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 wordReichthumb is wealth; Gut vnd Geldt specifies possessions and money.
- In the Sophic HydrolithThe prologue’s history of the patriarchs includes great wealth among the benefits supposedly inherited from Adam’s secret.
- In this editionIn Part III: benefits and their rank · unit 14 the opening construction is awkward, but the following argument and note n79 establish the rejection of a merely worldly motive without denying wealth’s goodness in itself.
- A place to readThe main prologue attributes health, long life and riches to the patriarchs’ inherited secret.
Meaning
Reichthumb is wealth; Gut vnd Geldt specifies possessions and money. The main treatise both praises material benefits and warns against treating them as the purpose of the art. The contrast is not a simple contradiction between ‘money is good’ and ‘money is bad’: the author expressly distinguishes a gift’s nature from its misuse.
The riddle’s promise to become rich ‘here and there’ belongs to the conjunction of recognition and the mediating word. The wording is expansive but not a precise division into specified accounts or assets. The closing gold-making poem introduces another issue: apparent possession can fail the test of permanence.
Use in the book
The prologue’s history of the patriarchs includes great wealth among the benefits supposedly inherited from Adam’s secret. That is an authorial transmission-claim, not a documented explanation of ancient fortunes. The lowly-matter riddle then places riches on the far side of correct recognition: what people disregard may possess the greatest worth. Mere proximity to it does not make them wealthy.
Part III: benefits and their rank · unit 14 attacks pursuit of temporal honour, riches and pleasure as the governing motive. It immediately prevents a blanket condemnation of wealth by calling it, in itself, a precious and glorious divine gift. The shameful misuse is what makes it destructive and obstructive to the true good. The surrounding logic therefore evaluates desire and application, not simply how much a person owns.
The epigram shifts from moral use to the problem of apparent success. Many people claim or practise gold-making yet do not become rich because the product does not remain fixed under trial. Its rapid disappearance exposes a missing accomplishment. The successful gold-maker is defined by permanence, not by an impressive initial colour or verbal claim. This does not independently establish that the book’s process makes gold; it tells the reader what distinction the poem insists upon before accepting that label.
Places to read
- Opening explanation · unit 3The main prologue attributes health, long life and riches to the patriarchs’ inherited secret.
- Part II: matter and the work · unit 6The riddle promises riches to the person who recognizes the lowly subject and possesses the mediating word.
- Part III: benefits and their rank · unit 14Temporal possessions and money are not evil in themselves, but their misuse obstructs the true good.
- Closing epigrams · unit 1The poem distinguishes apparent gold-making from a product that remains fixed under trial.
Translation
In Part III: benefits and their rank · unit 14 the opening construction is awkward, but the following argument and note n79 establish the rejection of a merely worldly motive without denying wealth’s goodness in itself. In Closing epigrams · unit 1 the German uses gelt, literally money, while the English says ‘gold’ in the testing context. Note n150 explicitly explains that contextual choice. Both points are retained rather than silently making the German read like a smoother modern economic maxim.
Attested forms
Reichthumb; reich werden hie vnd dort; Gut vnd Geldt; gelt nicht helt; Goldmacher