OF THE PROCESS OF CHRIST IN HIS SUFFERING, DEATH, AND RESURRECTION: OF THE WONDER OF THE SIXTH KINGDOM IN THE MOTHER OF ALL BEINGS: HOW THE "CONSUMMATUM EST" WAS FINISHED, AND HOW LIKEWISE IT IS SYMBOLICALLY ACCOMPLISHED IN THE PHILOSOPHIC WORK 1. This now is thus to be considered; We are to know, that the essence of this world, together with man, consists in two properties, viz. in fire and light, that is, in love and anger: Now the fire is twofold, and the light is also twofold, viz. a cold fire from the impression, and an hot fire from the power of Mercury in Sulphur; and so likewise there is a cold light from the cold fire, and a warming light from the hot fire; the cold light is false, and the hot light is good; not that it is false in its property, only in the impression, in the cold Sulphur; in the sharpness of the wrath it turns to a false desire, viz. to a false love, which is contrary to the meekness; for its desire is Saturn and Mars. 2. It puts forth its sun (understand its lustre of life) in Mars, and the warming light (which also receives its fiery sharpness in the impression in Sulphur from Mars) brings its desire again into the liberty, viz. through the dying in the fire, through the anguish: It wholly and freely gives itself forth in the dying of the fire, 1 and forsakes the property of the wrath. 3. And so it becomes a general joy, and not its own only, even like the sun that gives forth its shining lustre universally: The sunshine is neither hot nor cold; only Mercury in the spirit of the great world makes in Mars and Saturn's property a heat therein; for the sun enkindles their desire, upon which they grow so very hungry, eager, desirous, and operative, that even a fire is found to be in the light, which heat is not of the light's own property, but of the soul of the great world, which does so sharpen the pleasant light in its splendor, that it is unsufferable to the eye. 4. And we are highly to consider and know, that if another fire-desire, which is not like to the outward life in Mercury, would rule in the austere wrath of the outward nature, that then it
6. But I will hereby give the well-wisher fundamentally to understand how it went with Christ, and how in like manner it goes with his philosophic work; both have wholly one process. Christ overcame the wrath of death in the human property, and changed the anger of the Father into love in the human property; the philosopher likewise has even such a will, he wills
15. So it was here on the Mount of Olives, the anger would live in the fire's might in man, and the name Jesus put itself into the anger; and here there was no other remedy, but that the name Jesus in divine love and heavenly essentiality must wholly resign up itself to be devoured by the anger: The Son must be, and was obedient to the angry Father, even to "the death of the cross;" as the Scripture says. 16. The dear love-humility and meekness suffered itself to be "scorned, mocked, spit upon," and judged by the anger; that is, the Jews must execute the justice of God; for by man's self-action sin was committed, and by man's self-action death and sin must be blotted out. Adam had introduced his will into the poison of the outward Mercury; so must Christ, viz. the love, freely give up its will also into the same poisonful Mercury. Adam did eat of the evil tree, Christ must eat of God's anger; and as it went inwardly in the spirit, so likewise outwardly in the flesh; and so also it goes in the philosophic work. 17. Mercury in the philosophic work denotes the Pharisees, he will not endure the love-child: When he sees it, he gives it trembling and anguish, and Venus also stands dismayed at the poison of the angry Mercury; they are in one another as if sweat did drop from them, as the artist shall see. 18. Mars says, I am the lord of fire in the body, Saturn is my strength, and Mercury is my life, I will have none of this love, I will devour it in my wrath; this denotes the devil in the anger of God; and seeing he cannot do it, he raises up Saturn, viz. 22. When Mars, viz. the devil's crew, and Mercury also, viz. the self-pride of life, see that Venus has her royal garment on, understand the purple robe of Saturn and Mercury in Sol's colour mingled with fiery Mars, and adorned in Mercury's sulphur-colour in the open blaze as a shining lustre, for so is the materia according to the colour of the venereal property, which
29. Thus Christ represented to his Father the abominations [or sins] of man in this false garment, and stood before him as an ignominy, and confessed the sins of man to his Father in the stead and place of all men: And when his Father beheld him through his imagination in this garment, he would have none of this robe; therefore Pilate must pull it off from him again, and set him before the Jews in his own form; but they cry, "Away, away with him, he must be put to death;" for so his Father would, that he should give himself up to death in his wrath, and drown the same. 30. And Pilate condemned him to death, for he would not acknowledge him for a king: So it also goes in the philosophic work, Saturn will not receive the child, for it is not of his property; and Mars and Mercury likewise will not have it in its property: But what do they do? The child is among them, they would fain be rid of it, but yet cannot: They grow angry and enraged, as the Jews against Jesus, and take the child into their arms, 1 viz. into their false poisonful angry desire, and
