The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 66 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 7 (part 8)
15.) The forthcoming of the tree of temptation is not to be wondered at, because Adam was endowed with great powers, and an earthly form as a protection to him against the powers of hell.
1 "Reason (man's reasoning) says, 'Why did God permit Adam to draw the tree of temptation out of the earth by means of his imagination?' Christ said, 'If you have faith as big as a mustard-seed, and you say to the mountain: throw thyself into the sea; it shall be done as you say.' The soul-spirit (spiritual soul) was produced out of the divine omnipotence, out of the centre of eternal nature, wherefrom all beings have been created.
Why should it then not be powerful?
It was a fire-spark out of God's power, but after it had been gathered into a created being (individualised as an organism) it gave way to its own selfish desire, and broke away from the whole, and thus it caused corruption unto itself.
The soul-power, before vanity entered, was so strong as not to be subject to anything, and would be so now, even this very day, if the understanding had not been taken away." ( Mysterium , xvii.
41.) "Divine prevision recognised that the devil was going to winnow mankind, and to introduce them into evil desire; and therefore God put before them the tree of life, and of the knowledge of good and evil, by means of which the breaking up (the death) of the external body was inaugurated.
He did this lest man should long after the centre of the dark world." 2 ( Mysterium , xvii.
38.) p.
156 Formerly Adam belonged to the celestial world and to eternity; but now, the image of God having begun to pale in him, he sank into the terrestrial state, and thereby into impotency and sleep.
"A reasonable person will easily perceive that there could be no sleep in Adam as long as he was in the image of God, for at that time he was such an image as we shall be in the resurrection of the dead.
We shall then not need the elements, neither the sun nor the moon, and also require no sleep; but our eyes will be open to see always and eternally the glory of God." ( Three Principles , xii.
17.) "The image of God does not sleep.
In it there is no time.
With sleep, time became manifest in man.
He fell asleep in the angelic world, and awoke relatively to the external world." 1 ( Mysterium , xix.
4.) "After Adam had been overcome, the tincture , wherein the beautiful virgin had previously dwelt, became terrestrial, faint, and feeble.
The powerful source of the tincture , wherefrom the virgin had her power, without being subjected to sleep, left Adam and went into its own principle." ( Three Principles , iii.
8.) Thus Adam became a victim of Magic, and now his magnificence was gone.
Sleep signifies death and surrender.
The terrestrial realm had conquered him and ruled over him." ( Menschwerdung , i.
5.) "After the lust of the spirit of this world had conquered in Adam, he fell asleep.
Then his celestial body became flesh and blood, and his strong power became rigid bones.
Then the celestial virgin went into the p.
157 celestial ether, into the principle of power." 1 ( Three Principles , xiii.
2.) This impotency was to be a means of salvation for Adam, and moreover there was given to him the terrestrial woman in the place of the celestial virgin, who had passed away from him.
2 This was done to save him from arriving at a still greater depth of degradation.
3 "When Adam left God and entered into selfishness, God permitted it to happen that a deep sleep fell upon Adam.
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.
Terms like 'tincture' and the transformation of celestial body to flesh suggest alchemical processes.
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.
[auto] The text states 'Divine prevision recognised that the devil was going to winnow mankind' and God acted accordingly.
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.
[auto] The text states all beings were created out of the 'centre of eternal nature', implying a flow from a divine source.
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.
Corruption is caused by breaking away from the divine power, suggesting evil as a lack or distortion.
Transgressive knowing acquired against divine prohibition — the Watchers' teaching of metallurgy, sorcery, and cosmetics in 1 Enoch, the Gnostic Eve narratives, the Promethean mytheme; explicitly contrasted with gnosis_direct_knowledge, which is salvific.
The 'tree of the knowledge of good and evil' is explicitly mentioned as the instrument of the fall.
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.
Adam's state reflects the celestial and terrestrial worlds, mirroring cosmic conditions in the human form.
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.
[auto] The passage details how the soul 'broke away from the whole' and 'left God', entering selfishness and corruption.
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 restoration to the 'image of God' implies a transformation into a divine likeness.