Franciscans and the Elixir of Life. Zachary A. Matus

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      Three Elixirs

      This chapter is about genealogies. What I hope to show is the importance of the intellectual components of the elixir—the alchemy of the making of alchemy, if you will forgive the expression. My chief concern is with the religious elements that make up the genealogies of the three elixirs under discussion, but these intellectual components mix and aggregate with natural philosophic components as well. The descriptions of the elixirs involve a number of overlapping discourses, traditions, and very personal ideological commitments. While religion need not figure into any conception of the elixir, the nuances of theological or philosophical speculation have serious implications for how the various authors envisioned their alchemies. Roger Bacon relies on the Christian model of the perfect, resurrected body. Vitalis of Furno draws on the tradition of the theriac, but studiously avoids mention of alchemy, and John of Rupescissa ruminates on the physical nature of heaven. These small differences are important. One cannot disentangle the “science” from the nonscientific assumptions and traditions that inspire the creation of these substances without fundamentally misinterpreting them. For while it is true that every elixir is a cure-all, each elixir is not just a cureall. Genealogies clarify what generalizations obfuscate.

      The pursuit of the elixir was one of two main tracks pursued by medieval alchemists, second in popularity to the transmutation of metals. Chrysopoeia and argyropoeia (transmutation of base metals into gold or silver, respectively) were the subjects of most medieval alchemical texts. The term elixir is derived from the Arabic al-iksīr, itself a translation of Greek xērion, a term used to describe the agent that transforms one substance into another.¹ Initially in Arabic alchemy the term “elixir” had nothing to do with healing human bodies, but rather with perfecting metals. Metals were understood to exist in a hierarchy, with gold at the top, followed by silver.² Medieval people generally differentiated metals phenotypically, that is, based on their appearance and observable characteristics, but medieval scholars also understood metals to have different elemental compositions related to primary qualities. Aristotle described four primary qualities (hot, dry, wet, cold) from whose interactions were made the four elements (fire, earth, air, water), which in turn, according to philosophers and physicians of antiquity, combined to make up the four humors. Hence, an al-iksīr perfected a metal by purifying it of its base qualities, but also by changing its primary qualities.³ For instance, tin is primarily dry, but gold is hot and silver is cold. An elixir can change those qualities. A medical elixir worked according to the same logic. It both purified the body and balanced or redistributed the body’s humoral qualities into a better arrangement.

      While Western, Christian alchemists drew on the general idea of the elixir, they elaborated on its powers and production in ways not anticipated by their Islamic forebears. They seized particularly on the power of the elixir to heal and augment the human body. The justification for the potency of the elixir came from many sources, and the three elixirs presented in this chapter have very different alchemical and medicinal genealogies. Indeed, “elixir” was not a standard term for alchemical medicinals in the medieval period. Rather, authors named compounds “inestimable glory,” “burning water,” and “quintessence.” Still, the logic of purification and balancing or transforming humors was characteristic of these substances. Therefore, “elixir,” as I am using it, is simply a taxonomic term to denote an alchemical compound that has salubrious effects on the human body. That said, the terms used by the authors are important, and will be discussed in due course.

      Knowledge about the elixir, and alchemy in general, emerged sporadically throughout the twelfth century. The first complete alchemical text to be translated from Arabic into Latin was likely the Morienus, completed by Robert of Ketton in 1144.⁴ Its preface states that it includes knowledge on alchemy “our Latinity does not yet hardly comprehend.” Evidence of the unfamiliarity of Latin authors with this new science comes from the occasional use of Western vernaculars as “intermediary” languages. Arabic, Hebrew, and Greek texts often found their way into local dialect prior to being translated into Latin.⁵ Rather than diffusing alchemy into vernacular culture, these intermediary translations were a means of coping with what must have seemed entirely new concepts.

      As important as the translation of Arabic alchemical texts was the translation of the Aristotelian corpus, by which I mean of course not only the works of Aristotle, but works ascribed to him and commentaries on all these. One of the key texts was the Meteorologica. Gerard of Cremona had translated its first three books early in the twelfth century, and Henricus Aristippus the fourth in 1156. But the work did not take its full shape in the Latin West until after 1200, when Alfred of Sarashel added to the manuscript a copy of Avicenna’s De congelatione et conglutinatione lapidum (On the congealing and joining of stones), a part of his Book of Remedy.⁶ What was СКАЧАТЬ