40. When Jesus had broken death in the humanity, and took away self, he did not then wholly cast away the human property, wherein death and the anger of God were, but then he did first truly assume it; understand, he even then did truly take the outward kingdom into the inward; for the outward kingdom was begotten as a wonder out of the eternal wisdom in the speaking word, and spoken forth into a form, as a manifestation of the Deity in love and anger, in good and evil: So that Jesus would not that the outward type of the wonders in the likeness of God should perish [or quite vanish], but the wrath which had overpowered the love in man should be forgiven, that is, it should be given into the nothing, viz. into the liberty, that it might not be manifest in its own self-property; it must be servant, and only a cause of the fiery love and divine joyfulness; nothing should perish [or be lost] in man, for God had created him to his image. 41. Thus let the philosopher observe, that when the three murtherers, viz. Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, sink 1 in the crimson-coloured blood of the lion, they do not perish; but they are pardoned, that is, their wrath is changed into a love-desire, viz. out of Venus into Sol; for when the fiery desire enters into the watery desire, then a shining, viz. a glorious splendour, arises from and in the fire; for Venus is white, and the fire-desire is red. 42. Here now it is changed into one colour, which is yellow, that is, white and red both in one colour, which is the majestical [lustre]; for when Mercury is changed into the power of joy, then arises the multiplication; he changes his mother, wherein he lay shut up in death, into Sol; he makes the earthly heavenly in one property, as the virgin was: For here the virgin loses her name, for she has given her love and pearl to the champion, who is now called here the white lion, as the Scripture speaks of the lion of the house of Israel and David, who should demolish the devil's kingdom, and destroy hell, that is, break the anger of God, and change it into love. 43. This champion or lion is no man or woman, but he is both; the tincture of the fire and light must come into one, viz. of the essence which is Venus, and of the spirit which is Mars in
48. Thus we are rightly to consider, that when the wrath of God is drowned in the blood of Christ, so that it changes its might into love, that even then paradise is again open; for 49. Thus it falls out also in the philosophic work, when Mars and Mercury die according to the property of the dark impression of Saturn, then Venus takes them into her love-blood, and Venus gives her love into the poisonful fire-desire: She wholly gives herself in unto the fire of Mars in Mercury, and she yields herself fully to be their own; but seeing Mars and Mercury become impotent (as to the might of the fire and poison) in the love, the love and anger thereupon change themselves into one essence, into one desire; and here, when the fire, viz. the fire-desire, gives in its desire to the love; then saith the love, "To-day thou shalt be with me out of thy fire-anguish in paradise," viz. in joy, that is, thou shalt be changed in me: And here Venus gets the soul in the philosophic work, so that Mars and Mercury become her soul, and the strife ceases; for the enmity is appeased and quelled: And thus the child subsists in the fire immoveably without any change; for Mars does not at all annoy it, and so likewise Mercury and Saturn hurt it not, for they are in the child at the end of nature, where there is no turba any more. 50. Mercury is pure in Saturn, he has no more poison, whereby to make soil [or rust] in the water, viz. in the salt of Saturn: And let the philosopher and divine also well observe this, that in paradise there is a perfect life without any shadow of change, also without any false evil desire, and a continual day, where the paradisical man is clear as a transparent glass, in whom the divine sun shines through and through, as gold that is thoroughly bright and pure, without any spot or foulness. 51. "And when Jesus knew that all was finished, he seeth his mother and John his disciple standing by under the cross, and saith unto his mother, Woman, to! this is thy son; and to the disciple, Behold thy mother, and forthwith the disciple took her unto his own home." 52. This is an excellent type, how Christ has forsaken this world, viz. the human self-hood, and is again gone to the Father; for he saw his mother according to this world, and his disciple, viz. his uncle, according to the outward humanity from his mother's side, and yet said to his mother, "Woman, behold, there is thy son," I am no more thy son according to my outward 56. But in the meanwhile, John, as the teacher of Christ in Christ's stead, must provide for the outward mother according to the outward man, and feed and teach the lambs of Christ with Christ's spirit: And it exactly shews us how the outward man is not God's mother; for Christ separates himself from his outward mother, and gives her to John; he has put on 2 the eternal mother, viz. the Father of the eternal birth, and therefore they do very ill that honour and worship the outward mother of Christ for God's mother. 57. The whole true Christendom is Christ's mother, which bears Christ in her: And John, viz. the servants of Christ are her nurses, which take care for the mother of Christ as John did; he presently received the mother of Christ and provided for her,
