Page 5 of 5

Re: Alchemical Studies, by C.G. Jung

PostPosted: Fri Oct 04, 2019 4:23 am
by admin
10. SUMMARY

284 The multiple aspects of Mercurius may be summarized as follows:

(1) Mercurius consists of all conceivable opposites. He is thus quite obviously a duality, but is named a unity in spite of the fact that his innumerable inner contradictions can dramatically fly apart into an equal number of disparate and apparently independent figures.

(2) He is both material and spiritual.

(3) He is the process by which the lower and material is transformed into the higher and spiritual, and vice versa.

(4) He is the devil, a redeeming psychopomp, an evasive trickster, and God's reflection in physical nature.

(5) He is also the reflection of a mystical experience of the artifex that coincides with the opus alchymicum.

(6) As such, he represents on the one hand the self and on the other the individuation process and, because of the limitless number of his names, also the collective unconscious.1

***

285 Certainly goldmaking, as also chemical research in general, was of great concern to alchemy. But a still greater, more impassioned concern appears to have been-one cannot very well say the "investigation"-but rather the experience of the unconscious. That this side of alchemy-the [x]-was for so long misunderstood is due solely to the fact that nothing was known of psychology, let alone of the suprapersonal, collective unconscious. So long as one knows nothing of psychic actuality, it will be projected, if it appears at all. Thus the first knowledge of psychic law and order was found in the stars, and was later extended by projections into unknown matter. These two realms of experience branched off into sciences: astrology became astronomy, and alchemy chemistry. On the other hand, the peculiar connection between character and the astronomical determination of time has only very recently begun to turn into something approaching an empirical science. The really important psychic facts can neither be measured, weighed, nor seen in a test tube or under a microscope. They are therefore supposedly indeterminable, in other words they must be left to people who have an inner sense for them, just as colours must be shown to the seeing and not to the blind.

286 The store of projections found in alchemy is, if possible, even less known, and there is a further drawback which makes closer investigation extremely difficult. For, unlike the astrological constituents of character which, if negative, are at most unpleasant for the individual, though amusing to his neighbour, the alchemical projections represent collective contents that stand in painful contrast-or rather, in compensatory relation -- to our highest rational convictions and values. They give the strange answers of the natural psyche to the ultimate questions which reason has left untouched. Contrary to all progress and belief in a future that will deliver us from the sorrowful present, they point back to something primeval, to the apparently hopelessly static, eternal sway of matter that makes our fondly believed- in world look like a phantasmagoria of shifting scenes. They show us, as the redemptive goal of our active, desirous life, a symbol of the inorganic-the stone-something that does not live but merely exists or "becomes," the passive subject of a limitless and unfathomable play of opposites. "Soul," that bodiless abstraction of the rational intellect, and "spirit," that two-dimensional metaphor of dry-as-dust philosophical dialectic, appear in alchemical projection in almost physical, plastic form, like tangible breath-bodies, and refuse to function as component parts of our rational consciousness. The hope for a psychology without the soul is brought to nothing, and the illusion that the unconscious has only just been discovered vanishes: in a somewhat peculiar form, admittedly, it has been known for close on two thousand years. Let us, however, not delude ourselves: no more than we can separate the constituents of character from the astronomical determinants of time are we able to separate that unruly and evasive Mercurius from the autonomy of matter. Something of the projection-carrier always clings to the projection, and even if we succeed to some degree in integrating into our consciousness the part we recognize as psychic, we shall integrate along with it something of the cosmos and its materiality; or rather, since the cosmos is infinitely greater than we are, we shall have been assimilated by the inorganic. "Transform yourselves into living philosophical stones!" cries an alchemist, but he did not know how infinitely slowly the stone "becomes." Anyone who gives serious thought to the "natural light" that emanates from the projections of alchemy will certainly agree with the Master who spoke of the "wearisomeness of the interminable meditation" demanded by the work. In these projections we encounter the phenomenology of an "objective" spirit, a true matrix of psychic experience, the most appropriate symbol for which is matter. Nowhere and never has man controlled matter without closely observing its behaviour and paying heed to its laws, and only to the extent that he did so could he control it. The same is true of that objective spirit which today we call the unconscious: it is refractory like matter, mysterious and elusive, and obeys laws which are so non-human or suprahuman that they seem to us like a crimen laesae majestatis humanae. If a man puts his hand to the opus, he repeats, as the alchemists say, God's work of creation. The struggle with the unformed, with the chaos of Tiamat, is in truth a primordial experience.

