Aurora

he was a man who was vouchsafed an overpowering revelation of the unconscious, which he was unable to describe in the usual ecclesiastical style but only with the help of alchemical symbols.

Von Franz establishes the psychological core claim of the entire commentary: that the Aurora Consurgens is the record of an overwhelming unconscious experience whose only adequate language was alchemical symbolism.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966thesis

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It is difficult to withstand the impression that the whole treatise was composed in an abnormal psychic state. Moreover, minor inaccuracies in the quotations make it evident that these were reproduced on the spot and written down quickly.

Von Franz argues, on both stylistic and textual-critical grounds, that the Aurora was produced in an ecstatic or dissociated state, making it psychologically diagnostic as well as doctrinally significant.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966thesis

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No mention is made in this chapter of the passage in the Song of Songs which is the direct source for the designation of Wisdom as 'Aurora.' There it is said of the Queen of Sheba: 'Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun.'

Von Franz traces the symbolic etymology of 'Aurora' as a title for Wisdom directly to the Song of Songs, establishing the treatise's governing dawn-image as a Solomonic feminine archetype.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966thesis

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aurora, meanings of, 206f; see also dawn Aurora Consurgens: alleged blasphemy and profanation, 3, 6; authorship, 407ff; date, 14, 22ff; establishment of present text, 28f; homogeneity of, 407; manuscripts, 25ff.

The index entry maps the full scholarly apparatus surrounding Aurora—its contested authorship, manuscript tradition, date, and title—situating the term within the editorial and textual history von Franz reconstructs.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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This is Wisdom, namely the Queen of the south, who is said to have come from the east, like unto the morning rising, to hear, to understand, yea and to see the wisdom of Solomon.

The Aurora text itself presents Wisdom as an Eastern dawn-figure bearing the crown of twelve stars, directly equating 'aurora' with the archetypal feminine principle of gnosis.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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The beginning of the text would accordingly describe a numinous encounter with the anima, whose irruption into the sphere of consciousness the author endeavours to control. From the sublime, almost divine significance here attributed to the anima we must conclude that previously she had been devalued.

Von Franz interprets Aurora's opening vision as a compensatory anima projection in which the collective unconscious is personified as a luminous feminine figure of transcendent worth.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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In Aurora the risen bridegroom stands at the left hand of the Queen, who appears to him 'in gilded clothing, surrounded with variety.' This figure, the Queen of alchemy, is again Wisdom, the anima in her glorified form purged of all superfluities.

Von Franz reads Aurora's concluding parable as depicting the anima's glorification after the completion of the opus, with Wisdom-Aurora enthroned as the individuated soul's transformed feminine counterpart.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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Aurora continues in the same vein and gives us in the seventh and last parable a 'Confabulation of the Lover with the Beloved'... closing with the words: 'Behold, how good and pleasant it is for two to dwell together in unity.'

Jung cites Aurora's seventh parable as the culminating coniunctio statement of the opus, linking its bridal mysticism to the alchemical doctrine of unification of opposites.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944supporting

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Boehme's Aurora seems to me not independent of Aurora Consurgens, even though Boehme, as always, remodelled what he had read in a very freehanded way and used it only to amplify his own inner experiences.

Von Franz traces the influence of Aurora Consurgens forward to Jakob Boehme's Aurora, arguing for a continuous tradition of dawn-symbolism linking medieval alchemy to early modern theosophy.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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Not only is the alchemist enlightened by Wisdom, but his meditation simultaneously brings her to perfection, by 'a most natural and subtle understanding.'

The Aurora text presents the alchemical encounter with Wisdom as mutually transformative—a reciprocal illumination between practitioner and the personified principle he seeks.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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ferens regni coronam in capite suo radiis ... stellarum rutilantem, tamquam sponsa ornata viro suo habensque in vestimentis suis scriptum litteris aureis graecis, barbaris et latinis: Regnans regnabo et regnum meum non habebit finem.

The original Latin of Aurora presents Wisdom as the cosmic bride crowned with twelve stars and bearing the inscription of eternal sovereignty, encoding the archetype of the Self in feminine-regal imagery.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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Surgam ergo et introibo civitatem; per vicos et plateas quaerens mihi unam desponsare virginem castam, pulchram facie, pulchriorem corpore, pulcherrimam veste.

Aurora's central quest-narrative—the seeker rising to search the city for the chaste virgin—encodes the depth-psychological motif of the ego's pursuit of the anima through the labyrinthine unconscious.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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What they called the 'spirit in matter' or the 'Paraclete,' we today call the guiding function of the unconscious, which is experienced as 'meaning.'

Von Franz situates Aurora's theology of the Holy Spirit within depth psychology, identifying the alchemical Paraclete—a central motif in the treatise—with the unconscious's meaning-conferring function.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966supporting

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All good things come to me together with her, that Wisdom of the south, who preacheth abroad, who uttereth her voice in the streets... Come, children, hearken to me, I will teach you the science of God.

Jung quotes Aurora's Wisdom-proclamation in extenso to illustrate the alchemical identification of the lapis with Sapientia calling in the streets, a motif he reads as projection of the Self.

Jung, Carl Gustav, Psychology and Alchemy, 1944supporting

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BOEHME, JAKOB. Aurora. Translated by John Sparrow. Edited by C. J. B[arker] and D. S. H[ahner]. London, 1914.

The bibliography entry for Boehme's Aurora documents the specific edition von Franz used when arguing for the intertextual dependency of Boehme's theosophy on Aurora Consurgens.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966aside

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Incipit aurea [h]ora quae dicitur Aurora consurgens vel liber trinitatis compositus a Sancto Thoma de aquino.

The manuscript incipit equating 'Aurea Hora' with 'Aurora consurgens' and attributing the text to Thomas Aquinas is presented as key philological evidence for the treatise's title and authorship question.

von Franz, Marie-Louise, Aurora Consurgens: A Document Attributed to Thomas Aquinas on the Problem of Opposites in Alchemy, 1966aside

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Archivio fotografico ARAS, C. G. Jung Institut. Cfr. Aurora consurgens, p. 59 (latte); pp. 28-29.

Hillman's footnote cites Aurora Consurgens as an iconographic source for the milk motif in puer symbolism, indicating the treatise's use as a reference within post-Jungian archival research.

Hillman, James, Puer Aeternus, 1967aside

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