Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

with lustre in the first Principle, and 4 thoroughly enlightened all over with the second Principle, truly dwelling in paradise, and in the divine virtue [or power], and yet with pride fell from the light of God, and caught at his own mother, the root of the fire, thinking to domineer over the meekness of the Heart of God), then his dwelling continued to be

Ch. 8] OF THE CREATION OF THE CREATURES 107 the first Principle in the fiery dark matrix ; and God created the out-birth out of the matrix, for a Principle ; and in the eternal matrix, in the longing will, he opened the centre or birth of life ; and there (after the manner of the Deity, as the eternal Deity from eternity has always generated) arose [and sprang up] the third Principle, in which the Deity stands as it were hidden, yet forming, imagining, or imprinting itself powerfully in all things ; which is incomprehensible and unprofitable for the devil.

4. Yet the third Principle is a similitude of the paradisical world, which is spiritual, and stands hidden therein. And thus God manifests himself; and seeing the spiritual world of the angels in the place of this world continued not, therefore he gave another Principle to this place, wherein a light springs up still, and where there is a pleasant refreshment ; for the purpose of God must stand, and the first creatures must continue in darkness, rather [than that the purpose of God should fail].

5. So the matter of this world, as also the stars and elements, must not be looked upon, as if God were not therein. His eternal wisdom and virtue [or power] has formed itself with the Fiat in all things, and he himself is the master- workman ; and all things went forth in the Fiat, every thing in its own essence, virtue and property. For as every star in the firmament has a property different

108 THE THREE PRINCIPLES [Ch. 8 from the other; thus is it with the mother also, out of which the fifth * essence of the stars went forth. For when the fiery form of the stars was separated from her, she was not presently severed from the first eternal birth-right, but she kept her first eternal virtue. Only the rising power of the fire is severed from her, so that / she is become a pleasant refreshment, and a kind mother to her children.

6. Now when God on the first day had gathered together the lump of the earth in the great deep of this world, then the deep became purified, yet [the deep between the firmament and the earth, though it was cleansed from dregs, was] dark, and had no light in the matrix ; but the fifth essence, that is, the fifth form in the matrix, shone as a fire, wherein the spirit of God with the Fiat moved upon the watery matrix ; and the earth was naked, bare, and void ; neither had it so much as one spire of grass.

7. Now says Moses, And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. This light now was the fifth form in the matrix. For the fifth essence was not yet created in the matrix, nor separated till the fourth day, when God created the sun and stars out of it, and separated the light from the darkness ; where then the light got the virtue of the glance, or splendour, into itself for its own, and the root of the fire in the centre remained hidden in the darkness.

Cll. 8] OF THE CREATION OF THE CREATURES 109

8. On the second day, God created the firmament of the heaven, viz. the strong inclosure [fence, or stop] to the darkness of the original matrix, that it might no more kindle itself, and generate earth and stones. And therefore he made the inclosure or firmament out of the midst of the waters, which stays the might [force, or power] of the fire, and became the visible heaven, whence the creatures are proceeded, from whence now the elements, fire, air, and water proceed.