Symbols ana a

scones''—rransni utamini de lapidibus morzuis in vivos lapides philosophicos.¹¹²
In this aspect of its symbolism an Influence on hermecism is rather apparent on the part of the spirit of the classical tradition. The value attributed in the classical world to all that has form, that is completed according to a limit and a measure— TZ^pag; the contempt antimystically given, on the other hand, to that which is indeterminate and indefinite—flCKEipov—is reflected in the connection that hermetism establishes between the principle of corporeality and the signature of Gold (Sun), the most noble of nature’s elements. "To treat the Fire of Mercury [the fire-desire) with Fire, and unite Spirit to Spirit, with the aim of tying the hands of the Virgin, of this fleeting demon," is, in this regard, an enigmatic expression, but then full of significance for the Greek alchemists.¹¹³ Its sense will be seen with greater clarity in what follows; and we shall also see that in every tradition of which we speak "heaven" is used as a symbol for all the invisible, spiritual, and impersonal states and principles. It has the feminine function with respect to the masculine one of corporeality, with respect to the "dragon without wings" that contains the germ of the Gold—or of the personality in a superior sense (the hermetic King)¹¹⁴
Ten
SAlC
ado CDe CROSS
♦
rn a Greek alchemical text we read "One becomes Two and Two become Three; and by means of the Third, the Fourth achieves Unity. Thus the two create noth­ing but One."¹ The thoughts already expressed about the hermetic quality— 0 and C—lead us to the understanding of the "Third."
If as we have suggested the law of "desire” and of self-absorption is expressed by the descending direction of the symbol for water V, everything in the "one thing” that is on the contrary oriented toward the principle of the Sun can be expressed by the ascending opposite direction, that is, flame; whence the alchemi­cal sign of Fire.^{115 116}
Water V Fire A
But there is an even more schematic symbolism. The passive water nature of the feminine principle as compared to the masculine can be expressed by a horizontal line , which conveys the idea of "lying flat”; whereas the rising direction of fire can be expressed by the vertical I , which comprises both the idea of virility and of stability--6 ardq, "that which is standing.” The "two” that become "three” are the two in their joining. And ideographically that can be expressed by the cross + , equivalent from this point of view to the seal of Solomon (overlapping of A and V). Having said this, we can proceed with the hermetico-alchemical symholism.
The point of intersection, which is the "third” represented by the cross, can have a double meaning: first the point of the "fall” and neutralization; second, the active synthesis of both as male and female powers creatively united.
The first case defines the hermetic idea of the fixed (as opposed to volatile) taken in a negative sense. This is the state of petrification, arrest, suspension, and stagnation devoid of life. It is the "body” element in the widest sense where the Gold, although present, is as restricted in its power as the opposite principle to which it has reacted, It is the negative side of individuation with roots in a state of contrast between the two: the "two enemies,” the two dragons that devour one another in turn, the eagle fighting the serpent, etc., according to the variations of the ciphered language. It is that which we find in the ideogram of sale ©, "materia prima” O qualified in the sense of stagnation as indicated by the horizontal, Tn its more generally accepted sense, salt expresses the physical state or world interpreted as a state or world in which the "corpses” of invisible battles, of cosmic interfer­ences between powers are precipitated.¹¹⁷ Here the body is equivalent to "sepulchre” and "prison,” the symbolic rock to which Prometheus has been chained in order to purge the unfortunate failure, of the titanic audacity—equivalent to the act of possession, to the primordial individuation that did violence to the "goddess.”
Adding to the "Third” the Two that have engendered it, we ohtain the meta­physical Triad, the hermetic notion that proceeds from the traditional general teaching: Sun, Moon, and Earth—world of pure spiritual virility world of plasmic forces and becoming, and world of bodies—and, sub specie interhritatis, three corresponding conditions of the spirit. Three crowned serpents or three serpents rising from three hearts express the triad of Basil Valentine; the three ears and three ” vapors”—alOaXai—of Ouroboros; three serpents that emerge from the cup that the androgyne holds in one hand, while with the other she squeezes a single serpent, in the Rosarium philosophorum and in the Viatorum spagiricum; a serpent with three heads in the German edition of the Crede mlbi of Norton; and thus we have established the provenance of the triple dignity of the first master of this tradition, Hermes Trismegistus.