58. For Saturn is not as Jupiter; Jupiter is not as Mars; Mars, viz. the fire-spirit, is not as the light of the sun; and the sun is not as Venus with her meek water-source; and Venus is not as Mercury with his sound; for she is meek and still, and Mercury sounds and sets up his note; and Mercury also is not as Luna, which as a simple body does give body to all the rest for manifestation; one is far otherwise than another, and has not one property and will; and yet they are in the centre of the essence, viz. in Luna and Saturn, in the property f the soul and body, all of them one and the same lump. Thus the partial sectarian Mercurialites, and Baal's servants, are divided in these properties; they are the Pharisees which judge and condemn Jesus in his members. 59. They wrangle and contend only about the church, and yet none will take care of the poor forsaken mother of Christ: They are mad in their martial and mercurial contest, 1 and are not Johannites, they enter not in Christ's spirit at the door of Christ into the sheepfold; they are wolves, lions, and bears, yea foxes and fearful hares, who fly from and forsake the mother; their rise and original is out of Babel, where they continually contend, wrangle, grin, and bite one another for the letter. Every one will be lord and master over the letter, and transpose and place it as he pleases, only for the honour, applause, and pleasure of this world: They consider not that the mother is a
63. So likewise the philosopher reaches to the blessing in this valley of misery, that he is able to bless his corrupt body, that is, tincture it and free it from sickness, even to the limit of the highest constellation according to Saturn; and therefore let him take heed of covetousness, for so he introduces the turba. 64. By the type of John and the mother of Christ, he is to know, that the kingdom of God and the kingdom of this world are two in his work, and that God's kingdom lies shut up in the mother, viz. in his work, of which he must take care; and be a minister thereunto, and not a lord of the mother, but an almsgiver, and not a gatherer of treasure and wealth, not a covetous muck-worm; also none shall attain to it, or understand our meaning, that will not be a guardian of the mother: The Most High has laid a bar before the foolish understanding, 2 that it is
66. Here is again the outward type, shewing how it went inwardly: The name Jesus, viz. the love of God which was entered into the humanity, and had espoused itself thereunto, did thirst in the love-desire after the corrupt humanity, and would fain taste the pure water of the humanity in itself; but the wrathful anger of God, which was enkindled in the human property, gave itself in with the human property to the thirst of the love-desire: And when the love-desire tasted of it, it would not drink it, but sunk down into it as wholly resigned, or freely yielded up, and did unite and very essentially incline itself into the anger of God as a full and perfect obedience, and as fully and freely given over as a peculiar propriety thereinto. 67. This was now the flagrat of the wrath, that the love should so come into it; whereupon the earth trembled, and the rocks clave asunder; for so the death was dismayed at the life: And here the awakened wrath's property did separate itself into the centre, viz. into the. first principle, into the fire-root; and now from the centre there proceeded forth the hunger to the new-birth in the human property; of the hunger unto death was made a hunger to life; for the love tinctured the anger, that the fire-desire to the dark impression became a desire of life. 68. Understand it here right; God the Father, who gave his dear heart into the humanity to help mankind, did now thirst after the humanity, viz. after his heart or word of power; and the Deity in the humanity, viz. the heart of the Father, did thirst after the Father; and the love or the essence of the light did thirst after the fire's essence: For the fire's, or soul's essence in Adam was departed out of the love-essentiality (wherein the paradise did consist) into a selfishness, and was become disobedient to God; and thereupon the essence, life, and being of the light and love died in its growing, that is, it withered as to the vegetative life, or heavenly growth, blooming, and sense of the paradisical source, and awaked and arose to the earthly world. 73. Thus we give the philosopher to understand our sense and deep ground in nature, who desires to seek and open the disappeared essence of the earth, which lies shut up in death, viz. in the curse of God: The veil of Moses hangs also before him, and a very right earnestness is requisite to rend the veil in 77. When Adam was in the image of God, and was neither man nor woman, but both; he stood forty days in paradise without wavering, and when he fell he stood even till the third day, viz. forty hours in the sleep, even till God did make or build the woman out of him. Thus Israel must be tempted forty days on Mount Sinai, whether they would live in the obedience of God under the wonders and mighty acts; and when it could not be, God gave them the law of his covenant as a mirror of that which was promised in the covenant; therefore
