Friedrich Christoph Oetinger,

Portrait by Georg Adam Eger, 1775.

Picture at Wikimedia Commons.

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With this sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, we are inaugurating a sampler series devoted to the memory of Friedrich Christoph Oetinger (1702–1782), with this English working translation from its original German, of ‘Die Lehrtafel der Prinzessin Antonia‘ (The Teaching Tablets of Princess Antonia), in a 1965 publication by Ernst Franz Verlag in Metzingen, Wurtenberg, Germany. From page 106 to 119.

Friedrich Christoph Oetinger was a German Lutheran theologian, theosopher and mystic who played a pivotal role in bridging Christian orthodoxy with esoteric currents such as Theosophy, Hermetism, and alchemical thought.

Deeply influenced by Jacob Boehme, Oetinger sought to integrate spiritual vision with natural philosophy, believing that divine truths could be revealed both through Scripture and through the ‘Book of Nature‘.

His synthesis of theology and alchemy, especially in works like ‘Die Lehrtafel der Prinzessin Antonia‘, marked a significant moment in the evolution of Christian Theosophy, laying the groundwork for later currents of German Romantic mysticism and spiritual science.

Oetinger’s insistence on the reality of spiritual worlds, his cosmological vision, and his symbolic interpretation of biblical texts placed him at a key crossroads between Lutheran Pietism, esoteric Christianity, and the enduring Hermetic tradition. More to come soon!

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An Introduction

In Two Parts

1-Princess Antonia Of Wurtenberg

Antonia of Württemberg (24 March 1613 – 1 October 1679) was a princess of the Duchy of Württemberg, as well as a literary figure, patroness, a Hebrew Scholar and Christian Kabbalist.

Princess Antonia became a close associate of the evangelical Protestant theologian and mystical symbolist Johann Valentin Andreae, and later was on friendly terms with the founder of the Pietism movement, Philip Jacob Spener.

In addition to painting, her interests were above all in the realm of philosophy and languages, with a special preference for Hebrew, and the study of the Jewish Kabbalah. Her specifically Christian expression of this tradition found its culmination in the unique large Kabbalistic triptych painting designed and commissioned by Princess Antonia and her academic teachers in 1652, installed in 1673 in the small town church of Holy Trinity at Bad Teinach-Zavelstein in the Black Forest, a personal witness-or token-of faith.

Princess Antonia died in 1679, having never married. Her body was buried in the Collegiate Church in Stuttgart; but she directed that her heart should be buried in the wall of Trinity Church in Bad Teinach, behind her painting. (Source: Wikipedia).

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2. Princess Antonia’s Kabbalistic

Teaching Tablets at Bad Teinach,

The Kabbalistic Lehrtafel (teaching painting) of Princess Antonia at Bad Teinach stands over six meters tall and five meters wide, dominating the area to the right of the altar in the small church. Planned in 1652 by the princess with a circle of court academic advisors, it was executed in 1659-1663 by Johann Friedrich Gruber, the court painter at Stuttgart, and installed in 1673 at Bad Teinach, where the ducal family used to take holidays in summer, and where Antonia’s brother Duke Eberhard had established the church as a private family chapel, built in 1662-1665.

The panels, which were probably designed under the impression of Antonia’s conversion experience and with the help of a learned circle of advisors from 1652 onwards, were implemented in form and color in the years 1659–1663 by Johann Friedrich Gruber (around 1620–1681), the painter at the Fürstenhof in Stuttgart. In 1673, the painting shrine was erected in the Trinity Church in Teinach, the place where the princely family spent their holidays. The total exterior dimension of the shrine, which completely occupies the right side of the sanctuary, is 5.10 m in width and 6.50 m in height.

On this work of art, designed as a fold-out triptych, a symbolic biblical event can be seen in Christian-Kabbalistic interpretation. With its spiritual world system totius mundi, the artwork encompasses the spiritual evolution of humanity from its beginnings to the present. The work points the way to a spiritual view of the world: this happens through mystical initiation paths. In addition to an introduction to the Sephiroth doctrine of Kabbalah and its Christian reinterpretation in humanism, the curriculum contains aspects of pietistic individual piety.

