(8) Behold, when God had created the third Principle, after the Fall of the Devils, when they fell from their Glory (for they had been Angels, standing in the Place of this World) yet nevertheless he would that his Will and Purpose should stand; and therefore he would give to the Place of this World an angelical he having created the Creatures, whose Shadows after the Changing of the World should continue for ever, yet there was no Creature found that could have any Joy therein [in the Shadows,] neither was there any Creature found that might manage the Beasts in this World; therefore God said, Let us make Man an Image like unto us, which may rule over all the Beasts, and Creatures upon the Earth; and God created Man to be his Image, after the Image of God created he him.

(43) Or dost thou suppose, that I write of the Fall of Man without Light and Understanding? Or that I do not look and see into the Holy Scripture, what that says of it, [when I say] that Man before his Fall was angelical in his Mind and Body? Then hear and see what Christ says of it, tin the Resurrection of the Dead, they will neither marry, nor be given in Marriage, but they are as the Angels of God. And such an Image God created in the Beginning, [according] to his Similitude.

(11) But that we may, in a brief Sum, give the Reader to understand what our Knowledge and high Sense in the Light of Nature has highly apprehended, we therefore set it down thus, according to our Knowledge. Adam was the Image of God, according to the Similitude of God, which God (the holy Trinity in one only divine Substance) through the Virgin of his eternal Wisdom, in the Wisdom had [manifested or discovered, [or purposed,] in the eternal Element to have in the Room of the fallen Devil. For his Counsel (in the eternal Will) must stand; there should and must be a Throne and Princely Region in this Place, which should manifest the eternal Wonders.

(10) God could well have created Creatures which should have managed the Beasts, [so] that Man might well have staid in Paradise in the angelical Form; and besides that, there are already, in all the four Elements, Creatures without a Soul; God would well have laid the Labour [or Charge] of Managing the Beasts upon another Generation, which were also 1 earthly. But he saw well that Man would not stand, therefore instantly the Burthen was laid upon him, as Moses also writes of it. Or of the four Elements. 1 1. But if God would have had bestial Men, then he would have created them so in the Beginning, and given them no Commandment, neither should they have been tempted; as indeed the Beasts have no Law.

(17) When God had created Adam thus, he was then in Paradise in the Joyfulness; and this clarified [or 1 brightened] Man was wholly beautiful, and full of all Manner of Knowledge; and there God brought all the Beasts to him, (as to the great Lord in this World) that he should look upon them, and give to every one their Name, according to their Essence and Virtue, as the Spirit of every one was figured in them. And Adam knew all what every Creature was, and he gave every one their Name, according to the Quality [or working Property] of their Spirit. As God can see into the Heart of all Things, so could Adam also do, in which his Perfection may very well be observed.

(65) The Mind (which knows [or understands] nothing in the Light of Nature) will marvel at such Writings, and will suppose that it is not true, that God has extracted and created Man out of such an Original. Behold, thou beloved Reason and precious Mind, bring thy five Senses hither, and I will show thee whether it be true [or not.] I will show thee [plainly,] that thou hast not the least Spark [or Degree of Reason or Cause] to allow any other Ground [to build upon,] except that thou wilt let thy Heart be, imbittered by the Devil in bestial Reason, and except thou wilt wilfully contemn the Light of Nature, which stands in the Presence of God. And indeed, if thou art in such a bestial Way, leave my Writings, and read them not, they are not written for such Swine, but for the Children [of Wisdom,] that are to possess the Kingdom of God. But I have written them for myself, and for those that seek, and not for the Wise and Prudent of this World.

(6) For we have a certain Ground of this, in that our Mind can find and conceive all whatsoever is in the Spirit of this World, which no Beast can do: For no Creature can conceive [further or] higher than [what is] in its own Principle, out of which its own Essences are proceeded in the Beginning: But we (that are Men) can certainly conceive [of that which is] in the Principle of God, and also [of that which is] in the anguishing Kingdom of Hell, where the Worm of our Soul in the Beginning in Adam originally is, and this no other Creature can do.

(38) Thus, my beloved Reason, I have set a Gloss before you, and thus it was with Adam. God had created his Work wisely and good, and extracted the one out of the other. The first Ground was himself, out of which he created the World, and out of the World [he created] Man, to whom he gave his Spirit, and intimated to him, that without Wavering, or any other Desire, he should live in him most perfectly.

