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Bibliotherapy

Jacob Boehme: From The Clavis – ‘Of Divine Wisdom’

Title Page for Jacob Boehme’s ‘Clavis’,

in its 1647 first English edition by John Sparrow

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Another sharing for the day from the Blue House of Via-HYGEIA, Jacob Boehme describing ‘Divine Wisdom’ as ‘the breathing of the Divine Power; a ray and breath of the Almighty’, transcribed by Via-HYGEIA from the 1647 original first English John Sparrow translation for the ‘Clavis, or KEY, or explanation of some principal matters, and words in the writings of Jacob Boehme’. The German original is also provided.

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Jacob Boehme, Clavis, Chapter V

The Holy Scriptures says, wisdom is the breathing of the Divine Power; a ray and breath of the Almighty; also it says: God had made all things by his wisdom; which we understand as follows: Wisdom is the out-flowed Word of the Divine Power, Virtue, Knowledge and Holiness. It is a Subject and Resemblance of the infinite and unsearchable Unity. A Substance wherein the Holy Ghost works, forms and models. I mean, he forms and models the Divine understanding in the Wisdom: for the Wisdom is the passive, and the spirit of God is the Active, or life in her, as the soul in the Body.

Wisdom is the great Mystery of the Divine Nature, for in her the Powers, Colors and virtues are made manifested. In her is the variation of the Power and virtue. She is the Divine understanding: that is the Divine vision (or contemplation), wherein the Unity is manifested.

She is the true Divine Chaos, wherein all things lie. A Divine Imagination, in which the Ideas (forms and images) of Angels and souls have been seen from Eternity, as a Divine Type and resemblance; yet not then as creatures, but as a reflection, as when a man beholds his face in a mirror: therefore the Angelical and humane Idea flow forth from the wisdom, and are formed into an Image. Like Moses says, “God created Man in his Image”: that is, he created the body, and breathed into it the breath of the Divine Effluence, of Divine Knowledge, from all the Three principles of the Divine Manifestation.’

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Original German

The 1730 third edition, also called the second Gichtel edition.

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Jacob Boehme: From The Clavis – ‘Of Divine Wisdom’

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