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Part Four

Der vierte Theil

Chapter Outline

Scriptural figures and the earthly stone as an image of Christ

Knowledge of God and oneself; the Word in its two Testaments

The hidden and freely given cornerstone

The stone’s names, threefold constitution and Christ’s divine and human natures

The preparation of the earthly stone compared with Christ’s life, passion and resurrection

Its tincture compared with Christ’s redeeming blood

Christian regeneration, spiritual discipline and the resurrection of body, soul and spirit

Psalm 78; Matthew 13. I will open my mouth in a parable, and utter the mystery from the beginning of the world.

Whenever Almighty God has wished, through his divine voice, to reveal or make known to the human race something important and particular concerning his wondrous, exalted heavenly mysteries, he has generally presented and depicted it for us in parables or figures familiar to us in this earthly life and daily before our eyes. For example, when God wished in the third chapter of the first book of Moses to declare to Adam in Paradise, after his fall, his punishment—mortality and bodily death—he made him understand it in this way: since the earth has no life in itself, and Adam had been taken from the earth, he too must become like it again. Likewise in Genesis 15 and 22, when God wishes to make Abraham understand the increase of his seed and his descendants, he tells him to consider, as a figure, the stars in heaven, together with the sand of the sea and the dust of the earth. God also had the prophets depict, disclose and show to his people Israel many such gracious figures of various kinds whenever he had something particular in store for them. Afterwards, in his Testament, Christ, as the mouth and foundation of truth, did the same, setting everything forth and before our eyes in parables so that his teaching might be better understood. Thus, when he signified to us the highest blessedness, his divine Word, the Gospel, he used as figures the good and bad seed and the weeds sown in the field; likewise the hidden treasure and the pearl, the grain of wheat, the mustard seed and the leaven. Further, when he depicts the kingdom of heaven, he gives us the parable of the great supper and the king’s wedding feast. Thirdly, he compares the whole Christian Church and its condition with the vineyard and with the king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. He also used the parables of the noble lord who lends his property to his servants, of the lost sheep and ox, of the prodigal son, and very many other parables.

Since these examples and parables are given to us solely so that we may more easily understand and better conceive what is heavenly and difficult for human weakness to grasp, how much more readily may we expect that the eternal God has presented and portrayed for us in a bodily figure the very highest good: his Son Jesus Christ, our only Saviour and Redeemer, who through his obedience and merit has redeemed the whole human race from eternal death and won the kingdom of heaven. For this highest mystery of Almighty God is the hardest of all for human beings to comprehend. Although it has already been signified to us in the Old Testament through figures—in the sacrifice of Isaac, Jacob’s ladder, Joseph’s sale and wondrous fortunes, the brazen serpent, Samson, David and Jonah—Almighty God has nevertheless, for greater abundance, also displayed and brought to light this exalted heavenly good for us human beings upon earth through another equally wonderful and secret thing, in addition to the great world-book of Nature. Thus, among other things, we might also possess a bodily, visible and tangible likeness of those heavenly gifts and endowments. He himself has set this earthly, bodily thing before us in his Word, saying through the prophet Isaiah, chapter 28: “Behold, I lay in Zion a cornerstone, a tried stone that is firmly founded; whoever believes shall not flee.”

Likewise the royal prophet David speaks through the Spirit of God in Psalm 118: “The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone. This has been done by the Lord, and is a marvel before our eyes.” Christ, the heavenly cornerstone here signified, himself applies this figure to his own person when he says in Matthew 21: “Have you never read in Scripture? The stone which the builders rejected has become the cornerstone; it has been done by the Lord, and it is wonderful before our eyes. Whoever falls upon this stone shall be broken; but upon whomever it falls, it shall grind him to powder.” Saint Peter in Acts 4 and in his epistle, and likewise Paul in Romans 9, repeat and describe this in almost the same words.

From the beginning of the world, all the forefathers and holy patriarchs, and after them all people enlightened by God, have awaited with great longing this precious, blessed, heavenly stone, Jesus Christ. They have also prayed to God that, according to his promise, he would impart him to them and let them behold him in bodily and visible form. When they had rightly known and attained him in the spirit, they took delight and joy in him throughout their lives and were sustained by him until their end amid every danger that befell them.