(4) 2. “Man was generated by far the wisest of all [terrestrial] animals. For he is able to contemplate the things which exist, and to obtain from all things science and wisdom. To which also it may be added, that divinity has engraved and exhibited in him the system of universal reason, in which all the forms of things in existence are distributed, and the significations of nouns and verbs. For a place is assigned for the sounds of the voice, viz. the pharynx, the mouth, and the nostrils. But as man was generated the instrument of the sounds, through which nouns and verbs are signified, so likewise of the conceptions which are beheld in the things that have an existence. And this appears to me to be the work of wisdom, for the accomplishment of which man was generated and constituted, and received organs and powers from divinity.

(2) So, then, although it may do good to few alone, ’tis proper to develope and explain this thesis:—wherefore Divinity hath deigned to share His science and intelligence with men alone. Give ear, accordingly! When God, [our] Sire and Lord, made man, after the Gods, out of an equal mixture of a less pure cosmic part and a divine,—it [naturally] came to pass the imperfections of the cosmic part remained commingled with [our] frames, and other ones [as well], by reason of the food and sustenance we have out of necessity in common with all lives ; by reason of which things it needs must be that the desires, and passions, and other vices, of the mind should occupy the souls of human kind.

(29) Every Beast has a Mind, having a Will, and the five Senses therein, so that it can distinguish therein what is good or ill for it. But where remain the Senses in the Will [that come] out of the Gates of the Deep, where the Will discovers itself [or glimmers] in the first Principle in infinitum, [infinitely,] Animal or living Creature. mOf. out of which the Understanding proceeds, so that Man can see into all Things into their Essences, how high they are graduated, whereupon follows the Distinction [or different Articulation] of the Tongue? For if a Beast had them, then it could also speak, and distinguish Voices, and speak of the Things that are in Substance [or Being,] and search into the Originality. But because it is not out of the Eternal, therefore it has no Understanding in the Light of Nature, be it never so nimble and crafty; neither does its Strength and Force avail to the lifting it up into Understanding; no, it is all in vain.

(81) Here we see clearly, yes we feel, that God (in the Beginning) created no such Image with bestial Members for Propagation, for that which God created for Eternity, that has no Shame before it. Yet also they then first perceived that they were naked; the Elements had taken Possession of them, and yet put no earthly Garment [like the Beasts hairy Skin] upon them; for the Spirit of Man was not from the Essences and Properties of the Elements, [as the Spirit of the Beasts,] but [Man] was out of the Eternal.

(6) Someone may here object, "But if man has been created with animal and demonic qualities as well as angelic, how are we to know that the latter constitute his real essence, while the former are merely accidental and transitory?" To this I answer that the essence of each creature is to be sought in that which is highest in it and peculiar to it. Thus the horse and the ass are both burden-bearing animals, but the superiority of the horse to the ass consists in its being adapted for use in battle. If it fails in this, it becomes degraded to the rank of burden-bearing animals. Similarly with man: the highest faculty in him is reason, which fits him for the contemplation of God. If this predominates in him, when he dies, he leaves behind him all tendencies to passion and resentment, and becomes capable of association with angels. As regards his mere animal qualities, man is inferior to many animals, but reason makes him superior to them, as it is written in the Koran: "To man We have subjected all things in the earth." But if his lower tendencies have triumphed, after death be will ever be looking towards the earth and longing for earthly delights.

(12) Now that this is demonstratively and certainly thus, [appears] in that it is written; And God breathed into him the a living Breath, whereby Man became a living Soul. All other Creatures which were produced out of the corruptible Limbus by the Fiat, in all those the Will in the Fiat had awakened the Spirit in their Center, and every Creature's Spirit went forth out of the Essence and Property of its own self, and mixed afterwards with the Spirit of the great World, of the Stars and Elements, and that ought not to have been in Man, his Spirit ought not to have mixed itself [or been united] with the Spirit of the Stars and Elements. The two Principles (viz. the Darkness and the Spirit of the Air) ought to have stood still in such a Substance [as should be the Image of God;] and therefore he breathed into him the diving Breath; understand God's Breath, that is, the paradisical Breath or Spirit, [viz.] the Holy Spirit; that should be the Breath of the Soul, in the Center of the Soul. And the Spirit which went forth out of the Limbus, or out of the Quinta Essentia (which is of the a Condition of the Stars) that was to have Power over the fifth Essence of this World. For Man was in one only Essence [or Substance,] and there was also but one only Man that God thus created, and he could have lived for ever. And although God had brought the Stars again into their Ether, and also had withdrawn the Matrix of the Elements, and the Elements also back into nothing, yet Man would have continued still. Besides, he had the paradisical Center in him, and he could have generated again out of himself, out of his Will, and have awakened the Center; and so should have been able in Paradise to generate an angelical Host, without Misery or Anguish, also without tearing [rending or dividing in himself;] and such a Man he ought to have been, if he must continue in Paradise, and be eternal without Decay; for Paradise is holy, and in that Respect Man also ought to have been holy, for the Virtue [and Power] of God and Paradise consists in Holiness. The deep Gate of the Soul.

