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Ancient Alchemy 2: the sequel

A week has passed since I led a discussion on Pseudo-Democritus, and I managed not to make a complete fool of myself. Actually this discussion went quite well. As often at these kinds of things, questions were posed for which I had no immediate answer, so I promised to write a follow up blog in which such questions would be addressed, hence this sequel.

While my original blog post focused more on the authorship of Pseudo-Democritus and why Democritus was used to imbue these works with authority, this blog will deal more with the nature of the text we looked at, and address those questions which were posed.

For the sake of brevity, we discussed chapters three and fifteen to twenty of On the Making of Purple and Gold: Natural and Secret Questions, using Matteo Martelli's translation of the Greek text. I chose passage three as it featured both the "hidden texts" narrative and necromancy. I thought it was vitally important to include how the narrator called up the ghost of his teacher as this is the only supernatural element of this text. Without it, it would read like a simple craftsman's manual. Chapters fifteen to twenty (twenty is the last passage of this text) illustrated the nature of the work being undertaken by alchemists, and uses the medical trade as a comparative, which interested me, given my research in ancient medicine. 

Textual Analysis (of sorts)

Chapter Three

Critical Dialogues is an open forum, with anyone welcome to join, including undergrads, postgrads, academic staff, and interested members of the public. As a result, I always try not to assume any understanding of the topic, and try to foster an environment where people can ask questions. Well questions came from the very start of the reading.

Since our master died before our initiation was completed, while we were still devoted to investigating the matter, I tried to conjure him from Hades. As soon as I was ready to do it, I immediately conjured him be saying: “Are you giving me any gift in return for what I did for you?” So I spoke, but he kept silence. Since I conjured him several times asking how to combine natures, he replied to me that it was difficult to speak, because he was not allowed to do so by his daemon. He told me only: "The books are in the temple." ...after a little while a feast took place in the temple and all of joined the banquet. We were in the sancta sanctorum when a stele broke up by itself, which at first sight did not contain anything inside. But <...> said that the books of his father had been preserved within this stele, and he took them out and showed them publicly.

The idea that the "master" could demand a gift upon being conjured from Hades was thought to perhaps reflect on the ceremonies associated with summoning the dead, such as the necromancy of Odysseus who provided blood for the ghosts to consume in order to speak. A rudimentary explanation of the nature of daemons in the ancient world was also needed. Georg Luck's chapter on Daemonology in Arcana Mundi (pages 207-22) provides a great introduction to what is a complicated and changing concept in the Graeco-Roman world. 

The temple to which this passage has been identified by scholars as that of the Ptah in Memphis, Egypt. I found this to be interesting because Ptah was the Egyptian god of craftsmen, which seems very appropriate for the manual style of much of this text. It is also curious. Pseudo-Democritus is the earliest surviving alchemical text, and later texts were often attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, the "Hermetic tradition" which was associated with the Egyptian god of writing, Thoth. As this and my previous blog indicate, I am a newbie in relation to alchemical scholarship, but this change in focus made me wonder if the association with Ptah was a result of an earlier tradition being used in this text. In addition to this, according to Quack (page 280, see bibliography below for further details), the hidden texts narrative parallel's a Demotic astrological text kept in Yale's Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. In this case, the temple was in Heliopolis, and the book was written by Imhotep (the architect of the pyramid) identified as the son of Ptah.

There was a question raised in relation to the Greek which I could not answer straight away last week associated with chapter three. One section relating to the "master's" death states:

some people claim that he swallowed a poison for separating soul from body...

I had expected that the Greek word pharmakon (φάρμακον) would appear in the Greek. It is not there. On closer examination, I saw the word δηλητηρίῳ. The Greek word "noxious" dēlētērios (δηλητήριος) from which English derives "deleterious" is sometimes used with pharmakon as understood, thus meaning a "noxious drug" or "poison". 

Chapter three concludes with the phrase which "the master" had not taught his students which was included in his newly discovered books:

Nature delights in nature, nature conquers nature, nature masters nature.

