Robert of Chester’s preface.
One of the earliest treatises of alchemy translated from Arabic into Latin would appear to be this which Morienus Romanus, a hermit of Jerusalem, edited for “Calid, king of the Egyptians,” and which Robert of Chester turned into Latin[654] on the eleventh day of February in the year 1182 of the Spanish era or 1144 A. D. Of Robert’s other translations we have spoken elsewhere.[655] He opens his preface to the present treatise with an account of three Hermeses—Enoch, Noah, and the king, philosopher, and prophet who reigned in Egypt after the flood and was called Hermes Triplex. This account is very similar to one which we shall presently find prefixed to an astrological treatise by Hermes Trismegistus. It was this Hermes, Robert continues, who rediscovered and edited all the arts and sciences after the deluge, and who first found and published the present work, which is a book divine and most replete with divinity, and which is entitled, The Book of the Composition of Alchemy. “And since,” says Robert, “what alchemy is and what is its composition, your Latin world does not yet know truly,[656] I will elucidate the same in the present treatise.” Alchemy is that substance which joins the more precious bodies which are compounded from one original matter and by this same natural union converts them to the higher type. In other words, it is the philosopher’s stone by which metals may be transmuted. Although Robert is a relatively young man and his Latinity perhaps not of the best, he essays the task of translating this so great and important a work and reveals his own name in the preface lest some other person steal the fruits of his labor and the praise which is his due. Lippmann dismisses the translation rather testily as “surpassed by no later work for emptiness, confusion, and sheer drivel,”[657] but we shall attempt some further description.
The story of Morienus and Calid.
Following Robert’s preface comes an account, in the usual style of apocryphal and occult works, told partly in the first person by Morienus and partly of him in the third person by someone else. Long after Christ’s passion an Adfar of Alexandria found the book of Hermes, mastered it after long study, and himself gave forth innumerable precepts which were spread abroad and finally reached the ears of Morienus, then a young man at Rome. This reminds us of the opening of the Recognitions of Clement. Morienus left his home, parents, and native land, and hastened to Alexandria to the house of Adfar. When Adfar learned that Morienus was a Christian, he promised to divulge to him “the secrets of all divinity,” which he had hitherto kept concealed from nearly everyone. When Adfar died, Morienus left Alexandria and became a hermit at Jerusalem. Not many years thereafter a king arose in Egypt named Macoya. He begat a son named Gezid who reigned after his father’s death and in his turn begat a son named Calid who reigned after his death. This Calid was a great patron of science and searched all lands for someone who could reveal this book of Hermes to him. Morienus was still living, and when a traveler brought him news of Calid and his desire, he came to his court, not for the sake of the gifts of gold which the king had offered, but in order to instruct him with spiritual gifts. Saluting Calid with the words, “O good king, may God convert you to a better,” he asked for a house or laboratory in which to prepare his masterpiece of perfection, but departed secretly as soon as it was consummated. When Calid saw the gold which Morienus had made, he ordered the heads to be cut off of all the other alchemists whom he had employed for years, and grieved that the hermit had left without revealing his secret.
The secret of the philosopher’s stone
More years passed before Calid’s trusty slave, Galip, learned the identity and whereabouts of Morienus from another hermit of Jerusalem and was despatched with a large retinue to bring him back. The king and the hermit at first engaged in a moral and religious discussion, and many days passed before Calid ventured to broach the subject of alchemy. He then put to Morienus a succession of questions, such as whether there is one fundamental substance, and concerning the nature and color of the philosopher’s stone, also its natural composition, weight and taste, cheapness or expensiveness, rarity or abundance, and whether there is any other stone like unto it or which has its effect. This last query Morienus answered in the negative, since in the philosopher’s stone are contained the four elements and it is like unto the universe and the composition of the universe. In the process of obtaining it decay must come first, then purification. As in human generation, there must first be coitus, then conception, then pregnancy, then birth, then nutrition. To such general observations and analogies, which are commonplaces of alchemy, are finally added several pages of specific directions as to alchemistic operations. Such enigmatic nomenclature is employed as “white smoke,” and “green lion,” but Morienus later explains to Calid the significance of most of these phrases. “Green lion” is glass; “impure body” is lead; “pure body” is tin, and so on.
