From the book
A Chymical Dictionary
Gerhard Dorn and John French · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe soul described through both bodily support and spiritual invisibility.
- In the bookCorpus is a subject in which virtues lie hidden.
- A place to readThe historical definition below, 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 18; facsimile PDF page 346.
Historical definition
Corpus invisibile is the soul: corporeal in respect of its sustenance, and invisible because of its spirituality.
Meaning
The definition does not simply oppose body and soul. It explicitly calls the soul corporeal in one respect and invisible in another. “Sustenance” preserves the older word sustentation without deciding exactly what kind of support the author intends. The second clause attributes invisibility to spirituality.
These qualifications matter because removing either would produce a simpler doctrine than the text states. Calling the entry merely “an invisible body” would omit its identification with the soul; calling it merely “the soul” would omit the reason for the unusual bodily phrase.
Use in the book
Corpus is a subject in which virtues lie hidden. Corpora supercœlestia are known by reason rather than sense, while Confirmamentum gives a human astral body. Together the entries demonstrate several different reasons for using bodily vocabulary beyond ordinary visible anatomy. They do not license treating every such term as another name for the soul.
Places to read
- Corpus invisibileRead the complete historical definition and its commentary.
- ConfirmamentumA body described through an internal or human astral relation.
- Corpora supercœlestiaBodies distinguished by a rational mode of knowing.
- CorpusA body understood as the subject containing a thing’s hidden efficacy.
In this edition
The edition leaves the historical conjunction of corporeality and spirituality visible. It supplies no modern psychological, anatomical or physical equivalent for it.
Source note
Historical source. 1650 dictionary, unnumbered definition page 18; facsimile PDF page 346 — Facsimile
Sources. A Chymicall Dictionary 1650, s.v. Corpus invisibile