The Confessions of Jacob Boehme
the Theologia Germanica. Boehme, therefore, was far from being an isolated spiritual phenomenon. He was fed from many sources ; but all that he received was fused and remade in the furnace of his own inner life. The result was a new creation, as unique as the White Stone which the alchemist made from his mercury, sulphur, and salt ; but we do it no honour by ignoring the elements from which it sprang. It is v~t- nossiWe to extract from Boehme's vast, prolix, anS4loften difficult works any closed system of phik/Gu^v. Often he repeats himself, sometimes contradicts himself, or hides his meaning behind a haze of inconsistent symbols ; for his writing never wholly lost its inspirational character. But as we study these writings we gradually discern certain guiding lines, certain fixed characters, which help us to find our way through the maze. These, thoroughly grasped, enable us to recognize order and meaning in that xxvi CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME which is often an apparent chaos ; to enjoy and understand something of that revelation which transformed the little Saxon cobbler into a prophet of the Kingdom of God.
Boehme's map of reality is based, like that of most mystics, on the number three, and has several interesting points of contact with Neoplatonism. The universe in its essence consists of three worlds, which are "none other than God Himself in His wonderful works." Without -^«d beyond Nature is fefoa& Abyss of the Deity, "the Ftfci'aâr Good that is the Eternal One " : a Plotinian definition of the Absolute which may have reached Boehme through Eckhart and his school. The three worlds are the trinity of emanations through which the transcendent Unity achieves selfexpression. Boehme calls them the fireworld, the light-world, and the dark-world. They are not mutually exclusive spheres, but aspects of a whole. By them "we are to understand a threefold Being, or three
INTRODUCTION xxvii
worlds in one another " ; and all have their part in the production of that outward world of sense in which we live.
Fire is the eternal energetic Divine will towards creation ; that unresting life, born of a craving, which inspires the natural world of becoming. ' ' What ever is to come to anything must have Fire " : it is the selfexpression of the Father. From the primal fire or fount of generation in its fierceness are born the pair of opposites through which tJe Divine energy is manifested : the 11 dark- world " of conflict, evil, and wrath which is Eternal Nature in itself, and the " light- world " of wisdom and love, which is Eternal Spirit in itself — the Platonic Nous, the Son of Christian theology. The dark-world represents that quality in life which is recalcitrant to all we call divine; " unregenerate nature," which was for Boehme no illusion but a dreadful fact. It is the sphere of undetermined nonmoral striving, and of all " biting, hating, xxviii CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME
the Theologia Germanica. Boehme, therefore, was far from being an isolated spiritual phenomenon. He was fed from many sources ; but all that he received was fused and remade in the furnace of his own inner life. The result was a new creation, as unique as the White Stone which the alchemist made from his mercury, sulphur, and salt ; but we do it no honour by ignoring the elements from which it sprang. It is v~t- nossiWe to extract from Boehme's vast, prolix, anS4loften difficult works any closed system of phik/Gu^v. Often he repeats himself, sometimes contradicts himself, or hides his meaning behind a haze of inconsistent symbols ; for his writing never wholly lost its inspirational character. But as we study these writings we gradually discern certain guiding lines, certain fixed characters, which help us to find our way through the maze. These, thoroughly grasped, enable us to recognize order and meaning in that xxvi CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME which is often an apparent chaos ; to enjoy and understand something of that revelation which transformed the little Saxon cobbler into a prophet of the Kingdom of God.
Boehme's map of reality is based, like that of most mystics, on the number three, and has several interesting points of contact with Neoplatonism. The universe in its essence consists of three worlds, which are "none other than God Himself in His wonderful works." Without -^«d beyond Nature is fefoa& Abyss of the Deity, "the Ftfci'aâr Good that is the Eternal One " : a Plotinian definition of the Absolute which may have reached Boehme through Eckhart and his school. The three worlds are the trinity of emanations through which the transcendent Unity achieves selfexpression. Boehme calls them the fireworld, the light-world, and the dark-world. They are not mutually exclusive spheres, but aspects of a whole. By them "we are to understand a threefold Being, or three
INTRODUCTION xxvii
worlds in one another " ; and all have their part in the production of that outward world of sense in which we live.
Fire is the eternal energetic Divine will towards creation ; that unresting life, born of a craving, which inspires the natural world of becoming. ' ' What ever is to come to anything must have Fire " : it is the selfexpression of the Father. From the primal fire or fount of generation in its fierceness are born the pair of opposites through which tJe Divine energy is manifested : the 11 dark- world " of conflict, evil, and wrath which is Eternal Nature in itself, and the " light- world " of wisdom and love, which is Eternal Spirit in itself — the Platonic Nous, the Son of Christian theology. The dark-world represents that quality in life which is recalcitrant to all we call divine; " unregenerate nature," which was for Boehme no illusion but a dreadful fact. It is the sphere of undetermined nonmoral striving, and of all " biting, hating, xxviii CONFESSIONS OF JACOB BOEHME
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