Transcription
Alchemy has produced one of the most dizzying arrays of literature spanning centuries in a dozen languages, filled with allegories and symbolism, and sometimes just frankly encoded. Alchemical literature runs the gamut from the hurried lab notes of the so-called puffers to the multimedia experience of something like Michael Maier's *Atalanta Fugiens*, which is filled with poetry, symbolic art, and even accompanying music. Alchemical literature ranges from the wildly popular, running into dozens of editions, all the way to some of the most obscure manuscripts ever produced.
But if one were to turn back the clock, before the days of Boyle and Newton, before the days of Paracelsus, and even prior to the very earliest alchemical textbooks of something like *The Sum of Perfectionis*, what would the very seed of alchemy look like in the European context? What was the very earliest text to enter Europe? What might be the very first alchemical text to be found in Europe? What was the seed of alchemy as we know it? We actually may know the answer to that question.
In this episode of Esoterica, we're going to be exploring the earliest known alchemical texts to enter into Europe: *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, translated on February the 11th, 1144, by Robert of Chester. In this brief text, we'll discover so much that will go on to become a commonplace in the European alchemical tradition, from romantic tales of hidden and holy masters to obscure chemical processes to theories of the fundamental substance of reality itself, and many of the most obscure but famous alchemical processes in the literature, such as the famous green lion. So I hope you'll join me as we explore the seed of European alchemy itself in *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*. I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and welcome to Esoterica, where we explore the arcane side of history, philosophy, and religion.
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While *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* is the oldest text to enter into Europe, it is by no means the oldest alchemical text. Alchemy, as we know it, stretches back to the turn of the Common Era in the Graeco-Egyptian world, and many texts from that period actually survive. Further, during the Islamicate period, alchemy was greatly improved and transformed. In fact, it was during this time period that the sulfur-mercury theory of the metals appears. In this theory, all metals are some result of a ratio between sulfur and mercury held deep within the earth and exposed to various kinds of exhalations within the earth. Depending on what exhalations are found and what degree of sulfur and mercury are compounded, one gets the various seven alchemical metals. The most perfect, of course, is gold; the next, of course, is silver, with various other kinds of metals like lead being almost by definition imperfect, according to this theory.
If an alchemist were to decompose a metal like lead, an imperfect metal, one could decompose it into its constituent aspects of mercury and sulfur, and by purifying those seeds, one can in fact transmute that base metal from its imperfect form in the form of lead or tin into gold or silver. Here, it's possible to transmute a base metal into something like silver or gold because all metals are basically composed of a ratio of sulfur and mercury in the various exhalations they experience deep within the earth. The idea here is you decompose those metals into their basic parts and then recompose and perfect them into something like silver or gold.
And it was in this Islamic context, sometime in the 8th or 9th centuries, in the area around Baghdad, somehow surrounded around the figure of Jabir ibn Hayyan, that the *Kitab al-Kamiyah*, or *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, as it's known in translation, first appears. Of course, there are huge debates going on about just whether or not Jabir ibn Hayyan was in fact a real person. The going theory now seems to be that there was a sort of circle of alchemical philosophers working in Baghdad around this time, and they attributed many of their works to that author, although the debate is still out on this very question.
Regardless of the question of authorship, it's very clear that the *Kitab al-Kamiyah*, or the book translated as *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, was produced in this Islamic context, both by the presence of the mercury-sulfur theory that we see in the text, but also technical Arabic words and other Islamic and alchemical ideas to be found in the text. In fact, while sections of the *Kitab al-Chemia* and its Arabic original were largely lost in Europe, some of the sections of this text have been recovered and published. And I'll include a link in the description for one of the sections that's been recovered, which includes the Arabic original along with the translation of the Arabic compared to a modern translation of the Latin text that we have of Robert of Chester. So check out a link to that article if you're interested in the Arabic original of the *Kitab al-Chemia* in the link below.
As I mentioned, the earliest alchemical text to enter into Europe is known in Arabic as *Kitab al-Kamiyah*, but was translated into Latin by Robert of Chester on February the 11th, 1144, as *Liber de Compositione Alchemiae*, or *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*. By the way, I'm still pushing for the idea that February the 11th should become Alchemy Day. I mean, again, this is the anniversary of the day in which alchemy, at least, entered into Europe, and it's also the day after my birthday, which is February the 10th, which if you want to get me something, I wouldn't complain about that. But I think we really should go through with this whole Alchemy Day business.
