Mysterium Magnum (An Exposition of the First Book of Moses, called Genesis)

10. But that Moses saith, the Tree of Life stood in the midst of the Garden, and presently next after setteth down, and the Tree of Know¬ ledge of Good and Evil. Here lieth the veil before his eyes, that the earthly sinful man cannot behold him; for he is not worthy of it; for his earthliness in the curse of the bestial vanity shall not inherit Paradise. 11. The precious pearl lieth in [the knowledge of] the difference of the two Trees: and yet it is but only one, but manifest in two kingdoms. For the Tree of Life standeth wholly in the midst of the Garden; for 1 Text, evil essence. it standeth in two Principles, in the midst, viz. in the holy world, between the eternal dark world of God’s anger, where God is an angry zealous God and a consuming fire, and the outward visible world. 12. The holy power of God in the Tree was the middle-most king¬ dom, and Paradise was the outermost kingdom; for the middlemost penetrated the outermost, and manifested itself with the outward. This was the knowledge of the Good, which Adam should have as little known, in its original, as the Evil: he was created for an instru¬ ment of God, with whom God would manifest his wonders in figures; he should keep only a child-like mind, and be resigned unto God.

13. Now the Tree of the Knowledge of Evil was the dark world, which also was manifest on this Tree; likewise the vanity, as now1 it is; all earthly fruit was manifest therein. Therefore Moses distinguisheth the Tree, and saith, the Tree of Life ; thereby he understandeth the property of the eternal life in the Tree, viz. the second Principle. And by the words, of the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil , he understandeth2 the wrath of the anger of God, which was manifest by the essence of the outward world, in earthliness in this Tree, of which Adam should not eat; for he should have eaten3 with the in¬ ward mouth, and not with the earthly desire but with the heavenly; for he had such fruit growing for him which the inward mouth could enjoy; indeed the outward mouth did also eat thereof, but not into the worm’s carcass. 14. For as the light swalloweth4 up the darkness, so the celestial swallowed up the terrestrial, and changed it again into that whence it proceeded; or as the eternity swalloweth up the time, and in it is as a nothing. So likewise there were two centres in Adam’s mouth. For the kingdom of God stands in power; and Adam also, before his Eve, stood in the kingdom of God, for he was male and female, with both divine heavenly tinctures; and neither the fire’s nor the light’s tincture or desire should be manifest in him, for they should stand in equal weight [in the true temperature] resigned in5 God.

15. But in the Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil the properties, viz. of God’s love and anger, and also the earthliness (as it is at this day in the curse), were peculiarly manifest, each in itself, and did eagerly put themselves forth; that is, they were departed out of the likeness, out of the equal harmonious accord. And all the three 1 At this day. 2 Or meaneth. 3 Or eat. 4 Avalleth. Principles were each of them in an especial manner manifest in this Tree, and therefore Moses calleth it, the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. 1 6. Reason saith, Wherefore did God suffer this Tree to grow, seeing man should not eat thereof? Did he not bring it forth for the fall of man? And must it not needs be the cause of man’s destruction? This is that about which the high schools contend, and understand it not; for they go about to seek and apprehend the inward in the outward, and it remaineth hidden and dead unto them, they under¬ stand not what man is. 17. Man, according to body and soul, was created out of all the three Principles; and was placed in the Principles, in the properties of the inward and outward world, in equal number, weight and measure; none of the Principles did exceed the other; there was an agreeing harmony; the divine light temperised all the properties, so that there was a mutual melody and play of unanimous love between them.

18. The fiery dark-world rejoiced in the holy light-world, and the light- world in the outward [world], as in its manifestation. Again, the outward world joyed itself in both the inward worlds; as in its life; and there was a mere pleasing harmonious will, pleasure and sweet delight between them. The Mercury, viz. the sounding, hearing and feeling life, viz. the manifestation of the divine Word in the Fiat, did mutually penetrate all essences, in a very exceeding joyful property. 19. The property or essence of all the three worlds reached with the desire after the light;1 and in the light the expressed Word was holy. This holy Word gave its power and virtue to the sound of the inward dark fire- world; and also into the sound of the outward elemental world, viz. it gave itself into the inward fiery Word or life, and also into the outward earthly life. 20. Thus the holy divine Word was predominant through all the three Principles of the human property, and there was an equal accord; and no enmity or opposite will was manifest between the Principles, but a mere harmonious affection and inclination of will, pleasing relish, ravishing melody, sweet smell, a friendly smiling, and most pleasant aspect, a meek and kind sense, and mutual fruition of delight.

21. For man was, on the sixth day, taken and created unto a divine likeness and image in the sixth manifestation of the seven properties 1 Or set their desire upon the light. of the divine harmonious manifestation in the expressed power, which hath diffused and manifested itself through the fifth property, viz. through the fiery love-desire. His true life’s-centre was the fifth property of the eternal nature, viz. the fiery love-desire; which held the fire and darkness hidden [or shut up] in itself, and used it to its joy and delight. 22. But it is very needful for us to understand aright in this place, whence the desire to fall away from the equal accord did arise, both in the hierarch Lucifer, and also in Adam, the second hierarch or royal prince in the divine image. 23. When the eternal only God once moved himself through the eternal spiritual nature, viz. in the eternal great abyssal Mystery, and comprised [or amassed] this Mystery into a circumference or place, to manifest his great wonders; and introduced the eternal wisdom into a formal visible contemplation, and manifested all the seven properties of the inward eternal spiritual world, and introduced them into a creation of the angels; then all the properties were moved and affected and each desired to be in a creatural form, in the place, so far as the Verbum Fiat had put itself forth1 to motion and manifestation.

24. And the angelical princes also, with their legions, were taken and created out of the properties in the Verbum Fiat, even from the first centre where the eternal lubet betaketh itself into a desire, and introduceth itself into nature, unto the most external manifestation, each hierarchy in its heaven or property. 25. But seeing Lucifer was, in his creation or formation of the properties, apprehended in the Principle of the property where the enkindling fire ariseth, where the light is manifest, thereupon he became so aspiring in himself, as the most mighty prince; and being in the root of his creatural original he understood the great magical constellation, viz. the Mystery of the ground of all being, but yet in the dark property, which yet was now moved and affected; which magical constellation also desired to be2 manifest and creatural in the dark world, thereupon it set its desire upon this mighty prince and hierarch. 26. And he, Lucifer, turned himself away from the divine light into the fiery Mystery, towards the darkness, whence the fire ariseth. And so the magical astrum of the Grand Mystery of the dark world apprehended him; for his desire, which the Verbum Fiat had extroduced through the fire in the light, turned itself back again thereinto,

1 Or given itself in. 2 Or would be. and would be like the creator of all beings, and change himself and the essence according to his own pleasure. 27. Thus he contemned the meekness in the light, viz. the second Principle, which [ariseth] through the fire-death, (where the wrath, of the spiritual essentiality of the wrathful dark property, dieth in the fire; and out of which death of devoration the second Principle, viz. the holy love-world of great meekness and humility, is generated), and went back into the first Principle, viz. in magiam naturae, into the original of the eternal nature; and would be an omniscient artist: he would rule and domineer in and above the whole creation, and be a co-former in all properties. 28. Thus the light was extinct to him, for he made his angelical essence, which stood in great meekness and in fiery love-desire, wholly rough, austere, cold, wrathful and fiery, in the dark wrathful property; and the properties of enmity instantly arose in him, for in the light they could not be manifest; but when the light extinguished they were manifest, and he became a devil; and was driven out of the angelical world, out of his own heaven of the second Principle.

29. Thus we are to know, that the fall befell him from his creature, for had he not turned away his creatural desire from the divine meek¬ ness and love, in pride and stubborn will, to rule in the matrix of the pregnatress, which took him as a player, he had remained an angel. Had he continued under God’s love-spirit and will, then his angerspirit and will had not captivated him. 30. But seeing he hath freely and willingly broken himself off from God’s love-will, he hath now God’s anger-will in him, wherein he must be a manifestor and worker of the dark world’s property, for it also would be creatural. Here it hath a right captive, that can artificially act in ape’s-sport; and now, as the dark world is in its property in its desire such also is its hierarch or creatural prince. 31. And here it is very requisite for us to know aright how man came to fall. Man was created in the stead and place of extruded Lucifer, understand the inward spiritual man. He was created in the same heaven, according to the inward human soul, and should possess the hierarchy which Lucifer had lost; and hence the devil’s envy against man is arisen.

32. But seeing God did well know that the devil would tempt him, and not beteem him that honour, the deepest love of God (viz. the high name Jesus out of JEHOVAH ) hath freely given itself herein, to regenerate this hierarchy which Lucifer had defiled; and to purge it through the fire, and to introduce his highest love thereinto; and to overcome the wrath (which Lucifer had awakened) with love, and change it again into divine joy, viz. into a holy heaven; in which place the Last Judgment standeth.1 And this is that which Saint Paul saith, Man was chosen [or elected] in Christ Jesus before the foundation of the world was laid. 33. And for this end God created man out of three Principles in one, that [being] he did not live wholly in the place of Lucifer, that so he might help him. For God saw very well, according to the property of his wrath, that man would fall; but he would bring him again through and in the name Jesus through the corruptible death, into the royal kingdom whence Lucifer was fallen; in whose stead the man Christ, God and man in one person, should sit as a hierarch, high priest, or the great prince of men, in the name and power of Jesus out of JEHOVAH.

34. Therefore we are here rightly to consider of the fall of man, how he stood in Paradise and was tempted, and what the Paradise was. Man stood in three Principles, which indeed stood in man him¬ self, viz. in body and soul, in equal accord and harmony; but not [so] without him, for the dark-world hath another desire than the light- world; so also the outward world hath another desire than the dark-and-light-world. Now the image of God stood between three Principles, all which three did set their desire upon this image, each would be manifest in Adam, and have him in their dominion for a ruler, and manifest their wonders through him. 35. But he, man, should have introduced his desire only into the sixth property of the divine manifestation, wherein he was created to an image of God; he should be wholly resigned to God; he should live only in the manifested divine Word, obedience to God, and not enter into [his] own will, but introduce his desire into God’s will, viz. into the sixth property; that so the manifested Word of God might be his will, knowing, and doing: even as the holy angels do so live and rejoice only in the divine will, and melodise in the Holy Ghost, as he doth open and manifest himself in them, according to the divine wisdom; and thus they live, will and act with a child-like mind and will.

36. Paradise, or the garden in Eden, did indeed stand with its properties in equal concord as to man. But the properties were in themselves an awakened hunger, each in itself; which verily the 1 Or unto which end the Last Judgment is appointed. divine light did again introduce into a temperature. But the devil, in his enkindled envy, opposed man, and insinuated his venomous imagination into the human property, and enkindled the human properties in the centre in the first Principle of the soul’s property, wherein the soul standeth in like essence and being with the angels and devils. 37- Whence Adam’s imagination and earnest hunger did arise, that he would eat of the evil and good, and live in [his] own will. That is, his will departed out of the equal concord into the multi¬ plicity of the properties; for he would prove, feel, taste, hear, smell and see them. As the devil did persuade them also in the Serpent, they should be as God, and their eyes should be open in the properties; which also happened unto them in the fall, that they knew, tasted, saw and felt evil and good: whence arose unto them sickness, disease, pains and corruption [or the dissolution of this carcass].

38. And seeing the divine providence did afore know that the devil would tempt man, and bring him into strange lust; lest he should long after the centre of the dark world, and become a devil, as Lucifer did, God did represent unto him the Tree of Life, and of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, wherein the dissolution of the outward life was manifest. 39. For Adam was guilty therein, seeing he was yet in Paradise when he lusted after vanity, and brought his imagination into the earth, viz. into that essence whence the limus of the outward body was extracted; and desired out of his mother to assay of the enkindled vanity which the devil had inflamed. Thereupon the Fiat drew him forth such a plant out of the matrix of the earth, whence also it had extracted Adam’s body, so that Adam, in his hunger, had to eat. 40. For the essence in the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, and the hunger of the desire in Adam, were alike; what he desired was represented unto him by the Fiat; Adam’s imagination was the cause of it. 41. Reason saith, wherefore did God suffer it to come to pass? Christ said, If you had faith as a grain of mustard-seed, and should say to this mountain be cast into the sea, it should be done : [I prithee], was not the soul’s spirit [sprung forth] out of the great divine omnipotence out of the centre of the eternal spiritual nature, whence all beings were created, and should it not then be potent?

