(2) And it will prove a burden unto men; and on account of this they will despise and cease to love this Cosmos as a whole,—the changeless work of God; the glorious construction of the Good, comprised of multifold variety of forms; the engine of God’s Will, supporting His own work ungrudgingly; the multitudinous whole massed in a unity of all, that should be reverenced, praised and loved,—by them at least who have the eyes to see. For Darkness will be set before the Light, and Death will be thought preferable to Life. No one will raise his eyes to Heaven; the pious man will be considered mad, the impious a sage; the frenzied held as strong, the worst as best.

(10) "We must therefore put on the panoply of God, that we may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; since the weapons of our war fire are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strongholds, casting down reasonings, and every lofty thing which exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing every thought into captivity unto the obedience of Christ," says the divine apostle. There is need of a man who shall use in a praiseworthy and discriminating manner the things from which passions take their rise, as riches and poverty, honour and dishonour, health and sickness, life and death, toil and pleasure. For, in order that we may treat things, that are different, indifferently, there is need of a great difference in us, as having been previously afflicted with much feebleness, and in the distortion of a bad training and nurture ignorantly indulged ourselves. The simple word, then, of our philosophy declares the passions to be impressions on the soul that is soft and yielding, and, as it were, the signatures of the spiritual powers with whom we have to straggle. For it is the business, in my opinion, of the malificent powers to endeavour to produce somewhat of their own constitution in everything, so as to overcome and make their own those who have renounced them. And it follows, as might be expected, that some are worsted; but in the case of those who engage in the contest with more athletic energy, the powers mentioned above, after carrying on the conflict in all forms, and advancing even as far as the crown wading in gore, decline the battle, and admire the victors.

(36) Beloved Reader, open the Eyes of your Mind here, and know, that no other [anguish] Source will spring up in him [and torment him] than his own a Quality; for that is his Hell out of which he is created and made; and the Light of God is his eternal Shame, and therefore he is God's Enemy, because he is no more in the Light of God.

(7) Now that which was behind thee is before thee; But that thou know that I with thee am pleased, With a corollary will I mantle thee. Evermore nature, if it fortune find Discordant to it, like each other seed Out of its region, maketh evil thrift; And if the world below would fix its mind On the foundation which is laid by nature, Pursuing that, 'twould have the people good. But you unto religion wrench aside Him who was born to gird him with the sword, And make a king of him who is for sermons; Therefore your footsteps wander from the road."

(51) And thus the will would be one with the Eternal Will, and flow out into it, though the man would still keep his sense of liking and disliking, pleasure and pain, and the like. For wherever the will is exerted, there must be a sense of liking and disliking; for if things go according to his will, the man liketh it, and if they do not, he disliketh it, and this liking and disliking are not of the man’s producing, but of God’s. For whatever is the source of the will, is the source of these also.50 Now the will cometh not of man but of God, therefore liking and disliking come from Him also. But nothing is complained of, save only what is contrary to God. So also there is no joy but of God alone, and that which is His and belongeth unto Him. And as it is with the will, so is it also with perception, reason, gifts, love, and all the powers of man; they are all of God, and not of man. And wherever the will should be altogether surrendered to God, the rest would of a certainty be surrendered likewise, and God would have His right, and the man’s will would not be his own. Behold, therefore hath God created the will, but not that it should be self-will. Now cometh the Devil or Adam, that is to say, false nature, and taketh this will unto itself and maketh the same its own, and useth it for itself and its own ends. And this is the mischief and wrong, and the bite that Adam made in the apple, which is forbidden, because it is contrary to God. And therefore, so long as there is any self-will, there will never be true love, true peace, true rest. This we see both in man and in the Devil. And there will never be true blessedness either in time or eternity, where this self-will is working, that is to say, where man taketh the will unto himself and maketh it his own. And if it be not surrendered in this present time, but carried over into eternity, it may be foreseen that it will never be surrendered, and then of a truth there will never be content, nor rest, nor blessedness; as we may see by the Devil. If there were no reason or will in the creatures, God were, and must remain for ever, unknown, unloved, unpraised, and unhonoured, and all the creatures would be worth nothing, and were of no avail to God. Behold thus the question which was put to us is answered.51 And if there were any who, by my much writing (which yet is brief and This sentence is found in Luther’s edition, but not in that based on the Wurtzburg Manuscript. Namely, why God hath created the will. profitable in God), might be led to amend their ways, this were indeed well-pleasing unto God. That which is free, none may call his own, and he who maketh it his own, committeth a wrong. Now, in the whole realm of freedom, nothing is so free as the will, and he who maketh it his own, and suffereth it not to remain in its excellent freedom, and free nobility, and in its free exercise, doeth a grievous wrong. This is what is done by the Devil and Adam and all their followers. But he who leaveth the will in its noble freedom doeth right, and this doth Christ with all His followers. And whoso robbeth the will of its noble freedom and maketh it his own, must of necessity as his reward, be laden with cares and troubles, with discontent, disquiet, unrest, and all manner of wretchedness, and this will remain and endure in time and in eternity. But he who leaveth the will in its freedom, hath content, peace, rest, and blessedness in time and in eternity. Wherever there is a man in whom the will is not enslaved, but continueth noble and free, there is a true freeman not in bondage to any, one of those to whom Christ said: “The truth shall make you free”; and immediately after, he saith: “If the Son shall make you free, ye shall be free indeed.”52 Furthermore, mark ye that where the will enjoyeth its freedom, it hath its proper work, that is, willing.

