not be enough that God should remain in heaven, and only look upon the humanity with love; it could not be, that the anger and wrath should thereby yield up its might and strength, and freely give itself unto the love: As the fire is not made better by the light, it still holds its wrath notwithstanding in itself; but when a meek essence (as water) comes into the fire, then the fire goes out.
9. Even so heavenly divine essentiality (understand heavenly water, which the tincture of the fire and light changes into blood) must enter into the wrathful fire of God, and become the fire's food, so that the fire of God might burn from another essence; for water could not have done it; the fire does not burn in the water, but the meek oleous property of the fire and light in the essence of divine meekness in the love-desire, that did effect it.
10. The human fire-life consists in the blood, and therein rules the wrath of God; now another blood, which was born out of God's love-essence, must enter into the angry human blood; they must go both together into the death of the wrath, and the wrath of God must be drowned in the divine blood, and therefore the outward humanity in Christ must die, that it might not any more live in the wrath's property, but that the heavenly blood's Mercury, viz. the speaking word, might alone live in the outward humanity, and solely rule in peculiar divine power in the outward and inward humanity; that the self might cease in the humanity, and God's Spirit might be all in all, and the self only his instrument, whereby he makes what he pleases; that (I say) the self-hood might be solely God's instrument, and wholly in resignation; for God has not created man to be his own lord, but his servant: He will have angels under obedience, and not devils in their own fire-might.
11. Now when his love would give itself into death, and deprive death of its might, then the two worlds, viz. the Father's fire-world, with the outward visible world, and also the divine love-world with the divine heavenly essentiality, that is, with heavenly flesh and blood, and also with corrupted flesh and blood, were formed into one person. God became man, and made man to God: The seed of the woman, viz. of the heavenly virginity, which disappeared in Adam, and also the corrupted man's seed in the anger, viz. Mary's seed, were formed into one person, which was Christ; and the seed of the woman, viz. of the virgin of God, understand the heavenly essentiality, should bruise the head of the serpent, understand, the wrath of God in the corrupted man; the head is the might of God's anger; the divine man, understand the divine property, should change the earthly into itself, and turn the earth to heaven.
12. Now when the person was born, heaven stood in the earth of man. Now the incarnation could not have done it alone, there must be yet after this another earnestness; for as long as Christ walked on the earth, the humanity which was from Mary's property was not almighty, but the humanity from God [was omnipotent], they were set opposite one against the other in two principles, yet not shut up, but both manifest in each other, the love against the anger, and the anger against the love.
13. Here now was the trial of the combat one with another, from whence also proceeded the temptation of Christ; and when the divine world overcame, then the great wonders broke forth through the outward human world; but all this could not accomplish it, there must yet be a greater earnestness, the human property, viz. the expressed word, was yet stirring in the inflameable anger: The human Sulphur must be changed into the heavenly, viz. into the heavenly part; and thereupon the human self, viz. the expressed Mercury was astonished, when upon the Mount of Olives the heavenly world in the love wrestles with the anger in the human world, viz. with the self-hood, so that the person of Christ did sweat bloody sweat; even there the one was dismayed at the other, the love at the horrible death, whereinto it should and must wholly yield and give in itself with the divine essentiality, and be swallowed up by the anger; and the anger [was dismayed] at its death, in that it must lose its might in the love.
14. Hence the whole person of Christ said, "Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; yet not as I will, but thy will be done." The love-world in Christ said, "Can it not be but that I must drink down the cup of thy anger? Then thy will be done." And the anger said, "If it be possible, let this cup of love pass from me," that I may revenge myself, and rage in the wrath of man for the sake of his disobedience; as God said to Moses, who stood in the spirit of Christ as a type of Christ before God, "Let me alone that I may devour this disobedient people:" But the name Jesus, which had incorporated itself in paradise with the promise of the woman's seed in the aim of the human and divine covenant, would not suffer him; for the humility of the name Jesus has always interposed against the wrath of the Father, against his fire's property, that his fire might not enkindle the half-poisonful Mercury in man, except only sometimes when Israel walked wholly in the wrath and disobedience; as is to be seen by Corah, Dathan, and Abiram, and by Elias.
15. So it was here on the Mount of Olives, the anger would live in the fire's might in man, and the name Jesus put itself into the anger; and here there was no other remedy, but that the name Jesus in divine love and heavenly essentiality must wholly resign up itself to be devoured by the anger: The Son must be, and was obedient to the angry Father, even to "the death of the cross;" as the Scripture says.
16. The dear love-humility and meekness suffered itself to be "scorned, mocked, spit upon," and judged by the anger; that is, the Jews must execute the justice of God; for by man's self-action sin was committed, and by man's self-action death and sin must be blotted out. Adam had introduced his will into the poison of the outward Mercury; so must Christ, viz. the love, freely give up its will also into the same poisonful Mercury. Adam did eat of the evil tree, Christ must eat of God's anger; and as it went inwardly in the spirit, so likewise outwardly in the flesh; and so also it goes in the philosophic work.
17. Mercury in the philosophic work denotes the Pharisees, he will not endure the love-child: When he sees it, he gives it trembling and anguish, and Venus also stands dismayed at the poison of the angry Mercury; they are in one another as if sweat did drop from them, as the artist shall see.