42. He was a fire-spark out of God’s might. But when he was formed into a creatural being of the creatures, he withdrew into self¬ lust, and broke himself off from the universal being, and entered into a self-fullness. And so he wrought his own destruction, and this he had had, if God’s love had not redeemed him. 43. The soul’s power was so potent before the vanity, that it was not subject to any thing; and so it is still powerful, if the under¬ standing were not taken away from it. It can by magic alter all things whatsoever that are in the outward world’s essence, and introduce them into another essence; but the vanity in the outward air s dominion hath brought a darkness thereinto, so that the soul doth not know itself. The curse of God hath cast the defiled child into the dirt, that it must pray for a laver; and must be in this lifetime its own enemy, that it may learn to be humble, and continue in the divine harmony, and not become a devil. Of the Paradisical State1 showing how it should have been if Adam had not fallen i. X know the sophister2 will here cavil at me, and cry it down as a

X thing impossible for me to know, seeing I was not there and saw it myself. To him I saw, that I, in the essence of my soul and body, when I was not as yet I, but when I was in Adam’s essence, was there, and did myself fool away3 my glory in Adam. But seeing Christ hath restored it again unto me, I see, in the spirit of Christ, what I was in Paradise; and what I now am in sin; and what I shall be again. And therefore let none cry it out as a thing unknowable; for although I indeed know it not, yet the spirit of Christ knoweth it in me, from which knowledge I shall write. 2. Adam was a man and also a woman,4 and yet none of them [distinct], but a virgin, full of chastity, modesty and purity, viz. the image of God. He had both the tinctures of the fire and the light in him; in the conjunction of which the own love, viz. the virginal centre, stood, viz. the fair Paradisical rose-garden of delight, wherein he loved himself. As we also, in the resurrection of the dead, shall be such; as Christ telleth us, that we shall neither marry, nor be given in marriage, but be like the angels of God.

3. Such a man, as Adam was before his Eve, shall arise and again enter into, and eternally possess Paradise; not a man, or a woman, but as the Scripture saith, they are virgins, and follow God, and the Lamb, they are like to the angels of God , yet not only pure spirit, as the angels, but in heavenly bodies, in which the spiritual angelical body inhabiteth. 4. Seeing then Adam was created in Paradise to the life eternal in the image of God; and God himself breathed his life and spirit into him; therefore we can well describe him, how he was in his innocency, and how he fell, and what he is now, and shall again be at last. 5. If God had created him unto5 the earthly, corruptible, miser¬ able, naked, sick, bestial, toilsome life, then he had not brought him into Paradise; if God had desired [or willed] the bestial copulation and propagation, then he would instantly, in the beginning, have created man and woman, and both sexes had come forth in the Verbum Fiat, 1 Dominion, life or condition. 2 Or Sophist. 3 Negligently lose. 4 A husband and also a wife. 5 Or for.

into the division of both tinctures, as it was in the other earthly creatures. 6. Every creature bringeth its clothing from its mother’s body; but man cometh miserable, naked and bare, in deepest poverty, and un-ability ; and is able to do nothing ; and in his arrival to this world he is the poorest, miserablest, forlornest, and most shiftless creature amongst all kinds, which cannot at all help himself; which doth sufficiently shew unto us that he was not created of God unto this misery, but in1 his perfection, as all other creatures were; which [perfection] the first man fooled away [or lost] by false lust; where¬ upon God afterwards, in his sleep, did first figurise him in the outward Fiat to the natural life in man and woman, according to the property of all earthly creatures; and hung upon him the worms’-carcass, with the bestial members for propagation, of which the poor soul is to this day ashamed, that it must bear a bestial form on the body. 7. Two fixed and steadfast essences were in Adam, viz. the spiritual body from2 the love-essentiality of the inward heaven, which was God’s temple; and the outward body, viz. the limus of the earth, which was the mansion and habitation of the inward spiritual body, which in no wise was manifest according to the vanity of the earth, for it was a limus, an extract of the good part of the earth; which at the Last Judgment shall be severed in the earth from the vanity of the curse, and the corruption of the devil.

8. These two essences, viz. the inward heavenly, and the outward heavenly, were mutually espoused to each other, and formed into one body,3 wherein was the most holy tincture of the divine fire and light, viz. the great joyful love-desire, which did inflame the essence, so that both essences did very earnestly and ardently desire each other in the love-desire, and loved one another: the inward loved the outward as its manifestation and sensation, and the outward loved the inward as its greatest sweetness and joyfulness, as its precious pearl and most beloved spouse and consort. And yet they were not two bodies, but only one; but of a twofold essence, viz. one inward, heavenly, holy; and one from the essence of time; which were espoused and betrothed to each other to an eternal [being].4 9. And the magical impregnation [or conception] and birth did stand in this fiery love-desire, for the tincture penetrated through both essences, through the inward and outward, and did awaken (or stir up) the desire; and the desire was the Fiat, which the love-lubet 1 Or unto. 2 Or of. 3 Text, Corpus. 4 Or eternally. [or imagination] took,1 and brought into a substance. Thus the likeness of the express image was formed in this substance, being a spiritual image according to the first. [Just] as the Fiat had conceived and formed the first image, viz. Adam, so also the likeness was con¬ ceived out of the first for propagation; and in this conception the magical birth was also forthwith (effected), where, in the birth, the spiritual body became external.

10. Understand, if it had been that Adam had stood in the trial, then the magical birth had been thus [effected] : not by a sundry peculiar issue from Adam’s body, as now, but as the sun throughshineth the water, and rends or tears it not. Even so [in like manner] the spiritual body, viz. the birth, had been brought forth, and in its coming forth had become substantial, without pains, care and distress, in a great joyfulness and delight, in a manner as both seeds of man and woman do receive in their conjunction a pleasant aspect. Even so also the magical impregnation and birth, had been a virgin-like image, wholly perfect according to the first. 11. Which afterwards, when Venus’s matrix was taken from Adam, and formed into a woman, must be done through anguish, trouble, smart, pangs and distress; as God said to Eve, I will multiply thy sorrows when tbou conceivest, thou shalt now bring forth children with sorrow, and thy will shall be subject to thy husband. Wherefore? Because it was sprung forth from the man’s will. Eve was half the Adam, viz. the part wherein Adam should have loved and impregnated himself; the same, when as he stood not, was taken from him in his sleep, and formed into a woman: therefore when Adam saw her, he said, She shall be called woman, because she is taken out of man.

12. Man should have walked naked upon the earth, for the heavenly [part] penetrated the outward, and was his clothing. He stood in great beauty, glory, joy and delight, in a child-like mind; he should have eaten and drunk in a magical manner; not into the body, as now, but in the mouth there was the separation; for so likewise was the fruit of Paradise. 13. All things were made for his sport and delight; no sleep was in him; in or to him the night was as the day; for he saw with pure2 eyes in peculiar light.3 The inward man, viz. the inward eye, saw through the outward; as we in the other world shall need no sun, for we [shall] see in the divine sight, in the light of the peculiar nature. No heat nor cold had touched them; there had also no winter been 1 Conceived. 2 Glorified, illustrious. 3 In his own genuine innate light. manifest upon the earth, for in Paradise there was an equal tempera¬ ture. 14. The tincture of the earth had been their delight and pastime; they had had all metals for their play, until the time that God had changed the outward world: no fear or terror had been in them, also no law from anything or to anything; for all had been free unto them. Adam had been their chief prince; and they had lived in the world and also in heaven, inhabiting in both worlds at once; Paradise had been through the whole world.

15. But seeing the divine providence did well know that Adam would not stand, seeing the earth was corrupted by its former prince; in that the wrath of God had moved itself, and amassed1 the essence into an impression; therefore God created all manner of fruits and beasts, also all sorts of medicines2 for the future sickness of man; and likewise all kinds of meat, that the man might have food, and raiment also in this world. 16. For he had determined to send another prince, by whom he would redeem man from his sickness and death, and purify and purge the earth through the fire of God, and introduce it into the holy (being), as it was when Lucifer was an angel, before it came into such a creature.3 17. And Adam was created only unto4 the divine image, which should be eternal; and though it was known in the wrath of God that man would fall, yet the Regenerator5 was also known in God’s love; to6 whom this hierarchy should be given for a royal possession, in Lucifer’s stead. 18. But that the fall might not proceed (or come)7 from the divine appointment, God made man perfect, and created and ordained him unto Paradise, and forbad him the false lust, which the devil stirred up through the limus of the earth, in Adam’s outward body, with his false imagination and hungry-desire.

19. And Adam was, before his Eve, forty days in Paradise in the temptation, before God made the woman out of him; if he had stood steadfast, then God had so confirmed him to eternity. 20. But that I write of forty days, contrary to the custom [and opinion] of other writers, is, that we have certain knowledge and sufficient ground of the same, not only by conjecture, but from 1 Or took. 2 Or sovereign healing. 3 Or creatural being. 4 Or in. 5 Or Restorer. 6 Text, for. 7 Or might not so much as appear to arise from the divine decree. another knowledge; of this also we will shew you the types. As (first) of Moses upon Mount Sinai, when God gave him the Law; this was done in forty days, and Israel was tried whether they would continue in divine obedience; but seeing they made a calf, and an idol, and fell from God, therefore Moses must break the first Tables of the Law, signifying the first Adam in the divine law, who departed from it : therefore the same was broken from him, and he fell into the breaking1 of his body, as Moses broke the Tables in pieces.

21. And God gave Moses another Scripture or writing upon a table2 of stone; which signifieth the Second Adam (Christ), who should restore the first, and again introduce his Law into his table of the heart, viz. into the life, into the humanity, and write it with the living spirit in the sweet name JESU ; thus the other law was also written, how God’s love would destroy or break in pieces the anger; of which the Covenant in the Law was a type, as shall be hereafter mentioned in Moses. 22. The second figure of Adam in Paradise are the forty years in the wilderness ; where Israel was tried in the Law with the heavenly manna, whether or not they would be obedient to God, that the anger might not so much devour them. The third figure is the true, real one, viz. Adam’s hard encounter3 with Christ in the wilderness, where he stood in Adam’s stead before the devil and God’s anger, where he did eat forty days magically, viz. of the word of the Lord;4 in which Adam also was tempted, whether he would remain wholly resigned unto God’s will. Christ was, in Adam’s stead,5 tempted in Adam’s temptation, and with all that whatsoever wherein Adam was tempted, as shall be mentioned hereafter.

23. The fourth figure are the forty hours of Christ in the grave, where he awakened Adam out of his first sleep. The fifth figure are the forty days of Christ after his resurrection in the last proba, where the humanity was last of all tried, whether it would now stand, and be wholly resigned in God, being that death was destroyed, and the inward human life was new-born in God. 24. These five figures belong unto the five degrees of nature; from the first form of nature even to the fifth, viz. to the holy centre of the love-birth. If it were not too large we would set it forth very clearly. It shall be shewn in its place. 25. These forty days Adam was tried in his innocency,6 whether 1 Destruction. 2 Round ball or globe. 3 Combat. 4 Text, of the Verbo Domini. 5 Place or lieu. 6 Or stood in the proba. or no he would or could stand, to possess the throne of Lucifer, as a hierarch and prince of God. But seeing God knew that this would not be, he determined to move himself with his deepest love in this Adamical, angelical image of the inward holy man, which did dis¬ appear1 in Adam, and to regenerate him anew, viz. in the seed of the woman, understand in the love-desire’s seed, wherein Adam should have impregnated, generated or brought forth himself in a magical manner. In this seed the mark or bound of the promised Covenant in2 Christ was set; who should restore the angel’s image, viz. the divine man, as it is effected.

26. These forty days Adam, viz. the soul of Adam in the flesh, was tempted between three Principles; for each Principle drew the soul in the flesh, and would have the upper hand or dominion. 27. This was the right proba3 of what the free will of the soul would do ; whether it would remain in the divine harmony, or whether it would enter into the selfhood. Here it was tried in soul and body, and drawn by all the three Principles; each would accomplish [or work forth] its wonders in him.4 28. Not that the three Principles did stand in unequal measure and weight in Adam, they were in equal weight in him, but not outside him; moreover the devil was very busy in God’s anger in the first Principle, with his false desire; and introduced continually his imagination into the soul, and into the outward flesh, viz. into the limus of the earth, and insinuated it into the first Principle, viz. into the fiery property of the soul, even into the eternal nature; where¬ upon the first Principle in the soul was moved to speculate itself in the devil’s imagination (or glass of fancy), viz. to contemplate in the magical birth how and what evil and good were, how it would relish and be, in the unlikeness of the essence:5 whence the lust did arise in the soul.

29. Namely, the earthly lust to eat of the manifold properties did arise in the outward part of the soul; and in the inward fiery part of the soul the lust of pride did arise, to know and prove evil and good; desiring to be like God, as the devil also did, when he would be an artist6 in the magical birth; after which Adam here also lusted. 30. Albeit Adam did not desire to prove the first Principle, as Lucifer hath done, for his lust was only bent to taste and prove evil 1 Vanish or withdraw. 2 Or with. 3 Trial. 4 With or by him. and good, viz. the vanity of the earth. The outward soul was so awakened, that the hunger entered into its mother wherefrom it was drawn, and introduced into another source. 31. And when this hunger entered into the earth to eat of evil and good, then the desire in the Fiat drew forth the Tree of Temptation, and set it before Adam. Then came the severe command from God, and said to Adam, Thou shalt not eat of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil, in that day that thou eatest thereof, thou shalt die the death.