While Robert of Chester isn't a terribly well-known figure, in fact, I think he's probably most famous for his translations. He was one of these figures that featured into what is sometimes referred to as the 12th Century Renaissance. His two most famous translations are the *Kitab al-Chemia*, *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, and another very important textbook on algebra. In some sense, he introduced both alchemy and algebra into the European context. So if you've ever tried to convert lead into gold or find X, you can thank or curse Robert of Chester.
*The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* is rather brief. It's only about 55 pages in the most famous 1572 edition and can be roughly divided into two parts. The book opens by tracing the history of alchemy itself all the way back to Hermes Trismegistus, the famed Egyptian sage and the alleged author of the teachings found in the *Corpus Hermeticum*. And Robert of Chester tells us that he's translating this book into Latin because alchemy is unknown in all of Europe.
The first section opens very much like a medieval romance, sometime in the 8th century, in which Marinus Romanus, or Marinus the Roman, actually travels all the way to Alexandria to meet an adept named Adfar. After studying some time in Alexandria with Adfar, Marinus learns the "magistry of Hermes" and decides to do what anyone would do once they've mastered alchemy: they turn lead into gold. No, he becomes a hermit near Jerusalem. Though, according to the text, after some time of living as a hermit near Jerusalem, Marinus learns that a new king has emerged, a certain Khalid, and this Khalid is very interested in all forms of knowledge. This reference to a certain Khalid may be, in fact, a reference to Khalid ibn Yazid, the brother of Muawiyah II, who was in fact a real caliph, at least briefly, in the 8th century. At any rate, Marinus then travels to teach Khalid the art of Hermes and, after producing what appears to be the Philosopher's Stone, leaves this magistry, as the text calls it, sealed within a kind of hermetic vessel, along with a brief note. The note reads: "Omnes qui cum habent eleno auxilio nu latinus indigit," or in my rather literal translation, "All that have everything in themselves have no need of the help of others."
Once having completed this magistry of Hermes, Marinus goes back to his hermitage near Jerusalem, much to King Khalid's dismay. After some time, it appears that the king's hunting party actually finds Marinus again, and he is persuaded to come and teach Khalid the hermetic arts. The rest of the text is an extended dialogue between Marinus and Khalid, in which Marinus is teaching Khalid all the various alchemical truths, everything from the fundamental nature of reality all the way to how to transmute base metals into gold.
Of course, we have to consider the setting of all this in the Christian imagination there in the middle of the 12th century. Here we have a Christian hermit teaching alchemical lore to an Islamic king. We can't separate all what's going on in the literature of this text from the historical setting in which it's being translated. Of course, that setting is the very end of the First Crusade. And further, in this text, we have what we might call a kind of, let's call it, creative history, in which we have a genealogy of alchemy stretching all the way back to Hermes Trismegistus, it being passed, in some sense, from the Alexandrian community there to Adfar, and then to Marinus the Roman, a Christian, and then from a Roman Christian to an Islamic king. There's something fishy about this genealogy. Notice what it leaves out: it leaves out the entire history of Islamic alchemy, perhaps one of the most decisive periods in that entire art's history.
And of course, this is all very ironic. We have Robert of Chester admitting that Europeans know basically nothing about alchemy and translating a text from Arabic from the Islamic world into Latin so that Christian Europeans can have access to it. Now, if we can trust the text as we have it, and there's a lot of question about just how this text was produced, how much of this was the Arabic original, how much of this is from Robert of Chester, and how much of this actually may have been added later before the more famous 16th-century printings, I'm not going to get into those debates. But let's just think about this from the point of view of a Christian audience at any point in alchemical history. Robert of Chester might be doing something like public relations for alchemy. He knows that his largely Christian audience has a pretty negative opinion of Muslims or Saracens, as they called them, and the idea that they would have to learn the alchemical arts from the Islamic world might put them off. And so, by in some sense, literarily bypassing the Islamic world and its enormous contribution to alchemy, he makes it as if it's a Christian teaching another Christian how to do alchemy. And that is a rather ingenious, if not woefully creative, move on his part.
