Het tweede boeck des auteurs, handelende van de drie principien

Heavens cannot contain you: Item Likewise / Heaven is my throne, and the Earth is my footstool: and in the Our Father it says / Yours is the kingdom and the power (understand all power).

a That is / the earnest fountain-vein of the severity or wrath of God.

b Severe.
c Severity.

2. But that there is still a distinction / so that the evil is not God / nor called such / the same is understood in the first Principle / which is there the ^a earnest source of the wrath according to which God calls himself a wrathful ^b severe ^c jealous God. For in the wrath stands the origin of life / and all kinds of mobility: yet if that same severity is kindled with the light of God / then it is no longer severity / but the earnest wrath is transformed into joy.

d Or matter

3. Now when God created this world and everything / he had no other ^d materia matter from which he made it / than his own being / out of himself. Now God is a Spirit who is incomprehensible / who has neither beginning nor end / and his greatness and depth / is everything: yet a Spirit does nothing / except that he rises / flows / moves / and continually gives birth to himself: and principally (in his birth) three kinds of forms in himself (namely / bitter / e Or harsh / astringent / pulling-together. harsh and hot:) and none of these three forms is the first / second / or the third; but all three are only one [single] being: and each one gives birth to the second and the third. For between harsh and bitter / the fire is born: and the ^f wrath of the fire / is the bitterness (or the sting) itself: and the harshness is the root [or] Father of both of these / and is also born of them both; for a Spirit is like a will or mind / which rises / and (in its rising) sees / ^h infects / and gives birth to itself.
f The severity or the terror.

g Or the harsh / astringent pulling-together.
h Fills or mingles.

4. Now we cannot speak of this same thing with any human tongue and bring it to understanding: for God has no beginning; yet I will present it as if he had a beginning / so that one [may] understand the distinction between the first and the second Principle / what God or Spirit is. There is indeed no distinction in God: only / when one investigates from where evil and good come / then one must know what the first ⁱ source and original ⁱ torment of wrath is / and then also of love / since they both are from one [single] origin / from one Mother / and are one thing; so we must speak in a creaturely way / as if it took a beginning / so that it [may] be brought to ^k knowledge.
i Fountain or spring-vein.

k Or to the understanding.

5. For one cannot say / that in God / fire / bitter / or l Pulling-together harshness. harshness ^l exists / much less / air / water / or earth; only one sees that [everything] has become out of them: one also cannot say

say that in God / death / hellish fire / or sadness exists / one only knows / that [such things] have become out of him. For God has not (out of himself) made any Devil / but Angels [in order] (for his delight) to live in joy: one sees nevertheless that the Devils have become / and moreover God’s enemies; so one must [then] seek the ^m source of the cause [to understand] what the Prima materia first matter for wickedness is / and such in the originality of God / as well as in the creatures: for the same is (in the originality) all one [single] thing: it is all out of God / out of his being: (according to the Trinity) made / just as he is single in being / and threefold in persons.
m The fountain-vein.

6. See / there are principally three things in the originality / from which all things have become / Spirit and life / movement and comprehensibility (namely Sulphur, Mercurius and Sal Sulfur, Mercury and Salt) there you will now say the same is in nature / and not in God: yes exactly so: yet nature has its ground in God / n In which the kindling consists. (understand / according to the first Principle of the Father) for God also calls o The Spirit of the essence. himself a wrathful / jealous God: such is not p Salt / body or essentiality. to be understood / that God shows himself (in himself) so; but in the Spirit of the creature which kindles itself / then God burns in the first Principle in the same / and the Spirit of the creature suffers pain and not God.

7. Now Sulphur, Mercurius, and Sal (to speak in a creaturely way) have such a meaning. Sul, is the soul / or the Spirit which has risen / or in the likeness of God: Phur, is the Prima materia first matter, from which the Spirit is born / principally / the harshness: q Or the first matter. ^q Mercurius has in itself four kinds of forms (namely / harsh / r That is / the pulling-together harshness. bitter / fire / and water:) Sal, is the child that is born of these four; and is severe harshness / and a cause of comprehensibility.

8. Understand now rightly what I declare to you: harsh / bitter / fire / [these] are (in the originality) in the first Principle: ^f the water- s Or the spring-vein of the water. source is born in them: and God is not called God according to the first Principle / but [according to the same he is called] wrath / t Or fountain-vein. severity / earnest source from which the evil has its origin / the doing of woe / the trembling and burning.

9. That is now as previously recounted: the harshness is the Prima materia first matter, [it] is severe / entirely earnest pulling-together / that is Sal Salt: in the severe attraction the bitterness becomes: for in the severe attraction the Spirit sharpens itself / so that it becomes entirely anxious. Take an example in Man / whenever he becomes angry / how his Spirit pulls at itself / from which [it] becomes bitter and trembling; and if it is not quickly resisted and quenched [then you see that] the fire