18. Mars says, I am the lord of fire in the body, Saturn is my strength, and Mercury is my life, I will have none of this love, I will devour it in my wrath; this denotes the devil in the anger of God; and seeing he cannot do it, he raises up Saturn, viz. the impression, which signifies the worldly magistracy, and reaches therewith after Venus, and yet cannot get her into him, for she is to him a poison to death: This Mercury also can much less endure, for the love took away his dominion; as the high priests thought that Christ would take away their government, because he said that he was God's Son.
19. Thus Mercury is vexed at the child Venus, for Venus has wholly discovered herself, and freely given up herself; they may do now what they please, she will go even into the dragon's mouth, he shall only but open his jaws; and this Mars in Mercury does not understand, but they take the fair child, and shoot their venomous darts against it, and bind it with Saturn's might in their wicked bands, as the artist will sec how they surround the colour of Venus.
20. Mars brings it first to Mercury, seeing he is the life, as before the high priest, who must examine and prove the fair child; but he hates it, he cannot reach into the heart after its love-will, he only judges it externally, because it is not of his property, that it stands forth with such a form as the Mercury himself, and yet has another power, virtue and will.
21. But seeing there is another Mercury which lives in its love in the child Venus, therefore he cannot kill it, but brings it to Saturn, as the Jews brought Christ from Caiaphas to Pilate, who signifies Saturn, who also takes the child: But seeing he is a lord of the impression, viz. of the darkness, therefore he cares not at all for the property of the child, but for the dominion only; he seizes on the child with the dark impression, and strips it of its fair Venus garment; and when Luna with the white splendour of the sun sees this, then she hides herself; as the disciples of Christ fled, and the enraged [rude] multitude also, who did highly presume to stand by him in the cross and persecution, but in the earnestness 1 they fly; for Luna is inconstant, she has not Sol's heart in the love-flame; and Saturn with his thorny impression puts the Sulphur upon the child, viz. the mother of all beings with the purple-coloured raiment of her own peculiar property, in which the wrath of Mars is contained and harboured.
22. When Mars, viz. the devil's crew, and Mercury also, viz. the self-pride of life, see that Venus has her royal garment on, understand the purple robe of Saturn and Mercury in Sol's colour mingled with fiery Mars, and adorned in Mercury's sulphur-colour in the open blaze as a shining lustre, for so is the materia according to the colour of the venereal property, which the artist must well observe, he then will clearly see as it is mentioned.
23. When Mars, Mercury, and Luna also see this, then they cry Crucifige, away with him, he is a false king in our garment; he is a man as we are, and will be God, that is, they cast their poisonful desire through the purple garment upon the child, and so the artist will see that the child will appear in his own form, as if it were full of streaks from the poisonful rays of Mercury and Mars, which they lay upon the child through the impression of Saturn; as Pilate whipped Jesus: The artist will see the prickly crown of thorns standing very sharp with its point upon the property of the child; also he will see that Venus does not at all move herself, but stands still, and suffers herself to be so done unto.
24. Further we are to understand, how that Adam had taken on him a cold false love, and therewith so shewed himself before God as if he were in peculiar dominion and will, and moreover God's child, whereas he did but mock God therewith; for so the love-desire appears when it is captivated in the impression of death.
25. Thus must the second Adam Christ take all this upon him, and enter into the same ignominy and scorn, and be clothed with a purple garment as a king of this world, and be mocked therein; for Adam had put on the purple garment of the outward world's self-might in the splendour of the property of self; and here it was made open shew of before the anger of God: And the white garment which Herod put upon Christ to mock him in signifies, and is the cold false love as a cloak of falsehood, wherein man pranks up as if he were an angel, and so puts upon himself Christ's purple mantle with his white robe, and covers himself with Christ's pure snow-white garment, viz. with his suffering and death, and yet holds and harbours the man of falsehood, viz. the false love under a vail.
26. Now Christ must set forth this figure, and it was represented on his body; for he should overcome and stay the man of falsehood which lay in the human property, and so it was fully presented before God. Christ must be termed and reviled for such an one as Adam was; the innocent must take the blame upon him.
27. And thus it goes in the philosophic work, when the curse of God's anger which is in the earth is to be changed into love; for seeing Mercury sets the child of love before Saturn, and Saturn cannot, and may not try it, therefore he puts upon it the purple-coloured garment with stripes underneath, and sends it before Sol's splendor, which glimmers in Mars, and the sun puts upon it its white colour, viz. the lunar, and then the purple colour vanishes, and the child stands in the lunar white simple colour, very despicable without lustre: The sun would fain see this child shew forth its golden colour, for it perceives there is a solar virtue in the child, therefore it gives it the white colour from the property of the eternal liberty; the child should but give the power of the fire's centre thereunto, viz. the divine might, and then it would be like the sun, and would be a lord over the Sulphur of Mars and Mercury, yet only a lord over the outward world's essence, a governor in the wrath, as Sol is the like.
28. But Christ said to Pilate, "My kingdom is not of this world," and would not answer Herod anything in this white raiment when he put it on him, nor in the purple robe; for the purple robe and the white raiment also were both false, and were put upon him to disgrace and mock him, because Adam had put them on, and proudly pranked up therein with falsehood; Christ might not do any sign therein before Herod, though he desired it. Hereby the shame of man, who was an image of God, and yet had made himself a false king, was represented before God's face; as the poor sinner confesses, and sets forth his abominations before God, when he sets upon abstinence and repentance.
