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Figure 19. Left banner: Cu[ius] p[ate]r e[st] soll m[ate]r vero luna Et ex patre fit filius Et filius est mater (“its father is the Sun and its mother the Moon, and the son comes from the father, and the son is the mother”). Right banner: Draco non moritur absque fratre et sorore sua / Et non per unum tantum sed per ambosimul (“The dragon is nor killed without its brother and sister; and not with one alone, but with both at the same time”). Center: Tria Unum (“three are one”)[1]
[p. 183]The philosopher Democritus.
In the first work, you must dissolve the bodies over bright white [candidum] ash, and let the grinding be done only with water. Avicenna: The first thing in the work is to dissolve the stone in its first matter. Senior and Hermes: Dissolve bodies in water. Plato in the summary: You need what you work at in the solution of bodies. Therefore you must keep a persistent slow fire above it until the whole of it is dissolved. Through this the work is completed. Note that the circular reversal[2] of all circular substances is not at all perfected until they are led back to their first matter. Rhazes: Unless you dissolve the bodies, you labour in vain. Albertus Magnus: Know it as a certainty that no spirit of bodies can be tincted unless it is first dissolved.
Morienes: Unless all natural things pass through their nature into vapour, the operation in this art will be in vain. And if it has been dissolved, then the alchemical work has been prepared. Let it be multiplied, and it will rejoice with you. Here there is a slight alteration of the natures of the science, since its [own] operation consists equally in solution.
Sorin, in the eleventh distinction: The beginning of the rule is the perfect solution. But so that the body may become rare and very thin like the spirit, they must be dissolved. The rule of bodies, as has been said, is to dissolve.
[p. 184]Alphidius: But quicksilver, which is extracted from the black body, is white moisture. It has been cleansed of its shell, lest the work come to ruin. Morienes: It is fit for you to know that the white smoke is the soul and the spirit of those dissolved bodies. And certainly, if the white smoke had not been gold, alchemy could not have been there. Rosarius: This is our most noble Mercury, and God has never created a nobler substance under the heavens, other than the rational soul.
Hermes, king of the Greeks: The dissolved body is perennial water, which congeals Mercury with a perpetual coagulation. Hipocras:[3] Whoever wishes to purge bodies must make them fluid. The blackness of putrefaction lasts for about four or five days. Senior: The first key is the extraction of moistures and fatness, whose sign is superabundant blackness. And when this has been used up, the soul is already in the water. Albertus: Unless the soul exits its body and rises up into the heavens, you will achieve nothing in this art.
A parable of Senior about the white tincture: If my dear parents have tasted of life and have suckled on my milk, and have drunk of my unmixed whiteness, and have been married in my bed, then they will produce the son of the Moon, who will exceed all his parentage. And if my beloved drank of a red tomb of rock, and tasted the fount of his mother and then copulated, and [p. 185]was drunk with my red wine and with me, and lay with me sweetly in my bed, and in my love sent his sperm into my cell, then I would conceive, and I would be pregnant, and in my time Ι would bear a most powerful son, who would reign and rule over all kings and princes of the earth, crowned with the golden crown of victory in all things by the highest God, who lives and reigns forever and ever.
Turba philosophorum: When you investigators of this art see the whiteness appearing, shining above everything in the vessel, then be sure that a redness has been hidden in that whiteness. And it must not be extracted then, not until the whole redness is cooked. The philosopher Senior: Make the black white, and all the white red, for water whitens and fire illuminates. It shines in colour like a ruby through its tincting soul, which it has acquired by virtue of fire. Hermes: The seventh rule is of the Moon, that is, to roast, redden, heat, and rub for twenty-five days. Thus you have the accomplishment of the work. Again: The colour of the soul is red. Again: White desires to be made red. Again: White is our red. Again: Our stone is fire made of fire, and is turned into fire, and its soul tarries in fire. The Hermetic Riddle about the red tincture: I am crowned, and adorned with a diadem, and vested in regal vestments, for I cause bodies to enter into joy.
[p. 186]Hermes in the third Treatise: Come, you sons of the wise! We shall rejoice from now on. Let us delight together, for death has been destroyed, and now our son rules, and he is vested with red armament and flesh. Now our son, born a king, takes up the tincture from fire. Death, sea, and darkness flee from him, and the Dragon who guarded the openings flees the rays of the Sun. Our son, who was dead, lives, and the king comes from fire and will rejoice in the marriage. What was hidden shall appear, and our son, now revived, is made a warrior by fire, outstanding by the tinctures.
