TRTR(I.7) I Shall Be Released

[Jed Kelestron]

On Sun, Jun 5, 2011 at 10:08 AM, alice wellintown
<alicewellintown at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks. When you say Gaddis "lifted the epigraph from Jung" and that
> Jung quotes Lully, are you saying that Jung emplyys the same passage
> from Lully?
>
> Also, does Jung capitalize "Lapis"?

Jung employs the same passage from Lully, and he italicizes but does
not capitalize lapis.

>From Jung:

Even if many of the treatises ascribed to him were written by Spanish
and Provençal disciples, this does not change the approximate date of
the main body of writings to which the Codicillus belonged. In any
case, I do not know that anyone has adduced convincing grounds for
placing this treatise later than the fourteenth century. It contains
the passage: "And as Jesus Christ, of the house of David, took upon
himself human nature [...] delivered from that foulness by another
that is contrary to it."

He goes on to offer an older text by Hermes that alludes to the
lapis/Christ parallel, but does not mention Christ by name.

"Our most valuable stone, which was thrown upon the dung-heap, has
become altogether mean . . . But when we marry the crowned king to the
red daughter, then, in a weak fire, she is gotten with a son, and he
lives through our fire . . . Then he is transformed, and his tincture
remains as red as flesh. Our son of royal birth takes his tincture
from the fire, whereupon death and darkness and the waters take to
flight. The dragon fears the sunlight, and our dead son will live. The
king comes out of the fire, and takes joy in the wedding. The hidden
treasures are disclosed. The son, already come to life, has become a
warrior in the fire and surpasses the tincture, because he himself is
the treasure and himself bears the philosophical materia. Gather
together, ye sons of wisdom, and rejoice, for death's dominion has
found an end, and the son reigns, he wears the red garment and is
clothed in purple."