11 worketh according to its kind, it vivifieth and * Or buiM«th.
killeth ; what it doth, it doth [not regarding
whether it be] evil, crooked, lame, or good, beautiful or potent, it causeth to live and to die, it
affordeth power and strength, and destroyeth the
same again ; and all this without any premeditated
wisdom ; whereby it may be perceived, that it is
not the divine providence and wisdom itself, as the
heathens supposed, and foolishly relied upon the
virtue thereof.
4. But if we would see the ground thereof,
we must only look upon the first mother in her
birth, and so we shall see and find it all. For
as the first mother (considering her in the original
without the light) is sour [or harsh], dark,
hard, and cold, and yet there is the 2 water- 2 Or spirit of
• *•««.. r i i (* i * 1
spirit in the bringing lortn, thus you may nnd
(when the material world sprang up) that God
then on the first day created the heaven and
the earth.
5. Now the heaven cometh out of the sour
matrix, which in the paradisical [heaven] is the
water-spirit ; and out of that paradisical [waterspirit or matrix] the material [heaven or matrix]
is created ; as Moses writeth, that the heaven was
created out of the midst of the waters ; and it is
very right. And also in that very hour the earth
and the stones, and all metals (the matrix of this
world being yet dark) were generated out of the
matrix.
6
82 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 6
26. For when the matrix was stirred, and that
lord Lucifer would domineer in the fire, then the
dark matrix attracted all that was wrought in the
1 out-birth. l birth together, from whence earth, stones, metals,
brimstone and salt did proceed : Hereby the kingdom of prince Lucifer was shut up, and he remained
in the inward centre captivated in the outward.
7. But the virtue which was in the matrix, was
that which could effect such things in the matrix ;
2 The original for a stone is nothing else but a water, 2 mercury,
ritts. salt, and brimstone, wherein an oil is hidden.
Now the birth of the matrix hath such a form
3 Or continual in its eternal essence, and 8 birth of its life. For
first, there is the harshness [or sourness], fierceness
[or eager strongness] and hardness, from whence
the cold proceedeth. Now the sourness [or harshness] attracteth and sharpeneth the cold ; and in
its attracting it maketh the bitter sting [or prickle]
which pricketh and rageth, and cannot endure the
hard attracting, but vexeth like a furious madness,
it riseth up and rageth, and becometh like a
brimstone-spirit.
38. And in this form in the wrath [or fierce
strongness], in the watery sour mother, the sour
bitter earth, brimstone and salt is generated, before the kindling of the sun in the matrix that is
void of understanding. But the separation that is
in it, is caused from the birth's standing in great
anguish, and from its desiring the separation in
the birth ; for the bitterness agreeth not with the
Ch. 6] OF THE SEPARATION IN THE CREATION 83
harshness [or sourness], and yet they are as mother
and son, and as members one l of another ; and it1 in.
must be so, or else nothing could be, for it is the
eternal band, and the original of life.
9. Moreover, when the bitterness rageth, riseth
up, and 2vexeth in the [sour] harsh mother, then 2 acheth.
it falleth into a glimmering flash most terribly ;
in this form the mercurius, or venom, or poison is
generated. For when the matrix perceiveth this
flash of fire in its dark sour form, then it is terrified, and becometh dead in her hard sour property.
And in this place death, poison, 3 withering and 3 failing away,
corruption are generated in the matrix, and also anddestrac.
the noble life in the mercurius, and in the springing up of the third Principle.
The source text as printed, transcribed diplomatically. Where the source language uses a non-Latin script that reaches us only through a Victorian romanisation, this layer is labelled transliteration, because that is what we hold.