The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 124 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 12 (part 4)
There was then no earthly food or drink, and the soul of Christ knew very well that she was in God, and that she could make terrestrial bread out of stones, as there was no other bread there.
But she did not desire to eat with her celestial body terrestrial but celestial bread, and to leave the terrestrial body to its hunger, because the divinity in Christ said, 'Eat of the word of the Lord and you will issue from the earthly man and rest in the kingdom of heaven; live in the new man, and then the old one will be dead for the sake of the new.' However, the devil spoke to the soul: 'Thy earthly body is hungry, and as there is no bread, therefore make thou bread out of stones.' Then p.
249 the strong soul in Christ stood there as a warrior and said, 'Man lives not alone of bread, but of each word that passes through the mouth of God.
Thus he rejected the terrestrial bread and life, and put his imagination into the word of God and ate of it.
Then was the soul alive in the kingdom of heaven, but the body like one dead; that is to say, it became the servant of heaven and lost its powerful rule (over the soul)." ( Three Principles , xxii.
100–105.) Furthermore, the devil thought of turning the Redeemer away from the divine will by exciting the spirit of vanity.
1 "After the soul of Christ had received the heavenly bread, it was to be seen whether she would now arise in the power of the fire of vanity, or, full of humility, behold only the heart and the will of God, and surrendering herself to it, become an angel of meekness.
Herein is seen the cunning of the devil, because he quotes the Scripture and says, 'The angels will carry him upon their hands.' This passage has been misapplied, because it did not refer to the physical body, but to the soul.
This he wanted to introduce into pride, so that it should rely upon being carried by the angels; but the Redeemer said, 'It is also written, Thou shalt not tempt the Lord thy God.' Thus he overcame the pride of the devil and entered into the humility and love of His celestial Father." ( Three Principles , xxii.
108.) p.
250 Finally, he offered to the Saviour the rule over the external world; but the Lord did not accept it from the hands of the devil, but from His celestial Father.
1 "After the devil had thus failed twice, he came forward with the last powerful temptation (saying) that he would give to Him the whole world if He would fall down and worship him.
Adam already had been anxious to come into possession of this world, and he wanted to make it his own; but in doing so he departed from God, and became himself captured by the spirit of this world.
Now the second Adam had to submit to this temptation of the first Adam.
It was to be tried whether the soul would remain within the new, holy, and celestial man, and live in the grace of God or in the spirit of this world.
But the soul of Christ said to the devil, 'Depart from me, Satan!
for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve Him alone!' Thus the valiant warrior conquered, and the devil had to depart; and thus all that is earthly has been overcome by the Christ.
Now the Lord is higher than the moon, 2 and takes all the power in heaven and hell, and is Master over death and life.
He now began His sacerdotal kingdom with signs and miracles.
He changed water into wine, made whole the sick, the blind seeing, and enabled the lame to walk, and even awakened the dead to life.
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.
Eating the word of God allows one to live in the new man, internalizing the divine generative act.
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.
The soul surrenders itself to the heart and will of God, becoming an angel of meekness.
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.
The devil attempts to turn the Redeemer away from the divine will, representing a lack of good.
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 'old one will be dead for the sake of the new,' signifying the effacement of the lower self.
Bruno's eroici furori — a passionate, ennobling spiritual ardor that drives the soul toward divine wisdom; distinguished from base or animal passions by its orientation to infinite truth.
The soul is described as a 'warrior' and 'valiant warrior' who conquers the devil.
Disciplined inward attention — sitting, focused, or open-awareness practice — as a stand-alone term that umbrellas active_contemplation, inner_silence, and dhyana-style sitting.
Putting imagination into the word of God suggests a meditative practice.
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 soul is to 'live in the new man' and become an 'angel of meekness,' indicating transformation into divine likeness.