A Little Johanna Eleonora Petersen Sampler-Part 1: A Contextual Introduction, followed by ‘Concerning the Woman Clothed with the Sun’ & ‘About the Heavenly Jerusalem’

Portrait of Johanna Eleonora Petersen (1644–1724)

by Johann Christoph Boecklin, engraver;

now in the collections of the Germanisches Nationalmuseum

in Nuremberg, Germany.

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Today’s sharing from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, is the first of a planned few dedicated to the memory of Johanna Eleonora von Merlau-Petersen, a German Pietist and Millenarist extraordinaire, a forerunner advocate of the necessity to unstuck woman’s condition and influence in a seventeen century rather tight-up in Germany.

Extremely well connected, she wholeheartedly engaged with many of the spiritual currents of her time which were budding everywhere as an intimate reaction to the imposed rigidity plaguing the early development of Protestantism. It is not surprising that she knew and joined forces with two other leading women of her time, the Labadist and proto-Feminist Anna Maria von Schürmann and the wandering pilgrim-mystic Antoinette Bourignon.

Jacob Spener, the ‘father figure’ of the Pietist movement was familiar with her and her entourage; he admired her simple-though-powerful Light and engaged with her in a lengthy epistolary relationship. Her tendencies toward separation and criticism of the male dominance within the Church, which was suffocating faith and stalling people emerged, leading to Johanna Eleonora Petersen expulsion in 1678; a decision eventually rescinded. With her husband, Johann Wilhelm Petersen, they formed a harmonious couple-a marriage made in Heaven-caring for each other in ordinary life and in their extraordinary writings.

We are surprised that there are no English translations of her major treatises, only her biography and a short treatise here and some letters there. This is  exactly what motivates us to propose these imperfect, curious & naive working translations to give a taste of how remarkable Johanna Eleonora Petersen was in her life and in her writings. Hopefully, these extracts will encourage some English-speaking publishers to publish a scholarly edition of her collected works for the perusal of the English-speaking readers hungry for essential and qualitative spiritual food. As for us, we are proud to add another feminine figure, of such a noble nature, to our beloved Via-HYGEIA Bibliotherapy!

Finally, Part 2 of our Little Johanna Eleonora Petersen Sampler will present Francis Okely’s 1722 English translation of ‘The Nature and Necessity of the New Creature in Christ‘, as it is emblematic of the fertile cross-channel spiritual exchanges that prospered between Continental European & Insular English Pietist, Millenarists, Boehmists & Gichtelists, Bourignonists, Labadists, etc., communities…

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A Contextual

Introduction

Johanna Eleonora Petersen (1644–1724) stands as one of the most inspired voices of the early Protestant theosophical awakening—a woman who transformed the inner language of Lutheran piety into a visionary mysticism of divine Wisdom. Formed within the fervent spirituality of Johann Arndt and Daniel Cramer, and nourished by the living current of Jacob Böhme, Jakob Spener, and the Gichtelian theosophers, Johanna Eleonora found in these influences not a system but a living fire: the revelation of God as Spirit, Light, and eternal Birth. She followed the example of Spener’s Collegia Pietatis, but was also influenced by the Labadist & proto-feminist Anna Maria von Schürmann and the wandering pilgrim-mystic Antoinette Bourignon.

Through her husband, Johann Wilhelm Petersen, she also entered the circle of those who read and revered the English seer Jane Leade, whose Philadelphian visions of Sophia and the coming spiritual Church resonated deeply with her own illuminations. Out of this web of cross-channel influences, she forged a powerful symbolic theology in which the soul becomes the bride & temple of divine regeneration, where Scripture itself is transmuted into Revelation.

Her writings unveil an esoteric Christianity that is at once cosmic & intimate, restoring the feminine principle of divine Wisdom as the heart of redemption. Anticipating later thinkers such as Friedrich Christoph Oetinger, Nikolaus von Zinzendorf, and the Romantic mystics, Johanna Eleonora Petersen’s voice announces a renewal of inner religion grounded in vision, simplicity & love.

For her time, she embodied the daring possibility of a woman interpreting God from within; for ours, she remains a prophetic figure of feminine integration between intellect & heart.

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Part 2. Explanation of the Frontispiece from the 1696

‘Anleitung zu gründlicher Verständniß

der Heiligen Offenbahrung Jesu Christi’.

