The Confessions of Jacob Boehme
Seek for the noble pearl ; it is much more precious than this whole world ; it will never more depart from you. Where the pearl is, there will your heart be also ; you need not in this life seek any further after paradise, joy and heavenly delight ; seek but the pearl, and when you find that, then you find paradise and the kingdom of heaven.
I have perused many masterpieces of writing, hoping to find the high and deep wisdom of God, the pearl of the understanding of man ; but I could find nothing of that which my soul lusted after. I have found very many contrary opinions, and atp. 54 times I have found some who forbid me to search, but I cannot know with what reason except it be that the blind grudge at the eyes of them that see.
With all this my soul is become very disquiet within, and has been as full of pain and anguish as a woman at her travail ; and yet to no end till I followed the words of Christ when he said : You must be born anew, if you will see the kingdom of God. This at first confounded me ; I supposed that such a thing could not be done in this world, but only at my departure out of this world. And then my soul was at first in anguish, longing after the pearl ; but, yielding itself, at last obtained the jewel. Therefore I will write, for a memorial to myself and for a light to them that seek. For Christ said : None lights a candle and puts it under a bushel, but sets it upon a table that all that are in the house may see by the light of it. To this end he gives the pearl of divine wisdom and knowledgep. 55 to them that seek, that they should impart it to the desirous for their healing, as he has very earnestly commanded.
Indeed Moses writes that God made man of the dust of the earth. And that is the opinion of very many. I also should not have known how that was to be understood, and I should not have learned it out of Moses, nor out of the glosses put upon his words. The veil would have continued still before my eyes, though I was much troubled thereby. But when I found the pearl, then I looked Moses in the face, and found that he had wrote very right, but that I had not rightly understood it.
Now the question is : What is God's image? Behold, and consider the Deity, and then you will light upon it. God is not an animal man ; and man should be the image and similitude of God, wherein God may dwell. God is a spirit ; three principles are in him, that is, the sources and powers of the darkness, of the light,p. 56 and of this world. He would make such an image as should have all these three and so be rightly a similitude of himself. Therefore Moses may be well understood to say that God created man and did not make him of a lump of earth. But the forming power in which God created him is the matrix of the earth, out of which the earth was generated ; and the matter in which he created him is a quintessence of the stars and elements, and came forth from the heavenly matrix which is also the root of the earth.
Now the soul stands in two gates, and touches two principles, the eternal darkness and the eternal light of the Son of God, as God the Father himself does. Thus it may be in heaven and in paradise, and enjoy the unutterable joy of God the Father which he has in his Son, and it may hear the inexpressible words of the Heart of God.
There the soul feeds on all the words of
p. 57
Seek for the noble pearl ; it is much more precious than this whole world ; it will never more depart from you. Where the pearl is, there will your heart be also ; you need not in this life seek any further after paradise, joy and heavenly delight ; seek but the pearl, and when you find that, then you find paradise and the kingdom of heaven.
I have perused many masterpieces of writing, hoping to find the high and deep wisdom of God, the pearl of the understanding of man ; but I could find nothing of that which my soul lusted after. I have found very many contrary opinions, and atp. 54 times I have found some who forbid me to search, but I cannot know with what reason except it be that the blind grudge at the eyes of them that see.
With all this my soul is become very disquiet within, and has been as full of pain and anguish as a woman at her travail ; and yet to no end till I followed the words of Christ when he said : You must be born anew, if you will see the kingdom of God. This at first confounded me ; I supposed that such a thing could not be done in this world, but only at my departure out of this world. And then my soul was at first in anguish, longing after the pearl ; but, yielding itself, at last obtained the jewel. Therefore I will write, for a memorial to myself and for a light to them that seek. For Christ said : None lights a candle and puts it under a bushel, but sets it upon a table that all that are in the house may see by the light of it. To this end he gives the pearl of divine wisdom and knowledgep. 55 to them that seek, that they should impart it to the desirous for their healing, as he has very earnestly commanded.
Indeed Moses writes that God made man of the dust of the earth. And that is the opinion of very many. I also should not have known how that was to be understood, and I should not have learned it out of Moses, nor out of the glosses put upon his words. The veil would have continued still before my eyes, though I was much troubled thereby. But when I found the pearl, then I looked Moses in the face, and found that he had wrote very right, but that I had not rightly understood it.
Now the question is : What is God's image? Behold, and consider the Deity, and then you will light upon it. God is not an animal man ; and man should be the image and similitude of God, wherein God may dwell. God is a spirit ; three principles are in him, that is, the sources and powers of the darkness, of the light,p. 56 and of this world. He would make such an image as should have all these three and so be rightly a similitude of himself. Therefore Moses may be well understood to say that God created man and did not make him of a lump of earth. But the forming power in which God created him is the matrix of the earth, out of which the earth was generated ; and the matter in which he created him is a quintessence of the stars and elements, and came forth from the heavenly matrix which is also the root of the earth.
Now the soul stands in two gates, and touches two principles, the eternal darkness and the eternal light of the Son of God, as God the Father himself does. Thus it may be in heaven and in paradise, and enjoy the unutterable joy of God the Father which he has in his Son, and it may hear the inexpressible words of the Heart of God.
There the soul feeds on all the words of
p. 57
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