Vessel as sepulchre

Meaning

A vessel is called a sepulchre when it encloses the subject during putrefaction. Burial and resurrection make a temporal sequence intelligible; they do not command bodily burial or literal death of the operator.

II.4.21 explains the resulting resurrection through removal of corruption and fixation. The material's inner agency works with assisting external fire, and its proper substance is not annihilated. The enclosing vessel supplies the image's setting, not a complete apparatus specification. Its role should not be confused with the particular helmet-shaped vessel described later in the Jason account, where different local restrictions apply.

The English retains the comparative sepulchral wording and the subsequent natural explanation. It does not insert a literal theological resurrection into the vessel or infer its construction from the metaphor alone.