(12) Seeing then God is all in all, and has created Man to his Image and Similitude, to live with him eternally in his Love, Light, Joy and Glory, therefore we cannot say, that he was merely created out of the Corruptibility of this World, for therein is no eternal perfect Life, but Death, and Perplexity, Anguish, and Necessity; but as God dwells in himself, and goes through all his Works incomprehensibly to them, and is hindered by nothing, so was the Similitude before him out of the pure Element; it was indeed created in this World, yet the Kingdom of this World should not comprehend that [Image,] but the Similitude (Man) should mightily, and in perfect [Power or] Virtue, rule through the Essences (with the Essences out of the pure Element of the paradisical holy Limbus) through the Dominion of this World.

(3) Therefore hath He made man of soul and body,—that is, of an eternal and a mortal nature; so that an animal thus blended can content his dual origin,—admire and worship things in heaven, and cultivate and govern things on earth. By mortal things I do not mean the water or the earth [themselves], for these are two of the [immortal] elements that nature hath made subject unto men,—but [either] things that are by men, or [that are] in or from them ; such as the cultivation of the earth itself, pastures, [and] buildings, harbours, voyagings, intercommunications, mutual services, which are the firmest bonds of men between themselves and that part of the Cosmos which consists [indeed] of water and of earth, [but is] the Cosmos’ terrene part,—which is preserved by knowledge and the use of arts and sciences; without which [things] God willeth not Cosmos should be complete. In that necessity doth follow what seems good to God; performance waits upon His will. Nor is it credible that that which once hath pleased Him, will become unpleasing unto God; since He hath known both what will be, and what will please Him, long before.

(4) And for this seemliness it is, that a man—the which is the seemliest creature in body that ever God made—is not made crooked to the earthwards, as be an other beasts, but upright to heavenwards. For why? That it should figure in likeness bodily the work of the soul ghostly; the which falleth to be upright ghostly, and not crooked ghostly. Take heed that I say upright ghostly, and not bodily. For how should a soul, the which in his nature hath no manner thing of bodilyness, be strained upright bodily? Nay, it may not be.

(1) BECAUSE there belongs a divine Light to the Knowledge and Apprehension of this, and that without the divine Light there is no Comprehensibility at all of the divine Essence, therefore I will a little represent the high hidden Secret in a creaturely Manner, that thereby the Reader may come into the Depth. For the divine Essence cannot be wholly expressed by the Tongue; the Spiraculum Vitae (that is, the Spirit of the Soul which looks into the Light) only comprehends it. For every Creature sees and understands no further nor deeper than its Mother is, out of which it is come originally.

(74) Seeing then that they stood in Heaven in the Time of their Creation, therefore their Quality was also manifold; and all should have been and continued Angels, if the great Fountain Lucifer (from whence they proceeded) had not destroyed them. And so now also every one in his Fall continues in his own Essences, only the second Principle is extinguished in them; and so it is also with the Soul of Man, when the Light of God goes out in it; but so long as that shines therein, it is in Paradise, and eats of the Word of the Lord, of which shall be clearly spoken in its due Place.

(10) Seeing then that the eternal Wisdom of God (viz. in the chaste Virgin of the divine Virtue) had discovered itself in the Principle of this World, in which Place the great Prince Lucifer stood in the Heaven, in the second Principle, therefore the same Discovering was eternal, and God desired to shed forth the Similitude out of the Essences, which the Fiat created according to the Kind of every Essence, that they should (after the Breaking [or Dissolution] of the outward Substance) be a Figure and Image in Paradise, and a Shadow of this Substance. 1 1. And that there should go nothing in Vain out of the Substance of God, therefore God created Beasts, Fowls, Fishes, Worms, Trees and Herbs out of all Essences; and besides [created] also figured Spirits out of the Quinta Essentia, in the Elements, that so, after the completing of the Time (when the Out-Birth [shall] go into the Ether) they should appear before him, and that his eternal Wisdom in his Works of Wonder might he known.