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Main articles

Neighbour, alms and brotherly help

nehesten; nechsten; almosen; vnschedtlich (neighbour-directed conduct)

Neighbour-language includes a person in need, the recipient of alms, and the person who must not be harmed.

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 wordNeighbour-language includes a person in need, the recipient of alms, and the person who must not be harmed.
  • In the Sophic HydrolithAt the entrance to the main work, prayer asks for governance so that the eventual secret will serve divine honour and a needy neighbour’s improvement.
  • In this editionThe supplied German body in Part I: entrance and preparation · unit 6 reads vnschedtlich.
  • A place to readRight use is directed towards divine honour and the improvement of a needy neighbour.

Meaning

Neighbour-language includes a person in need, the recipient of alms, and the person who must not be harmed. The verbs and phrases distinguish benefit, assistance, support and service. Charity is therefore not merely a benevolent inward attitude: the main treatise specifies how the art’s alleged benefits should be used.

Vnschedtlich means harmless or non-injurious in its explicit relation to the neighbour. It belongs to the first part’s description of the truthful, patient and regenerated learner. The Via adds a polemical negative counterpart: hatred, envy and ill will corrupt instruction by hiding truth and causing others’ loss. These moral terms qualify relationships between teachers and seekers, not only uses of finished wealth.

Use in the book

At the entrance to the main work, prayer asks for governance so that the eventual secret will serve divine honour and a needy neighbour’s improvement. The completion passage repeats the duty as almsgiving. The third part then locates brotherly help beside honourable, quiet self-maintenance. The gift is not portrayed as licence for luxury or endless accumulation.

Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 47 makes service a test of professed love: boasting of love without serving the neighbour in good works is vain. Yet the same unit insists that works do not precede faith or make it good. They follow faith as fruit follows a good tree, and salvation is attributed to faith alone. Both sides matter. The obligation of charity cannot be omitted, but neither can it be converted into a means of earning regeneration.

The Via’s charge against misleading authors is that unnecessarily burdensome teaching ruins followers and violates the command to love the neighbour as oneself. In its account of elemental terms, even the names mercury and sulphur can be attributed to envy when they misdirect readers towards ordinary substances. Its conclusion then presents the writer’s own instruction as coming from a plain, faithful heart. That is a claimed contrast between harmful and helpful teaching; it does not independently verify the writer’s accusation against every predecessor.

Places to read

  1. Part I: entrance and preparation · unit 4Right use is directed towards divine honour and the improvement of a needy neighbour.
  2. Part I: entrance and preparation · unit 6The learner must be harmless towards the neighbour as part of the description of a new person.
  3. Part II: matter and the work · unit 23Completion is followed by thanksgiving and alms for those in need.
  4. Part III: benefits and their rank · unit 6The gift sustains quiet livelihood and brotherly aid rather than ostentation.
  5. Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 47Service to the neighbour manifests love, while good works follow rather than cause faith.
  6. Way of Truth · unit 6The Via accuses sophists of violating neighbour-love by leading followers into poverty.
  7. Way of Truth · unit 15Envious naming is presented as a cause of misleading technical vocabulary.
  8. Way of Truth · unit 35The writer closes by professing sincere good intention towards his reader.

Translation

The supplied German body in Part I: entrance and preparation · unit 6 reads vnschedtlich. Modern note n34 instead discusses a different form, vnsetzlich, while explaining the translation ‘harmless’. This is an annotation/body mismatch, not permission to replace the body’s reading. The source-form index therefore retains vnschedtlich, and ‘Harmlessness’ is provided as a separate English lookup. Elsewhere the English preserves ‘alms’, ‘brotherly assistance’ and ‘serve’, allowing positive help and non-harm to remain distinct.

Attested forms

dürfftigen nehesten; dürfftigen almosen; dürfftigen nechsten; brüderliche hülffreichung; beförderung; dem nächsten nicht dienet; haß vnd neid; Liebe deinen Nechsten als dich selber; mißgunst; Abgünstigen; getrewen hertzen; meine es gut mit dir; vnschedtlich; dem nehesten