The author's hexasticon distinguishing the candid reader from Momo & Mimo.
Our daughter of SATURN is rescued from the darkness,
Therefore, the new light gained by labor is given;
The reader, &c.
If not, you will be an unjust censor by choice.
Sperner NILLEVIVS, every {que} or the best of Momis,
What Mimi likes to eat, NIL GRAVIVS.
THIS IS THE MOST SECRET MYSTERY OF THE EGYPTIAN-GREEK HIEROGLYPHIC, not yet known to the common people, to demonstrate the falsities of the ancient gods, goddesses, heroes, animators and institutes for sacred receivers, originating from one Egyptian artifice, which performed gold as a medicine for the soul and body. I gave •• thus, Wherein so many poets' allegories, the legendary narratives of writers, and the errors scattered throughout the Encyclo∣paedia are revealed in the clearest light of truth, each is restored to its own {and} tribe, set forth in six books by the Author
MICHAEL MAIERO COUNT OF THE PALACE OF CAESAR, EXEMPT HORSE, Phil: & Med: Doct: &c: Caesar: Mai: formerly Aulicus.
SVMMA LIBRORVM SINGVLORVM of this Tract • us.
BOOK I De D • j • Egyptians Hierog • yphicis, O sirid, Isis, Mercury, Vulcan, Typhon, &c. concerning the works of my kings , the characters and monuments of each of the animators, and the monuments of those who are concerned here.
BOOK 2. I am allegorizing about G • aecorum • js, inp • imims aureis, as the golden skin of Jason, the golden apples He • perished, etc. denoting nothing else than golden medicine.
BOOK 3. On the golden genealogy of gods and goddesses, fictitious, Philosophical or Chemical-medical.
BOOK 4. Concerning festivals and sacred events, as well as contests and sports, instituted in the grace of this science .
BOOK 5. Of the labors of Hercules, signifying the same artifice.
BOOK 6. Concerning the Trojan expedition and the requisites, without which Troy could not have been captured, the Vlyssus • {and} errors , • relating to the same.
MICHAEL MA∣IERI COMMITS PAL. Slaughter • RAE • ATTITUDE TO THE READERS.
If I wonder , my dear readers, what reason has there been for me ,doItreat?and I had published the widely published authors and now at last spread them into the public light of the world, and I had written to you first of all to judge of so many prejudices, after you had regarded the matter itself, my studies and mind, and your candor at the same time , to be surprised you will stop without doubt. Among Christians, I think, there is no one who is ignorant of all things, if only he has a common sense and has the rudiments of literature, who has not at some time read the books of the Ethnics (of which a great number have reached our age) and has not observed these two things in them, the first of the gods ▪ of goddesses and heroes v • you can Jupiter. Tuesday. The names ofMercury, Apollo , Venus , Pallas, Hercules, Jason, and the rest ; According to the monsters of the gods and heroes of each , horrible and incredible deeds: For these two areall the books of the Ethniques related to the fact that they hardly contain anything worthy of memoryin individual villages Graciously , if anyone takes away the gods from Homer and Herodotus among the Greeks, from Liuius and Virgil among theRomans, and makes the gods , heroes, andgods, the greatest part of their deeds will be noted in the obelisk: for what was done so with the persons, and these connected with them, so that when one thing is taken away, neither can the other stand
or one thing is granted and the other is granted: the same judgment will be given to the other ethnic authors and their writings . But we Christians have already laughed at that multitude of gods , laughed at them, and eluded them, because we are equipped with the truth of the Word of God: What shall we say about so many gods and heirs? Are these things possible and true, when the authors of them are not true and false ? Shall we really refute the gods and reij • i • mouse and nothing • inside their deeds and progeny •• will we admit and receive? Are these falsehoods like those that we are prone to, and that there is no truth in your words or from everyone 's mouths ? It is surprising that no one among the myriads of the writings of Christ was concerned about this , since the clarification of these difficulties is still necessary, as hardly any writing or polytheism or Theosophical after the sacred letters can be more usefully offered to the world: the reason is that they are not only the most ancient and are seen to be stored beyond the memory of all writers, but also the most mysterious, since their true origin has always been held and known to very few: for they must rightly be considered the most ancient and at the same time MYSTERIOUS , which through so many ages of the world, more than three thousand years, from the first Authors to our own times, have been enclosed, covered and hidden like a treasure in a mysterious ark, about which some of the ethnic writers may be legendary, this is , for their capture, they euolverint, they called those things myst , as it appears from the inscription of the books of Eumolpus, Menander, Melanthius, Iamblicus, Evanthis, and others, which contain nothing but poetical fables, and which do not really explicate the apex of them , for the reason that they understood that, under these figures, great and mysterious things were on the side, actually containing more in retreat, than promising at the first front: the Egyptians, indeed, the wisest men of the ancients (to whom, if we repeat the first origin , these (we notice that all things have been propagated) when they had obtained the most extraordinary things by the gift of God and by their labor, which they did not want to be completely unknown to posterity, and yet not equally known to all, they found a way of obscuring them, and enveloping them as if by some i, so vt
only those endowed with the most acute light of mind could perceive anything about them; but thus they invented hieroglyphics, allegories, and fables, with which, as with barriers and prisons, things not to be disclosed, they continued and concealed them as long as they pleased, so that those who saw and heard might not immediately understand, but at least those who said they would have reasons to go. It is true how much evil has sprung from here, it can hardly be said or believed . • let him pour himself out, that he might be blown away , not in the manner of those who ran , poisoned and fatally infected, but with an incredible pestilence, that he could roam the state for a long time , and even blow the Parthians ; Or, as in the times of M. Antony and Verus at Seleucia, a thousand • ibus, by some • ∣tasting hole, which had previously been closed up by the Chaldean vassals after the plundered temple of Apollo • inis and its simulacrum had been transferred to Rome, when they opened it, so deadly and terrible a vapor issued forth, viz. In the borders of the Persians, through Syria, all Greece • and the regions bordering on Gaul vs {que} furious debacus ••• tus, (see Ammianus Marcellinus and from him Cael. Rhod: l▪ 5. c 12. recapitulates,) so it almost happened with the treasures of the Egyptians hidden under their mysterious envelopes, as otherwise, as was fitting, he opened the whole of Greece, and after that the whole world of superstitions and the multitude of vain gods , astonished } filled them with deeds: This evil lasted throughout the whole age of Paganism , until the true Savior of the soul was present, who was far away from the remedy, as Hippocrates (burned the Athenian forests ) giving back ) to the human race, and the Idols of the nations were completely destroyed and built , even with the most mysterious saving WORD from the bosom of the ETERNAL FATHER . they were vain, despised, and rejected. It is true, however, that so many monuments and books
were given to the Ethniques every day
in the ma •• bus of the teachers, in which • rum should be mentioned in each paragraph of the gods and h • ro of the gentiles, this eru • itis given •• t cause •• t, what deni{que} by ce • seats and heroes in • chosen be st •• josè ind • gandi. These things have been found, which have partly been brought back to history, as if the gods and heroes of old had been kings and men, and the great things that are written about them , pere∣ge partly to the formation of manners, or to the natural order of this world : they have brought forth the truth with a large number of dissensions , neither wise than the first , nor worthy of their development, and the greatest part of them by figments These things , having been produced by the consensus of things, pervert, as they left more doubts than certainty in the minds of the readers . it would have been revealed that it had been thoroughly expressed: that not a trivial thing, made up of history , nor admores or other things, existed in the first place, which brought the whole world and so many wise men in it, not for at least a hundred years (which is too much would be) but thirty times a hundred or more, this • st three thousand • wrapped up, kept them wrapped up and blinded, it is certainly credible: Int • rim of those who handle chemistry, some offered themselves • runt, who gods & d • as gen∣ It is affirmed that the tiles produced the first origin from chemical works, among whom Brac • schus, Rob• of Valens, and some were from • ij; And how with those parts they accommodated each of these things , and they did not give back sufficient reason and harmony by a method convenient to the being , the parts of the chyme in the judgment of many , be considered useful & useful , hence 〈◊〉 be certain of eight of thembus could be considered: That is why I finally undertook this thousand labors, induced by various causes, namely, to make clear to the eyes of the nations , under the eyes of the people, what things under the gods were originally understood about the bus and the hero bus of the nations For what reason , through the ages , those myths have been crowded here, and the truth of the Christian doctrine, which is sufficiently shining in itself, removes these shadows, and becomes more and more enlightened, as well as Chy i • , not Alcu∣m •• • she, the nurse of so many devils and the mother of deceptions, which adulterates metals and does not really trans • change) but which serves
to produce Golden Medicine, the Most Ancient and Truest of
And against the blasphemy of the slanderers, he will be avenged. No one, I think, fears gold or metal , which has been accepted as the price of things in the world, while the world has been and will be, and which is usually used to cure many people's diseases, as if it were useless . he will proscribe and accuse, therefore, that he does not have as much of his cop with him as he would , nor does he remove all the affections, diseases, and desires of men, and the evil of many , thefts, robberies, murders, adultery , and It is the alluring cause of almost all the perpetrating vices, unless one wishes to live completely outside the world and to be seen as cynical. Be the same with regard to the medicine of the judge: If, then, medicine comes from gold, or from this gold, who , except the most insane, will detest that medicine? There is a child in the world who thinks that everything is so far away from him , in his home , or in the town or country in which he was brought up: Twice is a child who, at the age of v lens , thinks that no one has ever been or ess • , who see and understand more in things than I can grasp . No one will deny the truth of chemistry because he does not see it , know it , or understand it . desiring to scrutinize the universe of things. This would be, I say, envious & can • u • , not of human nature, to take away from the world that which he himself did not possess. Verily , whosoever thinketh from thence , when I bring forth such a writing, let him profess the knowledge of the same, and perceive the reason of my thoughts : I am here in 〈◊〉 Gaten . and others, if they were , the most mysterious in Chymi s ind gare : for this was thought to be the proper property of man liberally ucated , um when vt 〈◊〉 volans , so he seems to be born to the light of rationality: And from the vines v•• m part of the air, but v •• we are going to clear the direction ; What do you have to reason with people? For this reason no one is eager for me , but , if the communion is eternal, to know about the yder, even the secret and rare, having a foundation in nature , proven by reason and experience, very true: for this is what the mind of the shows that it is characteristic of Aristotle in the Metaphysics. Q • i • inspired by that emotion • abroad • which {que} • goose I visited, and so in this which {que} most famous kingdom
I have arrived at the place where I am keenly clinging to the furtherance of my studies, and this fetus was born to me under the reed, of that Medicine, which I have searched for here and there, who did not walk, but the prodrome; However, I did not arrive prematurely, or anyone could imagine that he would not be able to live longer, as they say elephants carry in the womb. For it was not so much about words as about things, and not so much about the glory to be gained from it, as about the wealth that others were presenting . Accept, then, kind readers, this work of mine as some new work in this kind, which may not be superfluous in the power of true Theology , but in the same way in the whole Encyclopaedia, as the Politician and the life of the citizen, (which treats of Jurisprudence, ) Medicine, Chemistry, Poetry, History , Astronomy, Physics, and other sciences and arts will be most useful. And although it may seem paradoxical to contain in it that which has been accepted for so many centuries as if infringing , •• a man who agrees with the truth in all things, even if he disagrees with the greater part of the world in his opinions, I think it is more embracing than so many riches consistent with prejudice; And since we follow this in divine things, what also in human things, which are esteemed to be nearest to them (such as these)? But if any one prefers to approve of the Pagans, and the multitude of gods, and does not recognize in them Chemistry, which is true even unknown to himself, let him make a criticism that pleases him with a certain sharpness, that he is drunk; In the meantime, neither the falsity of these things, which is likely to be true, nor the truth of this, will be rendered useless to the intelligent. You who carry the spark of light on your breast, who carry the wisdom of Palades in your heart, even if you do not recognize the common altar of Vul • ani or Vesta with them , you will avenge this study of ours from the envious and m • sty • um for your whiteness , and The truth from the depths ( which Democritus and Heracletus testified with tears) to be dug up from the well or cave and taken out for men: I say to you only, whose hearts have been given to be wise before others, these (the most secret secrets of the world ) since those who know how to calculate the calculus of these things from the dexterity of genuine judgment, bee • this and closed, but the rest of the peoplethose, uneducated, unexperienced in these things,
unbelieving, and not even capable, Moms and Mims, so unworthy, to whom there is nothing that is wise, wise , nothing, except for profit or sense, and generally seen to be acceptable, we truly wish to remain secret and hidden : We will hope that these published, hidden from them, will not even be read by them, and as much as it is in us , a •• nite •• . V • strum is not to avert this m • i • ffusion of the mind, study{and} readiness of the will, but to be equal in {que}, whom I would like to be considered commended to God Opt: Max:
IN SYMBOLVM Magni•: & Cl: V. D•: Michaelis Maieri▪
The body is something of a beautiful form
There is something ancient about being able to teach class.
There is something to guard the wisdom gained by hard work,
There are some great riches that the world holds:
If, however, as far as these are concerned , we will look at the Author,
They are nothing, or nothing if it can be less.
Chr: Reinhart V. I. D. R: I: M: S: Ord: & P. L. C.
MICHAEL MAIERVS DOCTOR, COUNT PALATINE. IN CHRIST THAT HOPE IS MY GOD, I LOVE CRVCIATVM, Auri do not let you go away from me with unfaithful love.
The golden gift pleases the rest and feeds the light ,
LAVRVS, I LOVE THIS MAN, IT LIKES ME RIGHT.
MICHAEL MIIROS
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉▪
ἬLIOS HARMA ἫMI.
MI HMA H͂RI HILOS,
ἬLIOS H͂MI 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 HARMA.
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
MῊ Ὴ Ὴ ἐμα IRI ΧΙΑΟΣ 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 ,
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
Another thing
MICHAEL MAIROS,
DON'T BE LUKE.
NOT H͂ BUT TEAK 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
The same in Latin.
I do not sit warm:
I do not sit warm; The Christians are fervent,
Not to cool their hearts, nor to warm theirs.
Twice-born equal to the Venerable Offspring of the Parent
Ore because his vomit is warm.
M. M. B. G. T. P.
Page 1
THE FIRST BOOK ON THE HIEROGLY∣PHICIS OF AEGYPTIORVM.
Q They have compiled the history of the most ancient things of the Egyptians , or the most legendary deeds, but they have produced nothing certain about the first rise of literature, or the rise of memory; but neither of the first kings in the world, believed to be gods, or born of men; but whatever they have written about these things, they are very similar to the mere figments of the idle, and the deliriums of melancholy men, or the phantasms of dreamers. Some assert that the first men were brought forth in Egypt* that about the Thebaid • m, when the inundation of the Nile ceased, the sun heating the silt left by the water, in many places a multitude of rivers arose from the gap in the earth, that if from the very beginning of the orb all living things likewise, they } let men be born: But God , Dorus Siculus , whoexplored the greater part of Asia, Europe , and not only Egypt , (vt he himself admits) who were the first, says he, to be kings in the world* we have no evidence, since no Historiansreport them .* certainly there were writers of things long after the time: but what the ancients brought ,the Greeks do not doubt , but even the Indiges and the first of the things to
Page 2
the writers call the life of the dead barbarians.
In the same way, in the following chapter, the first men worshiped the Sun and the Moon as eternal gods.* And he tells us that they were called by the name Osiris, this one , and Isis . But who is the only and true God of Gods, who, when and where the first men and kings existed in the world, we have received from the sacred Bible, as unquestionable, so the Egyptians in it, as well as in the assertions ofthe antiquity and numerousness of their kings through more than twenty thousand an∣nors continue ; Those who, with Isis and Osi , say the same thing as being born from Saturn , it is a wonder why they have them as the first eternal and begotten gods, or celestial lights. , both because of their antiquity, what they are, they cannot be known , since thesacred history of Moses was unknown to them, and also because , because of the religion of the Gods and the receivers, it was not permitted to feel otherwise. Let us establish the foundation of the Egyptian doctrine,* from innumerable evidences we have explored, that in Egypt a certain knowledge teaching the most arcane works of nature, or AVREA MEDICINE, not made of gold, but gold a thousand times more precious, existed in Egypt, especially among the most ancient Philosophers, Priests, and Kings; which might be handed down to wiser posterity, but would remain unknown to the common people, instead of writing, hidden marks taken from animals, later called by the Greeks Hi • glyphics ; for the declaration of the truth of things, allegories of fictitious persons and of their things have been transferredfrom place to place. ;* and for each of them monuments are found to be established as if eternal: Of which we shall learn in a certain order, first of the Gods, then of the Kings of Egypt, thirdly of the Animals , • and their sacred characters, and finally of the monuments, indications, and traces, which show this art in Egypt
Page 3
They will agree that it was the most visited and as if it were vernacular, we will deal with this book first. The most ancient and first inventors of this golden art or medicine, considering the subject, the form, the efficiency,* and the result of having a community with the principal parts of the world, namely with the Sun, the Moon, Fire, a • matter, water, and earth, and the rest of the wandering stars, were named by them the same: In the subject of art two are considered, one of which of the male, he obtains the height of the female; Thusthey saidthat Osiris or the Sun, this Isis or the Moon: Mercury, which is joined to the Sun and the Moon, is common to both of them, since there is no conjunction of the Sun and the Moon in the greater world, nor is Mercury present present , since he is always a satellite of the Sun He runs: And these two are spouses, so they are considered brother and sister, to whom a third red and fiery spirit is joined, called Typhon , who cuts Osiris, the brother of the womb, into the smallest parts and limbs. , where the three, Osiris, Isis , and Mercury , are taken for gods, and Typhon ver∣ró for a malignant demon. To these they number Vulcan, or the external fire, Pallas , or the wisdom of operation, the Ocean, the begetting of the gods, or the mother Thetis, or, for both , the Nile, that is, water and earth, the mother of all, as Orpheus says, the overflowing of multitudes; then Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, Apollo, Pluto, and all the other Gods: which names, although in the following times they were commonly accepted by the common people as the demigods of the Gods, or the bodies of the planets or the stars of the heavens , from Chemistry yet to the restorers and propagators of the first • ú • they were introduced in the concealment of art; that from all the circumstances of the individuals • à • at Grae • os, as the Egyptians, the manifest writers • è is seen; I will print with Diodorus, whose old age we will run through Egypt , and we will choose their agreement. Besides the said Gods, he says,* whom they call heavenly and eternal, moreover, they bring forth others who were born from these who died
Page 4
mortals, indeed by
wisdom, and having obtained immortality for the beneficence of the human race: some of these reigned in Egypt , partly by that name, and partly by the name of the heavenly Gods, partly called by their proper voice, the Sun , Saturn, Rhea, Io • he was also called by some Ammona ; The pre∣terean Juno , Vulcan, Vesta, last Mercury ▪ The first who was king among the Ae∣ptios was the Sun, by that name and the heavenly star .* Some priests affirm that Vulcan, the inventor of fire, reigned first, and by his favor was appointed leader by the Egyptians : And a little after: Afterwards Saturn, who took his sister Rhea to wife, they say existed, and begat, according to some, Osiris and Isis ; many report that they gave birth to Jove and Juno , who directly commanded the power ofthewhole world . And Osiris was interpreted as Dionysius, but Isis as Ceres : Osiris took her as his wife, and assumed the kingdom, and contributed much to the end of their common life. He said these things: Then he told Isis that he had found wheat and barley.* and that his satiety taught men; that he also gave laws,that he ruled over a temple of Jou and Juno , notable both for its greatness and for its ornamentation: that he erected two golden temples, one larger for the heavenly Jou , the other smaller for Jou , their father, whom some call Ammon : He also did for others, says Diodorus there . _ _ _ _ _ _ _ and the land should be cultivated. Statues, moreover, and golden temples of the Gods, were made by them with every ornament.* And soon: Mercury, too, was the most honored of all by him (Osiris) , as the finder of many things, which were consulted in the lives of men.
Page 5
having given names to things; they also say that he was the inventor of letters, and that he instituted the honor with which the gods were to be worshipped. from the sinews of the three strings of the three seasons of the year, they deliver the finder. For he instituted three voices, sharp, low, and middle; taking the sharp from the summer , the deep from the winter, the middle from the spring . Finally, those who were writers of the sacred books in the time of Osiris , report these same things received from him. I also saw Osiris very much by his counsel: the oil plant was also discovered by him, not by Minerua, as the Greeks say. From whom it is evident,Vulcan and Mercury were held in great honor by the Egyptians for the discovery of so many things useful to human life: But who is Vulcan? Is not fire the master of works? Who is Mercury? Is not all that about which, from which, and with which the Chymists work, although it is not vulgar? What kind of fire do the Egyptians really understand? Or him of whom Diodorus speaks in these words; for when a tree was set ablaze in the mountains by a stroke of lightning, the neighboring woods were caught in flames in the Hibernian season, by which Vulcan, delighted by the heat, added new material to it when the fire failed; : This is in no way probable: Because that fire was well - known before the deluge towhich {and} the first men, whom I and the harvest of Abel and Cain, the maker of Tub lcain , the wine of Noah: Whence it follows,* the discovery of another fire attributed to the tribe of Vulcan, that is, the philosophical, or in what way the fire of Mercury should not be used by the common people; Hence Vulcan is said to have reigned first among the Egyptians; Thus Mercury is the inventor of all hieroglyphic arts and letters among them; Because of his skills &
Page 6
Egyptian
letters were introduced: He taught rhetoric , astronomy, geometry, arithmetic, and music . Chapter 50. Nature, he says, has in itself philosophy and the knowledge of the seven liberal arts, by which it works: Because it carries in itself every geometrical form and terminates every thing by its arithmetical power through the equality of a certain number, and by rhetorical notice it leads your understanding from power into action He said these things: Mercurius himself is the interpreter of all, called Hermes by the Greeks, whose advice Osiris often seeks ; Because nothing happens without Mercury: the oils sacred to him, because he is the most excellent of all oils, which can harden too soft, and soften hard, with the same fire: The rest relating to Mercury and Vulcan, will be explained in what follows. 5 Why did Isis stand all of gold, and indeed so many whole temples, for her parent and the rest of the gods? Whereas it was unheard of in any other age that a single temple of gold was erected, especially in this recent one, where there is a thousand times greater abundance of gold extracted from the mines and rivers than in antiquity, when the first gold was found, it is said: ∣nore had? It is in ready cause, since Aurea is a Goddess: she is said to be the same and the sister and consort of Osiris, just as Juno of Jupiter and Rhea of Saturn, who are said to be their progenitors: which is the most evident and proper characteristic of Chemistry; With us the subject consists of a male agent and a female patient, as if it were a brother and a sister, and not even a couple, as will be shown here and there. Therefore, Osiris and Isis, like Vulcan and Mercury, are the chief intellectual gods of chemistry, not celestial, but under • errant • i, and born of art. We will give their gifts and characteristics below. Osiris ve • ò, as Diodorus narrates in the same place, When a good man was greedy for glory, he forced a huge army, that he might traverse the world, and teach mortals to plant
Page 7
vines and crops of wheat and barley, cattle {and} fruit, thinking that if he transferred men from a rustic life to a more civilized one, he would obtain for himself (which he achieved) the honors of immortals. For not only those of the ancients, but posterity also remember the benefits of the crops discovered by him, for having one of the greatest gods . And they report that Osiris, having established the kingdom of Egypt, having allowed the husband of Isis to be in charge of all things, had delivered to him Mercury, whose advice, because he seemed to excel among his friends in prudence, was to be: } which were in his control, he left Hercules, both because he was the nearest in race, and also because he was admirable in strength and strength of body; He thus divided the government of the kingdom, he presided over Phoenicia and the sea coast, Busirid, Ethiopia, Libya, and Antæus over the neighboring regions. the discoverer: O •• laugh • two daughters, unequal in strength, pursued Anubis and Macedon ; both of them were armed with insignia, some animal not unlike their nature: for the dog of Anubis, Macedon took a sign of armor : for which reason these animals are held in the highest honor by the Egyptians , and in the forms of these animals among the Egyptians ∣tions are worshipped. Moreover, he brought with him Pana, to whom Egypt , in the Thebaid, built a city of his own name, Chemnim, that is, the verb called Pan; who sowed wheat , Trip . He nourished the hair of Osiris, as long as he was returning to Egypt , and he had gone towards Egypt . who was accustomed to music and dances: for which reason a multitude of musicians followed him: among them there were nine young virgins, both singing alone, and learned in other things, whom afterwards the Greeks called
Page 8
The Muses: They say that they taught these to Apollo, from which the Musician was named: At this time they report that the Nile rose about the Sirius Ca∣nis (for then it was wont to grow the greatest) the greater part of Egypt, and that it inundated the greatest part, over which Prometheus ruled: for he assured all the inhabitants of that country, that Prometheus, moved by pain, wished to kill himself; The river was then called Aquila because of the swiftness of its course , and the depth of its waters. , that the inundation should not exceed its limit, but as if through certain gates it would be smooth and profitable to the fields. Then, traveling through Arabia by the Red Sea, he arrived at the ends of the Indus , where he set up several trees, one of which he named Nysa, in memory of her, in which there was a wedding ceremony , where he planted ivy, which is the only one of the place. He goes to Nysa in Egypt. He also left many other monuments of himself among the Indians: moreover, he set up columns in many places as witnesses of his expedition: he also traversed the other nations of Asia ; Crossing over the Hellespont into Europe , he slew Lycurgus , a barbarian king who opposed him in Thrace : he made Maron the elder of the province; He made Macedon, the son of Macedon , king of Macedonia , and made Triptolemus A • ticus preside over the cultivation of the fields. Then, when he had been transferred from men to the gods, and the honors and ceremonies to him, as the greatest of the gods, were instituted by Isis and Mercury ,* and many mystical powers were added to the worship, by which they would render the power of his God greater. Let it suffice to say briefly that the Osiris were brought into India by the expedition of Diodorus . All these narratives are hieroglyphic or allegorical,* and to the truth, if they be taken otherwise, which is so, they must be opposed, both from individuals literally absurd and falsified, as well as from the planting of wine , wheat ,and barley, cattle, and
Page 9
by the fruit, from the same finder, which in the sacred letters, as said, to the fathers before the flood, and the first in the world, is truly ascribed. If anyone has any knowledge of the true art that is being discussed, he will not only know the things that have been said up to now not to be ascribed, but he will also know the things that have been said so far. namely , that Osiris and Isis are in one subject acting and suffering; and by the expedition of Osiris, the solution of the most mysterious work was to be denoted, where he first came to the black Ethiopians, then to the red sea; which colors must come first and last; in the beginning black, which through intermediate colors passes into white, and afterwards into red: for these were created, says Flamellus, in this land of ours, Ethiopia ; And Shave, whiten your Heart, if you want to whiten it, when the Nile of Egypt turns white first, then when Persia is hidden in secret, and that this and that will appear red, like a poppy in the Desert : If the Nile is not kept within the borders, but in the fields if it overflows too much, the greatest harm would result from it; It is necessary thus {and} Pr • ∣Metheus with a previous reason, and Hercules with his labor, that is, the craftsman, with the skill of his hand {and} to prevent it: The new Muses are present, and the brother Apollo, that is, 9. Eagles, and one part of the black earth , as they explain to others. There are satyrs leaping, and a chorus of women, leading the dances, namely the Nymphs and the Lympha, ascending and descending: the seed is thrown into his field, over which Triptolomus presides, so also the planted vines bearing the most copious vines; Given that Mercury was the adviser of Isis and Hercules was the governor of Egypt : that Hercules was the craftsman and that Mercury was the first, the middle and the last of the work, it will be more widely understood below. If any one, therefore, considers all the particulars of the proceedings of this expedition, he will see that nothing was placed there for a singular reason, but to fit every solution that has been said to vngue; The sacred Osiris are said to have been instituted by Mercury and Isis , and by many other mystical powers added to their worship: Wherein by the mystical power it is sufficiently declared, that there is another sense, besides the historical and literal, which we sufficiently insinuate in the plae∣ • . What follows
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This solution, or the death of Osiris , they followed, and what happened about his death is thus covered by Diodorus . to the evil-doer, which he cut into twenty-six parts, he gave a part to each of those who had been partakers with him of the treachery, as if they were accomplices of his crime, and at the same time as having themselves as defenders, guardians, and faithful of the kingdom. Isis, having killed the brother of E∣iusdē{and} the man with the aid of her daughters (ORVS was her name), took the kingdom of Egypt after killing Typhon and those who had been complicit in the murder . That name was derived from the death of Antaeus , who was slain by Hercules , in the time of Osiris . When Isis had found all the scattered parts of Osiris , besides being ashamed, desiring that the man's grave should be uncertain, but to be held in honor by the Egyptians and by every man, she composed each of those parts from spices and wax into the form of a man like a man. When the priests of Egypt were afterwards called together, he gave each one an image of Osiris , asserting that his body was entrusted to them alone, and swearing that they should spread the burial of Osiris with them, and that he should be kept in secret, that they should worship God, as if Osiris were alive, and after his death. they observed a similar ceremony. And in order that by a greater favor he might make the Priests more ready to do these things, he granted them a third part of the fields for the worship and sacredness of the Gods . from which fact even now every priest testifies, that he is buried with Osiris : the animals which at the beginning are dedicated to him in honor; and when they die, at their funeral they renew the mourning of the Osiris . And the Osiris sacrifice the sacred bulls, this one named Apim, the other Memphis , whom they also worship as if they were the gods of Egypt . afterwards he reigned
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by grace in the mouth of his subjects, surpassing all the rest . in the mountains of Ethiopia and Egypt , near the island which is called the Gate of the Nile from the sacred field of God. His traces show the Tomb of Osiris built , and held by the Egyptians in honor of the Priest, and about three hundred and sixty, which the Priests appointed to that purpose fill with milk every day, and renew their mourning, calling the Gods by name. For this reason the Insula is forbidden to be approached from across the seas. But among the inhabitants of the Thebaid (which is the most ancient of all) the inhabitants have the greatest right to burn through Osiris existing in the clouds, in all the parts of Osiris , as I have reported, except the pubes, who were buried there . none of the accomplices of the murder would wish to be privy to it, they were thrown away: by Isis afterwards they were buried in the Sepulchre, with no less honor than the rest of the parts. Indeed, from Osiris and Isis down to Alexander the Macedonian, who founded the word of his name in Egypt , they say more than ten thousand years ago, as indeed some assert, a little less than three and twenty thousand. All these things are not historical.* but allegorical faith written by anyone of the Christian profession or even the most illiterate would recognize, provided he knows how to count the years of the creation of the world from the beginning to this time, which do not yetexceed 5575 Before the world was founded by God, Adam, the first parent of menaccording to the Egyptian Allegories: And when Hercules , the coeval of Osiris, was handed down, who, as the times of the Trojan war are set, preceded a little, Troy also by the same number of thousand years It was destroyed before the creation of the world : indeed, if we were to try to recapture these from History, there would be innumerable other
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the indications should be brought forward here, which we have already passed over in silence: we will therefore look back to the Allegorical and Hieroglyphic to be explained at least very briefly:* Osiris, as said, is the material of the art, from which the golden medicine is composed, and is held in all circulation; This, in his sepulchre, that is, a vessel, placed by his brother Typhon , is torn into many parts; which, after the absolution of the work, Isis collects and goes, separated by combustible sulphur;* And thus the collection of the parts of Osiris , instituted by Isis , is a repetition of the same work, whichstill happens until the power of Typhon is extinguished, and in its place the Soul of Osiris , burning satiated, succeeds, as the mother of Isis, or a spouse, or a most loving sister, he easily turns to himself; which is the lastperfection.* and it seizes upon its color, like poison; which must not be done in the first place , butin thelast cooking .* Whence it should be noted, that Isis and Osiris are one and the same subject, in which there is the male Osiris and the female Isis, and also the son of Osiris and the mother of Isis ; or Osiris the brother and Isis the sister; and thus he behaves like a Hermaphrodite or an Androgyne , while now for Osiris, now for Isis, because he refers to both sexes, he is usurped and accepted; for the different respect of relation, of husband and wife, of brother and sister, of mother and daughter . by a series of unknown deeds: the Egyptian priests, indeed, that they had the image of Osiris , that they alone knew the sepulchre, and that they asserted that they were with him, and yet did not make it manifest, this shows nothing else, than that they themselves confessed, however, through an allegory, which was known to the artificers of the Chymians let them be and possessors, which, however, they wish to reveal to no one, except to the most worthy:
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The third part of the fields being divided among the priests, the bulls and sacrifices instituted in memory of Osiris, and all the rest, the knowledge and skill of the priests can no doubt be brought together with the others: for it is most absurd, and most alien to historical truth, that the sepulcher of the dead king of Osiris should be hidden, and should not be shown to them. , and his desire to have the whole kingdom in his hand, as to observe so many sacrifices in eternal times, to institute such a division of fields among the priests, had it not been a mystical matter and of another origin: And that Isis marries no man after her; and by which ceremonies the bee is chosen, worshiped, suffocated, and buried, as we shall hear in the post, that Isis is said to have been buried in the grove of Vulcan, these particulars place the truth before the eyes of any intelligent person. The member of Osiris is to be ashamed of that black and useless dung , which at first indeed took an increase, but after its solution was separated from the rest of the body and pure . nor with the truth: for since Osiris is, as has been said, a fictitious person, they only took back a space of time, the memory of which could not be traced, lest a fictitious thing should appear; on the other hand, if they had established at least five hundred or a thousand years, perhaps they could have been convinced by the historians of that time, that what was legendary was not true: for from the foundation of the world to Alexander 3528. For neither will the Egyptians be able to introduce the eternity of the world into their allegories, as many partly ignorant, partly consul • or did, just as the Chinese were also persuaded, while both of them brag most falsely that they have annals of ten thousand years in a continuous series. Of Isis, in addition to the finds mentioned before, the Egyptians asserted, as Diodorus testifies, that she was the inventor of many drugs for diseases, and contributed very much to the art of medicine : the son of the Titans
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slain, and found by water, he not only restored him to the light, but also made him immortal. , many people with oracles,* then he brought the medicine of the dead: This is Diodorus: Whence it is to be observed, that Osiris was formerly said to be the brother of Apollo and Isis, when all these are said to have been born of Joue and Juno, now Apollo is called the son of Isis and Osiris; This only happens in true chemistry: for when the agent and the sufferer are of the same kind and kind, the father, mother, son, daughter, father, mother-in-law, grandson, granddaughter, brother, sister, husband, and wife can be the same. and the like, which is admirable in this proper art. In the same way, it is credible to provide medicine to people; for how much that thing which is called Isis is capable of, has long since been known in the medicine of the world: that her son Orus or Apollo is the last of the Egyptian gods, it is most true; , migrated to the Indies {and} other parts of the world, and accomplished so many amazing works: This is the treasure, love and care of the Philosophers, Priests, and Kings of Egypt , because of which they honor their parents, keep them in secret, and solemnly celebrate: This is that philosopher's fetus, born of Isis and Osiris, or, if you prefer, Apollo born of Joue and Latona, of whose birth, and of his sister Luna or Cynthia, we will say below: Of this congratulating philosophers in many places they have mentioned, himself namely, that he was born of Serus the Red, or Gabritius, his father, and Beia his mother, and a distant {and} noble • orre to his parents' sister; And to be united again with the mother to the son, that is, to unite the cooked with the raw, and to cook again, until one homogeneous thing becomes inseparable from the two, namely, the perfect spirit: Isaac 1. 2. c. 26. D • qu • , says, Moricus speaks: Make a connection with the soul • i from there, so that in the • third it is not separated from the soul: He does •
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marriage, says Geber, and place the bride with the bridegroom on the bed, and sprinkle her bed with heavenly dew, and the bride will conceive a son, and he will be King over all his tribes, and all his enemies will make peace with him, and with a red diadem He will be crowned, and will remain King for eternity, and will never lose his dominion. On the same Hermes, ch. 3. Come, says he, the son of the wise, from now on we will rejoice and rejoice together, because death is consumed, and our son reigns and is clothed in red ornaments and flesh: Now our son born King takes tincture from the fire: And in the Metaphora of Belinus ; I tell you, then, that unless you kill me, your understanding will not be perfect, and in my sister Luna the degree of your wisdom increases, and not with another of my servants, and if you know my secret, I am the seed sown in the pure earth , that which is born grows and multiplies, and brings forth fruit to him who sows: Ibid: For I am exalted, who am exalted, from the beginning, and none of my servants can over me, except one to whom it is given, which is contrary to me. And he himself destroys me, but he does not destroy my nature; and he himself is Saturn, who separates all my members: afterwards I go to my mother, who gathers together all my divided and separated members; , which is inimical to me: What can be said of these and the like, which exist among our authors, more fittingly than Orus, the son of Isis, or Osiris himself, whose members are assembled by Isis? The fact that the son sleeps with the mother is insinuated in many places among the philosophers, especially in the Great Secret; where it is said, Verur • I confess, I am a sinner, because with my mother, who first carried me in her womb, I was wont to multiply my children, and with her I was wont to be delighted and to embrace amicably, that from her and through her I might increase others like me and to multiply, according to that, his Pa∣ter the Sun, his mother the Moon: And Arnoldus says; Take a pure mother, and put her in bed with the children, and there she will be delighted, and when she begins to be a little delighted, put her out in cold water, so Lullius in the Codicill: Cap. 14. It is necessary, says the teacher,
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which first brings forth the son, in the womb of the daughter, and to be begotten by him : That indeed the mother and the sister are the same , what nature seems contrary to, is evident from what has been said up to now, and from the disputation of the Sun and Mercury ; where Mercury; I, says he, am spiritual, and in me lies hidden wisdom, and he who joins me to my son or my brother, will live and rejoice, and will have a treasure with which to feed thousands of people every day, he would not need : but these sent and the reader Leaving ourselves to investigate the opinions of the authors, and to confer with these ancient Egyptians , let us continue the narratives of Diodorus concerning the mysteries of the Egyptians ; who, in the said place, the priests of Egypt , says he, from the reign of the Sun, until the time of Alexander , when he crossed over into Asia , count the years, nearly a thousand and twenty. the latter, indeed, not less than three hundred; which they take from the motion of the Moon and not of the Sun, reckoning months for years: Read also in Egypt , besides the common death of other men , it is lawful for a sister to be taken as a wife from her brother, after the example of Isis , who had married the brother of Osiris . Eusebius, who mentions the kings of Egypt everywhere, places Oceanus first of all in the year of the World, 1802, at which time Nimrod reigned as the first King in the world: And after Oceanus, Osiris and Isis ; then the dynasty of the Egyptians , who were shepherds, who ruled for 103 years. Then, the dynasty of the Polytanes for 348 years, the last of whom was called Miris or Phara Menophis , about the year of the world, 2550. Hence the dynasty of Larth for 194 years After this , the Diapolitans for 177 years. Herodotus enumerates the kings of Egypt from the year of the world , 3060 . of whom it must seem strange that he was both King and Priest;* nor indeed to Jupiter, or to the great God, but to the lowest of the Gentile gods, to Vulcan, to whom fire was at that time also believed to besacred.or Ori, who
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He is said to have reigned after Osiris , in the year of the World 2608. Let us notice that it falls at that time, according to Eusebius, Zetus reigned in the dynasty of Larthum, who had succeeded Myrid . of the Uleans, of Saturn, of Jupiter, of the Nile, or of the Ocean ; unless perhaps we dream that they reigned before the creation of the world, since nothing is in nothing . from whom they call Nyseus Dionysius ; And that the Sacred Column was dedicated to you, carved in letters, they convey:
On the columns of Isis these things were written:
I IS SVM THE QUEEN OF EGYPT, HEARD BY MERCURY:
WHAT I HAVE READ STATVI, NV • ∣LVS WILL SOLVE:
I SVM VXOR OSIRIDIS:
I SVM PRIMA FRVGVM INVENTRIX
I AM THE MOTHER OF THE KING'S MOUTH;
I REFLECT IN THE DOG STAR.
BVBASTIA VRBS WAS FOUNDED FOR ME.
HAPPY, HAPPY EGYPT, HOW SAD YOU HAVE MADE ME.
In the columns of the Osiris, these things are said to be written
MY FATHER SATVRNVS, DEORVM OMNIVM IVNIOR.
VERSELY, THE KING OF OSIRIS, QVI VNI∣VERSVM WENT THROUGH THE ORBEMVS∣QVE TO THE DESERT ENDS OF INDORVM.
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TO THESE QVOQVE PROFECTVS SVM, QVI ARCTO SVBIACENT, VSQ VE TO HISTRI SOURCES.
AND ITERVM OTHER QVOQVE ORBIS ADII VS QVE PARTS OF THE SEA OCEANVM.
SVM THE SONS OF SATVRNI ANTI QVIOR, THE BRANCH FROM PVLCHRO AND GENE∣ROSO ORTV, CVI NOT THE SEED OF GEN∣NVS FRIED.
THERE IS NO VLLVS IN THE WORLD, TO WHOM I WILL NOT ACCESS, LOCVS, TEACHING ALL THEM, WHOSE INVENTOR FVI.
These things can only be read in the Columns to confirm; others (of which there are many) are corrupted by time. And of course, almost everyone agrees about these things that exist in the Sepulchres.* FOR SOME PRIESTS HAVING STORED IN SECRETS, NOLVNT, VT THE TRUTH IS UNKNOWN, TO THE MANA∣RE OF MANA∣RE, THE PUNISHMENT IS ADDED TO THEM, THEY PRODUCE IT IN VVLGVS. So far Diodorus These particulars are so clear that they scarcely need further proof or explanation. Although it is true that columns of this kind once existed in those places, yet it does not follow from this that gods or men were buried there, who made them, as they are literally attributed to Osiris and Isis ; but it is clear in many ways that these columns were consecrated by true craftsmen to the praise of God the Creator, the Giver of so many gifts, and as a testimony to the truth of Osiris and Isis for eternal memory.* by which they wished to incite the not altogether stupid to the inquiry of hidden things: Isis declares herself learnedto Mercury ; because it was so necessary, since it is entirely mercu∣rial; She is called the queen of Egypt , becauseby the nod and instinct of Isis all the affairs of Egypt were ordered both publicly and
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especially, not that she herself gave the laws, but was the cause of their conferring, as also Mercury ; Here as the whole, I∣sis and Osiris, as their parts; And when three things can be said, there are still two, and I would say one; because he leads one to rise from another: He is considered the finder of crops, because he taught the world to send its seed into its own land, and to propagate it, which is the whole art, but not that rustic, well-known, but the most mysterious Philosophical: Osiris betrothed himself to Saturn proclaims his son* And in asserting his own birth a liar is not found; For the truth is said to have sprung from the season, which many think Saturn to be wrong; He traversed the world to the Indus and the sources of the Histri or Danube; as if he were boasting, and thus he reached Rhaetia, a tract of Germany; and I do not deserve it; for he taught these northern nations to propagate their corn: That he was produced from no seed of his father Saturn is testified: for his mother is a virgin, and his father did not lie down, nevertheless his conception took place without seed in nature: by heat for the red and fiery dragon ripens; Since he is m •• u • us, he is the best seed to scatter on his mother; For the king is forced to borrow from the serf so long, until he has exacted the revenue of his kingdom from his subjects, then he is not in need of another's wealth, but can share from his own treasure and clothes of every color as much as is sufficient:* Now that the Priests have those unaccountable, and do not make it clear to anyone, what is denoted by those mysteries and sacraments, who would not be out of reason, from the bosoms or purposes which are the series, impulsive, efficient, formal or material: If for it would have been agreed upon by all, that at that time such a chemical artifice would have been practiced in Egypt by the Priests, and therefore so many and so many ceremonies had been ordered, there would have been a great gathering of all nations into Egypt , and various expeditions of foreign kings would have been tried and undertaken at the same time; whence the Kings and Priests of Egypt entangled themselves in the war for that reason, when they could enjoy their goods in silence; Therefore capital punishment was prohibited
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to divulge anything about those secrets; and that was all the easier because the kings themselves were chosen and created from the priests, i.e. priests from the philosophers. And the priests, the priests had sons, as each one was a workman, a workman; and it was not permitted to another to aspire to the priesthood, but it was necessary for each one to exercise a paternal office or workman. much less to the pilgrims, who for the same reason were entirely shunned from Egypt , or, if they had arrived, were repulsed with ignominy or danger of capital; When, indeed, after the beneficence of a certain King, the nearness of the Greek people had come, obscurely excited by a certain fame, it is evident that the most mysterious Egyptian arts were propagated to other parts of the world, as we shall later discuss at length: The remaining causes of the concealment of this knowledge They are a slaughter with • js, why the artists meet on the side, or why the common people do not consider art to be true; which can be read abundantly among the authors; for it is not necessary to bring here more of these things: They relate of Alexander the Great, that he was in Egypt by a certain priest called Leo, who was known as the Arcanum of the Arcanum .* those who are commonly held to be gods, were not gods, but mortal men, the Egyptians, and that they were kings, and that they had written this to Olympias, the mother, and that she had sent the epistle to be read into the fire. the gods were worshipped, that is to say, with the art and religion of the Egyptians transferred to themby Opheus or Melampode , it was unwise for the common people to recognize the gods as not being gods when they were received . when from here the confusion of all equity was seen to be spent, not being perceived by the knowledge of the true God, therefore Alexander ordered the letter to be consumed by fire: for the fear of even false gods* yet for the truths recognized, men at all times continued in office , lest they should in any way attempt against the laws passed, or religion, or the highest authority. But if that priest Leo, as it were, had reposed, he had confessed
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〈...〉 the art of Alexander the Great, who then possessed Egypt , would have been 〈...〉 : Thus, under the legendary envelopes of Osiris and Isis, 〈...〉 they wanted, concealed for a long time: For if it had stood publicly, Osiris and Isis, nor the gods , and that there were no men, neither Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Mercury, Apollo, Diana, Venus, Vulcan, ever lived or reigned, and nevertheless so many and so many ceremonies were performed and honors were offered to each one, the curious, what in the end was veiled under those names He would have been comprable and hidden, he would have provided a loop for investigation: Which was seen by the Egyptian priests as alien from every reason, and connected with the greatest danger; therefore they were compelled to assert that such were not gods, but men, and that they had received the divine order; and thus they gave Alexander a reason, when the gods of the ancient nations were celebrated throughout the world in divine worship, at least men and kings would have been, so that he himself suffered to be worshiped and proclaimed as God, confined to a mortal body: Besides the worship of Osiris and Isis , Hercules also that honors were held, and the Eleusinian or Ceres' arcane sacred ceremonies were instituted by other gods, namely, Vulcan, Mercury, Saturn, Jou, and the like.* among the Egyptians it is known from Histories; but leaving them to rejoice elsewhere, let us now turn to the more famous kings of Egypt. As the priests of Egypt report that Mercury was the discoverer of the disciplines and arts , so of those who look to life, the kings: for the ancients were not carried to the descendants of the rulers, as Diodorus says kingdoms, but to those who seemed to deserve more than the lives of men, either because of the common utility of creating kings for themselves for the people, or because they were thus contained in the sacred books: Of them no one speaks of them, the first gods and heroes in Egypt a little less than ten, and that he reigned eight thousand years; of the gods, and lastly Orum won by the kingdom of Isis; The men, however, numbered a little less than ten thousand, and at the hundredth and eightieth Olympiad, at which time Odorus crossed over into Egypt , during the reign of Ptolemy , who was called Dionysius the ninth . It is true from the chronology of the world that the Egyptians are sacrificialin number
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certain years 〈…〉 , and of those who never 〈…〉 , nor were in the nature of the world, reigned beyond the memory of all historians: They say that Menā reigned first after the gods in Egypt,* who first delivered the written laws to the Egyptians (which he imagined himself to promulgate at the command of Mercury, as if they were to promulgate the cause of great good things), and his descendants held the kingdom, namely, 52 kings, for 1040 years.* Then the Busiris reigned with 8 descendants, the last of whom was called the Busiris, who was the word of the Sun from the Egyptians,* He founded Thebes, called by the Greeks, the walls of which were 140 stadia complex, the most ornate buildings, and a hundred porticoes, and in each of them two hundred guards with horses and chariots. they reigned, we received many gifts that contributed ornaments to the extent of this city; moreover, he decorated it with many statues of silver, gold, and ivory, like colossuses, and obelisks, made of single stone, as it is plainly evident, that no word under the sun had been so adorned. These are the words of Diodorus: and it is observed that each Philosopher-King was endowed with so many astonishing and precious works, in honor of ORI, or Apollo, or the Sun, not a celestial star, but the Philosopher, and the land produced and elaborated by the work of Vulcan, the last of the gods, consecrated, which no outsider was permitted to see or enter. how far his fame has spread throughout the world; Hence the Greeks, writing about it, uttered nothing certain, as if they had not been eye-witnesses, butscattered here and there like dreams and incredible things about Thebes, the Centiport of Egypt : who would consider the matter more acutely; wherefore Diodorus* They report, says the Priests, 47. The royal sepulchres, whose v{and} at Ptolemy's Lake, 17. only remained, were written in their books .
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(In the time of Cambyses, who burnt down the temples of the Egyptians, and carried all the gold and silver into Persia) all of which was consumed, among the rest a little of the gold, which, however, weighed more than 300 tons, flowed out, of silver, about 2300. And this from Thebes It is to be understood by the Egyptians that Busiris, king of Egypt, who founded Thebes, was Philosopher; and the priest of Vulcan , like the rest* there is no doubt, although his cruelty was more detested among the Greeks than his knowledge was celebrated: for it is enumerated by the Greeks in the labors of Hercules , that when he went to Egypt in Libya, Busirim, the son of Neptune Lysia∣nassaque or Libya, arrived in Inui or Neptune pa∣ He took up the sacrificer in the midst of the three; And this is said by the later poets to have been disgraced in the Busiridis, for the same reason, because it was not permitted to the Greeks at that time to enter Egypt, whose riches they had known from fame.* vt has been said before: The astonishing work of king Simandius is described by Hecataeus and Diodorus, whose monument at Thebes was not only conspicuous in size, but also excellent in art and in the nature of the stones, ten stadia, at the entrance of which was a gate of two acres length, height 45 cubits; It was written in it:
REX REGVM SIMANDIVS SVM.
IF ANYBODY WISHES TO KNOW WHAT FEVER I AM, AND THERE I LAY, HE WILL EXPERIENCE ME FROM SOMEWHERE.
They also say that there was another sign of the mother, with a single stone of 20 cubits, having three queens above her head, which showed that she was a daughter, that she was the wife and mother of the king. Behind this Gate, and another, was a more noble and superior peristyle, with various carvings, in which there was a war against the Bactrians, whom the king's sons commanded, descending from him, having marched against them with four hundred thousand foot, twenty horse, an army divided into four parts, when he had marched . The first
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a part of the wall contained a siege sculptured with words, on that side where the river alluded the walls. Some writers say that it was a true story, and that the lions, nourished by their labors at home, carry the king to victory as usual in his fists. Another, because of the chief strength of the heart, by the similitude of a lion, that he wished to show the strength of body and mind. The second wall was carved with captives without shame, and led by their hands to the King; which was known, that they were vile in mind, and imbeciles in body. The third side of the sculpture contained various paintings and decorations, the sacrifices of the king, and the triumph over his defeated enemies. In the middle of the side of the Peristyle, there were two huge statues made of single stone, 27 cubits long, to which three approaches were open from the peristyle. in number, representing both those who debated the doubtful matter, and also those who gave judgments in the judgments. and he was with his eyes closed, surrounded by a pile of books: These pictures they bore before him, the judges must be honest, the praetor alone should look at the truth. Then the ambulatory was full of houses, and in them various kinds of feasts, prepared to the sweetest taste: then, standing out from the rest, the King was carved in various colors, gold and silver, which he had annually taken from gold and silver metals, offering to God: also the sum of all was written in silver reduced
Threats three million and two hundred thousand.
Thence followed the sacred Library, in which it was inscribed.
MEDICATION OF THE MIND
Place the library of the house, situated in the courtyard, in which there were twenty couches of Jupiter and Juno , besides the statue of the king,
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and there the body of the king was seen to be buried: around this were many dwellings, in which were seen painted Egyptian animals, each fit for the sacred* all the sepulchres, towards the ascendant • : The monuments were surrounded by a gold circle, 365 cubits, one cubit thick, in which were recorded for each cubit the days of the year and the rising and setting of the stars, and what they signified according to the Egyptian astrologers observed: {which} they bear the circle, which was taken away at the time when Cambyses and the Persians ruled Egypt.* The most magnificentworks of King Simandius , hitherto narrated by Diodorus , not only in matter, but also in form, sufficiently explain the purpose and intention of which they were instituted, in the manner in which the Historians interpret them: that he had inscribed the sum of the yearly receipts from the metallurgical mine on the monument, as if this were perpetual and proper to him, and yet it could never fail to decrease; because the sums received from the mines are rarely static or even, but change suddenly and often; Next, Simandius could not dedicate these works to himself, of which he was not himself responsible, but at least the administrator; when he looked equally at his predecessors and posterity with that glory: And it seemed close to folly, to take care of riches plucked from the earth, after his death, cut into his grave. because it exceeds a thousand millions of gold in length:* Wherefore shall I say what lies beneath the mystic, or put a finite number instead of an infinite one : for indeed this inscription is followed by the sacred library, that is, the furniture of the sacred books or written in Hieroglyphic writings with the title, Medicine of the Soul, what else does it indicate, than that of Salom • not of Wisdom, chap. 7. (quoting the Rosary of the Philosophers) it is said: In comparison with him all gold is like fine sand , but dirt will be crushed into silver in his sight . His wealth is more precious than all the riches of this world, and all that is desired in the world cannot be compared to him.
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Length of days and health in his right hand, in his left hand true glory and endless abundance: his ways are fair and praiseworthy, not despised, and his paths moderated, and not hasty, but with long-lasting labor: the tree of life is to them , those who grasped it and the light failing, blessed were those who held it. Although these words may be explained of the eternal Wise One, who is Christ, yet they are rather to be understood of earthly things, besides the fact that the circumstances almost all hint at it, the author is to me a prince of what electoral nobility and doctrine such Philosophical as this is, as Theo The distinguished and most illustrious logician, who commended to me the twin gifts of golden medicine, brought the same words in the middle, with every major exception: What both those erected statues seem to look at, and the allegorical exposition of the mighty deeds of war, where the king fights like a lion, and the enemies are looked at from afar and ashamed; for I will not deny that some of these may be referred to true history: but by the shame of heterogeneity, whence the rise and propagation of our subject happened, is usually de∣notated, by which the triumph of the king, robbed by the work of Vulcan , endowed with the strength of a lion, follows: ∣bus and praetor, let us add to their hieroglyphic figures; which is perhaps more appropriate to the present matter; they will be able to adapt themselves to the generally known form of judgments; For here truth is sought, there justice; where they look and the various kinds of feasts are placed: From the descendants of King Symandius , Ogdous V • ho∣reus descends, who founded Memphis around the stadiums, 150. the most famous saying of all Egypt : When he died, the twelfth offspring after him possessed the kingdom of Egypt , by the name of Miris;* after whom the seventh offspring of Sesostris, being made king, surpassed all his superiors in glory and in the greatness of things: of whose education we will pass over the other deeds here, and at least we will bring here some glimpses of him . had foretold, that the child born would rule over the whole world: besides other astonishing things and successful expeditions into the extremes of the Indies, and other absolute parts of the world,
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He made a ship of cedar 280 cubits in length, gilded on the outside, silvered on the inside, which he presented as a gift to the God who is most worshiped at Thebes .* At Memphis, in the temple of Vulcan , he placed two stone statues of himself and his wife, 30 cubits in height, and 20 of his sons, for this reason: to four kings or leaders, whom he had conquered, or to whom he had surrendered their kingdoms, or whom he had made governor of different provinces. to those coming into Egypt on the appointed day, and to those who offered him gifts, if he ever went to the Temple, or walked along the road, instead of horses attached to a chariot; He reigned for 33 years, but his long-lasting glory came and flowed down to posterity, for many centuries later, when the Persiansheld the empire of Egypt , Darius Xerxes ' father wanted to place his statue in Memphis before Sesostris, the high priest publicly contradicted , asserting that the works of Sesostris had not yet equaled him; to which the King, not at all reluctant to answer, but very happy at the freedom of speech, said that he would take care of himself, that if he had lived so long, he would have been inferior to him, and he was encouraged, that he would compare the deeds of his age. After Amasis, Actisanes the Ethiopian, and again Miris, who founded the Labyrinth, Mirandumopus;* the like of which is said to have been built by Daedalus, the reigning Minoan in Crete; But in the time of Diodorus the Cretans failed, the Egyptians remained intact. After this Cetes, called by the Greeks Protheus , then Octavus by him Chemnis, who reigned 50 years, and built the greatest Pyramid; who was succeeded by Chabreus, and after Micerinus, the builders of the other Pyramids: they assert that he built another greater Pyramid, Armeus, the second Amasim, the third Masus, which some say was the tomb of the skins of the Rhodopes, and this was not accomplished by the joint work of any princes who loved it. After Bocchorus, then Sabacchus the Ethiopian reigned, who, if he wished to reign well, was commanded in his dreams to kill all the priests; Lest he should perpetrate so much crime, he willingly abdicated the kingdom, and retired to Ethiopia: Then Egypt was governed by peers, of whom Psammiticus
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Mundi 3278. is referred to) obtained the Monarchy; This king of the Egyptians was the first to attract the rest of the nations to import what was with him, security being provided to each who came. says Diodorus, in the time of Busiris, when he was fighting foreigners among the Egyptians , he gave the Greeks a cause, though by no means true, but with much contracted cruelty, to write what is related of him in fables. A fourth generation reigned after the mythical Psa: Apri∣eus followed, and after him the strangulation of Amasis, in whose time (when Polycrates the Samian tyrant lived) Pythagoras returned to Greece:* Amasis reigned 55 years, vt others like it 44. and after him Psammenites 6 years: Then Cambyses, king of the Persians, took Egypt by arms, about the third year ofthe third and sixtieth Olympiad : the Aethiopians , indeed, reigned four times, not continuously, but at different times , for 36 years. The Persians from the leader Cambyses, 134 years. Thelast Macedonians and those whodescended from them, 276 years.by the works and deeds of the principal Kings of Egypt,* afore∣mentioned before, it is plainly seen, that not obscure traces of the artifice of Chymics stillin Egypt at the time of Diodorus , which, although he had not closed it at that end, since it was once entirely unknown, yet we have been established by some other documents, in In these we noticed that the truth sparkled most manifestly; For what other reason could there be, why the temple of Vulcan was the primary temple of Memphis, its most secret sacred, and always held open to anyone? Why should the kings of Vulcan be called priests, when, among other nations, this God is not given so much honor, but is always left in the last place among the rest? Why was Egypt not to be reached from abroad, except that they believed that the Egyptians had more riches with themthan could be brought by the strangers, and meanwhile they had everything for sustenance in abundance? Why are there so many incredible and astonishing works, such as Mun∣dus?
