The Pandora of the Sixth Age Or the Mirror of Grace - Pandora Sextae Aetatis, Sive Speculum Gratiae
THE PANDORA OF THE SIXTH AGE Or the Mirror of Grace - Pandora Sextae Aetatis, Sive Speculum Gratiae
by “Theophilus Schweighart” (Daniel Mögling)
Transcribed and translated from the German and Latin edition of 1617 by Paul Ferguson
Mögling wrote three important treatises, this work is the first, the second being the Mirror of Wisdom of the Rosy Cross, and the final “Pegasus of the Firmament”. Their importance is seen in how his Pegasus of the Firmament is a final revelation of the Rosicrucians which ties back to the “Reformation of the Whole Wide World by Order of Apollo.” Therefore, Mögling states his works are a “door of entrance” for seekers of the Rosicrucian path.
This English version was kindly donated by Paul Ferguson, who obviously labored for weeks in its translation. Therefore, on behalf of all our fans, a big thank you to Paul Ferguson. As students seeking after the earliest Rosicrucian path, we are thankful and will enjoy reading this work in many years to come.
Under the shadow of thy wings JEHOVA
(cf. Psalms 17.8)
THE PANDORA OF THE SIXTH AGE
(cf. Hesiod, Works and Days 175)
OR
THE MIRROR OR GRACE
Being the whole art and science of the divinely-illuminated Brotherhood of Christian Rosencreutz; an account of how far that Brotherhood extends; how it consistently achieves its goals; and how we might use it to protect the health of both our body and soul against its detractors;
as disclosed to all true and open-minded lovers of the universal wisdom and glorious spiritual works by
THEOPHILUS SCHWEIGHART
of Konstanz, Student of Pansophy
In the year 1617
Give me the gift, my God, of knowing ME, and give me also the gift of knowing THEE as Triune! Grant all good things through Jesus, and drive away all bad things with the divine afflatus.
Under the unassailable privilege of God and of Nature.
Translation by Paul Ferguson. The translator’s moral rights are asserted.
The whole art of the Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross
To all those in the most divinely-illuminated Brotherhood of the most laudable Order of Rosencreutz the author of this little treatise wishes great success and progress in the long-awaited Reformation!
Some time ago, my divinely-inspired fellows, when ago I first investigated those publications both by your good selves and other members of your Order, I initially, like so many others, mistook them for a mere philosophical jest or alchemical riddle. However, against all expectations I have since found such a degree of consistency and unanimity in the way these texts have been interpreted that not only have all my own doubts and scruples been swept away but – about six months ago and following the example of so many excellent people – I even decided to approach you with an admittedly somewhat humble request.
In particular, your writings pointed me in the direction of that brotherly invitation, often repeated in the Fama but never before made public, promising that no one who contacts the Order will go without an answer. It will still take some time for me to get my thesis and serious proposals in order, due to my various other commitments and my fear of those whom I might with difficulty have been able to oblige myself to obey, but because both at present and in the recent past many and varied calumnies have been levelled against me from all sides by godless worldlings – calumnies from which your own most laudable Brotherhood has not suffered any the less, although without coming to any actual harm, as your Brotherhood is of course well protected beneath the shadow of the wings of Jehovah – I was neither willing nor able to resist concocting a Rosicrucian electuary to treat the world’s stubborn and hypercritical minds and to purge the Aristotelian humours from their heads with pills of truth.
I hope my well-intentioned writings will not be in vain and that they will inspire some comforting hope and confidence in the lovers of the Microcosm as well as providing some welcome diversion to the interested members of your most laudable Brotherhood. What I have written is not however intended to prescribe something to your already sufficiently divinely-illuminated Brotherhood or to set my cap against the very wise judgement of your members, but solely to remove from the Midas -like minds (about which we hear so much) their false opinion that Man’s greatest happiness is to be found in piles of gold or in elevating the transmutation of metals above all the glories of Heaven. Such an opinion was, after all, amply refuted long ago by Julian de Campis (i.e. Julianus Sperber).
I have been even more encouraged to undertake this present task by the various exhortations and requests of my many good friends and fellow-students of Pansophy, who have asked me to adumbrate for them a brief idea and account of the general wisdom. This I am happy to do, taking the widespread support I have received as providing the necessary permission.
I therefore most humbly submit the fruits of my studies to the most gracious favour of your Brotherhood so renowned for its Love of God,
Written in Central Germany, on the 1st day of January 1617,
T.S.C. (Theophulus Schweighart of Konstanz)
PART I: THE PANDORA OF THE ROSICRUCIAN ART
Preface
The extent to which those who write for publication, however good their writings might be, are subject to many different kinds of criticism is well known to all very learned men and, especially, to the members of the divinely-illuminated Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross.
Both the Fama and the Confessio of this Brotherhood, as well as the well-intentioned Responses of various other writers, have attracted so much hostility up to the present time from various worldly critics that if the Brotherhood had not been established instead of a Pillar of Fire by the Grace of God then it might well have been prevented, by the careless intentions of evil tongues, from ever carrying out its task, now happily begun.
Just take a look around you. See what incredible arguments humanity is advancing. But, as Julian de Campis says, we must let the birds sing whatever may come into their little heads. Had they learnt their lessons better then they would have had better judgement.
Be that as it may, there is one thing that does cause me pain: in recent times I have had to listen to lots of little narcissists saying, among other calumnies, that the Rosicrucian Philosophy is nothing more than fusion of all the arts designed to create the most extraordinary confusion, and that it would be better if their writings were not published at all, as they interfere with all the clever rhetorical devices and displace the (if this is to be believed) true and genuine Aristotelian philosophy, to then instead adhere to foolish Kabbalistic fantasies, leading – under the spell, as it were, of such things – to the denigration of Plato, Aristotle, Galen and other ancient authors of renown.
I will be opening this Pandora’s Box to critics of this kind in Chapter III of this book, and will do so with such alacrity that even if those critics do catch a whiff of their own opinions it would only be with great difficulty that they would achieve an understanding of the true heart of the matter unless, that is, they have paid close attention to the ancient Greek injunction, “Know thyself”. For it would be like giving a cow nutmegs to eat, or giving an ass a lute to play. But you do not need to investigate or disclose all that much to get at the truth of the matter, for the truth stands right in front of you and is available to everyone. If you have eyes to see, then see. If you have a mind to study with, then learn; but you must go on learning until the day you die, and even then you will not have learnt everything.
