The Forty Questions of the Soul

8. Thus none can say, that Eve was a pure and chaste virgin before the contact of Adam; for as soon as Adam awakened from sleep he saw her standing by him, and presently set his 4 imagination upon her, and took her to him and said, 5 This is flesh of my flesh, and bone of my bone; she shall be called woman, because she is taken from man.

1 the whole, and not divided person, as Adam was before he slept.

2 extinguished, or put out.

3 longing, delight, or lust.

4 fancy, or desire; or lusted after her.

5 Gen. ii. 23.

* "Which Adam lost" (verschertzte), "played away," or "fooled away."

9. And she (Eve) instantly set her imagination upon Adam, and so both were mutually kindled with the desire of each other.

10. Where is now the pure chastity and modesty? Is it not bestial? Is not the outward image become a beast? As is to be seen plain enough in the will and

1 essence, that man doth as a beast, yea, more foolishly, for he hath reason, and yet runneth on against reason, as if he were void of sense.

11. But that he might be restored, and the image reduced into unity, that Word which spake the soul out of the mouth of God, and breathed it from the Holy Ghost into the image, is become man, and is entered into the earthly image, viz. into the turba of destruction.

12. And you know very well, that the Word hath the water of eternal life, and the fire of the Deity, and out of the fire [it hath] the tincture of the Deity, and in the tincture the spirit of God, which proceedeth from the mouth of God; and in the proceeding forth, the 2 glance of the Majesty is made manifest in the operation of the spirit.

13. This Word which is in the virgin of the wisdom of God, and surrounded with the wonders of eternity, is now in humility and great love towards our image, which was lost in Adam, come again into us, and is in Mary (understand the earthly Mary, but in the benediction) become man.

1 Or doings.

2 Or lustre.

14. The benediction was, that the soul of Mary was adorned with the heavenly virgin of the wisdom of God, which Adam had lost; therefore the angel called her

1 blessed of all women.

15. No woman, from Adam to this day, was ever clothed with the heavenly virgin, but this Mary; therefore by the blessing she became chaste and full of purity; for the Holy Ghost goeth not into that which is earthly, he mixeth himself not with the

2 glass, for it cannot be that the glass should be as the life itself.

16. Understand our high and precious depth thus: the soul of man proceedeth from God, and is from the eternal, and the body of man is but a glass of the eternal; and so God clothed the soul of Mary with the divine virgin, in the Principle of the soul; not in the earthly flesh, as if she had been deified; no, she must die as well as all other people.

17. And in this virgin God's Word, out of the Heart of God the Father, assumed the seed of the woman, viz. the seed of the soul, and the seed of the first image, which for so long a time stood * hidden in the Mystery.

18. But now at length the life of God entered into it, and made it a whole image again; for the water of eternal life, proceeding from the Heart of God, mixed itself with the water of the spirit of the soul; for the spirit taketh its original from the water, and the soul is fire.

1 Luke i. 28.

2 similitude or resemblance.

* "hidden" (zerbrocheri), "broken," or "divided."

19. Thus the word received the tincture of the soul, and the Holy Ghost the tincture of the spirit, viz. the tincture of the water, and both became one soul; and yet the creature remained distinct from God's spirit, though Gods spirit dwelt therein: and of God's water and tincture, and of the seed of Mary, from her tincture and water, in the high benediction, a flesh and blood was produced, so that a heavenly man in the earthly was incarnate at once.