32. And Adam also did not eat thereof in the mouth, only with the imagination or desire did he eat thereof, whereby the heavenly tincture disappeared, which stood in a fiery love; and the earthly one did awake in the outward soul’s property, whereby the heavenly image was obscured. 33. Thus the magical birth was spoiled, and it could not then be; although Adam stood1 in Paradise, yet it had not availed him;2 for in the imagination or hunger after evil and good the outward man did awake in him, and obtained the dominion. Then Adam’s fair image fell into a swoon, and drew near to the cessation of its operation;3 for the heavenly tincture was captivated in the earthly desire; for the outward desire impressed into it its essence out of the vanity, where¬ by the man was darkened, and lost his clear pure steady4 eyes and sight, which was from the divine essence, from whence before he had his sight [or seeing]. 34. Now Moses saith, that the Lord God said, it is not good that this man should be alone, we will make an help meet for him. When God had created all creatures, with the whole creatural host, Moses saith, and God beheld all things which he had made, and lo! it was very good ; and con¬ firmed all to its propagation. But here he saith of man, it is not good that he should be alone , for he saw his miserable fall, that he could not magically propagate himself; and said, we will make an help for him.

1 Or had stood. 2 Or them. 3 Or rest. 4 Constant, permanent. Of the building1 of the Woman; Shewing how Man was ordained to the outward Natural Life i. and Moses saith, God caused a deep sleep to fall upon the man, and Jix.he slept: and he took one of the ribs of his side, and built a woman thereof, and closed up the place with flesh (Gen. ii. 21). Moses saith, the woman was made of a rib out of Adam’s side: who will understand this, without divine light? But here lieth the veil before the brightness of Moses’ face, by reason of the unworthiness of the bestial man. 2. For we find that the woman was taken and formed in the Fiat out of Adam’s essence, both in body and soul.2 But the rib betokeneth Adam’s dissolution or breaking, viz. that this body should, and would, be dissolved;3 for in the place of this rib Longinus’s spear must afterwards, when Christ was crucified, enter into the same, and tincture and heal the breach in the wrath of God with heavenly blood. 3. Now when Adam’s hunger was set after the earthliness, it did, by its magnetic power, impress into his fair image the vanity of evil and good; whereupon the heavenly image of the angelical world’s essence did disappear; as if a man should insinuate some strange matter into a burning and light-shining candle, whereby it should become dark, and at last wholly extinguish. So it went also with Adam, for he brought his will and desire from God into selfhood and vanity, and broke himself off from God, viz. from the divine harmony.

4. Even then he forthwith sank down into a swoon,4 into sleep, viz. into an unability, which signifieth the death: for the image of God, which is immutable, doth not sleep. Whatsoever is eternal hath no time in it; but by5 the sleep the time was manifest in man, for he slept in the angelical world, and awaked to the outward world. 5. Ffis sleep is6 the rest of Christ in the grave, where the new regenerate life in Christ’s humanity must enter into Adam’s sleep, and awaken it again to the eternal life, and bring it out of time into the eternal [being]. 1 Or framing. 2 Or out of his body and soul. 3 Or destroyed. 4 Faintness or impotency. 5 Or with. 6 Signifieth, or was the real type of. 6. But the breaking [or dividing] of Adam’s essence, when the woman was taken out of him, is the breaking or bruising of Christ’s body on the cross, from the sixth hour unto the ninth; for so long was the Fiat in Adam’s sleep in the separating of the man and woman;1 for in such a space of time the woman was completely finished [or brought forth] out of Adam into a female [person or] image.

7. And when Christ on the cross had again accomplished this redemption of our virgin-like image from the divided sex of male and female,2 and tinctured it with his heavenly blood in the divine love, he said, It is finished: for before, he stood in Adam’s thirst. As Adam did thirst after the vanity, so Christ did now fill or satiate this thirst of vanity with the holy divine love-thirst, and turned about the will of the soul, that it might again introduce its thirst into God. And when this was brought to pass, he said, now, it is finished and con¬ verted. Christ turned back Adam in his sleep from the vanity, and from the man and woman, again into the angelical image. Great and wonderful are these Mysteries, which the world cannot apprehend; for it is as blind in them, as a man that is born blind, is, to behold this world; but he that regardeth and findeth them hath great joy therein. 8. Eve is the right magical child,3 for she is the matrix in which the love-desire stood in Adam, viz. the magical impregnation4 and birth; she was Adam’s paradisical rose-garden in peculiar love, where¬ in he loved himself; for the amassing [or conceiving] of the magical impregnation, or incarnation, or divine formation of propagation, was [or did stand] in the conjunction of both tinctures.

9. And, after the eating of the apple, God said unto them, The womans seed shall bruise the Serpent's head. The ground and corner-stone lieth here in this matrix; for the woman’s matrix wherein the divine formation stood, was, as to the right life, heavenly, being out of the heavenly essentiality, wherein consisted the right paradise. 10. But Adam with his imagination brought earthliness and vanity thereinto, viz. self-will; and then the holy part, viz. Venus’s desire, which was the divine centre in the humanity, viz. the manifested loveword in the image of God, did disappear in this matrix; therefore 1 Or a making the sex of male and female. 3 Text, from the man and woman. 3 Understand, as to the right life which was then manifest, but afterwards dis¬ appeared, for in her lay the woman’s seed, which was to break the monstrous serpent of the earthly Eve. Eve, from1 this strange will introduced into the matrix, brought forth at first a self-willed proud murderer; for Adam, with his false imagina¬ tion, had introduced this vanity, so also the devil’s desire [thereinto]. 11. But the divine love- will would not forsake this disappeared angelical matrix; and gave himself by promise thereinto with the dear and precious name of Jesus, who should again awaken it in the holiness’s property; and bruise the head of the devil’s insinuated desire and false rebellious will; that is, destroy, and take away the might of its life, and introduce it again, through divine love, into the first life. And even in this holy matrix, which the word and power of God did again awaken in the sweet name [of] Jesus in the seed of Mary in the bound2 of the Covenant, the Serpent’s poison in the soul and flesh was destroyed.

12. And this is the seed of the woman : dear brethren, observe it, it is highly known. The aim of the Covenant of Promise3 was pight [or set] into this matrix: but Eve was not the same child; for the part of the heavenly matrix stood disappeared in her; but [yet it was] in the Covenant of God, as the dry rod of Aaron (which budded forth afresh) did typify unto us. 13. She was indeed the whole matrix of Adam, but the holy part was shut up in her; and [there] lived only the outward part of the outward world with evil and good, viz. the matrix of the third Principle, which had indeed a half soul-like property, but [captivated] in the prison of God’s anger. The holy Covenant of love rested in the disappeared part, in the midst of the awakened anger; from which Covenant the prophetical spirit in the Old Testament spake, and prophesied of the future opening (or manifestation) in the Covenant. 14. The greatest Mystery is to be understood in the formation of Eve; for a man must very entirely and intimately understand and apprehend the birth of nature, and the original of man, if he will see the ground; for she is the half Adam; not taken only and wholly out of Adam’s flesh, but out of his essence, out of the female part: she is Adam’s matrix.

15. The woman received no more from Adam’s flesh and bones, save the rib in his side, and the half cross in the head4, which was the life’s birth-cross, whereon Christ destroyed death. The matrix of the heavenly part was in Adam, magical,5 that is, moving in the essence; 1 Out of, or by reason of. 2 Aim, mark or limit. 3 Text, the promised mark of the Covenant. 4 Or skull. 5 Or magically. but the outward part of the outward world was made fleshy; and both were mutually bound [or espoused] to one another; as the time with the eternity. The holy part was in heaven, and [was] the heaven itself; and the outward fleshy part was in the outward world in Matrice Mundi.1 16. Thus the female property was, in the Fiat, extracted out of Adam’s essence, as his dearest rose-garden, and he kept the limbus, heavenly and earthly [celestial and terrestrial], according to the eternal Father’s manifested property, viz. the fire-soul’s matrix’s property; and the woman [kept] the part of the spirit’s soul’s property; the woman had the centre of the angelical world in her disappeared part ot the soul-like property, viz. the manifested loveword, viz. the fifth property of the eternal nature; and the man had in his limbus the divine fire- world, viz. the centre of2 the light- world, the centre of all essences.

17. The man’s limbus, which he kept when the woman was made out of him, was the Father’s property, according to all essences; and the woman out of [or proceed from] the man was the Son’s property, according to all essences, understand, the heavenly part [both of the limbus and matrix]. Therefore Christ became man in the woman’s part, and brought the man’s part again into the holy matrix, so that the limbus and the female matrix were again one image,3 viz. a manly virgin, above and in all the three Principles, as a creaturalformed God, in whom the eternal unformed God dwelt, with uni¬ versal fullness, both in the formed, and outside the formed [divine creature or God-man]. For thus was Adam also, before his Eve, and so must we also be in Christ, if we would be the image and temple of God. 18. Now when the pregnant matrix was taken from Adam, the woman was every way formed with such members for propagation as she is at this day; and so Adam also. For before, when Adam was male and female, he needed no such members; for his birth was magi¬ cal, his conception moving in the matrix [was to be] done through imagination ; for the Fiat was manifest in him.

19. And the bestial worm’s carcass of the bowels, with the forma¬ tion of other inward principal members pertaining to the earthly life, was hung upon Adam instead of the female matrix, and the like worm’s carcass was also hung upon the woman, instead of the heavenly 1 In the matrix of the third Principle. 2 Or to. limbus, that they might stuff in a deal of vanity, and live like the beasts, seeing they did so eagerly lust after evil and good. 20. Reason will object against me, and say : God created Adam in the beginning such a man, and even with all members, as he now is. Which, notwithstanding, it cannot make out or demonstrate, seeing the soul is ashamed of this bestial property. Also I would fain know of this self-full reason, whether or no such an Adam (if he were created so miserable, destitute, naked and bare, unto this bestial life) were created to eternal life, without defect, and also without need, distress, and death? And whether this sink [or filthy carcass of earthly flesh and blood] were the Paradise and temple of God; and how could he have been able to defend himself from hurt and ruin? For such a beast-like man may be drowned in the water, and burnt in the fire, and also crushed to pieces with rocks and stones.

21. But sayeth thou, God did well know that it would be so with Adam, therefore he created him so at the very first? Against this the Scripture declareth, saying, God created man in his image, yea, to the image of God created he him ; not to the bestial image. What sin would God have imputed or charged upon man, if he had created him in a bestial image? what then would the new birth avail him [to what end then should he be born again] ? The new birth contains in real sum, this: That the angelical image must be born again, which God created in Adam. God formed Adam in the image of God, and though he knew that he would not stand, yet he appointed him the Saviour, who would bring him again into the first image, and therein establish him for ever. 22. Now it plainly appears that Adam stood in the divine image, and not in the bestial, for he knew the property of all creatures, and gave names to all creatures, from their essence, form and property. He understood the Language of Nature, viz. the manifested and formed Word in every one’s essence, for thence the name of every creature is arisen.

23. Now, seeing he knew how the word of power was formed1 in every creature, thereupon we cannot esteem him bestial;2 he was without doubt angelical; for none other man shall arise, but such a one as Adam was before his Eve. God created him perfect, but he stood not in the proba; whereupon it must now follow, that God 1 Text, stood in the form. understand not what Adam was, before he lost the image of God. suffered him to fall into the outward magic; and ordained him to the image of this world; and set him into the natural life, viz. into the corruption and the new birth.1 For in heaven there is neither male nor female, but all one kind, in peculiar love, without further propaga¬ tion, in an eternal confirmation. 24. This therefore doth set forth unto us that Adam died in Paradise, as God said unto him, if thou eat at of the Tree, thou diest : He died to the holy [heavenly] image, and lived to the awakened bestial image. For now, when Adam did awake from sleep, he was indeed still in Paradise, for the vanity in the flesh and soul did not yet actually and effectually work, and was yet dumb, still, and senseless, until they did eat of the forbidden fruit; and then the earthly do¬ minion began to rise; then the vanity awakened, viz. all the forms of the life, each in its selfhood, and forsook severally their mutual harmony, and forthwith heat and cold fell upon them [Adam and Eve] ; for the outward [image or being] did assimulate [or ensource] with the inward, and the heavenly image at last quite disappeared; which in Adam’s sleep, and also in this awakening, did yet live both in Adam and Eve, but in a very obscure and impotent manner.

25. Adam, in his perfection, while he was man and wife, and had the magical conception in him, did amuse himself on (or imagine after) the beasts, and introduced himself into bestial lust, to eat and generate according as the beasts do: And so, likewise, the Fiat took in the same lust, and formed him in his sleep even as the lust was; and every member was formed in its place to the conjunction of the beast-like copulation; for each desire hath obtained its mouth to manifestation. Thus the image of God formed itself in the Verbum Fiat into such a beast as we are still to this day; and this same (was done) in itself, viz. man’s own Fiat (viz. the first form of nature, which is the desire of God’s manifestation), did effect it, and none other maker from without him. 26. We are not to conceive, that there was anything else upon Adam, which made his Eve out of him, or that formed them both to the outward natural life, save only the Verbum Fiat in them, their own very propriate, and not any alienate (or anything strange) from without them. As the first creation of Adam and all kinds of creatures was so brought to pass, the Verbum Fiat coagulated each ens, and the manifested word severed itself in the ens according to its property, and formed the creature according to its astrum and kind; where

1 Degeneration, and regeneration. also, in every ens, the matrix was separated from the limbus, and formed into a male and female [into a he and she]. 27. The picturing of God as a man in making Adam, and after¬ wards standing over Adam as he sleepeth, and making a woman out of him, is more idolatrous than real; and God hath earnestly forbidden, in Moses, to make the likeness of any God. For he is no image, save only in the creatures, according to the expressed formed Word, both according to the creatures of eternity, and of time: he is no [such] maker, but a former of the properties, a creator, and not [such a] maker. 28. The creating is the Fiat which amasseth [or formeth], and the Word in the power of the amassed [or conceived being] gives the distinction according to the ens. As the ens is, in the generation of the spirit, so a thing is formed ; for the body or substance of all things is nothing else but a signature or mansion according to1 the spirit. As the birth is in the ens, where the spirit formeth itself, so is likewise the body of all kinds of creatures, both in animals and vegetables. As we plainly see, that the first Creator, who hath moved himself and brought himself into a creatural manifestation, hath left in all creatures a power to their self-multiplication or increasing, propaga¬ tion, and procreation;2 and incorporated the Fiat in them as a maker, for their own propriety [or most innate instinct].

