Jakob Böhme

“ Jacob must be filled with God's Blessing, that he might bless the First-Born of angry Adam and Esau; for the Blessing, that is, Christ must be born in our Flesh and Soul, that the Seed of the Woman might bruise the Head of the Serpent.
32. The Anger must be drowned and appeased in the Humanity; an Offering did not do it, but this resigning into the Wrath, that the Love might drown the Wrath. Jacob in Christ must drown Esau in the Love-Power in his Blood, that Esau might also become a Jacob in Christ: But Esau was not willing to receive his brother Jacob, and contended about the first Birth ”

“ Schleiermacher's Lectures on Religion and, following on these, the writings of Jakob Böhme made no small impression on him. Art and religion now became to him one and the same thing. "Why," he writes to Hitzig, "have we not one name for these two synonyms?" They signify to him what he at one time calls the "vivid sense of the nearness of great Nature," at another, "the simple, humble outpouring of the pure soul into the pure stream (of Nature) ." His literary opinions are, he declares, "exactly those of Tieck." In Warsaw he still writes coldly of the Catholic Church ”

“ Therefore the Artist can effect nothing, unless he gives a Meat to the Forms, which they all desire, and Love to eat; wherein there is no Turba: Now the Prop-erties cannot eat, seeing their Mouth is frozen up in the Impression of Saturn; the Artist must first open their Mouth, and make them alive in their Zeal, that all the Forms may be hungry, and then if there be Manna, they all eat together of it, and so the precious Grain of Mustard-Seed is sown. ”

“ Therefore let every one seek and find himself; for the Time of Visitation is at Hand, that he may be found in his Love; for the Turba has found all false Lust in it, and the Most High Worker of all Essences manifests the Turba; and then all false Lust or Imagination becomes manifest, and each Thing enters into its eternal Keeper, for all Things are generated out of Imagination: So also it shall receive its Property in the Imagination, and every Imagination reaps its own Work which it has wrought ”

“ But when the Essence is in its wrestling Combat, the Artist must assist the Soulish, viz. the fiery Property, till the Soul's Spirit attains its Life, then he appears in the Woman's Form and Lustre: Now the Artist supposes that he has the Child that is born, but there belongs a further Time to it, till the Soul grows strong, and then it appears and shews itself in its red and white Coat. ”

“ As the shoemaker of Görlitz had in his life-time some disciples among highly educated men, so has he always had a few since his departure from this life. Men so diversely situated as the non-juror William Law in England ”

“ And we find clearly in the Light of Nature, that there is no better Help and Remedy for this Opposition, and that it has no higher Cure than the Liberty, that is, the Light of Nature, which is the Desire of the Spirit. ”

“ The Soul here saith "I have nothing, for I am utterly stripped and naked of every Thing; I can do nothing, for I have no manner of power, but am as water poured out; I am nothing, for all that I am is no more than an Image of Being, and only God is to me I AM; and so, sitting down in my own Nothingness, I give glory to the Eternal Being, and will nothing of myself, that so God may will all in me, being unto me my God and All Things." Herein now it is that so very few find this most precious treasure in the Soul, though every one would so fain have it ”

“ For in the Nothing the Will would not be manifest to itself, wherefore we know that the Will seeks itself, and finds itself in itself, and its seeking is a Desire, and its finding is the Essence of the Desire, wherein the Will finds itself. ”

“ The entrance of a soul naked into the Will of God, shutting out all imaginations and desires, and breaking down the strong partition which you mention, is indeed somehow very terrible and shocking to human nature in its present state. ”

“ And it is indeed a treasure above all earthly treasures to be possessed of the Light of God and Nature operating in their spheres, and to have both the Eye of Time and Eternity at once open together, and yet not to interfere with each other. ”

“ The sun only acts by stirring up in each thing, and calling into activity, its own imprisoned, dormant, heat or life. Save by the same nature-process, working in an inner sphere, there cannot come to pass the flower and fruit of the Soul. ”