29. Thus Christ represented to his Father the abominations [or sins] of man in this false garment, and stood before him as an ignominy, and confessed the sins of man to his Father in the stead and place of all men: And when his Father beheld him through his imagination in this garment, he would have none of this robe; therefore Pilate must pull it off from him again, and set him before the Jews in his own form; but they cry, "Away, away with him, he must be put to death;" for so his Father would, that he should give himself up to death in his wrath, and drown the same.
30. And Pilate condemned him to death, for he would not acknowledge him for a king: So it also goes in the philosophic work, Saturn will not receive the child, for it is not of his property; and Mars and Mercury likewise will not have it in its property: But what do they do? The child is among them, they would fain be rid of it, but yet cannot: They grow angry and enraged, as the Jews against Jesus, and take the child into their arms, 1 viz. into their false poisonful angry desire, and will murther it, and quite sting and pierce through the materia of the child with their sharp, fiery, and poisonful rays, viz. with three sharp nails.
31. One whereof is Saturn, viz. the impression of the dark world, denoting the wrath of the dark world. The other is Mars, which signifies the devil, viz. the serpent's property in the anger of God. The third is Mercury, which signifies the false life, viz. how the wrath of God is enkindled in the expressed word in the human property.
32. These three nails pierce through the property of the child. Thus Venus, viz. the essence of love wholly yields itself to the three murtherers, and wholly foregoes its jovial life as if it died; and the mercurial life of the human property, understand the child's power, falls also to the three murtherers in its mother's house, viz. into the corporeal essence, wherein the young man received his virgin, wherein God became man.
33. Now when the heavenly body, and also the earthly, do thus yield unto these three murtherers, then appears the image of John and Mary by the cross as a type; for the young man's life, and also the virgin's in the young man, has freely surrendered, and given forth itself: And now the two properties, viz. the divine and human, divide themselves in the form of each power, which the artist may see if he has the eyes and understanding thereunto.
34. And here, when Saturn with his impression and dark sharpness, and Mars with his wrath, and Mercury with his poison-life do powerfully enter into the property of Venus, then the wrath forces itself into the love, and the love into the wrath essentially mixed, as assimilating one with the other: Here the wrathful death is dismayed at the love, so that in dying he falls into impotence [or a swoon], for it loses the might of the wrath; and the love is, and stands also in the source of the wrath in death's flagrat as impotent [or in a swoon], and gives itself forth wholly into the flagrat [or stroke] of death, and even then the heavenly essence, viz. the heavenly blood flows forth from it into the property of the third principle, viz. of the young man. Here the virgin gives her pearl to the young man for a propriety, and God and man become one.
35. For the virgin's blood out of the divine essentiality does here now drown with its love-essence the young man's blood, viz. the self-hood, and the three murtherers surrender their life in the blood of the virgin, and then the red glee from the fire, and also the white from the life of the champion arise up together, viz. from the wrath the life, and from the love the meekness: and both, viz. the life of the anger, and the life of the love, ascend together as one only life; for in death they become one: The death dies away in the love, and becomes in the love the life of the divine kingdom of joy; for it is not a dying, but a free surrendering of its power, might, and will, a transmutation; the virgin's blood changes the human, dead as to God, into an heavenly [blood], the life of the young man dies, and the life of the Deity remains fixed and steadfast, for it stands in its property in the nothing.
36. And here, thou dear seeker, when thou seest the crimson-coloured blood of the young man arise out of death with the virgin's white blood, then know that thou hast the arcanum of the whole world, and a treasure in this valley of misery, which surpasses the value of gold; take it and esteem it more excellent and sovereign than that which shall again arise from death: If thou beest born of God, then thou wilt understand what I mean.
37. For this is the type of Christ, [spewing] how Christ has drowned sin, and the enkindled anger of God in the human property; it is not only an offering, for then Moses had accomplished it; it is not a bare verbal forgiveness, as Babel teaches: No. The human will must from all its powers enter into this death, into this blood, viz. into the highest tincture.
38. The purple robe which Christ wore could not do it; the white hypocritical pharisaical priest's coat could also not effect it, no flattery or demure hypocrisy avails here; no comfortings, soothings, or giving God good words are effectual here; the crafty malignant man must be mortified in Christ's blood, he must be drowned in the virgin's blood: The seed of the woman must bruise the head of the serpent; the will must wholly disclaim and depart from its selfish property, and become as an ignorant child, and wholly enter into God's mercy, into the virgin-like blood of Christ, that sin and the poisoned Mercury may be drowned in its Mars, that the white lion may arise; for the lion which now appears in the white colour, in crimson red, is the Mercury of life, viz. the expressed word, viz. the soul, which before was a wrathful devil in its self-hood, ruling and domineering in the anger of God in the three forms of the poison-source, viz. in Saturn, Mars, and Mercury: Now it is the white scarlet-coloured lion from the house of David and Israel, fulfilled in the covenant of promise.
39. N.B.—But that we may give satisfaction to the well-wisher, we will further shew him the whole ground even to the resurrection of Christ: When the Jews had hung Jesus upon the cross, and he had shed his human and heavenly divine blood, and drowned the turba in the human [blood], then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do."