287 Since the psyche, when directly experienced, confronts us in the "living" substance it has animated and appears to be one with it, Mercurius is called argentum vivum. Conscious discrimination, or consciousness itself, effects that world-shattering intervention which separates body from soul and divides the spirit Mercurius from the hydrargyrum, as if drawing off the spirit into the bottle, to speak in terms of our fairy tale. But since body and soul, in spite of the artificial separation, are united in the mystery of life, the mercurial spirit, though imprisoned in the bottle, is yet found in the roots of the tree, as its quintessence and living numen. In the language of the Upanishads, he is the personal atman of the tree. Isolated in the bottle, he corresponds to the ego and the principle of individuation, which in the Indian view leads to the illusion of individual existence. Freed from his prison, Mercurius assumes the character of the suprapersonal atman. He becomes the one animating principle of all created things, the hiranyagarbha (golden germ),2 the suprapersonal self, represented by the filius macrocosmi, the one stone of the wise. "Rosinus ad Sarratantam" cites a saying of "Malus Philosophus"3 which attempts to formulate the psychological relation of the lapis to consciousness: "This stone is below thee, as to obedience; above thee, as to dominion; therefore from thee, as to knowledge; about thee, as to equals."4 Applied to the self, this would mean: "The self is subordinate to you, yet on the other hand rules you. It is depend en t on your own efforts and your knowledge, but transcends you and embraces all those who are of like mind." This refers to the collective nature of the self, since the self epitomizes the wholeness of the personality. By definition, wholeness includes the collective unconscious, which as experience seems to show is everywhere identical.

288 The encounter of the poor student with the spirit in the bottle portrays the spiritual adventure of a blind and unawakened human being. The same motif underlies the tale of the swineherd who climbed the world-tree,5 and also forms the leitmotiv of alchemy. For what it signifies is the individuation process as it prepares itself in the unconscious and gradually enters consciousness. The commonest alchemical symbol for this is the tree, the arbor philosophica, which derives from the paradisal tree of knowledge. Here, as in our fairy tale, a daemonic serpent, an evil spirit, prods and persuades to knowledge. In view of the Biblical precedent, it is not surprising that the spirit Mercurius has, to say the least, a great many connections with the dark side. One of his aspects is the female serpent-daemon, Lilith or Melusina, who lives in the philosophical tree. At the same time, he not only partakes of the Holy Spirit but, according to alchemy, is actually identical with it. We have no choice but to accept this shocking paradox after all we have learnt about the ambivalence of the spirit archetype. Our ambiguous Mercurius simply confirms the rule. In any case, the paradox is no worse than the Creator's whimsical notion of enlivening his peaceful, innocent paradise with the presence of an obviously rather dangerous tree-snake, "accidentally" located on the very same tree as the forbidden apples.