By making alchemy a basically Christian art, by having it being passed from the pagan world of Hermes Trismegistus and perhaps Adfar directly to a Christian like Marinus, and then directly from Marinus, in some sense, to a Christian audience, it's as if they get to bypass the entire Islamic period of alchemy. And further, by having a Christian hermit teach an Islamic leader how to do alchemy, this inverts the actual power system as it really existed. Of course, the great dynamism that was going on in the alchemical world at that time was in the Islamic world, not the Christian world, as testified by the fact that Robert of Chester's translating a book in Arabic into Latin. So this is by no means historically accurate. In fact, I think people from the Islamic world would find this either laughable or offensive, or both. But it does make it much more appealing to a Christian audience. So by appealing to the vanity of his Christian audience, remember, this entire alchemical text is framed by Robert of Chester as a learned Christian monk teaching a powerful Islamic leader how to do alchemy. This allows the Christian reader to understand that alchemy itself is an art by Christians for Christians. It basically erases the entire Islamic period of alchemy and, in some sense, literally allows alchemy as an art to pass from the pagan world directly into the European context. When in doubt, always appeal to the vanity of your audience. I mean, that's why you all support this channel, right? You're all learned and wise. Of course, you are.
After the series of somewhat romantic introductions, a section of which actually has been preserved in Arabic, the text then transforms into a kind of dialogue between Marinus Romanus and King Khalid, in which a wide variety of alchemical ideas and processes are discussed. From here, *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* takes the form of a dialogue between Marinus Romanus, the alchemical adept, and King Khalid. While the conversation is very wide-ranging, we get everything from alchemical processes to how to produce the Philosopher's Stone. None of the topics are discussed in any great depth. The text functions something like a kind of digest of alchemical wisdom. And I think this makes sense. Again, remember, Robert of Chester is introducing Europe to alchemy for the first time. Rather than present an incredibly detailed single tract on a very complex alchemical experiment, he's giving Europeans something like a taste of what alchemy is and what it's capable of doing.
I think Robert of Chester was actually being very deliberate in choosing the *Kitab al-Chemia*, or *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, to be the first text to be translated about alchemy into Europe. Insofar as the text operates something like a digest of alchemical wisdom, this would serve to act as a kind of appetizer, or to wet the alchemical palette of the European mind, rather than be a kind of end-all-be-all textbook or a deep dive into one very specific topic in alchemical wisdom. Of course, much more technical texts from the Islamic world will be translated not long after Robert of Chester completed his translation, and in the centuries that followed, they would appear alchemical textbooks like *The Sum of Perfectionis*. If you're interested in learning more about an alchemical textbook, you can check out my video on *The Sum of Perfectionis*. It is, in some sense, in my opinion, the best place to begin learning about the history and development of alchemical ideas because, in many ways, it summarizes all of our chemical literature from that time period all the way back into ancient antiquity. So check out my video on *The Sum of Perfectionis* if you're interested in an actual alchemical textbook of the 14th century.
The conversation between the alchemist Marinus and King Khalid begins where you might imagine: at the very beginning. Here we have a prolonged discussion of the materia prima. This is the idea that all physical reality is basically composed out of a kind of underlying, unformed substance. Of course, this idea matters a great deal in alchemy because if everything is fundamentally one, "all is one," a very common and popular alchemical idea, then if everything is fundamentally one thing, then the difference in the world is basically an illusion. One can decompose individual things back into this prima and then reconstitute them as something else again. This is going to matter because if we decompose a metal, we can recompose it back into another metal, and that idea of transmutation is at the very ground floor of alchemical theory.
Another thing that's very striking about *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* is just how much alchemical tradition this text preserves. Here we have quotations from Zosimos of Panopolis, a Graeco-Egyptian alchemist stretching all the way back to the late classical world, and here we have quotations from some of his letters to his "spiritual sister," Theosebia. And again, what makes this text impressive is that it is a link from the late classical Graeco-Egyptian alchemical world to the Islamic and alchemical world, and then introducing those ideas into the European context for the first time.
Further, despite this text being very brief, we're given an introduction into basically everything that's going to become a commonplace in alchemical literature in Europe: everything from the various processes that substances have to undergo, to the various colors that they'll churn as the process is advancing, all the way to the character and nature of the Philosopher's Stone. Importantly also, we find the mercury-sulfur theory, although it is a bit obscure here. What does seem to appear in a very important way is the mechanisms by which one can purify mercury. Here, this seems to be mercury, perhaps in the form of mercury sulfide or cinnabar. Of course, cinnabar is the most common way that mercury occurs in nature, and in order for one to extract the liquid mercury from the cinnabar, one would need to separate off the sulfur component. And this idea of purifying mercury, in many forms of the alchemical tradition, is the fundamental first teaching of engaging in alchemy. One must purify mercury in order to begin the process of transforming any metal into gold.
