IV. i. PELAGIUS THE PHILOSOPHER
IV. ii. THE PHILOSOPHER OSTANES TO PETASIUS
IV. iii. JOHN THE ARCHPRIEST IN EVAGIE
IV. v. AGATHODÉMON, HERMES AND VARIOUS
IV. xix. PROCESSES OF JAMBLICA
IV. xx. COMARIUS
IV. xxi. MOSES CHEMISTRY
1. The ancient philosophers, lovers (of science) and filled (of zeal), said that all art was invented for this purpose (to benefit) life. Thus the art of the builder has as its essential object to make a seat, a box, or a ship, by means of the nature of the ligneous (material) alone.[2] Similarly, the art of dyeing[3] was invented with a view to making a certain dye and producing a certain quality:[4] this is also the end of the art. You should know that the ancients report an exact fact when they say: "Copper does not dye, but it is dyed, and when it has been dyed, it dyes[5]". It is for this reason that all the writings expose in similar terms the working of copper, and show how it is dyed: and if it is dyed, then it dyes; but if it is not dyed, it cannot be dyed, as we have (already) said. This is why it is recommended to make the copper free from shading, so that when it becomes shiny it can receive the dye.
By the shade of copper is meant the black tint it produces in silver. Indeed, you know that the copper subjected to the treatment[6] and projected on the silver blackens it inside and out: this blackening produced in the silver, the writings call it shadow. This is why it is necessary to treat the copper[7] until it can no longer produce blackening, when it is projected on the silver.
2. Thus the copper must be treated, as well as the natural gold, until it no longer produces the least blackening in the silver. It is for this reason that Democritus, too, said in his book on silver: “Check whether the copper has become without shadow; for if the copper has not become shadowless, blame not the copper (for your failure), but yourself.[8]
3. Copper is treated with divine water, when it has undergone decomposition, when it has been diluted, cooked and washed. “We wash it, he says, until all of its ios is expelled. Remember, in this regard, what the philosophers say: “After the copper has been refined, blackened and further whitened then (only) is the tincture solid. »
Understand the six operations well. Iosis is done by means of divine water; refining takes place in the washing; the blackening takes place when the chrysolite is mixed (with the burnt copper), before washing; attenuation, when it is diluted in chrysolite; bleaching, when it is dried after delaying with chrysolite; finally the yellowing is done when the substances which can dye in yellow are applied and introduced during the duration of the digestion in small heaps of manure.
These are the six transformations that take place in copper, in order to dye it. If they are not all done, nothing is done; whereas if the copper does not turn yellow and shiny, nothing is done.
4. Thus (one must) first dye, transform, cut the copper into pieces; in this way one obtains a perfect iosis by means of the divine water, understand by perfect iosis the gilding (which takes place) in the decomposition. Now, it is this iosis that old Zosimus had in view when he said: “He who makes ios makes gold; and he who does not, does nothing.[9] When you see the perfect gilding with sulphur,[10] then understand that you have achieved a perfect rust, by coloring the metal with sulphur, not only on the surface, but also in the depths.
There is (there) the indication of the beginning of the iosis, as well as that which is produced inside, that is to say of the true iosis, which is also designated as the ios of the 'gold. So make sure that it is carried out in depth. If it is not, there is no iosis. This operation is also called yellowing by the Philosopher, who says: “Taking pyrite, treat (it) until it becomes yellow. He calls copper pyrite, because of the igneous character of its nature; and also because it must become such that iosis is accomplished.
5. In the same way, he arrives at refining, which he also indicates in these terms: “until the inverse operation of iosis is carried out. Let there be blackening first and reduction will follow. Taking therefore one part of chrysolite, three parts of magnesia,[11] delays in the absence of any liquid; delay until the substances penetrate each other and combine. Then there is no longer any appearance of white sulfur and (the mixture) becomes quite black like writing ink. Let it sit for three days; then, throwing it into the basin, pour over it the liquid with which it is customary to wash; stir again and cook with sulfur sprinkled all around”.
How is the treatment done? how does the product have incombustible nature? What is called chalcopyrite is lead (treated with) apyre sulphur. Wash the Etesian chrysolite, he said, until his los comes out. In this way nothing is lost, the copper remaining united to the lead. This is what is called the great purification; it is also called refining and blackening: blackening because of the black color of the mixture; ripening, because of the transformation and dissolution (of the product) coming from the ios. It is this operation that is also called the big wash. Having collected this product in vases, let it settle. And after clarifying the liquor, dry the sediment: you will find that it looks like writing ink. Grind this product until it develops a perfect yolk. Modifies the product by adding the following: decanted product,[12] four parts; yellow matter, one part; lead, part; then wet a little, so as to form a kind of mud, and delay until the lead disappears. Remove and reduce to a paste; expose to the sun and let dry, watering little by little, until the lead has disappeared; then let it dry. Then project the product brought to the suitable aspect.
6. Old Zosimus said:[13] “I know of a unique class, which comprises two operations: the first so that the fluidity is produced by the extraction, the second so that the humidity of the lead is dried out. » Act in this way, by drying up; then add an equal quantity of coupholite and stir with vinegar (made) by means of geranium, until whitening. So be careful not to miss (the operation) at the time of laundering.[14] We miss it, when we do not see appearing the beauty of copper without shade, developed by means of bleaching, after the copper has lost all its excess earthly substance and its material coarseness. If, therefore, the shadowless copper is whitened, it becomes a spiritual being, and hence nothing else is wanting; there is no further delay,
7. Understand here (that) all the things poured out are thrown away and nothing remains,[15] except gold, lead and the Etesian stone, called chrysolite.[16] So, after having sweetened the solid powder and after having dried it, put with this powder three parts of rosacea, one part of magnesia, one part of copper. Add one part solid powder to it. Leave in the sun, watering with white vinegar for seven days; later, after drying, digest in manure and cook for two or three days. When you remove (the vase), you will find the gold dyed red like blood. Such is the cinnabar of the philosophers and yellow copper a color without shade. Remember in this connection that the old author said:
Copper that has become shadowless tints all kinds of bodies. It is also for this reason that the Philosopher said: Why do you speak of multiple matter? the natural product is one, and one, the nature that dominates the All. Let us understand that by the natural product he means gold conforming to nature; for this natural gold dominates the All, being formed by the subordinate bodies. Thus, for example, if it is spread on iron or copper, it dominates the surface of these (bodies), which is coated with natural gold.
8. This is how one operates: the product is dissolved by means of divine water, fermented like the leaven of bread;[18] then the chrysolite being diluted with this product, in equal parts, the water acts in accordance with the nature of the product, with the help of decantation;[19] then the chrysolite is implemented, after mixing the natural (gold).[20]
Zosimus says: “Natural gold, being changed into spirit by means of chrysolite, [21] tints according to its nature; silver, if we dissolve it by means of divine water and if we change it into spirit by means of chrysolite, tints the copper white”. He also said this in other words: "Indeed the two tinctures do not differ from each other in anything, except by color, that is to say that they comprise a single and the same mode of treatment,[22] according to which (the bodies are) first dissolved by means of divine water and later the solid powder is changed into spirit by means of chrysolite”. But they differ in color. Each of them tints according to its own nature: gold tints gold, and silver tints silver. Don't you hear the old author saying: “He who sows wheat brings forth and harvests wheat; gold also gives birth to gold; likewise money gives birth to money.[23] »
9. For the same reason the old Philosopher expressed himself thus:[24] “We will use natural (elements). Now it is necessary to know that gold tints naturally, after having first been dissolved by means of divine water and later changed into spirit by means of chrysolite. It is also called, after its nature, a solid body; and it must first be dissolved and afterwards changed into spirit: in this way it naturally colors all things, For the other two elements[25] being, according to their own nature, volatile and combustible, are dissipated. in the fire. Hence it comes that the old Zosimus said: “The mystery of the tincture of gold,[26] is to change the bodies (metallic tinctures) into spirits, in order to tint in the state of spirituality; as described, and without stopping in operation.[27] In effect, when they are in a solid state, they cannot dye; they must first be attenuated and spiritualized. Now the divine water at first attenuates them, and later the chrysolite spiritualizes them.[28] Thus let us note that there are two dyes, according to the specialty of the two bodies (gold and silver). As for the others (bodies), they intervene and transform the tincture, by associating themselves with it and cooperating with it. Transformers dissolve and spiritualize; the cooperator agents are those that are projected at the time of the merger. It should also be noted that gold or silver, simply placed as a surface coating, does not dominate iron or copper: these metals must first be treated with mordants. Likewise, in transmutation, neither gold nor silver have power, if they have not first been treated with mordants. It is therefore advisable to sprinkle the dry powder with the liquid mordants, so that the dye made astringent and penetrating to the bottom, is fixed and acts in the depth of the body, the projection powder being dissolved. For this reason nature is charmed by nature, etc.
10. Understand then that the metallic body is made to absorb the divine water, the chrysolite and the mordants. Isn't this how the nature of the body (metallic) rejoices? She rejoices in the nature of water, being by it nourished, thickened and increased. Isn't copper, which is charmless and lusterless in essence, charmed and made brilliant when combined with the brilliant nature of divine water? Is not the nature of the thick earthly body overcome by the spiritual and aerial nature of the chrysolite? Is it not dominated by astringent liquors, as happens with gold and silver fixed to the surface of iron or copper? It must be admitted in general that, if the iron or the copper has not been treated by the mordants, it is not dominated by the gold or the silver, extended to its surface.
11. But it will be objected: If gold or silver constitute powders of projection, capable of producing two tinctures, how to perform the operation of iosis, and reduction, and attenuation, and blackening, then bleaching? It is that then the yellowing will be solid, according to what has been said previously. We say in effect that everything is found in potency and then develops in the two tinctures. Indeed, it has been said[31] that the dissolution (effected) in the divine water is called iosis, because the iosis resides in potency in the (divine) water. The same is true for the reduction, attenuation, darkening and whitening, which follows the transformation. Then comes solid yellowing, not only potentially, but also actually. All these things are done before the gold is laundered, and later yellowed solidly, until the spiritual and perfect (gold) is finished and accomplished. The Philosopher is right to say: O celestial natures, demiurges of the creative natures: [32] indeed, it is in the manner of a creation that the two natures of the sulfurs, according to the liquid character of the mixture (of the magnesia) and the dry character of the essence (of cinnabar), transform by their creative virtue the terrestrial natures of the bodies, into spiritual and tinctorial natures. The celestial natures of these sulfurs must be understood as natures which cannot be removed afterwards.[33] This is why he also says: "Nothing has been forgotten, nothing is missing, except the fog and the rising water"; instead of saying: Nothing else is expected. He still says e But if the body is reduced to the last degree of attenuation,
12. The rise of water is interpreted as lightening, because the infusion of water is raised and lightened, combined with the body... It will be enough for us to remember that we operate with the mortar and the pestle, in the case of the two dyes... If it is about copper, one employs the cut in the shape of altar. Zosimus also spoke of this (device): (he said) that the tree (is) a cultivated plant, watered and which ferments due to the abundance of water; growing, due to the humidity and heat of the air, it bears flowers; finally, thanks to the great sweetness and favorable quality of his nature, he bears fruit.[34]
1. The nature of the unalterable body (gold) is happy in a small quantity of liquid;[36] because it is by mercury that mixtures are stripped of the matter which serves as their support. It is by means of the precious and divine water that this disease[37] is treated. (Thereby) the eyes of the blind see; deaf ears hear; those whose tongue is embarrassed speak clearly.
2. Here is the preparation of this divine water: Take the eggs of the serpent of the oak[38] which in the month of August dwells[39] in the mountains of Olympus, Lebanon or Taurus. Take these fresh eggs, put a pound of them in a glass vase. Throw in divine water, all hot; raise four times into the celestial region, until the distilled oil turns purple. Take: asbestos, 13 ounces; shell blood (of purple), 9 ounces; Golden-winged hawk eggs, 5 oz. These eggs are found near the cedars of Lebanon, in the mountain. Mix in a stone mortar these species, (namely) asbestos, shellfish and eggs, until the whole is unified. Then distill seven times, in a glass still, and set aside. Combine the first composition with the second,[40] and delay for three days. After accomplishment of the operation,[41] throws in a (vase) of glass all the matters mixed together, and plunges the vase in sea water, during one day and one night. (Then) the divine water will have been completely prepared.
3. This divine water raises[42] the dead and puts to death[43] the living; it clarifies[44] the dark things and darkens[45] the light things; it seizes the sea water and makes the fire disappear. A few small drops of this water give the lead the appearance of gold, with the assistance of the invisible and almighty God, who practices wisdom and power, and who commands that from non-being all things be brought into being. being, that they take birth and are endowed with form. It is to him alone that we must attribute strength, to the one, universal and true God. To him and to the sovereign of our life and our salvation, Jesus Christ, as well as to the Holy Spirit, guiding intelligence (of the world), glory and magnificence in the indefinite series of centuries! Amen.[46]
1-9. Reproduction of §§ 15 to 24 and last of Zosimus' Treatise on Virtue and Interpretation (p. 135 to 139), except these first words:
“Let us observe and see, if we philosophize, preferably defining this enigmatic expression: When something is lacking in qualities, we achieve nothing of what we expect. »
10. Here is more abundant information on the way in which the lunar effluvia are formed: Go to the cave of Ostanes, see the vases of waters prepared in number by him, and fill them with drinking water; or again, going to the Nile river, operate as it was written, as Hermes declared with these words: What falls from the lunar decline, where is it? where is this processed? and how does it have an incombustible nature? You will find the answer in me and in Agathodemon.[47] The product of these effluvia is seen to fall into recipients which receive it; it is endowed with an incombustible nature, yellow like the color of gold. Softened by fresh, drinkable waters, it is stripped of all foreign matter. Among the colors are chrysanthemum, chrysolite, golden shell, gold liquor and all substances whose name is formed by means of gold and relates to gold. Such is the name of pyrite; this stone being suitably whitened in the divine water, then subjected to evaporation, is yellowed in this way and freed (of its foreign principle). The desiccated ios is referred to as gold. Whoever produces gold produces ios and whoever doesn't, produces nothing.
ii. All this, all the (alchemical) writings have revealed and set it up as a doctrine for extraction alone, when they said: Extract the nature and you will find what is sought. For the nature is hidden within: there nature is contained. When you wish to operate, proceed by following the course indicated in all the inscriptions on stele, and as Democritus wrote it on a stele:[48] sometimes it adheres to alum, sometimes to ocher, sometimes to celandine,[49] applying yourself differently, according to circumstances, and opening your mind. by subjecting it to an energetic treatment, it is dissolved, or else it is (absorbed) and penetrates into the cinnabar.[50] Therefore it must not be projected, since it becomes spirit. We must therefore avoid a violent fire: otherwise we would not penetrate to the depth of the heart of the molten body. Let us recall that all these precepts are given on a single stele, the philosopher expressing himself thus: Taking the rhubarb from Pontus, dilute it in the desiccated wine of Amina; gives (to the mixture) the consistency of wax; coat the silver leaves with it, with a layer of the thickness of the fingernail, or thinner. So coat half (one side of the sheet); put it in a new vase; and struggling all around, simply heating, until the preparation is absorbed. Do this also for the other half (i.e. the other side), until the sheet has thinned; then melt. Let us recall that all these precepts are given on a single stele, the philosopher expressing himself thus: Taking the rhubarb from Pontus, dilute it in the desiccated wine of Amina; gives (to the mixture) the consistency of wax; coat the silver leaves with it, with a layer of the thickness of the fingernail, or thinner. So coat half (one side of the sheet); put it in a new vase; and struggling all around, simply heating, until the preparation is absorbed. Do this also for the other half (i.e. the other side), until the sheet has thinned; then melt. Let us recall that all these precepts are given on a single stele, the philosopher expressing himself thus: Taking the rhubarb from Pontus, dilute it in the desiccated wine of Amina; gives (to the mixture) the consistency of wax; coat the silver leaves with it, with a layer of the thickness of the fingernail, or thinner. So coat half (one side of the sheet); put it in a new vase; and struggling all around, simply heating, until the preparation is absorbed. Do this also for the other half (i.e. the other side), until the sheet has thinned; then melt. with a layer the thickness of the fingernail, or thinner. So coat half (one side of the sheet); put it in a new vase; and struggling all around, simply heating, until the preparation is absorbed. Do this also for the other half (i.e. the other side), until the sheet has thinned; then melt. with a layer the thickness of the fingernail, or thinner. So coat half (one side of the sheet); put it in a new vase; and struggling all around, simply heating, until the preparation is absorbed. Do this also for the other half (i.e. the other side), until the sheet has thinned; then melt.
