From the book
Candida Phoenix Philosophica
Anonymous · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordSupernatural is a qualified designation whose local explanation concerns dependence on causes.
- In the CandidaThe elements as such and philosophical Mercury are distinguished from particular natures governed through subordinate causes.
- TranslationThe adjective is kept with its explicit qualification and is not treated as a synonym for immaterial.
- A place to readI.030.1, p. 30, and II.067.1, p. 67.
Meaning
The author first permits the designation supernatural spiritual Mercury in a carefully qualified answer. Properly and without qualification, he says, no nature acts of itself. Yet the uniform spirit can in its own manner and in a certain respect be called an efficient cause as regards mineral nature. With Basilius it can also be named supernatural spiritual Mercury. The limits surrounding the designation are part of its meaning.
The Second Part explains the causal reason. The elements, considered as elements, depend upon no subordinate cause. The author therefore says that our Mercury can rightly be called supernatural with Basilius. The word marks a place in his hierarchy of divine, universal and particular causation. It does not place the matter beyond creation or make it identical with God.
Use in the book
At I.030.1, the question concerns how a uniform spirit can preserve its nature while being capable of varied powers and properties. The answer requires philosophical rather than sophistical understanding. The qualified efficient-cause language allows an explanatory role in mineral nature while reserving unqualified agency to God. Removing the qualification would make the paragraph contradict its own governing claim.34
At II.067.1, the explanation follows the account of the universal Word and the distinction from particular subordinate causes. The powers of nature are said to be gathered in the one matter. The universal capacity, the strength of the subject and multiplication are connected in the argument. Supernatural is therefore not an ornamental intensifier meaning merely extremely powerful.
Another passage supplies a necessary counterweight. Gold-making by the Hermetic art is expressly called natural rather than supernatural at II.134.2. Art works within mineral nature and its established order. The adjective applied to Mercury in a specified causal respect should not be extended into a claim that every operation suspends that order or repeats creation from nothing.
The distinction also protects the created spirit from being confused with God the Holy Spirit. Spiritual Mercury remains within the book's material and created account. The author can use a religiously charged adjective, discuss received powers and affirm physical operations in the same passage. A reading that translates supernatural as simply nonphysical would lose those connections and the reason the author actually gives for the name.
Places to read
- Part I · I.030.1The qualified causal role and the first designation supernatural spiritual Mercury.
- Part II · II.063.2; II.064.1; II.067.123The universal Word, particular causes and the stated reason for supernatural Mercury.
- Part II · II.134.2Hermetic gold-making called natural within the mineral order.
Translation
Übernatürlich and supernaturalis are rendered supernatural. Spiritual is retained beside it where the source pairs the adjectives. Neither term should be replaced by miraculous without checking what is being predicated. The qualifiers our, in its own manner and in a certain respect keep the claimed designation tied to its local subject and explanatory role.
Cautions
The account is the author's theology of nature and causes. It supplies no basis for treating Mercury as an uncreated divine person, identifying it with common quicksilver or describing the art as unrestricted intervention beyond natural order.
übernatürlicher geistlicher Mercurius
übernatürlicher geistlicher Mercurius — supernatural spiritual Mercury in an inflected German phrase. I.030.1.
supernaturalem
supernaturalem — supernatural in an inflected Latin form. II.067.1.
Source note
The phrases suo modo and secundum quid at I.030.1 limit the attribution of efficient causality. II.067.1 then explains supernatural through absence of dependence on a subordinate cause. These are local definitions, not evidence that every early modern writer used the adjective identically.