289 It must be admitted that the fairy tale and alchemy both show Mercurius in a predominantly unfavourable light, which is all the more striking because his positive aspect relates him not only to the Holy Spirit, but, in the form of the lapis, also to Christ and, as a triad, even to the Trinity. It looks as if it were precisely these relationships which led the alchemists to put particular stress on the dark and dubious quality of Mercurius, and this militates strongly against the assumption that by their lapis they really meant Christ. If this had been their meaning, why should they have renamed Christ the lapis philosophorum? The lapis is at most a counterpart or analogy of Christ in the physical world. Its symbolism, like that of Mercurius who constitutes its substance, points, psychologically speaking, to the self, as also does the symbolic figure of Christ.6 In comparison with the purity and unity of the Christ symbol, Mercurius-Iapis is ambiguous, dark, paradoxical, and thoroughly pagan. It therefore represents a part of the psyche which was certainly not moulded by Christianity and can on no account be expressed by the symbol "Christ." On the contrary, as we have seen, in many ways it points to the devil, who is known at times to disguise himself as an angel of light. The lapis formulates an aspect of the self which stands apart, bound to nature and at odds with the Christian spirit. It represents all those things which have been eliminated from the Christian model. But since they possess living reality, they cannot express themselves otherwise than in dark Hermetic symbols. The paradoxical nature of Mercurius reflects an important aspect of the self-the fact, namely, that it is essentially a complexio oppositorum} and indeed can be nothing else if it is to represent any kind of totality. Mercurius as deus terrestris has something of that deus absconditus (hidden god) which is an essential element of the psychological self, and the self cannot be distinguished from a God-image (except by incontestable and unprovable faith). Although I have stressed that the lapis is a symbol embracing the opposites, it should not be thought of as a-so to speak-more complete symbol of the self. That would be decidedly incorrect, for actually it is an image whose form and content are largely determined by the unconscious. For this reason it is never found in the texts in finished and well-defined form; we have to combine all the scattered references to the various arcane substances, to Mercurius, to the transformation process and the end product. Although the lapis in one aspect or another is almost always the subject discussed, there is no real consensus of opinion in regard to its actual form. Almost every author has his own special allegories, synonyms, and metaphors. This makes it clear that the stone, though indeed an object of general experiment, was to an even greater extent an outcropping of the unconscious, which only sporadically crossed the borderline of subjectivity and gave rise to the vague general concept of the lapis philosophorum.

290 Opposed to this figure veiled in the twilight of more or less secret doctrines there stands, sharply outlined by dogma, the Son of Man and Salvator Mundi, Christ the Sol Novus, before whom the lesser stars pale. He is the affirmation of the daylight of consciousness in trinitarian form. So clear and definite is the Christ figure that whatever differs from him must appear not only inferior but perverse and vile. This is not the result of Christ's own teaching, but rather of what is taught about him, and especially of the crystal purity which dogma has bestowed upon his figure. As a result, a tension of opposites such as had never occurred before in the whole history of Christianity beginning with the Creation arose between Christ and the Antichrist, as Satan or the fallen angel. At the time of Job, Satan is still found among the sons of God. "Now there was a day," it says in Job I : 6, "when the sons of God came to present themselves before the Lord, and Satan came also among them." This picture of a celestial family reunion gives no hint of the New Testament "Get thee hence, Satan" (Matthew 4: 10), nor yet of the dragon chained in the underworld for a thousand years (Rev. 20: 2). It looks as if the superabundance of light on one side had produced an all the blacker darkness on the other. One can also see that the uncommonly great diffusion of black substance makes a sinless being almost impossible. A loving belief in such a being naturally involves cleansing one's own house of black filth. But the filth must be dumped somewhere, and no matter where the dump lies it will plague even the best of all possible worlds with a bad smell.

291 The balance of the primordial world is upset. What I have said is not intended as a criticism, for I am deeply convinced not only of the relentless logic but of the expediency of this development. The emphatic differentiation of opposites is synonymous with sharper discrimination, and that is the sine qua non for any broadening or heightening of consciousness. The progressive differentiation of consciousness is the most important task of human biology and accordingly meets with the highest rewards -- vastly increased chances of survival and the development of power technology. From the phylogenetic point of view, the effects of consciousness are as far-reaching as those of lung-breathing and warm-bloodedness. But clarification of consciousness necessarily entails an obscuration of those dimmer elements of the psyche which are less capable of becoming conscious, so that sooner or later a split occurs in the psychic system. Since it is not recognized as such it is projected, and appears in the form of a metaphysical split between the powers of light and the powers of darkness. The possibility of this projection is guaranteed by the presence of numerous archaic vestiges of the original daemons of light and darkness in any age. It seems likely, therefore, that the tension of opposites in Christianity is derived to a still unclarified degree from the dualism of ancient Persia, though the two are not identical.

