Jacob Boehme Online

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FIGURE EIGHT

This ADAM, though he was indeed created in a State of Innocence, Purity, Integrity and Perfection, could not yet stand on that Top of Perfection which he was designed for, and would have been drawn up into, if he had stood his Trial, for which there was an absolute Necessity. Three Things there were that laid claim to Adam, and though they stood within him in an equal Temperature, yet did they not so without him, for Lucifer had made a Breach.

These three Things were, (1.) above him, SOPHIA, called (Malachi 2:14) his Companion, and the Wife of his Youth. (2.) SATAN, that uncreated Dark Root in the Beginningless Beginning of Eternal Nature. And (3.) The SPIRIT OF THIS WORLD. And herein lies the Ground of the Necessity of Adam's Temptation.

In this Consideration the Devil comes yet not in, though he is not far out of the Way; nor the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil; because this was but a necessary Consequence of Adam's wavering, and dealing treacherously with the Wife of his Youth.