12. Expounding these things to the Persians,[51] he said: This man has done this by his own wisdom; having employed suitable species, he coated the substances externally, and he impregnated them deeply by the action of fire. He says it is the custom among the Persians to do so. This is why, in all the inscriptions on stelae, he transmits to the vulgar the precept to dye thoroughly by coating; it also shows how failures are avoided. Because often, the preparation being superabundant, the coatings were not entirely absorbed and did not produce their specific effect. We have said that the fire, when it is activated by the bellows with too great a force, determines the loss of the spirit and, consequently, does not produce the desired effect[52].
13. Ostanes also uses the same process, saying at the end of his treatise:
It is necessary to dye the metal blades in the liqueurs and thus coat the preparation; because in this way it will easily receive the dye. But, I tell you in my turn, and I remind your attention of the practice of goldsmiths and of all those who know how to dye gold with rosacea, salt and ochre.[53] Proceeding each in his own way, they purify the gold, according to the aforementioned means and in a thousand other ways. By sprinkling and mixing, they remove the shine of certain jewels. Their species are subject to the action of the bellows; they exhaust its action and they strive to make the suitable tint penetrate to its full depth.
14. As the magnet draws iron to itself by its nature; likewise also rosacea attracts to itself, by its own nature, all fusible nature contained in gold.[54] Just as there is, it is said, a sacred black stone which, by its nature, gives skill to the practitioners who wear it; in the same way also we see all fluxes act by their own nature. Such is the astringent property, [55] for the bodies used to purify gold, and the rectifying property (?) of the matter called thenacar, that of natron, and similar substances, taken separately or mixed two by two, when They naturally exert their specific power on the metal sheets which are coated with them.
15. It was found good by the ancients also to make the coatings of the leaves by means of fatty substances, for example with egg yolks.[56] This is why he (Democritus) makes it understood (by riddles) [that one operates) by means of castor oil, the urine of prepubescent people, and salts, that is to say bodies which have an astringent power. It has also been established as a doctrine that white vinegar, pure, well prepared, and very strong, should be preferred.[57] It is said to attack metallic bodies and acidify them, because of its astringent property. By mixing them with the rosacea, until viscous consistency, they take on a waxy consistency and bring into play the specific actions that make the treatments successful.
16. Births must be carefully watched so that abortion does not take place.[58] Abortions of the flesh occur and give rise to beings who do not participate in the light of the world, because of the imperfection (of the fetus?) and because the favorable moment for childbirth has not been observed. . Similarly (in) our manufacturing, when (the work) is not carried out according to its own rules, we do not succeed in obtaining the products announced in the writing. Certain plants and seeds, subjected to the sidereal action, in the moments when the atmosphere is in a certain disorder, are spoiled by the wind, and deprived of their fertility, and it is often the same in the chemical actions generating . Therefore, if the first components are mixed properly, without excess or defect of opposites; if the binding of the coatings takes place in good proportion, the whole will come to an end. We know that he must take care that the moment of childbirth does not arrive before 9 months; (otherwise) the abortion will take place. In the same way the (duration) of the cooking for all the leaves, (metallic) is not less than 9 hours; for this process conforms to that of childbirth.[59]
17. As to the (proper) time for the operation of the cup-shaped altar, judge by the degree of maceration. Indeed, consider that there are three processes of operation and mixing. The first process, hear me well, includes things kneaded and fermented, as one does for lime and flour. Just as the liquid (body) should not be vaporized too much, but only to the desired degree; likewise, for the composition, the terracotta vase that covers the cup placed on the kerotakis has an opening, so that one can see if the composition turns white or yellow.
The rest of this piece reproduces a text already given, on page 142,[60] up to the words “Le vieux Zosime”.
I have nine letters and four syllables; hear me. The first three syllables each have two letters. The other syllable contains the rest of the letters five are silent (consonants). The total number expressed contains sixteen hundreds, plus three; plus four times thirteen: knowing who I am, you will be initiated into the divine wisdom that I contain.
Agathodemon to Osiris, hail!
1. I write from this moment for you this fourth book, according to the ancient oracle; now if you understand, if you interpret with intelligence, come here near us, yourself, while leaving[63] this city of foolishness; come hear us directly: we prescribe you to become in Memphis, keeping you away from foolishness. I will expose you the comments of the oracle, I will explain to you what is connected with it and all that the authors said about it, and I will comment on it.
2. Know, Osiris, that the oracle begins with yellowing, leaving whitening aside. But he didn't overlook the yellowing. For what? We must question him with reflection on what he meant, and it is according to the dispositions of his mind that we interpret the oracle. But Orpheus proposed to carry out the laundering. All the waters are prepared by him with the distilling apparatus) and the kerotakis, as well as all the parts of the operation of the yellowing, I mean the water of the native sulfur, and the other suitable preparations; he seeks to accomplish the operation by mixing only the slag formed later.[64]
3. So what was sought, the oracle exposed. What the sages lacked to accomplish the work, the oracle completed: he made the mixture arsenical[65] by turning it yellow, and he acted on the other products, each according to its mode. own. As for money laundering, no one bothered to mention it, except me. I have described it in many ways, and I describe it again, beginning with consulting the oracle.[66] Here is this text; "It is appropriate to obtain the precious power you seek, by the strength of prayers, and the warmth of supplications addressed, O priest, to your own nourisher: to obtain the power of the book and to be master of the power of gold , engrave my speeches on tablets”.
4. “(Uses) burnt copper; it must be strongly washed, and burnt again. After this second treatment, put it in small pieces and project it on very beautiful silver.[67] Penetrate every volatile body, as much as possible. Take in the fourth place the land of Sinope, the shell of the egg, the cadmium, the gold, the land of Macedonia and the misy (I speak of that of Asia): You melt together and you obtain the gold . »
Thus (expressed) the very ancient oracle, contained in the great book deposited on the ground (?). This book conveys the comments of the venerable voice, and its tradition will show, as well as experience, the right way to act in projection, mysterious information (because of jealousies), timely information, auspicious times and everything related to art.
5. Thus the first precept of the oracle (concerns) the bleaching of copper, drawn from the levitated ores, crushed and burned, until they take on the consistency of wax. Gold (what we call) copper bone[68] consists of the following four bodies: copper, iron, tin, lead. To these essential metals, white sulfur is added. These (substances) require prior maceration, from the month of méchir until the 15th of the month pharmouthi, 41 days;[69] then washing, boiling, sweetening, clarification, mixing in the desired proportion, purification. The four bodies will be purified, until you obtain them in a perfect state. Then they will be mixed, according to the proportion of suitable weight. Here are these weights: copper, 4 pounds; iron, 1 pound; pewter, 2 1/2 pounds; lead, 2 1/2 pounds. For this dose of copper (?),
6. In the other writings we find various weights, mixtures and operations; but these are good; they are by no means useless or vain. Indeed, some mix all metallic bodies (so as to unite them) into one; they obtain slag and then carry out the operation... The others obtain suitable (results), by going about it in another way: they begin by purifying the copper, as much as possible, and then they mix it silver, after having made the arsenic act on the iron, operating as with the copper; and after having softened it, they operate the mixture. They (then) melt tin and lead; they project the metals into a disintegration furnace. After roasting, they pulverize and wash: in this way they obtain the siderochalcum.[70] Still others operate on lead, and employ it to disintegrate metals: they operate an intimate mixture with the tin, and project the product; they similarly leave lead and tin; then they mix and wash. We delay beforehand (in) a plate, then we operate in the others (receptacles). Indeed, if the black color is not removed from the lead by washing and decanting, there is nothing; gold it disappears by decantation, during the washing and the boiling carried out with this metal; then comes the fixation; then separations, then decomposition, then extraction. if the black color is not removed from the lead by washing and settling, there is nothing; gold it disappears by decantation, during the washing and the boiling carried out with this metal; then comes the fixation; then separations, then decomposition, then extraction. if the black color is not removed from the lead by washing and settling, there is nothing; gold it disappears by decantation, during the washing and the boiling carried out with this metal; then comes the fixation; then separations, then decomposition, then extraction.
7. Thus the lead, united with the essential species, is projected a second time with the silver, for the yellowing. Sometimes the metals are disintegrated; sometimes they are put together; they are subjected to extraction, and one resorts to the thousand means indicated in the writings (of the authors), because the art is vast. All parts, dross, and matter called efflorescence (are employed). The lead is worked by means of the acid liquor and the gold liquor: hear all that is appropriate, about the precept inscribed in this line. As for chrysocolla, Sinope earth, cadmium, these are linked with lead, what I have called the essential species. This means the Asian misy, the divine water prepared with the native sulfur sometimes a part (of the distilled liquid), sometimes all of it. The portion in question is that which contains the herbs,[71] that obtained by means of lime and which dissolves everything, as well as the roasted part of the yellow (substances), the decomposed part. As for the portion (which remains and which is) drawn from the totality, after you have diluted the portion transformed by the prior action of the copper, and you have extracted it, when you have made the sublimated vapor and the eraser, then set aside, letting the (liquefied) amalgam flow out, so as to obtain that yellowed matter of which I have already spoken, then boil that portion; repeat the operation three times; then projects the product. after you have diluted the portion transformed by the prior action of the copper, and you have extracted it, when you have made the sublimated vapor and the gum act, then set apart, by letting the (liquefied) amalgam flow out , so as to obtain that yellowed matter of which I have already spoken, then boil that portion; repeat the operation three times; then projects the product. after you have diluted the portion transformed by the prior action of the copper, and you have extracted it, when you have made the sublimated vapor and the gum act, then set apart, by letting the (liquefied) amalgam flow out , so as to obtain that yellowed matter of which I have already spoken, then boil that portion; repeat the operation three times; then projects the product.
8. The ancient writings contain all the recipes confusingly put together; now all these things are going to be explained to you en bloc: here is what it is. Taking a pot of raw earth, let it dry in the sun for ten days; then, taking ocher and blue, a part of each, dilute in pure vinegar, in the consistency of honey: coat the pot inside with it. Cook some sandarac in it, in a suitable quantity; then, taking copper rust, dilute it in the urine of an immature child and coat the pot again, at its upper part. Lute and cook for three days. By removing (the contents), you will find a product like roasted barley. Project it on blackened silver, or on blackened gold, before it is cooled. One part ochre, and one part pewter produce the same appearance, when applied to the iron in equal proportions. Magnesia will also produce the same effect; — it is mixed in half with apyre sulphur; — this mixture, made in half, is put (to digest) in a pot for two days. Then, dilute with rosacea and castor oil foam, for three days; bake and cast gold. This material thus blackens part of the silver.
1. Is it a thing simple or compound, as to its nature, in the art called among the masters the natural art? By nature, gold soldering[73] is a simple thing, a simple kind, according to the divine Hesiod and according to Aratus; it is she who is designated as a head of gold, according to the divine prophet Daniel; like a golden choir, after Hermes Trismegistus; but this is not what should be understood by the unity sought.[74] Art in reality must have neither a simple object nor an object composed of parts; for if the parts had one and the same treatment, and differed in no way from each other, they would not be parts of a complete whole. Indeed, any natural or artificial part brings to the complete work something that is special to it; without it, the All would be incomplete, as it is easy to see in the parts of the body, called places in Galen. This is how we can hear him say: “we call places the parts of the body”. If any of these special parts are missing, the composition will be found incomplete; either that it has undergone (only) the delay, or the cooking, or the calcination, or the decomposition carried out in the bain-marie, heated with a fire of sawdust; or else in the bird's beak vase;[75] or else (when it is deposited) on the kerotakis; or in the still heated over an open fire; and that, whether it be diplosis operated by means of mercury, according to the process of Mary, or any other sort of treatment. If any of these special parts are missing, the composition will be found incomplete; either that it has undergone (only) the delay, or the cooking, or the calcination, or the decomposition carried out in the bain-marie, heated with a fire of sawdust; or else in the bird's beak vase;[75] or else (when it is deposited) on the kerotakis; or in the still heated over an open fire; and that, whether it be diplosis operated by means of mercury, according to the process of Mary, or any other sort of treatment. If any of these special parts are missing, the composition will be found incomplete; either that it has undergone (only) the delay, or the cooking, or the calcination, or the decomposition carried out in the bain-marie, heated with a fire of sawdust; or else in the bird's beak vase;[75] or else (when it is deposited) on the kerotakis; or in the still heated over an open fire; and that, whether it be diplosis operated by means of mercury, according to the process of Mary, or any other sort of treatment. heated with a sawdust fire; or else in the bird's beak vase;[75] or else (when it is deposited) on the kerotakis; or in the still heated over an open fire; and that, whether it be diplosis operated by means of mercury, according to the process of Mary, or any other sort of treatment. heated with a sawdust fire; or else in the bird's beak vase;[75] or else (when it is deposited) on the kerotakis; or in the still heated over an open fire; and that, whether it be diplosis operated by means of mercury, according to the process of Mary, or any other sort of treatment.
2. If therefore any natural or artificial part contributes something to the complete work, it must also contribute it to the Whole;[76] for the preparation executed on the parts (separately) does not correspond to the proportions that must exist in the (complete) processing. The Whole differs from it; just as the tree two cubits high is not changed into a (tree) three cubits, by a mere increase (of its height?). But if each of the parts benefits the Whole, let us examine their reciprocal relationship. It is the mercury which, rising in the capitals of the recipients, produces the All by iosis; just as the mixing of colors on the kerotakis (palette) of painters is necessary for art to reproduce the whole animal. In the same way also magnesia,[77] exposed on the kerotakis to the disaggregating and dissolving action,
3. Some take the text in another sense. Indeed, Hermès, say-fis, designates sulfur as combustible; Democritus regards sulphurous matters as tinctorial and fleeting. They are retained by the mercury which is their congener. (That is why) the masters call mercury the tomb of Osiris:[80] which means the depreciation (of mercury and metals), caused by maceration.[81] It is necessary that the mercurified sulfur water, i.e. the sulphurous liquid, be evaporated by digestion in the horse manure. Indeed Zosimus says: "In all art, what is essential is the catalog of liquid species".
