(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.

(97) Now when the Devil had lost twice, then he came at last, with his last powerful Temptation, as he did also to Adam, he would give him the whole World, if he would fall down and worship him. The Business with Adam also was about this World, he would draw this World to him, and so be like God with it, that as God had drawn this World to him, manifest his great Wonders therewith, so the Soul in Adam thought [with itself,] thou art the Similitude of God, thou wilt do so too, and so thou shalt be like God; but thereby he went forth from God into the Spirit of this World. Now therefore the second Adam must hold out the Standing of the first Adam, whereby it was tempted [or tried,] whether the Soul would continue in the new holy heavenly Man, and live in the Barmhertzigkeit, [the

(15) But Lord Lucifer would (in the Creation) have fain been above the Meekness of the Heart of God, above the End of Nature; therefore he would fain also have persuaded the Son of the Virgin to fly without Wings, above the End of Nature, in Pride; of which shall be handled in its due Place at large. I have brought this in thus, but in brief, that my Writing may be the better understood, and how it stands with [or upon] the Ground, [or Foundation] of the Scripture, and is not any new Thing, neither shall there be any Thing new [in them,] but only the true Knowledge, in the Holy Ghost, of the Essence of all Essences. Of Adam 's Sleep.

(46) But the Angels and the Devils, as also the Soul of Man, are merely and purely out of the same Spirit. The Devils and the Angels, in the Time of their Corporization, continued therein; and the Soul of Man, in the Time of the creating of the Body, [is] breathed in from the Spirit of God, in the Root of the third Principle, and now continues therein, in Eternity, inseparately and immoveably in the eternal Substance or Essence of GOD. And as little as the pure eternal Birth and the indissoluble Band of the Father ends or vanishes, so little also will such a Spirit have an End.

(48) Now, thou dear Soul, here you see in a Glass how very near God is to us, and that he himself is the Heart of all Things, and gives to all Virtue, [Power,] and Life. Here Lucifer was very heedless, and became so very proud, that when this Brimstone- Spirit in the Will of the Mind of God was created, then he would fain have flown out above the End of Nature, and would drive the Fire out above the Meekness; he would fain have had all burn in the Fire; he would have ruled [or domineered:] The Sparks of Fire in the Brimstone-Spirit elevated themselves too high; and these Spirits pleased not the Creator, or the Spirit in the Fiat, and [therefore] were not [established] Angels, although in the first Mind (when the Center was opened to the [Creation of the] Spirits) he came to help them, and [beheld] them as well as the other Angels: But they indeed generated a fiery Will, when they should have opened their Center to the Regeneration of their Minds, and so should have generated an angelical Will.

(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.

(22) Yet if the Soul elevates its Imagination forward into the Light, in Meekness and Comeliness or Humility, and does not (as Lucifer did) use the strong Power of its Fire, in its Qualification, [or Breathing,] then it will be fed by the Word of the Lord, and gets Virtue, Power, Life, and Strength, in the Word of the Lord, which is the Heart of God; and its own original strong [fierce wrathful] Source of the Birth of the eternal Life becomes paradisical, exceeding pleasant, friendly, humble, and sweet, wherein the Rejoicing and the Fountain of the eternal Angel and a Child of God, and it beholds the eternal Generating of the indissoluble Band; and thereof it has Ability to speak, (for it is its own Essence or Substance,) but [it is] not [able to speak] of the infinite Generating, for that has neither Beginning nor End.

(42) And so now the Angels and blessed Men [will] remain in the Birth of the Light; and the Spirits of Alteration out of Light into the Source [or Torment,] together with the Spirits of the wicked Men [will remain] in the eternal Darkness, where no Recalling is to be found; for the Spirits cannot go into the Corruptibility [or Transitoriness] again. They are created out of the aLimbus of God, out of the harsh Matrix, out of which the Light of God exists from Eternity; and not like the Beasts out of the Out-Birth, which went forth out of the Limbus of the conceived Purpose of God, which is finite [or takes an End,] and has been [or appeared] here, only that it might be an eternal Shadow and Figure.