Although God has bestowed and given this heavenly, blessed stone freely upon the whole human race, rich and poor, without any merit on their part, only the smaller number of people in this world, from the beginning until now, have been able to find, grasp and comprehend him. To the greater number he has always remained hidden, a grievous stumbling block and offence. Isaiah had already foretold this in chapter 8, saying: “He shall be a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence”; likewise a snare and a trap, upon which many shall stumble, fall, be broken, ensnared and taken captive. The aged father Simeon also beheld this in the spirit, Luke 2, when he said to Mary, the mother of the heavenly cornerstone: “Behold, behold, this one is appointed for the fall and rising of many in Israel, and for a sign that shall be spoken against.” Saint Paul likewise testifies to this in Romans 9: “They have stumbled at the stone of stumbling and a rock of offence; for whoever believes in him shall not be put to shame.” Likewise Saint Peter in his first epistle, chapter 2: “This stone is precious to believers; but to unbelievers he is a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence: they stumble at the Word and do not believe in it, whereunto they are appointed.”

How this precious, blessed, heavenly stone just mentioned accords with the earthly and bodily philosophers’ stone so often spoken of before, and how fittingly and exactly they agree in every respect, shall now be thoroughly demonstrated according to the descriptions of them both. One shall be placed beside the other and compared with it. From this it will be possible to recognise and see beyond dispute how the earthly philosophers’ stone is a true harmony, likeness and figure of the true spiritual and heavenly stone, Jesus Christ, in which God also presents him to us bodily and displays him in visible form.

To begin, just as those who wish to prepare the earthly philosophers’ stone and thereby inherit and attain in this temporal life all the blessedness prepared for us by God from eternity must rightly know its first matter—which is to be regarded as its principal point and greatest secret—so it is still more important and necessary to know the heavenly, eternal stone: that is, the true and living God, creator of heaven and earth, who is an inseparable, three-in-one being. For this reason the beginning of the first part above also reminded and exhorted us that, before all else, we must thoroughly learn and understand universal Nature and its properties, without which that work is otherwise begun and undertaken in vain. For if a person wishes to reach the highest good, he must necessarily first learn, above all things, to know God and himself. Learning to know God and oneself—that is, knowing what we human beings are, whence we come, for what purpose we were created, and how closely we are related to God—ought rightly to be praised and regarded as the highest wisdom. Without it, reaching the blessedness mentioned above is exceedingly uncertain and difficult, indeed impossible.

82.The epigraph combines Psalm 78:2 with Matthew 13:35. “Mystery” translates the singular Heimligkeit of this printing; the text associates scriptural interpretation with disclosure through natural images.

83.The German prints “lost sheep and ox” (verlohrnen Schaff vnd Ochsen). The familiar Gospel pair is the lost sheep and lost coin, Luke 15:3–10, but Ochsen is retained rather than silently corrected. The biblical catalogue is not a precise one-to-one concordance: its margin lists Luke 8, Matthew 13 and 23, Luke 19, Matthew 20 and 18, Luke 16 and 18, Mark 12 and Luke 10.

84.Contrafactur means a likeness, portrait or representation, rather than a counterfeit intended to deceive. This paragraph establishes the work’s governing claim: the earthly stone is a material figure through which Christ’s saving work can be contemplated. The margin adds Ephesians 3, Colossians 1 and Isaiah 45 (“Rain down, O heavens”; Isaiah 45:8). “Shall not flee” preserves the German wording of Isaiah 28:16.

85.The principal citations are Psalm 118:22–23, Matthew 21:42–44, Acts 4:11, 1 Peter 2:6–8 and Romans 9:32–33. The comparison is the author’s scriptural argument, not an assertion that all these passages use identical wording.

86.The marginal references are Luke 10:23–24 and Romans 10:12–13. The pronoun such a stone remains personal in this passage because the author identifies the heavenly stone with Christ.

87.The successive passages are Isaiah 8:14–15, Luke 2:34, Romans 9:32–33 and 1 Peter 2:7–8. The author’s account combines the universality of the freely offered gift with the minority who receive it, preparing the parallel with the common yet hidden material of the philosophers. “Whereunto they are appointed” retains the difficult final clause of the German quotation without resolving its doctrinal implications.

88.Harmonia here denotes a structured correspondence. The comparison does not remove the distinction between the earthly bodily stone and the spiritual heavenly stone; its force depends on the relationship between the two. The margin supplies 1 Corinthians 3.

89.Prima materia, “first matter, ” is carried from the alchemical discussion into the theological comparison; it does not mean that the author regards God as an ordinary physical substance. The margins cite 1 Corinthians 2 (“We speak of hidden…”), Romans 11 (“O what a depth”) and Acts 17 (“For in him we live”). These support mystery, the limits of human knowledge, and dependence upon God.