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 wordSeeking includes deliberate inquiry, examination of Scripture and the response's figurative searching or digging for treasure.
- In the Sophic HydrolithOpening explanation · unit 1 presents early investigators as observing creatures and trying to learn their powers, then searching for a restorative within nature.
- In this editionThe English keeps the response's contrast between 'could neither' in the past and 'must' now, along with 'not without' labour.
- A place to readDiligent observation and learning seek a preserving thing.
Meaning
Seeking includes deliberate inquiry, examination of Scripture and the response's figurative searching or digging for treasure. It is not identical with finding, and the sources repeatedly contrast widespread desire with rare or conditional attainment. The chosen field of inquiry and the means of guidance determine the word's force.
The same family can therefore describe the philosophers' natural investigation, a Christian search for the heavenly cornerstone, or the recipients' approach to an enigmatic mountain. It should not be converted into one literal itinerary or an instruction to excavate a real location.
Use in the book
Opening explanation · unit 1 presents early investigators as observing creatures and trying to learn their powers, then searching for a restorative within nature. Their desire is accompanied by labour and inquiry. The passage describes the beginning of a search rather than demonstrating the unrestricted success of everything they initially hoped for.
Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 9 gives the heavenly search an expressly named source: God's eternal Word and the Old and New Testaments. The one-yet-two formulation is interpreted in the passage itself through Scripture, not left as an unbounded numeric cipher. The command to examine and search is joined to testimony about Christ and to the image of the Word as a lamp for the path. This heavenly inquiry is not merely another way of looking for physical matter.
The First Response of 1661 first criticizes people who want treasure without labour and will not search where God has placed it. First Response · unit 8 adds a temporal condition: the mountain could not formerly be sought or found because the time had not come; now the worthy must find it, with their own diligence and effort. Effort remains necessary but is not presented as sufficient apart from the changed divine occasion.
First Response · unit 9 then redirects the search away from asking other people for a route and toward an unseen appointed guide, prayer and courage. The recipients are told that bodily weapons are unnecessary. This narrative describes a spiritualized path of guidance and trial, not enough geographical information to locate a mountain or evidence that the guide has a securely recoverable human identity.
Places to read
- Opening explanation · unit 1Diligent observation and learning seek a preserving thing.
- Part IV: the spiritual comparison · unit 9Seeking and searching name active inquiry in Scripture.
- First Response · unit 3The proper God-appointed place is neglected by those desiring easy riches.
- First Response · unit 8The narrative contrasts past inability before the appointed time with present necessity for the worthy.
- First Response · unit 9The mountain is to be found through a guide, not by asking human informants.
Translation
The English keeps the response's contrast between 'could neither' in the past and 'must' now, along with 'not without' labour. Those modal and temporal qualifications prevent seeking from becoming a universal guarantee of finding. In the main treatise it preserves 'in which alone' for the scriptural search, making the source's declared boundary visible rather than replacing it with a general recommendation to explore any tradition.
Attested forms
gesucht; betrachtet; zu lernen; zu erforschen; forschet; suchet; graben; suchen; weder gesucht noch finden können; gefunden werden muß; außzuspüren; zu finden