(83) It is known to us, that (in Adam's Fall) we are fallen into the Anger of God, when the Spirit, or Soul of Adam, turned from the Heart of God into the Spirit of this World, where instantly the holy heavenly Image was extinguished, and the Anger in the Darkness held the poor Soul captive, and where the Devil instantly got his Entrance and Habitation in the Anger of the human Soul; and if the Treader upon the Serpent had not entered instantly into the Mark of Separation, in the Center of the Light of Life, then the Wrath would have devoured us, and we should have continued eternally to be Companions of the Devils; but when the Treader upon the Serpent thus entered into the Middle (though not so presently into the Humanity, but into the Center of the Light of Life) then the poor imprisoned Souls which turned themselves to God again, were (in the Center) bound or knit to the Deity again, till the Champion [or Saviour] came into the Humanity, where (in his Conception and Humanity) he received the whole Man again, and this we see clearly in his Baptism; for there was that one Person which was both God and Man, he had the heavenly and also the earthly Body.

(20) Although indeed we can say this with Ground of Truth, that the Constellation images and forms no Man, as to [make him to be] the Similitude and Image of God; but [it forms only] a Beast in the Will, Manners, and Senses; and besides that, it has no Might nor Understanding, to be able to figure [or form] a Similitude of God: Though indeed it elevates itself in the highest [it can,] in the Will after the Similitude of God, yet it generates only a pleasant, subtle, and lusty Beast in Man (as also in other Creatures) and no more. Only the eternal Essences, which are propagated from Adam in all Men, they continue with the hidden Element (wherein the Image consists) standing in Man, but yet altogether hidden, unless the new Birth in the Water, and the Holy Ghost [or Spirit] of God [be attained.]

(94) And ehere also was Adam tempted, [to try] whether he would steadfastly put his Imagination into the Heart of God, and then he should have continued in Paradise; but when he turned away his Mind from the Heart of God into the Spirit of this World, and would fly out beyond the Humility, and would be like God, then he went forth beyond the Throne of God, in the Spirit of the Fierceness of the Anger. Therefore here the Soul of Christ must be accurately tempted, [to try] whether it would (seeing it had retained the heavenly Bread) fly out also in Pride in the Might of the Fire; or whether it would in Humility look only upon the Heart of God, and give itself up to that, that it might be carried only in the Will of God, and become an Angel in Humility, and not rely only upon itself, to fly in its own Might [or Power.]

(82) And here in this Place there is nothing more palpable, than that it is seen and known, that Adam had no bestial Form before his Sleep, before his Wife [was formed;] for he was neither Man nor Woman, but a chaste Virgin without bestial Form; he had no Shame nor Breasts, neither had he need of them; he should have generated in Love and Chastity (without Pain or Opening of his Body) a Virgin as himself was; and it should have been possible, that the whole Host of angelical Men should have proceeded out of one only Man, (as the Angels did,) out of one Fountain, if he had stood in the Temptation; even as all those who come to the only Arch- Shepherd, to his Rest, were redeemed by one only Man from the Eternal Death and Torment of Hell.

(21) For these three Births are [inbred or] generated together with every one in the Mother's [Womb or] Body, and none ought to say, I am not elected; for it is a Lie, [and he] belies the Element, wherein Man also lives; and besides [he] belies the Virgin of Wisdom, which God gives to every one which seeks her with Earnestness and Humility. So [likewise] the Possibility of Seeking is also in every one, and it is inbred [or generated] in him with the all-possible hidden Element, [to which all Things are possible,] and there is no other Cause of Perdition in Man, than [was in or] with Lucifer, whose Will stood free; he must either reach into God in Humility, Chastity, and Meekness, or into the dark Mind, in the Climbing up of Malice and Fierceness [or Grimness,] which yet (cin its Flowing forth) desires not to lift itself up above God, but it inclines itself only above the Meekness, in the Fire-flash, in the stern [or fierce] Regeneration: But the Devils would (as Creatures) be above all, and be Lords wholly [of themselves,] and so it is also with Man here.

(49) Now then when we consider the high Mysteries, the Spirit opens to us the Understanding, that this [before-mentioned] is the true Ground concerning Adam: For his original Spirit (viz. the Soul) that was the Worm, which was generated out of the eternal Will of God the Father, and in the Time of the Creation The Son of God. was by the Fiat (after the Manner of a Spirit) created out of that Place where the Father from Eternity generates his Heart, between the fourth and fifth Form in the Center of God, where the Light of God from Eternity discovers itself, and takes its Beginning, and therefore the Light of God came thus to help him, as a fair Virgin, and took the Soul to be her Bridegroom, and would adorn the Soul with her fair heavenly Crown, with the noble Virtue of the Pearl, and beautify it with her Garment.

