Turba Philosophorum - hermetics.org

228 Pages·2007·10.91 MB·English

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THE TURBA PHILOSOPHORUM.

ALCHEMY
*//
THE
TURBA PHILOSOPHORUM
..
ASSEMBLY OF THE SAGES
CALLED ALSO THE BOOK OF TRUTH IN THE
ART AND THE THIRD PYTHAGORICAL SYNOD
AN ANCIENT ALCHEMICAL TREATISE TRANSLATED FROM THE LATIN, THE CHIEF
READINGS OF THE SHORTER CODEX, PARALLELS FROM THE GREEK
ALCHEMISTS, AND EXPLANATIONS OF OBSCURE TERMS
BY
ARTHUR EDWARD WAITE
TRANSLATOR OF "THE HERMETIC AND ALCHEMICAL WRITINGS
OF PARACELSUS."
Xon&on
GEORGE REDWAY
1896

PREFACE.
*lpHE Turba Phiksophorum is indisputably the
mostancientextanttreatiseonAlchemyin
the Latin tongue, but it was not, so far as can
beascertained, originally written in Latin ; the
compiler or editor, for in many respects it can
scarcelyberegarded asanoriginal composition,
wrote either in HebreworArabic however, the
;
work,not onlyat thepresent day, butseemingly
during the six or seven centuries when it was
quoted as an authority by all the alchemical
adepts,has been familiar onlyin its Latin garb.
It is not, of course, certain that the original
is irretrievably lost, the Arabic and Syriac
manuscripts treating of early chemistry are
preserved in considerable numbers in the
various libraries of Europe, and have only
been imperiectly explored. Unfortunately,
the present editor has neither the opportunity
nor the qualifications for undertaking such a
task.
There are two codices or recensions of The
Turba Philosophorum, which differ considerably
from one another. What is called in the
following pages the second recension, is
appreciably shorter, clearer, and, on the whole,
the less corrupt of the two, but they are both
2094035
ii. Preface.
in a bad state. The longer recension has been
chosen for the text of the following translation,
because it seemed desirable to give the work
in its entirety. The variations of the second
recension are appended usually in foot-notes,
but where the reading of the text is so corrupt
as to be quite untranslatable, the editor has
occasionally substituted that of the alternative
version, and has in most cases indicated the
course pursued.
Monsieur Berthelot's invaluable text and
translation of the Byzantine Alchemists has
been largely made use of, to illustrate the
striking analogies between the Greek Hermetic
writers of the fourth century and the Turba.
It is to this great scholar and scientist that we
owe the discovery of these analogies, some of
which are very clearly indicated in a chapter
devoted to the subject, and forming
part of his " Essai sur la Transmission de
la Science Antique au Moyen Age." It
follows from M. Berthelot's researches, that
Latin Alchemy, which has always been
rightly referred to an Arabian source,
connects with the Greek Alchemy
which preceded Arabian Science, because
the latter was itself derived from Greece. We
are also enabled to identify, for the first time,
and that with perfect certainty, those ancient
sages, to whom all the Latin literature makes