Please understand what I am saying to you: it is a book – a book I say! – and a large one. And if you understand what is written in that book then you are a Rosicrucian. But do not imagine that such a book can be bought in Frankfurt, Leipzig, Amsterdam or Rome, or even in Utopia. No! It is too expensive for the booksellers, and there is none who is permitted to publish it. But the Brothers know where to find it and they read it every day. You however stand alongside it and gaze at it just as a cow might look at a new stable-door. It’s all double-Dutch to you. But why? Because you have not properly learned the alphabet, the key to which is under the authority of Jehovah.
But I will not go into too much detail about this subject here. For here they come, your sworn peripatetic Scholastics and your Galenic physicians, your gold-hungry alchemists and your chemical gold-smelters, whose “treasure” consists of smoke and vapour! Come then, for Pandora’s Box is finally open. But please do make sure that everyone masters the greatest part of this wonderful Art.
Chapter I
THEOSOPHY
Understanding God and his miracles
At this juncture many a supposed Paracelsian will think to himself, “Well, if I’d known you were going to argue about theological or spiritual niceties then you wouldn’t have had to wait so long!”
Ha, Ha! Come along young Narcissus, you obviously haven’t quite got the hang of things yet. This is just the first and the most important masterpiece to be taken out of our Pandora’s Box, one that I shall explain to all students of Pansophy for their great delight but which I shall be explaining to you, Mr. Narcissist, at much greater length in order simply to poke fun at you and tease you.
For God is all in all, and yet is not circumscribed by anything. He is the endless circumference Whose centre is everywhere and Whose surface is nowhere. He is the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end (Revelation 22.13).
Go into yourself my brother, and think about who and what you are. What could you achieve without the power of God? Nothing. How much use would all the arts and sciences of the whole wide world be to you without God’s mercy? Less than nothing. Follow the Brothers therefore! Seek God first of all: seek first the Kingdom of GOD (Matthew 6.33), and let that be your ergon and your beginning in the Rosicrucian philosophy. Read His words diligently, indite it in your heart, and see to it that you honour and obey Him, as will surely come to pass when you love your neighbour as you love yourself (Matthew 22.39).
Now you see how we can trace a line from God to His creatures. First you must recognise God and unite yourself with Him absolutely through His Son the Christ in the strength of the Holy Ghost, and must arrange all your will and endeavours exclusively for His delight. In sum, you must change yourself completely and set your worldly goods to one side. In this way you will become spiritually healthy and you will be a Theosophist.
Chapter II
Self-knowledge
God shows you the path that you must follow if you are to take care of both your soul and your body, namely “Love thy neighbour”. But how exactly do you do that?
Go into yourself, contemplate your whole fabric and artificial structure as the Heavenly Father gave it to you when He formed you after the image of the Microcosm and in so doing scrutinised all and everything. Compare it with the Macrocosm, out of which can be formed a sphere and a globe, the centre of which is Truth, where all faculties meet.
This task will teach you a most wonderful art and skill. You will understand the ROTAE of the Brothers and the Microcosm; you will know how to collate the general Axiomata; and how to heal all diseases as far as is possible, and not at great expense or with precious stones, money and worldly goods, for you will sometimes achieve more with a meagre herb collected in consonance with the Macrocosm and the Microcosm at the time that the ROTAE have ordained it to be at its highest degree of power than other physicians using recipes laden down with many thousand tons of gold.
For Nature does not sell her treasures: to acquire them you do not need a full wallet but rather a willingness to engage in pure, God-fearing and laborious effort. Making gold will be a small matter to you, and you will no longer marvel at what the Brothers say, namely that they know of many thousand better things than gold. That is true, believe me, and I myself would not turn a hand to such a task if I had not something better in store. That is why not much importance is attached to the making of gold and why we must boldly state, along with Father Rosencreutz, “Fie upon gold, except insofar as it is gold!” If you understand that dictum and practice it correctly then you will not be lacking in wisdom.
Chapter III
How to combine the two forms of cognition in a Pansophical concordance
Now that you have both the pillars upon which the Brotherhood was founded, pay attention while I tell you how to correctly use them, so that from their concordance you might finally achieve complete perfection in this life. Pay close attention, my wisdom-hungry reader!
In Chapter I you learned about the ergon , which is the primary goal and objective of the whole Art, while Chapter II showed you how to implement the parergon: you must arrange this in such a way that it is in complete tune and melody with the Microcosm, the Macrocosm and the ergon. You must do neither too little nor too much with it: if you turn the strings of the ergon too tight you will lapse into atheism, but if you search too keenly within the parergon then you will become a pseudo-Paracelsian whose ergon is the sacred hunger for gold.
Do you want to know what such a concordance can achieve? Believe me, I am telling you the truth. Just think about it: if you make sure that you respect God’s word, the unity of nature and the love of your neighbour in all simplicity, truth and hope, then you will be a Brother in the most laudable Order of the Rosy Cross. For this you do not need an impressive lineage, great wealth, the ability to write impressive treatises, Aristotelian subtlety, powers of Academic disputation or a talent for oratorical pleading or wheedling. Just pray and work in harmony with God and Nature and then you will be a great philosopher.
I would not have wanted to have withheld this truth from you, since I know you to be of pious heart and single mind, for simplicity is the hallmark of the truth. As for you on the other hand, you untimely calumniator, now that you have learned something from my Pandora’s Box please make use of it and, if you don’t, then at least refrain from attacking me, who at least has the good manners to address you in a Pansophical spirit without recourse to any of the narcissistic and excessively subtle unwisdom that you yourself might use!
Farewell, and take your counsel in good part.
PART II: Conclusion, in which the Author’s name is Kabbalistically concealed
Now that my Pandora’s Box has finally been closed and the Mirror of Grace has been given to everyone to enable them to contemplate their reflection and see their future, I want to end on a note of candour by revealing to you, my dear investigator of nature, both my baptismal name and my surname in a philosophical riddle, if only so that you whom I have offended may track me down!
A PHILOSOPHICAL RIDDLE
One morning around sunrise I went for a walk. On the road I met a woman of impressively upright bearing, clad all in white, followed by her four daughters. The first daughter held an athanor like the alchemists use, while the second was adorned with wings in the form of an angel and accompanied her sister who had captured the Mercury of the Philosophers in a glass vessel. The fourth daughter walked after the others all alone and in great sadness. She had even strewn ashes upon her head to signify exceptional mourning. I was sufficiently moved by what I saw to ask the woman what it all meant and what the cause of her sadness was.
“Ah,”, she said, “the Philosophers have driven us out of their country, even though we gave them no offence. They will not even acknowledge us. You however shall now know who we are. Take this book and read our names in it.”
As she said this she handed me a book that I had often seen before. It was written in an artistic hand in many different colours and it contained all wisdom. The book was so big that I could actually step inside it, and in it I read without stopping about many kinds of art and miracle, and I felt happy.
