From the book
Candida Phoenix Philosophica
Anonymous · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordPrecious stones are generated bodies sharing the mineral order’s common matter.
- In the CandidaThe author contrasts their cold-induced congelation with the warmth involved in metallic hardening.
- TranslationHis colours, moisture, sulphur, and salt are interpreted within the book’s principles, without imposing modern mineral identities.
- A place to readRead Chapter Five, pp. 114–121, then the qualification about diamond at p. 155.
Meaning
Precious stones extend the mineral argument beyond metals. The narrator calls them splendid wonders and noble creatures of God, recalling their use in the priestly breastplate and shoulder ornaments. Their beauty and scriptural dignity make them appropriate objects of contemplation. Their formation also supplies a further description of the subject’s operation. As in the preceding metal chapter, the natural history and the indirect practical teaching are joined without becoming identical.
The principal assertion is that stones arise from the same matter as metals and minerals. Chapter Six later explains that water and the elements possess mineral nature actually as well as potentially and that mineral beings do not require the particular seed given to animals and plants. The shared origin supports the claim that the philosophical elixir can improve inferior stones, consolidate broken ones, and enlarge small ones. These are claims of the text, rather than authenticated transformations supplied by this lexicon.
The distinctive account of formation is brief. Metals harden after gradual coagulation through continued hidden warmth. Precious stones congeal from mercurial moisture through cold, after condensation and sublimation. Uncoloured matter sublimes more easily than coloured matter because fatness or sulphur does not rise without force. Formation is consequently described through temperature, movement, concentration, and the acquisition or absence of a colouring assistance.
Use in the book
The narrator says description is hazardous and gives only what he considers sufficient for explaining the operation of the subject. That announced limit is important. Chapter Five is not a complete mineralogical treatise, and the compact sequence should not be expanded into a recipe with invented quantities or apparatus. Its force rests on analogy and reported examples.
The first example is Bier’s special water, reported by a court physician. It becomes purple when mixed with wine and is thickened at a furnace, then cooled into a hard transparent green mass. Pieces are cut and engraved; a small ring stone is judged by a Nuremberg jeweller to be a pale but good emerald. The narrative’s stages are meant to support both the role of cold and the capacity of a watery mineral precursor to become a noble solid.
A second example comes from crystals sent to the narrator in 1667. They were derived from rainwater and formed in cold; an experienced lapidary judged them good stones and topazes. The narrator partly knows the correspondent’s process and combines that knowledge with his own experience to infer that mercurial moisture acquires particular form and colour when it meets a sulphur in the earth. The expert judgment strengthens his report, but it does not supply modern compositional testing.89
Crystal and diamond are then treated as cases retaining water’s colour because they lack the assistance of a particular external sulphur. This is a statement about the acquisition of a specified colour, not an absolute denial that they contain the principle Sulphur. At p. 155 the author explicitly refuses the claim that diamond can exist without sulphur or salt, and mentions both white and red sulphur. The later qualification prevents a simple equation of colourless appearance with absence of every sulphurous principle.
Bier’s purple wine mixture leads to another inference. The water is already inwardly specified towards green, as the resulting emerald is said to show, while wine’s essential inner colour is red. Their mixture yields a third colour. The author connects green-to-red development with vitriol and the blood of the green and red lions. Thus the gemstone chapter also becomes a lesson in interpreting colour changes within the art.
Places to read
- Part II · II.114.2; II.115.1; II.115.223Nobility, common origin, and the alleged improvement of stones.
- Part II · II.117.1The contrast between metallic warmth and stony congelation through cold.
- Part II · II.117.2; II.118.1; II.119.123Bier’s material and the crystals judged by a lapidary.
- Part II · II.119.2; II.120.1; II.155.123Colouring sulphur, colourless stones, and the later qualification.
Translation
“Mercurial moisture” names a generative principle-bearing material; it should not be replaced by ordinary liquid mercury. “Congelation” preserves the historical formation term rather than assuming that every instance is modern crystallization.
“Emerald” and “topaz” report the historical judgments named in the examples. The English does not certify that the products would meet present mineralogical definitions.
Connections
Congelation and Coagulation help distinguish the formation terms used here. Diamonds and rock crystal isolates the colourless examples; Gemstone testing examines what the jeweller and lapidary are actually reported to establish.
The chapter’s hymn about Saint John relates restored gems to giving to the poor. Noble materials are therefore connected with Charity as well as with technical perfection and the possibility of an elixir.
Cautions
The narrative does not establish what Bier’s water contained, and the partly known process is not disclosed in full.
The common origin of gems and metals is a proposition of the author’s philosophy. It should not be presented as a modern scientific equivalence.
generation der Edelgestein
generation der Edelgestein — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.117.1.
Mercurialischen Feuchtigkeit
Mercurialischen Feuchtigkeit — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.117.1.
congelation
congelation — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.117.1.
Source note
The separate chains of evidence matter: the emerald judgment is reported through the court physician; the 1667 crystals are said to have been sent to the narrator himself and assessed by a lapidary. Neither account includes modern mineral analysis.