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 wordEclipse and armed riders express corruption, dissolution, volatility, and the removal of foreign qualities. The Euphrates supplies another image of matter resolved into water and spirits released through corruption.
- In the bookThe book moves from darkened luminaries and falling stars to white, red, and black horsemen, then to the four bound spirits and troops of fiery riders.
- TranslationThe English retains the witness’s three initial horsemen and its blending of the black rider with Death. The later troops and four spirits belong to a further apocalyptic comparison.
- A place to readRead 101r–v, scans 235–236, for the three riders’ physical meanings, and 105v–106v, scans 244–246, for the Euphrates and later troops.
Meaning
These images explain changes occurring through the work, rather than one substance with a permanent pictorial name. Eclipse can indicate a hidden divine light in the religious comparison and the corruption of solar sulfur in the physical account. Riders give actions, colors, weapons, and effects to different aspects of mercurial matter.
The sequence combines material interpretation with adapted biblical descriptions. A careful reading keeps the witness’s order and count while distinguishing a close scriptural parallel from the details the manuscript combines or changes.
Use in the book
On 96r, scan 225, darkened Sun, bloody Moon, and convulsed earth introduce the death-and-resurrection comparison. The incarnate Word’s light is described as suffering an eclipse without the divinity itself being affected. The following side gives the physical sense: entire solar eclipse signifies true corruption of solar sulfur, with gold’s sulfur and mercury becoming blacker than a raven. The lunar subject receives a bloody-red tincture through their dissolution and association. The source’s description of that Moon as a more fixed substance of gold is retained rather than corrected into ordinary silver.227
On 97r, scan 227, falling stars are particles of solar sulfur falling upon mercurial earth and into the work’s sea. Winds from four quarters signify varied mercurial vapors, filling the vessel’s upper part with little clouds. Kings and princes hiding in rocky hollows designate solar and lunar spirits. The religious catastrophe becomes an account of an enclosed subject’s corruption and movement.
On 98v, scan 230, mounted combat follows the peace of formerly opposed elements. Three riders appear: white with bow and crown, red with sword, and black with balance. The black rider is also called Death and followed by Hell. Revelation distinguishes the black horse from the subsequent pale horse and Death; the French witness combines details, and the source illustration likewise shows three mounted horsemen.228
On 101r, scan 235, the white horse signifies air and the rider mercury’s most volatile, fugitive, spiritual part. Its conquest is making fixed matter volatile and raising it toward the vessel’s head. The red horse expresses mercurial water’s fieriness; its sword expresses dissolving power. On 101v, scan 236, the black horse and balance display complete corruption. Successive imbibitions then whiten laton. The uncertain term acgor is retained as a reading difficulty, rather than being made into an identified substance by its position in the operation.229
On 105v, scan 244, the writer argues that the second work can be explained through troops of riders and asks about angels released from the Euphrates. Chemists’ sea is the dissolution and resolution of matter. On the next side the four spirits are pure metallic spirits chained in that river before corruption. Their release gives them destructive power. This is a distinct apocalyptic comparison from the initial three colored horsemen.
On 106r–v, scans 245–246, the spirits’ battles are compared with many mythological monsters. The target is the heterogeneous matter arriving in mercury through the elements’ original stain. Sulfurous vapors are represented by riders with fiery, sulfurous, and hyacinth breastplates, and by horses with lions’ heads and serpents’ tails. The slaughter signifies the extermination of foreign colors arising from foreign moisture, ending in whiteness when that moisture is consumed.230
The controlling relation is therefore operative: fixed matter is raised, bodies dissolve, corruption reaches completeness, imbibitions whiten, and foreign moisture and colors are removed. The violent figures give visible form to these changes. Reading them alongside their stated physical meanings preserves the author’s method without treating the images as an independent instruction to reproduce their literal violence.
Places to read
- Manuscript 96r · Scan 225Darkened luminaries and convulsed earth introduce a religious comparison.
- Manuscript 96v · Scan 226Solar eclipse is interpreted as sulfur’s corruption and blackening.
- Manuscript 97r · Scan 227Falling stars, winds, clouds, and hidden kings receive vessel-based meanings.
- Manuscript 98v · Scan 230Three riders combine the black horse and Death in this witness.
- Manuscript 101r · Scan 235White and red riders signify volatilization, fieriness, and dissolution.
- Manuscript 101v · Scan 236Black horse and balance signify complete corruption before whitening.
- Manuscript 105v · Scan 244Euphrates and liberated angels introduce matter’s resolved sea.
- Manuscript 106v · Scan 246The later troops signify sulfurous vapors and removal of foreign colors.
Translation
Riders and horsemen render cavaliers according to the sentence. Eclipse follows éclipse; Euphrates follows Euphrate. The English preserves the adapted biblical account and its material explanation rather than supplying a fourth rider to the witness.
The uncertain acgor remains qualified in the apparatus. Hyacinth is retained among the breastplate descriptors without identifying an unprovided modern color or mineral recipe. More fixed gold remains the source’s unusual lunar description. These decisions keep consequential evidence available for interpretation.
cavaliers
Attested: H001-S234; H001-S244; H001-S246. Riders appear in the questions about the figure and the second work.
éclipse
Attested: H001-S225; H001-S226. The term moves between the religious comparison and solar sulfur’s corruption.
Euphrate
Attested: H001-S244. The river’s bound angels receive a metallic-spirit interpretation.
Source note
Manuscript 96v, scan 226. The lunar subject is called a substance of more fixed gold. The companion edition retains the wording and notes its unusual character.
Compare Revelation 6:1–8. The manuscript’s scan 230 associates Death with the black horse and balance; its inserted rider illustration shows three mounted horsemen. The reading edition preserves both textual and visual evidence.
Manuscript 101v, scan 236. Acgor is uncertain in this witness. Its place beside complete substances and successive imbibitions does not establish an identification.
Compare Revelation 9:14–19 for the Euphrates angels and the later horsemen. The material meanings follow the French exposition, particularly scans 244–246.