Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence
There was a time when the Mosaic law was the highest word of the day. Sacrifices were offered, and they were offered from the living impulse of the heart ; for, in the sacrifice, man offered himself and his own will to the Divine ; until later, in the custody of a priesthood that made out of sacrificial rites a lucrative business, the idea perished, and the dead form survived, against which the new and living arose in the preaching of the prophets : " I desired mercy and not sacrifice." But the word of the prophets also perished, and soon law and prophets were but a dead letter. Then came among the dead a mighty living One, the same who commanded the would-be disciple to follow and let the dead bury their dead; the same who, when asked what punishment should be meted unto the adulterous woman, stooped down and wrote on the ground — wrote nothing else, we believe, but the word of the law which condemned the woman to die. There it stood, the holy word of the law, written in the dust, a dead letter ! But He had come to bring new life unto men ; He hung upon the Cross for it; yet the mustard-seed of His teaching, full of lifepower, grew into a tree, in the shade of which the nations were to dwell. Not with fire and sword, but with the sap of its inner life, Christianity conquered the world. And then, scarce had its victory been won, when again life gave way to death. The living word of Jesus hardened into fixed and authoritative dogma. Even as Jesus had deplored the fact that " the Scribes and the
INTRODUCTION XXXV11
Pharisees sit in Moses' seat," so also history repeated itself under another form, and in the seat of Jesus sat the Popes of the Middle Ages.
Neoplatonism and mediaeval Mysticism vainly sought with a fresh impetus to break through the crust of orthodoxy; but the storm of the Reformation burst at last, swept away the crystallized traditions and breathed a new life into moribund Christianity. But a short time later, this also fell under the common law of all religious development. The reformers had gone back to the Bible as the source of mediaeval traditions ; the way was clear before them ; the indications pointed to a further going back, without halt or hesitation, beyond and behind the letter of the Bible, right into the very fountain-head whence all revelations, including the Bible, have ever flowed forth, right into the divine powers that slumber in the abysmal depths of every human mind. These living powers were, as before in Jesus and in Paul, awake in Luther, and had given him inspiration : but the well he had begun to sink was soon choked through endless religious strife ; and a hundred years after Luther, there arose, almost as domineering and intolerant as Popery itself, the letter-bound Lutheran orthodoxy.
In such times lived Jacob Boehme, who, as a religious and philosophical genius, has not often had his equal in the world's history, and might have been the very man fitted to finish Luther's half-done work of Churchreformation, and bring about a reconciliation between sciejjce^n^Lfaith, such as we are still lacking in our days. But unfavourable circumstances hindered his endeavours, both outwardly and inwardly; and while his life was consumed in a continual struggle with the fanatical, letter-ridden orthodoxy, he succeeded but imperfectly, limited as he was by the literal sense of the Bible, in bringing into expression the truly free and truly devout spirit that inwardly animated him.
Both the life and the teaching of the man are well worthy of deep consideration ; and both offer over again
XXXvhi THE THREE PRINCIPLES
the same peculiar drama of life wrestling with death, yet unable to overcome altogether.
There was a time when the Mosaic law was the highest word of the day. Sacrifices were offered, and they were offered from the living impulse of the heart ; for, in the sacrifice, man offered himself and his own will to the Divine ; until later, in the custody of a priesthood that made out of sacrificial rites a lucrative business, the idea perished, and the dead form survived, against which the new and living arose in the preaching of the prophets : " I desired mercy and not sacrifice." But the word of the prophets also perished, and soon law and prophets were but a dead letter. Then came among the dead a mighty living One, the same who commanded the would-be disciple to follow and let the dead bury their dead; the same who, when asked what punishment should be meted unto the adulterous woman, stooped down and wrote on the ground — wrote nothing else, we believe, but the word of the law which condemned the woman to die. There it stood, the holy word of the law, written in the dust, a dead letter ! But He had come to bring new life unto men ; He hung upon the Cross for it; yet the mustard-seed of His teaching, full of lifepower, grew into a tree, in the shade of which the nations were to dwell. Not with fire and sword, but with the sap of its inner life, Christianity conquered the world. And then, scarce had its victory been won, when again life gave way to death. The living word of Jesus hardened into fixed and authoritative dogma. Even as Jesus had deplored the fact that " the Scribes and the
INTRODUCTION XXXV11
Pharisees sit in Moses' seat," so also history repeated itself under another form, and in the seat of Jesus sat the Popes of the Middle Ages.
Neoplatonism and mediaeval Mysticism vainly sought with a fresh impetus to break through the crust of orthodoxy; but the storm of the Reformation burst at last, swept away the crystallized traditions and breathed a new life into moribund Christianity. But a short time later, this also fell under the common law of all religious development. The reformers had gone back to the Bible as the source of mediaeval traditions ; the way was clear before them ; the indications pointed to a further going back, without halt or hesitation, beyond and behind the letter of the Bible, right into the very fountain-head whence all revelations, including the Bible, have ever flowed forth, right into the divine powers that slumber in the abysmal depths of every human mind. These living powers were, as before in Jesus and in Paul, awake in Luther, and had given him inspiration : but the well he had begun to sink was soon choked through endless religious strife ; and a hundred years after Luther, there arose, almost as domineering and intolerant as Popery itself, the letter-bound Lutheran orthodoxy.
In such times lived Jacob Boehme, who, as a religious and philosophical genius, has not often had his equal in the world's history, and might have been the very man fitted to finish Luther's half-done work of Churchreformation, and bring about a reconciliation between sciejjce^n^Lfaith, such as we are still lacking in our days. But unfavourable circumstances hindered his endeavours, both outwardly and inwardly; and while his life was consumed in a continual struggle with the fanatical, letter-ridden orthodoxy, he succeeded but imperfectly, limited as he was by the literal sense of the Bible, in bringing into expression the truly free and truly devout spirit that inwardly animated him.
Both the life and the teaching of the man are well worthy of deep consideration ; and both offer over again
XXXvhi THE THREE PRINCIPLES
the same peculiar drama of life wrestling with death, yet unable to overcome altogether.