Foscarini, Paolo Antonio An Epistle to Fantoni 1661, tr. Salusbury, Thomas

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501
depth of all the Mysteries that are couched in this most wise
disposure of things: neverthelesse being amazed, and transported
with admiration, I will say; Who knows but that those three
Bowls like unto Almonds to be represented on each of the
Branches of the Candlestick may signifie those Globes which are
apter (as is this our Earth) for the receiving than emitting of Influ­
ences? Perhaps also they denote those Globes of late discovered
by the help of the Optick Telescope, which participate with
Saturn, Jupiter, Venus, and possibly also with the other Planets?
Who knows likewise, but that there may be some occult propor­
tion between these Globes and those Mysterious Knops and
Lilies insinuated unto us in the sacred Scriptures? But this
shall here suffice to bound humane Presumption, and to teach us
to exspect with an Harpocratick silence from Time, the Indice of
Truth, a discovery of these Mysteries: (g) Solomon made ten

Candlesticks by the same Patern of Moses, which he placed, five
on one hand and five on another, in the Temple erected by him
in honour of the most High God; which very thing doth also,
without all question, contain most abstruse signisications. More­
over, that Apple of the Knowledg of Good and Evil prohibited
our first Parents by God is not without a Mystery; which some
say was an Indian Figg. In which these things are to be observ­
ed: First, That it is replete with many Kernels, every one of
which hath a particular Centre. Secondly, Though of it self it
be hard and solid, yet about its Circumference it is of a more rare
and tenuouse substance; herein resembling the Earth, which
though in its Centre, and those parts which are nearest to it, it
be stony, Metallick, and compact, yet the nearer one approacheth
to the Circumference, its parts are seen to be the more rare and
tenuouse: and withall it hath another body, more rare than its
own, namely the Water, above which there is yet another, more
subtil than all the rest of inferiour Bodyes, that is to say,
the Aire,

(a) Exod. 25. 31.

(b) My Authour
following the vul­
gar Translation,
which hath an E­
ligance in some
things beyond ours,
cites the words
thus, Facies Can­
delabrum ducti­
le de auro mun­
dissimo, Hastile
ejus, & Calamos,
& Sphærulas, ac
Lilia, ex ipso pro­
cedentia.

(c) verse 12.

(d) or Spheres.

(e) Though our
Authour speaketh
here positively of
nine Months, &c.
Fathers are not a­
greed about the pe­
riod of this planet,
nor that of Mercu­
ry, as you may see
at large in Riccio­
lus, Almagest. nov.
Tom. 1. part 1. l.
7. sect. 3. cha. 11.
num. 11. page 627.
where he maketh
Venus to consum­
mate her Revolu­
tion in neer 225
dayes, or 7 1/2 Mon.
and Mecury in a­
bout 88 dayes, or 3
Months: in which
he followeth Kepl.
in Epitome Astro­
nom. p. 760.

(f) vers. 33, 34.

(g) 1 Kings c. 7.
v. 49. 2 Chron. c.
4. vers. 7.

The same Representation with that of the Indian Figg is held
forth to us by the Malum Punicum, or Pomegranate, with its
innumerable poly centrick Stones or Kernels, all which in the parts
more remote from their Centre, and nearer approaching towards
the Circumference, are of a substance so subtil and rare, that being
but lightly compressed, they in a manner wholly convert into a
most tenuose Liquor or juice: Of which fruit it pleased Divine
Wisdom to make mention, and ordained that its Figure should be
imbroidered and wrought with a needle in the sacerdotal Garment
of Aaron: (h) Beneath (saith God) upon the hem of it thou

shalt make Pomegranates of blew, and of purple, and of scarlet,
round about the border thereof; and Bells of gold between them