292 There can be no doubt that the moral consequences of the Christian development represent a very considerable advance compared with the ancient Israelite religion of law. The Christianity of the synoptic gospels signifies little more than a coming to terms with issues inside Judaism, which may fairly be compared with the much earlier Buddhist reformation inside Hindu polytheism. Psychologically, both reformations resulted in a tremendous strengthening of consciousness. This is particularly evident in the maieutic method employed by Shakyamuni. But the sayings of Jesus manifest the same tendency, even if we discard as apocryphal the clearest formulation of this kind, the logion in Codex Bezae to Luke 6 : 4: "Man, if thou knowest what thou doest, thou art blessed. If thou knowest it not, thou art accursed and a transgressor of the law." At all events, the parable of the unjust steward (Luke 16) has not found its way into the Apocrypha, where it would have fitted so well.

293 The rift in the metaphysical world has slowly risen into consciousness as a split in the human psyche, and the struggle between light and darkness moves to the battleground within. This shift of scene is not entirely self-evident, for which reason St. Ignatius Loyola considered it necessary to open our eyes to the conflict and impress' it on our feelings by means of the most drastic spiritual exercises.7 These efforts, for obvious reasons, had only a very limited range of application. And so, strangely enough, it was the medical men who, at the turn of the nineteenth century, were forced to intervene and get the obstructed process of conscious realization going again. Approaching the problem from a scientific angle, and innocent of any religious aim, Freud uncovered the abysmal darkness of human nature which a would-be enlightened optimism had striven to conceal. Since then psychotherapy, in one form or another, has persistently explored the extensive area of darkness which I have called the shadow. This attempt of modern science opened the eyes of only a few. However, the historic events of our time have painted a picture of man's psychic reality in indelible colours of blood and fire, and given him an object lesson which he will never be able to forget if-and this is the great question-he has today acquired enough consciousness to keep up with the furious pace of the devil within him. The only other hope is that he may learn to curb a creativity which is wasting itself in the exploitation of material power. Unfortunately, all attempts in that direction look like bloodless Utopias.

294 The figure of Christ the Logos has raised the anima rationalis in man to a level of importance which remains unobjectionable so long as it knows itself to be below and subject to the [x], the Lord of Spirits. Reason, however, has set itself free and proclaimed itself the ruler. It has sat enthroned in Notre Dame as Deesse Raison and heralded events that were to come. Our consciousness is no longer confined within a sacred temenos of otherworldly, eschatological images. It was helped to break free by a force that did not stream down from above-like the lumen de lumine-but came up with tremendous pressure from below and increased in strength as consciousness detached itself from the darkness and climbed into the light. In accordance with the principle of compensation which runs through the whole of nature, every psychic development, 'whether individual or collective, possesses an optimum which, when exceeded, produces an enantiodromia, that is, turns into its opposite. Compensatory tendencies emanating from the unconscious may be noted even during the approach to the critical turning-point, though if consciousness persists in its course they are completely repressed. The stirrings in the darkness necessarily seem like a devilish betrayal of the ideal of spiritual development. Reason cannot help condemning as unreasonable everything that contradicts it or deviates from its laws, in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Morality can permit itself no capacity for change, for whatever it does not agree with is inevitably immoral and has therefore to be repressed. It is not difficult to imagine the multitude of energies which must flow off into the unconscious under such conscious domination.

