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173-561: Medieval and early modern alchemists associated the Emerald Tablet with the creation of the philosophers' stone and the artificial production of gold . It has also been popular with nineteenth- and twentieth-century occultists and esotericists , among whom the expression " as above, so below " (a modern paraphrase of the second verse of the Tablet ) has become an often cited motto. Tis true without lying, certain and most true. That which

346-861: A syncretic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the Egyptian god Thoth , appeared in Greco-Roman Egypt. These texts, known as the Hermetica , are a heterogeneous collection of works that in the modern day are commonly subdivided into two groups: the technical Hermetica, comprising astrological , medico-botanical , alchemical, and magical writings; and the religio-philosophical Hermetica, comprising mystical-philosophical writings. These Greek pseudepigraphal texts found receptions, translations and imitations in Latin , Syriac , Coptic , Armenian , and Middle Persian prior to

519-513: A German Paracelsian. The image was accompanied by a didactic alchemical poem in German titled Du secret des sages , probably by the same author. The poem explains the symbolism in relation to the Great Work and the classical goals of alchemy: wealth, health, and long life. Initially, it was only accompanied by the text of the Emerald Tablet as a secondary element. However, in printed reproductions during

692-552: A century later. This work has been called "the most popular book of the Latin Middle Ages". A third Latin version can be found in an alchemical treatise dating probably from the 12th century (although no manuscripts are known before the 13th or 14th century), the Liber Hermetis de alchimia (Book of Alchemy of Hermes). This version, known as the "vulgate," is the most widespread. The translator of this version did not understand

865-456: A crucial component of transmutation by later Arab alchemists. In the 11th century, there was a debate among Muslim world chemists on whether the transmutation of substances was possible. A leading opponent was the Persian polymath Avicenna (Ibn Sina), who discredited the theory of the transmutation of substances, stating, "Those of the chemical craft know well that no change can be effected in

1038-720: A detailed parallel between the Table and the first chapter of the Genesis attributed to Moses. In the 15th and 16th centuries, verse versions appear, including an anonymous sonnet revised by the alchemical poet Clovis Hesteau de Nuysement  [ fr ] in his work Traittez de l'harmonie, et constitution generalle du vray sel, secret des Philosophes, & de l'esprit universel du monde (1621): C'est un point aſſuré plein d'admiration, Que le haut & le bas n'est qu'une meſme choſe: Pour faire d'une ſeule en tout le monde encloſe, Des effects merveilleux par adaptation. D'un ſeul en

1211-680: A forced Christian conversion upon all Jews residing in Spain. This mandate apparently achieved only partial success: similar decrees were repeated by later kings as central power was consolidated. These laws either prescribed forcible baptism of the Jews or forbade circumcision, Jewish rites, and the observance of the Sabbath and other festivals. Throughout the 7th century the Jews were persecuted for religious reasons, had their property confiscated, were subjected to ruinous taxes, forbidden to trade and, at times, dragged to

1384-593: A hoped-for spearhead to a "Reconquest" of the far west envisaged by emperor Justinian I . Imperial Roman armies took advantage of Visigothic rivalries and established a government at Córdoba. The last Arian Visigothic king, Liuvigild , conquered most of the northern regions (Cantabria) in 574, the Suevic kingdom in 584, and regained part of the southern areas lost to the Byzantines , which King Suintila recovered in 624. Suintila reigned until 631. Only one historical source

1557-572: A longer history. Elias Ashmole and the anonymous author of Gloria Mundi (1620) claim that its history goes back to Adam , who acquired the knowledge of the stone directly from God. This knowledge was said to have been passed down through biblical patriarchs, giving them their longevity. The legend of the stone was also compared to the biblical history of the Temple of Solomon and the rejected cornerstone described in Psalm 118 . The theoretical roots outlining