1 Or of. 2 Text, making. Of the Lamentable and Miserable Fall and Corruption of Man I. \ TOW when Adam did awake from sleep he saw his wife Eve 1. N| standing before him, and took her unto him, for he knew that she was his own, that she was his matrix ; and [he] cast the property of his desire upon her, as he had done before when he loved himself. So now also the fiery tincture of Adam’s soul entered into the spirit’s or light’s tincture in Eve. 2. But they both stood yet in Paradise, in the garden in Eden, and knew neither evil nor good; for they lived yet in joy and delight, in the kingdom of heaven; and it was Eve’s first longing to eat of good and evil: for Adam’s desire had introduced and imprinted it into the magical image, while it was yet in Adam’s essence; as a child receiveth a mark [or impress] in the womb, which the mother imprints on it. 3. Thus also Adam had impressed the false desire into his essence, whence the woman was made; therefore the woman so soon lusted after the vanity; as to this day, mere earthly lust of the flesh is found in most of them. So soon as this sex comes but to any years, the selfish lust [and will] doth predominantly appear in pride and glistering shows of fleshly desires; and they soon long after the forbidden tree, contrary to the virgin-like modesty, chastity and angelical humility.

4. The abomination which Adam introduced into his matrix is so exceeding strong in them, that they are as ’twere in naked shame1 before the image of God, which [image] God himself created in Adam. Therefore they must be subject to the man, in that they are the cause that the vanity was enkindled, to which the devil also was a strong promoter.2 5. For when he saw Eve, he then knew his insinuated desire in her, which he had introduced into Adam; the same did shew forth and discover itself in Eve’s lust. Therefore the devil came now in a strange form, viz. in the Serpent’s essence, which was the most subtle beast, and laid himself on the Tree of Temptation towards Eve, that the introduced concupiscence in Eve, which the devil had also infected, did amuse itself upon3 the outward Serpent, and so one lust took another; whereupon Eve did strongly imagine and long after the 1 Or very weak and poor. 2 Solicitor. 3 Was much taken with. forbidden fruit, which the devil persuaded her to eat ; and then her eyes should be opened, and she be as God, and know evil and good. 6. Which indeed was true: this knowledge did stick in the fruit, for the essences were discordant and unlike therein; but he told her not that the enmity would awaken in the essences of her body, and that heat and cold, moreover sickness and death, would force into her. Herein he was silent, and fairly coloured it over, and drew her in by collusion; as if God had withheld some great thing from them, which she might find as a treasure; so craftily did he deceive Eve.

7. And when she yielded to discourse with the Serpent she was taken in the voice; for the devil infected the same with false delight, until he persuaded her she should be wise if she did eat thereof. 8. For the devil thought that if Eve should bring forth children in Paradise then his design would miscarry:1 they might then possess his angelical kingdom. 9. Now the question is, Wherefore the devil did deceive Eve by the Serpent only, and not by some other means? Could he not do it in his own form : why did he even speak through2 the Serpent to Eve? And wherefore did the Serpent address itself to the Tree, to persuade her against God’s prohibition? 10. Here the veil lieth before Moses his clear eyes, for he sets down the history very right. But how can an unilluminated mind under¬ stand it, in that he writeth of the Serpent, saying, that the Serpent spake with Eve, and deceived her , whereas indeed it cannot speak. And also is only a beast, without divine understanding, and in its selfhood cannot know the image of God; much less did the Serpent understand the heavenly powers, or the prohibition.

11. But hear what Moses saith: The Serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field, which the Lord God had made: Here the first question is, whence its subtlety came, that even the devil would choose to speak through its subtlety, and deceive Eve? Herein sticketh the Mystery. 12. When God moved himself according to his expressed Word in the Verbum Fiat, according to both the inward worlds, viz. according to God’s love and anger, according to the eternal nature of the dark¬ ness, and according to the eternal nature and power of the light, then all the properties in evil and good did amass themselves;3 for the Fiat was the centre in all those properties, as well as in those wherein the divine power was manifest in holiness. Now, according as each 1 Text, his cause might prove naught. 2 Or in. 3 Or were brought into a compaction. [central] point was opened, understand, according as the lubet to the manifestation of the Grand Mystery of all essences [was in every punctum], even so the Fiat, viz. the first form to nature did apprehend and bring forth an ens or limus out of the earth, and so also above the earth, in each magical astrum,1 according to the degrees of severation. And so in the same ens there was a spirit according to the same degree or magical astrum, and the Fiat did figure and shape even such a body or corpus as the same spirit was.

13. Now, seeing that prince Lucifer did sit as a hierarch in divine pomp, and would domineer in divine power in the fire’s might, above and in all, and contemned God’s love and humility, and entered with his false desire into the essence of the expressed Word in the Fiat, as a juggler2 or wicked impostor, that would also form and make [accord¬ ing to his proud perverse will], thereupon he infected that same essence, according to the dark world’s property, which came forth also in the Fiat into a compaction, viz. into an ens, wherein evil and good are mutually linked together. For he, the devil, as an apostate rebellious juggler, did desire the greatest subtlety [proceeding] from the centre of nature, and would domineer in the revealed magic in the Fiat. 14. And out of the like ens, [proceeding] from this infected ens (where evil and good was manifest in great power), the Serpent was created in the Fiat. Therefore Moses saith very right, it was more subtle than all the beasts of the field ; for the devil’s will, viz. his desire, which he introduced into that ens, whence it was created, was in it; it had the devil’s subtlety and will. And as the devil was an angel in the beginning, and was from a good essence, and yet introduced himself into an evil one, so likewise the Serpent’s ens was good before the devil’s infection, before its creation; but in the devil’s desire it was brought into a property of subtlety and craft.

15. For the devil’s desire drew forth the compunctive stinging thorny sharp subtlety out of the centre of nature, and introduced it through the enkindling of the fire into the heavenly salniter, viz. into that property wherein he sat and was an angel; and here that very craft came forth along in the same ens into a compaction in the Fiat. 16. For the Serpent’s ens was, as to one part, viz. as to the heavenly, a great power; as also there was a great heavenly power in the devil, for he was a prince of God; and so he brought his extracted 1 Star. 2 Or false magician. subtlety and lies into a powerful ens, desiring to play his enchanting feats thereby as a peculiar [uncontrollable] god. 17. This the learned searchers of nature do in like manner under¬ stand, viz. that there lieth excellent art, and also virtue, in the ens of the Serpent. If the devil’s poison be taken from it, the greatest cure doth then lie in it for the healing of all fiery venomous hurts and dis¬ tempers; also [the best antidote] against poison, and all whatsoever that hath the semblance of a fiery poison; for therein the divine power lieth in a fiery hunger, but hidden in the curse of the anger of God.

18. As God doth dwell hiddenly in the cursed earth, so likewise is it here. Notwithstanding, it is given to the wise godly searcher of the art, and he need not be astonished or afraid of the curse; for he shall rule in divine power in faith over all creatures. If he were not so much captivated in a bestial and proud manner in the Serpent’s essence our sense and meaning might be opened unto him, and he might here well find the arcanum [or secret] of the world. 19. This crafty Serpent was now in external show and semblance an exceeding well-favoured, comely, handsome, neat, fine, brave, pretty beastling, accurately dressed, and set forth according to the pride of the devil. Not that we are to conceive that the devil was a creator of the Serpent; but the Fiat was manifest in it according to God’s great good power, and also very potently manifest according to the power of his wrathful anger. 20. This Serpent was a living figure of the Tree of Temptation; like as the Tempting Tree was a dumb power [or lifeless resem¬ blance], so the Serpent was a living power. And therefore the Serpent applied itself to this Tree, as to its likeness, even the likeness of its essence. Which the devil saw, and possessed the Serpent in the part of his infected and introduced poison, and armed its tongue, and spake out of its great subtlety to Eve, so that she knew not the horrible enemy, and very hideous ugly guest, the devil.

21. And the devil therefore brought the Serpent to the Tree of Temptation, seeing he saw that Eve was taken much with beholding of the Tree, and fain would eat of its fruit, that so he might make Eve monstrous by the Serpent;1 and the true eye-mark [to reach the real understanding of the Serpent’s deceiving Eve] is this : 22. Eve did now long after the fruit of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; for Adam had introduced this lust into his ens whence Eve was created. But now the command stood against it, and 1 Or, form strange imaginations of pride, in seeing the fair Serpent. she feared God, and would not do contrary to the prohibition ; there¬ fore the devil cunningly insinuated into the Serpent’s ens, viz. into the greatest subtlety; and yet craftily put forth the great power and wit in the Serpent’s essence, that Eve might see and know how prudent, wise and subtle the Serpent was; and hung there upon the forbidden tree, and it did it no hurt; and she looked upon the Serpent and set her mind amusing after it, in manner as a woman with child doth amuse herself and strangely or monstrously form herself [in her mind] and bringeth such a figure upon the child. Even so did Eve amuse herself upon the wit and craft of the Serpent, and also upon its nimble agility and art, whereupon she longed to eat of the Tree; for the Serpent persuaded her by the devil’s voice and speech, and pretended that it had its craft and art from the Tree.

23. Eve’s essence was heavenly, but already somewhat poisoned and infected by Adam’s imagination. Now, Eve’s good desire of the good essence in her entered into the Serpent’s great power and inward virtue, which it had from the heavenly essence, viz. from the good part of the ens of the earth; and the infected property of Eve, which Adam had insinuated and let in by imagination, entered into the Serpent’s craft, viz. into the centre of the dark world, into God’s anger. And on the other side, the devil’s strong desire and imagination entered through the essence of the Serpent into Eve’s essence; both by the sound and voice in their intercourse of speech, and also by the conjunction of both desires. 24. And here Eve’s desire and the devil’s desire were espoused [or united] in this conjunction; for the devil’s desire made Eve’s lust wholly monstrous, and did so egg or force her on in the lust till he overcame her; and she gave full consent thereto in her desire; she would fain also eat of the Tree of understanding and wise subtlety; and desired likewise to be, or to be made, so wise, prudent and crafty, as the Serpent.

25. For the devil said the fruit would not hurt, but the eyes of her sharp understanding would be opened; and they should be as God. This, Eve did like very well; that she should be a goddess, and wholly consented thereunto. And in this full consent she fell from the divine harmony, from the resignation in God, and from the divine desire, and entered with her own desire into the craft, distemper and vanity of the Serpent, and the devil. 26. Here, in this juncture [or point of time] the devil’s desire took full possession of Eve’s will, and introduced it into a serpentine substance; and even here Eve became monstrous in her own essence [according to the essence of the Serpent] ; and here the devil built up his fort, rampart and stronghold in the human essence; and here is1 the death of the heavenly essence, viz. of the heavenly essence or being; here the Holy Spirit of God departed from Eve her essence: thus in this point [of time] the heavenly part of man, viz. the heavenly limus, in the flesh, did disappear; and this is it which God said, in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt die the death (Gen. ii. 17).

27. When Eve had turned her will from the obedience of God, and introduced it into the Serpent’s craft, then the power of the heavenly meekness and humility in the heavenly limbus did disappear; not that she fully received the dark world’s essence into her essence; no, but as God said to her, thou shalt die, that is die or disappear, in2 the king¬ dom of heaven. For the kingdom of heaven receiveth no true death; only, when the light of the divine Principle extinguisheth, then that essence wherein it did burn, and from whence it shone, is dumb, and as ’twere dead, without feeling and understanding, as a nothing. Like as a candle burning in a dark place maketh the whole room light, but if it goeth out there is not the print or impression of it to be seen; its power entereth into the nothing, in manner as God made all things of nothing. 28. Not that we are to understand that man’s heavenly ens became a nothing; it remained in man, but it was as ’twere a nothing to man in its life ; for it stood hidden in God ; and to man was un-apprehensible, without life. Nothing dieth in God; but in the human life the holy ens did disappear.