It's also worth pointing out here that Robert of Chester doesn't translate technical alchemical terms from Arabic to Latin. He often just leaves them in a kind of corrupt Arabic form. For instance, we have the word "azoc," a-z-o-c, which is again a corrupted version of the Arabic word for mercury, being used in the text. Now, this corrupt version of an Arabic word is actually going to go on to have sort of mystical significance as alchemy develops. We're going to see it, for instance, in the word "azoth," a-z-o-t-h, in Paracelsian alchemy. Here, the idea is that we're not just dealing with mercury as a kind of elemental metal, but mercury as a kind of symbolic force of change itself. Notice here, these technical words being left in Arabic gives them a kind of exotic feel to them, and that exotic feel to them is going to be backfilled in some ways with a lot of more mystical kind of understanding of what's going on in these alchemical texts. So it's interesting that here in Robert of Chester, he basically sets a precedent by not translating those words, and these very mysterious words are going to get well, a lot more mysterious because the Europeans have really no idea what they mean, and they're going to backfill that meaning with all kinds of mystical, supernatural, and sometimes even magical storytelling.
Of course, the bulk of the text is dedicated, though obscurely, to a discussion of what we would now call the Philosopher's Stone. That is to say, a kind of primal substance that's able to convert one substance into another. In this case, the discussion is how to convert base metals like lead and tin into silver and gold. Although here, in *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, it's not just converting base metals into gold; it's specifically talking about converting silver into gold.
In *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, we're told that the Philosopher's Stone resembles the kind of slag that's poured off during the process of glassmaking. In fact, sometimes the text refers to the appearance of the Philosopher's Stone as the "feces of glass." And we're even given a very vivid portrayal of the production of the Philosopher's Stone itself: how it must emerge from a state of putrefaction, and once it emerges as a Philosopher's Stone, it becomes not only fragrant but sweet to the taste.
In addition to this discussion of the Philosopher's Stone, we're also given a prolonged exposition as to how to use probably the most famous image in all of alchemical symbolism: the green lion, which was probably aqua regia, or a combination of nitric and hydrochloric acids. Here, we're told to take various substances, including the green lion, and then add them into a sealed vessel. Of course, this is where the term "hermetically sealed" comes from. And we take that sealed vessel and put it on what seems to be very low heat, and a specific furnace built for alchemy. Of course, as you may know, one of the things that's famous about the corpus of Jabir ibn Hayyan is a very technical discussion of various kinds of heating mechanisms or furnaces to be used in the alchemical process. Here, we're told to subject various substances in this sealed vessel, along with the green lion, to a heating regime over the course of 20-some odd days. And during those 20 or so days, we'll notice that the fumes within the hermetic vessel will change various colors depending on what's going on inside that vessel along the alchemical process. And through this long process of sublimation and condensation, the substance will gradually fuse together. And once it fuses together in just the correct way, we can project silver into that elixir, and out will emerge gold.
In fact, the *Kitab al-Chemia*, or *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, tells us the entire task, or the entire goal of alchemy, is to produce this "Roman gold," as the text calls it. Now, why it calls it Roman gold is interesting. I wonder, Marinus Romanus's name is Marinus the Roman. I wonder if this is a reference to his gold. But the idea here is that this elixir, by projecting silver into this elixir, we can generate gold, and this is called by the *Kitab al-Chemia* the chief point of the hermetic art. And it's at this apex, the ability of the alchemist to transform nature, at least to transmute silver into gold, that the text comes to an end.
And of course, we must imagine that any European reading this in the 12th century must have been positively enthralled. In fact, I find the text rather enthralling, and this shouldn't be surprising in the least. We're promised the ability to transmute base metals, or at least silver, into gold. We're given the theoretical foundations for why that's possible, and we're even given instructions, even though they're pretty obscure, about how to accomplish this basic miracle of nature.
With this in mind, you shouldn't be surprised to learn that in the years following the translation of *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, there was a positive explosion in alchemical interest in Europe. The most famous of these texts, and perhaps one of the most famous alchemical texts ever produced in translation, was the *Turba Philosophorum*, or *The Assembly of the Philosophers*. This is kind of a congress of all these ancient philosophical and scientific minds from the ancient world, although the text, again, was written during the Islamic period. If you're more curious about that text, don't worry, it'll get its own episode at some point in the future here at Esoterica, so stay tuned for more alchemy.
So, as I've argued, Robert of Chester's February the 10th, 1144, translation of the *Kitab al-Chemia* as *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* in some ways marks the birth date of alchemy in the Western European context. Of course, European alchemy would have a long and distinguished career, transforming from the early alchemy here of the Islamicate period all the way through the Paracelsian alchemy that would develop in the centuries to come, all the way into the early days of chemistry as we now know it. But as I hope I've shown, *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* in some sense holds in microcosm the greater macrocosm of what alchemy would become in Europe. Many of the ideas to be found in the development of European alchemy, in many ways, in most ways, have their seeds here in this 1144 translation of Robert of Chester.
