Jakob Böhme

“ Now every Property of Nature does in its Hunger take its Food out of the four Elements; as the Hunger is, so it takes a Property out of the Elements; for the four Elements are the Body of the Properties, and each Spirit eats of its own Body. ”

“ The Hunger which proceeds from Eternity eats of the Eternity, and that which is of the Time eats of the Time. The true Life of all Creatures eats of the Spiritual Mercury, viz. of the sixth Form, where all Salts are essentially; the Spirit eats of the five Senses, for they are the Spirit's Corporality; and the Body, viz. the vegetable Life, eats of the Essence of the Sulphur and Salt; for Christ says in like Manner, Man liveth not by Bread only, but by every Word which proceedeth out of the Mouth of God. ”

“ Now understand us thus; the Liberty is, and stands in the Darkness (and inclining to the dark Desire after the Desire of the Light) , it attains with the eternal Will the Darkness; and the Darkness reaches after the Light of the Liberty, and cannot attain it; for it encloses itself with the Desire in itself, and makes itself Darkness in itself ”

“ Every Property keeps its own Desire; for a Property is Nothing else but an Hunger, and the Hunger forms itself into such an Essence as itself is, and in the Salnitral Sude it gives such a Spirit into the four Elements; for the Original of the Sude is in the Element, from whence four Elements proceed in this Flagrat. ”

“ Every one says, Shew me the Way to the Manifestation of the Good. Hear and observe well, dear Reason; thou must thyself be the Way, the Understanding must be born in thee, otherwise I cannot shew it thee ”

“ The Impression or Desire, viz. the first Form to Nature, which is called, and is also the Fiat, receives the Desire's Property according to the Property of all the seven Forms into itself, and impresses them, so that out of the Nothing proceeds forth an Essence according to the Properties of the Will: Now its own Property, seeing it is only a Desire, and impresses itself, is dark, and causes Hardness, viz. a strong Pulsation, which is a Cause of the Tone or Sound, which becomes yet more hard in the Fire, viz. ”

“ All Things consist of Sulphur, Mercury, and Salt: In the Salnitral Flagrat the Element separates itself into four Properties, viz. into Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, which in itself is none of these, but only a Moving and gentle Walming, not as the Air, but as a moving of the Will in the Body, a cause of Life in the Essence; for as the eternal Spirit of God proceeds from the Father, who is a Spirit from the Fire and Light, and is the Motion and Life of the Eternity ”

“ All Things are generated out of the grand Mystery, and proceed out of one Degree into another: Now whatever goes forwards in its Degree, the same receives no Abominate, let it be either in Vegetables or Animals; but whatever enters in itself into its Self-hood, viz. into its own Lubet, the same receives, in passing through the Degrees, the Abominate; for each Form of Nature out of the Mystery receives of its Property in its Hunger, and therein it is not annoyed or molested, for it is of their Property. ”

“ Every Abominate of the oily Life arises from the inward Mercury in the inward Sulphur; for Sin also does hence take its Original, that the poisonful Mercury (which is a cause of the Life) does in the Fire-Flash in the Original of the Salniter, in retiring backwards, introduce itself again into Self-hood, for even there is the Original of the Poison-Life. ”

“ And this Form of Separation between the living and the dead Essentiality is the fifth Form, and is called the Love-Desire; its Original is from the Liberty, which in the Fire has introduced itself into a Desire, viz. out of the Lubet of the Liberty into the fair and fiery Elevation of Joy, Being a Flame of Love, which also imprints in its Love-Desire the Property of that which it has conceived in the Will of the eternal Mind, which brings itself through the Fire's Sharpness again into itself, viz. into the first Properties, which arise in the first Impression, viz. ”

“ Thus understand us farther concerning the second Centre, which is manifest in the Dying of the Fire in the Light, whereby the Abyss of God's Liberty introduces itself into the Byss of Nature, both with the inward World in the Kingdom of Heaven in the Eternity ”

“ Whatever is risen from the eternal Fixity, as Angels and the Souls of Men, remains indestructible in its fixt Being; but whatever is risen in the unfixt Being, viz. with the Motion of Time, that does again enter into the first Motion from whence it has taken its Original, and is a Map of its Form which it had here, like a Picture, or as an Image in a Glass without Life ”

“ Now understand us right; we do not hereby understand a Beginning of the Deity, but the Manifestation of the Deity: The Deity is herein known and manifested in Trinity; the Deity is the eternal Liberty without all Nature, viz. ”

“ For its Essence arises not in the Essence of Eternity, also it cannot inherit it, but in the Enkindling of the temporal Fire, yet it is perceived in the eternal Spirit by Reason of the Elevation of the Joy ”