The educational board is therefore characterized by the combination of a variety of suggestions. These include:

1. Kabbalah. For the Kabbalistic background, the Hebraist Johann Jacob Strölin became particularly important.

2. The virtue system with the ancient tradition of cardinal virtues and the Christian tradition of theological virtues. The conventional personification of the virtues by female figures has caused a gender exchange in the combination of virtue tree and sephiroth tree in the teaching board, above all a far-reaching feminization compared to the patriarchally oriented Kabbalah: for the Sephiroth 1 – 9 stand female figures, for the 10th Sephira (Shechina) Jesus Christ. Johann Valentin Andreae’s work ‘Ein geistliches Gemäld‘ (1615), which can already be regarded as a preliminary stage for the former painting of the Evangelical City Church in Andreae’s district town of Vaihingen an der Enz, partly carried out by the painter Conrad Rotenburger (1579–1633), who lived in Bietigheim an der Enz since 1614–1618 and destroyed in the city fire on 9 October 1618, had a stimulating effect here. The murals had depicted Christian virtues and visual summaries of the history of salvation.

3. The Concept of Biblical Summaries. Johann Valentin Andreae obviously took up the concept of biblical summaries developed by Veit Dietrich (1506–1549) in his ‘Summaria’ on the Old and the New Testament‘ (1541), as a Vaihingen deacon and thus inspired the painter Conrad Rotenburger and then also Princess Antonia of Württemberg. Their mathematics teacher Johann Jacob Heinlin had also continued in his former office Bietigheim an der Enz to the tradition of the Biblical Summaries, which at the instigation of Andreae was artistically appreciated by Rotenburgers, and later supported them with two volumes (1659 and posthumously 1662) comprehensive contributions to the Württemberg summaries.

4. The Baroque concept of ‘noble diversity’, which ties in with the ancient tradition of comprehensive (encyclopedic) education. Here the classically philologically educated theologian Johann Lorenz Schmidlin became important.

5. The emblematic (symbolic art) developed in the Renaissance period, especially since Andrea Alciato. It was not until 1974 that research on the curriculum pointed to an emblem book that was particularly important for its creation. It comes from Johann Ebermeier (also: Ebermaier), city pastor in Zavelstein and in the branch town of Teinach in the Black Forest, who was associated with Andreae and Princess Antonia of Württemberg, and bears the title ‘New Poetisch Hoffnungs-Gärtlein‘. For example, the 270th emblem in Ebermeier’s book bears the title ‘Emblema Illustriß[imae]. & [et] Celssissimae Dominae, D[ominae]. Antoniae, Ducissae VVürttemb[ergiae]. Praemium spei, corona‘. The crowned monogram “A V” of the princess, covered by an anchor as a symbol of hope, can be found at the top of the interior of the teaching board with the representation of the ten reflections (Sephiroth) of God. (Source: FeelTheArt).

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Friedrich Christoph Oetinger’s exegesis

upon Princess Antonia’s Teaching Tablets

‘It is beautiful and useful to explain the teaching panels (or tablets) of Princess Antonia and to bring these panels, unknown for a hundred years, into the light. However, I must first share what has often given me a mixed-feeling about them. The most glorious aspects of the self-revealing divinity through ten emanations cannot be depicted otherwise than as un-moving. Here, they create the impression that the divinity is an immovable and resting sculpture of ten main figures, which it certainly is not!

The divinity in the Holy Trinity is more akin to a living spring than to a painting. ‘In You‘, says the Spirit of Christ, ‘is the living spring, and in Your light, we see the light‘ (Ps. 36:10). Similarly, the soul, as the likeness of divinity, is not a resting mirror but also a derived spring of various inflows and outflows.

This fits very well with the Bad Teinach healing spring. Oh, that the spa guests, in view of the spring, would think more of the words of David and Jesus than of idle pastimes with genealogies, stories about families and noble houses, and the like!

Such things may be trivial as pastimes, but if the focus on the eternal is lacking, they cause the years to pass like idle chatter. The water of life at the Bad Teinach spring is not idle chatter. Jesus says, ‘But whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life‘ (John 4:14). Oh, the purest, sweetest words of Jesus! Yet who makes this their primary refreshment while drinking from the Bad Teinach spring? One would fare far better by taking these words to heart, but they are as little understood as Antonia’s Sephirot. If they were truly thirsty for these words and recognized their soul not merely as a mirror but as a spring of water moved by the hand of God, then they would be capable of understanding Antonia’s teaching panels!

