The Forty Questions of the Soul

135. The air is the life of the fire, and the air hath its original from the anguishing, bitter, stirring source of the essences, out of the will: Now you see also very well, that fire must have fuel to burn, or else it is a darkness, and although it devoureth itself (by its eager attraction), yet that fire is nothing but a source in the darkness, which we understand to be the abyss of the anger of God, which is not manifest in God, but is only as a cause of the life in the kingdom of God.

136. You see that all fire must have 2 matter, or else it will not burn; understand it thus: the fire produceth air, and in the air water, and it mightily attracteth the air with the water into itself again, whereby the source of the fire is so allayed that it shineth.

137. For without water no fire shineth; if no water can be procured in a thing, in that thing the fire will not shine, but glimmer; as for example, in a 3 red-hot stone, which hath the source of the fire, and no shining but a glimmering, and hardly that; but in iron it shineth, wherein the fire hath water; and therefore iron at length cometh to be consumed and getteth rust, but a stone doth not: This is thus according to the outward Principle of this world; but according to the inward (viz. the kingdom of God) it is as followeth; observe it.

1 Mysterium Magnum.

2 substance.

3 glowing.

138. The eternal fire burneth eternally, yet it is a spirit, but not manifested according to the wrathfulness in the kingdom of God: understand it thus: the flash maketh a shining, which ariseth from the fire, and yet it dwelleth not in the wrath of the fire, but satiateth the fire wholly, and giveth light also out from the fire, and is not comprehended nor retained by the fire, but carrieth with it another source of its own, viz. l meekness, and yet hath the power, 2 wisdom and art of the fire, for in the light, the essences of the source of the fire are first manifested.

139. Now the light maketh no 3 source, but it entereth into itself into a meekness, and yet is desiring, which proceedeth from the source of the fire; and its desiring is an attraction of the meekness and power into itself, and so it maketh itself pregnant with meekness.

140. For the light is a fire also, a very yearning fire, a desiring fire, and * a perpetual finding fire, which always findeth what is generated in the original.

1 amiableness, or friendliness.

2 wit, reason, or knowledge.

3 Or pain.

* "a perpetual finding fire," lit., "a perpetually finding fire."

141. All the power * which ariseth in the wrathful fire is manifested in the light, and the light desireth it in meekness; for the wrathfulness of the fire, and the shining of the light, are two Principles, of a twofold source, each dwelling in itself, and one comprehendeth not the other, to eternity, and yet the one is the life and the cause of the other.

142. And we must understand it thus: we must consider that a horrible anguishing l source maketh a sinking into itself, like death, wherein the limit of separation is, and yet the anguish keepeth its source in itself: but the sinking into itself, as it were into death, entereth into its 2 aether, wherein the life of the anguish is no more known; for the sinking breaketh forth from the anguish source, as a dying, and it is a dying, and yet in the eternity there is no dying, but a kind of entering into another world, of another Principle, of another source.

143. For the sinking entereth into the still eternity, viz. into the hberty; and as the source of the wrathful fire did remain in itself, in its life, so the sinking is a going quite out from the fire-life; and yet it proceedeth from the fire-life, but it hath