The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 113 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 11 (part 4)
"The Word of promise, which was before the Jews as an antitype, or as an image in a mirror, wherein the wrathful Father imagined and wherewith He extinguished His wrath, began to move essentially, as it had not moved from eternity; for when the angel Gabriel brought to Mary the message saying that she should become pregnant, and when she expressed her willingness, saying, "Let it be done to me as you said," then the centre of the Holy Trinity moved itself; that is to say, the eternal virginity which was lost by Adam, became opened in her in the Word of life.
The fire of divine love in Mary's being, in the virginal essence that had been corrupted in Adam, was again restored." ( Menschwerdung , i.
8, 3.
4.) "The Word, that stood in the virgin of wisdom and surrounded by eternal wonders, entered again, out of great love to our image, which had been destroyed in Adam, and it became human in Mary in consequence of the benediction." ( Forty Questions , xxxvi.
10.) "The eternal virgin, being without substance, entered also into the incarnation, and thus the tine soul was received out of the essences of Mary.
In this way the eternal virgin came into substantiality, for she received the human soul within herself." ( Threefold Life , vi.
75.) p.
232 Mary could not by her own power put herself in possession of that celestial blessing, but it came to her by divine grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit.
"The true being of humanity, that had died and disappeared (become latent) in Adam, awoke again to life in Mary, and thus she became highly exalted and like man before the fall.
This, however, did not take place by her own power, but by the power of God.
If the centre of God had not moved within her, she would not have been different from all other daughters of Eve." ( Menschwerdung , i.
8.
5.) "Mary is called a holy and pure virgin merely with reference to the celestial virgin that had taken possession of her, and clothed her with the pure element of Paradise.
Mary did not obtain possession of this state by her own power, as is shown by the angel saying to her, 'The Spirit of God will come over you, and you will be overshadowed by the power of the Supreme; therefore the Holy One that shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God.'" ( Three Principles , xx.
41.) "The words of the angel, 'The Spirit of God will come over you, and you will be overshadowed by the power of the Supreme,' means: The Holy Spirit shall open the closed centre within, in the moribund seed, and the Word of God will enter with living and celestial substantiality within that which had been closed in death, and become one flesh with it." 1 ( Three Principles , xxii.
4l.) It is certain that the soul of the Redeemer could issue from Mary only on account of her being of a character full of humility and in accordance with the will of God; and it is furthermore certain that she spiritually p.
233 enjoys a high state of glorification for having had the qualifications necessary for becoming the mother of the Redeemer.
"The first thing that a child (in the womb) receives is the tincture of its mother.
Thus it was in the case of Christ.
When the angel announced to Mary the coming incarnation of Christ, it was the mother's will, and the tincture which received the Limbus of God and impregnated her, belonged to her.
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 text uses alchemical terminology such as 'tincture', 'essences', and 'substantiality' to describe spiritual transformation.
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 enters the human soul/essence in Mary to become substantial, mirroring the divine generative act within humanity.
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 text mentions an 'image in a mirror' and 'our image', suggesting a reflection between divine and human realms.
Eckhart's Abgeschiedenheit/Gelassenheit — radical letting-go of will, image, and grasping that opens the soul to God; distinct from inner_silence (quietness) and from material renunciation, and adjacent to Sufi tark and Buddhist non-grasping as a practice rather than a metaphysical claim.
Mary's state is characterized by 'humility' and being 'in accordance with the will of God', implying letting go of self-will.
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.
The event is attributed to 'divine grace' and the 'power of the Holy Spirit' rather than human power.
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 described as corruption, destruction, and a 'closed centre' rather than positive being.
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 text describes humanity as an 'image' of the divine that was destroyed in Adam and restored in Mary.
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.
The passage references the state of being 'corrupted in Adam' and 'destroyed' as the condition necessitating restoration.
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.
Mary is described as 'highly exalted' and becoming like man before the fall through divine grace.