God and negation

Use in the book

The question arises within a defence of secrecy. Having accepted Lull’s prohibition and declared his concern for salvation, Vaughan offers a whispered account of the first matter’s origin (p. 110). A cited enlightened writer says God created something out of nothing, and that something became one thing containing heavenly and earthly creatures. Vaughan then distinguishes the first cloud or darkness from the water into which it condensed. The next question asks what the nothing from which that first something came was. The structure is crucial: God’s transcendence is being discussed as the source of the created sequence, not as another stage within it.

Vaughan invokes Dionysius to deny both alternatives in a simple opposition: none of the things that are, and none of the things that are not (p. 111). He expands the first side as created beings and the second as what the reader calls nothing in an empty, destructive sense. The expression exceeds the classification rather than choosing its negative half. He calls the theology negative and says it was known to the early Church but lost in his own day. This is Vaughan’s historical and polemical claim; the supplied passage alone does not establish that all contemporary theology had forgotten it.

Agrippa’s saying gives the argument a striking verbal turn. “Nihil Scire” ordinarily says to know nothing, and the associated sentence calls that the happiest life. Vaughan changes the force of the object by taking nothing as the transcendent divine source: to know this nothing is eternal life. The demonstrative “this” carries the reinterpretation. An editor who printed only the mystical explanation would conceal the play on the ordinary phrase; a reader who treated it as mere praise of ignorance would miss Vaughan’s explicit correction.

The magical axiom that the visible was made from the invisible then returns the discussion to cosmology. God is called the wellspring from which all things flow; creation is a metaphysical birth or delivery (p. 111). The virgin water or chaos is the second nature after God, cautiously called the child of the Trinity. These images are strongly affirmative after the account of negative theology. Vaughan does not cease all speech about God; he uses relational and generative language while denying that the source belongs to the class of its visible products.

That distinction also prevents confusion with the later “Invisible Chaos.” At p. 114 · Passage 1 Vaughan reports and rejects this name for the first cloud: it was not invisible. The divine source approached through negation and the visible cloud are not the same referent. Likewise, the subsequent description of God as fire belongs to an explanation of life, light and sustaining heat (p. 116 · Passage 2–p. 117). The book moves between apophatic reserve and affirmative natural-theological images. A lexical account should make both legible rather than correcting one into silence or making the other a straightforward definition by ordinary flame.

The ending insists on another boundary: Creator and instrument. Soul does not form its body merely because it inhabits it, and the sun does not make the world merely because it cherishes it (p. 134–p. 135). That distinction continues the earlier refusal to equate divine source with a privileged created occupant. Vaughan’s God can be intimately active in Nature without the agency being transferred without remainder to a natural entity. His theological vocabulary therefore controls how his natural-philosophical metaphors are to be read.

Places to read

1. p. 110OriginalA question about the origin of first matter leads to “nothing in relation to us.”
2. p. 111OriginalDionysian negation, Agrippa’s saying and creation from the invisible are joined.
3. p. 111 · Original marginal note 1OriginalThe marginal reference names Dionysius and negative theology.
4. p. 114 · Passage 1OriginalThe first cloud is expressly denied to be invisible, separating it from the earlier divine source.
5. p. 116 · Passage 2Original; p. 117OriginalFire, light and heat supply affirmative language for divine life and preservation.
6. p. 134Original; p. 134 · Original marginal noteOriginal; p. 135OriginalThe distinction between Creator and instrumental agent limits attribution.

In this edition

The modern rendering gives “Nihil quò ad Nos” as “nothing in relation to us,” then preserves Vaughan’s explanatory restriction to imperfect knowledge. At p. 111 “Nihil eorum quae sunt, & Nihil eorum quae non sunt” is translated before his broader English explanation. The short “Nihil Scire” retains its ordinary sense, “to know nothing,” so that Vaughan’s following reinterpretation remains visible as an interpretive act. “Ex Invisibili factum est Visibile” is rendered as the visible made from the invisible, not as a modern claim that invisible objects physically condensed into every visible body. The marginal attribution is traditionally Dionysian; the edition identifies the received writings as Pseudo-Dionysian without pretending that Vaughan himself used that later scholarly designation.

Historical forms and local uses: Nihil quò ad Nos — Nothing in relation to us: beyond perfect human knowledge. (p. 110); Nihil eorum quae sunt, & Nihil eorum quae non sunt — Neither any of the things that are nor any of those that are not. (p. 111); Theologie is Negative — An approach to the transcendent essence through denial of finite predicates. (p. 111); Nihil Scire — To know nothing, reread by Vaughan as knowing the divine Nothing. (p. 111); Ex Invisibili factum est Visibile — The visible was made from the invisible; a claim of created derivation. (p. 111).

