Commentary on Genesis (Mysterium Magnum)

might yet not have any sensation in the free spiritual delight, if it did not lead itself into a desire (like a hunger).

5. For the Nothing hungers after the Something, and the hunger is the desire, as the first Verbum Fiat Word [let it be done], or making: For the desire has nothing that it could make or grasp. It grasps only itself and impresses itself; that is, it coagulates itself; it draws itself into itself and grasps itself and leads itself from the Ungrund abyss/groundless foundation into ground, and shades itself with the magnetic pulling, so that the Nothing becomes full, and yet remains as a Nothing; it is only a property, like a darkness; that is the eternal original state of the darkness: For where a property is, there is already something, and the something is not like the Nothing: It gives obscurity, unless it be that it is filled with something else (as with a luster), so it is light, and yet remains an obscurity in the property. John 1.

6. In this coagulation or impression, or desire, or hunger, as I might express it for understanding, we are now to understand two things with the compaction, or gathering together. I. As the free delight, which is the wisdom, power, and virtue of colors; and II. the desire of the free delight within itself. For the free delight, as the wisdom, is no property, but is free from all attachment and is one with God: But the desire is a property. Now, however, the desire arises from the delight; therefore the desire also grasps the free delight within the compaction in the grasping and leads it into sensibility and perceptibility.

7. And we should indeed understand ourselves well at this place: The desire arises from the will toward the free delight and leads itself out through the free delight and into a desire, for the desire is the Father's property, and the free delight, as the wisdom, is the Son's property: Although God, as He is one Spirit, is not called Father or Son here at this place, until the revelation through the fire in the light; then He is called Father and Son. But for the sake of thorough understanding, I set it down regarding the birth of nature, so that one may understand which person in the Godhead nature, and which the power in nature, is attributed to.