40. When Jesus had broken death in the humanity, and took away self, he did not then wholly cast away the human property, wherein death and the anger of God were, but then he did first truly assume it; understand, he even then did truly take the outward kingdom into the inward; for the outward kingdom was begotten as a wonder out of the eternal wisdom in the speaking word, and spoken forth into a form, as a manifestation of the Deity in love and anger, in good and evil: So that Jesus would not that the outward type of the wonders in the likeness of God should perish [or quite vanish], but the wrath which had overpowered the love in man should be forgiven, that is, it should be given into the nothing, viz. into the liberty, that it might not be manifest in its own self-property; it must be servant, and only a cause of the fiery love and divine joyfulness; nothing should perish [or be lost] in man, for God had created him to his image.
41. Thus let the philosopher observe, that when the three murtherers, viz. Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, sink 1 in the crimson-coloured blood of the lion, they do not perish; but they are pardoned, that is, their wrath is changed into a love-desire, viz. out of Venus into Sol; for when the fiery desire enters into the watery desire, then a shining, viz. a glorious splendour, arises from and in the fire; for Venus is white, and the fire-desire is red.
42. Here now it is changed into one colour, which is yellow, that is, white and red both in one colour, which is the majestical [lustre]; for when Mercury is changed into the power of joy, then arises the multiplication; he changes his mother, wherein he lay shut up in death, into Sol; he makes the earthly heavenly in one property, as the virgin was: For here the virgin loses her name, for she has given her love and pearl to the champion, who is now called here the white lion, as the Scripture speaks of the lion of the house of Israel and David, who should demolish the devil's kingdom, and destroy hell, that is, break the anger of God, and change it into love.
43. This champion or lion is no man or woman, but he is both; the tincture of the fire and light must come into one, viz. of the essence which is Venus, and of the spirit which is Mars in Mercury; the Father's love and anger must become one thing, and then this one thing is called the kingdom of joy; so long as it is separated, there is in the thing only anguish and torment, and mere desire; but when it burns in one will, it is a joyful proceeding forth from itself: And this egressive property is called the Holy Ghost, viz. the life of the Deity.
44. Therefore know that the virgin's and young man's blood must be both shed together, that the fire-lion might die; which was manifest in the human property, that the love of the virgin might change his wrath in her dear love-blood into her property, and obtain the soul from the young man; for in Adam the virgin disappeared, for the soul departed out of its love-will out of the resignation into its own, and became disobedient to God.
45. Here the virgin does again take the soul into herself, and gives it her crown of pearl, as to a noble champion, and calls him in his own name the white lion or champion. O ye children of men, observe it, I beseech you; open the gates of the world in your heart; Open them wide that the King of Glory may come in, even the great champion in battle, who hath deprived death of its might, and destroyed the hell in God's anger, and made of the world paradise.
46. O ye wise seekers, how does the Lord open his windows! Why do you sleep in the desire of much increase [in your covetousness], which is multiplied in the wrath? Do but enter only into the divine resignation; you may partake of that which the powers of heaven are able to afford: If you do but forsake your selfishness, then the earth shall become heaven to you, says the spirit of wonders; but you shall not obtain it in your wicked ways and covetous doings.
47. And when Jesus through the shedding of his blood had given the wrath of God in man to the love, that the Father had received the love in the human property into the wrath; then the kingdom of the devil in the wrath, and the kingdom of love did immediately part asunder; they were divided: And this figure did hang with Christ on the cross, viz. the wicked mocker at the left hand, who reviled Jesus, and was not capable of his blood-shedding; and the other at the right hand, who was converted from his sins to Jesus, and said, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom;" to whom Jesus answered, "Verily, to-day thou shalt be with me in paradise."
48. Thus we are rightly to consider, that when the wrath of God is drowned in the blood of Christ, so that it changes its might into love, that even then paradise is again open; for when Jesus had tinctured the human blood which was corrupted in sin with the virgin's blood in the love, then the virgin received the manhood, viz. the self-hood, into her virgin's love. This was the paradise, and an habitation of God, with and in man, where God dwells in the humanity, and is all in all in it.
49. Thus it falls out also in the philosophic work, when Mars and Mercury die according to the property of the dark impression of Saturn, then Venus takes them into her love-blood, and Venus gives her love into the poisonful fire-desire: She wholly gives herself in unto the fire of Mars in Mercury, and she yields herself fully to be their own; but seeing Mars and Mercury become impotent (as to the might of the fire and poison) in the love, the love and anger thereupon change themselves into one essence, into one desire; and here, when the fire, viz. the fire-desire, gives in its desire to the love; then saith the love, "To-day thou shalt be with me out of thy fire-anguish in paradise," viz. in joy, that is, thou shalt be changed in me: And here Venus gets the soul in the philosophic work, so that Mars and Mercury become her soul, and the strife ceases; for the enmity is appeased and quelled: And thus the child subsists in the fire immoveably without any change; for Mars does not at all annoy it, and so likewise Mercury and Saturn hurt it not, for they are in the child at the end of nature, where there is no turba any more.
50. Mercury is pure in Saturn, he has no more poison, whereby to make soil [or rust] in the water, viz. in the salt of Saturn: And let the philosopher and divine also well observe this, that in paradise there is a perfect life without any shadow of change, also without any false evil desire, and a continual day, where the paradisical man is clear as a transparent glass, in whom the divine sun shines through and through, as gold that is thoroughly bright and pure, without any spot or foulness.
