The Forty Questions of the Soul

76. Also it is an image of God, a virgin full of purity and chastity, and no genetrix, for the Holy Spirit only openeth the wonders in the power.

77. Yet this virgin is the similitude of God, his wisdom, wherein the spirit

1 discerneth itself, and always and in eternity openeth the wonders therein: and the more is opened, the more is in it.

78. For 2 she is without ground and number, and as unmeasurable as the eye of God himself is; there is nothing like her, also nothing can be found that may be likened to her, for she is the only simihtude of the Deity, and the spirit of God is her essence therein.

79. She is a circle and model, which so openeth our mind, that we see her, and God in her; for our will is cast into her, and she is in our will: Therefore we speak of God, and see him in her, as in our own propriety, according to the hiddenness of the humanity; this 3 sight is exceeding precious.

80. We must speak somewhat also 4 of darkness: It is in itself an enclosing, though there is nothing which barreth it up, but it shutteth itself up, and begetteth itself, and is its own enemy to itself; for it maketh its own source, without ground and number; and hath no giver that can bestow this, but the darkness's own form.

1 Erblicket, discovereth itself.

2 the wisdom.

3 Or seeing.

4 of the way or condition of.

81. It ariseth from the first desiring, when the desiring l contracteth itself and impregnateth itself; so that it becometh a very stinging, bitter, 2 harsh, hard, cold, wrathful, fire-spirit: For the desire causeth harshness by the attracting in the will, yet the drawing is stinging, and the suffering bitter: which the will willeth not, and therefore goeth forth from the stinging, and entereth into itself, and maketh a peculiar Principle, wherein the Majesty appeareth.

82. Thus the great anguish ariseth in the bitter suffering: and yet nothing is there either that can suffer, but it is thus in itself, and it is its own life: and if this were not, the 3 splendour of the Majesty would not be; the one is the cause of the other, for the flash is in the darkness, and the light with the Majesty is in the liberty.

83. And this only is the 4 divorce, that the liberty is a still nothing, which receiveth the light into it, and maketh the darkness material; and yet there is no comprehensible 5 essence, but a dark spirit and power, a filling of the liberty, in itself, that is within the desire, and not without it: for without it is the liberty.

84. Therefore God is the most hidden, and the most manifest, and that is the

6 great Mystery, and the abyss is hidden and yet manifest; as the darkness is to our sight: But the source is unsearchable, till the will sinketh down into it, and then it will be found and felt, when the will loseth its 7 light: And herein lieth the ground of true faith: let this be told you, you teachers in Babel.

1 Or draweth into itself.

2 Or astringent.

3 Or glance.

4 Or differencing.

5 Or substance.

6 Or Mysterium magnum.

7 Or life.

85. Seeing then there is an abyss, which in regard of the impression of the darkness is called ground, wherein the source is a cause of the life (for the wrathful flash is the awakening of the life, although it is nothing there but in itself); therefore it is also a desiring, and that desiring is a seeking, and yet it can find nothing but a glass, and a similitude of the dark wrathful source, wherein nothing

IS.

86. For it is a figure of the earnest wrathful flash, and of the sharp and l severe power, which is God's, according to which he calleth himself a consuming fire, and *an angry, 2 jealous God.

87. And this glass is also without ground, without beginning and without end, and yet hath an eternal beginning and an eternal end; and is the only cause that the abyss is blue, dusky and fiery: It is the cause of the stars and elements; for the firmament is a second glass proceeding from this.