From the book
Candida Phoenix Philosophica
Anonymous · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordOphir is the place-name used in the objection from Solomon’s gold imports.
- In the CandidaThe author denies that importing gold proves an inability to make gold or ignorance of the art.
- TranslationNo modern geographical identification is imposed on the biblical name.
- A place to readRead the opening of Chapter Twelve, pp. 199–200.
Meaning
Ophir enters the Candida as a premise in an argument, not as a destination in a geographical account. Opponents of the Hermetic art appeal to Solomon’s having gold brought from Ophir. If he had been able to make gold, they reason, he would not have imported it. The narrator contests that connection. The place-name matters because it marks the acquisition of already created gold from elsewhere.
The reply distinguishes obtaining a good from possessing a method that could produce it. A person may legitimately use what God has created even if he knows another way of acquiring the same kind of benefit. Solomon, as a wise ruler, would understand that divine goods should not be left unused. Import and possible art are therefore compatible in the narrator’s argument.
Use in the book
A second inference is rejected at the same time. Even if Solomon did not practise the art, it would not follow that he did not know or possess it. Governmental duties might have prevented exercise, and contemplation of wisdom could be preferable to manual work. The Ophir objection consequently fails twice: importing does not prove inability, and nonexercise does not prove ignorance.
The distinction is particularly useful because it keeps the author’s answer from becoming a claim he does not need to establish. He need not prove that every shipment was unnecessary or that Solomon actually maintained a laboratory. He seeks to show that the opponents’ historical premise does not entail their conclusion. The defence concerns validity of inference before it concerns the reconstruction of a king’s activities.
The chapter then gives positive reasons for possible Solomonic knowledge, including Wisdom 7 and an alchemical interpretation of Urim and Thummim. Those belong to Solomon and wisdom rather than to a topography of Ophir. The final paragraph also says the art’s real foundation in nature matters more than determining whether this or that predecessor possessed it.
The lexicon therefore leaves Ophir geographically unlocated. The Candida’s local argument does not require a modern identification, and supplying one would introduce a disputed external question without helping to explain the reasoning. Its gold is important as a created treasure legitimately brought into use, not as a chemically distinctive ingredient for the philosophical work.132
Places to read
- Part II · II.199.1The opponents’ argument from Solomon’s imported gold.
- Part II · II.199.2The explicit denial of both inferences and the appeal to use of created goods.
- Part II · II.200.1; II.201.22Alternative purposes and the eventual limit placed on the historical question.
Translation
Ophir remains the biblical proper name. “Had gold brought” preserves the mediated acquisition; it need not be turned into a claim that Solomon personally visited the place.
“Does not follow” is the central logical expression of the reply. The passage defeats a purported entailment rather than proving the opposite historical event.
Connections
Solomon and wisdom gives the larger chapter’s theological and intellectual argument. Definition and demonstration and Knowledge and practice explain the distinctions between an observed action, an ability, a body of knowledge, and its exercise.
Gold ordinary concerns an existing noble material. Gold living concerns a different role within the art; the imported Ophir gold must not automatically be called living philosophical gold.
Cautions
No location, route, or geological source is established here.
The reply is not proof that Solomon actually manufactured gold.
Ophir
Ophir — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.199.1; II.199.2.
Source note
II.199.2 presents the two invalid inferences separately. Keeping both is necessary: the first concerns ability to make gold, the second concerns knowledge or possession of the art despite possible nonpractice.