In the guise of apparent Christian moral teachings 17th c.

German theologian
Daniel Cramer presents the yearnings of a heart more suited to secret alchemical
doctrines than the theology of piety.
In the Germany of the turn of the seventeenth century, in times of tremendous
religious struggles, the outstanding Lutheran theologian Daniel Cramer (1568-
1637) writes a book with very unorthodox and controversial images even for the
world of the Reform, but which evidently passed as a theatrical and erudite form of
meditation of the heart by a savant who had tried, as a young man, to make his
way in the field of drama. But Cramer wasn’t Shakespeare.

Perhaps someone of the readers already know that I, as general rule, keep art and
alchemic emblems separately. But this time I made an exception, as we are not
before the overtly challenging conundrums I habitually see in the alchemical
collections; in fact, Cramer’s “pitture” soon appear for what they actually are:
hidden evidences prepared for those who have eye to perceive, and, similarly to
his contemporary baroque artists masterpieces, he seems caught up in the cultural
wave of their time – the art and science of Hermes. Nevertheless Cramer’s
baroque age readers were meant to have no eye to it but, on the contrary, an
ardent wish to follow the religious Orthodoxy.

While re-reading the article before publishing it, I decided to start from the planned
conclusion instead in order to immediately offer to the reader the most
outstandingly intriguing of the Cramer’s emblems of the first series, i.e. the number
42, as I wish to let the visual part to introduce this silent book, mutus liber, which, if
started with words, would have been a tedious journey for historians of religions as
an incipit. But soon after the hint a thorough historical analysis can not be
postponed. A complete gallery of the emblems is provided at the end of the article.
 Let’s have a look at the emblem 42: Cramer puts on display a
complicated balancing circus exercise between two winged hearts, one stands on
the tip of a small rhomboid and which in
its turn rests on a dolphin that cruises the sea. The first heart, in hazardous
stability, bears an obelisk on the tip of which a second winged heart tries to
maintain a highly precarious equilibrium. The motto given by Cramer is “Alta
Cadunt”, or from the above they fall. But really the author has conceived this
extraordinary symbolic scene, as well as rich in savant erudition event, just to
express the moral concept of remaining humble and content ourselves not to be
ambitious? We know that obelisks, in ancient Egypt, were cypress-like pillars used
to beautify palaces and temples for reason of resonance. Yes, you have correctly
read, for acoustics and not elegance. In fact, providing the obelisks were installed
with the minimal contact with the ground (commonly resting on four tiny rounded
supports) they used to emit delicate sounds with just the difference of temperatures
at dawn or when oscillating by the wind. Obelisks were huge tuning fork-like pieces
of architecture, and incidentally also extremely elegant in their elongated shape.
Perhaps few are aware of the importance of acoustics in the final steps of the
alchemical works, on the other hand it is known that we have to search for the
“Light to be heard with the ears” in our operations. But why Daniel Cramer makes
two winged hearts/inner solar centers communicating with each other by means of
resonance? And why the first heart tries his best standing on a rhomboid with the
least possible contact with a swimming dolphin, clear alchemical symbol of a
philosophical magnet in a huge mercurial sea/Spiritus Mundi/central Mercurius of
everything under the sun? And why two hearts? A single one was not enough to
suggest the alleged idea of keeping humble and not ambitious? Often we have
heard of the theory of the “mirror” (see my FAQs), in which a single Mercurius
cannot bring in neither descendants nor fruits. A Mercurius must always have
effects on another Mercurius. If not, they are both idle. But to try to give an answer,
we must deepen on the theology of piety and the heart symbol.

