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World and its end

Erschaffung der Welt; jüngsten Tage; ein neuer Himmel

The world is the created order whose origin and final state frame the treatise.

From the book

Candida Phoenix Philosophica

Anonymous · Diotimos Editions · 2026

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Orientation

At a Glance

  • The wordThe world is the created order whose origin and final state frame the treatise.
  • In the CandidaThe last numbered chapter returns from creation to the world’s end and interprets that end as purified renewal.
  • TranslationThe author’s future world belongs to Christian eschatology interpreted through his physical art.
  • A place to readRead Chapter Fourteen, pp. 227–233, as a connected argument rather than as isolated predictions.

Meaning

The Candida’s world is not an independent mechanism whose origin can be considered apart from its divine government. Its principles, motions, particular orders, and possibilities of perfection are discussed in relation to God’s creative Word. When the narrator reaches the end of the book, he deliberately returns to its beginning: having started from the creation of the world, he will conclude by treating its end. The structure makes cosmology and eschatology the outer frame of the practical and mineral discussions.

The question is introduced as a live disagreement among theologians. The narrator distinguishes his own Evangelical circle and those of the so-called Reformed religion, while also acknowledging disagreements within his own side. He suggests, with a formula of respect, that both positions may be mistaken. This is not a claim to speak for every member of his confession. It establishes space for a physical argument drawn from the Hermetic art to contribute to a theological dispute.141

The author’s declared modesty is coupled with a claim to experience. He says he has learned the art by God’s grace and attempted much. From the operation of its subject and the perfection of its magistery, he proposes a model of the final world. The relation between knowledge of Scripture and practical knowledge of nature is crucial: he expects the reader who possesses both to find his interpretation persuasive. The art has become a source of explanatory confidence about divine renewal.

Use in the book

The proposed final event has several stages or aspects. The accidents of the present order melt away; visible residual earth burns; the present moving heavens pass. Particular natures resolve into universal principles. Universal natures then become crystalline and most perfectly spiritual, yielding a new immovable heaven and a new earth. The text places these within one description without supplying a detailed chronological timetable. A lexicon should not turn the sequence of its exposition into an unsupported prediction of successive dates or eras.

The new world is both continuous and discontinuous with the present one. Continuity belongs to universal being grounded in God’s imperishable Word. Discontinuity belongs to motion, impurity, particular conditions, and the present mode of appearance. What is now invisible becomes visible. This is why the author can speak of a new creation while rejecting the idea that all underlying being is reduced to nothing.

The passage uses the prophet Isaiah’s wording for a new heaven and earth and later moves to Paul’s account of bodily resurrection. Its new world is therefore not solely an alchemical construction. Scriptural language supplies the promise and horizon; the art supplies a model of transformation that the author believes makes that promise clearer. The relation should be stated in that direction as well as the reverse. The Bible is not simply a coded laboratory manual in this chapter.

The closing emphasis is the glory of God. Finis expresses purpose together with ending, and the narrator rebukes those who mock the physical account without understanding substance, accident, corruption, or resolution. Yet his final assurance does not remove all mystery. After comparing the risen state with angels, he invokes the Pauline statement that no eye or ear has grasped what God prepares for those who love him. The chapter ends with a boundary of mortal knowledge.

The unnumbered Conclusion then returns to rainwater, universal matter, principles, theory, and withheld practical details. The movement is significant. The book does not end with a complete map of the future cosmos, but with renewed guidance about how its present claims should be read and used. Cosmic contemplation is part of the ethical purpose of study, alongside medicine and charitable practice.

Places to read

  1. Part II · II.227.1The framing question and acknowledgement of theological disagreement.
  2. Part II · II.228.1; II.229.1; II.230.123The author’s model of final renewal and its creation-based rationale.
  3. Part II · II.231.1; II.232.1; II.233.123God’s glory, resurrection, and the limit of present knowledge.
  4. Part II · II.233.2The unnumbered Conclusion’s return to the treatise’s practical and theoretical concerns.

Translation

“World” translates Welt without replacing it by the narrower “planet.” The argument includes heavens, elements, universal natures, and human bodies, rather than only the terrestrial globe.

“Last Day” preserves the eschatological force of jüngster Tag. “Evangelical” in the chapter’s confessional setting should be explained historically rather than equated without qualification with every present movement that uses that name.

Connections

World and its end connects Creation and imitation and Blessing and command with Annihilation and transformation. The first supplies the origin and divine grounding of universal natures; the second explains what can change without the extinction of being.

The same devotional purpose appears in the mineral chapters, where gold and precious stones invite contemplation of God’s wondrous works. The world’s final perfection is the largest-scale instance of a continuing interest in nobility, purification, and the manifestation of created excellence.

Cautions

Chapter Fourteen actually begins at printed p. 227. The original contents gives an erroneous earlier number; a reader’s outline should follow the body heading.

The book contains no numbered Chapter Fifteen. Its Conclusion begins on p. 233, after this final numbered chapter.

Erschaffung der Welt

Erschaffung der Welt — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.227.1.

jüngsten Tage

jüngsten Tage — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.228.1.

ein neuer Himmel

ein neuer Himmel — Attested wording in the cited original passage. II.231.1.

Source note

The narrator’s unserigen, benanntlich denen Evangelischen identifies his own side in the dispute. This supports a local confessional self-placement; it does not identify the anonymous author’s person, institution, or every theological commitment.