(127) But thou must know that the kernel of love also sticketh in all in the hidden centre, unless it be altogether too evil; and so evil a thing man has no liking for at all. ["God possesseth all, only as to nature, he is not the essence, he possesseth himself."] Or dost thou think thou dost well, if thou bathest or soakest thyself in God's wrath? Take heed, that it does not kindle thy body and soul, and so thou wilt burn therein eternally, as befell Lucifer.

(129) Thus it is also with those creatures that will continually sow and reap in the hellish fire, especially that man who liveth in a continual desire of pride, covetousness, envy and wrath, and will at no time fight and strive against them with the spirit and fire of love; such a one himself attracteth the wrath of God, and the burning hellish fire, upon his body and soul.

(100) And they shall become godless by reason of the folly of their hearts, And their eyes shall be blinded through the fear of their hearts And through visions in their dreams.

(101) Woe to you, ye obstinate of heart, Who watch in order to devise wickedness: Therefore shall fear come upon you And there shall be none to help you.

(11) We will now explain, in detail, to the best of our ability, certain works of God, of which we spoke. For I am not competent to sing all, much less to know accurately, and to reveal their mysteries to others. Now whatever things have been sung and ministered by the inspired Hierarchs, agreeably to the Oracles, these we will declare, as far as attainable to us, invoking the Hierarchical inspiration to our aid. When, in the beginning, our human nature had thoughtlessly fallen from the good things of God, it received, by inheritance, the life subject to many passions, and the goal of the destructive death. For, as a natural consequence, the pernicious falling away from genuine goodness and the transgression of the sacred Law in Paradise delivered the man fretted with the life-giving yoke, to his own downward inclinations and the enticing and hostile wiles of the adversary--the contraries of the divine goods; thence it pitiably exchanged for the eternal, the mortal, and, having had its own origin in deadly generations, the goal naturally corresponded with the beginning; but having willingly fallen from the Divine and elevating life, it was carried to the contrary extremity,--the variableness of many passions, and lead astray, and turned aside from the strait way leading to the true God,--and subjected to destructive and evil-working multitudes--naturally forgot that it was worshipping, not gods, or friends, but enemies. Now when these had treated it harshly, according to their own cruelty, it fell pitiably into danger of annihilation and destruction; but the boundless Loving-kindness of the supremely Divine goodness towards man did not, in Its benevolence, withdraw from us Its spontaneous forethought, but having truly participated sinlessly in all things belonging to us, and having been made one with our lowliness in connection with the unconfused and flawless possession of Its own properties in full perfection, It bequeathed to us, as henceforth members of the same family, the communion with Itself, and proclaimed us partakers of Its own beautiful things; having, as the secret teaching holds, loosed the power of the rebellious multiplicity, which was against us; not by force, as having the upper hand, but, according to the Logion, mystically transmitted to us, "in judgment and righteousness." The things within us, then, It benevolently changed to the entire contrary. For the lightless within Our mind It filled with blessed and most Divine Light, and adorned the formless with Godlike beauties; the tabernacle of our soul It liberated from most damnable passions and destructive stains by a perfected deliverance of our being which was all but prostrate, by shewing to us a supermundane elevation, and an inspired polity in our religious assimilation to Itself, as far as is possible.