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How then, and how could it not be imitated yet, with immeasurable labors and costs greater than those of kings, had they been left to posterity, unless they had gone forth and been perfected to demonstrate its truth? Why should the Priests have received a third part of all the profits and revenues, and why in the first place before the King, unless there was such a reason, that Kings were created from them, laws were promulgated by them, and through them the Sacred Vulcan was made, that is, the chemical work of Vulcan? would it be done?* To which also the hieroglyphic animal letters or pictures, which it was lawful for no one to declare, were to be noted; Of which, although a whole volume has been dealt with by others, yet I do not know whether, apart from the most vulgar and superficially known, it contains anything; We do not doubt that institutions of manners can be sought from it, and symbols of virtues and vices, as well as the rudiments of certain physical principles of the greater world, for each one interprets what is understood according to his own genius, but we believe that they are not of such importance .* why the world would then feel a change in religions, and so many solemnities, ceremonies, ceremonies, and rites would take place, so many laws would be passed, new letters would be invented, and each one would be enveloped in darkness and silence, newcomers would be arrested and revealers of mysteriesthey would bepunished by capital punishment .* Q • o • how many have written the histories of the Egyptians, with a vain consent • they mined the Apides, the sacred bulls, about which we will add some from Diodorus Siculus, vit .We perceive that the bull,which they call Ap •• , was taken care of. finding it, the people put anend to mourning: the priests, to whom it is an imminent concern, lead the first calf to the city of the Nile, where they nurse it for 4 days . D • begin in a ship contact, having an ark dwelling, i • tr • leading,
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and to Memphis, that is, the god, leading IN VVLCA∣NI Fano they place: In these days only women see Taurus, who stand before his face, with their clothes lifted, and show him a shaved head: At the rest of the time they are forbidden to come into the presence of this God. These Diodorus add: Another, that it is necessary to require a black color in the boue, and some white sign or spot in the form of a crescent moon and cornuculate on the forehead or on either side.* and moreover it must be free from every stain; After having been nourished and worshiped for four years in the temple of Vulcan, he was immersed alive in a certain spring with great solemnity; that his corpse should be brought to a most sumptuous sepulchre, and afterwards called Seraphim, another ox, as before, through the whole region of Egypt, distinguished by the same spots and colors, I should inquire of the priests with great care; How sumptuous palaces, called Cubilia, Memphis built in the temple of Vulcan for this bull, with what solicitude they cared for him and nourished him, with what care and worship they continued, among the various Anthores can be noted very sparsely: Diodorus continued this custom of worshiping bullsin his time It will testify to the fact that it was observed for many centuries;* But if the people of Israel, brought out of Egypt by Moses, instituted idolatry in the desert, with the permission of Aaron, we should consider how they made a calf of gold, and gave it divine honors by dancing around it in the Egyptian rite, long before that time in Egypt the worship of the bee that it had been received, let us note:for about the year of the world 2454. before the birth of Christ 1509. Moses led the Israelite people out of Egypt; And Diodorus Sicu us Perlustrauit Annomundus 3907. before the birth of Christ 55. From which calculation it is evident that the interval between the eduction of Moses and the peregrination of Diodorus was 1453. . The Egyptians themselves do not know the true causes of the institution of which, as it is said to be very ancient, and for that reason they generally propose the most diverse: for thus Diodorus in the said book. 2. Of honor, says he, I have paid him
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some give the reason, that the soul of the deceased Osiris had transmigrated into the ox; which afterwards passed on to his posterity, and was transfused. When Osiris was killed by Typhon , they say that Api collected his limbs and placed them in a wooden ox surrounded by bouisalb skin, and therefore the city was called Busirid. The Egyptians, speaking of all things that are truly surprising and with greater faith about the honor of such animals, cast no small doubt on those who sought reasons: The priests have some more secret writings, as we have already said:* Many of the Egyptians give three reasons, the first of which is entirely legendary, and worthy of the simplicity of the ancients: for they say, the former gods* when they were few in number, and unequaled in strength to the people, they feared indeed the impiety of men, and pretended to resemble some living creatures, and in that way escaped the cruelty and violence of men. to those who had provided the cause of their salvation, they had consecrated those whose form they had taken, and had shown by what covenant they were to nourish the living and bury the dead. For the second reason; The ancient Egyptians, among whom there was no military doctrine,* when they were often overcome by their neighbors in war, they thought to bear some sign that the soldiers would follow: therefore the figures of animals which they now worship, their leaders had brought in the war; that, from the matter being known, it should be kept • {and} under which each one should soldier in order, having obtained the victory: therefore it was deemed that favor should be rendered to these animals, as the authors of the victory, and that it was established that any of them, whose image had been brought forth, were wrong , were slain, but should rather be worshiped, and honored. a female cow gives birth to others who plow the ground* and she is not unfit for aran∣dum: The sheep eat twice the fetus, and providing wool of various kinds adapted to each, l • c, cheese which they provide to us in abundance. A dogis useful both for hunting and guarding: therefore the god, who among them is called Anubis,
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they represent the head of a dog, signifying that he was the guardian of the body of O • the rainbow and Isis : This is Diodorus. These causes , viz .* who neither satisfied the knowledge of the truth of God, nor the difference of false gods, much less the chemical truth thathe knew, but unworthy works of such magnitude were seen before , so many • or less than us at length otherwise trained both in the true religion of God, and in the study of chemistry, they will be able to be at peace ; On the contrary , they are regarded as frivolous and scarcely worthy of reporting, since they are very alien from all reason andexperience. They were to be imitated for form or pretext; which with wiser men would have seemed absurd, they did not unjustly laugh at the stupidity of the Egyptians in worshiping coins;* Butno one can deny that the Egyptians were the first inventors and worshipers of many arts and sciences, and they were always celebrated as the most prudent, most subtle {and} ingenious men, {and}, how quickly, in front of other nations, to childish deliriums about brutes worship, unless there was some other more secret cause, which it is not permissible to reveal? The priests, conscious of the truth in their religion and deterred by capital punishment, did not reveal anything about such secrets; The common people, or the literate, or the idiots among the Egyptians, did not know the least about the true cause, and therefore they could manifest themselves to others by writing nothing but fables and things pretended to appear; so that the more those who were inquiring into the true causes of the falsity, and were led astray to the goal, the more willingly did it happen to the priests who were aware of it. For when they were convinced that God, the Creator of all things, could be recognized and worshiped through his creatures, they were not troubled by a false imagination , and the common people were otherwise instructed in religion, when they foresaw a change of this kind that would be most dangerous to them. to cover the cause, it was necessary to bring forth those various {and} false reasonings, which of their own accord strangle one another and cut them off in the middle: Verum Diodorus
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it is admitted that some more secret writings about these things exist among the Priests, unknown to others : what kind of secrets they may have been, as they could be called the Medicine of the soul, and they could be recovered, a later day has already discovered: Let those three causes be mocked by children, and by all in truth, and let him who will believe them, we have known other reasons; if indeed they are said under the same Allegory, they will be able to appear at the same time, and the first, which is literally the most absurd, will correspond more to the sense of truth . they did not want to give it away without discrimination, and under the shape of it they veiled it , as if it were a skin, with the blood of various animals, and hid it away ; that they should not be recognized, except by those who were aware or rational: for it was not safe to fully believe the most mysterious nature of the Nilotic papyrus or the membranes of the living through writing ; those who see should know, but those who know should not be ignorant.* we will briefly go over the cause of this divine worship of the boi, called the Api, whence a similar judgment must be taken of the cae∣ris . It is clear from many other worksand allegories : Even if there were no properties of nature , thediscretion of the will would still be sufficient for such a designation. For to seek too curiously the reason for the vocabulary or nomenclature of all the Technics, would be out of reason. As much as one may indeed suspect, this animal* I choosethe bull for worship , before others, as the bee is called, because it is otherwise known and notable for its vivacity, strength, security, and pre∣stance of nature; and because a large part of agriculture in
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plowing, burning, threshing, and other laborious works, he must devote himself to this, also because he expresses to life the image of the waxing moon with horns and white spots on a black body; For these it is of various colors, of a tractable nature, and not of very rare invention: if there be any other proprieties observed by others, these are sufficient for us . let the intellect be recursed, namely , what is denoted by that?* To which I answer; There are two primary motives or impulses for the introduction of these ceremonies and rites; The first and most important, that is to God, the supreme Creator and Bestower of so many gifts, every day grace was rendered by the conscious priests, by looking at this animal, as a visible object and as if a sacrament and an external symbol, which reminded him to direct the inner movements of the chest to God; That, until the younger priests had acquired a perfect knowledge of this matter, they would be inspired by these hieroglyphic characters to investigate those things which were more obscure. images or figures, that is, they would become perfect theorists, before they put their hand to practice: for that which the hand has previously noted, the mind retains more easily, so that the mind is well premeditated,* this hand expresses more aptly the post: Another and secondary reason is with regard to the common people, both that this was contained in the duty and veneration of this animal, although ignorant, and that he carried on the law and manners, and that he did not inquire into the records and writings of the Wise , those dealing with the artifice of chemistry: For if there had been no external worship for this matter, those priests, not priests, but chemical artists, would have been proclaimed, and everyone would be out of curiosity in their deeds and achievements
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he had inquired; From which fear , under the pretext of religion, the children fled, although they always made fire in the temple of Vulcan, and from it they hid the night and day ; For thus the sacred matter demanded: Which is sufficient for the intelligent: By the rare quo{que} philosophical matter is denoted, it is clear from Osiris and Isis, before sufficiently explained, who are meant by the Bee, when the soul of Osiris is said to migrate into the dead Bee, Serapinus after said: and whatever honors Osiris and Isis owe, the Apis are obliged to pay the same to Egypt. Moreover, in subsequent times, the same material was always allegorically insinuated by the Greeks through oxen , as is evident in the Minoan Bull or the Cretan Minotaur enclosed in the labyrinth of Theseus with the help of Ariadne; in the oxen of Hercules from Hesperia, or Iberia, of the three-bodied Geryon, (daughter of Chrysaurus, grandson of Medusa's blood,) brought down, that is, from the mountains of the Pyrenees; in the oxen of the sun in Trinacria , in the bulls sent under the yoke by the donkey , and in others of this kind, as many as are: The color of this ox Api must have been black for the same reason, because black is blacker than black is the beginning of art; On the forehead or on either side of the white spot of the waxing moon, otherwise free from the spots, a young man, or calf, is healthy and noble, because the age is younger , as is required in those who have been incubated, and so also in philosophical matter. As the eggs of a hen without a rooster are useless, so the philosophical subject, or the image of the bee and the waxing moon, hardly avails anything; The bee does not exceed the fourth year, in which it is submerged, and another is searched for in its turn, and in the same way it is nourished, cultivated, and extinguished; because it is necessary that he should remain young; For when the course of Philosophy is completed three times and four times, it begins anew, as Typhon kills Osiris again, and Isis rejoins the members of her spouse anew: Others say that Isis is one , Osiris the sun, the celestials, and the sacred Bee, especially marked with the said spots; But they never saw the Sun and the Moon of the philosophers, not even
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through the shadow; that is, they are nocturnal to this sun, which also shines at night on the intelligent, the ignorant, sheltered under darkness; For the head is from you, says Hermes chap. 1. There is a choir that flies without wings in the darkness and brightness of the night . Moreover, the golden abode in which the Bee was kept, the hay of Vulcan in which he was nourished, and the rest of the cults used attest the same . , for the diversity of any nature, they expressed; which the common people of the Egyptians noticed painted or carved in the pyramids, columns, statues, temples, and other places, with the Api, and they were repaid and silenced by the priests, with the same sense and honor with which the Api, the other brute animals also began to be worshipped.* This is the origin and root of the brutal superstition of the Egyptians in the worship of all animals and plants, sprung up by Api and his hieroglyphics, and planted and planted in their minds; For while the sign of apprehension for the signified is for ignorance , as a dog for a stone for a thrower, and adheres to the external surface, he neglects the interior things, which should be seen by the intellect, not by the eyes; and while it captures the shadow, it loses the essence of the matter: Thus superstition was born from superstition, and error from error, by the connivance of the Priests, from the causes aforesaid; Nor indeed could it be done, that such an opinion, imbibed with the mother's milk, should be rooted out afterwards, unless it were shown the truth, for which such and such things were ordained by the ancients, which was in no way right; Hence the individual cities of Egypt, taking the example of Memphis (which worshiped the ox),* individual animals began to be venerated as deities; Whence they are called op • a∣rant , as if leading to the rising of theGods, viz . 17. Geographies of the same Aegyprijs, • and theirs
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He writes about the variety of animal worship: the Saites and Thebans especially worshiped the sheep, the broad fish of the Nile of the Latopolitans, the wolf of the Lycopolitans, the cynocephalus of the Hermopolitans, the cetus of the Babylonians, who worshiped near Memphis, the eagle of the Thebans, the lion of the Leontopolitans, the goat and goat of Mendesius, the mouse and the spider Athribites: It is true that some of the Egyptian gods produce an immense number,* we, omitting the rest, will examine at least the chief Hieroglyphics of the animals, viz. the Dog, the Wolf, the Cat, the Lion, the Goat, the Ichneumon, the Cynocephalus, the Crocodile, the Ibi∣di, the Hawk , and the Eagle. The dog Mercury, as the guardian, is ascribed to him, and is his proper Hieroglyphic: For with the head of a dog they painted Mercury, whom they called Anubis, as a singular Egyptian God; for as Mercury, the counselor or minister of Osiris and Isis , is set up there, so is the Dog, who is scarcely more shrewd than an animal; it is sacred to him: Hence Virgil calls Anubis a barker, or canines, l • having brought forth this verse: Monsters and barkers of the Gods of all generations. Why wolves were venerated, they give various reasons; to somebecause of the likeness of dogs, to others that* when Isis was about to fight a war with her son Orus, Osiris in the form of a wolf came from the underworld to the aid of her husband and son againstTyphon . it appears; Anubis and Macedon, as was said before, were thought to be the sons of Osiris, of whom the Dog, this the Wolf, bore the insignia in their armor; Here Anubis is regarded as Mercury, who is either a counselor or an officer of Isis, not a son, and Orus is said to be the only one born of Osiris and Isis : whence it is clear that if these things are taken for the histories of things or persons, they are rejected in all and each by themselves: Nothing but the dog and the wolf signify another Hieroglyphically,* than two parts in one subject, one of which is more secure and tractable or less aggressive , the other more ferocious and flighty; And when Anubis is represented with a dog
's head ,
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it is denoted by that respect in which it is more stable and fixed; With the Macedon Lupus, which vo • more: for we know that the Wolf , says Rhasis in the Epistle, is found in the East, and the Dog in the West; This one bit him, and this one bit that one, and they were both entwined, and they killed each other until they became toxic and Theriaca . And the author of Germanic rhythms; Alexander, says he, writes from Persia, that the Wolf and the Dog were brought up in this clay, yet we are told by the Philosopher, that both have one origin ; Thus also Felis was considered sacred to Isis for the same reason, because Isis was assimilated to the heavenly moon and to the feminine nature.* and the trigger seemed to hold the vicissitudes of the moon by the increase of the eyes and the decrease of the chin; whence the cat was held in chief honor among the superstitious Egyptians, who were held to have killed a cat by capital, as Diodorus narrates, by the example of a certain Roman plebeian and a Persian king, the injuries inflicted by the murderers on account of the cat; He saw the lion as the king of animals, who was the conqueror of nature, hot and fiery, and who did not die with the blood of others who were vanquished .* they set, and denoted by it the sulfur marked with the lion's skin; of which, as we have often spoken in these books, we omit here the well-known: The goat is observed to denote the same as Typhus , Priapus , Phallus, Satyrs, and Titans;* for when an animal is prone to lust, as is clear from Virg. Eg. 3.
We do not go and those who protect you across the goats,
And where but the easy nymphs to laugh at the chapel.
Hence it is taken as a member of generation, that which was taken from Osiris, or from his father Saturn, or from his grandfather Heaven; And Bacchus, who is Osiris , is considered sacred, as also the Phallus, of which below: Ichneumon is said to represent the shape of a mouse, whence the Indian Mouse is said by some:* They say to him with the Crocodile
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that it is a murderous war, to which he is unequal in strength and size, he cunningly attacks the enemy, while he leaps into the throat of the sleeping one, and prostrates himself with his corroded intestines; Without a doubt, the most ancients had this reason, who first saw the figure of an animal as if it were a Hieroglyphic character. volatile, and thus from both becomes golden Theriaca Medicine:* But nothing is more frequently seen than the Cynocephalus in the symbols of Egypt, and that because of its animal nature; that Isidore lib. 11. he describes it in this way: Cynocephalus is a monster having the head of a dog, of which it is told in lib. of the Naturalists, that one Cynocephalus was brought to King Ludoicus of the Franks, having the head of a canine, the rest of his limbs like a man, his legs indeed bare in human fashion, his hands and arms also, his neck white and naked, his back truly hairy, erect as a man stood and so decently and honorably as a man took food in his hands and brought it to his mouth: Augustine remembers this . l. 2. c. 14. On the City of God, where Thomas Valois adds, Augustine understandsby Cynocephalus Mercury or Hermets of Egypt; whence & says lib. • _ chap. 12.16 I really wonder if she, of course, the mother of the gods , Rhea, gaveto Cynocephalus , who came a long time later from Egypt . Chapter 8 rather to have been formed with a dog's head; For the dog is the most shrewd animal, and so he was thewisest . they add that the repeated kiss expresses the twenty-four hours of the natural day, and thus represents the movement of the sun in a circle:* The causes which are handed down among the Egyptians are most absurd ; because they offer three safe havens to the robbers, who are forced to abstain from the Nile for fear of these;
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as if the crocodiles living under the waters could rather repel the enemy, than the Egyptians themselves would never be safe under the tyranny of their crocodiles; since the Crocodile is more rapacious than all the robbers , and more cruel, as much as the Egyptians, so fierce as to be next, and to be feared by water and land ; I worshiped this beast for God, and built for him the proverb called Crocodilopolin, that is, Lycopolin in honor of the Wolf, Leontopolin in honor of the Lion, is absolutely incredible; It is certainly more certain that it did not come from the merit of animals, but because of its mysterious physical meaning, not known to all: for this animal dwells both in waters and on earth; only from each pair of legs does it produce an egg; by what reason does he really hatch the philosophic egg; that although it is imperfect, yet it has within itself all that is necessary for it.* which, above being given to serpents in Egypt, was held to be most salutary; This bird was believed to be sacred to Isis and Mercury because of the mysterious endowments of nature, and because by feeding on the poison it provided a healthier air and a safer life for animals, and because it itself was medicated by the injection of Clysters from obstructions that blocked the intestines. They consider the hawk of Osiris sacred,* he who is a solar bird is seen not only by the range of his eyes, which is of value, but also by a fiery nature ready for war; whence that Ovid.
We hate the hawk, because it always lives in arms.
For by this force of Martial he calls the other birds into prey, and turns them into blood;* which they call the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, they re∣posed, for the same reasons, which we enumerated before, and after, where the Aquile∣lae becomes a menrio: Besides these hieroglyphic figures, innumerable others are found, viz. in the Pyramids, the table of Isis, and the like the most ancient works of the Egyptians
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And it appears from the inscriptions, but these will suffice for us as an example in this place; They write other great commentaries on the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians, if they will, but hardly an arbiter, apart from Vulcan and Mercury, without true knowledge of Medicine (in which Osiris and Isis did much) let them explain by implicating them, indeed, delays, and indeed delays and mere trifles: That the giants fled into Egypt, and there, assuming the shapes of various animals, hid themselves; Hence Ovid. 5. Met. He ascribes to each of the Gods a particular animal, under whose cover they hid, in these verses.
Typhoea tells us that Terrigena also came here,
And you are lying to the figures above.
And the leader of the herd, he said, becomes Jupiter, whence he turns back
Now also the Libyans are formed with the horns of Hammon,
Delius is in the raven, the offspring of Semeleia the Goat,
Felle, the sister of Phoebus, the cow of Saturnia in the snow,
Venus hid in the fish, Cijllenius Ibidis wings.
In addition to the figures of animals and other things usurped as hieroglyphic characters, in each of the Egyptian temples was seen a simulacrum of Harpocrates, in that form, as a seal of silence with the finger of the mouth* And with the other hand hiding the prudent, detesting lust, he hinted; and that not without cause; For these are not to be insinuated to all, as the most secret secrets of nature, and as the most precious gifts of God, so they are not to be dishonored by lust or lust.
There are, moreover, unquestionable monuments in the rest of Egypt ,* the memory of which exists in history, or the traces of which are encountered even today, if not by themselves, but in combination with others, a clear evidence of Philosophical artifice
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passing through; since so many colonies have been carried throughout the world ,* which are altogether such, as if the power of some great nation, and the most illustrious nations, had existedfrom the beginning .* who, when he had chosen the Euphrates as his seat, appointed priests (they call them Babylonian Chaldaeans , who, after the manner of the Egyptians, locked the stars) appointed also physicists, who were devoted to Astrology; Jupiter is said to have come from the priests of Egypt, and to have been acquainted with the most mysterious artifices and to be peculiar to those priests, and with his help to have brought about the growth of such a kingdom. what has been entered is sufficient to convince him that he was a partaker of the golden genealogy of the gods .* Having founded Argos; that he had landed in Lydia, Cyprus, and had been received by the inhabitants, who had erected a temple of Minerua, and had erected a huge statue. That it is true that Danaus the Egyptian had a knowledge of the Egyptian secret, and an affinity with Belus, is evident from the allegories made by the poets after their time about the daughters of Danaus , who killed their husbands, whence they were forced to fill a perforated vessel with water in the underworld in vain Belides are appealed to, because somemake Belum the father of Danai , another of these spouses;* Of Colchis , Diodorus relates that they are colonies of the Egyptians who live in Pontus; These followed the mines of metals, and began to cultivate them in Colchis; Whence Jason carried away the golden fleece: Thus Am∣mianus l. 22. He refers to Colchos as being an ancient stock of the Egyptians: for linen-making was popular among them until now, as it was exported to foreign places.* Moreover, says Diodorus , the Jews , who testify that they emigrated between Arabia and Syria by the Egyptians themselves.
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children, brought from Egypt by that custom. But in these, from ignorance of the sacred letters,* he deduces the origin of circumcision among the Jews from the Egyptians, when it should be done on the contrary; After Abraham , by the command of God himself, transmitted this rite to his descendants, many of whom settled in Egypt at different times, and there doubtless propagated circumcision. When each one of the Israelites was commanded by God to receive and take away with him the golden and silver vessels; It seems that there was a great quantity of these vessels there, and that they were of no great value or preciousness, because the country men, serfs and foreigners, having no intention of migrating from there and returning against the King's own nod, procured the same from their neighbors the Egyptians; For apart from the fact that God had the will of the Egyptians in his hand • or {and} directed it, yet if private men had not had much gold and silver themselves, they would not have been able to lend to others. of the priests and kings themselves, how much treasure and wealth they had in metals, of whom it is read that they built their own repositories or vaults to store gold and silver, which indeed may have seemed strange in that ancient time, but not in our time; The Athenians endeavor to assert that the colonists of the Saites were of the Egyptian race, as is clear from Diodorus: who says;* There were also some Athenian leaders of Egypt:* For Dipetes, the father of Mnetheus, when he was an Egyptian, after the manner of the Athenians, became king of the people:* Similarly, Erichtheus relates that the Egyptian race commanded the Athenians, who brought corn from Egypt to the Athenians, and for that benefit they were appointed king, who, on taking the kingdom, taught them the ceremonies and mysteries of Ceres Eleusis, transferred from the Egyptians. They say that Athens brought the corn and sowed it
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once more he taught wheat: the Athenians, in the reign of Erichtheus, when they had eaten up all the dry fruits of the earth,* I would have helped them with the present corn; Moreover, the sacred and its mysteries about •• then taken up in Eleusis, which are the same and celebrated among the Egyptians: This Diodorus: It is true that these things are fabulous and never happened again, it appears from innumerable circumstances,* although they have been believed and accepted as historical stories by the ethnics: for the corn is much older and not unknown before the flood, therefore not unusual for the descendants of Noah, to whom the Greeks belong, especially since the iniquity of heaven did not deny them corn in their country or vinū : To these Ceres no goddess was born or was; , now Erichtheus, now Ceres herself, now Triptolemus taught the Athenians the sowing of corn and the harvest, as if the Athenians had hitherto been unteachable; that they were unable to grasp it in the first place; And if one of the said men had given corn to the Greeks, this cannot be ascribed to the others, and the question is, when did the Athenians conquer it, or with bullets, as the poets say? and from whence, whether from Egypt, or from another country, or heaven, he first brought the grain; But what kind of grain these were, it will be very clear from the hieroglyphics of the Eleusinian fields, and therefore we omit them here.* For also the Eumolpides, says Diodorus, were brought by the Egyptian priests, and by the Pastophori heralds . such things are asserted more ambitiously than truly.* Cad∣mus , who arose from Thebes, Egypt, besides the other sons, and received Semele; For when he had been sent by his father Agenor to Europe, he came to Rhodum in a violent storm, and there he built a temple to Neptune, leaving some of the Phoenicians in charge of it in the island
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He demanded: From these afterwards the priests, who presided over the making of the sacred, flowed by succession : brought from the Phoenicians into Greece, and called the Phoenicians, it is written, that the land of Rhodes will be laid waste by serpents;* which words, if properly understood, develop the whole chemical art in the briefest and most open hieroglyphics: For why did he offer all of it to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom? why should it be made of brass, and indeed wrought in the old fashion? For since these things are said to have happened in the most ancient time, why is it said that the pot is still made in the ancient fashion? if not to the matter , than to the form there? There is no doubt that the Phoenician letters were Hieroglyphic, or rather, the Allegorical sense, the same with the Punicians, of whom we have mentioned before; And the land of Rhodes, when the Allegorical is accepted there, is a Philosophical Land, which will be deified to the Serpents, in which two, as most mysterious, namely the land of Rhodia (for there is no other) and the flying and poisonous snakes rests the whole mastery: and therefore thisby Cadmus, as if by a votive spirit; Indeed, the gift of brass offered to Minerva (held by the goddess of wisdom, since she was born from the brain of Jupiter ) was not of such importance because of its formless matter, when more precious gifts were to be offered to the goddess, of gold, gems, &c. unless the hieroglyphics of Egypt had continued something; It is added to this, that everything about Cadmus is almost legendary, and that they denote the proper mysteries of chemistry; how, namely ,following an ox of various colors, where he reclined here, he founded the word, and sent his companions to the fountain, from the huge Dragon, the son of Typhus and Echidna , after they were extinct; whom Cadmus himselfattacked and slaughtered, and scattered his teeth on the ground for seed, whence the brothers of Terrigena rushed uponCadmus
.
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No one sees that the Hieroglyphic works are most suitable for true chemistry, as it will also be demonstrated in what follows • but • us: Eodem looks at the fact that Orpheus , the friend of the Thebans, invented Dionysus, who among the Egyptians is Osiris and the Latins Bacchus, from Jove and Semele, the daughter of Cadmus , was born, as if Dionysius or Osiris was born first after Thebes was founded at Cadmus , when, however, long before the time of Cadmus he was most famous among the Egyptians , not because God existed again, but among the Hieroglyphics for the first time, as has been said , believed and accepted: And therefore the Egyptian writers report, to deceive the Greeks, that they slandered Dionysius who was born among them:* Diodorus also some other lib. 2. c. 6. He enumerates the Egyptians in these words: Many other fables are told about the Egyptians, which still continued in name and work. For in the town of Achanta across the Nile, towards Libya, at a distance of 150 stadia from Memphis , there is a vessel pierced; to which every day the priestsbring 360. water from the Nile . Moreover, Melampodes is said to have transferred the sacred things of Dionysius from the Egyptians to the Greeks.* whatever is said of Saturn , and of the battle of the Titans, the last history taught all the suffering of the Gods. They also say that Daedalus was imitated by the errors of the labyrinth.* who remains until this time. Some say that it was built by Mendetus, others by Marone, long before the reign of Saturn . The number of ancient statues among the Egyptians is the same as that made by Daedalus of the Greeks. The entrance to the temple of Vulcan , which is most beautiful in Memphis,* It is evident that Daedalus was the architect, and for that reason he gave to the people a wooden statue in the temple, which was made by him. On account of the excellency of his art, and the many things he had invented, having obtained great glory, they bestowed the honors of the gods upon him. This is Diodorus ; With the Greeks the most important Egyptian mysteries
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let them know, they also received the ceremonies and sacred rites by which I performed them at the same time and could be propagated; Hence the fable of the daughters of Danaus , filling the pierced vessel with water, and the rest of the like, were celebrated among the Greeks; Diodorus tells us that the temple of Vulcan was also the most precious among the Egyptians , because, as has been said, they brought all their goods after God to Vulcan and Mercury .* The same author also relates that there were in Egypt Orpheus, Musaeus, Melampodes, Daedalus, Homer the poet, Lycurgus the Spartan, Solon the Athenian, Plato the philosopher, Samius Pythagoras, Eudoxus the mathematician, Democritus the Abderite, and Inopi∣demus Chius , and their sciences, arts, and doctrines that if it is true, as all the historians agree in it, it is established by these as the leaders of all good literature, laws and institutions, as well as ceremonies, the origin and root of the Hieroglyphic beliefs and figments of the Gods that the first emanated to the Greeks and other peoples, and thus spread through the whole world almost three times by the success of time: for what do the Poets and Theologians of the Ethnics have, that they did not draw from Orpheus, Museus , and Homer ? What did the legislators of the ancients have that is worthy of mention, that they did not transfer to Lycurgus and Solon? In short, why did the philosophers, the leaders of so many sects, throw at the scientists, that they did not receive from Plato, Pythagoras, Eudoxus, Democritus, and others, as if handed down by hand? And so here all his dogmas from Egypt* they brought home the nurse of arts and the mother of ideas; which may appear to be different, and some of them to be in conflict with each other, yet from Hieroglyphic and Allegorical doctrine that variety has just happened. Accordingly, almost all the ethnic religions in the known world at that time, letters and laws arose from Egypt; Iam∣blichus, in his book on the mysteries, attests the same thing, but a little differently; The Egyptian writers, he says, thinking that all things were invented by Mercury, wrotetheir books to Mercury : Mercury presides over wisdom and eloquence: Pythagoras, Plato, Democritus,
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Eudoxus, and many others commanded the Egyptian priests: The dogmas of this book are of the Assyrians and Egyptians, and from the columns of Mercury: Pythagoras and Plato learned philosophy from the columns of Mercury in Egypt: The columns of Mercury are full of doctrines:* These he said: Were these columns really those, of which we remember Osiris and Isis, or completely different hieroglyphic letters (such as those which are seen even today in Rome not far from the Gate of the People, to St. John Lateran, to the Virgin Mary Majorem, and elsewhere) carved with triangles, squares, circles, snakes, and innumerable animals of the same kind, wonderful and crowded, remains in obscurity. Josephus also mentions in the books of antiquity that before the flood, two stones, one of marble, the other of brick, tablets or columns, with the inscription of the seven liberal arts, that these should not be destroyed by water or fire, but should be passed on to posterity, were marked and erected, the strength of which other ancient writers make mention; Among the more recent ones, Count Bernhardus , educated by the records of others, reports that Hermetus first found those tablets, while he says; It is true that Hermes is read of in the Bible; that he himself first entered the valley of Ebron, and found there seven tablets of stone, on which the wise men had engraved, before the inundation of the waters, seven liberal arts, to each of his chiefs only, lest they should pass into oblivion. Even if we do not read in the text of the sacred Bibles, it is nevertheless credible that it is drawn from the glosses of ancient scriptures : The reason for these is stipulated in this way; And if Adam knew the essences of all created things inside and out, as it is handed down in the sacred, while he imposed the names of the nature of each upon them, who will deny that all sciences are real, not fantastic and imaginary
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did
the product of black make white and white black) in the mind and spirit of their fathers ? But if, in consideration and work, they did not commit wrongs , and were concerned about the propagation of these to posterity; For they should unlock the offspring of their mind as well as of their body ; If indeed anyone contradicts Josephus and others in these matters, it will be permitted through us; The demonstrations of our Proposition suggest themselves sufficiently from what has been said before: Glass, which might be called a transparent artificial stone,* and properly to look at chemistry, from the most ancient times it was known to Egypt and the neighboring Ethiopia; For it is from him that the burials of the Ethiopians were made by Diodo . Jumping up, he says, they place the bodies naked in glass vessels above the columns: Thus the body of the deceased is seen through the glass, as Herodotus writes; which Cnidius disproves of Ctesias: for he says that the bodies are to be jumped, and therefore it is not possible to bury the corrupted species, but golden statues are made into caves, in which they place the dead surrounded by glass: gold is rendered like unto the deceased to those who look upon it: And these they affirm to be the Sepul∣chra of the rich; Glass is abundantly produced in Ethiopia, and everyone has it. We therefore thought to bring these things up, when the Ethiopians at one time commanded the Egyptians, and these a great part of them, lest any of the vessels, now required for the purpose of chemistry, being defective, as might be imagined, should conclude otherwise than is the case: and looks at it, which is wonderful, and still at Cairo,* (Memphis was once said) to be observed, that the eggs of the chickens could be excluded from the Egyptian sun by the artifice of ovens; that from ancient times and long before the time when Christ was born: for thus Diodorus 1 2. c. 3. He writes about this more than the chemical artifice of the Egyptians: For those, he says, who feed fowls and geese, in addition to those, which among other people are considered to be of the nature of reproduction, even indulge in them, that is to say, in number of birds they go marvelously . For it is not the sheep that lay the eggs, but their own intelligence and
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by natural art they bring forth fetuses from the sheep, contrary to the custom of the rest.* we could be convinced of the same thing: For although the Egyptians had become more certain from the works of nature about the immortality of the human soul, or otherwise, they therefore left the magnificent mausoleums of the sepulchres, neglecting meanwhile the care of building a house, which, as Diodorus speaks of these, our houses divers appeals, as if for a short time to be inhabited by us, the Sepulchres of the deceased, the eternal houses, yet their power, wealth, constancy of mind, and above humanity what the effects and works of those who tempt, we still see there, as if eternal and to the end of the world lasting; We have said above what they were built by; These I say are the Pyramids, according to Diodorus l. 2. c. 2. he reports, they look towards Libya at a length of 120 stadia from Memphis, and from the Nile 45, which, both by their workmanship and the size of the work, would provide a wonderful supply to the beholders: The largest of them is four sides, each of which from the lower part contains seven acres: the height is more than 6 acres: each side is brought down little by little until it reaches a height of 65 cubits. For in the end of millions, as some say, as others convey, more than four hundred thousand tribes, although that amount has remained intact to us. The stones were brought from Arabia by a very long journey. certainly a wonderful work, especially in such a sandy land, where there are no ramparts, nor are there any traces of hewn stone, so that such a great mass seems to have been built not by men, but by the gods. The Egyptians are said to have made some wonderful stories about these, that they were made of salt and nitrite, and afterwards melted down by the increase of the Nile, without the labor of men; For also in the multitude of men
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The rampart was built and destroyed by the multitude; For three hundred and sixty thousand men, as they say, were assigned to that work, which they spent twenty firm years. It is said that all the money expended for his work, viz. only the vegetables and herbs (for this was the food of the workmen) exceeded one thousand and six hundred tons. He is said to have been buried . agreed So far Diodorus: We in the most ancient time, that is to say,* when the Israelite people in Egypt were tired of baking bricks and gathering stubble in the fields, they were built, we gather rather for a display of wealth, such as the Sepulchre of kings: Barbara Pyramid, says Martial, let the miracles of Memphis be silent, etc.: Let all labor yield to Caesar Amphitheater; 5. That Amphitheater, no less a splendid work, is now almost laid in ruins; the Pyramids, indeed, which stood so many thousands of years before the Amphitheater, still stand intact. It is clear from the effect: Plinius Lib. 26. c. 12. He said that those pyramids in Egypt were nothing else but an idle and foolish display of the money of the rulers. for when the cause of making them is given to the plebeians, that they should not provide money to their successors or to their rivals who were lying in wait. It is not undeservedly numbered among the miracles of the world, that this work, too, by miraculous art, when all the rest corresponded, was perfect, and was left to the world as a testimony, as if eternal, is in harmony with reason. But enough of these: Let us pass over the rest of the most magnificent works of Egypt, which must first be looked at
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is the Babylonian Semiramis, which also ruled over Egypt,* a temple erected by Lovi Belus, on the top of which he erected three huge golden statues of Jupiter, Juno, and Opis, of which Jupiter, as Diodorus says, still stands at a length of 40 feet, weighing40,000 Babylonian talents. , at whose knees stand two lions, and beside {and} silver serpents of enormous size, each weighing 30 talents. Standing on the throne, the sign of the weight is 800 talents. , the length of which is 40 twelve feet, the breadth of which is 50 talents . For Belus, as has been said before, had led the priests from Egypt into Babylonia , the colonies and the sacred places of Egypt; So that the Egyptian art of the secret was conscious of the same translation ; Moreover, Jupiter and Juno are spouses, nevertheless brother and sister; So also Saturn Opis, who is the mother of the other, offered to Saturn a stone to be sacrificed for Joue; He sits on a golden throne, and lions and serpents stand by him; I will add, one flying, the other not; about which the books of the Chymians abound, and therefore will not be repeated here. Because it was thus necessary to outline in hieroglyphics, of what matter and in whose memory these simulacra were placed: The scepter is elsewhere of gold, but this is of Stone, which is the father of gold under and above the earth; But the wealth of that mother: the golden table is common to all; Because from three there are two, and from two there is one: In Egypt, where among the Heliopolitans (for Heliopolis and Thebes are the same), they report that medicines for anger and pain were found in ancient times; Therefore, Diodorus says, Homer among the Egyptians
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that he had invented a drink given to Telemachus
by Helen in oblivion of the past ,* said Nepenthes; For this reason we do not undeservedly infer that all these works were produced by the power and ability of the same Medicine; For the medicine which is called Animi, related above in the inscription of Simandius , if it cures anger and deceit, if (as Janus Lacinius notes) it is an efficacious medicine for the ailments of man, both of mind and body; because it expels all disturbances, and makes good men, that is, not envious of strangers, and preserves them; if in any case, as the same testifies, he adjusts and establishes the bodily humors, if in any way they have exceeded, and brings in and strengthens the feeble old man to the strong, why does he not also bring this, which exists in potential, into action?* They call the Egyptian Venus golden from its ancient name, and the field is established to be gold near Memphis : not without reason, the weight cast off by the disembowelment of Saturn , from whence Venus is said to have been born, they are dignified with gold in name and honor; because she is truly the mother of all your philosophers; For he has Cupid, who also dominates the golden gods, and inflames his lust. who make wishes to some of God's sick children, and if the children have recovered from illness, they shave their hair and, putting it in gold or silver, give the Magis gift. That from here to now the greatest part of the ancient monuments of the Egyptians, and so the most mysterious, they brought , and above, all those works to Chemistry, that is, golden medicine, of the golden medicine of the heart and soul, acting very properly should be referred to, and could not be adapted to any other matter, unless it were wrong ; having shown aev • , much more, if these things are understood from L • pide Philosophicus or Aurificius or Chrysopaea , a preconceived judgment
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some will pronounce all things to be vain, void, neither consistent with reason nor nature; and this idea, that they themselves do not grasp or understand the method of accomplishing those things according to art, which are the works of nature, nor do they see such artists (besides the vulgar, who are more famous for fraud and poverty, than for real artifice and wealth) still openly working in such and such a way: and to those similar objections concluding negatively, and depending on ignorance of law and fact (as they say) they had , that they were also used to procure riches, in addition to maintaining the health of the body ; This truth was not the object of my proposition, but perhaps a secondary one, which proves itself sufficiently, if at least it were clear from the medicine which I undertook to demonstrate to myself in the first place: for one subject can have many and various powers, efficacies, virtues, ends, and effects , although not all are directed to one and the same intention; which is seen in gold, the most noble subject; by which physicians are used to take care of the health of man, carpenters to make other works from it, others for ornament and pomp, not a few for profit and revenue; (for what does not gold make perfect?) Thus we must feel about that golden medicine, which we do not doubt was abused by many Egyptian kings to introduce luxury and wealth, and also to introduce idolatry, and to strengthen under the silence of the most mysterious; and others, not a few, to preserve the divine glory, the life of the neighbor, and the health of the human body.
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of God, to love his neighbor, that is, himself, and to help him in the necessities and diseases that afflict the body, rather than spending the only effort on wealth, and living for himself alone; For this reason this art has deservedly been called by us MEDICINE, which has perfected the golden medicine of mind and body, and with that name it has been investigated for a long time.
The end of the first book.
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BOOK SEVNDVS GRAECORVM OF THE HIEROGLY∣PHICIS, AND Primó de Allegorijs auro more conspicuous.
S I RELIGIONVM APVD If we repeat the beginning and the first origin of all the very different nations received at any time, we will find that they have always existed from probable causes : We embrace the truest religion from all the rest, since it was instituted by God himself and demonstrated by innumerable miracles, whose Christianity succeeded to the NEW TESTAMENT, with every exception∣not a major profession: Of the ethnics especially the Idolatry∣tria, or the veneration and worship of false gods, we say: To this occasion without doubt to have provided reasons for the speci∣ation,* not entirely fictitious or falsely believed, but reasonable, probable, and established by the consent of many. The Romans and the Greeks, the Greeks from the Egyptians; The common people of Egypt to the Priests, priests to Vulcan and Mercury, Osiris and Isis, fictitious and or • their deities and at least existing names.
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Indeed, by signifying something far different, they have borrowed all the sacrifices and rites; of which we have hitherto discussed quite clearly under the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians.
Besides the said Osiris, Isis, and Orum, the most ancient Egyptians also usurped the names of other gods, especially the twelve, namely Jupiter, Neptune, and Mars.* Mercury, Vulcan, Apollo, Juno, Vesta, Ceres, Venus, Diana, and Minerva, six of whom are masculine, and all of them feminine, and they were believed to be the great gods of the great nations, after they were transferred to the Greeks, and from them to the Romans you For as Natalis testifies, others were made of wood or clay, and they were not carved of gold, silver, or ivory, except for the great gods, with the plebeians and any other material in ancient times. Of these Herodotus in Euterpe; He says that the first Egyptians assumed the names of twelve gods, and that they took the Greeks from them, and that they erected for themselves the first altars and images and temples of the gods .* that they brought back their sacred things to Greece, we will demonstrate in the words of Diodorus himself ; This book Chapter 2 6. Now he says, those Greeks endowed with wisdom and doctrine passed into Egypt in ancient times: that they might perceive their laws and doctrine, we will enumerate .* Melampo∣dem, D • dalus, the poet of Homer, and the Spartan Lycur∣gum; Then Solon the Athenian, Plato the Philosopher, and Pythagoras the Samian; Eudoxus also the Mathematician, and Democritus the Abderite, and Chius the Imoid. Indeed, the traces of all are shown, the images of some, the places of others, named both by them and by the doctrine which they followed : In Egypt they certainly perceived all that made them admirable among the Greeks. For they say that Orpheus brought many hymns to the gods, orgies, and fiction of the underworld; Of course, the ceremonies of Osiris and those of Dionysus are the same, and they are similar tothe names of
Ceres and Ceres.
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so far as to differ: the Imp of truth introduced the punishments and fields of Elysium, and the whole of the statues, taken from the tombs of the Egyptians: Mercury also fashioned the souls of the dead according to the ancients . It was the custom of the Egyptians to hold out the body of the bee, which had been cut off by Cerberus. These being translated by Orpheus to the Greeks, Homer , imitating Orpheus , writing the same in his Poe∣mate, says that the Cyllenian Mercury summons the souls of the Heroes, having a staff in his hands. The same or the like are read by different authors; From which we can be more certain about the transfer of the sacred Egyptians to the Greeks : But when this happened and with what primary intention,* it may be easilyascertained: namely, at that time, when the Greeks were permitted to march and march into Egypt without any danger of capital, which , as we remember before, happened in the age of King Psammitichi , one of the twelve leaders, who was the first to admit foreigners to himself ; namely, about the year of the world 278, in which year Psammitichus began to reign, or a little after (for he reigned for 54 years) before the Olympiads 〈◊〉 , which is placed in the year of the world 3187. transferred, and not only the ceremonies to be celebrated around the festival of Dionysius , but also the knowledge itself for the sake of which the sacred institutes and rites were introduced: for it will appear here andthere:* those who were metwith the meter, his •• most and most ingenious,withwhom Hesiod is also numbered :of the Gods and their deeds , partly Heroic, partly with cattle worthy of coverings, with which the whole world was once entangled, and could scarcely extricate itself at all with its own strength; unless God had pleased these opinions about God's monsters through his Son, the conqueror
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to slay the triumphant; Of the intention of Orpheus,* and if we wish to inquire more minutely into other ancient poets, we shall find in fact that they themselves did not look primarily to those divine worships or ceremonies, but to other things most mysterious hidden under them , so that these things might not be known to the common people, but they might provide some other cause for inquiry to the wiser. that even if it was nowhere indicated to any writer (since the matter remained hidden and was not even expressed by name), yet from various indications and arguments collected here and there, it will be able to be shown to us very clearly; as will appear in what follows: for whom even no consideration, or this sole reason, would be sufficient for the unintelligible; Namely, if the Egyptians understood anything else in their sacred and ceremonial ceremonies of Osiris, Isis, Mercury, Vulcan, Apides, and certain animals, than that the objects themselves were visible to the eyes, and under them, as if they hid the core of the truth ; so the Greeks were not concerned about coverings, unless they recognized that the body must be covered under them; What it was, we have already sufficiently investigated and expounded before under the Hieroglyphics of the Egyptians: Hence it is not improbable that those ancient poets, out of innate malice, or out of the grace of derision, attributed so many adulteries, murders, and wickedness to us and to the wicked Gods, that is, even to the Gods , either men would judge, or they would propagate the vices of the gods by the examples of the abnormal gods, ( for they would have been one of the most wicked of all bipeds), but rather they would demonstrate that the Gods were nothing but fictitious , imaginal, and secret art in general, but known to them, symbols and emblems referring one to the eye, the other to the mind: But lest it should be seen that empty names should be produced in the midst of things, they ascribed to each of these fictitious Gods separate offices as if divine, and different powers of the genitive Nature, and nevertheless they professed One God in all these : Which is more apparent in the most ancient, than in others: For thus Orpheus interprets the common goat, D • each mouth; and then adds that they are all things
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one thing, though many in name: When in the Crater he sings in this manner:
* Cyllenius himself is the interpreter of the messenger to all,
Nymphs are water, Ceres is corn, Vulcan is fire.
It is the sea Neptune • s singing beats the shores • ,
Mars war, Paxalma Venus, himself to mortals
Taurine & superior • care and relief of the mind
Corniger is Bacchus attending happy feasts:
Golden Themis protects justice and right:
The sun is just the same twisting the spear of Apollo
From a distance and carrying out, and a diviner and augur,
Epidaurus is God the expeller of diseases
All things are one, although there are many names.
*Deijsdem Hermesianax.
Pluto, Persephone, Cere• & Venus alma, & Amore•,
The Tritons, Nerens, Tethys, Neptune, and himself
* Mercury, Juno, Vulcan, Jupiter & Pan,
Diana and Phaebus the archer, are one God.
It is established that these Dij should be received properly, as it has hitherto been customary among the ethnics,* water and fire, the Nymphs and Vulcan, war and peace, Mars and Venus, are by no means one, but are believed to be very different deities, and refer to or indicate very different things; If any one were to refer these things to one God universally, perhaps so much opposition might be excused in him, if his power were taken to be diffused throughout all creatures; By confounding the spirit with the bodies: Wherefore, that these Gods, so various and diverse, and even differing from one another, should be understood and explained on another subject, to which they all agree equally, it seems absolutely necessary; and that is the same in which the Egyptian Gods (the progenitors of the Greeks) Osiris, Isis, Typhon, Mercury, and other sides were declared; This becomes more and more conspicuous with regard to the Greek Allegories,
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which they call Poetics, these we shall take to illustrate to us in this second book and the following ones, so that the Gentiles of God may be restored to their fictitious origin, and true Chemistry to their honor in the same work; let nothing meanwhile be received of the Poetry of our time, which clothed that ancient scene • still delights, either Philologists, Aristarchus Critics, more occupied in oration with some reason • , Historians, or others of this kind (who record the genealogies and deeds of the gods and dear neither do they receive, embrace, and kiss the Heros, because of the unquestionable truth and irrefutability, but they have the brain of Jupiter in their delights and are admired, while not remembering that they are Christians and that the truth is one and simple) For these sciences and persons will not receive from us the obscuration of their name, but rather the illumination; to whom, if we had not spoken to them, they would not have slandered us, but they would have snatched away the darkness of their minds; that we may do this to ourselves, we will give them work, that they may not do that to us. whoever wants to observe these mysteries, that is, he must have knowledge, before he shakes the Censorship; As long as we have penetrated into these things both with mind and hand, it is not ours to boast, but we are obliged to offer a sacrifice of praise to God (whose example this is), which also yields to the advantage of the good will of men.
When it is true that to unfold these so many envelopes, and so varied for the dignity and extent of the matter, to reweave them interwoven through so many centuries and writings, and to cut them to pieces, would be a future work of great volume, and therefore a labor of its own magnitude; therefore, at least, we have selected the most important and most notable of all the allegorical figures of the Poets and the legendary narratives of the Gods and heroes, not in a sharp or copious style, as they are wont in others, but in a common, more powerful to the point, such as the terms , adapted, succinct; and so in this second book of the expedition of the Greeks, led by Jason
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to seize the golden fleece, the golden apples of the Hesperi∣dums,* we will deal with other such aureole monuments: Thirdly, about the genealogy of the golden gods and goddesses, and also of the Heroes from those progenitors ascending from certain branches from the golden tree Fourthly, about the festivals and sacred of Greece, i.e. also about the contests and games instituted by the same authors for the same purpose of secret artifice; Fifthly, about the labors of Hercules , and sixthly, or lastly, about the Occupation and Slaughter of Troy, to the persons {and} required • those who are looking at the same, we will deliver, as briefly as possible, with the clarity with which we can; From what you have perceived, a similar judgment concerning others, not set forth here, may nevertheless be made for allegories pertaining to these. Orpheus, as the author of religion among the Greeks,* so also the allegory of the golden fleece from Colchis , O inventor and effervescent was the first to exist; which he conceived with singular subtlety, and executed with artifice, • with exactly the same intention • and end, with which most of the writings of a similar subject of the modern age have been published, namely, that there was a double meaning, superficial and hidden; a superficial one, who follows the letter and is a historian, or if he does not follow the letter at all, yet he expounds the common & Vulgariaseus of the manners or natures of things; Concealed as he is , he regards the inner essence, and insinuates secrets removed from common cognizance to the wise, and hides them from the less powerful . and arguing the doctrine; among which, in a book about pebbles, he graphically depicts Mercury's cave, from which all kinds of goods are to be reported, until now that no one has been removed , and they are not preoccupied with slime, they can easily do so , about which Mercury's cave there on which subject he wants to be understood in the Argonautics; But let us first go through the knowledge of his narrative, and then add our notes from the other side and those of the authors of nature {and} agree with them: Jason was born to his father Aeson,* auo Cretheus, proauo Acolos, abauo Jove, mother of Polymedes Au • olyci filiâ, with Pel • as
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The son of Neptune was born from Tyrrheus, the son of Salmoneus, brought up by Cretheus, the brother of Salmoneus. But Chiron, who was the son of Saturn and the nymph Philyra, himself instituted the art of healing and things pertaining to the humanity of life; And when then Jason, a young man most refined in doctrine and manners, had escaped, he admitted to the court of Pelias; It is true that the more he excelled in every virtue, the less could he deserve the love of Pelias , since he would never have regarded her with suspicion; So that Pelias, under an honorable pretext, would object to Jason in the present dangers to himself {and} death, he gave in his orders, Vellus the golden fleece, famous among the Colchis for the singular fortitude of mind, which only befits a young man, to carry himself through dangers overcome; Although it seemed a hard order and a hard thing to do, he added to Jason's mind that, not out of his own impertinence, but at the command of another, to whom it would not be wrong to do so, he was obliged to carry it out. almost to the rising of the Gods leading them, he embarked in a ship , Argô, built by the counsel of Pallas, having a bad talk and the Dodonêa oak, that he might sail to Colchis:* Orâ solutâ he came first to Lem∣num, that he might render Vulcan a propriety to himself, he soon applied to Marsia, Cium, Iberia, Bebrycia, and the Syrtem of Libya , v.b. they marched through the deserts of Libya, until on the twelfth day they again found the sea , and set out from it;* that is to say, a lump from the earth from whichMedea had so much prophesied that it dissolved in water ; From there they came to Phineus, a blind man infested by the Harpies, who was rescued from thence by the sons of Boreas: Here, though blind in his eyes of body, yet with the keenness of his mind, the mighty race showed all the reasoning of the Argonauts; that first the rocks of Cyanea were to be piled up, which you gathered together
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Some of them called out the concurrence of the rocks, whence the most numerous fire sprang up.* the danger of which they sent a dove to ex∣plore: Leaving Bithynia on the far side, the island of Thyniades, Mariandyne, Acherusia, the region of the Enetorum, Cara • abyss, Halim, Irim, Themiscyrum, Cappadocia, Chalybes, and innumerable other places they sailed past, and at length they came to the river Phasim, which flows through the land of Circaea, and finally to Aureus Vellus. he answered, that he would grant himself that golden fleece, since it was placed in the midst of all, instead of a palm tree, if Mars and art had obtained it; And when insurmountable dangers seemed to be under him, Medea, the daughter of Aetius , ordered Jason to be in good spirits, and she suggested to him some very proven medicines by night, by the proper administration of which he would escape from all the dangers as many as there were. in the grove of Mars hung the Golden Fleece, a garden surrounded by the strongest walls, at the entrance of which the most ferocious Taurus and the Dragon with long teeth were watchful guards;* The law was laid down in this way: He ordered the dragon to be killed, and his teeth to be knocked out of his head; The bulls were then to be thrown under the yoke, the earth to be split with the plough, its teeth to be pierced, and the sudden crop of armed men to be extirpated from thence; after which the golden fleece was to be granted to Victor; if not, that the death of the vanquished should be desired: but Medea had given Jason the fourth Pharmaca, the first fifth,* by which he would pierce his body, and thus escape unharmed from the poison and fire of the dragon, the bulls: secondly, a certain soporific mass, which if thrown into the dragon's mouth, he would immediately fall asleep: thirdly, some clear water, the fire of the bulls would be facilitated extinguishing: Fourth, the image of the Moon and the Sun, made in a particular manner, which if he wore around his neck, whatever he attempted in this work, he would best pass to those whom I proved fit
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on the following day he entered upon the battle.* Abs {and} for in the intermission he spewed out poison mixed with fire, with which he killed everyone who worshiped him: Verily, when Jason had anointed himself with the said avenger, and had secured that image hanging around his neck, he threw that narcotic mass into his open mouth; Whence he, forgetting himself, fell into a le∣theus sleep, swelling with his whole body, whose head he had cut off with a sword, and pulled out his teeth from there: Then he succeeded to taming the oxen; But they immediately pursued Jason, blowing their horns and pouring out a shower of fire; who, leaving nothing behind the tree, sprinkled clear water into their throats; whence they immediately stood as if astonished and tamed; in the plough, thus fitting their necks, he began to turn the earth with the plough, and to throw the dragon's teeth for seed. as he had learned from Medea, by withdrawing himself a little from their prospect,* He struck one with a stone from a distance, who, while he thought he was striking his neighbor, pierced him with a tight beak, whose death, while one and the other were seeking revenge, the mutual fight overwhelmed them all to one; and having killed them, when there was nothing left that could hinder the abduction of the gold, he returned to his country alone with Medea. But this is a brief narrative of the thing done by Jason, which after Orpheus was mentioned by Apollonius of the Greeks and Valerius Flaccus of the Romans, besides innumerable others, whom we shall not cite. it is not of this place, nor of the value of the work. under the Argo nave sleeping sup∣pressed, it is found annotated among divers: Also how Phryxus, (by whom Phrygia is called by some)
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He arrived at Colchis, carried on a ram from the Hellespont, and sacrificed the ram to Mercury, and hung up the skin on the yoke of Mars, which Mercury had gilded, much to the chagrin of many.* Now, indeed, let us come to those things which are noteworthy concerning what has been narrated up to now.* that he had fought with the monsters, and having defeated them, had returned home; But by the golden fleece they mean either live eggs of a golden color, or gilded; Or not eggs, but mines fertile in gold, accustomed to be cleaned in sheep's skins; Or a book made of the skin of sheep, (which they call a membrane) in which was written the chemical artifice of making gold by art. such and so great a veil were made to form manners, or were they profitable: There are also others who take all these things for hieroglyphics and allegorical things, but not for manners, nor for common physics, but for the most hidden arcana of nature, the Philosophical Stone thereof They explain the manner and art of elaborating by restraint and gentleness, just as a nut covers its kernel with its bark; for besides hundreds of supporters of chemistry attesting to the same thing, the most ardent hater of this art, the Count of Natalis, according to the opinion of others, affirms:* For thus lib. 6. c. 8. Mythology; There were, he says, who thought that the things accomplished in Jason's voyage were the changes in the bodies of the Chemists, and that the golden fleece of the deni after so many labors had been taken, was called the Philosopher's Stone, which becomes the deni after so many changes in their bodies. We will not be carried away by the prejudice of others to believe this or that, or to deny this or that, but we will weigh the opinions of each of these in the balance of reason and experience, so that we may finally arrive at the equilibrium of truth. As soon as they had gone and returned, let them take this answer; There are indeed places in nature that such heroes have sought
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let them be said; because since these things are perpetual and not so changeable as the rest of the world, they are always allegories.* lest the fables should be seen, they were affected, as is evident almost in all the figments of Phrygia, Colchis, Delos, Cyprus, Rhodes, and other places formerly produced: at once the story would reveal itself; The true time, persons, and their deeds, together with the rest of the circumstances of Jason's expedition, agree in the least with the truth: Time, if it be looked at, is infinite, and indeed cannot be recognized in the histories written by any writer who lived then; But it does not escape me that this time is precisely placed in the collections of chronologies and histories, but on the basis that Troy , founded three hundred years before Rome, is said to have been destroyed, and that Jason's campaign preceded the expulsion of Troy by almost 100 years; because the sons of the Argonauts took part in the Trojan expedition; But if it be permitted to conclude from persons,* because the thing is not done away from the persons, but the persons are removed, the thing itself is removed: Since all the Argonauts are fictitious persons, just as the persons of the Comedies or Tragedies are, or as they are said to be in the Poems of Amadius, which recognizes neither head nor foot, and in a continuous series produces and confirms things from things, persons from persons, fictitious things from fictitious things. can they be true? If one excuses these in some way, how is it that Hercules, who is said to have lived in Egypt at the time of Osiris , and from that time a governor of the pilgrimage to Egypt, which is rumored to have happened 20,000 years ago, and took part in this Argonautic expedition? Or if by distinctions it is permissible to make many Hercules , (viz. also Saturns, Suns, Apollones, Mercurys, and the like), how, as I say, Pollux attended the Argonauts, and Helen with him was issued from one oou
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Trojan campaign; If you prove the gods, I shall be able to contradict nothing.* if men seem to be long-lived; For Helen will be at least 120 years old from the throne , when her Trojan war is not restored , and the whole of Greece is carried on with grace: They stick together like the sands driven by the wind.* not of men, it must be persuaded that they are bulls that spew fire, rising suddenly from the earth, faster than fungi or gourds grow, to bring forth crops and armed phalanxes of men, who, having been struck with a single stone, make themselves all one; What about the watchful dragon, who is the son of Typhon and Echidna , and his teeth are sown? What shall we say of Medea's drugs and counsels and innumerable other things? Shall we make a story of them?* The fable is thus, indeed, insipid, that those wools of gold or citrines were either gilded or gilded, and so much labor was received from Jason, that they might obtain them. they came nearer to the matter; Still more, those who have interpreted the book or membrane containing Chrysopaea, viz. Svidas: But because of these things no one would undergo so many dangers and so many different things, nor would he have need of Medea's medicines; nor would Jason, who pretends to be a physician, to Chiron, trained by manual experience, be required for it, but to any other person, nor would Aeson be prevented from youth by Medea; It remains so that we will adapt the whole thing from beginning to end to an allegorical interpretation:* Not indeed to manners, properly and primarily, unless we wish to go insane, or to accuse those of insanity who have invented such and such things for the sake of manners; Secondly, let us not doubt that, as well as everything else, it can be bent: Nor to the physical works known to the peasants, but to the philosophers proper and most mysterious, namely the golden medicine acting as a medicine of the golden mind and body: They feel with us and those who preceded us, liana
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in its entirety 〈◊〉 published under the title of Aurei velleris, and with whom they read so many treatises on the chemical art, arranged in different volumes in German, each of which the inscription of the work brought to the public light, and others innumerable, which thanks to brevity (we omit here) and the concurrences, whose writings are worn out by the hands of all, we shall not quote here: But the said peregrination of Jason with dangers, deeds, persons, and circumstances all belong to Philosophical Medicine, and nothing else, but the highest artifice of Chemistry and Ar We will now demonstrate the most arcane dog, translated from the Egyptians to the Greeks, and described under this most beautiful allegory.
What Jason is, his name, his education, his race, and his achievements prove: for the name expresses a physician,*〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 or à medendo said; 〈 in the non-Latin alphabet 〉 for it is the art of healing; It is not enough that Jason was not a surgeon, nor did he give medicine to Jason, as some do, who therefore transfer him to morals. it is imagined and presupposed: for with the name all omens agree: He is educated by Chiron, who instituted him in medicine, who trained Hercules and Achilles in what {and}, of the youth of one's character and family, the latter an invincible Hero at the Trojan war, the latter most suited to the demand of monsters: From Chiron Jason thus drew manual experience, as from Medea the perfect plan and theory necessary for the completion of the work;* From which it appears worthy of notation, that some kind of manual treatment, perceived by Chiron, in investigating this work, must precede the perfect Theory instilled by Medea; For perfect theory precedes perfect practice, and the latter not that; but many errors precede a perfect theory; For these are like teachers and chastisers in art;
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indeed, errors are not recognized unless they have been often attempted and repeated by practice; and thus it appears that the plan of Chiron precedes the most perfect plans of Medea; these are the means by which the labors of the craftsman are ordered and disposed: The genus is from the genealogy of the Gods; For the paternal grandfather is Jupiter; Polymedes was his mother, as it is assigned to many councils, the daughter of Autolyus , descended from Sisyphus, Aeolus , and Jupiter as well; Thus, when Aeolus, or Jove, was taken away, the race of Jason begins at nothing; Chiron, too, if he never was, had no teacher; who indeed did not exist in the natural world, if Saturn had not with the nymph Phylyre become a brute,* He married a horse, or never lived: Medea , likewise, is conjoined with Jason, the Sun, and Oceaninept; He had a father, Aetes, who was said to shine, whose sisters were Pasiphae, the wife of Minos, who gave birth to the Minotaur, and Circe, who changed men into beasts by witchcraft; the mother of Idiji∣am, named by knowing; for knowledge is the mother of counsel:* And so the parents, the teacher and the wife, met Jason as a future physician and an active investigator of natural things. Now we come to consider its effects; Fifty of those first Counts are chosen, almost all of them born of God: But why is that? Perhaps because that age brought forth the Gods? I do not think so: but because the poet Orpheus was thus pleased to assign so many of his parents to the Argonauts, that they might not be seen to have sprung from a low place, but to be of a haloed family; For since all are the progenitors of Aeolus, or Jupiter, or Mercury, or other gods or goddesses, who would not recognize them as true? It would have been wrong among the ethnics to have denied themselves gods, but it is permissible among us, and we add that neither gods nor men were the ancestors of the Argonauts, viz . , Lynceus, Meleager, Mopsus, Peleus, Pollucus,* Telamoni, Zetis & the rest; The argo of the ships is made, which is said to be the first, from the oak of Dodonê , from which oracles were given, from which evil was talkative and fateful; and that first is worthy of consideration; becauseit was built by the poetic and fateful pen of Orpheus ; according to
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that it is said to have been built by the design of Pallas, this is of wisdom; thirdly , that such a quantity could be carried by 50 men through the deserts of Libya for 12 whole days ; fifthly, that at last, falling down from old age, he oppressed Jason , who was sleeping under it; and the sixth, which was related among the stars, is still seen there: These figures describe the ship, as it was, quite evidently; Namely, it was built by Orpheus , straight, and inscribed on the stars in eternal memory of the event: Many things occur around the course; But why did Jason the physician seek Lemnus in the first place? Of course, what is added is that Vulcan was to be trusted; It seems, therefore, that the whole thing is better to Vulcan than to look elsewhere: Syrtes and Syrenes, Scylla, Charybdis, likewise the wandering rocks of Cyanea, are the perils of the sea, which are said to have pre∣tured all places, Orpheus playing the lyre: Triton taught them , by which agreement they could be kept; The blind Phineus Vates described the way for them; Mopsus, Idmon, and Amphiaraus, and Vates himself, were among the counts. Why was the nugget offered by Eurypylus, the son of Neptune? because the Philosophical land given for Xenius, though it be cheap, should not be rejected; It is given to the son of Neptune , because it is fitting; For from water the earth is made: But why was Medea prophesied to be born from this clod dissolved in the water? What kind of return, whether prosperous or otherwise, is to be made to the country, and what exit do you work for? Therefore , from the dissolution of the earth into water , many things were to be foretold by Medea , or by the reason of the counsel presented: and he rejoices in his like nature: Thus it is not without reason that Phineus was infested by the Harpies, from whom he could only be delivered by the sons of Boreas , which was done; For from Calais and Zeta the sons of Boreas the Harpyia were fled: for the twin wind must come, as Basilius Valens testifies: 6. the key, called Vulture, and then simple called Notus, who will blow impetuously from the East and South, whose motion
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When water ceases to be made of air , you are confident that it will become corporeal from the spiritual . • ae Symplegades, or concurring rocks are called, two existing, • t one ex∣estimated, would be reached; For without these visions it is not possible to arrive at the purpose set forth, which are one essence, two in reason; Their danger was to be explored by sending a dove; because they were raging with flames and fire. For a white dove is sent out, which teaches us to avoid all danger: Albedo does not allow the spirit to flee and foretells the happy outcome of the work: Who really was the target to be sought after? Phasis, the golden river, named from the Hebrew Paz, which means gold sounds; and Scythia, a colony of the Egyptians, in which Aeetas, king of the Colchis, reigned: They say that the sons of Phryxis were kindly received and brought to Aeetas: Who, born of the Sun, had married the daughter of Oceanus, and from her had Medea; So the son of Sol said that he possessed this treasure; No wonder; because the places nearest to the Sun shine with our mines suitable for medicine: the golden fleece is indeed promised, but the dangers are overcome; But to them, because they were great, they had succumbed to the greatest number: the dragon of the greatness of the ship, which is moved by fifty oars, was to be slain on the watch: this work, this labor: who would attack such a beast, unless he relied on the divine skill of Pallas and the counsel of Medea ? I do not think it necessary to adduce the places of the authors where they emphasize our great dragon, which are innumerable; For an example, however, may be seen Lull: who Theor: test: C. 6. From these three things, he says, draw the great dragon, which is the radical beginning, and the principal of firm alteration: Id: C. 10. And for this reason it must be allegorical to say, that the great Dragon is of the four Elements, &c. And ch. 9. The great Dragon is rectified with this liquid: Also ch. 52. And in all dwells the Dragon, that is, Fire, in which is our Stone ,
this property is in all the compositions of the World ;
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And C. 54. In Menstrual fetid fire is contrary to nature, which transforms our whole stone into a certain Dragon, strong, throaty, which fattens and impregnates the mother : Thus of another Dragon, who does not die , except with his brother and to be slain by his sister, they often remembered: Here, then, the dragon is awake, a mass of narcotic is thrown into his mouth, to be put to sleep and extinguished; It is poisonous, and therefore fatal by a breath; fire is thrown, hence to be feared by the touch; He is threatened by his sharp teeth, with which he must be disarmed: True, Jason, the Philosopher Physician, received from Medea, or reason, the most immediate help;* Images of the Moon and the Sun to be worn around the neck, the anointed Apyrus, with which he would anoint himself, and a soporific cake with clear water, or with the milk of a virgin, warding off and extinguishing all conflagrations. Such a thing really happens in this medicine: for if the seed of our future harvest is to be kept, it is necessary that it be sown in its own land afterwards it will bear fruit. Jason came up; What is really meant by Taurus, we already mentioned before under the Apides Hieroglyphic: For this is the true subject of the Golden Medicine without which nothing is done, being prepared also with the teeth of the Dragon: To therefore subdue the furious and fiery Taurus and send them under the yoke: What for many ? The seminium is delivered before these Tauresto their land, and the land is turned around as long as it suffices ; it is also useful and disposed to bear fruit: but Jason used the same aids in subduing the oxen, and those in overcoming the Dragon: The most important remedy indeed was that kind of Pentacle with the image of the Sun and the Moon, conferring a kind of occult power and propriety against the virus of so many monsters; that if any one can acquire it, he must not doubt his victory; and how to obtain power , the Philosophers teach in their books, when they speak of the Sun and the Moon, and their conjunction, natural dissolution, in things
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by the radicals of their nature, or by reduction into the first matter; which are not to be brought before us, when they are met with in every way. The seed having already been delivered to the earth, And armed men are born: Why is this shown? For before the perfect mixture is made, when there are two opposites endowed with strength, they make a commotion and quarrel among themselves, that is, they take up arms; From the suit and friendship of each, Empedocles brought forth the beginning of all generation and destruction; They are indeed touched with stone, not with wood, nor with iron; for the stone has a peculiar power, because it strikes from a distance: And thus he turned the weapons of the terrigenes against themselves, until they fell in their own and mutual combat, that is, until the ascent and descent of our vapors ceased, and at the bottom of the vessel there remained an unchanging and fixed substance: being held, nothing stands in the way of less Vellere being able to enjoy the golden fleece sought: But what is the golden fleece? The Philosophical Lapis, the supreme medicine of human bodies:* For the physician does not regard the metals to be treated: Mercury had gilded this skin of the ram that had carried Phrixus to Colchis, stripped of it; but it is probable that it was first white, and afterwards made purple, when it was gilded by Mercury : for in these two colors is the whole intention of art: Virgil and Georg. 2. Jason remembers this struggle, where he sings thus.