51. "And when Jesus knew that all was finished, he seeth his mother and John his disciple standing by under the cross, and saith unto his mother, Woman, to! this is thy son; and to the disciple, Behold thy mother, and forthwith the disciple took her unto his own home."
52. This is an excellent type, how Christ has forsaken this world, viz. the human self-hood, and is again gone to the Father; for he saw his mother according to this world, and his disciple, viz. his uncle, according to the outward humanity from his mother's side, and yet said to his mother, "Woman, behold, there is thy son," I am no more thy son according to my outward humanity; it is changed into God's Son, and is no longer of the world, but it lives to God; But seeing thou art to be yet in the world, take John, who is not yet changed, to be thy guardian; and thou John take thy mother; and he presently took her to himself.
53. This is the type of the Christian Church upon earth: For we the poor children of Eve are not presently wholly changed according to the outward man; but we must also pass into death, and putrify, that the wrath also in the flesh may rot and putrify, and the spirit might rest in the death of Christ till the general resurrection and transmutation of the outward man; in which the earth of man shall be transformed into heaven, and the mirror [or type] of the wonders shall appear therein.
54. Thus he commanded his disciple to take care of his mother: His mother is the Christian Church upon earth, wherein the children of God are begotten according to the spirit, whom he should take care for, and guide and lead them, till the number of the humanity out of the flesh shall be accomplished, and then the spiritual body shall arise, and shall be proved in Christ's death, in his entrance into the anger, where he changed the anger into love; and the kingdom with the source of darkness shall be separated from it.
55. But in this life-time, though the spirit be changed 1 in the divine power, and the spirit be baptized with the virgin's baptism, and puts on the image of Christ internally, viz. Venus's body in the love; yet Adam is not capable of it till he also enters into the transmutation of Christ, which comes to pass in death [or in the dying to this mortal life].
56. But in the meanwhile, John, as the teacher of Christ in Christ's stead, must provide for the outward mother according to the outward man, and feed and teach the lambs of Christ with Christ's spirit: And it exactly shews us how the outward man is not God's mother; for Christ separates himself from his outward mother, and gives her to John; he has put on 2 the eternal mother, viz. the Father of the eternal birth, and therefore they do very ill that honour and worship the outward mother of Christ for God's mother.
57. The whole true Christendom is Christ's mother, which bears Christ in her: And John, viz. the servants of Christ are her nurses, which take care for the mother of Christ as John did; he presently received the mother of Christ and provided for her, as her son, and not as her lord; for Christ said to him, "Behold, she is thy mother: "So should all the disciples and teachers of Christ do, and take care of the poor Christendom, as sons, with great humility towards the mother, provide for, and cherish her with diligence and circumspection, and serve her with all discreet modesty, courtesy, and humility; feed and comfort her with the spirit of Christ, not as the priests in Babel do, who ride over her as wealthy, rich, domineering masters, and will be lords over the mother, and only seek honours, and to fatten their bellies in pleasure, and live in strife and contention: These, one with the other, of what name or title soever they be, are not all Johannites, but they are the poisonful mercurial Pharisees, in whom there is nothing but mere anguish, vexation, pain, and torment, where one property does continually torment, envy, and hate the other, and hold it out for false; and yet they are all only out of one root, and have all only one will, except that one colour does not glister as the other.
58. For Saturn is not as Jupiter; Jupiter is not as Mars; Mars, viz. the fire-spirit, is not as the light of the sun; and the sun is not as Venus with her meek water-source; and Venus is not as Mercury with his sound; for she is meek and still, and Mercury sounds and sets up his note; and Mercury also is not as Luna, which as a simple body does give body to all the rest for manifestation; one is far otherwise than another, and has not one property and will; and yet they are in the centre of the essence, viz. in Luna and Saturn, in the property f the soul and body, all of them one and the same lump. Thus the partial sectarian Mercurialites, and Baal's servants, are divided in these properties; they are the Pharisees which judge and condemn Jesus in his members.
59. They wrangle and contend only about the church, and yet none will take care of the poor forsaken mother of Christ: They are mad in their martial and mercurial contest, 1 and are not Johannites, they enter not in Christ's spirit at the door of Christ into the sheepfold; they are wolves, lions, and bears, yea foxes and fearful hares, who fly from and forsake the mother; their rise and original is out of Babel, where they continually contend, wrangle, grin, and bite one another for the letter. Every one will be lord and master over the letter, and transpose and place it as he pleases, only for the honour, applause, and pleasure of this world: They consider not that the mother is a widow, and that Christ has left and ordained them that they should be such curates for her as John.
60. O thou dear mother of Christendom, let these wolves, bears, and lions go, and shelter themselves where they please, regard no longer these evil beasts; take the John, the disciple of Christ, who teaches the love and humility.
61. O thou dear and worthy mother, art thou not only one? Why dost thou suffer the lions to rend and tear thee in pieces? Christ is thy husband, all these are strangers and hirelings, unless they walk in thy filial love, and humble themselves towards the mother, and provide for her as ministers, else they be all wolves, bears, and tearing lions; though there were many thousands of them, yet one is not at all better than another, unless he comes forth in the line of John, and takes care of Christ's mother, and provides for the mother with earnestness in Christ's spirit: Which if he has not, he is not then called of Christ to be a guardian or curate to the mother; but he is a Mercurialite, a Pharisee, such as Christ called the seed of serpents, and generation of vipers, who crucify Jesus in his members.
