Note to page 107.
Behmen derives Qualität from quallen, or quellen (our well), and understands by it the characteristic virtue or operation of anything. Thus the seven Qualities are the seven Fountain-Spirits—the prolific sources of their several species of influence. Aurora, i. § 3. The notion of pain (qual) in giving birth enters also into his conception of Quality.
The description of these seven Qualities occupies (amidst many digressions) a considerable portion of the Aurora, and is repeated, with additions and varieties of expression, throughout all his larger works. The summary here given is derived principally from the account in the Aurora, and the Tabula Principiorum, Wercke, vol. iv. p. 268. Similar classifications and definitions are contained in the three first chapters of the Drei Principien, and with more clearness and precision in the Mysterium Magnum, cap. vi. Compare also especially Aurora, cap. iv. §§ 8, 9; xiv. §§ 89, &c.; and xiii. 70-78.
These seven Fountain-Spirits, or Mothers of Nature, are a contrivance really novel. Paracelsus bequeathed to Behmen the term Mysterium Magnum, applying it to the Chaos whence he supposed light and darkness, heaven and hell, to derive their origin. But Behmen’s furniture or fitting-up of the idea is wholly original. Of the early Gnostics he could know nothing, and his Heptarchy of Nature is totally distinct from theirs. Basilides has seven intellectual and moral impersonations,—the first rank of successive emanations of seven, comprised in his mystical Abraxas. Saturninus has seven star-spirits—the lowest emanations in his scheme, and bordering on matter. Ancient Gnosticism devised these agencies to bridge the space between the supreme Spirit and Hyle. But Behmen recognises no such gulph, and requires no such media. With him, the thought becomes at once the act of God. Matter is not a foreign inert substance, on which God works, like a sculptor. The material universe exhibits, incorporate, those very attributes which constitute the divine glory. Nature is not merely of, but out of, God. Did there lie no divineness in it, the Divine Being would (on Behmen’s theory) be cut off from contact with it. With the Sephiroth of the Cabbala Behmen may possibly have had acquaintance. But, in the Cabbala, each Sephira is dependent on that immediately above it, as in the hierarchies of Proclus and Dionysius Areopagita. Behmen’s seven equal Qualities, reciprocally producing and produced, are not links in a descending chain,—they are expressions for the collective possibilities of being. Compare with them the seven lower Sephiroth of the Cabbala, called Might, Beauty, Triumph, Glory, Foundation, and Kingdom. Here we have mere arbitrary personifications of the magnificence displayed in creation. Behmen’s qualities are arbitrary, it is true. They might have been different in name, in nature, in number, and the fundamental principles of the system still retained. But who could have resisted the obvious advantages of the sacred planetary number, seven? Behmen, however, goes much deeper than the Cabbalists. He does not idly hypostatise visible attributes. His attractive and diffusive Qualities are the results of generalisation. His Fountain-Spirits are the seminal principles of all being. They are, he believes, the vital laws of universal nature. They are Energies operative, through innumerable transformations, in every range of existence,—in heaven, on earth, and under the earth.
Note to page 108.
In the following passage, Behmen endeavours to explain himself, and repels the charge of material pantheism.
‘I know the sophist will accuse me for saying that the power of God is in the fruits of the earth, and identifies itself with the generative processes of nature. But, harkye, friend, open thine eyes a moment. I ask thee—How hath Paradise existence in this world?.... Is it in this world or without it? In the power of God, or in the elements? Is the power of God revealed or hidden?.... Tell me, doth not God live in time also? Is He not all in all? Is it not written, “Am not I He that filleth all things,” and “Thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory, for ever?”
‘Here I bethink myself. I would stand clear of all blame from your misconception. I say not that Nature is God, far less that the fruits of the earth are He. I say God gives to all life its power—be that power used for good or evil,—gives power to every creature according to its desire. He Himself is all, yet is not in all natures to be called God, but only where there is light, in respect of that (nach dem Liechte) wherein He Himself dwells, and shines with power throughall his nature. He communicates his power to all his nature and works (allen seinen Wesen und Wercken), and everything appropriates that power of his according to its property. One appropriates darkness, another light: the appetite of each demands what is proper to it, and the whole substance is still all of God, whether good or evil. For from Him, and through Him, are all things; and what is not of his love is of his wrath.
‘Paradise is still in the world, but man is not in Paradise, unless he be born again of God; in that case he stands therein in his new birth, and not with the Adam of the four elements,’ &c., &c.—De Signatura Rerum, cap. viii. §§ 45-47.