From the book
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Heinrich Khunrath · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The word“Be ye washed, be ye clean” stands in the p. 106 margin beside an account of the truth tasted in a heart and brain theosophically cleansed of sophistries.
- In KhunrathThe adjacency creates a deliberate crossing of registers.
- In this editionKeep the second-person force of the imperative and the human application.
- A reading distinctionThe neighbouring marginal heading “Preparation of the Matter” does not merge the separate purification exhortation into a quantitative operational recipe.
Meaning
“Be ye washed, be ye clean” stands in the p. 106 margin beside an account of the truth tasted in a heart and brain theosophically cleansed of sophistries. It places a scriptural imperative of purification beside the knowledge of the matter's right resolution and purification.
Use in the book
The adjacency creates a deliberate crossing of registers. The body speaks of physically preparing Magnesia into a watery fountain and of the knower being purged of misleading reasoning. The gloss speaks to persons. It should not be converted into an instruction to wash an unidentified ingredient in a particular liquid.
The cleansing demanded is relevant because the right principle can be misunderstood even by a diligent practitioner. The next page says that excellent, deep-thoughted labours have failed for want of the true pri-material ground. Intellectual correction belongs beside material treatment, not after it as an optional moral embellishment.
The supplied note identifies Isaiah 1:16. The brief Latin imperative is primary, while that precise scriptural locator is editorial in this edition.
Places to read
- 1599 p. 106The purified subject and theosophically cleansed knower appear in the same account
- 1599 p. 106 · marginThe brief imperative to wash and be clean provides the scriptural application
- 1599 p. 107Diligent work without the proper ground explains why correction is needed
Translation in this edition
Keep the second-person force of the imperative and the human application. “Washing the matter” would be an unsupported narrowing of the gloss.
Source note
The neighbouring marginal heading “Preparation of the Matter” does not merge the separate purification exhortation into a quantitative operational recipe.