Daniel Cramer’s bio tell us he was the son of a theologian,

whose professional steps he followed to become a renowned university professor,
safely embracing Martin Luther’s religious reform. And yet despite his background,
Cramer was a controversial theologian and opposed not only by Jesuits, with
whom he was in constant strife, but also among Protestants.
Equally controversial is the publishing history of his Emblemata Sacra: hoc est,
decades quinque emblematum ex sacra scriptura, de dulcissimo nomine & cruce
Jesu Christi, figuris aeneis incisorum. Pars prior to Prime reveren. Dn. Danielem
Cramerum SS. Theologiae doctorem collectio. Postea true Dn. Cunrado
Bachmanno, hist. ………. Illustrata. Francofurti, Sumptibus Lucae Jennis I., 1674.
In fact there were several editions from 1617 to 1624, with the addition of new
emblems, title pages and polyglot translation. The 1624 edition presents one
hundred emblems, eighty of which displaying a heart in the image. The edition I’m
examining was dated 1674, and belonged to Carl Jung (supposing Jung was very
well instructed by someone much deeper versed in alchemical bibliography than
him, I believe, before a re-edition of the 1624 edition). The epigrams are by
Cunrado Bachmann, the preface written by Lucas Jennis.
The massive presence of the heart symbol lead us to unquestionably identify the
subject as the doctrine of the heart, a religious meditation phenomenon typical of
European seventeenth century Christian texts, and which apparently represented a
continuum of the so called theology of piety and was not connected with the
theological controversies of that period. Nevertheless the protestant books
presented a more popular and fresh use of concepts and imagery than the
culturally older Catholic. The forerunner of the genre was Benedictus van
Haeften’s Schola Cordis, or the school for the earth, in which the human earth was
taught to be united with God, and it was both subject and recipient of the teaching.
Van Haeften’s work relied heavily on the ancient established authors writings, to
the point to be a mere series of quotations, in fact the author preferred the term
“school” rather than the concept of meditation. As time went by, the writers on the
same subject became instead more mystic and passion oriented, especially the
protestants, being more interested in religious discourse rather than in dogma. For
instance Christopher Harvey’s School of the Heart was a text all in verse.
Daniel Cramer’s Emblemata Sacra (sacred emblems) goes even further and
appeared on the scene of the doctrine of the heart in an unexpected way: it was an
all emblem text. To an extent to be assigned by the modern historians a place
within the range of emblem genre, such as Alciati Emblemata, 1661.
Cramer’s book consists of two groups of fifty images, each emblem with proper
written part: a motto, pictura, subscription, quotation from old and new testament
and four poems in Latin, German, French and Italian offering variations on the
motto and/or biblical quotation. But, admittedly, the literary part is scarcely
determinant. We know the words of that age were extremely prudent, as the
censorship was mainly applied on the written part. The images were bound to
interpretation, so rather unencumbered. What soon becomes evident, in Cramer’s
book, is the mismatch of words and images. In fact, the iconography of the heart is
rather absent from the traditional Christian sources, there is no verse in either Old
or New Testament which explicitly cites the word “heart”. In Emblemata Sacrathe
utmost part of the variations on the mottos and/or biblical quotations are popular
verses on common moral teachings, and the explicit biblical parts seem more
adaptations of those popular verses, which, it is fair to say, more than often seem
incongruously attached to the referred emblem. Hence the necessity of relying only
on the images, or “pittura”, for the hidden meaning. Sometimes Cramer adopts
some verses to add hints to the image, for instance when colors would be involved.
For this reason I have not fully translated the written part, but the few real hints
given by the author. In the book title it appears the author of the written part is
Cunrad Bachmann, not Daniel Cramer though. So, apparently, Cramer was only
involved in the scenery script of the images.
Lucas Jennis, Emblemata Sacra printer and publisher, in the preface to the
benevolent reader explains the reasons of the preponderance given to images
providing the example set by the ancient art of Egyptian hieroglyphics: ” ….. they
revealed to each other their deep wisdom and the thoughts of their hearts through
characteristic images of animal or other familiar and natural objects..”. What Lucas
Jennis doesn’t say, and what perhaps was still unknown before the discovering of
the Rosetta Stone, is that the hieroglyphics were a complete writing system, not
just a fascinating series of emblems. But surely Jennis wasn’t new to censorship
concerns as he was, beyond Cramer, also the publisher of many Alchemy
treatises.
I don’t mean here to excessively elaborate on how different Emblemata Sacra is
amid the other religious treatises on meditations on the heart of his time, but it
substantially presents many anomalies. To an extent, as said above, that historians
of religions today judge Cramer’s book closer to Alciati Emblemata than Van
Haeften’s Scola Cordis and, if compared to the latter, they say that more than a
teaching to the heart Cramer’s book is about the heart speaking. A researcher in
Alchemy could instead set this book on the same shell of Achille
Bocchi’s Symbolicarum Quaestionum de Universo Genere, Pierio
Valeriano’s Hieroglyphica sive de Sacris Aegptiorum and Cesare Ripa’s Iconologia,
that’s to say emblems books known for bordering on esoteric wisdom. I’m not
alone in this opinion, as Adam McLean himself published a translation of Cramer’s
Emblemata with the title ”The Rosicrucian Emblems of Daniel Cramer”, Grand
Rapids, 1991. Although the Rosicrucian membership of Cramer is to be proved, as
it is to be documented what kind of Rosicrucianism McLean refers to. But the title
McLean gave Cramer’s book remains emblematic.
 Emblemata Sacra main iconographic theme, the heart, is
not referred to the cardiac muscle, of course. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, sacred
writing where often the image of the thing is the same word that it designates, the
heart is depicted with a vase, and that is rather enigmatic, as a vase is intended to
be filled with something. But this would discord with the heart being considered
from the antiquity as the most internal point and consequently, the most hidden. In
the later Hieroghypics of Horapollo Nilous the symbol of the human heart is
associated with fire and smoke (into a vase), as we can see on the left image. As
said above, we can hardly find any explicit mention of the heart in the sacred books
the Christianity is based upon, only from the baroque age the theology of piety
assigns to the primary human muscle, the popular organ of passion for
antonomasia, the source of the necessary driving for the imitation of Christ. The
Christian Sacred Heart is a symbol of devotion, faith, the receptacle of love,
metaphor of detachment from worldliness, consolation of human tribulations and
divine reward for human sufferings. The success of these hopes and meditations
depends on the degree of intensity of the religious awareness of the believer, so it
is expected only in humans. The counterpart, the judge, the divine sacred heart
depends on Epiphany, from the Greek theophàneia, composed of theos (“god”)
and phainein (“manifest”), literally means manifestation of divinity in sensible form.
In a philosophical sense the theophany is a manifestation of divinity through his
works.
But, if we take a glance at some baroque age Christian books on the school of the
heart, we can observe that the vicissitudes, trials and tests necessary for a human
heart to reach perfection look very similar to the vicissitudes, trials and tests
necessary for a raw mineral to reach perfection of the final Philosophers Stone.
This is a common iconographic theme for the mystics, theologians and religious
writers of the seventeenth century. And we should not be surprised with this as in
the same period the books on lab Alchemy mushroomed either in the guise of
medicine treatises or signed by disguised authors. Christianity and Hermeticism
share many symbols, and given that Hermeticism is a much more ancient doctrine
than Christianity, it is not difficult to imagine who has taken the other one’s
symbolism. In Alchemy the heart symbol stands for the hidden magnet in every
organized body, the densest receptacle of Secret Fire, the place from which it is
received and broadcasted to the universe, the bearer of life and death, and is not
the monopoly of human beings but of all organized bodies, from the simplest salts
to the stars. It does not depend on the degree of belief or awareness, it is an
ineffable physical entity. It is our Apollo/Artemis.