But being so deeply immersed in study caused me to forget myself and become enraptured. I felt as if I was floating between heaven and earth. Then I heard a voice through the clouds, saying, “Theophilus, you have remained silent for quite long enough. Speak, for it is time to give you another name which will encompass within itself wisdom, understanding and great power.”
Soon there appeared through the clouds, like the sun’s rays bursting through, the face of the man who had spoken to me. The woman acknowledged him as her husband and fell at his feet saying, “My Lord, give your servant a name.” And he gave me the first letter of his own name, while the woman gave me the second and first letters of hers, and the daughter who held the athanor gave me the first letter of hers. To this was added a syllable which is greater in its power than heaven and earth.
Then the woman said, “I am going now. Godspeed.” As she said this she vanished with all her entourage and I felt no different than if I had just awoken from a gentle slumber.
But let that be enough for you.
Written in the heart of Germany, 1617, in January of that year.
PART III: AN OPEN LETTER
To the Brotherhood of the most laudable Order of the Rosy Cross
With a small copper engraving
A text dealing ingenuously with the Fama and Confessio of the highly spiritual Brotherhood
by
A Student of Medicine, Theosophy, Alchemy and Philosophy
AT LAST REJOICE.
Ignorance.
YAHWEH.
The Ocean of Opinions.
Errors.
“Seek ye first the Kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and these things shall be added unto you” (Matthew 6.33).
O how profound is the wisdom of GOD, and how concealed from the Sons of the World! It is a thing to be sought within, for it cannot be discerned with the outward-looking eyes.This engraving belongs to page 20 of the original text.
BEWAILING MY IGNORANCE SINCERELY AND SERIOUSLY AND NOT BELATEDLY – AN IGNORANCE THAT IS COMBINED WITH THE GREATEST ENVY OF MORTALS – I FEEL THAT MY ONLY SOLACE IS THAT – WITH GOD’S HELP AND WITH ALL HIS MINISTERS ASSISTING, AND BY REMAINING SILENT AND BY HOPING (MAY MOMOS’S GUTS BURST! (Virgil, Eclogues 7.26)) – THAT THE OLD SAYING ‘A SHOOT MAY EVENTUALLY BECOME A TREE’ MAY EVENTUALLY COME TO PASS.
JESUS, ALL THINGS TO US.
THE ROSE OF WISDOM.
THEOLOGY.
GOD.
PHILOSOPHY.
JURISPRUDENCE.
MEDICINE.
I SWEAR TO REMAIN SILENT.
I PLACE HOPE IN THE FUTURE FROM HIM
Who gives,
Who has given,
Who shall give,
The Contemplation of Truth,
The Truth of Contemplation.
Prick up your ears.
May all things be happy and fortunate.
I cannot find words to adequately express the great amazement but also the sincere joy with which I first read the Fama and then, more recently, the Confessio by the most spiritual Brothers-in-God of the Rosy Cross.
I must confess (Confessio p. 46) that while I was reading both your books many different thoughts came into my mind, as indeed was inevitable, as you yourselves said it would be. No doubt similar thoughts have occurred to other readers, for in these books the future reformation of all the arts and affairs of the world is often mentioned. The Confessio in particular expressly states (Confessio pp. 54, 55 & 69) that the Lord JEHOVAH has decided to give this evil and corrupt world of ours one last chance before its ruination and final destruction to experience the same wisdom, illumination, life and warm-heartedness that the First Man initially enjoyed in Paradise.
This inspired in me some profound thoughts, namely that our pitiful condition caused by the Fall of our First Parents might be brought to an end; that all the darkness and lies might be dispelled; and that we might all be brought back again into the Light and to righteousness.
Some years ago I read with wonderment what the highly-illuminated Aureolus Theophrastus Paracelsus wrote in his Apocalypsi (Vol. 2, Apocalypsi, p. 669) about the Secret of all Secrets – that most truthful Secret of the all-wise HERMES (Tinctura physicorum et de lapide philosophico Medicinalis, vol. 1, p. 948). Others have called it the best and highest secret that might be sought under heaven, a source of all delight that brings health, happiness, peace and love; which drives away all hate, hostility and sorrow; which brings joy; which dispels all evil; which cures all diseases; which eradicates poverty; which ends all misery; which ushers in all good things; which makes one see evil as being against all reason; and which gives man what he covets in his heart, namely a long, devout and honourable mortal life. Those who misuse it are brought eternal punishment but those who possess it need no other help because they have something that contains all felicity, bodily health and earthly happiness.
However, to conceal it from the foolish the Philosophers shrouded this precious treasure, from which Adam and the other Patriarchs derived their longevity, in strange and obscure words and flowery rhetoric (Confessio p. 64, Paracelsus vol. 3, p. 37, & part 2 in Apocalypsi p. 671). Very few people in this world therefore know about it, for if such secrets were made public and if godless deeds resulted, then – as Theophrastus says – we would have to answer for them as their first cause, and would be severely punished by God for placing holy things before dogs and casting pearls before swine, even though this secret can be found in everything, at every place and at any time, and contains within itself the strength and force of all creatures.
Truly, attaining it is better than all the gold and silver in the world, and what man covets in the temporal world cannot be compared with it in the slightest, which is why Paracelsus (Apocalypsi, p. 670) not unjustly refers to it as “the treasure of all treasures, the secret of all secrets and the hidden quality of all things, yes of all things the health and healing, and something that the whole world wishes to acquire cheaply, for it brings joy to all who know it, eradicates all weakness and, in sum, provides in abundance everything that brings happiness to man.”
O most illuminated brothers of the most laudable Rosy Cross, you have piously repeated in your Fama (Fama, p. 50) and then in the Confessio your promise that you will not spurn anyone, no matter what his wealth or rank, as long as he thinks aright. I have therefore finally taken it upon myself to respond to this warm-hearted invitation now that you have made it more widely known in print, and have decided to humbly approach the godly virgins of the Rosy Cross with these meagre and simple-minded writings of mine.
If it is in accordance with the will of the Almighty and the godly Brotherhood to discuss and converse with me – simple fellow though I am – at some place, wherever that might be, then will you, my all-spiritual men, allow me to experience the pleasure of sharing a small spark of your wisdom? If I could experience this then I would certainly consider myself fortunate and would want or desire nothing better in this world.
Regarding my age and social status, I am still in the first flush of youth. The Book M. (Fama p. 31) is very dear to me, as also is the Holy Bible, which is indeed my greatest treasure and the book that I prefer above all others. For spiritual is he (Fama p. 40 & Confessio p. 75) who reads the Bible intently, but the most spiritual of all is he who reads it completely and understands it aright, and who is like God in every way.
