The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 98 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 10 (part 5)
The wrath must kill and consume the external image that has grown in the wrath, but from its death springs forth the eternal life." ( Mysterium , xxviii.
14.) "Abel, representing an antitype of Christ, who was to suffer death for humanity, had to pass through death without having produced fruits or branches; for the fruit which Christ was to generate was the tree of humanity, that was to be reborn in the spirit, but not new branches of the old one.
Thus Abel, as the anti-type of Christ, was to produce no new branch from his loins." ( Mysterium , xxix.
22.) In the place of Abel, Adam was to produce a third son, namely, Seth, in whom was to be perpetuated the line of generation from which the Saviour was to be born in the flesh.
1 p.
209 "Adam, by means of his Eve, was to produce still another branch from the tree of life, a son, who would be in his image similar to Adam and like himself, namely, Seth; (a race) wherein a ray of the love-will is perceived within the fiery will; being, however, still imprisoned by the essence of the external world, the corrupted house of (matter which afterwards became) flesh." ( Mysterium , xxix.
24.) "In Seth the line of the covenant was perpetuated, wherein Christ was to manifest Himself relatively to the tree of humanity." ( Mysterium , xxix.
26.) To Cain also was shown the mercy of the Lord, who protected him against his hellish enemies, so that he might repent.
1 Cain was afraid that the spirits (elementals) that had influenced him to commit murder would kill him.
To prevent this God decreed that whoever should take away Cain's life should be punished eternally through the seven qualities of the world of darkness." ( Mysterium , xxix.
55, 58.) "By the command, 'Upon him who kills Cain vengeance shall be sevenfold,' the terrible avenger, the abyss of hell, was driven away from Cain, so that he did not fall a victim to despair.
Cain had departed from God, but nevertheless the kingdom of heaven was before him, so as to enable him to turn and enter into repentance.
God did not want to reject Cain, but merely his wicked murder and his false belief." ( Three Principles , xx.
i.) Cain and his descendants, however, preferred to give themselves up to mundane desires and occupations, while the generation of Seth entered into divine contemplation.
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210 "Cain was made of flesh and blood, and understood not these words about eternal death; but being assured that no one would kill him, he became again glad, and began to turn to terrestrial arts; not only to agricultural pursuits, but also to working the metals." ( Three Principles , xxi.
5.) "From the descendants of Cain resulted the arts as a wonder of divine wisdom acting in and through nature, but in Seth the Word entered into spiritual contemplation." ( Mysterium , xxx.
2.) In the descendants of Noah—Sem, Ham, and Japhet—are represented the mental tendencies of the three principal races of mankind before the flood.
1 "After the first terrestrial world of human quality had been drowned in the flood, its form became reconstituted again in Noah and his three sons." ( Mysterium , xxiv.
30.) "Sem represents the world of light; Japhet the world of fire, wherein, however, the light is visible.
Japhet also represents an image of the Father, and Sem that of the Son; but Ham is an image of the external world." 2 ( Mysterium , xxxi.
10.) From these fundamental directions result the different p.
211 fates of these races, such as they were already predicted by Noah.
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 mortification of the external man and rebirth in spirit parallels the alchemical transformation of base matter into gold.
The material body viewed as a prison, tomb, or source of error that hinders spiritual knowledge and return.
[auto] The passage explicitly states that the external man must be mortified and describes the human condition as imprisoned by the essence of the external world.
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.
Biblical figures like Abel and Seth are interpreted as antitypes or symbols of Christ and the spiritual line, reflecting divine realities in history.
Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.
[auto] The text contrasts Cain (wrath, darkness, flesh) with Seth (light, spirit, love-will), establishing an ontological opposition between spiritual and material principles.
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 protects Cain from hellish enemies and ensures he does not fall into despair, ordering affairs toward repentance.
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 passage mentions that whoever kills Cain shall be 'punished eternally' and vengeance shall be 'sevenfold'.
Sufi self-effacement in God — the via by which the lover is unmade as a separate ego and recovered as God's act; specifies the practice/event rather than mystical_union's resulting state.
The 'external man must be mortified' and the external image consumed by wrath to allow eternal life to spring forth.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
The practice of 'divine contemplation' is highlighted as the path of Seth's descendants.
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.
The human condition (external man, spirit, flesh) is described as mirroring cosmic principles like wrath, love-will, and the world of darkness.
A spiritual elite who possess the divine spark and are predestined for salvation, contrasted with psychic (faithful) and hylic (material) persons.
A distinction is drawn between the descendants of Cain (mundane desires) and the generation of Seth (divine contemplation), implying a spiritual elite.
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.
Cain is described as having 'departed from God' and being influenced by hellish enemies, representing a state of exile.
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 text speaks of humanity being 'reborn in the spirit' and Christ manifesting Himself in the line of Seth, implying transformation into divine nature.
The 1 Enoch narrative in which a class of originally-good angelic beings (the Watchers) descends, mates with women, and teaches forbidden arts — the substrate that Gnostic archons inherits and inverts: archons are born malevolent, the Watchers fall through transgression.
Spirits or elementals are described as influencing Cain to commit murder and teaching arts, similar to the Watchers narrative.