These places are not Taurus breathing fire through their nostrils.
Invertêre, enough with the huge teeth of the hydrangea,
Neither the helmets, nor the spears of the thicket of the men.
On the day of Mars, that wool is said to be suspended in the forest, because it is sacred to Mars that it obtains strength and constancy in the fire. About their return they mention that many things happened, the brother Absyrtus was torn to pieces by Medea , and they were placed on a rock . This
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the father is forced to recollect his son's frame: Eadē • acio is vtrobi {que}: For all things are one. The most ancient writers* those who accept all these exploits of Jason , so committed, as having regard to his re∣ligion, and not to be refuted without undermining the religion, here twist themselves strangely, as to prevent all falsity, when they write in different ways about the return of the Argonauts: For Herodotus in the Argonautics by the same He reports that they returned to the sea, by which they set out for Colchos. He∣cataeus Milesius wished that Phaside had entered the Ocean, thence into the Nile, thence into the Tyrrhenian Sea, by which they were brought into the country: Arthemidorus of Ephesius says that these are lies; since Phasis should enter the Ocean at least; From which it is clear that the fable, like Polypus in a great famine, corrodes itself, and exposes the lack of laughter to the intellect. Let the Writers, Historians, and Ethnic Poets be silent, as many as there are to preach their Gods and Heroes, whom we Christians, not only from our firm faith, but also from the works of nature and the circumstances of art, do not recognize as Gods or men. also the most inconsiderate of those of more recent times, who wish to be with the Christians, nevertheless attribute such astonishing and incredible deeds to persons born and led by God, with the tacit consent of the ethnics, and dare to defend them as articles of the sacred faith: There are those who say , that the Argonauts, having completed all the dangers in the region of the Colchis, first sailed to the Istrus, and then through it to the Adria , and there especially, where the ancients called Saturn , where Absyrtus was wounded: they were then entertained by Alcinous , and Mopso Catho They were uncertain about navigation and safety , and were taught by Triton , by whom they could be kept by a treaty: then they sailed to Crete , in which place the journey to Thales (with an airy man endowed with such swiftness of feet that he circumambulated the whole island three times a day andcarried away the laws of Jupiter ) was barred. by Medea's sorcery, he was lifted up from the middle and reached
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Aegina and thence to Thessaly, and so they are said to have returned to that country , which they say they completed in a voyage of twelve months. That it is said that they themselves having entered the Istrum had already sailed into Ad is as legendary as the fact that they are believed to have entered the Ocean from the Phasis; and then to the Nile, and afterwards to the Tyrrhenian sea, or that they carried the ship for such a distance until they reached the navigable sea; For this does not proceed from the Adria, but a black forest, from which it extends into the Adria through the highest peaks of the mountains of Europe, so that it was too difficult for the Argonauts to carry the ship to Argô; Then Medea persuaded Pelias to strangle the old King with her daughters,* when he promised to return that young man, and left his throat; It is true that Aeson , the father of Jason , was restored to youth when he was cooked, or that Jason himself was growing old, according to others and others.
She knows how to wash away old age with diligence,
There Phaermaca cooked many golden pots.
In the same way Aeschylus , in the nurses of Bacchus , says that the nurses of Bacchus were cooked together with those men, and thus restored to youth by the same . The authors testify in these places, especially Balgus in the crowd; who, says he, take that white tree, build for it a round house, dark and surrounded by dew, and place upon it a man of great age, a hundred years old, and close the house, lest the wind or dust should reach them; then let them go to their house for 80 days; I tell you in truth, that old man does not cease to eat of the fruit of that tree.* until he becomes a young man: O how wonderful Nature, which transformed the soul of that old man into a youthful body, and became a father and a son: Blessed be the DEVS, the best Creator. It's no wonder that time travel is so popular
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12 months have passed* in the third year of Solomon's time the voyages to India were instituted and completed; The truth thus agrees with the philosophic work vt pluri • um, if the rest are in order: we read that the temples of Jason were erected in many places out of ethnic credulity, especially at Abdera, the country of Democritus; What remains of Jason's marriage with Glaucus, the daughter of Creon, king of Corinth, Medea's revenge on the skin, and Jason's fate, as well as others pertaining to this allegory, will receive abundant light from what has already been said and illustrated; Since indeed Orpheus, the author of this allegory, had respect for the golden apples of the Hesperides, (for both the eggs and the apples are called among the Greeks〈in the non-Latin alphabet〉 ) most famous in his time and declaring a great part of the golden medicine, concerning them now for our we will give a few things to the institute.
Among the labors of Hercules* imposed by Eurystheus himself by a fatal necessity, the removal of the golden apples from the garden of the Hesperides is also recounted, which was a very difficult thing to do, and by all who had attempted it until now, in vain and at the risk of their lives, being left in despair and abandoned, it seemed to suit only Hercules, the tamer of monsters; And indeed it was not lawful, for after the labors of Hercules, it will be said, that the burden imposed upon him, however difficult and impossible it was deemed to be by human strength, should be refused by Hercules. that he had given evils bearing gold, which, when Jupiter had the greatest price, he wished them to be kept in the most secure place for eternal memory, he commanded the Nymphs of the Hesperides to be guarded from the dragon who would kill them. , Aegle, Arethusa, and Hespertusa named by some; The dragon, who kept watch at night, for a long time, acted as an apple, was born of Typhon and Echidna, had a hundred heads, and wore various
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In other words, they add those gardens, which were not far from the town of Lixo in Mauritania, in the extreme part of Aethiopia, and which surrounded Atlas with the mountains of that place; Because Themis replied to him, that it would happen that the son of Jou would sometimes come and pick up golden apples: He mentions these in which {que} Virgil lib. 4. Aeneid.
Near the end of the ocean, and the falling sun
It is the last place of the Ethiopians; where the great Atlas
He twists the ax on his shoulder, fit for the burning stars,
Hence the priest of the nation of Massila was shown to me
Guardian of the temple of the Hesperides, feasts of dragons
Which gave and kept sacred fruit on the tree.
Hercules was sent to take away these golden evils , who, having hesitated for a long time, not knowing where they were, went to the nymphs of Jupiter and Themis, who lived in a certain cave near Fridanus.It is learned from them: They teach that Nereus must be consulted on this matter; He who, after being questioned by Hercules, reported that Prometheus was to be reached, and to whom there was something to be done, was warned; Of course he would send Atlantus to her for himself.* and he himself would hold up the sky for so long, until Atlas returned.* And having slain the dragon, he plucked out the gold,* with him he brought to Eurystheus: Which indeed is an allegory that is perilous to the hearing, thus not invented for idle ears, but brought down from the most ancient times to our age, the minds of the geniuses being more powerful than the senses at will He said: For what is more desirable than gold? What is the most beautiful apple? What is more beautiful than a garden? If, therefore, any one heard that golden apples were born on trees, he would long with a certain innate appetite to enjoy them. it should be covered with a thick crust; For many of the ethnics, rem, vt
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the narrator, not literally, but at length interpreted differently:* which were called golden, when they had an inhuman and barbarous shepherd, they were said to be guarded by a dragon: This word is true, which signifies both apples and sheep, and seems to have been seduced: Pherecydes referred to apples of a golden color, to which Lucian is also attributed: What does Virgil look at in the verse in Egl: I have sent ten golden evils, tomorrow I will send another. they apply astronomy, transferring golden evils to the golden stars , and the dragon to the sun: some adapt it to the doctrine of ethics and morals, as if the aurians guarding their riches are like golden serpents guarding evils. To these we first answer,* then we will also give our own interpretation: Since the subjects are to be understood according to their proper predicates, it is strange that Aretas should make oues out of evils; For although these and those are called by the Greeks〈 in the non-Latin alphabet 〉, yet they differ in length in terms of things and attributes; These wear perhaps golden wool, those golden ones are worn by trees: And there is no reason why all the authors should have put apples for sheep, or wanted to understand eggs for apples? Or is it perhaps that the author is the only one, who has simply used this equivocal term before, because it is not clear about the meaning, whether he understood Poma or Oues, and did not many people remember this allegory? I believe there are many: it is a game of name, and a violent twisting from the fruit of the tree to the cattle, although it is found that these also provided golden wool, as has been said before: therefore it was said to the dragon: O poor sheep, which, having golden wool, have felt such a wild shepherd; Indeed, they were worthy of being carried off by Hercules when the shepherd was killed: for it is childish to believe that such a shepherd was said to be a dragon, and that the ewes were carrying golden wool; Those who admit that they are apples, but of a golden color, perhaps
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they look to bad grapes or lemons; But since this creature was good in itself, it was not until then a wonderful aur rare, but always , even now, it propagated its beauty in its native places, it does not seem worth while to guard these animals by nymphs and that the dragon was clothed. For in this way they figure from heaven the same tree which the dragon called Ladon (see Apollonius lib. 4. asserts) embraces ; But as the sun approaches, the stars disappear; They meet very well indeed; But those who think thus to me about things not understood, as if they were understood, seem to babble and chatter, about which others: In the same way as those who believe these things to be formed for the sake of manners with primary intention, confess that they see nothing in the mysterious physic: in which even we Lynceus let us not imitate him, who, with sharp sight, is said to have penetrated to the interior of the earth, and spied upon the riches hidden underground in those cloisters, as if he were a heart;* We will give a more evident and more genuine explanation of this allegory than that which was said before: By Hercules, the most tolerant Victor of so many labors, to be understood first of all the Artificer of the Golden Medicine under his labors will be shown to be developed below; With that presupposed, then, although we do not deny that it is not a foolish example of Hercules to inculcate morals and virtues , Atlas, the most famous mountain of Mauritania at that time, as still, all kinds of minerals, which are used for Philosophical Medicine , the beast,we verily assert that the Hesperides surrounded the garden of the Nymphs:* For Atlas is the brother of Hesperus , because he is situated to the west of Hesperus, in respect of Egypt and Greece; Hence also Mercurius is called Atlantiades, because he is esteemed by some to have been born in Atlante;
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some talk, it is not in accordance with the truth; much less, that they say to another, that the king of Mauritania was changed by Perseus into a mountain of such greatness, with the head of Medusa displayed; For these are the figures and emblems of the poets, by which they sketched and depicted other things more mysterious, hidden beneath them: they call the astronomer Atlas, because the stars can be observed most clearly on his summit.* especially when Africa and Egypt enjoy a clear sky, and no misty rains; Then, because it is of its height, as a vertex between the clouds and the stars, it seems that it is hidden: And thirdly, that it is thought to support the sky as if on the shoulders; For the statue is said to represent the figure of a man, with the top as if ascending the head . s, Aeglen, Arethus, and Hespertus: By Hesperus her daughters* by which we understand the mountainous places of Atlantis: for although Atlas may be taken as if from one mountain, yet by the same name and continuity it includes all the other mountains adjacent to it; For Atlas conquered the whole of Africa by sea, and thus captured not one mountain, but many thousands; As it is likewise evident of the Taurus of Asia, the Alps, Apennines, and Pyrenees of Europe, that under each one innumerable mountains and hills are contained . Atlante and Hesperus: From Maia thus {and} Mercury is not undeservedly born, as Atlantiades is called, and from Aegle, Ar • thusa and Hespertusa bearing golden trees are buried evil; which are hence called the Hesperides: the dragon, who is in charge of their guard, born of Echidna and Typhon, is handed down with a hundred heads:* Now it is read that the children of the same parents were numerous; She is always poisonous and monstrous; As the dragon at the fountain of Cadmus's deadly companions, another at the Golden Fleece, a third here at evil
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Hesperides, the fourth to the cattle of Geryon; Likewise , Cerberus, the Sphynx, the Chimaera, and other such horrible and multiform monsters, of which their places are: Typhon denotes a sulphurous and fiery spirit, Echidna a watery and cold rolling substance; For from these two different kinds of minerals spring up, which were always called and described by the ancients under the names of monsters because of the variety of their nature.* Of the Dragon, of the race, in what manner, and of the birthplace of the golden evils, it is sufficiently clear from these; now we will see about the appearance of so many trees and its fruits: A tree is an inverted animal to whom it pleases some from physics, for that reason; because it has roots towards the center of the earth, or towards the lower ones, which refer to the animal's mouth disposed to the upper ones; if indeed we consider the stomach, the juice and the meseraic veins, or Epar in animals, as the principle of the distribution of food through the veins of the body, it is a different matter:* and medicines are made useful for the treatment of human bodies, they represent a certain tree of the vegetable genus; For their roots, which are the double fumes of sulfur and quicksilver, are nearer to the center, but from thence towards the higher they extend their veins through rocks and tracts of earth in a wonderful manner, as indeed they are the length of some great tree spreading out its branched branches. they represent ma, if they can be seen with the eyes, for it is clear from the experience of those who investigate those veins: If these things are so, it is clear what was meant by those golden trees bearing ma∣mala; For indeed there are trees, not growing in the air, but under the earth, which bear golden evils; so long as they are distinguished from the wild ones, which are of a better character: for in this the difficulty is turned, namely, to choose what are suitable for the art; Therefore Morienus, near the end of his treatise, added these notable words: Similarly, you should know that the major root of this work is in the search for species that are better for this mastery : For every mineral is of many kinds. About these mineral trees under the earth
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growing up, almost all the authors remembered them under these and other words; implying the same thing, namely, that the golden fruits should be taken with their tree, and transplanted; So Fla. A fixed grain, he says, is like an apple, and Mercury a tree; It is therefore not necessary to separate the fruit from the tree, because it cannot receive nourishment from elsewhere. ∣tion: The other earth, that is near the Sun, to grow, vegetane∣and makes the ar bore with continuous dew, and constant Sun in the Philoso∣phic garden, morning, evening, day and night , and at each hour without in∣ With warmth, light, and the tree is sprinkled and nourished with the sweetest dew in one year more than in the former land ten thousand .* and they bring back silver and gold, flowers and fruits: To whom nothing more obvious could be said to explain the subject of art and the golden evils of the Hesperides, what they are, in what way they grow, to be expounded. when we see every day, by the grafting of shoots of different kinds of trees into wild or lowly trunks, the ennobling of fruits is effected , so that it becomes manifesthow much is possible in vegetables, which are of heterogeneous and not similar pairs ; Whence, especially in the mineral kind, which is pure and homogeneous, that this can be done much more quickly and easily , is reasonable, and well known by experience . similar parts can be repaired and restored from living human flesh, as we were eye- witnesses of the matter when we saw the most excellent Gasp-Tagliacotius of Bononiafamiliarly familiar with such a finisher. but superfluous
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We thought it would be, when the sense of the artists does not ask for help or proof from reason, but on the contrary.* In certain places, where in the Irish season everything freezes with cold and ice, if a shoot is dropped from an apple tree about the beginning of December, and placed in warm places or hypocausts for a few days in water, it produces leaves and flowers conspicuous for their beauty and novelty. which is also known to the common people; But the Philosophers therefore acknowledge the first matter latent in the shoots of trees, and likewise they judge of the golden evils contained in their branches and roots. , who, about the 25th day of November, store the cabbage leaves in a trench six feet high under the ground,* and there during the winter they leave the snow and cold until the 25th of March under the god, and then they take not the cabbage leaves, but the purest seed therefrom; for my sworn witnesses affirmed that they did this every year: in which transformation we see that by mere putrefaction that vegetable (vt also asserts of other plants) is reduced to its first matter, from which it is, or rather to the last, to which it tends : Which also must be done in the Chymical artifice, but in its own way: And so our tree, bearing golden apples, became sufficiently familiar to the rational, as is the explanation of this Allegory: But in order that Hercules might explore this tree, he granted it to the Nymphs Jupiter and Themis , which near Erida∣num,* of the river gold of Italy, they dwelt in caverns or subterranean mines; He sought advice from them; But why that? because the works of nature are first of all to be consulted, that is, to be considered, how nature proceeds in its operations; Therefore the Philosophers in many places, in order to explore the true matter, lead the investigator to natural works, and invite them to be considered in the depths, as we see here and there in Gebrum and others: Those nymphs who dwell in caves or gold mines send Hercules to Nereus ; who is the true son of Pontus and Terra
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He was believed to be a judge; Here the Trojans foretold the calamities of Paris; the most ancient of the gods, said by Orpheus:* Hercules coming to him, trying to conceal him in various forms, stopped him for a long time, until he returned to his former shape, and told the truth: He was a 50. Nereid father, brought up and nurtured by those, whose daughters especially ran around the chariot of Triton. This is the first Being commanded by Philosophers to be often inquired into, without which there is no clear way or passage to the golden evils: Prometheus verò,〈 in the non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is, said by providence, to whom Nereus is summoned to consult,* he brought fire to men, and is regarded as a fire-bearing Titan, a friend of the Ocean, a contemplator of divine things, whose altar he shared with Vulcan and Pallas; By whose advice Saturn was thrown into Tartarus for love, whence Saturn escaped into Italy and came to Janus, who was then reigning there; in the coins, which were first printed by his genius, that there was a ship on one side, and a two-faced effigy on the other; because the kingdom was indeed governed by the common counsel of Janus and Saturnus, vt. Ouid. Lib. 1. He delivered the fast. We do not doubt the truth that by Prometheus the previous speculation of his mind about this work was expressed, whence he had an altar in common with Pallas and Vulcan; nor is it undeservedly said that Jove gave advice about imprisoning his father and pushing him to the underworld; For from the speculation of the mind all this is foreseen, that is to say, after the blackness, the dark will follow the white. To be expelled from the Kingdom of God Jupiter, and to suffer many other things. But these are all Hieroglyphics, and from the Egyptians
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The Egyptians or the Greeks • made to • those things which they wanted, to wrap them as if in envelopes. The fact that Saturn is joined to the consort of the kingdom itself has a far different reason, which anyone will be able to divine who has not been ignorant of the reason why the ancient Triton of Rome was seen above the house of Saturn.* For they are enigmatic and somewhat obscure: But why money is the first sign of Saturn's auspiciousness, the reason is obvious, because he is the first of the planets, who wears keys to treasures, if you look at the color and order: Money is said to be cattle, no* vt has hitherto been popular, that the sheep could have been bought from him, but because he had a sheep stamped with one of the ships, this is Argo; For there is no doubt that his voyage was remarkable, containing both a ship and cattle, whose golden fleece he wore; In addition to several others, Greverus mentions these evils or • orus among the more recent ones, who themselves will be able to read: From the same garden of the Hesperides, the Eridos, in which the golden apple was the primary cause of the Trojan war.* it was requested, of which in the following book 6. Let us say: First of all, those three golden evils which were handed down by Venus to Hippomenes are imagined, to be objected to by Atalanta:* For when this royal virgin was not only most excellent in the gift of form, but also by the most celebrated art of hunting and shooting, she attracted many suitors to her; It is true that Father Schaeneus did not wish to propose her to anyone in marriage, except by whom she had been most perniciously defeated by other feet; to whom the victorious virgin, death would be added to the vanquished . defeated, and Hippomenes was given her as a spouse. and victories
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a prize given to Meleager for killing a boar of remarkable size; And when Aesculapius , while hunting among the Stethaes, was laboring with thirst, it is said that he struck a rock with his spear, and with the rock he expelled a very cold spring: no one sees that this is a chemical* unless perhaps the mole is blinder: Some, nevertheless, apply it to denote manners and avarice, or to win marriages with gold, that we should not envy them, provided that they should not be offended by us, that we should restore to the more hidden physical, as a postliminary to their proper right: that a virgin is a royal He is ignorant of our matter of many testimonies, but he is shy and has wings on his feet, that is, Mercury's sandals; Wherefore he preempts every man in his course, unless he be treated with cunning and stratagem: But how this should be done, this allegory of the wise hints: Let the evils of gold be received, and successively thrown at them, and the victor escape: Nothing more open, nothing more accommodating: After in the fan of the mother of the gods they lie down in the bond of love; This is in a well-known vessel or house of glass, and they are turned into lions; Because they begin to flee and dominate other animals: for they easily prey on any fugitives and turn them into food: But why do they desire death, who are conquered by a virgin? Because as Bacasser says in the crowd; Nothing generates more pain in the heart than error in this art: for while one thinks that he has made, that he has the world, he finds nothing in his hands. He kills the boar, because the other is Diana; He drew out a spring from a rock near the fan of Aesculapius; Because the hardest philosophic rocks give water: So Riplaeus in the fig: He produced water from the earth and oil from the hardest rock: We would annunciate that Cereus with golden horns insignia with golden horns, but what artificer is ,* i • rest, I hope to take it, and you will think it utterly childish that such a thing should have been ordered or perpetrated by such a Hero as Hercules is believed to be of Switzerland: the waxes would be hidden: but the waxes then
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he had golden horns and golden feet, and was sacred and inviolable to Diana; Therefore it was not to be overtaken with arrows or darts, nor with dogs, but by running: for it was not fitting that blood should flow from the wounds; for in this way it would either be diminished in strength or utterly extinguished; but it was to be taken alive and in perfect health; and therefore we were exhausted by running alone. He was engaged in Mount Maenalus; where both the boar and the lion, and other beasts of the same kind, abode. Hercules , being sent by Eurystheus to bring her to him, is said to have spent a whole year in running, before he could wear her out; the river Ladon was already taken by train, and Mycenae was carried on his shoulders; Then they say that Eurystheus was at once overwhelmed by the power of Hercules , for he procured a bronze cask for himself as a hiding-place, and did not admit Hercules to the word. But the deer is one of the fleeting animals of black blood and melancholy flesh; and therefore born of the poorer; He seeks safety in his course, if he is vexed, and thereby he is most perishable. were it the very light of the sun, or the golden crown, it would scarcely ever stand or be noticed. This is clear from the innumerable testimonies of the Philosophers . when ver∣rò: he is mortified with his hidden body, then he is strong and lives an incorruptible life, and this body is of the nature of the Sun. And Arnoldus: In our stone are the Sun and the Moon in virtue and power, and also in nature: if this were not, neither the Sun nor the Moon would be made from it; because the Sun and the Moon in our stone are better than the vulgar in their nature, because the Sun and the Moon in our stone are alive, and the vulgar are dead with respect to the Sun and the Moon in our stone; For this reason the Philosophers named the very stone the Sun and the Moon; because in him they are potentially, and not visible literally, but in virtue and essence. Hence some of the
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the more recent ones mention this cereus, but they add Monocerote to it, when they say: Philosophers say that there are two animals in this forest, one praiseworthy, beautiful, and vigorous: the great and robust cereus, the other one, pointed out by the Philosopher. • t Basilius Valentinus reports a donkey rotting under the earth turned into wax with golden horns: He has airy feet shining and white: Because the thing whose head is red, eyes black and feet white is our mastery: And it is known , as often as the philosophic brass is repeated; For this is the foundation and basis of the work, as it does not undeservedly refer to the animal's feet: it is sacred to Diana, because a deer was customarily slaughtered for her, as is evident in the allegory of Iphigenia; Now Diana is the nature of the moon: for the sun and the moon are the whole composition. that with a lighter fire: if the force of fire had been present, the violence of a fugitive animal would have been done: she took refuge in Mount Artemisium, exhausted, and was taken to the river Ladon; Because thus it was necessary for the virgin to remain inviolable; It may be that the sacred Diana, which was called Artemis, as 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 that is, cutting the air, as some want, or as another, that it makes whole, as the author is Strabo, l. 14. Now Ladon is a river of Arcadia, from whose daughter Me∣tope and Asopus, the Theban river, the nymph born Thebes is imagined, which gave it its name; Ladon is the name of the snake guarding the golden apples, as it has been said; Whichever is referred to, the sense of the matter is met: In Maenalus of Arcadia, a mountain abundant in ores, from whence towards Maenalei, he was engaged; Because that place was the most celebrated of the poets: Mycenae is carried on the shoulder of Hercules, lest it should be hurt: But why did Eurystheus fear so much because of the wax taken by Hercules, when he had prostrated other beasts of greater magnitude, namely, the lion, the boar, the hydra, and the like? Thus it seems that what art is greater than to conquer Mars, by hesitation, than by festivity, by gentleness, than by violence.
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he continued to run and pursue the beast; For the anger of the work demands reason: For we take a year, says Riplaeus, port: • . before we prepare our calc . _ The mythologists, in order to explain these fables to their captives, make of Hercules the sun of the sky, who runs throughout the whole year, and I know not what kind of deer with golden horns and insects ; But these things, because they are easily recognized from their genuine nature as distorted to another, do not stand, nor do they have any use for the minds of the readers or listeners .* besides the mists and darkness which we have discussed for some time : Midas also holds a symbol of gold, viz. and a vow; And when B. Ccho , who had received Silenus humanely, had procured, that is to say, turned whatever he touched into gold, the wretched man would have been starved to death, unless , led by a vow of penitence, he had once again obtained the cessation of the gilding, by this remedy, viz. He would bathe in the river Pactolo, who carried this gold to himself, as from thence he threw the goldensands . It is most apt to be clarified and restrained: for the Midas are found to be very many by vow, but very few in effect: Because it is in the will of each one to desire an immensity of riches, but to obtain it in the gift of God: But who is a god who has granted a gift even to a harmful one? Fictitious andHieroglyphic, not he who is truly God and is said to give us more valuable goods, such aspleasures , as the father of children: for Bacchus , who is both Dionysus and Osiris , the first of the golden gods He is a nobler, i.e. { and} the bestower of so great a gift: But Silenus, his master or count, conspired to receive him kindly; He that sitteth on the saddle, though the old man be laughed at by the children, yet has more in his retreat than he promises in the front:* dictum on Socrates, outwardly most ugly, inwardly beautiful
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tossed For a generous lord sometimes dwells in a vile house, and his mind is polished by letters, and his body is covered with bread for years . for, as the baseness and wildness, or • ugliness of philosophical matter, which, if treated humanely and mildly, which immediately follows the golden god, Bacchus repays manifold grace for grace: This denotes the wish of Midas; But by this is meant properly the golden force imprinted on its subject, which is immense and ever multiplying, unless the fiery force is restrained and quenched in its own water ; Philosophers deal with this in many places, in the first place Lullius practice: testam: Cap. 23. where among the rest, And when, he says, he releases it in a special form of sulphur, that is to say a fine powder, then he shows that it is of great ignition, and for this reason you ought not to esteem him less, but to honor him more fortunately, since it is possible to reach the limit of simple ignition through the discretion of the wise operator in learning, which superior art confers in multiplicative substance. To these we shall add other golden symbols and hieroglyphics of antiquity,* which were not really in the nature of the world, but which they would declare by means of these things, invented by artificers and poets ; For there are golden ages, golden rains, golden harvests, and the like.* as silver under Joue, and bronze and iron post under others; But if Saturn was neither a god, nor a man, nora king, no golden age really existed . Is it because Jupiter is impious towards his father, whom he has shunned, and is an adulterer and a murderer? Is not Saturn also imagined as such, whoencamped his father Heaven, had his sister Rhea for his spouse, and had Philyre for his skin besides the rest, and vowed his own children ?* whom he was not able to swallow , he vomited ; and the Stone, according to Hesiod
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mentions, it was placed in Helicon as a monument to mortals: That they might see and touch this stone, so many ancient poets imagined that they had passed over Helicon, in which the highest wisdom was to be drawn from the fountain of the Muses: Saturn never reigned with Janus, as the ethnics believed and they pretended that they should prove to others that they derived their origin from the Gods, as is evident from what has been said before, but it is probable that the first money was printed by his work, as has been said above: We know that the golden age is truly called that which took place under Saturn, because the beginning of all the golden Gods Saturn, as their progenitor, depends. Often also poets and other writers make mention of the golden rain, and not metaphorically.* They accept the golden age , but properly, as if it actually happened; For they narrate that the sun fell with Venus in prostration on the island of Rhodos, and a golden rain fell, and after that meeting Rhodos was born: This indeed would have been forgiven by the poets for their licentiousness, had not the historians affirmed the same: for thus in Strabo lib. 14. He left it written, that it rained gold on the island of Rhodia, when Minerva was born on the head of Jupiter ; and many other monstrous things besides the order of nature, and endeavoring to render their individual physical causes, as if they were carried away into the air of the living, or of the solar rays, and there concretized and generated, or released from their own seed, or after the ability of matter; Even if we were to read the truth about gold, and its generation in the air, we would not apply faith. when experience testifies to this in all ages and places; indeed, it might be considered certain that the gold had fallen in Rhodes, if it had been sent by the divine fate and miracle
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they would be shown to each other; when it is added, that it also happened, when the sun of Venus had set, and Pallas had sprung from the brain of Jupiter, we have recognized the allegory or fable: because the arbitrators judged that the Sun was God and Venus the Goddess, from him nothing but the Divine would be procreated. The same reasoning was given about the rise of Pallas: to slip, to be under; For if the Philosophical Sun meets Venus, the most beautiful woman, Rhodes is born who is sought by thousands and found by very few; and in the meantime the golden rain falls; because gold is mingled with gold, the leafy earth with its water, the sun with Venus: Roseus indeed is the fetus, or Rho∣dus, who is born into the light from such a complex: Thus Pal∣las, the goddess of wisdom from the brain of Jupiter, but with Vulcan ri midwife, not without cause, it is given to the falling gold by the rain in Rhodes; For without Vulcan, as the primary instrument of work, the wisdom of mastery is not perfected; that is, a perfect knowledge of a hidden matter cannot be had without previous manual treatment: for theoretical knowledge is perfect • Virgo, and is born only from Jupiter's Brain, as if from its Seminary, and is not mixed with Vulcan∣nius or smith's arts; Whence the same Pal∣las Vulcanus, endeavoring to bring power to himself, repulses the m • sc • lé, from whose quarrels Erichthonius traced the origin: It is imagined that the rain of the same race, the golden rain, which descended on Dana 's lap,* so efficaciously that Perseus, the strongest hero ,was born from there, Medes had raised the strength of a stone , lifting it and plaiting it on his head, from whose blood Chrysaor, the father of Geryon's tri-body, was born, from whom his other instead it is given more broadly: Vt meanwhile another thing hither
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we pass by as many things as possible, among which are the golden harvests,* which is said to have been, when Pythagoras taught Croto∣ne the mysteries of the arcane philosophy, and the golden songs of the same Pythagoras ,* which still remain, and also the golden crown worn by the same person at the head of all the first, (perhaps before the kings of many nations) are enumerated;* the truth about these other copious things: Now we will proceed to deliver the golden Genealogy of the Gods in the following Book.
End of the Second Book
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THE THIRD BOOK AVREA'S Genealogy of De∣orum De∣umque, from which, like a tree of Philosophic∣ca, innumerable branches of Hiero∣glyphic Heroes are propagated.
To wish to institute the destruction of the Gods, and of the Gentiles, from so many ancient centuries among the Poets and Historians, and not only the greater part of the world received in this, as it were, our last age, when the Christian religion shines most clearly from the grace of God, would be a web woven by many thousands of years to reweave, and perhaps to help the Jews; both because to Christians sufficiently confirmed in their faith it is superfluous, and also because to ethnic writers, who fill almost all the supersli∣tious deeds of the Gods and Heroes from those who arose, the same thing may seem impossible: therefore let no one esteem, that we have assembled this treatise for that reason, as if from thence now first the truth of the doctrine must be seen, or the falsities of the ethnic gods must be brought to light; For he knew this from the sacred history, with every major exception; However, when each one does not benefit , many help, and it is permissible even for the Sun holding the middle of the sky to light a lamp in private houses, for places that are dark
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they are, let them be deeply introspected; It was not undeservedly that we thought it would be worth our while to make the genealogies of the Gods and Goddesses, which were sufficiently wrapped up in themselves, and by no means hitherto brought back to their true origin, from which they proceeded, made more lucid by our means of any illumination.* For it does not seem that light approaches the human intellect, if only it knows that the things or persons believed to be the dwellings of the Gods in long and different times are not Gods, than if it investigates these things from the sources of truth, what has been understood through them or persons from the wiser, and should be understood, since there are no dij: for it is not possible for anyone to imagine that they were introduced in vain or by chance: this we present, for the talent granted to us by the supreme benefactor, in the first book we have developed the principal Egyptian things, called Hieroglyphics, in the second We have passed through the more conspicuous and gold-encrusted Allegories of the Greeks;* Now we will enumerate the golden family of the Gods and Dears, from which, like a chain, the numerous progeny of the Gods and Heroes, upon which the World, and up to now Iborat, depends: Homer, lib. Iliad 8. delivers* All the gods hanging from a golden chain, trying to drag Jove out of Heaven, but whose attempt was angered: for when Jove is removed, the greatest part of them is removed, of whom he is the Progenitor; He therefore prevailed over all the rest in authority and dominion, because the kingdom of Heaven, as they say, reached him: all the ethnics worshiped him as the greatest of the Gods; Since indeed it is not said to have arisen from itself, but from the parents that preceded it in time, we will begin with them; who, since neither they themselves, as Saturn and Rhea, are acknowledged to be without any origin, but descended also from others, namely, Heaven and Earth, we shall advance: Ethnics without any tradition or knowledge of the sacred books presupposed from the dense darkness of the human mind They conceived opinions about God and the world:
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with his Aristotle; Another is that the eternal God, the efficient cause, did not create the world from eternity, but voluntarily in time, according to the Platonists, even with the divine Plato ; whose opinion is more akin to the Christians than to the rest of the Philosophers: Some have imagined that the world was conflated from atoms by chance;* Thus the Arcades boasted that they existed before the Moon; and others trying to solve that question, whether the egg came before the hen, or whether the hen came before the egg in the world of nature, convey the wonderful birth of men and animals, just as we told about the mice of Egypt at the beginning of the first book: And these with the Creator of heaven and earth, who he did nothing, they would not acknowledge, indeed all animals, as well as vegetables from earth and water mixed together in a rich proportion, acceding to air and fire, they thought that they had sprung up of their own accord, and that heaven and earth had always been without origin: Therefore, if for the works they had done or created, lest they should be compelled to acknowledge their efficient cause, and thus to advance ad infinitum, they received themselves as the first gods not begotten; He made the heavens and the earth water, or the ocean and the seas. Besides these, the rivers, fountains, mountains, and winds of the earth and the heaven were established as coeval, or relatives or relatives; or that the mag∣gis believable, born of the first intercourse: From heaven and earth, and thus the origin of all the Gods is deduced, vt and of all other things. We shall include many things in the very words by which their intention is utterly destroyed:* If man is from a man of two sexes, and not only the rest of the animals from their own seed, likewise also vegetables, always spring from their kind, and that in time, according to each individual; then there is nothing produced by chance, nor eternal what is according to the individual, imó nor species; And what is true of the parts, there is no reason why it should not also be true of the whole
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let it be; But first it is considered reasonable from experience itself; And the system of connection is known; because whatever arises from the seed of its species, that arises naturally and not by chance; And what arose in all individuals in time cannot be said to return eternally: therefore it follows according to the truth; Man and the earth , animals, vegetables, and all parts of earth and water, species and contents, air and the whole Heaven with its contents, did not exist from eternity, but took their being in time; Not of himself; Therefore from another; Who else is that? God Deorū, Creator of creatures: The other arguments, since they are well-known, we will pass here, and we will plant the first and great Gods, Heaven and Earth with their offspring: We do not deny that some of the wiser of the Ethnics, when they see such a crowd of Gods, which are given to vanity the first cause must at last be reduced, that he reduced almost all the Gods to the Elements of the greater world, and thus tacitly renounced the plurality of the gods; among whom Varro is most busy lest the fables should appear altogether; Indeed, since this opinion fosters many absurdities, and is not the intention of the authors who first brought this kinship of the Gods from Egypt into Greece, let us reject it in every way: From Heaven and Earth, therefore, Saturn and Rhea were begotten; Then the Titan* Iapetus, Thetis, Ceres, Themis, and A∣lij, whom Hesiod enumerates: From Saturn and Rhea, Jupiter, Juno, Neptune, Glaucus, and Pluto: From Saturn and Phily∣re, Chiron; from Saturn's genitals, Venus: from Juno alone, Hebe: from Jupiter alone, when Metis had devoured his wife, Pallas from his head: from Jupiter and Juno, Vulcan & Mars; Jupiter from the skin of Latona, Apollo and Diana : from Maia, Mercury : from Semele Dionysius: from Danae Perseus ; Hercules from; from Leda, Pollux , and Helen, Castor and Clytemnaestra, from two sheep: from Europa, Minos and Rhada∣mantus : from Antiope, Amphion and Zethus ; from Thalia Palici brothers: from Ceres Proserpina : But these are the chief among the many sons of Jupiter, of whom alone, omitting the rest, we shall deal
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then we will touch on a few and the most distinguished of his grandsons and great-grandsons, and the pleasures of Neptune out of eighty, as many as are numbered, sons begotten by different nymphs, and also others omitted for the sake of brevity:* That heaven and earth have cohabited, if naturally, since heaven is active and earth is patient, that form, this matter be accepted, we are not opposed to created creatures and to any of those who come from their seed; if indeed the words sound supernaturally, or pro∣vt, instead of the act of generation or union, we judge the phantasm extirpated by labor, not by reason or argument; It is strange that the Sages of the Ethnics should have dreamed this dream, that they had attributed the testicles to Heaven, the father of Saturn, and had cut them off from Saturn, lest they should beget more children themselves; No one ever deluded more in prison; than these wise men said; no one has embraced the true opinion of God less than these Theologians, if it pleases God, who are called: They will answer the truth, that it was reasonably done, that is, that Heaven was castrated, lest it should beget another heaven, or another earth: But if everything begets its own in the same way, Saturn and Rhea, and the other sons of Saturn , are new to the new earth, which, however, was not received by them, but the majority from Saturn , Tempus, from Titan and Iapetus, I don't know where the progenitors, from the goddess Thetis They make the sea, from Ceres the goddess of crops, from Themis the goddess of justice .* He was painted by the ancients as a pale, crooked old man, holding in one hand a scythe and biting a dragon's tail, the other placing a small son to his mouth and devouring him: his head was covered with a helmet, and over it he was draped: he had by his side four sons, to whom Jupiter is the manly they cut off, and from whom Venus arose: They tell that Saturn, although he was younger than the Titan, nevertheless transferred the kingdom to himself, and therefore the bells between the Titans, whose sons were called the Titans , and Saturn arose, that read set, viz., if any male children from Rhea were born to Saturn, and were taken away in the middle: Saturn therefore
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He commanded the new-born Jupiter to be brought to him, and he received from Rhea a stone wrapped in bundles, which he soon swore for Jupiter: and Jupiter was nourished elsewhere in Crete by the Corybans, until he reached a just age: in the same way Neptune and Pluto were born from the voraciousness of Saturn Rhea is always said to be saved by offering something else: When he loved Philyra, the daughter of Oceanus, when Opius came over, he turned himself into a horse ; ; After Saturn , his son suffered the same thing that he had inflicted on his father, namely, castration and dejection from the kingdom. according to the rule, By which one sins, he is punished by the same: Then the fugitive son of Heaven is said to have come to Italy ; It is surprising that such a small portion of the earth could support the son of such a great father, and that the exile who was hiding there (from whence they want to call Latium) should receive hospitality. the foundations and governments were brought back to one of the most ancient Gods, not to be believed to have arisen from men, but to be descended from the gods . because Saturn seemed to be, or to signify, as it were, the light of human life, and was held to be the inventor of many advantages: In honor of this Dei, when the Saturnalia were celebrated among the Romans, the servants served the Lord. But before the rest it is to be remembered, that Natalis cites from Trismegistus, that three very wise men flourished in the time of Trismegistus, namely, Heaven , Saturn , and Mercury ;* as if this had arisen from the movement of the heavens, and let there be at least one, therefore that Saturn, viz. and the heavens, had been robbed of men: that the same season should be of all men, and that they should consume all their children, born in time and out of time, and as it were devour, and spare none , except perhaps with the hardest stones, and therefore the stone by Saturn's vomiting
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be said to be cast out: these things are indeed similar; but the four, as they say, do not proceed with their feet: for if Heaven is the father of Saturn's time, why is Earth the mother? Did the earth conceive time? What does the land contribute to seasonal production? What is heaven but to look back to the motion of the planets? What if the heavens stood still and the Planets only moved, or was there therefore no time? Why is not the superior Sun, which causes the year, day and night, summer and winter, and other vicissitudes of time, to be regarded as Time or the father of time, rather than Saturn or Heaven ? Why is Saturn pictured as lame, when he is swift and has swifter wings than the winds? Why is the same old man established, when time does not age, but rather represents youth? For the flame of fire is always the latest, and does not last so long a space of time, but always another and another new one succeeds; thus, the age, and its moment, which they call the Now itself, is always young, having nothing of old age. Is it not the same in appearance with those who are assigned to Mercury, Aesculapius, the gardens of the Hesperides, and other places previously assigned? Or does it really denote here the roundness of the year, elsewhere the concord of two most adverse things, elsewhere the prudence of the mind or the utmost vigilance? But the true reason of this Hieroglyphic is what Basilius Valentinus expounds to these words: I am Saturn, says he, I am of the Planets in the Firmament. , subject to many afflictions and injuries in this valley of miseries, yet all your proof; for I have no permanent abode, and I take with me one like myself, whose misery is to be imputed to no cause , except to the fickle Mercury, who by his carelessness and negligence inflicted this evil on me : The same hidden Phil: Cap. 12. On Generation
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of Saturn ; He reports that he was exposed to many vices through the fault of his nurse, and became lame in one foot, but he was rendered docile, wise, alert, and cautious by his intelligence, so that he would conquer all in war, except two who were superior in wealth and power: Hence the pale , is seen to be crooked, not least because of bad digestion; He wields the sickle, because he is the prover of all; The dragon, because he would renew them as it were, or himself; Now why the dragon devouring his own head and tail is so often mentioned in the authors, there is a different reason, which anyone can see there, and consider the difference with this one; and as far as Lupine's air is distant, he notices with golden lead: He devours children, born of ecstasy, for whom if one takes the four Elements, or other bodies, it is the same: The head is covered with a helmet, because he is strong in war, but the cloaked one is more inferior; hence he is esteemed of a cheaper fortune: But what war does he want with the Titans? Of course, from the rest of his race, Saturn is to be chosen for the kingdom; who preceded the Titan , if not in age, yet in wisdom and authority . is: the salinity of Saturn cast out, or is it the cause of all salinity in nature, since Venus is said to have sprung from it, and is present in all things that propagate themselves? Did not the good come to the world from Saturn's desire? O human madness to be received with Demo∣critic laughter; O the blindness of the minds of Heraclitus, let him deplore with weeping , if the Ethniques had really thought such a thing to be done by their Gods to their Gods, father to their son . The authors clearly understand the blackness occurring at the beginning of the work, as in many places where they observe the series of Planets, they remember : subsequently
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They accept Jovial as accomplished: the natal count of Saturn, the chemical agent, receives the judgments of those treating about this planet badly: Moreover, he says,* When to each planet, on account of a certain likeness, certain metals are attributed, the chiefs of metals; or the artificers of the chemists, almost twisted this whole fable to their art, when they prophesied that they wished to imitate the Platonic Gebrus, Hermes, and Raimundus: that he cast down the sea, from which the foam was born of Venus; Because Saturn is a kind of salt, the father of Jove, that is, of prepared salt, which is made from that prepared: But since Jupiter exists in a glass vessel into sharp thin water, the power of fire is immediately dissolved, which is also taken from Jove himself, when men let him bring the parts with him, cutting and separating the inner sulfur and the salt latent, which fall into the vessel which is placed for receiving; On this account they say that Saturn cut off the manly parts, and when salt falls into the thin water of the sea, Venus is born from that salt and sulphur. For the torturers of metals try to invent these and other similar arts, by which they can transfer metals into other forms, terrified by the terrible form of poverty, and always bearing in mind that sentence of the most beautiful poet Timocles, who says thus: There is blood but {que} spit • going with money to mortals, for whom there is no abundance, the living wander among the shadows of the dead:* But good words please, Count; Until the Saturnine star exasperates you, so that you have mastered the whole chemical art and think it to be a dream, because of one or another's interpretation of fables that do not smile to your palate; We grant that he who thus wrote of Saturn (perhaps alluding to the Italian Braceschus) applied these things in an accommodative way; Or therefore there is no truth in chemistry? In the meantime, she understood that those whom you turn to manners, look rather to the secrets of chemistry and nature: What if chemistry is true even against your prejudgment , and above your grasp, or because you judge differently or do not grasp it, do you make it false? Please don't do it: I'm not talking about metal speakers, but about art
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chemistry, which perfects the golden medicine, although it does not manufacture gold, nor devises anything contrary to nature; You may stigmatize those who are falsifiers, not desirous of the truth, and not in need of your judgment: What if a chemist perfects medicine by treating people who are sick, will he not be worthy of his reward or reward? Is it not possible for them to escape poverty by this means? It is not surprising, then, if they do this in their (legitimate) way, whom you call the torturers of the metal; It is evident that some of whom (I joke about truths) have expelled more truth from metals than you have perhaps extorted from fables, so that I may not say anything about vanity: Geber, Hermes, and Raymond were not Platonic; Let him imitate those who can, rather by work than by display. they say that Saturn reigned in Egypt, and that he married his sister Rhea, and that Jupiter and Juno were born to them; From these were born 5 sons: they attributed the club and the staff to Saturn, because he had intercourse with the two-faced Janus, who is the door of the year, whom it is said to have married.* he did not know enough, unless the reason was mysterious: Why were his festivals celebrated with such a ridiculous rite among the Romans, that the lords were to serve the serfs, and not only to preach the freedom of everyone?* For here the highest planet suffers a union with the lowest and the middle: Thus Avicenna says of the soul: 1. ch. 2. And as the sun is more powerful, giving its strength to Saturn, and down to the moon, and so gold is more precious than all others; and therefore, because all heavenly things are mixed with earthly things, they thus send their strength from above downwards: Because the strength of the earthly was that it should ascend above, and the strength of the above follows, that it should descend below: And as it cannot be, that Saturn does not run with the sun in the same sign; It cannot be done that way
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this mastery will not withdraw the gold from the lead: But understand what we want to say, after you have reason that it cannot be done, that it is not mastery. Rosarius and Emiganus assert the same thing in the crowd, that the sun gives its light above and towards the moon, and then looks upon all things both above and below: What Trismegistus mentions about the three sages famous in his time, Centuries , Saturn and Mercury, convinces all the ethnics of falsehood : for how could these three have lived in vain unless they were alleged to be allegorical? Of whom enough: Saturn's brothers, Titan, Iapetus, others, and his sisters, Thetis, Ceres, Themis, and if there are any more, it would be too tedious to exclaim in this place, since it does not serve our purpose to cut off each one alive. ; Nevertheless, we will make a sufficient mention of them below, as necessity will bring: Now to Jupiter, the son of Saturn,* let us proceed to declare the deeds and the hieroglyphics: Jupiter, having been taken away by the voraciousness of Saturn, was brought to Dactylos the Idaeans in Crete, and there he was fed and brought up by goats, bees, and other nurses, it is read by various legendary writers, the summary of which is this: He is said to have been born in Thebes in Arcadia among the Messenians, rescued by Saturn in Baeotia, delivered to the Corybans in Crete to be educated; These feigned sacrifices among the cymbals and ympanos, and hid the cry of the child: Adraste and Ida were nurses, the daughters of Melisseus, and Curetus or Dactylorus as his sister. {and} to be brought up, he himself in a place where the anger of the sons of Titambus flared up, but {and} Saturn and Opim, who had been arrested, threw them into chains and into custody: Jupiter, in truth, delivered the father who had been defeated by the Titans. Then Jupiter cast down the father from the kingdom, bound him with a woolen rope, and thrust him into the Tartarus; At last he cut off his virile limbs with the same sickle that he had cut off his father: the sickle is said to be milky in Drepanum in • ulam,
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and virility in the sea, whence Venus sprung up: To him the victories against the Titans and Saturn, the father of Jove, came for the rest of the day: Apollo played the lyre and his victory in a purple robe and was crowned with laurel: Then they say that Jove proposed to Vesta, by which he had obtained the empire, viz. he would have preferred, he would have chosen, but to have eaten this virginity and the firstfruits of the sacrifices. It is a report that Bacchus was torn in pieces in that war against the Titans, and his palpitating heart carried Pallas to Jupiter; Then the giants rose up against Jove, whom he cut to pieces with a thunderbolt, and among them Aegeus, (whose hands were cut off 100, and his head 50.) Jove, who was trying to drive him out of the kingdom, pushed him under Mount Aetna; Whence, every time she moves her side, Aetna belches forth flames;* led by Horus; Or from Oceanus and Tethys, as others like it: Jupiter, seized by the desire of this conquest, changed himself into a cuckoo, which, when the storm arose, shivered and chilled {and} fell upon the bosom of Juno, covered by which garment, he resumed her in her first form, and afterwards took her to wife; From Juno and Jupiter are born Mars, Arge, Ilithya, and Hebe: from others Vulcan is added; Whom Lucian imagines to have been born from the meeting of the subuentaneus and Juno from the sea: She was believed by the ancients to be the goddess of riches; It is said that Jove was once suspended aloft, and that he hung two incuses on his feet, and put a golden chain on his hands; And when Juno thus hung in the ether, he bore it heavily upon the other gods, and yet they could not relieve him: Fourteen nymphs are attributed to him; The peacock is held sacred; Because for that reason Argus was killed by Mercury and changed into that bird: the goose was another bird sacred to Juno; Thus the cow is one of the animals; Because it is from the hieroglyphic figures of Egypt, denoting Juno: Of the fables of Juno, as formerly under Saturn, Natalis says that the chemical artisans tried to bring some parts back to their fires and to their vessels: Juno is said (they say) daughter of Saturn and Opus,* Jupiter's sister and consort, and born before Jupiter at the same birth, being queen of the gods
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and the goddess of wealth, presiding over births and marriages, who is nothing else than the water of Mercury, which is called Juno: she is the daughter of Saturn for that reason, that from him and her earth drips and flows: Juno and Jupiter, or the water of Mercury, and the salt left in the lower part of the glass vessel and in the vessel: When the water of Mercury first flows out of the vessel, Juno is born before Jupiter ; And what follows at Christmas; Which sufficiently insinuates, that these fables of Jupiter and Juno, having been devoted to a great deal of chemistry, on the subject of which they were invented and introduced, became acquainted with them, although they did not all receive them in one way; But they have been interpreted in different ways for different materials and methods of operation; For in this they agree, that they are the remains and hieroglyphic pictures of the most ancient chemical philosophies visited upon the Egyptians and Greeks, scattered and sung in the books of the poets of almost all, understood by very few except superficially; , is distinguished by that vulgar verse quoted by the poets:
Jupiter is the same as Pluto, Sun & Dionysius.
If so Jupiter is the same in understanding with Pluto,* and for the rest, let us first see Pluto; This brother is called Jupiter, likewise born of Saturn and Opus; He fought with Jupiter, and after various victories and successful achievements, he divided the empire of the worlds by the lots cast by Ove and Neptune: to whom he obtained the empire of Spain and all the places to the west of the sun: Hence Strabo lib. 3. Geogr., that Pluto was the god of wealth, and that he dwelt in Iberia near the mountains of the Pyrenees, betrayed his memory: He is pretended to ride in a chariot of dark horses; He is called Pluto, because he bestows riches; Caelib and his sons, who were destitute of life, alone delivered all the gods: Because no goddess could suffer him to be her husband, on account of the deformity and obscurity of thekingdom . his subterranean kingdoms: he had the dog Cer∣berus
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the tricep, • and the Bull was sacrificed; and Narcissus, Adiantum, and Cypressus were dedicated in Crowns: Keys for the emblem, as Jupiter is imagined to have carried a scepter and Neptune a trident: Strabo testifies, lib. 9. On the banks of the Coral river, where the sacred ceremonies took place, Pambaeotia was built for a certain mystical reason, the common ara of Pluto and Pallas :* These things about Pluto; The things concerning the Sun and Dionysus that refer here will be said below. Thus Jupiter and Juno, as brother and sister, husband and wife, agent and sufferer, are meant of one and the same subject, of which before Saturn and Rhea, Osiris and Isis of the same condition and lineage are Hieroglyphic Persons; Which, having been sufficiently declared above, needs no repetition here: But why is so much fable attached to this? This is considered to have been done partly for the declaration of a hidden thing, partly to demonstrate the power of Jupiter, such as is believed to be the case: a stone is substituted for it; because it was so fitting; to be brought up is handed over to the priests, who hid it with the noise of the cymbals: for when it is not combined with the Philosophical air, and in one vessel as if nourished by it, all work is lost: the nurses are the daughters of Melisseus, or the bees, as they will elsewhere, because flying insects fly up and down around the fetus or the Philosopher's boy wanders about: the Titans conquer, that is, hurling spears with smoky exhalations; And Saturn will remove his father from the government; or after the blackness he brings the white Jupiter; he cuts off the virile, this is that sulphur, to which the black generation proceeded; Apollo , clothed in a purple robe, sang his victory; because victory is present with Jupiter in the visible color of purple. By Ve∣sta, is meant Fire, by whose favor Jupiter obtained the empire; Therefore the vesture, because it is always new, pure, and immaculate like a Virgin, is granted a vow to keep virginity always: which thing, although anciently a Hieroglyphic thing among the Egyptians and Greeks, yet among the Romans it was received as religious in the greatest degree, when so many The Vestal Virgins of Vesta for ever
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the fire, when they had fostered it with Virginity, as the hy∣stories • are: how Jupiter was conquered by the love of Juno; As for marriage, the matter is literally most absurd; if ve • ó be traced back to a secret sense, perhaps it will represent a meeting with the nature of the bird; The cuckoo lays its eggs in the nest of the hen's bird, and she is devoured by the hatched chick as a reward for the nurse, detesting the note of ingratitude: such a denunciation of Gods and Devas would be seen as strange by a most insane race; And the allegories of this kind excuse it, perhaps because the mother owes to the son in Philosophical mastery, and the sister to the brother: Thus Lull: Theor: Test : 87. Thou shalt accept the vile thing and • am thou made to embrace one's parents, quous∣{que} they will crack completely, and be as if they were dead: Ibid. The living silver is the cause of his death, because he kills himself, and afterwards kills his father and mother, and extracts their souls from their bodies, and drains all their moisture . because a golden chain is thrown into her hands, and the Goddess herself is suspended aloft by the feet of Jove: for since Jupiter and Juno are part and patient, fixed and volatile, the latter is never suspended in the air because of its volatility, while it ascends and adheres to the upper part: Nymphs the watery portions were attributed to them; and the peacock refers to the various colors which occur due to the volatile nature of matter: for while the whole remains fixed, there is one immutable color: but Mercury had killed Argus with a stone* whose hundred eyes are imagined to be inserted in the tail of a peacock by Juno : He is the God of abundance, because wealth comes from the lower parts of the earth; before whom he sits, they ask: Sacred to the Bull, that is, the Egyptian Bee; because they are empty of intention; He inhabits the mountains of the Pyrenees: because these were the first places , whence in Europe the metals were sought by the Phoenicians, as before said; From there also Hercules drove his oxen; Cerberus himself, who was the guardian of the triceps, and Keys as a symbol, because without his key nothing can be gained: He carried Proserpina to the river of Chema ; lest the agent should be seen without the patient:* On the mystical reason why the altar of Pluto and Pallas
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for if Pluto's kingship be revealed to any one, and the artifice should come to Pallas, that which is sought is the supreme medicine made, which by the art of Palladius prepared from the gift of Plutonius to open the wondrous mysteries . Pluto is always ominous, and signifies something mystical; as elsewhere we have often commented: Neptune, the third son of Saturn ,* the sea and the islands of the sea he allotted to hisdominion . Phoenician son of Libya; Ione the daughter of the Pyrenees; which Jupiter compressed in the mist, that is to hide, and intervened with Juno,* changed into a white cow; At length Juno, having slain Argo, exaggerated this by sending in a star; after having traversed the many seas of Europe and Asia, he is said to have recovered the first form of man, coming at last to the banks of the Nile in Egypt; which was worshiped by the Egyptians under the name of Isis: From there the horned statue of Isis was imagined, just as Juna, just as the earth was called; Neptune built a mansion with Apollo; He walks with a trident and a shell, dressed in blue, with black hair, blue eyes, drawn by four horses, or, as it were, sea calves .* Triton from Amphitrite; The sons of Pro∣teus , Tmylus and Telegonus, were slain by Hercules , because they were killing the hosts; a daughter, Idothea, who taught Menelaus howhis father Proteus was to be apprehended; as Homer reports. Lib. 4. Odyss. Triton is Neptune's trumpet and trumpet;* Whose daughter Tritia , a virgin of Minerva, priestess of Mars , boreMelanippus . } it was to the navel of a man, lower to the tail of a Dolphin,
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he had two fore-feet equine, and a double tail in the shape of the moon; his shoulders were of a purple color; Among the Romans, over the Temple of Saturn, a certain Triton of exceptional size was stationed, who blew a trumpet whenever the wind arose, and hid his tail within the earth; Glauca , who was one of the daughters of Saturn, was born of Opis ;* whose wife was Chariclos, the daughter of Apollo, or of Oceanus, or of Persia: the daughter of Ocyrhoe: because indeed his father pretended to be a horse when he was asking for Philyren, so that he might not be recognized, hence Chiron from vm∣bilicus had the upper parts of the body of a man, the lower parts of a horse: When he grew up he went into the woods it is said that he was the first to observe the strength of herbs; Whence and because of his skill in Chir∣urgy, or the labors of the hands, he was named Chiron : From Diana he learned the way of hunting in the woods: And therefore it is written that he was a teacher of Achilles, Hercules, Jason, and Aesculapius in every art, both of medicine and of shooting, as it is already written before me ∣minimum:* When indeed Hercules was carelessly handling the poisoned arrows, he was wounded in the foot by one of them, and died from that wound and pain; For of Proteus, Triton, and other such monstrous inventions of the Poets, nothing else but philosophical matter, together with Cerberus, Chimaera, Sphinx, and Dragons, the sons of Typhon and Echidna , denoting them sparingly, we have said heretofore, and are going to say hereafter,* thus also we brought the declaration of Chiron under Jason, namely, that he was the teacher of so many Heroes, who taught them the labors of the hands, or the practical pursuits of the golden Medicine; Now let us see another monster born of Saturn , but without a defect of nature, namely Venus : His hyperphysical birth is handed down, that is, from Saturn's genitals thrown into the sea, and from the foam of the sea, whence also the Greeks called〈 in the non-Latin alphabet 〉 when〈 in the non-Latin alphabet 〉 is foam; Concha is presumed to have first come to Cyprus, whence it is also called Cypria, having been cut out of the air like Cyprius: From its beauty, how it emerged from the sea,* Poets and painters are consulted ;
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He expressed his power: She was considered the most beautiful of all the gods, and from Paris a golden apple was promised to her, moreover, Helen, the most beautiful of women, which was to be given to the most beautiful from the inscription, and she obtained it. To the Greeks and Romans, it was appealed to as a goddess of lust and love; Many thousands of temples were established and dedicated, and innumerable women were left to his service . He also said in a proverb that it should not happen to any man to go to Corinth, as if Corinth were the happiest of all things, where so many thousands of Venusian harlots were considered a miracle, who could easily capture and attract any newcomers by the lure of their beauty and pleasure. had seen and surveyed: Since Venus had once been received as a goddess so benevolent to the human race, no one was found who declared war on her, who did not study her worship the most, and then enslaved her; what seemed contrary, because he was believed to rejoice in the effusion of blood and death, on the contrary to acknowledge the goddess Venus, and to present her with reverence for pleasures, what was judged lovable and delightful to every race: hence Venus was said to love peace, Mars war, this dead* to provide that cause of life: But the blindness of the human mind is deplorable in these, viz. Saturn, (Whose sister is Truth hidden in a deep cave) which, however, would be most beautiful and would kindle a fire in our subject, that is, love and appetite to propagate itself: This was the occasion of all idolatry and the worship of Venus; That this is indeed the case, it would be permissible to demonstrate, if necessary, by bringing many witnesses; but we shall be content with a few here, with this prejudice; What we are going to say about Venus, no
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to understand the lust of animals, or the pleasure and displeasure of intercourse, as certain mythologists expound the fables of Venus in a coarse manner, nor of the star of Heaven, which they call Venus, Hesperus, or Lucifer, the pre-walker or footstool of the sun, the Planet, nor of the commonly known metal, which The people of the chemists call him thus, but from a certain philosophical subject, without which nothing can be accomplished: Hermes chap . , they would need all my bodies; Because I melt them, and erase their rust, and extract the substance; Therefore, when I and my brother were united, nothing could be better or more venerable. when I make my substance to exist, and compose the invisible from the visible, then the hidden will appear, and all that the philosophers have hidden will be generated from us. Thus Flamel: From Democritus: You then stretch out your body as much as it is equal, or make a kind of oblong tongue: Afterwards, placing it on the coals, it is excited into the volcano itself, irradiating now the fossilized salt, now the Attica's chest continues, or alternately adorning the shoulder and breast of Paphia , it will become even more beautiful, and throwing off the gray color will appear all golden: When perhaps Paris had seen such a Venus, she put it before Juno and Pallas. And there: Venus, as a man, has a soul and a body: It is therefore necessary to strip away matter from the body, in order to be adapted to the perfection of each of those sought by a permanent spirit. What is Venus? That man is a material body: the soul is indeed a part of the thinness within itself, which by its government produces light, that is, the spirit having the power of dyeing: the body is truly gross and material, earthly {and} of its own, which has a shadow, which it needs to rob with a fiery drug: these things are sufficient: Cicero in lib. 3. Of the nature of God, following Varro, the Roman Orpheus, or the ethnic theologian,* He produces many Venuses, as he is accustomed to surround all the other gods, goddesses, and heroes; For since these persons are at least hieroglyphic reuera and fictitious to the intention of those who recognized them
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they would understand things, hence it happened that a god, a goddess, a hero, or a heroine are said to have descended from them to other parents, places, times, and circumstances, as is clear in almost all cases, so that no fable or falsity should be received by religion if it seemed to exist, a distinction was found as a remedy, by which even the most divergent things could be reconciled; In this manner, as Cicero affirms in the said place, that there were three Venuses, as to the origin of which diverges; The first was born of Heaven and the Day, whose Delusions were in Elis; The Egyptians were introduced, as if on stage, to make clear the things hidden under those names; Therefore the ancients handed down that she was born of Jove and Juno, together with Osiris, Isis, Typhon, and Apollo; Whether, therefore, Venus is said to have been born from Saturn, or Jupiter, or Heaven, or from some other place, it is the same thing, and not many, as the wiser of the Ethnics have deluded; If it is agreed with the authors, they do not care about names; For they say that names are because of things, and not things because of names; These are the change of clothes, those are the things of living bodies; Lovers of a sandwich of clothes, says the Comedian, love not the clothes themselves; Thus also philosophers admire and look upon the sandwich of names, not names, that is, only things: Nor therefore ceases to be fable whatever is said of the gods, which Cicero distinguishes well in persons, things, and times; Cautious indeed enough, but not truly: for his distinctions are about non-beings and manifestly falsities: Was Venus born from Heaven and Day? Did Heaven sleep with Day,* What did the Earth say before? O Medici, pierce the vein in the middle; Cicero is mad because of excessive wisdom: Thus he makes three Jupiters, the first and second of whom were born in Arcadia, this one Coe∣los, the other Aether to his father; A third Cretan says that he had Saturn as his father; From the first Proserpina and Libetú, from the most ancient Jove, king of Athens, and Proserpina the Dioscuri were born;
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We shall see Bacchus, Hercules, the Suns, the moons, or the Dianas, as in their respective places: Let the Mythologists forgive me that I do not expose Venus for lust or lust, as hitherto it has pleased the whole world; For if it is a matter of the first origin and the truth of the matter, as it is, I think it should be felt and spoken; If it be true of the received custom, and the arbiter should not depart from it for an obvious reason. , the understanding and the will, and that there are many differences of the individual from these, various organs and seats; Of the natural, there is one called generative function, which is situated in the members devoted to generation, and that which those Mythologists explain as Venus; And if it be so permitted, where are the others dedicated to other functions, Salacia, Venilia, Cinxia, Prema, Virginensis, Partunda, Lucina, Rumina, Cunina, Edulica, Potina, and who would count them all? We have already told before that Venus was the friend of Adonis; And whose children she became the mother of and to whom we will say in what follows:* Enough about the sons of Saturn, except that we will deal with the whole truth, which is called the daughter of Time. he provided, with which he first vomited the stone, then the devoured children:* It is true that Jupiter swallowed her when she became pregnant (whether through love or hate, we do not know), from which food he himself immediately became pregnant and gave birth to Pallas armed with a head. that she had been turned into various forms and compressed by Jupiter, who, when she was pregnant, hearing that Jupiter would be born from her, one who would possess the dominion of Heaven, absorbed her, wherefore he afterwards gave birth to Pallas by the river Triton: which was called Tritonia therefore, or that she was brought up by Triton: It is thus that Pallas rises from the mother and brain of Jupiter , giving Vulcan the way by means of an ax: Homer from the town
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In Baeotia, Alalcomenius called Alalcomeniā • because they said that Minerua Alalcomenius had been born among them, as Strabo says in lib. 9 Of the golden way* We have said before, in decorating the birthplace of Pallas, Rhodes, that Pallas, having been nursed by Dionysus in Nysa, was made commander by Ammon to avoid the intrigues of Rhea; that the throbbing heart of Dionysius, torn by the Titans, carried him to Jove, one that he shot an arrow, another that he killed the giant Pallas with an arrow, they think it said: From whatever name it is, Pallas, Tritonia, and Minerua are said to be promiscuous: it is believed that she always remained a virgin , which made Tiresias blind, by whom Hippocrene saw him naked washing himself in the fountain of Helicon: Vulcanus was disappointed in his hope that he would bring force upon him, as we have mentioned before: Palladius will be dealt with below under the requirements of Troy: What now By this goddess the ancients understood, it is easily perceived by anyone; Nor did he forbid anything else, except the wisdom of a keen mind and a well-bred brain, which Pallas, born from the brain of Jupiter, we consider to be denoted; For without it, nothing is accomplished, neither in other arduous business, nor in the philosophical mastery, which is therefore called wise: This contemplation of the arcane, designated by Pallas, should not be commonly prostituted, but hidden under the veil of philosophy, as in many places the philosopher with objections and they admonish with imprecations: Hence Tiresias is imagined to have been blinded by doubt, because he saw Pallas naked, as Actaeon had here changed Diana into wax: Juno, indeed, when Pallas had heard the monstrous birth from the brain of his spouse, was enraged with cruel curses is said to have struck the earth, whence that Ty∣phon* he will come forth, giving birth to so many dragons; Since she had been invited by Apollo to the house of Jupiter to a feast, and had eaten, among other repasts, wild lettuces, when before she was barren, it is said that she became pregnant, and afterwards gave birth to a daughter, Heben. cups for some time
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ministering: This is said to be the wife of Hercules given in Heaven, the sister of Mars as well as of Vulcan : The ancients did not doubt that Mars was born of Jupiter and Juno;* The deeds of this man are nothing but battles and adulteries with various concubines, since he had no wife of his own; We will make mention of very few; His adultery with Venus is well known; about which the poet Ovid
The story is told by the oto well-known Heaven,
Mars {and} Venus {and} trickery is taken captive.
