Sacred and Truly Christian Philosophy, or Cosmic Meteorology

On the Primary Principles of Meteors. 7

Having already clearly explained these matters in our physical history of the Macrocosm The "Great World" or the universe as a whole, and later in Book 9, Tract 1, Chapter 9 of the Natural History of the Microcosm The "Little World," referring to the human being as a reflection of the universe; and finally in the first and fifth chapters of the first book of the first section of the first part of the second volume, concerning the Cabalistic and Physiological Discourse of Both Worlds—where the primary elements of Nature are discussed—and also in Chapter 1 of the same discourse where the triple principles of the Macrocosm and Microcosm are debated; it is my purpose in this place to briefly review and recount those same things for the sake of fresh memory and a more certain method.

We say, therefore, according to the doctrine of the High Priest Moses, that there are three primary principles of all things, and consequently of meteors: namely, Darkness, Light, and the Intermediate Spirit which participates in both. For its sublunary part the region below the moon is more familiar with the earth and darkness, which is why it is subject to constant alterations. Its empyrean the highest, fiery heaven and super-celestial part, however, is observed to have a greater fellowship with the source of light, as it was the receptacle for the light created on the first day, and it is that over which the Spirit of God is said to have moved. Finally, its middle portion participates equally in both extremes; for this reason, the "sphere of equality"—which is the solar orbit, or rather the path through which the Sun passes daily—is said by the Platonists, not without reason, to be drawn in its very center. From this, it is called Ether.

Moses called this worldly spirit "the waters," the subject of which is the "second matter" arising from the depths of the formless darkness (which is the first or potential matter of the spirit itself). The procreator or beneficial midwife of this birth was that fiery power emanating from the Spirit of the Lord; this was that igniting love original: "amor ignens" by means of which potential matter—lurking in the depths of formless chaos or Hyle Hyle: a Greek term for "prime matter," the raw, unformed substance of the universe—was brought into the actual state of waters.

Therefore, Water is the daughter of the latent God (the darkness), while Light is the offspring of the divine power or splendor (the manifest God). The midwife of both is the Word or the Divine Spirit. Hence the wise man said: God created the world out of formless or (as Jerome has it) invisible matter, Wisdom 11:18. And Saint Peter says: the heavens were of old, and the earth consisting of water and through water by the word of God, 2 Peter 3:5. From this it is clear that the first matter of the world was formless matter, which Moses called Darkness or the Dark Abyss, and its second matter was Water, from which the heavens and earth were later made. The worker or operator of all these miracles was the Word with the Spirit of the Lord, as in Psalm 33:6. And hence the royal Psalmist sings: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all their power by the Spirit of his mouth.

Here, therefore, we have confirmed from Holy Scripture:
1. The Potential or Privative Principle: namely, darkness or formless and invisible matter (wherefore it is said that the earth was empty and void).
2. The Positive Principle: namely, Light, or the effect of divine power, by whose presence the invisible, formless, and potential matter was made visible and active.
3. The Intermediate Subject or Object: namely, Water, from which the heavens and the earth were fashioned by means of Form.

For this reason, natural philosophers, when describing the breadth of all beings, place at the summit Pure Act without matter, and at the bottom Matter without Form (namely, darkness). They demonstrate that all intermediate things are mixed from form and matter—specifically, water mixed with vivifying light. This is the same reason we conceived the origin of our formal and material Pyramids Fludd often used diagrams of intersecting pyramids of Light and Darkness to explain the composition of reality.

From these things, it is clear that:

• Earth is nothing other than thick water and the dregs of the spirit remaining after its extraction from the formless chaos.
• The Universal Air is thin and subtle water, or the invisible spirit extracted from chaos.
• Visible Water (sea, spring, river) is the intermediate substance participating in both extremes. In that it is thicker, slower in motion, and heavier than air, it appears to have commerce with the earth; yet, insofar as it is clear, mobile, and not as heavy as earth, it seems to taste of the nature of air and stand apart from the laws of earth.

When Saint Peter said the heaven and earth consist of water and through water by the Word of God, he understood "heaven" to mean the universal air (whose base is visible water), and by "earth" he seems to imply everything dark, opaque, and dense. The order of these principles is also best denoted by the Regular Bodies of Geometry The Platonic Solids, where the Cube is defined as the most extreme and ample body, because it is first-born and contains the ratio of the whole.

This body [the Cube] is regarded by the more occult philosophers as Chaos or Hyle, or opaque, dark, and formless matter, from whose bosom or womb both light and water emerged—that is, the formal and material principle of all things. This is PAN, or universal nature, produced from the formless chaos by a Virgin birth. And when the philosophers said that the Tetrahedron A four-faced pyramid, representing the element of Fire was the first-born from the cube, they understood that Fire (or primary lucid form) emerged from the immense darkness as if from a most massive and opaque body. For then, formal light immediately appeared in the moist nature; then, I say, the Spirit of the Lord was carried over the waters, imparting fiery vigor to them. This was followed by the completion of the first day of creation. Thus, according to the words of the wise man: Wisdom was created before all things, Ecclesiasticus 1; that is, divine light shone out of the darkness before any other creature. King Solomon also seems to confirm this in these words: Jehovah possessed Wisdom in the beginning of his way, before his works, before any time; before the beginning of the earth. When there were no depths, I was brought forth (says Wisdom), when there were no fountains; when God strengthened the clouds above, when he prepared the heavens, I was there; when he set a compass upon the face of the deep...