The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 138 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 13 (part 6)
Often she is deluded with sin, and everything seems to be against her.
You must continually battle against the devil.
Then will the pearl-tree grow like grass in storm and rain; but when it becomes big and brings forth flowers, you may then be sure of obtaining the fruit." ( Three Principles , xxiv.
37.) The new life of the Spirit unfolds itself within the innermost being, and the terrestrial man is only rarely pervaded by the divine luminosity.
"Not the mortal soul, but the inner (spiritual) soul from the eternal Word of God is to be married to Sophia.
p.
273 [paragraph continues] The external soul is wedded to the constellation (mental functions) and elements.
This external soul only rarely obtains a glance at Sophia, for she has death and mortality within herself.
After this time she is to be again transformed into the first image which God created in Adam." ( Mysterium , lii.
13.) "While the mortal house exists our soul does not dwell in the fountain of God, so as to apprehend that fountain in her selfhood.
The sun shines through a glass and renders it luminous; nevertheless the glass does not become the sun.
It merely remains (for a while) in the light and power of the sun, and the latter shines to and through its substance.
Thus it is with the soul in her terrestrial state." ( Mysterium , lii.
3.) "As fire glows in hot iron, so are the rays of the Holy Spirit sometimes penetrating the other principle; namely, the new man penetrates the old one.
But as iron, whether within or without the forge, always remains iron, likewise it is with the terrestrial man.
He undoubtedly has to become a servant for the inner man, whenever the latter penetrates him with his glowing divine fire; and he is willing that this should be so as long as the glow of that fire is within him, but he cannot transform himself into the interior kingdom.
'The external flesh and blood,' says Christ, 'shall not inherit the kingdom of heaven.' It shall and must dissolve, like the husk of the kernel sown into a field." ( Stiefel , i.
24.) Only rarely, but especially in the moment of regeneration, there is within the human self the living sensation of a celestial existence.
"No one must ever think that the tree of the Christian faith can be seen or known in the kingdom of this world.
External man does not recognise it, and even if it happens that the Holy Spirit manifests itself in the external mirror, so that the external life is glad and trembles for joy, and thinks that now it has received the p.
274 esteemed guest, and that it would now believe, nevertheless there is no perfect duration therein; for the Spirit of God does not remain constantly within the terrestrial mind.
It wants to have a clean vessel, and whenever it returns into its principle—this being the true image—then the external being becomes doubtful and full of fears." ( Menschwerdung , cxi.
8.) "The soul puts on her wreath; but it is again taken away from her and put aside.
Thus it is with a crown with which a king has been crowned, and which is afterwards kept in the treasury.
This is done to the soul because she is still surrounded by a house of sin; so that if she should fall again, her crown may not become soiled." ( Repentance , i.
Themes
◆Birth Of Word In Soulanthropology
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 inner spiritual soul is described as coming from the eternal Word of God within the human.
John of the Cross's stage of contemplative purgation: a felt absence and aridity of God that strips the soul of attachments to its own consolations en route to deeper union.
The passage describes being deluded with sin and the external being becoming doubtful and full of fears.
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.
There is an implied hierarchy from the eternal Word to the inner soul and then the terrestrial man.
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 text states that while the mortal house exists, the soul does not dwell in the fountain of 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.
The text describes the new man penetrating the old one and the soul being transformed into the divine image.
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.
[auto] The passage uses strong alchemical imagery such as the pearl-tree growing, fire in hot iron, and the husk dissolving to describe spiritual transformation.