Venus had married Vulcanus, the most beautiful of women, the most tender and luxurious; To this is therefore secretly joined Mars, but betrayed to the Sun, and bound to Vulcan by imperceptible bonds, very strong, so as to provide laughter and play to those who see above: Ethnic Poets and Writers Mars for the God of War, for {que} anger, revenge, bile and they receive and interpret with fury; And the ancients looked upon a certain fiery force, a burning product of Jove , which was supposed to withstand the insults and battles of fire, and as if it were invulnerable to the body; If our Venus lies down with this Mars in a suitable bed, and is tied to Vulcan with an airy net or an iron net, there will be born the most beautiful daughter called Harmonia ; this is harmonically composed and absolute in all numbers;* which was anciently said to protect the deity: At whose nuptials were present all the gods and goddesses with their gifts, and epithalamiums, which were remitted to various poets: He was also married to Cadmus, of whom above, the son of Aegenor, the Phoenician king; The dragon, who buried the comrades ordered to bring Cadmus into the water, and is himself called by some the son of Mars and Venus; Whence Harmony's uncle came into being; After many calamities, which Cadmus is said to have endured, it is imagined that Harmonia's wife turned into a dragon: so that the death of all the Hieroglyphic gods or heroes corresponded to their rise, so that it should not be seen to be a myth: for Harmonia is from Mars and On Venus was born that golden medicine, first elaborated by labor, which is called Cadmus (from whom our Cadmia is called) and sends all those who have their gifts.
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that is, the expected fruit and effect cannot be absent; And finally, with Cadmus, he is changed into a Dragon instead of something worse, into a Basilisk; For our medicine, once again incorporated with its own likeness, gives birth to the basilisk's strength and eyes; vt among our Philosophers it is most frequently read: Here are the following sayings of the Philosophers: In the Metaphora Belmi in Rolarius: When you have drawn me partly from my nature, and partly my wife from her nature, and afterwards the natures have been killed, and we are raised by the resurrection of the new and embodied , because we cannot die afterward : And in the greatest secret: Gold speaks and says: Cursed are those who vilify my most noble form: I am the most noble being, and all the influences of Heaven have gathered in one to my generation by the commands of the Almighty, and I am the work of a perfect nature, and I was born without adultery, and these fantastic and blinded people call me a spurious and bastard, and they do not know me. I am truly incorruptible and the son of the Sun, and the smallest part of my substance contains my whole, and nothing incorruptible can be found in me; And yet these corruptible ones want to multiply me and my substance; how can they create children like me without my consent and counsel, in no way will it happen that I will throw my fiery seed in my flowing blood, white and fiery : Which words of the Philosopher clearly depict Philosophical Harmony : Whose definition a a certain tradition is given: Elixir is a certain compound having mineral power included in it, existing as a condiment, antidote and medicine for cleansing and transforming all bodies into Solificum and Lunificum truth.* When it is true that Vulcan cast off the chains of Mars and Venus, of Harmony, that is, he helped the rise of our Philosophical Medicine by his own work, although it is esteemed that he did it out of jealousy, hence we shall speak separately of him as the brother of Mars; and that more briefly: because he is very frequently mentioned elsewhere; and without Vulcan hardly any of these hieroglyphics can be declared to be gods or goddesses
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he was precipitated: from which accident he became lame, and it is said that he was brought up to Lemnius. that he made many weapons, and Jupiter made thunderbolts: He made a brass anklet for the governor of the island of Crete : so also he made alive a bronze dog of extraordinary beauty, which Jou had bestowed, that of Europa, this of Procris, that of Cephalus ; but the dog afterwards turned to stone after Joue:* At the command of Jove he formed Pandoram for the fire taken from Prometheus, to be offered to the little ones ; but she refused his lust: the lions themselves were consecrated, because they are fiery animals; The famous Cyclopes, Brontes, and Steropes from • Pyracmon, whom Virgil mentions: 8. Aeneid:* Ardalus his son made the cell of the Muses among the Traezenii; And Bro∣theus, who was laughed at by all because of the deformity of his mouth, threw himself into the fire: His wife, besides Venus, Aglaia, that is, is said to be splendor: He sent him with some hidden bonds, which immediately entangled the goddess when she had sat down. Nataliuslists under Vulcan that the Chymians also set up their own Vulcan , and by him understand sulfur or silver running, which receives nothing but its own nature into itself, but is separated from everything; and what then sprinkles from the impotence of the mind, whether I should say ignorance or envy, I do not know; But he himself should have his own schomata,〈in a non-Latin alphabet〉 ;* He digs the fire with his sword, while he receives Vulcan so insultingly; Moreover, he shows that he knows no other use of fire, than that suitable for warming the hands, or for cooking food, or for smiths' workshops; considering that the best medicines could be prepared without the service of fire; j • by which he is mistaken: For the best Medicines need the best, which is the first element , because it is close to spirituality and simplicity, without which neither nature nor a • s works:
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Vulcan, therefore, is not to be separated from medicine , but to him, as the cook of the kitchen, to be most closely joined . We find that Philosophical fire, of which there are many things, has been treated in many places: yet to four kinds all the fires mentioned by the authors can be reduced, the same witnesses have no doubt; that is, to the natural, the unnatural, the contrary to nature, and the occasioned, or the elemental: for thus Riplaeus speaks. 3. There are four kinds of fire which you must know; natural, unnatural and contrary to nature, elemental {and} that sets fire to wood; We take refuge in these fires and not many more: Fire against nature must excruciate bodies, he is the Dragon, as I tell you, burning violently, like the fire of hell: the fire of nature is the third month; that fire is naturally present in every thing; Let us call the occasioned fire unnatural, viz. the heat of ashes and baths to putrefy: Absent {and} with these fires you shall bring nothing to putrefaction, that its matter may be separated, that it may at the same time be proportioned to a new union: Fire is made within in your glass, which burns bodies more effectually than the elemental fire: these he: To Quibus and Lullius, Flamell. and Scala Philos: Scal. 1. They agree with each other; By Vulcan, therefore, we understand occasioned or unnatural fire and elemental proper , but not natural fire; but we add, that fire must be prepared contrary to nature by Vulcan himself, which if you recognize, you obtain half of the Philosophical work: He is said to have dwelt in Lemnus, because it is first of all evident that the earth of that island is warm and medicinal: the works which the carpenters made are partly Philosophical . because all their movement and power proceed from fire; whence such things are or should be: Jupiter's scepter and thunderbolts, Mars' shield, Neptune's trident, and others of his craft
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He leaves the monuments: the mother also was bound by a golden chair, which happens in the last part of the work, when everything already appears in the best color: now follow Jupiter's daughters from skins;* Of these, Apollo and Diana were chiefly born of Latona, as the majority feel: But Herodotus writes in Eu∣terpe, they say that Apollo and Diana were the sons of Dionysius and Isis, and that Latona was their nurse, and that he kept them; For Latona, when she was one of the 8 Egyptian gods, kept Apol∣line, deposited with her by Ceres, when she protected him in the Island of Plotes or swimming from the attack of Typhon, who was seeking the sons of Osiris: Tul∣lius enumerates the four Apollos in lib. 3. of Nat Deor. The most ancient, born from Vulcan, guardian of Athens;* another son of Cory Bantis in Crete, the third from Jove and La∣tona: the fourth in Arcadia called Nomion; And thirdly, that all deeds are most famous, and that many children are received from different concubines. And it is the same with those to whom Apollo is said to have been born, since at least it is a Hieroglyphic person, which finds no place in substance, but only in quality, or in relation, unless we prefer to make second notions. Apollo, either from I∣ides, or from Osiris, or Jupiter; for Osiris and Jupiter, Isis and Juno are one and the same thing; Nor does it matter whether Lato∣na is appointed nurse, or the mother of Apollo, the office is the same; if we look at the truth of the matter, the opinion of the nurse is more proved; But because it was received in this way, we determined that Lato∣na was both the mother and the nurse of Apollo and Diana. and whether they were on earth or in heaven, whether they were the lights of heaven, or whether they were truly heroes of the earth; Cicero in his manner 3. Lib. of Nat. Deor. He produces five Suns;* One, says he, of those who were called Suns, is born of Jove, a nephew
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Aether is said to have been: the other to Hyperion: the third to Vulcanus, the son of the Nile: whose name the Egyptians want it to be, which is called Heliopolis: the fourth, who is said to have given birth in heroic times to Achantus of Rhodes, the grandfather of Ialys, Camiris, and Lindis: Quintus, who is brought to Colchis He had fathered Eetam and Circe. That all these names are fictitious, and attributed to different things, persons, and places by different poets, anyone, unless he is blind, will be able to see: : But if they said that there were all these Gods, where then did so many suns remain? if the lights of heaven and the same as the heavenly sun, perhaps when they have grown old, are they gathered together in one place, after the light has been consumed? if there have been Kings and men, why are they called Dij, or that they have completed the deeds of the Gods? For the name of the Sun could not make them Gods, nor the adulteries ascribed to many, nor other crimes or crimes, which, if taken literally or historically, convince them that they were not men, but scarcely half-men, so far that they deserved the name of the Gods: therefore, though Apollo may be erected fourfold, and the Sun fivefold, born of different parents and places, yet there is no Hieroglyphic person, not known to ethnic writers, but to Christian artists and physicians, from Osiris and Isis, or even Born of Jupiter and Juno , or of Jupiter and Latona ; Meanwhile, through both Apollo and the Sun, the Sun of Heaven is commonly understood: But he is indeed the eye of the world.* He is and can be said to be the Heart of Heaven, the King of the Planets, the lamps of the earth, the chaser of shadows, the fountain of life, the maker of days, the father of light, and the runner of the almighty God; It was not at all true that God himself: to deny the sun and the moon to the ethnic gods was considered irreligious and a crime punishable by the head; The first Anaxagoras, with the scorn of false religions, said that the sun was not God, but a fiery and burning stone.* and he demonstrated that the causes of the eclipses of the Sun and the Moon occur by nature, and not, as the Ethnics supposed, that they were the passions and diseases of the Sun or the Moon, which were supposed to be cured, by the beating of the auxiliary air;
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Hence Ovid 4 Met. When the auxiliaries of the moon resound with frustration: If Anaxagoras understood Anaxagoras analogically to the Sun, as some would (which alludes to the burning red stone, the Philosophical Sun) or to laugh at the grace and to elude the superstition of the common people, his opinion is to be embraced, because you create all divinity & brings down the lights of the world;* Hymenaeus and Ialemus and Calliope; Delphi from Acachallis; Coronus and Chrysorte; Linus and Terpsichore, Aesculapius and Coroni∣de nymphâ: They report that Apollo came from the Hyperboreans to Delphi, so called by his son Delphi; of which the ancients have told stories, that Jupiter, when he wished to find the middle and the center of the earth, sent forth one eagle from the east, another from the west with equal speed, and ordered them to fly straight and to the region, which, when they finally met at Delphi,* there a golden eagle is dedicated to the eternal memory of the fact: This matter, being legendary, and having no truth in it, except that it shows that Delphi and the temple of Apollo at Delphi is in the navel of the earth, betrays a little knowledge of geography; For every place is in that respect in the middle of the world, because the earth is spherical, not square, or a body of some other shape. the richest man had sent him, he had raised this place to such honor and worship, as if it were the summit of the world,* or the middle of the earth should be seen: But if they are fabricated for an allegory, the author advises from Aristotle's Epistle: not incon∣cin • è expounds, where he says: That there are two principal stones of this art, white and red of a wonderful nature: White in ocas∣casu The sun begins to appear upon the faces of the waters, hiding himself until midnight, and afterwards he descends into the deep . into the deep : These are therefore the two eagles which meet in the middle of the earth, and there the golden eagle is set up as a monument:
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The cicadas were sacred to Apollo, because of their song, and the fiddler of the fish; also the golden tripe itself was taught by the sages of Greece; The juniper and the laurel were esteemed pleasant plants; Gryphs and ravens were under his care; To him the slaughtering of cattle and sheep, and the playing of the lyre, and the art of medicine, and the skill of shooting arrows knowingly, were attributed to him; he is always depicted as young, with long hair; singularly with which omen he held a simulacrum laurel branch of the Moon. He was called Pythius, because he had killed Typhon with arrows, who, after being corrupted by the heat of the Sun, gave the name Pythius to Apollo: for 〈 in the non-Latin alphabet 〉 means to putrefy; of which below: Why indeed all these things are attributed to Apollo, the reasons are evident: because Apollo is a golden God, warm and unchangeable, who shoots arrows at Typhon and excels in the art of healing; because it is itself the last gold of the gods, who are pretended to have reigned in Egypt, and the medicine sought for human bodies; this is the president of the Muses. Take the bright light and the pillar, whose Laurel is called singing and ever-green, whose image it shares with Luna or Diana, the sister, who prefers Charites to the right, because she is a gracious gift of God, and arrows to the left; because he can multiply himself anew, and extend his powers into Ty∣phon; The ox is sacred to him, because the bee agrees with Oro; Arcus tripes, because the triune bond, consisting of body, soul, and spirit, is perfect, and from the circle of the Sun it becomes a triangle, and again in the middle of the quadrangle it is reduced to a circle. , before reaching to reach him: Of his sons it is imagined that Orpheus was* vt and Linus, rather for his poetic power and knowledge of singing, than for other reasons; For this honor, after Orpheus and Linus the poets, they therefore presented to their masters of gratitude; Thus they ascribed certain incredible things to Orpheus; that by playing the guitar
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He moved the rocks, attracted the wild beasts, fixed the rivers in their course, the birds in their flight; this is that he softens the hard and hardens the soft or malleable by the same artifice: for he or Po∣ëta sings; The mud hardens here, and the clay melts here,* In one and the same fire, thus the most diverse operations are said to have been accomplished by his song: We have already mentioned that this Orpheus was the first author of the religion among the Greeks, transferred from the Egyptians; Hence Lucian, in his Dial: concerning the astrologer, relates that he first delivered Astrology to the Greeks with these words; But the Greeks heard nothing of Astrology either from the Ethiopians or from the Egyptians, but Orpheus Calliopes and Oe∣agri's son first explained these things to them: Of the sacred Bacchus introduced by him more copiously will be said below, as also of his wife Eurydice; Pausanias testifies about him in the Boeotians that he invented many useful things in human politics and life: for he was the first to open the beginnings of the Gods and the universe of theology, and he devised atonements for evildoers and criminals, and also discovered many remedies for diseases; for he himself writes of himself in these words in Ar∣gonautics:
The mind has to say what never passes in time
I said, With Bacchus, with the acts of King Apollo
I am horrid to tell the spikes and the same
Make alliances with the Super mortals and heal them.*
He sufficiently hints to them that they should be understood as of the kind of Medicine which Apollo had set forth: and they refer to the books of Physicists written by him, which he himself narrates at the beginning of the Argonauticor; namely, of the mutual generation of the Elements, of the power of love in natural things, of pebbles; and the rest of the various things covered under Allegories;* Whose doctrine he sets forth in a certain book concerning the stones, where he describes the cave of Mercury, full of all goodness, of which he is under Mercury; and at the same time he testifies that he was aware of the most mysterious things, while he thus sings:
But the prudence of the heart guides every man
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(I will leave out the others, which I will say are the most important)
He wants to know, if possible, he will know whatever is going on
To the silent breasts of mortals what are the gains
The Heavens shriek among themselves as they fly across the sky,
Strange how they sing a song to mortal souls,
They signify Jupiter's mind, the nation's announcement of fate,
He knows how to strengthen the dragon on the ground
Sibila, the snake {and} will know how to overcome poisons.
Although these things may be interpreted by others as magic or omens, as it may be permissible, yet since neither Orpheus was really a magician, and even if he had been such or an augur, he would not know these things, unless he could confirm them allegorically; Thus they say of Democritus that he himself understood omens and the voices of birds, as also of Apollonius Thyaneus; And Democritus (who drew his doctrine from Egypt) was wont to name certain birds by a certain name, that mixed with their blood, snakes would be born, from which if any one ate, he would understand the language of all the birds; But Melampus mentions certain snakes he saw, whence he is afterwards said to have understood the conversations of birds: that such things are most falsities, if they are taken as they sound, any one endowed with reason will be able to discern; Whence Cicero, looking literally at the doctrine of Democritus; No man, he says, has uttered greater lies with greater authority . True, let not Democritus, whose wisdom and golden dictums Hippocrates admired, and who had Plato in his delights, let us save his honor by an allegory, as also of Orpheus, Apollonius, and Melampus, and let us say by birds, birds, and serpents, to be understood as fickle philosophical subjects; For from a serpent born of the rotten blood of certain birds, it is believed that the voices of the birds remain unknown to anyone. He is called to the serpent, who then makes the same birds from which he was formed, in the similitude of nature; Allegories of this kind
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The books of modern writers are full of those who lust after the curious. As he says in the Argonaut:
I told the rest of what I had seen, as I added to Taenara.
Gloomy houses and reigns of sadness
Trusting to the harp, forced by the love of his wife.
Now what are the kingdoms of Pluto, we have already given before, namely, those subterranean regions around the Pyrenees mountains, whence minerals for medicine and metals for the riches of men were prepared. who is acknowledged by all to be the natural son of A∣pollinus, let us add a few things:* It is said that the mother of Coronis, who, when she had conceived by Apollo, and afterwards had an affair with another, was slain by Diana: and when she had been laid to rest, Mercury drew out Aesculapius from the womb of the dead woman, or Phaebus himself, according to Ouid. 2. Met. says:
He did not take the same Phoebus to slip into the ashes
Seeds, but born of flames, of the second parent
He rescued the twins and took them to Chiron's cave.
They chose Trigonus to be his nurse, and he was brought up by Chiron the Centaur, and taught by the same, from whom he learned the art of healing . , the name Aesculapius is handed down, who is Asclepius to the Greeks; It is said that Hippolytus was revived by his skill when he was beaten by horses; wherefore it is said that Jupiter, angry because of the discovered art, by which men might be restored to life, struck down the discoverer of the art with lightning: as Virgil has: lib. 7. Aeneid: That when his father had carried him heavily, and had greatly luxuriated (whose tears are believed to have been turned into amber), he killed the Cyclopes with arrows;
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Hence he, being banished from heaven, wandered on earth; When Hyacinth was taken by the love of the boy, I learn that he had inadvertently killed Hyacinth while competing with him, according to Ovid. 15. Met: it is said that a fugitive from Sparta fled to Troy to Laomedon, who then took care to build the walls of the city fort, and placed his mercenary labor under Troy, as it is said: Vxor Aesculapius Epione, from whom he received Machaon and Podalirium. Iasus and Hygiaea: They appoint Aesculapius not a daughter, but Hygiaea as his wife; For his staff was surrounded by twin dragons; a rooster and a goat were offered to him: and Aesculapius, the author and patron of all Medicine, as the Ethnics invented, and from Coronides the nymph (which denotes the cornucopiae) is brought down, because Apollo and our Gold are in purple clothes at the bottom to be seen, Coronides still embraces, that is, the black, damned and reproached sword; from which our Aesculapius is separated by combustion or calcination; Then the mother of Coronis is Phylegya; ( 〈 in the non-Latin alphabet 〉 is to burn) for the mother of Aesculapius Coronis is burned, as well as Semele of Bacchus, in the same respect: if it is true that Mercury is said to have drawn Aesculapius from the ashes of his mother, the same thing returns; For this is the office of Mercury, and there is nothing but Mercury, of which it is said: This is the highest Philosophical and Medicinal Arcane, which hides under the extraction of Aesculapius from its dregs or ashes; and it is evident to God, that if this alone stood out from the most ancient monuments, it would still be a sufficient testimony of this golden Medicine, and of the vanity of Ethnic Theology. let it be white) after some time the Moon or Diana is born, of whom we shall soon speak; and a little after Apollo, Diana's brother, here pur∣pureâ, that in white clothing or flesh to see; And although the sister and brother are twins, yet the sister gives birth before the brother, that is, the white before the red, and then gives birth
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The duty of the midwife to the mother, which is to be wondered at, does not occur in the Philosophical art, where the ruby does not appear without the preceding albida: Born of the ruby or Apollo, he lies down in the same vessel with the Coronides, or like a black nymph, and gives birth to Aesculapius, this is the author of all philosophical medicine; Here Aescula∣pius cannot be separated from his mother or the black earth, except by burning; and then the purest Aesculapius is born, the golden Philosophical Medicine, perfect in all numbers: The authors are consulted about that black dregs, who here and there make mention of it: Let one Arnoldus suffice for us here; who in the new light chap. 7. And this Ash, he says, the most red, impalpable in itself, is also raised and grows in the manner of leaven, and is separated from it in the calcination of the aforesaid fine and transparent black earth, which is found under the aforesaid red dust in the infusion of the vessel, &c. This is our Aesculapius, of whom Hermes ch. 3. Our son, he says, already reigns and is clothed in red ornaments and flesh: Now our son, born king, takes tincture from the fire; verily the sea and darkness flee from him, and the sun's rays the dragon flees, who was watching the holes, our dead son lives, and the King comes from the fire and will rejoice in marriage and they will appear hidden, our son, already vivisected, becomes a warrior in fire and supreme in dyes. Trigone is called the nurse of Aesculapius, because the two repetitions correspond to the nourishment of the juice; Apius is said to be flattering, because Nepenthes denotes the medicine of Helen ; He restores the dead to life, because the dead earth, having received its soul, is revived again, as it is asserted in many places, and Bonellus testifies in the crowd: Therefore, says he, that nature, from which the moisture is taken away, when it is released during the nights, seems like the dead, and then she nature does not need fire, until the body and its spirit are turned to the earth, and then it becomes dust like a dead man in his grave: After these actions, God restores the spirit and the soul, and every infirmity removed, our nature is strengthened and improved. It is necessary, therefore, to burn that thing away from fear, until it becomes ashes; who is fit to receive the spirit, the soul, and the infused tincture:
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Aesculapius, therefore, by his art, restores dead bodies to life; because those things which are imperfect, and as if dead, will be transformed from infirmity to health and eternal life: the reason for the name of the wife's children is clear; For Iasus is said to be a me∣dendo, and Hygiaea to health; because the double serpents, one of which is winged, the other without wings, or the double mercurial substance, male and female, is the beginning and the end of the work: hence the Dragon watches over him and is sacred, just as it is to Mercury and other gods and heroes of this family for the reason: That it was certainly held by him and among the Ethnici, that the God Aesculapius was sent back to Rome in the shape of a Serpent or a Dragon, when the greatest pestilence was raging there; l. 4. It is narrated below; Thus the Devil, to the superstition of the Ethnics,* who imposed the same form upon our first parents, is ascribed, according to Aesculapius, forming himself into a Dragon: What some add of the horned sheep, from which Serpents were excluded to the conscious priests, perhaps it is so; although it is hieroglyphic and not historical, that Aesculapius was born from the Cornish egg; For this philosophic subblack egg is abounding in many superfluities, from which our Aesculapius is to be separated: for thus Arnoldus Paulò in the place before quoted: Because, hesays, the aforesaid black earth is separated from the mixture in calcination, which otherwise had been inseparable in the whole work because of the strongest vination ; And therefore it was necessary to be separated by the strongest artifice: And if it remained mixed, on account of its impurity, it would hinder the entry of pure matter : This he; But Lullius points out that this medicine of ours has in addition the form of an egg elaborated by him, when lib. of the fifth Distinct 3. par. 2. When it has been fried, he says, he will find that our baby is round, like an egg, which he takes out and cleans, &c. And in the tree Philos. under the 11th principle: After the rise of that color it begins to gather in the middle in a round shape like a certain round moon, circularly contained: Aesculapius extracted from the ashes of Chiron or by the operation of hands
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it is handed down to be brought up; Because as Bodillus stands in the crowd; The extracted fetus is only nourished by milk and by fire by itself and little by little, while it is small; and the more he is burned with strengthened bones, he is led into youth, when he reaches it he suffices himself : This is what the education of Chiron wants, that he should be led as if he were a hand to bear the fire. cited: Solis, who is the same with Apollo* we pass over the sons here, among whom is Aeeta, of whom before, Augias, of whom after, and Phaëton ; This Clymenes, the son of the nymph, sometimes coming to his father, obtained the Sun's chariot to ascend, by a wish harmful to himself; For while the four of the Sun are riding on the horses of Heaven, to Eridanus, not far from the Pyrenees, he is precipitated by the mountains; by which charming figment the Poets gave proofs of both physical and moral doctrine; For example, how Phaëton the Philosopher falls headlong into Eridanus the goldsmith; and not too high to be sought, nor should anything be grasped above, nor should one try one's own strength; And if the matter itself be considered well, Phaëton is the same as Aesculapius, except that here he looks at the medicine, he other things, which are esteemed incredible by many. it is fabled; About him Augurellus of Lullius thinks that if he falls into the sea, the whole sea will be burnt and dried up, and the future of the goldsmiths, lest I should say, as they chatter, will be turned into gold: But if the moon, the sister of the Sun or Apollo so that we return to Diana, who was issued at the same time as that birth, but at an earlier time:* The Pleiades consider Delum to be the birth-place of Apollo and Diana: And the Arcades Proselenos, as if they were said to be pre-lunar, who dwelt not far from Apidanus, who rose up before the Moon, and why, among whom is Apollonius in 4. Argonaut: & M • a • them e∣jus the narrator & Aristotle: So Theodorus lib. 29. Aristo Chius and Dionysius of Chalcidensis, in their first building, most impudently asserted, a little before the war, that
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It was done by Hercules against the giants, that the moon first appeared, at which time they say that Proselenus, the son of Orchomenus, commanded the Arcadians, as Duris Samius reports in lib. 15. of Macedonian affairs: By these most false relations the ethnics took pleasure in demonstrating the antiquity of their race, taken from the name of a person who never existed; or if it existed, it was a vain name; if there had lived a certain man called Proselenus, would he therefore have been born before the Moon? And if any one were to answer these things, would he not rightly ask, Whether Proselenus with his Arcadis dwelt so long in darkness, when they testify that the Moon, or Diana, and the Sun, or Apollo, were born on the same day, and not into the light, because there was no light but with the light into the world? Verù the Arcadian ass will luxuriate in these lettuces: And not only the Arcadians, but also other nations of Gods and Heroes, have adapted to themselves the monuments of those who arose, presaging the Poets; Hence Jupiter is said to have been born in so many places ; as Natalis lib. 2. c. 1. He wonders, as in Crete, as in Thebes, as in Arcadia, as among the Messenians .* or shall I say to the heroes, how many of Homer's words have thrown their countrymen or kindred, how many have shown his sepulchre? as Cicero testifies for Archia; We recognize the same signs of vanity and false glory in our Thessalus, the son of Hippocrates, who impudently boasts before the Athenians that his race descends from Apollo, viz. and art: What if Aesculapius and Apollo had never lived, or would Thessalus therefore have been without progenitors? But these things were common at that time: Were not Aeneas from Venus, Romulus and Remus from Mars, and Rhea Sylvia the Vestals, born of Aeneas? How many languages, regions, and nations are there that writers, while they were still under Ethnicism, had, and did not derive themselves from gods or heroes, Trojans or others? Thus the truth was oppressed by flattery, and the opinion of dignity and antiquity was impressed upon men's minds by lies:
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that is, we say nothing here; but since the daughter of Latona and the sister of A∣pollinus, alias Diana, let us consider her. and the reason for this is sufficiently evident: For Rubedo must follow the white woman, and not contradict her, as all the philosophers testify: Diana, indeed, vowed perpetual virginity and obtained it from her father Jove, even though she was deterred by the danger of childbirth, to which she had come: for Albedo, appearing excellent he ought not, but to go to ru∣bedine; and therefore it is said to remain a virgin. He was always represented with a bow and arrows, with which he pierced Orion, the best hunter, out of the envy and instinct of Apollo, swimming in the waters, not knowing what he was: They thought that she was a male and a female, as Orpheus in the hymn: Grown and failing, the same female male {and} Alcman Meli∣cus thinks that she is the wife of Aëris, from whom Rorē conceived and gave birth to a son: I ride her on chariots and not on teams, as So∣ lem, Marcus Manilius imagines: And to put on and take off splendid clothes, when he wants, to wash in the ocean, and to appear now bright, now dark for the splendor of his clothes Homer, the hymnographer, writes that with white waxes the tract of his car they say Cicero 3. on Nat. Deor. He established three Dianas, the first Jupiter and Proserpina,* which is said to have given birth to the pinnate Cupid; the second better known, which we have received of Joue the third and Latona born; The father of the third is Vpis, the mother Glauce; The Greeks often call her Vpim by her paternal name. Latona is his and Apollo's mother; and this is most true: for the words Lato or Latona denote one and the same subject; And Morienes emphasizes this very often, when he says: Our Latus indeed, although he is red in the first place, is still useless, &c.
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And: But if Laton be burnt with sulphur, &c. Likewise; but when pure Laton is boiled for so long, &c. And innumerable places similar to these are to be seen: Diana slew Orion with an arrow, the great hunter, that Tripator, Jupiter, the son of Neptune and Mercury; who, having been blinded by Oenopius, went to Lemnus and was kindly received by Vulcan. What aid, I pray thee, could Vulcan render to Orion, but from his skill? And therefore he sent him to the rising sun; which is easy to understand, and needs no explanation: this Orion was pierced by Diana with her spears, when he was swimming in the sea, thinking that he should seek a tree: But Diana is both male and female; because it is of a hermaphroditic nature, when under the whiteness it is red, and from the female it becomes a male in Philosophical mastery; For thus the Elder: This is the virtue of the woman, which he had made the woman in 9 days, signifies the soul which is the virtue of the woman, which they made a male, when it is coagulated and fixed with fire, and the male becomes hot and dry, by the same thing I acquired • it goes to the side of the fire, and is then named a male, and they name this coagulated water by the name of any male: then they espoused her, and he is from her, and he is the root of her and her coagulation. Diana, or Lu∣na, hath a son of dew, though he be established a virgin; It belongs to big groups, not to groups, because it causes at least two colors to appear, blackness and whiteness, and it has three Elements; But the sun requires all four colors and four elements, if the authors believe. should be given:* Jupiter also received Mercury from Maja: this is represented as the most watchful of the gods; He was born in Cyllene, a mountain in Arcadia. ∣lac, which is a plant exceedingly abū∣ing moisture and coldness; of which & Lull: Thecr: Test: C. 4. among vegetables
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He mentions the appropriated things of Mercury, when he says: Among the vegetables of the vine called the masculine matter, and the great moon, which is the vital juice, and the root of corn, and straw, and leeks, and portulaca, and mallow, and Mercurial, and Cheli∣donia: And when Mercury was born, another they say that Juno provided him with milk, and through ignorance nourished him for some time; from the mouth of whose mouth the milky way was made in the sky . His scepter came to reveal manifestly falsehoods, unless there was something hidden behind it. For what we have said up to now, although they are more subtle, they have nevertheless been accepted by the world and believed by the ethnics: It is clear to us that Mercury is the subject of chemical art; whosoever he is born from, is always brought from a mountainous place: his mother Maia is one of the Pleiades, the daughter of Atlantis, and is taken for a hill adjacent to Atlantis, as we noted before: therefore whether he comes from Maia or the Cyllene mountain of Arcadia, it will be the same: bathed in Tricena by the nymphs, that is, having been thrice cleansed with their own waters; They made him winged, on whom sat a rooster, a handsome young man without paint and without makeup, with a cheerful face and sharp eyes; who, attached to men's ears with golden chains, would draw mortals wherever he pleased.* Aereus was represented with a standing ram, when he presided over the flocks: a caduceus was given to him with twin serpents, male and female, that is, coiled round each other, and concordant, by which the tails were let down to the cup of the caduceus: this he had received from Apollo for a lyre, which He found and gave the rat to Apollo. : That these things are all chemical, and therefore invented and introduced by the ancients
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no one, unless he has ever read anything of them, or is of a perverted judgment or of a harder cervix, has not noticed: Concerning which, since so many volumes of both recent and ancient Scriptures are attested in almost all their pages, we shall here quote singular testimonies: Ala∣tus is, and is painted, because the Philosophical Mercury, though he is not vulgar and crude, yet has wings to fly, unless he is detained by his brother:* the rooster sits on him, because of his vigilance, vigor, and volatility: beautiful without paint and comp∣tion, that is, homogeneous and legitimate by his nature without any admixture; that he leads men by the ears with golden chains, is credible, not only in speech, as others expound, but that Mercury himself is said to be the author of all laws, arts, medicine, merchandise, and all politics among the Egyptians, as has been said before it is; Because Mercury presided over Isis, and it is said that she was nourished by Mercury, and that she received all the arts and laws; Thus Mercury pulls men by the ears, but with a golden chain; because at the nod of his art all things are fabricated, painted, sculpted, made and finished: but the Egyptians fashioned him partly black and partly golden with a face; because it is so red, golden on the inside, black on the outside: Aereus represents the nature of Mars with a ram: In the Caduceus are twin serpents; because Mercurial is a double substance, one of which is hot and dry, the other cold and moist; and thus contrary qualities, which nevertheless are reduced to harmony; She is male, this female: she acting, this patient; The wonderful power of his rod is that it makes the dissident serpents agree, and that it raises souls and bodies by touching them, and brings them back; For this alone Mercury accomplishes in philosophical mastery; That is why it is commonly said, " There is in Mercury whatever the wise seek ." And Lull. book of the fifth Ess. Distinguish 3. de Incerat: There are certain elements , says he , which harden, fix, and congeal, and some harden, fix, and congeal: And thus there is a twofold consideration in art, viz . composition: One, who
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it has a fixing power, they freeze • m & hardening; And another, which is volatile, fixed, and soft: This second liquid is indeed hardened, fixed, and congealed by the first. soft, & fixed • e imfixed, & mol • hard. This is the double connection of the serpents, one side of which is formed, and the other the wing; This is the double face of Janus.* which looks back into the past and looks forward to the future; or rather, by which a non-fixed nature enters into a fixed one, as if through an open door. This is a twin bird, one with feathers, the other without feathers, and one grasps with its beak the tail of the other, as it is in the figure of the Elder: What is more? This matter is better known, than that to demonstrate it many testimonies must be adduced.* that when he was still a small child, Vul∣can, having been apprenticed to him, stole the smith's tools from the workshop; The girdle of Venus, the scepter of Jove, the oxen of Apollinus, the king's grazer, and his quiver, on the day he was born: and he overcame Cupid's wrestling, having just been published in the light: when he was grown up, he obtained various offices, namely, to oversee the court of thegods , ,* Jove's commandments to carry around during the day, and run hither and thither by night to lead the souls of the dead to the underworld, to preside over palaestras and sermons, and to rest at no time: he found Lyra; He was the first to intend the nine cords of the turtle found on the Nile; he first found three tones of faith, heavy and medium: He turned the battered shepherd into a stone Index, Ovid. 2. The goal:* Saxon killed the hundred-eyed Argus, who kept Ione turned into a cow: he was before Egypt, and handed over the laws and letters of the Egyptians, to whom he had the wrong to be named . under the lands in which Trophonius was staying, it was said to some: the author of Astronomy and Philosophy, and the Theban Priests of Religion existed, who most of all taught these disciplines, as is testified by Strabo lib. 17. Geographer: And Marcus Manilius,
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book 1. Astronomical matters in these verses:
You are the great author of the sacred Cyllenes,
Through thee already the interior Heaven, already known to the stars, &c.
The same Poet tries to show that the universal foundation of religion among the Egyptians was discovered before Mercury, in connection with the rites of sacred and natural things: ,* and that he is the master of all things. Hence Vulcanus and the rest of the gods stole their instruments; But why is it said that he was brought up by Vulcan? because Vulcanus is his own disciple, and he is his teacher: his services are sufficient; For Mercury is called, as it were, running in the middle, because he was at the feet of God: thus in the Philosophical art he runs through the beginning, the middle, and the end: Music finds instruments and intervals; because all things are done by weight, number, and measure; from which at last the meaning of the sounds escapes: He struck the rock , and destroyed the argu with the rock; No wonder, because Mercurius or Index in the Trivijs is sometimes Iapideus himself: the Egyptians are responsible for all the discipline, as has often been repeated, but that it would be wrong to mention it, the secret rituals of the Egyptians reveal that they proceeded from Mercury and were instituted from Mercury, and were wrapped in silence: Whose there is also an evident argument of the matter,* that Mercury is also mentioned among the Arcane gods of Samothrace, whose solemnities, whoever observed them, was kept completely during the most turbulent storms: they say that Vlyssem was initiated in Samothrace, but that white ribbons were worn instead of ribbons; for when the initiates tied purple ribbons round their bellies: it was also the custom of initiation among the Cabiris, and the names of the gods, whom it was wrong to name, were these:
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Ceres, Axiocersa Proserpina, Axiocersus Pluto, to whom the fourth approached CASMILVUS, who was Mercury,* as Dionysius wrote. He is called the Triceps God, of marine, celestial, and terrestrial habits: when he met Hecate, he took from her three daughters. On the 13th of November, the Athenians celebrated a solemnity called Choes, the Terrestrial Mercury, by which seeds of all kinds were mixed in one pot and murmured. of which below. By Lycophron the triceps of Nonacrites is called Ctarus God; Lactantius, quoting Hermes, enumerates Vranus or Heaven, Saturn, and Mercury among the three who had the greatest wisdom. the first and seventh of Apollo, who is the Sun. Argonaut) and daughters, of whom Pindarus mentions Angelia : His simulacrum was carried among the rest of the sacred symbols of the Eleusinians, of which we shall say under the Eleusinians: These, in addition to the previously expounded nature of Mercury, and the sacred heart being used and God believed, are explained quite clearly; that it is of course one of the chief hieroglyphics of the Egyptians and Greeks, and that its solemnities were celebrated with silence by initiated and sworn persons, lest they reveal anything to another; From this point Lactantius Mercurius, in his book on false religion, thinks that he was a man of singular intelligence and wisdom: And Cicero, lib. of Nat. Deor: He produces several Mercurys, asserting that one was born to his father Ceelo and Diematre, the second the son of Valens and Phoronides, the third was born to Jupiter and Maya, the fourth to his father Nile, the fifth whom the Phe∣neates worship. For there is at least one Mercury, and therefore Hieroglyphic, neither God nor man; although I did not deny that it was
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certain men of the highest wisdom called Hermetes or Mercurius in Egypt, yet none of the foregoing can be ascribed to them: Thus Hermes Trismegistus himself enumerates Mercury among the wisest,* he does not understand himself, but Hieroglyphics; Here he was numbered among the gods of Egypt and Eleu∣sinia, and so also of Samothrace; whose solemnities were of the same intention with them; These things, as they are most arcane, Mercury was between them and them; and to priests and initiates a golden key in the tongue; These and those, Angerona, the goddess of silence, or Harpocritus, appealed to the god; therefore it was wrong to scatter the names of the gods among the common people; not that it was evil in itself to name the believed Gods, but that they might not know the secret things under the names of those gods, and the hiddenness of the sacred things: this was the sole and proper reason why they were initiated, chosen and sworn, who celebrated those sacred things and saw the shams, why it was forbidden it was to divulge anything about the gods or the sacred, or to name the gods themselves. Ceres, Proserpina & Pluto; Ceres is the same, to whom the Eleusinians were instituted; of whom below in the following book, and Pluto, the subterranean God of riches, of whom above; Mercurius is added to these, as a minister, who is All in all: They are fabled to be the sacred Vlyssem of the beginnings; for it pleased Homer thus; and purple ribbons, not white, are used for those in which, when Vlysses went astray, he caused so many errors and storms to be thrown upon him on his return, by which he was nevertheless preserved. Hermetically; I saw three faces in one father: thus Rosarius; The material, he says, of the Philosopher's Stone is water, and it is understood of the water of those three, as Hortulanus proves; There should be neither more nor fewer; And he says, where the Sun is male, the Moon female , and Mercury the sperm: Mercury is called Nonacrites, because Nonacris of Arcadia
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the famous mountain has in its ridges dripping and rock-cold fluids; And this water is called the stygia, in which neither silver, nor copper, nor iron vessels can stand without being consumed and eroded. Marinus is called Mercury, and they thought that he fulfilled the commandments of the Gods through the sea, the Celestial through Heaven, the terrestrial through the earth. which is said to be of three natures; or that which consists of water and earth, as if they were their own visible elements, and, moreover, by the hidden essence or celestial power of Hecate, the meeting of the three-shaped matter, from which she begat children:* Why indeed the Athenians made such ceremonies to the terrestrial Mercury, called Trophonius, with seeds mixed and cooked all in one pot is wonderful, and shows the Egyptian rites; it is noticed that the cause lies in the days of the month dedicated to Mercury;* But from this it is seen that among the Romans the custom of counting planetary days began as seven; while among these the first and seventh days are still ascribed to Apollo, and to Mercury the fourth day, yet not with respect to the age or motion of the Moon, as of old: That Mercury, borrowed from Jove and Pluto, the God of the rich, explained to men the laws It has been declared: The language is sacred to him, not as hitherto thought, as the God of eloquence, but of silence.* and that his sacred things are to be withheld within the wall of the teeth by suppressing the tongue; which was therefore thrown into the fire at the last external rite: because the messenger of the gods was believed to have had a daughter Angelia; We will say of his simulacrum among the Eleusinians: This is then that Mercury who spreads his laws and sacred rites throughout the world.* instituted ceremonies and worship; And indeed it was never in the nature of the world, except according to the understanding of the Egyptian priests and Greek poets in hieroglyphics and allegorics, nor in
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by art which he then knew most mysteriously, nevertheless he ruled, ordered, fixed, and restored all worldly things, like an earthly God: from Egypt to Phoenicia, and to the Greeks, where he penetrated with his mystical religion, from these to the Romans, who brought the whole world under their dominion, Mercury To him the kindred gods they presented, and ordered them to be observed; On this account the Spaniards, the Gauls, the Germans, the Britons, who were the people of Mercury, vt & Mars, quarreled, as is evident from the ancient histories: (so many hundreds hardly confirmed much) that they arbitrarily adopted the worship of Mercury, for the reason that the Egyptians called Mercury in their own language Theut, and the Germans, who were perhaps in need of the Teutons or Teutschen from the worship of Mercury, long before the arrival of the Romans in Germany, worshiped Mercury in the woods together with Mars they are I do not know what any of the other accounts of his name adduce, nor do I refute much, unless at least they were presumptions rather than proofs, Pliny 1. 4. c. 14. He thinks that the Teutons, the peoples of Germany, were so named after the Teutonic God, whom they believed to have arisen from thee : for Mercury is truly said to have been born of the earth: so also the Teutates, in the French language formerly called Mercury, who was also worshiped by the Gauls, and appeased with human blood ; Whence Lucanus:
And with whom the cruel Teutates are appeased with blood:
Aventinus lib. 1. Tuiscone He makes the son of Noah, whom he had begotten in Armenia, and sent to Europe, assigning to him whatever is contained between the rivers Rhine and Tanaim. Another Tuiscon they want to be Ascenas, the first-born son of Gomer, from whom the Germans were called Teutschen : but since the origins of these nations are very uncertain, and most certainly betrayed to no other, we believe that we have received, or accept, although we do not believe everything: of Mercury, the Cosmic God, suffice; if at least we show the cave of Orpheus and one of our own to those who inquire:* For thus Orpheus in the book concerning the stones, while men are at study
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he exhorts them, leads them to Mercury's cave, full of all goods and advantages, with these songs:
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉,
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉.
This is
But every man is guided by the prudence of the heart,
On Wednesday I will enter the cave, where most of them are
He has laid down his goods, and stands a great heap of them:
He is able to take this with both hands
Go home: it is worth avoiding all inconveniences here.
And Augurellus Lib. 2. Chrys. He describes the chamber and bed of the nymph Glaura in a similar manner:
There is a secret grove on the top of the mountain,
Fo • s whither the shining silver runs,
And the cave is opened into the cave by stretching out the erosion:
Inside he has a virgin with divine deity
The ancient Glaura, which they call by name,
Here, dense among thickets, narrow and rough,
He leads the traveler along the path with difficulty.
The vestibule in front of him, the smooth & level cave
The plains, not wide, however, with the terrible shadows
It is surrounded by the banks of the river and the edge of the tuff
Covered with green moss, thick {and} corymbs:
Spring is coming • if anyone is happy, everyone
He continued the human decay, with a wonderful saying,
He went out and suddenly left the mortal weight,
And his spirit becomes completely pure and light
He who examines the whole of the approach must be agile
By the wedges, in the middle of which sits the golden Nymph
Golden and around the room, above {and} he laughs
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But the auricles are trodden underfoot as they go,
But the furniture itself shines out of gold:
Tarvisijs, do not be swayed by any cave in the mountains
Ask this for those who seek the beginnings of so many things.
That which there seemed more precious, hence
Get rid of it, neither with expense, nor with too much or too little labor.
The golden songs of the more recent golden poets really sufficiently explain what Orpheus understood by the cave of Mercury , to which he exhorts the wise to explore: For in this cave lives the golden nymph called Glaure, who is Mercury herself, and how many are the names of things in the world. He learns so many similar appeals to himself, that he may not be apprehended by the unworthy; Hence it is said in the crowd near the end: Do not therefore be deceived by the innumerable names, the dead when he lived vs. bring nothing to it, and without multiplying men's names, which, if they were not multiplied, would laugh at our childish wisdom. to be called the thing called Mercury , and by it to be understood, Apim, the god's maker of so many bulls, and the other tamed dragons mentioned before, and all the Hieroglyphic animals and deities; also so many monsters, the offspring of Typhon and Echidna, Cerberus, Chymae∣ram,* Sphynx, Hydra, Hecate, Geryon, so many lions, horses, birds, and beasts, of which mention has been made in part, will be made in part to their places: Now we proceed to Dionysus, born of Jupiter from Se∣mele, no less famous than Mercury; This is the same among the Greeks as Osiris among the Egyptians and Bacchus among the Romans, as is clear from all the attributes attributed to them;* ideó now we shall name Osiris himself, now Dionysus, now Bacchus promiscuously, always one subject, as the ancients were under-intelligent: Semele Cad∣mis and Harmonia's daughter, when she was mortal, and from Jove, as they fable
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Poet, to embrace; Juno was persuaded by the lying of the old man Semele, that he would compel Jove to swear by the Stygian stake , that he would grant what he asked, and then he would demand from Jove that such a man would approach him as would embrace Juno; And when Semele had obtained this from Jove, and could not lighten the force of lightning, she continued, as it is said, to be reduced to ashes, when already in the eighth month the fetus conceived by Jove had fled; vt Ovid: 3. Met: venustè describes this in these verses.
She asks Jupiter for a gift without a name;
To whom God says, choose; to suffer no repulsion;
The more you believe, the more aware Stygis is
He is the god of the torrent, fear and God of the gods:
Rejoicing over the evil that is too powerful, the destruction of the lover
I obey Semele, such as Saturnia, he said.
T • is usually embraced, on Friday, when the day begins,
Give me such:* The mortal body is in turmoil
He did not take the airmen, but burned with gifts to his companions.
When indeed Semele was burning, Jupiter snatched the fetus from her womb, so that it too would not die , he sewed it to his thigh, and carried it to the right time of maturity, which will be described in the same place.
An infant is still imperfect from the womb
He is rescued, and held dear (if it is worthy of belief)
It is sewn to the thigh, and completes the maternal period.
Hence Dionysius was called, because Jupiter's thigh was swollen.* when he was born horned, or else they want it, because Jupiter was lame, when he was sewn to the thigh ; They asserted that the word was the neighbor of Egypt to educate the nymphs.
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Semele, indeed, gave birth to Jove Liberus, but having been caught by Cadmus when he was just born, had been cast into a wooden ark, which had been carried by the tide of the sea to the borders of the Oreates (that was the town of the Laconians), but had been found by the natives when the ark had been opened They were like a dead woman, buried with great dignity, but brought up as a child. But Meleager was thought not to have been roasted on Jupiter's thigh, but was at once rescued and reared from the ashes of his mother by the Nymphs themselves; Demarchus says that he was brought up by Horus, and that in Egypt, as Orpheus wishes, who, however, was the first to say that he was born in Thebes; Whence the Greeks were seen to be deceived by the Egyptian writers,* who say that Dionysus and Semele and Io∣ve were descended from Thebes; which they say happened, because Orpheus having gone to Egypt, when he had learned the mysteries there, a friend of the Thebans, descended from Cadmus, and wishing to be gratified by them, invented them about Dionysus; which the common people of Thebans, partly because of their ignorance, and partly because they only wished to be thought of as their own God, was easily confused and passed on to other nations as truth: a∣lijs dij • and it is supposed to have happened to the heroes, vt before the mon •• mouse: Some said that Dionysus was born of Jupiter and Ceres and was torn apart by the earth and cooked, but by Ceres he was brought back to life again young by his compacted limbs: Alij Hyadas (which rain they signify) that Bacchus was the nurse,* in Naxos; And when he had grown up with the Nymphs, he had done many wonderful things; which Natalis Comes in Venat: Lib. 4. It is thus complex:
He fell between them while playing with a stick
And he smote the stones with the same blow;
A stream of sweet wine flowed from the wound:
From here he tore the egg • fru • so the entrails of the tabo
Infected only , the dog's white bristles
He threw his limbs on the ground, again with a wonderful saying,
The divided herds suddenly fell together
And he plucked the green grass known as fodder.
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It is said that Amphis Baena (that is the name of a viper having a head) by which he was bitten in thee , by a palm of a vine, which happened to be close by, he killed; honey , milk, and other sweet liquids, that the earth would have awakened, if he had struck it with a rod . ; Ilacius testified that Dionysus was the same youth and was supposed by the ancients to have been an enemy, and Orpheus reports that he was a male and an omen . that indeed I ate with pleasure ,* but many dreams that you fantasti∣ca, they explain to another poet, seem to be delightful in their fictions, but to scatter many empty and similar delusions; which , if true, first of all has its place in relation to this allegory of Dionysius or Osiris, or Bacchus,comprising the right of birth, life, and deeds; It is true that some of the stories made by the poet Dionysius of the age of posterity may have been vulgar, yet the pleasures of the most important and mysterious matters have been transmitted and propagated from antiquity to us in the wrappings of fables, there is no doubt left: they would only attribute the making of wine and the invention of the vine to Dionysus, and therefore they would offer such and such to the world to consider what they wrote, the most ancient writers would not be worthy of Encomium, but they would be seen as the most wicked and stupid of all men. Having said so far about the birth of Dionysius, they handed down:* For they say that Ammon, king of the part of Libya, who had brought the daughter of Heaven and the dew of Saturn , when he visited the region of the Ceraunian mountains, found a virgin of excellent form, Amalthea, not ine , with whom he begat a son , who, when he was afterwards robed and shaped distinguished, Dionysus wascalled ;
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the region was called the horn of Amalthea. Moreover, Ammon, fearing the jealousy of Rhea, arranged for the boy to be carried to Nysa by a certain word, which was at a great distance from those places, on a certain island near the river Triton, to a precipitous place, where there were certain straits, which they called the gates of Nysaea. There was an open country, distinguished by soft meadows, and a place abounding in irrigation with many clear waters, planted with all kinds of fruitful trees , with many even the best vines springing up of their own accord. The place was blown by many pleasant and healthy winds; wherefore the inhabitants enjoyed a very long age, when entering the region, it was fenced in with many dense and tall trees, and with valleys quite deep, so that the Sun could not easily penetrate , and scarcely the light of the Sun itself; at every approach there were fountains of sweet water, when there were many evergreen and fragrant trees, and sweet flowers, and the songs of various birds ; but to conclude with one word, nothing at all could be desired for the absolute pleasure of the inhabitants there.* of one of the daughters of Aristaeus, whose guardian he appointed Aristaeus himself, a man of prudence and excelling in all kinds of discipline: But Pallas presided over the evasion of the scheming of his stepmother, who a little before had been seen brought to the river Triton, and the land was called Tritonia. For it is true that when Rhea afterwards heard that the prowess and glory of Dionysius, his step-son, were being celebrated everywhere, she was angry with Ammon, and she endeavored to capture Dionysus with all her skill; : He also persuaded Saturnus that with the rest he would take up the war against Ammon , which was done: Ammon, they say, then laboring infamineof Annon , in Cr . Crete by name, but the island he had previously named Crete by his wife;
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He aroused in himself the hatred of his subjects, and it was not so long after that he fought against Nysa and Dionysus with great numbers. Dionysus heard his paternal flight,Nysa gathered many soldiers, and among these two hundred footmen, brave, benevolent towards him, and of excellent service: to them came the gathering forces of Lybia and a large force of the Amazons, who also came to him more willingly, because they understood that They would have had Pallas to be a keen partner in military affairs: thus Dionysus, the supreme emperor of the seas, led an army of women Pallas. At the commencement of the battle many of them fell* Saturn was wounded, and victory was close to Dionysus, whose excellent prowess that day was particularly distinguished. The Titans fled and took refuge in the lands of Ammon, whom he later restored to liberty by surrendering the captives, and gave them the choice whether they wished to go to war with him or to go away, who all went to war with him, and worshiped Dionysus as the God of salvation. They say that an expedition was undertaken against Saturn, by the soldiers of one of the most prominent of Nysa, who are called Silenus, since the first who reigned at Nyssa was named Silenus. On the way he tamed many monsters, and filled the desert regions with colonists. Saturn, on hearing the words of Dionysus, set fire to the fire, and abducted Rhea and some of his friends from the fire through the darkness of the night. they are, but they are also invited beyond that, that for the paternal charity of the posterity they would live with him in one place, that they would obtain all the due reverence due to the conjugation of blood; but when once more the Titans had secretly prepared their arms, they were defeated by the same fist and slaughtered. This account of the rise, war, and victory of Dionysius graphically depicts the whole Philosophical artifice with all its circumstances , as we shall soon hear. When, indeed, Dionysius had won this victory, he studied to gain good advantage over all the nations, and he traveled through those orbē{and} lands, which he knew by teaching, he went to consult his husband, Mercury Trismegistus.
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and Hercules is said to have left the governor of Egypt;* Pro∣metheus {who} was first given a place by Hercules: In the mountains of India not far from the river Ganges he erected two columns in the east, as in the west Hercules: he conquered India everywhere, and he will subdue the tribes of the East: his army was he was forced from the women farmers, and after three years he returned from India, soon after traveling through Libya and Spain, he had many women in his camp who indulged in dances and dances: here Nysa founded the most flourishing city in India Then he led Ariad∣nam to the river: and with the fury spurred on by Juno, he swept over the whole world. } who was riding in a chariot drawn by Lyn∣cibus. Ouid: 4. The goal: about where lynxes, tigers, and panthers were wont to be: He always wore the skin of the pardalis, whence he was called Bryseus: He was a member of the sport himself: He wore a thyrsus for a scepter: Sacred to him ab∣egnus branch, ab∣s , ivy . Leo being made, when he got into the ship, turned all the pirate sailors, except the pilot himself, into suga, so that they were turned into dolphins and immediately jumped into the sea. after three years he returned, and smote his enemies. He was not only horned, but also with a bull's head, by the ancients* vt Ouid: has lib: 3. Fastor: Ante tu • s ortus &c.