“ O merciful God in Christ Jesus, I beseech thee out of thy deep Love towards us poor Men, which thou hast manifested in me in the hidden Man, call us all in thee, to thee. O stir thyself in us yet once again in this last Trouble; thy Anger being kindled in us, do thou resist it, lest it swallow us up wholly both Soul and Body. ”

“ I will keep my Pearl in Myself, and dwell in the Heaven in thee, in thy extinguished, but now in me, revived, Humanity, and reserve my Pearl for Paradise, until thou puttest away this Earthliness from thee, and then I will give it to thee to possess. ”

“ Apart from the existence of God there could be neither Presence nor Absence, neither Heaven nor Hell. If the Soul of Man were wholly divided and separated from the Divine Life, it would, as a part of Nature, be a mere hungering, restless, conscious Desire. ”

“ The office of the Love here is to penetrate incessantly into Something; and if it penetrate into, and find a place in Something which is standing still and at rest, then its business is to take possession thereof. And when it hath there taken possession, then it rejoiceth therein with its flaming Love-fire, even as the sun doth in the visible world. ”

“ First, then, in that I said, its virtue is Nothing, or that Nothing which is the beginning of All Things, thou must understand it thus; When thou art gone forth wholly from the Creature, and from that which is visible; and art become Nothing to all that is Nature and Creature, then thou art in that Eternal One, which is God himself; and then thou shalt perceive and feel within thee the highest virtue of Love. ”

“ There where the Soul hath slain its own Will, and willeth no more any Thing as from itself, but only as God willeth, and as his Spirit moveth upon the Soul shall this appear. Where the Love of Self is banished there dwelleth the Love of God. ”

“ For if the Soul will obtain the triumphant Garland of Christ from the noble Sophia or Divine Wisdom, it must wooe her for it in great Desire of Love. It must entreat her in her most holy Name for it, and come before her in most modest Humility, and not like a lustful Bull or a wanton Venus. ”

“ Its flame also will be so very great that it will never leave thee, though it should even cost thee thy temporal life, but it would go with thee with its sweet loving fire into death; and if thou wentest also into Hell, it would break Hell in pieces also for thy sake. Nothing is more certain than this, for it is stronger than Death and Hell. ”

“ His Iliad is the struggle between light and darkness, life and death, expansion and contraction, the centripetal and centrifugal force, heat and cold, love and hatred, peace and wrath, humility and pride, self-sacrifice and self-seeking, joy and anguish, repose and restlessness, in the whole of Nature and in the Soul of Man. Does not every man, who has lived his full life, know the truth and reality of all this? ”

“ God then comes as a Light, a soft purifying Fire into the Soul, and changes all the wanting, hungering, empty, restless, self-tormenting properties of the Natural Life into a sweetness of rest and peace. ”

“ Even so all Things are sprung forth out of the divine Desire, and created into an Essence, where in the Beginning there was no such Essence present, but only that same Mystery of the eternal Generation, in which there has been an eternal perfection. ”

“ For all do Work and Desire in Man, God's Love and Anger: He stands while he is in this Tabernacle in the Gate either to go out or in: Both eternal Principles are stirring in him; to which the Soul's Will gives itself, of that it is received, and thereto it is chosen; he is drawn of both, and if the Will of the Soul remains in Self-hood, then he is in the Hand of God's Anger. ”

“ Behmen says, "The Essence of that Life eateth the Flesh of Christ and drinketh His Blood.... Now if the Soul eat of this sweet, holy and heavenly food, then it kindleth itself with the great Love in the name and power of Jesus, whence its fire of anguish becometh a great triumph of joy and glory." ”

“ Where no evil Thoughts could touch him, neither Care nor Trouble, neither Heat nor Cold. Where no Night is known; where there is no Day or limited Time any more, but an everlasting Blessedness, wherein Soul and Body tremble for Joy. ”

“ If men would as fervently seek after love and righteousness as they do after opinions, there would be no strife on earth, and we should be as children of one [Pg 4] father, and should need no law or ordinance. For God is not served by any law, but only by obedience. ”

