(1) In the beginning nothing whatsoever was here. This [world] was covered over with death, with hunger — for hunger is death. Then he made up his mind (manas): ' Would that I had a self!' So he went on (acarat) praising (arcau). From him, while he was praising, water was produced. 'Verily, while I was praising, I had pleasure (ka) \ ' thought he, This, indeed, is the tfTv&tf-nature of what pertains to brightness (arkya). Verily, there is pleasure for him who knows thus that ar/ca-naturc of what pertains to brightness. 2* The water, verily, was brightness. That which was the froth of the water became solidified. That became the earth. On it he [i.e. Death] tortured himself ( Vsram}. When he had tortured himself and practised austerity, his heat (tejas) and essence (rasa) turned into fire.

(48) Thus thou may understand what manner of being the Deity is, and how the three Persons in the Deity are. Thou must not liken the Deity to any image; for the Deity is the birth or geniture of all things. If, in the first four species or kinds, there were not the sharp birth or generating, then there would be no mobility, neither could the light kindle itself and generate the life.

(93) "When the spirit of man seeth anything, then it giveth a name to that thing, according to the qualification or condition of the thing; but if it is to do this, then it must form or frame or put itself also into such a form, and generate itself also, with its tone, sound or articulation, just so as the thing to which it will give a name does generate or compose itself. Herein lies the kernel of the whole understanding of the Deity.

(41) But when God moved himself in the body of this world, then on the third day the anxiety, in the birth of this world, rubbed itself, from whence the fire-flash existed, and the light of the stars kindled itself in the water of life.

(23) Therefore, my beloved Soul, be lively, and see what thy noble Bridegroom has left thee in his Testaments for a Legacy; as namely, in the Baptism, the Water of his Covenant, flowing from his holy original Body. Whereas we in this World, viz. in the external Birth of his Body, do acknowledge four Things, namely, Fire, Air, Water, and Earth, wherein our earthly Body consists; so likewise in the heavenly Body there are four such Things. The Fire is the Enkindling of the divine Desire. The Water is that which the Fire desires, whence it becomes meek, and a Light. The Air is the joyful Spirit which blows up the Fire, and makes in the Water the Motion. And the Earth is the true Essence which is born in the three Elements, and is rightly called Ternarius Sanctus [the Sacred Ternary,] in which the Tincture is brought forth in the Light of the Meekness; and therein also is born the holy Blood out of the Water, being an Oil of the Water, in which the Light shines, and the Spirit of Life consists.

(2) With respect to the powers, therefore, which remain in the heavens in the divine bodies themselves, there can be no doubt that all of them are similar. Hence, it remains that we should discuss those powers which are thence transmitted to us, and are mingled with generation. These, therefore, descend with invariable sameness for the salvation of the universe, and connectedly contain the whole of generation after the same manner. They are likewise impassive and immutable, though they proceed into that which is mutable and passive. For generation being multiform, and consisting of different things, receives the one of the Gods, and that in them which is without difference, with hostility and partibility, conformably to its own contrariety and division. It also receives that which is impassive, passively; and, in short, participates of them according to its own proper nature, and not according to their power. As, therefore, that which is generated [or has a subsistence in becoming to be,] participates of being generatively, and body participates of the incorporeal, corporeally; thus, also, the physical and material substances which are in generation, participate of the immaterial and etherial bodies, which are above nature and generation, in a confused and disorderly manner. Hence they are absurd who attribute colour, figure, and contact to intelligible forms, because the participants of them are things of this kind; as likewise are those who ascribe depravity to the celestial bodies, because their participants sometimes produce evils.

(19) And now if we meditate and consider of the Original of the four Elements, we shall clearly find, see, and feel the Original in ourselves, if we be Men and not Beasts, full of Malice and Gainsaying against God and the Matrix of this World. For the Original is as well known in Man, as in the Deep of this World; although it seems wonderful to the unenlightened Man, that any should [be able] to speak of the Original of the Air, Fire, Water, and Earth, as also of the starry Heaven; he supposes this impossible to be known; thus he swims in his own Mother, and desires not to know it, neither was it good for Man to know it; but since the Fall of Adam has cast us headlong into it, it is highly necessary for us to know it, that we may fly from the bestial Man, and learn to know the true Man.

(16) As we are to know, that when God would manifest the eternal Mind in the Darkness, in the third Principle nwith this World, then first all Forms in the first Principle till Fire were manifested, and that Form now which comprehended the Light, that became angelical and paradisical; but that which comprehended not the Light, that remained to be wrathful, murderous, sour and evil, every one in its own Form and Essence. For every Form desired also to be manifested, for it was the Will of the eternal Essence to manifest itself. But now one Form was not able to manifest itself alone in the eternal Birth, for the one is the Member of the other, and the one without the other would not be.

(8) On the second Day, God created the Firmament of the Heaven, viz. the strong Inclosure, [Fence, or Stop] to the Darkness of the original Matrix, that it might no more kindle itself, and generate Earth and Stones. And therefore he made the Inclosure or Firmament out of the Midst of the Waters, which stays the Might [Force, or Power] of the Fire, and became the visible Heaven, whence the Creatures are proceeded, from whence now the Elements, Fire, Air, and Water proceed.

(69) But seeing the water, which is the spirit of the astral life, stood in the midst or centre of wrath, and also in death, thereupon also every body formed itself as was the birth or geniture to life and mobility. Of the Earth.