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after which we shall proceed: When Jupiter was torn in the war against the Titans, Pallas, with a palpitating heart, supported him to Jupiter. If we were to apply all these things to a single examination of the thing itself {and} of which they were made, for the dignity of it, we would surely transgress the principle of established brevity; Therefore we shall at least treat of them succinctly, since each one of the greatest part of what has been said before, and what has been said after, shall be made clear; Because it is similar in every way ; He is said to have been rescued from the ashes of his mother Semeles, he from the Coronides, he from Chiron, this from Mercury, or the other, and brought up by the nymphs, the Hyades, the watery parts; He is of two mothers, because he was born of Mercury, as all the philosophers teach: For our son, they say, has two fathers and two mothers, and because he was brought up in the fire,* for this reason he never dies; For thus it met in art; For he fixed the flight: and at this place Jupiter with his thunderbolt approached the mortal Semele, endowed with the longest hair, our fire kindled in glass, which burns more than the fire of hell, as we brought from Riplaeus under Vulcan: this Jupiter iu • but & ripens our foetus; He who was torn from the terrigenous or earthly parts by his mother Ceres, a watery substance, brought back whole with his joined limbs. The miracles which he did,hehad other things divided and dead, eaten and raised again ; He killed Amphisbaena, a double-headed serpent; Because the serpent is twofold in the art to bekilled, with wings and without wings: Liquors from the product itself ; Because it is composed of water and earth; If, therefore, Dionysus is a grown-up substance reduced to earth, it is not for this reason that he is said to produce liq • mouths: he is young, bearded, beardless, old, male, female; For thus Agmon in • the city: He is beardless, says he , and it is that • {that} we have become bearded; 〈◊〉 , not flying, • light • s endowed with which {and} is also flying, and if you put yourself in water, v • rū di • it, if you deny water • you do not falsely deny it:
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Of the tradition of the Egyptians, who make Ammon, Saturn's sister Rhea as his wife, Dionysus the father, and Amalthea the nymph the mother, we say that they themselves looked rather to things than to names, when they assign some parents to Dionysus, and others to Osiris, whom, however, v They establish one and the same with Dionysus: they therefore deny that it is a hysteria, but they have invented a hieroglyphic figure to signify things: they look at the horn of Amalthea, the source of all abundance, and the gardens of the Hesperides at the same time; But by that description of the Topic, the first discoverers of so many circumstances did not wish to insinuate anything else,* how to place the universal allegory of the whole work before the eyes of the intelligent, with all its differences and parts; Now I hardly think that there is a more obvious resemblance among the more recent ones, that the operation of the whole art is more overshadowed than that: By the child, the subject is understood; By the verb Nysa, a vessel; Where are the narrow gates of Nyssa, the fastening and closure of the vessels: the pleasant region with various trees, vines, winds, flowers, and the singing of birds, indicates that everything necessary for life and pleasure is present there. Pallas' singular wisdom and subtlety of ingenuity is required for whatever is present: Which are then added about Saturn from the instinct of Rhea's sister, who had left Ammon, who was waging war against Dionysus, about Saturnine's blackness appearing to us at the beginning of the work we understand; The warlike Amazons are present to Dionysus; For the milk of a virgin works much, and the strength of a virgin; For his mother is a virgin, and his father has not had intercourse: Dionysus conquers Saturn, because he ceases to be black, and takes the Titans by surrender; that is, it stops the smoky exhalations of matter: & God is a wholesome worship, Dionysius; because for the salvation of man, vt Aesculapius was born: He tames many monsters, because the material itself obtains the name and omen of monstrous, vt we have shown before that it tames and fills deserted regions with colonists: For vt Lull: Theor. witness c. 9. In this liquid
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he is rectified by a great dragon, and is thrown into the great desert of Arabia, because he would immediately be suffocated by thirst, and perish in the dead sea , &c. Turn him therefore, and send him into the kingdom of Ethiopia, whence he is naturally a native : Saturn sets fire to the word, fleeing through the darkness of the night; because he is bathed in the black fire of the night; however, he is treated not with violence, but with humanity, gently with great intelligence, as a native of the country; but the Titans, who are sulphurous exhalations, are completely removed from the middle. Mercury, Hercules, and Prometheus presided over the offices of the kingdom at home; He is said to have subjugated India, Libya, Iberia, or Spain, because these places abounded in the best metals: Cobals are daemons of savages and poisonous fumes that are present in matter; Satyrs , Silenes, women with cymbals and noise, signify the tumult and agitation of matter; also mot • m & sonitū; Lynxes, Tigers, and Panthers, insinuate a diversity of colors; Thyrsus itself stands for a scepter, not that wine is signified by it, as the common people explain, , if it pleased the gods, he uttered worthy words, to provide Thyrsige∣ros with many, but Bacchus with few ; And elsewhere about the same;* O fishes, fishes, says he, this is not the water in which you swim, to which that one from Cithaeron, rather than Helicon, tastes the liquid : As if this humuncio had seen something of the mysteries of the thyrsus, and had not stuck to their superficial bark; What did he know, but to put the words in their proper order, Sybaritas, with a careful speech, and delicate Physignatus, with the common sense of all things? To whom did he not draw down the nation, because he considered himself to be the arbiter of Latinity? But he is not even a fish, but like an ap∣is, which lick up the foams that arise from the foam of the sea, and feed on the surface of the water, not seeking the depth.* vt the thing itself sometimes convinces talioue • they are patient: Staphylus is said to have been the son of Bacchus, whose
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When Apollo had seized the daughter of Rhius, and Staphylus had felt that she was pregnant, he enclosed her in an ark and cast her into the sea.* After this Anius, the nymph Dorippe, received Sperma, Oe∣no, and Elade, whom Apollo granted; as if they wished to take either wine, or seeds, or oil for the meaning of their names: they thought of Dionysus as another sun, viz. Thus Virgil book 1. George: You, O most brilliant lights of the world, and Orpheus in the hymns: The bright sun of Dionysus, whom they call by surname ; But the Po∣ëtes speak thus according to the common understanding of the people; if Dionysus is Osiris, as is sufficiently convinced elsewhere, and Apollo and Diana are the Sun and the Moon, how is Apollo called the son of Osiris, the Sun of the Sun, and let us omit the rest of the most absurd things? Indeed, from what has been said up to now, all that remains about Dionysus, why he slept for three years, took the laws, was the God of dances, turned into a lion, was horned, rose from the dead, his nurses are said to have been cooked by Medea, and the like are easily understood.* Now let us come to Perseus, the son of Jupiter from Danaë: Acrisius Danaës father locked up his daughter Danaë in an iron chamber in the domestic hall underground, because he had learned from an oracle that he would be killed by his daughter's nephew. that the vault had flowed down, that when he had taken it into his bosom, who Jupiter was, revealed himself, and pressed it, from which Perseus was born: this Horace lib. 3. He described the poem as follows:
* Including Danaënturris ahenea
Strong doors and police dogs
The sad watchmen had fortified enough
Nocturnal from adulterers
If it were not for the secret of the virgin Acrisius
Jupiter and Venus are the fearful guardians
They would have laughed; for the road would be safe and clear
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Turned into praise of God.
Gold goes through the satellites
And he loves to break through the rocks more powerfully
A lightning strike:
Some say that she gave birth to her secretly, and that she delivered the three - year - old child before Acrisius perceived it, and that Danaën was brought to the altar of Her and Jupiter after her, and questioned from whom she had given birth ; which he himself had been enclosed in a wooden chest, and thrown into the sea. Then, when the ark had arrived at the island of Seriphus, by the king's brother Dictye, who was fishing there, this ark was drawn out of the net, whom Danaë asked to open the ark, wherefore when he had closed it, and learned who they were, he brought them home, and as they were joined by kinship he had with him very humanely. King Polydectes then tried to overcome the power of Danae, and when he could not on account of Perseus, he imposed on Perseus the task of bringing to him the head of Medusa, which he wished to give as a dowry to the daughter of Hippodamia . Here Polydectes is represented as the king of Seriphus, the nephew of Neptune: to whom, while Perseus is forced to submit, he girds himself for the journey; Thus he borrowed from Pallas a shield and a mirror, from Mercury a harp∣pen or sickled sword, from Pluto a purse and a helmet, from the Nymphs a pair of sandals or flying shoes; He contends with the Gorgons: and the Gorgons had heads covered with scaly serpents, sharp teeth, iron hands, and golden wings with which they flew . in the book of the mysteries Scylla also mentions that she was numbered among the Gorgons among others:* And first Perseus went to the Graea, who were the sisters of Gorgo∣nū, three in number, having one eye and one tooth in common.
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approaching with help to Medusa, who, having turned away from the mirror, when he himself could not be seen covered by Pluto's helmet, shot Pallas's hand, cut off his head with a single blow, and threw his head into a bag , and carried it to Pallas with the power of stoning ; On the return of Cassiope and Cepheus, the king of Ethiopia, the daughter of the sea-monster called Andromeda, who was being torn to pieces by the sea-monster, freed her by displaying the head of Medusa, and took her to wife: he turned Atlas into a mountain, whose daughter was Maera; of which Homer 1. Odyss.
He worships the diva's courts
Daughter of the wise Atlantis, who was buried deep
Pelagius knew everything:
This Atlas, of whom we have warned before, is said to have commanded Hesperius, and to have received the answer from Parnassia to Themis, that it would be, that he should be robbed of the golden apples by a certain son of Jouis: so Ovid: lib. 4 ▪ Met.
Remember that old man
There was a lot: Parnassia had given this lot to Themis:
The time, Atla, will come when yours will be robbed of gold
A tree, and this title of booty will be born of Joue.
When Perseus wished to bring back the severed head of Medusa, and to be rejected as a host by Atlante, the son of Jupiter, he showed him Medusa's head, saying thus:
But since our grace is small for you,
Take the gift, he said, and leave it at Medusa's side
He himself turned back, and put forth his lips,
As great as he was, the mountain became Atlas.
Later, Perseus, playing with a discus, by chance, wounded his unknown grandfather Acrisius in the foot with a discus, from which wound, as foretold by fate , he perished. And from the spilled blood of Medusa, Pegasus and Chrysaor were born
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they are imagined; Pegasus, a winged horse brought to Pallas, by whom it was given to Bellerophon the son of Glaucus (grandson of Sisyphus, great-grandson of Aeolus, great-grandson of Jupiter) to slay Chimaera, the three-shaped monster born of Typhon and Echidna; Here Bellerophon, vt. Theopompus lib: 7. Philippi∣carus writes from a legendary tradition, that the Chimaera, seated on Pegasus, did not pierce with arrows, but asked for a kind of spear, which had a lead placed in the uppermost part, which part of the spear when Bellerophon had thrust into the mouth of the Chimaera, the lead With the fire (which he breathed out with his mouth) and the neck made, it flowed down into the belly of the Chimaera, and burned all her entrails, whence she died. But if any one takes histories as facts, or does not perceive about what matter and for what reason they are fabricated, he may be valued as a lead in his genius:* The source of the same Pegasus is said to have been stirred up by Hippocrene on the bicep of Parnassus, from which the Muses, Apollo, poets, and all literati drink and become more learned: Thus the learning of the poets from the fountain of Parnassus, here from the wings of Pegasus, Pegasus from the blood of Medusa, Medusa from born of a sea monster, slain by Perscus, Perseus and Jupiter, Jupiter and Saturn, Saturn and Heaven, such a golden chain hangs; The same is to be said of Chrysaurus, who is the father of the three-bodied Geryon, possessing purple oxen: But who does not recognize this allegory of Perseus from the preceding ones? Nevertheless, let us add a few things: The golden rain and Jupiter descending into the bosom of Danaës, do not denote covetousness or pleasure bought with gold, except secondarily, but because it is so conjoined in the philosophic artifice; For there gold is mixed with gold, and our son is born from the air, as Riplaeussays: 6. Don't try too hard to sprinkle with coals. , and the generation of the geni∣sos takes place in the air, that is, in the head of the vessel, that is, the alembic: And Elder: Just as we see the sun having two rays raining down on dead ashes, and revives that which had been given over to death, as if dead after a great want : This is the sister and this is the brother
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of him, by whom they hardened and betrothed with the subtlety of preparation: but after the conception was made, they made them fly, and were in the houses of the mountain : They say that he who is born in the air, and was conceived from us on the earth or below: Here Perseus, after having grown up, Medusa, that is, he stabs the philosophical matter, cuts it off, and sprinkles her blood, whence Chrysaor, the golden fetus, is born: Hence Arnoldus book: 2. c. 25. Rosar teaches how our Perseus should be brought up and nurtured, when he says: For there is a certain time that she (Danaë) has to conceive, to part and nurture, and to work: Whence you had the earth impregnated , expected delivery. When indeed the son (Perseus) has died, nurse him so that he can endure all the fire, and then you must make a projection from him ; This is, when he has already suffered all the fire, then he is armed with the sword of Mercury, the helmet of Pluto, the shield of Pallas , and then you will be able to throw him down, or send him to kill the serpent Medusa: and the Gorgons, such as Medusa was, are called monstrous with entwined serpents and golden wings; Near the Hesperides and Atlantis; They are of the same kind, with them, and of overcoming labor; For Hercules, the son of Jupiter, rides to Hesp .* thus it is said that Perseus was betrothed to the Gor∣gones: Of Perseus you are said; Now follows Hercules, who was born of Jovi from Alemena, and is therefore to be numbered among the children of Jovi∣als: but since we have previously explained about him under the Hesperides the apples and the golden horns, and we are going to tell about his labors in the whole fifth book, here at least his it is sufficient to have shown the line of genealogy:* Polluce and Helen from the one, and Castor with Clyde from the other, whom he, in the shape of a swan, crushing Laeda, the wife of King Tyndareus of Oebalia, took from her, of whom perhaps elsewhere, we shall say very few here for the sake of brevity: From this egg so great an Iliad of evils , until he broke out from the Trojan horse; Let it be imagined that it had not been
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therefore neither Helen, nor her abduction, nor the Trojan war; Nor did Castor and Pollux take part in the Argonauts a hundred years before the Trojan War, although they were of the same age as Helen, nor was Clytaemnestra killed by Orestes, the son of Agamemnon; And who would tell all the other evils that sprung from this egg or one or two twins? The golden apple will be taken away from Eridos, and there will be no cause for strife between the goddesses, nor the abduction of Helen .* Here we shall consider Clytaemnestra with her son: Agamemnon had taken her to wife, who, when he had taken Orestes from her, and was compelled to go to Bel∣lum at Troy, left Aegisthus the singer at home; With which Clytaemnestra is killed in a certain chapel of Pallas outside the village, the doors being closed, reclining, with her son Orestes coming up, one with the adulterer; ; Whence he erected an altar to Minerua: after he had atoned and bathed himself with the waters drawn from the fountain of Hippocrene: having seized the furies, he recovered the statue of Pallas from the region of Taurica, and his sister Iphigenia, and washed himself from the oracle in a river confused with seven streams He commanded: He had sisters Iphigenia, Electra, Chrysotheme, Laodice, and Iphionassa:* which he had retained all that time, he set down in the Tauris place, which they called Acen, and the barber's shop, where he cut his hair; Another mentions that this same stone happened near Gytheum, which they called idle, on which Orestes was sitting, he was freed from madness, and that by the counsel of Pallas: he gave Electra to his sister Pylades to wife, he himself, having killed Neoptolemus Achilles, married Hermione. from whom Tisamenum, from Erigone, the daughter of Aegisthus, gave birth to Pentilus, living in Oresteia.
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they found, as the oracle had foretold, that they should be searched* to be found in that place, where the winds, striking, repulsing, and destruction of men were to be found at the same time, which when Lychas had interpreted of the carpenter's workshop, winds, blunders; understanding the striking hammer, the rebound, the anvil, and the iron of the destruction of men, the bones of Orestes being found there, next to Parcarus' fan in the tomb of Agamem∣non,* at the order of the oracle, they were buried. With this figment nothing more absurd to the ignorant, scarcely anything more attractive to the intelligent: we have considered who Agamemnon is under Troy, and here he admits that Clytaemnestra is the daughter of Jupiter, although they assert that the egg from which Castor and Clytaemnestra were produced by others was Tyndari; For the same truth appears concerning the other: What do you say is new, women obeying the law, and birds to be imitated: This was not a strange sight to the Ethnics, because Jupiter had subjugated Laeda in the form of a swan: But we know that it is monstrous and most lying outside of the allegory; Nor is it sufficient, I know not what moral fiction, to judge; Because it is permissible to invent morals about everything either in a good or in a bad part, but genuine natural ones are not contained and covered by them; Among the artists of chemistry it is very often repeated, that a mother is devoured by her son, killed, buried in her womb; For it is necessary to return in this way: In two things, says Flamellus, all this business consists, that is to say, with your fire you make the sulfur penetrating and attractive, with which it can devour its mother, and you have completed the work: then, finally, the father will be to himself, and the son will be perfect from two spirits: and ibid . And in Enigma 6. Lay a red sardine evenly over the pregnant mother; He kills the mother, cutting off her hands and feet: And Lull: in the codicil: It is necessary for a mother who first gives birth to a son, to be buried in the womb of her daughter, and to be begotten by her: Not only does the son go in and kill the mother, but also destroys his own father under allegory; Vt
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he leads his mother to wife; and also his grandfather, viz. Perseus Acrisius: In the Chapel of Pallas, the adulteress Clytaemnestra is killed, the doors being closed: that is, the vessel of art is bolted up: O∣restes is acquitted by an equal number of suffrages; For the weights must be geometrically equal: From this he erected an altar to Minerva, the goddess of wisdom: Water is said to have been surveyed from Hippocrene, because that Pegasius • ons agrees with this bargain: For Pe∣gasus is said to have arisen from the blood of the Medes: Which of the statue of Pallas, and his lotion they are told in seven streams, they are allegorical, and refer to this: Of Palladius it is said below: Of the lotion, so Clangor : the Philosopher also says: Our bronze has a hydropic body, as Naaman the Syrian leper, because of which he seeks the bath of regeneration seven times in the Jordan, to be redeemed from innate passions and corruptions : his sisters, among whom Chrysothemis, are watery parts ; He feeds the hair, because it is not necessary to separate it: afterwards he allows the hair to be cut near Acen or Saxum; and then he is at ease with his labors: It is credible about the bones of O∣res found in the workshop of the brass-smiths; for thus it is said in Merlin's Allegory, that even the hair and nails of a king do wonderful works in such workshops: It is very probable that some works left by craftsmen still wander through the world, and are sometimes found in the workshops of smiths, although they are not recognised; Porró from Europa, the daughter of Agenor, king of the Phoenicians, the sister of Cadmus in the form of a bull, born by Jupiter's compresses are called Minos and Rhadamantus; also Carneus:* We have already touched on the allegory of Cadmus before, how he, seeking Europe, founded the city of Baeotia in Thebes, and there he settled: but Europe is given as having been vacated with other girls; which, with a bull of wondrous beauty (into which Jupiter had changed himself), had attracted it, and mounted on its back, being carried by Jove to Crete, and there resuming its former form, she became pregnant by him, who gave birth to Minoa, and Rhadamantum: Minos Pasiphaēn the daughter of Sol,
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He married the sister of King Aeeta, that he might rejoice as a match, for he was the son of Jove, the daughter of the Sun, from whom he begot Ariadne and Minotau , who, having been imprisoned in the Labyrinth by Daedalus, was killed by Theseus at the hands of Ariadne. it was subject to history, because they tell of the traces of the Cretan Labyrinth still extant, although Diodorus says that in his time the Cretans were cut off, and the Egyptian Labyrinth lasted much older than that; Of the rest, which refer to the fables of the Minos and Rhadamantes , and of their judgment in the underworld , when the pleasures were affected by the poets of the following age, we shall not say here: From Antiope, the daughter of Nyctea, or as others think, Jupiter begat Amphion and Zetus at Asop: Amphion learned to handle the lyre from Mercury the teacher,* with a song that moved beasts and rocks, as Orpheus the son of Calliope; These two brothers are said to have founded Thebes, and to have fortified them with walls and rivers. It is said , therefore, that the rocks of their own accord fell upon themselves, and that the wall was built while Amphion was gently beating the lyre, as Horace says in the Poetical Art.
Said & Amphion Th • bane founder of words
To move the rocks with the sound of the turtle, and to pray softly
To lead that • would like:
They relate the same about the walls of Troy built by Apollo; and of the music of the gods of Orpheus, which he commanded the ship Argô, and attracted beasts and rocks: But no one sees that these are hyperbolic, in whatever way they may be interpreted, whether of common poetry, its sweetness and efficacy, or of things under it. contented: Amphion was the first to sacrifice to Mercury, who had received the lyre from him, and said: Pausanias, in the later Elia∣c • s, exclaims that Amphion and Orpheus were Egyptians, and that they excelled in the knowledge of the magicians: which, however, is not credible; because it is convinced from all authors and circumstantial evidence that the Greeks were known to the Egyptians and that they had been transferred to the Greeks. Of the miracles hitherto enumerated,
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lest I should say to the monstrous, Jupiter of the Ethnic Gods, the chief family believed to have been transmuted because of their adulteries, the following stanza is held
He becomes a Taurus, a Swan, a Satyr {and} gold {and} because of this matter
Europe, Leeds, Antiope, Danaës:
To these we add the no less monstrous birth of the Palic brothers, who are said to have been born of Jupiter from Thalia:* When she knew that she was pregnant with Jupiter, she wished to be hidden under the earth, in the true indignation of Juno; but at the time of her birth the land was shut up, when Thalia had hid herself so long, two children broke out not far from Catania in Sicily. Although these things may be legendary, yet among the superstitious ethnics, the history obtained credence:* It is said that Jupiter gave birth to Proserpina from Ceres; In addition to what has already been said, the same n • took a mere offspring from various Nymphs Callisto, Niobe, Laodamia, Taygete, Sa∣vona, Protogenia in other skins; so that no doubt would be left, if the sons of Jove, the grandsons and great-grandsons of Neptune were to be recognized as the descendants of the winds, rivers, mountains, Ocean, Pontus, and other seas, from these as progenitors all the gods, goddesses, heroes, heroines, or demigods and demigods hanging and descending from golden chains, as it were, could be deduced and propagated.
The end of the third book.
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Book Four OF THE FEASTS AND SACRES OF GREECE, as well as the contests and games instituted and solemnly celebrated for the memory of the Philosophical artifices.
C.V. The memory of men is always slippery, and the mind is so feeble, that unless it is often moved by some object which rushes into the senses, it is easily led into oblivion of the past or of things which are not visible, hence in difficult and great things the wisest men never put it down from their minds. so among the ethnics, as Israel , God's chosen people, sensible certain solemn institutions; Max: to whom all good things come down in one place, he gives eternal thanks for his gifts: to this end,* by the command of JEHOVAH himself, Moses instituted certain memorable festivals to be observed by the Israelite people, namely the seventh of which is called a holiday, and a cessation from all work, in memory of the creation of Heaven and Earth, and their contents,
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accomplished in the space of six days; Because on the seventh day the Creator rested and ceased from Creation; Before the Passover* in memory of the angels of God striking down the first-born of the Egyptians and sparing them, whose posts were marked with the blood of an immaculate lamb; Pentecost* in the divine law promulgated by God himself on Mount Sinai, and the feast of Tabernacles,* in forty years of pilgrimage through the desert, a recollection: with the same intention (however piously, as it behooves them, politically accepted) in public affairs, statues and images of those who did great service to their nation or deliverance from their hosts, otherwise, they had provided conveniences, placed them, and were always preserved: for this is like an artificial memory consisting of images and places, memorable things or persons made to represent each one who is not ignorant, just as such monuments were once among the Greeks, Romans, other nations were among us, and still are here and there. He would exhort posterity, but that thanks be given to God in every way,* certain ceremonies and solemnities were instituted with singular pomp, for the purpose, in whichour memory was to be made , were greatly adapted;in the temple they were taken, immersion in water, burial, and the choice of a new stream; also the festivals of Osiris, Ceres , Adonis, and others similar to these, of which we have alreadypartly remembered, partlywe are going to tellthe imposters . : Indeed, how they were afterwardsabused by the common people, and changed into a horrible idolatry, is evident from their own experience
.
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already before, namely, the one who would attack the mind, the other who would attack the eyes; Those of the mind, containing allegories of gods, goddesses, and heroes, deeds and things to be admired* He stopped; Of which we have hitherto dealt sufficiently copiously, especially in the second and third books of this treatise; Whose eyes, hieroglyphics of animals and figures of other things, painted, sculpted, and usurped instead of letters and writing; Of which we treated in the first book: But these three, namely, the celebration of the sacred, the narration of the allegories, and the sketching of the hieroglyphics, were kept so secret that the priests were aware of them, so that none of the common people or the uninitiated knew them, but to all others, except philosophers, the sons of priests, remained unknown: The causes of the concealment of these things have already been explained before us, and by others at greater length, so that there is no need to repeat them: here and there they were regarded as sacred, and they were worshiped in silence, now and then more and more they were taken as divine things, about which there was no need to inquire what they signified, or why and to whom they were introduced: Here is the first and third the source of many abuses, errors, and superstitions which were afterwards transferred from the Egyptians to other nations of the world; But as we have hitherto dealt with the gods, gods, and heroes, and their origin and worship, for the reason of our institution, so now we have briefly instituted this regarding festivals, games, solemnities, and contests for the sake of the same things we will discuss the book. Lucian (who ridiculed the ethnic idol of Latria) in a dialogue about astrology. Orpheus, says he, the son of Calliopes and Oeagris, before all Bacchus, introduced the sacred things into Greece,* the first {who} instituted on the mountain of Baeotia, Thebes, those sacred things which were called Orphic. It is evident that these ceremonies were taken from the Egyptians, who performed ceremonies in honor of Osiris on the third day of the year, because they said that Osiris or Dionysus returned from the Indian voyage in the third year.* therefore Trieterica said:
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Since, in truth, everything is allegorical, which relates to the pilgrimage of Osiris to India, and to the other parts of the world, in order to teach men the method of cultivating the fields and planting the vine, and many other useful things found, they are said to be assumed, so also that which leads from thence or because of the memory of his pilgrimage, a festival is instituted, and it must be regarded as allegorical; and they sketched the things to be done or the future allegorically about Christ, the same thing could be done in its own way with the ethnics, so that they understood that the allegory was in their festivals: But the difference in these and those in the whole heaven, which they say, is clear: She is from the true, eternal and one God, they were organized in his honor, as well as the past* whether they were really made, whether they represented the future, or represented what would follow: These seem to have been produced by men alone, wrought out by the sagacity of their genius, as if they were monuments and mute symbols of things as if they had been made, or under allegories believed; As Moses received it from God himself, the source of Truth, and promulgated to the Israelite people to observe his commandment, so Orpheus transferred these things from the Egyptian priests, the authors of all vain superstitions, to the Greeks: She to the end of eternal salvation; This, temporal: but both to the glory of the Creator God, and giver of all good things: The former were received from the true Church of God and the Old and New covenants, the latter from the crowd of infidels, and the rest of the world:* But to them sent in this place, and at least mentioned, (since it is credible that this rite of sabbaths and sacred ceremonies was taken from the Israelites by a certain cacozylia and transferred to the ethnics) of these things, as the power of the worldly, the people who found, di∣ Let us take: What is meant by the pilgrimage of Dionysus or Osiris, we have already explained in the first book under Osiris, and in the third under Dionysus: As much time as it is said that he spent in the pilgrimage Ludicâ, as much time was allowed to live as Apis, the Egyptian ox, and after that he plunged into the fountain; Thus they are spoken to express the same thing
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Orpheus said in the hymn that Onysus had slept three times with Proserpina, and had been roused from dancing with the Nymphs.
We sing of the earthly Dionysus and the goddess Bacchus,
* When the nymph awoke , whose hair is dusty,
Those who were once close to Persephone's sacred penetrative
Bacchus slept for three long years
As the feasts of the three
He immediately went with his nurses to the hymn:
It was said that these sacred orgies were instituted by Orpheus in common; in which at last so much abuse was employed in the nocturnal conventions of the bacchantes,* v.t. Lycurgus, king of Thrace, Diagondas the Theban, and as many others as possible all the nocturnal sacrifices on account of their abominations were raised by perpetual law. Miracles were said to happen on these days when they were celebrated; for when the empty flasks were deposited in the temple during the night,* the next day they were found full of the best wine; that the priests were tricked by the credulous and superstitious plebeians, (it is evident from the Baalites) who filled them by clandestine approaches, is better known to have happened than needs to be demonstrated: But those sacred ceremonies were performed among women that he had these companions in the Indian expedition: From the same Phallus, that is, the appearance of the male member of spectacular size was preferred with pomp: This {and} in the memory of Osiris, who was cut into pieces by the Titans, and thrown shamefully into the river, by Osiris , captured by the Titans, his limbs are said to have been collected and put together, with the exception of the male member, which could not be found: that they add another, therefore, that it was commanded that this member, in the form of the Phallus, should be worshiped for God, is most absurd to reason: Is this true? We shall see that the ceremonies with the Elcusinius had the same intention among the Egyptians; in which there was a solemn bearing of the Phallus: the Virgins in the Trieteric Ca∣nisters
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wearing gold and the boys went from the temple of Dionysius to the chapel of Pallas; by which it is sufficiently indicated, that there was another cause of this celebration, than was commonly known; Of course, Dionysus had the highest commonality with Pallas, the goddess of wisdom; not as if they wished to denote that there is wisdom in Bacchus, that is, truth in wine; For what is not drunkenness he designates, covered and shut up, &c. And although it is true that Poëta sings without choosing
Bacchus raises the spirit from the ground, raises the mind high,
Pegasus, who rides like a wing:*
However, I do not think that it is clear from this that he foretells the same thing.
Lively Bromius, a bird but with a preening feather.
Therefore the Amyclaes could; unless perhaps by accident: for Bac∣chus is represented as winged, on account of his volatility, horned, on account of the horns of the Moon, with a bull's head, because to him, as Osiris, Apis is sacred; so male and female, young and old, bearded and beardless; d • of which properties we said before under Dionysus: Women are presided over by these sacred Bacchads; because they had accompanied Dionysus when he went abroad; By women, however, the suffering force, which first dominates the Philosophic subject, is understood, and by the phallus, the force to rob the sun by some artifice, from which it proceeded at the beginning of its action: Thus our Osiris or Dionysus must be composed again by Isis or Ceres the mother , but away from the virile parts, or the black earth: Thus John of Padua reports that our king should be taken and divided into the smallest parts, washed with fire and water, discarded with dregs and superfluities, and then finally put together again, and the young man that he would rise again more than before: The allegory of Merlin has the same, and of another of the Duke of Duenech, and others of this kind: Virgins were present with baskets of gold, gathering the first fruits for God , because God was golden; and they contended for a cell in Pallas, for a certain mystical reason,
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because in the pilgrimage of Dionysius there is the perfection of the whole work, by which he went first to the black Ethiopians, and last came to the Red Sea; These did not depart from the artifice of Pallas; and therefore the chapel of Pallas corresponded to his temple . have been and are not of the essence of the matter, they are deservedly neglected by us . The ceremonies are said to be performed at different times and places: for they are said to have been carried from Pegasus to the Eleutherians to the Athenians by the Thebans, and were called Oschophoria by them, as Pausanias says in the Atticians .* • among whom it was the custom, says the narrator of Nicander, that the boys of the pampinos, holding in their hands the tribute of the sacred temple of Dionysus, would run to the chapel of Pallas Scirrhadis with prayers. At the same time these were called by the simple name of Dionysia, when they were done in the fields, that is to say, each year:* The Lenaea, in which Athens was worshiped at the beginning of spring, at which time wines were extracted from the dregs, and tributes were brought from outsiders; that there was a contest of drinkers at the plae∣run {and} Bacchus was the author of the song of Laerita.* And the Canephoria are held in honor of Dionysius of Athens , in which the agile virgins (as Demaratus refers to the Dionysian contests) who have reached puberty,* then they carried the first baskets, which were baskets of pure gold, in which were placed the fruits of all the first fruits, and these were celebrated at the end of the month of April: the Apaturia were held for four days in October:* And Ambrosia in January, at which time the wines used to be imported into the village, which were later cultivated by the Romans, called Brumalia,* when Brumus is Bacchus: Ascolia were also held in Athens, on which they danced over inflated glasses placed on the ground with the other foot: and prizes were offered to those who were wise
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let them dance over the glasses, which custom was translated to the Romans, as Virgil , lib. 2. Georg describes: For the goat, from whose skin the glasses are made , because it hurts the vines, was eaten by Bacchus .* before the doors each one, cutting his throat, returns with a sigh to him who had brought the very same, but {and} they perform another solemnity without their own in honor of Dionysus, the Egyptians with the same proper rite as the Greeks, but for the Phallus they devised other things, namely, images of a cubit's size. in which the women go round the fields, with the male member not much less in the rest of the body . they were first instituted for that purpose, as we have enumerated, lest the memory of the supreme arcane granted to the god should perish, and meanwhile Dionysius should be regarded by the common interpretation as wine {and} its inventor, so many and so many different festivals are found instituted in different places, which, however, have the least arcane principle let them take part; Just as we see that through the abuse of this kind it easily happens, viz. in the Christian world in many places Martinalia in November, Bacchanalia on the days preceding the season of Lent, elsewhere on the holidays after Christmas like Saturnalia, having left traces, but from another cause, are generally still celebrated; that idea, because, as the Comedian says, it is the genius of all men to labor, rather to lust or lust.in part they ignored signs, and worshiped animals, images of men, and brutes for gods, until they reduced garlic, onions, and all things so useless and noxious as to be useless, to the ranks of the gods; Whence the Poet does not undeservedly jeer at them, when he says:
O holy nations, to whom these things are born in the gardens of Numina:
Of the Greeks and the Romans he found this place;* Nam
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As they received from the Egyptians, so these from the Greeks and Egyptians, whatever gods were among you: Hence Lucanus 1. 7. Of Egypt he says thus:
We received Jesus in your Roman Temple,
Demigods {and} dogs and sistraiubentia mourn,
And what do you witness to the weeping man O •• rim:
And Lactantius lib. 1. He insists: The Romans, he says, had their own evils for the sake of the Gods , such as rust , pallor, and fever : hence, as is clear from Ovid's Fastis, the festival of rust was near the end of April, viz. 6. Cal. Maij, then they worshiped her, as Ovid says, that she might not injure the crops or the rustic tools; And in this manner they worshiped the fever, that it might not afflict them: so for Valerius lib. 2. He says: And indeed they worshiped others to do good, but fever to do less harm : the same describes the places where there were three Temples of Fever: Moreover, the Romans worshiped their own God Romulus, whom they called Quirinus; which they did not receive from others with fever, rust, and the like, but found for themselves by their own energy; Indeed, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Mercury, Apollo, and Aesculapius, together with a great number of others, had been borrowed either from the Greeks or from the Egyptians. If he can, we will bring him here: Saint Augustine remembers that Aesculapius was brought to Rome 3. On the Citizen of God* chap. 12. Aesculapius, he says, left Rome from Epidaurus, that he might be the most skilled physician in the noblest land, and practice his art more gloriously: But the mother of the gods, I know not whence she was born, dwelt on the Praenestine mountain; For it was unworthy, that when her son was presiding over the Capitoline hill, she was still hidden in an ignoble place : yet she, if she is the mother of all the gods, did not follow the world to Rome , but she preceded some of her sons ; indeed, she preceded others. I wonder indeed if she gave birth to Cynocephalus, who came a long time later from Egypt;
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that she was born, Aesculapius saw her great-grandson : This he: And Epidaurus, according to Eutropius, is a city which is only called Dyrrachium; because indeed Rome was a greater city than Epidaurus, therefore Augustine ironically says that Aesculapius migrated to Rome . 10. from the origin of the verb, about the end; that when Rome, he says, was afflicted with a severe pestilence, which was so great, that although he was a year old, that is to say, 455, he was happy in many things, yet he was scarcely sufficient for the comfort of one evil, that is, the word of the pestilence, which ran as much to man as to As for the fields: So they consulted Sibyl's books about remedies, and it was found that Aesculapius of Epidaurus was to be brought to Rome:* Orosius also tells the same thing in the book 2. And Livy, lib. 11. And Valerius lib. 1. They testify that for three consecutive years the word was afflicted with a severe pestilence: therefore, as a remedy, ambassadors were sent to bring Aesculapius from Epidaurus: when they came from Epidaurus, they were led to the temple of Aesculapius, which was five thousand miles distant from Epidaurus. and behold, a serpent, which, though seldom seen by the Epidaurii, never without their good, for which reason he was venerated in the manner of Aesculapius, began to crawl through the clearest parts of the word with a light stroke, and was seen for three days. bearing no doubt before him the eagerness of a brighter seat; then he went to the Roman ship and boarded the ship, where one of the ambassadors had a tent, and there he rested. He entered the house of Aesculapius, which was close at hand, and remained there three days, having been given to him . the pestilence ceased from the Romans: Ovid tells the same, Lib. 25. Meta: Who is Aescupius, and why the Serpent is attributed to him, according to the first origin, we have explained above; Who was then abused out of ignorance
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those of the truth and of the dead , having come to their religion, they met together with the princes* That the devil, who is a wonderful artificer and was able to take advantage of the matter for his own worship , accommodated himself by crediting this serpent or Aesculapius, as also the oracles of Apollo, Jupiter, and others of the like, is seen from all the circumstances ; Since the ethnics did not recognize the difference between bad and good demons , they were driven by them into the worst idolatries by false miracles, and into the clutches of demons, whence they could not rescue themselves by human strength, until that Shiloh, the son of the Virgin,* the almighty Hero would approach and free those who believed in him from the jaws of the devil who had been drawn to eternal death: On the Bacchanals and the Free God, Augustin: lib. 6. de ciu: Dei, chap: 9. remembers; Liberus, he says, they want to call liberation, because males in going forth through her beneficence are freed by sending forth their children; they say the same thing in women that Libera acts, which they also think is Venus, because they also restrain themselves from sending seeds, and because of this Libera the same male a part of the body to be placed in the temple, a female Libera, and for this reason they add, women attributed to Libero and wine to be stirred up because of lust: Thus the Bacchanals are celebrated in the highest degree of madness: Wherein Varro himself confesses to the Bacchantes that such things could not have happened unless they were moved by the mind:* These things , however, later displeased the senate senate, and he ordered them to be taken away. , lib: 8. concerning the Macedonian war, he adds another: For he says that a certain man had come from Greece, who said that he wished to teach a new way of worshiping Bacchus; Now he, in the beginning, caused the bacchanalia to be celebrated by the most honorable matrons of the day; In the course of time, the business was continued with the night; and at last it was all done at night; Whence then both men and women began to flock together in great numbers to a certain place, where these festivals and ceremonies were celebrated; There are endless deeds committed
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of men, boys, and women, and coming to the place, those who would not consent there, were killed and hidden; At last, by a certain Spanish maidservant, a certain matron from Rome, who had followed her mistress thither, after they had displeased her what she saw, things were revealed to a certain young man, and so the matter came to the notice of the consul, who presided over a diligent inquiry, finding all the culprits, who they could be apprehended, the senate, from their assent, committed murder; Of whom there were many thousands of men and women: henceforth the Bacchanalia were forbidden to be celebrated, and it was checked that no one should introduce a new rite into the world without the consent of the senate. 3. And he says that this happened to the consuls Spurius Posthumus Albinus and Quintus Marcus Philippus: From which it is clearly evident that the principle of the celebration of this festival arose from more honorable causes or • um , and then gave way to abuse. Of Orpheus, who is the chief author of this festival, and of the others, who were translated from the Egyptians to the Greeks, they tell another* that he was struck down by lightning, because he had disclosed the secret of the beginnings to the profane and rude; and this, as they themselves convey, if it be true, not only of the revealed secrets, but also of the horrid Idolatry that followed throughout the whole world because of the existence of the punishments of God Opt: Max: He gave not undeservedly: They make up another story of his death, while they say,* him, when he had descended to the underworld, to take Eurydice with him, there he sang the praises of all the gods, above all of his father's Liber, whom he passed over through forgetfulness. His limbs were scattered over the fields, so that they were devoured by dogs; However, they are said to have been collected by the Muses and buried in the place of God in Macedonia, because Apollo was above the rest
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He had adorned him with wonderful praises. Which is likely to have been scattered by the rival poets after the death of Orpheus, since his earlier death is more in keeping with the story.* In which, when the matrons were initiated, who had resolved to maintain a perpetual and incorruptible chastity, and were therefore adorned with crowns of vines, it was not permitted to use wine; When, as with other things, it was transferred from the Greeks to the Romans, it was considered a great anniversary of Ceres, and it was wrong to do it to the mourners.* These solemnities were called Thesmophoria by the Greeks, and were first instituted by Triptolemus for receiving the gift of sowing and crops in the town of Eleusis. he arrived; Whose wife Hyona, who had already given birth to Triptolemus, being desirous of a nurse, took Ceres, who offered herself, as a nurse. Why did Ceres, enraged, give life to Eleusis, and give Triptolemus a chariot drawn by dragons to teach all mortals the sowing of crops, as Callimachus testifies in the hymn to Ceres: Who does not see that these are the most mysterious Chymics even at first glance? For Triptolemus, nourished under the fire (v.t. Achilles by his mother Thetis) by his nurse Ceres, is our philosophic foetus.* who is so long hidden under the fire, and nourished by the fire, as with milk, until he can endure all the violence of the flame: And indeed, if there were no other sign present, that this myth was made from the subject of chemistry, this would suffice; Because it is the property of true chemistry alone, and is not suitable for any other science or art: for who has ever written either historically or allegorically , that men and those infants were wont to be hidden under live coals?
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Who has seen a salamander, an animal living in fire, or a true pyre, except in chemical works? Let the brothers of Palic come forth from the earth, Venus from the sea, the offspring of other monstrosities from other elements, scarcely anything living from the fire, except the philosophical salamander, and the Phoenix from the ashes left by the fire, will be able to come forth: Two are invulnerable to fire, gold and glass, the rest at last they succumb: to whom a third may be added; Namely, the Phoenicians and their nest, the seed from which he is reborn, who is the ashes recycled from the dead.* True, we shall be content here with a very few cited from one and the other author: Arnold: rosary: l. 2. c. 25. When he has given birth to a son, he says, "nurture him so that he can endure all fire . " you will drink the tincture: & Ibid: Therefore make your earth white, and nourish it, if you will, that the son of the father may come to you in need: Also ch. 57. The moisture of metals is fixed and permanent in the fire: therefore with such water we fix the birds flying in the air by the power of our stone, which was created from their own substance. Chapter 41. And therefore, when our Stone is created, let him be born from the womb of his mother; Nor do you put anything else in the way; Because he carries with him the power of his mother's womb, namely that sulfurous nature which freezes all living silver. Now that this Triptolemus, cooked and matured under the fire, is our salamander, our fire, and our earth and lime, our ashes, and our seed, which is thrown into its natural earth, could be proved by six hundred witnesses; We shall place two or three sal∣tems here: Avicenna in a tract: ch. 5. It is not necessary, he says, to reap the seeds, until the time of harvest has arrived: the Philosophers have called this stone of ours the salamander; Because just as the salamander is nourished and lives by fire alone, that is, it is perfected, so also our stone: On fire Lullius: practice: Test: chap. 22. Our sulfur has the power of sealing and forming like itself, and everything that is desired, and not retaining it in itself; And so we say that
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he is the father and the male seed; Through the ignorance of which many foolish and unexperienced alchemists fall, believing that they can fix amalgams without the fire of nature . , especially to harden mercury: Abstract in a crowd of ashes; Afterwards, he says, it is placed in its place, and it is again baked until the pebbles are turned into a dry state; Then it is baked with a stronger fire, so that the bee burns and is crushed and turned to ashes; Oh, how precious is that ash: And Aziratus there: Bake it a hundred times with a stronger fire than before, and it will be destroyed, crushed and turned to ashes: oh how precious is this ash, the children of the earth , and how precious is that from it is done: Riplaeus 3. port: Dry the earth until it is thirsty by calc∣ning, otherwise you labor in vain: And soon: That earth is fixed so that it can endure all • m violence; the other part is spiritual; But all these things must be turned into one thing: And Lull: theor: Test: c. 46. Know that nothing can be born except from female and male, nor can any sprout be generated except from heat and humidity. But let these suffice for the purpose: Herodotus writes that the Thesmophoria originated not with the Greeks, but with the Egyptians ; And because of his religion he revealed the secret of his solemnity to no one. it was lawful, the same author in Euterpe in these words of reproach: But {and} concerning the solemnity of Ceres, which the Greeks call Thesmophoria, let it be a fortunate and happy omen for me, as much as is right through religion, I will utter: And there were daughters of Danae, who this They transferred the solemnity from Egypt, and the women taught the Pelasgas. And therefore it is in accordance with him that this celebrity came to the Greeks: that this sum was always held among the ethnics as Mysteries, and that they were not to be scattered among the common people either from the histories,* then it is known by a common proverb, by which it is said of the most mysterious matter, that it is hidden, like the sacred Eleusinia: On the causes of these sacred or mysterious concealments
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Many people feel in different ways, whose opinion we will add first, and then our own: Mysteries, says Varro, are shut up by silence and walls; by silence* vt it would not be lawful to speak of them; The walls, vt would not be open except to certain places and persons their inspection: As for silence, vt Thomas Valois ad Augustini lib. 4. c. 3 • _ de ci∣vit: Dei commented, it should be known that it seems to have been a threefold cause,* why the demons and priests wanted to be hidden in mysteries and mysteries: One reason was that they could easily discover errors, if it were permitted for the public to talk about them and discuss them. they were worshipped: for example, what was Jupiter like* and who and how first began to worship, and so of other gods:* If indeed such things had been divulged among the people, they would have despised the gods, and thus all the mere gods would have been taken away; And for this reason, as Livy says, from the words orig: lib: 1. Numa Pompilius believed it most necessary to instill the fear of the gods into the people. certain things absolutely unfathomable, which the people would have been horrified, if they had come to his notice;* For they immolated in secret the worst children and pregnant women, and they did many terrible things to appease demons in secret, as is evident from Julian Caesar: As Socrates tells in his tripartite history, that at the city of Carras, where secretly the worst had sacrificed to an idolater in the temple, before going on the campaign of that war, a woman was found hanging by her hair, with outstretched arms and an open stomach, in whose liver she looked to whom the victory was due. In his palace at Antioch they found many chests full of the heads of the dead. says Valois, the priests were very careful, lest their mysteries and thethetes should be betrayed.
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For this reason there was a kind of simulacrum almost in every temple, where Isis and Serapis were worshipped, which seemed to warn, with the seal of the lips, that there should be silence; That is to say, it would be silent that they were men, as it is stated in Augustus: de civi: Dei 1:18. c. 5. There, it was established (he says of Api Argivorus, the credulous king) also about him, that anyone who said that he was a man should be punished by capital punishment. It seemed to warn, that there should be silence; Varro supposes this to mean the same thing, that it would be kept silent that they were men: These are the words of Augustine: Who in the same book: chap. 3. He relates that he was made guilty of a capital crime among the Egyptians, whosoever said that Isis was the daughter of Inachis. But these probable causes, which the said Valois brings forth, appear to me entirely, especially since the horrible idolatry had already taken possession of all parts of the earth; But for us it is a matter of the first origin of the concealment of the mysteries of the Eleusinians; If we were to consider all the circumstances, the first and second causes mentioned before, scarcely the third, would find a place here: That the slaughter of such men, and the inspections of their viscera, through the most terrible abuse of the ethnics, had been visited somewhere, and had been covered up under a secret , it cannot be denied, but that they were committed in these sacred things, which were considered most mysterious, is not reasonable. and other such Idols, or Mars believed to delight in human blood; But of Ceres, Dionysus, and Venus, it is scarcely credible: for before the Ceres or the Eleusinians were celebrated by chaste, immaculate persons, as we shall hear later, and not by others, he at last discovered what was contained in them; This is not such as is repugnant either to human reason or to good morals.* vt then we submit: We therefore believe that the first and second cause of the concealment in the Eleusinians was not undeservedly found, the third in no way: for which we are added; Namely, that the third reason was to be involuntarily and under silence
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to retain those sacred things, lest the artifice by which they were all introduced should become known to the common people, as we have often mentioned above, led by evident arguments, which we pass over here: from the opinion of Thelytus of Methymnaeus, he writes thus about this solemnity of his {and} chosen persons: It was a law to the Athenians that these Thesmophoria should be celebrated every year by virgin women and of honorable life, who during the solemn day, carrying the legitimate sacred books on their heads, as if supplicating Eleusinus, should contend. Access to these sacred ceremonies was not open except to those who were initiated, and the herald commanded the profane to be absent, but Virgil took this verse from here, " Far be thou far from the profane," is the author of Servius. It would be said that a profane person was present at the sacred Ceres: Nor indeed was it permitted to take part in any of them, who was aware of the crime he had committed, exclaiming that with a herald: Neither did Nero the Emperor dare to take part in them, because he was impious, and Antony the prince wanted to be initiated, in order to prove himself innocent : But it is said that in those later times the two Eleusinia were sacred to Athens, small* with whom the guests were to be received, & great; concerning which there was an old law there, that no guest should be admitted to them, as the commentator Aristophanes mentions: to become acquainted with other people's secrets; And therefore they added certain small ceremonies to them, as if they were superficial, into which the strangers were initiated, and Antony himself, the prince, is believed to have been received, not by the great ones. ad∣missed, as if Hercules had once been in Athens, or had asked for it: The great Ceres and the small Proserpina called to the difference: From which it is sufficiently evident that in these sacred lusts or murders, something horrible was done, but that there were very secret causes, why they should be kept in silence: indeed, many, I confess, from the Christians were suspicious
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He presented, as if indecency and heinous crimes were practiced in them; Hence Gregory Nazianzenus in Epiphanus, concerning this sun ; And let not any virgin be abducted to us, nor Ceres wander, nor go to the Celestials and Triptos , and the emos and dragons, and partly act, and partly suffer: for I am ashamed to bring the day to these nocturnal sacrifices and to effect shame from the mystery: Eleusis knows these things, and the spectators of things, which are •• centered▪ and are certainly worthy of silence: And Theocritus; Blessed is Ia∣sion, who has attained as much as the profane have easily believed; in which the eyes are drawn to the intercourse of Ceres and Iasio: But it is not permissible for them to judge otherwise , since so many idolatries occurred among the ethnics, and the true causes, whether internal or external, were not revealed: we see, moreover, that all nations had their own mysteries , which was intended to spread evil among the common people: thus among the Romans the mysteries of God were very closed. For Valerius relates lib. 1. ch. 1. That Tarquinius, king of the Romans, ordered Marcus Duûm, a man sewn up with a knife, as a parricide in the sea before him ,* he had given to Petronius Sabinus the book entrusted to his custody, in which were contained the secrets of the sacred civils, to be transcribed, and Valerius adds, that this was most justly done; because the violation of the parents and of the gods must be expiated by equal revenge: those secrets, however, which were offered to Tarquinius by the Sibyl or some unknown woman written in books, Gellius lib. 1. It is testified in these words: A certain old woman, unknown to King Tarquinius, went to the Proudus, bringing nine books , which he said were divine oracles, and wished to sell them; but when, at the king's judgment, she asked for an excessive price, she was laughed at by him . burned, asking the king about the three remaining books, just as he had done about the six, who, seeing the woman's persistence, bought three books at a price not less than what wasasked for all of them. they are the Sibyllines, and in the sacrarium
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founded, to whom fifteen men went as if to the Oracle, when they were publicly consulted by the immortals. Since indeed human curiosity is so great,* for even those things, which are considered the most mysterious, should be tried to be inquired into; at last what was contained in the sacred Eleusinia was discovered by a certain philosopher called Numenius, and published in writing. that when he interpreted the sacred Eleusinia, that is, the sacred of the town of Eleusinus, to be popular, which were sacred to Ceres and Proserpina, he was afterwards sharply reprimanded for this in a dream: For the goddesses, it is said , the Eleusinians appeared in their sleep in the garb of a harlot and standing before an open lupanar. and when he was astonished, because this did not seem appropriate to the gods, and sought the cause, the angry goddesses answered him, withdrawing themselves from the very habit of their chastity, and going about with the prostitutes : Socrates is said to have argued in this way, see Ludoic. Vi. jn l. 7. c. 20. Aug. of the One of God, he considers that surely it is judgment to restrain them from harlotry: for if she were honest and holy, she would never be ashamed to publish them; Obliquely, he says, these things strike Socrates, and many other things with Socrates, when he commands that the indecent things committed by the gods be hidden in the most sacred secrets, and he who threatens himself with Isis, who is the same as Ceres, the sacred secret of the edi∣rums, with which he compels Isis herself , which he commands to be done, he sufficiently declares that they are evil and shameful. True, I would call this judgment too hot or clever; because from this nothing can be concluded against the sacred Eleusinia.* that Numenius had prostituted harlots, it does not follow that the most chaste goddesses continued those harlotries; It is true that he reasons against all established reason; let me not say anything, that the allegory is in every way speech and treatment, afterwards conceived in dreams, as it were. But who could ask what was finally hidden in those sacred secrets? It is true that many very wise men have sought this, but besides the initiated and the priests no one else
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very few have returned: We, who are far removed from them both in place and time, will judge of them from those things which we have truly known as we can, and from the tongue, as it is said, we will estimate the lion, this is in part the whole, sealed from the sign, and from causes effect: when they were celebrating these sacrifices before Eleusis, the first EVMOLPVS, son of Deiopes and Triptolemus, brought them to the Athenians, or as it were, Eumolpus, fifth from him: we remember previously in lib. 1. Eu∣molpidarū, descended from the Egyptian Priests, who, when they led colonies into Greece from Egypt, and at the same time were not ignorant of the Egyptian Priests and mysteries, are not undeservedly considered the authors of these sacred things; And that, as a firm argument, is established, that all the Priests who were before them were of the sacred Eumolpids, and descended from one ancestor: for so Acesidorus; The natives tell us that he dwelt in Eleusinus before us , but then the Thracians who took supplies to Eumolpus during the war that was with Erechtheus. And Androtius l. 2. of sacrifices: For Eumolpus, he says, was a herald, from whom Eumolpus was born, from this Antiphemus, from this Musaeus the Poet, from this Eumolpus, who demonstrated the sacred rites, but {and} the Priesthood was performed, Sophocles testifies in Oedipus, at Colonus, in these words:
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
*〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
This is the one whose golden key stood in the language of the priests of the Eumolpids. Thus in the field of Eleusinia the place was shown, where Pluto abducted Proserpina, and where the women of Eleusinia instituted the first dance in honor of Ceres, not far from the Agelastos called the Rock, on which Ceres sat after hearing the case of Proserpina, to whom the Rock was close
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there was a place called Callichorus. But the people of the Eleusinians, lest it should be seen as a fable, and as they themselves were informed of the so memorable deed of Pluto, said that it had happened in their own country, and dared to point out the stone monuments. 4. Fast. others are contrary, and say that it happened in Sicily, when Proserpina was gathering flowers: But those of you and the Eleusinians and the Sicilians took it for a story, we acknowledge it as a fable, that everything about the abduction of Proserpina was heard all over the world; so, however, that he shows the thing as if it had been done under a figure; Pluto, who abducted Proserpina, is represented by the mythologists as the earth, and Proserpina as the seed or the roots of the crop; Since the seed is hidden under the earth for about six months, it is said to be with Pluto during that time, and for the same number of months above the earth in the air, with Ceres. do these festivals require so much concealment? Of the seed, and its exposition, let us take it; but concerning our most mysterious Philosophic, which the rustics do not know, only the Philosophers know that it has reasons for concealment; Hence that institution of the sacred, hence the priestly order in one family, hence the golden key in the language of the priests: And let no one be so mad as to believe that the Eleusinians first received grain from Ceres, and taught the rest how they ought to grind and eat bread , or wine from Thebans to Dionysius: No, no; long before those times bread and wine were in the eyes of mortals, as is evident from the sacred letters, as well as from the most ancient profane ones:* Pe∣tra near the Callicums is shown as a Hieroglyphic, because a Pe∣tra always shows us something ominous, if we notice: Thus Saturn struck a rock; thus Cadmus, la∣son, and Mercury, with this stone Argus, they slain the earthlings; learned from the Christians: Eusebius teaches from Clement
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of these , vt follows . : Hence, in the mysteries of Salvation, the Dragon wrapped in a spi∣r • m is used in sacrifices for the memory of deeds, nay, indeed, as a testimony of so much ignominy, as I would say. Pe∣perti & P • repha • you a bull-shaped son; Whence the Poets praise the bull , the father of the Dragon, and the Dragon, again, the father of the bull, and these mysterious deeds were celebrated on the mountain, leading to the shepherd's stimulus: I think the pastoral vt, I stimu • um, the staff, which the bacchanals of the kind carry I cannot recount the sacred rights of this Pere∣phatia , as it were, rap∣m , the gap in the land of Idonera, the pigs of Eubolea, which they say were absorbed by the same gap and two goddesses at the same time: Whence they send Megareus into their Thesmophoriums, which sacred women in various ways, since this story is told in various ways, they celebrate in the cities of Greece, calling Thesmophoria, Scirophoria, Inephabiliphoria, and in many ways bemoaning Peri∣phat • ae robbery: Only clemency interpreter George Trapez • ntio: Ibid ad Aug. de Civ De • , lib. 7. c. 20. Ludoicus Vives, he says, were brought, covered with baskets • to the Priests girls, one of flowers, which signified spring, the other of spikes, which summer: These virgins were called 〈 in the non-Latin alphabet 〉 , that is, baskets; of which Cicero mentions in his Glass of Signs: Although Porphyrios on that verse of Horace , as if 〈◊〉 would carry the sacred things of Juno, he says that the Canephoros of Juno were of Athens: the orgy in which these sacred things were called, as the same Clement says, from the anger which Ceres conceived against Jove: Catullus;
The dark side
c • you celebrate the orgies of your chest,
The orgies that the profane want to hear.
