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object:5.02 - THE STATUE
book class:Mysterium Coniunctionis
author class:Carl Jung
subject class:Psychology
subject class:Occultism
class:chapter


2. THE STATUE
[559] An old tradition says that Adam was created a lifeless statue. It is worthy of remark that the statue plays a mysterious role in ancient alchemy. One of the earliest Greek treatises, the Book of Komarios,48 says:
After the body had been hidden in the darkness, [the spirit] found it full of light. And the soul united with the body, since the body had become divine through its relation to the soul, and it dwelt in the soul. For the body clothed itself in the light of divinity, and the darkness departed from it, and all were united in love, body, soul, and spirit, and all became one; in this the mystery is hidden. But the mystery was fulfilled in their coming together, and the house was sealed, and the statue [

] was erected, filled with light and divinity.49
Here the statue evidently denotes the end-product of the process, the lapis Philosophorum or its equivalent.
[560] The statue has a somewhat different significance in the treatise of Senior,50 who speaks of the water that is extracted from the hearts of statues. Senior is identical with the Arabian alchemist Ibn Umail al-Tamimi. He is reported to have opened tombs and sarcophagi in Egypt and to have removed the mummies.51 Mummies were supposed to possess medicinal virtues, and for this reason bits of corpses had long been mentioned in European pharmacy under the name of mumia.52 It is possible that mumia was also used for alchemical purposes. It is mentioned in Khunrath as synonymous with the prima materia.53 In Paracelsus, who may have been Khunraths source for this, Mumia balsamita has something to do with the elixir, and is even called the physical life-principle itself.54 Seniors statues may well have been Egyptian sarcophagi, which as we know were portrait-statues. In the same treatise there is a description of a statue (of Hermes Trismegistus) in an underground chapel. Senior says: I shall now make known to you what that wise man who made the statue has hidden in that house; in it he has described that whole science, as it were, in the figure, and taught his wisdom in the stone, and revealed it to the discerning. Michael Maier comments: That is the statue from whose heart the water is extracted. He also mentions that a stone statue which pronounced oracles was dedicated to Hermes in Achaia Pharis.
[561] In Raymond Lully (Ramon Llull) there is an oil that is extracted from the heart of statues, and moreover by the washing of water and the drying of fire.55 This is an extremely paradoxical operation in which the oil evidently serves as a mediating and uniting agent.
[562] There is an allusion to the statues in Thomas Nortons Ordinall of Alkimy:
But holy Alkimy of right is to be loved,
Which treateth of a precious Medicine,
Such as trewly maketh Gold and Silver fine:
Whereof example for Testimonie
Is in a Citty of Catilony.
Which Raymund Lully, Knight, men [do] suppose,
Made in seaven Images the trewth to disclose;
Three were good Silver, in shape like Ladies bright,
Everie each of Foure were Gold and like a Knight:
In borders of their Clothing Letters did appeare,
Signifying in Sentence as it sheweth here.56
[563] The seven refer to the gods of the planets, or the seven metals.57 The correlation of the three (Venus, moon, earth) with silver (Luna) and of the four with gold (Sol) is remarkable in that three is usually considered a masculine and four a feminine number.58 As Lully was undoubtedly acquainted with Senior this legend seems like a concretization of Seniors saying.59
[564] The idea of a precious substance hidden in the statue is an old tradition and is particularly true of the statues of Hermes or Mercurius. Pseudo-Dionysius60 says that the pagans made statues (

) of Mercurius and hid in them a simulacrum of the god. In this way they worshipped not the unseemly herm but the image hidden inside.61 Plato is referring to these statues when he makes Alcibiades say that Socrates bears a strong resemblance to those figures of Silenus in statuaries shops, represented holding pipes or flutes; they are hollow inside, and when they are taken apart you see that they contain little figures [

] of gods.62
[565] It must have appealed very much to the imagination of the alchemists that there were statues of Mercurius with the real god hidden inside. Mercurius was their favourite name for that being who changed himself, during the work, from the prima materia into the perfected lapis Philosophorum. The figure of Adam readily lent itself as a biblical synonym for the alchemical Mercurius, first because he too was androgynous, and second because of his dual aspect as the first and second Adam. The second Adam is Christ, whose mystical androgyny is established in ecclesiastical tradition.63 I shall come back to this aspect of Adam later.
[566] According to the tradition of the Mandaeans, Adam was created by the seven in the form of a lifeless bodily statue which could not stand erect. This characteristic expression bodily statue frequently recurs in their literature and recalls the Chaldaean myth handed down by the Naassenes, that mans body was created by the demons and was called a statue (

