104 



NOTES AND QUERIES. 



[2"* S. No 58., Feb. 7. '57. 



We have no returne to make but Our Duty and 

 Our Prayers, and we hope these will be no less 

 prevalent, than we are sure the other is sincere. 

 Humbly presuming that God will be the readyer 

 to hear Them when they proceed from a grateful 

 recognition of your Majesties bounty to those who 

 waite at His own Altar. 



We beg leave to congratulate the success of 

 your Majesties arms, and to interpret it as a re- 

 ward of this your Piety ; and that God may enable 

 you as effectually to assert the Rights and In- 

 terests of your injured Allyes, as he has happily 

 directed you to provide for the necessities of His 

 Church, shall be the Dayly Prayer of 



Your Majesties most Dutifull and Loyall 

 Subjects and Servants, 



The UNiVERSiTr of Oxford. 



" AUREA CATENA HOMERI. 



{Concluded from p. 84.) 



I may here remark that Man, the Climax of 

 Creation, was sometimes called by the Ancients 

 (especially the Persians) " The Golden Chain of 

 Nature," " The Marriage Ring of the Universe," 

 HymencEiis Copula Mundi superioris et inferioris ; 

 Nexus utriusque Mundi, &c. God, in making 

 Man, says an old writer *, intended " by him to re- 

 duce all His Works hack again to Himself" and 

 Cornelius Agrippa says : 



"Man is the most express Image of God, seeing Man 

 containeth in himself all things which are in God: but 

 God by a certain eminency containeth all things through 

 His Power, and simply as The Cause and Beginning of All 

 things ; but He hath given power to Man that he should 

 in like manner contain all things, but (mediately) bj' a 

 certain act and composition, as the Knot, Tye, and Bond 

 of All things." — Occidt Philos., ch. xxxvi. 



The Mystic Chain of Homer is called "Golden" 

 not merely as an epithet of eminence, but the term 

 has an occult and peculiarly appropriate signifi- 

 cance, especially in Hermetic works. In the first 

 place Gold was at once a Symbol of God and a 

 Symbol of the Sunf ; moreover, as Philo says, — 



* Matthew Barker — Natural Theology, Lond. 1674, 

 p. 85. Cf. Crollius, Admon. Fref., pp. 55-6. 



t The Mystical Philosophers and Alchemysts, generally 

 speaking, regarded Gold as a concretion or concentration 

 of Light, or, rather, Fire. F. M. Van Helmont calls the 

 Sun "A living and spiritual Gold, which [Gold] is a 

 meer Fire, and beyond all, throughly refined Gold," — 

 Paradoxal Discourses, pt. I. p. 104. Barton, speaking of 

 " the properties of Elemental Fire or ^ther," quotes " an 

 eminent philosopher and divine " to this same purpose : 

 " Fire is the universal fountain of life, order, distinction, 

 stability, and beauty of the Universe. It is not only in 

 the Sun and other heavenly bodies, but it makes part of 



every lump of matter upon and in our globe Gold 



is no more than Mercury with abundance of Light or Fire 

 in it, as appears from au experiment So quick in 



" Those who praise Gold dwell on two especial points 

 as most particularly important and excellent; one that 

 it does not receive poison ; the other, that it can be beaten 

 out or melted out into the thinnest possible plates, while 

 still remaining unbroken. Therefore it is very naturally 

 taken as an Emblem of that Greater Nature, which, being 

 extended and diffused everywhere, so as to penetrate in every 

 direction, is wholly full of everything, and also connects all 

 other things with the most admirable harmony." * 



And Oswald Crollius to the same effect : 



" Nature is that medium which by an harmonicall con- 

 sent joj'neth the lowest things to the highest, and some- 

 times is called Animall, sometimes Vegetable, sometimes 

 Minerall, according to the diversity of the subject or re- 

 ceptacle. Those who diligently seek out the Hermetick 

 Phylosophy and the marvellous works of God, know that 

 that same Spirit and minerall Nature which produceth 

 Gold in the bowells of the earth, is also in Man. That 

 Spirit in Gold is the same with the generating Spirit of 

 all creatures, and is the same and onely generative Nature 

 diffused through all things. This Spirit now hatli assumed 

 a Naturall body ; It is that which first moveth and ruleth 

 Nature in all naturall things, it preserveth all things, and 

 all inferior things by a kind of harmonicall consent are 

 governed by it. Albertus Magnus, in his Book of Mine- 

 rails, saith that Gold may be found everywhere. There 

 is not, saith he, that thing elementated of the Four Ele- 

 ments in which Gold naturally may not be found in the 

 last subtiliation thereof. And therefore the Pliylosophers 

 say that the Matter of their Mystery may be had every- 

 where, because it consisteth in every Elementated thing." 

 — Admon. Pref, pp. 104-6. 



Gold has been always mystically connected with 

 the Divine and Heavenly. Thus the Seven Hea- 

 vens of the Hindoos (included with the natural 

 heavens and the earth into one system) are sur- 

 rounded by a broad circumference of Gold. This 

 Golden Circle is the symbol of the Sun's sphere, 

 and understood spiritually, it is the Divine Love 

 surrounding and containing All.f The Wedding 

 Ring represents the same thing in miniature. 

 Thus, too, with the Jews, — among the sacred vest- 

 ments of the High-Priest (which hieroglyphicaily 

 represented the Universe) the Golden Breastplate 

 (which, according to Philo, symbolised Heaven, 

 and, according to Mather, The Divine Love), was 

 fastened to the Ephod by Golden Rings and Golden 

 Chains ; and the Ephod itself was girded on the 



its motions, so subtle and penetrating in its nature, so 

 extensive in its effects, it seemeth no other than the Vegc' 

 tative Soul and Vital Spirit of the World." — The Analogy 

 of Divine TFisdom, Sec, Dublin, 1750, p. 63. 



See also " J. Webster's Metallographia, or A History of 

 Metals-, also the Handling and Shewing of their Vege- 

 tability, and the Discussion of the most diflicult Questions 

 belonging to Mj'stical Chemistry, as of the Philosopher's 

 Gold, their Mercury, the Liquor Alkahest, Aurum Pota- 

 bile, and such like. Lond. 1671, 4to." And " Chr. Ad. 

 Balduini Aurum Superius et Inferius Aurse Superioris et 

 Inferioris Hermeticum. Amst. 1615, 1675, 12mo." 



* On the Heir of Divine Things, § xlvi. Philo saj's this 

 while treating of the sacred Seven- branched Candlestick, 

 " made of one solid piece of pure gold." 



t See an article on " Heaven," by Mr. E. Rich, in the 

 Encycl. Met., " 2'Ae Occult Sciences. Lond. 1855," 



