The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 115 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 11 (part 6)
90.) "The living Word that dwelt within the eternal virgin attracted to itself the flesh of Mary—that is to say, the essences from the corporeal body of Mary—and thus there grew in nine months a complete human being with soul, spirit, and flesh." ( Threefold Life , vi.
79.) "The life of Christ did not begin to stir immediately at the time of conception, or in any supernatural manner, but this took place at the proper natural time, as is the case with all the children of Adam.
Thus in nine months he grew to be a complete human being, and was born like all other children of Adam.
He might have caused himself to be born magically, but if this had been done he would not have been in this world in a natural manner." ( Menschwerdung , i.
10.) In Christ, as the son of Mary, there were united all the three principles, but without commingling with each p.
236 other, so that, in spite of His terrestrial body, He remained nevertheless free from sin.
"Christ in Mary accepted all the three principles, but in divine order, and not intermingled, such as they became in Adam, who, by means of his imagination, introduced the external realm into the internal realm, into the soul-fire, in consequence of which the light became extinguished.
He (Christ) had on Himself the soul-essence, or the first principle, the substance of the image of the second principle, and finally the external form, i.e.
, the third principle." ( Tilk .
i.
336.) "Christ took from Mary the interior seed that had been weakened in Adam, and to this was attached the external seed of the flesh, but so that they did not mix with each other, neither were they separated; but they were relatively to each other like God, who dwells in the world, while the world nevertheless is not God." ( Stiefel , ii.
204.) "Christ did not by means of His external body produce sin and dishonour.
No, this cannot be; but He has taken upon Himself as a burden the sin which we have inherited from Adam, and which He was to carry as if He were Adam, while He still was not Adam." ( Stiefel , ii.
499.) "Christ did not take upon Himself the awakened and conceived vanity (selfishness) which the devil introduced into the flesh by means of his imagination, and which caused the flesh to sin; but He took the awakened forms of life (principles) which from a state of harmony had issued, each one in its own desire.
Therein He took upon Himself our sin and disease, and death and hell; but only for the purpose of tincturing them by His love, by means of.
His celestial blood which He had poured into our external human nature, and this was to change hell into heaven, and to introduce the human qualities again into divine harmony." ( Regeneration , iii.
11.) p.
237 Still less has the innermost essence of the Lord, the eternal Word, ever mingled with His terrestrial body; it did not even mingle with His human soul.
1 "God has become revealed within the external seed (principle) of Mary, for Christ did not differ while upon the earth from other human beings in form, substance, or external appearance.
In that external seed He did not take up divinity; His external form was mortal, and He annihilated death therein." ( Stiefel , ii.
203.) "Christ truly attracted to Himself our human essences while in the body of the virgin Mary, and He has become our brother (thereby).
But the human essences cannot apprehend His eternal divinity; only the new man, born in God, conceives of it as the body apprehends of the soul." ( Three Principles , xxii.
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 metaphors like 'tincturing them by His love' and 'celestial blood' 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 'living Word that dwelt within the eternal virgin' parallels the concept of divine generation within a human vessel.
Ontological opposition between two primal principles (light/darkness, truth/lie, spirit/matter) as the fundamental structure of reality.
[auto] The passage contrasts the intermingled, sinful state of Adam with the divinely ordered, sinless state of Christ, establishing a duality of fallen and unfallen natures.
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.
Sin is described as a burden inherited from Adam where the 'light became extinguished', implying a lack or distortion of good.
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's fall is described as introducing the external realm into the internal, extinguishing the light and separating humanity from divine order.
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 passage describes Christ tincturing human sin and death with love to 'introduce the human qualities again into divine harmony'.
Division of the human being into three principles: spirit (pneuma), soul (psyche), and body/matter (hyle or soma).
[auto] The passage explicitly defines the complete human being as composed of soul, spirit, and flesh, and refers to the union of 'all the three principles' in Christ.