I have not striven much after money and possessions nor paid much attention to the everyday needs of my life for they do not help with one’s spirituality, but I have been content with just a few things, for it is better to acquire wisdom than gold and to have wisdom rather than silver, as Solomon says (Proverbs 16.16). In sum, I leave the world to its foolish pleasures.
Should this ardent request of mine find its way to your most laudable Brotherhood then I hope you will condescend to entertain my friendship and if not actually accept me as a member then at least with great good-heartedness allow me to share in its activities on condition of the utmost secrecy.
While sincerely counselling divine protection for all of us it is with great eagerness and anticipation that I await your pleasure as well as your kind answer at whatever place it might please God or your good selves to deliver it,
Written in Central Germany on the 1st day of June in the year 1617.
Under the shadow of thy wings JEHOVA.
Your most obedient servant,
S.W.R.B.
JEHOVA, Thy will be done!
PART IV: A PRAYER OF BLESSING
TO THE ILLUSTRIOUS AND GRACIOUS HEROES,
THE APOSTOLIC NOBILITY OF SUBLUNARY NATURE,
OTHERWISE KNOWN AS
THE BROTHERS OF THE ROSY CROSS
A PRAYER OF BLESSING & TRUTH
Written in the year 1617
O MOST ILLUSTRIOUS MEN FAVORED BY THE LORD,
When those two great works of your Order, the Fama and the Confessio, first came into my hands my interest was immediately piqued by the noble cause that you were pursuing, for I freely admit that I consider it to be one well worthy of praise.
Understanding your cause kindled within me a lively hope of personal freedom. I was just sixteen when my parents first urged me to go abroad and study the published doctrines of the Platonic Academy. The road led me to a pleasant hall among the Groves of Academe. As I set out my father gave me some parting advice, namely always to try and excel, to constantly read the Bible (yes, the Bible!) until it was fixed in my mind, and to become, as Homer put it, “both a speaker of words and a doer of deeds” (Iliad IX.443).
To begin with I prayed to Lajovah to lead me into the path of His Wisdom. He seems to have done this very effectively from my fifteenth year, as I was then reassured by the harmony of the Bible and excited by the hope engendered in me by His works of nature. For it is true that the various malicious plots against me and my wretched struggle against them have never been able to break down the firm resolve and vitality of my youth to the extent that I might be forced to admit – to those maddened by your delaying tactics – that this youthfulness of mine was not infrequently dying. Nevertheless, I actively cultivated the sciences along with a love of the sacred Religion.
Nine years had elapsed from this period when I finally came to appreciate the health-giving medicine of the Master Hermes. Although in his work I might have seen the first signs of gloomy decay nonetheless, while fleeing the trumpeting of the wild beasts who were hostile to my small victory, I stopped work there and then and smashed the vial, but I did not completely abandon the Truth of the Mind: in fact I continued with my studies and attempted a second work using a new formula.
In truth, not having feared the wild beasts at all in such work, for almost two years now I have been discovering the son who was exceedingly insolent and harsh towards his mother (Deuteronomy 21.18). And so, now that my money was spent and my patron had withdrawn his financial support I was thereafter obliged to live off the fruits of my studies. On account of this, by meditating for a short time before the Mons Magnesiae I found partial circles, managed the first ones from experience, and – because the Leaders of the Rosy Cross might have in response rejected my symbol of avowal – have made recourse to the synallagmatic method.
If however you deny that, with GOD, I have given the symbol of the Art both to your Fama and the Confessio, yet the Epistle of Julian de Campis gave its direction to my writings, as also the puzzle of the Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz and the Senior Brothers, which they cannot deny I have understood at a first reading.
Can it indeed be only the foolishness of the five virgins, which we read about in the parable (Matthew 25.1-13), that prevents you from truncating the ample promises of the Fama? The art of making gold and treasure must be acquired through the efforts of every individual acting for himself, as Georg Molther tells us. And indeed, because the Magnesia should be acquired with GOD’s will, I do not find fault with that argument.
The question is however, “To whom exactly does the Fama extend an invitation?” To the few amongst the many, to those who are appointed to gather together, to increase our Brotherhood in numbers and reputation, and to make a satisfactory start on the desired philosophical canons as prescribed by Brother Rosencreutz, indeed to enjoy with us our treasure – which for us can never end – in humility and love, to sugar-coat the tedium of this world, and to refrain from walking around blindly amidst God’s miracles. The Confessio additionally refers to these things as “royal treasures” (gazae) and offers them to the noble, generous, literate and pure men who have been converted to the Order.
You invite the worthy and reject the unworthy. But who exactly are the worthy? Why should they not be those who are aware of your truth and loyal to it? Why should you not see the unworthy as those to whom your truth is unknown and who despise it? And how exactly should you test the faithful? Surely not by struggling with the half-dead? Surely not by violently eradicating the knowledge of plants, animals and languages, by destroying talents, by excoriating the truth, by destroying minds by means of Heaven-knows-what-kinds of fiendish and abominable whirlwinds?
But your Fama and Confessio teach otherwise. And how much more accurate and more useful would it be for a man to be judged from those spontaneous and usual actions rather than from violently imputed and intruded depravities! For I know that no one guards the Soul against lies by learning from the Song of Nature except him who follows the Lamb and the Virgin (Revelation 14.4). I also know that he who does not have innate sparks of the Golden Philosophy and of Forbearance – even though he might follow the simple tradition of gold-making today – will be howling with scorn for it tomorrow.
Meanwhile, he who promises much and delivers nothing brings along with that vanity clouds that are devoid of rain. You yourselves however, heroic men, have known bulrushes, wild endives, goats -beard and ragwort, brilliant in their broad flowers and prolific in their striped seeds. Truly, if I had expected that benevolence from any Rosicrucian Brother I did not even receive a short letter of greeting for my honest mentioning of them, but instead taunts and meannesses of heart, and burning sensations that caused my brain to sweat intolerably by night and day. Never however have I delighted in Saracen brutality, that I might now be fed on the fruits of it.
Most excellent men, I have not wanted to indite these things for you publicly when I have not been able to render them more certainly in private. For of what does your clemency consist? What form does your kindness take? What is the nature of your censure? If it is considered a virtue in your Order to mock the Symbolical Books by hanging them, then how exactly do you differ from the impure world? Is that really a way of defending the gates of the sacred Golden City? Are your readers really meant to think that those acting on behalf of the just cause that is promoted by the Fama and the Confessio should depart from that cause at their pleasure?
I was unwilling to publicly reveal my weakness and loneliness, but wished only to encourage an attitude of philanthropy (if you can bring yourself to act thus) towards the censure of my Euphrasia if, by chance, you might wish to give me, from the seed of the Hermetic star once or twice re-born, some small recompense, so that the Spagyric Art might have eluded me more easily and briefly. Nor indeed would I have dedicated my Euphrasia to a certain Civil Name unless a small number had been rewarded well and generously for their actions and I could make a parasol for my Maecenas [as suspecting your silence and being more severely angry]. You hardly seem to consider my innocence worthy of an honest name, so what should I hope for from other ignorant and mistrustful people?
