“Oh! my brother, what do you say?” exclaimed Galip. “No more! I do not wish you to die like those impostors who have vaunted themselves to my master.”
“I fear nothing,” returned the hermit. “If you be able to present me to the prince, I will at once go before him with confidence.”
Galip accordingly presented him, and the old man informed Kalid that he could enable him to accomplish the Hermetic work, that he was acquainted with an adept hermit of the solitudes of Jerusalem, who, by illumination from the Deity, had received supernatural wisdom, and by his own admission was in possession of the precious gift. The quantity of gold and silver which he brought each year to Jerusalem was a conclusive proof of the fact.
The Soldan represented the danger of false promises to the venerable man, and warned him how many deceptive and boasting adventurers had already met their death. The hermit, however, persisted in his confident assertions, and Kalid, hearing the description of Morien, commanded Galip, his slave, to accompany the old man with a sufficient escort to Jerusalem, where they eventually arrived after many labours, and were rejoiced by the discovery of Morien, who beneath his hair-cloth shirt is declared to have preserved a perpetually youthful frame. Galip recognised him at once, saluted him on the part of his master, and persuaded him to return to the prince, who received him with unbounded satisfaction, and would have engaged him in a worldly situation at his court. Morien, however, was intent only on the conversion of Kalid; he made known to him the mysteries of Christianity, but in spite of his wisdom was unable to effect the desired end. He appears, notwithstanding, to have discovered to him the secret of the transcendent science, and the conversation of Morien and Kalid has been written in Arabic, and translated into Latin and French.
The subsequent history of Morien is not recorded. In the collections of Hermetic philosophy there are some small tracts attributed to Kalid, and also to Galip, who appears to have participated in the secret. Morien himself is cited as the author of three works, said to have been translated from the Arabic, but their authenticity is, of course, very doubtful. The first is entitled Liber de Distinctione Mecurii Aquarum, of which a manuscript copy existed in the library of Robert Boyle. The second is the Liber de Compositione Alchemiæ, printed in the first volume of the Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa. Finally, several editions have appeared of a treatise entitled De Re Metallica, metallorum Transmutatione, et occulta summaque antiquorum medicina libellus. It was first printed at Paris in the year 1559.
Bacon and Arnold, who appeared one at the beginning, and the other at the end of the thirteenth century, have cited Morien as an authority among the Hermetic philosophers, and Robertus Castrensis assures us that he translated Morien’s book from the Arabic language in the year 1182.
The Liber de Compositione Alchemiæ contains a Hermetic conversation between Morien, Kalid, and Galip. It appeals to the authority of Hermes, whom it states to have been the first who discovered the grand magisterium, the secret of which he transmitted to his disciples. It declares the prima materia to be one, quoting the testimony of the wise king and philosopher Hercules and the adept Arsicanus, with other pseudo authorities, which discredit the date of the dialogue far more than they support the alchemical theory in question.
ALBERTUS MAGNUS.
The universal genius of Albert, joined to a laudable curiosity in so great a philosopher, say the original “Lives of Alchemysticall Philosophers,” did not allow him to pass by the Hermetic science without giving it due attention.
Counter authorities, while admitting that in things scientific he must be counted the most curious and investigating of the children of men, emphatically assert that he has been erroneously included by demonographers among the number of magicians, and that in the twenty-one goodly folio volumes which comprise his opera omnia, there is no trace of sorcery. In one place he declares formally that “all those stories of demons prowling in the regions of the air, and from whom the secrets of futurity may be ascertained, are absurdities which can never be admitted by sober reason.” The works on incredible secrets, so numerously attributed to him, are, therefore, condemned as spurious, Albertus Magnus having no more hand in their production than in the invention of the cannon and the pistol, which has been attributed to him by Matthias de Luna.