4. After decomposition, there is nothing more to be done, according to some; the Panopolitan says that some of them no longer bothered with anything after the iosis, while he speaks (still) of sulphur, sulfur water and mercury. As for us, we ask: Why did the great Zosimus, in his treatise inscribed under the letter S, in replying to this objection, prescribe having recourse to copper? The copper was brought; it was perfect in every way, it was penetrated (by the coloring principle) and no longer admitted anything. Wanting to awaken their spirit, he presented them with chrysocolla[82] and tinctures, calling gold iosis, which is also called yellowing. It was still about the composition which produces the white color (silver); because it is also a question: but what is preferable is gold (or chrysocolla). Indeed, (gold is comparable to) the sun, whose light illuminates the upper spheres and the lower spheres, that is to say the upper spheres at all times, but the lower spheres intermittently; whereas the shadow of the cone of the earth extends to the sphere of the planet Mercury. Now it is thus with gold produced by the operation of iosis or yellowing, and the sphere where the action of mercury is exercised is preferable to those which are situated above or below. 83]
5. Why then did he not introduce another operation? Indeed, it is not on natural gold that the explanation of the ancients bears, as is evident from their language. For what does gold need to be dyed into? And why did he add: "A large number having found copper brought to perfection in the temples, did not dye it, given that another operation had taken place from the beginning". And again, in other words: "The meaning of all the writings has only been realized in the apparatus[84] for processing the copper". On the subject of the treatment carried out by means of this apparatus, the same author expresses himself thus, in view of the end that art proposes.
1. Now, as the obscurity of the question raised on both sides has not been dissipated, It is appropriate to describe to you, from the outset and in order, the manufacture of the Whole, (and that) of the gold gum.[86] The yolk part, the boiled egg yolk,[87] is diluted exactly in the gold gum (prepared by) our art.[88] One does not operate in a mortar and with a pestle, but in digestion apparatus, in the form of teats,[89] where one subjects the gold gum to the action of heat. Now the (matters) diluted with this substance unite with those from which the shadow has been removed (?). These things, once united with each other, are twice cleansed. As for what remains in the lower part, it is made to react again on the (content) of the upper part. This is not done in the digestive apparatus, provided with tubes (distillatory); but in devices terminated by rounded parts.[90] We operate at a gentle heat, for 40 days, more or less, until the reaction brings the product to an invariable appearance.
2. Cinnabar, roasted in pots[91] luted on all sides, produces mercury,[92] which is called divine water, white water, silver liquid. He thereby fulfills the oracles of Apollo
Like a virgin laurel, he rises himself in the lids of pots.
We find him there, after the fire has gone out, and we collect him; because he flees the fire. Mercury is obtained in the same way with artificial cinnabar, a rare material, that is to say rarely found, I mean cinnabar obtained by the dry process and suitable roasting; also can it be called really dry. It is especially that which is called dry and easily volatile, used in the trial of souls. Having become an ethereal spirit, he soars towards the upper hemisphere; he descends and ascends, avoiding the action of fire, until, arresting his flight as a fugitive,[93] he has reached a state of wisdom.
Until it has reached this term, it is difficult to remember and it is deadly.[94] It is of him that Apollo says in his oracles:
And a blacker, moist, pure spirit.[95]
3. Mercury, being fixed, fixed; being held back, he holds back; but it is said that such is the end of the art. The learned Zosimus proclaimed it: “It is fixed by a similar vapour. This is also what the Naturalist Philosopher speaks of (saying): “Sulphurous matters dye and volatilize; but they are held back by mercury, their congener; for the sulfur remains until it is combined, until the sulphurous matters are dominated by their similars, the liquid matters by the corresponding liquid”. This is why Zosimus said, in his book of the Keys: "Thus vapor is retained by another nature and obeys it, provided that nature dominates nature".
Those who contemplate these things, says Democritus, cry out: “O celestial natures, creators of natures! O grandiose natures, who triumph over natures by transmutations! He calls celestial natures the spherical devices in which the decomposition and distillation of the waters is carried out: I am not speaking only of the first waters separated (by distillation), but also of the last, which no longer conform to the measure, [ 96] being necessarily mixed with the undecomposed (materials). Either you reject an equal amount, or a little less, or a little more, there will be no harm.
5. It is better to project in less quantity the copper in the remaining composition, since Democritus says: "But it must also contain a little apyre sulfur, so that the preparation penetrates inside". He means by these words: "a little apyre sulphur", the incombustible product, that is to say copper. And even when he says that a quarter of silver is enough to purify copper, he calls copper asem, because of its unknown character.[97] He also calls copper, the first water, which imparts a dark and fleeting hue, likening it to darkened copper. Indeed, copper never occurs without a shadow, as Mary says; unless the shadow of it is made to disappear, by destroying it by a suitable treatment.[98]
IV. viii. — OTHER TREATMENT[99]
1. Some have distinguished themselves by operating in this way; others boiled or roasted the Whole; they broke and divided (eggs) with their shells; removing the envelopes, and throwing the white and the yolk into a mortar, they mixed them together, and added a new portion of egg yolk above the yolk, or, on the contrary, above the white. Thus Zosimus says, "For the white, take two parts of lime, and for the yolk, the double also 4th saffron and celandine." For if we render κροκός oxytone and do not render it baritone (κρόκος), that is, if we do not render it paroxytone, we shall clearly hear what is explained.[100]
2. After having then executed, according to the same proportions, the composition of the waters, in the devices in the form of udders, one suitably mixes in a mortar. Then, after having given the consistency of oil, or wine, or beer, we divide in two, and, without resorting to fire, we leave to deposit, remembering the (formula): Laisse en bas, et il will happen[101]”. After the prescribed time, the native waters are distilled. This is the Scythian comaris and rusty copper.
3. Petasius bears witness to them, writing: “Now some have operated iosis in the apparatus; instead of (saying): They extracted the copper by means of the apparatus. After mixing the one and the other (materials), I mean the weathered sheet and the unweathered sheet, they exposed them two or three times to the heat of the manure.[102] They got the desired object, he tells us, either this way or that or some other way. Experience will teach that. Be well, in the Lord.
ΙV. ix. — WHAT IS THE LIME OF THE ANCIENTS?[103]
t. The thing being thus and nature fixing (mercury?), we come to the famous lime of the ancients. Unlike the limestone of stones converted[104] into lime, this one does not whiten; on the contrary, it darkens. Indeed, this species being diluted, and the natural liquid being put aside, the matter which remains at the bottom in the dish is roasted and blackened; it is then that it is called lime.
One takes it back and unites it with one's own soul.[105] It is placed (then) for 15 days,[106] on a furnace in good condition, subjected to moderate heat: it rises by sublimation outside the furnace and separates from the vapors retained in the apparatus. It thus produces divine water drawn from lime, if the sublimate is white; but if it's yellow, it's Native Godskin. Indeed, the two liquids (which derive from it) differ between them only by the color; they penetrate, tint and fix in the same way.[107]
According to the quantity of the first fire, the products vary, especially if they derive from a single matter, yellow or white. Indeed, Hermes, the great god, says that the chrysocolla[108] operates everything in the first (fires); while the great heat of fire exerts its power in the first reduction in mercury to perfect the All. If this first (heat) does not operate, the second has no appreciable influence. This exposes to great failure, not only because it is the mother (generating cause) of fugitive vapours, but also because it does not always bring the color sought.[109]
Some sublimate the rust of the copper, until they have consumed almost all the dross, repeatedly exhausting it: they pulverize, project and sublimate, in accordance with the word of Agathodemon saying: “Take vapors and more vapors[110]”.
The first (product) is found to be yellow; the second, white, and the third, black.
1. Some use yellow water in iosis; or else they extract the white water at once, according to the nature of the products, they expose the first substance to the vapours;[111] then the second separately, after the iosis. For he said that it is not advantageous to reiterate the introduction of the mordant and that of additional products into the liquids: what matters is the combination of bodies, the specialty of the apparatus, the change produced by means of the kerotakis, and the number of days (employed) for decomposition.
2. It happens that the rust of copper, owing to the excess of sublimated vapours, is not only blackened and tinged with the color of solid bodies, but is completely consumed. In this case, the operators immediately mixed the product with other sublimated products, of a color similar to cinnabar, and set it apart. The preceding vapour, mixed with the vapor of the mercury, assures its fixation; and hence it may in turn be retained by another nature.[112]
Others used only white lime[113] for decomposition. On the white comaris they projected the white waters, coming from the apparatuses; on the yellow comaris, they projected the yellow waters. After digesting in the crucible, for three days, they removed the product and applied it to fresh materials of the same species; likewise those who operate after the thirty-second (day) for the purple. Indeed Hermes said that the ancients knew a purple and a purple-colored stone:[114] it was the rust of copper.[115] Thus Hermes, writing to Pausiris, said to him: If you find the purple-colored stone,[116] know that it is the one (of which I speak); now you possess the description of it, O Pausiris, carefully engraved in my little Key. [117] “However, Hermes did not compose a special work on the dyeing of stones,[118] or purple; but his "little Key" deals with the comaris, according to the two formulas; it served to clear up the difficulty of the rust. He was also very busy with lime.
Some mixed lime[119] with similar waters, for about an hour; they removed it (then) and took it away, saying that it was the tincture of Mary's lead, which works in a day.[120] They found this exposed in the passage of Zosimus: "But the useful part of the stone...". And they thought that was decay and iosis. This is why Democritus writes: “Now some operated the iosis in the devices... words which Petasius interpreted thus: “Instead of saying: they made copper rust by means of the devices”; and, taking this water, they united it with another water, which was also extracted from it, and in which there was ostracite lime;[121] they used an equal quantity of it; for the Philosopher says: Take part of what will be indicated to you later and as much of the golden liquor, that is to say the golden flower and the golden shell. Hermes spoke of the same (matter), as of a precious thing with many names: “Thus, by taking a part, and adding to it water of native sulfur and a little gum, you will dye any kind of body ". He followed the same course for the two waters (white and yellow).
Others unite the ashes[122] of the first waters with the sublimated vapors which come from them, in the proportion of approximately one acetabulum to one ounce; then they split the product in half; they water for about an hour and remove the water. They add yet another (proportion of ash); they water and remove. A third time, mixing the product with ashes, they take up the vapors (thus treated) and (mix them with the sublimates remaining in the apparatus, white or yellow sublimates or of another kind, without worrying about the proportion. In acting (thus), they follow the great Zosimos,[123] who says: "In any case, by using more or less, you will never hurt; for that is the way of fabrication, the only thing searched for centuries.
Some filtered the slag, as is done in the manufacture of soap. They repeated the operation two and three times in a single day, uniting them with waters of the same species and of the same color. For they said that the first action of the sublimated sufficed.
Some operated, not in one day, but in nine days, distilling by thirds the waters used. They implemented an equal and similar proportion of waters, and they kept to use at the time of dyeing.
Others proceeded thus they extracted the vapors of the third product; then they took two parts (ounces?) of the residue that came from it and they added an acetabulum (steam); they kept this preparation.
As for me, having collected the works of all, I say that Zosimus was not wrong to say, while writing to Theosebia: “Indeed, it is a great Moor that experience; it always indicates to people of sense the advantageous things, according to the demonstrated results”.
Such is the discourse[124] on lime, on the all-powerful limestone,[125] the invincible and only useful body: whoever finds it, according to the method explained above, will triumph over the incurable disease. misery. — Be well, friends and servants of Christ our God.
1. TINCTURE OF JAMBLICA. — Cappadocian salt, 2 drachmas; cinnabar from Italy, 1/2 ounce; arsenic, 1 ounce; toasted chalcite, 6 drachmas; spodos (or scoria) that is to say ocher scales, 6 scruples.[127] A few add: siderochalc, 12 dr. ; spodos fine, ½ ounce; ios, 3 ounces; chrysocolla, 6 drachmas; Thracian caddy, ½ oz. After grinding separately, you will mix together. Add mandrake juice, until viscous consistency, and stir until dryness, Add sea hare blood,[128] until the same consistency is reproduced. Fill the cavity with a reed[129] up to the fourth knot, and, after sealing with a woolen cloth, leave it for 14 days. When you pick up the product, you will find iron.[130]
Grind the product with aromatic wine, until viscous consistency, and store it in the shell-shaped vase. Then, having melted an equal weight of pure gold, cast into the shell, and melt, until the smoke has no more strength and produces only a smell of sulphur. After removing, let cool.[131]
2. Delay and add bile of ichneumon, or fox, or black-footed rooster (?); as well as a trochus of pyrite. Let dry in the shade, and after crushing, decant into a glass vase.
Put in a box with lead, or tin; buried in (the manure) of horse during 15 days, take again the product, and operate thus: Throw in vinegar a weight equal to 3 obols of the preceding preparation, and camel bile in equal quantity; thin and give the pieces the size of sesame seeds. You can let it sit quietly for 7 days; if it is for 10 days, (give the grains) the size of the lentil. Then practice an opening in the box, and delay what flows out with the milk of a woman, mother of a male child; repeat the coating (on the surface of the metal) for 7 days; do not wash (the varnished object) for 36 days.[132]
3. For the tincture, take saffron, raw misy, rosacea, blue, celandine, 1 drachma each, and cast on a pound of silver, taken ready. Then take from the previous ferment contained in the box, 3 staters; and, according to others, 2 1/2 ounces; the whole is mixed together and the material is sprinkled with it, until the silver is saturated and ceases to be modified: what is recognized by this material becoming cloudy and deposited.