(16) Is it not then from ignorance of what is and what is not to be dreaded that cowardice arises? Consequently the only man of courage is the Gnostic, who knows both present and future good things; along with these, knowing, as I have said, also the things which are in reality not to be dreaded. Because, knowing vice alone to be hateful, and destructive of what contributes to knowledge, protected by the armour of the Lord, he makes war against it.

(5) While in the first it well directed is, And in the second moderates itself, It cannot be the cause of sinful pleasure; But when to ill it turns, and, with more care Or lesser than it ought, runs after good, 'Gainst the Creator works his own creation. Hence thou mayst comprehend that love must be The seed within yourselves of every virtue, And every act that merits punishment. Now inasmuch as never from the welfare Of its own subject can love turn its sight, From their own hatred all things are secure; And since we cannot think of any being Standing alone, nor from the First divided, Of hating Him is all desire cut off. Hence if, discriminating, I judge well, The evil that one loves is of one's neighbour, And this is born in three modes in your clay. There are, who, by abasement of their neighbour, Hope to excel, and therefore only long That from his greatness he may be cast down; There are, who power, grace, honour, and renown Fear they may lose because another rises, Thence are so sad that the reverse they love;

(24) Others who have accumulated merit, and devoted themselves sincerely to religion, will experience various delightful pleasures and happiness and ease in full measure. But that class of neutral beings who have neither earned merit nor created bad karma will experience neither pleasure nor pain, but a sort of colourless stupidity of indifference. O nobly-born, whatever cometh in that manner — whatever delightful pleasures thou mayst experience — be not attracted by them; dote not [on them]: think, 'May the Guru and the Trinity be worshipped [with these merit-given delights]'. Abandon all dotings and hankerings.

(21) Thus it goeth also with the bestial body, when it has once tasted of the sweetness of God, then it continually hungereth and thirsteth after this sweetness: But the devil in the power of God's wrath opposeth exceedingly, and so a man in such a course must continually stand in an anxious birth or geniture; and so there is nothing but fighting and warring in his births or genitures.

(26) And if the Love of God (which so dearly loved the Image of Man, that itself is become Man) did not stand in the Center of the Mind in the [Midst or] Point of Separation, then Man had been a living Devil, and he is indeed such a one, when he despises the Regeneration, and i goes on according to the inbred Nature of the first and third Principles.

(22) Every thing which is more than necessary to man, is hostile to him.

He who loves that which is not expedient, will not love that which is expedient.

(63) Therefore, O Child of Man, consider what thou art in this Time; esteem not so slightly or poorly of thyself, but consider that you remain in Paradise, and put not out the divine Light in you; or else you must hereafter remain in the Original of the Source of Anger or Wrath in the Valley of Darkness; and your noble Image out of God will be turned into a Serpent and Dragon.

(3) Nor does he need cheerfulness of mind; for he does not fall into pain, being persuaded that all things happen well. Nor is he angry; for there is nothing to move him to anger, seeing he ever loves God, and is entirely turned towards Him alone, and therefore hates none of God's creatures. No more does he envy; for nothing is wanting to him, that is requisite to assimilation, in order that he may be excellent and good. Nor does he consequently love any one with this common affection, but loves the Creator in the creatures. Nor, consequently, does he fall into any desire and eagerness; nor does he want, as far as respects his soul, aught appertaining to others, now that he associates through love with the Beloved One, to whom he is allied by free choice, and by the habit which results from training, approaches closer to Him, and is blessed through the abundance of good things.

(54) And when they have recognized their unrighteousness which they have wrought on the earth, then by these shall they perish.

(2) Therefore none should scorn or despise another, though he leads not the same Course that he does himself; or though he be not of that Way in his Mind and Will which himself is; or that another cannot learn and follow the same stately courtly Manners and Behaviour with himself. For the natural Heaven makes every one, according as its Form (in its Influences) is, at all Times; and so every Creature gets its Condition, Form [or Shape,] Inclination and Will, which cannot wholly be taken away from the outward Man, till the [natural] Heaven breaks its Beast. Therefore we ought to consider the great Strife in us; when we are regenerated out of the Eternal, then the Eternal strives against the Corruptible, against the Malice and Falshood of the Corruptible.