(Guide to a Thorough Understanding of the Holy Revelation of Jesus Christ)

Concerning the Woman clothed with the Sun,

and the appropriate Travail of her Birth.

Revelation Chapter 12

Which indeed according to the preceding Special-Rubrics of this Extract points to the conversion of Israel after the Flesh; but here in this image represents Israel after the Spirit, which in the time of the Cross-Realm must bear Christ with pain and through the sevenfold overcoming of the seven Asian churches to its glory must struggle through: as towards which all the mysteries of the entire holy Revelation concentrate.

(However, the beloved reader will find a more detailed explanation of this in the first appendix of the same).

She is in childbed-pangs and has great pain in childbirth: but be comforted you blessed children-mother you who through your painful bearing yourself shall be born and before GOD are so worthy esteemed that you the Son of the Most High who the royal throne in heaven and on earth, in God’s and in David’s Kingdom, as the rightful heir shall occupy, shall bear. Behold! the heavenly gate-Mother I had through the sin-fall in you locked: she can not otherwise than through pain in you again be opened/and be broken.

Take courage then in GOD, O Zion! Bear your sorrows patiently, and look to the end. Do not fear the wrath of the seven-headed Dragon, which stands before you in your birth pangs and strives to strike your delivery. For behold, your child will be caught up to GOD and His throne, and called away from the years.

And even if he, when he could not strike your blessed child, grows enraged against you and sets all his power in motion against you—with a flood of water, from the mouth of the seven-headed, ten-horned Beast, upon which the Babylonian Whore in her living splendour rides forth with the golden cup of her sorcery, and with the previously-mentioned ten-horned Beast, which, like a ranting he-goat with the deceitful Lamb’s-head, speaks from the Dragon’s mouth—and sends out the unclean frog-spirits as his messengers across the whole circle of the world against you: even this plan shall not succeed.

For the streams with which he seeks to drown you, the Earth shall swallow up; but you are flown with eagle’s wings over the proud heights of Babel into a safe wilderness, and will be nourished there with Heavenly Manna until the time of times.

Therefore, take courage in GOD, dear Zion! Bear your pains patiently, and look to the end: For what can the realm of darkness harm you, since you are surrounded with the light of the bright morning star? Who will assail you, since עִמָּנוּאֵל (Immanu’el) loves you? Encourage your heart, so that you do not grow weary of overcoming: but complete your seven trials in the arena of the seven Life-Letters; and hold fast to the precious teachings and promises which your Immanuel, who walks among the seven lampstands, and is with you in all trials, has testified to the churches through His Spirit.

The Seven Trials of the Seven Churches

In Ephesus, your beautiful lampstand was kindled, from which the divine flame of love burst forth in your heart with great longing for the path of life. But it says: Persevere. For you are still swimming in this world upon the waters of vanity, which will make your zeal lukewarm and sweep you away, so that you would forsake your first love. Therefore, it is highly necessary for you to unceasingly raise up the wings of your spirit to GOD with watching and praying, and to turn from the water of lukewarmness to the fire of zealous love, which will then drive and move you so that you will not remain still on the desired path of life.

In Smyrna, the cup of bitter Crucifixion-Myrrh is presented to you by the hand of the Lord, to see if you are also willing to go with Christ to Golgotha, where the crown of thorns awaits you, which is intertwined with the cross. Here it says: Endure. Here the thorny crown of thistles must be the place where your heart finds rest: Here you must prove yourself faithful unto death, and you must press the holy suffering and dying of Jesus into your heart for a constant imitation, even though the form of the death’s head is not pleasing to your flesh and blood. Here your faith must be fixed upon the promised crown of life above you and be strengthened in suffering by a comforting view of it.

In Pergamum, the tempter leads you onto the heights of a false kingdom and shows you the glory of the present world. Since he could not overcome you in the depths, he now wants to make you fall from the heights. Here they want to listen to you and make you a king: here Satan’s throne offers you a temporal crown, which is surrounded with the tassels of pretended loving zeal, to see if you would incline your heart to it and cry ‘Hail‘! But it says: Abstain. Take nothing of his glory: let neither the heights nor the depths separate you from the love of God: value the faithful Christ in your heart higher than the treasures of Egypt; look not below you, but again above you to the transfigured crown of thorns; and learn through the contemplation of it to despise all false glory.