Strabo's book • c. & Servi • s 4. Aeneid: almost all sacred orgies are held by Gra • cis d • cta:* There were images in them of the sacred gods , of the Creator, which Ami∣stes wore
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Hierophants: How can you do it? LVNAE as a minister at the altar ; MERCURIUS, as the harbinger of the sacred: And just as Priapus wandered around in the sacred Dionysus , so also in the nature of Isis the mullet, as Theodoritus testifies, who also signed , that Jove with his mother Ceres and with his daughter Proserpina lay together : Here {que} Ludoicus: H •• c certainly are not at • ò dark, as they need Delius the swimmer;* but more is said about these four simulacra than in many volumes written about the fall: whether it is pretended by the ignorant in those sacred places that they were treated obscenely and that they were treated in the lowest way, and thereforewere hidden, or that Jove with his mother andPros . that the father, and the Dragon again, was the father of gold, or other things of this kind, he detracts from the truth of the matter; For these simulacra, which are like mute poetry and hieroglyphic writing, speak otherwise than what is commonly supposed: what shall I say, or are these things fictitious?* In no way, but by authors worthy of belief, and with every exception , they are brought forward by the major • people, even those who have no knowledge or • r view of this matter, which we are hinting at. Do they bear the image of the Creator? Was the creation known to them? Was Moses their teacher, or God himself from the creatures? It is true that this is very mysterious, and it is very clear that it is captured by the common people : If anyone those first paradoxical, monstrous and contrary to nature (of this kind) he receives, he asks for an explanation from these pretenders; and we, the very few, as far as recent evidence may be brought, will perform briefly: Cirea, the author of the first institution of the Eleusinian solemnity, we noticed a variation; while others like Clemens, Melampodi, al • j Eumolpus, some Eleu∣sius princes of the same name, some daughters of Danae, ascribe it to another Triptolemus: Whoever is responsible, there is no doubt that the origin is from the Egyptians;* As for me, I agree with Eumolpus, for the reason that Eumolpides
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they have long obtained the priestly dignity and knowledge of these mysteries in their family; and that the first Eu∣molpus the son of Triptolemus, viz here Eleusis, is established: viz. from which then the rest of the Eumolpides descend: Ceres gave birth, a girl was brought up, whom Jupiter, who gave* The dragon became conjoined; And some praise the bull the father of the Dragon, and the Dragon again the father of the bull: These words are nebulous and obscure: the reason is that they are envelopes of things; for even if they sounded, they should be understood, or if they sounded, as they are to be understood, they would be easily perceived by all: Thus it is said in the Occult Philosophy of Rosinus; The art of Astronomy & Physics is pat • ns to the readers; Our true art can only be known to the wise: And this is why, says the author of Aurora in the prologue, Lest the stupid and unwise, ignorant by nature, yet knowing how to read abcd, should attract and envy them: Wherefore, those who desire this knowledge must be understood with great subtlety and ingenuity to sharpen, often and often, inside and outside, before and after rolling and turning over the words of wisdom. For it is not wise to speak foolishly, when the understanding of words itself is opposed to the sound of most letters; For he who has received the sound of the word, and has not understood inwardly, is of no use to himself, since what is written is said to him. to read and not to understand is to neglect But what wonder that Ceres gave birth to Proserpina, from her father and uncle Jove; If Jupiter is Osiris and Ceres Isis, Proserpina refers to O • ū, vt is sometimes taken; but by Jove here we mean a strong and bull-shaped father, who represents the power of Mars in fire, who can burn Semele with his thunderbolt, and ripen his offspring; Of course, our agent must be sought first, that he is everywhere; that if you are found in the sign of Taurus, make it approach the violence of Leo, and the Sun will be in Leo, so that the second degree will be complete: it is taken to Sagittarius, and in this third degree the father receives the son, that is, the earth receives the spirit, and in the same way he does not allow himself to flee: if you acknowledge Jove, you will not ignore Ceres and banishment; And thus you will join Gabric to Beias, brother to your sister,
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and there is no need for the testimonies of the authors, because each of their pages emphasizes them: Hermes chap. 4. Willing, says he, to be master, and to guard the art, let him join the son of the water of the cow, which is Jupiter, which is the hidden secret : : And if an animal lies down with a foreign species, something is born that is similar to neither: Of the dragon, Theophilus in the crowd; In like manner, says he, that woman fleeing from husbands, to whom by herself, though she becomes angry at home, so that she does not disdain to be overcome, that her spouse may have his beauty, who loves her furiously, and constantly fights with her, until he has his intercourse with her. performs; And God multiplies children according to his will; The beauty of whose furrow is consumed by fire; Nevertheless, the spouses of the philosopher put that woman to death as she was cutting her own; For that woman's belly is full of poison. Therefore let the grave of the Dragon be dug, and there let the woman be buried with him, who is strongly united to that woman, the more he binds her, and rolls around her, the more his body declines to death mixed with the woman's limbs, and turns all into blood: And when the philosophers see it turned into blood, they place it in the sun, whose gentleness is consumed, and the blood dries up: And then the poison appears, and the hidden thing is made manifest : And in the allegories: Take a bull with flesh and blood, horns, feet with shoes, and turn it into water, and mix it with the blood, draw it all, afterwards roast it until it turns red: But it is thus evident that Jupiter and Ceres, or Osiris and Isis, or Taurus and they lie down with a dragon, but from themselves they give birth to a bull-shaped son or daughter, Orus or Proserpina: for a son born afterwards is joined to his own mother, or a daughter born to her father; and brother to sister, grandfather to nephew, grandmother to nephew; For this is the case only in the philosophical art, and not elsewhere; Thus the bull is the father of the dragon, begetting the offspring, and the dragon is the bull in the same way, with changed names, things that correspond. Rosarius philos: says: Me and my son
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united, nothing better and more venerable can be done in the world: And another son: Tol: Author Rosarius: Join me therefore to my mother and to her bosom; Because I make him contain his substance : Do not, therefore, introduce anything foreign to us, nor cease from work: For every nature is united with its partner, and is completed by it; The mother gave birth to me and through me she is born; For she herself was at first dominated by me ; As for the rest , I shall dominate him, because he has become the persecutor of my mother . She, however, improves herself in the best way she can, just as a mother cares for and nurtures the child she has borne, until I reach a perfect state. Id.: Bind therefore the hands of a nursing woman, that she may not run away from Gabricus, that is, the man; Because when the woman is dead, the toad will be thick with milk: And Fla∣mellus. Then the fetus devours the mother , his father and his body: And the same: The self-foetus struck the mother's womb, which he had previously destroyed , then finally he went to be born to himself, and the son from the two spirits was perfect: And Lull: Codicil: c. 14. For it is necessary for a mother who first gives birth to a son to be buried in the womb of her daughter, and to be begotten by her: thus Phil. 6. put red serum evenly over the pregnant mother, &c. Wherefore they look before the said book: 1. Of Isis and Osi∣rides, her brother, her husband, and her son; If in this way the son is joined to the mother, he is both father and son to himself, and receives the rest of the orders or degrees of kinship and affinity: Aris observes the same in the riddle of a brother leading a sister; And that the Rosary, and others repeat it ; Join our sire, therefore, to his odoriferous sister, and they will beget a son between them, who will not be likened to his parents: for he will be more noble and worthy of them. We have spoken of the basket-making virgins under the festival of Dionysus; It remains for us to add a little to those golden hypocrites of the golden philosophy: God is the one creator of all, and is all in all, and before and above all; Therefore, to the wisest authors of its solemnity, as the most effective cause, and to whom the force and power descend to achieve the perfection of the work, to whom all honor, praise and grace, as the river
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to the immense sea, the benevolent bestower of all good things and gifts, he must regurgitate; Therefore Hermes chap . He who admits the same chapter: 1. that he has this art and knowledge by the inspiration of the oil of the vv , who himself deigned to spread it to his servant: then the simulacra of the sun, moon, and mercury were worn one by one, not as if , a •• iàs the Creator was not present, who is the God of gods, but as creatures* It does not mean that the worst planets, because in them M is more imperceptible to operation than the rest of Jupiter, Saturn, Mars, and Venus; and these would rather be united with him then ; But as the terrestrial planes, or the subjects of one art, are homogeneous: Now in this way, from the most ancient times, it was accepted by the Egyptians to overshadow the virtues or parts of the philosophical work by means of the wandering planets or stars of the sky, that is, by means of known lights and visions . Now , those things which were and ought to be arcane; By signs , by images, the things themselves: for in art the commemorative part is for the whole, and on the contrary, the container for the content, the instrument for the work, the effect for the cause, the word for the sentence, and the letter for the word, or vice versa, for arbi • rio fingen • i, art • figis is placed and signified; Thus also the wisest philosophers, the inventors and possessors of the arcane philosophies, by their marks and signs or hieroglyphic images,taken fromthings known tae; But there is nothing better known, that the sun and the moon therefore usurped these two lights to illuminate their dark and hidden things; to which they add a third, viz., the minister, Mercury;* Nor is it true that the ancients should be thought of by the sign of the Sun,orby the Moon , silver, by Mercury, mercury , by Saturn, lead, by Jupiter, tin, by Mars, iron , commonly understood , for this would not be of great precision and of less utility; • indeed for them to work
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We need not be philosophical; but the consent of all true Philosophers testifies that their metals are not vulgar, of one kind, two in number, several in power and strength, homogeneous in essence and concord, very diverse and discordant in quality;* varied in color, with a different end: the image of the Sun therefore denotes the active power of our subject, the Moon, the passive, and Mercury, the receptacle of both: Thus Rosarius Phil: The Sun, says he, is the male, the Moon the female, and Mercury the sperm, those three He calls their water t • ius ; and adds: But in order for generation and conception to take place, it is necessary that the male be joined to the female, and beyond this the seed is required : And Lullius Theor: test. c. 47. Cook your work equally with residence, constancy, and existence, and compose it according to the composition of those of which you wish to be composed, namely , the Sun and the Moon and our Mercury : Rose . and from the light of lights: And know that they are the same which bleach and redden inwardly and outwardly, viz. the Sun, the Moon, and Mercury. the soul And a little before, every medicine begins with the Sun and the Moon; but to the red is the fermentation with the Sun, to the white with the Moon: the Sun is captured in two ways; in one way for the water of the Sun, in another for the body of the Sun: because the water of the Sun, he says, is volatile and its body is fixed, and turned upside down from the Moon : Hermes reduces these to two when he says: His father is the Sun, his mother is truly the Moon Likewise, when he says that what is above is also below, Hortu∣lanus explains it thus; Here by the superior is meant the worthy, and by the inferior the unworthy, that is to say, let one of these three, or of the Sun and the Moon become one thing, the parts of which are equal, and this union is called the sublimation of the Philosophers: and it is called sublimation, the exaltation of each dignification, because the Moon is dignified and Mercury. For when it was formed, the Moon was in such a position as the Sun and Mercury. They also called Mercury the Dragon, as ibid Rosar. And I further declare that the dragon does not die unless he is slain with his brother and sister, and not by one only, but by two at the same time. Brother is the Sun, Sister is the Moon : But from this it is clear that this form of speakingis more recent
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most frequently, not only the Sun, Moon, and Mercury are to be understood by these simulacrums in respect of this art, but also by the Dragon , the son and father of the bull, the same things are signified ; B • therefore, having sufficiently explained the sacred things of Ceres, we approach Adonis, the lover of Venus, of whom in the first book, when we were dealing with the Syrians,We have dealt with nothing that relates to its solemnity, and therefore we will go over it more briefly here ; Not only in Syria A∣don • a was used to be celebrated with mourning and joy (where it is said that the river Adonim was said to be running during these festive days) but also in Phenicia and Egypt.* whence these first things took their origin: Lament and complaint, which on account of Adonis being believed to be dead, stirred up the common people with great dejection and sadness, with mourning and wailing of Ceres seeking Proserpina, or of the Egyptians deploring the extinct Apis and the newd • It is seen that the manifestos agree in the cause and principle: For why should these people, mad as they are , begrudge and macerate themselves? unless they had some foundation in the truth of the matter? And we know that Adonis was never a man, nor Venus his goddess Amasia, nor Mars himself killed by instinct, much less that he died six months in the complex of Proserpina with the underworld and was or was six months with Venus: At the same times it is imagined to remain alternately with Pluto and the mother Ceres, we say: But why did the Egyptians mourn the brute, which they themselves had extinguished? There was no reason, except that they would hand down their sacred propaganda to posterity with the utmost care and vigilance; and when you are a priest , knowing the real cause, they looked sadder at the death of the bees, because of the news, that is, of being anxious , the common people, as usually happens, turned sadness into mourning, diligence into madness; the same appears to have been done with regard to the loss of Proserpina and the death of Adonis, understood allegorically: Did Ceres lose a daughter Proserpina, whom she did not have? Or does it hurt to be abducted by Pluto, who never was, not even she?
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Let us suppose that there was Ceres and Proserpina and Pluto, and from this she was carried off, those sad things, what is this to living and rational men? Let us suppose that there was Adonis, Venus, and Mars, and that he was carried away by this trick, and Venus, who was alive and dead, was thus kept in a state of defilement, so that he could neither give reasons for mourning nor joy to men, unless he himself But let us admit that in these human minds prone to superstition, and blinded by the mists of the devil, easily slip into the most pernicious and detestable errors, unless that Sun, the eternal God of his Word, which is the very truth, graciously illuminates them with his rays: Therefore } it is not to be wondered at, that Adonia , with so much mourning through Syria, Phoenicia , and Egypt, was carried out without a manifest reason ; , for the same subject, and commonly accepted as the great light of the world, knowing their one and the rest of those names; let them know what it means, of which we have dealt copiously in different places: We say that Adonis is the Philosophical Sun, truly loved by Venus, by whose alluring beauty he is snared by the wild boar having the power of Mars and is killed;* the dead lettuce is placed on cold and damp plants, during which it is kept for six months with Ditus or his consort Proserpina; and the same with Venus: There she acquires blackness, which is the proper color of Ditis, here red, because Venus herself is pink; therefore he makes the white roses purple with his blood; of which the beautiful tincture of Friday some Poë∣tas sing, among whom chiefly John Jupiter Pontanus may be seen in his place. Orpheus, as we have also insinuated elsewhere, in his hymns is always aimed at the common people, and regards the captives of the common people as appropriate, and therefore Adonis seems to be misinterpreted as the Sun.* while thus describing him.
Who brings food to all, whose prudence
Most of you who rejoice in the name of Adoni
Germinum and the same author, both boy and girl
Extinct but shining again in the passing hours.
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In these verses he affirms the most numerous names of the tribe of Adonis, as we have previously enumerated, who supplies food to all things, that is, to Philosophers, and causes all colors to sprout in the work, which is extinguished by blackness, and shines again with the succession of time, which is equally male. and women are always young: Vt has hitherto been demonstrated of Jupiter, Osiris, Dionysus, Apollo, and the Sun, who are one thing: All these agree with the philosophical philosophy of the Sun alone, not in the heavens: for who, but a madman, has the hermaphroditic sex of the sun common to the sun? would he say, or would he say that it is extinct, since it always remains the same with respect to itself, and by what means it is extinguished to us? Who would throw away their prudence except the imprudent? Now let us grant that the Greeks ascribed to the divinity , as is evident from the Athenians, who, affirming that the sun was a burning stone, and not a god, gave poison to Anaxagoras, as Socrates, who felt that the gods were against him; this, however, was done rather out of brute affection and irrational persuasion, than from the tradition of Orpheus or the Egyptians: for elephants in Africa are written to salute the rising Sun, and to worship it as if with a kind of devotion, and the savages or savages of every people } doctrines that the celestial lights, the Sun and the Moon, worshiped for them forever, and there would have been no need for an Orphic institution, or for the transfer of the sacred things from Egypt ; Then we are talking about the causes of the first solemnities, and indeed not about the supervening and the abuse. why (not exposed to the eyes of all the sun of the heavens, the best creature, but not a god) was always denigrated ;* We enumerate those observed by the grace of Vulcan and Mi∣nerva , since they have a singular communion with the chief god of the Egyptians, Vulcan, not unknown to Chemistry, nor to Pallas the Athenian • as their guardian, the goddess of wisdom; For besides these, we are not ignorant of the fact that there were innumerable other festivals among various nations, as well as among the Egyptians and Greeks; but since these are sufficient for our purpose, and explained by themselves, they stand in the light of others,
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We shall deal with a few of them in this place, but we shall dwell upon the rest. , he was the victor; if no one, the victory was left in the midst. We are forced to feel: Who is Vulcan?* or not a worker, or about a worker? Who is Prometheus? Is not Medicine, and other arts, andmetallurgical ? For Aeschylus thus speaks of him: What shall I bring forth, says Prometheus, how many comforts brought forth by me are hidden on the ground? Iron, or silver, or gold , or who found it before me? Surely no one, nor a liar: The arts found which are of Prometheus: This is he: He is the one who borrowed the sparks of fire from the Sun and fixed them on human minds; This is he who showed the way of Hercules to the golden evils of the Hesperides: this is he whose statue was erected with a scepter in his right hand: Of this Orpheus sings thus in the hymn: Rhea's conjunx alms Prometheus, as if he himself were Saturn; Enough about Vulcan and Pallas above:* From which it appears that there was really a mystical reason, why a common altar was erected to these gods, and the solemnity of the lamps was instituted in theirhonor . We state a matter to be considered : From this custom of the Greeks, the eternal nourishment of the Romans seems to have led to the origin, that in the fifth century the reverence of the Virgin Goddess was done; For among • ū he interprets Vesta for thee • r • , often for fire, the god of fire • t •• ū • , with whom the rite of worship is handed down here:* Ovid. 6. Of Fastis, he writes that Vesta had no image or simulacrum among the Romans, as other deities were believed, because fire in itself cannot be well represented; and therefore fire was cherished in his temple, and it was said eternal
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which had the care of the Vestal virgins, whose negligence in fostering this fire was a capital crime: Whence says Valerius lib: 1. c. 1. That Licinus, the pontiff Max: a Vestal Virgin, consecrated to the goddess Vesta, judged that she should be burned with fire, because one night she had been a little diligent keeper of the eternal fire. And Titus Livius lib: 8. of the second Punic war places among the prodigies that that fire was extinguished through negligence: From these no one sees that if Vulcan came into Egypt,* Vulcania {and} the arts were in price, as that Lemnius and the lame, most despised of the gods by other peoples, the greatest and most precious temple with the consecration and nourishment of the bees, merited so many priests (from whom also the kings were chosen ) , whence among the Greeks the Lampadophoria, attributed to his honor, and among the Romans the solemnities of Vesta, had their origin;* But this of the festivals, now of the contests and sports: Although there have been various kinds among different nations, yet we will mention at least four of the most important ones celebrated by the Greeks: The purpose, as said, was the institution of the festivals . _ _ The same is seen in certain ministrations and games, as if confirmed by the gods themselves; And besides, to be more courageous from leisure to business, in peace to war, to compare the strength and health of the body,We know with what intention the Equestrian Games (which they call Tournaments) began long ago among the Germans, and by what author, namely the Emperor Henry the Saxon, the first, or surnamed Aucupus, by what words and persons they were celebrated , and there is no doubt that their end was the worst for this whole nation; Thus it is probable that the most ancients were moved by the same reasonings, while they instituted contests at different times.
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Any non-discerning arbiter will immediately ask? I confess that to fight with arms, and to devote medicine, are very different works, the one for the salvation of men, the other for the destruction (of the enemy) found;* But because Pallas is represented as the goddess of wisdom and studies, and nevertheless a warrior, Apollo the president of the Muses, the inventor of medicine, Vares and the poet, and the slayer of Typhon, the archer and the gilded soldier; that in these contests once the victor had been declared, we did not without reason assert that we had some right in these things; And this because we find the true origin of these games, which we find inscribed to the authors, who first ordered them at their own expense, authority, and judgment, and also the special ends, to whose honors they were appointed, by poetic fables and Chymical allegories. Let the emperor or the king or the prince begin the solemnity in such a manner, that his memory may never be destroyed, so long as it lasts, and afterwards be celebrated in letters; Now it does not help that any king or prince instituted those contests, who valued that authority, that is, he wished, or was able, to summon other nations, near or remote, to one place: it is therefore credible that they were initiated by private persons;* and to such as thought to benefit the common state rather than to look to their own advantage: and that they should be held in greater esteem, that they were the first victors among them; It is worthy of note that in the whole of ethnic antiquity no true, definite and definite end of time, which the Chronologists call an Epoch or era, existed before the beginning of the Olympiads. uncertainty and doubt are rendered: there are those who, in the century which immediately preceded the Olympiads,* They call him Heroic, because at that time the Ethnics suppose that there lived so many gods, goddesses, heroes, and heroines, whose deeds are recorded in fables
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are handed down, but we, since neither the gods nor the heroes really existed, recognize that they can be called heroic, for the reason that so many makers of heroes and gods lived, namely Orpheus, and long before Hermes himself with so many of the wisest philosophers, priests, and kings of Egypt, after He was true of the other Greeks whom we have enumerated before, Linus, Melampus, Musaeus, Amphion, Eumolpus, and the rest; For from these the whole progeny of gods and heroes arose and propagated: From these who or their followers the first Olympic competition in the honor of Almighty God, the benefit of the neighbor,* if we think that it is begun and ordered, we shall scarcely be deceived; Its beginning, as above, some place in the year of the world 3189. (others, 3187. understanding one inclusively, the other exclusively). years about before the beginning of the Christian era (or the Nativity of Christ): which time coincides with the reign of Sabacus, the Aetiopis, king of Egypt, whom Sethon the priest and king of Vulcan followed, and this Psammiticus, who first admitted the pilgrims: That contest was fought on the fifth in every year, or in the fiftieth month, and in that month which was called Parthenius, orthe non-Latin alphabet 〉 : It began on the fifteenth day of the moon, that is, on the full moon itself, after the solemnities had been completed, as was the custom, of the sacrifices, and for five days, as many kinds of the Jews celebrated, namely, running, wrestling, pushing , leaping, and boxing batur: in which prizes were presented to the winners of the crowns, from the ole∣aster, and great honors were held for them, and gifts were given to the subjects, and to the magistrate numerous immunities and privileges: those contests were called Olympic, because Mount Olympus was the place where they took place He was a neighbor, that is, in the region of the Elians, not far from the city of Pisa, and the river Alpheus: Strabo lib: 8.
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He writes that the Olympic contests began after the Trojan era, on the ground that Homer made no mention of the Olympic games, when he mentions only some funeral contests: which reason suggests that Homer probably lived before the beginning of the Olympiads, and so consequently could not make mention of these games to have protected; Moreover, Homer himself does not sufficiently express in what time he lived, or under what kings reigned in Greece, Egypt, or other places; and precisely how much space of time was absent from the overthrow of Troy, or to what kings in what kingdom did it happen; Of whom it will be said later: That is why Strabo truly wrote that the Olympiads began after the Trojan times; Since those Trojan times are comprehended in the Heroic age, and they were pushed back too far back from the beginning of the Olympiads: Of the first authors, it is surprising that there is no sure memory of such a celebrity; The truth must be inherited, from a few beginnings* after great deeds, he had taken: Others say to the Dactyls of the Idaeans that, because they had come from Ida, the mountain of Crete, to Elis, the course of the contest was the first purpose,* and that one of them, called Hercules, was the principal author; they think that Jove himself instituted these contests with the defeated Titans, in which Apollo overcame Mercury by running and Mars won by boxing :* Another Iphitus they want to have instituted them first, as Eusebius and Pausanias lib: 5. testify. Some, among whom Pindarus and Isacius, have left it written, that Hercules, the son of Alcmene, and not Jaeus Dactylus, began Olympias in honor of Jupiter; For after the defeat of Augius, the king of Elis, who was the son of Solis and Iphiboa, say to the batur , because he had not received the promised reward for cleaning up the dung of the cows, that he instituted a contest for Zeus from the raids and spoils of Elis, and named it Olympias. Then they said that Hercules himself had met the Olympic stadium with his feet , and that he had made it 600 feet in length. As the rest of the stadia are of the same number of feet, and that one longer than the rest, Plutarch tells Pythagoras
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from the proportion of the foot to the human body, he had inferred the greatness of the body of Hercules, as A. Gell has. at the beginning of the night Att. Of these four opinions, three are legendary, and at least one seems to be based on historical faith, unless it had so many adversaries, against whom it itself would have fallen: that if they had lived, they would have been older than Jupiter in age and coeval with Saturn, because they extend the time of the Egyptians back to 20,000 years . they want to bring it down, the same thing returns; much more, if to Jove himself the author, who conquered the Titans, there is a longer distance, because he never went out into himself: it remains so that Iphitus instituted them: But who is he? A king is not read, nor a prince; Whence, if he is responsible, the man is deprived, provided with letters and arms; Indeed, since so many and so many allegories have been affected by the first origin, we do not think that the poets wished to hint to the philosophers, about what matter, and by whom the authors of these games were initiated:* For we know Apollo and Mercury from their genealogy, which we have given before: He is strong with his feet, that with arms; This one finished off Argus with a stone, that one finished Python with arrows: this one wearing flying sandals, that one heavy and firm in golden shoes: nevertheless Apollo overcame Mercury in speed: if indeed the glory of this contest is ascribed to the son of Hercules Almena , we do not resist: because he and Jupiter Olympias , as to his father, he owed as much honor, and was able to provide from so many spoils, namely, the son of the Sun. ; Therefore, the richest man, who had his own herds, oxen, and sheep in Trinacria: But of Augia's oxen and the labor of Hercules in the stables below, we will say: From then the beginning of the Olympic games was derived,
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He always hides under fables something of chemical truth, bearing witness to their authors: He finds the same place in Joquendus of the Pythians:* It is evident from the historians and poets that this was a celebrity soon after Olympias and in antiquity: In honor of Apollo, who fixed Python in Delphi with his arrows, who was afterwards buried there, whence it is said that they were instituted: Another Python for a thief, they take another for a huge dragon, and that of the Ethnici; For when the Ethnics believed and presupposed that Apollo, the god engaged in the earth, with weapons and arrows, as he is depicted, had won much, and neither could nor dared to deny it; He was a serpent, or something like Apollo, they did not understand, so they explained, as best they could, that he must have been a robber or a famous dragon: But we Christians, who do not recognize such an Apollo, shall we be content with that answer? At least; Therefore, let us not expound these things inconsiderately , as if we were to say that Apollo was a man who killed a robber or a dragon: for what would be new in these things, that a man pierced a serpent with arrows? Would this be worthy of the memory of so many poets? Or the celebration of so many games? Let us not believe, please: For if these games had begun at such a base beginning, the first authors would have been of the most repulsive mind and judgment; I speak of the beginning of the celebration, not of the success: They imagine that the ear of the python Python, formerly called Typhon (by transposition of the letters), was a serpent not far from the Cephistus brook, which flows at the foot of Mount Parnassus, as he said Dionysus in the book about the situation of the world, born on the earth, struck Juno with his fist, ( of whom we already remember before, how many numerous children he fathered) whom Apollo killed • t; When hehad become a rotten tab, he was called Python .
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On their return, it was reported that the temple of Apollo the Incenser was said among the Traezenians, and that the Pythian games had been instituted in his honor. and the contests of the gladiators and the pipers: Then followed other variations, which we will pass over here: Prizes were taken, and a crown was only proposed from the laurel, which was held sacred to Apollo: And there were the same judgments among the Pythians, which were in Of the Olympians, the team excepted. On the other hand certain apples consecrated to God were wont to be given to the victors, as Ister wrote in his book De Coronis. First in the ninth year, and afterwards in the fifth year, they attacked the Pythias, because so many nymphs were said to have given gifts to Apollo, when Parnasides had killed the beast: first to the Pythias, in which they contended, they had won Castor in the race, Pollux in a fist, and Calais armed with a race Zetem, the discus Peleus, the wrestling of Telamon, the pancration of Hercules, they bear them crowned with a branch of laurel. } which is preserved from Sophocles in this poem, in Oedipus the Tyrant:
〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉
This is, Jeius • Delie Paean: Hence Apollo took the name Jeius, as Bacchus, Eucius; 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 , this is à me∣dendo & Paean 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 à striking: His praises and deeds were therefore sung to appease him, because they were supposed to be pleased, when he was the first , as it is said, that Jupiter, the victor, had sung the praises of Saturn from the overthrown kingdom with songs, taking up a lyre, and wearing magnificent clothes, and his hair wonderfully adorned,
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Tibullus says in the second Elegy:
But come, bright and beautiful, now put on your clothes
Tie up your purple, long hair now.
As you are remembered by Saturn, who fled from the king,
Jupiter then sang the praises of the victor.
But leaving aside the trivia of the Ethnics, we know that such an Apollonius never existed in nature, but that Orpheus and his followers, our Hieroglyphic Poet, understood Apollonius, who had previously been sufficiently described under the Golden Genealogy of the Gods, not the Sun of Heaven, as they think otherwise, nor a man of the earth; That our hero, the strongest with arrows and weapons, kills Typhon, the most monstrous serpent, which, having been declared above, is not repeated here: Of the putrefaction of this Typhon, from whence Python and Pythia received their name, Bernhardus our comrade from Morienus; Unless, he says, it rots and turns black, it will not be dissolved, and unless it is dissolved by its own water it will not be able to be penetrated, therefore there is no union, no mixture, and consequently no whole life: And Rosar, Philos. from the same Morienus: This earth with its water rots and is cleansed, which when it is cleansed, the whole mastery will be directed with the help of God. And Hermes says, Azot and fire wash Latonus and take away the blackness from him ; Where they add another by fire, to be understood as the fire of putrefaction: Rosary Phil. The dragon dies not except with his brother and his sister, that is, the Sun and the Moon, that is, extracted from sulphur, having in itself the nature of humidity and coldness by reason of the Moon, the dragon dies with them, that is, living silver extracted from the same bodies from the beginning which is the permanent water of the Philosophers, which takes place after putrefaction and after the separation of the Elements, and that water is called by another name foul water. These things can sufficiently elucidate who Apollo is, that is, the Sun we know , who is Draco, the serpent, or Python, that is, that stinking water that rots; Luilius Theor made this very clear: Test. C. 10. testifies: Aet, he says, it is necessary to say allegorically that the great
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The dragon is of the four elements, and not in the literal sense, because it is earth, air, water, or fire, but it is the only nature and the only one that contains the nature and property of the 4 elements. This Dragon is read as having been slain at the foot of Mount Parnassus, because from Parnassus our Apollo came forth, on whose summit he dwells with the sisters of the Muses, and thus in its roots he fashions a serpent for weapons: indeed this beast was worthy, which was so noble would be killed by a hunter, since he has so many triplets, as we have enumerated above, who would easily remove the culprit of parricide from his midst. and this reason is not lacking: Because from the stony seeds of Deucalion and Pyrrha, thrown with the bones of their great parents, the sun heating the earth with its rotten rays, this animal Typhon arises; What is said about Diomedes, who brought him back to Troy, is a myth, if it were not a story; of him below: That if the Pythias supposed to Diomede, the institutions of the length of the Olympias were more ancient; in • or this world before not • while six thousand years were established by the Creator, in which Osiris, Isis, Apollo, Castor, Pollux, Calais, Zetes, Peleus, Telamon, Hercules, were long established by the Egyptians, as the gods, and From the ancient gods of origin, if it pleases the gods: From the hymns in which it appears, that the introduction was poetical, and that it proceeded from the literate rather than from the armed: for the god Moses was affected by the musical honor of his beloved Poets; Hence the laurel , and to this day the reward and reward of the hymn . that is, the Muses, when he had slain the beast, offered gifts to Apollo, it is very true; For the tenth part of the earth with nine parts of the water is said to remain at the bottom, according to whether • rum 9. of the eagles, vt is found in the figure of Sen • r •• : These nine nymphs, which also appear to be lymph, offer gifts to A∣pollinus: but not before he He killed the python:
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He who expounds these things in a different way than the matter itself admits, understands nothing in the hidden letters, nay, scarcely the first three, although he has been taught in a∣lijs from where: It has been said elsewhere, and will be said in the following: ∣ chicken, taken from etymology, because he is a physician; Why should the Paean be dedicated to him, because he is a soldier? indeed, with the belligerent medicine, with which he conquers diseases: for Philosophical medicine is conqueror of all diseases in man, whatever the mode of curing them; For unless Saturn were thrown into the kingdom of Tartarus, that is, in the first blackness, Jove would have no power or praise; And therefore Saturn was rightly deposed, or even exterminated, to the son of Jupiter, because it was so fitting in the Philosophical art, not in Polytych: There there is no crime of impiety, but the reward of knowledge, here parricide is detestable and horrible: The clothes which Apollo puts on are purple , we suspect the most: because he must be clothed with it, if he is to follow the Paean: But we do not sing the Paean to Apollo, who is nowhere except among the Philosophers, but to the giver of Apollo; (when he was born he silenced that ethnic Apollo, the spirit of darkness) this is to Christ the conqueror of all false gods and the greatest triumphant:* Now we will pass to the third race of the wet, in honor of Neptune, in imitation of Hercules, who consecrated Olympias to Jove, the contests instituted by Theseus, as Plutarch wrote in the life of Theseus: Others say, in memory of Melicerta, that Sisyphus, the son of Aeolus, was the first to have completed the Isthmias , where he recognized the fall of his kinsman Melicerta, the son of Athamantes: Some want to atone for the death found in Sciron by Theseus; and for other reasons: But they were celebrated in the Isthmus of the Peloponnese, at the temple of Neptune, the most famous there, every fifth year.
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Four fights in the Greeks, those four
Rites? two of the Supreme, there are two sacred things for men:
As Jupiter, Phaebus, and Palaemon, Archemori
The prizes are olives, pines, apples, and celery.
Now Melicerta and Learchus were the daughters of Athamani, king of the Thebans, and • naked • daughters: Athamas, struck with fury, fell Learchus , whom his mother threw into a pool of boiling water; Melicerta jumped into the sea: She was made by Ino and the Nereids, who was called Leucothea; but Melicerta , God Palaemon: Melicerta's body was dragged by Delphi into the Isthmus, which Sisyphus, king of Corinth, saw: From there the Isthmias were taken in honor of Melicerta by order of Sisyphus to be celebrated. are sufficient, which, since they are likewise taken from the mysteries of Chymia, we shall not doubt as to the authors of these plays, that they were very well acquainted with this philosophy : context, would teach enough: let us not mention anything about the bullying of Learchus done in the cauldron by his mother's advice; thus Progne Ityn, Tantalus Pelopidem, Isis Osi∣rides, the mother always baked her son, and all these things are taken from the mysteries of Egyptian Philosophy, and are most agreeable to the Hermetic mastery; ,* which was between Phliuntus and Cleonas Acha • those cities were celebrated in honor of the sons of Archemori Lycurgus. when the lion is killed there, we embrace him: this was the struggle of the Epitaphs
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or at a funeral, in which the victors were crowned with celery, which was a funeral plant, and that to the perpetual memory of Archemus . some say that the region of the Argives was called from the cattle of Jupiter and Luna, which grazed there: Sylua was where Nemea was, in which Io, prostrated by Hercules, wandered under the labors of Hercules; to whom we shall now convey, to be narrated in the following book.
End of the Fourth Book.
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Book Five On the labors of Hercules.
F Love of virtue, strength, and the immense labors of Heracles grew up throughout the whole world, so that no corner should exist in the four corners or parts of the world, where he did not know, it was in every mouth and honor: Whence when some in confession He had taken the praises of the most illustrious men to be sung to Hercules in song, but another Laconicus imposed silence on himself with this dictum, saying: Who is ignorant of the praises of Hercules? We think it to be so inconvenient, and as if absurd, even impossible, that Hercules, so many centuries ago, was received and recognized as the most excellent Hero, or that he was not at all , or at least that he existed in the minds of Poets and Philosophers, as the idea of the most industrious monsters, and of the tamer of tyrants, to take it to be demonstrated to him: Through us it is permissible, that if any Hercules was, whatever he may be called, whether Egyptian, or I∣daean, or Alemannic, or of any other nation, since we know every age, and every quarter of the world, his Hercules, and To present the most laborious to Mars and art, as not op∣pus
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let it be fictitious or fictitious others, and to recall from the farthest • from the underworld: But that Hero himself, to whom so many, such and so many labors are said to have been ordered, we would scarcely ever easily convince the ex∣titifle, not because of the historical monuments, which are scarcely any, but the allegorical poets to They are, but from the consideration of the subject himself, and of the labors, which are handed down in perpetuity. that all the golden genealogies of the gods agree with the aforesaid, more than any other writers, they depict Hercules in their vivid colors. For some poetry is said to be the most artful of mute pictures,* thus the very faculty of speaking poetry cannot be undeservedly esteemed; From which, namely, from the fictions of the most ancient poets, we have drawn whatever we know of Hercules in these last centuries; the historians wrote, who lived after the ages of Hercules, what do they want, when hardly any of them covered the age of Homer, much less of the Orpheus of the Coryphaean poets; who, however, are found to have been in no way contemporaneous with Hercules himself, that is, they could have composed a history of his deeds without suspicion of fiction.* and among others he composed other works, which he himself enumerates at the beginning of the Argonautic, about the labors of Hercules: as well as about the giants fighting with Jove, about the abduction and mourning of Proserpina, about the errors of Ceres, about the mourning of the Egyptians for the sake of Osiris, of the sacrifices of Venus and Minerva, and others of the like kind, which were afterwards propagated to the Greeks for the deeds of the gods and heroes: If therefore Orpheus is the first author of these,* nor before the Greek writer himself, unless perhaps it is more fictitious, much less an alliance of nations, (I always reject Israel)
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they have done evil things, how long a space of time they have been alive before our age, and the like; Let those forerunners keep silent, which they do not understand, judges or other writers older than Orpheus really produce for us; Nor is it sufficient that he should have brought forth in the middle, who is much younger in age than Orpheus and Homer, but extends his fictions or chronologies and the deeds of fictitious persons far above Orpheus; that there is no doubt that many such were found among the Greeks in those times: not only among the Greeks, but also among others. let them be recognized who, as showing the rise of their city or nation from the gods, sitting at home, fashioned great genealogies of the kings who rose from the gods, and looking back on the deeds of those over a thousand years:* We know that Berosus is quite ancient from the Ethnics, and likewise we know several others to mention Abraham, the Israelite of the father. writers, rarely eye-witnesses, and the worst of them drew spiders from themselves:* nor have they left an example of the vain glory of contending for antiquity; some of whose more recent writers impudently affirm that gods and heroes reigned in Egypt for eighteen thousand years; and that is not enough, there are those who pay hundreds of thousands a yearto Egypt, because he has the science of astronomy and geometry: Who isthis ? who has not the nose of a rhinoceros? Who will play with those delirious old men? But it is not ours to give an answer to open lies, since these things themselves* just as Polypis corrodes his feet in hunger: If Orus is the greatest of the gods, who reigned, when Osiris is the right father , and of this Saturn, of this Heaven, who will be the father of this? none, because
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Heaven is without a father: the whole series of gods is, according to the Egyptians, Gael, Saturn, Osiris, Orus, and these are the Gods who reigned for so many thousand years; after these men are said to have reigned kings in the number of 475. to Alexander and to each of whom, if the years be attributed to the Deni, there will be 4750. years in which men reigned in Egypt,* with the creation of the world to Alexander the salt 3629. to the flood 1973. to the first reign of Nimrod 1842. to the same Alexander the years were counted: in which little space of time, not yet two thousand years 475. how could the kings of Egypt have reigned, except every four shall we attribute the years? If, indeed, they count four months as a whole year, as they usually say, the total number of years will be much less than before, but the number of kings will not correspond; But if they consider a month as the lunar year, I grant that they had kings in the time of Alexander for a space of 20,000 years; We are not much concerned about the number; As the monstrous deeds of Hercules, so the incredible birth is narrated; of which Orpheus in the Argonautics writes in this manner.
Here first Hercules r • bur is seen to me: • lim
This Alcmena gave birth to Jupiter, joined to heaven,
When Phoebus hid himself for three long nights in a row
Incessantly, the sun and the light from the sun shine on the day.
When Alcmene was pregnant by Amphitryon, yet she was also to conceive from herself, it is said that Jupiter combined three nights into one, which spent the whole space in expressing Hercules. By which the Poets' figmen∣tion is not only contrary to the truth of the matter itself;* but piety to the gods, nature and its order, good manners, and the institution of civil life, is a sin; mom,
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They imagined one born not of man but of a god, and that not in a common way, but at such an interval of time, that they might be propagated by a thousand others: Thus they imagined Pallas born of Jupiter's Cerebrum, by a supernatural birth, which might suggest the highest wisdom and subtlety of genius: Thus Hercules, since he ought to carry with him strength and constancy, is represented by the most robust, that is, Jupiter, and is descended for a longer period of time. if they will, they express it in a convenient way: Hence so many adulteries, forms of lust, and monsters of vices even by the gods, who invented them; Commissioned by them, they are also sung with praise, and are celebrated in hymns throughout the towns; As if they would say and confess that there were not really gods, of whom they fancied so much and so much, but that they were men, (viz. they did not confess to any priest), or that they were supposed to be gods made by the hands of men, of whom Hermes in the Dial of Asclepius: we recognized the disputant: Hercules was then born in Thebes, Jove the father and Alcmene the mother, as it is said: He had a brother one night, Iphiclus, the younger son of Amphitryon, of wonderful speed and lightness of foot. they contrived, these having been imposed upon him by a certain fate on this account: When Hercules was in the ninth month in the vtero, and in the seventh Eurystheus Sthenelus, the son of the king of Mycenarius and Archippus, Jupiter, of these two, would order him to the other, who would first be eaten into the light, he said: From here to Juno He brought forth Eurystheus in the seventh month, when Hercules was born on the first day of the tenth month afterwards;* It is true that Hercules was at first disliked by Juno because of his mother's skin, but that he had been appeased by Pal∣lades, whose encouragement also provided Juno with milk for the little one, and had made him immortal: And then, they say, a milky way in heaven was made from the effusion of milk, when Hercules
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He will suck Juno's breast more violently; Which they attribute to another Mercurius, as we remember above; For the poets wished that heaven should share in the footsteps of Hercules;* Hence they not only imagine the milky way to have been made by him, but also almost all the stars or constellations they derive from the golden gods and heroes, and their works or deeds, as is evident in those twelve signs of heaven, and others of which Ovid consults in the feasts of Ethnicus, and another Novidius Christianus, and many others: On the following night after the first day of the birth of Hercules, two most ferocious snakes are said to have been sent to Juno, which he killed with clasped hands, the force of his strength in him showing on the threshold of life: Then when he had grown up, although he had the most generous seeds of his nature imprinted, yet without the training and exercise of his teachers he was unable to produce any of them into action ; He learned from Teutarus the Scythian shepherd, or, as they like, from Rhadamanthes: from another, from Thestiades, or Eurytus: From Linus, the son of Apollo, he learned letters, to whom he brought death, as a teacher, when he was flogged by him; Music by Eumolpus: Wrestling and other arts Judged by Harpalycus, son of Mercury and Phanopes; From Autolycus, to drive a chariot, from Amphitryon himself, the skill of riding: From Castor he learned to fight armed; But in astronomical matters he had a very wise man and an excellent teacher, Chiron. Each of these eight placed their attention in educating one Hercules:* For as many nights were required for its conception, so many instructors were required for its rawness; It was procured for them, that he might be and live, by these, as it were: But what kind of Hercules will he become in the end, who will ask, whether at least the legend passed through the mouths of men , or whether such a hero was ever born outside of allegory?* That Hercules was such and only a man, or rather a demigod, is easily persuaded by the ethnics, who believe that Jove is the god, the son of Saturn, engaged in all manner of adulteries, rapes, murders, and the like on earth
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They thought that he had committed, when he had lain with the daughters of many kings and gods, and had children from them, horses and Hercules, one in whom Jupiter had put all the strength of his body and strength; Since Jupiter, the most powerful of the gods, and as though omnipotent, they did not consider it difficult or impossible for him to produce and offer a son, the tamer of so many monsters and the creator of other incredible things, to the world. they did not receive falsehood; That this opinion came to the minds of the people, may be inferred partly from the circumstances previously said: There is no doubt that the name of Jehovah remained among the ethnic groups;* Since Jehovah is almighty, who would send his son into the world, as the monstrous works of the Devil, that is, he would destroy Cerberus, Hell, and other things related to this, only under the shadows, or even, as it is said, out of the open The prophecies of the Sibylles were confirmed among the more learned ethnics, hence he could have provided an opportunity for the representation of Hercules, the daughter of Jupiter, with strength and invincible strength: to which it seems to look, that the same Hercules is represented as having dwelt three days and nights in the belly of a whale, as of Jonah in it is read sacredly, that he was the image of Christ, that he should once remain in the bosom of the earth for the same length of time, and afterwards rise again; And since Hercules is said by others to have lived at the time of Sampson, perhaps many things may be believed to have been attributed to Hercules from this; But Sampson, the strongest hero, was undoubtedly the figure and type of Christ, the conqueror over the devil, who would triumph over all his enemies; Such, I say, as the true Israelitish historians have frequently presented, that many were affected by the labors of Hercules,* vt and the Egyptians themselves, or of some other ethnic group, would seem to have only Heroes: Whether these things are so, or not, we think that the first origin of the fiction of this allegory of the labors of Hercules is brought from elsewhere, and that it is more ancient than Sampson himself, or even Hermes: For here let him mention Hercules, that is to say, himself, together with Prometheus and Mercury, Isis as governor of Egypt,
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that it was established by Osiris, it seems that Hercules is a name of the most ancient memory: And whether it be associated or parallel, or as it is said, it is known from the count, which is not recognized from itself, or from the causes of the effect, the pupil from the teachers, the effecting from the deeds, is foreseen, not we doubt the allegory of Hercules made of so many and so many labors (for if we were to dignify them with historical faith, we would not only be more insane than ethnics, but we would also be deprived of sacred faith) to depict graphically the person of an artist who wants to trace and perfect the most mysterious mystery of the Egyptians; That though at first it may appear dark in the front, yet, by giving it to God, it shines brightly, having dispersed and removed all the mists of doubt, first in general, then under individual labors in particular:* If we consider the parents of Hercules, the father is the chief of the Golden genealogy; Wherefore, then, the father is referred to the same and the son: But from the third book it is clear about Jove, who he is, and whose children are the father: The things shown there together with the present must be firm, so that they can in no way be undermined even by him who is ethnic he prefers to be, than a Christian, provided he does not make a joke out of a figment, they should not be repeated in this place; Thus Hercules is such a son as his father, but in a different respect; This means the internal agent of the art, namely the principal subject, and the other the external agent, namely the artist himself: And indeed, not the entire artist, but rather the operation of his hands, and the invincible constancy and strength in pursuing and completing what is required: For when in addition to this a fine, natural, and not sophistical genius, and wisdom were considered in the artist, these are outlined by Minerua or Pallas, as has often been said, either under Jason, and later under Vlysse; For these three seem to depict the Philosopher Artificer; Of course, Jason, what should be pursued, how he should be treated, and by what art he should be conquered; How much constancy of mind and heart was Hercules able to seek, to work out, and to accomplish the same thing; Concerning which, let no one think that this is our only opinion .
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The golden skins of the nymphs are perpetually searching:
The first of the heroes asked for the holy rate,
Nor was he afraid to search for the warnings of so many through the waves
Then the leaders were rich under Jason and Hercules Colchon;
I know the other gilded skin from the top,
It seems to show the principle that you can take
The second burden is how much you bear, and how much work you do
To put the gross about the mass & rough weight,*
He taught; For what you must take is great
He came to find it, but he was able to return the mass,*
This work is here to work, here the empty ones are trained
Careful of the artisans, there are various toys here
They frustrate themselves and others at the same time by being inactive.
Besides these two, in the Vlysse, in which {and} the errors of the artificer are described as his teachers, which will be dealt with near the end of the sixth book: let them be heroes famous in arms, notable for their deeds, born in a princely place, and contrary to Chymia, given to pleasure {and} repulsed in mind, of humble origin, of no celebrity, except perhaps because they consume many coals, and not a few because of fraud; For chemistry is not an art, but cunning, neither useful, but harmful, nor difficult, nor even laborious, but the most easy, prostituted by so many books to the common people, and to the lowest workers; I would like to agree with this, that censorious rod has been taken so long until it is considered whether he is worthy of it: But by what should he be judged? Indeed, from the dead, who are called* vt consili • rij, thus the most just censors; who prefer falsehood to the assentoftruth . to the chemists, nor to any of those who distill rosé, or make absinthe, but to the artisans proven by their work and effect, which if we have some centuries: we will here quote the sayings of one or the other of them, health and strength will be tested
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the work of the body, as well as of the hands , is required in the artificer ; Geber in sum: perfect: chapter: 4 We say, therefore , he says, that if a man does not have his organs complete, he will not be able to reach the completion of this work by himself, as if he were blind, or crippled in his extremities, because he does not come from the members to which this art is perfected by the mediators, as by the ministers of nature: If indeed the body of the artist be weak and sick , like the bodies of feverish or leprous, whose limbs fall off, and laborers at the ends of life, and old men already of decrepit age, to the completion of the art he will not arrive: This he: On constancy and perseveration, same chapter: 5. & 7. It is also necessary, he says, to be very diligent about the work and to insist on its consummation, so as not to let the work be cut short; Because he would not acquire profitable knowledge from diminished work, but rather despair and loss. We will not bring the rest here; How difficult indeed this art is, though true, is shown by the rarity of true artists, apart from their testimonies; To whom they assert that for the perfection of this art I must presuppose a certain number of things; For thus Arnoldus Rosar: 1: 2. c. 5. In him, therefore, there are three things to be inquired into, namely, the subtle genius of the artist, the works of the hands, and the discretion; which indeed requires riches , wisdom , and books . • this requires wisdom, d • vices and books: Wisdom, to know how to do: Riches, to have the power to do; Books, for the understanding of a different kind , which is in many nations: This is Lullius: Of course the perils of Jason and the labors of Hercules are seen; If any one desires to learn more about the difficulty of chemistry, let him consult a number of books on this subject: let it be sufficient for us here, Hercules, whom we have left in the cradle, (already at a tender age exercising himself to tighten the philosophic serpent) or to be trained among his many teachers , to be understood as the most laborious artist of a philosophical work,* to have shown: Pro • eter father & cognates recognized by the golden genealogy of Hercules, himself of Osiris
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He was established as a contemporaneous man, and the governor of Egypt, left by him, who suppressed the attack of the Nile, had Busirides , Antaeus Pr . Whereupon he imagines that he slew the two former for tyranny; But here Hercules came in the time of Saturn, Osiris, Jupiter, and the rest of the gods, in fact, of the Argonautic expedition and of Troy, if the reason is to be had, perhaps for several thousand years a year , according to the tradition of the Egyptians he would extend himself; But what are his companions the Argonau • these and the Trojans, likewise Mercury and Prometheus, such and such: It has been treated of each and every one of them under each tribe: The teachers depict the disciple of Hercules and put them before the eyes of the ignorant; Hence it is said in Gellius that a judgment could easily be made from Protagoras de Euathlos.* which gave place to the proverb, M • li I hatched a bad egg; These are the arts in which the learned are taught, archery, poetry, music, jousting, chariot driving, horsemanship,the instruction of weapons, and astronomyCastor & Chiron; Hercules, instructed in these arts by these teachers, accomplished so many and so many illustrious things. , even beyond the twelve, we shall slay them: Juno thus {and} the fiercest Hercules himself is imagined to have imposed these labors through Eurystheus, that he might purge the whole world of the horrible monsters:* They mention that the first of all the labors of Hercules was to slay the lion Ci∣thaeron •• um, from Mount Cir • aeron so called; Now this lion was not Asiatic or African, but of a purely celestial lineage, asChrysermus writes about him in the book: 2. Pelo∣ponn of the world: thus I wrote ; He begged Juno to take from Hercules the will to take, Luna in auxihū, with magic spells to have done everything, which filled the chest with foam, and from which this lion was born: Hence A∣naxagoras asserts that this Jona fell to the earth from the world of Juna; He was completely invulnerable, not even to arrows
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it could be done; Some say that Iris, on the news of Juno, took this lion by her lap and carried it to Mount Ophelta. Thus Hercules, when he had scarcely reached the eighteenth year of his age, attacked him , and being unable to injure him with his arrows, he came to the club, which was very heavy with iron, and with frequent blows he prostrated himself, then with his bare hands he snatched it away, and he dissected, he himself stripped off the skin, which he wore for posterity as a covering of the body. Indeed, this is a heroic deed, and Hercules, like the other Sampson , was worthy of gaining the credit of history with admiration, unless the hieroglyphic sign of the lion, the very invulnerable one created by the Moon and its foam, was added.* to have fallen; But what is this, you say, to chemistry, to prostrate a lion? Maxine, I say; Because the Chymic artist is to be met with a lion, on foot and invulnerable ,whowas born from the foam of the moon ; Let us hear one and another testimony of yours , and the lion is better known to the kingthan what comes as a proof . : And a little later: The lion of the man is the glass, and the pendant is the brass . And whose color it is and is called adrop, azot or duenech green: R • plaeus; No body, he says, is entered into unclean, except one, which is commonly called the green lion of the philosophers; In the Epistle of the Sun; Blessed is he who thinks in what is mine, and neither will my dignity be denied to himself, nor will he be despised by a lion weakened by flesh: And in the parable of the hunting of the lion, in the Elder Then he said Marchos to his mother; How do you hunt a lion? and his mother was astonished, and said: I look at him, &c.: But when I bring him over the fire, he produces a scent which the lion loves; When indeed the lion smells the lap •• emilum, v • lox comes, vt enters that glass chamber, &c: And this stone, which the lion loves, is a woman: and what follows: The author of the counsel of the sun and the moon explaining the Epistle of the sun It was said before: Leo, he says, that is, inferior, vile through the flesh.
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here is a metaphor; as Leo the strong and king of beasts is debased by his weak flesh, for on the fourth day into the fourth, he naturally suffers a quarter, so Leo's nature by his flesh debases and eclipses the lunar concordance with itself : art, and which is often usurped as its subject; The last author to be quoted here says that the Sun is a lion, which has a lunar nature attached to it; Behold, it is clear why this lion is said to have fallen from the Moon; For the Revera Leo, or the Sun, falls from the Moon by art. but if our authors are consulted, it will be manifestly evident that they often make mention of the moon's spit; thus the Author of Dawn ▪ ch. 12. Some, he says, of the Philosophers have held that there is a mystery in him, and have called him by different names because of the excellence of his nature; as it is written in the book of the Crowd of Philosophers, because some called it from one place, viz. gum, the spit of the Moon, some from the color, viz . by which he seems to look to Leo, in the place of the Moon, born of foam; For spit∣ is said for foam, and it is said: If we cons∣sulate the Crowd, in many places also the spit of the Moon will be found; For Astratus, who, says he, wishes to attain the truth, should take the humor of the Sun and the spit of the Moon: Pythagoras also, Let us understand, O multitude, that Sulphur, and ealx, and alum, which are of apples and Kuhul, and the spit of the Moon, and combustible spit, All these things, of course, are nothing else but sulfur water and burning water. And Anastratus: In addition to these things I say that there is nothing more precious than the red sand of the sea , and it is the spit of the Moon that joins the light of the Sun and freezes : Belus also, some spit∣tum of the Moon, some of the heart of the Sun have named the same water having brought it, it becomes quite clear what the lion is; And what is the Moon like, from whose souma or spit is he said to have been generated; also, what was the labor of Hercules in this slaughter, namely the Philosopher; For not at a distance with arrows, but with a club, which he afterwards consecrates to Mercury, and with his hand
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He prostrated himself and stripped him, and he took off his skin as a badge of victory: for Basilius Valentinus did so; the animal from the east, he says, must be stripped of its lion-like skin, and its wings become quiet, and at the same time it goes in: the great safety of the Ocean, and with its beauty it comes out again.After these things I heard of Leo , King Baeus , who had fifty daughters, hoping to receive the strongest offspring from Hercules and to make himself grandfather to a numerous grandson, he subjected them all at the same time , which he made pregnant one night, by an example of nature, as rare, so astonishing; which some one testifies for the thirteenth and hardest labor in these verses:
The third and tenth labor is the hardest ,
At the same time, fifty girls went wild at night :
Of course, it is evident that Theophrastus, an ancient Greek author and worthy of belief, wrote in his age that the Indian continued some of the venerable acts of the septuages, but that the author interposed with a remedy. , although it may be that such a thing may be accomplished by art, yet we do not think it worth remembering, that the gods would make Herculeus annumerate.* it is written that a hundred Sarmatic virgins, captured in the war, in the space of fifteen days, as far as was in him, made all the women , perhaps instigated by the example of Hercules: But these skins of Hercules are said to have given birth to all males, because his power is said to be extremely hot ; We accept it as a fact, but not to imitate Proculus, but Philosophus in the secret art in which the male is joined to the female, if you observe the weight, fifty; Nor, indeed, did I ask for any reason from Arnold. 12. c. 16. it is said; And when the earth had exhausted the fiftieth part of its water, he called it to the highest place with a stronger fire ; Of whom Lullius mentions in the codicil • , Paragraph, Partus verò terrae, c. 53 & many others; For earth and water are male and female. Besides the said sons, Hercules took innumerable others from Megara, the daughter of Creon, and other concubines, who were slain by his own father.
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or thrown into the fire; Now it is said that Creon was king of Corinth, whose daughter Glaucus married Jason after Medea, but she perished infected by this poison: hence Hercules is called by Eurystheus,* vt a huge and formidable hydra, having many heads, would kill it in the marsh Lerna of the Argive Mycenae {and} on the side of the field: This • where the plane tree at the source of Amymones was reared in great abundance, seven, vt another, 9. vt another, • 0. the number of the heads whose neck was cut off, the number of the former was continually doubled, unless someone immediately burned the rest of the severed neck with fire. They say that the poison of the hydra was pestilential to men, and that it infected the waters and the air, and that it devastated the plains by the attack . it was suppressed by him: it is clear from the fables that the Canker and the Hydra were transferred to Heaven by Juno; Whence the Astrolo∣gos must be marked by the sign of Can • ri,* that it is odd to the position and magnitude of the celestial sign, indeed, being out of its place, and existing too little, to assign many things taken from the nature of the retrograde fish of Can , and so of the lion, the bull, the ram, the virgin, the twins, and the rest with all the constellations, let the Plane∣tis do each according to his own judgment, when, however, he would have to look at them, whether God had imposed that nature and denomination upon the said stars, or whether it was men for his own discretion; if men, from what cause, is it that which corresponds to the nature of those stars, or from another? And thus they found that all those denominations were founded on fables; fables about the things of the earth, not of heaven, nor to signify anything about the stars of the firmament or the planets of the upper world,* but that they were made and introduced from other secret matters; Geometry, too, can divide Heaven into twelve signsof equal latitude according to the poles of the Zodiac, or into rotid houses according to the fourth and the poles of the World, or according to the hour of the day and the Zenith, but what effects can these divisionsimpart to it? Nothing
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I think that whatever proof is sought from experience, which there is none: I wanted to warn you about this, so that the abuse of Astrology, which was derived from Et• nicus with so many superstitions, should be taken care of, the true and legitimate opposition of Astronomy should be proved: For the ancients The ethnics, who really think that Hy ••• m that Juno and Cancer were brought to the stars, and so also that any other animals migrated into the starry nature of the gods,For if Achelous was a Taurus, and afterwards transferred to Heaven, and arranged in certain stars, he will obtain something of the power of a bull; & so of the rest; This was the foundation of the astrological doctrine propagated to us by the Eth∣nics, which can only be observed from these, or could easily be demonstrated in a whole book, if it were necessary: the very name indicates the inhabitant; but there are many heads, of which if one was cut off, the number of the former increased, and the only remedy was burning with fire; If Hercules had been such as is imagined, it would nevertheless appear that this is an Allegory; Why many? our Serpent in art congealed from water; Our books are full of this description; Basilius Valentinus on occult Phil: ch. 1. How Mercury was born, among other allegories, he relates, that a serpent or hydra was thrown out of the waters, called Orcades, from whose throat vapor and fiery smoke expired; and what he adds, is not to be brought here; Moreover, there are infinite places for our testimony, which we pass over, and at least one of Lullius's only testimony properly and to the point we transfer here; who The∣or: test: c. 3. The fourth, he says, is a certain substance proceeding from its ore, and below it more closely related to the nature of metals, which is called by some vitreous and azot glass, which is the earth and ore of metals, and is called by the high name of Vrisius. shining and white, red in secret, black and green in public, it has the color of a poisonous lizard, immediately generated
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from living silver, the above-mentioned ma • eria, impregnated with the said hot vapor and dry sulphurous in its resolution congealed into a lizard, from which is the form and species of the spirit that flourishes in the mixture, whose mineral heat is multiplied, which is the life of the metal : This lizard, serpent, and hydra is ours; which, if not properly killed, revives, that is, becomes volatile, and remains alive; For the dragon is not slain except by his brother and sister at the same time: but the extremity of his neck is burned with fire; For with fire the whole thing is accomplished: which are sufficient for the intelligent: let me not say anything about the poison of its juice, since there are many pestilences with artificers trying in vain to kill it. . 2. We have done enough.* Then, enraged by the Centaurs, when he was received at Pholus with a drink of wine, he slew a great number of them: but by the Centaurs, Titanes, Satyrs, Silenes, we have no doubt that the wild and heterogeneous parts mixed together are denoted; And the most just and wisest of the Centaurs is received, because the son of Saturn, Chiron, Hercules from the institution of Astrology: But we ask,* What did these things profit Hercules? It may be answered, because he had need of it to hold up the heavens, until he inquired of the golden evils of the Hesperides; or what is truer, I will arbitrarily, viz., recognize the central and subterranean stars, viz., observe the Sun, Moon, and Mercury in conjunction at the same time, placing Saturn in Capricorn, Venus in Taurus, or vice versa;* Hercules immediately girded himself to capture the Boar, who, born on Mount Erymanthus in Arcadia, had been thrown into the field by Diana of the Phocis, where, when everything was wasted, because of the deep snow, he was dragged out of a bush somewhere and bound by Hercules and led to Eurystheus: The birthplace of this beast was not unknown: it is evident that it was a mountain in Arcadia, from which mountain Cyllene also issued Mercury, who is therefore popular with this boar: Son, says Calidus: chap. 10. Go to the mountains of India
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and to their graves, and receive from them the honored stones : Rosinus; Rebis is born in two mountains : And soon, they give Rebis mountains, dragons, earth {and} springs : Rasis, contemplate the highest mountains, which are on the right and on the left, and ascend from there, our stone is found there, and in another mountain . _ _ _ Go up the high mountains planted with trees, for there our stone is found and is hidden: Hermes, take a black stone, a stone from the mountains of India, throw it outside, and what is outside, throw it inside : And Mary: Take a white herb, cl • ram, honored growing on the hills ; All the Philosophers bear witness to the same, that our matter is brought down from the mountains; Thus many wild beasts, tamed by Hercules, are known from the mountains, such as the previously mentioned Leo Cithaeronaeus, Helicon , and so the boar Erymantheus, which it is sufficient to mention here once. Later with Augias* the king of Elis, the son of Solis, having a stable full of dung from three thousand oxen, Eurystheus orders Hercules to clean it in one day; and when Hercules came to him, Augias agreed that he would give him a tenth part of all the animals, if he cleaned that stable that same day; after having been cleansed, when Hercules demanded a reward, he refused to give it to the sage ; From whose spoils, as we have said, Jupiter instituted the Olympic contests. It appears from a proverb that he made a place for the greatest study, labor and care in the matter: For who is greater than Hercules, the son of Jupiter? what is cheaper, to clean the dung? Nevertheless, this burden is imposed upon him, that he may, by necessity, accomplish it in one day, which would have been easier for many; But lest any one think that the animals were few, the number of three thousand is ascribed; And there are those who add, that the stable had not been cleaned for many years, so that in the upper part or floor the cattle were already standing with accumulated dung; Whence it might be concluded that this labor was too much for three thousand other men to be commanded by Hercules, and accomplished: No one is bound to the impossible
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as it is usually said, that Hercules alone is constrained by incredible toil: Thus he had previously undertaken such nocturnal labor to be accomplished in one night, which he could not have refused to many; And he had suffered the deer to be worn out by running, and the lion's hands to rob them, whom he had prostrated with darts or arrows, which would have been a greater artifice than the labor. Thus always the condition and the law added to the labors of Hercules seem to have increased the greatness of the labors of Hercules, so that they were not enough, but they were done in vain and so much. pore: these oxen are rumored to have been the sons of Augia Solis, which he took from his own herd without doubt; Because Solè had a number of cattle and sheep in his own pastures, it has been revealed to memory; What else is meant by oxen under the declaration of the bees, and elsewhere we have said, namely, the Philosophical matter, which when it is found in the dung, that is, it is vile in appearance, and is surrounded by many superfluities, from which it is the Philosopher's duty to be cleansed, not clumsily it is said that this labor was imposed on Hercules; For it is not to be thought that this should be done without labor and suffering.* Of the cheapness and invention of it under the functions of Stercutius, or dung, all the authors agree, of which we will adduce a few; Mori∣enus said, The sages then arranged and said what if you find what you are looking for in the dung heap , take it; He is found to be a liar and useless. Thus Avicenna said. 1. c. 2. Concerning the soul: I found it written in the book: Aristotle, what he did about stones, where he says; Two stones in dung , one stinking and the other smelling good, little appreciated in the eyes of the nations, if the nations knew the health of the heart, they would hold them in honor, but because they do not know their health they despise and leave them on the dung in places and who will unite them, there is the mastery : And Gratian: And if you come upon this in the ster∣core that pleases or is expedient to you, take it nevertheless: And Merculinus with Rosar: It is a hidden stone and buried in the bottom of the fountain, cheap and I was cast out or covered with dung : I would be cheap and of little value and not rare; Ardoldus in a new light: c. 1. It is sold, he says , at a very low price . And Count Bernhard: It is turned for the eyes of the whole world, yet no one knows of those who are in it
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to the world Rosar: Phil: And if I were to call him by his true name, the fools would not believe him to be ; Of its smell, says Morienus, Before it is made it is very heavy and stinking, and after it is made it has a good smell, according to what the wise man says: This water indeed removes the smell from a dead and already inanimate body : for its smell is evil and is likened to the smell of sepulchres. And Calid. ca, 9. And it is a cheap stone, black, and smelling, not bought at a price : You know of its cheapness and contempt, Mundus, Zeumon, and other Philosophers in the crowd attest, that it is not necessary to quote what has been said; When, therefore, the oxen of the Philosopher, or of the Sun, are stabled in so much dung, they are to be cleansed from it by Herculean labor, which any one himself can imagine, even though all the authors emphasize it, when from this matter the world's most vile fetidity and rejected, the most precious medicine of the world must be made.* this cannot happen without effort; The only sufficient witness is St. Thomas de Aquinas, who declares that he indeed found the truth of the art, and perfected its medicine, but that he only suffered from labor and fatigue.* vt he does not wish to begin the art anew unless induced by a certain cause; Further, when at Stymphalus the lake of Arcadia there were birds, so called Stymphalides, which fed on human flesh, Hercules set out for them at the command of Eurystheus;* That instrument called the Crotalus was made by Vulcan, by which only those birds, also called Ploides, could be driven away, and not by arrows: for thus Apollonius, in the second book of the Argonaut, writes of them:
However, you want Arcadia with the bow of Hercules
Ploidas from the lake volucres Symphalidas vllâ
He could drive by force: for I saw this in the light,
But with the same hands he struck Crotalus on high
Looking at the existing mirror, directly those
With a shout they left the shore and went:
If one interprets this labor of Hercules literally, or even in terms of manners, or vulgar physics, one is making a fool of himself.
