45. Thus likewise God created us to his love-consort to his joy and glory, whereby he exalts his speaking eternal word, or plays in the same with us as with his instrument.
46. Therefore, when this melodious instrument was broken in its sound by the wrathful might of his anger, that is, when man's image would play in its own might both in evil and good, in love and anger, viz. in its own self-will, and would not yield itself to be used to what the speaking word had created it, and departed out of resignation into an arrogation of self, and would play as itself pleased, now good, then bad, then this instrument was against the love of God, in which no voice, breath, or smallest degree of anger is manifest or can be, as in the light of the fire no pain of the fire is manifest.
47. For the will of the human Mercury went out from the will of the divine speaking word into its own self-will: Thus it fell into the centre of the pregnatress of all essences, viz. into the anguish, poison, and death, where God's anger, viz. the speaking in the wrath, took possession of it.
Here now was our distress, we were forlorn, Opprest in wrathful death, and woeful scorn; If God had not restored us again, We should have still been rowling in death's plain.
48. Thus, dear reader, it is clearly set before you wherein Christ was tempted; namely, whether the soul, and the whole man, viz. the image of the speaking word (after that God had introduced the spark of his love again into the human property, and freely given itself again with the love into it), would now again enter into its first place, and be God's melodious instrument in his love, or not; or whether it would be a selfish arrogator in its own will, and do what its own speaking would bring forth in the enkindled Mercury of its life; whether it would suffer God's will to strike the signature upon its instrument, or the anger of God to strike it, as before came to pass [viz. in the first Adam].
49. Here it was tried: Therefore said the devil, viz. the organist in God's anger, to Christ, that he should fall down and worship him, and then he would give him all dominion, power, and glory; he should and might do what he pleased, he should live and delight in his own self-will; he should only give the devil his will, and forego resignation, and depart out of God's mercy and love-will: And if this had come to pass, then had the fair instrument been once again broken, and the human melody in God's love and deeds of wonder had ended; but Christ said, "Get thee hence, Satan: It is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and serve him only. Then the devil left him, and the angels came and ministered unto him."
50. Herein (as it is already mentioned at large) the magus must well consider his purpose and intent; not desiring with the covetousness of the devil to possess the earthly kingdom, also not to fly [or cast himself down] from the Temple, much less to work out his intent from the stones; he must think that he is God's minister and servant, not a selfish lord, of whom becomes a fool: If he will help the poor captive shut up in the anger of God out of the bands of darkness, wherein he is swallowed up in the curse of the earth, and deliver him from the anger of God, then he must think and well observe how God with his entrance [viz. into the humanity] hath redeemed him; he must very exactly and intimately consider the temptation of Christ, not blindly grope after it with outward manual art, and think with himself, I have a dead stone before me; it neither knows or feels anything, I must by force set upon it, that I may compel it, and take its jewel, which it has hidden in it.
51. He that does so is a fool, and goes on in his own self-will, and is altogether unfit for the work; let him not meddle with it; we desire faithfully to admonish him, that if he will seek aright, then let him consider the process of Christ, how God has again regenerated the universal shut up in death in the human property.
52. For God did not take man as he lay closed up in death, and cast him into a furnace, and melted him in the wrath, as the false magus does; but he gave his love first into his human essence, and baptized the humanity; afterwards he brought him into the wilderness, and set the devil opposite to him, not into him; he let him first fast and hunger forty days, and gave no outward food to the humanity: He must eat of his life's Mercury, that God might see whether the humanity would bring its desire into God; and when the humanity introduced its desire into the Deity, and received the manna, then he let the devil set upon the humanity, who introduced all his subtlety and desires into the humanity, and tempted him: Dost thou not understand anything here? What shall I say more to thee? If thou art a beast, then I give thee not my pearl; it belongs to God's children.
53. God must become man, man must become God; heaven must become one thing with the earth, the earth must be turned to heaven: If you will make heaven out of the earth, then give the earth the heaven's food, that the earth may obtain the will of heaven, that the will of the wrathful Mercury may give itself in unto the will of the heavenly Mercury.
54. But what wilt thou do? Wilt thou introduce the poisonful Mercury (which has only a death's will in itself) into the temptation, as the false magus does? Will you send one devil to another, and make an angel of him? In deed and in truth I must needs laugh at such folly: If thou wilt keep a corrupt black devil, how dost thou think to turn the earth by the devil to heaven? Is not God the creator of all beings? Thou must eat of God's bread, if thou wilt transmute thy body out of the earthly property into the heavenly.