In Thyatira, a false light wants to deceive you, and take you captive into its service as a free woman, so that you would forsake the true temple and altar of the LORD, and should baptize and sacrifice the woman Jezebel and her Baalim upon the altar. Soon the tempter appears to you on the right with a false light and has disguised himself with the white adornment of his clothes into an angel of light; soon he holds before you on the left another false light; and although he lets a black color be dimly seen, yet under an assumed holy name and character, which did not belong to him, he wants to bring you to obedience. But here it says: Guard yourself. Look not at his rays beside you: but keep the countenance of your heart directed upward to the bright morning star, who will then spread his bright rays of light over you, so that you will perceive the mystery of godlessness on the forehead of the woman Jezebel, and will recognize the depth of Satan ever more clearly.

In Sardis, you are among those who have the name in their society that they live, yet you remain almost alone, like a cucumber in a pumpkin garden; and as a rose shines among thorns and thistles, so you shine, O you beautiful one, among the strange people. But your beauty is a stench to them: and because you are not like them and similar… you are in their eyes a poisonous flower. Yet, you lovely little roe of Christ, you who must grow in the valley of contempt, do not let this disgrace move you to cover your beauty and take on the form of the thistles, so that you might look similar to them and please their eyes. Here it says: Reveal yourself. Let the lovely morning dew shine forth from your heart, and shine with your youth upon the thistles standing around you: so that they might incline themselves to you, and many a thistle-flower might yet become a rose through the sap of your root. You also have no need to wash yourself with the water of broken cisterns: hold yourself constantly to Him who has the seven spirits of God and the seven stars; ask that they, as a sevenfold source of living water, pour themselves into your heart and effect a glorious growth in you.

In Philadelphia, the splendor of a new Jerusalem breaks forth in and over you with power; but the leaden clouds of darkness, which have drawn over the old, forsaken Jerusalem, want to stand against your light, and the dark ropes of the schismatic strife want to ensnare you in the confusion of Babel, still always in the serpent’s-figure. But here it says: Break through. Let your light no longer be held back by the resistance of the darkness: for an open door has been given to you which no one can shut. Let the straight rope of divine simplicity draw you upwards according to its light: so that the crooked ropes of confused strife from below are torn apart and scattered! and the heart of true brotherly love can spread itself out in your heart; so that the chosen stones for the new temple of God might now once again be gathered and fitted together through the spirit of love out of their dispersion.

In Laodicea, you have the hardest, but also the last trial to endure: and your faithful Savior, who has delivered you from 6 tribulations, will not leave you in the seventh. Here you will be prepared completely for the praise of your God, as splendid gold that must be proven in the fire. Here it says: Let yourself be purified, and all the remaining slag in this swift-fire burned off from you. Behold! The Alpha & Omega, the beginning of the creation of God, who will place you again into the state of your first glory, is with His rays of love in the midst of the fiery oven inside with you, and helps you bear it. The palm branches of victory are already waiting for you, to be presented to you as a sign of overcoming for eternal joy, whereas the condemned cloud of your tormentors, who judged you with a false verdict, shall now in turn be judged as a cloud of condemnation.

The Triumph

Then you will sing forth from the wilderness, beautiful as the moon, choice as the sun, terrible like the armies with banners.

Then it will be seen on you, that you are clothed with the sun, and the moon, the transformer, will stand under your feet: for the light will no longer give its shine, rather the Lord will be your eternal light, and the days of your sorrow will have an end.

Then the glory of the 12 apostles and of the 12-times-12-thousand purchased First-fruits will appear on His head as a crown with a lovely starry-glitter.

Therefore, rejoice you heavens, and those who dwell therein, over the childbirth of a woman! For her childbirth is a great sign in heaven!

Original German

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Part 3. Also from the ‘Anleitung zu gründlicher Verständniß

der Heiligen Offenbahrung Jesu Christi’.

(Guide to a Thorough Understanding of the

Holy Revelation of Jesus Christ)

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…answers, and thereby confesses that the eternal God and King, who sits high in Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, alone is worthy to receive praise, honour, and power; and yet the humanity hidden in Christ will not forfeit its crown, which it casts down before the throne of the eternal Godhead, but shall retain it to the praise of God, who gave it to her.

