The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 49 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 6 (part 2)
"When the eternal Word moved, because of the malice of Lucifer, and for the purpose of expelling this evil guest from his residence into eternal darkness, the essence was rendered compact (coagulated).
God was not willing to leave the manifested powers, wherein Lucifer ruled as a prince, any longer in his command, but he caused them to enter into a state of coagulation and spued him out therefrom." ( Mysterium , x.
13.) "Therein consists the fall of Lucifer, that he awakened the mother of fire and wanted to rule over the benevolence in the heart of God.
This fire is now his hell; but this hell God has captured by means of heaven— i.e.
, the mother of water .
For while the locality of this world was to burn on his account in the fire, God moved to create, and created the water.
From this has resulted the ocean and the unfathomable watery depth.
So it was at Sodom and Gomorrha , for when their sin was great and the devil resided therein, desirous of maintaining his power, God permitted that the prince of this world ignited those five kingdoms with fire and sulphur.
But while the devil imagined to be lord in that place, and to have there his dwelling, God thought of breaking his pride; He caused water to come there, and thus He extinguished his glory." 1 ( Threefold Life , viii.
24.) p.
125 By His creative will, full of love, God caused the light to arise, and thus He directed the power of darkness downwards into the depths.
Thus, when the soul of man rises up to eternal freedom, the powers of darkness disappear in the abyss below.
"The wrath did not touch the heart of God; but His benevolent love issues from His heart, penetrating into the most external generation of wrath, and extinguishing the latter.
Therefore He said, Let there be light." ( Aurora , 85.) "When God spoke, Let there be light, the holy power which was conceived together with the wrath, moved, and the power of the devil was entirely withdrawn from him in its essence." ( Mysterium , xii.
14.) "Thus the darkness remained within the quality of the wrath in the substance of the earth, and within the whole depth of this world; and in the substance of light, the light of nature from heaven— i.e.
, out of the fifth essence, arose that whereof the constellation was created.
This essence is everywhere, in the earth and above the earth." 1 ( Aurora , xii.
15.) By means of this new creation of the light, the new life had begun to stir everywhere; but this creation, in accordance with the number of the divine spirits which were active thereby, arrived at a state of perfection only on the seventh day.
2 "When God spoke the word, Let there be light, the essence, the being within the quality of the light, stirred not only within the earth, but also within the whole depth, in great power; wherefrom on the fourth p.
126 day the sun was created—that is to say, ignited ." Mysterium, xii.
13.) "When God stirred to create this world, it was not that only one part moved and the other one rested, but there was all in motion at once." ( Aurora , xxii.
122.) "This motion lasted during six lengths of days and nights, when all the seven spirits of God were in complete and moving generation, and also the heart of all spirits, and the sal-nitre of the earth turned around in that time six times within the great wheel." ( Aurora , xxi.
The transformation of base substance — outer matter or the inner soul — into a purified, perfected, or 'gold' state; the magnum opus as both laboratory practice and spiritual allegory.
The passage uses alchemical terminology such as 'coagulated', 'ignited', and 'sal-nitre' to describe spiritual and cosmic processes.
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 essence is described as being 'everywhere, in the earth and above the earth', reflecting a unified structure across realms.
The Stoic and Plotinian doctrine that all parts of the cosmos are bound by hidden affinities, so that a movement in one part resonates through the whole; the metaphysical basis for astrology, magic, and divination.
The text states that when God stirred to create, 'all in motion at once' and the spirits moved within the great wheel together.
Pronoia — the doctrine that the divine actively orders the unfolding of the cosmos and human affairs toward intelligible ends, against pure chance or blind necessity.
God actively directs the power of darkness downwards and creates water to extinguish the fire of wrath according to His will.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
The destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha is cited as an example of God breaking the devil's pride and judging sin with fire and water.
Augustinian and Plotinian doctrine that evil has no positive being of its own but is a lack, distortion, or absence of the good — denying ontological dualism while preserving moral seriousness.
Evil is depicted as Lucifer's malice and the 'wrath' that is extinguished by benevolent love, suggesting it lacks independent being.
The divine reason, word, or ordering principle through which the universe was created; mediates between the transcendent God and the material world.
[auto] The passage repeatedly references the 'eternal Word' and 'divine Word' as the active principle of creation that takes form and extinguishes darkness.
The felt condition of exile from one's divine origin — Rumi's reed flute torn from its bed, Plotinus's 'we have forgotten,' the Gnostic forgetfulness; the affective wound that complements return_to_source and gives the return its motive.
Lucifer's fall is described as awakening the mother of fire and wanting to rule over benevolence, creating a state of exile in darkness.
The doctrine — central to Eastern Orthodox and Maximian theology — that the human person is progressively transformed into a partaker of the divine nature by grace, not merely justified or united in passing ecstasy.
The 'new life' stirring and arriving at perfection suggests the transformation of the created being into a state of divine likeness.