On account of all these things, and after I had considered the matter carefully and at length, I finally approached my colleagues and Eugenia, for truly we hold that each person is good inasmuch as those or us are with us.
If you are the innocent authors of the Chemical Wedding, dear readers and exemplary men, then please attend my own wedding so that I might prove my modesty to you in person, for if you consider me to be a devotee of Andreas Libavius then you judge me wrongly. Farewell,
Written at Bad Windsheim in Franconia in the 110th year after the birth of Euphrasia (According to Irenaeus Philalethes the Rosicrucian Order was effectively refounded in Paris in 1507, i.e. 110 years before the publication of the Pandora, by Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim – Translator’s Note).
J.S. (Julianus Sperber?)
PART V: THE DEATH OF CHRIST
A Brief Account and Interpretation of how Christ died for our sins and of how far and whither His innocent death and holy service extend
Initially written in French some years ago by Benedictus Simplicius and left in manuscript at his death
Now made available to the German people translated into their mother-tongue
Published in the year 1617
Who can conceive and express the true and correct explanation of how Christ died for our sins?
My friend, I am questioning your blindness. It has led you to misinterpret the reality of Christ’s service as it is described in the various Holy Scriptures. However spiritual you might be you try and discover its meaning from obscure earthly letters, which your coarsened intellect then misinterprets as a mere confusion. As a result you judge it full of contradictions, and as long as you go around with these contradictions in your head you will never learn how to understand and investigate with clarity the work of Christ, and the more you search among the obscure earthly letters the blinder towards all spiritual works you will become.
If however you have the correct spiritual vision then you will be able to see, read and understand all these things in the literal Holy Scripture, just as all the proper investigators of Holy Scripture can do. But the majority, when confronted with all the godly works, act as if they were blind, deaf and dumb. This is no surrpise to God-illuminated men, for the literal Holy Scripture which, for the most part, runs completely contrary to the reality of God, has no spirit or life when seen through the eyes of the earthly intellect.
For that reason, O blind man, I urge you to go outside into the street and, when you hear Christ passing, call and shout out loud, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy upon me!” and if the multitude should threaten you then you should fall silent, but do not allow yourself to be intimidated but instead call out even louder, “O Lord, have mercy on me!”
Then Christ will ask you, “What is it that you seek?”
“I want you to speak, Lord, in such a way that I might understand Your holy service, Your suffering and Your death in the right spirit and through heavenly eyes.”
Then you will receive the sweet response, “Recover thy sight” (Johannes Brenz, Opera: In Quo Continentur Commentarij in tres Evangelistas. In Matthaeum. Marcum. Lucam, Volume 5, p. 1284), “for thy faith has saved you” (Luke 7.50).
The intelligent reader has no spirit or life other than his earthly intellectual delusions, and sees all of these as having ever-changing essences, so that on one occasion they mean one thing to him and on another something quite different.
This does not mean that we embrace the “Enthusiasm” of Caspar Schwenckfeld and his followers, for we are happy to adhere to the Word and to Scripture, namely to the manger and the swaddling-clothes in which the sweet heart’s-balm of all the world lay wrapped and concealed.
Now, my dear friend, mark well how you must achieve the spiritual reality of Christ and how you should recognise it. Believe in the truth my friend! Considered all together a heathen enchantment has been cast upon humanity. Man is seduced by it, and then seduces others with it. In its seductions he then has a multitude of differing interpretations provided by his imagined delusions about Christ which he invents for himself with his earthly mind and intellect on the basis of events in Christ’s life.
Our own writings, too, are rarely understood by our fellow-man. Indeed he does not really want to know what those writings really mean when we say, for example, on the basis of ample evidence, that the making of gold (which is actually the least important of our arts) can also heal all kinds of illnesses, for he is too deeply immersed in worldly voluptuousness and, especially, in meanness and self-interest, and is completely blind and, yes, utterly overwhelmed and mired by earthly reasoning.
But now, in order to satisfy the needs of your soul, I first advise you to be willing to allow all the fantasies and intellectual delusions of worldly vanity which produce no spiritual life to become detached and then fall within your soul, and to see them in your heart as something heathen, for no single person has ever been found who has acquired spirituality through these supposed delusions.
For why would a man to whom worldly blindness is little known want or need to concern himself with its delusions and spend his time in blindness?
Yes, we believe that the worldly-wise are blind, deaf and dumb in their acts of omission and commission, and that all those associated with them are just like them.
At this point the intellect will say, “We know that the world is blinded, but we have the Holy Scripture to which Christ and His holy Apostles themselves attest and which they themselves wrote.” But you always look only at the letter of Holy Scripture, without understanding, with your earthly intellect, and your false delusions. O you poor man, how much longer will you torment yourself and make yourself anxious with your worldly delusions? No soul can be spiritual in such a manner, so anchor yourself within your heart.
And now, my dear friend, you might find yourself asking, “Where exactly should we seek and find Christ, He Who makes man spiritual?”
Answer: there is no Christ who makes man spiritual, other than in God, and God in Christ. You must therefore seek this spiritualising Christ in His humble lowly essence within your own heart, through manifold, earnest and unceasing petitioning, sighing and pleading to God in Heaven to send and reveal to you His Christ – Who is His spiritual mercy, clemency and holy suffering – within your anxious and saddened soul, to spiritualise that soul, and in your honest petitioning to God you must pray that He allow His mercy for the humble soul to be seen from afar so that the soul turns her face towards the true Christ, which is a preparation for the birth or regeneration between God and man.
This preparation starts to create an understanding between the godhead and humanity, but the latter, which is still in its earthly essence, does not yet fully appreciate the mind of God, and thinks that God should live with humanity in its earthly life. But to the Godhead that is a contradiction, for just as much as the Godhead accepts humanity so just as much of death does the Godhead accept from humanity, but not in its Godhead but in the humanity that the Godhead has accepted.
Note well in this regard that, in accordance with its Godliness, the Godhead has no birth, and that in accordance with its Godliness the Godhead never dies. But in accordance with its humanity it has a birth, and so, after human fashion, it must humanly die, for it does not derive this characteristic from the Godhead but from humanity, which it accepted out of love and mercy so that humanity might be freed from earthly mortality, just as, through its death in accordance with the flesh, the Godhead, insofar as it is united with humanity, will itself be killed by the humanity that it embraced in order to free it from death.