55. Christ said, "He that eateth not the flesh of the Son of Man hath no part in him: "And he says further, "He that shall drink of the water that I shall give, it shall spring up in him to a fountain of eternal life." Here lies the pearl of the new-birth: It is not enough to play the sophister; the grain of wheat brings forth no fruit, unless it falls into the earth; all whatever will bring forth fruit must enter into its mother from whence it came first to be.
56. The mother of all beings is Sulphur, Mercury is her life, Mars her sense, Venus her love, Jupiter her understanding, Luna her corporeal essence, Saturn her husband: You must reconcile or lovingly betroth the man with the woman; for the man is angry, yet give him his dear spouse into his arms; but see that the spouse be a virgin, wholly chaste and pure; for "the woman's seed shall break the serpent's head," viz. the man's anger: The virgin must be in real love, without any falsehood or unfaithfulness, a virgin which never touched any man in anger according to his manhood; for the pure Deity does so espouse itself in clear love with the humanity, even as Mary said, "Be it unto me as thou hast spoken, for I am the Lord's handmaid;" and so the humanity assumed the Deity, and also the Deity the humanity.
57. The chaste virgin signifies in the philosophic work the clear Deity, the humanity is Mercury, Sulphur, and Salt, both heavenly and earthly; the heavenly property is disappeared, and as a nothing; the deadly property in the wrath is stirred up, and lives to the anger, and in the properties of the anger; the humanity, both in Adam and in Christ, was tempted. Dost thou ask, wherewith? With the like opposite in the wrath, even with such a devil as had all these properties in him, as a potent prince [in all the properties of the anger].
58. The properties in Sulphur were tempted with the likeness of the Sulphur; in the Sulphur, or from the sulphureous property, the temptation did come and arise, and its forms are three, as one in the impression, which the philosophers call Saturn, which the human spirit or will should open in the property of Venus, and therewith satiate or feed its hunger, viz. the fire; the other property was, that he should live in his own awakened and opened Venus out of Saturn's property, and aspire in self-will.
59. The third property was, he should introduce his will through the awakened love-desire again into the centre, viz. into the sulphurean mother, which arises in the impression in the anguish: And this he would not do, but the first Adam did it; and therefore God when he would help him tempted him in the Sulphur, viz. in the first mother to the humanity, and suffered a wrathful devil, which was enkindled in the Sulphur, to tempt him with his enkindled malignity and malice in the Sulphur:
Dost thou not understand this? What then shall I say more to thee?
60. Sulphur is the womb whereinto we must enter, if we would be new born. Nicodemus said well; "How can one being old enter into his mother's womb, and be born again?" But Christ said, "Except you be converted, and become as children, you cannot see the kingdom of heaven." The self-will must enter again into the first mother which brought it forth, viz. into the Sulphur, by the will understand Mercury.
6i. But now who will persuade it to do so? For it is become a selfish thing, and must enter again into the mother, and become nothing; this seemed a strange and wonderful thing to Nicodemus, but the Lord said to him, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but thou knowest not from whence it cometh, or whither it goeth; even so is every one that is born of God." Behold, who persuaded the will of Christ in his humanity, to enter again with the will into the filiation or adoption, as it were in the mother's womb, and eat nothing forty days, and would also [eat] nothing, but remained in full steadfast resignation in the mother? Did not the Deity do it, which was entered into the humanity?
62. Thus likewise it goes in the philosophic work, therefore let the artist well observe, and rightly understand us: He must seek the evil stubborn child (which is fled from the mother, and entered into the centre, and would be a selfish thing) in Saturn; for the wrath of God has shut him up with its impression in the chamber of death.
63. Not that he has made him to Saturn, but he holds him shut up in the saturnine death; the same he must again take and bring into the mother's womb, and then send the angel with a message to Mary, and tell her, "She shall bring forth a son, whose name shall be called Jesus: "And if the mother shall yield her consent thereunto, and receive the name Jesus, then the new humanity shall begin in the mother, with the new child in the old apostate captivated in the anger of God, and the name Jesus will first give in itself to the dead child which lay captivated in Saturn, and eagerly draw the will of the evil dead child to itself: This is the fair bride, which shews her crown of pearl to her apostate bridegroom; he should but again receive her, and she would again give him her love. Now if the apostate youth shut up in death does again receive her, then is the artist well prepared, and counted worthy by God to finish his purpose: Now will the bride love the bridegroom, and a virgin bring forth a son, at which all the world will wonder; the virgin shall embrace the man; but he is a man, and not a woman, and has the virgin's heart.
