The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 101 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 10 (part 8)
9.) "In those heathen that were highly intellectual in the light of nature the interior holy realm was mirrored, and although the true divine intelligence was closed to them, and although they beheld merely an external reflection, nevertheless at the restoration of all beings, when the veil will be removed, they shall live in the huts of Sem." ( Mysterium , xxv.
24.) Not only in the "Israelites" (in spiritually awakened races), but also in the "heathen" (in those races that lived on a more material plane) was active the power of the Redeemer (the Word), that had been spoken into Eve, and thereby into all mankind.
"Adam issued from the one only God, and entered into a selfhood, into ignorance, and he led us all with him into that ignorance (or misunderstanding); but then came the grace out of the same one and only God, and is offering itself to all those that are ignorant, to the heathen as well as the Jews." ( Mysterium , lxx.
78.) "The heathen were not out of that seed of Abraham with which God made a covenant; but the first covenant, the word that had been in-spoken in mercy, was as a foundation in them.
Therefore, says Paul (Rom.
ix.
24), that God had not called and elected merely the Jews in their covenant, but also the Gentiles in the covenant of Christ, and that He called 'My people' and My 'beloved' those that did not know Him, and who, not knowing Him, were not His people in an external sense.
The proposition of grace, which had incorporated itself by means of the in-speaking in Paradise after the fall, was p.
217 contained in them, and according to that God called them His beloved ones.
Only the children of wrath must be excepted, because in them the incorporation of the name of Jesus does not take place, but only the incorporation of wrath.
The latter, however, never extends over whole races, but merely over such individuals among them as are like thistles among the wheat." 1 ( Grace , x.
24.) Before the Redeemer appeared in the flesh His reconciling and blissful power was participated by man by means of sacrifices.
"Before the incarnation of Christ mankind became p.
218 redeemed by means of the incorporated word and name of Jesus.
Those who directed their will in (and to) God have received the word of promise, because the soul was accepted therein.
Thus the whole law in regard to sacrifice is nothing else but an antitype of the manhood of Christ.
That which Christ did as man, when by means of His love He reconciled the divine wrath, the same was (symbolically) done by means of the blood of the animals.
The word of promise was within the covenant, and in the meantime God conceived of a figure (symbol), and by the power of the covenant He caused Himself to be reconciled symbolically, for the name of Jesus was within the covenant, and by means of the imagination it reconciled the fury and wrath within the nature of the Father." ( Menschwerdung , i.
7, 12.) "The sacrifices were symbols of the object which God had proposed unto Himself.
The divine imagination saw through the object of the covenant the animal blood wherein Israel performed the sacrifice.
Man had become earthly, and therefore God put before Himself the object to a covenant of mercy, so that His imagination might not enter into the terrestrial consciousness of man, and that His wrath-fire might not be ignited with the earthliness and the sins of mankind." 1 ( Tilk .
i.
289.) This reconciliation (or atonement) could surely not result from the merely external act of sacrificing animals, but by means of the faith that accompanied it.
This faith required an external action or form wherein to become conceived.
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.
[auto] The text describes the word being 'in-spoken in mercy' and incorporated into mankind after the fall.
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.
Sacrifices are described as antitypes and symbols that mirror the manhood of Christ and divine reconciliation.
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 is shown actively calling and electing both Jews and Gentiles through the covenant.
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 distinguishes between those restored and the 'children of wrath' who are excepted.
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.
Adam is described as entering into selfhood and ignorance, leading all mankind away from God.
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.
Mankind is redeemed by the incorporated word, suggesting a transformation into partakers of divine grace.
Iamblichean ritual practice that engages the gods directly through consecrated material symbols and actions, on the premise that divine power descends into properly prepared matter — distinct from philosophical contemplation alone.
Sacrifices are presented as symbolic actions that cause God to be reconciled through the power of the covenant.