Taking a new pot, place a vial over it and throw into the vial: mercury 1 ounce 1/3; copper, pure tin filings, 1 ½ or 2 ounces, with a little oil; heat until everything becomes homogeneous. Then, having taken the product, dilute it with the following lamellar alum, 1½ ounces; misy raw, 1½ ounces; arsenic, 1 ½ ounce; put in a new matrass, diluting these (materials) with sulfur water and a little gum. Then, struggling carefully, you will cook over a low heat, until you think the species have combined. Then remove; watered with vinegar and raw brine, for 7 days. After drying, pulverize and throw in boiling sulphurous oil,[133] until the product becomes like wax, then immediately hardens like stone. Spray the dried product again. Mixture with pyrite stone, 1½ ounces; and with ostracite cadmium: another author says with Olympic cadmium, the one employed by dyers and which they also call placitis.[134] Delay together; projects into money, when it is ready, until saturation and refusal. Taking from this money, 1 part; gold, 3 parts, and sublimated vapor (mercury), double, make an amalgam. Place in a glass vial, after having added an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135] Mixture with pyrite stone, 1½ ounces; and with ostracite cadmium: another author says with Olympic cadmium, the one employed by dyers and which they also call placitis.[134] Delay together; projects into money, when it is ready, until saturation and refusal. Taking from this money, 1 part; gold, 3 parts, and sublimated vapor (mercury), double, make an amalgam. Place in a glass vial, after having added an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135] Mixture with pyrite stone, 1½ ounces; and with ostracite cadmium: another author says with Olympic cadmium, the one employed by dyers and which they also call placitis.[134] Delay together; projects into money, when it is ready, until saturation and refusal. Taking from this money, 1 part; gold, 3 parts, and sublimated vapor (mercury), double, make an amalgam. Place in a glass vial, after having added an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135] another author says with Olympic cadmium, the one used by dyers and which they also call placitis.[134] Delay together; projects into money, when it is ready, until saturation and refusal. Taking from this money, 1 part; gold, 3 parts, and sublimated vapor (mercury), double, make an amalgam. Place in a glass vial, after having added an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135] another author says with Olympic cadmium, the one used by dyers and which they also call placitis.[134] Delay together; projects into money, when it is ready, until saturation and refusal. Taking from this money, 1 part; gold, 3 parts, and sublimated vapor (mercury), double, make an amalgam. Place in a glass vial, after having added an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135] [134] Delay together; projects into money, when it is ready, until saturation and refusal. Taking from this money, 1 part; gold, 3 parts, and sublimated vapor (mercury), double, make an amalgam. Place in a glass vial, after having added an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135] [134] Delay together; projects into money, when it is ready, until saturation and refusal. Taking from this money, 1 part; gold, 3 parts, and sublimated vapor (mercury), double, make an amalgam. Place in a glass vial, after having added an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135] after having put there an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135] after having put there an equal quantity of sinopis and rosacea. Delay together and mouth well; cook for a day and a night. After removing, dilute with horseradish oil and white litharge, and, after rounding into balls, extract the material; add (a little) pure gold to it and you will obtain (with the whole) pure gold.[135]
Taking pure and red copper, reduce it into thin strips; place it on a coal fire; blow with bellows and sprinkle with red and common salt. Then add ochre, then salt; turn the slide over, repeat the same operation as much as you like, until the work takes on the appearance of gold. It makes use of it and has the appearance of it, even in its thickness.
6. Having taken of this gold, 1 scruple, and of the previously pickled silver, 3 scruples, melt and reduce to sheets; coat them with iron prepared according to the Hebrew process, 2 scruples, operating on both sides: and the metal will take on the appearance of black gold. Melt again. Repeat this a 3rd time and you will get artificial gold. To this you shall add real gold, 1 ounce, and metal of magnesia, 1 ounce, and you will have gold to the test.[136]
Boil the sublimate (mercury) in horseradish oil, then fix and delay with vinegar, lamellar alum and self for 7 days; after sweetening, dry and store.[137]
Taking rosacea, 1 part, and apyre sulfur, 1 part, stir together and cook in a pot or in a lute flask, for 3 days, and keep.
Take some cinnabar; color with horseradish oil; operates the fixation in flasks, after having lute the orifice, for 6 hours. Wash; put in the mortar some alum and some salt, and let stand, for 7 days; after washing well with water, sweeten, dry and store.
After taking chrysocolla, treat with heifer urine for 7 days. Then dyed red, in horseradish oil, for 7 or 8 days. Boil in horseradish oil, and keep.
Taking misy, milked with the urine of a prepubescent child, for 7 days, or even longer; after drying, keep.
After taking arsenic, pulverize it and sprinkle with vinegar, several times, for 7 days; boil the liquor in which (the mixture) has bathed for a long time. Then, after washing until the liquor ceases to be cloudy, dry. Then digest 7 days with cow's urine, and wash, dry and keep.
8. Operate in this way the mixture of species, that is to say the sublimated, an ounce; cinnabar, one ounce; chrysocolla, 2 ounces; the misy, 6 drachmas and 1 scruple. Toss together, with a little vinegar; bring to the consistency of a paste and bake in the oven, until the vase is incandescent. To the cooked product, mix arsenic, 2 drachmas; sandarac, 2 drachmas; gum, 2 drachmas. Dilute together in divine water (obtained by means of urine), for 7 days, until viscous, and implement. With this product coat the leaves and they will be transformed.[138]
9. Now if you want to get the blasting powder itself, make it dry. When you want to make use, add the water obtained by urine and sulfur and coat with it the leaves formed by the mixture of copper, silver and gold. Now, the formula of this mixture is this: Pure silver, 1 part; upper Nicene copper, 1/2 part. Divide the copper into two portions and melt the silver with half, three times, until the alloy is complete. After cutting into sheets, sprinkled with brine-cured pyrite, for 7 days, then sweetened and cooked in a lute jar for....days. Take, melt; add the other part of the copper, the vinegar, the silver, and repeat this fusion three times.
10. Having reduced to sheets and sprinkled several times with pyrite, cook a day and a night, and after having diluted with Italian sublimate (that which is used for eye diseases),[139] half by weight ; melt a second time; then incorporate gold in equal quantity, and, after seeing it reduced to leaves, dyed it red, by immersing in the following liquor[140]: saffron, safflower flower, celandine, cadmium zonitis,[141] 1 part of each. Dilute everything together in Egyptian vinegar for 7 days and dyed red. And then, taking the leaf, first coat it with this preparation, by means of a feather; after drying, cook in a vase heated with lamps,[142] for 2 days and 2 nights. After removing, fold the leaves; then putting them in a crucible, well fought,
Take etesian (stone), 1 part; iron buildings, 1 part; magnesia metal, 1 part; delay together. Cook for 5 days and you will find a very homogeneous black. Take 2 parts; good quality onchalcum, 2 parts; melt until perfect mixture, and there is formed (a substance) superior to electrum.
1. Lord, God of powers, demiurge of all creation, author and maker of heavenly and supra-heavenly (beings), blessed and ever-dwelling being, we celebrate, we bless, we praise, we adore the sublimity of ion reign; for you are the beginning and the end; all visible and invisible creation obeys you, because you have created everything. As your servant was created, (and as) your reign (is) eternal, we beseech you, most merciful Lord, in the name of your ineffable love for men, enlighten our minds and our hearts, so that we may glorify you (as) our only true God and father of our Lord Jesus Christ, with your good and life-giving Holy Spirit, now and always and forever and ever. Amen.[143]
2. I will begin this book with the writing relating to gold and silver, about the conversation between Comarius the Philosopher and Cleopatra the Learned. The book we have here does not include the demonstrations of our other book, relating to fires and substances. It is that of Master Comarius, philosopher and high priest, a book addressed to Cleopatra the Learned.
3. The philosopher Comarius teaches Cleopatra mystical philosophy; he is seated on a throne, and he is attached to secret philosophy. He spoke for those who understand mystical science and he indicated with his hand the Monad which embraces the All;[144] he practiced on the four elements and he said:
4. “The earth was solidified above the waters; and the waters (came up) on the tops of the mountains.[145] Taking therefore, O Cleopatra, the earth which is above the waters, form therein a spiritual body, (with) the spirit of alum.[146] “These things are like earth and fire, some like fire from heat, others like earth from dryness. The waters which are at the top of the mountains resemble the air by their coldness; by their humidity, to water, as well as to fire.
Behold, from a single pearl and from another (again), you draw, O Cleopatra, all the tincture.[147]
5. Cleopatra, having taken the writing of Comarius, began to put into practice the prescriptions of the other philosophers and to study the beautiful philosophy, divided into four parts,[148] which teaches and discovers the matter coming from natures, and the diversity operations. “Thus, (they say), in seeking the beautiful philosophy, we find it divided into 4 parts; this is how we discovered the general (idea) of the nature of everything. In the first part, it is about blackening; in the second, bleaching; in the third, yellowing, and in the fourth, iosis.[149] Now, each of the aforesaid (parts) does not exist in a general way, apart from the (elements), that is to say, if we do not take these elements everywhere, as a central point, from which we proceed by order. So, as an intermediary between blackening, whitening, yellowing and iosis, exist the maceration and the washing of the species; between whitening and yellowing, there is the practice of melting gold; between yellowing and bleaching, there is a division in two of the composition.
6. The work is accomplished[150] by the treatment by means of the apparatus in the form of a breast; it is proposed to separate the (volatile) liquids from the fixed residues, a long-term operation.
Secondly, comes the maceration, where we mix the water and the wet residues (?).
Then comes in third place the decomposition of the species, which are burned seven times with the help of fire, in a jar of Ascalon. This is how bleaching is carried out and the black tint of the species by the action of fire.
The fourth operation is yellowing, in which we mix (the product) with the other yellow waters: we form a waxy material for yellowing, in order to achieve the desired goal.
The fifth operation is fusion, which brings (the materials) from the yellow tint to the gold coloration.
For yellowing, it is necessary, as it was said, to divide the composition in half: one of the two parts is mixed with yellow and white liquids. Then you melt, in view of what you want to obtain.
Let us add further that decomposition is a iosis; it is the iosis of the species; that is to say, by iosis and decomposition, (one achieves) the final transformation of the composition for gilding.[151]
7. You must, my friends,[152] operate as follows, when you want to approach this beautiful art.[153] See the nature of plants and their origin. Some descend from the mountains and are born from the earth; the others climb valleys; others come from the plains. See how they develop; for it is at particular times and on particular days that you must harvest them; you draw them from the islands of the sea, as well as from the highest region. See the air that nourishes them and provides them with the (necessary) nourishment so that they neither waste away nor die. Behold the divine water which waters them and the air which governs them, after they have been provided with a body in a single essence.[154]
8. Ostanes and his companions said to Cleopatra “In you is hidden all the strange and terrible mystery. Enlighten us, spreading your light far across the elements. Tell us how the highest descends to the lowest, and how the lowest rises to the highest;[155] how the middle element approaches the highest, to arrive at unity with it, and what is the element that acts on eue; how the blessed waters descend from above to visit the dead lying, chained, overwhelmed in darkness and shadow, within Hades;[156] how the remedy of life comes to them and awakens them, by rousing them from their sleep, in their particular abode; how the new waters penetrate, produced at the beginning of bed rest and during its duration, and come by the action of fire. The cloud supports them: it rises from the sea,
9. Now the philosophers considering the things thus manifested are filled with joy. And Cleopatra said to them: “The waters on arriving awaken the imprisoned and helpless bodies and spirits. “Indeed,” she said, “they are overwhelmed again; and again they will be shut up in Hades. But little by little they develop, rise again, take on varied and glorious colors, like the flowers in spring;[157] spring itself is joyful and rejoices in their beauty.
10. Now I tell you, you who are sensible people: the plants,[158] the elements, the stones, when you remove them from their (natural) places appear in a state of maturity. They are not, however, until everything has undergone the test of fire. When they have put on the glory that comes from the fire, and the dazzling color (resulting from it), then will manifest their hidden glory, the longed-for beauty and the divine transformation produced by the fusion. For they are nourished in the fire, as the embryo, nourished in the womb of the mother, grows little by little. When the regulation month approaches, (the embryo) is not prevented from coming into being. This is how this admirable art proceeds. The successive waves and floods disintegrate the products in Hades, in the tomb, where they are deposited.
The philosophers, contemplating the beauty of their work as the tender mother (contemplates) the fruit of her womb, then seek (how they will nourish it); as well as the mother, for her child. This is what this art accomplishes by using the waters (which it prepares) instead of milk. It imitates the development of the child, the way it is formed and brought to perfection, Such is the mystery hidden under the seal.
11. Now I will tell you, enlightening you from afar, where the elements and the plants are. I will begin by speaking in riddles. Climb to the highest summit, towards the bushy mountain, among the trees, and see: (there is) a stone at the very top; take the arsenic (drawn) from this stone and use it to bleach divinely.
Behold, in the midst of the mountain, below the arsenic, is his wife,[159] to whom He unites himself, with whom he obtains pleasure: nature rejoices in nature, and without him , there is no union. Go down to the sea of Egypt and bring back the ore from the source, which is called natron. Unite it with these matters; then bring back outside the beautiful universal tincture: outside of it, the union does not take place; for the wife is the measure (of the tincture). Behold, nature corresponds to nature; and when you have assembled all things in equal proportion, it is then that natures triumph over natures and take pleasure in one another.
12. See, philosophers, and understand: here is the accomplishment of art, wrought by the spouses, betrothed and betrothed, who have become one. Here are the plants and their varieties. I have told you the whole truth, and I will tell you again See and understand that from the sea rise the clouds that support the holy waters; they water the land and cause seeds and flowers to grow. Likewise operates our cloud, coming out of our element, supporting the divine waters and watering the plants and the elements; it does not need anything that comes from other lands.
13. Behold the strange mystery, O brethren, the utterly unknown mystery; behold, the truth has been made manifest to you. See how you water your land, how you feed your seeds; this is how you will make the fruit come to fruition when it has reached maturity.
Listen therefore, understand and consider with accuracy the words that I speak.
For the rest of this paragraph, see Zosimus, from the bottom of page 123, the entire § 2 bis. 14. This is the mystery of the philosophers; it is the one that our fathers have sworn to you not to reveal, nor divulge; it is that which concerns the divine species and the divine action. For that is divine which, by the union of divinity, renders substances divine; [160] that by which the spirit takes on a body, mortal beings acquire a soul, and, receiving the spirit which issues from the substances, are dominated and dominate each other. The tenebrous spirit, filled with vanity and softness,[161] when it dominates the bodies, prevents them from being whitened and from receiving the beauty and the color that the creator gives them. Likewise the body, the spirit and the soul are weakened, because of the shadow cast over them.
