The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 17 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 2 (part 4)
She is passive, but the Spirit of God is active, like the soul in the body." ( Clavis , v.
18.) This eternal Trinity is inconceivable in its aspect as a spiritual potentiality, in the same sense as a fire is inconceivable if it does not burn; but as the burning fire reveals itself by means of the light and the heat, likewise the divine power reveals itself in a threefold aspect in eternal nature.
"The threefold Spirit is a unity, an only being; or to speak more correctly, not a being, but eternal Reason; consequently a mystery comparable to the intelligence of man, which is also incomprehensible." (Mysterium., i.
5.) "God in His primitive aspect is not to be conceived of as a being, but merely as the power or the intelligence constituting the potentiality for being—as an unfathomable, eternal will, wherein everything is contained, and which, although being itself everything, is nevertheless only one, but desirous of revealing itself and to enter into a state of spiritual being.
This takes place by means of the fire in the desire of love, i.e.
, in the power of the light." ( Mysterium , vi.
1.) "Here we have not yet cause to say that God is three persons, but He is threefold in His eternal evolution.
He gives birth to Himself in trinity; and in this eternal unfoldment He is nevertheless an only being, neither Father, nor Son, nor Spirit, but only the eternal Life or God.
The Trinity will become comprehensible in His eternal revelation only when He reveals Himself by p.
65 means of eternal nature—that is to say, in the light by means of the fire." ( Mysterium , vii.
9–12.) "Within the stillness of eternal freedom the Father does not yet appear as a father.
He appears as such only when He is desirous to create, and conceives within Himself the will to generate nature, within Himself." ( Threefold Life , iv.
64.) We cannot conceive of a man without a body of some kind, nor of a universal God without a universal nature.
The very essence which constitutes "man" is will and intelligence manifesting itself in a human form.
God begins to exist as a being only when He is manifesting Himself in nature.
From all eternity has God thus been revealing Himself to Himself; and the cause of this self-revelation rests first of all in the will of God in the Trinity and in the longing of eternal wisdom.
"Of eternity we cannot speak otherwise than as of a spirit, for everything was spirit in the beginning; but it has also from all eternity evolved itself into being." ( Menschwerdung , i.
2.) "That which is tranquil and without being, resting within itself, does not contain darkness, but is a calm, clear, lucid happiness.
This then is eternity without anything else, and means above all God.
But as God cannot be without being, He conceives within Himself a will, and this will is love." ( Threefold Life , ii.
75.) "The whole of the divine Being is in a state of continual and eternal generation comparable to the mind of a man, but immutable.
There are continually thoughts born from the mind of man, and from them arises desire and will.
From desire and will originates action, and the hands do their work, so as to render it substantial., Thus it is with eternal evolution." ( Three Principles , ix.
3 5.) "At first the will is as thin as a nothing, and therefore it desires and longs to be something, and to become p.
66 manifest to itself.
This nothingness causes the will to enter into a state of desire, and this desire is an imagination.
Describing the divine only by negation—God transcends all positive categories and concepts; the via negativa.
[auto] The passage repeatedly describes God as inconceivable, not a being in primitive aspect, and unfathomable, emphasizing negation over positive definition.
Eckhart's signature doctrine that the Father eternally begets the Son in the ground of the soul; the human interior as the actual site of the divine generative act, distinct from inner_light's static indwelling.
Wisdom is the 'outspoken word' and God gives birth to Himself in trinity.
The Hermetic axiom that the structure of the cosmos is reflected at every scale — 'as above, so below; as within, so without' — making each level a legible map of the others.
The text draws explicit analogies between the divine nature and human intelligence or the child drawing nutriment.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
The passage describes an 'eternal evolution' and 'unfoldment' where God reveals Himself in nature from spirit to being.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
Wisdom is defined as the 'outspoken word of divine power' and 'eternal Reason,' aligning with the concept of the Logos as the mediating principle of creation.
The human being as a small-scale image of the entire cosmos; the body, soul, and intellect mirroring the structure of the heavens and the divine — distinct from correspondence in that it makes the human the privileged mirror.
The human mind and body are compared to the universal God and nature, suggesting a mirrored structure.