The Household of God
Volume 1
The early history of mankind
- Chapter 64 -
ENOCH'S SPEECH ABOUITHE NATURE OF THE WORD
When Adam and the other patriarchs had heard this from the mouth of Asmahael all of them, with the exception of Enoch, were amazed and at a loss as to what to make of it.
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Enoch saw the embarrassment of the patriarchs and he was sorry for them and began, without having been asked, to address the following speech to them, which made them all very happy:
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"Forgive me, dear fathers, that I am now going to speak to you freely and uninvited, but I have to do it, for you all need now a brighter light from on high. And so listen: What my tongue will now proclaim to you will be a word of life, a word from on high and a word from the depth; from on high a word full of light and from the depth full of life. For on high God is the Light of all light and in His depth the Life of all life.
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"Behold, the explanation is this: When we cast a glance up to heaven and then again down to the earth, and this in quite a natural way, we shall see above everything full of light, but in and on the earth everything is full of all kinds of activity. In the furrows of the earth lie buried countless grains of seed carrying life within and thus countless seeds of the animal kingdom in their warmed nests as well as in the organs of the animals, where they are waiting for warmth and the arising to the light.
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"But truly, not until all the furrows of the earth and all the nests and organs of the animals have been thoroughly warmed will a life arise in its germ from all these prisons to rise freely upwards to the free light-filled spaces.
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"Do we not see both in summer and in winter the same light shine upon the earth and yet the furrows of the earth are not warmed by the same warmth. If light brought the warmth, behold, it would then have to be always warm under the same rays of the sun. However, the frosty, often very cold winter teaches us that this is not so.
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"The question is now: What and where is the warmth if it is not part of the light and the latter thus not its carrier?
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"Behold, the warmth is the hidden, dormant life in the depth and cannot free itself. But when the light has shone long enough upon the deep regions of the earth it awakens the warmth from its sleep. This then tears up its frosty containers and becomes freely active, combines with the light and forms a being which spreads its roots still in the primeval womb of life seeking its nourishment there but lifts its light- related part freely above the earth in order to keep its once awakened life constantly awake. And that which is the awakening element with plants is the same also with animals of every kind. Thus everything is drawn by the light and germinated by the warmth.
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"All this is but a natural manifestation and the different kinds of activity promote life only for the being which is a carrier of a higher life.
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"When we see that homogeneous beings attract and find each other but foreign ones repel and flee each other, we learn that it is not one and the same kind of warmth and light that activates and draws them, but that there exists also a stolen light and a stolen warmth whereby all the weeds and pests are activated and drawn. However, a higher and free life is able to see all this.
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"Now we ask: How is a higher and free life able to do so and why? O fathers, here lies the main knot which has to be unraveled!
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"So listen: As the form of all things in their great variety is an expression of the natural warmth combined with the light and differs only in the ability to absorb more or less light or more or less warmth, thus also human language is formed by the spiritual warmth, which is the divine love within the heart, and by the spiritual light, as the divine grace within man.
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"How could we utter sensible words unless they had been given us as eternal forms of the spirit? Since we are able to name all the things, tell me, who taught us this?
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"God alone could do that, being the eternal essence of all forms, the very life and light or love and wisdom and, as the eternal, inherent combination of both, the archetype of all forms or the primal essence of all beings and, thus, the Eternal Word Itself.
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Therefore, when someone has found the word externally, has comprehended and accepted it, he has not found a thing, but a fully existent spiritual life, since every word is a form arising from spiritual warmth and spiritual light. Why then should Asmahael's speech amaze us?
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"Or do we not in these things resemble the fish which amidst the water do not see it and we, surrounded by air, do not see this, if we in the fullness of life out of God are amazed and disconcerted at Asmahael's true emotion?
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O fathers, everything has its purpose! Look, although we do have the indestructible life in our own word, this life still resembles the one hidden in the grain of seed. If we turn our hearts towards the world it is still winter in us and the fleeting light of grace is unable to release the spiritual warmth within us. But if we constantly direct our hearts upwards to the Lord, then the long-lasting, even continuous light of grace will soon release within us the spiritual warmth of life and we ourselves, as living forms or a living word, shall rise to eternal wakefulness in the light of the Lord.
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"But he who will not this is a robber and thief and will form into a weed, a pest and a horrible formlessness of life like those in the deep places.
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Thus, he who has the word has also the life forever; but depending on what the word is like will also the life be.
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This is the explanation of Asmahael's words. Amen."