Treatise

To our Aben Hebrew: אבן, meaning "stone.", therefore—the unique house of wisdom—we shall hasten with a measured step. This will allow us to more clearly prove that this stone is the foundation not only of the Macrocosm The "Great World" or the universe as a whole. and every one of its members, but also of the Microcosm The "Little World," a traditional philosophical term for a human being, reflecting the structure of the universe. itself. From this, we will show that any person in general can be truly and rightly called both Cephas Aramaic: "Stone" or "Rock," the name given to the Apostle Peter. and Aben, just as specifically St. Peter himself was named. First, we shall approach the Aben, or the fundamental Stone of the Macrocosm.

The Patriarch Jacob says:

How terrible is this place! This is none other than the house of God and the gate of heaven. And rising, he took the stone which he had placed under his head and set it up as a monument, pouring oil upon the top of it, and he said: This stone which I have set up shall be called the House of God. Genesis 28:17–22. Fludd uses this to argue that God's essence resides within the material world. If it is the House of God, then God is in that place, or within that earthly substance.

It was for this reason that the Patriarch, sleeping upon this stone, conceived divine and wonderful things through the power of that spiritual rock. This spiritual rock related to that physical stone as the soul relates to the body. Truly, that spiritual rock was Christ, and Christ is the Eternal Wisdom, in which (as the sacred pages testify) there are many mansions. All of these are undoubtedly distinguished by various degrees of blessedness and happiness. Indeed, happiness follows knowledge or understanding; for the greater and more numerous the things we know, the closer we approach to God.

From these points, it is right to conclude that since happiness itself follows knowledge, all true knowledge comes from God or the House of Wisdom, whose role alone (as has been said) is to teach all things. This, then, was the origin of Jacob’s happiness and knowledge; this was his auspicious fellowship with Jehovah.

But someone may object: "Wisdom, or Christ, is said to fill all things and to be present everywhere; therefore, if a stone is his house, then everything that exists is a stone." To this we say that the spiritual Stone is Universal original: "Catholicum"—used here in its original sense of "universal" or "all-encompassing.", and it puts on an earthly garment according to its will. Therefore, both the heavens and this earth overflow with the gifts of that divine light; for the heavens are His seat, and the earth is His footstool, and as the Wise Man testifies, Wisdom fills the whole world.

Nor is it at all unfitting that the rock is called "spiritual" and the stone "universal" and "cornerstone," insofar as this light alone is the essence and basis of every thing—whether celestial or terrestrial. It is the foundation upon which everything in the entire world stands firmly. In celestial matters, the stone is the "cornerstone" of the Sun (that most beautiful of creatures); by means of this stone, the Sun is established in its sphere, is seen to hasten from its rising to its setting, and is observed to look out from its center toward every part of the world’s circumference.

Psalm 19. Ecclesiasticus 24. 4 Ezra 16.

For thus it is said of this spiritual stone—this Christ who fills all things with this wisdom, or the radiance of eternal divine brightness—that He "placed his tabernacle in the sun." Elsewhere, He is called the Sun full of the glory of the Lord. Similarly, regarding the stars in general, it is written that they were founded in the word of the Lord. It is as if he had said that their fundamental stone, by which they exist and are sustained, is the Word—which was the super-essential light of the world, or Holy Wisdom—without whose support nothing can exist or be sustained.

Job 26.

Furthermore, the earth also has its spiritual stone: namely, the Divine Word, by whose assistance the earth is suspended over the void and nothingness, and is adorned with its many-faceted properties. Hence it is said elsewhere: Who laid the cornerstone of the earth? Has it not also been said that the heavens existed first, and the earth was made from water and through water by the assistance of the Word? That is to say, by the placement and fitting of this cornerstone. If, therefore, this applies to both heaven and earth, it follows that all other things which come from them exist by the power of this support and the strength of this cornerstone’s fitting.