62. And thus the philosopher must consider of, and well observe Christ's mother, whom he recommended to John to take care of: He must likewise be a John, and know that his business is about the mother, and that his work in this world is not wholly 1 heavenly: He will not so manifest paradise, that God will appear, and be manifest face to face in his work: No, he remains in the mother, yet he obtains the universal in the mother; for the mother of Christ obtained it also, for it was said to her, "Thou art the blessed among all women."
63. So likewise the philosopher reaches to the blessing in this valley of misery, that he is able to bless his corrupt body, that is, tincture it and free it from sickness, even to the limit of the highest constellation according to Saturn; and therefore let him take heed of covetousness, for so he introduces the turba.
64. By the type of John and the mother of Christ, he is to know, that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world are two in his work, and that God's kingdom lies shut up in the mother, viz. in his work, of which he must take care; and be a minister thereunto, and not a lord of the mother, but an almsgiver, and not a gatherer of treasure and wealth, not a covetous muck-worm; also none shall attain to it, or understand our meaning, that will not be a guardian of the mother: The Most High has laid a bar before the foolish understanding, 2 that it is blind, till it be weary with seeking; I speak in the ground of truth.
65. And when Jesus had commended his mother to John, he again turned his desire into the mother of the human property, and said, "I thirst;" he thirsted after the members of human property, and desired the salvation of mankind, viz. the health of his members, understand of his children, which should be begotten in him; and the Jews gave his humanity gall and vinegar to drink; and when he tasted it, he would not drink it.
66. Here is again the outward type, shewing how it went inwardly: The name Jesus, viz. the love of God which was entered into the humanity, and had espoused itself thereunto, did thirst in the love-desire after the corrupt humanity, and would fain taste the pure water of the humanity in itself; but the wrathful anger of God, which was enkindled in the human property, gave itself in with the human property to the thirst of the love-desire: And when the love-desire tasted of it, it would not drink it, but sunk down into it as wholly resigned, or freely yielded up, and did unite and very essentially incline itself into the anger of God as a full and perfect obedience, and as fully and freely given over as a peculiar propriety thereinto.
67. This was now the flagrat of the wrath, that the love should so come into it; whereupon the earth trembled, and the rocks clave asunder; for so the death was dismayed at the life: And here the awakened wrath's property did separate itself into the centre, viz. into the. first principle, into the fire-root; and now from the centre there proceeded forth the hunger to the new-birth in the human property; of the hunger unto death was made a hunger to life; for the love tinctured the anger, that the fire-desire to the dark impression became a desire of life.
68. Understand it here right; God the Father, who gave his dear heart into the humanity to help mankind, did now thirst after the humanity, viz. after his heart or word of power; and the Deity in the humanity, viz. the heart of the Father, did thirst after the Father; and the love or the essence of the light did thirst after the fire's essence: For the fire's, or soul's essence in Adam was departed out of the love-essentiality (wherein the paradise did consist) into a selfishness, and was become disobedient to God; and thereupon the essence, life, and being of the light and love died in its growing, that is, it withered as to the vegetative life, or heavenly growth, blooming, and sense of the paradisical source, and awaked and arose to the earthly world.
69. Here the Father brought the soul, which was entered into his wrath, and had manifested itself in his anger, again into the love, viz. into the disappeared paradisical image: And here the dark world was dismayed in death's flagrat at the fire-flagrat, which arose up in love in the death as a joyful flagrat; which joy-flagrat entered into the dead bodies of those who had hope in Israel (who did hope upon the Messiah) as a sound of the power of God, and awakened them from death.
70. This flagrat rent in twain the veil in the Temple, viz. the veil of Moses, which hung before the clear face of God, so that man could not see God, and therefore he must serve him with an offering, and type of this final discovery, in which God did manifest himself again in the humanity: This flagrat broke the type in the offerings and sacrifices, and manifested the clear face of God, and united the human time with eternity.
71. All whatever the Jews did outwardly to Christ, the same was a type of the inward, viz. how it went between God and the humanity, viz. between the eternity and time: The Jews gave Jesus gall and vinegar in his thirst, both these properties are a Mercury in the Sulphur of Saturn, viz. in the impression; this is even the type and full resemblance of the soul's property, as it is in itself alone void of the other love-properties.
72. God gave this property of the soul again into his love, the death into the life, the disappeared love-essence (which the word of God had assumed to itself in the essence and seed of Mary, and quickened to life) into the anger's property, into the soul's essence, viz. into the centre of the fire and dark world; whereupon the soul-like fire and dark world became an exceeding triumphant joyful paradisical life: And here the champion upbraided death and hell, viz. the dark world in the soul, and said, "Death! where is thy sting " now in man?" Hell! where is now thy victory" in the wrath of the poison-source in the expressed word or Mercury? All is now dead: O death, I am to thee a death; Hell! I am to thee a conqueror; thou must serve me for the kingdom of joy: Thou shalt be my servant and minister to the kingdom of joy; thou shalt enkindle the flames of love with thy wrath, and be a cause of the spring in paradise.