29. Now when Eve did reach to the Tree, take the fruit, and pluck it off, [it was] the same she had already done by the earthly limus, and by the will of the soul, which desired the subtlety from the centre of nature; which subtlety [or discretion] she already perceived in her, in the centre, and yet [it] was not manifest in the divine power and in the resigned humility. In this essay the devil’s desire reacheth along in her monstrous image to the fruit; and when she took the fruit into the mouth, and did eat thereof, that her body’s essence received this essence into itself, the human essence took the essence in the Tree. 30. And seeing she did not forthwith fall down and die, she thought it would not hurt her, for the anger-source still rested in her; and she persuaded Adam, that he also did eat thereof, seeing he saw that it hurt not Eve. 1 Or was. 2 Or as to. 31. But now when they had eaten, the wrath of God’s anger did awake in the monstrous image, viz. the properties of the dark world, viz. the devil’s introduced desire, which now had its seat in the monstrous image, in the Serpent’s essence. In this instant all the forms of subtlety and craftiness did awake in the human mystery;1 for so long as man stood resigned in God, in the equal accord in the divine harmony, the heavenly part, viz. the life of the heavenly limus, penetrated the earthly limus ; and the properties could not be manifest, for they were all in equal measure and weight; as the time is in God and God in the time.

32. But when man’s own will began effectually and actually to work, then also the properties of the universal magical astrum began also to work in him, each [astrum or star] in its selfhood; for the universal magical astrum lay in man, for he was created on the sixth day, in the sixth manifestation of the divine Mystery, as a limus of all beings; a limus or extern [or extracted] birth, whence all the creatures were created; an astrum of the universal astrum; for he should rule above all creatures of this world, and be lord over all creatures, and yet not be ruled or lorded over by any. 33. For he stood in equal essence; but now, every astrum of every essence of all the creatures in man do depart from their mutual accord, and each steps into its selfhood; whence the strife, contrariety and enmity arose in the essence, that one property doth oppose itself against the other. Thus likewise the outward spirit of the outward astrum and four elements did presently domineer in them [Adam and Eve], and heat and cold were also manifest in their body; moreover, the property of all evil and good beasts : all which properties, before, did lie hidden.

34. Here the craft and subtlety of the Serpent was manifest, and the precious image was corrupted, and became, according to the limus of the earth, a beast of all beasts. Whereupon there are now so many and various properties in man, as one a fox, wolf, bear, lion, dog, bull, cat, horse, cock, toad, serpent. And, in brief, as many kinds of creatures as are upon the earth, so many and various properties like¬ wise there are in the earthly man; each of one or other; all according to the predominant stars which make such a property in the seed, in the time of the seeding, by reason of their predomination or [potent influence]. That astrum which is most predominant in the constellation, that hath its desire in the seed; and if the seed be sown, such a property is hatched forth in the earthly part of man. 35. Not that the whole man is such [a very brute beast in outward shape], but there is such a figure of the desire in the earthly essence ; and the man must bear such a beast in the body, which stirs him up and drives him to the bestial property. Not that he hath this form accord¬ ing to the outward [person] ; but [he hath it] really, in the earthly essence: according to the outward [personal shape] he remains in the first formation [or platform].

36. Yet this beast doth somewhat put forth its signature externally in everyone; if one do but heed and well mind the same, he may find it. Hence Christ called the Pharisees a generation of vipers , and the seed oj serpents ; also others he called wolves, ravening wolves, foxes, dogs and the like; for they were such in the earthly essence. And he taught us, that we must be born anew, and forsake this bestial property, and become as children, or we should not possess the kingdom oj God. 37. For as the essence is, in the body, even so the spirit doth figure and form itself internally, and the poor soul stands in this prison, bound and married to such a beast, unless that a man be born anew: for which ground [and end] God ordained the Circumcision in the Old Testament ; and in the New the Baptism in the spirit of Christ. 38. Here we are highly to consider, what horror, lamentation and misery, anguish, fear and distress, did arise and awake in man ; and was manifest as a false life and will in man. Of which we have a type in the death of Christ, when he, upon the cross, destroyed the death in our human awakened property, and overcame [it] with the great love in his heavenly blood, which he introduced thereinto; that even then the earth, viz. the limus of the earth, whence Adam’s outward essence was extracted, did tremble and shake at it.

Now, when the great love forced [itself] into the human earth, wherein the anger of God, in the curse, was living and effectually working, [I say] when it now was to die, and to be changed into another source, it did tremble before this great love-fire; like as the love-fire in Adam and Eve did tremble in the awakening of the anger in them; whereby they were astonished, and crept behind the trees in the garden, and were afraid. For the dread and horror of God’s anger was awakened in their essence, and they knew their bestial properties.

Of the Impression and Original of the Bestial Man; and of the Beginning and Ground of his Sickness and Mortality I. IT THEN Adam and Eve were become monstrous, the Holy VV Spirit, proceeding from the part of the heavenly limbus, departed; for the part of the heavenly property disappeared in the soul, in which [part] the divine light shone, and in which the divine power of the holy tincture dwelt. 2. Understand, the power of the light departed1 from him into the centre, in manner as a shining light which flameth forth from a candle, extinguisheth, and only the fire-source of the light remaineth; even so likewise only the magical fire-source of the soul’s property remained, viz. the centre of the eternal nature, viz. the fire- world, and darkness. 3. And on the outward part of the soul the air-spirit, with its astrum, remained, wherein the light of the outward nature shone, which now the fire-soul must make use of; for the Fiat was enraged in the wrath of God, viz. in the fiery property of the soul, and also of the body; and in a fiery hunger, in the awakened flagrat of God’s anger, had entered into and taken possession of the essence in soul and body, and with hard attraction did impress itself in the essence of the sub¬ stance,2 in the limbus3 of the body; whereupon the flesh became gross, hard, thick and corruptible.

4. For in the flagrat of the wrath all the properties of each astrum, according to the property of all the creatures, did awake in the essence, whence the enmity, antipathy and contrariety did arise in the essence of the body and soul, so that one property is against another, one taste against another’s,4 for all departed out of the temperament; thence arose in them pain, tormenting malady, and sickness. 5. For if an opposite essence entereth into another, it makes an enmity, and a hateful overmastering and destroying, each the other. One property annoys, weakens and destroys another, whence the death and dissolution of the body is arisen. 6. For whatsoever stands not in the temperature cannot subsist 1 Or withdrew. 2 Or matter, outward essence. 3 Or limus. 4 Or a loathsomeness to another. eternally; but whatsoever standeth in the temperature, that hath no destroyer; for all properties do [there] mutually love one another: and in the love is the growth and preservation of the life. 7. And we are here fundamentally to understand how the gross properties in the wrath of the Fiat in the essence of the body have obscured and wholly shut up the heavenly essentiality in the Sulphur, so that the heavenly man was no longer known; as lead doth hold the gold’s-spirit availed1 in itself, that it is not known [or discerned].

8. For the desire, viz. the first form of nature, which is the Fiat, hath swallowed, in2 the grossness, the heavenly part both in man and metals, as also in all herbs, and all other fruits. All the sovereign power of [or from] the holy world’s essence lieth shut up in the wrath and curse of God, in the dark world’s property in the earth; and springeth forth by the strength of the sun, and the light of the out¬ ward nature, in the essence, through the curse and wrath; which budding or pullulation giveth a sovereign power and healing virtue for the malignant essence in the living bodies, whence the physician is arisen, who seeketh and learneth to know the virtue [and temperature thereof], that he may resist and remedy the opposite essence in the body; which, notwithstanding, is only a lukewarm and faint sparkle thereof, if he be not able and skilful first to separate the gross raw wildness (which is from the dark world’s property) from his cure. 9. For if the captivated essence of the heavenly world’s property may be redeemed from the curse and wrath of nature, then it standeth in the temperature; and if it then so cometh into a living body it doth awaken also the shut-up [or imprisoned] life of the heavenly world’s ens,3 if that likewise be in the body; and expelleth the wrath, whereby the sickness is destroyed, and the essence entereth into the tem¬ perature.

10. That this is certainly thus, we may see by Adam and Eve, when the wrath did awaken in their essence, and the Fiat did impress the bestial properties, and formed (them) in the essence, that when the soul, viz. the image of God, did experimentally know this, it was ashamed of the bestial deformity, and of its being in a bestial vessel, viz. in another Principle. 11. For the outward part of the soul, viz. the air with its astrum, did arise and obtain the upperhand; as we may plainly see that amongst the greatest part of men the outward part of the soul beareth the sway and domination over the whole body, in that the bestial man 1 Or blended. 2 Or with. 3 Essence or substance. doth seek and labour only after the pleasure of this world, viz. after external honours, authority and beauty, and also how to pamper, fill and gluttonise the beast; and so to vapour and proudly prank with the beast, as with a god, and yet it is only a corruptible, evil beast, in which the real true man lieth shut up, without life. 12. Also this gross beast shall not possess the kingdom of God ; and also it profiteth not at all (John vi. 63). But [the kingdom of God profiteth] the hidden man [alone], which lieth shut up in this beast, as the gold in the gross ore. Which [hidden

inward] man the gross beast scarce regardeth or gives any respect unto, save only that it doth sometimes a little play the hypocrite with it, and comforteth it with devout words, but exalteth itself in its place, as a proud peacock; and bravely trimmeth, adorneth and fatteneth his beast, that the devil may have a horse to ride upon, and thereby mock God : and he rideth thereupon in the vanity [of this world], in the kingdom of God’s anger, as upon a false whore which desireth to live in its own self-full might and wit.

13. For such a [beast] the Serpent’s craft did awaken and stir up in Eve, in her awakened bestial, monstrous property; that now almost every man carrieth a beast in the body, which doth plague, molest and burden the poor captive soul, whereby it doth make itself also monstrous, and amuse itself on the beast, and brings itselfinto a bestial figure; which, so long as it hath this image and figure in it, cannot see or feel the kingdom of God. It must be again transmuted into an angel’s form, or else there is no remedy for it; therefore saith Christ, Unless ye be born anew, you shall not see the kingdom of God. 14. The enclosed body of the heavenly part must be again born anew in the water of the heaven, viz. in the pure element’s water, in the matrix of the water, and in the spirit of Christ out of the heavenly essence; that the soul’s holy part of the angelical world may be revived and quickened, and live and work in its disappeared, and again new¬ born, body in the divine heavenly essence; and therein receive its food from the divine power of the second Principle. Otherwise the heavenly image, which God created in Adam, is not capable of the kingdom of God; and without the same also it cannot possess it. No glistering shows of devout hypocrisy, flattery [seeming holiness, or soothing the mind with an outward application of Christ’s merits] or tickling consolations, do avail anything; it must be born [anew] or [be] quite forlorn; for the pearl-tree is withered in Adam and Eve, it must re¬ obtain divine essence, and die to the beast; or else it cannot spring forth and bear fruit for the soul to eat.

15. Now when Adam and Eve were awakened in the bestial property the beast stood then naked and bare; for before, the heaven’s image did wholly penetrate the outward man, and clothed it with divine power; for the beast was not afore manifest. This property lay hidden in the temperature, as likewise it is so, outside the creature; but now, when the image of the heavenly essence did disappear, then the beast, viz. the bestial property, was manifest; so that now the poor soul, which was from the first Principle, stood forth encompassed with this beast, wholly naked and bare. 16. But if the beast had been manifest in the beginning of man, then it had also brought its clothing along with it from its essence, as other beasts did. But the man was not created unto the bestial life; and though God knew that it would so come to pass (for which end he created so many kinds and sorts of beasts for his food and raiment), yet he created man in and unto the true image of God out of the heavenly essence; so that if this image fell he might again bring it, through a new motion and regeneration, into its first state, as it is brought to pass in Christ.

17. The scope and eye-mark of our writing is, to search out the image of God; how it was created, and how it is corrupted, and how it shall come again into its first estate: thereby to understand aright the new birth out of Christ, and to know the inward and outward man, even what the mortal and immortal [man] is, and how he is become mortal; and what he is to do that he may come again into his first estate. Of the Original of Actual Sin, and the Awakening1 of God’s Anger in the Human Property !• npHE Scripture saith, God hath made all things by his IVord, and X without the same, nothing was made which was made. Out of his expressed Word (which was essential in the Verbum Fiat) all things came forth into formings : first into an ens, or desire of a property, and out of the same property into a compaction of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt, as into a formed nature; and out of the same ens in the formed nature the Word becomes a creatural life; and brings itself forth out of the compaction of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt out of the body,2 that is, it manifests itself in a plain, visible being; to which end God hath created nature and creature.

2. Thus each creature hath a centre to its re-expressing, or breath¬ ing forth of the formed Word, in itself, both the eternal and the temporal creatures; the unrational, as well as man. For the first ens was spoken forth out of God’s breath through the Wisdom, out of the centre, to fire and light, and taken into the Fiat, and brought into a compaction. 3. This same ens is out of the eternity,3 but the compaction of the four elements is out of time. Thus an eternal [ens] lieth hidden in everything in the time, in all things with life or without life, in elements and creatures, in vegetative and un-vegetative. The first ens is in every thing, whence the form of compaction (which is arisen from the time) was spoken forth out of the spiritual world’s being, as an eternal ens out of the eternal-speaking Word, through the Wisdom, into a time, viz. into a formed essence according to the spiritual ens; which ens cannot be destroyed by any element or thing whatsoever. 4. And although the elemental compaction, viz. the body (which the ens hath attracted to itself, that is, breathed it forth from itself as an external degree) doth vanish and come to nothing, (for it hath a temporal beginning), yet the first ens cannot perish. As we also see that all things enter again into their mother from whence they are arisen and come forth, viz. into the four elements.

