The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 28 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 3 (part 8)
Without it the form of the spirit would not be knowable; it is the corporeity of the spirit.
To be sure, it is not a bodily, tangible substance, like the bodies of men, but has nevertheless substantial and visible qualities which the spirit per se does not possess." ( Threefold Life , v.
50.) There is no language to describe the beauty and splendour of divine wisdom.
Whatever there is of magnificence perceptible in this terrestrial world exists in the celestial world in a far superior state, in eternal spiritual perfection.
"Earthly language is entirely insufficient to describe what there is of joy, happiness, and loveliness contained in the inner wonders of God.
Even if the eternal Virgin pictures them to our minds, man's constitution is too cold and dark to be able to express even a spark of it in his language." ( Three Principles , xiv.
90.) Neither are these superterrestrial pictures mere shadows or creations of fancy.
"Just as the earth continually produces plants and flowers, trees and metals, and beings of various kinds, one always more glorious, stronger, and more beautiful than the rest; and as on our terrestrial plane one form appears while others perish, there being a continual working and evolving of forms, likewise the eternal generation within the holy mystery continually takes place in great power; so that, in consequence of this perpetual wrestling of spiritual powers, one after another divine fruits appear by the side of each other, all and each of them in the radiance of beautiful colours.
All that whereof the terrestrial world by which we are surrounded is merely an earthly symbol, exists in the celestial p.
86 realm in exquisite perfection in a spiritual state.
It does not exist there merely as a spirit, a will, or a thought, but in corporeal substantiality, in essence and power, and appears inconceivable merely in comparison with the external material world." ( Signature , xvi.
18.) This beauty the divine and essential wisdom, the eternal Virgin, does not produce by her own power; but by the power of God that acts within her.
She herself is without any will of her own.
"Not wisdom, but the Spirit of God, is the centre, or the discloser.
As the soul is manifesting herself in the body by means of the flesh, and as the latter would have no power if it were not inhabited by a living spirit, likewise the wisdom of God is the corporeity of the Holy Spirit, by means of which He assumes substantiality, so as to manifest Himself to Himself.
Wisdom gives birth, but she would not do so if the Spirit were not acting within her.
She brings forth without the power of the fire-life; she has no ardent desire, but her joy finds its perfection in the manifestation of the Godhead, and therefore she is called a virgin in chastity and purity before God." ( Tilk ., ii.
64.) Divine wisdom exists only by means of the Trinity, and the latter can be revealed only by forming eternal nature within its own body.
"The light and the power of the sun disclose the mysteries of the external world by the production and growth of various beings.
Likewise God, representing the eternal Sun, or the one eternal and only Good, would not reveal Himself without the presence of His eternal spiritual nature, wherein alone He can manifest His power.
Only when the power of God becomes differentiated and relatively conscious, so that there are individual powers to wrestle with each other during their love-play, will be opened in Him the great and immeasurable fire of p.
87 love by means of the forthcoming of the Holy Trinity." ( Grace , ii.
28.) The Father, ruling the first principle, the fire, generates eternally the Son, the light, by means of the seven forms of eternal nature; and the Son, revealing Himself in the second principle as the light, for ever glorifies the Father.
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 gives birth through the Spirit acting within her, mirroring divine generation.
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.
[auto] The passage explicitly states that the terrestrial world is merely an earthly symbol of what exists in the celestial realm in exquisite perfection.
Narratives or doctrines of cosmic origin — how heaven, earth, and the primordial deities first came into being. The Kojiki's deities born alone on the Plain of High Heaven, Voluspo's Ginnungagap, Genesis's tohu wa-bohu, the Timaeus's Demiurge fashioning the Receptacle, the Hesiodic Theogony, the Kalevala's egg-cosmogony, Egyptian Nun-and-Atum. Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (structural-ontological cascade), letters_of_creation (mechanism of creation), and apocatastasis/frashokereti (end-state restoration); cosmogony is temporally-narrative beginning.
The passage describes how the celestial realm comes into being through eternal generation: the Father generates the Son through seven forms, the Spirit acts within Wisdom, and divine fruits appear in perpetual succession.
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 the Father generating the Son eternally and the perpetual wrestling of spiritual powers within the holy mystery.
The Hermetic doctrine that a masculine-feminine generative principle operates on every plane of being, not only the biological — present at all times as a structural feature of creation itself. Distinct from divine_marriage (a specific reunification event or symbol) and aeons (paired divine beings arranged in syzygies, not a universal structural claim).
The 'eternal Virgin' as a feminine generative principle who 'gives birth' yet remains 'chaste and pure,' alongside the masculine Father and Son, demonstrates the masculine-feminine generative principle operating as a structural feature of the divine.
A non-physical dimension of reality, interpenetrating the physical world, populated by forces, beings, and forms ordinarily imperceptible to physical senses and instruments, that can affect embodied life without being seen — Dion Fortune's 'mind-side of nature,' the astral plane of Western esotericism broadly construed. Distinct from astral_light (a specific transmitting medium or fluid operating within this realm, not the realm itself), pleroma (the divine fullness at the summit of a cosmic hierarchy, not a parallel plane coextensive with ordinary life), and animism (particular indwelling spirits bound to specific natural objects, not the general unseen dimension itself).
The celestial realm is described as a non-physical dimension of reality populated by spiritual powers and divine fruits, interpenetrating and corresponding to the physical world but existing in a far superior state.
The doctrine that the cosmos unfolds as a structured descent of spirit into matter — a directional process traced stage by stage from an unconditioned principle down through successive planes to full materialization — complemented by its own eventual return ('evolution'). Distinct from emanation_hierarchy (the static structure of the resulting levels of the cascade) and cosmogony (a single originating event rather than an ongoing staged process) in naming the directional cosmic PROCESS of descent itself, paired with its own complementary ascent.
The passage traces a directional descent from unconditioned Spirit through Wisdom (as 'corporeity') into 'corporeal substantiality' and 'essence and power,' with the terrestrial world as the lowest symbol of this cascade.
The divine fullness or totality of the highest realm, populated by aeons and divine attributes, contrasted with the deficient material world.
The celestial realm is depicted as a realm of divine fullness populated by divine fruits and spiritual powers in 'exquisite perfection,' explicitly contrasted with the deficient terrestrial world that is merely an 'earthly symbol.'
The doctrine that the one Godhead or first principle subsists as three co-equal aspects or persons rather than a bare unity — the Christian Father/Son/Holy Ghost invoked in the recurring liturgical formula 'In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost,' but structurally the same pattern as the Egyptian Amen/Ptah/Osiris, the Hindu Brahma/Vishnu/Siva, and the Kabbalistic Chochmah/Binah/Kether triads that esoteric writers explicitly map onto it as instances of one universal law. Distinct from unity_of_being (the general claim that all existence is one substance, agnostic about internal plurality) and divine_simplicity (God as having no parts or divisions at all) in asserting a definite three-aspected differentiation within a single divine essence.
The Trinity is the central organizing structure of the passage: the Father (fire) generates the Son (light), the Holy Spirit acts within Wisdom, and the 'forthcoming of the Holy Trinity' opens the 'great and immeasurable fire of love.'