Now you might ask, how should we understand all these things? We need to understand them in the light of the Creation and the agile spirit, since it was with such things that God first began His work.
If you understand that God is an eternal being of all beings (both heavenly and natural beings) then you will appreciate that, before the Creation, He was enclosed within His being, as yet unknown by mankind, so that within His being no death or life could be identified or distinguished. And if death and life could not be distinguished from one another then God had to do that for Himself in the Creation, and then afterwards for the beings that drifted and floated in a cloud in a heavenly or natural manner in the light or in the face of God, as Holy Scripture affirms: “there was darkness on the earth and emptiness in the abyss” (Mark 15.33, Matthew 27.45 & Luke 23.44).
In this Creation the coarsest matter, which was nearest to the Earth and which we might term brutish or incomplete, was the first to be created and made known in its coarse essence, and it is from this that we can first deduce, through the coarse brutish earthly Creation, that no heavenly God can and may be recognised from the earthly essence either in darkness or, indeed, in life and death.
Because the Godhead was unknown in life and death in the earthly existence but wished to make itself known through mercy and justice God, after the general Creation, created and breathed life into a creature or image from the earth (called Man) which He formed after His own image (Genesis 1.27). But this earth, since it was made from man, was not pure, glorified or cleansed after the manner of the heavenly clarity, because God could not have His heavenly clarity with Him on the earth.
For that reason God, in order to cleanse the impure earth, used His godly power and might to create an efflux with the earth (called Man) and in this way intermingled with earthly mankind. In this way mankind passed from life to death, as Holy Scripture affirms when it says that the Lamb of God was killed and slaughtered from the very beginning of the world (Revelation 5.6 et seq.).
This efflux that the Godhead or God Himself performed through Man and which led from life to death is the only kind of spirituality that poor earthly mankind possesses. It is called Jesus Christ, a Son of the Almighty, and His name was confirmed as such by the old Prophets and by the Holy Angel Gabriel (Luke 1).
Do you see, my friend, what Christ actually did? He formed a link with mankind between life and death, quite humbly and patiently and, indeed, willingly. And yet our sweet dear Saviour, in the form of a servant, was wholly despised and held unworthy by the humanity of the impure earth. He came to live in our life and to die in our death quite ignominiously and wretchedly, and He did this to please mankind with an expression of sincere love, for God knew through His righteousness that the created image of the impure earth which we call Man must, due to disobedience in its earthly impure and evil will, be engulfed and consumed through the betrayal of the fallen angels of the destroyer of earthly death, and also that it could never in all eternity reach maturity if it was not freed through the death of Christ. Our death must therefore be consumed by His death, as Holy Scripture tells us (1 Corinthians 15.54, Hosea 13.14, Hebrews 2.14).
Also, for as long as Christ was at one with humanity as no more than an efflux to take upon Himself the human nature, He was concealed from earthly man, and He and humanity did not have anything in common with one another either in life or in death until the time when Christ was born from and with humanity.
Before that time came however the human race increased both in earthly wickedness (which we call Cain) and in godly righteousness (which we call Abel), and so good and evil stood on the two sides, comprehended under the death which had been assumed by the efflux from God (which we call Christ).
Among these different races the evil of Cain (the sole possession in the flesh) acquired the upper hand over the race of Abel (the innocent simplicity of God). Indeed, the evil generation has always gained the upper hand over the innocents of the godly type and everything born of the human essence, i.e. which is inclined more to the evil of Cain than to the virtue of the innocent Abel.
Even so, God allowed many teachings and prophecies from the race of Abel to be given and heard as an admonition towards good and as a warning of the punishment of evil, but because evil had the upper hand so it was able to kill God’s teacher and prophet.
Because evil is cunning, severe and devious it conceals its malice and wickednesses from the simple of heart beneath such an appearance of godly rectitude that it still thinks that it is entitled to such rectitude. It may even kill the innocent and the simple of heart. It follows from this that the progeny that is born from the human essence hold the innocent and pious to be eligible for death on account of their spirituality, and they make much use of these and similar tricks.
When however these murders from the earthly essence reached, in God’s opinion, the highest degree, and the righteousness of God saw that this human essence was comprehended under damnation because of sin, and that death could not be overcome except through death itself, God contemplated His great mercifulness and, for reasons of godliness, allowed His son Jesus Christ Who, in the Creation and after the Fall, was an efflux into the human essence, to assume human nature in all its weakness in the form of death.
And that same Christ was obedient to God His father and gave Himself up willingly into the weak human essence from which He was born as a man, and in birth already assumed human death in order to thus propitiate and satisfy the righteousness of God, and indeed to make earthly fallen humanity aware of their death through His death, so that humanity might turn away from their sins insofar as they might otherwise wish to bring about penitence and repentance.
Because however humanity in its human wisdom saw this Christ as a simple earthly man who was born of their own race they said, “He is a sinner just like us.” Thus His teaching, through which their sins would be punished, embittered their hearts, and they punished him with the death to which they themselves were subject, thinking that thereby they were doing God a great service because they thought that He was just a man and that God had left them to their own devices, according to which they neither could nor would suffer any punishment or have to listen to any teaching criticising their sins.
It should therefore be noted that, because Christ had become a man and knew well that humanity had no righteousness other than His holy service in the flesh, He could not view the disgrace that they inflicted upon Him through death as being an evil act, because He knew well when He undertook to free mankind from their sins that He had also accepted death along with that task. He must therefore suffer that same death from His own earthly human race and His companions, since He Himself was born according to the flesh. For they did not kill Him because he had done an evil deed (for He had never committed any sins) but because He had told them to their faces that He was a son of God, and so He then had to suffer death in His human life, otherwise all flesh should be freed from the flesh of transitory humanity (1 Peter 2.22, Isaiah 3.9, Matthew 26.63-64). Because, out of obedience to His father, He willingly accepted human death, He must again be freed from death by suffering a human death through His mighty Godhead. And no one could inflict this death upon Him, for that person from whom He received death and who took it upon Himself to do this and to act against Him Christ also had to act against because of his sins, and that was and is the painful holiness in the flesh.
Therefore, since Christ knew that they would do such a deed with an envious enthusiasm in order to defend their own holiness and that they did not recognise righteousness as applied before God, He still pleaded on their behalf, saying, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” (Luke 23.33). The Apostle St. Paul also said to the Jews, “This Jesus you have killed among you but you have done that unwittingly. Therefore repent” (Acts 3.15 & 17).
And because those who killed Christ according to the flesh did not want to recognise Him according to his godliness, the killing of Christ did not condemn them to any damnation. His favour was shown to those who, with Him, should through His death become spiritualised insofar as, after His Resurrection, they converted and believed in Him.
