Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

in heaven, hallowed (or sanctified) be your name. And in the first of Genesis it is written, God created the heaven out of the midst of the water ; by which is [meant or] understood the heaven of the third Principle : And yet indeed he has created it out of his own heaven wherein he dwells. Thus you may easily find, that the birth of the holy Deity stands in the source of water, and the powerful spirit is moreover the former, framer, and fashioner [or moulder] therein.

Ch. 4] OF THE TRUE ETERNAL NATURE 57

60. Thus now the heaven in this forming or framing, and the framing and generating out of it in infinitum, or endlessly, is the paradise of God, as the highly worthy Moses writes : The spirit of God moved upon the water, in the framing [forming or fashioning] of the world. This is, and continues so in its eternity, that the spirit of God (in the birth of the Son of God) moves upon the water ; for he is the virtue, or power, and the out-flowing in the Father, out of the kindled l light [a] water, out of the water and * light-water. light of God.

61. Thus God is one only undivided essence, and yet threefold in personal distinction, one God, one will, one Heart, one desire, one pleasure, one beauty, one almightiness, one fulness of all things, neither beginning nor ending ; for if I should go about to seek for the beginning or ending of a small dot [point, punctum], or of a perfect circle, I should miss and be confounded.

62. And although I have written here, as if it took a beginning (writing as it were of the beginning [and first springing] of the second Principle and the 2 birth of the divine essence), yet you a Or continual must not understand it as having any beginning ;

for the eternal birth is thus [without beginning or end], and that in the originalness. But I write to the end that man might learn to know himself, what he is, and what God, heaven, angels, devils, and hell are, as also what the wrath of God and

58 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 4 hell-fire are. For I am permitted to write as far as of the originalness.

63. Therefore, 0 child of man, consider what you are in this time ; esteem not so slightly or poorly of yourself, but consider that you remain in paradise, and put not out the divine light in you ; or else you must hereafter remain in the original of the source of anger or wrath in the valley of darkness ; and your noble image out of God will be turned into a serpent and dragon.

64. For you must know, that as soon as the divine light went out in the devils, they lost their beauteous form and image, and became like serpents, dragons, worms, and evil beasts ; as may be seen by Adam's serpent; and thus it is also with the damned souls. For this we know in the original of the first Principle very well. If you ask, How so ? Read this following :

A description of a Devil, how he is in his own
proper form, and also how he was in the
Angelical form.

65. Behold, 0 child of man ! All the angels were Or moving, created in the first Principle, and by the * flowing spirit were formed and bodified in a true angelical and spiritual manner, and enlightened from the light of God, that they might increase the paradisical joy, and abide [therein] eternally. But seeing they were to abide eternally, they must be figured [or formed] out of the indissoluble band,

Ch. 4] OF THE TRUE ETERNAL NATURE 59 out of the first Principle, which is an indissoluble band ; and they ought to look upon the Heart of God, and feed upon the Word of God, and this food would be their holy preservation, and would make their image clear and light ; as the Heart of God, in the beginning of the second Principle enlightens the Father (that is, the first Principle) ; and there the divine power, paradise, and the kingdom of heaven spring up.