1 Endkindling, stirring up or provocation. 2 Or into a body. 3 Or eternal being. 5. Now in this consideration we find the true ground of sin’s original: Seeing that the living, powerful, understanding, speaking Word was breathed forth out of all the three Principles into the ens of man’s image, for his understanding,1 that he should and could rule the properties of the compaction of Sulphur, Mercury and Salt; but he hath now introduced this understanding, viz. the speaking, powerful Word again into the compaction of time, viz. into the earthly limus; where also the Fiat of time is awakened in the body, and hath taken the understanding, viz. the inspired breath,2 captive in itself, and placed itself master over the understanding. 6. So that we do now see, by woeful experience,3 how it is now with us; that when we would speak (albeit the understanding Word doth [idea or] conceive itself in the inward ens, and desires to manifest the truth), yet the awakened vanity in the earthly limus of the body doth soon forthwith catch it, and [cunningly blends] and works it forth into its own property [or serpentine subtlety] ; so that the word of the human understanding doth breathe forth lies, iniquity, malice, falsehood, and such cunning vanity and foppery, in which voice the devil’s desire doth mix itself, and makes it to a substance of sin, which the kingdom of God’s anger doth receive.

7. For in what property every word doth form and manifest itself in man’s speech, when he speaks it forth, let it be either in God’s love, viz. in the holy ens, or in the ens of God’s anger, of the same it is again received when it is spoken. The false word proceeding from the false ens being infected by the devil, and sealed to destruction, is also taken into the Mystery of the wrath, viz. into the property of the dark world. Every thing entereth with its ens into that whence it takes its original. 8. Seeing then the speaking Word is a divine manifestation, where¬ with the eternal Word of God hath manifested itself, and that this same speaking Word is inspired into man, we are therefore here to consider what man doth manifest with this speaking Word. Under¬ stand it thus: if the human lubet and desire (which is the Fiat or the creating of the human word) doth conceive the form of the word in the holy ens, viz. in the heavenly part of the humanity, then the word soundeth4 from a holy power, and the mouth speaketh truth. 9. But if it be from the vanity, from the Serpent’s craft, which Eve imprinted into herself, and thereby awakened its subtlety, then the word sounds from the ens of the dark world, viz. it proceeds from the

1 Intellectual faculty. 2 Sound or harmony. 3 With great lamentation. centre to the fire-word; and thereinto also it entereth (in its end)1 when it goeth forth out of the form, viz. out of the mouth, and whithersoever it goeth it bringeth forth fruit.2 10. If it entereth into another man’s hearing,3 in whom the hunger of craft and vanity stands in open desire, it is soon received as into a fruitful soil, and takes deep spreading root, and brings forth such evil fruit; whence also such sharp words and stinging taunts4 of the devil are hatched in the devilish essence. 11. But if it proceeds forth empty and bare only, into the false imagination, then it ascends into the will of the mind, and conceives itself in the mind into a substance, for a seat of the devil’s desire, even for his murdering fort which he hath in man. 12. But if the false word be uttered against a holy man, in reviling and reproaching him, and the holy man will not let it take place in him, and not stir or move himself in the evil part of his property with the like evil word, then the wrath of God receives it from without the man, and is thereby mightily enkindled. And not only the inward ens of God’s anger according to the spiritual dark-world’s property is thereby enraged, but also the outward ens of the wrath in turba magna is inflamed, and hangs over the wicked man’s head, and doth even encompass him; and he is therewith taken and possessed, as if he sat in the hellish [flames of] fire.

13. Of which Christ said, that when the wicked did curse us we should bless him , that is, echo forth the word of love against his fiery word, and not suffer his malicious word to enter into us, for to take root; and then it goeth back again and apprehends the wicked reviler himself, for Paul said, we heap fiery coals upon his head. 14. For every word of man proceeds from an eternal ens; either from the ens of God’s love, or from the ens of God’s anger; and if now it be brought forth out of the ens, viz. out of its own place or mother, it will have again a place of its rest, wherein it may work. 15. Now if it cannot take rest and work in its likeness, outside the wicked man, (who hath awakened and brought it forth out of his ens, and introduced it into a sound, or wordy5 substance), then it catcheth or surrounds its expressor [or author] who hath brought it into a substance, and entereth again with its root into its mother whence it did arise; that is, with the enkindled spirit, and with the substance 1 Ens. 2 Worketh.

3 Text, into the mansion-house of his tone or hearing faculty. 4 Text, thorns, or jerking taunts. 5 Vocal. (of its contrived matter) it doth lay hold of and apprehend the inventor’s1 body; viz. the outward essence of the outward sulphur. 16. For every word, when it is expressed, is outwardly made and formed; for in the expressing or pronouncing thereof the outward spirit, viz. the outward part of the soul, receives it to its own sub¬ stance; and afterwards, being enkindled in the wrath, and infected by the devil in its coming forth, in its witty glancing subtlety of the Serpent, doth enter again into the soul and body of the monstrous image; and worketh according to its property, enkindled and infected by the devil, and continually bringeth forth such evil fruits and words : as we plainly see that out of many a wicked mouth nothing but vanity proceeds. 17. Moreover, we have a very great and weighty point here to consider of, concerning the Serpent’s craft: that if the devil hath infected the word (when it is born in the heart and formed in its ens, and hath taken possession of the will, and made it substantial) this Serpent’s craft doth then hold and entertain the same in the devil’s murdering fort, as a fine adorned pleasant brat; as the Serpent, lying on the Tree, spake very pleasingly and takingly with Eve, until it could, by its friendly intercourse, catch her in the desire. Even so like¬ wise the false, crafty, conceived Serpent’s-word, which proceedeth from the false heart, doth hold forth itself as a very lovely eloquent persuasive syren, and calls itself holy, till it can discover man’s desire set open for it; there it lays open its very heart, and entereth into the desire [of him], and maketh itself a place to work [in], and to re¬ procreate [its like].

18. Therefrom now do come the false close backbiters, tale¬ bearers, perverters and wrong interpreters of other men’s sayings, secret liars, who are very fair before, and behind are a serpent; revilers, and foul-mouthed slanderers who take away a man’s good name from him; and in this false, smooth, and well-coloured and adorned Serpent’s-property, the devil hath his Council Chamber, his school, where he teacheth the children of Eve his art, viz. juggling delusions, foppery, pride, covetousness, envy, anger, and all vices and abomina¬ tions proceeding from the abyss of the dark- world’s property. 19. Thus the devil ruleth man in body and soul by the crafty essence of the Serpent, and worketh abomination with abomination, iniquity with iniquity, sin with sin. And this is even the first original of actual sin : that Eve and Adam did introduce the Serpent’s crafty 1 Or expressor’s, speaker’s. essence (which the devil had infected) into their [will and] desire; and so made themselves forthwith monstrous in the Serpent; whereupon the dark-world’s essence did awake in them, that so soon as this was brought to pass, the will did imagine into this monstrous property, and formed itself into a substantial word. 20. Even thus the word was now also manifest in man in the property of God’s anger, viz. in the dark- world’s ens; and thus man doth now speak lies and truth; for there is a twofold ens in him, viz. one from the dark world, awakened and stirred up by the desire of the Serpent and the devil; and one from the heavenly limus which is now stirring in man, wherein the free will taketh the word, that is, whence it doth generate a fruit out of the divine expressed and formed word, which is again received of the likeness, either in heaven or hell, that is, in the darkness or light.

21. For the two worlds are in each other as one. The wicked formeth and maketh [for] God a good word in his wrath unto death, viz. unto the sting of death and hell; and the holy man formeth and maketh [to] God, out of his good ens, a good word unto the holy life and operation. As the Scripture speaketh very clearly, the holy is to God a sweet savour unto life, and the wicked a sweet savour unto death, viz. to the dark world. 22. Now every man is a creator [or framer] of his word’s powers and doings; that which he maketh and frameth out of his free will, the same is received, as a work of the manifested word, into each property, in the likeness. 23. For God’s Word is also manifest in the dark world; but only according to its property, as the Scripture saith, such as the people is, such a god they also have. God’s word is manifest in all things, in each thing according to its ens, whence the free will proceedeth; the free will is the creator or maker, whereby the creature maketh [formeth and worketh] in the manifested1 Word. 24. There is no herb or thing whatsoever that can be named, wherein there lieth not an ens from the manifested Word of God, an ens both according to God’s Love and Anger, according to the dark and light- world; for this visible world was breathed forth out of this same Word. Now each ens of the forth-breathed Word hath a free will again to breathe forth out of its ens a likeness according to itself.2

25. But this is now the greatest evil, that the ens in its centre is departed out of the likeness [and harmony] of the property into an 1 Or revealed. 2 Its own likeness. elevation, viz. out of one only ens into many entities, into many properties; of which the devil, being a hierarch of the place of this world, and also the curse of God upon the earth, is [a] cause, which curse man stirred up and awakened. 26. For now, an evil ens, which is from the awakened property, doth infuse1 itself into a good vessel, and corrupteth the vessel whence the free will should draw2 from a good property; but the evil doth mix itself into the good, and both come forth again in the formed word, into a substance; as an evil man doth oftentimes stir up an evil word and work in a good man, which he never before conceived [or purposed] in his will. 27. For the anger is become stirring [or quick] in the human ens, and adhereth to the good ens, and the will of the fire-soul is free, it conceiveth3 as soon in the ens of anger as in the ens of love; nay, in many a one the love-ens is wholly impotent and as ’twere dead or extinct. He worketh only from the craftiness of the Serpent, fruit unto God’s anger, and though his mouth doth flatter in the Serpent’s craft, and make a devout show of the holy Word, and sets forth itself as an angel, yet it is only the ens and form of the crafty Serpent in the light of the earthly nature, and the man deceiveth himself.

28. Therefore Christ saith, unless that ye be converted and become as children, ye cannot see the kingdom of God. The free will must wholly go out from the ens of the Serpent, and enter again, in the spirit of Christ, into its heavenly ens, which did disappear in Adam, and again awaken and stir up this ens in the hunger of its desire, that it also may be again awakened and born unto a living ens in the new regenerated Word in the humanity of Christ, and which did arise and powerfully quicken itself in the great love-property, in the man’s property in the person of Christ: where also the free will becomes a new innocent child, and neither willeth nor letteth-in the Serpent’s craft, otherwise the free will cannot form and manifest God’s holy Word in itself, the free will must draw only out of the good ens, if it will work and live in the holy Word. 29. Now understand aright our writing concerning the Serpent’s craft, and its adorned art and false virtue, [I say] understand our very profound and high meaning, opened out of the counsel of God, thus : The Serpent’s ens and original was a virgin of heavenly pomp, a queen of heaven, and princess of the beings of God, apprehended and formed

1 Text, or is borne, carried in, etc. 2 Or create. 3 Formeth, createth or draweth forth. in the Fiat of the divine desire, through the fire in the light. In like manner the hierarch Lucifer was so, and prince Lucifer sat in heavenly pomp in the Serpent’s ens, who had infected the ens out of which the Serpent was created, and therein awakened the dark- world’s property, viz. the centre of the eternal nature, whence evil and good do take their original. But when the good did in the fire sever itself into the light, and the evil into the darkness, the Serpent’s ens, which was good, was then infected, filled and possessed with the darkness; and from hence cometh its craft. 30. For even such a craft the devil desired, which also took him in the eternal-speaking Word, in such a property, and confirmed him therein to eternity.1 For it is also a wonder in God how an evil could come to be out of a good, in order that the good might be known and manifest; and the creature might learn to fear before God, and hold still to2 the spirit of God; that he alone might act and work in the eternal-speaking Word, and make and do what he please with and by the creature.

31. And to this end Lucifer was swallowed up in the wrath, seeing his free will went forth from the resignation and departed from God’s spirit, into the centre, to be its own self-full maker and creator; that the angels now have an example3 in this revolted fallen prince and puissant hierarch; for the kingdom of God, which is [peculiarly and properly] called God’s kingdom, stands in the deepest humility and love, and not at all in the wrathful fire’s-might, but in the light fire’smight, viz. in power. 32. But the devil’s kingdom, after which he longed and laboured, stood in the wrathful fire’s-might, but the same was, essentially,4 taken from him in his place, and he was spewed out into the eternal hunger of the darkness. 33. And that he had infected and possessed the ens of the Serpent, which was so crafty, may be seen in its body, which is only a dry hungry skin, and fills itself with poison in the tail, in which property the great craft ariseth; and therefore the Serpent carrieth the poison in the tail (which may soon be pulled off), in that the same in the beginning was introduced into its virgin-like ens.