This princess will one day stand against all who use the spa cure without reflecting on the radiance of the ten forms of the water of life, let alone gaining faith and steadfastness of heart through it. Hagar was a rough and wild woman, an outcast maidservant, yet God deemed her worthy to behold the spring of the Living and Seeing One. ‘Truly‘, she said, ‘here I have seen the One who looked upon me before I thought of Him‘. Oh, that the wild people of the world—I mean the servants of sin—might be compelled to see this inner nobility as Hagar did, that they might consider how they cast themselves out of the heavenly nobility and inheritance through their mockery of Sarah, the free, exalted mother, and the original spring of divinity, which is contained in Christ. Jesus says: ‘Who will give you, you unfaithful ones, what is yours? Yours is what the ten emanations of God in Christ signify, but you shrink from it. You fear that worldly pleasures may seduce you‘. (Matt. 13).

If you were to behold the radiance and glory of God for even a moment, all that you now hold so highly—the splendor of clothing, wealth, and worldly honor—would seem as nothing. Yet God does not compel you now with an actual radiance of light; rather, you are to be led through the initially dark but later clear words of life to believe what you do not see and to understand what Nicodemus at first did not understand. So look upon the panel! It is a dark word, an unmoving image. The spirit and desire for life must transform it within you into a living, leaping spring. The seven spirits of God, in whom you can believe even if you do not fully comprehend them, must make you active, alive, joyful, and full of hope as you recognize your soul as such a spring, in which your bitter affections should settle and the sweetness of love should have the upper hand.

Affections make you sour, hard, bitter, and fiery, but the grace of God fills you with holy gentleness, humility, and love. The soul is malleable into whatever it sees; whatever it turns its desire toward, it becomes. This is the spring of affections, but they must be transformed into love. The emanations of God in Christ must bring them from fleeting, wave-like unrest to what endures—the sweet Gospel the angels sang: ‘Glory to God in the highest, peace on earth, and goodwill toward men!‘

The triptych in the Trinity Church in Bad Teinach is very large and tall. When Duke Eberhard III laid the cornerstone for this church, princes, counts, and many high-ranking persons were present, as depicted in stone by the sculptor at the entrance.

The devout Princess Antonia wished to contribute her part with a heavenly purpose and to deliver a visible sermon to the guests and all of Württemberg: first, of the Trinity, which holy revelation expresses in a Kabbalistic manner through the three self-subsistences of God—who is, who was, and who is to come; second, of the seven spirits of God, so that three and seven are represented in ten personally painted images on two pillars, emerging above from a house and below united in Christ in an oval garden; and third, of Christ, who stands at the center of the garden.

All believers first receive the gracious greeting from the Trinity, then from the seven spirits, and finally from Jesus Christ. This is a highly Kabbalistic style, as Franeker Professor Jakob Rhenferdt extensively proves regarding the Kabbalistic style of John.

The Zohar, the ancient book (extending into the age of Paul), writes something like this: ‘The three upper Sephirot constitute something special, the seven lower ones as well, and the King Messiah, our Jesus and Savior, also stands apart, yet all converge into one in Christ. Whatever objections one may raise, the scriptural formation of our thoughts far surpasses all human images of God, and we are not obliged to answer all objections‘. Enough—we are to draw equal measures of reverence and love from this and make it our chief concern to be born anew of water and the Spirit.

If the natural man finds it strange that there should be ten emanations of God, let him consider that the Holy Scriptures speak of the fullness of God, that is, of something fulfilled through many emanations or outpourings of God. The term pleroma (fullness) indicates a passive fulfillment. ‘In Christ dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily‘ (Col. 2:9).

In chapter 5 of the prophet Micah, it is clear that Christ, in His divinity, has not one but several emanations (Mazaot) from eternity.

These emanations in Jesus Christ are the Spirit of Christ, who communicates Himself in various powers to the different innate characters or temperaments and elevates the nature of each believer.