Thereupon, the Bride of the Lamb, after the completed thousand-year Wedding Day, will be led home from the womb of her mother, the heavenly Jerusalem, into the house of the Father, which is for the great eternity: so that she may dwell with Christ, her Beloved, with His and her Father, with His and her Mother, in the great household of eternity, and eternally enjoy the glory and blessedness for which the entrance was prepared for her through the preceding glorious Wedding Day: Hallelujah!

Hereupon, the beloved reader can review the General Rubric marked with 6., in which this same matter is likewise treated.

Chapter XXII

Concerning the Heavenly Jerusalem

The twenty-third Special-Rubric concerning the Heavenly New Jerusalem rightly follows the preceding one on the Thousand Years: because the promised thousand years are a delightful time in which the heart-quality of such a heavenly City of God will be truly revealed. For just as beforehand the abyss with its darkness covered the Earthly Kingdom, so then will the heavenly Jerusalem cover the Earthly Kingdom with its light: And just as the darkness of the abyss was powerful on the old Earth which shall pass away, so will the clarity of the heavenly Jerusalem be powerful on the new Earth, which shall follow according to the promise of the Lord, and upon which the new Jerusalem will descend out of heaven from God? Rev. 21:v.1,2.

Through this heavenly Jerusalem, considered in its heavenly work-nature, I behold the glorified, generative Power-Being of the Holy Spirit manifesting in its manifold wonders and splendours. For just as the maternal Power-Virtue for our new birth is ascribed to the Holy Spirit, who hovered over the waters in the beginning as a mother to bear the creation of God, when Christ says, ‘Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God‘, John 3:v.5,6: so too is the maternal power of our rebirth ascribed to the heavenly Jerusalem, when Paul says, ‘the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother‘, Gal. 4:v.27: and therefore, in Solomon’s ‘Song of Songs‘, the mother of the Bride of Christ is very often named, and she is very clearly distinguished from the Bride of the Lamb, who is the dearest daughter of this her mother.

Now one might say: If the heavenly Jerusalem is the mother of the Bride of the Lamb, how does it come to pass…

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…that in Rev. 21:v.2,9,10, the heavenly Jerusalem is presented not as the mother of the Bride of the Lamb, but as the Bride herself? Can the heavenly Jerusalem be simultaneously the mother and also the daughter, then?
Here it is to be known, that although this heavenly mother is distinguished from the daughter, who are the Called, Elect, and Faithful, and the daughter from the mother, nevertheless there are not two, but only one single heavenly Jerusalem. For just as the Father is distinguished from the Son, and the Son from the Father, and yet the Father is in the Son, and the Son in the Father, and the Father and the Son are one, John 10:v.30, Cap. 14:v.10, Cap. 17:v.21: so indeed is the heavenly Jerusalem the mother distinguished from the heavenly Jerusalem the daughter, in that the mother gives birth and the daughter is born; nonetheless, the mother in the daughter and the daughter in the mother are only one new Jerusalem, and their fellowship is completely one, for what is born of the Spirit is spirit, John 3:v.6.

From this one can recognize why the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ at His baptism as a dove, Mark 1:v.16. For this heavenly Dove it is, which has again given birth to a dove, namely the beautiful, gracious, and simple dove of Christ, or the chosen Bride of the Lamb: of whom the Bridegroom speaks thus in the Song of Songs: “My dove, my perfect one, is one; she is the only one of her mother, the favourite of the one who bore her. The daughters saw her and called her blessed; the queens and concubines praised her,” Cant. 6:v.8.

And that the heavenly Jerusalem, considered in its maternal property, is the Spirit of God manifesting in its manifold wonder-powers, one can also perceive from the special promise to the Philadelphia church; where it is promised to the preserved Overcomers by Christ, that He will write upon them the name of His God, that is, the name of the Father, and the name of the city of His God, that is, the name of the heavenly Jerusalem, and His new name, that is, the name of the Son. Here one might wonder, why no mention of the Holy Spirit is made, so that His name should also be written on the proven Overcomers, considering that baptism must occur in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, remembering that through the new birth we regain the lost image of God to the likeness of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, in soul, body, and spirit, and thus should overcome both the name of the Holy Spirit as well as the name of the Father in the Son written upon us through Christ: However, whoever knows the heavenly Jerusalem in its heavenly wisdom, sees that in such a promise to the Philadelphia church the Holy Spirit is by no means excluded, even if, instead of an explicit naming, the heavenly Jerusalem is meant here.