We all agreed that this made absolutely no sense to us at all. Apparently we all lacked the aptitude to be an ancient alchemist's students. Martelli and others say these phrases are based on the principles of sympathy and antipathy which were often used in magic, but the ongoing examples given in the following text seems to be using them more in the manner in which they were used in ancient pharmacology.

Chapters Fifteen to Sixteen

These passages include the author drawing comparisons between the work of these proto-alchemical craftsmen and those doctors who studied drugs. He opens this discussion by referring to these alchemists with the word δημιουργός, which Martelli translates as "artificers", but can also mean "skilled workman", but is a term sometimes also used to describe medical practitioners which might have been deliberate. Later in section, the text reads:

And [you know] that because of their ignorance of the matter young men will be misled and distrustful of this writing, since they do not know that students of physicians who want to prepare a beneficial drug do not set about making it on a rash impulse, but first of all they test which kind of [drug] is hot; which kind, when joined to it, produces a balanced mixture; which kind is cold or wet; and of which kind is the affection, whether it [the drug?] is appropriate for the balanced mixture. In this way they administer the drug that has been judged suitable for good health. 16. On the contrary, these novices who rashly and without reasoning want to prepare a medicine for the soul and for relieving any distress are not aware that they will fail.

The idea that various medicinal ingredients had various properties which needed to be balanced when making compound drugs was well known. According to Galen (the Greek doctor who became the court physician to the Roman emperors in the second century CE), every drug had properties to cool, heat, dry, or moisten, to one of four extents: the first order being the weakest and the fourth the strongest. The also related to the four humours (blood, bile, black bile, and phlegm) and the four elements (earth, wind, fire, and water). For a discussion of Galen's pharmaceutical system which is relatively easy to understand, I recommend Riddle's explanation (pages 169-75). The concept of mixing drugs with sympathy or antipathy was described in Galen, and while Galen tries to remove his ideas of pharmacology from magic, he does not always do this successfully. Keyser says that Galen's pharmacological theory "seems rather like a traditional magical procedure, rationalised by Galen" (page 191).

So Pseudo-Democritus' work draws a comparison between medical and "alchemical" theory which makes some sense. This might also be some of the origins of alchemy's association with health, given the later tradition that the "Philosopher's Stone" had the power to extend life. Galen's works on pharmacology were also continued into medieval alchemy (see Principe's discussion of Arabic alchemy [pages 41-2]). As for the use of antipathy and sympathy, it appears that Bolos (as described in my previous blog someone who was thought once to be the author of this text) used these concepts in his work on the natures of plants in the second century BCE.

The text takes on the medical idea of the nature of drugs and implements it to alchemy, describing how "species" (as Martelli translates) can cleanse, dye, brighten, resist fire, and what effect they might have on metals. I was asked to follow up on what the Greek word translated as "species" in this text; one example of many is:

...so they do not carry out any close examination of the species.

Throughout chapter sixteen and twenty, the author used the noun εἶδος (eidos). Εἶδος, εος, το can mean "form" or "shape", and it was used by the real Democritus in the plural form in his description of various kinds of atoms, so its use might have been a deliberate choice in trying to seem Democritean.

The use of medical allegory makes a lot of sense when looking at the nature of the language used in the text and the materials used to dye metals. The cross-over between "alchemy" and medicine is immediately apparent. The author provides some examples of the nature of "species" used; salt and mercury. Both of these were medicaments used in Graeco-Roman pharmacology. 

Chapter Seventeen

In this chapter, how to use Pontic rhubarb, Aminean wine, and celandine to give silver or copper a golden appearance. I have come across both Pontic rhubarb and Aminean wine as medicaments. The description on how to prepare and use them is paralleled throughout various medical texts. The text says to make the material as thick as a salve/cerate, and describes this as a pharmakon; the vocabulary is distinctly medical. 

Celandine, in the Greek text ἐλύδριον (elydrion), is curious. The word ἐλύδριον only appears 48 times in the Thesaurus Linguae Graecae corpus, and its identification as celandine is dependent on an alchemical lexicon identifying it with χελιδονία (chelidonia), which some suggest is the plant celandine. Of this words 48 appearances, all bar four are in alchemical texts, and the four others medical. According to Martelli, this plant was used in the production of yellow pigments. 