Later works of alchemy ascribed to Hermes.
In so far as I have examined the alchemical manuscripts of the later middle ages,[658] which I have not done very extensively owing to the fact that most of them consist of anonymous and spurious compositions which are probably of a later date than the period with which we are directly concerned,[659] I have hardly found as many treatises ascribed to Hermes Trismegistus as might be expected. Perhaps as many works are ascribed to Aristotle, Geber, and other famous names as to Hermes or Mercury. Thus out of some forty items in an alchemical miscellany of the fourteenth or fifteenth century[660] two are attributed to Hermes and Mercury, two to Aristotle, one to Plato, three to Geber, two to Albertus Magnus, and others to his contemporaries like Roger Bacon, Brother Elias, Bonaventura, and Arnald of Villanova. Of the two titles connected with Hermes one is simply a Book of Hermes; the other, A Treatise of Mercury to his disciple Mirnesindus. Other specimens of works ascribed to Hermes in medieval Latin manuscripts are: The Secrets of Hermes the philosopher, inventor of metals, according to the nature of transmutation[661] or in another manuscript, “inventor of transformation,”[662] a treatise on the fountain of youth by Trismegistus;[663] and a work on alcohol ascribed to “father Hermes.”[664] The Early English Text Society has reprinted an English translation of the Latin treatise on the fifth essence “that Hermes, the prophet and king of Egypt, after the flood of Noah, father of philosophers, had by revelation of an angel of God to him sent,” which was first published “about 1460-1476 by Fred J. Furnival.”[665] “The book of Hermogenes” is also to be accredited to Hermes Trismegistus.[666]
Medieval citations of Hermes
Among the Arabs and in medieval Latin learning the reputation of Hermes continued not only as an alchemist, but as a fountain of wisdom in general. Roger Bacon spoke of “Hermes Mercurius, the father of philosophers.”[667] Daniel of Morley we have heard cite works of Trismegistus and distinguish between “two most excellent authorities,” the “great Mercury,” and his nephew, “Trismegistus Mercurius.”[668] Albertus Magnus cited “The so-called Sacred Book of Hermes to Asclepius,”[669] an astrological treatise of which the Greek version has been mentioned in our earlier chapter on Hermes, Orpheus, and Zoroaster. And Albert’s contemporary, William of Auvergne, bishop of Paris, makes use several times[670] of the dialogue between Mercurius Trismegistus, “the Egyptian philosopher and magician,” and Asclepius from a Liber de hellera or De deo deorum, which is presumably the Greek Ἱερὰ βίβλος. Trismegistus is represented as affirming that there is divine power in herbs and stones. In the Speculum astronomiae[671] Albert listed a number of bad books on necromantic images[672] by Hermes of which Christians were to beware: a book of images for each of the seven planets, an eighth treatise following them, a work on The seven rings of the seven planets, a book of magical illusions (liber praestigiorum),[673] and a book addressed to Aristotle. William of Auvergne seems to allude to the same literature when he twice repeats a story of two fallen angels from Hermes, citing his Seven Planets in one case and Book of Venus in the other.[674] Albertus Magnus also cites “books of incantations” by Hermes in his work on vegetables and plants;[675] and a Liber Alcorath is ascribed to Hermes in the Liber aggregationis or Experimenta Alberti which is current under Albert’s name. The astrologer Cecco d’Ascoli in the early fourteenth century cites a treatise by Hermes entitled De speculis et luce (Of mirrors and light).[676] These few instances of medieval citation of Hermes could of course be greatly multiplied but suffice to suggest the importance of his name in the later history of magic and astrology as well as of alchemy.