15. But when the dark and fetid spirit is cast away, so that there is no dark smell or color, then the body becomes luminous and the soul rejoices, as well as the spirit. As the shadow has escaped from the body, the soul calls upon the body which has become luminous,[162] and says to it: Awaken from the depths of Hades and arise from the tomb; wake up out of the darkness. Indeed, you have put on the spiritual and divine character; the voice of the resurrection has spoken; the preparation for life has entered you. For the spirit[163] rejoices in its turn in the body,[164] as well as the soul in the body where it resides. He runs with joyous haste to embrace her; he embraces it and the shadow no longer dominates him, since he reached the light;[165] the body cannot bear to be separated from the spirit forever, and He rejoices in the abode[166] of the soul, because, after the body was hidden in shadow, He found it filled with light.[167] And the soul has united with it, since it has become divine in relation to it, and dwells in it. For he put on the light of divinity (and they were united), and the shadow escaped from him, and all were united in tenderness:[168] the body,[169] the soul[ 170] and the spirit.[171] They have become one; it is in this (unity) that the mystery has been hidden. By the fact of their reunion the mystery is accomplished. The abode was sealed, and (then) stood a statue full of light and divinity. For the fire[172] united and transmuted them, and they came out of its bosom.[173] [167] And the soul has united with it, since it has become divine in relation to it, and dwells in it. For he put on the light of divinity (and they were united), and the shadow escaped from him, and all were united in tenderness:[168] the body,[169] the soul[ 170] and the spirit.[171] They have become one; it is in this (unity) that the mystery has been hidden. By the fact of their reunion the mystery is accomplished. The abode was sealed, and (then) stood a statue full of light and divinity. For the fire[172] united and transmuted them, and they came out of its bosom.[173] [167] And the soul has united with it, since it has become divine in relation to it, and dwells in it. For he put on the light of divinity (and they were united), and the shadow escaped from him, and all were united in tenderness:[168] the body,[169] the soul[ 170] and the spirit.[171] They have become one; it is in this (unity) that the mystery has been hidden. By the fact of their reunion the mystery is accomplished. The abode was sealed, and (then) stood a statue full of light and divinity. For the fire[172] united and transmuted them, and they came out of its bosom.[173] [169] The soul[170] and the spirit.[171] They have become one; it is in this (unity) that the mystery has been hidden. By the fact of their reunion the mystery is accomplished. The abode was sealed, and (then) stood a statue full of light and divinity. For the fire[172] united and transmuted them, and they came out of its bosom.[173] [169] The soul[170] and the spirit.[171] They have become one; it is in this (unity) that the mystery has been hidden. By the fact of their reunion the mystery is accomplished. The abode was sealed, and (then) stood a statue full of light and divinity. For the fire[172] united and transmuted them, and they came out of its bosom.[173]
16. (They came out) likewise from the sense of the waters,[174] as well as from the air which sustains them;[175] he also carried them away from darkness to light, and from mourning to radiant joy; from sickness to health, and from death to life; he clothed them with a divine and spiritual glory, which they had not before. Indeed, it is in them that all the mystery is hidden and that a thing divine[176] and unalterable subsists. Because of their virility,[177] the bodies penetrate each other; coming out of the earth, they put on a light and a divine glory, as soon as they have crG, according to their own nature, that they have changed their appearance, that they have arisen from sleep and left Hades.[ 178] For the womb of fire [179] gave birth to them: it was in coming out that they put on glory; and he brought them to one unit. Also their figure was completed,
Fire[180] was subordinated to water,[181] and earth[182] to air.[183] Similarly also air[184] was subordinated to fire, and earth[185] to water,[186] fire[187] and water to earth,[188] and water[189 ] to the air,[190] and they became one. From plants and vapours[191] was formed the one substance: from nature and from sulfur was formed the sulphurous substance,[192] which pursues and dominates all nature. Behold, natures have dominated natures and conquered them; because of that, they change natures and bodies and everything (that comes from) their nature. As soon as the fleeting substance[193] has penetrated into the non-fleeting one,[194] and the dominant substance,[195] into the non-dominant one,[196] then they have been united with each other. [197]
17. Such is the mystery; we learned it, brethren, from God and from our father Comarius, the philosopher and the archpriest. Behold, I have told you, O brethren, all the hidden truth, according to many wise men and prophets.
Now, the philosophers say to her: you have transported us, O Cleopatra, by what you have told us. Blessed is the bosom[198] which bore you!
Cleopatra said to them in her turn: It is of the celestial bodies and of the divine mysteries that I have spoken to you. Indeed, by their transformation and their alteration, they transmute the natures, they make them take on an unknown and supreme glory that they did not have before.
And the Wise (to him) said: Explain to us again this, O Cleopatra: why has it been written: “it is the mystery of the whirlwind; bodies are art, like the turning of a wheel. Can we not compare the mystery to the race of the wheel, and to the upper pole of the world, around which turn the habitations, the towers and the glorious camps?[199]”.
Cleopatra says: The philosophers placed (art) in that proper rank, where it was put by the author and master of all things. Behold, I tell you that the pole will turn, starting from the four elements, and that it will not stop. These things were made in the land of Ethiopia, our country, where plants, stones and divine bodies are taken: he who placed them there is a God and not a man. In each (of them) the demiurge caused power to germinate; one[200] (of them) turns green,[201] and the other does not turn green[202]; one (is) dry, the other moist;[203] one is capable of uniting,[204] the other of separating;[205] one dominates, the other is subordinate; in their mutual encounters, they dominate one another, and one is incorporated into another, and communicates radiance to another. They become one nature, pursuing and dominating all natures. Unity[206] itself triumphs over all igneous[207] and earthly[208] nature and transforms all their power. Here I am explaining to you the end of the work: when it is completed, one obtains a murderous preparation, which runs through the body. Just as it traverses its own body, it penetrates into other bodies. Indeed, by decomposition and the action of heat, we obtain a preparation which runs without obstacle through all kinds of bodies.[209] Thus was accomplished the art of philosophy. - END. Just as it traverses its own body, it penetrates into other bodies. Indeed, by decomposition and the action of heat, we obtain a preparation which runs without obstacle through all kinds of bodies.[209] Thus was accomplished the art of philosophy. - END. Just as it traverses its own body, it penetrates into other bodies. Indeed, by decomposition and the action of heat, we obtain a preparation which runs without obstacle through all kinds of bodies.[209] Thus was accomplished the art of philosophy. - END.
This is the text given above under the name of Ostanes.
1. And the Lord said to Moses, "I have chosen the priest named Beseleel, of the tribe of Judah, to work gold, silver, copper, iron, all stones suitable for working and bowls fit to shape, and to be the master of all the arts”.
2. Taking mercury, rosacea and misy, in equal parts, dilute them together; make the steam sublimate, from the 1st hour to the 10th; then, rejecting the material, redistills the mercury 3 times; water it with the urine of a prepubescent for 7 days, in the sun; put in a container,[211] after struggling with salt and earth resistant to fire. Then place the vase on its head in a new pot. Prepare lead sheets. Close the pot: after having covered it on all sides with a fire-resistant lut, heat it over a fire of cow dung, for a day and a night, and keep the mercury thus fixed.[212]
Taking mercury, boil with horseradish oil. Then, fix it and dilute with vinegar, lamellar alum and salt, for 7 days. After sweetening it, dry it and keep it.
Taking cinnabar, give cinnabar color to horseradish oil placed in a flask, operating with care. Put this one in a pot, for 10 hours. Take again, wash in a mortar, add vinegar, lamellar alum, salt, and mix for 7 days. After washing in sweetened water, dry and store.
4. Taking fixed mercury, sandyx,[213] burnt copper and rectified vinegar, filter; taking pure sulfur, boil with the filtered product. Taking this water, dilute the egg yolks in it,[214] and evaporate in the still. After watering well, mix with the water from the still and wet the dry powders for 10 days. When the product is suitably cooled, throw it into a glass vase, and after having put a pot on the fire, cook the dry powder in it; then watch what happens. Then take 2 carats (?) of the dry powder, throw them on (one) ounce of pewter and you will have silver.
5. Taking prepubescent urine, solidified like a white stone, and fixed mercury, grind together, until the mercury is absorbed; taking aphroselinon, soak in the sun for 3 days, and keep the product thus prepared.
6. Taking aphroselinon, place it in a cloth and dip in vinegar for a day; stir with your hands. Leave the matter to deposit, and after having exhausted, pour out the vinegar; dry, immerse in (product) egg whites, subject to distillation in still; and placing in a container, keep the aphroselinon.
7. Taking filings of yellow and white copper, iron, tin, arsenic, and sandarac, together with fixed mercury and Cappadocian salt, (male) in equal quantities with goat's blood or pork, and throwing into a new pot, stir well; put on a cow dung fire. After having lit it, cook it overnight and for a day and keep the silver (projection) powder.
Taking lamellar alum, soap, vinegar, put the copper on the fire, and quench it.
9. Taking fixed mercury, grind with sal ammoniac, burnt copper and rosacea, in equal quantities; throw in a container and, after having covered well, cook in damp horse manure, until Amina's wine is formed.[216]
Taking misy, cook with horseradish oil; and so employs. Bake 3 hours.
11. Lamellar alum is treated as follows: it is put on fire and quenched in vinegar; then we pulverize it. He is pushed to red[217] seven times.
12. TREATMENT OF PYRITE. — After having boiled it in sea water for a whole day, and having dried it, use it thus.
13. TREATMENT OF CHALCITE. — After having cut it into pieces, take it again with honey, bring it to the consistency of a plaster, and place in a small pot, closing it entirely. Cover it with a suitable lut, and cook over a charcoal fire; cook for an hour. Then removing, drying. Diluting again, following the same step, grind in a mortar and give the consistency of honey. Do this three times and use as well.
14. TREATMENT OF PYRITE. — After boiling it in sea water, grinding it for a day, and drying it, treat (it) as follows for the depreciation of mercury, in equal quantities, if you want to bleach. Grinding apyre sulfur in the urine of a child with brine, sea water and lamellar alum, boil seven times, then leave the mixture to itself: you will find the mercury fixed as white lead. Mix the surplus at will and with the product you want, up to three times. After drying, keep.
15. COPPER RUST. — (Taking) gold-colored stone, earth from Samos, efflorescent salt, fig sap, giving the whole a viscous consistency, coat the metal sheets with it and they will be stripped of their bodies.
There follow three paragraphs taken from the Philosophical Egg, I, ιιi, 8-10, p. 20. 16. WATER EXTRACTED BY DISTILLATION. — Taking eggs, break as many as you want; combined two whites and two yellows; after having scrambled them, extracted by means of the device. The white water that passes first is called “little rainwater”; second, “horseradish oil”; thirdly, "greenish castor".
17. MANUFACTURE OF WATER EXTRACTED BY DISTILLATION. — Taking egg whites, throw into a pound of whites 1 ounce of our lime, and after scrambling, break whole eggs at will and leave until drained from below, for 7 days . On the 7th day, after removing the mass (the purest part), place in the distilling apparatus prescribed by the art, with vinegar, in proportion to the eggs. Lute the bottom (of the vase) carefully, cook and melt over a fire of horse dung. Lute the stock for the distillation. This water is "blacker, pure water."[218]
18. WHITE OILY SULFUR. — Taking from the remaining eggs which will have been distilled, 1 part, diluted with filtered water and, putting in a still, carefully lute; leave 7 days, and every day shake the still; on the 7th day, after decanting all the pure part, keep it. As for the dry part, cook it over low heat for 6 hours or more, until dry. Then, grinding the decanted deposit for half an hour, (and) throwing it into the pot that you know, extract by means of the apparatus, and grinding again, extract with water. Do this three times and keep.
19. MANUFACTURE OF YELLOW SULFUR FROM WHITE SULFUR. — Taking the sulfur previously described, coming from the white, that is to say, from the evaporated liquid, as well as from that which has been changed into a dry powder, mix both with the excess species, coming from the apyre aforesaid sulphur. Put the white in the device and bring it up. Then, again, delay in the corresponding species and raise. Take it off when it's solidified, and you'll have some very nice gold.
20. YELLOWING OF MERCURY. — (Take) alum, until it is transformed, you know how. Projects on silver (on mercury?). Hide that.
21. TREATMENT OF ARSENIC. — Crush the sublimate, throw it in the brine and after pounding for an hour a day for 12 days, then rinse with sweetened water, until it no longer smells of vinegar, then dry it out. Do this up to three times, so that it loses its sour taste, and so use.
22. MANUFACTURING OF BRASS COPPER.[219] —Taking hot ductile Cyprus copper, make blades of it, deposit on the upper and lower faces of the carefully ground white cadmium, that which is produced in Dalmatia and which the copper workers use. After struggling, melt for a day, carefully preventing it from evaporating. After having opened (the vessel), if the metal is in good condition, use it; if not, heat a second time with cadmium, as above. If the result is good with hot-ductile Cyprus copper, mix with gold-colored copper (thus obtained), 4 ounces of blood-colored copper, and 6 ounces of scrap tin. Add 2 ounces of magnesia to the pewter, and melt the copper. Add the tin, and work the alloy. Then add the magnesia metal and work the alloy. After cooling, you will find a crumbly product that is easy to grind. Grind it, add 2 ounces of chalcite, and cook in lute dishes: you will find the metal yellow, almost pink. Mix well and keep. After removing these materials, melt them for the purpose indicated. To obtain the greenish metal, leave for a long time.
23. MANUFACTURE OF GOLD. — Taking the female pyrite and the silver colored one, which some call siderite stone, treat as you know, so as to make it fluid. If it is to copper that you add it, you will whiten as you know, and if it is to silver, you will turn yellow by the cooking of the sulfur which you know. Then project the yellow metal on the silver and you will dye it. Nature enjoys nature.[220]
24. OTHER MANUFACTURING. ARSENIC BLEACHING. — Mixing absinthe in equal quantity, with a little water, keeps (in the state of) dry powder. Melt the copper alone; add, and the product becomes crumbly, Grinding, cook with an equal weight of salt for 2 hours, and after removing, you will find the product yellow and crumbly. By transforming it according to the same step, you will have copper; with part blackened gold, and part gold, a beautiful pure gold is formed.
25. HOW TO MAKE PROOF GOLD. — Taking magnetic stone 2 drachmas, true blue 2 drachmas, myrrh 8 drachmas, exotic alum 2 drachmas, grind in the sun with excellent wine.
26. There are some people who, not believing in the usefulness of liquid (materials), do not make the necessary demonstrations. Understand the usefulness of liquid materials. Sulfurs have marvelous effects when it comes to softening. After having made an intimate mixture, we melt everything together on a goldsmith's furnace, we blow and we collect the alloy which comes from it.
27. TREATMENT OF DIVINE MAGNESIA. — After having crushed it, add a ferment to it and cook. Do this seven times. After smelting it, you will find very nice silver. It softens everything, whitens everything; even glass, she whitens it.[221]
28. TREATMENT OF THE SANDARAQUE. — Taking sandarac, boil it in urine seven times, and after drying in the sun, use it.
29. TREATMENT OF PYRITE. — Taking gold-colored pyrite (it is produced in Libya, in the mountains of Egypt, especially in Augasia; gold Augasia is Tribouthis). Taking, I say, pyrite of the color of gold, so treat it. After having crushed it, wash it well in brine vinegar, three times, and let it dry. Take two parts, lead two parts. After having dissolved the lead, sprinkle with the pyrite, and when a foam has formed, put in a terracotta vase; fight carefully, cook with an indirect flame, for two days; after removing, guard. We call it flower (copper). Take three parts of it, and of the satyrion[222] one part; implements, slurrying in harsh-tasting wine for a day; dry, pick up, keep.
30. TREATMENT OF SULFUR. — Taking a yellowish and rough stone, (it is found everywhere), having the color of the Phrygian stone and the size of the small root of the elydrion; take some (I say) and treat thus. After having put it in a vase, wash it with vinegar three times; and, putting in a glass vase, water with brine in just measure, for two days. Then after having exhausted, wash several times in sweetened water. Take six parts, and self-flowing metal one part; after drying, pick up and keep.
This is what is called chrysolite.
31. (Taking) gold-colored stone, earth of Samos, efflorescent salt, and fig sap; put in a viscous consistency, smear the leaves with it; the copper is thus stripped of its corporeal nature.
31a. ON ARGYROPEA.[223]
32. MATTER OF CHRYSOPEIA. — Take mercury (extracted) from cinnabar, the metal of magnesia, chrysocolla, i.e. buttercup (it is found in green stones), claudianos, yellow arsenic, cadmium, androdamas, crushed alum, apyre sulfur rendered incombustible, pyrite, Attic ocher, Pontic minium, native divine water (either you mean by that that which comes from sulfur alone, or that which has been prepared with sulfur treated with lime), sublimated steam, yellow sory, yellow rosacea, and cinnabar.