But since He resurrected against their strength and the force of death and since they did not yet want to believe in Him as a true God then they brought themselves, through their unbelief and stubbornness, into eternal damnation.
And so the Jews and the heathen (as they are called) were not damned because they crucified Christ according to the flesh in which He yet had to die but, as we have said, because they chose not to believe in Him after His sincere resurrection.
You must understand that death came from the whole of the human race, from both the good and the evil, the just and the unjust, and was among the deadly sins. Christ surrendered Himself to sinful death even though He Himself had no sin within Him. In doing so He deprived death of its power in order to free from death all those who were comprehended under sinful death, for guilty sinful death must be overcome. Thus He ended the damnation of the righteousness of God in respect of all right-believing souls. That is why it is well said that all of us, i.e. the entire family of God, were freed from death through His death.
The purpose of Christ’s death was to promote godliness in all those who abandoned their sins and the damnation of all those who remained stubborn in their sins. That is why the death of Christ was an act of judgement of the whole world.
Insofar as those – both Jews and heathen – who put Christ to death in accordance with the flesh and who turned away from their sins in true repentance of them were freed from sinful death (once again through the death of Christ which they themselves inflicted upon Him) He died for the sins of the whole world (John 3.16 et seq. ) but not to the extent that godless men and those sinners who were not ready for repentance turned away from God’s word and decided that Jesus had done enough to ensure the righteousness of God in respect of their conscious sins, which they still committed willingly, that they should therefore remain in sin at all times, that He should have died for their remaining sins, and that they should remain as before (as they said they would) in the sins of their wilful stubborn life.
Ah no, for all flesh is betrayed thereby if they think that the innocent Christ, Who had never yet committed any sin, should have atoned through His death for their deliberate sins which they repeatedly, knowingly, deliberately and gladly committed against the mercy of Christ.
Ah no, no, that is not the meaning of the innocent death of Christ! The right understanding of it is that He atoned and gave satisfaction for the unconscious sins that were committed without awareness of the law and the holy word of God and that He willingly died the same death once for unconscious sins.
As however He made known the unconscious sins through His death then He will die no more for the conscious sins such as were first committed. For everyone who sins must die for his own sins. As the Prophet says ( Deuteronomy 24.16, Ezekiel 18.20), no longer will the father die for the sins of his children, but the soul that sins must die for its own sins. As St. Paul says, “the wages of sin is death” (Romans 6.23). That is why the death of Christ revealed to everyone their sins.
It follows that everyone must certainly die for his own sins, for Christ Who died once for sin will not die again. We ourselves cannot, through our death alone, demand any forgiveness of sins or eternal life, for our death is not a service to God in heaven but merely a punishment for sin (Romans 6.10, 1 Peter 3.18, Hebrews 9.28).
However, the innocent death of Christ was for our benefit: He spiritualised us, and by believing in Him we can share in this spiritualisation. In doing so however we might jostle against our good works and remain just an idle knave because we cannot do anything else, and if we could do everything that we should, who would first only do that of which we have been guilty?
In all the Holy Scriptures we read that Christ committed no sins; indeed we find daily evidence that He was a foe to all sin and that He makes earthly men, who do nothing but sin, aware that through His death He atoned and made satisfaction for their conscious sins which they still commit daily.
Is this not a great blindness that afflicts the whole world? From this arises the great certainty of men in these last times that one cannot contemplate any more sin and that one must uphold the law of God as much as possible and do no harm to the body, for if you do then all virtues die and all burdens lie before the door like great mountains.
How does one compare oneself to this: that Christ may not commit any sins, should mercifully accept those evil men that are hostile to him, or that he should atone through His death for their stubborn persistent sins in which they still delight as long as there is a breath within them and so satisfy the righteousness of God?
And so I pray to God that He remove this great blindness from all pious and simple hearts and give them the power to recognise that everyone must die for his own sins. Yet, as we have already said, in dying you will not perform any service or acquire any spirituality, for only the death of Christ has that effect, or else you must be damned in sin, for the judgement of the court is through the death of Christ as set before everyone’s eyes, as the Lord Jesus Christ Himself attests when He says: “Now is the judgement of this world; now shall the prince of this world be cast out” (John 12.31).
God ordered and petitioned that through His Holy Spirit everyone should receive complete enlightenment, as has here been briefly expounded, so that all those who are guilty of various misunderstandings regarding the death of Christ and His holy service can give correct testimony and so that all errors can be remedied and renounced.
God gives it His blessing. Amen.
PART VI: BENEDICTUS SIMPLICIUS’S
EARNEST AND DEVOUT DAILY PRAYER TO GOD
asking Him to teach us how to pray, and thanking Him for His miracles and for the secrets that He instills in men’s hearts
O Lord, how sweetly and sincerely Thy spirit acts in revealing life in death and, through the same light, makes known to us Thy righteous essence which expels the unrighteousness of the flesh from all humanity through the light of Christ.
O Lord, how magnificent is Thy immeasurable essential spirit which encompasses, oversees and overspans all things in the height, the depth and the breadth. Who is there who could comprehend all the souls and creatures that appear from Thine essential spirits? Could any of Thy separated and created spirits comprehend the whole of Thine essential spirit in the beginning, the middle or the end in all Thy works except Thine essential Holy Christ? Who could measure it even slightly with the heathen arts? Has there ever indeed been anyone, O Lord, who could have commanded Thine essential spirit to create or inspire for me this or that?
No, there has never been.
That is why, O essential God, Thy power is above all powers and forces; Thine essence is above all essences; Thy light is above all lights; Thy righteousness is above all righteousness; Thy loyalty is above all loyalties; Thy mercy is above all mercies; Thy love is above all love; Thy wisdom is above all wisdom; and Thy spirit is above all spirits.
Thou art just and charitable in Thy consubstantial powers; Thou art a Lord above heaven and earth, above all that lives and breathes therein, and above every created thing. Alleluia.
And because, O God, Thy power surpasses all power and because Thy goodness surpasses all virtues then the Patriarchs, viewing the original causes were right to feel, having learned to recognise the magnificence of Thy godly deeds in their essential strength, that they must fall at Thy sacred feet in humility and subservience to beg for Thy mercy with pleading, sighs and tears of all strengths. For if anyone wishes to receive anything into his life from Thy spirit and essence then he must obtain it through Thy merciful goodness, with prayer, pleading, crying and calling out to Thee and searching for Thee.
That is why I come to Thee now in prayer like the former beloved Patriarchs, willingly and deliberately, in humility of spirit, to ask that Thou reveal to me, O God, all Thy great blessings in their essential power and make them known to me, O true essential God, for Thou art a true God of the House of Israel.
