The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 68 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 7 (part 10)
6.) God had ordered mankind not to eat from the fruits of the tree of temptation; but the devil thought of inducing them to disobey the command, and they were, moreover, p.
160 incited to do so by the spirit of the world, and by their own perverted desire.
"The holy-speaking Word of God, after the Trinity of the unfathomable Godhead, gave to the fiery intelligence of the soul the command, 'Eat not of the tree of knowledge of good and evil; or, if you do that, you will die in the image of God on the same day.' That is to say, 'the fiery soul will lose her light, and thereby mortality, the quality of the dark world, from the centre of the first three principles, will creep forth and manifest itself in the tree, and swallow up the Kingdom of God therein.'" ( Grace , vi.
17.) "When Adam and Eve were in Paradise as man and woman, being still in possession of a celestial essence, although the latter was mixed (with materiality), the devil would not suffer this to be so, for his envy was great.
Then, after Adam had been brought to fall and deprived of his angelic form, and seeing that Eve was his wife, the devil thought that they might generate children in Paradise and remain therein.
He then made up his mind to seduce them to eat of the forbidden fruit, so that they might become earthly thereby." ( Menschwerdung , i.
7.) "Adam was urged on by the power of the tree, which was also within himself, so that one lust infected another.
He was also urged by the spirit of the great world, so that his strength became overpowered." ( Three Principles , xi.
40.) For the purpose of seducing mankind, the devil availed himself especially of the services of the serpent, which, being a living symbol of the tree of temptation, caused them to imagine that, by eating the forbidden fruit, they would become godlike.
1 "The devil introduced his poisonous imagination into p.
161 the human quality.
Therefrom resulted in man the ardent desire to eat of evil and good, and to live in the self-will; that is to say, his will left the harmony of unity and went into the multiplicity of the qualities.
The devil, by means of the serpent, represented to him that he would become like God, and that his eyes would open; which then actually took place in the fall, so that they could now recognise, taste, see, and feel evil and good." 1 ( Mysterium , xvii.
37.) "The devil mixed lies and truth together, and said to the first human beings that they would be like God.
His meaning was that they would be so, according to the first principle of wrath; but about the Paradise he said nothing." ( Three Principles , xvii.
96.) "The substance of the snake, its celestial aspect, was a great power, as there was likewise a great celestial power in the devil, for he was a prince of God.
Thus he introduced his cunning and lies into a strong state of will, for the purpose of making illusions therewith as his own god." ( Mysterium , xx.
16.) "The imagination of the devil poisoned the substance of the serpent, so that the latter, in consequence of the division of its powers that formerly were in paradisiacal unity, formed itself into a serpent.
Thus he used the snake as his instrument." 2 ( Letters , xxxix.
21.) "The snake was a living symbol of the tree of temptation.
The tree of temptation was in mute power, and the serpent was in a living power, and the serpent attached itself to that tree, being of its own nature." 3 ( Mysterium , xx.
20.) After Adam had introduced his perverted desire into p.
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.
The Word is said to give command to the 'fiery intelligence of the soul,' linking divine speech to inner being.
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 serpent is described as a 'living symbol of the tree,' indicating a symbolic correspondence between entities.
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 the loss of light and the creeping forth of mortality from the center of principles.
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.
[auto] The passage centers on the command not to eat from the tree of knowledge and the temptation to acquire this forbidden wisdom.
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.
[auto] The passage explicitly states that the power of the tree was within Adam himself, reflecting the cosmic structure in the human.
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 text describes the will leaving the harmony of unity and the soul losing its light, representing exile from the divine origin.