33. MATTER OF LIQUORS. — LIQUORS. — Here is what the liqueurs contain: Cilician saffron, aristolochia, safflower flower, elydrion, chickweed flower, that of blue plants; blue, rosacea, Egyptian acanthus gum, vinegar, prepubescent urine, sea water, lime water, cabbage ash water, lees water, l lamellar alum water, nitre water, arsenic water, sulfur water, urine, donkey's milk, bitch's milk. Such is the matter of Chrysopée; these are the things that transform matter, those that resist fire. Apart from them, there is nothing sure. If you are intelligent and operate as it is written, you will be blessed.[224]
Cast copper on gold by the following means: I mean by the aid of gold coral.[225] Sometimes you will change silver into gold, sometimes copper into electrum, sometimes lead into silver.[226] Such is the matter explained in Chrysopoeia.[227]
34. MATERIAL OF ARGYROPEA. — Mercury comes from arsenic, or from sandarac, or from white lead, or from magnesia, or from Italian antimony.
Here is its use: It acts for the effect you desire, producing the transformation. If you treat copper properly, you extract (the) nature from it.
Chia earth, white cadmium, asterite earth, cimolian earth, white arsenic, cooked misy, raw misy, white litharge, white lead, yellow natron i.e. purifying,[228] Cappadocian salt, white magnesia, aphroselinon for blue glass, baked limestone.
35. Translated in Democritus, II, i, end of § 2, page 4, then:
For nature triumphs over nature, and nature dominates nature.
36. TREATMENT OF PYRITE. — Translated in Democritus, § 6, p. 47.
37. TREATMENT OF SILVER PYRITE. — Translated in Democritus, § 5, p. 47.
38. MANUFACTURE OF BURNT BLACK SULFUR. — The oldest of the things which come from the divine water, that is to say that which exists in this deposit, wash it with its own water, that is to say with the urine of a prepubescent, for a day, and water again with castor oil, until the consistency of honey. Place in a large, spacious container, only half full (of its height), so that there is room for boiling while heating. Lute this (container), so that there is no evaporation; put it in the bottom of a pot. After having fired the pot, place it on a glass furnace, in the flame from above, until dry. Then removing, dilute in the urine of a prepubescent and, after further drying, keep: it is the black coming from burnt castor oil.
39. MANUFACTURE OF YELLOW WATER. — (Take) cinnabar 2 parts, raw misy 1 part, — it is saffron, — dilute with prepubescent urine 1 pound, and copper water, 1 ounce. After having exhausted, delay in the same water: it will purify. Mix with the previous cinnabar and the misy and extract the yellow water... these are the juices, because only once...
40. WHITENING OF MAGNESIA. — Taking magnesia, and an equal quantity of Cappadocian salt, put in a terracotta vessel; (leash) from evening until morning. Now, if it is black, cook until it whitens; but it is better to cook it on a glass furnace. Hide this mystery, because it contains everything related to whitening by decoction.
41. TREATMENT OF THE MOST DIVINE MAGNESIA. — Same text as § 27, p. 293, except slight variations.
42. TREATMENT OF THE SANDARAQUE. — Taking sandarac, that which does not have the color of iron, nor the stony appearance, but which is russet and the color of blood; after having crushed it, sprinkle with it. The sandarac thus chosen and spread with copper filings does not liquefy.
43. (PROCESS FOR) PURIFYING LEAD. — (Take) alum and natron; cleans with cold water, vinegar; submit to the action of fire and the product turns white.
The rest is in accordance with § 3o, starting from the third line.
44. OTHER MANUFACTURE OF BURNED COPPER. — Take sandarac, apyre sulphur, coral and saffron; put in a mortar, grind for 40 days with the urine of a prepubescent child. After 40 days, you add the saffron water and you grind for another 20 days, until the species mix and marry with the copper filings. After that, you put the preparation in a terracotta vase, well sealed, and you heat the pot on a stove for 7 days. If the product is too white, heat for another 3 days, until it turns yellow.
45. COPPER BLEACHING. — Take copper from Cyprus; it must be forged. Then, after having put it on the fire, tint it with the earth of Cimole, diluted in brine vinegar. Do this repeatedly; after setting it on fire again, forge it. To get white copper, take 1 part, and silver 1 part. Everything turns white.
46. DIPLOSIS OF MONEY. - As we have found described in a very sacred book the alloys of silver by means of tin, it is necessary to expose their mysteries and purifications, so that you cannot be mistaken.
Taking alum, Cappadocian salt, mix it with magnesia; it takes on color when tyrannical love (?)[229] tempers it with oil, making it shiny and odorless.
47. BLACKENING OF SILVER.[230] — Taking native sulfur, cook on a low fire, produced with young branches. Spread in the fresh urine of a prepubescent child; make a decoction and give two broths. Then put in very strong vinegar; place with other vinegar in a vase, bring to a viscous consistency, and cook for a night and a day, after having diluted with the yolk. Then add some silver and you have a metal that is proof.
48. GOLD VERIFICATION. — Taking 1 part alum, 1 part sal ammoniac of Canopus, that used by goldsmiths; after the gold is melted, mix.
49. THE SANDARAQUE IS TREATED THUS (Cp. § 42). 'Take some sandarac, which is neither iron-coloured nor stony, but the blood-coloured russet, 10 ounces. After having crushed it very well, put it in a glass vase. Add very strong vinegar, 2 cups; common salt, 5 ounces; cover the vase with a woolen cloth, place a rimmed dish on it and leave to macerate for 7 days; then transfer to a matrass and put on the fire for 3 hours. Remove the scum and wash in sweetened water: you will find the (composition) turned red as blood. Then let it dry in the sun. Put back in the vase. Then, add cow urine, kept for 7 days, so that it becomes stronger and more pungent. Then add the washed sandarac, and leave to macerate for seven days, so that the effect becomes more Intense. Then wash in sweetened water, dry in the sun. After having removed, you can employ for the uses that claim the dyes.
50. (ON) THE RUSTY COPPER — Taking androdamas, coat the (metallic) sheets above and below, and after struggling project into the white glass.
51. LIQUEURS OF CHRYSOPE. — Translated in Democritus, § 25, p. 56.
52. SOFTENING OF GOLD, SO AS TO BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE IMPRINTS TO IT. — After having mixed: red natron 2 drachmas, cinnabar 3 drachmas, mixed in vinegar; add a little alum and let it dry. Then, after grinding, set aside. Take gold, half an obol; gold colored arsenic, 1 drachma; mix it all up; delay, adding pure gum sprinkled with water. Take back, apply the seal you want; leave 2 days: the imprint will be fixed.[231]
53. TREATMENT OF GOLD WITH OIL. — Taking: litharge, drachmas; gold, 2 drachmas; yellow copper (pyrrhochalcum), 1 drachma; alum, 1 drachm; caddy, 1 drachma; grinds with silver or gold filings; mix... When it has formed (a lump of) waxy consistency, then (mix) celandine and arsenic, then cadmium and alum. Putting in a matrass, heat over a soft coal fire, throwing raw saffron and first quality vinegar; operates like this.
54. DYEING OF GOLD. — Metallic Misy, 4 parts; celandine root, 1 part; grinds in the consistency of honey; macerate in the urine of an immature child and soak in cold water.
Once burnt copper and modified gold are best. The gold is heated; while it is heated, it transforms, and after transformation, it tints all kinds of bodies.
55. Taking sandarac, sulphur, litharge, alum, salt, water, sublimate, 1 part of each; grinds, until the mercury is absorbed in the vinegar; after having dried, raise the vapors, until whitening; project of this dry powder, 1 drachma on purified copper of Cyprus, and keep.
56. Taking: mercury, 1 part; misy, 1 part; mixes one and the other until they are unified; then, sublimate. Taking this vapour, mix with the slag; renew the sublimation and do so three times. After 3 days, take the sublimated mercury and wet it with urine, for 7 days, exposing it to a very hot sun, Then, after having cooled it, put it in a bottle; finish filling the vase with salt, and place it in a pot whose orifice will be stopped up. Add lead until the vase (inner) is hidden; lute the lid of the pot.
When it is cooled to perfection, put it on a manure fire, for a night and a day; then remove and keep.
57. MELTING OF INCOMBUSTIBLE STONE. — Place this stone in the melting machine and put linseed oil on top, until you see the stone the color of fire; then, remove and grind well. Take a little magnesia, sal ammoniac, a little natron, grind them with the stone; melt, and bring alkaline water; put this water in the crucible, as well as the other powders with the stone; blow until the product is melted. Add a very small amount of crushed salt, remove, keep.
Taking magnesia, whiten; adds pyrite and burnt copper, in equal parts, and deadened mercury. When you want, take a certain weight of silver, project this dry calcined powder on the pewter, and you will have white asem.
58. Taking: mercury, 3 pounds; arsenic, 1 pound; sandarac, 1 pound; natron from Alexandria, 1 pound; misy, 1 pound; couperose, 1 pound; putting everything in a mortar, grind carefully. Then put in a new pot, place on a footed pot. After having coated all around with a lut mixed with hair, having done the same for the contour of the lid, at the height of 4 fingers; and after plastering the edges (of the vase), in order to make the enclosure more solid, place a bulging capital on the upper part. Thoroughly fight the joints, cook on a light fire for the first time, over a candle flame, for a night and a day. To increase the fire gradually, heat at a flame of lamps,[232] for another period of a night and a day; left to cool, and, uncovering, remove with a feather[233] a little of what is on the surface to make sure if the matter is white. Removing what is at the bottom, mix again, throw in a mortar and grind carefully. Put back in the same pot, cover the lid with equal care, and cook over a light and gradual fire, another night and a day. Leave to cool, and uncovering again, do as before, until (the composition) no longer emits the smell of sulfur and until it becomes like plaster. After having removed it, throw it into the water separated from the lime (by distillation) and extracted by means of the still. Add water with the composition and give the consistency of honey. Grind thoroughly in the mortar; let dry and keep. mix again, throw in a mortar and grind carefully. Put back in the same pot, cover the lid with equal care, and cook over a light and gradual fire, another night and a day. Leave to cool, and uncovering again, do as before, until (the composition) no longer emits the smell of sulfur and until it becomes like plaster. After having removed it, throw it into the water separated from the lime (by distillation) and extracted by means of the still. Add water with the composition and give the consistency of honey. Grind thoroughly in the mortar; let dry and keep. mix again, throw in a mortar and grind carefully. Put back in the same pot, cover the lid with equal care, and cook over a light and gradual fire, another night and a day. Leave to cool, and uncovering again, do as before, until (the composition) no longer emits the smell of sulfur and until it becomes like plaster. After having removed it, throw it into the water separated from the lime (by distillation) and extracted by means of the still. Add water with the composition and give the consistency of honey. Grind thoroughly in the mortar; let dry and keep. and uncovering again, do as before, until (the composition) no longer emits the smell of sulfur and until it becomes like plaster. After having removed it, throw it into the water separated from the lime (by distillation) and extracted by means of the still. Add water with the composition and give the consistency of honey. Grind thoroughly in the mortar; let dry and keep. and uncovering again, do as before, until (the composition) no longer emits the smell of sulfur and until it becomes like plaster. After having removed it, throw it into the water separated from the lime (by distillation) and extracted by means of the still. Add water with the composition and give the consistency of honey. Grind thoroughly in the mortar; let dry and keep.
59. Take uncorrupted urine, chalcite, copper, and egg casings (?), 6 ounces; grinding these (materials) until foaming, you put in decoction with urine, until the native sulfur is dissolved.
Take tin, 1 part; mercury, 2 parts [purifies tin, by melting it and pouring it into sea water, and changing (the water) three times in mass]; add pitch and lamellar alum to the crucible. Then you have to rub (silence this mystery), until the sulfur separates from the mercury.
Now thus test the mercury, Take it; put it in a glass vase; grind in the mortar, until the surface (turns) yellow. Then take it; enclose it in a glass vase, filling the vase according to custom, (after having) tightly (keep this mystery) below it, so that the vinegar cannot escape from the vase; then leave a night and a day. Immediately after this delay, you will find the mystery of mercury and the way in which we will fight it. Because the philosopher wrote on this mercury: "When you fix the mercury, the product which flows by itself". Now, what flows out of itself is the vinegar; and vinegar is magnesia.
60. …….Sprinkle like this in the mortar, on the surface of the copper. Let the copper be acidulated beforehand with strong vinegar, alum and soap up to 3 times, by order. After introducing it, melt it. Add the above mixtures; sprinkles thicker with mixtures; these make the product) whiter. We will see at each melting the metal become manifestly more brilliant than in the moment which preceded the addition of the preparation. So when the product is properly melted, pour it into a vase previously coated with Samos earth and let the overall work be accomplished. Hide again, depending on usage.
Adds premium silver, Adrumetian silver; during the smelting, project the copper onto the earth of Samos, so that it is transformed, and dye: repeat this several times, mix, keep.
61. ON DUCTILE COPPER, STRETCHED UNTIL BECOME VERY THIN. - Process. — It is very good for use, and for hardening.
Taking white copper, a mine, melt it. Sprinkle with white salt, alum in equal quantity: these bodies will have been put in advance with vinegar and dried. Then, these (materials) being triturated, sprinkle the mortar with it, on the surface of the copper. So when it has been properly melted, pour into the liquid, until it exceeds it by 2 fingers, let it cool. Then remove, coat; then, after having put on a completely gentle and suitable fire, extinguish in water. When the matter has cooled, no longer place it in a liquid, but cover it in a vase, with salt and alum. Then (taking) 2 parts salt, and 1 part alum, mix, let cool in these (materials). When product has cooled, remove. When the product is very white, stretch the rest as you wish it will obey, if you stretch it hot; but if it is cold, and you want to tear part of it violently, you cannot, so great is the goodness and tenacity of the metal. This is an excellent metal; we have experienced it. Cyprus copper is more suitable for these uses; you have to understand it.
62. MAKING THE SAFFRON INFALLIBLE BY MELT. — (Take) lamellar arsenic, parts; russet and pure sandarac, 4 parts; magnesia metal, 4 ounces; scythian black, ounce; cochineal vitreous natron, 6 ounces; grinds arsenic into foamy appearance; mix the scythian black and delay together; everything turns green. Then add sandarac, grind together again with natron, the metal of magnesia, until the appearance of foam, or sublimate. Mix everything with each product and mix; add strong Egyptian vinegar and bull bile; turns into a pasty consistency. After drying in the sun, for 3 days, grind; decant into a small flask and cook this material for 5 days. Then remove, grind, add gum; grind 10 ounces and throw… Give the pasty consistency melt the saffron; add the preparation, when the saffron becomes green and crumbly. (Taking) gold divided 1 part, melt and you will find gold. And if you want it of 1st quality and well made, (take) gold worked 4 parts and... 1 part; melting together, you will find proven and very beautiful gold. Hide that. Such is the divine and uncommunicated mystery of the tincture of gold.
63. Here is the explanation of the (metallic) body of magnesia.
Taking female magnesia, grind carefully; put in a dish 2 ounces of salt, cover with another dish, so that the metal of the magnesia cannot escape and dissipate. So putting in the dish sulfur in (quantity) about the same, place very close to the small column (?) for two days. Then, taking the dish and uncovering it, scrape around; throw in a mortar, grind; put in the second dish. After having fought again the joints all around, put on the furnace the sulfur in the middle of the vase, towards the right; operates for 3 days; every day, withdraw, grind, and fight around, until the matter becomes white. Take of this (composition) 4 parts, and of the natural and vitreous natron 1 part, mix together and project. Take, make a whore, deposit in the crucible the metal of magnesia.