This chapter uses a phrase which makes trying to recreate ancient processes like these very difficult: "as is customary". In this chapter it reads:

When the rhubarb is stale, mix it with the same amount of celandine that has been macerated as is customary.

The text uses the Greek phrase ὡς ἔθος (ōs ethos) both in this chapter, and chapters eighteen and nineteen. The phrase is indicative of presumed knowledge which is some of the hardest knowledge to ascertain from documents. Fortunately, some knowledge (although not this) can be assisted by the inclusion of some illustrations of alchemical tools in the manuscripts from which we get these texts.


This image comes from one of the manuscripts used by Martelli to piece together his text of the four books of Pseudo-Democritus, Codex Parisinus Graecus 2327, and shows a few alchemical apparatuses.

Chapter Eighteen

This chapter continues the use of medical terminology and ingredients commonly used in Graeco-Roman pharmacology. In this case, you are advised to use saffron, and grape juice to make a wash "as is customary." In addition to this it recommends aristolochia, another common medicinal herb, and celandine again to make a salve/cerate. The chapter concludes by saying that: 

Cilician saffron produces the same effect as mercury as well as cassia [produces the same effect as] cinnamon.

Assuming the author is trying to use the cassia and cinnamon section as a comparison, the effect must be significantly similar, as cassia is currently being sold in Australian supermarkets as "Dutch cinnamon", and it has been previously marketed as "baker's cinnamon" as it is similar to cinnamon, but more fragrant.

Chapter Nineteen

The chapter describes making lead appearing like gold by using a mixture of minerals and botanicals. The use of Chian and Parian earth relate to the use of mineral deposits on these islands, but other islands more commonly exported their earths for commercial and medicinal use (see the research of Effie Photos-Jones at Glasgow University). These earths, and alum, which was also used, were once again commonly used in ancient pharmacology. In this recipe, you are directed to also use saffron, safflower flowers, celandine, aristolochia, a saffron-based drug, rhubarb, unburnt sulphur, pyrites, sharpest vinegar, and a type of flower mentioned nowhere else in Greek texts. Apparently making lead appear golden took a lot more effort. To me, it once again has a very ancient pharmacological feel to its ingredients.

Chapter Twenty

The closing of this work references an individual named Pammenes who was referred to as "old author" in later alchemical texts. Other such "old authors" include Hermes (Trismegistus), Agathodaimon, Isis, Cleopatra, Mary the Jewess, Ostanes, and Pibechius. The author also returns back to his medical metaphors. He references the use of various materials used in medicine: dung (although human dung is more unusual), quicklime, and a thorny shrub which might be box-thorn. He names common medical complaints and procedures: wounds made by iron, which were treated differently to other wounds; ophthalmia, a bane in antiquity; and cauterisation. 

Concluding Thoughts

When I first started preparing for this Critical Dialogues, I was astounded by how many botanical ingredients were used throughout this text. This also came as a shock to the participants. Looking back now a week later, I am even more shocked by the very medical nature of some much of this work: its ingredients and the vocabulary used. I am left to ponder if this is the origins of the idea of alchemy providing both wealth and immortality. The description of the medical nature of this work here is really superficial, and I am curious if there is even more if it were looked at even closer.

Gatherings like Critical Dialogues can be very effective for research, as looking at texts with the understanding that some participants have no idea what you are talking about can make you think more deeply about the topic. Interest in the Greek used also made me look more closely at the vocabulary overall. The blog writing and textual preparation has made me better understand this text and ancient alchemy on the whole. 

Ancient Greek alchemy at the time this work was written was not the full blown idea we have of turning base metals into gold while living forever. It seems to have started out as a craft which sought to make things look like gold, as do the third century CE Leiden and Stockholm papyri. While "transmutation" as understood as an alchemical process was not what was sort, you can see its origins as it describes the effect of these recipes in chapter fifteen as a μεταβολή (metabolē): a change, just as the Latin transmutatio means. Alchemy is a difficult subject to understand when you first start looking at these texts, and hell, some of it remains complete gobbledygook to me, as someone with an interest in the ancient history of science, it was worth the angst of getting my head around it.

Bibliography


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