The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 114 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 11 (part 5)
If, then, the soul of the child is in the Holy Trinity, do you then not think that its glorious light beautifully illuminates the mother, and does not that mother rightfully put her feet upon the Moon, 1 as being exalted above all that is of an earthly nature?
She gave birth to the Redeemer of the world without any carnal commingling, and from her issued the body which attracts all members, namely, the children of God in Christ, i.e.
, the children of Light." ( Three Principles , xviii.
93–98.) Mary, however, was not deified.
In spite of all her greatness she could only through her Son become perfect and inherit heaven.
2 "The Word which was promised by God in the garden of Eden came to bloom in the life-light of the virgin; and when the angel Gabriel, by order of the Father, came to give to it an impulse by means of the message, it then entered into the one element of the chaste virgin, but p.
234 not so entirely within her soul and body so as to deify her person." ( Three Principles , xviii.
89.) "The virgin Mary entered into great perfection, like the star of the morning, which is more glorious than the rest of the stars.
She attained perfection and beatitude through her Son, Jesus Christ." ( Three Principles , xviii.
88.) "The virgin Mary did not become deified.
Christ Himself says, 'No one goes to heaven except the Son of Man, who came from heaven and is in heaven.' All others have to attain heaven through Him.
Christ is their heaven, and the Father is the heaven of Christ." ( Three Principles , xviii.
89.) The external kingdom of this world did not become separated from the virgin; but it lost its power over her.
The quality of her inner life communicated itself to her physical body.
"When God moved in Mary as His object, then was she highly blessed, and in that benediction of the Redeemer she became impregnated.
Now, it is known that the seed of man communicates its qualities to the body.
When the divine life entered into the essence of the seed (power) of Mary, her whole body, which was then surrounding the body of the (divine) image, became highly blessed, and quickened by this wonderful moving of God.
The external kingdom of this world was then not separated from Mary, she was still imprisoned therein; but the tincture of her blood became kindled with the divine tincture; i.e.
, with the tincture of the seed; communicating its qualities to the corporeal form." ( Tilk .
i.
331.) "The soul of Mary became surrounded by the divine living substantiality, not relatively to her terrestrial but to her celestial nature, so that the terrestrial state was merely supplementing her being.
Her soul, with the Word of life that became human in her, was to pass with it through p.
235 the death and wrath of the Father into the celestial consciousness, and thus her external human nature had to (he in regard to earthly life, so that she could live in God.
But because she has been blessed, and has carried in her womb the object of the covenant, that which was celestial in her consumed her terrestrial part." ( Menschwerdung , i.
9, 18.) 1 The Saviour had to receive earthly essences from Mary, and He became in her, in the normal way, a terrestrial man.
2 "The virgin comprised Christ as a mother her child.
She gave to him natural essences, such as she had inherited from her parents, and these essences from her flesh and blood he received to the element, and became therein a living soul." ( Three Principles , xviii.
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.
Uses alchemical terminology such as 'tincture,' 'seed,' and the transformation of the corporeal form by divine qualities.
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.
Describes the Word entering the element of the virgin and blooming in her life-light, akin to divine generation within.
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.
States that the quality of inner life communicated itself to the physical body, reflecting an inner-outer mapping.
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.
Mentions the angel Gabriel coming 'by order of the Father' and God moving in Mary.
A chain of divine beings or principles flowing downward from a single transcendent source (the One or the Father), each level less perfect than the one above.
Describes a flow from the Holy Trinity through the Word to the Virgin Mary.
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.
[auto] The passage explicitly debates whether Mary was deified, stating she was not, while discussing the process of perfection through the Son.