Solomon and wisdom

Use in the book

Chapter Twelve begins with the opponents’ appeal to Ophir. The narrator answers that God’s created goods should not remain unused merely because a king knows an alternative art. He then considers royal business: many matters of government could have kept Solomon from practical exercise. This is a possible explanation, not proof that it was the actual reason. The cautious structure should be retained. He is defeating a purported disproof rather than documenting each step of Solomon’s life.

The argument next gives positive grounds for attributing knowledge. Solomon is the wisest king; the art is said to have been known among the Jews; Urim and Thummim are interpreted as the philosophical white and red; and Wisdom 7:17 is cited for knowledge of the world’s constitution and the powers of the elements. These grounds combine scriptural authority with the author’s alchemical interpretation of biblical objects. Their different evidential kinds should not be flattened into a single historical demonstration.

The Urim-and-Thummim assertion is especially consequential. At II.201.1 the narrator speaks strongly, saying they were nothing other than the philosophical white and red. In the second letter, II.224.1, a similar interpretation is called highly probable and related to ruby-like crystals produced in the art. The two formulations belong to different speakers and have different degrees of expressed certainty. Reading them together shows both the importance and the interpretive character of the identification.¹³⁷

The chapter finally reduces the practical importance of settling the biographical question. If the art is true and its foundation in nature has been established, the reader need not be consumed by whether a particular predecessor possessed or practised it. Contemplation of God’s works is itself a worthy result. Solomon therefore begins as disputed evidence and ends as an example of why wisdom should not be reduced to acquisitive practice.

That shift connects this chapter with the author’s own guarded self-presentation. He claims benefit chiefly in medicine, conceals his name, and withholds individual manipulations. The reader repeatedly encounters a distinction between what someone knows, what he performs, what he publicly reports, and what ends he chooses to pursue. Solomon is one distinguished case within that larger discipline of inference.

Places to read

1. Part II · II.199.1; II.199.22The Ophir objection and the distinction between importing and inability.
2. Part II · II.200.1Wisdom above wealth and the possible demands of government.
3. Part II · II.201.1; II.201.22The positive scriptural and alchemical grounds, followed by the limit of the question.
4. Part II · II.224.1The second letter’s qualified interpretation of the philosophical white and red.

Translation

Weißheit is “wisdom,” not merely technical information. Wissenschafft in the surrounding argument can mean knowledge of the art and its grounds rather than modern institutional science.

The book cites Wisdom in a Solomonic voice. The lexicon reports that usage without turning the attribution into an independently established historical authorship of the biblical book.¹³⁸

Connections

Ophir concerns the source of imported gold within the objection; Solomon and wisdom concerns the validity of the inference drawn from that import. Keeping the entries distinct helps preserve the difference between a biblical place-name and a theory of intellectual achievement.

Nobility and perfection explains why gold and precious stones can be honoured without making wealth the highest good. In this chapter wisdom explicitly outranks the riches to which the art may lead.

Cautions

The Candida’s reasoning leaves open a distinction between Solomon’s knowledge and his practice. Do not summarize it as proof that he manufactured gold.

The identification of Urim and Thummim with alchemical white and red belongs to this text’s interpretation. It should remain attributed.

König Salomone

König Salomone — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.199.1.

Weißheit

Weißheit — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.200.1.

Urim und Thumim

Urim und Thumim — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.201.1.