34. For the Serpent is therefore called a virgin according to the right of eternity, because it hath both tinctures, which is in no kind of earthly creature besides; but it is now in the curse of God. Yet if the 1 For ever. 2 Willingly submit to. 3 Warning, Text, looking-glass. 4 In the being, essence or substance. artist knew what its pearl was, he would rejoice at it: yet by reason of the world’s false desire, which seeketh only the false magic, it remains hidden; also [it is not manifest] that the wicked may bear his rebuke. 35. For the pearl of the whole world is trodden under foot; and there is nothing more common than the same, yet it is hidden; in order that the holy ens might not be introduced into an ungodly one, which is not worthy of it; and so God’s power and Word in the virgin¬ like essence be thereby brought into a serpentine [ens], as it is to be understood in the Serpent: enough, here, for our school-fellows. 36. Thus we do fundamentally understand the original of sin’s birth; how sin was borne and opened in the human word; and how God is provoked to anger in his expressed Word by the human re¬ expressing. For man beareth the Word, which created heaven and earth, in his ens, for the same Word is brought to substance.

37. Now God hath inspired into man’s ens, viz. into the formed compacted Word, the living soul, viz. the original1 out of all the three Principles, as a spirit of the formed Word. This understanding hath now power and might to re-conceive, and to generate again, a formal voice in the ens, viz. in the formed compacted Word. 38. But seeing the Serpent’s craft, viz. the devil’s introduced desire, became manifest in the ens of Adam and Eve, viz. in their com¬ pacted and formed word; thereupon the free will doth now draw forth from this Serpent’s essence mere adder’s poison and death, and formeth its word therein, unless the holy ens or seed of the woman be again awakened in the new-born love of God in Christ ; then the free will may conceive in this same holy ens, and bruise and tread under foot the head of the Serpent’s-and-devil’s-ens in the anger of God; that is, reject and abhor the evil will, which desireth to idea and imprint itself, from the Serpent’s ens, in the formation of the words, and bruise it in the will of the thoughts, with the ens of the woman, viz. of Christ, and esteem it as the devil’s mire and dirt; which, in the chil¬ dren of God, is a continual combat and strife between the ens of the Serpent in the flesh, and between the regenerate ens of the heavenly part.

39. Also know this: Every thought which is formed in the will, so that a man consenteth unto lies, or anything else which is false, or if his will hath conceived [and contrived] anything that is unjust, and he bringeth that contrivance into the desire, that he would very willingly do it, or express it in the false evil-formed word, if he could or knew how, and yet must let it alone, either for fear or shame; this same is all sin, for the will hath formed itself in the Serpent’s ens. 40. But understand it well : if a good will doth conceive1 in a good ens, and yet the evil desire doth adhere to it, and willeth to poison the good ; if then [I say] the good conceived will overcometh the evil, and casts it out, that the evil cannot also be formed or received into the compaction or substance; it is no sin. And though the evil desire which adhereth to the good be sin, yet if the good will doth not close with it and bring it into substance, but rejects it out of the good will, as an evil, then the sinful desire cannot come into essence, and the good will hath not hereby wrought any evil, if it hath not consented to the craft of the Serpent.

41 . Every sin is born of the strange ens, if the free will departs from the ens, wherein God hath created it. The sin which is conceived in the will in false desire, and brought to essence in the ens of the will, so that man would fain do wickedly or unjustly if he could but bring his intent to pass, is also great in the sight of God; but if it proceeds so far as to hurt and injure anyone by word or deed, then the sin is double; for it is formed in its own ens, and formeth itself also in that whereinto it introduceth the false word, so far as the false word in its speaking finds a place of rest to work [and bring forth its evil fruit]. 42. And therefore the holy word shall judge the false; as also at the end of this time the holy word shall cast out from itself all false idol opinions,2 and all whatsoever that hath been formed in the Serpent’s ens, and give them to the dark world. 43. All those that take or conceive the word in them, in their devilish and serpentine ens, and use it against God’s children, in whom the holy ens is manifest, and do stir up also an offence [or occasion of stumbling] in the children of God, that the free will in them doth also conceive itself in the Serpent’s ens, viz. in anger and averseness, where always the holy ens doth likewise form itself, and the spirit of zeal ariseth: these false authors, beginners and causers do all sin against the Holy Ghost.

44. For they do extremely despite and defy Him, that He must even proceed forth, through the anger of the children of God, whereby He is stirred up, and oftentimes shews Himself in the turba of the children of God, and falls upon the neck of the wicked. As may be seen by Elias, and Moses, and also by Elisha, who cursed the boys, that the bears came out and tore them to pieces. For thus the sword of God 1 Or form itself. 2 Carved work of fancy. comes forth through the mouth of the saints. If the Holy Spirit be extremely displeased, and set into a fiery zeal, then He awakeneth turba magna, which draweth the sword against a wicked people and devoureth them. 45. Thus understand it in its full scope and meaning: Man hath God’s Word in himself, which created him; understand, the Word hath imprinted and formed itself with the creating, both in its holiness and also in the anger; and that also in1 the outward world. For the limus of the earth, or the earth itself, was amassed and compacted through the Word, so that the formed Word, which took its beginning in the divine desire, viz. in the Fiat, is an exhalation forth-breathed from the spirit of God out of love and anger: therefore it is evil and good, but the evil was hidden, and as it were wholly swallowed up in the light, as the night in the day.

46. But the sinful desire in Lucifer and Adam hath awakened the anger, so that it is become manifest essentially. Now the gates of the formed Word, both in love and anger, do stand open in the earth, and also in the limus of the earth, viz. in man, and also in the free will of man; whatsoever he doth now form and amass in his free will, that [same] he hath made, be it either evil or good. 47. But now the evil shall, in the judgment of God, be separated from the good; and in what part [either of the evil or the good] the human understanding, viz. the soul, shall be found, thereinto it must enter, with all whatsoever it hath done, as into its own made habita¬ tion. And therefore Christ saith, their works shall follow them, and be purged (or proved) by the fire. Also at the end, when the books of the essence shall be opened, they shall be judged according to their works. For the work, be it evil or good, doth embrace the soul, unless the soul doth wholly depart [from the evil] and destroy it again, by reconcilia¬ tion of his offended and wronged brother, and drown the substance in the blood and death of Christ, else there is no remedy.

48. Therefore a man must well consider what he will speak; for he speaketh from the formed ens of God’s manifestation; and well bethink and ponder with himself before he intendeth [or conceiveth in the will] to do anything; and by no means consent unto any false back-bitings, nor approve by a yea, neither privately nor openly. 49. For all forged tales and sharp taunts proceed from the Serpent’s ens; all cursings, and swearings, and stinging girds, proceed from the Serpent’s ens; yea, though they be but in jest, yet the 1 Or out of. Serpent’s ens hath stuck itself with them to the good, and compacted them with the word. Therefore Christ saith, swear not at all: let your speech be, yea, yea; nay, nay ; for whatsoever is more than these cometh of evil ; that is, it is born of the Serpent’s ens. 50. All cursers and swearers have introduced their free will, and will introduce the poor soul into the vanity of the Serpent’s ens, and form their curses and oaths, with all their lewd wanton talk, which is wrought in the Serpent’s ens, and sow into God’s anger; and on the contrary, all God’s children who are in right earnest do form their words in the holy ens; especially the prayer, when the free will of the soul doth amass or conceive itself in the holy ens (which is opened by Christ’s humanity), then it formeth the true essential word of God in itself, so that it comes to substance.

51. Therefore Saint Paul saith, the Spirit of God doth mightily inter¬ cede for us in the sight of God, as it pie aseth Rim ; for the Spirit of God is formed in the desire of the holy word; He is taken (or apprehended), and this taking or receiving is that which Christ said, He would give us his flesh for food, and his blood for drink. 52. The soul’s will taketh Christ’s ens, and in Christ’s ens the Word of Christ became man, which the soul’s desire or Fiat doth receive or impress into its holy ens [that] disappeared in Adam. And here Adam ariseth in Christ, and becomes Christ [the second Adam or the Anointed one] according to the heavenly ens and divine Word, and from this ens of Christ proceeds forth divine knowledge, out of the Word of God. 53. Thus the children of God are the Temple of the Holy Ghost, which dwelleth in them, and so they speak God’s word; and without this there is no true knowing or willing, but mere fable and Babel, a confusion of the crafty Serpent. 54. Therefore Christ called the Pharisees, a seed of serpents, and a generation of vipers , and although they were the High Priests, yet he knew them to be so in their essence, for they had formed their will in the Serpent’s ens. They carried the words of Moses in their mouth, and therein they mixed the Serpent’s ens; as many still do to this day; where the incarnate devil carrieth God’s word upon his tongue; and yet doth only hide the Serpent’s ens thereby, and introduceth the diabolical ens into the literal word, whence Babel, the mother of all spiritual whoredom, is born, a mere verbal contention and wrangling about words, where the ens of the devil and the Serpent doth oppose the divine ens in the formed divine Word.

55. But so it must be, that the formed and conceived word in God’s children may be stirred up, whetted and exercised, and the truth come forth to light. Dear brethren: this is the inheritance which we have received from Adam and Eve; and that is the cause that the body must die, and wholly putrify, and enter again into its first ens; for the Serpent’s ens must be wholly done away: it cannot inherit the king¬ dom of God. 56. The first ens in the limus of the earth, which was coagulated in the Verbum Fiat, must be wholly renewed in the spirit of Christ, if it will possess the kingdom of God. But if it remaineth captivated in the Serpent’s ens it shall never be any more manifest: understand the holy ens, which disappeared in Adam, and was captivated in the Serpent’s ens, whereby death came into the flesh. 57. Therefore a man must consider what he speaketh, thinketh and doeth, lest he conceive his thoughts in the Serpent’s ens, and frame a will in the mind, in the ens of the Serpent; for else the devil doth set himself therein, and hatcheth a basilisk, viz. a hellish form in the word.

58. For all wrath which is conceived in man for revenge doth pri¬ marily arise in its centre out of the nature and property of the dark world, viz. in God’s anger, and forms itself further in the Serpent’s ens to substance. Let it be what zeal it will, if it brings itself into a wrath to its own revenge it is formed in the ens of the Serpent, and is devilish. 59. And though the same were a prophet and an apostle, and yet would bring himself in the wrath to his own revenge, then this sub¬ stance is formed from the anger of God in the Serpent’s ens, and goeth into the wrath of God; and the anger of God is therein zealous, which oftentimes doth so stir up and form itself in the holy children of God, that they1 must, against their purposed will, bring down the turba upon the house of the wicked, also upon his body and soul. As may be seen by Moses, upon Chorah, Dathan and Abiram, whom the earth swallowed up; so also by Elias in the fire, concerning the two captains over fifties, whom the fire devoured ; also by Elisha, and many other prophets.

60. And there are many remarkable examples to be found con¬ cerning this in the holy histories, how, oftentimes, the children of God have been forced to carry the sword of the turba in them. A great example whereof we see in Samson, and also in Joshua, with his wars, and likewise in Abraham; how the zeal of God did enkindle itself in them, that they, in their spirit of zeal, have oftentimes awakened the turba magna in the anger of God, and raised great rebukes, judgments and plagues upon whole countries; as Moses in Egypt did, with the plagues upon the Egyptians. 61. But we must here distinguish. If the zeal of God should awaken itself in a holy man without his purposed will, and give him the sword of God’s anger, such a one differs much from those who in their own thoughts contrive and plot in the wrath, and introduce the conceived or purposed will into the Serpent’s ens, and make it to substance; for that is sin, yea, though the most holy man1 should do it. 62. Therefore, in the new birth, Christ so emphatically and punc¬ tually teacheth us love, humility and meekness; and would that a Christian should not at all revenge, also not be angry; for he saith, that whosoever is angry with his brother is guilty of the judgment. For the anger is a conception in the Serpent’s ens, which must be cut off by the judgment of God from the good being.

And whosoever shall say unto his brother, Raca, shall be in danger of the council. For the desire of Raca2 ariseth in the centre of the dark fiery wheel of the eternal nature; therefore in the fire-soul there is a form of the fire- word, [in manner] of a wheel, like a madness; and the soul’s fiery-form stands in the Raca, as a mad furious wheel, which confounds the essence in the body, and destroys or shatters in pieces the understanding; for every Raca desireth to destroy God’s image. Thus the soul hangeth on the wheel of the eternal nature, viz. on the centre of the horrible anxious birth; as is before mentioned concerning the centre of the birth of nature.

63 . Moreover, Christ saith, JVhosoever saith to his brother, thou fool, shall be in danger of hell fire. This is thus wrought: when the conceived will hath formed itself in the furious wrath of God’s anger, and intro¬ duced it into the Serpent’s ens, then it standeth in the furious wheel, as mad; and if it doth now purposely go on, and so form the word, and casts or speaks it forth against its brother, and enkindles in him also a hateful enmity in the Serpent’s ens, the same burneth in his expressed word in the fire of God’s anger, and he is guilty of it, for he hath enkindled it in his Raca. 64. Therefore said Christ, if thou wilt offer thy gift, go first and be reconciled to thy offended brother or neighbour, for otherwise he bringeth his wrath into thy offering, and withholdeth thee in thy desire towards God, that thou canst not reach the holy ens, which else washeth away the turba in thy enkindled vanity. 1 Greatest saint. 2 Or revenge. 65. For the word fool is, in itself, in the essence, nothing else but an enkindled wrathful fiery wheel, an outrageous madness; and he that so calleth his neighbour without a cause, he hath brought forth a word in the fire-wheel, and in the wrath of God, and is guilty of it; for the forth-produced word is arisen out of the ens of the soul and body.