295 Hesitantly, as in a dream, the introspective brooding of the centuries gradually put together the figure of Mercurius and created a symbol which, according to all the psychological rules, stands in a compensatory relation to Christ. It is not meant to take his place, nor is it identical with him, for then indeed it could replace him. It owes its existence to the law of compensation, and its object is to throw a bridge across the abyss separating the two psychological worlds by presenting a subtle compensatory counterpoint to the Christ image. The fact that in Faust the compensatory figure is not, as one might almost have expected from the author's classical predilections, the wily messenger of the gods, but, as the name "Mephistopheles"8 shows, a familiaris risen from the cesspits of medieval magic, proves, if anything, the ingrained Christian character of Goethe's consciousness. To the Christian mentality, the dark antagonist is always the devil. As I have shown, Mercurius escapes this prejudice by only a hair's breadth. But he escapes it, thanks to the fact that he scorns to carry on opposition at all costs. The magic of his name enables him, in spite of his ambiguity and duplicity, to keep outside the split, for as an ancient pagan god he possesses a natural undividedness which is impervious to logical and moral contradictions. This gives him invulnerability and incorruptibility, the very qualities we so urgently need to heal the split in ourselves.

296 If one makes a synopsis of all the descriptions and alchemical pictures of Mercurius, they form a striking parallel to the symbols of the self derived from other sources. One can hardly escape the conclusion that Mercurius as the lapis is a symbolic expression for the psychological complex which I have defined as the self. Similarly, the Christ figure must be viewed as a self symbol, and for the same reasons. But this leads to an apparently insoluble contradiction, for it is not at first clear how the unconscious can shape two such different images from one and the same content, which moreover possesses the character of totality. Certainly the centuries have done their spiritual work upon these two figures, and one is inclined to assume that both have been in large measure anthropomorphized during the process of assimilation. For those who hold that both figures are inventions of the intellect, the contradiction is quickly resolved. It then merely reflects the subjective psychic situation: the two figures would stand for man and his shadow.

297 This very simple and obvious solution is, unfortunately, founded on premises that do not stand up to criticism. The figures of Christ and the devil are both based on archetypal patterns, and were never invented but rather experienced. Their existence preceded all cognition of them,9 and the intellect had no hand in the matter, except to assimilate them and if possible give them a place in its philosophy. Only the most superficial intellectualism can overlook this fundamental fact. We are actually confronted with two different images of the self, which in all likelihood presented a duality even in their original form. This duality was not invented, but is an autonomous phenomenon.

298 Since we naturally think from the standpoint of consciousness, we inevitably come to the conclusion that the split between consciousness and the unconscious is the sole cause of this duality. But experience has demonstrated the existence of a preconscious psychic functioning and of corresponding autonomous factors, the archetypes. Once we can accept the fact that the voices and delusions of the insane and the phobias and obsessions of the neurotic are beyond rational control, and that the ego cannot voluntarily fabricate dreams but simply dreams what it has to, then we can also understand that the gods came first and theology later. Indeed, we must go a step further and assume that in the beginning there were two figures, one bright and one shadowy, and only afterwards did the light of consciousness detach itself from the night and the uncertain shimmer of its stars.

299 So if Christ and the dark nature-deity are autonomous images that can be directly experienced, we are obliged to reverse our rationalistic causal sequence, and instead of deriving these figures from our psychic conditions, must derive our psychic conditions from these figures. This is expecting a good deal of the modem intellect but does not alter the logic of our hypothesis. From this standpoint Christ appears as the archetype of consciousness and Mercurius as the archetype of the unconscious. As Cupid and Kyllenios, he tempts us out into the world of sense; he is the benedicta viriditas and the multi flores of early spring, a god of illusion and delusion of whom it is rightly said: "Invenitur in vena / Sanguine plena" (He is found in the vein swollen with blood). He is at the same time a Hermes Chthonios and an Eros, yet it is from him that there issues the "light surpassing all lights," the lux moderna} for the lapis is none other than the figure of light veiled in matter.10 It is in this sense that St. Augustine quotes I Thessalonians 5 : 5, "Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness," and distinguishes two forms of knowledge, a cognitio vespertina and a cognitio matutinal the first corresponding to the scientia creaturae and the second to the scientia Creatoris.11 If we equate cognitio with consciousness, then Augustine's thought would suggest that the merely human and natural consciousness gradually darkens, as at nightfall. But just as evening gives birth to morning, so from the darkness arises a new light, the stella matutinal which is at once the evening and the morning star-Lucifer, the light-bringer.

