Figures, emblems and mysteries

Use in the book

The division called Model of the Hieroglyphic Figures, 6v, scan 26, begins with an act of depiction. A young man stands in a cloud with iron armor, a caduceus, and wings at his heels. An aged man is placed to his left and a little below him. The continuation adds the scythe, hourglass, clothing, posture, and attempted attack. These details belong first to the description. Their interpretation through Mercury, Saturn, and duration is supplied in the ensuing exposition.

The flower passage on 15r, scan 49, makes the movement from description to explanation especially clear. A blue stem, white and red flowers, gold-threaded leaves, and a violent north wind establish the visible scene. The account then identifies mountains or rocks as matrices, mercury as the growth-giving stem, minerals as bark, and metals as fruit. The figure holds a relation among growth, fixation, and nourishment; an isolated list of symbolic equivalents would lose that relation.¹²

In the serpent exposition, 26r, scan 73, the author proposes separating grain from straw, nut from shell, and truth from fable. A weapon is read through its form and effect, a serpent through the resistance or dissolution of a material body. An emblem therefore offers actions to be interpreted as well as objects to be named. Piercing, devouring, arresting, flowing, and returning to life can all become parts of the work’s account.

The apocalyptic description on 76r, scan 181, brings nature’s hidden secrets and religion’s mysteries into one interpretive undertaking. The Son of Man’s white hair, fiery eyes, metallic feet, stars, sword, and shining face are first reported from the vision. The author then claims that dispelling the figures’ shadows removes the cause of their obscurity. The aim is an explanation of a received representation, not simply a new picture invented beside it.

The next side says that the first figure contains nature’s and art’s first and last principles. The author explains the inherited obscurity of the science by saying that philosophers left it in models, riddles, characters, and figures. A figure can thus have two effects within the same book: it preserves something for transmission and withholds its comprehension from an unprepared recipient.

On 79r, scan 187, the author names the mysteries toward which the figures and principal preparations lead: the birth of the incarnate Word, death and resurrection, the sacrament of the altar, and the end of the ages. The later operations are organized through those comparisons. Their place in the book makes mystery a substantial part of its argument, rather than a general epithet for anything obscure.

On 105v, scan 244, the sacred emblems are declared greater than physical secrets, yet the author defends fitting them together so that the latter may lead toward the former. Near the close, scan 295, created nature is expressly distinguished from Christ himself. Those statements qualify the power assigned to representation. Figures can guide understanding while the author continues to argue about the different status of an image, an operation, and a sacrament.¹³

Places to read

1. Manuscript Title page · Scan 9The extended title names the subjects explained through hieroglyphic figures.
2. Manuscript 6v · Scan 26The model begins with a detailed description of the armored youth and aged man.
3. Manuscript 15r · Scan 49The flower’s visible features become an account of metallic growth and fixation.
4. Manuscript 26r · Scan 73The author separates truth from fable and explains a weapon through its shape and action.
5. Manuscript 76r · Scan 181The apocalyptic figure introduces the removal of shadows obscuring nature and religion.
6. Manuscript 76v · Scan 182Models, riddles, characters, and figures transmit the first principles.
7. Manuscript 79r · Scan 187The principal Christian mysteries are named as the destination of the explanations.
8. Manuscript 105v · Scan 244The relative rank and fitting together of sacred emblems and physical secrets.
9. Manuscript 130r · Scan 295The Eucharistic polemic distinguishes created nature’s representative office from Christ.

Translation

Figure and emblem preserve the French terms without assigning them a modern technical division the manuscript does not consistently maintain. Hieroglyphic translates hiéroglyphique as the author’s designation for the mode of representation. The source’s claims about Egyptian or Hebrew origins remain attributable to its own account.

Mystery renders mystère in both guarded and Christian contexts. A reader can follow the shift from a secret entrusted under oath to a named religious mystery because the local explanation is retained. The companion edition also preserves explicit qualifications such as symbol and allegorically figured. They help distinguish the kinds of relation that the author proposes.

figures hiéroglyphiques

Attested: H001-S009; H001-S026b. The phrase occurs in the title and the model heading.

emblème

Attested: H001-S049. The pictured flower introduces an operational explanation.

mystères

Attested: H001-S009; H001-S187. The word concerns the Christian truths named in the title and later program of explanation.

figures

Attested: H001-S182. Figures are among the means by which the science has been transmitted.