The Forty Questions of the Soul

3. For the Word of the Lord 2 comprised the soul, by the eternal Fiat in the eternal will of the Father, in the centre of the eternal nature, and opened it with the Holy Ghost, or blew it up as a fire, which lay hid in the eternity, and wherein all forms of the eternal nature stood from eternity, and 3 is alone known in the wisdom, in the divine magia as a figure or image without substance.

1 1. Astringent. 2. Bitter. 3. Fire. 4. Anguish.

2 Or formed, fashioned, or created.

3 The soul, or the forms.

4. Yet that 1 thing hath not been substantial, but essential, and hath been known in the Principle, in the flash, where the fire ariseth; but the shadow of it hath, from eternity in a figurative image, figured itself in the desiring will of God, and hath stood 2 before the Ternary of God in the magia, in the wisdom of God, as a similitude of the Holy Trinity, in which God hath manifested himself as in a glass.

5. The substance and image of the soul may be resembled to the earth, having a fair flower growing out of it, and also to the fire and light: as we see that earth is a 3 centre, but no life; yet it is essential: and a fair flower groweth out of it, which is not like earth, neither hath it the smell and taste of the earth, much less the figure of it, and yet the earth is the mother of the flower.

6. And so the soul also 4 appeared out of the eternal centre of nature, out of the eternal essence, with the word Fiat in the will of God; and was held in the Fiat, so that it 4 appeared as a fiery eye, and similitude of the first Principle, in a creaturely form and substance.

7. And from this eye went the glance of its fire, as hght doth from fire; and in this glance of its own fire, the eternal image, which is in the wisdom of God, was seen and conceived by the will of the Heart of God in the second Principle; that is, by the Word Fiat of the second Principle, in the love and power of the Holy Trinity, whence the Holy Ghost proceedeth.

1 Or being.

2 Or in the presence of the Ternary.

3 ground, foundation, or soil, or the mother of that which groweth upon it.

4 shone.

8. And thus the soul was a whole similitude and image of the Holy Trinity: here we must take the soul for the centre of nature, and its fiery life for the first Principle; but the sprout, or the image of the soul, which is a similitude of God, buddeth forth from the soul, as a flower from the earth, and is comprised by the Holy Ghost; for it is his mansion.

9. Now if the soul putteth its imagination out from itself (we mean out from its

1 source of fire), into the hght of God, then it receiveth the light, as the moon doth the glance of the sun; and so its image standeth in the Majesty of God, and the soul in the hght of God, and its fiery property is changed into meekness and fervent love; and then it is known to be * the child of God.

10. But seeing the soul is essential, and its own substance a desire, it is plain that it consists in two Fiats; one of them is its corporeal propriety, and the other is the second Principle, proceeding from God's will which is in the soul, in which God desireth to have 2 it his image and similitude.

11. To which end Gods desiring is as a Fiat in the centre of the soul, and continually draweth the will of the soul towards the Heart of God: for the 3 longing of God would have the soul; and, on the contrary, the centre in the power of the fire would have it.

1 Or property.

2 the soul.

3 pleasure, will, or desire.

* "the child of God," lit., "the wiU of God."

12. For the life of the soul hath its original in the fire, and that makes the striving for the image of the soul: and which of these two forms, whether it be the fire, or meekness of love that overcometh, that will be the quality of the soul; and as the quality of the will of the soul is, such an image will the soul have.

13. And we must know that if the will of the soul changeth itself, then its form will be also changed; for if the 1 source of the soul be fiery, then it hath also a fiery image.