).64 Ptahil, the world-creator, tried to throw the soul into the statue, but Manda dHayye, the redeemer, took the soul in his arms and completed the work without Ptahil.65 In this connection we may note that there is a description of the statue of Adam in Cabalistic literature.66
[567] As Adam has always been associated with the idea of the second Adam in the minds of Christian writers,67 it is readily understandable that this idea should reappear among the alchemists. Thus Mylius says:
There now remains the second part of the philosophical practice, by far the more difficult, by much the more sublime. In this we read that all the sinews of talent, all the mental efforts of many philosophers have wearied themselves. For it is more difficult to make a man live again, than to slay him. Here is Gods work besought: for it is a great mystery to create souls, and to mould the lifeless body into a living statue.68
This living statue refers to the end-result of the work; and the work, as we have seen, was on the one hand a repetition of the creation of the world, and on the other a process of redemption, for which reason the lapis was paraphrased as the risen Christ. The texts sometimes strike a chiliastic note with their references to a golden age when men will live forever without poverty and sickness.69 Now it is remarkable that the statue is mentioned in connection with the eschatological ideas of the Manichaeans as reported by Hegemonius: the world will be consumed with fire and the souls of sinners chained for all eternity, and then shall these things be, when the statue shall come.70 I would not venture to say whether the Manichaeans influenced the alchemists or not, but it is worth noting that in both cases the statue is connected with the end-state. The tradition reported by Hegemonius has been confirmed by the recently discovered original work of Mani, the Kephalaia.71 This says:
At that time [the Father of Greatness] made the messenger and Jesus the radiant and the Virgin of Light and the Pillar of Glory and the gods. . . . 72 The fourth time, when they shall weep, is the time when the statue [

] shall raise itself on the last day. . . . 73 At that same hour, when the last statue shall rise, they shall weep. . . . 74 The first rock is the pillar [

] of glory, the perfect man, who has been summoned by the glorious messenger. . . . He bore the whole world and became the first of all bearers. . . . 75 The intellectual element [

] [gathered itself] into the pillar of glory, and the pillar of glory into the first man. . . . 76 The garments, which are named the Great Garments, are the five intellectual elements, which have [made perfect] the body of the pillar of glory, the perfect man.77
It is clear from these extracts that the statue or pillar is either the perfect Primordial Man (

) or at least his body, both at the beginning of creation and at the end of time.
[568] The statue has yet another meaning in alchemy which is worth mentioning. In his treatise De Igne et Sale Vigenerus calls the sun the eye and heart of the sensible world and the image of the invisible God, adding that St. Dionysius called it the clear and manifest statue of God.78 This statement probably refers to Dionysiuss De divinis nominibus (ch. IV): The sun is the visible image of divine goodness.79 Vigenerus translated

not by imago but by statua, which does not agree with the Latin text of the collected edition brought out by Marsilio Ficino in 15023, to which he may have had access. It is not easy to see why he rendered

by statua, unless perhaps he wished to avoid repeating the word imago from the end of the preceding sentence. But it may also be that the word cor recalled to his mind Seniors phrase from the hearts of statues, as might easily happen with so learned an alchemist. There is, however, another source to be considered: it is evident from this same treatise that Vigenerus was acquainted with the Zohar. There the Haye Sarah on Genesis 28:22 says that Malchuth is called the statue when she is united with Tifereth.80 Genesis 28 : 22 runs: And this stone, which I have set for a pillar, shall be Gods house.81 The stone is evidently a reminder that here the upper (Tifereth) has united with the lower (Malchuth): Tifereth the son82 has come together with the Matrona83 in the hierosgamos. If our conjecture is correct, the statue could therefore be the Cabalistic equivalent of the lapis Philosophorum, which is likewise a union of male and female. In the same section of Vigeneruss treatise the sun does in fact appear as the bridegroom.84 As Augustine is quoted a few lines later, it is possible that Vigenerus was thinking of that passage where Augustine says:
Like a bridegroom Christ went forth from his chamber, he went out with a presage of his nuptials into the field of the world. He ran like a giant exulting on his way, and came to the marriage bed of the cross, and there, in mounting it, he consummated his marriage. And when he perceived the sighs of the creature, by a loving exchange he gave himself up to the torment in place of his bride. He yielded up also the carbuncle, as the jewel of his blood, and he joined the woman to himself for ever. I have espoused you to one husband, says the apostle, that I may present you as a chaste virgin to Christ [2 Cor. 11 : 2].85
[569] Since Adam signifies not only the beginning of the work, the prima materia, but also the end, the lapis, and the lapis is the product of the royal marriage, it is possible that Vigeneruss statua Dei, replacing the more usual imago Dei, has some connection with the Cabalistic interpretation of the stone of Bethel, which in turn marked the union of Tifereth and Malchuth. The statue stands for the inert materiality of Adam, who still needs an animating soul; it is thus a symbol for one of the main preoccupations of alchemy.




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