“The sacred Scriptures inform us that there exists a tribe of genii, who make use of women. Hermes mentions this circumstance in his Physics; and almost every writing (λογος), whether sacred (φανερος) or apocryphal, states the same thing. The ancient and divine Scriptures inform us, that the angels, captivated by women, taught them all the operations of nature. Offence being taken at this, they remained out of heaven, because they had taught mankind all manner of evil, and things which could not be advantageous to their souls. The Scriptures inform us that the giants sprang from these embraces. Chema is the first of their traditions respecting these arts. The book itself they called Chema; hence the art is called Chemia.”
Zosimus is not the only Greek writer on Chemistry. Olaus Borrichius has given us a list of thirty-eight treatises, which he says exist in the libraries of Rome, Venice, and Paris: and Dr. Shaw has increased this list to eighty-nine.6 But among these we find the names of Hermes, Isis, Horus, Democritus, Cleopatra, Porphyry, Plato, &c.—names which undoubtedly have been affixed to the writings of comparatively modern and obscure authors. The style of these authors, as Borrichius informs us, is barbarous. They are chiefly the production of ecclesiastics, who lived between the fifth and twelfth centuries. In these tracts, the art of which they treat is sometimes called chemistry (χημεια); sometimes the chemical art (χημευτικα); sometimes the holy art; and the philosopher’s stone.
It is evident from this, that between the fifth century and the taking of Constantinople in the fifteenth century, the Greeks believed in the possibility of making gold and silver artificially; and that the art which professed to teach these processes was called by them Chemistry.
These opinions passed from the Greeks to the Arabians, when, under the califs of the family of Abassides, they began to turn their attention to science, about the beginning of the ninth century; and when the enlightened zeal of the Fatimites in Africa, and the Ommiades in Spain, encouraged the cultivation of the sciences. From Spain they gradually made their way into the different Christian kingdoms of Europe. From the eleventh to the sixteenth century, the art of making gold and silver was cultivated in Germany, Italy, France, and England, with considerable assiduity. The cultivators of it were called Alchymists; a name obviously derived from the Greek word chemia, but somewhat altered by the Arabians. Many alchymistical tracts were written during that period. A considerable number of them were collected by Lazarus Zetzner, and published at Strasburg in 1602, under the title of “Theatrum Chemicum, præcipuos selectorum auctorum tractatus de Chemiæ et Lapidis Philosophici Antiquitate, veritate, jure, præstantia, et operationibus continens in gratiam veræ Chemiæ et Medicinæ Chemicæ Studiosorum (ut qui uberrimam unde optimorum remediorum messem facere poterunt) congestum et in quatuor partes seu volumina digestum.” This book contains one hundred and five different alchymistical tracts.
In the year 1610 another collection of alchymistical tracts was published at Basil, in three volumes, under the title of “Artis Auriferæ quam Chemiam vocant volumina tria.” It contains forty-seven different tracts.
In the year 1702 Mangetus published at Geneva two very large folio volumes, under the name of “Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa, seu rerum ad Alchymiam pertinentium thesaurus instructissimus, quo non tantum Artis Auriferæ ac scriptorum in ea nobiliorum Historia traditur; lapidis veritas Argumentis et Experimentis innumeris, immo et Juris Consultorum Judiciis evincitur; Termini obscuriores explicantur; Cautiones contra Impostores et Difficultates in Tinctura Universali conficienda occurrentes declarantur: verum etiam Tractatus omnes Virorum Celebriorum, qui in Magno sudarunt Elixyre, quique ab ipso Hermete, ut dicitur, Trismegisto, ad nostra usque tempora de Chrysopoea scripserunt, cum præcipuis suis Commentariis, concinno ordine dispositi exhibentur.” This Bibliotheca contains one hundred and twenty-two alchymistical treatises, many of them of considerable length.
Two additional volumes of the Theatrum Chemicum were afterwards published; but these I have never had an opportunity of seeing.
From these collections, which exhibit a pretty complete view of the writings of the alchymists, a tolerably accurate notion may be formed of their opinions. But before attempting to lay open the theories and notions by which the alchymists were guided, it will be proper to state the opinions which were gradually adopted respecting the origin of Alchymy, and the contrivances by which these opinions were supported.
Zosimus, the Panapolite, in a passage quoted above informs us, that the art of making gold and silver was not a human invention; but was communicated to mankind by angels or demons. These angels, he says, fell in love with women, and were induced by their charms to abandon heaven altogether, and take up their abode upon earth. Among other pieces of information which these spiritual beings communicated to their paramours, was the sublime art of Chemistry, or the fabrication of gold and silver.
It is quite unnecessary to refute this extravagant opinion, obviously founded on a misunderstanding of a passage in the sixth chapter of Genesis. “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair; and they took them wives of all which they chose.—There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them; the same became mighty men, which were of old, men of renown.”
There is no mention whatever of angels, or of any information on science communicated by them to mankind.
Nor is it necessary to say much about the opinion advanced by some, and rather countenanced by Olaus Borrichius, that the art of making gold was the invention of Tubal-cain, whom they represent as the same as Vulcan. All the information which we have respecting Tubal-cain, is simply that he was an instructor of every artificer in brass and iron.7 No allusion whatever is made to gold. And that in these early ages of the world there was no occasion for making gold artificially, we have the same authority for believing. For in the second chapter of Genesis, where the garden of Eden is described, it is said, “And a river went out of Eden to water the garden; and from thence it was parted, and came into four heads: the name of the first is Pison, that is it which encompasseth the whole land of Havilah, where there is gold. And the gold of that land is good: there is bdellium and onyx-stone.”
But the most generally-received opinion is, that alchymy originated in Egypt; and the honour of the invention has been unanimously conferred upon Hermes Trismegistus. He is by some supposed to be the same person with Chanaan, the son of Ham, whose son Mizraim first occupied and peopled Egypt. Plutarch informs us, that Egypt was sometimes called Chemia.8 This name is supposed to be derived from Chanaan (ןענכ); thence it was believed that Chanaan was the true inventor of alchymy, to which he affixed his own name. Whether the Hermes (Ἑρμης) of the Greeks was the same person with Chanaan or his son Mizraim, it is impossible at this distance of time to decide; but to Hermes is assigned the invention of alchymy, or the art of making gold, by almost the unanimous consent of the adepts.
Albertus Magnus informs us, that “Alexander the Great discovered the sepulchre of Hermes, in one of his journeys, full of all treasures, not metallic, but golden, written on a table of zatadi, which others call emerald.” This passage occurs in a tract of Albertus de secretis chemicis, which is considered as supposititious. Nothing is said of the source whence the information contained in this passage was drawn: but, from the quotations produced by Kriegsmann, it would appear that the existence of this emerald table was alluded to by Avicenna and other Arabian writers. According to them, a woman called Sarah took it from the hands of the dead body of Hermes, some ages after the flood, in a cave near Hebron. The inscription on it was in the Phœnician language. The following is a literal translation of this famous inscription, from the Latin version of Kriegsmann:9
1. I speak not fictitious things, but what is true and most certain.
2. What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is similar to