Alchemy Part 4

But while there are thus some grounds for supposing that the
idea of transmutation grew out of the practical receipts of
Alexandrian Egypt, the alchemy which embraced it as a leading
principle was also strongly affected by Eastern influences
such as magic and astrology. The earliest Greek alchemistical
writings abound with references to Oriental authorities and
traditions. Thus the pseudo-Democritus, who was reputed the
author of the Physica et Mystica, which itself concludes
each of its receipts with a magical formula, was believed
to have travelled in Chaldaea, and to have had as his master
Ostanes1 the Mede, a name mentioned several times in the
Leiden papyrus, and often by early Christian writers such as
Tertullian, St Cyprian and St Augustine. The practices of
the Persian adepts also are appealed to in the writings of the
pseudo-Democritus, Zosimus and Synesius. The philosopher's
egg, as a symbol of creation, is both Egyptian and
Babylonian. In the Greek alchemists it appears as the symbol
at once of the art and of the universe, enclosing within
itself the four elements; and there is sometimes a play of
words between to on and to won. The conception of
man, the microcosm, containing in himself all the parts
of the universe or macrocosm, is also Babylonian, as again
probably is the famous identification of the metals with the
planets. Even in the Leiden papyrus the astronomical symbols
for the sun and moon are used to denote gold and silver, and
in the Meteorologica of Olympiodorus lead is attributed to
Saturn, iron to Mars, copper to Venus, tin to Hermes (Mercury)
and electrum to Jupiter. Similar systems of symbols, but
elaborated to include compounds, appear in Greek MSS. of
the 10th century, preserved in the library of St Mark's at
Venice. Subsequently electrum (an alloy of gold and silver)
disappeared as a specific metal, and tin was ascribed to Jupiter
instead, the sign of mercury becoming common to the metal and the
planet. Thus we read in Chaucer (Chanouns Yemannes Tale):--

The bodies sevene eek, lo! hem heer anoon:
Sol gold is, and Luna silver we threpe,
Mars yren, Mercurie quik-silver we clepe,
Saturnus leed and Jupiter is tin,
And Venus coper, by my fader kin!
Literature of Alchemy.--A considerable body of Greek chemical
writings is contained in MSS. belonging to the various great
libraries of Europe, the oldest being that at St Mark's, just
mentioned. The contents of these MSS. are all of similar
composition, and in Berthelot's opinion represent a collection
of treatises made at Constantinople in the 8th or 9th
century. The treatises are nearly all anterior to the 7th
century, and most appear to belong to the 3rd and 4th centuries;
some are the work of authentic authors like Zosimus and
Synesius, while of others, such as profess to be written by
Moses, Democritus, Ostanes, &c., the authorship is clearly
fictitious. Some of the same names and the same works can
be identified in the lists of the Kitab-al- Fihrist. But
the Arabs did not acquire their knowledge of this literature
at first hand. The earliest Hellenic culture in the East was
Syrian, and the Arabs made their first acquaintance with
Greek chemistry, as with Greek philosophy, mathematics,
medicine, &c., by the intermediary of Syriac translations. Examples
of such translations are preserved in MSS. at the British
Museum, partly written in Syriac, partly in Arabic with Syriac
characters. In Berthelot's opinion, the Syriac portions
represent a compilation of receipts and processes undertaken in
the Syrian school of medicine at Bagdad under the Abbasids in
the 9th or 10th century, and to a large extent constituted by
the earlier translations made by Sergius of Resaena in the 6th
century. They contain, under the title Doctrine of Democritus,
a fairly methodical treatise in ten books comprising the
Argyropoeia and Chrysopoeia of the pseudo-Democritus,
with many receipts for colouring metals, making artificial
precious stones, effecting the diplosis or doubling of
metals, &c. They give illustrations of the apparatus employed,
and their close relationship to the Greek is attested by
the frequent occurrence of Greek words and the fact that
the signs and symbols of the Greek alchemists appear almost
unchanged. The other portion seems of somewhat later date.
Another Syriac MS., in the library of Cambridge University,
contains a translation of a work by Zosimus which is so far
unknown in the original Greek. Berthelot gives reproductions
of the British Museum MSS. in vol. ii. of La Chimie au moyen