66. Every word, when it is formed, doth first awaken its own ens, whence it taketh its original; then it leads itself forth through the council of the five senses against its brother. Now whosoever useth such a wrathful devouring fire-word against his brother, he soweth into the anger of God, and is in danger to reap the fruit which he hath so sown, when it springeth up and groweth. 67. Therefore take heed, and beware, O man, what thou thinkest, speakest, or desirest to do. Look well always in what zeal thou standest, whether it be divine, or only of thy own poisonful nature! Thou father, thou mother, thou brother, and thou sister, which pro¬ ceed and come from one blood, from one ens, and mutually assimulate each with other, as a tree in its branches: think and consider what kind of sound [or tune] thou introducest into the vital ens of thy fellow-twigs and branches, whether it be God’s love-word, or his word of anger! If ye do not destroy the introduced evil again with love, and introduce again the love-ens into the anger [to overcome and reconcile it], then the substance must come into1 the judgment of God, and be separated in the fire of God, like as the devil is severed from the good ens; and so shalt thou [be], O wicked man, with thy wicked formed word [which thou hast conceived] out of the ens of God’s anger.

68. And therefore God hath introduced his holy Word out of his deepest love again into the human ens, seeing the same was intro¬ duced into Adam and Eve in the anger, that man might conceive [or form his will and doings] again in the introduced love of God in Christ Jesus, and in him destroy the wrathful anger. And therefore Christ teacheth us that he is the Gate which leads us into God, that he is the Way and the Light, whereupon we may again enter into God, and in him regenerate [or quicken again to life] the holy ens. 69. And therefore Christ forbids us to be angry, or to conceive our will and word in revenge; but if anyone did curse us, we ought to bless him; and if any did strike us, him we should not resist; lest our turba should be stirred up in the new-born holy ens of Christ, and introduce the Serpent’s craft, iniquity, and ens, thereinto. 70. But we should in love be as children, who understand nothing of the Serpent’s craft. Therefore we declare, in divine knowledge, as a dear and precious truth, that all contention, covetousness, envy, anger, war, false desire, or whatsoever may be of the like name [and nature] doth take its original out of the centre of the revenge1 of the wrath of God, out of the dark world, and is brought in the Serpent’s ens to a substance, wherein the false Serpent’s ens will behold and contemplate itself in pride.

71. Whatsoever doth strive and contend in this world about self¬ hood, selfish interest, temporal honour, its own profit for its own advancement, the same is bred and born of the Serpent’s ens; be it in either rich or poor, in superior or inferior, no order, rank or condition whatsoever excepted. All men who would be called Christians, or children of divine love, they must be born again in their first ens (which disappeared and corrupted in Adam) out of the divine love in the holy and heavenly ens, or else none of them can be a child of the love of God. All the greediness and covetousness, of all places and politic powers, under what name or title soever, doth wholly proceed from the Serpent’s ens. 72. I speak not of the offices, but of the falsehood of the officers. The office in its place and station is God’s ordinance, if it be carried on in holy desire, and ariseth out of a divine root, for good; if not, but that it riseth only out of a root for selfhood and pride, then it is from the Serpent’s craft, and goeth into destruction. 73. All war, however blanched over and under what pretence soever, taketh its original out of God’s anger; and he that beginneth it, doth it from a self-full desire to selfish interest, from the Serpent’s ens : unless that war ariseth from the command and injunction of God, that a nation hath brought forth (itself) in his wrath, that he would his anger should devour it, and ordain a holier in the room, as was brought to pass by Israel among the Gentiles, otherwise it is wholly born in the self-full turba in selfhood.

It doth not belong to any true Christian born of Christ to raise the sword of the turba, unless the zealous spirit of God doth stir it up in him, who often will rebuke sin. Whatsoever exalts itself in the wrath about its own honour and pride, and brings itself to revenge [or bloodshed] is from the devil, be it either by nobles or ignobles, none excepted; before God they be all alike.

74. Earthly dominion and government hath its original from the fall, in the Serpent’s craft; seeing man departed from the love- will, 1 Or devouring property, or wolfish gulf. from the obedience of God, therefore he must have a judge to rebuke the false desire in its substance, and destroy the false substance. Therefore magistracy and superiority is ordained of God for a defence of the righteous substance and will, and not for its selfish interest and its own perverse will, to break down and destroy governments at its pleasure, and to oppress the poor and impotent. Whatsoever doth that, is arisen from the Serpent’s ens, let it glister and colour over itself with what hypocrisy it will; and though it were clothed with gold and pearls, yea, even with the sun, it is bred and born out of the Serpent’s ens, and hath the Serpent’s ens in its government, and tendeth into destruction, unless it be born anew [in the ens of Christ]. 75. Whatsoever is not born out of the ens of love, and beareth forth a will of righteousness and truth, to work something that is good upon the earth for the service and profit of his neighbour, the same is idolatrous; for in Adam we all are one tree; we are all sprung from one only root.

76. And God hath begotten us in his love, and brought us into Paradise. But the Serpent’s craft hath set us at variance, so that we are departed out of Paradise, and come into its [the Serpent’s] villainous subtle craft, into selfishness; whence we must again depart, and enter into a child’s coat. 77. We have nothing in this world for our own propriety but a shirt, whereby we cover our shame before the angels of God, that our abomination may not appear naked; and that is our own, and nothing else; the other is all common: Whosoever hath two coats, and sees that his brother hath none, the other coat is his brother’s, as Christ teacheth us. 78. For we come naked into this world, and carry away scarce our shirt with us, which is the covering of our shame; the rest we possess either by necessity of office, or else out of covetousness, out of the Serpent’s false desire. Every man should seek the profit and preserva¬ tion of his neighbour, how he might serve and be helpful to him; as one branch of a tree giveth its power, essence and virtue to the other, and they grow and bear fruit in one desire. Even so we are all one tree in Adam.

79. But we are in Adam withered in the Serpent’s ens, as to the love- will; and we must all be new-born in Christ’s love-ens and will; without that, none is a child of the love of God ; and though there may be something of the divine love in many a one, yet it is wholly covered with the Serpent’s ens; which devilish ens doth continually spring forth above the love, and beareth fruit. 80. There is not any who doth good in selfhood and own will, unless that he forsake in the own (appropriating) will all whatsoever he hath, except the infant’s shirt ; that he must keep for his own and give it to none, for it is the covering of his shame. The other is all common, and he is only a servant and steward of the same, a guardian and distributor to every one in his place. 81. Whosoever suffereth the poor and miserable to be in want and distress under his charge, and gathereth into his mind temporal goods for his own property, he is no Christian, but a child of the Serpent; for he suffereth his under branches to wither, and keepeth away his sap and power from them, and will not work forth fruits by his fellowbranches.

82. We do not hereby mean the wicked idle crew which will only suck, and not work and bring forth fruit themselves in the tree, that they should be pampered to exercise pleasure and vanity; but we speak of the twigs which stand in the tree, and co-operate, and would fain grow and bear fruit, from whom the great branches of this world do withdraw the sap, and hold it in themselves, that they, as lean overdript twigs, do wither, by and under their charge. Such are the rich potentates and nobles; with them the spirit of zeal doth here speak; so far as they do keep and hold their sap within themselves, and suffer their small branches to dry up and wither, and wholly with¬ draw the sap from them. They are branches on the tree of the Serpent, which is grown up in the curse of God’s anger, and is reserved for the fire of God’s anger; saith the Spirit of Wonders. How God re-called Adam and his Eve when they were entered into Sin and Vanity, and awakened in the Serpent’s Ens; and laid upon them the Order1 of this toilsome laborious world, and ordained the SerpentBruiser for a Help (or Saviour) to them

i. x tow, when Adam and Eve had eaten of the Tree of the Know- Jl\I ledge of Good and Evil, and were become monstrous by the Serpent, Moses writeth of it thus: Their eyes were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons (Gen. iii. 7). Here the soul did even now know the monstrous image, and was ashamed of it; that such a gross beast, with gross flesh and hard bones, should awaken [or shew itself] with a bestial worm’s carcass of vanity in their tender delicate body ; and they would have covered the same from the eyes of God, and for shame crept behind the trees. So very ashamed were they of the soul-deformity of the beast; for the bestial ens had swallowed up the heavenly, and got the upper hand, which before they had not known; now they could not tell for shame what they should do. 2. The Serpent’s craft would not here cover the shame, but did lay it only more open, and accused them, as revolting, faithless rebels; for God’s anger did awake in them, and arraigned them now before the severe judgment, to devour them into itself, as into the dark world, as happened to Lucifer.

3. And this is the place2 whereby the earth trembled in the death of Christ, and the rocks clove in sunder: Here God’s anger shut up in death the holy ens of the heavenly humanity; which Christ, when he destroyed death on the Cross, did again open; at which the wrath, in the curse of the earth and rocks, shook and trembled. 4. And here was the sore combat before God’s anger, in which combat Christ, in the Garden (when he prayed, and was to overcome 1 Estate or calling, or ordinance. 2 State, condition or thing which caused the earth to tremble, etc. this anger), did sweat drops of blood, when he said, Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me; but if it be not possible, but that I must drink it, thy will be done. 5. Christ, on the Cross, must drink down this wrathful anger, which was awakened in Adam’s essence, into his holy heavenly ens, and change it with great love into divine joy; of which the drink of gall and vinegar, being a mixed draught which the Jews gave him, was a type, signifying what was done inwardly in the humanity of Christ.

6. For the outward image of man should also be redeemed from the anger and death, and again arise out of the earth. Therefore Christ’s outward humanity from the kingdom of this world must also drink of this cup, which God the Father had filled to Adam in his anger. The same, Christ must drink of, and change the anger into love. Therefore said Christ, Is is possible, then let it pass from me: but it was not possible to overcome the anger, unless the sweet name Jesus drink it into itself, and change it into joy : Then said Christ, Father! thy will be done, and not the will of my humanity. 7. God’s will should also have been fulfilled in Adam; but he exalted his own will by the Serpent’s craft: now the humanity of Christ upon the Cross must give this own self-will unto the anger for to devour it. But the holy name Jesus brought it into the death of selfhood, that it must die in the wrathful death, and enter again through death in his resurrection into the true resignation, viz. into the divine harmony. 8. Adam, when he had awakened the anger in him, stood in Paradise in great shame and scorn before God and all holy angels; and the devil did mock and deride him, that this image of God, which should possess his royal throne, was become a monstrous beast. And into this scorn Christ must enter, and suffer himself to be reviled, mocked, spit upon, whipped, crowned with thorns, as a false king; for Adam was a king and hierarch, but become false and rebellious.

9. Here Christ stood in his stead, and was condemned to death; for Adam also should have been judged by God’s anger. Here Adam, that is, Christ in Adam’s humanity, stood in his stead. Adam should have been rejected as a curse, even as a scorn before heaven and earth. And in sum, the whole process of Christ, from his Incarnation unto his Ascension, and sending of the Holy Ghost, is Adam’s estate. What Adam had merited as a malefactor, Christ himself must take upon him in Adam’s person, and bring again the life out of death. 10. Adam was made by the word of God, but he fell from God’s love-word into his anger-word. Thus God, out of mere grace, did again awaken in Adam’s wrathful image his love- word, in the deepest humility, love and mercy, and introduced the great love ens into the ens of the awakened anger, and in Christ changed the angry Adam into a holy one. 11. Moses describeth it very clearly, but the veil lieth before the bestial man, that he doth not know him, for he saith, And they heard the voice of the Lord God, which walked in the Garden when the day grew cool, and Adam and his wife hid themselves amongst the trees from the presence of the Lord God (Gen. iii. 8).

12. Moses saith, they heard the voice of the Lord God, which walked in the Garden. What is now this voice which was [or stirred] in the Garden? for Adam’s ears were dead to the divine hearing, and were awakened in the wrath; he could not in his own might hear any more God’s holy voice, for he was dead as to the kingdom of heaven, as to the divine holiness; as God told him: in that day that thou eatest of this Tree, thou shalt die. 13. The voice was God’s anger, which forced in to Adam’s essence, when the day became cool; understand, the eternal day in Adam’s essence was awakened in cold and heat; therefore now they heard the voice of God, the Lord, in his anger in their essence; for the turba was awakened: the tone or hearing of the dark world did sound [or ring its sad knell]. 14. But that which walked in the Garden, and re-called Adam, was another voice, which brake forth out of the anger, and walked [or moved] in the Garden, for the word der im Garten ging is the difference, or note of distinction, and signifieth the voice JESUS, proceeding from JEHOFAHJ the voice was TETRAGRAMMA.2 But that which walked in the Garden was TON, viz. the centre of the light world; and the voice TETRAGRA MM A is the centre to the fireworld, viz. the First Principle, and the TON, the Second Principle. As fire and light are one, but they sever themselves in their coming forth to manifestation into a twofold source: the like also is to be considered concerning this.