But the heavenly Jerusalem will also really manifest in the form and condition of such a glorious city as it was shown to the beloved John, according to Rev. 21 and 22. For it stands, Heb.11/v.10,16, expressly, that Abraham and the other faithful patriarchs longed after a glorious city, whose builder and master God Himself would be, as for their heavenly fatherland.

So if the heavenly, abiding place, which God has prepared for His Elect, is called a city, and in the Holy Revelation is described by the Holy Spirit as a city with all its surrounding foundations, gates, walls, and so forth: then we must not…

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…interpret the words and representations of the Holy Spirit according to our own opinion, but rather [since we alone can show no grounded and true reason why it should not be so] simply believe that God has prepared for His Elect a literal such city as is described and proclaimed to us in His true Word, and that that which is purely spiritual also gives and manifests a visible form of glory for the joy and refreshment of His Elect.

For although it appears to their reason entirely absurd that in the future heavenly glory there should be a city with foundations, gates, and walls, and rich gold, pearls, precious stones, trees, fruits and the like, yet, because it is viewed in its true ground and considered in a heavenly manner and way, it is not at all absurd, but quite fitting for the state of the blessed and glorified saints. And it seems absurd to many only for this reason: First, because they have so many self-dreamt strange imaginations of the heavenly glory, and do not know what the paradisiacal state was, in which man was before the Fall, and into which he is to be reintroduced through Christ after the Fall in sevenfold greater glorification.

This paradisiacal state will precisely unfold in the heavenly Jerusalem, as was noted in the previous Rubric from the comparison of Rev. 2:v.7 with Rev.22/v.2; Secondly, because they do not know how the things of this visible world, with their corporeal properties, substances, forms, and colours, have become from the things of the invisible world, and are only an outflow of that which is to be found in the invisible world far more gloriously than is present in this visible world, which after the Fall is only a great ruin. n/p.33. Thirdly, because they imagine the things given in Rev. 21 and 22 concerning the description of the heavenly Jerusalem just as crudely, as if one were saying that in this heavenly city of God gold, precious stones, pearls and the like would be in such a crude way as it is here on Earth, which yet will all manifest in a heavenly and far incomparably greater clarity and glory than any human heart can conceive of from itself, and it is no such crude essence, but spirit and truth.

Therefore the dear Saviour said to His disciples, that He would not drink again of the visible growth of the vine in this present state of tribulation until the day when He would drink it new with them in His Father’s Kingdom, Matt. 26:v.29, from which words it plainly appears that the visible growth of the vine, of which the Lord drank with His disciples, should also be found in the kingdom of His Father, but according to a new heavenly property.

What is absurd and foolish, when it is viewed according to reason in an absurd, crude, and coarse way, is true and heavenly when one considers it in faith and in the spirit, according to the truth and in a heavenly way. It would seem just as absurd to say that our coarse, earthly body with such properties as it now has should enter the kingdom of God; yet it is not so unreasonable, because we believe that the mortal body of the saints will one day rise again with glorified properties, although to those who only believe what they have heard from their youth, it would appear just as absurd, if it were not the common and well-known doctrine.

Now one might further say: If the heavenly Jerusalem were such a city as it…

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…was shown to John in the Holy Revelation, then the heavenly Jerusalem could be called neither the mother of the faithful, nor the Bride of the Lamb, because these names indicate something else than a city with foundations, gates, and walls. To this it is to be answered, that the name of the heavenly Jerusalem is to be understood in a multi-layered way. If I consider the upper Jerusalem according to the description found in the Holy Revelation as a true heavenly city, then it is certainly not the mother of the faithful, but only the house of the mother, as Scripture speaks, Cant. 3:v.4: however, in this heavenly Jerusalem, which is the house of the mother, dwells the heavenly Jerusalem which is the mother herself, and with the mother dwells the daughter, namely the Bride of the Lamb, or the Called, Elect, and Faithful; all of which is to be regarded with distinction, and yet only as one single new Jerusalem.