Good workmanship from the designer; work success and long service life!
IV. xxiii. — THE EIGHT TOMBS
ON THE DIVINE AND SACRED ART OF THE PHILOSOPHERS[234]
d. As for us, having written in riddles, we leave you, who have the present book in hand, to work diligently and seek out the subject of the mystery. Indeed the Philosopher says that men have written, but that the Demons are jealous of it.[235] It is undoubtedly in the kingdom of heaven, that are those who have been judged worthy (to understand). As for you, by conforming to the short explanation of Cleopatra, you will bring to light the obscure object of the discovery and you will render service Monte, says this one, to the highest of the house.[236] I will add that it is the winged object formed by the four elements,[237] and which is between the two luminaries, I mean the sun and the moon: there exists the egg with the appearance of alabastron. It is certainly not a bird's egg; but its shape recalls that of the egg.
2. Remove the skin, open carefully, grind ruthlessly. Then delay, and taking a glass screw, put the comaris in it; (it has several names). After having fought inside another pot, put the shiny comaris in it. Immerse it and keep it very hot in horse manure for 40 days, renewing the manure every day. After this precise delay, take the vase, remove its contents, delay well in the purple tomb and keep the dead. It is the first manufacture and the first tomb.
3. Then taking the dead meat, which naturally has a staleness, put (it) in the still and cook over a violent fire, bringing up the water, without mixing: the first (portion), put it in part, as well as the second, in glass vases. Remove the deposit, grind it for 7 days with the second water, in the purple tomb; keep the first water; then buried the body, as above, in horse manure, for 40 days, changing the manure every day. Such is the second tomb and the first calcination.
4. After this specific time, removing the product from the dung, grind it again in a marble (mortar), with the first water kept above; put in stills, and raise the waters as before. Keep one (of the two portions), and as for the other, diluting it with the ashes, put it again in horse dung, similarly for 40 days, changing the dung every day. The third tomb thus naturally became the second calcination.
5. Then, taking the buried object, after the delay of 40 days, delay with the water set aside, place again in stills and raise the waters as above; keep one (of the 2 portions) and as for the other, delay it in the composition; buried for 21 days in horse manure, changing the manure every 7 days. It is the fourth tomb and the third calcination.
6. After the precise period of 21 days, take the composition and dilute it with the preserved water; do this for 7 days as before, and raise the water by means of a still; keep the first portion, and as for the second, delay it in the composition, buried for 21 days, changing the dung every 7 days. The fifth tomb naturally happens to be the fourth calcination.
7. After the 21st day, removing, crushing with the preserved water, and placing in stills; raise the waters and keep one (of the 2 portions); delay the other and bury for 21 days: it is the sixth tomb, excellent (friend), and the fifth calcination.
8. Then, separating from the decomposed portion the incorruptible part, delay with the preserved water and raise the waters; keep one (of the 2 portions) and delay with the other, as before, then buried for 21 days. It is the seventh tomb and the sixth calcination.
9. Finally, removing the composition from the vase, leave it for 7 days with the preserved water; and, taking the composition, water it, diluting in (a mortar) of marble all the waters, for a sufficient number of days for the composition to absorb the waters: let it cool in the sun and after that sublimate, and keep the spirit : it is the eighth tomb and the seventh calcination.[238]
IV. xxiv. — TO WHITEN (COPPER)[239]
1. Taking gold-colored and foliated arsenic, mix with an equal amount of salt; grind well in a mortar; put in a (vase) of marble and grind with vinegar, as for preparing paints; put to dry in the sun. Grind again with vinegar; do this for 3 days. Then, taking a new fire-resistant vase, put in it the composition which has formed and colored ……… coating all around the joints, so as to avoid evaporation; because it would destroy all the dye. It is necessary to sublimate with care, so that there is not the slightest deposit of black. Putting again in a (mortar) of marble, grind with vinegar and sublimate once again. Then taking good quality red copper, form wide and thin blades; after heating, dip (them) in the vinegar twice; Next,
2. A hexing is thrown for one thousand thousand pure, that is, divine weights: one unit of weight is needed for each thousand, and from one thousand (one counts) again one for one (one thousand). In some (works) it has been written ... and it seems to be more true that the divine vinegar and the air, left aside as a result of work, are put an equal number of times in the gourd (composition?) and are treated by a special device, so that they make the metal shine better; in this way and with these (materials), the composition is diluted a second time and is completed.
[1] This article bears the name of Pelagius, one of the old alchemists (Cp. Olympiodore, p. 96 and 194); but it contains more modern additions and glosses. The text is very obscure and it is difficult to guarantee its exact meaning. However, it seems to relate to the gilding and silvering of metals, such as copper and iron: these metals must first be oxidized or sulfurized on the surface, then pickled and made shiny; the "attenuated" gold or silver is then spread on their surface: that is to say brought to a great state of division (powder or shell of gold), or of thinning (leaves of gold and silver); if not even rendered plastic and soft by their amalgamation with mercury; or even in certain cases, divided, and perhaps rendered soluble (“spiritualized”) by the preliminary action of a metallic sulphide and an alkaline salt. — All this must therefore originally have expressed the fact that one gilds or silvers a metal by means of divided gold or silver, or of a composition containing these bodies; then we added the idea of the transmutation of the very substance of the metal.
[2] Cp. Synesius, p. 67.
[3] Applied to metals, i.e. the art of transmutation.
[4] Quality or color of gold or silver.
[5] Cp. p. 170 and more.
[6] That is to say burned, changed into protoxide by a first treatment? CP. Introd., p. 233; Translation, p. 154.
[7] That is to say completely reduce to the metallic state the protoxide first formed on the surface of the copper?
[8] Cp p. 133.
[9] Cp. p. 145.
[10] Or rather with divine water.
[11] Cinnabar sign on the word magnesia, in M; the word cinnabar is written after μεγανεσία in Lk.
[12] ῥητῆς MAK, ῥυτῆς Lc. CP. III, vi, 2, p. 128 and III, vii, 5, p. 143.
[13] Cp. III, vii, 5, p. 143.
[14] Cp. III, vi, 20, p. 136.
[15] This paragraph deals with a different subject than the previous one.
[16] Above, cinnabar sign, M.
[17] Cp. Democritus, p. 49.
[18] Luke adds “he overcomes all nature”.
[19] Or liquefaction.
[20] Lc adds: “The mystery is dealt with. And Zosimus said.
[21] Is it here the dissolution of gold, by means of a metallic sulphide?
[22] Cp. p. 136.
[23] Isis to Horus, above, p. 33; and III, xvi, 6.
[24] Lc: “The old Philosopher exclaimed: Let us use, let us use natural elements”.
[25] Lead and tin, opposed to gold and silver.
[26] These words are preceded in A by the following gloss: “The dry powder becomes capable of fixing the color when it is sprinkled with liquids; which develops the tincture, by the decomposition operated in them”.
[27] Read as A Lc: ἐπισταθμίαν, stage.
[28] On the meaning of this passage, see note 1.
[29] That is to say, iron or copper can only be silvered or gilded if they are scoured on the surface, before the composition intended for gilding or silvering is spread there.
[30] Cinnabar sign, A.
[31] Cp. § 3 and 4.
[32] Democritus, p. 50.
[33] That is, the transmutation changed the essence of the metal.
[34] This completes the test of p. 123 and 124.
[35] This fragment is the only one that bears the name of Ostanes, an apocryphal author often quoted in the 3rd and 4th centuries AD, and whose enigmatic phrases Zosimus has preserved for us (p. 129). The Arabic treatise, attributed to the same writer, is obviously pseudonymous (Introd., p. 219). The current piece is written in a symbolic language whose meaning escapes us; this language recalls the nomenclature of the Papyrus of Leide and of the Egyptian priests, cited in Dioscorides (Introd.. p. 10 and 11). The signs of mercury and cinnabar, etc., placed above certain words, the literal meaning of which is quite different, confirm this view.
[36] Mercury sign above, in M.
[37] Poverty. CP. p. 163.
[38] Mercury sign above, in M; beside, in A.
[39] Above this word, cinnabar sign, in M.
[40] Above this word, in M, a sign that can be translated as magnesia.
[41] Above this word, Iosis, in A.
[42] Above this word, in M, the same sign, which has been translated in note 40 by magnesia.
[43] Above, the cinnabar sign, M.
[44] Same sign, in M.
[45] Same sign, in M.
[46] This finale is due to a Christian monk. But the beginning seems the debris, become unintelligible, of an old symbolic piece; as shown by the signs placed above certain words in the manuscripts.
[47] Cp. p. 132.
[48] It seems proved by this passage that the oldest texts, even those of Pseudo-Democritus, were inscribed on steles, or perhaps on inscriptions engraved by columns on the walls of the secret chambers of the temples, such as the one where we still read today the sacred formula of Kyphi. — CP. Origins of Alchemy, p. 38, Introduction, p. 200 and the story of the Evocation. Physica and Mystica, p. 45; see also p. 39.
[49] Ios seems to represent here the principle of yellow coloration, rather than a determined yellow matter.
[50] Either in gold, according to Lc; which indicates that this last copyist (seventeenth century) admitted that the sign of cinnabar here represents gold. — CP. Introd., p. 122.
[51] Cp. p. 61.
[52] Throughout this passage, it seems to be an operation carried out using kerotakis, with the aim of dyeing a metal, after having coated it with sulphur, arsenic sulphide, or other yellow sulphides which dissolves it on the surface and gradually thins it. But care must be taken with the flux, so that it does not destroy all the metal. You also need to heat gently, so that the flux can penetrate the metal; while it would be evaporated or burned by the action of too energetic a fire.
[53] We see that it is a question here of giving the gold a suitable color, in accordance with the practices of the goldsmiths (see in the Introduction, Papyrus of Leide, p. 56 and 58).
[54] It is the purification of gold by iron sulphate and sea salt (see Introduction, p. 14).
[55] Rosacea.
[56] This word seems to be used here in a symbolic sense (see on the parts of the philosophical egg, p. 18 and 21).
[57] The word vinegar, in the language of our authors, designates any liquor which is acid, alkaline, or generally endowed with chemical activity. However it seems that, in the current passage, it is a question in particular of the acid of couperose, that is to say sulfuric acid, more or less impure.
[58] This paragraph is only remotely related to those preceding it. CP. p. 138.
[59] The Treatise of John ends here in the manuscript Lc, The sequel is part of a treatise by Zosimus.
[60] Cp. p. 230.
[61] This riddle is also found in the Sibylline books, l. I, verses 141-146 — Cp. Origins of Alchemy, p. 136 and Zosimus, p. 135.
[62] Alchemy is linked by this text to the Orphic oracles, as are the magic and mystical beliefs of the first centuries of our era. The oracles of Apollo and other products of the same literature are moreover quoted on several occasions, in particular by Olympiodorus (p. 86, 94, 96, 103, and p. 152, 170, etc.).
Let us add that the present article seems to result from the incoherent meeting of several dissimilar pieces: the first taken from the alleged Orphic oracles; others relating to transmutation. Some seem to be pure recipes for the superficial coloring of metals, analogous to those of the Leide Papyri; but the copyist, no longer understanding the meaning of the texts, has disfigured them so much that it is hardly possible to derive a clear meaning from them.
[63] Is it Alexandria?
[64] See Olympiodorus, p. 95, 99, 101, 107, 113, and later piece V, xxiv.
[65] The author seems to be playing here on the double meaning of the word arsenic, which also means male. This body had an essential role in the dyeing of metals: the same ambiguity exists in the alchemical axiom: by the male and the female (Introd., p. 163, 165)
[66] The text of the oracle consists of a series of words, separated by punctuation, and probably forming iambic lines, with interlinear passages in red ink. We tried to make sense out of everything; but the interpretation is very uncertain.
[67] These lines seem the remains of the work is accomplished some old recipe, altered by successive copyists.
[68] Cf. The bones of the Persians, p. 201.
[69] See Olympiodorus, p. 75.
[70] Alloy of iron and copper, with added arsenic, tin and lead; as it seems from this passage.
[71] That is to say the colored liquor, containing the alkaline polysulphide (see Introd. p. 47 and fig.).
[72] This article has been transcribed here, because it appears to be one of the chapters attributed to Agathodemon in No. 31 of the old list of Saint Mark (Introd. p. 175) — current Saint Mark manuscript, fol. 95 verso and following. In Lb, it is part of the Christian's compilation, which will be given later. It seems, moreover, to simply belong to a commentator on Zosimus. It is a singular mixture of metaphysical notions and chemical notions, a mixture which occurs frequently among theoretical chemists of all times.
[73] This word designates both an operation and a material. — CP. Introd., p. 243. In E the sign of chrysocolla is corrected and changed into the sign of gold, which is adopted in Lc: we know that this manuscript is the clearing up of the corrections written in the margin of E.
[74] Gloss added by E, in the margin: “because the object we are looking for is one; by its nature it is not simple, but compound”. Lc adopts this addition.
[75] Some distilling vessels are still called Pelicans today. — In Lb, the word bird is applied, not to the shape of the vase, but to the mode of heating: a with bird droppings.. Lb also replaces the word kerotakis of BAE by that of a terracotta vase . These fixes don't look good to me.
[76] The word All seems to apply to the alloy formed of the four elements, in other words molybdochalcum, whose preparation preceded the transmutation. As for the distinction between ὅλον (complete) and πᾶν (all or total), see Proclus, in Platonis theologiam, ed. (unique) from 1561, in fol., λ. III, 20, p. 157.
[77] That is to say the metal of magnesia (see Introduction, p. 255).
[78] Lb adds: “mercury”; very dubious correction; for the objects deposited on the kerotakis were also made to act on the sulphides of arsenic, the use of which accords better with the end of the sentence.
[79] All this passage seems to mean that the metal obtained by transmutation is one, as to its nature, although formed by the union of multiple elements; which do not simply join together to form a whole, by mere assembling or mixing, but a whole unique and completely combined, as to its nature. For this, they must experience a series of treatments, intended to modify each of them and to bring their whole to the final unity. The latter is accomplished by the action of steam (mercury, arsenic, arsenic sulphides), which disintegrates the metallic alloy (molybdochalcum?) placed on the kerotakis, which makes it fusible and determines its flow into the lower container there. there is still sulphur, or a metallic sulphide, which accomplishes the transmutation. — See in the introduction, the figures of kerotakis and the commentary of the operations, p. 143 to 151.
[80] Olympiodorus, p. 103.
[81] According to AELb. — M. and B say cooking. It is undoubtedly the operation carried out on the kerotakis.
[82] According to Lb “gold”.
[83] One will notice these astrological-alchemical assimilations between the sphere of the planet Mercury and the atmosphere of the vapors of the metal.
[84] Here in M, in the margin and above the word apparatus, is a small drawing; but it is too summary to be interpreted.
[85] Chapter attributed to Agathodemon, in the old list of the manuscript of St Mark (Introduction, p. 175; n° 31). — See note at the beginning of Article IV, vi. — Article IV, vii, contains a series of pieces of various dates, on gilding and transmutation. — In AKE the word Everything is followed by these: "the philosopher's stone." In Lb, the title is: "manufacture of gold, principally of all the philosopher's stone"; which is a real misinterpretation compared to the original title.