64. Now he must be tempted, whether or no he will live in virgin-like chastity, and in full resignation of his will to God, for he must be a valiant champion, and destroy the devil's fortress of prey (which he has in his mother) in seven kingdoms; then let the devil set his mother's house on fire with his wrath, and tempt him, he will now well enough defend himself with Christ against the devil.
65. This being done, the young man with his virgin-like heart will wholly give himself up to the mother, when the tempter comes and assaults him, and the mother will wholly swallow him up into herself through the devil's wrath: He gives himself forth wholly out of his own will into the nothing. Now, thinks the artist with himself, I have lost all; for he thinks that he has lost heaven; for he seeks nothing, and does not consider that a virgin has now brought forth: But let him have patience; that which is impossible to the artist, that is possible to nature; after the night it is day; when the tempter has finished all his temptations, then comes the sign [or appearance] of the angels; then the devil which has tempted him must depart.
66. Let the artist well observe this, and pack away the devil, and suffer the young man with his virgin-like heart to lie in his bed, and eat his former food, for he is now become a physician of his sisters in his mother's house; he will do great wonders in all the seven kingdoms of his mother (which are the seven forms of life) as Christ has done.
67. In Saturn he will raise the dead, understand, he will awaken the dead essence which held him captive in his former prison; for he shall turn [or make] the earth to heaven: Even as the virgin has raised up his will out of the anger in the love, and made him a wonder-worker; so must he also awaken with his will, which is united to the virgin's heart, the form or signature in his mother's womb, whence she has brought forth him and all her children, and enkindle it with the virgin's and his love-desire: This is effected and done in the Sulphur of Saturn in the young man's own personal property, and in his mother; for before the espousing of the virgin the heavenly essence of the young man lies shut up in death: For when God cursed the earth, then the heavenly paradisical body disappeared, and the impression of Saturn took it in possession, till the restitution, where God shall restore that which is hidden, that paradise does again spring forth afresh in the expressed word, or that the artist does open the same in a part by God's permission.
68. In the second kingdom of the mother, viz. in Luna, he shall also do wonders; for Jesus fed with five barley loaves five thousand people; this is the working in the essentiality or corporality. He turned water to wine: These and the like do all belong to the lunar property, where the champion with his virgin opens paradise, and feeds the body, where nothing is, where the outward Mercury has not laboured and wrought: Thus the forms in the lunar property open themselves as if they are paradisical, even then the artist thinks I am nigh unto it; but he is yet far off from the end.
69. In the third kingdom of the mother, viz. in Jupiter, Christ did make the babes and ignorant, of a very weak and mean capacity, knowing and understanding, viz. of poor fishermen, carpenters, and the like mechanics, he made apostles, and the most understanding men of all; and also of poor, disrespected, vilified people, as of women, and simple ones, he made faithful, devout, dear, godly children, who apprehended in themselves the universal without any art.
70. Thus likewise it goes in the philosophic work; the essentiality which lies disappeared in death, where the Mercury is wholly earthly, cold, and impotent, does now arise in power, as if the whole being and essence were become a new life, at which the artist wonders, and marvels what it is, or how it happens, and yet does also exceedingly rejoice that he sees the divine power to spring forth before his eyes in a half dead essence, and that in the curse of God: He sees all the four elements, each apart, and sees how the wisdom of God represents itself therein, as an harmony of joy, and sees all colours, and the rainbow upon which Christ sits in judgment in the expressed Mercury.
71. The nature of this splendour arises out of the impression of Saturn; the good Jupiter gives himself forth to be seen in such a manner, as God will change the world, and transform it again into paradise; for this is the understanding in the expressed word, even as Christ has made the foolish, rude, ignorant people truly wise and knowing in divine, real, heavenly jovial understanding and knowledge.
