Medical-Chemical Work

continues from previous page: ...the manifestation of the creator God appears, showing us the wisdom, power, and goodness of the most divine creator, while simultaneously inviting us to his admiration and proclamation. Nazianzenus Gregory of Nazianzus, 4th-century theologian. Therefore we say: he who is denied the understanding of the naked and revealed nature, and of the sacred mysteries offered to us by God, the Best and Greatest, to him it will be impossible to aspire to himself and to the true fruition of the intelligence of the most holy Spirit. Diligently, therefore, with divine contemplation leading the way, the storehouse of nature must be uncovered, so that we may at last reach the sanctuary of God and his wisdom, and draw forth the divine beatitude that lies in the knowledge of him.

Be therefore, O Most Ample Senate, and Renowned Republic of Heluonopolis Likely referring to a city like Heilbronn, be, I say, illuminated by the ray of Divine Light, clarified from the mists and human filth, adorned in mind with heavenly gifts, a despiser of earthly things and a contemplator of heavenly and Divine things, immune to Diabolic arrogance, endowed with Christian humility, and full of sacred justice. May there be for you, O Most Ample Father, a true knowledge of nature and a science of things, tempered by charity. May there be for you, O Lords, that I may speak with the Holy Scripture, the single ladder of the Patriarch Jacob directing the journey to heaven: for without this medium, there is no crossing from earth to heaven. Blessed be God, and may he also bless you and your Empire, so that we, his creatures, and you, citizens and subjects subject to us, may live faithfully and happily under their justice, not feigned but sincere.

Since, however, it has been received by custom for many centuries past, Most Ample Senate, Renowned Republic, that new books should be consecrated to men excelling in dignity, amplitude, and nobility (whom it behooves most of all to know the greatest mysteries and to be gifted with these above others), so that, fortified by their patronage and favor as if by the aegis of Minerva, they may be the more defended from the injury of envious slanderers (as is the corrupt custom of this unclean world, where one always envies and attacks the talent of another): I have not doubted to offer these my labors, and this gift of my vigils, inscribed to the merits of your Amplitude, loving him as a Maecenas and Patron who has deserved highly of me, so that if certain wicked sophists wish to gnaw at it with the thick madness of envy and slander, you may happily protect and defend that which is now your own, with the perspicacity of discretion and the candor of judgment. I offer, however, to your Amplitude a new work on Medicine and dedicate it, not...