The Drawing Back of the Veil: An Explanation of Symbols in the Hierologium

Concerning Imbibition.

And these bones shall live.

Behold here the medium of regeneration and glorious palingenesis placed before your eyes. Are those who wish to be participants in the innermost mysteries not to be imbued with the virtue of water and spirit? And what would have become of you, had you not undergone the purifications? A layman only, and a profane person, to whom entrance into the sanctuary had hitherto been forbidden. But through purification, every stain and blemish of your former life has been stripped away and as it were washed off. You are consecrated to God and the mysteries, and through water and spirit you have been made a new creature and called to a new life, which is salutary and known. O! Certainly, nature and grace know but one way, and what grace does of you, it does of nature in all its operations; and grace simultaneously shows the same way that nature treads in its most corporeal operation, that it is the very one which leads to the summit and sublime spirituality. See how the grateful and beneficial rain irrigates and moistens the thirsting earth, which otherwise would have remained only an empty and sterile dust. But when the rain descends into it, the earth becomes fruitful; the seeds hidden within, which could not germinate by themselves, blossom, and all things are clothed in pleasant abundance. See what became of the inordinate mixture in the first creation of this world by means of the influx of the superior. Surely all things would have lain without fruit, and would never have been able to bring forth what the divine mind had decreed to produce therefrom, had not the fiery rain of light descended into the chaotic mixture and, where the more subtle elements of fire and air had separated themselves from the crasser ones, namely water and earth, still held both. For with this fiery rain of divine virtue having been committed, the vivifying spirit simultaneously descended, and communicated itself to the matter; it fostered and fructified all things, so that the mass of the fetus, hidden in the womb by the heat of the virtue of the seed, might be suitable for humanity. Do you perceive the conjunction of Divinity and matter of this kind? But whence could anything ever have received life, except from Him? Who could ever have bestowed the vital seed, except He who alone is the fountain and spring of Life, and from whom all things that live have received life and existence? The same marriage is occurring at every moment. Look and examine with an intent mind the entire series and concatenation of nature; this is perpetual creation, and although nature may be in its highest vigor during the spring season, spring never ceases: it ceases in this region, and in that one it already begins. Yet there is not one moment when nature does not conceive and give birth. But whence this conception and perpetual creation, if not from the continuous descent of vital virtue? And surely if

your eyes, which are formed uniquely for thick corporeality, could perceive subtle corporeality, you would see with the greatest astonishment how the fiery virtue, clothed now in this, now in that thinner body, descends as an air-cloud, dew, vapor, rain, and communicates itself to the earth, so that the earth always conceives and is a great receptacle of the superior influx. Now, however, always remember that all things which are outside of God are nature. Spiritual nature does not differ in the thing itself, but only in degree. And you who have been called to the highest mysteries, you will certainly never be able to attain them unless you follow the way of nature. Do you see, from the things I have just said, what the way of nature is? It is none other than the copulation and conjunction of male and female, of spirituality and corporeality, of water and earth. Do, therefore, what you see nature doing. Just as corruption in natural solution separated the moist from the dry, separated the body, separated the water from the earth. Make a gentle rain descend slowly and gradually into the thirsting earth, that it may blossom and become apt and suitable for fostering fruits. The earth is the receptacle of matter, and conceives the seed that it may bring forth. Water, however, contains a spiritual virtue within itself. And when this has descended into that, and has sufficiently irrigated and as it were impregnated it, then that one will receive the nature of the latter. For a conjunction of spirituality and corporeality cannot take place such that each remains as it was before, but it is necessary that either spirituality overcomes and surpasses corporeality, or corporeality surpasses spirituality. You see in yourself, while you are bound to this sensuality in a thick body, that corporeality has the greater counterweight, and the spirit is elevated only in such measure as the body becomes impotent and sensuality is depressed and overcome. But when through death and corruption a plenary solution has been made, then in the future palingenesis the body will be joined to the spirit, then it will exalt and glorify the body, according to a certain glorification that happens in the spirit. See now what lies here before your eyes; they are as it were dry bones, which are, as it were, awaiting resurrection. But these bones shall live when the vivifying spirit has descended into them, and consecrated them, and palingenesis will begin, where the face of the earth will be renewed. Behold, you are called to the priesthood: perform the priestly duty which has been handed down to you; make peace between those things which have been divided; join together again those things which had been separated before and desire conjunction greatly, so that all things, amicably united, may rise again with greater perfection.

Concerning Fire.

The supreme and innermost mystery of both natures is the knowledge of fire. For if you know fire perfectly, all things that are above and below are open to you. Fire is, indeed, the source and origin of all things. And if you attend to that derivation, the precipitated fire descends and falls into the air, and where it has joined itself with the air, it passes into water, and the admixture of these three lets itself down into the earth, so that all things may come to be from there. Again, if you ascend, the fire again