300 Mercurius is by no means the Christian devil-the latter could rather be said to be a "diabolization" of Lucifer or of Mercurius. Mercurius is an adumbration of the primordial lightbringer, who is never himself the light, but a [x] who brings the light of nature, the light of the moon and the stars which fades before the new morning light. Of this light St. Augustine says that it will never turn to darkness unless the Creator is abandoned by the love of his creatures. But this, too, belongs to the rhythm of day and night. As Holderlin says in "Patmos";

and shamefully
A power wrests away the heart from us;
For the Heavenly each demand sacrifice,
But if it should be withheld,
Never has that led to good.


301 When all visible lights are extinguished one finds, according to the words of the wise Yajnavalkya, the light of the self. "What then is the light of man? Self is his light. It is by the light of the self that a man rests, goes forth, does his work and returns."12 Thus, with Augustine, the first day of creation begins with self-knowledge, cognitio sui ipsius,13 by which is meant a knowledge not of the ego but of the self, that objective phenomenon of which the ego is the subject.14 Then, following the order of the days of creation in Genesis, comes knowledge of the firmament, of the earth, the sea, the plants, the stars, the animals of the water and air, and finally, on the sixth day, knowledge of the land animals and of ipsius hominis, of man himself. The cognitio matutina is self-knowledge, but the cognitio vespertina is knowledge of man.15 As Augustine describes it, the cognitio matutina gradually grows old as it loses itself in the "ten thousand things" and finally comes to man, although one would expect this to have happened already with the onset of self-knowledge. But if this were true, Augustine's parable would have lost its meaning by contradicting itself. Such an obvious lapse cannot be ascribed to so gifted a man. His real meaning is that self-knowledge is the scientia Creatoris,16 a morning light revealed after a night during which consciousness slumbered, wrapped in the darkness of the unconscious. But the knowledge arising with this first light finally and inevitably becomes the scientio hominis) the knowledge of man, who asks himself: "Who is it that knows and understands everything? Why, it is myself." That marks the coming of darkness,17 out of which arises the seventh day, the day of rest: "But the rest of God signifies the rest of those who rest in God."18 The Sabbath is therefore the day on which man returns to God and receives anew the light of the cognitio maiulina. And this day has no evening.19 From the symbological standpoint it may not be without significance that Augustine had in mind the pagan names of the days of the week. The growing darkness reaches its greatest intensity on the day of Venus (Friday), and changes into Lucifer on Saturn's day. Saturday heralds the light which appears in full strength on Sun-day. As I have shown, Mercurius is closely related not only to Venus but more especially to Saturn. As Mercurius he is juvenis, as Saturn senex.

302 It seems to me that Augustine apprehended a great truth, namely that every spiritual truth gradually turns into something material, becoming no more than a tool in the hand of man. In consequences, man can hardly avoid seeing himself as a knower, yes, even as a creator, with boundless possibilities at his command. The alchemist was basically this sort of person, but much less so than modern man. An alchemist could still pray: "Purge the horrible darknesses of our mind," but modern man is already so darkened that nothing beyond the light of his own intellect illuminates his world. "Occasus Christi, passio Christi."20 That surely is why such strange things are happening to our much lauded civilization, more like a Gotterdammerung than any normal twilight.

303 Mercurius, that two-faced god, comes as the lumen naturae, the Servator and Salvator, only to those whose reason strives towards the highest light ever received by man, and who do not trust exclusively to the cognitio vespertina. For those who are unmindful of this light, the lumen naturae turns into a perilous ignis fatuus, and the psychopomp into a diabolical seducer. Lucifer, who could have brought light, becomes the father of lies whose voice in our time, supported by press and radio, revels in orgies of propaganda and leads untold millions to ruin.

_______________

Notes:

1 Hence the designation of Mercurius as mare nostrum.
 
2 Cf. Maitrayana-Brahmana Upanishad, V, 8 (Sacred Books of the East, vol. 15. p. 311). He occurs as the spiritus vegetativus and collective soul in the Vedanta- Sutras (ibid., vol. 34. p. 173. and vol. 48, p. 578).