So if you've ever opened one of the many enigmatic texts that populate the world of European alchemy, you might benefit from going back and studying this first alchemical document to enter Europe. Here we might discover some of the keys that will unlock the development of alchemy as it developed in the European context, and for that reason alone, *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* deserves our study and attention.
If you're interested in the history of alchemy, hermetic philosophy, or occult science, make sure to subscribe here to Esoterica. These are all core content of our channel. And also, if you appreciate free, scholarly, and accessible content on topics in Western esotericism here on YouTube, consider supporting my work on Patreon or with a one-time donation. Your support of Esoterica makes the channel possible, and I really do appreciate it. Thank you.
Unfortunately, *The Composition of Alchemy* remains a relatively difficult text to access in English. The Stabenhagen translation that was made in 1974 is, in some sense, I think, the standard scholarly translation, although it's so difficult to find that I wasn't even able to access it before making this episode. I basically just read the text in Latin. So unfortunately, the text is somewhat difficult to find in a standard academic edition. Although I will say that the living legend Adam McLean produced a translation in the early 2000s as part of his Hermetic Research Series, and I think this text is somewhere available online on his website, and so you may be able to consult his translation, which I would trust without any reservations at all. If you want to consult *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* on his website, and I'll say, and I'm sure most of you know this already, Adam McLean's website on alchemy is one of the greatest treasures in the hermetic sciences, hermetic philosophy on the internet. I discovered it as a teenager and was printing out copies of alchemical texts in my library in high school, and I have to say that this is a treasure trove of alchemical lore and literature. Please check his website out. Further, he also produces hand-colored prints of many famous alchemical documents and images from some of these books, and you can access some of these on eBay and other places. I would really recommend you go pick up one of his prints. That would make a wonderful holiday gift for someone or for yourself, for that matter, and support the work of Adam McLean. He is just a living treasure who has produced so much in the way of alchemical literature for people like me to basically grow up on, and I am so thankful for him and his work. So please go over there, check out the link in the description below, buy some art from him, and uh, just really appreciate the work that he's done. I certainly do.
If for some reason you want to consult *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy* in the original Latin, I think one of the better places and more accessible places to do it is in the very famous *Artis Auriferae*, published in three volumes in 1572. You can access this entire text on Google Books in a relatively readable format in Latin. Now, I'll say, and I think I pointed this out earlier in the episode, there's some scholarly debate about just how much of the text was written when, how much was the original Arabic, how much was added by Robert of Chester, and how much may have been added between the original 1144 translation and the printing that came some time after. I'm not going to wade into those waters at this point. I think it's very important. But if you do want to read the text in Latin, you can find it there in the 1572 edition. And I'll say the Latin there isn't terribly difficult, but it is an alchemical text, so you might be reading it perfectly fine in Latin and still have no idea what it's talking about. So your mileage may vary, Latin be damned.
Also, you'll find a link in the description below to an article which reproduces some of the only sections of the *Kitab al-Chemia* that have been recovered in the original Arabic. This article is really wonderful. It has the original Arabic, it has a translation from the Arabic, and it compares it to the translation of Robert of Chester. So you get some sense of what the original text would have looked like, although it's only a small fragment of the entire *Kitab al-Chemia*, or a fragment of the book that we now know as *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*. So if you read Arabic and you want to take a look at that text, I'll include a link in the description below.
Also, in the description below, I've included some texts that I think are some of the best primary and secondary literature on alchemy that exist, at least in English. So if you're interested in getting a sort of introductory reading list of alchemical lore and literature, check out those texts in the description below. I think you'll find them pretty edifying. I've included both primary and secondary literature, so you can consult original alchemical texts, although often in translation, and you can take a look at some of the secondary literature that is reconstructing how we think actual alchemical laboratories functioned and what they were in fact doing in those labs from the point of view of modern chemistry. And I've also included some more spiritual or psychological interpretations of alchemy, although those should be taken, at least from an academic historical point of view, with somewhat of a grain of salt, although I do think they're terribly interesting on their own terms.
At any rate, I hope you found our exploration of *The Book of the Composition of Alchemy*, the earliest European alchemical text so far recovered, interesting. Until next time, I'm Dr. Justin Sledge, and you've been watching Esoterica, where we explore the arcane side of history, philosophy, and religion.