The property of this central inner heart of transmitting and receiving was called in
the medieval south Europe Amor Cortese, or Platonic Love, and the secret
brotherhoods who practiced this esoteric doctrine were known as Fedeli d’Amore.
The Divine Comedy of Dante, Petrarca’s poems, the Provencal troubadours’ songs
and sagas of love, all these literary forms dealt precisely with this ancient belief,
disguised as common love between two human beings. But the themes of courtly
love were peculiar to the Middle Ages; in fact, after the reform of the church, and
the consequent beginning of the Inquisition, this wave was already treated with
suspicion. Between the late sixteenth and early seventeenth century Europe was
inflamed by religious struggles, and suddenly everything was cloaked in a burning
declarations of faith; natural philosophy and medicine treatises began with
statements of faith, while Alchemy books were written by authors hidden by
pseudonyms, but even anonymous no longer call upon the love of knowledge, but
faith in Jesus Christ. The German Rosicrucians were born in this challenging age
and took on immediately a cautious attitude of devotion to the divine. Never like in
this age the name of God was so often cited in the books of any discipline, never
like in this era were written more Christian panegyrics, and never like in this era,
and despite censorship and Inquisition, were written so many treatises on
Alchemy.
The iconography of the humble human heart burning love to the pitiful Sacred
Heart of Jesus was born in this era, and it soon became synonymous with ardent
mysticism. The symbol of heart was adopted by theologians, and also by popular
mystics like Jakob Böhme and Valentin Weigel, who often adopted the theme of
the Sacred Heart to represent the sky-to-ground communications, but their mystical
imagery was very contemplative and free from alchemical complications. Daniel
Cramer’s book appears to run along similar lines, the protagonist remained always
a humble human heart, burning to love to the sky, but whose story extravagantly
assumes the typical themes of medieval courtly love. Therefore the heart faces
challenges, fights, and yearns for reunion with his beloved. If we can imagine a
young knight in place of a heart muscle, the story fits in all respects to the love
poems of the troubadours.