3 The treatise of Rosinus (Zosimos) is probably of Arabic origin. "Malus" might be a corruption of "Magus." The Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim (A.D. 987) lists. along with writings of Rimas (Zosimos). two works by Magus one of which is entitled "The Book of the Wise Magus (?) on the Art" (Ruska, Turba, p. 272).

4 Art. aurif., I, p. 310.

5 Cf. "The Phenomenology of the Spirit in Fairy tales," pp. 231ff.

6 [Cf. Psychology and Alchemy, ch. 5, "The Lapis-Christ Parallel," and Aion,  ch. 5, "Christ, a Symbol of the Self."-EDITORS.]
 
7 The Spiritual Exercises (trans. Rickaby), pp. 75ff.
 
8 [From L. mephitis, a noxious exhalation from the earth.- TRANSLATOR.]
 
9 Evidence for this is the widespread motif of the two hostile brothers.
 
10 Cf. the saying of Ostanes concerning the stone that has a spirit.

11 "For the knowledge of the creature, in comparison with the knowledge of the Creator, is but a twilight; and so it dawns and breaks into morning when the creature is drawn to the love and praise of the Creator. Nor is it ever darkened, save when the Creator is abandoned by the love of the creature."-The City of God, XI, vii.

12 Brihadaranyaka Upanishad, IV, 3, 6 (cf. Hume, The Thirteen Principal Upanishads, p. 133).

13 "And when it [the creature's knowledge] comes to the knowledge of itself, that is one day" (Et hoc cum facit in cognitione sui ipsius, dies unus est).-The City of God, XI, vii. This may be the source for the strange designation of the lapis as "filius unius diei." [Cf. Mysterium Coniunctionis, pp. 335, 504.]

14 "Since no knowledge is better than that by which man knows himself, let us examine our thoughts, words, and deeds. For what does it avail us if we are to investigate carefully and understand rightly the nature of all things, yet do not understand ourselves?"-Liber de Spiritu et Anima, LI (Migne, P.L., vol. 40, cols. 816-17). This book is a very much later treatise falsely attributed to Augustine.

15 "Wherefore the knowledge of the creature, which is in itself evening knowledge, was in God morning knowledge; for the creature is more plainly seen in God than it is seen in itself."-Dialogus Quaestionum LXV, Qnaest. XXVI (Migne, P.L., vol. 40, col. 741).

16 The Liber de Spiritu et Anima attributes very great importance to self-knowledge, as being an essential condition for union with God. "There are some who seek God through outward things, forsaking that which is in them, and in them is God. Let us therefore return to ourselves, that we may ascend to ourselves .... At first we ascend to ourselves from these outward and inferior things. Secondly, we ascend to the high heart. ... In the third ascent we ascend to God" (chs. LI-LII: Migne, P.L., vol. 40, col. 817). The "high heart" (cor altum.; also "deep heart") is the mandala divided into four, the imago Dei, or self. The Liber de Spiritu et Anima is in the mainstream of Augustinian tradition. Augustine himself says (De vera religione LXXII, Migne, PL., vol. 34, col. 154): "Go not outside, return into yourself; truth dwells in the inner man. And if you find that you are by nature changeable, transcend yourself. But remember that when you transcend yourself, you must transcend yourself as a reasoning soul."

17 "Evening descends when the sun sets. Now the sun has set for man, that is to say, that light of justice which is the presence of God."-Enarrationes in Ps. XXIX, II, 16 (trans. Hobgin and Corrigan. I. p. 308). These words refer to Ps. 30: 5 (A.V.): "Weeping may tarry for the night but joy cometh in the morning."

18 The City of God, XI, viii. Cf. also Dialog. Quaest. LXV, Quaest. XXVI.

19 Confessions (trans. Sheed), p. 289.

20 Enarrationes in Ps. CIII, Sermo III, 21 (Migne, PL., vol. 37, col. 1374).