72. In the fourth kingdom of the mother of all beings, which is the mercurial in the wheel of the nature of life, Christ made "the deaf to hear, the dumb to speak, and cleansed the lepers" from the poison of Mercury: All apoplexies, the French or poisonful pox and sores arise from the saturnine water in Mercury, which [water] is called phlegma, all which Christ healed in the form or signature of the young man and virgin; for the eternal virginity had espoused itself with the young man, viz. with the humanity.
73. This comes to pass also in the philosophic work: The artist will see how the heaven separates itself from the earth, and how the heaven does again sink into the earth, and changes the earth into a heavenly colour; he will see how Mercury purifies the matter, and how the purified colours will appear in antimony in their property, and how the wonder proceeds.
74. In the fifth kingdom of the mother of all beings, Christ expelled the devils out of the possessed, and healed the deaf in this form and property.
75. This likewise the artist will see in the philosophic work, how Jupiter in Mercury will drive up a black twinkling fiery vapour out of the matter, which sticks on like soot; for it is a hunger of the poison in Mercury, and is very rightly compared to the devil, for it is of his property.
76. In the sixth kingdom of the mother of all beings, viz. in the wheel of life, called Venus, Christ loved his brethren and sisters according to the humanity, and washed his disciples’ feet, and loved them even to the deepest exinanition, and gave his life into the wrath's property even to death for them, and manifested himself among them that he was Christ: And when they perceived that the king was come that should deprive self-will of its might and dominion, and destroy the devil's kingdom; then they cried out, and said, "We have no king but Cæsar;" they took him in the dark night into their power, bound him, and brought him before their council, mocked him, whipped him, and beat him, stripped him of clothes, and hung him on the cross.
77. This also the artist will see very powerfully in the philosophic work; for as soon as the dark fiery stream, viz. the material devil goes from the matter, then virgin Venus appears in her virginity very glorious and beautiful; for it betokens Christ's love, who did so humble himself, and manifested his love in our humanity; then the artist thinks that he has the philosophic child, then he has now the fine morsel: But he dances with the Jews, who thought, when they had taken Christ, Now we have him, we will keep him well enough. Thus he also thinks, it is finished, and receives the child; and when he beholds it in the trial, then he has Venus, a woman, and not the virgin with the tincture of the fire and light, and is deceived by the woman.
78. Now observe right, What do the properties, viz. Saturn, Mars, and Mercury, when they see the child, viz. the champion in royal colour, and find that he manages no external dominion and royalty with power and authority as they do, but will only rule with love in their poisonful fire-might? They will not suffer him.
79. For Saturn signifies the worldly dominion, and Mercury the spiritual dominion, viz. the Pharisees, and Mars signifies the devil; these three would not endure Christ among them; for he said that he was a king of love, and the Son of God, and was come to deliver his people from sin: Then thought the devil, sure this rhimes not well, thou wilt lose thy kingdom: And the worldly magistrate thought, Is this a king, and God's Son? Then he will take away our might; this does not at all like us: And the mercurial priests thought; This man is too mean for us, we will have a Messiah who may bring us to worldly dominion, and make us to be high and rich in the world, that we may alone possess the honour of the world; we will not receive him, he is too poor for us; we might so lose the favour and respect of the worldly magistrate, and should be much damaged; we will rather abide in our power, respect, and authority, and abandon this beggarly king with his love-kingdom: In like manner as yet to this day they are so minded, and serve his messengers so whom he sends.
80. Thus likewise it goes in the philosophic work, when Venus manifests herself with love, viz. in her own property in the three wrathful forms, viz. in Saturn, Mars, and Mercury; they can by no means endure it, for it is wholly against their austere, dark, fiery might, but especially against the poison of Mercury, they flash and lighten against Venus, and shoot their rays, viz. the mercurial poisonful rays upon her, as the Pharisees did upon Christ. In the meanwhile, Jupiter and Luna hold with Venus, and give their power to Venus; for Venus does here stand forth in the power of Jupiter; at this the Pharisees laugh, and think with themselves, We are wise enough already, what need we knowledge and understanding? We will have might and honour; and Luna signifies the multitude of laymen who stuck to Christ, while it went well with him; so does Luna in the philosophic work to Venus in her lustre, so long as Saturn, Mercury, and Mars do not meddle with and assault her; but when the power of wrath comes, then Luna changes her will, viz. the colour, and looks, arises, and cries also with the rest the crucifige: This the artist will see, if he be chosen and accounted worthy of God for the work.