Concerning the Three Principles of the Divine Essence

will, that is God the Son, for in the virtue the light is continually generated from eternity, and in the light out of the virtue goeth the Holy Ghost forth, which generateth again in the dark mind the will of the eternal essence.

39. Now behold, dear soul, that is the Deity, and that comprehendeth in it the second or the middlemost Principle. Therefore God is only good, the love, the light, the virtue [or power]. Now consider, if the mind did not stand in the darkness, there would no such eternal wisdom and skill be ; for the anguish in the will to generate, standeth therein ; and the anguish is the quality, and the

1 plurality, quality is the * multiplicity [or variety], and maketh the mind, and the mind again maketh the multiplicity [or plurality].

40. Now, dear soul, see all over round about you, in yourself, and in all things : What find you therein ? You find nothing else but the anguish, and in the anguish the quality, and in the quality the mind, and in the mind the will to grow and

2 faculty or generate, and in the will the virtue [or 2 power], and in the virtue the light, and in the light its forth-driving spirit ; which maketh again a will to generate a twig [bud or branch] out of the tree like itself; and this I call in my book the centrum, [the centre], where the generated will becometh an essence [or substance], and generateth now again such [another] essence ; for thus is the mother of the genetrix.

Ch. 10] THE CREATION OF MAN, AND HIS SOUL 171

41. Now the anguish hath the first Principle 1in * under its

11-111 • Powerpossession ; seeing it standeth in the darkness, it is another essence than the essence in the light is, where there is nothing else but mere love and meekness, where no source [or torment] is discovered ; and the quality which is generated in the centre of the light, is now no quality, but the eternal skill and wisdom of whatsoever was in the anguish before the light [brake forth] : This wisdom and skill now always cometh to help the conceived will in the anguish, and maketh in itself again the centre to the birth, that so the sprout may generate itself in the quality, viz. the virtue, and out of the virtue the fire, and out of the fire the spirit, and the spirit maketh in the fire the virtue again, that thus there [may] be an indissoluble band. And out of this mind which standeth in the darkness, God generated the angels, which are flames of fire, yet 2 shining 2 Or through and through with the divine light. For enlightened. in this mind a spirit can and may be generated, and not else ; for before it in the Heart and light of God, there can no spirit be generated, for the Heart of God is the end of nature, and it hath no quality ; therefore also nothing cometh out of it more, but it continueth unchangeably in the eternity, and it shineth in the mind of the quality of the darkness, and the darkness cannot comprehend it.

42. Now therefore in the anguishing mind of the darkness, is the inexpressible [or unutterable] source [or rising property], from whence the name qualityp. 172 existeth, as from many sources [or wells] into one source, and out of these many sources [running] into one source springeth forth the plurality of skill, so that there is a multiplicity [or variety of it]. And the spirit of God out of the light cometh to help every skill [or science, or knowledge], and in every skill of the sources in the- quality (by its infusion. kind x infecting of the love) it maketh again a centre, and in the centre a source [or spring] is generated again, as a twig out of a tree, where again there spriugeth forth a mind in the anguish. And the spirit of love, with its infecting [or infusing] of kindness, maketh all, every thought in the will, and [that] essentially.