[86] I have interpreted this whole passage as referring to an operation of gilding by varnish (see Introd., p. 60), or perhaps of gilding executed by means of mercury, the name of which is however not pronounced.
[87] These words must be understood in a mystical sense (see the Nomenclature of the egg, p. 19 and 22).
[88] Chrysocolla sign in MBAKE. E in the margin and Lc, instead of the gold gum, say: "the sun", that is to say gold. The same applies to the word gum d'or, three lines below.
[89] Kerotaki machines (see next note).
[90] That is to say that we do not use stills, such as those of fig. 14, 15, 16 (p. 38, 39, 148 of the Introd.); but the kerotaki apparatuses, such as those of figs. 20, 21, 22, etc (p. 143, etc. of the Introd.).
[91] This paragraph has, it seems, no relation With the precedent; unless the latter relates to mercury gilding.
[92] Money sign, B.
[93] Hence the servus fugitivus of the Arabs (Introd., pp. 217 and 258; — see also Olympiodorus, pp. 104 and 105).
[94] This is a poetic description of the distillation of mercury, prepared by means of cinnabar. The deleterious nature of mercury vapor is recalled here (see Origins of Alchemy, p. 172 and 231; — see also the present volume, p. 174).
[95] Cp. p. 152, 170.
[96] That is to say which are no longer pure and clear, because of the projections and alterations which occur at the end of the operation (?).
[97] Word play on ἄσημον.
[98] This article is difficult to understand and made even more confusing by intentional substitutions between the words copper, asèm, eaux, etc. It appears to apply to the coloring of copper by sulfur and arsenical compounds, in spherical kerotaki devices. We can put more or less sulphide of arsenic (called water, because of its fusibility), because the excess goes away by sublimation. It is even better to put more, so that the dyeing of the metal is done at a greater depth. The metal should not be pure copper, but copper mixed with its silver quarter.
[99] These recipes are set forth with symbolism too complicated to be understood clearly.
[100] That is, if we stress κροκός on the last and not on the first syllable. — This pun is difficult to understand. However, it seems to refer to the difference between saffron, κροκός, and egg yolk, sometimes accentuated κροκόν according to Henri Estienne's Thesaurus. — These two words are moreover both taken in a symbolic sense, to express sulphides and other metallic compounds, colored yellow and intended for the yellowing of the metal.
[101] See Stéphanus in Ideler, t. II, p. 247. — Introd., p. 179 et seq.
[102] Is it manure in the literal sense or in the mystical sense, that is to say designating another substance used to heat the furnace?
[103] Continuation of the chapters attributed to Agathodemon, Hermes, Zosimus, etc. (Introd., p. 175, n” 3i and 3s of the old list of St Mark).
[104] Luke. says: "Copper ores converted into lime".
[105] That is to say with the volatile product that was drawn from it.
[106] Or 3 p.m.: marginal gloss, Lb.
[107] This whole description is obscure: however it emerges that the name lime was applied from this remote period to metallic oxides; meaning that this mata retained during the Middle Ages, and until the end of the eighteenth century. Here it is the product of the roasting and roasting of these slags, which are discussed in Olympiodore (p. 95, 101, 107, 113), and in Zosimus (p. 207, 215). The roasting produced metallic oxides, of copper, lead, zinc, etc.; and these oxides, subjected to the action of fire in vases analogous to the aludels (Introd., p. 172), produced cadmies (Introd., p. 239). With these caddies, one obtained, either by way of dissolution, or by way of fusion, a point which remains uncertain, the liquids intended to dye the metals in gold or silver.
[108] Var. the sun; lb; CP. p. 156 and 174.
[109] This seems to mean that if the first action of fire has determined the loss of volatile products, without effecting the dyeing of the molten metal, reduced to a liquid similar to mercury, the operation is compromised.
[110] Sulfur, Lb.
[111] This seems to be about sublimated caddies.
[112] The action of sublimated cadmium is associated with that of mercury (or arsenic), in order to make the dyeing of the metal more stable.
[113] Instead of this sign, that of gold, which results from an alteration, AB.
[114] Chalcite, Lb.
[115] Copper protoxide, or burnt copper. — See Introd., p. z33.
[116] The rosacea stone, E.
[117] Treaty of Pseudo-Hermes, Cp. Introd., p. 244.
[118] Rosacea Stones, Lb.
[119] In the margin of A: “what is projected is called the second product”.
[120] CP. p. 191.
[121] Variety of caddy; Introduction, p. 240.
[122] That is to say the deposit formed in the first waters (see what is relative to ash or slag in note 107).
[123] Democritus, according to E. Lb.
[124] This is the conclusion of a whole series of practical recipes on lime by ancient chemists: we have given the explanation above, p. 269, note 1. These pieces eventually passed into Christian's compilation; but in M's old list they were distinct (Introd., p. 175, nos. 31 and 32).
[125] It will be noted that the word limestone (τίτανος) is finally assimilated to the word lime (ἄσβεστος), contrary to what is written at the beginning of article IV, ix. — CP. ἀσβέστωμα in Theoctonicos, Jet,-od., p. 210.
[126] Origins of Alchemy, p. 144.
[127] This is a series of recipes completely analogous to those of the Leide Papyrus, the Pseudo-Democritus and the Pseudo-Moses, probably as old.
[128] Aplysia, mollusk.
[129] Living (?), or painter (?).
[130] That is to say an iron color product (?).
[131] Very complicated recipe for diplosis, with the use of mercury, arsenic and various minerals. (See the recipes from the Papyrus of Leide et al., Introd., p. 45, 61, 62).
[132] This seems to be a gold colored varnish, applied to the surface of metals (see Introd., p. 59 and 60).
[133] That is to say in the amalgam described above?
[134] Introduction, p. 239.
[135] Cp. Leide Papyrus, Recipe 57, Introd., p. 46.
[136] This is a process of Diplosis (Introd., p. 56, 61).
[137] Series of small recipes for dyeing red or yellow, with cinnabar and various other substances.
[138] It is a process for dyeing in gold color. CP. Leide Papyrus, Recipes 25, 55, 67, 69, etc. Introd., p. 35, 40 and 42.
[139] The word sublimated seems to mean here the oxide of antimony.
[140] In the margin: “liqueur of the igneous tincture”.
[141] Introduction, p. 39.
[142] Cp. p. 299.
[143] This beginning is the addition of a Byzantine monk, who commented on Comarius' book. Then comes the actual extract from this book, with explanations and interpolations by the commentator. It is difficult to disentangle the web of the fragments of the old Gnostic author from the enthusiastic declamations of the commentator. The latter writes in a way very similar to Stephanus, if not Stephanus himself identification which would explain the confusion made in the manuscript of St Mark between this Treatise and the 9th lesson of Stephanus, Cp. p. 123, footnote. The symbols placed in M above certain words, give the interpretation of the allegories; but this interpretation has been added by a more modern hand than that of the primitive copyist.
[144] See Intro., p. 17, the Monad of Moses. — This sentence indicates that the original Treatise of Comarius was a Gnostic work: which corresponds indeed to the character and to the time of Cleopatra the alchemist. — Origins of Alchemy, p. 61, 64.
[145] Mystical phrase recalling biblical creation; but it is diverted in an alchemical sense. This again reminds us of the Gnostics.
[146] That is, combines the fixed metallic body with a volatile element derived from arsenic.
[147] Allusion to the story of Cleopatra's two pearls. See also Zosimus, p. 122.
[148] Cp. p. 212.
[149] Dyeing in purple and violet?
[150] This is the start of the operation.
[151] This description of the successive operations summarizes what is said in various places of Zosimus; p. 212, etc
[152] End of Stephanus in M. (See Introd., p. 181, 7°.)
[153] The adds: "Then Cleopatra said to the philosophers".
[154] All this language seems to be allegorical and hides a secret alchemical meaning.
[155] It is an allegorical picture of distillation, or rather of evaporation and the condensation which accompanies it: the condensed liquids reacting gradually on the products exposed to their action.
[156] Cp. Zosimus, p. 118 and 127.
[157] Cp. Zosimus, p. 122, 123.
[158] Above, sign of mercury, Mr.
[159] Mercury, feminine in Greek, or rather arsenic aune (Sulphide), called female, which is at the bottom of the vase; opposed to white arsenic (oxidized by roasting), called male, which is brought up by sublimation.
[160] The author plays on the identity of the Greek word which means sulfur and divine.
[161] Cp. p. 106.
[162] Cp. the luminous man, p. 224 and 225.
[163] Above the word spirit, we read in red the sign of cinnabar, M. In A, it is the sign of copper. In Lc, we read “The spirit of copper”.
[164] Above the word body, we read the abbreviation of the word lead in M. — Above the word soul: silver sign, M. — Between ἐν (in) and ᾧ (the body) in above, sign of gold, M. — In A, after the word soul, sign of mercury: which is also gold. — Lc interprets these signs, saying: “The soul, that is to say the mercury; she runs to gold to fix herself in her embrace, etc.
[165] Above light, sign of native sulphur, M.
[166] Above, gold sign, Mr.
[167] Above, native sulfur sign, M.
[168] In A, in the margin: mercury expressed by its sign, surmounted by an A. It seems to be an amalgam of lead.
[169] Above, gold sign, Mr.
[170] Above, sign of mercury, M.
[171] Above, cinnabar sign, M.
[172] Above, native sulfur sign, M.
[173] Above, sign of the copper ios, Mr.
[174] Above, double mercury sign, M.
[175] Above, sign of the copper ios, Mr.
[176] Or a sulphur, the Greek word having the double meaning.
[177] Allusion to arsenic, whose Greek name means male.
[178] On the meaning of this word which symbolizes certain devices, see Zosime, p. 123, footnote 4.
[179] Above, native sulfur sign, M.
[180] Sulfur Sign, M.
[181] Above, sign of mercury, M.
[182] Above, Crayfish sign, M. Cp. Zosimus, p. 142, notes 4 and 7;and formula for figure 28, Introd., p. 152. It is therefore molybdochalcum.
[183] Above, sign of mercury, M.
[184] Same sign above, Mr.
[185] Above, sign of the Crayfish, M. — Molybdochalque.
[186] Above, sign of mercury, Mr.
[187] Above, cinnabar sign, M.
[188] Above, sign of the Crayfish, M.
[189] Above, sign of mercury, M.
[190] Above, cinnabar sign; Mr.
[191] Above, sign of cinnabar: this sign is therefore applied successively to fire, air and sublimated vapor.
[192] Or divine.
[193] Above, sign of mercury, M. Cp. the servus fugitivus, Introd., p. 237, and Zosimus, p. 346 and 203.
[194] Above, gold sign, Mr.
[195] Above, native sulfur sign.
[196] Above, gold sign, Mr.
[197] These vague and symbolic phrases had a meaning for the followers, which is revealed to us by the signs placed above the words in M. Their date is uncertain; but they seem to go back, at least in origin, to the old Gnostics, later commented on by Stephanus and by the Byzantines contemporary with Heraclius. In any case, they are the starting point for the mystical rigmarole of the Arab and Latin alchemists. — CP. Ostanes, Introd., p. 217 —Avicenna, Introd., p. 258. — Zosimus, p. 146, etc
[198] Mercury sign surmounted by an A. — Alchemical allusion to a Gospel text.
[199] This recalls certain passages from Lucretius. However the Comarius text implies the rotation of the earth on its axis; while it is assumed to be motionless by most ancient philosophers.
[200] Above, sign of mercury, M.
[201] Above, sign of lead, or rather molybdochalcum (?) M.
[202] Above, sign of mercury, followed by that of badly made lead, M.
[203] Above, sign of mercury, Mr.
[204] Sign of Mercury, M.
[205] Above, native sulfur sign, M.
[206] Above, sign of mercury, M: it is therefore the mercury of the philosophers.
[207] Above, sign of poorly made sulfur M.
[208] Above, sign of gold, or rather of its filings (divided gold or quintessence of gold).
[209] M ends there. The following sentence is taken from A Lc; and the finite word of Lc.
[210] Under the name of Moses, there existed a large number of apocryphal works, cited in particular in Papyrus W of Leide (Introd., p. i6); the current treatise is part of the same tradition. It is an old collection of positive recipes, quite analogous to those of Leide's Papyrus X, and probably contemporary, at least for the most part. It is cited in various places, alongside the works of Chymès and Pébéchius (p. 180 and p. 209 below). — In the chemistry of Moses, we find a certain number of recipes, reproduced verbatim from Pseudo-Democritus. It is probable that these were collections of practical processes, formed from different sources, by goldsmiths and craftsmen, who passed them on as a secret tradition, enlarging them from time to time with new recipes. The Leide Papyrus, the Pseudo-Democritus, the proceedings of Iamblichus, the Chemistry of Moses represent some of these notebooks which have come down to us. The goldsmith's treatise that we publish in Part V is an analogous treatise alongside recipes written in Byzantine Greek, it reproduces a considerable portion of Pseudo-Democritus.
[211] Rogé or rogion, a kind of container (see p. 143, 144 and 59).
[212] Manufacture of lead amalgam?
[213] Introduction, p. 262.
[214] Symbolic meaning.
[215] Ἐξίωσις here actually has the meaning of Ἴωσις
[216] Mystical name designating a liquor resembling this wine.
[217] That is to say that the red arsenic sulphide is yellowed by successive roasting.
[218] Words attributed to the oracle of Apollo (III, xii, 4, p. 152, 170; and IV, vii, p. 266).
[219] Introduction, p. 175, No. 42. It is a brass preparation.
[220] Cp. Democritus, p. 47. There are considerable variations.
[221] This could apply to manganese oxide, Introd., p. 256.
[222] Plant name.
[223] This is § 20 of Democritus, p. 53. — The Chemistry of Moses contains a certain number of fragments of the treatise of Democritus; which shows that it was drawn from the same sources.
[224] Part of this piece is found in Synesius (§ 5), who attributes it to Democritus.
[225] Or golden shell.
[226] The text says in lead.
[227] A similar piece is found in Democritus, § 8.
[228] Cp. Glossary, p. 14. — Introduction, p. 39.
[229] Here an incomprehensible sentence. (See Origins of Alchemy, p. 85.)
[230] Introduction, p. 69.
[231] The impression is made on a thick varnish deposited on the surface of the metal.
[232] Cp. p. 278.
[233] Cp. the same page.
[234] A singular piece that we thought should be placed here, because of the mention of Cleopatra. It can be compared to the text of Olympiodorus on the tomb of Osiris (p. 103); Egyptian myths about the four double tombs of Osiris, and about the eight elemental gods assembled in pairs; as well as the mystical ogdoad of the Gnostics (Origins of Alchemy, p. 63. — Introd., p. 17). We find in the Papyrus W of Leide, an analogous process for attaching the number eight to the number seven, by the addition of a unit of another species. See also the four stars with eight rays, figured in Cleopatra's Chrysopeia (Introd., p. 133).
[235] Cp. p. 92, and p. 76 footnote 1.
[236] Cp. p. 282, § 11.
[237] Allusion to the winged urus, and to the egg of the world, created by Phtah, from which emerge the sun and the moon.
[238] “End” in E.
[239] This piece, placed after the previous one in A, is of an entirely different character and rather recalls the small articles of the Chemistry of Moses.
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