Religious faith, and even modern psychology, believes in a transmutation of the

human psyche, that is respectively to achieving union with the divine and a greater
awareness. Emblemata Sacra could firstly appears to run along similar lines, but
some emblems with too many extravagant and unfit details, which cannot in any
way be related to the Christian theology of piety: I mean emblems 17, 20, 35 and
42, and instead, to an alchemist’s eye, cannot but being explicitly aimed at
alchemical works, and not as stations for the human perfection. The other
emblems of the two series not only put on display several hearts, but also crosses,
roses, lilies, grapes, sunflowers, cups, suns, water sources and streams, seas,
caves, furnaces, obelisks, skulls, eyes, hands from above emerging from clouds,
doves, owls, bees, honeycombs, spiders with their webs, dolphins, butterflies,
apes, stags, sheep, salamanders, lions, flies, cocks, frogs, toads, dogs, bulls,
mirrors, lenses, feathers, sacrifices, mothers with children, anchors, boats, shells,
candles, torches, hourglasses, scales, treasures, trees, roots, axes, swords,
arrows, shields, bird traps, boots, crowns, Globus crucigers, incense burners,
fumes – almost all symbols playing a major role in alchemical imagery, and having
very littler room in biblical imagery. But the most characterizing of all alchemical
symbols was carefully avoided: the moon. The moon is absent from all Cramer’s
symbolic imaginary. And this is no coincidence, as in the renaissance-baroque
Christian iconography, unlike in the Middle Ages, the moon was already banned.
Serpents and dragons were still allowed as symbols of the dark forces to fight, but
not the Moon. In fact, since Pope John XXII “Spondent quas non exhibent” bull
issued in the first half of fourteenth century against any form of Alchemy, the moon
became the most prohibited among Christian symbols, when in the Christian
imagery they came back to assume the symbolic characters originally taken from
the ancient solar religions.In the gallery below I published the fifty emblems of the
first series along with most salient and short written explication, while the emblem
42 has been analyzed in more detail in the article incipit.
Emblemata Sacra emblem 42 demonstrates three points: the first, the importance
of sound in Alchemy, the necessity of finding the ”light which is heard with ears” as
a real imperative; second, that Daniel Cramer was supplied with an uncommon
knowledge; third, that maybe the legend that wants the German Aureae Roseae
Crucis keeper of uncommon and hugely ancient knowledge is not that insane, even
if not documented. Mind, I’m not talking of Rosicrucians here, I’m not pointing at
those who wrote the Fama Fraternitatis, or the Testamentum Fraternitatis Aureae
Rose Crucis. I’m not talking about a group of seventeenth century over exposed
fellows who played the game of secret societies and who loved writing books, even
rather interesting ones. I’m talking here of persons who didn’t like to appear in
public and had real connections with ancient Egypt.

Finally, just a glance at Emblemata Sacra frontispiece: no

iconographic themes taken from religious texts, but the four theological virtues,
traditionally interpreted in alchemical sense by many alchemists. One for
all, Fulcanelli.
Next page you can find all the Emblemata Sacra First Series engravings.

Emblemata Sacra First Series.

In parenthesis the translation of Emblemata Sacra original latin mottos, and in
some cases a very brief summary of the most indicative quotations. It follows my
comments out of the parenthesis.

1 (I soften) – I change the state and disagregate into the four elements, so letting
out my spirit.

2 (I grow up) – I fructify and increase my weight, wheat reborn from himself, the
seed dies to give birth to a new plant.
3 (I head to the immense) – I become a philosophical magnet/mercurius.

4 (I love) – with cooking my spirit will come out, and there lays the foundation of
communication.

5 (I keep hidden) – I protect myself from harmful radiation.

