From the book
The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I
Attributed to Abraham the Jew · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordHerod’s massacre emblem presents a king, suffering mothers, children, soldiers, and a blood-filled bath. The writer explicitly interprets its violence through metallic spirits and operations.
- In the bookThe soldiers act in three pairs: killing, receiving blood, and pouring it into the bath. The differences among persons express differences of substances, powers, and functions.
- TranslationThe English retains the disturbing description and the express rejection of human blood as the intended material. It keeps the source’s numbers and changing sulfur designations.
- A place to readRead 37r, scan 99, for the interpretive limit, then 38v–39r, scans 102–103, for the three pairs’ operative meanings.
Meaning
The emblem is a representation with an outer rind and hidden secrets. Its persons are differentiated parts of a material account. The king, mothers, children, soldiers, Sun, Moon, and blood cannot be understood by assigning the entire scene one undivided meaning.
Herod connects the image with biblical massacre, but the bath and its operative interpretation belong to this alchemical exposition. The author’s explicit statement that he does not mean human blood is essential evidence for the way he expects the figure to be read.
Use in the book
The new exposition begins on 36r, scan 97b, and continues on 36v, scan 98, with Herod’s cruelty compared with a series of violent fables. Some names and narrative combinations are difficult. They are retained as this witness’s transmitted comparisons. Six soldiers are divided into pairs: two kill children, two receive their blood, and two pour it into a large bath in which Phoebus and spouse or sister are washed and renewed.225
On 37r, scan 99, the author directly warns that the philosopher does not mean human blood. The emblem is not to be taken merely as it appears, without preparation. Blood means mercurial, sulfurous, or metallic spirits. Vulcan’s bathing of the Sun to remove leprosy is compared with biblical healing in water, though the source combines Naaman and the stirred pool. The explicit physical interpretation controls the scene’s use.226
The king’s golden diadem and throne signify sulfur of gold, the principal substance and foundation of the work. His purple robe signifies quicksilver’s outward color clothing the royal spirit. The costume is also said to mark the figure’s inventor as the Jewish philosopher. The author therefore uses the same visible detail both for a material relation and for an attributed cultural origin.
On 38r, scan 101, the children are the seven parts of sulfur, formed from vitriol’s pure substance; their blood is called the metallic spirit of perfect bodies. Blood and milk supply an analogy of nourishment. Sulfur is nourished within the mother by red vitriol’s spirit, then reared through frequent imbibitions and finally strengthened by a metallic body through fermentation. The maternal scene is part of a developmental sequence.
On 38v, scan 102, the armed soldiers signify mercurial spirit’s dissolving power and the extraction of Venus’s true tincture. Their number corresponds to the children when the king is counted. Two mothers signify two kinds of sulfur. The three pairs mark mercury’s quantity as well as the effects and properties of the work. Numerical arrangement and functional difference are expressly connected.
On 39r, scan 103, the functions are completed. The killing pair signifies dissolution and calcination; another pair receives tinctures and the medium carrying them; the last pair expresses the carrier of tinctures and souls by pouring blood into the vessel. The different persons display substances contained in the matter: sulfur’s body, golden and metallic sulfur, sulfur’s dissolving spirit, and mercury’s spirit represented by the weapons. The explanation is more precise than a general statement that everything in the scene is mercury.
The passage also links the emblem to Adonis, Osiris, and several Venuses. Those comparisons extend the same vocabulary of dissolution, corruption, nourishment, and generation. The lexicon’s related entries provide those further contexts while this essay keeps the bath’s differentiated actions in view.
Places to read
- Manuscript 36r · Scan 97The new massacre exposition begins on the same side as preceding prose.
- Manuscript 36v · Scan 98The king commands the three pairs of soldiers and the renewing bath.
- Manuscript 37r · Scan 99Human blood is expressly excluded from the intended material sense.
- Manuscript 38r · Scan 101The children, vitriol, nourishment, and imbibition are explained.
- Manuscript 38v · Scan 102The soldiers and two mothers mark powers, quantities, and kinds of sulfur.
- Manuscript 39r · Scan 103The three pairs’ functions and the different substances are distinguished.
Translation
Herod follows Hérode. Blood, soldiers, and bath retain sang, soldats, and baignoire while the prose gives their physical meanings. The translation does not suppress the initial description or omit the author’s explicit explanation that human blood is not meant.
The source’s Phoebus, Sun, Moon, spouse, sister, and several sulfur designations are followed in their immediate sentences. The Naaman-and-pool combination is preserved with a note identifying the different biblical narratives. This keeps the adapted comparison distinct from the biblical wording.
Hérode
Attested: H001-S098. The king introduces the massacre emblem.
sang
Attested: H001-S098; H001-S099; H001-S101. Blood receives an explicit metallic interpretation and a nourishing role.
soldats
Attested: H001-S098; H001-S102; H001-S103. The soldiers’ differentiated actions express operative functions.
baignoire
Attested: H001-S098; H001-S102. The bath receives the blood for the renewing action.
Source note
Compare Matthew 2:16–18 for Herod’s massacre. The three paired actions and the renewing bath are features of this manuscript’s emblem and physical interpretation.
Compare 2 Kings 5:10–14 for Naaman in the Jordan and John 5:2–9, with its textual tradition of the stirred pool, for the separate healing narrative. The witness combines them on scan 99.