From the book
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Heinrich Khunrath · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe p. 106 margin tells Artists to seek before all things catholic Magnesia and its Nature-conforming solution; everything else will then fall to them.
- In KhunrathPage 105 has stressed recognition of the first matter, and p. 106 adds knowing how to resolve and purify it into the flowing pri-material fountain.
- In this editionTranslate the actual inserted objects, Magnesia and its solution, rather than restoring the gospel's familiar wording.
- A reading distinctionThis injunction shares a page with “Wash and be clean,” but the two glosses are separately printed and perform different applications.
Meaning
The p. 106 margin tells Artists to seek before all things catholic Magnesia and its Nature-conforming solution; everything else will then fall to them. The familiar scriptural cadence is adapted to the two requirements being joined in the body.
Use in the book
Page 105 has stressed recognition of the first matter, and p. 106 adds knowing how to resolve and purify it into the flowing pri-material fountain. The marginal exhortation therefore does not say that naming the subject alone completes the Art. It coordinates recognition and the initial right treatment as the ground from which further works depend.
The promise also orders desire. Seeking the principal ground comes before chasing derivative tinctures, elixirs and particulars. The body immediately identifies the two hidden things as the foundation of those results, so the “all else” is not an unrestricted promise of every possible worldly wish.
The modern note identifies Matthew 6:33 behind the cadence. Khunrath prints the adapted command itself without a corresponding chapter reference in this margin.
Places to read
- 1599 p. 105Recognition of the catholic first matter opens the summary
- 1599 p. 106The knowledge of nature-conforming resolution supplies its second requirement
- 1599 p. 106 · marginThe seek-first adaptation orders the Artist’s pursuit
Translation in this edition
Translate the actual inserted objects, Magnesia and its solution, rather than restoring the gospel's familiar wording. The adaptation is the evidence for its use in this treatise.
Source note
This injunction shares a page with “Wash and be clean,” but the two glosses are separately printed and perform different applications.