And so now I begin my prayer to Thee with a steadfast sighing and pleading that Thou might look with merciful eyes upon me, Thy humblest little earthworm, in these final troubled times in which, for me, all earthly fleshly consolation is at an end, so as to have Thy promises and assurances, because I experience a desire within me, along with Thy saints, for Thy just and consubstantial life, so that my desire for it might be confirmed, and so that I, O God, with all Thy saints, might appear before Thee in prayer and so become co-heir with thy children to Thy sacred league in Thy two patriarchal testaments which Thou hast entrusted to Thy flock as a safeguard.
Allow me to come to the aid of Thy good and holy spirit which prayed to the Lord before Israel (Joshua 10.12) so that, through the power of prayer, heaven might be moved and opened. And yet I will use no lips for that purpose for, as many will note, understand and grasp, creaturely lips cannot alone perform the prayer that rises from the heart to Thee in thy sacred heaven.
If now Thy Holy Spirit has taught me in my uncircumcised heart and essence to act obediently and humbly in my belief then, O God, unite my humanity to the same Spirit so that through it I might be reborn from this earthly flesh and be spiritualised as an inheritor of a new consubstantial life within the established Kingdom of Christ.
Through this rebirth and spiritualisation I would become more secure and I would know for certain that Thou, O God, Who punishes the man who sins, wishes to dwell within my humanity in a fatherly and brotherly spirit with Christ, and so enable my humanity to learn from Thy spirit to pray in accordance with Thy good and blessed will.
Lord, as Thou wilt then so, O God, will it come to pass.
For if my prayer, O God, is performed outside of the essence and strength of Thy Holy Spirit then in Thine eyes it will be seen as no more than a useless breath coming out of my idle flesh after the manner of the heathen and the Pharisees who, through inconstancy, engage in much useless babbling and yet achieve nothing, for we should be known for what we ourselves are and not by how we pray.
Teach me therefore the true essential spirit of Christ, that I might continue in prayer spiritually and consistently and yet not utter too many words as the heathen do after the fleshly manner, supposing that they will be heard thanks to an excess of words which are used to demand satisfaction for their own desires and longings but which, due to the underlying reasons for their petitions, do not ultimately acquire, hear or receive God’s spirit because they are not performed in the godly essence and manner.
Every prayer that brings forth flesh and blood from its own desires thinks of nothing other than its own lusts, to the enmity of God, and of serving in the flesh and of dwelling therein.
That is why the Holy Apostle James was quite right to say ( James 1.6-7) that the sins of the flesh give much pleasure but achieve and acquire nothing. For that reason, if men pray for evil then they are asking to be crushed by their own pleasures, and to serve flesh and blood and not the essential God in His heavenly truth.
I am therefore crying, pleading and praying to Thee, O true essential God, that through the power of Thy heavenly eternal consubstantial good and holy spirit Thou may cleanse and free me from the self-seeking spirit of my flesh, which is enmity towards Thee ( Romans 8.7), so that I, in my prayer and work for Thee, do not mistakenly in the flesh pray to the devil as Thy counter-party and mine beneath the guise of Thy holiness.
In these last times, thanks to Thy true essential spirit in the reality of Christ I have come to recognise deceitfulness in the flesh beneath a guise of holiness. And because I have learned to recognise it He has raised Himself up against me like a horrid creature. Why? So that my soul might suffer trouble and much pain from which it cannot be freed except through Thine essential spirit and that of the consubstantial eternal life.
And so, O God, allow Thy merciful eyes to gaze upon my troubles and weakness from Thy consubstantial spirit should I have the right to bear or experience such a spirit on account of Thy name. If I do not have that right then come before my weakness with Thy mercifulness, and free me from the self-seeking spirit in my flesh which acts in secret within the earthly under the guise of holiness, so that I, in my humanity characterised by the flesh, do not serve a hellish kingdom according to evil desires, for my only pleasure, desire and wish is that I might sufficiently recognise Thee, O God, rightly in myself in Christ, and that I might be included and embraced in my humanity by the kingdom of Thy godly majesty along with Thy holy community.
O God, help me to do this in my weakness through Thine essential strength, and teach me the right way to pray to the Lord Jesus Christ according to Thy manner and the nature of Thy holy essence, just like his disciples who, in their still unilluminated spirit, asked Christ to teach them how to pray (Luke 11.1-13).
I fully understand and acknowledge that, until now, as Christ told His disciples in those days, I have not prayed correctly in Thine essential spirit, for I should have prayed in the godly way of that spirit and not in my fleshly desires. Being as yet unaware, I thought in my blindness that Thou were a God to Whom one must pray in order to request something in accordance with my senses, just as a person asks another for something according to his own fleshly desires. Accordingly I must now call out as Thy disciples did, “O Lord, help me with Thy spirit or I will fall into disgrace, for I do not yet know the right way to pray in Thy holy name.”
My fleshly mind prays, certainly, but it cannot pray correctly in the name of the Lord because it lies outside the scope of the essential God. Instead it prays in its own name in order to enjoy its own pleasures in the flesh. Even so it obtains nothing, and therefore that same sense of the flesh and of the mind, the will and the thought of God have nothing in common with one another in true concord.
Therefore, O my loyal and merciful God, because in my humanity the sense of the flesh acts in conflict with the community of Thy holy essence, I turn and make recourse gladly and willingly towards Thine upright community in Thy holy essence.
I ask Thee to be willing to accept and receive my human nature into this community and to allow me to share in Thine essential spirit for the conquest of all evil, that I might pray in Thy name and holy essence and then might be heard according to Thy will and not according to my own, and that Thou wilt teach me to pray now in these last times the holy prayer that Thou, O God, in the person of Christ formerly taught Thy disciples, essentially and in Thy true spirit, for prayer is so agreeable to Thee that it takes place in the spirit and in truth and is confirmed from the weakness of the flesh through the strength of Thine essence.
Everything that makes progress according to the flesh in weak humanity must end in its weak essence and must change from weakness into the strength of the essence. Therefore it is not itself Thine essential spirit, and through its weak service it cannot free weak humanity from its prison. Also humanity is not reborn through this weak service. Therefore, O Lord, create me now anew in Thy holy essential service of the spirit that I might participate in Thy godly nature and so cleanse my soul from all fleshly impurities.
O Thou true, indefinable, great and almighty God, Thou art master and preserver of all heavenly and earthly creatures, Thou art the highly blessed triune essence. In my innermost internality, through the effect of Thy great power and might and through the illumination of Thine essential spirit may ineffable honour, praise, thanks and admiration be expressed with heart and mind to Thy most holy, lordly and almighty name until eternal imperishable times, without ceasing and without respite.
Amen. Amen. Amen.
END
Paul Ferguson. The translator’s moral rights are asserted.