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 wordDistinguishing, dividing and confounding are the author’s hostile descriptions of contemporary theological disputation.
- In the Sophic HydrolithPart IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 25 begins with an image of supposed learned men wearing dark spectacles or sophistical masks.
- In this editionThe English renders permiscirens as “confounding,” keeping its negative argumentative role rather than the neutral “mixing” that would fit some material contexts.
- A place to readThe author attacks endless theological distinction and confusion over Christ’s natures through an anti-Aristotelian polemic.
Meaning
Distinguishing, dividing and confounding are the author’s hostile descriptions of contemporary theological disputation. The first two verbs need not always be pejorative in ordinary learned use, but here their accumulation and the claim that they never end make them objects of criticism. Permiscirens adds the charge of mixing or confounding what should be rightly understood.
The target is specific: disputation over the union of natures and communication of properties in Christ, conducted through foundations the author calls Aristotelian and ungrounded in Scripture. This is not a neutral survey of scholastic methods, and it should not be paraphrased as the entire volume’s rejection of every rational distinction.
Use in the book
Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 25 begins with an image of supposed learned men wearing dark spectacles or sophistical masks. Their problem is a way of seeing that obstructs the theological truth the author regards as well expressed in Scripture. He wishes their eyes opened rather than simply their vocabulary replaced.
The criticised disputations multiply distinctions, divisions and confusions concerning Christ. The author argues that even those unwilling to believe God’s Word could learn from the material conjunction already described, as though grasping it with their fingers. The chemical comparison is offered as a visible corrective to what he regards as misplaced academic abstraction.
His attack includes precepts concerning substance and accidents. That wording must remain attached to its theological polemic. Nature’s separate dialogue uses substantial and accidental form in its own exposition, and even explicitly distinguishes those senses from vessel shape. A blanket declaration that the book disallows such language would therefore misrepresent the collection.
The passage also cites Tertullian’s judgement about philosophers as forefathers of heretics, then withdraws from further treatment. The citation lends authority to the polemic; it does not independently identify all the contemporary opponents or establish the author’s confessional party. His own stated limit on further discussion is part of the passage’s rhetoric.
Places to read
- Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 25The author attacks endless theological distinction and confusion over Christ’s natures through an anti-Aristotelian polemic.
- Nature’s Demonstration to the Erring Alchemist · unit 10Nature distinguishes substantial or accidental form from the vessel’s shape and size; this separate dialogue is not the target of the Hydrolith’s theological polemic.
Translation
The English renders permiscirens as “confounding,” keeping its negative argumentative role rather than the neutral “mixing” that would fit some material contexts. It translates de substantia & accidentib. as concerning substance and accidents, without expanding it into a specific school syllabus. The edition must preserve the charge as this speaker’s claim: calling the opponents “supposed learned men” or “sophists” is historical attribution, not an objective classification supplied by the lexicon.
Attested forms
distinguirens; diuidirens; permiscirens; de substantia & accidentib.