The Life and Doctrines of Jacob Boehme · 154 of 159 · tr. Franz Hartmann
Chapter 14 (part 7)
This light moderates the action of the fiery will still active in them, the blessings of their good deeds surround them, the hope for still greater glorification is their life, and from the trouble and persecution which they have suffered there arises for them pure joy.
"The principle of the father wherein the soul has her basis is a burning fire, giving light, and in this light rests the noble image of God.
This light moderates the burning fire by means of the substantiality of love, so as to render it beneficent for nature and life." ( Letters , viii.
78.) "Those earnest souls that have worked the wonders of God in His will at the foot of the Cross, having received the body of God, i.e.
, of Christ, and who have walked therein in justice and truth, all their doings also follow them in their strong will and desire, and they experience inexpressible joy in the love and mercy of God, by which they are continually surrounded.
The wonders of God are their nutriment; they are living in glory, power, strength, and majesty such as is beyond all description." ( Threefold Life , xviii.
12.) "The blessed souls are rendered happy by the works which they have performed while here, and those who have suffered much persecution for the sake of the truth will behold the wreath of victory which is to crown their new body on the judgment day.
There takes place in them a continual uprising of joy whenever they contemplate p.
302 the future.
As their deeds have been varied, so is their hope.
A day-labourer having gained much is glad of the reward.
Thus it is there.
A joyful consciousness abides in them.
All the scorn to which they were submitted and all the accusations that have been falsely brought forward against them are to them a great honour of victory.
Their frequent prayers, good thoughts, and good works in behalf of their neighbours are the nutriment which they take until the time when their (celestial) body will eat of the fruits of Paradise." ( Forty Questions , xxii.
4.) "He who aids the degraded blesses himself, for he wishes him everything good, and prays to God to bless him in body and soul.
Thus his desire and blessing returns to the giver in the Mysterium and surrounds him, and follows him as a good work born in God.
This is the treasure which man takes with him; his earthly treasures he will have to leave behind." ( Menschwerdung , cxi.
4.) There is no man without sin, and as he is followed to the other side of the grave by all of his works, his sins go with him, but if he has known how to obtain forgiveness for his sins, then his happiness will not be infringed upon by them.
1 "Man is followed by all of his works, and he has them eternally before his eyes and lives therein, unless he has out of his malice and falsehood been newly born by the blood of Jesus Christ.
If so, he will then break through the earthly and hellish image and enter into an angelic p.
303 one, and come into another kingdom, to which his imperfections cannot follow him, and thus will the image of God be restored out of the terrestrial and hellish form." ( Three Principles , xvi.
47.) The departed blessed souls trouble themselves neither about that which belongs to hell nor about terrestrial matters of any kind.
Their existence resembles that of a man enjoying a happy dream.
"The rest of the soul is like that of one who rests in a sweet sleep." ( Forty Questions , xxix.
1.) "Those happy souls that are resting in Abraham's bosom, in Christ— i.e.
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.
Earthly treasures must be left behind while spiritual treasure is taken to the other side.
Final, collective cosmic judgment as an event in which the wicked are sentenced and the cosmos restored; distinct from psychopomp_journey (individual passage at death) and emphasising verdict where Zoroastrian frashokereti emphasises restoration.
[auto] Explicit references to judgment day, victory wreaths, and sins following the soul unless forgiven.
Eckhart's radical reading of Matthew 5:3 — the saint as one who wants nothing, knows nothing, and has nothing, having emptied even the will and the self with which to receive God; distinct from renunciation_of_wealth (material poverty).
The text advises leaving earthly treasures behind to take spiritual treasure with one.
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 terrestrial kingdom is described as an opposition and hindrance from which the soul must pass away.
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 text describes the soul receiving the body of God and having the image of God restored through grace.