Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum

scibile / scibilia

knowable discipline(s) — a field of knowledge, not a knowable object. The margin of p. 17 asks how a VNIVERSALE could stand if several such were posited in scibili Chymico. pp. 17 (and m), 23, 157.

Schulfuchs

school-fox. The disputatious pedant of the lecture-room, sharp in argument and knowing nothing at first hand. One of the treatise’s names for the opponent, beside argChymist, Ardelio, Calumniant and Loß-sophi. p. 28.

Schwärmer / Schwermament

fanatic; swarmament. The first is the confessional insult of the age; the second is Khunrath’s coinage on Firmament and schwärmen, and the English keeps the pun rather than explaining it. The same joke drives the Hummelschwarm, the hornet-swarm, of pp. 24, 31, 64 and 85. pp. 24, 85.

Servator / Salvator

preserver / saviour, always distinguished. Khunrath applies both to the Stone and both to Christ; at p. 56 he hedges Salvator with suo modo for the Stone and does not hedge it for Christ. The hedge is used once: pp. 57, 165 and 168 drop it, and at p. 168 the qualification in statu humiliationis aut exinanitionis is an intensification and not a hedge. pp. 56–57, 165, 168.

Signatura Rerum Naturalium

the signature of natural things, retained. That a thing wears the mark of its own virtue. Khunrath’s margin sets it beside reading, contemplation and observation as belonging to the light of Nature, not as a substitute for them. The word stands once earlier, at p. 55, of the Stone’s red diadem as the SIGNATVRA of highest perfection. pp. 55, 136 m.

Solve, Coagula, Fige

Retained as a set: the three commands of the Work, which Khunrath sets as a marginal formula at p. 46 and returns to as a future indicative at p. 183, Soluet; Coagulabit; & Figet. Incerare is added as a fourth term; see Inceriren. pp. 46 m, 66 m, 98, 183 m.

Sophia Enthusiastica

Retained. The Wisdom asked for in the Oratorium and had by direct divine inspiration — the other side of the Cabala Enthusiastica of p. 135: there the mode of receiving, here what is received. p. 173.

Specificatio / Specificata

Retained. The state of having been narrowed to a species — the hinge of the whole negative argument, and the thing the Catholic matter is defined by not having. Die SPECIFICATIO lesset sich … nicht abscheiden: no art unspecifies a specified thing. pp. 21, 47–48, 60–63, 76–78.

Spiritus Mundi

Retained. The Spirit of the World, which p. 84 denies can be caught out of the air, because by God’s ordinance it is caught already and has chosen its own lodging. Not to be confused with the Spiritus of Litera / Spiritus. pp. 16–17, 20, 84–86.