From the book
The Sophic Hydrolith, Water Stone of the Wise
Anonymous and companion authors · Diotimos Editions · 2026
Browse this book’s lexicon →Orientation
At a Glance
- The wordThe middle is an appointed position between highest and lowest in the main treatise’s account of its hidden matter.
- In the Sophic HydrolithThe unit begins by reporting what philosophers attribute to the thing: unlimited power, divine force, and a spirit of truth hidden from the world.
- In this editionThe English “appointed as the middle” preserves a positional designation rather than replacing it with the theological title “mediator.”
- A place to readThe preceding descriptive chain uses heavenly-spirit language, which should not erase the next unit’s neither-heavenly-nor-hellish qualification.
Meaning
The middle is an appointed position between highest and lowest in the main treatise’s account of its hidden matter. The word is relational: it tells where the described body stands in an ordered field, not what modern substance it is. “Mediation” is an English access term for that relation, not a second attested technical German noun supplied by the passage.
The surrounding description combines spiritual substance with an airy, pure and glorious body. Neither “spiritual” nor “body” should be made to cancel the other. The matter’s intermediate status is expressed through this conjunction of registers rather than by a simple opposition between a material object and an immaterial idea.
Use in the book
The unit begins by reporting what philosophers attribute to the thing: unlimited power, divine force, and a spirit of truth hidden from the world. Knowledge of it requires prompting by the Holy Spirit or instruction from those who know it. Its power is said to be present everywhere, yet its full perfection is found only in this one thing. The intermediate body is thus described after a distinction between distributed power and concentrated perfection.
The text then calls the spiritual substance neither heavenly nor hellish, but an airy body placed between highest and lowest. This should remain as printed, even though neighbouring descriptive passages use heavenly language. The accumulation of names and qualifications is not a rigorously standardized vocabulary that a lexicographer may smooth without loss.
Its rank is also contrasted with human estimation. It is the most choice and precious thing beneath heaven, yet the uncomprehending regard it as the least and as rejected. Many seek, few find; all see, fewer recognize. Mediation is therefore embedded in an account of concealed value and failed recognition, not merely a diagram of cosmic levels. The unit supplies no warrant for turning this middle into a specifically identified laboratory solvent or a named person.
Places to read
- Part II: matter and the work · unit 4The preceding descriptive chain uses heavenly-spirit language, which should not erase the next unit’s neither-heavenly-nor-hellish qualification.
- Part II: matter and the work · unit 5The airy pure body occupies the middle between high and low.
Translation
The English “appointed as the middle” preserves a positional designation rather than replacing it with the theological title “mediator.” That is important because the same volume also speaks extensively about Christ, but this immediate clause concerns the described philosophical substance. The paired “neither heavenly nor hellish” remains explicit in the translation. The shifts between “they say,” the summary description and judgments of uncomprehending observers should likewise remain visible: not every clause is an independent editorial affirmation.
Attested forms
mittel zwischen den höhsten vnd vndersten