Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

61. I say, 7 this has not been sought, but we7 high knowsought the Heart of God, that we might hide us

256 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 13

1 storm. therein from the l tempest of the devil. But when we came there, then the loving virgin out of paradise met us, and offered us her love, she would be kind [and friendly] to us, and be betrothed to us for a companion, and show us the way to paradise, where we shall be safe from the stormy tempest, and she carried a branch in her hand, and said, We will plant this, and a lily shall grow, and I will come to you again ; from whence we gat this longing to write of the amiable virgin, which did show us the way into paradise, where we must go through the kingdom of this world, and also through the kingdom of hell, and no hurt done us ; and according to that [direction of her's] we write.

THE FOURTEENTH CHAPTER

Of the Birth and Propagation of Man.
The very Secret Gate.

1. TF we consider now the springing up of the *•*- life, and in what place of the body it is where the life is generated, then we shall rightly find the whole ground of man, and there is nothing so secret in man l but that it may be found. For 1

,,*.,, not be found.

we must needs say, that the heart is the place wherein the noble life is generated, and the life again generats the heart.

2. As it is mentioned above, so the life in the anguish, with the kindling of the light, takes its beginning from the glance of the sunshine, from the spirit of the stars and elements in the great anguish, where death and life wrestle one with the other. For when man departed from paradise into another birth (viz. into the spirit of this world, into the quality of the sun, stars, and elements) then the paradisical [vision or] seeing ceased [or was extinguished], where man sees from the divine virtue, without [need of] the sun and stars ; where

257 17

258 THE THREE PRINCIPLES Ch. 14

1 Or there the the l springing up of the life is in the Holy life in the r a & .

Holy Ghost Ghost and the light of God is the glance of the budds forth . . . e in the place spirit, from whence he sees ; which went out ; elements. for the spirit of the soul went into the Principle « man. of this world.

3. You must not so understand it, as if it were extinguished in itself : No ; but the soul of Adam went out from the Principle of God, into the Principle of this world ; and therein now the spirit of every soul is thus generated again by human propagation, as is mentioned before, and it cannot be otherwise. And therefore if we would be fit for the kingdom of heaven, we must be regenerated anew in the spirit of God, or else none can inherit the kingdom of God, as Christ taught us faithfully ; of which I will write hereafter, that it may be a fountain for the thirsty, and a light to the noble way, in the blossom of the lily.

4. And we must here know, that our life, which we get in our mother's body [or womb,] stands merely and only in the power of the sun, stars, and elements ; so that they not only figure [or fashion] a child in the mother's body, and give it life, but also bring it into this world, and nourish it the whole time of its life, and bring it up, also cause fortune and misfortune to it, and, at last, death and corruption ; and if our essences (out of which our life is generated) were not higher, in their first degree out of Adam, [than the beasts], then we should be wholly like the beasts.

Ch. 14] BIRTH AND PROPAGATION OP MAN 259

5. But our l essences are generated much higher l active, essen-

,,.. f i t-f • 7 i tial virtues,