Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitCandida Phoenix Philosophica

Reading language

Part I — Theorem VII

Yet much depends on distinguishing Creator from creature, and my own profession especially obliges me to know that distinction. I would rather be deprived of this royal art than be a mere practitioner, a bungler and laboratory worker rather than a philosopher—although I consider myself only the least of philosophers—or possess mere acquaintance with it without sound knowledge. Moreover, the principal end of this study should be to contemplate and learn to know God’s wondrous works, thereby attaining a greater knowledge of the almighty Creator and thus true wisdom, and above all spreading and advancing the praise, honour, and glory of his holy name. Those who set themselves another principal end are precisely the people whom the philosophers judge unworthy, and from whom the art has therefore been so carefully concealed.

I therefore hope to remain free of that accusation. The ensuing argument also serves my purpose and a better knowledge of the matter of the Stone in no small measure. What chiefly moved me was this: since treating the present question in my first little tract on rainwater, I have advanced so far in this art and its practice—to say it without boasting—that I cannot sufficiently thank the Most High. I have thus experienced in the work what I formerly heard, in my unworthiness and humble submission, from the own princely lips of His Highness the late Duke Ernst of Saxe-Gotha: “When one seeks God’s honour first, he also grants wisdom and understanding in other matters.”

To fulfil in some measure the gratitude I owe the all-good and merciful God, I could therefore not refrain from further defending God the Holy Spirit’s honour, as far as lies in me, the most unworthy and least of all. Turning now to the question itself, the principal grounds of those who maintain that this spirit is God the Holy Spirit are, to my knowledge, as follows. First, the little word Ruah, and especially the accompanying word Elohim. Second, the gloss in our German Protestant Bibles: “There was no wind at that time; therefore it must mean the Holy Spirit.” Some now enlarge this by adding that the Holy Spirit had to spread out and perfect the two first things then created, the waters and the earth.

Third, appeal is made to the common opinion of almost all religions admitted within the Roman Empire. Against this, however, we must consider the actual wording of the text, which in its original language runs approximately thus: “In the beginning God created, or has created, the waters, the earth; and the earth was desolate and empty. Darkness was over the face of the deep, and the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.” First, this states who created and is the Creator: namely Elohim, that is, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. For the whole of Christendom understands Elohim—the plural, and not merely the dual, of Eloha—in this sense. David already explained it thus in the Jewish church when he said in Psalm 33:

“Heaven was made through the word of the LORD, and all its host through the spirit of his mouth.” Thus he names distinctly not only God the Father by “LORD,” but also God the Son as the Father’s eternal subsistent Word, and God the Holy Spirit when he says “through the spirit of his mouth.” He testifies that heaven and its host were created by this triune God, and hence that Elohim signifies the Holy Trinity. That is the first point. Second, the words above also state what was created: the waters, earth, deep, darkness, and spirit of God. They expressly say that this spirit hovered upon the water, not that it created anything or perfected the two things then created and lying within one another, the waters and the earth.

Since it is thus abundantly clear that Elohim includes God the Holy Spirit as Creator, whereas this spirit is expressly named among the specified creatures; and since, as already said, nothing is predicated of it except that it hovered upon the water, rather than created or perfected anything, it follows once again beyond contradiction that it is created and is not God the Holy Spirit. For, first, the word Ruah always describes wind and air in Holy Scripture. I have found this in various good authors and have been instructed by other learned people, including Hebrews, concerning it and whatever knowledge of Hebrew my profession otherwise requires. For I freely confess that I know little of that language or the other Oriental languages.

As for Elohim, not only has it already been sufficiently demonstrated how it signifies the Holy Trinity and thus includes God the Holy Spirit; it is also known that the Hebrews have no superlative in their grammar and therefore use God’s name in its place. Thus “mountain of God” or “city of God” means an exceedingly high mountain or an exceedingly great city. Dr Dannhauer discusses this Hebrew expression more fully in his Passion sermon. Accordingly, the phrase here may mean “the exceedingly great spirit.” According to the author of the Revelation of Divine Majesty, it is God’s greatest creature. Thus it remains a created spirit, rather than God the Holy Spirit. Likewise Scripture elsewhere calls Elijah, for example, a “man of God,” although he was not God.

This spirit, as God’s creature, may also be called holy after its Creator, because the Creator is holy. It by no means follows that it must therefore be God the Holy Spirit. Second, concerning the gloss in our German Bibles, I do indeed venerate and honour its author’s memory. Yet his own words show that he was uncertain of this opinion. In my humble position—not as a theologian, but as the least of natural philosophers—I expressly deny that wind did not yet exist at that time. Wind and air are one not only in Holy Scripture; the philosophers too regard them as one. Nuysement expressly says: “Wind is nothing other than air in motion,” and so forth. This will also be discussed in the Second Part.

