DiotimosReading Desk

Main articles

Figure, parable, and likeness

Gleichnus / Vorbildt / Allegoria / Parabeln

This family covers parable, figure, likeness, prefiguration, allegory and veiled wording.

From the book

The Sophic Hydrolith, Water Stone of the Wise

Anonymous and companion authors · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordThis family covers parable, figure, likeness, prefiguration, allegory and veiled wording.
  • In the Sophic HydrolithThe introduction defends inherited concealment as a way of preserving the art while preventing its greedy misuse.
  • In this editionThe English renders contrefetisch vorbildt as “faithful image and prefiguration,” and contrafactur as “likeness,” avoiding a false association with fraudulent counterfeiting.
  • A place to readVeiled teaching is defended as preservation with moral restriction.

Meaning

This family covers parable, figure, likeness, prefiguration, allegory and veiled wording. They do not all perform the same task. A figure may make difficult truth accessible through familiar experience; figurative names may conceal a secret from the unworthy; obscure language may also be attacked as deceit that ruins learners. The volume contains all three evaluations.

Vorbildt and contrafactur concern a represented likeness or prefiguration, not necessarily a counterfeit in the modern pejorative sense. The main treatise calls its spiritual comparison an Allegoria and the earthly work a faithful figure of the heavenly cornerstone. By contrast, “sophistical words” and “veiled words” may describe deliberately obstructive language, depending on speaker and context.

Use in the book

The introduction defends inherited concealment as a way of preserving the art while preventing its greedy misuse. Many names and parables are said to point towards one matter and aim. This defence does not deny that readers become lost: the author’s limited disclosure is intended to help sincere pupils.

The four-part plan promises a spiritual allegory. Part Four begins with a scriptural parable declaration, then explains how God teaches through things familiar to earthly life. Adam’s earth, Abraham’s stars and dust, seeds, leaven, a vineyard and a feast exemplify different intelligible relations. The author argues that Christ, the hardest mystery to comprehend, can therefore also be presented through a visible, tangible likeness in Nature. He then places the earthly and heavenly stones side by side, claiming harmony according to their descriptions. The comparison is an asserted interpretive method, not evidence that the two stones are materially identical.

Part III: benefits and their rank · unit 13 distinguishes seeing earthly figures now from heavenly enjoyment “in deed and truth” hereafter. That contrast gives the earthly work a provisional revelatory role without making its visible figure the final object of desire.

The companions complicate the defence of veiling. Nature’s alchemist complains that books contradict one another and twist words into figurative sayings, leaving him unable to learn. The Summary, however, openly explains dragons and serpents as representations of its two seeds. The Way of Truth initially says the true art is not described in books without parables, then accuses the ancients of adorning colour statements with words that mislead ordinary readers. At its close the narrator claims to have given truth without fables or parables. That is his profession of plain dealing; it does not erase the images he himself has used.

Places to read

  1. Opening explanation · unit 4Veiled teaching is defended as preservation with moral restriction.
  2. Opening explanation · unit 5Many names and parables are claimed to point to one matter and aim.
  3. Opening explanation · unit 10The fourth part is announced as a spiritual allegory and faithful prefiguration.
  4. Part III: benefits and their rank · unit 13Earthly figure is distinguished from future heavenly enjoyment in truth.
  5. Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 1The scriptural opening authorises parabolic speech.
  6. Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 2Familiar scriptural figures explain difficult divine matters.
  7. Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 3Christ is presented through visible, tangible likenesses.
  8. Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 7The two stones are compared according to their descriptions.
  9. Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 14The alchemist complains that contradictory figurative books obstruct learning.
  10. Philosophical Summary · unit 2Dragons and serpents are explicitly interpreted as figures.
  11. Way of Truth · unit 2The Way says the art is not described without parables while condemning false recipes.
  12. Way of Truth · unit 12Veiled colour language is accused of misleading readers.
  13. Way of Truth · unit 35The narrator claims to give plain truth without fables or parables.

Translation

The English renders contrefetisch vorbildt as “faithful image and prefiguration,” and contrafactur as “likeness,” avoiding a false association with fraudulent counterfeiting. “In deed and truth” preserves the temporal contrast with earthly figurative seeing. The Way’s opening statement about unavoidable parables and closing claim to write without them should both remain available: reducing the work to a uniform rejection of metaphor would obscure its own rhetorical tension. The reading list therefore separates the defence, explanation, complaint and repudiation rather than presenting all figurative speech as one settled doctrine.

Attested forms

verblümbten worten; vermäntelt; parabeln; Sophistischen worten; verwechselten reden; contrefetisch vorbildt; jrdischer figürlicher weise; in der That vnd Warheit; Gleichnus; Gleichnussen; Fürbildungen; Vorbildt; leiblichen figur; contrafactur; Harmonia; parabolische Sententz; figuriret; Parabeln; verdäckten Worten; Fabeln; Allegoria