What the upper Jerusalem, considered as a true heavenly city, expresses physically in its form, shape, and essence, according to a heavenly manner, that is found in the heavenly Jerusalem, insofar as it signifies the Bride of the Lamb and the adornments of such a heavenly city, according to the spirit. And this we see also in the condition of our Church described in the preceding 22nd Special-Rubric, which will be on Earth during the thousand years.

For there a true, corporeal Jerusalem will indeed be built up again: however, it is not this corporeal Jerusalem over which Christ as King shall rule, but it will also be a spiritual Jerusalem, namely the Israel converted to Christ in the last time with its belonging ones, which will dwell in the corporeal Jerusalem, and will be according to the spirit what the corporeal Jerusalem is corporeally. In this alone lies the difference, that the description of the heavenly Jerusalem Rev. 21 and 22 is also to be understood according to the letter as a (so to speak) corporeal-heavenly Jerusalem, just as many other visions of the prophets, which describe the condition of our Church in the thousand years of Christ’s kingdom, must also be understood according to the letter of a corporeal-earthly Jerusalem; yet by this is in no way denied that the Holy Revelation in the description of a corporeal-heavenly city also simultaneously signifies a spiritual-heavenly Jerusalem, namely the elected members of the triumphant upper Church; just as I also do not deny that in other prophetic utterances under the description of a corporeal-earthly glorious Jerusalem, a spiritual-earthly Jerusalem is simultaneously pointed to, namely the called members of the future glorious Church on Earth in the thousand years.

For it is the way of the prophetic spirit that He comprehends many things in one speech, indeed often speaking properly only of the one, but according to the hidden sense simultaneously expresses all the rest which lies in harmony with the matter of which He speaks properly, whether corporeally or spiritually, outwardly or inwardly, past or present, present or future: And whoever does not recognize this, confuses himself in the prophetic testimonies of the Holy Scripture, and sets against one another what is yet one, and leaves out what the hidden sense of the Spirit includes.

According to this ground, then, the whole description of the corporeal-heavenly Jerusalem also has its spiritual meaning. For the city also prefigures the still earthly, yet spiritually glorified Church or Community…

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…in which, according to a spiritual manner, is shown what this heavenly city has in its essence.

The foundations of the city, adorned with twelve different precious stones, represent the apostolic spirit in its 12 different spiritual properties and virtues, through which the Lord founds His holy community. The twelve gates of the city with the twelve pearls and with the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, of which three are presented facing North, three facing Day (East), and three facing Evening (West), represent the different kinds of spiritual entrances, through which the Lord leads those who are thereto called into the fellowship of His city, which also according to the spirit has 12 different spiritual tribal-ordinations.

The twelve high towers of the city, with which it is fortified round about, represent the invincibility of this H. City of God, that it cannot be overcome by its enemies, nor be overpowered by the gates of hell. The 144 cubits, which are the measure of the walls, represent the number of the 144,000 sealed virginal First-fruits, who must withstand the onslaught of the enemies the most and, because of their dignity and proven faithfulness, are prepared by the Lord to be the walls of His holy community. The street of the city of pure, transparent gold represents the straight, traversed path of the righteous, upon which they go from one clarity into another.

The perpetual standing open of the gates represents that all who only go out from the gates of the certain tribes, and wish to bring their heart into this holy city, have free access to its blessed entrance. The throne of God and of the Lamb in it shows that the true holy Church is ruled not from the throne of the Dragon and of human commandments, but by God and Christ alone…

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…who has set up the throne of His glory not in vain, and has given to His hand power and authority to rule over His holy community with conscience-compulsion: which the apostate and whorish Church cannot boast of, which yields obedience more to human statutes and the Dragon than to God and His will. The crystal-clear river of living water, which springs from the throne of God and of the Lamb, represents the pure stream of the Holy Spirit, which goes out from God and from the Lamb, and pours itself out through the whole holy Church: which the false church also cannot boast of, which says that the holy Spirit went out only over the Apostles, but is no longer to be found or expected today with His formerly manifested glorious workings and powers.