Nothing in relation to us — Nihil quò ad Nos

The qualification “in relation to us” restricts how nothing is meant. Vaughan contrasts it with the reader’s possible assumption of a mere blank and explains it through the limits of knowing. The phrase is therefore not a denial that the source exists. The following page calls it the true thing while denying finite predicates of it. p. 111 supplies that affirmative description.

Historical forms: Nihil quò ad Nos — Nothing as an object of perfect human knowledge, not sheer non-existence. (p. 110).

Read: p. 110 · Original; p. 111 · Original.

Know nothing — Nihil Scire

Vaughan quotes the saying about knowing nothing, then says that knowing this Nothing is eternal life. The wordplay depends on retaining the ordinary meaning before the specialised referent is supplied. The phrase alone does not literally name God; Vaughan’s following argument makes the association. It is an interpretation within his prose, not an alternative dictionary translation.

Historical forms: Nihil Scire — An ordinary statement of not knowing, given a second theological reading. (p. 111).

Read: p. 111 · Original.

Wellspring — Well-spring

The fountain image follows the denial of finite predicates. It expresses dependence and origin rather than placing God inside a geographical water system. Vaughan immediately calls creation a metaphysical birth. Wellspring and birth supply positive relational images for a source that the preceding negative theology refuses to classify as one created thing among others.

Historical forms: Well-spring — The divine source from which created things flow. (p. 111).

Read: p. 111 · Original.

Dionysius and negative theology — Dionysius; Dyonys. Ar. Th. Neg.

The main text at p. 110–p. 111 invokes Dionysius to deny that the divine source belongs either to created things or to a merely empty non-existence. The original marginal abbreviation supplies the source attribution; it is not a new claim by the modern editor. The edition identifies the received writings as conventionally Pseudo-Dionysian while preserving Vaughan’s traditional name. His own historical claim that this theology was lost in his day remains his claim.

Historical forms: Dionysius — The authority invoked for the divine nothing beyond being and non-being. (p. 110); Dyonys. Ar. Th. Neg. — Vaughan’s abbreviated marginal reference to Dionysius and negative theology. (p. 111 · Original marginal note 1).

Read: p. 110 · Original; p. 111 · Original; p. 111 · Original marginal note 1 · Original.

Cornelius Agrippa — Cornelius Agrippa; Agrippa; Occult. phil.

Agrippa serves two distinct arguments. At p. 111 Vaughan rereads the saying about knowing nothing as knowledge of the transcendent Nothing. At p. 126 the quoted account of heavenly powers explains how a good influence becomes base in a baser subject; Vaughan’s English specifies corruption. The original marginal reference there names the work on occult philosophy. These contextual uses should not be collapsed into one definition of spirit or into blanket assent to every Agrippan doctrine.

Historical forms: Cornelius Agrippa — The authority whose knowing-nothing saying receives Vaughan’s mystical interpretation. (p. 111); Agrippa — The authority for celestial influence altered in a lower recipient. (p. 126); Occult. phil. — The original marginal abbreviation naming the work On Occult Philosophy. (p. 126 · Original marginal note).

Read: p. 111 · Original; p. 126 · Original; p. 126 · Original marginal note · Original.

Jacob Böhme — Jacob Behmen; Three Principles

The marginal note beside the discussion of creation from nothing recommends Böhme’s discourse on the Three Principles as excellent and profound. It gives a route to Vaughan’s intellectual context, but the margin alone does not establish that the adjoining unnamed quotation is directly copied from Böhme. The record keeps recommendation distinct from quotation attribution, and keeps the note’s praise in Vaughan’s historical voice.

Historical forms: Jacob Behmen — The named author recommended in Vaughan’s original marginal note. (p. 110 · Original marginal note); Three Principles — The work to which that marginal recommendation directs the reader. (p. 110 · Original marginal note).

Read: p. 110 · Original marginal note · Original.

Genesis and the moving Spirit — Gen. c. 1.

The margin accompanies Vaughan’s citation of God’s Spirit moving upon the water at p. 111. He uses that scriptural relation to ask what human hands are fit to touch the philosophical subject and to defend guarded disclosure. The reference identifies the chapter supporting his allusion; it does not make the modern edition endorse the further identification of scriptural water with his privileged material subject.

Historical forms: Gen. c. 1. — The original marginal reference to Genesis chapter 1. (p. 111 · Original marginal note 2).

Read: p. 111 · Original; p. 111 · Original marginal note 2 · Original.