The New Birth

Our last picture is the tenth in the series, and this is certainly no accident, for the denarius is supposed to be the perfect number. ¹ We have shown that the axiom of Maria consists of 4, 3, 2, 1; the sum of these numbers is to, which stands for unity on a higher level. The unarius represents unity in the form of the res simplex, i.e., God as auctor rerum, ² while the denarius is the result of the completed work. Hence the real meaning of the denarius is the Son of God. ³ Although the alchemists call it the filius philosophorum, ⁴ they use it as a Christ-symbol and at the same time employ the symbolic qualities of the ecclesiastical Christ-figure to characterize their Rebis. ⁵ It is probably correct to say that the medieval Rebis had these Christian characteristics, but for the Hermaphroditus of Arabic and Greek sources we must conjecture a partly pagan tradition. The Church symbolism of sponsus and sponsa leads to the mystic union of the two, i.e., to the anima Christi which lives in the corpus mysticum of the Church. This unity underlies the idea of Christ’s androgyny, which medieval alchemy exploited for its own ends. The much older figure of the Hermaphroditus, whose outward aspect probably derives from a Cyprian Venus barbata, encountered in the Eastern Church the already extant idea of an androgynous Christ, which is no doubt connected with the Platonic conception of the bisexual First Man, for Christ is ultimately the Anthropos.