David

Meaning

David has two connected roles in Part Four. Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 3 includes him among Old Testament figures that make heavenly things easier to conceive. Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 4 then names him as the royal prophet speaking through God's Spirit in Psalm 118 about the rejected stone becoming the cornerstone. Christ's application of that figure to himself and the apostles' repetition extend the chain of testimony. The English preserves the attribution of inspired speech rather than making David the inventor of an alchemical emblem. His name supports a scriptural interpretation of the stone, not a claim in these passages that he practised the material art.