From the book
Candida Phoenix Philosophica
Anonymous · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordLabour is sustained practical work; patience is the steadiness needed to carry it through.
- In the CandidaThe author opposes both premature abandonment and decades of work pursued from false theory.
- TranslationPatience is read with knowledge, resources and purpose, rather than as an unconditional command to persist.
- A place to readII.188.1–II.193.1, pp. 188–193.
Meaning
Patience belongs to the qualifications of the worker. It is a disposition to remain steady through difficulty, to resist unsettling talk and to allow a natural operation its required time. The author joins it to subtle understanding and a steadfast mind. The desired practitioner is neither easily diverted nor merely stubborn: the prior account of nature and matter is supposed to give the work its direction.
Labour is also a mode of attention. Reading and meditation bring a person toward theory and recognition of the matter, while manual work may reveal the sense of obscure statements. The worker is expected to learn through doing. Patience allows that learning to develop; it is not simply waiting while an automatic process runs.
The book's frequent criticisms of wasted years make the term more discriminating than it may first appear. The author regards mistaken theory as a cause of mistaken labour and acknowledges that people may spend decades fruitlessly. Duration alone gives no evidence that an operation is correct. A lexicon entry on patience must therefore include the book's account of error, not merely collect its exhortations to perseverance.
Use in the book
At II.188.2, the worker's composure is threatened by sophistry, fraud and discouraging accounts of people who have spent thirty, forty or fifty years without success. The author urges steadiness against such influences. The next passage explains why an unprepared person is especially vulnerable: uncertainty leads him to change procedures, abandon the work and condemn the art. Patience depends on an understanding sufficiently settled to interpret setbacks (II.189.1).
The practical discussion then turns to time, distraction and subsistence. A person burdened with other business cannot readily maintain the meditation and work envisaged. Funds may run out before completion. Labour therefore requires a workable setting, not merely an admirable temperament. Cheap matter and moderate instruments do not remove the ordinary expense of living (II.192.2–II.193.1).
The natural image of time appears elsewhere in the book's account of maturation. Time and patience belong to processes whose effects cannot simply be commanded at once. Yet this does not mean the author supplies a dependable timetable for the reader. Exact manipulations remain withheld, and the rainwater argument is presented as guidance toward the right beginning rather than a calendar of guaranteed success.119
The closing instruction gives the ethical and intellectual boundary: read and reflect, or leave the fire alone (II.243.1). The same author who recommends patience also asks for restraint before work begins. His account of perseverance is coherent only when connected to matter, theory, financial prudence and the Christian ends of the undertaking.
Places to read
- Part II · II.170.2Time and patience within the wider account of natural change.
- Part II · II.188.1; II.188.2; II.189.123Labour as learning and the steadfast disposition of the worker.
- Part II · II.192.2; II.193.12Freedom from distraction, adequate means and the cost of subsistence.
- Part II · II.243.1The final warning to reflect before working.
Translation
Gedultig is patient; standhafftig Gemüth denotes a steadfast disposition or mind. Labour is preferred for the practical work because the source treats it as sustained exertion with an intellectual and ethical dimension. The phrase Zeit und Gedult is preserved as time and patience, rather than converted into a modern technical duration.
Cautions
These exhortations belong to a historical discipline whose successful outcome the author asserts. They should not be read as a present recommendation to repeat hazardous operations or continue spending money on an unverified process.
gedultig
gedultig — patient. II.188.2.
standhafftig Gemüth
standhafftig Gemüth — steadfast disposition. II.188.2.
Zeit und Gedult
Zeit und Gedult — time and patience. II.170.2.
Source note
II.193.1 expressly excepts the necessities of life from its statement that the art requires little expense. The cost of subsistence remains a condition of sustained labour even where matter is inexpensive.