Metaphors of the philosopher Belinus[4] on the Sun: Know that my Father, the Sun, gave me power over all power, and vested me with the vestment of glory. The whole world seeks me and runs after me. For I am the greatest; they had already known my virtue and loftiness. I am unique, and am like my father, who is unique, and who gave me that virtue of his grace. Men ask of my dark slaves what was asked of me, and they will not find it except through me. Earth, with all its powers, cannot humiliate me; I am above it, and I am above my slaves, so that it is I who humiliate them, and I extract from their power and nature, and I vest them with my splendor and my light, which my father gave me, in all their works. I am the excellent one [p. 187]who am exalted, and I humble all things, and none of my slaves can be above me—except for one to whom it is given to be my contrary. He destroys me, yet he does not destroy my nature. And this one is Saturn, who separates all my members. Afterwards I go to my mother, who gathers togethers all my divided and separated members. I am what illuminates all that is mine, and I cause light to appear openly in the path of my father Saturn, and also of my mother, who is an enemy to me. But unless this happens, I cannot drink of the souls of animals and plants. I come with the heat of fire to expel their virtue and iniquity from me. I am what dwells on the mineral’s face, and I share with my slaves out of my extremities, and my name is called by great names. Whoever is studious of me will not have any cares, but he will not be satisfied with me. I deliver ships through the sea, and I forge dense cities. Do not seek after my greatness in them. I announce to all you who are wise, that unless you kill me, your intellect shall not be perfected. In my sister the Moon the degree of your wisdom grows, and not in any other of my slaves. And if you would know my secret, I am the grain sown in pure earth that is increased and multiplied in growth, and that bears the fruit of what was sown. For all that is produced is produced according to its kind, and any [p. 188]individual multiplies the form of its species, and not of another, just as it happens in wheat, and likewise in other things. In this, I have explained all the figures to you. When, therefore, I go with my wife, who is white, pure, moist, and clean of touch, I add beauty to her face, and to her goodness and virtue. She is obedient to me, and so when I have been joined with her, there will be nothing better nor equivalent to it in the world. She will be impregnated and will germinate, and will be like I am in substance [substantia] and colour, for the semen is multiplied by this magisterium. [The child] will be born likewise from me, just as when a grain of wheat is sown, it grows, multiplies, and is ground and sieved and made into the bread by which the whole world lives. And the mineral of the earth will be forged out of me, and it will not be lacking, for it is a gift of God. I illuminate copper [aerem] by my light, and I heat earth by my heat. I produce and I nourish natural things, plants and stones, and I remove the darkness of night with my power, and I cause the days of the age to endure, and I illuminate all luminaries with my light, even in those in which there is no splendour or greatness, for all things come from my work when I am vested in my vestments. Whoever seeks after me, let him make peace between me and my wife. She must therefore be separated from me and then mixed with me in an inseparable mixture. This is done when, on the one hand, you have extracted me from my nature, and, on the other, my wife from her nature. After this, kill the natures, and then let us be revived through [p. 189]a new and incorporeal resurrection; and then we cannot die. After the resurrection, we shall have eternal glory and strength, and then all shall rejoice in prosperity who know our development.
With this, the precious gift of God is completed, which is above every mystery of the sciences in the world, and is an incomparable treasury of treasury. Thus says Plato: Whoever has this gift of God has dominion over the world, for he has attained the end of wealth and shattered the bond of nature. And this is not so much because he has the power to convert all imperfect bodies into purest Sun or Moon, but rather because he preserves man and any kind of animal in the maintenance of health. And if the crystalline sheet, which is white elixir, is given in the quantity of a mustard seed to one suffering a fever, it cures him. And even a leper is cured if, for a span of four years, he is purged by the same sheet, and twice yearly (in March and September) with the red powder out of which Sun is made. And either white powder or red powder cures suffers of sciatica in danger of death; they also cure paralysis. [5] Again, if the powder is held in the nostrils of those labouring at birth, they are delivered—thus says Hermes. Geber also says that the red elixir cures all chronic infirmities (of which the doctors have despaired), and causes a man to grow young like the eagle, and to [p. 190]live five hundred years or more. Some philosophers have done this, using it three times weekly in the quantity of a mustard seed. Such medicine is made out of the herb called Saturn of canals [Saturnus de canalibus]. Note, then, that all infirmities which arise, from the tip of the head to the sole of the foot, are cured in a day if they have existed for a month, or in twelve days if for a year, or in a month if for a long time. Just as it cures all metals corrupted by all infirmities, so also it does to human bodies. Thus, our blessed stone is not unjustly called the greater theriac of human bodies as well as of metals. On this, Hermes the king of the Greeks and father of philosophy says: If every day for seven days you take a carob-weight of our elixir, then your white hairs will fall from your head, and they will regrow black, and thus you will be made from an old man into a strong youth.
Arnaldus says: Our stone has the powerful virtue of curing all infirmity, and it is above all other doctors’ medicines. It rejoices the soul, increases virtue, preserves youth, and removes old age. It does not permit blood to putrefy, nor phlegm to be overmastered, nor choler to burn, nor melancholia to be over-exalted. Rather, it multiplies blood beyond measure and cleanses it, purges it after it has been concealed in spirits, and effectually restores all members of the body, ...
[p. 191]
Figure 20.
Nach meinem viel unnd manches leiden unnd marter gross /
Bin ich erstanden / clarificiert / und aller mackel bloss.
After my manifold suffering and great torment, /
I am risen, transfigured, and free of all blemish.
... [p. 192]and guards against injury, and, in general, it cures all infirmities rapidly, hot ones as well as cold ones, dry as well as moist, and this better than the other medicines of doctors. For if the sickness was of [the duration of] one year, it cures in twelve days; if it was old and lasted long, it will cure in one month. Briefly, it expels all bad humours and draws in good ones; it confers love and honour, security and boldness, and victory in battle to those who bear it. And with this the greatest secret of nature is complete, which is above every precious, most precious secret, and is an incomparable and most precious treasury. May God conceal in his mind those who have it, lest they be made known to the ignorant.
Let all that is living say, Amen.
Frankfurt,
From the workshop of
Cyriacus Iacobus,
June 1550.
[1] The 1530s manuscript includes a further line: Quod natum est ex spiritu spiritus est Io.3, “What is born of the spirit is spirit, John 3.”
[2] Reading reversio circularis for reversio circularia.
[3] Hippocrates (460–ca. 370 BC), the ancient Greek physician. Like Galen, pseudepigraphal attributions to Hippocrates draw on his status as an expert in medicine.
[4] According to Telle, derived from Greek Apollonios via Arabic Balinus, and identified with the legendary Apollonius of Tyana, who is held to have discovered the cosmogony Sirr al-haliqa (“Secret of creation”), as well as the Tabula smaragdina (“Emerald tablet”) of Hermes Trismegistus.
[5] The preceding sentences allude to three miracles attributed to Jesus in the New Testament: curing of fever, cleansing of a leper, and healing of paralysis.