Text.BP190.F5r/Translation

Bernard G. Penotus from London at the Port of Saint Mary, Aquitaine, to the most learned man Johann Aquila [Johann Arndt] of Saxony, the hammer of the heathens, sends many greetings.

Not only in our times, dear Johann, but also in ancient times among the learned, the proverb held its place that ignorance is the mother of wonder. Who would not wonder at this time that men utterly ignorant of all good disciplines are preferred over the most learned men, experts in both Latin and Greek? And are welcomed by Kings and princes, and gifted with very generous presents? While the most adorned men, experts in all languages, are rejected and despised? You, who excel in judgment and learning, will answer that every perfect gift comes from the Father of lights. Therefore, in these last times, God raises up idiots and empirics so that every physician may rightly prepare the medicines with his own hand and apply the prepared remedies with sharp judgment to his own diseases, so that the seed of the disease may be uprooted and not entrusted to an unskilled cook. Hence, theory and practice, reason and work must come together. For judgment without practice is barren. Most of them will respond that we do not know your operations and preparations, which involve hard labor. We are now old, and we do not wish to become novices and students. If this response were valid, Jews, the Pope, and even Turks would not want to change their superstitions, which we know to be foreign to the sacred scriptures. However, we prove daily by calcining, sublimating, dissolving, putrefying, distilling, freezing, and fixing through this most praised art of alchemy that the impure can be separated from the pure, the corruptible from the incorruptible, and the poisonous and deadly can be changed into the wholesome and pure. And (as Paracelsus says) regarding this art, we must first notice that everything was created by God. For He created something out of nothing. That something is the seed of all, that seed sets the end for the thing to which it is destined: yet all things were created so that they come into our hands and begin to be within our power: yet so that they are not perfect but to be perfected, not as completed, but to be completed. The first matter in them is indeed perfect, but the middle and the last remain to be perfected. For example, God created iron, earth, clay, not as they ought to be, for clay grows, but not as pots and other earthen vessels. Thus, He created iron lying in raw material and delivered it to us raw, therefore it must be worked, so that from it we prepare horseshoes, make scythes, spears. So also medicine is: for it too was created. But not afterward to be completely finished, but still hidden under the earth, not purified from the impurer matter, and what remains in it to be perfected, is committed to the volcano, that is, the physician, to be purified. Herbs, trees, gems, iron, and everything that is seen with the eyes, is not right medicine, but is raw and unclean, in which the impurer part is still hidden. Therefore, alchemy teaches to purify medicine, to dissolve, and to separate the heterogeneous from the homogeneous. Otherwise, the putrid are mixed with the putrid, the corruptible with the corruptible, and they conspire to one effect. So that from one disease, many arise. In summary, everyone does not love what they do not know. But also flees, despises, and does not think it should be learned. He only cares for the external body, and the mind worships its God. However, as the knowledge and understanding of something grows more, so does the love for it increase. For everything is situated in just knowledge, from it all good fruits flow and return to knowledge: knowledge also gives faith. He who has known God immediately begins to trust Him. For as one's faith is, so is also his knowledge: and conversely, he who operates differently about nature, does as a painter painting an image in which there is no life or force. Therefore, Empirics (as you call them) will rise to you, expecting diseases of illnesses, impossible cures for you, and they will seize and heal them. And you, along with your consultations and reasonings, will be given over to mockery and laughter, as recently happened in Germany with a certain noble and famous woman, who was tormented by the pain of the womb, indeed said to be a stone, but a passing Empiric contended that it was not a stone. Therefore, he ordered a remedy to be prepared for the womb: having done so, she was immediately freed. Oh, what a rumor arose from him, inciting other rumors! (saying) her husband despises us so much, who consults an Empiric man rather than us? Others made little of him, wiser than him, who knew to use the work of that most inexperienced Empiric man every hour: See (my Aquila) how much envy led enemies try to suppress the truth: eventually, willing or unwilling, they will be forced to confess what cannot be denied. You could object to me, He who says everything, excludes nothing. Since there are many excellent laureates, masters and professors of medicine, who do not deny this art at all. Among whom are the most magnificent lords, most excellent doctors, Petrus Severinus the Dane, who wrote wonderful things about this spagyric art. The distinguished and pious man Michael Neander Humanus, professor. Theodorus Zuingerus of Basel, very experienced in this art. Also Theodorus Birckmannus of Cologne, a physician, who every day by work and speech excels in great judgment in these matters, I will never leave in silence. The noble Frenchman, the most learned Lord Doctor Rochefort, and Liebaud, a physician in Paris, will be involved, are not his works extant? Therefore, so much is said to those who pursue this most praised art worse than a dog and a snake with hatred. Meanwhile, I deemed it right to publish these three hidden particulars for the public benefit, what and how they are, the thing itself will indicate in a short time, God willing to give more. Farewell in Geneva, August 15, 1581.