Alchemy in Byzantium from the Tenth Century to 1204

Alchemy in Byzantium from the Tenth Century to 1204 

The renascence of learning in the ninth-century Byzantium, with principal promoter the emperor Theophilos, continued in the following century. From 945 to 959 the emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus set up a group of philologists and scientists in his palace, which compiled a number of encyclopedias covering almost all fields of knowledge and wrote manuals on military tactics and administration. Philosophy, however, was still limited in the boundaries of Theology as was also the case in the West. The Byzantine alchemists of the Middle Ages were the successors of the Greek philosophers of nature and alchemists, therefore it is not surprising that theory and practice of Alchemy in the eighth-century Byzantium continued to be enriched and cultivated as the invention of the Gregorian fire and the writings of scholarly monks, like Kosmas and Psellos, prove. 

As a result, the science of Alchemy was handed down from the Greeks to the Syrians, then to the Arabs and finally to the Latins. The tenth century bears the stamp of the great personality and work of the emperor Leo VI the Wise. Due to his illustrious instructors, the philosopher-physician Leo the Mathematician and the patriarch Photios, the literatus Emperor was exalted to a renowned scientist, alchemist and prolific writer. Distinguished philosophers of the next century were Michael Psellos, a versatile writer who also produced apocryphal and alchemistic treatises, and Ioannis Italos, pupil and successor of Psellos, who confronted the full opposition of the Church, because he had dared to reconcile materialistic philosophy with Christian doctrine. 

After Italos and throughout the twelfth century Byzantine Alchemy was progressively falling into decline, giving thus way to the Arab thought and science, which were steadily rising. The twelfth century was dominated by the alchemist, philosopher and physician Elhalid Mouhamed ibn Ahmet ibn Rushd, better known as Averroes. The father of secular thought in Europe, Averroes was well versed in Aristotle, editor of his works and representative of the Arab peripatetic philosophers. He and his followers had been persecuted by the Muslims as atheists and despised by the Christian scholars as personification of the devil. 

There were two categories of writers on Alchemy: The ones convinced for the futility of the pursuits of the Hermetic philosophers and the others who appeared as “initiates” and virtual possessors of the “marvelous secret”; the work of both, however, is a mere jumble of earlier alchemistic texts. Until at least the tenth century, Greek and Arab alchemists have clearly described in their works the preparation and purification of certain bodies and substances, representing the early, fundamental stage in creating the Philosophical Stone, but have never recorded the final, decisive steps towards this achievement. In the period that followed and until the seventeenth century, their European colleagues have more or less concealed the relevant information in their allegoric, symbolic even obscure texts. 

For this reason most of the modern scholars have erroneously argued that the core of the “marvelous secret” had essentially been the familiarity with minerals and with their processing. The knowledge of the materials necessary for the achievement of the “Great Work” is undoubtedly important but not sufficient for producing the Philosophical Stone. In this respect Alchemy is completely different from the axiom of Chemistry or of any other science, according to which standard parameters in a repeated experiment could repeatedly yield the same results. This principle cannot apply to Alchemy, because this Divine and Sacred Art demands the development of a certain substance to absolute perfection. From this aspect it is related to agriculture, since it also strives for the vigorous thrive of plants, a result, however, different from field to field. The alchemic procedure been different from a chemist’s experiment can be compared to a baker’s work: although he very well knows the quantity of yeast necessary for leavening the bread, his product can occasionally turn out a failure, if he is physically or spiritually ill. In any case, the bread a baker makes looks and tastes differently from the one of the neighboring bakery. 

Apart from the appropriate materials, of great importance for the achievement of the Great Work was the psychological state of the mystic who would attempt to create the Philosophical Stone, which should be serene, self-controlled and devoid of inner passions. After all, the ulterior purpose of Alchemy was the transubstantiation of the performer himself, while the process towards the achievement of the “marvelous work” was merely a “narrow and sad pathway” leading to the liberation of the Spirit.

From : archaiologia