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that no one sees that they are very frivolous, nay, foolish and childish tricks: for why should such a great Hero be said to drive away the birds of Archyta with the thunderbolt, which could not be driven away by arrows? This should be held against nature, and that with reason: If any one really adapts himself to the work of philosophy, which he only looks at, it is the fairest and most evident of all labors; Now, I dare to assert that, among almost all recent authors, there is scarcely a more mysterious and excellent example of the foundation of art, this very thing, which through so many ages of the world has not been understood and has been brought down to us; I call them witnesses, not imaginary ones (and sailors from a map, or swimming in bark, or writing in a code that was greeted by a cross), but those who recognize that Crotali genus was forged by Vulcan, and that the Stymphalidas birds will return. already calling as flying parts, easily fleeing, now flying birds; Vt and of the Crotalus, or philosophical air, fixed, fixing them: The author of the advice with: the sun: Standing in the crowd, he says, Take care of nothing else, except how there are two silvers of the living , that is, fixed in the air, and volatile fleeing in Mercury ; And Invidus says that this sulphur, that is, quick silver, is wont to flee, and is sublimated, like vapor: for it works with other quick silver of its kind , that is, to retain the air and check its flight, as if with white or red sulfur of its kind let it not be mixed, that is, with gold or silver, it will doubtless flee away: these things he; Who a little later: And Eximidius says; I tell you truly there is no tincture of Venus, except in our air : And to the figure of the Elder; The two birds, he says, are homogeneous, that is, of one nature, and they are hedged in stone; no salt, v • l spirits or aluminum, unless our eagle is called; A bird is indeed a winged woman, which is consumed with corrupting bodies . Lullius's best theory: test: c. 7. That is why such water says, let us fix the birds flying in the air, man • using stones we know • i: Vulcan so {and} by the art and instinct of Pallas H • rcules s • u artificer helped, Crotalo birds Stymp∣phalidas, from rotten springing up in the lake, he can flee; Fu∣gatas
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they are said, when they are no longer seen flying. What is to be wondered at, and the genus of birds is easily explained; that is to say, metallic, although rather the violence of them, than the substance, is to be considered in this:* Hence Hercules, when there the most furious bull, sent upon the fields by the anger of Neptune, blowing fire from his nostrils, and killing all whom he met, and ravaging everything, moved by order of Eurystheus; whom he soon brought captive to him. What is signified by bulls has already been often repeated; Although indeed this one sprinkles fire with his nostrils, yet it is the census of the same, whose and that Jason was tamed.* another of the most numerous: He was soon sent to Diomedes to tame his horses: Now Diomedes was the king of Thrace, Cyrene, the son of Mars, having the most ferocious horses, with which he exposed the captured guests of the Janians: This Heracles, captured by his horses, was to be torn to pieces. the law of vengeance, he cruelly expounded, and afterwards slaughtered the horses themselves. It is strange what Hercules tried against Mars, and his son, when it seems that he was entirely dedicated to Mars for his energy and strength; It is to be noted, that you received from Pallas and Vulcanus, and also from Mercury, what aid and assistance you received, and nothing from Mars: for having been taught many arts by his son Mercury, and frequently admonished by Pallas, he obtained instruments from Vulcanus; Let me not say anything about Linus Apollonius or Chiron Saturnius; Therefore, after the end of his labours, he dedicates and consecrates the altar not to Mars, but to Pallas, and to Mercury; For since it has almost all the names of the world, why is it not also called our horse? Thus Rhasis in the letter; Coopertorium, he says, is our horse's white cloak, and our horse a strong lion covered under the cloak: Diomedes, being the son of Mars and the grandson of Jupiter, seems to be a partaker of the golden genealogy: therefore, on account of Juno, the grandmother of Hercules, he is imagined to be angry; His horses are called unknown guests or strangers
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to tear apart; Whether it is done in Chemistry for those who are considered ignorant of the true subject, it is not necessary to prove, since it is in the eyes and complaints of almost everyone.* It is a sign of the strength of Hercules, that it is said that in the field of Epidaurus, taking oil in his hand, he carried it round, which took that shape, which was called versilis, not far from the temple of Diana Coryphaea. often inflected in number, and of that Milo of Crotonia, and of others of the old and recent ages, more than we hear of human strength, yet we think it is not out of place to look to the same, to which the rest of his works: , will not contain flying spirits, as the philosophers in many places hint; Of course, Morpholeus, Mundus, Astratus, and others in the crowd and elsewhere: and some asserted that this should be done expressly with a flaming sword or forceps; Since therefore this work is necessary to art, the most ancients also expressed it by the similitude of some labor of Hercules: But the oils are sacred to Pallas, to whom art is also: Who, says Armoldus , in a new light: c: 8. therefore will make such water ? I say certainly that he who knows how to make glass: for this matter is nothing else, but of itself it is willing to be joined to itself ; For he has in himself all that he needs. By these words he intimates that he does not require that material,* than the sun of its own inclusion in the glass; Eurystheus then commanded Hercules to bring to him the belt of Hippolyta, queen of the Amazons, which he had heard was very beautiful. And when the brothers Mygdon and Amycus were trying to prevent their march into Bebrycia, they were cut down, and Bebrycia was occupied. , Balthoo to Eurystheum Pilot: Amazon sometimes have been any doubt, when so many writers
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they testify of him, but what is told of Hercules when he fought with them, they consider an allegory rather than a story: the Viragi are those known to the philosophers, women, if the sex; combative and masculine, if you look at the mind; With these must be joined the craftsman of Hercules, and the queen's most precious belt must be taken off, which consists of diamonds and carbuncles, the dearest and rarest of this world, of medicine, I say, white and red, gold a thousand times more precious: on the same journey On his way to the Amazons, Hercules found Hesione, the daughter of Laomedon, exposed to the giant Cetus.* which he freed from Ceto; On account of the fact that Laomedon would not give him the most excellent horses that had been promised to him, he attacked Troy because of the treachery of the man, cut down the king, and gave Hesion to his ally Telamon.* And Priam, the Podar∣cim aforesaid, was bought from Hesion and taken captive, as if he could be his brother, and Hercules afterwards allowed him to reign. And that this is legendary and entirely allegorical will be evident from the following book; Ce∣tus, carried to the stars, is handed over to the perpetual memory of the matter, and Priam restored to the kingdom.* as if it were the cause of Troy being occupied and destroyed again; Hesion of Telamon, viz. Hippolyte Theseus, companion of the expeditions, was granted for bravery, and only the glory of Hercules was retained. To whom Hercules went, the king's oxen, and his guards, Orthro, the two-headed dog, the 7-headed dragon, and Eurytion the minister, he procured to be slain: whom he drove from the island of Gadira in the ocean to Tartessus, the most famous city of Iberia at that time : In these places Hercules erected two columns, as the limits of his labors, the one of which he called Calpen, the other Abylen, and placed them at the bounds of Libya and Europe, which very Bacchus erected two great columns in the East.* These others take for histories, taught by the Ethniques, who , as has been said, had all the most true exploits of Hercules, andthesheep of others ; of the gods
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we believe in the writers, not in those things which are said to have happened in that Heroic century, long before the world was founded by our Creator: therefore we take these things as never done, most often said and fabricated, and always believed: the most ancient Egyptians were far removed from these places they invented, and inserted in their own writings, from whom the Greeks, and from these the rest, were walled off: We have previously related that these places, situated towards the west and the Hesperus from them, were celebrated for their mines of metal , and therefore to the maritime Phoenicians the people of all were first claimed and occupied; And this gave place to the fabricated allegory of the oxen being taken from Iberia: Let us look at these penitent oxen, whose owner or master they are, of whose color and excellence, and we will easily recognize: that Geryon the three-bodied, the son of Chrysaurus,* he had these oxen; Whom some imagine to have been the king of Iberia or Hispania, and therefore it was said of three bodies, because they were three brothers united in kingdoms and concordant; I admit that these things are said, but that they can by no means be proved; Thus the Ethnics expounded, who had never seen the Tricorporum in the nature of things, lest they see the fables of the deeds of Hercules : But why is Ge∣ryon the son of Chrysaurus, born here of the blood of Medusa? Why was there a dog with two heads and a dragon with 7 heads, why were the oxen red? Here all the Allegory, in addition to what has been said before, is shown: And let me not die here any longer, Geryon is he, before whom we have sparingly remembered, of whom the Author of conju∣gij Ex Hermetes says; I saw three faces, that is, spirits, born of one father, that is, one generation, because theirs is one kind, one of which is in fire, the other in air, the third in water . the threefold life, because there is one in which they exist, namely, air, fire, and water, in which the soul has arisen, which they call gold, and they call the divine water: with which, namely, the face , the father joined them, the father, that is, one genus , because they are homogeneous . He who, of those tribes, whose faces are thus vanquished, says; But by the grace of God they remain forever, and together they triumph in a magnificent kingdom
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The father and his son are sitting in one seat, and the old teacher's face appears in the middle, visible through a bloody cloak: From which also the last words about the color pink or purple and the highest red and Tyrius may judge Geryon's oxen: for this color suits those oxen , he is already of adult age; a dog and a dragon, the sons of Typhon and Echidna, are employed as guardians for them; Enough of the above: If anyone says that Hercules really led away those oxen in such and such a color, let him please himself, but not me; For if Hercules had been in nature,* And such a great hero, did he exist as a slaughterer of oxen, or did he want to cut down the king with his own people? Had the oxen gone through so many places over the greatest part of the earth? Shall we therefore believe that they were purple at that time, and have now ceased? If history is looked upon, the playthings are considered playthings; If an allegory, a serious series of events presents itself; Or are we to believe, as the same Ethnographic writers add, that Hercules then separated Libya from Europe and gave entrance to the Mediterranean sea? If we were all to lie in cradles, we might be persuaded by those, like chattering old men, the ancient writers and poets of paganism; Of the same truth are considered the Hercules, whose pillars of Dionysus or Osiris; For thus the Egyptians, remaining at home and contending with their Vulcan, subjugated the whole world, both to the West by the Egyptian Hercules, and to the East by Osiris, erecting the pillars and boundaries of their pilgrimage and victory. that he fought and cut down the king, but in the course of which he suffered many adversities: for Alyoneus met the giants at the Isthmus of Corinth* who • is cut off; Dercylus and Alebion, the sons of Neptune, carried them into Hetruria, from which, when the bull fled and crossed into Sicily, they afterwards named Italy, when the language of the Tyrrhenians was bull.* It was said to an Italian: Eryce, the son of Venus and Buta, king of Sicily, the oxen he desired, and his kingdom deposed for them, the conqueror slew: the Sicilians
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whereupon, making an attack upon the oxen, he put them to flight. It is quite certain, if not too much, that they were subjected to so much labor for slaughtering the oxen; Hence the author of the dawn, said he , have you not read many times, that the secret of mysteries and the treasure of treasures are not placed in the way of those who go before them? But if it were thus publicly placed, it would be deprived in the name of the secret, as the Blessed Gregory testifies: He who carries gold publicly on the road should not be despoiled. That it is evident in the slaughter of these oxen, who are desired by all, plundered, by force, by fraud, by price, and deposited with the kingdom, and with difficulty • and often taken by Hercules, are recovered and kept; Having slain so many sons of the gods, viz., of Earth, of Neptune, and of Venus; But these things are sufficiently understood from the foregoing :* being overheated by the rays of the sun, he aims at the bow or at the sun itself; Wherefore the Sun, admiring his strength and the greatness of his mind, gave him AVREM POCVLVM, in which he crossed the Ocean to catch oxen, as Pherocydes says, in the 3rd book of the Hystoria;* And there he would sail across the ocean, andhe would wave the cup with great force, thinking that Hercules was aiming his bow against the ocean . However, those ancient historians did not disdain to relate it among the histories; When Hercules embraced the golden gift of the Sun, he showed himself to be appeased by gifts; He said to him:Heis appeased by the gifts given by Jupiter himself . it is fitting, (as long as the boasting of Xerxes, the Persian king, who chastised Pontus with a certain number of lashes, moved the A∣thum mountain from its place and dried up the rivers) according to Horatius:
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Not if it is bad now, and in the past
* So it will be, once Cytharâ is silent
He arouses the Muse, and never bows
Apollo tends:
narrow minded but {and}
Appear strong, wise the same
You will wind up too much for a second
Turbid veils.
After this he set out to take the golden apples from the apples of the Hesperides, of which the above book 2. We have dealt copiously: the swan with which he attacked the one resisting him, from which he was delivered by the heavenly thunderbolt:* Then Antaeus met the son of the earth, who 64 cubits in length beat all the strangers into a human rat : Here he challenged Hercules to fight,* whereupon when he was prostrated on the ground, he rose up stronger with his former strength, because when Hercules understood that he had borne him so long upon the earth* until he had expired with the greatest vibration • ū Hercules: To whom Natalius immediately adds an exposition of this kind; Which matter, says he, I believe to signify nothing else, than a certain dogma of the physicians, namely, that opposites should be treated against opposites, as the name of Antaeus seems to signify, which, however, can be transferred to many political actions and judgments, and to the usefulness of universal human life. For when Hercules the Sun exists, the cold earth revives contacts which have been scorched by excessive heat, and therefore brings Antaeus himself back to life; for thus we are taught that cooling medicines are to be used for hot bitternesses, and yet a violent night, lest on account of antipersistence it should become a stigma . but that there should not be dogmas of this kind, which ought to be hidden under the shadows of allegories, both because they are evident to the vulgar by themselves and in fables, and are not to be found of great subtlety (as also to donkeys and sheep, the most stupid brutes, too
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to decline heat and cold, that is, to those who are cunning in humidity and dryness, and to those who, contrary to the intemperance of another, are trying to help one another's intemperance, by the instinct of nature) then, if they were not exposed to the fables, they would be much less known by the fables. let them believe these fables made up of these things, and they will shout; Who of Hercules makes the sun of heaven, who aims his bow at the sun of heaven itself, as we have just said? It would be better to admit that he does not perceive the things hidden under those fables, but rather to mend the expositions, neither of the things to which they apply, nor of those from which they are taken, agreeing: Everything that is said, written, imagined, painted, to a common place it can be adapted either to Ethics, or to Physics, or to fabulous history; nor is this a matter of great art, but of superior memory, but to restore the secret things of their proper nature, to truth, and to a homogeneous state , this is genius and a lover of truth: But one thing is about one truth, and one truth is from one same thing it is predicated, and not of another • , by speaking properly;* How then will Hercules be now the Sun of heaven, now the hero of the earth, or the King of Egypt, or any other? how now contrariety in Physics, soon what in Ethics, a little less than historical personage? how will he be the son of Jupiter, the governor of Egypt, the tamer of monsters, the example of virtue, the perpetrator of so many vices and adulteries, thefts, robberies and murders? All these things do not agree with any truth, but they are very adverse, unless one wants to say and believe everything about everything, true and false at the same time: whatever is said here about Hercules, the same is also about Sason, and the whole of the gods and goddesses } the genealogy, with all the allegories and fables explained up to now, must be understood: We know, and we have proved to the ad nauseam that there is a thing, a thing, a thing that has been held in secret from the most ancient up to this time, about which let all those fables and allegories be fictitious, and produced in the middle of the world, that is, the writings of the Ethnics and Christians; With that one matter, not only do all the stories about Hercules agree, but also the pleasures and other things.
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so that it is not necessary to expound these now on morals, now on vulgar physics, and a little later on the most intricate and alien doctrines of another science: let them be silent, therefore, and complain to Harpocrates the Egyptian, who take things to be explained to themselves, of which they do not catch the shadow, and do not teach them to others they are ashamed, whatever they have learned, meanwhile like ungrateful mules, the mother of all knowledge, after God's most sacred teaching,* in the pastthe most genuine and most genuine one, seeking to be trampled and convicted, and in no way wanting to recognize it among the common sciences, such as chemistry, the progenitor of medicine most useful to the human race and the Queen of the rest of the arts; What? If they were deceived in their judgement, those impudent and impudent censors of God's gifts, who, if they could, would extort, if they could, extort cheese from the raven's beak, extort from the hand of God what they did not receive;
A deceitful art, in spite of the beauty of good things, captured by sweetness
Is it really fun? to the demented Siren:
And what the same author regurgitates more, about his ignorance and dogmatic actions of the powerful, such as about the doctrine in the arcane or about the benevolent will of the witnesses: it is clear that the person of Antaeus is a fictitious person, even without any demonstration, for he is the son of the Earth, that is, from {that} the darkest of father and mother, born from the brain of the Poets, who would make others of common stature equal, being compared to a huge tower; He is mentioned in the administrative office of Egypt , together with Busiris, Hercules, Prometheus, and Mercury, leaving Isis as prefects by Osiris, to go to India. his mother, wherever he touches her, the force that proceeds from it, if the sum of the fixed exceeds the sum of the flying, as we have been told elsewhere abundantly;* Afterwards Hercules sent Busiris, the son of Neptune and Lybia, into Egypt, who had immolated the newcomers from that place to his father Neptune, with the sons of thetwo :
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Busiridis already before l. 1. We remember; I∣ocrates wrote his praises, and Virgil: but Georg: 1, 3. calls him not worthy of praise, when he says;
Who or Eurysthea hard
Or does he praise the altars of Busiris?
Strabo I. 17. Busiris says, there was neither king nor tyrant.* Then Hercules, passing through Arabia, cut down the fiercest son of Tithon among the strangers. Soon the eagle, the daughter of Typhon and Echidna, went to the Cau∣caseos and the Hyperboreans.* He pierced the liver of Prometheus devouring with arrows, and freed Prometheus from the chains of oleaster. Whence Achelous, who had assumed the form of a bull, when wrestling in Ca∣lydon, broke his horn; for which Achelous redeemed Amalthea, the daughter of Harmodius,* the horn of Hercules is given, which he consecrated to Jove, filled with all fruits. Of Busiri we have already spoken before; Tithonus is thought by others to be the brother of Laomedon∣tis, the father of Memnon, the lover of Aurora, and is of that class with the rest; Prometheus is represented by Mercury, at Jupiter's command, as having been bound to the Caucasus, because he had brought to men a man made from sunlight on a staff, and had refused to accept the gift of Pandora, as Hesiod has it, whose liver the eagle eats every day when it is reborn; These things are said to have been fixed by Hercules: Of Prometheus we already remember what he was like, whose lineage and name; We take the eagle as a flying and penetrating matter to the interior, of which the Philosophers have mentioned in many places; Interpreting the eagle as water, as the Elder in the figure of ten eagles, others also add the reason, because, they say, eagle feathers easily take gold if they are gilded, so this water easily becomes golden, unlike other feathers the eagle's feather corrodes the birds like the eagle itself, and so Philosophical water. Hence Basilius Valentinus; Per∣nix, says he, the bird from the south plucked the heart of the mighty beast from the east from the breast ▪ This eagle is shot by Hercules with arrows,
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that is to say, the Philosophical weapons and the Vulcans were fixed: the Eagle became sufficiently illustrious because of the brightness of its parents, of whom I have spoken above several times: , which the Philosopher with the Symbol and Hieroglyphic Insignia Rudolphus 2. Emperor of pious memory, the most beloved of chemical medicine for special reasons, wanted to inscribe on our shield one where the double helmet was superimposed,* after granting the privileges of the Palatinate, as they call it, and the most extensive exemption from the market: Achelous, the river of Aetolia, is turned into a bull, as it is imagined by the poets; Of the horn of Copia and Amalthea, whence it is said, under Dionysus, lib: 3. We have told from the tradition of the Egyptians; by which I mean the golden Philosophical Medicine, full of fruits of every kind,* and we know for certain nothing else in the world, except the most improper; The same Hercules crushed the three-headed thief Cacus son of Vulcan on the Aventine mountain; Twelve days he erected altars,* for Jupiter, Neptune, Juno, Pallas, Mercury, Apollo, Gratius, Bacchus, Diana, Alphaeus, Saturn, and Rhea: And after the victory over the giants they say that Hercules consecrated his club to Mercury, nicknamed Polygios,* which they asserted to have been made of oleaster, and to have repul∣led, and by its roots to have become a notable tree. They say that, before he descended to the underworld, he went to Oeta, and drank from the spring that flowed from there, because of the force of which, when he had forgotten all the past,* he named that spring Lethium, as Demophatus says in the affairs of the Aetoli: Hercules was commanded by Eurystheus to go to the underworld.* and to bring to himself the most horrible dog of the underworld, Cerberus: Here he is imagined to have 50 heads, three canines, and the rest and the tail of a dragon .* having crossed the Acheron and the rest of the rivers of the underworld, he found Theseus sitting on a rock and Pirithous;
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left there, Theseus, because he had been forced by necessity to accompany Pirithous in abducting Proserpina, set him free; Menaetius slew the repulsive cow of the underworld, breaking all its bones;* He took Cer∣berus, whose bite there was no remedy: On the bank of the Acheron he found a white people, from whom he made a crown for himself,* the outer part of the leaves of which is black because of soot: Hence this tree was afterwards supposed to be sacred to Hercules. let it be seen that the strength of Hercules was the highest, and the rest, if they were any of his deeds, we pass over here at will, and we recognize from what has been said that Hercules was never the idea of a most perfect artist, or philosopher, or chemist; It would be easier for the blade to be wrested from the hand of Hercules himself, than for this philosophical interpretation of the fables about them and the heroes, we promise that it will be exempted and erased from the minds of the intelligent, and that it will not be an injury to us, and we are proud: Cacus, the son of Vulcan, for the theft of Hercules he will kill; For unless the temperature of the fire is present, evil happens (as Cacus sounds) and theft or plunder is committed in philosophical cattle; Hence the world in a crowd: I warn you, says he, to be careful, lest the compound smokes and flees. And the Author advises: He who offends my mercy, and scatters my peace, give him a blow of his insolence, by which I may take flight; By this, he says, he touches to avoid an excess of heat ; Hence all agreed upon this, that fire should be mild in solution and coagulation, moderate in sublimation, and strong in reddening: Everything is best theor of Lullius: test: c. 33. Let the natural fire, in which there is active virtue, not be overcome by the elemental fire: And in the first operation of its corruption you must observe, that the fire contrary to nature overcomes the natural heat inborn in the movable subject, in one degree also not beyond that number. Because the individual spirit, which is the preserver of the species,
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desiring a similar generation by the right instinct of his nature, he would be corrupted by the destruction of his essence, and then he would no longer have the desire to make a similar generation: Because nature would go out through corruption and destruction, which are contrary to nature, and would receive a limit and end of consummation: Hence Hermes, c. 4. And do, he says, that he who flees does not want from him who does not flee, and that he rests over the fire, even though the fire is raging . it is said to be closed; And Cacus the son of Vulcan, who delights in spo∣lijs, will return, as he may be evil, he must be shut up in his cave, so that at least one approach to him should be given with guard and care, as Basilius Valentinus, and others about the reign of fire remind us: To which gods Hercules erected the altars from some above, it is clear from tradition, of which we have already mentioned in their proper place: Of the true club Mercury, above all the gods, consecrated not a little omen, who can elicit, in his honor, namely Mercury, all the works of Hercules were perfected and to be dedicated, since the club is an instrument by which animals and monsters, not fleeting or flying, but resisting and fixed, prostrated their neighbours, as if they sought distant fleeing and flying arrows. they should invent a doubt, of course from speech or theft, or I don't know what office Mercury, in which Hercules valued: He had been, not of the common people, that most stolen liquid, and therefore it deserved to be consecrated to Mercury, bloody with the blood of giants, centaurs, and other monsters. It is imagined that it was made of oleaster, which is the sacred tree of Pallas, and turned into a tree sprouting from the new; That he drank from the Le∣theus spring and forgot all evils was credible; Because, as the authors convey, there is in Chemistry a certain noble body, which is moved from master to master, in whose
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in the beginning there is misery with vinegar, but in the end joy with joy: And Hermes Chapter: 3. Come, he says, sons of the wise from now on we will rejoice and be delighted together, because death is consumed and our son already reigns and is clothed in red ornaments and flesh. That Cerberus is forced to be brought is from the Egyptian figures, from whom, as we remember the book: 1. This Homer and other poets translated: but the Egyptians understood nothing else by Cerberus, than the son of Typhon and Echidna, namely, a hideous, shapeless monster. huge, with three heads and tails, or the heads of many dragons; As indeed we have often spoken before of his brothers and sisters, here we send him, with this admonition attached, through all those monsters, what should be understood as vile and contemptible before the common people, having the nature of beasts and serpents, which nevertheless, if well treated, are reduced to a most precious thing can: Pirithous left a seat on a rock, which seems to have been inconsiderate of some of the operations of his art, of which Sisyphus turns the rolling rock; Theseus, however, is established King of Athens, the son of Aegeus nem∣pe, (nephew of Pandion, great-nephew of Cecrops, great-nephew of Erechtheus, great-nephew of Pandion, who is the son of Erichthonius, vt here is believed to be Neptune) about the year of the world 2731. before the nativity of Christ 1231 And before the beginning of the Olympiads in 458, after the reign of Nimrod in 942, yet in the age of Hercules, which is supposed to have lived here, he could not reach Theseus; For there are nearly three hundred years between the age of Theseus, the believed king of Athens, and that of Neptune (who never lived), the eighth in succession from him; Therefore, either Theseus, king of the Athenians, (though others describe his life) is entirely legendary with his ancestors, or if this is true, yet the parents themselves are ascribed to falsehood, and the deeds done, while that Hercules is imagined to have lived in the time of Saturn and the O∣siris, of which We have already done enough: Of the white people blackened on one side by the smoke into the leaves, therefore {and} Hercules says, we add nothing, except that it happened thus by the dusting of the coals and the smoke; since there is no soot in the underworld, unless the factory of Vulcan is imagined to have been there:
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the artist was well acquainted with, of which if I should add from more recent authors the properties, requisites, and circumstances, as to body and talent, fortune and constancy, as well as unfitness in finding labors and diligence and care in completing them, I refrain from this man would grow; But to those reading elsewhere, here passed over, in this kind of study, viz. in other arid business for all, we assert that the sweat before the glory of men is placed before the immortal God; For he says as a poet.
* It is not an easy ascent, if one seeks steep, sweat
Most of us take this away, nocturnal sleepless nights
He dies, and erases what he had just praised in himself
He who wishes to be given eternal leaves in honor.
And Calid, understand, says he, his prowess and valor, but honor, and work: And a wise man said: God has not given you this mastery only for your boldness, strength, and cunning, without all effort: For men work hard, and God gives fortune to men. Worship therefore God the Creator, who wished to show you so much grace by his blessed works: Avicenna verily testifies of himself that he put so much labor and study into this divine art, as more in oil for elucidation at night, than in any other He placed the wine to drink, so that he should know what he should know before the rest. In the same way he says to prove the truth of art: 1. chapter: 2. Concerning the soul, he brings forward three kinds of arguments, one dialectical from philosophy, the other from the sophists, the third deduced from the reason of vision and eyes; Of the last of which, if, he says, I had not seen the gold and silver, I should have said that there was no mastery; but because I see, I believe and know that it is a mastery :
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THE BOOK OF SEXTVS ON THE TROJAN EXPEDITION
3 With the words of Rojana, some of them wish to reweave the excision, or to recall it to the gods, when so many states, which claim to have been built by the Trojans after the war, by the fugitive authors, extend,* it would be to whiten Ethiopia, or to destroy oil and labor altogether; Therefore we do not take so much for ourselves. However, we think that we can demonstrate succinctly and forcefully as if with the finger, how close this is to fables or histories that have never been made. whose conscience may be believed, or not: Nor do we willingly submit to the truth of the critics what we are about to say, with more than a natural sharpness, who would easily scatter these and the like, the truth of the matter immovable, with the winds of words; but we propose and leave it to be decided by the candidates for the lovers of more secret physics. Dictys, a certain Cretan, claims to have been present at the Trojan war, while it was being waged: But because he does not know so much antiquity, which extended beyond the age of Hesiod and Homer, but seems to have borrowed all his things from them, as a fictitious and fabulous writer, who under a false name } he purposely published that writing, we omit it.
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The first reason why the Trojan slaughter is seen at the end of the story,* it is; Because all the founders of Troy are legendary, and the genealogy of fictitious gods leads to their origin, viz. They said that they had a certain reward: Thus Ovid: in Epist: Paris writes, that the walls of Troy were built by Apollo playing the lyre, in these verses:
You will see Ilion, fortified with other towers
The maenia of Phoebe was built by the song of the lyre.
Virgil reports that those buildings were once built by the hand of Vulcan: If it is so, that we have made it to exist, it will have been done by the arts of the Vulcans, which do not exist apart from fire; Neptune, who is regarded as the god of water, took help from Vulcan; Because we need water and fire in common in human affairs, so that without them we can almost do nothing. Thus in that artifice, which Homer no doubt learned in Egypt and transmitted to his posterity, at least fire and water are required, as Vulcan and Neptune, or their functions; Because Aros & Calib; In all our work, they say, mercury (which brings back water) and fire are sufficient for you, in the middle and at the end: But not in the beginning; Because there are also other things which must be removed by the power of Vulcan: Nor indeed is it incredible that the rocks rushed to the walls themselves when they were being founded, and that they arranged themselves in order, after Apollo had played to the number of the zither, which, in the manner of Orpheus singing the rocks & f rae, the trees themselves were moved from their place and ran in amazement, and the ship Argo kept her course straight, but was silently driven astray by the waves, as it has been said above: These were articles of faith for the Ethnics, but not for us also: Be it so, that those first writers wrote allegorically in this way, as if they remembered Athens, that word partly to Neptune, partly to
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That it was founded by Pallas, whom they wished to understand, that it flourished by the arts of Palladius, and by the gifts of Neptune, because it was the most maritime, and sent many ships through the sea ; True, at length the account of Troy is different, that of the city of Athens; For this woman was for some time the mistress of Greece, and fostered many illustrious characters, and was sufficiently well known in arms and letters, while she flourished, as the patex of history; But Troy ceased to exist then, when it had not yet begun; The writings of many have been perused concerning his excision, but of the kingdom, and of the deeds of the kings, they know nothing, except that which looks to his destruction; For he himself is imagined to have built Troy, such a famous and populous city, whose son saw its destruction; As if it were possible, speaking politically, that a very great city could be founded by one, which was of such strength, that it could resist so strong an army of the Greeks for so long; For a royal seat frequented for a long time is of great value to the growth of great vines, besides the other advantages of the region; Hence hardly anything great has begun from the beginning, but that which must last from a small origin very often comes; As it is commonly said, what is soon done is quickly lost: Thus Troy is imagined to have been founded by Laomedon, and to have grown up such a city so quickly, that it is presumed not only to have been the most populous and powerful, but also in it all the finer arts, craftsmen and paintings are said to have been found; That could not have happened in such a short space of time, that is to say, that of a king. It is the field where Troy was; For he who built Laomedon was destroyed by his present ashes, as will be shown later; Moreover, Laomedon himself, if his origin be well inquired into, will be found legendary with all his forefathers; This is what led to his rise from those who had never been in the natural world, that is to say, from the greatest part of God's faith, coming down from Heaven and Earth, vt above lib: 3. It was clear: The second reason is;* All those who ruled and defended Troy are legendary and fictitious
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at the time of the attack;* Whose genealogies and astonishing feats every one himself will be able to consider, since they are in the hands of all: for who, after Homer, does not remember the destruction and remains of Troy? Who has not recognized Priam, the unhappy father of so many children, the aforesaid Podarcima, and Hecuba his spouse? To whose ears did not reach his dream already pregnant with Paris? Who has not read or understood the Iliad of evil? There also occurs a notable theory, that the language of the Phrygians is very different from the languages of the Greeks and other peoples, nevertheless the names of all those Trojans are found to be purely Greek and of Greek origin . It is Asia Minor, which was not inhabited by the Greeks at that ancient time, before the age of Alexander the Great, but rather by the colonists of the Colchis and Egyptians, as we have previously mentioned.* who spoke the most diverse language of the Greeks: Then this is evident from the history, of which Herodotus mentions, a certain king, (of Egypt) when there was a dispute between the neighboring nations about the antiquity of the languages, and each one dictated his most ancient, a boy just born to a shepherd I will grant that he gave nourishment to the dweller in the deserts, and that he commanded that no one should utter any voice to the child present, and that he should obey him, which voice he was about to utter first of all; When he was nourished with goat's milk, and after six years the shepherd approached the child who was already hungry, he began to cry, beak, beak, as if he desired to eat; When this had been renounced by the king , an inquiry was made as to what made the beak sound, and it was found that the Phrygian beak denoted by the tongue the bread which the boy had asked for; But thus the praise of the ancient language remained with the Phrygians: the Egyptians answered, by objecting, that it was not surprising that that voice, the beak, was the first uttered by that boy, which he had often heard repeated by the nurse goat, and therefore above all other sounds He had learned of the words: Since then the names of all the Trojans are Greek , it is easy to see that the Greeks were parents to their children
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given, namely, by poets and writers* and to be nothing but a Greek invention and fiction; Moreover, it confirms the Andean reason, that all the Trojans, the defenders of Troy, together with the Greek attackers, not only led to the first origin of the gods, and were brought down from the beginning, which never was, but also perished in an unworthy death, and in nothing seems to have been reduced; With the exception of those who left their posterity at the mouth of the foreign mouth, and by building many states, they left their dominion , becauseit is handed downtosome . The prodigalsthem all to one, so that there would be no one to tell others of the defeat of the rest. Thus also the Trojans and Greeks from that side cut off their enemies withtheir posterity , and fromthat wonderful thing they became extinct ; The reason for this is that they did not find an eye in the nature of things or in their first ideas , but at least in the shape or in theform of their eyes . The third reason is* that the causes concurring in the attack and destruction of Troy are fictitious and legendary; For as in the egg there is a potential chicken , and in the apple there is an apple tree, so in the apple and egg the whole expedition of the Trojans and the Greeksis destroyed. and at the second table, it is either pretended that those two did not exist, or that they did not feel that way , and the whole Trojan expedition will be overthrown: For if there was no Ouum, Helen will not be, the price of such a work, the most beautiful mule , since apart from human manners from the ouor the daughter of the white swan, shut out, with the hen's milk, nourished by it, from the side of Jove or the wave; And if there had not been an apple from Idos , there would have been no contention between the goddesses, Juno, Pallas, and Venus, in praise of beauty; Neither Paris the arbiter of the goddesses, nor Venus for the sake of Helen's promise, nor this abductor and ad • lter, nor Menelaus with the Greeks abductor • repeater, ini • Ia's avenger and depopulator of Troy; 1 • the most removed cause ▪ is removed & the effect: What? If we worship the gods and goddesses themselves, Neptune, Apollo, Vulcan, who founded Troy, Jupiter, who
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Ganymede to Laomedon's impiety, Juno, Pallas, and Venus, who in their suit carried the torch of war, Peleus, Thetis, and the goddess Erin, and the rest, there is nothing left of the cause, why the Greeks should rush to Troy , why Aeneas And why, this Venus, that of Juno, for so long a time, because of his anger, were tossed about with so many waves? But already above , what was originally understood by the gods and goddesses of the nations, and why they came into the superstition of men, we have shown, and raised them in the middle: What? If the dream of Hecuba was nothing but a dream, this is by a double right, are not all that depend on it the same dreams, viz. followed the burning of Troy? We have already shown before in various places, that whatever is said about Helen, the chief cause of the Trojan war, and her brothers the Argonauts, namely, from the supposition of the very long time in which they are said to have lived: , they have convinced themselves that Helen was absolutely immortal, and they insist twice through their writings, if only they had faith in them . For it is evident that her brothers were with the Argonauts: the daughters of the Argonauts fought with the Thebans: their daughters waged wars against Troy: Therefore, if Helen had not been immortal, she would not have been able to rage through so many centuries without doubt . These he said: We deny that she is immortal, unless they prove it by another argument: Therefore it did not last: And the story is acknowledged, whatever is said about Helen and the Trojan war on account of her.* To whom it is stipulated that he betrays the same with others, having first commended Helen to Theseus and in Egypt to Protheus: whom some imagine was the king of Egypt, of whom above. The fourth reason is at the time, to which no certain writer will be able to assign the truth: Virgil, following Varro, writes that the attack on Troy took place three hundred years before Rome was founded; that
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yet it is proved from no writer of the old age:* This is not clear from Homer, because here he did not record a certain interval of time from some immovable point, or an air of time, but all the persons whom he described, whether gods, goddesses, nymphs, heroes, heroines, he put indefinitely, as is evident let it be evident, that they are all fictitious, and as if they floated in an immense ocean, and could not be recognized by their unmoved surroundings.* for the authors must produce the truths, or they themselves will become the fictions of the matter; Thus Varro, who tried to reduce the theology of the ethnics to reason, whether civil or poetic, (vt has Augustus: • 6 c▪ 2.3.4.5. de civ: dei,) or mythical, whether physical or natural, from Homer pus borrowed from the Trojan expedition, he expressed a certain number of years, the first without any doubt, to which it had happened, which he himself invented from his own brain, and all the pleasures in which the passages cited by D. Augustine are most solidly refuted: This Livius, and other Romans confirmed this as certain, that it had never happened in the real world: But concerning Homer himself, when he lived, to whom he was, where he was buried, there are controversies among the writers, and nothing is certain, viz. Thomas Valois in l . 3. c. 2. Aug: de civ: dei comments in these words: But at what time Homer was, it is quite uncertain because of the disagreement of the writers who make mention of his time; Yet all agree in this, that he was before Romulus, as Augustus speaks of him: l. 22. c. 6. de civ: & Eusebius & Hieronymus in chro∣nicis, & A. Gellius lib. 9. It is established by Eutropius that Homer lived in the time of Agrippa Sylvius, king of the Albans, who was succeeded by Arenius Sylvius, who reigned for 9 years, and who was succeeded by Aventinus Sylvius for 3 years . reigning, to whom Procas Sylvius reigned for 22 years. To him Amulius, in whose seventh year Romulus was born, and thus Homer preceded Romulus by 82 years.
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enumerates the Smyrnaeans,* Chios, Salaminios, Colophonios & others. There are, says A. Gellius, who say that he was Egyptian: Aristot. les traditex Insula Io natum: Vt thus everything about Homer is left uncertain, although some conjectures about the time have been seen as probable: , does not forbid it to be a fable, on the contrary, he convinces it to be true: For times must correspond to times, as things to things and persons to persons, if the truth is to shine forth; The matter will be made clearer by examples: It is known from history which kings reigned in Egypt, and in what year Moses was born; Thus we know, when Christ was born, who ruled the world, and what happened either to the previous or subsequent Emperors; By these consuls, Corinth was destroyed, Carthage overthrown, and all the rest innumerable: From this it is impossible, if Troy had been destroyed, that there should not exist a certain memory of the time and persons, which also extended to those who followed. , this greatly served the Roman writers to increase the authority of their words,* that from the descendants of the same Aeneas, if it pleases the gods, Romulus, whoat least has a mother, their father by a long distance a more noble man, namely the god himself, assigning Mars to themselves; And since Aeneas is said to have been born of his mother Venus, so in Romulus they willingly acknowledged the Venusian maternal lineage and the Martian paternal lineage; As excellent as it is to have a founder of words born of human custom, which is why they numbered him among the gods; See Augustine: l. 22. c. 6. de civ: dei he mentions from Cicero, and vexes the ethnics with these words: But about Romulus, that he founded Rome, and reigned in it, is heard and read, not because what had been prophesied before happened, or because he was received in The letters hold the gods to be believed, they teach not the fact
;
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um , what kind or how much is there to demonstrate the de∣um? Certainly , even if that she-wolf was not a harlot, but a beast, when the portent was common to both of his brothers, yet his brother is not regarded as a god . ) Romulus is presumed to have been born, and nursed by a she-wolf, whence he earned his divinity, but also from the virgin Vesta, a relative of Vulcan, said to be an indecent slander, (if indeed the Vestals were of corrupt chastity among the Roman wives , as is clear from the histories) who He began his reign with fratricide, which is written by some as a joke, and is shown by the eagle, or by his augury.* founded and named, (namely the ini∣tijs of Romulus and Remi) propped up and defended by a goose , (of course against the Gauls rushing into the Capitol) and governed and right by a hen and chickens; (it is possible that he had fallen into the lap of Livia from here, leaving a happy and wise race, so that the Romans would not go out to war without consulting those hen chicks) He ennobled the most audacious man, and by the abduction of the Sabine women he multiplied and established; Mars and Venus are said by the Ethnici to have always been propitious to him, as if they were the protectors of the gods and Trojans; Against whom Augustine argues in all those books concerning the city of God, and refutes them firmly with paganism and falsities of fabricated gods. Who l. 3. c. 3. To ridicule fables, says he, perhaps I think, and not to act gravely on a cause of so great weight: Let us not therefore believe, if it please, that Aeneas is the son of Venus: Behold, I grant: If neither Romulus Mars: But if that, • ur not and that ? Is it right for men to associate women with gods, but wrong for men to mix with gods? A hard or rather unbelievable condition; What was lawful for Venus in intercourse with Mars, this was not lawful for Venus herself : But both were confirmed by Roman authority. And soon c. 4. Someone will say: Do you really believe these things? I believe this to be true : for Varro, the most learned of them, says that these are false, though not boldly, nor confidently, yet he almost admits :
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And ibid . in the same way, as it was said, that the Roman kingdom was founded, destroyed, and from its remains only, so that a new Phoenician came out of the ashes; since all these things about Troy are legendary with the gods of the great nations: If indeed any one believes that Troy was or existed, apart from such a condition or destruction, which is connected with the gods, he will certainly not satisfy the ethnics, but as a house built in the air he will try to defend himself with columns from the blows of the winds. There are those deprived of every light of reason, who believe and embrace the Christian faith, and suppose or believe that Troy had been built or destroyed in the meantime by so many gods; For while we are really faithful Christians, we either silently attack and recapture Troy, and on the other hand, if we asserted it with the Ethnici, we tacitly renounce Christianity by assent to their gods.* whence it is to be known, that some take Troy for the province in which the city of Ilium was, others for the city whose opinion prevailed, and that Ilium be said of the citadel, Phrygia of the region, and Troy of the town; Of the region there is no doubt that it once existed, as we often remember it, and still exists, although it was called by another name. who, as well as other poets, have written wonderful things about certain places, mountains, seas, fountains, rivers, forests, and islands, how the gods were born in them, which memorable things they themselves accomplished, on which rock they sat, and many such things, all of which the Ethniques have before men∣tis
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blindly they accepted and embraced the truths, especially those to whom some god was imagined by the Sympatriot Poets, as we have mentioned before of the Thebans, the Rhodians, the Delians, and others; But even if the places remain, and as monuments and traces of those things which the Poets remember, it does not necessarily follow that they are the truest things attributed to the gods, because the Poets themselves imagined all things, of course persons whether gods or men, times and They could not, or should not, imagine the things that had happened, as if they were facts and probable; for since these things are immovable and as it were unchangeable and ever lasting, the human mind would have inquired about them, where were those places where it was said to have happened; which if he had not found in the world he would have immediately recognized it as a fable. On the other hand, when the ethnics heard that a certain place was mentioned, they were not concerned about the persons and things that had been done by them, nor about the time, because those three things seemed to be changeable and as if invisible: Gods such as the poets they pretended, they did not deny, but they assumed that they were lustful, adulterous, incestuous, and marked with every crime, led by a kind of insane conviction, so that it is permitted to poets to pretend to be gods, and to act in the spectacles of the gods, whatever they please, but in men by no means just as D. Augustine lib. 2. c. 13. Thus he disproves; The Greeks, he says, think that they are rightly honoring theatrical men, when they worship the masters of the usurpers of the theatrical games; The Romans, indeed, do not allow the people of the theater to be dishonored, nor the plebeians, much less the senatorial court. In this discussion, this kind of ra • iocination solves the sum of the question: The Grae • i, 〈◊〉 such gods are to be worshiped, he also proceeded to honor such men, as: The Romans assume: but in no way are such men to be honored; The Christians conclude: Therefore, in no way did they worship such gods : And in the following chap. 14. Next, he says, let us inquire of the poets themselves, the composers of such plays, why are twelve of the cattle prohibited by the law from injuring the reputation of the citizens, by hurling such insolent insults at the gods, why should not the actors be considered dishonorable? By what reason is it right that the poets ' fictitious and ignominious gods are vilified
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actors, should the authors be honored? And Plato, the Greek , should be given the palm more, who established with reason, what kind of a city ought to be, as the adversaries of the states, the poets judged to be driven away; This one, indeed, took the wrath of the gods unworthily, and did not want the souls of the citizens to be corrupted by his fus∣ca . Only Augustine; Since these things are very true, who would admit those Gods but a purely ethnic God, or their effects which are ascribed to poets in certain places even truly existing? But it does not escape us, both the ancient geographers and the more recent ones, to assign a certain place to Troy, where it is presumed to have stood; and that those who are to testify, the Turks of these places report the accolades, I still took marbles from the underground ruins of Troy to decorate the houses . There is no doubt that Troy, built by the gods and destroyed by the Greeks, could be possible, not by an individual . , when the walls are said to have been built by the lyre of Apollo, and at such a height, at which it is written that Troy stood, they could not have built so many buildings, what is the Poetic fame? And the word Troade (whence the Trojans are also called the inhabitants), of which mention is made in the sacred works of Dios Paulus, is well known as having stood in that place, about the time of Christ; but who will affirm with certainty that this was the remains or colony of another ancient Troy, and the marbles dug up there were no more recent than this, than that ancient one? Who would not rather conjecture that this was constructed long after the time of Homer, as prescribed by Homer? imitated They want Phrygia to be named after Phryxus, who, as they say, with a ram, which Mercury made golden, went to Colchis either by air or by water, and when he dwelt there, he gave the name to the region: Apollonius also mentions this ram . 2.
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Argonaut: in these verses:
I think it reached your ears a long time ago,
Phryxus came to the kingdom and walls as Ae • tae:
He carried this ram, which Cyllenius soon made golden
He did, and now it is also hung on a golden oak
The film sometimes crackles which is gentle to the ear.
It is thus evident that Colchis and Phrygia are very neighboring regions, and that the name of the latter was given to the other tribe, and vice versa, which indicates nothing else but the other story, and of the brave vel∣lere of Phryxis, to whom Phrygia is called, and of The Trojan expedition, which is said to have taken place in Phrygia, was invented and introduced from one and the same thing. the nephews in part, in part themselves, took part in the Trojan war, which was decided a hundred years ago by the Argonautic voyage: as you wish, as we have also reported before, Castor and Pollux, and Helen and Clytaem∣nestra, from two ewes produced in one birth, both took part: One , I say, the ram explains the whole of that war, as it was, not, as is usually said, of goat's wool, but of the skin of the golden ram, which Mercury had gilded; This ram ennobled both Phrygia and Colchis, of which we have explained before: It is surprising how the theologians twist themselves in explaining what is to be understood by the Phrygian ram, where they bring forth even twenty different meanings of it, not one of which has anything to do with the matter. nature agrees, but as all err and differ from truth, so they remove themselves from each other and from the middle. But there is nothing to complain about; with a declaration of lead indeed, not ruby, nor to be marked with ink, that it might come into the eyes and mind of a wise man: The same place or land Phrygia Midas ennobled with his golden vow, whose book • _ We remember only one with the golden fleece, and Ovid: in Met: De Pactolo Midae
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having returned the golden lotion, he reports in this way:
The king succeeds the command of water, the golden force infuses
The river, and passed from the human body into the stream.
Now wherewith the old seed of the vein was perceived
The clods of the plains are wet with gold.
Although this method of dyeing does not agree with nature, it nevertheless sufficiently explains what the ancients intended to insinuate by it, namely, the same as by the golden fleece, the occupation of Troy, the abduction of Ganymede, and the like, whence also Midas, the king of his tempests, is given as the richest, who Tmolus The golden mountain of Phrygia, recounting the victory of Phoebus, who had won the victory against Pana, is returned to Phoebus: to these we shall add Ganymedus, the Phrygian, who is said to have been the son of Laomedon, king of the Trojans, raised by Jupiter under the form of an eagle to heaven, that he might minister to him cups for Hebe, under which fable Cicero l. 1. Then question He smelled that some secret was contained, when he said: Nor do I hear Homer, who says that Ganymede was abducted by the gods because of his form, that he might minister cups to Jove: It was not a just cause why so much injury should be done to Laomedon. In what words does Cicero confess that Homer wrote what he wrote about the abduction of Ganymede;* Thus we know that Homer did in all his work, not only in this one, but that he directed each and every one to some other goal, as the words sound: Others try to relate this deed of Jove to history, saying that Jove was the king of Crete, a most impure man. who also abused boys, and abducted the virgins of foreigners, and Tantalus abducted Ganymede, king of the Phrygians, son of Trois, king of the Dardanians, in his favor, so that Jupiter was abused by him, according to Orosius lib. 1. It is true that this was invented by others, and it appears from all the circumstances that it is based on no truth: Lactantius also lib. 1. This is how he feels about Jupiter. What Jupiter
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who in the solemn prayer is named Optimus Maximus, is it not from his first cause, and from childhood he is apprehended as almost parricide, when he expelled his father from the kingdom, and did not wait for the end of the decrepit old man's desire to reign, and when he had taken his father's throne by force and arms, he was defeated by the Titans in war, having defeated them, he spent the rest of his life in the raptures of adultery . For that is usually judged to be tolerable; I cannot pass over the host and the Tyndars, whose houses he rendered most full of dishonor and infamy: indeed, he was of the utmost impiety and crime, who abducted the king's child for rapine . He would do an injury to his own sex : This Lactantius. It is true that there was no love for man, nor for God, nor for the king . The Egyptians, long before the Greeks knew anything about that religion first brought by Orpheus, had been celebrated with many and monstrous figures and allegories; We have sufficiently proved that neither he nor his parents or ancestors, nor his brothers or sisters, nor his sons, grandsons or descendants should or could be listed among Gods or men. For in these Ganymedes is not set forth as the winter rain-sent, as the cupbearer of Jupiter, or of the air, nor as the aqua∣ry sign of the heavens, but of that which is borne by the eagle, that is, of the fixed, that by flight to the highest dignity is emphasized; The sixth reason is the strongest of all , and is taken from the Conditions or Requirements,* without whom Troy could not be attacked: for six are celebrated as fatal events in every place, which was necessary to meet, and had to be conquered by the Greeks, before the victors could escape from the Trojans; The first of these was that Calchas had pronounced, that Troy could not be taken without Achilles, nor with Neoptolemus his son; Another, that the palladium would be stolen from Ilium ; Thirdly, that one of the bones of Pelops should be brought to Troy, before it was attacked: Fourthly, that the ashes of Laomedon should be carried away from the gate:
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Fifthly, that the arrows of Hercules are needed; Sixth, that the horses of the king of Rhesus of Thrace, before they drank from the river Xantho, would be abigēdos. Could they have been turned, and for the purpose of alienation, to the conquest of the state, or the extermination of the nation? Why are these delivered to the advantage of the Greeks and to the detriment of the Trojans, unless perhaps by magic, or by supernatural power? We read in the sacred letters of the monument, how the walls of Hierichus were thrown down by the order of God to the people of Israel, with repeated sound of trumpets, and the approach {and} opened to the conquerors of the Israelites.* but we do not remember that such a thing happened among the Ethnics: this is held to have been most truly done by the God of the Armies; This the most sacred letters, those fables of the poets, have delivered; But in order that it may be more evident that these things are not only fictitious, but for what reason they were finally fabricated, let us learn more about each of them {and} their circumstances: The first was the presence of Achilles, and his valor in defeat against the Trojans: but Achilles son of Peleus & Thetis: (〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉 mud,* as Thetis signifies water) For Peleus, as Isacius left written, by the advice of Chiron's father, he compressed Thetis under the form of a cuttle-fish, hidden in Magnesia, instead of Thessaly; All the gods came to celebrate their wedding on Mount Pelius (where our magnesia is hidden, whence it was originally said), except Discord, who, enraged from thence, threw a golden apple into the midst of all, with this inscription, given to the Fairest: This evil is the beginning of all the evil of the Trojans It was: For at these weddings two seeds are sown, or the main causes are provided for the destruction of Troy; For Achilles was first born of these; then Paris is chosen as an arbitrary judge, who had corrupted Venus, to whom the gift promised, the most beautiful Helen, judged Pomo to be the most worthy; Hence the anger of the rest of the goddesses was kindled in Troy, and the judge of Paris, who was the judge of Aeneas, the son of Venus, and the abduction of Helen, was obtained.
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They write that Helen received several children from Paris, from which it is evident that she was still under fifty years of age; But in what way did Pollux, who came forth with her from a certain place, attend the Argonauts, about 100 years before the golden fleece was claimed? Or how Achilles was born at these weddings, who took his son Pyrrhus with him to Troy? Whence it follows that Achilles marched to Troy at least 40 years after the apple of Eridos had been thrown, which, if the duration of the siege, nor the life of Helen at the time of the Argonautic expedition, add up to no less than 180 years of Helen's age, Troy already conquered, and the maecha recovered by the Greeks: Nor does it follow that Helen was very young at the time, because she was also said to have been kidnapped by Theseus while still a virgin, but restored to her parents. Helinand tells us that Jove loved Thetis, when he was indeed warned not to beget anyone from her, to whom he himself would be banished from the kingdom, that he gave her to the wife of Peleoregus Peloponesus, the brother of Aeson, the uncle of Jason; ∣reum thrown into the midst of the goddesses, with the inscription, as said before: Fulgentius wants the poets to understand through these three goddesses the three lives, namely, through Venus, the voluptuous life, through Juno the active life, through Pallas the contemplative life: But these primary morals it is not likely to be said of them, from all the circumstances, but we do not deny that the second is best agreed upon: From the aforesaid, it is clear that Achilles is Peleus, that is, of the mud, or mountains of Peleus, and Thetis, the goddess of the sea or water. a son, grandson of Chiron, great-grandson of Saturn, C • li and great-grandson of Earth; For he must be so, because he must be chosen by the philosopher to fulfill his work; Absent from those great-grandfathers, he will scarcely have a generous character; Let us hear the truth of his training and learning, and also of his election; Achilles, after he was born to the goddess Thetis, because she knew that he would become an invincible hero in war, therefore you hold him
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He was accustomed to bear heavy things: for it is said that he was hidden from her during the night under the fire, as if all mortal were consumed, and that he was anointed with ambrosia during the day. And when he treated his brothers in the same way, the rest died, this one surviving and remaining a widower, whence Pyrisous, as if living in a fire, and with his lip burnt, Achilles afterwards called out, as Apollo reports: lib: 4. Argonaut: When indeed the father Peleus intervened in the education of this son, the enraged Thetis fled, and took himself into the number of the Nereids. When he had received an answer from his mother, that he would perish in the war against the Trojans, he hid himself among the daughters of Lycomes in the habit of a virgin, under which he suppressed Deidamism, and received Pyrrhus from her. It was necessary for Achilles to overthrow Troy, and the other Greeks of Vlyssus were given this business, that they might search for Achilles, who was hiding somewhere, and bring him to Troy; Which he accomplished with the utmost care and counsel: and this is the first and foremost of the memorable deeds of the Vlysses.* which we are dealing with here: By Vlyssem we really mean an artist with a prudent design and excellent art; Through Achilles, that subject of art, without which nothing can be done: These two agents, one external, the other internal, unless they are present at Troy, the siege and conquest cannot be successfully accomplished. Geber describes an artist who excels in a double endowment, namely, the body and strength of Hercules, and the mind or genius of Vlyssus: We have already dealt with the matter of the body before book 5; Let us add the words of the same Gebri about the mind here: who in sum: perf: par: 1. c. 5. dealing with impediments on the part of the artist's soul; We say, therefore , he says, that he who has not a natural talent and a soul that scrutinizes with precision the natural principles and the foundations of nature and the artifices which can achieve nature in the properties of its action, will not find the true root of this most precious knowledge. Then he rejects those who they have a hard neck, in all things
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by searching for an empty intellect, who can scarcely understand common speech, and similarly learn common works with difficulty, who easily conceive every fantasy, who believe that they have found the truth ; whether, and separated from the natural principles; Whose brains, being filled with many fumes, cannot receive the true intention of natural things; Those who have a mobile soul, from opinion to opinion and from will to will, just as those who only believe this, and will the same thing without any further foundation of reason, a little after that, and believe one thing likewise and will another, who are so mobile, viz. they can scarcely consume the least of that which they aim at, but they rather leave it diminished; Those who are unable to see any truth from natural things, no more than beasts, as if caught in the mind, madmen and children, who despise knowledge, and do not think that it exists, whom this knowledge likewise despises, and themselves from this most precious work in the end he repulses those who are poor, abandoning money, and affirming this wonderful knowledge themselves, but they are afraid to put in the expenses themselves; therefore, although they affirm it and investigate according to the same reason, yet they do not arrive at the experience of the work because of the greed of money To these therefore, he says, our knowledge did not reach: for how could he who was ignorant, or neglected to seek knowledge, easily reach it? And chapter: 6. He affirms that those oppressed by poverty, although they have hitherto been said, from want of dispensation they are compelled to put aside this so excellent a mastership; Others, who are curious, detained by the various cares and anxieties of this world, even if they possess the rest, never reach the end of art: So the same Geber c. 7. under the form of an epilogue, he describes the true artist or Vlyssus, whose words may be seen in the said place: Whence Isaac lib. 1. c. 99. of the works necessary to the end he says thus: But whoever the chemist does not understand all these things before he begins to work, he neither now, nor will he ever
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in time he would produce anything in the various art of chemistry, although he always worked: he might reach some art by chance, just as a blind man shoots a sparrow with an arrow, but otherwise he could not reach it. Vlysses has thus been sufficiently described, with what qualities of mind he should be poised, so that Troy may be most powerfully occupied by his counsel, as is evident in the speech of Vlyssus against Ajax, in Ovid: It was successfully accomplished by the Greeks; And his first praise is that he brought Achilles; To which business he had taken upon himself, he proceeded to explore the barricades of the virgins with all his clothes, so that at last he found Achilles, and brought him unwillingly to Troy, together with his son Pyrrhus, a young man with red hair. We admit that this is the most arcane in the Chymics, and handed down by Homer with a wonderful artifice; For there is a certain subject in the nature of things, without which the philosophic artist can do nothing; That subject is to be investigated by the genius of Lysseus; He is properly called Neoptolemus, and was born of Achilles of burning hair; However, how he is born, he must proceed, as Thetis proceeded with Achilles; This is the most mysterious secret, hardly ever expressed by philosophers in clear words;* But if you had perused the places agreeing to the truth of this treatise, you would have noticed that in Rhodes at Adonis and elsewhere in the fence: There is one of all neoterics who delivers this secret very openly; Since this is the key of the whole art, I will quote his words here: It is mineral, he says, it is equal, it is continuous, it does not vaporize unless it is excited too much, it partakes of sulphur, it is taken from other sources than from matter, everything it breaks down, dissolves and collects, likewise it freezes and kicks, and it is artificial to find, it is a compendium without any expense, at least a small one. The rest is to be seen in its author, who is known: If then our Vlysses has Achilles, and acquires Pyrrhus; For the father is brought for the son's sake? But whence, you ask, is this Achilles charged? We must look to the parents and birthplace of Achilles; The father is Peleus, the mother
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Thetis, you will recognize from names and omens, Thus Peleus entered Thetin, hidden in the form of a cuttlefish: A kind of cuttlefish is known as the water cuttlefish, which, when caught, stains the water with ink; The place is Magnesia; Hence our Achilles is called Magnesia by some; Hence Flam: from Democ: for magnesia, bleached, does not allow bodies to be broken, nor to cast the shadow of Venus: And soon: What magnesia but the whole compound? And; See the beautiful Magnesia, and wonder how it brings through one multitude: And Dardaris in the crowd; Furthermore, be aware that the body of air is governed by magnesium: Mosius; The silver wine of Cam∣bar is magnesia ; Pythagoras; Therefore it is not necessary for you to let go of that magnesia and silver from the wine: for when they are compounded, it is the greatest compound, which is one of ten ; Pandul∣phus: Belus, Astratus Rarson, and others, as many as possible in the crowd, remembered the same, whose sayings we omit; Indeed, the same Pythagoras thus defines the whole art; And it must be known that the knowledge of this art is nothing else than the sublimation of steam and water, the union of living silver with magnesia and the body ; Nor does it matter that some people believe that this name was given to him out of envy; Whence Rarson; This indeed is our greatest secret, which the envious have called Magnesia, because of the secret itself: Therefore diligently boil the magnesia itself in its vessel, so that it all coagulates and contains itself: Magnesia thus dwelling, or Achilles (or Pyrrhus arising from thence) he who is fou∣ed under the fire by his mother's energy, and from Chiron, who established so many heroes, and among them his cousin Jason, edu∣cetu • , so that indeed Pyrisous and our salamander may become, may approach the occupation of Troy:* But through the siege of Troy and its reduction to ashes, nothing else was mystically and occultly understood by Homer, than the philosophic vessel, in which Helen and Paris, the principal matter is contained, tightly enclosed, by its surrounding fire, vaporous and digesting period and scope; It is Helen herself, on account of which the agreement is made, in whose bosom the cowardly Paris hides adulterously; For in one subject there is a double force, active and passive, male and female, with which it coincides
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Achilles, however, was slain by an ambush at Paris in the fan of Apollonius Thymbraeus; Thus lies he, the strongest of the Greeks, slain by the most cowardly and womanizing Trojan; But it had to be done this way; For our fire must at last be extinguished by its water, and water has the first force of action, of course in solution; But then it is necessary that Achilles should die, but afterwards, when the color has already turned to the best, all Troy is occupied by the art and knowledge of Pallas, plundered and reduced to ashes, yet dearest and not to be despised: for from them the immortal Phoenix is born and revives; From these, I say, the rest of the colonies are sent to foreign shores, Aeneas,* Diomedes, Antenor, and others, who found and obtained new kingdoms. The circumstances of which we shall make more clear in particular in what follows: Helen and Pollux are returned from one egg, male and female; Thus Helen and Paris dwell in one chamber, and they marry our philosophic Marchesita by one name; Achilles and Pyrrhus are our brass, our magnesia, our fire; Thus a war arose between the Marquisite and the Magnesian, in which the latter predominates, then the latter; Do you want examples of the authorities? See Morienus; who says: And also say to Mary : There is nothing that can take away from brass its obscurity or its color; But Azoc is like its covering, that is, first when it is boiled; for it colors him and makes him white, and again the brass dominates Azec and makes him red; Another philosopher says: Azoc cannot substantially remove its color from brass, change its veil, except as far as sight is concerned, but the brass can take away its substantial whiteness from Azoc, because in it is a wonderful fortitude , which appears above all colors. ∣rienus: Laton is thus Achilles, or his son Pyrrhus holding the place of his deceased father, and Azoc Paris with Helen; Achilles was the first to fall down, as it was said, because Azoc covers the broad and devours him; But after Pyrrhus dominates the red hair, who overthrew all Troy, and everything to his own
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brings back the color, that is to say brass: these things are now clear to those who know, so that the sun does not appear brighter in the south; But this kind of light is of no use to the moles, nor to the night, because it is more voluptuous to blind them than to see: Achilles had an invulnerable shield made by Vulcan, and a spear Pelias, of whom Cvidius;
Achilles' wound, which he had once done to the enemy,
Pelias's spear was the aid of the wounded.
