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a completely pure, and therefore not changeless manner, but always as in a clear mirror, and hence the devil is sent back into his darkness.

"On the fourth day God of his infinite wisdom created in the visible world the sun and the stars. Here for the first time we can only appreciate the divinity and the external wisdom of God as in a clear mirror. But the being visible to the eye is not God himself, but only a goddess in the third principle, who at last returns to her ether and has an end" (Drei Princ. 8, 13).

"God made a firmament which is called heaven, between the outer and inner birth-between the clear godhead and depraved nature, which one must break through to reach God. It is said of this firmament (Job, xv. 15) that even the heavens are not clean before God; but on the last day shall wrath be swept from them" (Aur. 20, 41, 46).

"At the creation another light was kindled for this (by Lucifer destroyed) world-namely, the sun; and thus the glory of the devil withdrawn from him. He was then shut up in darkness as a prisoner between the kingdom of Ged and this world, so that he has no longer to command in this world except by the Turba (i. e. where a confusion of powers takes place), or where the fury and wrath of God is awakened" (Mensch. 1, 2, 8).

* The removal of Lucifer, which is here in question, must necessarily be treated dynamically; the more prominent the power of light and order was, the more insignificant became the Turba-the confusion of powers-the 'more must the power of him be confined, who, in fact, can only develope himself in Turba.

The sun came by the soul of the world from all stars; but it also developes anew the life of all stars.

"In the soul of the outer world (and by the same), God has created and chosen a king, or, as I might express it figuratively, a god of nature with six counsellors, as his helps-namely, the sun with the other six planets, which are declared out of the seven qualities from the loco of the This sun takes its brilliancy from the essence of the world of fire and light, and stands like an open point, opposite to the fire-world" (Myst. 13, 16, 17).

sun.

"In the centre of death, i. e. in the body or bodily being

of the earth, has God excited the essence, its glory, brilliancy and light, in which consists its life; but to the depth over the centre he has given the sun, which is an essence of fire, and whose power extends beyond (and over) nature, from which he receives his brightness. The life of the whole wheel of stars is the same, and all stars are his children; not in the sense that they have his essence, but that their life in the beginning has originated in his centre" (Dreif. Leben, 4, 27).

"The sun is the heart of all the powers of this world, and is conglomerated from all the powers of the stars, and in return kindles and enlivens all stars and all powers of this world" (Ebend. 7, 40).

"It is not to be understood when the sun is called the centre of the stars, that all the stars originated in the spot Solis. But he is (the sun) the centre of the powers of the stars, and the cause of their movement in the essence. He opens his powers and imparts power to them as their heart" (Myst. 11, 32).

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* As the divine wisdom only exists through the Trinity, and vice versa, the Trinity only through divine wisdom, so in the same manner is the existence of the stars dependent on that of the sun, and that of the sun on the stars, but in such manner that as the Trinity is in relation to wisdom, so is the sun in relation to the stars as the higher and more masculine power. A similar relation obtains with regard to the sun itself and on the world-soul, through which, as our author says, "the sun is awakened and born,' but which in another place he describes as an outflow of the strength of the sun and the stars." In a certain way, the soul of the world is of course dependent on the sun, but she is worthy of a higher dignity than the sun, as our author immediately subjects her to the divine ideal world. "God," he says (Sign. 8, 3), "has placed a single master, as his officer, over all things-namely, the soul of the great world. But over this he has put an image of his equal (evidently the ideal world), who models before the officer what he has to do. That is the understanding; God's own power, by which he governs the officer." Without such a world-soul, which Böhme also calls the sidereal spirit, or the star spirit, or the spiritus mundi, the single objects of

nature would not form a true whole, nor would so many phenomena and relations in the world, as, for instance, the regular motion of the stars, the right proportion between the origin and the decay of various objects in the world, be intelligible. But the difference between this world-soul and the ideal world is evident; the latter has its life and being in God himself, and is uncreated; but the world-soul, on the other hand, is of creative nature, and differing from God. In the ideal world lie the directions for the mode of action of the world-soul: thus the former appears commanding, the latter obeying, etc.

In conjunction with the seven forms of nature, and corresponding with them, issued especially the seven planets through the sun.

"In the same way that the sun is the heart of life, and a source of all spirits in the body of this world, is Saturn the commencement of all corporealness and comprehensibleness. Thus he does not derive his beginning and his origin from the sun, but his source is the earnest, harsh, and severe anxiety of the whole body of this world" (Aur. 26, 1-3).

