Laying out the Foundation
of Pansophy, Theosophy, and of philosophy further removed
revealed to his students
By Henry Nollius
Brief introduction by Samuel Robinson: Some time ago Hayward Gladwin and I started a project we called ‘Uncovering Forgotten Rosicrucians.’ We started compiling a list, examining their works and discovered not only that there are several forgotten Rosicrucian allegories and tracts, but that some of them fill in the missing pieces! Henricus Nollius (ca. 1583−1626) is one of these figures. Closely associated to Daniel Moegling (who wrote the Pansophic “Mirror of Wisdom of the Rosy Cross”) our Nollius wrote extensive Rosicrucian tracts on medicine, Nature and Hermetic regeneration.
The following tract is from his work “Natvrae Sanctvarivm: Qvod Est, Physica Hermetica” published in Frankfurt 1619, placing it quite early on the Rosicrucian scene. Even his earlier works describe our early Rosicrucian path perfectly, spanning across thousands of pages.
His work starts thus:
Notice by Henry Nollius
If, kindly Reader, the harmony of matters higher and lower will be known to you, and thus you will understand the given foundation of both Pansophy, theosophically and naturally,[1] (which is the knowledge of higher and lower matters, based on infallible harmony), then those secrets that are held entwined in the bosom of Nature and which are put forth for us by Christ, from the lap of God, will lie open to you at a single look. Only read back over it a thousand times, and ponder it faithfully that many times.
In the Name of Jesus
Amen
Whatever exists in the ranking of Beings is one of three things: highest, lowest, or intermediate.[2] “Highest” is that which shares in the light in such a way that real shadows cannot be found or given off in it. “Lowest” is that which shares in shadows such that not even a tiny particle of light is revealed in it,[3] nor can it ever create itself or draw itself into existence.[4] “Intermediate” is that which shares in light and shadows together, where one must know that Beings are found: some that share more in light than in shadows, other that possess more of shadows than light. But since mastery of shadows is the source of all inconsistency and corruption, this is how the light of all constancy and diligence[5] must necessarily be arranged: 1) Those Beings in which shadows have mastery are corruptible and die, but those in which light rules over shadows are incorruptible and last eternally. 2) When light is suppressed and hidden by shadows, it does not rest; since it is likely that what is best in an intermediate nature and is covered will go forth and be freed from its chains, and be joined to eternal and light-giving substances. 3) That which contains light[6] in an intermediate Being should be drawn out by something else that gives more light and is more powerful, so that on this account the light which is kept hidden in the shadows may shine and bind itself close to other eternal things forever. 4) Light does not emerge from shadows, unless the shadows are first driven away; but shadows cannot be driven away, unless the body that is full of shadows is broken and destroyed. Thus comes the origin and source of all corruption, the root and foundation[7] of every disaster.
“The highest Being” is the one and only God, who created everything with his word, and arranged it wisely with the Breath[8] of his mouth, so that the soul, life, vivacity,[9] and vigor passed[10] into the world. Since God is the one that contains light most purely,[11] he dwells in the light, which nothing can draw near and approach unless it contains light purely. So it is that man in his flesh, insofar as it has not yet been glorified nor turned into the nature of pure life, is never going to see God. Just as light is supremely brilliant, supremely pure, so too can God be looked upon, recognized, and understood by the minds that set aside the actions of shadows and reject them and truly separate themselves from the world, sometimes even donning brilliant light. Fortunate is the man who, whenever he wants, can raise his mind from the prison[12] of the body through faith, up to the brilliant throne of God that lies deep within man’s core (which is “the hidden thing in which the Father looks and exists,”[13] Matt. 6.4.6.17), and can there commune with God and the Blessed[14] angels, and be taught unutterable secrets[15] <> by them. Such a man is God-taught,[16] and all the things that he seeks through faith from God in the name of our Lord, he easily gains. This man lives in the world such that he is always wandering in his mind outside the world.[17] He subordinates his stupefied senses to the mind, so that he only does these things and is kindled to action by the Breath of God.