73. Thus we give the philosopher to understand our sense and deep ground in nature, who desires to seek and open the disappeared essence of the earth, which lies shut up in death, viz. in the curse of God: The veil of Moses hangs also before him, and a very right earnestness is requisite to rend the veil in twain, that he may be able to see the face of nature, otherwise he is not fitted for it.
74. And as it went in the humanity of Christ, betwixt God's love and anger, and both were transformed into one; so likewise it is in his work of nature, the poisonful Mercury in the Sulphur of Mars and Saturn gives its lunar menstruum, viz. the greatest poison of the dark source into Venus's property; when Venus thirsts after the fire of love, then Mercury gives his poison into the thirst of Venus, and Venus's thirst gives itself wholly to the poison, as if it died; it wholly yields up its desiring life, whereupon arises the great darkness in the philosophic work: For the materia becomes as black as a raven, for Venus has resigned its life, from whence the glance [or splendour] arises, as it is to be seen by Christ, that the sun lost its light, and there was a great darkness contrary to the common course of nature.
75. For when the inward sun gave in itself unto the anger, viz. into the darkness of God; then the outward sun, which receives its power and lustre from the inward, as a glass or resemblance of the inward, could not shine; for its root from whence it shines was entered into the darkness in the place of this world, and would turn the darkness in the curse of God into light, viz. it would make the place of this world again paradise.
76. Thus likewise the sun of the outward world, which is a figure of the inward all-essential sun, must stand still with its splendour in the darkness, from the sixth hour unto the ninth, which is even the time of Adam's sleep when he entered with the desire into the centre of the eternal nature, viz. into the birth, where the love and anger part themselves into two centres, and would prove the cold and hot fire, which took him, and did powerfully work in him. Here are three hours according to the ternary, 1 and in the grave three days according to the time, viz. according to the humanity.
77. When Adam was in the image of God, and was neither man nor woman, but both; he stood forty days in paradise without wavering, and when he fell he stood even till the third day, viz. forty hours in the sleep, even till God did make or build the woman out of him. Thus Israel must be tempted forty days on Mount Sinai, whether they would live in the obedience of God under the wonders and mighty acts; and when it could not be, God gave them the law of his covenant as a mirror of that which was promised in the covenant; therefore the temptation of the body was upon them forty years, that the body must eat manna to try whether man could be remedied: And when the body [or outward person] could not stand, then Joshua brought them through the water with the covenant of the type, 1 where Israel must serve with sacrifices in the covenant in the type of the final accomplishment, till the time of restitution came in: And then the valiant champion in battle stood forty days in the wilderness in the temptation, and stood out the first trial of Adam in paradise; and the three hours of darkness on the cross are the three hours of temptation of Christ, when the devil tempted him: And again the forty hours of Christ in the grave are the forty days of Adam in paradise, and the forty days of Moses upon the Mount; and the forty years in the wilderness, and the forty days after the resurrection before the ascension, are even one and the same: And now when the champion had stood out Adam's trial, the soul was tempted forty days in the human property, whether it would eat of God's word, and live in full resigned obedience in the will of God, and be a true image, likeness, and similitude of the divine power in the unsearchable eternity, according to the Trinity of the Deity.
78. In the like manner let the philosopher observe, that the essence of time does also stand in such a property, for man was created out of the essence of time into an image, as an extract of all essences, a complete image and likeness according to time and eternity, ruling and standing in the time and in the eternity as an instrument of the great infinite God, with whom, by and with his Spirit, he would make and do what he pleased.
79. Now man is the instrument of God, with [or by] whom he manifests his hiddenness both in his own human property, viz. in the essence and image of God; and then also through man, as with the instrument in the mother of all beings, as in the grand mystery, viz. in the soul of the great world.
80. Man has power so far as he goes, as an instrument of God in divine obedience, as his Spirit guides and leads him, that he can introduce the earth which stands in the curse of God into the benediction, and make of death's-anguish the highest triumphant joy in the outward pregnant mother; but he himself does it not, only his will labours with the understanding therein, and conjoins the compacta, 2 which belong together, as life and death which stand opposite to one another: These he must join together, and bring them into one by such an art as time and eternity are united by and in the man Christ, and by him all those which give their will thereinto.
81. He will see in his work all whatever God did in the humanity; when he brought it again into the universal, viz. into paradise, he will see how the wrath devours and swallows up the fair Venus into his pricking thorny essence, and how Venus does fully yield in herself; and how the wrath also dies away in Venus, and becomes wholly dark and black as a coal; for death and life lie together both in death, viz. in the obedience of God: They both hold still to him, and suffer the Spirit of God to make of and with them what it pleases, who introduces them again into the eternal will of God to which he at first created them: And thus the essence stands again in the beginning in the order as God created it: It must only stand in its impression, in the verbum fiat, viz. in the divine making, till the day of God's separation, when God will change the time again into the eternity.
82. And when Jesus had drank the cup and tasted the vinegar mixed with gall in the outward [man], and inwardly in the love-property, viz. in the virgin, the wrathful anger of God; then said the whole man Christ, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For God's speaking word stood still now in the human property, and the new-born essentiality which was dead in Adam, and was again quickened in Christ, cried with the same, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For the anger of God was by the soul's property entered into the image of the divine essentiality, and had devoured the image of God.
