Forty questions of the soul concerning its original, essence, substance, nature or quality and property, what it is from eternity to eternity : framed by a lover of the great mysteries, Doctor Balthasar Walter, and answered in the year 1620 / by Jacob Behme, called Teutonicus Philosophus ; Englished by John Sparrow ...

The Fourth Question. (Book 4)

What the Breathing in of the Soul is, and when it is done. (Book 4)

1. EVery Spirit without a Body is raw or void, and knoweth not it self: there∣fore every Spirit desireth a Body, for its food and for its habitation.

2. Now being God had before the Soul created the Third Principle, as a Looking-Glass of the Deity, therefore was the Look∣ing-Glass clearly appendant to the Eter∣nal, for it was generated out of the Eter∣nal Wonders, and so created: Therefore also the Third Principle would not leave the Soul free, being it also was created out of God's Wonders, and stood in the Begin∣ning as a Figure in God's Wisdom; and desired, seeing it was material, that it also might have a material Similitude in or on the Soul, & so stirred up in the Souls Crea∣tion, also its Spirit, together in the Fiat.

3. And there was the outward Image

according to the Spirit of this World, laid hold on by the outward Fiat, and became a Body created out of the Earths Matrix, A Mesch a Mixture, a Red Earth, consisting of Fire and Water.

4 And the Heavenly Matrix longed also after the Soul, and would that the Soul should bear its Image, and with the Bo∣dies creation laid hold of its own Fiat, and did create before the earthly Fiat created; that was the First, for out of the Center of the Word, went the Fiat forth with the Word: thus was the Third Principle Crea∣ted in the Second.

5. The Virgin-Wisdom, surrounded the Souls Spirit first with heavenly Sub∣stantiality, with heavenly Divine Flesh, and the holy Spirit gave the hea∣venly Tincture, which made heavenly Blood in the Water; as in our * 1.1 Third Book is menti∣oned at large.

6. Thus stood the inward Man in Hea∣ven, and its Essences were Paradisical, its glance in the inward Eye, was Majesty, an incorruptible Body, that could understand God's and the Angels Language; the Lan∣guage

of Nature, as is to be seen in Adam, that * 1.2 he gave all Creatures their Names, every one according to its Es∣sence and Property; he stood thus in the outward Image, and yet knew not the out∣ward Image by Experience, as indeed the outward Body hath no apprehension.

7. † 1.3 In this Twofold Bo∣dy, which was created on the Sixt Day on the Sixt hour of the Day, even * 1.4 in the Hour when Christ was hanged on the Cross, was the Kingly or Royal Soul, after the finish∣ing of the Body, breathed in by the holy Spirit, into the Heart, into the holy Man, into its Principle; like an awakening of the Deity.

8. The Third Number, hath moved it self with the Souls breathing in, for it was upon the Center in the Seed, as a sprout of the springing of the Essences; thus it was breathed in into the inward Center, into the inward Man, into the Heavenly Heart∣blood, into the Water of the Eternal Life, with all the two inner Principles.

9. And the Outward Spirit, viz. the Air, with the total outward Principle, with

Stars and Elements hung to the Inward, and the outward Spirit breatheth into him its life, together also with the Soul, * 1.5 through the Nostrils into the Heart, into the out∣ward Heart into the Earthly Flesh, which yet was not so Earthly; for it became cor∣poreal out of the Matrix out of the seeking out of which the Earth came to be.

10. Thus the Holy Spirit rode upon the Souls Chariot upon the Inward Majestick Will, and moved upon the Water; for the Water comprehended him not, there∣fore he moved upon it and in it, it is all one; and the Soul did burn or flame out of the Heart-blood, as the Light out of a Candle, and went through all the Three Principles, as a King over his Country or Dominion.

11. It could potently rule over the out∣ward Principle, if it were with its will entered again into the Heart of God, into the Word of the Lord.

12. Also the Source or Quality of the fierce Wrath did thus together press in with the Breathing in; viz. with the Original of the Soul.

13. And the Soul could not otherwise

continue to be God's Image, unless it continue in Humility and Obedience, and incline or set its will into God's Will; wherein it was an Angel and God's Child, else there was great danger, for a Creature to over-power two Principles, viz. the Angry, and the Outward, which was gene∣rated out of the Anger.

14. Therefore its Temptation, was not the mere biting of an Apple, and hath endured for a few hours only, but Forty Dayes, so long as Christ was tempted in the Wilderness, and even by all the Three Principles, and Israel in the Wilderness, when Moses was Forty Dayes upon the Mount; when they al∣so stood not, but made a Calf.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Three-fold Life.
• * 1.2

  Gen. 2. 19, 20.
• † 1.3

  Note the Hour when Christ was hanged on the Cross.
• * 1.4

  Mat. 27. 45. Mark 15. 33.
• * 1.5

  Gen. 2. 7.