The trees of life on both sides of the crystal river are the living plants of righteousness, which have sprouted from the tree of life, and are watered by the water of life, so that they bear the twelvefold fruits of true inner righteousness and virtue, and bring their fruit every month, which is for their own food (Cf; 3:6.16), but whose leaves or external manifestations of the virtues must serve for the health and healing of the nations, Ezech. 47:v.12.

The four-square cubic figure of the city (which shall also show itself in the future corporeal Jerusalem, according to Ezek. 43:v.16 & 48:30ff as a prefiguration and image of the upper heavenly city) represents the steadfastness and immovability of the true Church, which does not roll around like an unsteady ball now here now there, but is founded as a cornerstone on Christ the cornerstone of Zion, and is made a rock of offense to all attackers who come against it, that they shatter themselves upon it, and is also prophesied as such of the corporeal Jerusalem, Zach. 12:v.3.

Also, the cubic form represents the perfect equality, unity, and complete harmony of the true Church, which is equally long, equally wide, and equally high, whereas the confused great Babel has no equality and harmony, but is sometimes too wide, sometimes too long, sometimes too high. Likewise, the secret symbolism of the Cross also lies in the cubic figure of the holy City of God.

For the hidden Cross

If one could unfold a cornerstone with its six sides, it would show the here-depicted figure of the Cross. Conversely, this figure of the Cross (if one bends its external sides or planes together in a certain way) results in the perfect cubic figure of a cornerstone. And indeed:

The middle part of the Cross, which covered the loins and the heart of Christ, becomes in the Cube or cornerstone the Width.

The two upper beams of the Cross (to the right and left), upon which the two arms of the Lord were nailed, make in the Cube or cornerstone the Depth.

The upper and lower part of the Cross, upon which the head and the feet of the Lord rested, give in the Cube or cornerstone the Length.

The very lowest part of the Cross, however, which was still under the feet of the Lord, makes in the Cube or cornerstone the Height.

For just as Christ first had to be rejected as a disallowed stone by the unwise and blind builders, when He could still be seen in the figure of the Cross, which God had laid in Zion as a chosen, precious cornerstone (Psalm 118:v.22, 1 Peter 2:v.6-7); so too must His holy and spiritual building-stone (the Church) first be rejected in the form of the Cross, before it can appear as the cubic or multifaceted heavenly Jerusalem and as the city of the living God in His glory.

Therefore, they are blessed in whose hearts Christ dwells through faith, and who are rooted and grounded in love, that they can comprehend with all saints what is the Width, and the Length, and the Depth, and the Height of the love of Christ which He has revealed to us through the Cross (Eph. 3:v.17-18; John 3:v.16; Rom. 5:v.8). Should this not make us rejoice with great joy, and cause us to strive after a perfect Christ with great desire? What at the Cross was the lowest and most despised, that will become glorious when the Cross becomes a Cube. That which in Christ was brought down the deepest, and which could humble itself most lowly under the cross of Christ, that will, in the glory and blessedness of the heavenly Jerusalem—when it now appears manifestly in the form of a glorious Cube—be exalted above all others.”

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This is also shown by the following figure, which expresses the mystery of the heavenly Jerusalem in many points, and was sent to me by a godly friend, who, among other profound divine knowledge, also has a special gift and insight in such things.

For this figure presents a Cube or a four-square stone, whose width, length, and height are equally great, Rev. 21:v.16. This great cornerstone again comprehends within itself 12 small cornerstones, as the 12 foundations of the city, Rev.21:v.14,19,20, likewise 24 triangles, according to the number of the 24 Elders, Rev. 4:v.4.

Also, this figure presents a great Star, which consists of two interwoven triangles, which are said to have been the shield of David, and signify in alchemy fire and water, but in secret theology divine and human nature, which have become unified in Christ the bright-shining Morning-star, Rev. 22:v.16). This great star again folds 7 small stars within itself, which indicate the seven churches with their angels, Rev.1:v.16,20, as also the seven spirits of God, Rev.1:v.4, Cap. 4:v.5, as the seven horns and seven eyes of the Lamb, Cap. 5:v.6. Six stars are in the circumference, and the seventh is in the middle, indicating that the seventh number is the holy number, since it is the center among the six others, bringing the Sabbath or the rest with it.