"When the light was kindled, there resulted from the conquered power and harshness,-Mercury (Dei Princ. 8, 24). Mercury is an agitator, a sounder, a musician, but has not yet the right life, whose primitive condition is in fire. Thus he desires the terrific and stormy being which opens up fire; and this is Mars" (Dreif. Leben, 9, 78).

"When the sun was kindled, the terrible fire-fright arose out of the loco of the sun, like a cruel, viclent lightning; and from that proceeded Mars. He now stands as a fury, a blusterer, and a mover of the whole body of this world, so that from him all life takes its source" (Aur. 25, 72, 75, 79).

"But as soon as the spirits of motion and of life had arisen from the loco of the sun by the kindling of the water, gentleness penetrated as the ground of the water, infected under itself with the power of light, in the manner of humility, and from this resulted the planet Venus" (Ebend. 26, 19, 32, 33).

"When the fire-impetus was imprisoned by light, the latter penetrated, in its own power, as a gentle heaving life,

still further into the depth, till it reached the hard, cold seat of nature. There it remained stationary; and out of the same power proceeded the planet Jupiter" (Ebend. 25, 76, 80-82).

"The seventh form is Luna, in which lay the qualities of all these seven forms. She is also the bodily essence of the other forms, who all, through Solem, cast their desires into her. What Sol is and does in himself spiritually, that is and does Luna in herself bodily" (Sign. 9, 24).

* From the quotations here furnished on the origin of the planets, it is seen that Saturn answers to the first, Mercury to the second, Mars to the third, Venus to the fifth, and Jupiter to the sixth, natural body. The author brings them forward thus emphatically in the work, "Tables of the Three Principles." Table 2. Here we find how the moon is given as the seventh, and sun as the fourth corresponding form. It will readily be admitted, however, that Böhme could only be satisfied with such a construction, because in his time the other planets (only become known in our days) were not discovered. Another construction based on these new discoveries, or rather only an attempt at such, is given in "God and his Revelation," S. 170 and 182 ff.

After the firmament existed, the sidereal life was called forth by it; ie. there arose by it living beings like stars of the different elements.

"The firmament of heaven is made out of the middle of the water: this birth penetrates through the outward torpid birth, through death, and bears here sidereal life; such as animals, and men, birds, fishes, and reptiles" (Aur. 20, 60, 61).

"When God had opened its stars and the four elements, there were creatures in all the four elements; as birds in the constellation of the air, fishes in the constellation of the water, animals and four-footed creatures on the constellation of the earth, spirits in the constellation of fire" (Myst. 14, 1, 2).

We have seen above, that our author maintains that the earth has "the same qualities as the space above the earth.” Hence we can understand why he could speak, not only of the constellation of heaven, but even of living creatures, as of the constellations of the elements." But that such

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should only appear on the fifth day, i. e. after the creation of the firmament, whereas by the action of the still unendowed firmament even plants could flourish, is natural. In animals are revealed the first signs of a spiritual life, or at least a decided presentiment of it; but the spiritual life can everywhere appear only with and by the completion of physical existence. This is the case not only with creatures, but we maintain it, as is fully proved in the second and third division, even with the life of the Eternal. It is thus easy to see that the active strength characteristic of the stars, or their spiritual life, could only be revealed, after they had issued from the chaos of the firmament, in which they had been previously swallowed up, and had gained their appropriated corporealness. In the "spirits in the constellation of fire," which besides the other living beings have come into existence under the action of the star-world, we are not to understand angels or devils; as Böhme himself says (Myst. 8 12): “As in the divine revelation one step follows the other down to the uttermost, so it is with the angels or spirits; all are not holy which dwell in the elements." We read further (v. 8, ff), "whilst spirits live in the power of the holy world, others in the outer world govern the powers of the stars and the four elements, like kingdoms and princedoms, as every country has its princely guardian angel, with its legions," etc. Paracelsus maintained a similar doctrine; and the Holy Scriptures seem to indicate the same thing (Compare Joh. 5, 4.)

These creatures received their spirit from the constellations, or rather from the spirit of this world, but their body from the earth. In this manner was produced, according to the preponderance of the fiery or watery form, the contrast of the two sexes.

"From the matrix of nature, God, by means of the fiat of his word, allowed all things to issue on the fifth day according to their properties,-fishes in the water, birds in the air, and the other animals on the earth. They received their physical being from the firmness of the earth, but their spirit from the spiritus mundi" (Gnadenw. 5, 20).

"All creatures are formed out of the lower and out of the upper life. Earth's matrix gave the body, and the constellation the spirit" (Dreif. Leben, 11, 7). "As the star

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