In fact, he seems to the world foolish and unwise, but he far surpasses the wise men of this world in wisdom. Indeed, those to whom the divine man seems foolish are the blind and foolish ones. The more someone sinks into his times, the more distant he is from the grace and light of God; and since that light is the source of all strength, all the less will a man be able to undertake some task[18] the further he is from the source of light. At their core,[19] the senses carry the light that is closed up in the mind; the man who has learned to drive his senses from the edge to the center and to produce the light that is enclosed at the edge is the true Cabalist, and is learned in Theosophy. Such are the Ecstatics, who pass over prayers to the true God and, with a strike[20] driving them to the throne of God, and with a diligent inquiry into the word of Christ undertaken, know quite well how to hide the actions of their senses and dredge the actions of the mind out of the shadows, and shine through the most splendid[21] flame of the divine Spirit. These are the true attendants of God, who sometimes even detect keenly a certain glorification of their own nature in this world. Reflect upon the face of Moses, lit most especially with gleaming splendor from his divine conversation (Exod. 34). Look upon Christ, whose clothes appeared to Peter, Jacob, and John, suffused with the utmost splendor and snowy whiteness (Mark 9). You will also have a rough idea of the glorification that tends to befall the blessed slaves[22] of God in this age. But if you ask by what path you can be exalted to such heights that you come into conversation with God, the Holy scriptures will easily answer you and hint at the fact that this path has been extensively revealed to you by Christ. If you hold to Christ’s lesson, you will grasp God in the light, and you will be so illuminated by God that you will have a mind solidly joined with God and you will come out truly divine.
When you attain this perfection, you will see the Angels of God descend from heaven, and ascend to heaven, and take supreme delight in the keepings[23] of righteous men. Christ’s lesson demands two things: denial of the world and new life. In denial of the world, pleasure over temporal matters is rejected and scorned on account of the kingdom of the heavens, and so it is the first door to the kingdom of the heavens. The new life is lived righteously after the denial of the world, following Christ’s lesson, and all trust is placed in God alone. This is the second door to the kingdom of the heavens. Denial of the world entails abandonment of lower thing; new life entails the grasping of loftier things. Whoever has come here and accomplished this in the school of the Holy Spirit, according to the revealed word of God, aims at and achieves nothing that does not come from God. To the believer, all things are possible. A man of this sort delights in and makes use of divine revelations; sometimes, he finds derives improvement in knowledge and justice day after day.[24] Whoever is righteous may thus be redeemed.[25] But you say that it is impossible to live according to the law of Christ for those who are entwined in the affairs of the world. You speak well and truly, if nothing of the divine were to occur in worldly concerns, for you ought to die in the world that you may live in God. Leave burying the dead for the dead. You shall treat earthly matters such that you care for them not at all, nor place your happiness in them. In the word of God alone let there be your peace. I think on this night and day, that you might be made the son of God from it, by conducting your life according to the word of God. Arise, do not fall; stick close to the Supreme Being (who is quite distinct from your lowly self), that you might be and be called truly blessed.
The “Lowest Being” is a Being blacker than black, a chasm of shadows; merely adjacent to Being, the root of all imperfection, carrying nothing of light in itself when it acts.[26] The closer and closer something is to it, the more imperfect, the more hidden, the darker and more corruptible it is. But God, who did not want even this dark Being to lay hidden, set it in liquid form, which they call “water”; and it was his will to mix light with it, that through light he might bring it from the lowest condition into a more brilliant, more esteemed, more lustrous, and loftier station, and thus he endowed that which was supremely imperfect with a sort of perfection. Since God, being drawn by pity towards the debasement of shadows, mixed light in with the chasm of shadows, he did not immediately grant mastery over light, but closed light up in shadows, until he should stir the power and marvelous actions of the obscured light by moving them with the word and Breath of his own mouth; and from Chaos, that shadowy thing that hides the light laid up within it, he made by means of a marvelous union all the other intermediate Beings. Thus, with the first word of God, out of that Chaos came forth the Elements, and from them the Elemental creations,[27] and the higher and lower things, both heavenly and earthly, as well as those things beyond the heavens. In the name of the “things beyond the heavens”[28] come the Angels, who live beyond the stars in the Empyrean heaven, by God’s side, and there they serve God such that at each and every moment they are prepared to accomplish God’s commands. There are those like these Angels, whosoever are raised up on the wings of divine wisdom and seek in God, by the supreme light, that supernatural perfection. In mortal man hides a divine ray. If we bring it out into the light by the word of God, and crucify our flesh and its actions, as well as all our desires, by wiping them out and by the shedding of tears, that ray will be changed into the glorious and most radiant Sun, so full of divine virtue, and it will be converted into the secret abode of God by a supernatural transformation, that we may thus live dedicated no longer to ourselves, but to God alone. God, you who make me understand these things by your singular grace,[29] and the wonderful bounty of your light, and your genuine demonstration, so that a tiny spark of the divine mind, offered freely[30] to me and given unto me, grows into an unquenchable font of light, and I, while considering your marvels along with your angels,[31] and while undertaking your commands, shall find peace for my soul in you alone, through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen.
This translation is copyright © to Samuel Robinson and Pansophers, 2019.
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