Jupiter, Juno and celestial order · Lexicon

From the book

The Manly Hall Manuscript Collection, Volume I

Attributed to Abraham the Jew · Diotimos Editions · 2026

Orientation

At a Glance

The wordJupiter names a celestial father and ordering power, associated with pure air and, in the metallic correspondences, tin. Juno appears as the sender of Hercules’s serpents and the figure replaced by a cloud in Ixion’s union.
In the manuscriptThe figures explain Mercury’s origin, Pallas’s birth, celestial impressions, and the relations among pure and impure material natures. Jupiter can also join the victorious sulfurous spirit that overcomes monsters.
TranslationThe edition retains the manuscript’s genealogies and combinations rather than imposing one consistent mythological family tree on every passage.
A place to readManuscript 33r–34r, scans 89–91: pure air explains Jupiter as Mercury’s father, while Mercury’s excessive terrestrial fire prevents reception of his impression.

Meaning

Jupiter gives a personal form to elevated origin and governing action. In the Mercury exposition his fatherhood is explained by the purest substance of air and the gods' serene dwelling above disturbances. His thunderbolt and scepter express powers that Mercury seeks but cannot simply seize. The celestial relation therefore involves fitness to receive an impression, not only physical distance from the ground.

Juno contributes different relations to this explanatory practice. The serpents she sends to the infant Hercules become mutually destructive mercurial and vitriolic principles. The cloud substituted for her beside Ixion becomes the Centaurs' divided nature. She is not explicitly assigned one universal material equivalent in these passages. Her narrative position supplies the particular relation that the author wants to explain.

The manuscript also limits the theological use of Jupiter's name. At 52r, scan 131, it recalls the saying that everything was full of Jupiter, then says that the ancients took the figure for the thing itself and did not recognize the Creator. The created image and the creating divinity must remain distinct. This qualification matters wherever the planetary god is used to express a real natural power.¹⁹³

Use in the book

The early weapons catalogue at 10v, scan 36, says Vulcan caused Mercury and Pallas to emerge from Jupiter's head by striking it. The manuscript's grouping is retained, although the action's immediate purpose is to explain striking as corruption and dissolution. Juno's cradle serpents follow, demonstrating the opposed powers of mercury and sulfur rather than a family quarrel alone.

At 32r Mercury would steal Jupiter's thunderbolt and scepter. At 33r his fatherhood is explained by pure air, while the author's mother-name for Mercury is matter. At 34r the attempted theft is checked: Mercury is swollen with a fire too terrestrial and thick to receive Jupiter's impression. The comparison distinguishes the first mixtures in the heavens from operations in the earth's center. Both are called meteorizing, but their relation depends on a suitable recipient.

Pallas's birth returns at 43r, scan 113. The goddess is sulfur or earth conceived in Jupiter's brain, directly explained as the belly or vapor of mercury and the head of the alembic. Her origin is solar and vitriolic sulfur united through mercury. The celestial father-image and the vessel's upper region cooperate in one explanation; the passage should not be expanded into an assertion that all celestial air is literally alembic vapor.

At 45v, scan 118, Jupiter's thunderbolt represses Typhon and sends him into Etna. The author identifies Hercules, Perseus and Jupiter as the fixed spirit of sulfur that coagulates and fixes everything. The god here carries the victorious agent's force, as the other heroes do. In the dedicated Hercules section Juno's serpents signify first mortification, while at 50r, scan 127, Ixion's cloud and the Centaurs explain bodies participating in pure and impure natures. The useful interpretation depends on purification by Hercules.

The hierarchy at 55r, scan 137, gives Jupiter's fourth sphere the functions and organs of vital, animal, sensory and nutritive spirits and respiration, constituting accidental form. Scan 140 begins the parallel in which tin performs among metals what Jupiter performs above. The later spirits of niter claim Jupiter's dominion by raising storms and lightning. The repeated name thus ranges across generation, bodily function and contested meteorological power; its exact sense is supplied by the accompanying operation.¹⁹⁴

Places to read

Manuscript 10v · Scan 36Jupiter’s head and Juno’s serpents enter the interpretation of striking and reciprocal material powers.
Manuscript 32r, 33r, 34r · Scans 87, 89, 912 3Mercury’s fatherhood, attempted theft and inability to receive the celestial impression.
Manuscript 43r · Scan 113Pallas’s birth is explained through the union of sulfurs and the alembic’s head.
Manuscript 45v, 50r · Scans 118, 1272Victory over Typhon and the cloud substituted for Juno explain fixation and mixed purity.
Manuscript 52r · Scan 131The author distinguishes a created figure from its divine Creator.
Manuscript 55r, 56v, 61r · Scans 137, 140, 1492 3Jupiter’s sphere, bodily functions, tin and the contested dominion of storm powers.

Translation

Jupiter and Juno render Jupiter and Junon. The edition preserves Pallas as a name where the source uses it, rather than automatically changing it to Minerva. Foudre is thunderbolt, and impression remains impression in the discussion of what a material recipient can receive.

The term 'animal spirits' in scan 137 concerns bodily functions, as the adjoining sensory, nutritive and respiratory terms show. It does not mean a population of animal-shaped beings. The hierarchy's numbering proceeds from the first mobile and starry heaven, so Jupiter's fourth place should be read within the manuscript's stated count rather than substituted with another astronomical ordering.

Jupiter

Attested: H001-S089; H001-S091; H001-S137; H001-S140. Father from pure air, celestial impression and planetary order.

Junon

Attested: H001-S036; H001-S120b; H001-S127. Sender of cradle serpents and the figure represented by Ixion’s substituted cloud.

quatrième sphère de Jupiter

Attested: H001-S137. The sphere assigned bodily functions and accidental form.

foudre et son sceptre

Attested: H001-S091. The powers Mercury attempts to steal but cannot receive in its dense terrestrial condition.

Source note

Scan 131 expressly criticizes taking the figure for the thing itself. The natural or celestial meaning of Jupiter’s name is therefore not an unqualified identification of the created power with the Creator.

Scan 137’s animal, sensory, nutritive and respiratory spirits are functional terms in an account of accidental form. Their use differs from the manuscript’s discussions of individual natural spirits and demons.