78. In the like manner let the philosopher observe, that the essence of time does also stand in such a property, for man was created out of the essence of time into an image, as an extract of all essences, a complete image and likeness according to time and eternity, ruling and standing in the time and in the eternity as an instrument of the great infinite God, with whom, by and with his Spirit, he would make and do what he pleased. 79. Now man is the instrument of God, with [or by] whom he manifests his hiddenness both in his own human property, viz. in the essence and image of God; and then also through man, as with the instrument in the mother of all beings, as in the grand mystery, viz. in the soul of the great world. 80. Man has power so far as he goes, as an instrument of God in divine obedience, as his Spirit guides and leads him, that he can introduce the earth which stands in the curse of God into the benediction, and make of death's-anguish the highest triumphant joy in the outward pregnant mother; but he himself does it not, only his will labours with the understanding therein, and conjoins the compacta, 2 which belong together, as life and death which stand opposite to one another: These he must join together, and bring them into one by such an art as time and
83. Here now the image in the creature of the soul cried, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" For the human image which disappeared in Adam, and was again revived in Christ's incarnation, should bruise the head of God's anger in the fire-soul, and change its fire-might into Sol: 1 And now the speaking word of God did here forsake it, and it fell into the soul's wrath, where it felt God's anger; for the speaking word did so bring it through the anger into death, and out of the death again into the solar life, understand into the eternal sun. 84. Like as the candle dies in the fire, and out of that death the light and power proceed, viz. the great painless life; so out of Christ's dying and death the eternal divine sun should and must arise in the human property; but the selfishness of the human property, viz. the soul's own self-will to live in the fire's might must here die and be drowned in the image of love, and
86. Thus it goes likewise in the philosophic work; Venus is forsaken when she receives the three wrathful properties into herself in wrath; their wrath, viz. the death devours her life, whereupon she loses the colour, and yet becomes a death to the three forms in the wrath, for she drowns death with love. Thus the life is made a death to death, viz. to the wrath, and now they both lie in the will of the eternal nature, viz. in the verbum fiat, which proceeds 2 with them the divine way, in manner as it proceeded forth into essence in the beginning of the creation: For in the beginning paradise, viz. the universal was manifest, and the love shined through the death or anger. Even so it must be again, Venus must become the eye or sight in the wrath, and then of Saturn, Mars, and Mercury there will be a Jupiter: Mars becomes sun, and Saturn moon, and so Mars shines with the sun out of Saturn in Luna from Venus's eye, and all seven are only one: Thus the strife has an end, and all is accomplished till the resurrection of the body. 87. And when Jesus had drank the cup, and said, "My God, why hast thou forsaken me?" then he said, "All is finished," understand the work of man's redemption; and he said further, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit, and bowed his head, and gave up the ghost." Here the whole life of Christ resigned itself into the Father's desire, viz. into the will of the eternal nature, and fully gave in the will of his self-hood, viz. his creaturely will again into the centre, viz. into the first mother, from whence the soul-like creature was produced, that is, into the grand mystery of eternity: The self-will must again enter into nature's end, so that the selfishness may wholly die, that God's eternal will and spirit may be and do only all in all in the humanity, and that the creature might afterwards be alone his instrument, wherein he might do and work according to his
129:1 It freely loses itself in the nothing. 130:1 Manner, or condition. 130:2 Was born, or begotten. 134:1 In the heat of his trial. 136:1 Text, hold. 139:1 Are drowned. 142:1 Transformed. 142:2 Taken, or received. 143:1 In war for their proud unrighteous mammon, and in bitter strife about their outward worship of Christ. 144:1 Altogether. 144:2 Understanding of folly. 147:1 Or number three. 148:1 Mirror, resemblance. 148:2 Things to be compacted. 149:1 Text, the sun. 150:1 Or wild. 150:2 Goes out. 151:1 Into the sole power and virtue of Jupiter.
Footnotes