(36) But the Reader must not here understand it, as if the Word for this Incarnation at this Time did first come down, out of the highest Heaven above the Stars, hither beneath, and became Man, as the World teaches in Blindness. No; but the Word, which God spoke in Paradise to Adam and Eve, concerning the Treader upon the Serpent, (which imaged [or imprinted] itself in the Door of the Light of Life, standing in the Center of the Gate of Heaven, and waiting perceptibly in the Minds of the holy Men, even till this Time) that same Word is become Man; and that same divine Word is again entered into the Virgin of the divine Wisdom, which was given to the Soul of Adam near the Word, to be a Light, and a i Handmaid as to the Word.

(5) These the Fiat created to a Similitude and Image of God, and overshadowed the same in the Fiat with the overflowing Virtue of God; and the Will of God i set itself [right] against the Image and Similitude, and they now which received the Will, they became Angels, for they set their Imagination, in the Will, in the Heart of God, and they did eat of the Verbum Domini [of the Word of the Lord;] but they that set their Imagination in the dark Mind, as Lucifer [did, that he might] fly out above the Deity and Meekness in the Might of the Fire in the Flash, in the sharp Might of God, and be Lord alone, they became Devils, and they have that Name from their being thrust [or driven] out of the Light; for they were in the Light when the Fiat created them, for the Fiat which created them stood in the Light.

(4) But I observe that Angels first were initiated in the Divine mystery of the love of Jesus towards man, then, through them, the gift of its knowledge passed to us. Thus, for example, the most divine Gabriel instructed Zachariah, the Hierarch, that the son who was to be born to him, beyond hope, by Divine grace, should be a prophet of the God-incarnate work of the Lord Jesus, to be manifested to the world for its salvation, as becomes the Divine goodness; and he revealed to Mary, how, in her, should be born the supremely Divine mystery of the unutterable God-formation. Yet another Angel instructed Joseph, how, in very truth, should be fulfilled the things Divinely promised to his ancestor David. Another declared glad tidings to the shepherds, as being purified by their separation from the multitude, and their quiet life, and, with him, a multitude of the Heavenly Host announced to those on earth that often-sung doxology. Let us then ascend to the highest manifestations of light contained in the Oracles, for I perceive that even Jesus Himself, the superessential Cause of the super-heavenly Beings, when He had come to our condition, without change, did not overstep the good order which becomes mankind, which Himself arranged and took, but readily subjected Himself to the dispositions of the Father and God, through Angels; and, through their mediation, was announced to Joseph the departure of the Son to Egypt, which had been arranged by the Father, and again the return to Judaea from Egypt. And through Angels we see Him subjecting Himself to the Father's decrees. For I forbear to speak, as addressing one who knows the teaching of our hierarchical tradition, both concerning the Angel who strengthened the Lord Jesus, or that even Jesus Himself, when He had come to manifest the good work of our beneficent salvation, was called Angel of Great Counsel. For, as He Himself says, after the manner of an Angel, "Whatsoever He heard from the Father, He announced to us."

(1) NOW the highest Question is, What that is which caused the Mind of the Devil so to elevate itself, and that so great a Number of them are fallen in their High-mindedness, [or Pride?] Behold, when God set the Fiat in the Will, and would create Angels, then the Spirit first separated all Qualities, after that Manner, as now you see there are many Kinds of Stars, and so the Fiat created them [several.] Then there were created the princely [Angels,] and the throne Angels, according to every Quality, (as hard, sour, bitter, cold, fierce, soft, and so on zin the Essences, till to the End of Nature) out of the Source of the Fire;

(65) Behold, O Child of Man! All the Angels were created in the first Principle, and by the outflowing Spirit were formed, and made a Body in a true angelical and spiritual Manner, and enlightened from the Light of God, that they might increase the paradisical Joy, and abide [therein] eternally. But seeing they were to abide eternally, they must be figured [or formed] out of the indissoluble Band, out of the first Principle, which is an indissoluble Band; and they ought to look upon the Heart of God, and feed upon the Word of God, and this Food would be their holy Preservation, and would make their Image clear and light; as the Heart of God, in the Beginning of the second Principle, enlightens the Father, (that is, the first Principle;) and there the divine Power, Paradise, and the Kingdom of Heaven spring up.

(14) Now therefore the Soul stands in two Gates, and touches the two Principles, viz. the eternal Darkness, and the eternal Light of the Son of God, as God the Father himself does. Now as God the Father holds his unchangeable eternal Will to generate his Heart and Son, so the Angels and Souls keep their unchangeable Will in the Heart of God. Thus it [the Soul] is in Heaven and in Paradise, and enjoys the unutterable Joy of God the Father which he has in the Son, and it hears the inexpressible Words of the Heart of God, and rejoices at the eternal, and also at the created Images, which are not in Essence [or Substance,] but in Figure.