Note especially the figure at the very bottom near the garden’s entrance, representing every believer who seeks to strengthen their faith, love, and hope. Hope has the paradisiacal garden as its object; faith has the priesthood depicted between the pillars as its object; and love has God Himself with His communicative emanations as its object. Hence, God, moved by His motherly love to elevate His creature, is called love itself. ‘God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God in him‘ (1 John 4:16).

The panels further convey that in Christ, we are to learn to unite the Old & New Testaments in a single glance.

Oh, what a great thing it is to let one’s soul be guided through all the manifold holy representations of Scripture into the simplicity and concentration of the Spirit!

Whoever in this life does not strive to be so simplified and brought into unity through multiplicity, God will make it bear fruit for the unspeakably glorified joy on the New Earth. It is open to everyone to understand all the images of this panel, each individually; yet it is enough if one grasps what pertains to being sealed with the Spirit of God and is moved to reflect on the main point concerning the Spirit.

Let every baptized Christian strive to live a joyful Christianity in pure gratitude! Baptism already encompasses all the emanations of God in three words: water, Word, and Spirit.

Now labor and strive to be gathered into all the fullness of God even in this world!

Do not take it as a burden; it must be a pure work of joy.

Do not dispute much about the truth, but enjoy the truth! The time is short. Satan has great wrath in mimicking the holiest things. He gives you the sweetest opinion of your state of grace, but you must know from your own communion with the Father and the Son that the Spirit of God, communicated to you in a creaturely way, has sealed you for the day of redemption.

You must think: I am redeemed, I live, I shall never die—why should I grieve my spirit? So think powerfully that you are redeemed from the terrible things that will be revealed in the coming wrath and eternal judgment!

Behold the eternal judgment with the eyes of Holy Scripture, not with the eyes of common opinion, and you will walk as one redeemed by God in pure thanksgiving!

Now I must answer a few more questions:

What do the two pillars signify? I dare not, with Anne Hutchinson (1590-1643, a Quaker), understand them as the original powers and movements. Solomon’s system does not lead us so far, as we may infer from his proverbs. One would then also have to interpret the two contrary foundational pillars of nature—strength and gentleness—according to Samson’s riddle, where the highest sharpness and the highest sweetness are depicted in a single lion’s body (Judg. 14:14): ‘Out of the eater came something to eat, and out of the strong came something sweet‘. But I cannot rightly persuade anyone of this. Therefore, I prefer to remain with what the foundational words say regarding the temple building:

Jachin means: ‘He will establish’.

Boaz means: ‘In Him is strength’.

God, in whom all strength resides, will also establish Princess Antonia’s teaching panel as a tower; this is enough. Whoever seeks to encompass everything in it has much to do. God tolerates problematic attempts at truth, especially in this fermenting age; yet I always return to the most useful, for it is also the easiest.

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How should one simply conceive of the teachings about the ten emanations of God?

Answer: God is the unfathomable depth, the En Sof, who stands at the top of the panel and dwells in Himself. He wishes to communicate Himself to His creatures. Thus, the first emanation from the En Sof, from the abyss, is original, as we pray in the hymn: ‘To the triune God, who originally was, who is, and who shall remain, now and forever‘.

Through the first (Keter), God emerges as a “crown” or immeasurable periphery of the expansion of His innermost point (Ps. 150:1) or concentration for His self-revelation.

Through the second (Chokmah), as wisdom, He contemplates Himself within Himself.

Through the third (Binah), He brings forth the distinction of the pre-worldly original ideas within Himself. Wisdom plays before God, and God confirms His purpose (Prov. 8). The Holy Spirit distinguishes the hidden things of wisdom through two into three and through these into seven and further into infinity (Job 11:6).

Through the fourth (Gedullah), He extends His powers within Himself (Ps. 150:1). “Praise Him for His mighty deeds!”

Through the fifth (Geburah), He draws them together again, so that we praise Him in His mighty acts.

Through the sixth (Tiferet), He resolves the tension between extension and contraction into the loveliest beauty, as the psalmist sings: “Splendor and majesty are before Him; strength and beauty are in His sanctuary” (Ps. 96:6).

