Book 6 On the Resuscitation of Natural Things

Latin witness: Frankfurt 1605, printed pp. 223–228, SUB Göttingen PPN578052199. Source facsimile: https://gdz.sub.uni-goettingen.de/id/PPN578052199?tify=%7B%22pages%22%3A%5B207%5D%7D

Of what resuscitation is possible.

The resuscitation and reduction of natural things is no small matter in nature, but a profound and great secret, something divine and angelic rather than human and natural. Yet I wish to be understood here with the greatest discrimination, and only in accordance with my meaning, with what nature daily and clearly shows and experience proves. Otherwise I would be exposed to the lies and slanders of my enemies, the false physicians, who habitually misinterpret everything of mine, as though I wished to usurp divine power and attribute to nature what it could never accomplish. The greatest care is therefore required, since death is twofold: violent and spontaneous. One permits resuscitation; the other does not. Do not believe the sophists who say that whatever has once died or been mortified can never be resuscitated, and make nothing of resuscitation and restoration. Their error is considerable. It is indeed true that only God can resuscitate whatever perishes by its natural death or nature mortifies according to its predestination; it must occur by his divine command. What nature consumes a human cannot restore. What a human destroys, however, a human can restore and break again once repaired. Humanity has no further power by its own condition. Whoever attempted more would arrogate God’s power and yet labour in vain and be confounded, unless God were with that person, or that person possessed faith great enough to move mountains. For such a person this too would be possible, and still greater things, because Scripture says, and Christ himself said: If you have faith like a mustard seed and say to this mountain, Go and settle there, it will do so and settle there; everything will be possible for you and nothing impossible.

Death is twofold.

What resuscitation is.

Which things may be resuscitated, by what means, and which may not.

To return to our purpose, the difference between dying and being mortified, and which permits resuscitation, must be understood as follows. Whatever dies according to its nature has its limit through predestination, as God’s will and ordinance decree. This also occurs through various diseases and accidents, and it can never be resuscitated; nor can any preservative be employed against predestination and the completed term of life. What has been mortified, however, can be resuscitated and brought to life again, as many arguments could prove, which we shall offer at this book’s end. There is therefore a very great difference between dying and being mortified; they must not be regarded as one thing under the same name, for in the test itself they stand far apart. Consider a person who dies a natural and predestined death: what good or useful thing remains? Nothing; the corpse should merely be cast into the earth to the worms, for it is putrid and owed to earth. The same must not be understood of a person killed by the sword or another violent means. The whole body is useful and good and can be prepared into most precious mummia. Though the spirit of life has departed from that body, balsam remains, with life still hidden in it, and this balsam preserves other human bodies. Likewise in metals you see that when a metal is about to die it begins to be consumed by rust. What has been consumed is dead. When the entire metal has been consumed by rust, it is entirely dead; that rust can never be reduced to true metal, but becomes only slag. It is dead, death is in it, and it no longer has the balsam of life but has perished in itself.

Dying is one thing, being mortified another.

The difference between the calx and ash of metals.

What the ash of metals is.

What the calx of metals is.

There is also a twofold metallic residue, calx and ash, with a very great difference between them. One can be brought to life again and reduced to metal; the other cannot. One is volatile, the other fixed; one is dead, the other mortified. Ash is volatile and cannot be reduced to metal, only to glass or slag. Metallic calx is fixed and can be reduced to its own metal. To understand the difference and its cause, know that ash contains less fatness and more dryness than calx, which gives fusion. Calx is fatter and moister than ash and still has its resin and flux, especially Salt, which is fusible by its own nature and makes metals flow and reduces them. It follows that salt must be extracted from metallic ashes so that they cannot be reduced to metal; then they are completely volatile. This must be noted with the greatest gentleness and care, for much depends upon it.

Physicians’ error concerning gold.