(8) For when the Fiat kindled the Element in the Out-Birth, then the kindled Materia [or Matter] became palpable [or comprehensible,] this was not now fit for Paradise, but it was created outward, [or made external.] Yet that the Element with its Out-Birth might no more generate thus, therefore God created the Heaven out of the Element, and [caused or] suffered out of the Element, (which is the heavenly Limbus) the third Principle to spring up; where the Spirit of God again discovered [or revealed] itself in the Virgin, viz. in the eternal Wisdom, and found out, in the Out-Birth, in the corruptible Substance, the Similitude again. And the Discovering stood in the sharp Attraction of the Fiat, and the Fiat created it so, that it became essential [or substantial;] and the same are the Stars, a mere Quinta Essentia, an Extract of the Fiat's, out of the Limbus of God, wherein the hidden Element stands.

(15) Now the body of God, as to this world, could not remain in death, so God moved himself with his seven qualifying or fountain spirits to the birth or geniture. But thou must understand this high thing rightly.

(28) Now when God had severed the Matrix with [or from] its fiery Form, and would manifest himself with this World, then he put the Fiat into the Matrix, and spoke out of himself, [saying,] Let there be Herbs, Grass, Trees, and Beasts, every one according to their Kind: This Speaking, was the Heart, or the Virtue [or Power] of the Eternal Father: But the Spirit which had the Fiat, went from the Eternal Father (in the Virtue of the Heart of God) forth with the Will (and the Will was the Fiat) and made the Out-Birth in the third Principle material, visible, and comprehensible, each according to its Essence; as the Virtue was, so was also its Body. For there the fiery Matrix, or the Constellation, gave its Virtue to the Fiat; and the watery Matrix, with the Elements, received the Virtue, and so were impregnated, and each Element generated its own Creatures out of itself; as also each Form in the fiery and watery Nature out of themselves; and yet it became no separable Essence, but only every Creature was separated according to its Kind, according to the eternal Virtue, which arose in the Longing by the Lust, and became the third Principle, which was not before Time [begun.]

(8) Thus now if we will speak of the third Principle, viz. of the Beginning and Birth of this World, then we must consider the Root of the Genetrix, seeing every Principle is another Birth, but out of no other Essence; and so we may find, that in the first Principle in the indissoluble Band (which in itself is inanimate, and has no true Life, but the Source of the true Life is born by the moving Spirit of God, which from Eternity has its Original in the first Principle, and goes forth from Eternity in the second Principle, as in the Birth or Heart or Son of God) the Matrix of the Genetrix is set open, which is originally the Harshness; yet in the Light it is the soft Mother of the Water-Spirit. Thus it is seen and found clearly and plainly before our Eyes, that the Spirit of God has wrought there in the Matrix, so that out of the incomprehensible Matrix (which is but a Spirit) the comprehensible and visible Water is proceeded.

(3) And every God by his own proper power brought forth what was appointed him. Thus there arose four-footed beasts, and creeping things, and those that in the water dwell, and things with wings, and everything that beareth seed, and grass, and shoot of every flower, all having in themselves seed of again-becoming. And they selected out the births of men for gnosis of the works of God and attestation of the energy of Nature; the multitude of men for lordship over all beneath the heaven and gnosis of its blessings, that they might increase in increasing and multiply in multitude, and every soul infleshed by revolution of the Cyclic Gods, for observation of the marvels of Heaven and Heaven's Gods' revolution, and of the works of God and energy of Nature, for tokens of its blessings, for gnosis of the power of God, that they might know the fates that follow good and evil [deeds] and learn the cunning work of all good arts.

(14) And there God manifests himself according to his eternal Will, in his eternal Wisdom of the noble Virgin, in the Element, which in Paradise stands in the Sharpness of the divine Virtue [or Power.] And the Fiat created Man out of the Element in Paradise, for it attracted to it out of the Quintessence of the Sun, Stars, and Elements in Paradise in the Elements of the Originality, from whence the four Elements proceed, and created Man to the Image of God (that is, to the Similitude of God) and breathed into him into the Element of the Body (which yet was nothing else but paradisical Virtue) the Spirit of the eternal Essences out of the eternal Originality; and there Man became a living Soul, and an Image of God in Paradise.

(33) For all Things are come to be Something out of Nothing: And every Creature has the Center, or the Circle of the Birth of Life in itself; and as the Elements lie hid in one another in one only Mother, and none of them comprehends the other, though they are Members one of another, so the created Creatures are hidden and invisible to one another. For every Creature looks but into its Mother that is fixed [or predominant] in it. The material Creature sees a material Substance, but an immaterial Substance (as the Spirits in the Fire and in the Air) it sees not; as the Body sees not the Soul, which yet dwells in it; or as the third Principle does not comprehend, nor apprehend the second Principle wherein God is; though indeed itself is in God, yet there is a Birth between: As it is with the Spirit of the Soul of Man, and the elementary Spirit in Man, the one being the Case, [Chest,] or Receptacle of the other; as you shall find, about the Creation of Man.

(79) Out of the anguishing chamber in the body of this world, out of the seven spirits of God, are risen or sprung forth the stars, which kindle the body of this world; and out of or from the body the fruit or seed generateth itself, which is the water, fire, air and earth.

(69) And as the three elements, fire, air and water, proceed from the sun and stars, and are one body in one another, and cause the living motion, and the spirit of all the creatures of this world.

(16) And now as we understand, that Man (with the Similitude wherein God dwells) is not merely at Home in this World, much Hurts, or moves. less in the stinking Carcase, so it is manifest (in that we are so very blind as to Paradise) that our first Parents (with their Spirit) are gone out of the heavenly Paradise into the Spirit of this World, where then the Spirit of this World instantly captivated their Body, and made it earthly, so that Body and Soul are perished; and now we have the pure Element no more for our Body, but the Out-Birth, (viz. the four Elements, with the Dominion of the Stars) and the Sun only is the Light of the Body; also this Body does not belong to the Deity. God does not discover himself in the stinking Carcase [or Corpse,] but in the holy Man, in the pure Image which he created in the Beginning.