Through the seventh (Netzach), which is the fourth among the seven lower ones, He overcomes, so that the conflict between consuming and preserving powers transitions into victory (lanetzach) through the purest act. Although in God there is no transition from conflict to rest, He does not say in vain that He has rested. Thus, God’s active powers and emanations continue until they come to rest. In God, there is no change, but an eternal act that moves toward rest—an eternal movement in rest. Ask a learned Jew why the fourth Sephirah is called “overcoming.”

Through the eighth (Hod), called glory, it moves closer to rest. Glory is the foundational word of the New Testament; everything culminates in it. This is Paul’s Kabbalah in 2 Corinthians 3.

Through the ninth (Yesod), everything gains its stability. All senses, all reflexive powers, the immortality of the soul—everything enduring and steadfast has its root here. God is a rock; His work is perfect (Deut. 32:4).

Through the tenth (Malkuth), divinity emerges from the purest act of entelechy—that is, from the actively progressing transition to rest—into eternal containment, the Sabbath, the kingdom, and this occurs in Adonai, the Lord of all lords, in Christ. Here, divinity enters a new state, hidden from eternity for men and angels. Here, the mystery of God also becomes the mystery of Christ.

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The third question is: What order is there in this?

My answer: Three and seven have an order, but none is first or last. The emanations are equally eternal, yet in revelation, there must be something indicating three states, three self-subsistent operations. Otherwise, it would not say: “Who is, who was, and who is to come.” Further, the seven spirits, which stand as torches before God’s throne, must be something successive in simultaneity.

The fourth question is: Are they fully scriptural?

My answer: Yes, certainly! The seven spirits are already called seven eyes on one stone in the Old Testament; they are active and go out into all lands (Zech. 4:10), and in holy revelation, it is clear. The golden lampstand (Zech. 4) has seven pipes, and each pipe divides into seven emanations. What could be clearer than recognizing the Spirit of God in His powers?

The Trinity is highly intellectual. The sevenfold is a double dwelling of the Trinity, united into oneness; but in the seventh number, the Trinity gives itself a certain measure of powers in glory, although the glory of God is without measure. Alas, how does our mole-like understanding dare, other than through gaps in understanding, to form concepts from brief words? Blessed is he who experiences: “We will come to Him and make our home with Him.” Yet it is beautiful when a soul, though imperfect, allows itself to form an idea of God’s holy words. Faith has great steadfastness, great power, even with great gaps in understanding. Plato, as far as I have heard from the Jew Kappel Hecht through chronological calculation, only heard a little of this through the Babylonian sages Jeremiah and Ezekiel. He himself did not understand it.

Moreover, I do not believe that the Trinity was known in the Old Testament other than in a Sephirotic manner. In the prophets, Jehovah calls Himself the Creator, but also the Redeemer and the Sanctifier; yet the clearer knowledge of the mystery of God is reserved for the New Testament alone. God is the Alpha and the Omega, and Jesus Christ is also the Alpha and the Omega in God, and the Lord is the Spirit (Rev. 1:8; 22:13, 17; 2 Cor. 3:18).

The fifth question is: How can this be compared with Paul’s mystery of God and Christ?

My answer: Very beautifully! Just read all the words, weigh them, do not grow weary, and you will find the purest concepts of divinity! Paul alone mentions the fullness of the Godhead. It presupposes emanations from the depths of God, and in Christ, God becomes bodily.

Aristotle calls the soul an entelechy, a progressively advancing power from one Sephirah to another. He borrowed this from tradition. The soul is an image of God. God is the purest act; He is in an eternal emanation from Himself into Himself, from one Sephirah to another (entelechially). He is an Ens manifestativum sui (a self-manifesting being); He is not only an eternal imaginative power of the worlds but of Himself through the ten emanations as Father, Son, and Spirit in the dwelling of the seven spirits, which is the glory of God. Therefore, He is called the Father and Begetter of glory (Eph. 1:17) or the ten radiances. His action moves eternally into rest, and this continues until He has made Himself bodily in Christ and continues through Christ until He will be all in all. This is the worthy concept of the ancient Hebrews. Princess Antonia wishes to say that salvation comes from the Jews. Jesus confirms this (John 5:19, 26; 14:28; 10:30).

