The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 94 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 10 (part 1)
p.
198 CHAPTER X.
THE CHRIST.
"The inner element which holds the whole body of this world has become the eternal body of Christ; for the whole of Divinity in the word and heart of God has entered therein in eternity; and the same Divinity has become a created being; but such a creature, as can be everywhere, like Divinity itself." ( Princ .
xxiii.
20.) " Without special divine aid, humanity would have gone to eternal perdition on account of the sin." 1 ( Hamberger .) "Adam would have been lost eternally if the heart of God with the word of promise had not entered his soul, awakening the spiritual hope which maintained him." ( Forty Questions , viii.
5.) "If the divine principle of love were not still pervading all nature in this terrestrial world, and if we poor created beings had not with us the warrior in the battle, p.
199 we would all be sure to perish in the horror of hell." 1 ( Aurora , xiv.
104.) God, on account of His infinite mercy, desired to aid mankind.
2 "God desires that all mankind shall be saved.
He does not desire the death of the sinner, but that he become changed, and turning again to God, find life in Him." ( Three Principles , Preface, i.
6.) "(Superficial) reasoning represents God as an unmerciful being, and teaches that He has thrown His wrath upon man, and cursed him to death, because He found disobedience in him.
But you should not believe this.
God is love and goodness, and in Him there is no angry thought.
Man would be all right if he had not punished himself." ( Three Principles , x.
24.) There was no other way to save mankind, except that the Son or the Light of God should enter into them.
3 "When the soul went out of the light of God and entered into the spirit of this world, then began the torment p.
200 of the first principle.
She saw and felt herself no longer in the kingdom of God, until the heart of God came and appeared between her and that kingdom, so that she could enter therein and become regenerated." ( Three Principles , ix.
6.) "There was no other salvation for the divine image in man unless divinity had moved according to the second principle, i.e.
, according to the light of eternal life, and by the power of love rekindled the substantiality (of the soul) that was imprisoned in death." ( Menschwerdung , i., 11, 22.) "The soul has separated her will from the will of the Father and entered into the lust of this life.
There could have been no other way of redemption, except that the pure will of the Father should again enter into her substance and bring her again into the state which she formerly occupied, so that her will would be directed again into the heart and light of God." ( Three Principles , xxii.
67.) "If the soul was to be aided, the heart of God with its light, and not the Father Himself, had to enter her, for in the Father she was anyhow; but she was turned away from the entrance to the generation of the heart (the beginning of the divine self-consciousness) of God, and her desires were directed towards this external world." 1 ( Three Principles , xxii.
68.) The preparations for that redemption were already made before the creation of this world, as the name of Jesus was embodied in man.
2 p.
201 "The name of Jesus embodied itself into the tincture of the soul in Paradise when Adam fell, and even before Adam was created; as Peter mentions in his first letter (i.
20), where he says that we have been provided for in Christ, even before the foundation of the world was laid." ( Menschwerdung , i.
Themes
◆Divine Hiddennesstheology
The supreme God's radical concealment beyond ordinary knowledge or perception; the Hidden Father.
References to the 'inner element' and 'heart of God' imply a divine presence that is concealed within rather than externally obvious.
The merging of the individual soul or self with the divine, transcending personal identity.
[auto] The text describes the 'heart of God' entering the human soul and Divinity becoming a created being, indicating a union between divine and 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 explicitly describes the soul separating its will from the Father and entering into the lust of this life.