Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

Ch. 7] THE FOUR ELEMENTS 89

of the second Principle in the virtue of the light) over and in the virtue of the spirit of the stars and elements very mightily, as in that which is its proper own. But in the fall of Adam we lost this great power, when we left paradise, and went into the third Principle, into the matrix of this world, which presently held us captive in restraint. But yet we have the knowledge [of that power] by a glance [or glimmering], and we see as through a dim or dark glass the eternal 1 birth. » Or operative

5. And although we move thus weakly or im- p' potently in all the three births, and that the gate of paradise is so often darkened to us, and that the devil doth so often draw us into the hellish gate, and that also the elements cover the 2 sidereal gate, 2 or the and wholly cloud them, so that we oftentimes move influences of in the whole matrix, as if we were deaf, dumb, or half dead, yet if the paradisical light shineth to us, we may very well see into the mother of all the three Principles ; for nothing can hinder us, the threefold spirit of man seeth every form and quality in its mother.

6. Therefore though we speak of the creation of the world, as if we had been by at present, and had seen it, none ought to marvel at it. nor hold it for impossible. For the spirit that is in us, which one man inherits from another, that was breathed out of the eternity into Adam, that same spirit hath seen it all, and in the light of God it seeth it still ; and there is nothing that is far off, or unsearchable :

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For the eternal birth, which standeth hidden in the centre of man, that doth nothing [that is] new, it knoweth, worketh and doth even the same that ever it did from eternity ; it laboureth for the light and for the darkness, and worketh in great anguish ; but when the light shineth therein, then there is mere joy and knowledge in its working.

7. So that when the heaven, and the birth of the elements are spoken of, it is not a thing afar off, or that is distant from us, that is spoken of; but we speak of things that are done in our body and soul ; and there is nothing nearer us than this birth, for we live and move therein, as in the house of our mother ; and when we speak of heaven, we speak of our native country, which the enlightened soul can well see, though indeed such things are hidden from the body.

8. For as the soul of man moveth and swimmeth between the virtue of the stars and elements, so the created heaven also moveth between paradise and the kingdom of hell, and it swimmeth in the eternal matrix ; its limit reacheth as far as the ethera [skies or receptacle] hath yielded itself up to the creation, so far as the kingdom of Lucifer did reach, where yet no end is to be found : For the virtue or power of God is without end, but our sense reacheth only

Or outbirth, to the fiery heaven of the stars, which are a l propagation in the fifth form of the eternal mother (or a quinta essentia), wherein the separation in the time of the third Principle (or in the beginningCh. 7] THE FOUR ELEMENTS 91 of this world), the virtue or power of the matrix was l separated, where now the separation is thus 1 Or divided moved : And then every essence in the propaga- iarie5!r ' °r tion, in the manifold centres of the stars, hath a

2 longing desire, one after another, and a continual 2 attracting.

will to infect [impregnate, or mix influences] ;

and the one essence, or virtue, is the 3meat and3 food.

drink, as also the chest [case, or receptacle] of the other.