May God help the universities again, which, through Wolffianism—describing God as a force imagining all possible worlds—have come to neglect the ‘Idiopiiam‘, the ‘Metapiiam‘ or the ‘Communicationem Idiomatum‘ (A dogmatic expression for this communion or exchange of the qualities of the two natures within the one Person of Christ), no longer addressing them as our old theologians did, leaving them undeveloped because they are incompatible with Wolff’s philosophy.

The Trinity and all the emanations of the seven spirits, until they become His seven eyes in Christ, Paul calls the mystery of God and Christ. But I will treat this more fully in the comparison of the philosophies with Ezekiel, for Ezekiel gives us the true foundational ideas.

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Before I conclude, I recall the dedicatory speech that the teacher of Princess Antonia’s tutor, Tübingen Doctor of Theology Balthazar Raith (1616-1683), held about these teaching panels—I do not know whether in Tübingen or Bad Teinach—and published in his ‘Turris Antonia‘. On page 9, one reads that the name ‘Turris Antonia‘ is taken from the 14th and 18th books of Josephus’s Antiquities. For John Hyrcanus, the Maccabean prince of Jerusalem, built a tower near the temple for its protection, which stood on a rock to the north and was fifty cubits high. In the temple, the high priestly garment and the eternal light were kept. Herod the Great expanded this tower by adding four towers at the corners, the largest being seventy cubits and the others fifty cubits high. He named it ‘Turris Antonia‘ in honor of Antony, one of the three Roman Regents. From this, the princess borrowed the name, thinking that this teaching panel, understood in the spirit, would be a refuge for the Trinity Church and all visitors. She thought that the fullness of the Godhead in Christ—that is, the name Jehovah expounded through the ten Sephirot—would be the stronghold to which the righteous flee in all distress (Prov. 18:10), especially during social distractions, where guests might gather again, for Proverbs 18 deals above all with how one should behave in society. The dedicatory speech also includes the copperplate engraving of the ten radiances of God. Each radiance proceeds from the En Sof, the abyss of the divine depth:

The first is called Keter or Crown. Each radiance is depicted as a virgin because, as one may see without doubt from the excerpt from the Zohar, the entire glory of God is described as a matron, that is, in feminine form. At her feet is painted a bird of paradise, for the citizens of heaven draw near to the origin of the heavenly Sophia and hear the thrice ‘Holy’. Above her head are seven eyes.

The second radiance is called Wisdom or Sophia or Hochmah. She holds a measuring cup in one hand and a beaker in the other, for wisdom does all things with measure, number, and weight. Above her head are seven stars, and below sits an eagle, for the observers at the second Sephirah will see the number seven as the bond of the powers of all creatures in their primal matter.

The third radiance is the uncreated Intelligence or Binah, for as the so-called third person, she explores the depths of the Godhead. Around the head of this matron are seven fiery tongues. In her right hand, she holds a serpent as a sign to learn prudence from the Holy Spirit, and in her left hand, a mirror, for all this is to be heeded in the mirror of words. Below is again an eagle with an anchor, symbolizing the contemplative hope of progressing in the teaching. These three constitute the upper Sephirot and the Trinity. Around each head are seven, distinguishing them from the upper Trinity.

Now come the seven lower ones, which the Kabbalists call Sephirot ha-tachtoniot. These are the seven spirits of God, each in feminine form, for in Hebrew, the word ‘spirit‘ is also feminine.

The first, Gedullah, holds in her right hand a horn full of fruits, in her left a scepter with the olive branch of peace, and at her feet, a lamb. This signifies the gentle spring of God’s multiplying and expanding power in wisdom, which is God’s garment.

The second is called Geburah or Severity, the opposite of the multiplying power. It sets a limit to expansion through concentration and intensification of extension. Therefore, this matron holds a rein in her hand to draw in the infinitely communicable power of God. Here is the sharp spring of all righteousness, all lion-like strength, as indicated by the scales, the sword, the lion, the bow, and the pillar.

The third is called Tiferet or Loveliness, inner beauty, heartiness. She has her seat in the human heart. Children at the mother’s breast, chicks under the hen, doves in the olive branches—these are all heartfelt, tender things. In the glory of God, she is the first power of life, the origin of love, which no water can quench, for she is a fire.

