By Jacob Boehme

      "We Have Borne the Image of the Earthy"

      "Adam was given that which he would have, . . . the terrestrial woman, in place of the celestial virgin; for Adam's treachery toward his heavenly consort, disqualified him for her, and left him only fitted for an 'Eve'! During his sleep, the woman was made out of Adam, and the image of God was destroyed . . . The man and the woman were made into creatures of this outer world, fashioned into mortality.

      "Adam and Eve had still a paradisiacal consciousness, but mixed with terrestrial desire. They were 'naked' although 'not ashamed' until they had eaten of the earthly fruit, . . . Adam went out from the will of God into the world, and was captivated by it, and ate of earthly fruit. Then the spirit of this world took his soul captive, and his faculties became earthly, his substance bestial.

      "After eating of the tree of self-knowledge, of good and evil, . . . by willing otherwise than God willed, . . . man became unholy; . . . .he died to the holy, heavenly image, and lived in the awakened bestial image of the serpent . . . The animal being had swallowed up the celestial state, and Adam and Eve then had common flesh, hard bones, bestial members, and needed bestial clothing.

      "Man was now separated from God . . . Lusting after the earthly, the holy anointing oil, given of Christ, was dried up; he became shut up in a gross, bestial image, for his flesh now belonged to the earth and to death; the dominion of this world now dwelt in him.

      "The desire of a beast is only to nourish itself and to multiply itself. It hath no understanding of any higher thing. It hath its own spirit, whereby it liveth and groweth and consumeth itself . . . If God had intended that man should live as the beasts, he would have created him in the similitude of, and with the beasts . . . If he had created him for this earthly, miserable, naked, toilsome, corruptible, animal life, he would have made men and women from the start; and both sexes would have come forth in the 'spoken word,' into the division of both properites, as it was in other earthly creatures.

      "Lust originated in Adam, but thereupon his perverted desire began to be excited in the woman . . . Eve was then moved by her lust, which the devil awakened in her, and desiring to be skillful, she became foolish . . . The serpent said to her, 'Your eyes shall be opened, and you shall be as gods.' It is true that her earthly eyes were opened, but her spiritual eyes became closed; with earthly eyes, man cannot see the kingdom of God.

      "When Adam took notice of his bestial form, he was ashamed, and God said; 'Adam, where art thou'? His body did hide itself, so ashamed was his poor soul and he said, 'I was afraid; I was naked, and hid myself'. The precious heavenly virgin, with which he was clothed, was lost; his crystalline image was destroyed.

      "After the fall, man was subject to the limitations of time, and was degraded to the animal state of being, so that heaven, paradise and divinity became a mystery to him . . . God cursed the earth for man's sake, and no paradisiacal fruit grew any more; all was gone, save only the mercy and the grace of God! . . . After the fall, men lived in weakness, as today. They begat children in two kingdoms of wrath and love, evil and good, Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob.

      "When man fell, the paradise of all heavenly knowledge withdrew, and Wisdom was in grief, until God gave the promise of the seed of the woman."