6 (I get enlightened) – only the philosophical light illuminates my inner light/eye.

7 (I am inalterable) – the four elements forges me.

8 (I draw a deep breath) – now I’m spirit, I’m like smoke and fire as mercurius joins
and merges with what is more close to it in nature, fire and smoke, so I can deeply
communicate now.

9 (I get my chains broken) – I’m free from element earth for the moment, I’m
volatile.
10 (I resurrect) – inside me the seeds of a new life (I live) – the mercurial serpent
gives new life, it rises from me, the life comes from death.

11 (I live) – the mercurial serpent gives new life, it rises from me, the life comes
from death.

12 (I get healed from my ills) – I’m perfected by the operations of the philosophical
sun/secret fire.

13 (I’ll be saved from the dangers – an abyss evokes another abyss) – a spiritus
mundi/mercurius evokes-turns on another spiritus mundi.
14 (I am crucified to the big cross) – my volatility as mercurius is now fixed.

15 (I schedule) – I observe the right timing and instructions.

16 ( I’m detached from mundane things) – all the wealth of the earth is in me.

17 I ( I make my honey) – now that i’m fixed, my honey/Mercurius philosophorum

can extract my spider/sulphur/soul and vibrate in the net.
18 ( I am nothing – asters are more powerful than the human law) – now I follow
the suns and stars.

19 (I increase weight – with red tint I’ll win) – I’m the perfect red, my weight is
increasing.

20 (I build upon) – I only build on the stone.

21 (I’m absolved – everything I was against it will be deleted) – although I am now
element earth, all the capabilities of mercurius remain intact inside me.

22 (I’m stung by thorns – red roses and white lilies shall grow together) – I’ll pass
through all the colors.

23 (I am predestined) – I walk towards the high destiny.

24 (I am tested) – the furnace will make me perfect.

25 ( I am cooled down) – despite the fire I’m cooked by the spirit.

26 (I’m protected) – I should be kept away from the sun.

27 (I make faces at) – the sacred sound makes me swinging.

28 (I’m faithfull) – eventually my hard work will give me the crown.

29 (I’m scared of hell – I take refuge in a cave) – my natural stay is underground.

30 (I hope in a break – with the end of flooding, whites doves come at sunset
bringing olive sprigs) – after the last putrefaction the whiteness brings the
philosophical sun strength.

31 (He who is thirsty, drinks – from the rose liquor flows the source) – the water I
receive makes me a source of life.
32 (mud dung – where is your treasure is your heart ) – do not be worried of
employing humble and disgusting matters, as they are rich in Secret fire/spiritus
mundi.

33 (the quality of gold must be tested seven times) – remember to repeat your
operations.

34 (neither here nor there – he who moves away from the norm goes toward
disaster) – I thoroughly follow the instructions.

35 (the knowledge is simple) – the flowing mercurial serpent/white dove is then

fixed/crucified and so extracts my heart/soul/sulphur or eye/inner light.
36 ( oh vanity!) – now that mind and heart/soul/central sun are separated, the great
spirit can lead the mind.

37 ( migrating) – I move everywhere without being attached to any place in the

world.

38 ( I draw a deep breath) – when I’m perfectly prepared we’ll breathe in the same
tune.
39 (death is beneficial) – I know that my body is an impediment.

40 (I find something to be nurtured – where is a corpse there eagles gather) – I

remain there where is my corpse.

41 (I am healed) – the juice of your philosophical grapes allow me to enter other

worlds, the drink of the immortals.

41 (they fall from above) – obelisks in ancient times were known for their
resonance when they had the least contact with the ground – see the main article.
43 (through small holes) – I’m given the crown of adept, the crown stands for light.

44 (it is only by the High – it is not important who plants or waters, but only from
above comes my life) – I’m no longer subject to the ground forces.

45 (I emerge from the deep of the sea) – I will be at one with the forces of heaven.

46 (They give birth – the evil can only gives origin to evil) – do multiply your Opus.
47 (I’m hurt, I am pierced with your arrows) – the work is completed by the heaven.

48 (I get beaten – urge me – you are the father, I’m the son) – to be the son of
means to be initiated.

49 (Proceed with caution) – the path is dangerous and slow.

50 ( remember of death) – I must learn while still have mind, as then I will need a
new element earth/ a new mind.