make concerning our physical stone; whoever possesses penetrating eyes will perceive at once the causes and means of its resurrection and that of Jesus Christ. Those who saw and foretold that the whole world, or all nature, would perish and be entirely destroyed by a universal flood, enlightened by this natural philosophy, drew this judgment from the reduction of our matter to water. At the beginning of this operation all the matter is water, which makes Ovid say: ‘Everything was sea; the sea itself had no shore, and then there was no separation between sea and land.’

Whether he meant this operation, representing the beginnings of things, or that which will occur in the universal flood, it is nevertheless certain that everything drew the beginnings of its generation and corruption from this inundation, and nothing can acquire its first purification except through water. That is why in the holy

sacrament of baptism one first begins to purify the stain of original sin with water.

We know this without doubting it. What now prevents us, instructed in this philosophy, from concluding through the divine knowledge of our stone—which was not unknown to our fathers—everything that will happen on that Last Day, or at least anticipating something of it? Certainly the first purification of things and their renewal through regeneration begin in no other way. Likewise, their resurrection and glorification call for being effected through fire. That is why this sacred and mysterious emblem depicts a king whose eyes are like fiery flame, with many crowns upon his head, wearing a white robe covered with blood, and accompanied by a great army. From his mouth came a sharp sword to strike the nations and the serpent that had made preparations for war against him; he casts them into a lake of fire and sulfur, and the birds fill themselves with their flesh, as this

emblem explains the family of this mystery and magistery, which we do not consider unworthy of our explanation. This King armed with a sword sharp on both edges shows that this troop of soldiers must be put to death together with the seven-headed dragon. The philosopher is called the king, whose power is so great that he changes the whole metallic nature into his silver form, removes far away everything heterogeneous, impure, and corruptible, remedies the body’s diseases and defects, and tolerates nothing but what belongs to his own nature. He far surpasses all substances of animate and inanimate things except the rational soul, which at last acquires such great power, if he is brought to redness, that his potency and dominion are multiplied a thousandfold. Now he who reigns in the center commands the whole universe; for this reason the parot(?) imbibes him with solar and simil(?) milk. He then has such great fixity that he immediately drinks the solar water, which causes

the colors in this work to be more purple and celestial than black. It is nevertheless certain that through all these imbibitions every color in the world will appear before our King comes, before he conquers and destroys everything. That is why they have depicted the king clothed in a robe varied with many colors, seated and coming upon clouds. At this time a portion of the substance, still volatile and not yet fixed and radically mingled with the parts of fixed sulfur, rises to the vessel’s top and descends to receive the upper and lower power. For the body receives the nature of the glorified and fixed soul, while the fixed and eternal soul clothes itself in the form of the spiritual and volatile body, until there is only one perfect and eternal substance, although it had previously consisted of several natures and substances.

The mercurial moisture represented by the Dragon, horsemen, and soldiers, which at the beginning

of the operation dominated in dissolution and corruption, while sulfur, represented by the sun, moon, King, and Virgin, was eclipsed and chained. Now the time of dominion has come and our Dragon is conquered and exterminated. From this they learned a most important Christian truth: Satan, who presently reigns with great power in the world and scatters everywhere the seeds of every vice, crime, and abomination, will see a time when, after he has been thrown down and cast with all his accomplices into a gulf of fire, as shown in this sacred emblem, our almighty king, who conquers everything, will reign eternally with the friends of Jesus Christ.

For this reason the same figure depicts a spirit or angel holding a key in his right hand and, with the left, holding this ancient red dragon bound with chains, binding it and casting it into a

lake full of fire and sulfur. By this key they understood the multiplication of the stone, for to it belongs the power of binding or unbinding. Unbinding and opening are the same as making a body moist, fluid, and watery. Likewise, binding, coagulating, and closing signify the same thing among philosophers. Every time you dissolve and coagulate this matter, you increase it in quantity and quality without limit, until multiplying ten into a hundred, a hundred into a thousand, and so forth.

Thus, as some maintain, if it were possible for all the sea’s water to change into metal through the multiplication of a single grain of metal, it would change into a most perfect body and destroy everything combustible, incorruptible, and impure—through the Dragon represented in this tableau and cast into the fire.

The King is not represented clothed in white garments as in the penultimate emblem

but in purple garments and covered with his blood, to teach every practitioner that this is the final height of perfection. Once he has reached it, he fears nothing further and fire can no longer act upon him. The philosophers then call him the true Lion, because he devours everything and converts it into his own nature. He is then the holy land, the promised land: once one has set foot upon it and taken possession, one enjoys every wealth and pleasure of the world. The walls, houses, and gates are precious stones and fine pearls set in gold and silver; in the midst is a river of living water flowing from the Lamb’s throne, and the tree of life proliferates there for the salvation and health of the nations. Whoever possesses this precious treasure of the Golden Fleece has something a thousand times more precious than all jewels, gold, and silver, because he can multiply crystal without limit into every kind of precious stone, and imperfect metals into gold and silver; and, like the aforesaid water of the river of life, or this