The whole figure presents itself in 144 parts, according to the number of the 144 cubits of the wall of the city, Rev. 21:v.17, and according to the number of the 144,000 First-fruits, Rev.7:v.4, Cap.14:v.1. Also, throughout are to be found nothing but crosses, which indicates that the entrance to their glory is ordained for the members in this heavenly city through the Cross. Many other wonderful things lie hidden in this figure, which cannot all be expressed so clearly in words, nor do they all fall into the eye so immediately in the presented figure, unless each were illuminated with special colours.

I do not say this with the opinion as if the mystery of the heavenly Jerusalem and other divine things were locked up in such figures, but they are only certain harmonizing representations of the same mysteries: And one must wonder that, although they are in themselves in their order and representation quite simple, plain, and natural, they nevertheless express so many divine mysteries…

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…which are perceived by few, even if they have the figures before them and can draw such things according to the mathematical art themselves; but whoever does perceive them, admires the wonderful harmony of the present visible things with the hidden invisible, and learns to understand how truly the H. Scripture is, which is confirmed through the harmony of the whole nature in such things which we can daily touch and feel.

That the city has no temple, but the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple: this indicates the glorious indwelling of God in the true community of God, which recognizes that the Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands, Acts 7:v.48; therefore it also does not seek God in merely external temples, but God in God, since one is in the other, as the fullness of Him who fills all in all, Eph.1:v.23. For although the right use of an external temple is good and not to be rejected, and was also pleasing to the Lord, in the time of Moses and Solomon, to reveal His glory in an external tabernacle and temple, just as also in the promised thousand years a glorious external temple shall be built again for corporeal Israel on Earth, in which the Lord will gloriously manifest Himself, because it so pleases His divine counsel, that thereby many heathens and heretics shall be led in through the splendour of an external temple; yet all the glory of an external temple does not come near to the glory of the heavenly Jerusalem, since those who are consecrated in the glorious state of the heavenly Jerusalem have God Himself as their temple, who is in them and they in Him. This temple of the heavenly new Jerusalem, which is God Himself, I also recognize from the temple of the tabernacle of witness in heaven which Moses…

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…was shown as a pattern on the mount to believe, Exod. 25:v.40, Heb. 8:v.5, and from it the seven angels with the wrath-vials go forth, whereby the majesty of the Lord gloriously demonstrates itself for judgment and terror of the wicked, Rev.15:v.19, Cap.14:v.15ff, Cap.15:v.5,6,8, Cap.16:v.1) I must still distinguish further: just as the heavenly Jerusalem, which is the mother and the bride of the Lamb, must be distinguished from the heavenly Jerusalem, whether it is considered as the house of the mother and as the city of the Bride. For the beloved John saw after Rev. 21:v.22 no figurative and pictorial temple in the heavenly Jerusalem, as he had previously seen such a temple in heaven according to the given letters: which, however, will also show itself in the image of the future corporeal Jerusalem on Earth, where there will also be no external temple in the city, but outside the city; as can be perceived from Ezek. 48.

And just as the city has no temple, so also does it need neither sun nor moon to shine for it, for the glory of God illuminates it, and its light is the Lamb. This signifies how the true community of the Lord as the heavenly Jerusalem according to the spirit, in its inward being, has no need of any created light, since it is illuminated by God Himself and by the Lamb; which the false, apostate church again cannot boast of, which has nothing to do with the illumination of the Lord, but will only follow this and that created, external light, hence it also only sees externally, but inwardly is blind in divine things, and understands nothing of God, because it cannot see God through God in His light.

Thus the description of the heavenly Jerusalem also has its spiritual meaning; but the spiritual meaning does not abolish the literal, corporeal meaning, that a true corporeal-heavenly Jerusalem is really prepared for the Elect of God, into which they shall be brought as into the womb of their mother, and shall rule with Christ as His royal Bride.

Blessed are they who keep His commandments, that they may have authority over the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city of the heavenly new Jerusalem! Which is called new, because it cannot appear and be manifest in its complete glory as the Philadelphia-inhabited, steadfast, and immovable new Jerusalem, until this apostate, unsteady, and movable old Jerusalem has passed away…

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German original

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Coming soon

A Little Johanna Eleonora Petersen Sampler – Part 2:

Francis Okely’s 1722 English translation of

‘The Nature and Necessity of the New Creature in Christ’.

There is much to say 🙂

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