The fourth is called Netzach, Overcoming or Eternity. The virgin holds in her right hand Aaron’s almond rod and in her left a victory banner. On the ground are many weapons of war, and to the left is a grain offering. See, my reader, two forces always stand opposed and unite in the third. Here stands the overcoming power and the breaking forth of glory, the consuming and preserving power in struggle, until in the sixth, stability emerges. The Kabbalists know how to carry all this through theology, but in our theology, it must wait until the end.

The fifth is called Hod, properly Glory, Praise, Honor. The harp in her hands, the sharply listening stag, and the organ all signify the praise of the good name. ‘Seek the honor that comes from God, not only the honor of the world‘ (John 5:44)!

The sixth is called Yesod, Stability. Here stands the apocalyptic woman clothed with the sun, with twelve stars. She signifies that the powers from God are grasped through the community and steadfastly recognized in the reflection of the soul. The sixth power is in wisdom, the spring of all spiritual, indestructible intellectual power—something enduring. Here is the manifestatio sui taken from the Kabbalah.

The seventh, Malkuth, is the concentration of all the fullness of God bodily in Christ. Of this, we have already spoken above. Jesus often swears before sinners: ‘Truly, whoever lives and believes in Me shall never die‘. He holds before them His cross as the condition of glory. From His side flow blood and water; under His feet is the conquered dragon.

Behold, you observers of these teaching panels, behold the heavenly wisdom in feminine and masculine form! Hold back your judgments and think that our mental images are not the spring itself but directions to the spring of the Living and Seeing One! Grasp the images, but transform them into understanding; set them aside again and retain everything in one! All in all, Christ.

In all teaching, there are parables; in the Spirit, one lets them go again and retains only the matter itself without word disputes. ‘Whoever can accept this, let them accept it; if anyone is ignorant, let them be ignorant‘ (1 Cor. 14:38)! If it seems too spatial to you, then think that God placed Moses in space to see it!

Here, it is almost too much. May God grant us only good understanding for Holy Scripture, grant us sound minds; for alas, through Christian Wolff’s foundational ideas about God and the monads, the whole theology of Holy Scripture becomes foreign and unlike the image of the Holy Spirit! But the holy teaching of God in Christ should be sound and un-offending (Titus 2:1, 7). (A Via-Hygeia Note:  Christian Wolff (1679 -1754) was a German philosopher. Wolff is characterized as one of the most eminent German philosophers between Leibniz and Kant).

Closing Prayer

‘O You known and unknown Rock of Eternity, Lord of all beings, before whom the great is not great and the small is not small!

When we see ourselves against Your immensity, where You dwell without place, without space or location, alone in the depth of Your wisdom and understanding as an eternal beholding of Yourself, when we hold to You in this contemplation, we lose ourselves and have no hold in Your infinity.

When we hold to Your Word, in which all things have consisted from the beginning, we cannot find ourselves in it without fear, though we are Your own.

It is Jesus alone, the Only Begotten in the bosom of the Father, who has come to us in flesh from heaven, through whom we can have a hold on You in this moment; for whoever sees Jesus sees the Father.

Since You have come so near to us, O why do we forget that the stream of Your life and sustaining powers drives us every day nearer to the sea of Your divinity, to the primal spring of all beauty?

Why do we make so many detours with our own oars, when the impulse and containment should be strengthened and expanded through Jesus Christ and the wind of His Spirit? ‘.

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Source for the

German Original

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More about the Bad Teinach Triptych

 1. Detailed and panoramic view of the Triptych:

https://panorama.absurd-orange.de/bad-teinach/

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2. Start point for exploring the Triptych:

https://netscore.de/Antonia/Startseite.html

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3.THE Website in English

by Mani Gerlach & Phil Norfleet :

https://pamela2051.tripod.com

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Gershom Scholem about

Friedrich Christoph Oetinger’s works

‘The authentic connection of Jewish Kabbalah with an alchemistic-mystical symbolism of Christian character that was finally adopted by Friedrich Christoph Oetinger derived from Theology and from published, Christian interpreted excerpts of the Zohar. Jacob Boehme, who developed a kabbalist symbolism of his own, was brought to Oetinger’s attention by the Frankfurt kabbalist Koppel Hecht.’

Gershom Scholem, ‘Alchemy & Kabbalah’,

Spring Publications, 2006. page 97 and 98.

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