“ Let none account it impossible, seeing Man is a Likeness according to and in God, an Image of the Being of all Beings; and yet it stands not in the Power of the Creature, but in the Might of God, for the Sight and Science of all Essences consist alone in the clearest Light. ”

“ It is higher than the highest and greater than the greatest; thou mayst hereby perceive as in a glimpse the supreme height and greatness of Omnipotent Love which infinitely transcends all that human sense and reason can reach to. The highest Archangel and greatest Powers of Heaven, are in comparison of it, but as dwarfs. Nothing can be conceived higher and greater in God himself, by the very highest and greatest of his creatures. ”

“ O kiss me with thy Desire in thy Strength and Power, and then I will shew thee all my Beauty, and will rejoice and solace Myself with thy sweet Love and shining Brightness in thy fiery Life. All the holy Angels rejoice with us, to see us united again. My dear Love, I now entreat thee to abide in my Faith, and do not turn thy Face away from me any more. Work thou thy Wonders in my Love, for which Purpose God hath created thee and brought thee into Being. ”

“ O God in Christ Jesus, thou who for poor Sinners' Sakes didst become Man to help them, to thee I complain; to thee I have yet a Spark of Refuge in my Soul. I have not regarded thy purchased Inheritance, which thou hast purchased for us poor Men, by thy bitter Death, but have made myself a Partaker of the Heritage of Vanity, in the Anger of my Father in the Curse of the Earth, and am ensnared in Sin, and half dead as to thy Kingdom. ”

“ Then he shall be introduced into the Root of his Likeness; for every Hunger receives its like into itself; now the whole Manifestation of Eternity with this Time is Nothing else but an Hunger and Generation; as the Hunger is, so is also the Essence of its Satiating ”

“ They are in this life everywhere commingled, but when this life falls away, the Soul remains in that of the two states into which it has in this life brought itself. The Soul, after death, remains either as a satisfied Desire, that is, a Desire no longer but a Joy, or as an aching Desire. ”

“ But the noble Sophia draweth near in the Essence of the Soul, and kisseth it in friendly Manner, and tinctureth its dark Fire with her Rays of Love, and shineth through it with her bright and powerful Influence. Penetrated with the strong Sense and Feeling of which, the Soul skippeth in its Body for great Joy, and in the Strength of this Virgin Love exulteth, and praiseth the great God for his blessed Gift of Grace. ”

“ For thou shalt find Christ in thee assaulting Hell, and crushing thy Beasts in pieces, and that a great tumult and misery will arise in thee; also thy secret undiscovered sins will then first awake and labour to separate thee from God, and to keep thee back. Thus shalt thou truly find and feel how Death and Life fight one against the other, and shalt understand by what passeth within thyself what Heaven and Hell are. ”

“ The holy Man is unto God a sweet Savour unto Life, and the wicked a sweet Savour unto Death. All whatever does live and move must enter into the Glory of God; one Works in his Love, the other in his Anger: All is gene-rated and created in the infinite Being to the Manifestation of the infinite great God; out of all the Properties of Evil and Good, Creatures were brought forth by the Will of the speaking Word ”

“ The Fire is the Principle of every Life; to the Darkness it gives Essence and Source, else there would be no Sensibility in the Darkness, also no Spirit, but mere Hardness, a hard, sharp, bitter, galling Sting, as it is really so in the eternal Darkness ”

“ By it is understood the Origin to a Desire in the eternal Nothing, or pregnant Magic, God's free Well-liking to the Desire of the Manifestation of Nature and Creature, without which all had been an eternal Stillness in the Nothing. This Lubet in Man is the moving Will to Good or Evil, Light or Darkness, Love or Anger. ”

“ The Death dies away in the Love, and becomes in the Love the Life of the divine Kingdom of Joy; for it is not a Dying, but a free surrendering of its Power, Might, and Will, a Transmutation; the Virgin's Blood changes the Human, dead as to God, into an heavenly [Blood] , the Life of the young Man dies, and the Life of the Deity remains fixed and steadfast, for it stands in its Property in the Nothing. ”