Het derde boeck des auteurs, zynde hooge ende diepe gronden van 't drievoudigh leven des menschen

4. The soul is a fire and requires food.

4. But if there is yet a life in man which is eternal and indestructible, namely the soul, which is also a fire and (just like the elemental life) requires fuel, then we must consider its property and food: what it is that continually gives it food, so that it does not go out in eternity.

5. The life of our soul (called the Divine life) also requires food.

5. And then, thirdly, we find in the life of our souls that there is yet a greater hunger for another, higher, and better life, namely for the highest good, which is called the Divine life. Because of this, the soul does not let itself be satisfied with its own food, but it desires with great longing and wishing the highest and best good, not only for a rejoicing, but (in its hunger) as food.

6. Every life desires its own mother for food.

6. Thus we now have great knowledge and true understanding that every life desires its own mother (from which the life was born) for food. Just as wood is the mother of fire, the fire desires the same; and if it is separated from its mother, it goes out. Likewise, the earth is the mother of all trees and herbs; they also desire her. And the water (together with the other elements) is the mother of the earth; otherwise, the earth would stand in death, and in it or out of it no metal, trees, herbs, or grass would grow.

7. Wherein the elemental perishable life consists; the soul life is eternal.

7. We see primarily that the life of the elements consists in a cooking, that it is a boiling, and when it no longer boils, it goes out. We also know that the stars ignite the elements, and the stars are the fire of the elements, and the sun ignites the stars, which is thus a tormenting and boiling within one another. But the elemental life is finite and corruptible, and the life of the souls is eternal.

8. Where the life of the soul comes from.

8. Since it is eternal, it must also be from the eternal. As the highly worthy Moses writes quite rightly of it, saying: God breathed the living breath into man, and so man became a living soul.

9. The threefold life is not divided. In what manner God the Father is everything.

9. Yet we cannot say (although man consists in a threefold life) that each life is separate with a distinct form. Rather, we find that they are within one another, and yet each life has its own working in its dominion (namely, in its mother). For just as God the Father is everything, since everything comes from him or exists by him, and he is present everywhere and is the fulfillment of all things, yet the thing does not comprehend him; nor is the

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thing either God, nor his Spirit, nor the true Divine being. So one cannot say of any tangible thing at all: "that is God," or "here (before other places) is God." Yet he is truly present; he holds the thing, but the thing does not hold him; he comprehends the thing, but the thing does not comprehend him. For he does not dwell in the thing, but in himself, in another principio foundational realm.

10. In what manner the soul dwells in the body and is encompassed by the elemental spirit.

10. In this way, the soul of man was also breathed in by God. It dwells in the body and is encompassed by the spirit of the stars and elements, not only as a garment covers the body, but it is infected with the spirit of the stars and elements. Just as the plague (or another sickness) infects the elemental spirit so that it poisons its body, and it falls down and dies, whereupon the quael tormenting property of the stars also breaks away from the soul and consumes itself. Because the elemental mother breaks, the spirit of the stars no longer has food, and therefore consumes itself; but the soul remains empty or untouched because it lives from another food.

11. The soul dwells in another being than in the spirit of the elements.

11. Understand us in this way: even though the soul is thus captured by the spirit of the stars and elements, so that the same quael source-property dwells in the soul, the soul nonetheless has another food, and lives in another principle, and is another being.

12. Where the essences (or essential outgoing powers) of the soul have their beginning, namely, out of the bond of eternal nature: God dwells purely in himself.

12. For its essentien essential outgoing powers are not from the stars, but they have their beginning and bodily union from the eternal bond, from the eternal nature, which belongs to God the Father. This is before the light of his love, into which he enters into himself, making for himself the second principle in his love. From this he bears his eternal word and heart from eternity to eternity continually. There the Holy Name of God continually testifies or explains itself and maintains its Divine nature as a Spirit in the second principle, within himself, and dwells in nothing but purely in himself.

13. The Spirit of God is not subject to the bond of eternal nature.

13. For even though the bond of eternal nature is in him, the Divine Spirit is not subject to that bond. For the Spirit ignites that same bond, so that with the power of the light in love (in the life of the Word and Heart of God), it becomes enlightened and flowing. This constitutes a rejoicing and Paradise of the Spirit, which is named God.

14. How the soul out of the bond of nature [desires to press into God].

14. So also the soul of man (standing eternally within the bond of the eternal confirmation or origin) desires within itself (in the second principle) to press into God.