And that is not called wrong; Because Pyrisous, or py∣rausta, or salamander, our Achilles must live in the fire, and not be consumed; Therefore, it is necessary that a very strong shield be made to Vulcan, with which he can receive the blow of the flame, and defend himself; For it was not enough that Achilles had been instructed by his mother and son Chiron, so that he could fight against fire, but Vulcan's shield was also necessary for him. he himself had first slain Hector, the strongest of the Trojans, whose corpse was redeemed from the Trojans with an equal weight of gold; Thus when he was slain at Paris in the fan of Apollo, his corpse was similarly leveled with gold; For since these heroes are entirely of gold, and almost all of them come from golden gods, they are not undeservedly made equal to gold; They also mention that the bones of the same man were kept in a golden vessel, which was given to him by Bacchus of Thetis, and that he married Medea to him after his death in the Elysian Fields: that Bacchus or Dionysus is the golden god who granted the golden vow to Midas, was evident from what was said before; That is why Thetin was blessed with that vessel. The reason why he married Medea in the fields of Elysium is because our dead Achilles comes back to life, and becomes a healer of the sick, that is, he relieves the bodies of men from various ailments and affections, and brings them as it were a new life, as Medea herself is said to have done with her medicines , as before said; For he was not only nourished by Chiron with the entrails of lions, wild boars, and the marrow of wild boars (nor with human milk).
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but also besides the art of playing the lyre and all the herbs, the skill of hunting and shooting, the laws of equity and prudence are said to be instituted in the medical art, as Staphylus writes in lib. 3. of the Thessalians: On account of his death they say that the Muses and Nymphs all wept; For the nine eagles with the tenth part of the black earth, or the Muses with Apollo, that is, the Nymphs and the Lympha, moistened his body with their tears; for thus it is agreed: Whence it is said, when he was brought to Troy by ship, that he descended to the earth, and raised a fountain of waters: this was his state of great strength, because it is supposed that he was intoxicated with hot poison, for the reason that the wound caused by it could not be consolidated, unless his admonition to the wound; In that he expressed the magnetic power of the avenging cabinet of our time; Lullius Theor: test. c. 81. He mentions such lances under the Allegory in these words: Son, take a physician from our air and earth, and pierce his side with a sharp lance all hot, and you will see that only black and burnt cholera come out of his stomach, which will have the power to intoxicate, and to poison the whole world. And soon he describes our Pyrrhus in this way: And the nature of this red head is a substance very fine and smooth, and in complexion very hot and dry and sharp: But this is Pyrrhus with the red head, or Achilles Pyrisous: The same Lullius Helen And the same in the same chapter: he describes it very well, while he says: After this, add to them two parts of the white feet: The nature of those white feet is a moderately coarse substance, and in quality meatocritly cold. a substance moderately fine by its moist and warm quality. This is what Lullius says: Blackness coming over represents Paris, because she extinguishes the red head, but after Helen and Paris, the rest of the Trojans, whether brass or Pyrrhus, are completely uprooted from that redness, so that red dominates after all the colors conquered; That this is the genuine explanation of the Trojan battle, those who have learned something of the true Arcane will be my witnesses, who with Vlyssus after many errors
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They recognized our Achilles; Nor should it seem surprising to anyone that a Philosophical work was described by Homer through a battle or siege of a castle or something , since this allegory and method of description is most suitable for this work, because in our work there are two things, an agent and a patient, between {and} that continued war, until one was subjugated, and the red-haired Greeks dominated the Trojans; In this manner Dionysius Zacharius the Gallus, who is testified to have written in the year 1548, or a little after, took the most venerable allegory from the Emperor's prince's siege in a certain town, which was true history, since 3 or 4 years before him At the time and in the manner in which he happened to be in Germany, he thus expressed the Trojan war, though unconsciously, by his work; Let us pass before all the rest, usurping the same similitude, who are very many, and we will bring forth the testimony of Basilius Valentinus on this matter, who concludes thus in a vitriolic description; And for the sake of memory I say this, that if Paris can protect the noble Helen from this intervention, lest the generous city of Troy be destroyed by the Greeks any more, and Priam and M· nelaus be affected with sorrow from this, then Hector and Achilles will become concordant to obtain the kingship blood by war, and possessing the Monarchy with his grandsons and all posterity, by multiplying their possessions with great riches ; To whom he adds, that other learned men also took up philosophic thoughts about this Trojan war, that, while we were eating these things and had already come to the sixth book of Chalcographus, I was warned by a certain friend and a very learned man (not unlike our argument) inscribed on Achilles Redivus, in which Achilles, Chiron, & other persons are reduced to a certain medicine: But if it is so, since it has not happened to see him so far, we congratulate ourselves on him, and give the reader the sparkling truth about the Trojan expedition We set our eyes on him with pleasure:* The second requirement for the capture of Troy, besides Achilles, was to snatch Palladium from the Trojan citadel, what kind and what it was, and whence
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when he came, there were different opinions. We are told by Apollodorus, lib. 3. We embrace the traditional story, which says that when I∣lus founded Ilium, he followed a discolored ox and prayed to the gods, vt al. that a sign appeared to him, but then fell Palladius of three cubits, who seemed to be walking of his own accord, holding a spear in his right hand, and a strainer and a spindle in his other hand. Pherecydes affirms that all images, not made by hands, but cast down from heaven to earth, were called Palladia, as if there were more of her kind. The city of Phrygia, which obtained its name from that incident, as Dio and Diodorus thought, had fallen. times was brought to the Trojans. Ovidius lib. 6. He tells of the feasts, that in the time of Julius, king of the Trojans, who was the fourth from the Dardanus; to which the Trojans are told by the Dardanides, the foretold Palladium fell from the sky into the capital of Troy. the times of King Priam* who kept it a little negligently. Wherein it is to be wondered at, that the Christian Mythologists at least narrate how Palladium either fell from heaven, or happened to be impressed upon the breast by the fear of Mi∣nerva, and add nothing as to the causes of its existence or non-existence, as if it were enough that Eth∣nicorus had produced mysteries, and We say that Palladium, falling from the sky or springing from the fear of Minerva, is legendary, and that it fell from the brain of Homer, and from some other place, to which, as if to some god, all the other poets took hold, and they lifted up to heaven with wonderful praises; whence I was not incon∣cinné
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a certain Homer pretended to vomit a great foam from himself, and to make others sit down with some of the Greek poets licking up his spittle; For through these streams from that source the superstition and monstrous opinion of the gods was brought into the minds of the Greeks, and afterwards of the Latins, and the nations of the whole world; This palladium, because it was entirely fictitious, raised many doubts, not only whence it came, as we have said before, but also whether it had been seized by the Greeks, or really taken away by Aeneas with the rest of the Trojan gods, and carried off into Italy be born: Ovid. book 6. de Fastis, leaving that under doubt, asserts that in his time the Palladium was in Rome in the temple of the goddess Vesta, with which Titus agrees: Livy on the second Punic war; Of him they tell that the fatal command was transferred by him; Whence they were called sacred deaths, and they are said to have destroyed three cities, in which they boasted, namely, first Troy, then L • wine, and then Alba; Ascanius founded this, whence the Albani, who are said to have been the mother of Rome, were destroyed by Tullus Hostilius: But the more common opinion is that the Palladium was stolen from the Trojan citadel by Diomede and Vlysse, and brought to the Greeks; For these, as Virgil 2. Aeneid: and from it Augustus: l. 1. c. 2. of Ciu. He remembers the gods, who killed the supreme guards of the citadel, cut off from the sacred effigy, and from the hands of the bleeding virgins, the ribbons of daring to touch the goddess. the temple of Miuerva or Palladis, where the Palladium was kept, that he might deliver it to himself, which he did, by which act Antenor delivered it up to the Greeks; In a similar way here Cretensis and Dares Phrygius report that Aeneas was aware of the treachery of the Trojans, although Virgil tries to excuse Aeneas from the betrayal of his country, saying that he himself was unaware of the plot; Then , after the excision of the words ,
they say that there arose a great contest through Palladius between A.
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and Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon, the husband of Helen, because he wanted to kill Helen with so much malice, Vlysses delivered her and saved her; Indeed, the army and the rest of the population favored the Ajax; But Vlysses obtained Pallas from A • ace carrying it to the sick . Diomedes, from whom Aeneas is said to have received it in Italy, see Solinus lib. 3. c. 2. He reports: "It is true that since there is such a great contradiction of opinions, and that every writer adapts to his own mind and purpose all things, whether facts or fictions, that he may at least seek the honor of his nation, we cannot agree with any, and we say that all this depends on Homer , from whom so many poets have borrowed their works or poems, from the same Daretes the Phrygian, and Dictymus the Cretan, who seem to have written historical accounts of the Trojan war, as they sought the glory of their nation, and received it, and did not take part in the war themselves, you will be glorified falsely.* It has been sufficiently explained above what is signified by Pallas, and when it is deduced from this Pallas and its name and form, it is easy to see that what Homer wished to outline, indeed, wisdom and the utmost subtlety of genius must be present in the artist, as he Let him be assured of the completion of his work; For Vlysses, in this whole Allegory, is regarded as an artist gifted with the sharpness of reason, with which he accomplishes all the more arduous tasks; His first labor was about the discovery of Achilles and his bringing to Troy; the second, that he inquires with a more subtle mind, by what means Troy can be occupied, that is to say, Palladius can be seized; Therefore it is vainly inquired of things plainly fabricated, whence it came, whether from heaven, or from the imagination of Minerva, and whither it remained : but Vlyssus is assigned to the mighty prudence, not to the strength of Ajax, because the fineness of the artificer is sought here, not the greatness of labor or strength, which is about Hercules
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the person described; For Vlysses had protected Helen with his wisdom, which was due to him, that Helen should not perish by the force of Ajax (such a beautiful young woman, who from the beginning of the Argonautic expedition, as we have shown above, will be at least 180 years old) our person, who is said to be the cause of the whole war.* let them see whether those handmaidens had fallen from heaven, or whether they had really sprung up from human imagination; We Christians do not believe anything like this, especially since there is no true history, except that which was born from a poetic figment.* The others hitherto handed down might be excused by some reason, namely, Achilles on account of his singular courage, Pallas on account of the opinion of his sanctity , havingbeen obtained from the Greeks before they could overthrow Troy;it is of the mind: for what would a single mouth of a human corpse do, where so many living men would do little for a thousand? And Pelops was the son of Tantalus, who was tormented in the underworld by fear of impending stones, as they believed in the scarcity of things necessary for sustenance, because he had been impure and oblivious to the receiver of benefits: the son was called: Zezes hyst: 10. Chil writes: Indeed, he was born of Pluto's mother and Tmolus, king of Lydia, to his father. to the magnificence of the feasts, as if he had offered them his dearest son of all things. Then the rest of his sons took pity on him and threw him back into the cauldron and restored him to life.
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had eaten Ceres, the gods are said to have made him ivory: Hence Lycophron called Pelops twice pubescent, because he was restored to the younger of the gods than he had been before: Therefore Tantalus was thrust into the underworld, because he had defiled the feasts of the gods with human flesh , and had violated the right of hospitality, He is said to always have feasts, which, however, being tortured by hunger, he cannot touch. Ovid gave another cause of his grief, namely, eloquence, because he had divulged the secrets of the gods to mortals, where he says:
He seeks the waters in the waters and catches the fleeting apples
Tantalus, this chattering tongue eats him.
It is said that Pelops, the son of Tantalus, was the one who won Hippodamia, the daughter of Oenomai of Elis and the king of Pisa, as the victor in the duel, in which innumerable suitors had previously succumbed and were slain, from whose skulls the temple of Mars was to be built. afterwards he also slew Pelops, by which slaughter they mention that he was atoned for by Vulcan. About Tantalus, who set up the son of the gods to be eaten, is a fiction of the poets; who either invented it to insult him, viz. other such things about Sysyphus, Ix∣ion, Busirides, and the like, and therefore attributed eternal punishment to themselves, either because of impiety or garrulity; and indeed for this reason more than for that one, as is said of Ixion: What indeed were the secrets of the gods, which he opened to mortals, is easily seen from the feast and feasts which he set before the gods, of which only Ceres tasted; But to Ceres, as we have said above, the Eleusinia was sacred and most secret, which solemnities were celebrated both among the Egyptians and the Greeks, whose secrets it was not permitted to reveal to anyone: Whence it could be seen that these innuendoes were revealed by him; True
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whether Tantalus was taxed by the incontinence of his tongue, or for some other reason, there is no doubt that there is a fable and allegory in this whole narrative, and that it is referred to the very hieroglyphic traditions which we have previously mentioned. For as Osiris is said to have been cooked by Isis, Bacchus or Dionysius to the Nymphs, Jason to the nurses of Bacchus, Aeson to Medea, and restored to youth again, so Pelops to Ceres, or two days after cooking, recovered both life and youth; of whom, when we have said enough above, the same thing must be understood of Pelope: He is said to have been atoned for by Vulcan by murder, and loved by Neptune, who are such as are now to be had, he already knew enough: Of this Pelope John: Fran: Picus Miranda: l. 2. c. 2. Of gold, he mentions these words; Thus, I say, some interpret Atreus to be called a lamb, a ram, so as to insinuate to the readers the described power of making gold. For Callisthenes Olynthius, Aristotle's disciple and kinsman, left it written that the wealth of Atreus and Pelops was made of metals. And the book Chapter 3 1. And let not those, he says, be wanting who bring to Tantalus the riches received from the chemical composition described in the skins of the lamb; Whence the son of Pelops, and the kingdom of the Pelopidas extended far and wide, so that it was not seen from here that the butler had asked Thyestes, a native of Pelops, a lesser lamb, that is, in the lamb's skin to make a composition of gold engraved, which he had in secret Atreus, the eldest son, extorted Thyestes from his brother's wife by rape, from which hatred and the most bloody tragedies arose . , which adhere to each of these persons, should they be considered, it will be observed that they are all brought back to Jove, who is the father of Tantalus, this of Pelopis, who of Thyestes and Atreus, of whom the former begat Aegysthus from his daughter Pelopeia, the latter Agamemnon and Menelaus; Atreus placed the sons of his brother Thyestes in their own command; Aegisthus kills Atreus and Agamemnon and takes Clytaemnestra as his wife; But Orestes killed his mother one time with Aegisthus, as was told above. All this occasioned the creation of the allegories of Pelope
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they have given: His mouth is remembered as of remarkable Swiss size, which was also obtained from Vlyssus, viz. the rest: But why was this said to be useful or necessary for the capture of Troy? There is no doubt that the artists wished to indicate on earth what substance was required for the work, which was as if dead and the rest from the metallic body, as the bone from the human body : for the bones in the body of an animal or man are supported by dogs , humors, vessels, and spirits, as the base and foundation of a house, so also in the Philosophical work that it contains all things volatile or not fixed, and thus gathers them together, so that a single substance may be called meritorious: Hence it is said in Au∣rora cons c. 20. That the tincture is made by the nature of volitions; And that which strengthens and fixes the spirit itself, is fixed and perpetual and unburnt, and is called the sulfur of the Philosophers, or ashes extracted from the ashes, as the Elder says: What is fixed are fugitive figs: And soon, when the Earth is fixed, the water becomes white , air penetrates, fire colors ; Again: The earth is left there, that the other three elements may be able to take root in it; if she were not there, the elements would not have had a foundation to build a new house on top of the treasury . Fire in the air becomes light; From the bone is made a calculus; he intends the drying up of that shining moisture, that it may turn into ashes, of which Aziratus says, And how precious is this ash: Air becomes a spirit in an egg .* For when ashes are made from bone, as the authors say, and it is clear from experience, bone and ashes are two substances necessary for Philosophical work; I remember the ashes in countless places ; Bonellus in the crowd; That nature, he says, from which moisture has been taken away, when it is released during the nights, appears like a dead person, and then that nature needs fire, whose body and spirit are turned to the earth, and then becomes dust like a dead person in his grave. God restored to him spirit and soul, and took away all infirmity, our nature was strengthened and improved. It is therefore necessary to burn that thing away from fear, until it becomes ashes, who is fit for ashes to receive the spirit, the soul, and the infused tincture:
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Consider, children of learning, how painters are unable to paint with their own colors, how they turn them into ashes and dust them: similarly, philosophers are often unable to compound medicines for their patients unless they are broken and ground into dust . you will be fine, many things will proceed from him, because he, as a man, has a body and a spirit : the same Keeper, and many others indicate, as it is clear to the readers themselves, that nothing is absent from the ashes in a to be done; For two bones and ashes, there are many here; But the ashes (vt & bones) of a certain individual are required, namely, that of Laomedon . We have explained his work; Laomedon, thus, the founder of Troy, is deprived of his life because of that very word; For when he would not give the agreed wages to the said workmen, he was harassed by Cetus, to whom Hesione his daughter was freed by Hercules, but because he would not give the promised horses to Hercules, he was slain, and his ashes were kept in the gate of Scaea. These were deemed necessary for the destruction of Troy, and were therefore removed from thence by Vlysse's clamor. ;* Fifthly, the arrows required of Troy were the arrows of Hercules, who, dying on Mount Oeta between Thessaly and Macedonia, gave his arrows as a gift to Philoctetes, and ordered him not to reveal the remains of his body to anyone, having taken an oath: but when afterwards The Delphic oracle having warned the Greeks that Troy could not be taken without the arrows of Hercules, or without the remains of his body, Philoctetes was found, and being questioned about Hercules, he denied that he knew what he was being forced to do, kept silent, but pointed to the place with his foot: ∣gittas received from Philoctetes at Vlisses, he brought them to the Greeks: they say they were infected with poison, which Chiron, being surprised at the length of the ear, had at some point cut off, one fell on his foot, from which he received a fatal wound, but it is said to have been healed by centaury grass. No one recognizes that these are fictitious; The arrows of Philoctetes were given to Hercules,
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as the Mercury club; Hercules fought against so many monsters at a distance near them; With this fixed and resistance he cut off and softened, with those fleeting and volatile he fixed and delayed flight: Every philosopher needs these two instruments or methods of operation, as has been often demonstrated above; just as the water bus , one of which fixes the other and dissolves the other by turns; At T • o • am thus {and} far from {que} the arrows of Hercules, little can be accomplished: for greater labor is consumed in stopping the flighty and flying, and fixing the arrows as it were (whence the fixation among the Chymians), as appears in Apollo fixing the Python. Diana Orion, Atalanta the boar, and the like; of which we have spoken in their proper place:* The sixth requirement, and the last, is that the horses of the king of Thrace were to be led away by that slaughter, before they drank from the river Xantho, without which, after the rite, Troy could not be occupied. We would not judge them undeservedly if they were given to Homer and his followers by so many and so many writers; What bone, ashes, arrows to occupy the verb? What • those who were brought, before they drank from the certain river? However, we have seen from the aforesaid that it was made in this way not without reason; Now there was Xanthus Hu∣uius of the region of Troas, whose power is celebrated, as if animals drinking from it were infected with a yellow color; Xanthus denotes that it is yellow; Perhaps this color seemed disagreeable to horses; therefore the horses were to be prevented from drinking the water of the river; Thus they mention that Neptune brought to the wedding of Peleus and Thetis the horse Xanthu and Balius, who are believed to have come to Achilles as heirs by right; But what might seem pitiful, if it were not a fable, that the King should be slaughtered on account of those who were abducted, and indeed the Thracian* the ferocious and warlike could have been so easily overcome by Vlyssus alone or by a small group of allies who resisted. with whom, however, to seize
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so many years are said to have been spent; They seem contrary to nature and reason, if we consult history: For we may not hunt hawks with doves, but with these we hunt dogs, not with hares, but on the contrary. and necessary, before Troy can be occupied; And if the sayings of the Philosophers are carefully considered, we notice that they advise the artists to see that they do not acquire red for whiteness, or white for blackness at the beginning of the work; For a rufous color, or under yellow, is not appropriate at the beginning, but is considered by the Philosophers to be reprehensible; Hence Count Bernhard advises us not to acquire the color of the wild poppy by too much fire instead of blackening it; And Zachary teaches to avoid poison in the first work, which is usually present in the second; Thus Isaac says that the color of the broken side is useless in the beginning; After the completion of the work, all emphasize the color yellow, purple, red, and tyre, as Cerus in the crowd; Control it by cooking, until the crocus becomes very excellent. Ardarius: And behold, the stone of Tyrius will appear to you ; Borates; Rub with his water until the Crocus becomes in color like gold : And so they remembered that when the golden and Xanthi of another color should be present at the end of the work, not at the beginning, there it was useful, here it was harmful. to Troy before they turn yellow; But these are the six memorable requisites, without which Troy could not be taken or destroyed:Namely , that Trojan Horse, full of armed men , and driven into the village with stones thrown down; It was said to have been invented by Pallas, because the stratagem might seem to have been devised by a subtle genius, had it not been connected with so much danger, and would have accused the Trojans of excessive simplicity, not to say stupidity , that the walls should be demolished while the enemy was dwelling in their own land, and so they themselves , to whom he could be subjected, would introduce him into the verb. with the like
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We have successfully carried out examples in boats in our time:* Thus the story of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, offered to Diana as a sacrifice, because of the evils of the army , is completely fictitious and close to a fable, just as everything that is found in the whole Iliad and Odyssey is allegorical, partly explaining the physical and mysterious works of nature, partly political. and kings in many, or public and private institutions; For this reason Homer was made so great by Alexander the Great, who put him on his pillow at night, and called him a royal traveler, as well as by other great and learned men of all ages; . which it is probable that he did not really ascribe the man to the gods, but put forth poetical license and an allegorical way of writing, so that the wise would separate the core from the husk, good from evil, and turn their own face into it. Orpheus* we assign; First, the hieroglyphic, the mysterious, the deep and hidden, the primary, the most mysterious works of nature, regarding which we have done; But only philosophers and those who are truly aware of chemistry look into this and marvel at it, others neglect it and do not notice it under the shadowy cover; The other political, ethical, moral, historical, economic, secondary, Kings, leaders; The magistrates, and the pretenders whom he instructs in manners and common life;* Whom many noticed, and only in him as if he had something of divinity. We leave the third to the poets, who weave together his fables, fictions, and traditions about gods, heroes, and other things; We depute the fourth grammarian, who* they observe the harness and the sequence of speaking and are interpreted by others; Whence Homer (the most falsified habit of a beggar, when he was a most politic man, and most experienced in matters of great affairs,* that it falls not on a beggar, but on one who excels in genius, fortune, and endowments) so many Gram∣matics
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It was said to feed through Greece, as even Alcibiades, biting a certain Homer, broke it for the reason, adding this comma; Will you name him a beggar, or a vain one, who makes so many interpreters and riches for himself ? From so many arguments and arguments produced in the media and explained up to now, it is quite evident that Tro • anam's expedition has little or nothing of historical truth in it, but a great deal of allegorical truth, and rather because of an arcane intelligibility, rather than a common sense introduced to be; Nevertheless, it is not difficult to distinguish between the first and second, third and fourth times , as we have just said, by the same attribute . ; For leaven, even in the smallest portion of the mixture of flour , renders the whole sour and leavened, and not many false or fictitious things render the story suspect, and deprive all faith ; Thus, if the poets, such as Orpheus and Homer, have intermingled with their fables and allegories some semblance of truth, as to places, things , or persons, it does not follow that they are true, or, as they sound, to be assumed and understood as pleasure They did ethnic; Accordingly, if any one stumbles upon such things in the said poets, this will not, except in the most inconsiderate way, make their fictions true. For as they are handed down by poets or historians following these in age and manner of writing, they are such that they deserve to be called into question, and should be brought back to their origin, that is, allegorical, as we have done. as it has been said, let the person of the Artificer be as strong in ingenuity as Hercules is in strength: Therefore, if all things were well considered, whatever was brilliantly done at Troy, it will be seen to have been accomplished by his design and work. as annotating Aelianus l. 7. c. 5. Odysseus testifies about himself: O. these
Page 282
in the words: Believe me, minister, no one else has been more important, whether it is necessary to kindle a fire or cut wood. For in these the greater part of the labor of Vlyssus is consumed in the philosophic art: Thus it is said that Vlyssus himself finished the rate with the swiftest labor of the work of the carpenters. He obtained the six fates set before him, without which he could not be occupied; By his eloquence and prudence he ruled the whole army; After this Achilles, and after him Neoptolemus; Then Helen with Pa∣ride; Other persons are added to conceal the artifice, Agamemnon as emperor, Menelaus as actor, Ajax as giving much to his hands, Diomedes as ally of Vlyssus, Sinon the traitor, Thersites the convictor, and so on of others: ,* vanquished and overthrown, V∣lysses desired to return to his country, as also to other Greeks: for thus Ovid speaks of him:
The wisdom of Ithaca is not in doubt, but he still wishes
I could see the smoke from the fireplaces.
Of the reason why he fled, which we have mentioned above, we add nothing here: First of all he was carried by a storm to the shores of the Ciconian people of Thrace; they returned: From there to Sicily to the cave of Polyphemus, whom he blinded, with 12 companions: then to the island of Aeolia and the Laestrigones, the most formidable people of Campania, he soon made a course to the island of Aeaea, where Circe, the sorceress, the daughter of Sol, his companions in He turned the beasts; From whom he begat Telegonus and Ardea: Then he descended to the underworld, consecrating the column to Pluto and Proserpina, lest Teresia there should forget what they were praying for him to do . He ordered the ships to be tied up. Hence, passing through Scylla and Charybdis, he reached Sicily again, not without some loss of allies, where the daughters of the Sun guarded their father's flocks.
Page 283
who, together with his companions, were killed, but they all perished in a shipwreck by the very capture of an evil ship, in which, clinging to it, being tossed about by the waves of the sea for 9 days, he was carried to the island of Ogygia, where the nymph Calypsone, having received him as a guest, stayed for 7 years and had children from her, who which he undertook: Then, releasing the commandments of the gods from here, he again broke the ship near Phaeacia by the impulse of Neptune because of the fall of Polyphemus, and swam into the harbor with Phaeacia, and there hid himself naked among the leaves of the trees. ∣cinoi having received, Pallas's work brought him to Areten, the wife of Alcinous, from whom, having received a gift of clothes and companions, he was exposed sleeping in Ithaca with presents, and there, assuming the habit of a beggar, he returned to Penelope, who still betrothed his son Polyporthus to Troy in memory of his father nae is said to have given birth to virtue, since that name signifies in words a populace. And yet these are the errors of Vlyssus concerning his return to his country, which appear to have extended beyond a decade, since the siege of Troy lasted so long, for twenty full years Vlyssus lived outside his country, riddled with many errors and misfortunes, which he finally overcame in the name of the plunderer's words He obtained it from his own begotten son: And these things are well known in themselves, since they are completely fabulous and fictitious, and poets produced to demonstrate politically, to what errors and evils human life is exposed, nor to what artists before they reach their last goal , let them be exposed: For he who has not gone astray is said to have not yet begun: And Bacasser in the crowd; Right, he says, is not discerned except by error, and nothing causes more pain to the heart than error in this art and work: Concerning the diversions and difficulties of this art, with the extent of others, commentaries are extended; we have added nothing.
Whether Troy should stand thus and be destroyed in truth, or at least in fiction (understanding the same about the labors of Hercules, the sacred contests, and things pertaining to the gods), it will be the same, when we have nothing to do with it , and nothing to be reaped; verum if other∣v • ri
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we must be satisfied that a thousand and twenty things will convince us that none of these were really true, although it is established by the Ethnics that they had been in the books almost as long as they had been; let us also consult all the writers about these, whence they draw such and such things, to the six aforesaid authors of all religion or ethnic idolatry (Orpheus, Linus, Musaeus, Melampode, Homer, and Hesiod) will be resorted to; And if we seek these, whence they have them, partly from the Egyptians, partly from their own brains to the imitation and teaching of the Egyptians, we shall notice that all these derive their origin: Egypt, indeed , from Isis, and these from Mercury and Vulcanus, as we have already reported , received all his doctrines. } we are very much opposed to him, provided that he grants us in turn, and under the history of the truth I have hidden allegor's knowledge , this is the most mysterious thing and figuratively handed down, not seldom covered under the veiled form of true doctrine; If anyone seeks an example of this, let him examine the books of that great Ambian physician on the hidden causes of things, and judge whether his heart , which has been seen with great difficulty, hides another kernel, or whether not the common ark of medicine gathered together from the authors of theorems and precepts ∣ alone of nature, and that • his works intermingle in such a way, that it is not except by the most perspicacious • that the right intention is discerned? Even so, those very ancients (in whose time Chymia, under the name of which it is popularized ) have handed down some serious matters in their writings, yet it is evident that they have brought forth platitudes and fictitious things, and which at length prevailed by their weight over the words , under which fictitious and Allegorically, who will demonstrate that that chemistry is not on the side, which until now we have sufficiently rescued from its darkness and placed in the light of all intelligent people? In which kind of writings, all the rest not being considered, if anyone tries to bring those fables back to the truth, and all the authors will think themselves ignorant of chemistry, and have no sense of chemistry
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having once concealed in his writings, he abuses his will as much and where he wills, nevertheless, as it is permitted to us as much as to himself and to others, he will be bound to grant it by the right of Talion: But {and} now, as Natalis under the mythology of S • The matter gives thanks to God with these words; The explanation of the fables more open and more , which has been reserved to me in our times, is why I give immortal thanks to God the Almighty Redeemer, by whose favor it has been granted to me, these insipid vagaries of the ancients nothing {and} true religion • um containing ape • to go • but they are only demonstratives to explain the things of Philosophers ; And so we give thanks to the same TRININE GOD with the devotion of our soul and prayer , as much as we are able to conceive in our minds, that it has been most graciously bestowed upon us , by which the Egyptians, the Gracious Hearts , and all the ancients allegories, fables, and mysteries, arcane • arcane once, vt still, lived, (not of things vulgar and known in the world, but of those things which ought to be hidden by their right, invented) from which so many nations idolatry, darkness and errors, as if they had overflowed from the most abundant sources , to bring them back to their true origin, in which we could reconcile the web of truth and a certain irreproachable harmony ( which is characteristic of truth) into an immovable point; qu • when all things meet in no other way than the MEDICINE OF SOUL AND BODY ve • è • urea, this Supreme OPT. MAX: and that TRISMEGISTS , the Physician of soul and body , Jesus Christ, for the glory of his name, we have used to usurp our and our neighbor's life , and after this, may he grant eternal life, who, like a STONE on an exalted MOUNTAIN, was rolled down without hands, and the stone the corner of the world, or rejected by the nations, appropriated to us, if • blessed for ever; AMEN.
The end of this Treatise.
INDEX RERVM of the main points of this treatise.
A.
Hieroglyphic Hawks p. 40
Achelous defeated by Hercules. p. 239
Achilles needed to destroy Troy • p. 260
Achilles parents p. 260
Achilles was born from this marriage. p. 260
Achilles vt brought up by his mother, p. 262
Achilles pressed the virgin in hiding • mp 262
Achilles begat Pyrrhus. p. 262
What does Achilles denote? p. 262
Who is Achilles in art? p. 264
Achilles shield p. 267
Achilles was ossified in a golden vessel. p. 26 •
Achilles married Medea in Elysia. p. 267
Achilles healer of the sick. p. 267
Achilles was nourished by them. p. 267
Achilles instructed in what arts p. 268
The strength of the spear of Achilles. p. 268
What does the poisonous spear of Achilles signify p. 268
Paris killed Achilles. p. 268
Achilles was recycled. p. 269
Adam knew the essence of all creatures. p. 48
Adonijah 194. among the Syrians. p. 193
Who is Adonis? p. 194
Adonis allegorically was the Sun, not Heaven. p. 194
Aeeta and Augias, sons of the Sun. p. 131
In Egypt the kings who presided over p. 4
The chief gods of the Egyptians. p. 6
Why is a certain Insula of Egypt forbidden to passers-by? p. 11
The Egyptians, according to the law, lead brothers and sisters as wives, following the example of Osiris and Isis. p. 16
sacred things of Egypt p. 21
The chief kings of Egypt p. 21
Egypt had kings in order. p. 28
Pyramids of Egypt: p. 50
When the Egyptian rituals were transferred to the Greeks. p. 58
The ancient Egyptians were very wise. p. 32
The origin of Egyptian superstition. p. 36
Being of the Egyptians. p. 41.42
Egyptian colonies p. 42
all the arts from Egypt. p. 47
Egyptian Columns of Rome p. 48
The Egyptians once and still bring out chickens by artificial heat: p. 49
The world felt a change in the institutions of the Egyptians. p. 29
Why is Egypt not accessible to foreigners? p. 28
The Egyptian priests were sworn not to kill the beautiful Osiris . p. 10
The Egyptian priests testify that the tomb of Osiris is with them. ibid.
The Egyptian priests receive a third part of the fields from Isis. p. 10.13
The priests of Egypt have certain things in secret. • 8
The vain glory of the Egyptians from antiquity. p. 211
Aeneas, son of Venus. p. 282
the Egyptians whom he slew. p. 275
A • Sculapius, son of Apollo. p. 127
Allegories of Aesculapius. p. 127.128
Aesculapius is brought from Epidaurus to Rome, p. 130
Agamemnon 's daughter. p. 159
The internal agent of the art that & where. p. 264
Why did Alexander want to be thought of as God? p. 2 •
Allegories that lie. p. 166
A giant kingfisher. p. 239
Baltheus, the queen of the Amazons, was drawn down. p. 231
Amphion & Zetus. p. 162
Ambrosia. p. 170
Handmaids fell from heaven. p. 273
Goose leaves Rome for • p. 2 • 3
Anubis son of Osiris. p. 7
Antaeus the governor of Libya. p. 7
Antaeus prostrated by Hercules. p. 236
There are three reasons for the worship of animals. p. 31
Whence the animals were collected in Egypt: p. 36
Apaturia p. 10
Aper Erymantheus. p. 2 • 5
Apis boss • u sacred calf of the Egyptians. p. 29
The bee, as God, was placed in the fan of Vulcan. p. 30
When they see the bee alone with a woman . p. 30
How and how long the bee was worshiped by the Egyptians p. 30
Apis bos linouae egyptia. p. 33
The selection, care, and culture of aphids. p. 29
Wasp spots of the waxing moon. p. 30
Apis & Memphis were dedicated to the bull of Isis. p. 10
Apollo taught. 9. Muses. p. 8
Apollo the son of Jupiter, and his allegories. p. 121
Cicero's four Apollos. p. 121
said to be the daughter of Apollo. p. 123
A golden altar set up for Apollo. p. 123
Apollo the soldier, the physician, the poet. p. 198
An eagle founded Rome. p. 253
Eagle Hieroglyphic. p. 40
Common altar to which gods p. 196
Arcana among the Egyptians was forbidden to the common people under penalty. p. 18.19
The secret was revealed to Alexander the Great. p. 20
Arcana. p. 135 184
Most mysterious: p. 138.142.8▪264
The golden ram ennobled the mattresses of the lleri and Phrygia. p. 2 • 7
An artist at heart. p. 262.26 •
Ardalus son of Vulcan. • 19
The Argonauts were all fictitious persons & originated from 〈◊〉 . p. 67
Argonauts d •• rum filij: p. 70
About the return of the Argonauts, the writers vary. p. 7 •
Argo by ship • which p. 70
The Argonautic expedition that I remember . p. 65
Astronomical constellations from the figures of the golden gods. p. 204
Astrology originated with the ancients of the Egyptians and Gracchus . p. 2 • 3
Ascolia. p. 170
Ath • nienses of the Egyptian colonies. p. 43
At • as surrounded the gardens of H • s • eri • um. p. 7
Atlas ab Hercule cons•litur. p. 78
Atlas quis: p. 8 •
Atlas is depicted as an astronomer. p. 81
Aurea • em • la established by Isis for Jupiter and Juno • ipar •• tibus. p. 4
A golden circle in the palace of Simandius. p. 2
Allegories of Aurea v • ller. p. 6 •
The golden fleece laid on the Philosopher's stone. • 6
What are the golden evils: p. 8 •
Aurea mala A • alantae. p. 86
Aurea a•miranda. p. 91
Golden rain p. 92
Golden rain in Danae's lap: p. 95
Auream•ssis. p. 9•.
Six authors among the Greeks of the fa • ulous religion. p. 58
Av•s Stymphalides: p. 228
Augia's stable was cleared. p. 226
B.
BA • chus born from the daughter of Cadmus. p. 46
The sons of Bacchus . p. 153
Bacchi••cra. p. 166
Bacchus with wings . p. 169
Horned Bacchus •• veins, old, male, female, bearded , beardless, and why: p. 169
The bacchanalia was taken away by R • mae. p. 174
Bacchads of women. p. 1 • 9
Basi • ius Valentinus where mentions beti Tr • iani. p. 269
Belus was killed by the Egyptians. p. 42
The temple of Belus of Babylon • 2
War is often described under the Philosophical Allegory. p. 269
Ber •• status golden tongue placed p. 2 • 1
〈◊〉 in A••y to cultus, p. 33
〈…〉 c•uiae. p. 34
• rotheu • son of Vulcan. p. 119
Br•m•••a. p. 170
Busiris king Ae • ypti, p. 22
He went to Thebes . p. 23
Busiris was killed by Hercules. p. 23
Busiris was treated so cruelly . p. 28
The beef was seasoned. p. 17
C.
CAcus was interrupted by Hercules. p. 20
Cadmus arose from Thebes, Egypt. p. 44
Hieroglyphic dog. p. 37
The dog turned to stone. p. 11 •
Canephoria p. 170
Coelus & Terra. p. 99
Homer's golden chain. p. 96
The golden chain of the Gods. p. 98
Ceres feasts. p. 1 • 6
Ceres ate from the shoulder of Pelops. p. 274
Centaurs destroyed by Hercules p. 225
Contests 4 in the Greeks: p. 2 • 7
A golden deer taken with her horns by Hercus , p. 87.88: 89.2 • 5
The Christians, silent in their faith, fought against Troy. p. 254
Chiron, son of Saturn. p. 111
Disciples of Chiron, ibid.
Whence Chrysaor was born. p. 9
Chemicals that agree with names and deities. p. 3
The subject of chemistry with hermaphroditism. p. 12
Chemistry, the mother of the sciences, is scarcely recognized among the sciences. p. 238
The image of the Creator carried on the Eleusinium. p. 186
What is a rattlesnake? p. 229
Hieroglyphic crocodile. p. 39
Pillars placed to the west by Hercules. p. 232
The pillars erected in India by Osiris. p. 8
Colchis Colony of the Egyptians. p. 42
that Colchis and Phrygia were neighboring regions. p. 257
Those who are cooked & returned young. p. 275
The best advisers. p. 217
Cynocephali hieroglyphicum. p. 39
Cynocephalus an ex matriarch. p. 172
D.
Daedalus imitated the works of Egypt. p. 46
Danaus descended from the Egyptians. p. 42
The fear of false gods also keeps men in fear . p. 20
The services of the gods of the nations. p. 60
God is one. ibid
The golden genealogy of the gods. p. 96
A series of Egyptian gods. p. 212
D • the highest quality among the Gentiles. p. 204
〈◊〉 what do they mean? p. 261
Delphi was believed to be in the middle of the earth. p. 123
Aescula∣pius represents the devil in the penitent form. p. 174
Diana her Luna. e.g. 188
Cicero's three Dianas. p. 133
Already received. p. 2
The Egyptians did not understand the golden medicine. p. 3
The individual gods under whom the forms of the living creatures have come . p. 41
The gods received by all nations from Vulcan and Mercury arose: p. 56
Dij Aegyptij 12. magnarū gentiū: p. 57
Let false gods be known by falsified miracles: p. 168
Diodorus Siculus on the gods of Egypt: 3
when he explored Egypt: p. 30
Dionysia p. 1 • 0
Dionysi synonyma. p. 144
Dionysius' mother Semele was burned: p. 145
The Greeks falsely report that Dionysus was born among them: p. 1 • 6
Miracles wrought upon Dionysus: p. 146
Dionysius who had care: p. 148
The campaign of Dionysius: p. 140
Dionysus was the first god of worship among the Greeks. p. 1 • 0
Dionysus all • explanation of the goria· p. 152
Dionysus of Solterrestris p. 168
Diomedes' horse was slain with him by Hercules. p. 230
Dictys Cretensis vt the legendary author Cretizat. p. 245
The goddess of discord has done evil with evil. p. 2 • 0
The difference between the festivals of the church and the nations: p. 167
Dipetes the Egyptian king of the Athenians. p. 43
Dorpia: p. 171
A dragon from Jason who slaughters the underlings. p. 72
Who is the guardian dragon of the Hesperides? p. 81
The dragon is the father of the bull, and the bull is the father of the dragon. p. 83
What is a dragon in chemistry? p. 189
E.
LEusinia sacrabina. p. 181
The sacred Eleusinians we once treasured nothing: p. 178
The sacred Eleusinia to which it was first revealed: p. 183
What is hidden from the sacred Elusinijs: p. 183
The sacred Eleusinians which the images carried are fint: p. 186
What do the sacred disguises of Eleusinia signify: p. 190
Eleusinian hieroglyphics: p. 185
Horses of the Rose of Abaucendi: p. 278
Equus Trotanus: p. 279
Erichtheus the Egyptian commanded the Athenians p. 43
Erichtheus instituted the sacred ceremonies of Ceres at Eleusis, p. 43
I will eat a golden apple: p. 86
Erix. p. 234
And • they are mad in divine things. p. 114
Vanity of ethnicities: p. 1 • 2
Eumolpus on the mysteries: p. 213
Eumolpides from the Egyptian priests 〈◊〉 p. 44
Who is Eurystheus: p. 213
F.
Fabriaeris & auri veti by Isis p. 4
Six deaths about the capture of Troy. • 59
Feasts instituted in sacred letters: p. 164
The feasts of the Egyptians for the memory of p. 165
Festivals of Ceres and Proserpina. p. 1 • 6
A hieroglyphic cat. p. 38
Whence depends the erection of the figures of heaven. p. 223
The most ancient grain. p. 44
G.
Gallina governed Rome. p. 253
Ganymede the Phrygian abducted by Jupiter. p. 2 • 8
Ganymede abducted to the chemical aspect •• . p. 259
The Gent • s in many ways wanted the Israelites 〈◊〉 . p. 16
G •• m manners of equestrian sports. p. 19
Gery •• who p. 2 • 3
Geryon's oxen taken away by Hercules p. 23 •
King Geryon robbed of cattle and life by Hercules: p. 234
Gl • ba from the earth dissolved water à Medea p. 63
Glauca Saturnifilia. p. 111
Glory beds. p. 14
The Greeks received their doctrines from the Egyptians. p. 5
The Greeks who passed over to the Egyptians p. 47.5
Greek competitions & sports. p. 19
The sun of the Greeks from which institutions p. 19 •
H.
Harpocratis hi • r • gl • fig. p. 41
The harmony of Venus & Mars is his daughter. p. 11
Hebe, daughter of Juno. p. 11
The dream of the Cherubim. p. 250
Where is the source of the snow ? p. 157
Helena & Po • ux widow or daughter. p. 158
Helena ex voproaijt. p. 249
Helen abducted before Theseus p. 250
The Greeks make Helen immortal . p. 250
Hercules appointed leader of the army by Osiris • u in Egypt: p. 7
Hercules, a contemporary of Osiris. p. 11
Hercules asking for the golden 〈◊〉 whom he con∣sulted. p. 78
Hercules c • pit wax with golden horns. p. 87
Hercules I • son of strength. p. 158
Hercules • love through the world not • ssi • a: p. 2 • 9
Jupiter, the father of Hercules. p. 2 • 2
It took three nights for Hercules to conceive. p. 212
The eight teachers of Hercules p. 214
Malta affected by the labors of Hercules. p. 215
The parents of Hercules. p. 216
Because it signifies Hercules. p. 217
He was a contemporary of Hercules. p. 218
Hercules trained in what arts p. 2 • 9
Hercules took the Crotalum from Pallas to flee the Stymphalides . p. 228
Hercules aims at the • ol mark p. 2 • 5
Hercules threw his bow into the ocean. p. 235
Hercules raised the Swan. p. 2 • 6
Hercules prostrated Antaeus . p. 2 • 6
Hercules 〈◊〉 raised the altars of the gods: p. 2 • 0
Hercules brought Cerberus out of his womb. p. 240
He was in Thoscum : p. 240
He killed Menetius. p. 241
Hercules made himself a crown from the people. p. 241
H • arrowheads. p. 277
To whom the arrows of Hercules were given. p. 2 • 7
What do the arrows of Hercules denote: p. 278
Hermes is said to have found two tablets. p. 4.
Who is Hermes: p. 1 • 0
Hermione, daughter of Mars. p. 11
Heroic intellectual century • : p. 1 • 8
Hesp • the golden laugh of the exposition of the evils of others and the answer to himself: p. 7
Hesi n • released to C • to. p. 232
Hieroglyphs • ae letters. p. 29
Hircil••roglyphicum. p. 38
Hier • glyp • ic in Flamelli: p. 1 • 7
Hiero yphica that the eyes serve as a reminiscence . p. 1 •
Hieroglyphic writing in Eleusis • ijs p. 187
The first people. p. 1
Homer himself does not express when he lived. p. 2 ••
H • when is it supposed that he lived? p. 2 •
Homer's country is unknown. p. 25
How many words will avenge Homer's concubine : p. 252
Homer the human being passed to the gods •• p. 2 • 8
Homer learned the art of chemistry in Egypt. p. 24
Homeric works quad • uplex vsus p. 2 • 0
Horus the last of the gods of Egypt: p. 211
Horus is the Egyptian Horus . p. 2 ••
Hippolyta b • lih • us: p. 231
Hydra Lernaea. p. 223
I.
Jason's race & upbringing. p. 62
Jason's fight p. 65
Who is Jason? p. 69
Jason was trained by Chiron and Medea. p. 69
Jason the physician, the golden arti∣sex of medicine. • 0
Jason's campaign explanation. p. 7 •
What sign will Jason do : p. 71
Jason mo • sp 65
Ibid Hieroglyphic. p. 40
I•hn•••moni hieroglyphicum. p. 38
Jericho was occupied . p. 260
The sacred fire of Vesta: p. 196
The elemental fire known before the flood. p. 5
Iphige • ia mactata: p. 280
What is Isis: p. 3.12
• if • it is Ceres. p. 4
•sidi inv•nta. p. 4
• sis v • ta the death of Osiris in Typhon. p. 10
•sidi• columna. p. 17
•• is to Me • cur o crudita. p. 17
& cur p. 18
• you are the wife of Osiris, finder of crops p. 1 • 3
Isis shining in the star C • snow. p. 17
Isis Bubastia was founded p. 17
Is••mia. p. 206
The Jews came from Aegis . • 2
Juno & 〈◊〉 allegorates. p. 106
Jupiter and his allegories. p. 105
Jupiter, such as is worn • 59
L.
Labyrinth of Crete p. 27
Labyrinth of Egypt. p. 27
Laomedō is killed by Hercules. p. 232
The ashes of Laomedon. p. 276
Lampadophoria. p. 195
A stone placed in Helicon. p. 91
Laton est magnesia & Achilles. p. 266
Lemnus Vulcani's workshop was first claimed by Jason. p. 6
Lenaea. p. 170
Leo the Egyptian priest revealed to Alexander the Great. p. 20
Leo entered into battle before King Simandius . p. 2 •
Leoni• Hieroglyphicum. p. 3•
Leo Nemeaeus. p. 2••
The hieroglyphic of the Nemean lion. p. 220
What is the moon in the Philosophical work? • 92
What is Monday's sputum? p. 221
An image of the moon carried in the Eleusinians. p. 186
The image of the Moon and the Sun given to Jason by Medea to overcome dangers. p. 64
Hieroglyphic Wolves. p. 37
M.
Macedon, the son of Osiris, and his insignia. p. 7
What is magnesium? p. 26 •
The Magnesia of the Philosophers is Achi •• e • p. 265
What are the golden evils of the Hesperides? p. 8
The golden evils of Atalanta. • 6
Mars the son of Jupiter and his Allegories p. 117
Maron, companion of Osiris' journey. p. 7
M • ter & son couple. p. 15
Golden medicine in Egypt. p. 2
The golden medicine that the Egyptians and Greeks had. p. 54
What did the ancients do with golden medicine? p. 54
Medicine of the mind. p. 24
Medea gave the medicine to Jason. p. 64
Medea tore her brother Absyrtus to pieces. p. 65
Medea's grandfather • Sol. p. 70
Melampus is said to have brought the sacred things of Dionysus from Egypt to Greece. p. 46
Mena, king of Egypt. p. 22
Menander de my terijs . p. 155
Mercury what? p. 3
Mercu • ij found. p. 4
A quick inventor of many things. p. 4
of literature, of the honor of the gods, of astronomy, of music, of gymnastics, of medicine. p. 5
How Mercury is the inventor of letters and arts. p. 5
What does Mercury denote p. 6
Mercury, the counselor of Isis, appointed by Osiris. p. 7
Wednesday columns full of doctrine. p. 48
On Mercury the Egyptians wrote their books. p. 47
Mercury gilded the skin of Phryxis the ram. p. 66
Mercury, the son of Jupiter, and his alle∣goria. p. 134
Volatile Mercury. p. 136
Mercury learned from Vulcan. p. 137
Wednesday services. p. 137
Mercury gave the laws and letters to the Egyptians. p. 137
Mercury author of astronomy & philosophy. p. 137
Who is Mercury? p. 140
Mercury Trophonius not named. p. 14 •
Mercury's sacred tongue. p. 141
Mercury imposed upon the world. p. 141
Mercury's cave described by Orpheus. p. 14 •
Mercury was the ruler of Egypt. p. 150
The image of Mercury carried in Eleusis •• s▪ p. 187
Hercules gave the club to Mercury p. 14 •
Gold and silver metals were sold in Egypt. p. 24.2
Mines covered with the names of monsters • p. 8 •
Mineral tree • . p. 82
Midas aure • votive partner: p. 90
Minos & Rhadamantus. •6▪
How Midas the Phrygian dyed the waters. p. 2 ••
Muses 9. virgins followed by Osiris • m: p. 7
Mysticism added to the cult of Osiris: p. 8
what do they mean: p. 9
Mystique of Mercury: p. 141
Mysteries of the Eleusinians. p. 179
The threefold cause of the concealment of the mysteries: p. 179
A mystical case concerning the communion of the altar of Pallas and the fiery gods: p. 196
The mystery of Pluto. p. 108
N.
Nemea: p. 207
Nepenthes is a pain-relieving medicine made by the Egyptians. p. 53
Neptune and his allegories: p. 110
Nereus who p. 85
Nereus is consulted by Hercules: p. 78
Nothing. p. 3
The Nile flooding Egypt called the Eagle: p. 8
Osiris girded the banks of the Nile with embankment: p. 8
Nymphs which: p. 84
The nymphs are consulted by Hercules to find the golden evils. p. 78
Nysa v • bs founded by Osiris: p. 8
O.
Ocean, generator of the Gods. p. 3
Brass pots offered to Cadmus by Minerva. p. 45
Whence the Olympic contests were said. p. 199
When and by whom were the Olympic contests instituted? p. 199
The organization of the Olympic contests is of various opinions. p. 200
Apollo, the first Olympic judge, defeated Mercury by running. p. 201
An olive tree bent round by Hercules. p. 231
Oresti's riddle about the bones. p. 160
Orestes killed his mother. p. 275
Orgy. p. 168
Orgies to whom prohibited. p. 1 • 8
Orpheus, the first Greek theologian. p. 62
Orpheus was the first author of religion among the Greeks. p. 12
Orpheus delivered remedies for diseases. p. 125
The works of Orpheus p. 125,210
Orphica. p. 166
Orpheus • bits. p. 17
Allegories of the death of Orpheus. p. 175
Orpheus is not a Greek writer : p. 210
The last gold of the gods of Egypt. p. 14
Orus vl •• the death of the father of Osiris is known. ••
Orus restored to light by Isis & rendered immortal. p. 14
Orus is Apollo. p. 1 •
Oro or the sun of Thebes founded in Egypt. p. 2 •
The mouth of Pelops was found at Vlyssus. p. 276
The bone of Pelops was the third required at Troy. p. 27 •
Oschophoria p. 1 • 0
Osiris what? p. 3.12
Osiris is Dionysus. p. 4
Osiris & Isis, daughter of Saturn: p. 4
The deeds of Osiris and the wanderings of the world. p. 6
What did Osiris teach mortals? p. 7
I want Osiris to smile. p. 7
Osiris penetrated to the Indians. p. 8
Osiris and Isis being in one subject. p. 9
What does the campaign of Osiris mean? p. 9
Osiris, just reigning, was slain by his impious brother Typhon. p. 10
Osiris to Typhone in 26. partes • isse∣ctus. p. 10
The parts of Osiris, except for shame, were collected by Isis. p. 10
Osiris was honored by the Egyptian priests . p. 10
Osiris is commanded to be worshiped as a god. p. 10
Osiris is said to be the brother of Apollo and Isis. p. 7
& father Head. p. 10
Osiris son of Saturn. p. 17
anteq•ior: p. 18
•ur. p. 19
Osiris col • mu • . p. 17
Osiris has passed through the world. p. 17
〈…〉 reached the peoples subject to Arctus. p. 18
P.
PActolus aurifer. p. 257
Pallas what? •
Pallas shared an altar with Prometheus and Vulcan. p. 85
Palla • Jupiter's daughter from • {que} mother: p. 115
P • llas leader of the Amazons. p. 149
Pallas 〈◊〉 & a • tibus d • quote. p. 198
Pa • adi • m according to •• the quest to destroy Troy: p. 269
What is palladium and where is it from? p. 270
Palladium fictic•um. p. 271
Palladium v • i remained. p. 2 ••
Palladium to whom it was brought into Italy.
27
Pallas, who took away the Trojan word. p. 271
The dispute between Vlyssus and Ajax about Palladius. p. 272
What does palladium represent? p. 272
Pallas lost three words p. 271
The Palic brothers were published from the earth: p. 162
Panos vrbs Chemnis in Thebaida: p. 7
Money • whence originally said: p. 86
The rise of Perseus. p. 154
Perseus, son of Jupiter. p. 15 •
Peleus father of Achilles. p. 2 • 0
How Peleus entered Thetin. p. 260
Pelias spear of Achilles. p. 267
Pelops son of Tantalus. p. 273
Pelops twice pubescent. p. 274
The wealth of Pelops came from metals. p. 27 •
The rocks of Cyanea were first reached by Jason. p. 64
Pharmaca quaterna Iasoni gives to Medea. p. 64
Phallica. p. 170
The golden phase of the river. p. 72
Phoenix son of Neptune. p. 110
The philosophic fetus is nourished alone under the fire. p. 177
whence called Phrygia. p. 257
It will be explained what the arts of Phryxis were: p. 257
Painting, mute poetry. p. 2 • 0
What do the images of the planets mean in real chemistry: p. 191
The names and signs of the planets are not understood by the vulgar in chemistry. p. 1 • 1
Pluto and his allegories: p. 107
The primary intention of the oldest poets. p. 59
Poets are forbidden to injure the reputation of a citizen among the Romans. p. 255
The poets among the Greeks were permitted to imagine any p. 2 • 5
The poets of the gods imagine what v • lint among the Romans. p. 255
Poesy's head is like an octopus. p. 147
A poetic picture speaking. p. 210
The golden apple of Eridos. p. 86
A golden apple to be given to the beautiful. p. 260
Pol • ux & Helena ex vno ovo nati: p. 158
Proculus Caesar made manly deeds. p. 222
Prometheus commanded a part of Egypt. p. 8
Prometheus is consulted by Hercules. p. 78
Who is Prometheus? p. 85
Prometheus shared an altar with Vulcan and Pallas. p. 85
Prometheus delivered by Hercules: p. 239
Protheus, son of Neptune. p. 110
Prose•pina: p. 163
The Psammitic king of Egypt was the first foreigner to p. 28
Osi's pubic hair was thrown into the river . p. 11
The authors of the pyramids of Egypt. p. 27
The pyramids of Egypt. p. 50
The pyramids • where, where, to whom, when from • they were thrown: p. 50
In the pyramid • among the wonders of the world the sun • lasted. p. 51
Why are the pyramids believed to have been built? p. 51
Pyrithous sitting on a rock near the underworld • abandoned by Hercules. p. 241
Pyrisous Achilles called. p. 265
Pyrrhus rub•o caepill•tio. p. 26•
When did Pythagoras return from Egypt to the Greeks ? p. 28
Pythian struggles. p. 202
The Pythia was instituted in honor of Apollo and why and by whom it was celebrated. p. 202.203
Who is Pythonseu Typhon in chemistry: p. 204
Q.
Twenty girls made pregnant in one night by Hercules: p. 222
R.
The first kings p. 1
Whence came the Kingdom of Pel • Pidarum. p. 275
What do the remedies given to Jason by Medea mean? • 6
A reply to the slanderers of chemistry p. 103 107.119
Rhea, mother of the gods. p. 172
King Rhesus slain • b horses. p. 278
The land of the Rhodians was ravaged by serpents. p. 45
The Romans received the gods of the Egyptians. p. 172
Romanorū legation in Epi • aurū p. 173
The authors of the Gentiles of Rome are attached to • ijs o • jundi p. 252
The Ternaeus claim Rome for themselves. p. 253
Rom • a concursu auda •• ssimorum ho∣minum amplificata. p. 253
Rome was established by the abduction of the Sabine women. p. 253
Romulus was reared at the top, and was set up as a god. p. 2 • 2
Romulus attributed their origin to Venus and Mars . p. 252
S.
Sabacchus, king of Egypt, abdicated the kingdom. p. 27
Why did the priests of Egypt have a third part of the fields? p. 29
that the Egyptian priests had more secrets. p. 31
Samothrace from • rum names. p. 138
whom Saturn begat. p. 4
Saturn, the father of Osiris, the younger of the gods. p. 17
Saturnus & Rhea. p. 99
Hieroglyphics of Saturn. p. 99 100 101.102
Saturn's Allegory to Chemistry: p. 103
Saturna , why do you serve the Lord : p. 104
The satyrs followed Osiris. p. 7
Saxon Argus was slain by Mercury: p. 109
Almost revealing secrets. p. 1 • 2
Crop planting known before the flood: p. 5
I became an old man as a young man to Medea. p. 76
Serapis when said p. 30
Sethon, king of Egypt, priest of Vulcan: p. 16
The works of Sesostris, king of Egypt. p. 26 7
Sileni Alcibius . p. 90
Simandius, king of Egypt, performed amazing works. p. 2 • .24
The sun was believed to be the king of the Egyptians. p. 4
Soles quin{que} Cicero. e.g. 121
Who can be called the Sun of Heaven? p. 122
The sun stone called Anaxagoras. p. 122
The image of the sun carried in Eleusinia: p. 187
Why are certain powers ascribed to certain stars? p. 224
Manure • who is right: p. 227
T.
Tantalus was tortured in hell. p. 273
Tantalus, the son of Pelops, set out for the gods to be eaten. p. 273
Tantalum site. pp. 274
Tantalus was punished because he revealed secrets. p. 274
What does Taurus denote philosophic? p. 35
Tau • us is considered the father of the dragon and the dragon the father of the bull in Eleusinia. p. 1 • 8
What is the bull in the hymics? p. 18 •
A raging bull of Crete captured by Hercules. p. 13 •
The earth, the mother of all, bestowing riches. ••
At the time • between Alexander the Great and Osiris: p. 11 • 3
It has • us a Solis seu Ori regno ad A∣lex • ndrum. P. 1 •
The place of the Argonauts' voyage • ae. p. 76
Ter • ig na • um by Jason one stone asked. p. 6 •
The inhabitants of Thebaid must swear by Osi • idem p. 11
Thebes, the Egyptian centipede, ampl • ssi∣mae. p. 22
The Thebans' dress and wealth. p. 22
Th••mophoria. p. 176
Theseus brought out of the underworld by Hercules. p. 241
Is Theseus king of the Athenians, at what time did he live? p. 243
Thyestes asked for Pelops' lamb. p. 275
The son of Tithonus was killed by Hercules. p. 239
Tr•e•erica. p. 16•
Triptolemus from Ceres nourished under the fire. p. 176
Triptolemus, a companion of Osiris's journey, taught the trite the truth. p. 7
Triton, son of Neptune. p. 110
Troy is imagined to have been in the time of Hercules, and here of Osiris. p. 11
The legendary founders of Troy: p. 246
The walls of Troy were built by the lyre of Apollo. p. 246
The walls of Troy built by Vulcan. p. 246
It is not written that Troy stood. p. 247
The legendary kings and defenders of Troy. p. 247
The Trojans were all of the Greek denomination 〈◊〉 different languages. p. 248 249
The Trojans killed all but a few. p. 249
The reasons for the attack on Troy are fictitious . p. 2 • 9
The cause of the attack on Troy • are the apple and the egg p. 249
Troy • I cut off the uncertain time, because it never was. p. 250
When is the destruction of Troy supposed to have taken place? p. 251
Where was Troi ? p. 254
Do the Trojans extend the rud • ra & whose p. 256
Conditions for the capture of Troy. p. 259
What is meant by the destruction of Troy: p. 265
Typhon was born from the impact of the earth. p. 116
Typhon what? 3.12. p. 3.12
Typhon and Echidna, whose parents p. 144
V.
The hole was filled by the priests. p. 46
What does the golden fleece denote: p. 74
The golden Venus of Egypt. p. 5 •
Venus is a monster without fault. p. 11 •
Venus daughter of Saturn. p. 11 •
Venus emerging from Apelles. there:
Venus was believed to be the friendly goddess of nature. p. 11 •
Why are many Fridays decided? p. 11
Truth is the daughter of Saturn or Time. p. 11
The truth hangs from the neck of the judge of Egypt. p. 24
The vestments of the sacred fire. p. 196
Glass in ancient Egypt. p. 49
You know what it means. p. 262
Vlysses protected Helen. p. 27 •
Vrnae 360. filled with milk: p. 11
What is Vulcanus: p. 3
Vulcan, the inventor of fire. p. 4
Vulcan reigned in Egypt: p. 4
Volcanoes invent. p. 4
What does Vulcan denote? p. 5
Why Vulcan is said to have reigned first among the Egyptians: p. 5
Sethon, priest of Vulcan, king of Egypt: p. 16
Vulcani buried in the grove of Isis • ap 11
Vulcanus of Sesostr . p. 26
The statues of Vulcans in the temple. p. 27
Vulcan's primary temple at Memphis. p. 28
Why were the Vulcan priests the kings of Egypt? p. 28
Vulcan and Mercury, interpreters of hieroglyphics: p. 41
Vulcani officina ab Iasone first peti∣ta. p. 63
A common altar to Vulcan with Prometheus and Pallas. p. 85
Vulcan made Hermione a momle. p. 1 • 7
Vulcan, the son of Jupiter, and his allegories: p. 118
Vulcan was the chief of the gods in Egypt. p. 1 • 7
Vulcan's work Crotalus. p. 228
X.
XAnthus, a river of the Troas. p. 278
Xanthi river force p. 278
Xanthus, a horse given to Peleus by Neptune. p. 278
FINIS.