Hermetic Philosophy and Alchemy - A Bardon Companion

Artephius was a Jew who, by the use of the elixir, is reported to have lived throughout the period of a
thousand years, with what truth or credibility opinions may vary; he himself affirms it, and Paracelsus,
Pontanus, and Roger Bacon appear to give credence to the tale (41), which forms part of his celebrated
treatise on the philosophers’ stone, and runs as follows: --- I, Artephius, having learnt all the art in the
books of the true Hermes, was once, as others, envious; but having lived one thousand years, or
thereabouts (which thousand years have already passed since my nativity, by the grace of God alone,
and the use of this admirable quintessence), as I have seen, through this long space of time, that men
have been unable to perfect the same magistery on account of the obscurity of the words of the
philosophers, moved by pity and a good conscience, I have resolved, in these my last days, to publish
it all sincerely and truly; so that men may have nothing more to desire concerning this work. I except
one thing only, which it is not lawful that I should write, because it can be revealed truly only by God,
or by a master. Nevertheless, this likewise may be learned from this book, provided one be not stiffnecked,
and have a little experience (42).
This Artephius forms a sort of link in the history of Alchemy, carried as it was in the course of time
from Asia into Europe, about the period of the first crusades, when a general communication of the
mind of different nations was effected by their being united under a common cause. Sciences, arts, and
civilization, which had heretofore flourished in the East only, were gradually transplanted into Europe;
and towards the end of the twelfth century, or thereabouts, our Phoenix too bestirred herself, and
passed into the West.
Roger Bacon was amongst the first to fill his lamp from her reviviscent spirit; and with this ascending
and descending experimentally, he is said to have discovered the secret ligature of natures, and their
magical dissolution; he was moreover acquainted with theology in its profoundest principles;
medicine, likewise physics and metaphysics on their intimate ground; and, having proved the
miraculous multiplicability of light by the universal spirit of nature, he worked the knowledge to such
effect, that in the mineral kingdom he produced gold (43). What marvel, persecuted as he was for the
natural discoveries which he gave to the world, without patent or profit to himself, if he should
appropriate these final fruits of labor and long interior study? Yet it does not appear that he was
selfishly prompted even in this particular reservation; it was conscience, as he declares, that warned
him to withhold a gift somewhat over rashly and dangerously obtained. His acutely penetrative and
experimental mind, not content even with enough led him by a fatal curiosity, as it is suggested, into
forbidden realms of self-sufficiency and unlawful peace of mind, and finally induced him to abandon
altogether those researches, in order to retrieve and expiate in solitude the wrongs he had committed.
We know that the imputation of magic has seemed ridiculous, and every report of the kind has been
referred to the friar’s extraordinary skill in the natural sciences. The rejection of his books at Oxford
has often been cited as an instance of the exceeding bigotry of those times, as indeed it was; and yet
are we not nearly as far off perhaps from the truth in our liberality as were our forefathers in their
superstition? An accusation of magic has not occurred of late, nor would be likely to molest seriously
any philosopher of the present age; but then it did occur often during the dark ages, and who can tell
whether it may not again at some future day, when men are even more enlightened and intimate with
nature than they are now?
There are still remaining two or three works of Roger Bacon, in which the roots of the Hermetic
science are fairly stated; but the practice most carefully concealed, agreeably to that maxim, which in
his later years he penned, that truth ought not to be shown to every ribald, for then that would become
most vile, which, in the hands of a philosopher, is the most precious of all things (44).
Many great lights shone through the darkness of those middle ages; Magians, who were drawn about
the fire of nature, as it were, into communication with her central source. Albertus Magnus, his friend
and disciple the acute Aquinas, Scotus Erigina the subtle doctor, Arnold di Villa Nova, and Raymond
Lully, all confessed adepts. John Reuchlin, Ficinus the Platonist, Picus di Mirandola, blending
alchemy and therapeutics with neoplatonism and the cabalistic art. Spinoza also was a profound
metaphysician and speculator on the same experimental ground. Alain de l’Isle the celebrated French