Die uralte Weisheit. Eine kurzgefasste Darstellung der Lehren der Theosophie

Preface

poor sinners, and had both impulses, evil and good, within their nature. But that they preached against the sin of the world, and indeed against their own sin and punished it, they did this through the impulse of the Holy Spirit, and not out of a desire for fame. Also, they had nothing from their own powers and ability, nor could they teach in the mysteries of God, but everything happened in the impulse of God.

95. Likewise, I can say, boast, or write nothing of myself, other than that I am a simple man and a poor sinner, and must pray every day: Lord, forgive us our debt, and say with the apostles: O Lord, you have redeemed us through your blood. I have not ascended into heaven and seen all the works and creatures of God, but that same heaven is revealed in my spirit, so that I recognize in the spirit the works and creatures of God. Also, the will for this is not my natural will, but it is the impulse of the Spirit. I have also had to suffer many a fall from the devil in this endeavor.

96. However, the spirit of man has not come from the stars and elements alone, but there is also a spark from the light and power of God hidden within it. It is not an empty word that stands in Genesi the Book of Genesis chapter 1, verse 27: God created man in his image, yes, in the image of God he created him. For it carries precisely the meaning that he was made out of the entire essence of the Godhead.

97. The body is from the elements, therefore it must also have elemental food. The soul has its origin not from the body alone; even though it arises in the body and its first beginning is the body, it nonetheless has its source also from outside itself through the air. Also, the Holy Spirit rules therein, in the manner and way that he fulfills everything, and as everything is in God, and God himself is everything.

98. Therefore, because the Holy Spirit is "creaturely" in the soul meaning existing as an inherent part of the created soul, as the soul's own property, she searches even into the Godhead and also into nature, for she has her source and origin from the

of the Author.

essence of the entire Godhead. When she is ignited by the Holy Spirit, she sees what God her Father does, just as a son in a house well sees what the father does: she is a member or child in the heavenly Father's house.

99. Just as the eye of man sees as far as the stars, from which it has its initial origin, so also the soul sees into the divine essence in which she lives.

100. But because the soul also has her source from nature, and in nature there is evil and good, and man has also thrown himself into the Grimmigkeit fierceness or wrath of nature through sin, so that the soul is stained daily and hourly with sins, her knowledge is only fragmentary. For the fierceness in nature now also rules in the soul.

101. The Holy Spirit, however, does not go into the fierceness, but rules in the source of the soul which is in the light of God, and struggles against the fierceness in the soul.

102. Therefore, the soul can come to no perfect knowledge in this life until the end, when light and darkness separate, and the fierceness is consumed with the body in the earth. Then the soul sees clearly and perfectly in God her Father. However, when the soul is ignited by the Holy Spirit, she triumphs in the body, as a great fire goes out, so that heart and kidneys tremble for joy. It is not immediately great and deep knowledge that is there in God her Father, but the love toward God her Father thus triumphs in the fire of the Holy Spirit.

103. The knowledge of God, however, is sown in the fire of the Holy Spirit and is at first small like a mustard seed, as Christ compares it referencing Matthew 13. Afterward, it grows as large as a tree and spreads out in God its Creator. Just as a tiny drop of water in the great sea cannot surge much, but if a great stream enters into it, it can do more.

104. However, that which has happened, the present, and the future, as well as the width, depth, and height, near and far, are in God as one thing, one comprehensibility, and the holy