83. Here now the image in the creature of the soul cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For the human image which disappeared in Adam, and was again revived in Christ's incarnation, should bruise the head of God's anger in the fire-soul, and change its fire-might into Sol: 1 And now the speaking word of God did here forsake it, and it fell into the soul's wrath, where it felt God's anger; for the speaking word did so bring it through the anger into death, and out of the death again into the solar life, understand into the eternal sun.
84. Like as the candle dies in the fire, and out of that death the light and power proceed, viz. the great painless life; so out of Christ's dying and death the eternal divine sun should and must arise in the human property; but the selfishness of the human property, viz. the soul's own self-will to live in the fire's might must here die and be drowned in the image of love, and the image of love must also resign and give itself in unto the wrath of death, that so all might fall down into death, and arise in God's will and mercy through death in the paradisial source in the resignation, that God's Spirit might be all in all. Hell's eye must see through the love, as the light shines out of the fire, and the fire from the darkness, and the darkness takes its original from the eternal desire.
85. And as Adam changed the likeness of God into the dark death's form, so God did again change the likeness through his fire-wrath out of death into the light; he drew forth the likeness again out of death, as a blossom grows from the harsh 1 earth.
86. Thus it goes likewise in the philosophic work; Venus is forsaken when she receives the three wrathful properties into herself in wrath; their wrath, viz. the death devours her life, whereupon she loses the colour, and yet becomes a death to the three forms in the wrath, for she drowns death with love. Thus the life is made a death to death, viz. to the wrath, and now they both lie in the will of the eternal nature, viz. in the verbum fiat, which proceeds 2 with them the divine way, in manner as it proceeded forth into essence in the beginning of the creation: For in the beginning paradise, viz. the universal was manifest, and the love shined through the death or anger. Even so it must be again, Venus must become the eye or sight in the wrath, and then of Saturn, Mars, and Mercury there will be a Jupiter: Mars becomes sun, and Saturn moon, and so Mars shines with the sun out of Saturn in Luna from Venus's eye, and all seven are only one: Thus the strife has an end, and all is accomplished till the resurrection of the body.
87. And when Jesus had drank the cup, and said, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" then he said, "All is finished," understand the work of man's redemption; and he said further, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, and bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." Here the whole life of Christ resigned itself into the Father's desire, viz. into the will of the eternal nature, and fully gave in the will of his self-hood, viz. his creaturely will again into the centre, viz. into the first mother, from whence the soul-like creature was produced, that is, into the grand mystery of eternity: The self-will must again enter into nature's end, so that the selfishness may wholly die, that God's eternal will and spirit may be and do only all in all in the humanity, and that the creature might afterwards be alone his instrument, wherein he might do and work according to his good pleasure: And thus God the Father has in Christ's death and entrance into our humanity again received our self-hood into his will; and that this might be, he first tinctured the humanity with the Deity, that the humanity might be a pleasant sweet savour and offering to him in his power, for before death lay before it.
88. Here the love destroyed death, and opened the fast seal, that the will might again enter into that which it was before [it was] the creature; and so we all must follow him upon the path which he has made open for us; none can see God, unless God become first man in him, which is brought to pass in faith's desire, and even then the corrupt will (which is apprehended in the death and anger of God, and which blooms in the earthly essence, and brings forth fruit unto death) be wholly mortified, and fall into the free resignation, into the will and mercy of God: And then the own will is with and in Christ at nature's end in the grand mystery of God, viz. in God's hands. God's hands are the eternal desire, or the eternal will, which is unchangeable; thus the creaturely self-will dies; it enters wholly into the nothing, that it might no more live to itself, but to God.
89. Thus it falls out also in the philosophic work; when the artist has first seen great wonders, which the creaturely and natural will has wrought in the power [of] Venus, insomuch that he supposes that he is nigh thereunto; even then nature does first die in his work, and becomes a dark night unto him; the property and power of all the forms must give forth themselves from their centre, and fall upon nature's end; all do freely yield over themselves as one dead essence, and there is no longer any effectual working therein, all is divided in the crown into the thousandth number, and then it is again in the mystery as nature's end as it was before it came into the creaturely being; understand, the essential desire, viz. the expressed Mercury, must again come unto the end of its selfishness, and resign itself into the speaking word.
90. The corporal essence remains in the centre of the four elements till the judgment of God, which now at death stands in the centre of Sol, viz. in the compaction of Venus and Mercury, which compaction at death falls wholly into one [thing], viz. into one power of Jupiter, 1 that is, into the centre of the liberty; for here the desire to cold and heat goes out, all earthly will and desire of the properties dies, and there is no more any hunger after the earthly, or death's property.
Footnotes
129:1 It freely loses itself in the nothing.
130:1 Manner, or condition.
130:2 Was born, or begotten.
134:1 In the heat of his trial.
136:1 Text, hold.
139:1 Are drowned.
142:1 Transformed.
142:2 Taken, or received.
143:1 In war for their proud unrighteous mammon, and in bitter strife about their outward worship of Christ.
144:1 Altogether.
144:2 Understanding of folly.
147:1 Or number three.
148:1 Mirror, resemblance.
148:2 Things to be compacted.
149:1 Text, the sun.
150:1 Or wild.
150:2 Goes out.
151:1 Into the sole power and virtue of Jupiter.