I have already shown by experience itself that this spirit, which hovered upon the water in creation and still hovers there, arose and was created from water. It is, I say again, wind and air, and the philosophers’ Spiritus Mundi. If they propose, proclaim, or invent some other spirit in its place, this springs merely from excessive subtlety rather than true grounds and causes, and is therefore a false opinion. To my knowledge, nothing of this is found among the ancient philosophers—Gerlandus, Lull, Villanova, Count Bernard, and many others. Likewise, as far as I know, Theophrastus mentions only his Huyle, or Alkahest.

Furthermore, to my limited understanding, it is very strange—not to say absurd—to call the two things, waters and earth, a confused chaos, an undigested mass, an imperfect bulk, a useless lump or mishmash, and to maintain that after their creation the Holy Spirit first had to spread them out and perfect them. God the Lord made nothing disorderly or useless. Such language and fine epithets affront divine omnipotence and all-wisdom considerably, as though God had lacked the power and wisdom to create from nothing, at the very beginning, a mass and matter perfect in itself, containing the powers of the whole of nature and the seed of all visible things. This has been demonstrated already and will be shown further in the Second Part, together with the fact that this mass and matter was uniform water, by both a posteriori and a priori proofs as required.

Some think to defend themselves by distinguishing God’s will from his omnipotence. Such words, they say, do not detract from his omnipotence: they acknowledge that God could have created perfect matter at the beginning, but did not wish to do so. Nevertheless, according to the sound and truthful argument given here and to follow in the Second Part, such language remains a grave affront and contradiction to truth, and consequently to the Most High, who is truth itself, and especially to God the Holy Spirit as teacher of truth. Likewise, just as Schamaym never meant, nor can mean, a confused chaos, imperfect mass, undigested bulk, useless lump or mishmash, so God the Holy Spirit did not hover upon the water and then have to spread out and perfect it and the earth after their creation.

48.Notitia is acquaintance or awareness; scientia is grounded, reasoned knowledge. The author’s contrast explains why the theological inquiry belongs to his account of an operative art. Moral worthiness and secrecy are presented as connected, without establishing that the book belonged to a formal initiatory organization.

49.The author reports an earlier rainwater tract and a personal hearing of Duke Ernst; these are internal autobiographical claims, not independent proof of authorship. The named ruler is consistent with Ernst I of Saxe-Gotha (1601–1675). The first tract’s precise title and publication have not been established here.

50.Evangelisch here means Protestant or Lutheran, rather than the narrower modern sense of “evangelical.” The cited marginal gloss is presented as an opponent’s authority. Ruah represents Hebrew rûaḥ, whose range includes wind, breath, and spirit; a decision about its sense requires interpretation of the passage.

51.The author’s “Roman Empire” is the Holy Roman Empire, and passirlich means permitted or admitted. Elohim has plural form but takes a singular verb in Genesis 1:1; the inference to three divine persons is a Christian theological reading, not a conclusion compelled by Hebrew grammar. His claim about universal agreement is polemical.

52.Psalm 33:6. The author interprets “LORD,” “word,” and “spirit” as a Trinitarian sequence. He then distinguishes the spirit hovering in Genesis 1:2 from the Holy Spirit understood to be included in the Creator’s name Elohim. This is his argument, not an unambiguous grammatical distinction supplied by Genesis itself.

53.The author’s “always” overstates the Hebrew word’s range, which also includes breath and spirit. His admission of limited Hebrew is significant: the claim rests on consulted authorities and instruction. The translation retains the categorical wording while distinguishing it from a settled philological result.

54.The grammatical claim concerns emphatic genitives using a divine name; it does not imply that Hebrew lacks ways to express comparison or superlative force. Elijah is called a man of God in 1 Kings 17:18 and 17:24. The argument distinguishes relation to God from identity with God.

55.Physicus here is a student or interpreter of nature, not a modern medical physician. The Latin definition aer commotus, “air in motion,” explains why the author does not regard wind as a later substance distinct from the air he derives from the primeval waters.

56.Theophrastus is Paracelsus. Alkahest names a celebrated dissolving agent in Paracelsian and later chymical traditions; the spelling Huyle is retained without silently equating it with another technical word. The references to Lull, Villanova, and Count Bernard concern received alchemical authorities, including works of disputed or pseudonymous authorship.

57.Indigesta moles recalls the description of chaos in Ovid, Metamorphoses 1.7. The author opposes language suggesting an inadequately made first matter; he does not deny the later differentiation of the created world. His polemic should be distinguished from the broader and varied early modern uses of “chaos.”

58.The description of the Holy Spirit as teacher of truth recalls John 14:26 and 16:13. The author treats his interpretation of created matter as a defence of divine perfection; the translation preserves that theological claim without making it an editorial judgment.