1730-552: A male recipient] the earth from the fire, the soft/delicate/gentle/subtle is more noble than the crude/rough/unintelligent/gross , with gentle-being and wisdom [it] ascends from the earth to the heaven and descends to the earth from the heaven, and in [it] is the power of the uppermost and the lowermost, since with [it] is the light of lights therefore the darkness escapes (away) from [it], power of powers it prevails over everything soft/delicate/gentle/subtle , enters into everything crude/rough/unintelligent/gross , against

1903-540: A passage from the Emerald Tablet : "the wind has carried it in its belly; the earth is its nurse," and the explanatory text begins with "Hermes, the most diligent explorer of all natural secrets, describes in his Emerald Tablet the work of nature, albeit briefly and accurately." The first printed edition appears in 1541 in the De alchemia published by Johann Petreius and edited by a certain Chrysogonus Polydorus, who

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2076-655: A people is as obscure as that of the Franks and Alamanni . The Visigoths spoke an eastern Germanic language that was distinct by the 4th century. Eventually the Gothic language died as a result of contact with other European people during the Middle Ages . Long struggles between the neighboring Vandili and Lugii people with the Goths may have contributed to their earlier exodus into mainland Europe. The vast majority of them settled between

2249-406: A psychological process. Idries Shah devotes a chapter of his book, The Sufis , to provide a detailed analysis of the symbolic significance of alchemical work with the philosopher's stone. His analysis is based in part on a linguistic interpretation through Arabic equivalents of one of the terms for the stone ( Azoth ) as well as for sulfur, salt, and mercury. The philosopher's stone is created by

2422-496: A solar citrinity: then will the triangle be perfect, but this likewise must be changed into a circle, that is, into an invariable redness: By which operation the woman is converted into the man, and made one with him, and the senary the first number of the perfect completed by one, two, having returned again to an unit, in which is eternal rest and peace. Rupescissa uses the imagery of the Christian passion, saying that it ascends "from

2595-581: A tenth-century compilation of earlier works that was falsely attributed to Aristotle ), and in the Egyptian alchemist Muhammed ibn Umail al-Tamimi 's (ca. 900 – 960) Kitāb al-māʾ al-waraqī wa-l-arḍ al-najmiyya ( Book of the Silvery Water and the Starry Earth ). The Emerald Tablet was translated into Latin in the twelfth century by Hugo of Santalla as part of his translation of the Sirr al-khalīqa . It

2768-486: A tout fait la meditation, Et pour parents, matrice, & nourrice, on luy poſe, Phœbus, Diane, l'air, & la terre, ou repoſe Cette choſe en qui gist toute perfection. Si on la mue en terre elle a ſa force entiere: Separant par grand art, mais facile maniere, Le ſubtil de l'eſpais, & la terre du feu. De la terre elle monte au Ciel; & puis en terre, Du Ciel elle deſcend, Recevant peu à peu, Les vertus de tous deux qu'en ſon ventre elle enſerre It

2941-473: Is "entirely arguable, but so is the opposite". Wolfram believes that "Vesi" and "Ostrogothi" were terms each tribe used to boastfully describe itself and argues that "Tervingi" and "Greuthungi" were geographical identifiers each tribe used to describe the other. This would explain why the latter terms dropped out of use shortly after 400, when the Goths were displaced by the Hunnic invasions . Wolfram believes that

3114-619: Is a "repentant" alchemist, the Lorraine physician Nicolas Guibert, in 1603. But it is the Jesuit scholar and linguist Athanasius Kircher who launches the strongest attack in his monumental work Oedipus Aegyptiacus (Rome, 1652–1653). He notes that no texts speak of the Emerald Tablet before the Middle Ages and that its discovery by Alexander the Great is not mentioned in any ancient testimonies. By comparing

3287-455: Is a Visigothic chapel from the mid-7th century, built during the reign of Wamba to preserve the remains of the martyr Saint Antoninus of Pamiers , a Visigothic-Gallic nobleman brought from Narbonne to Visigothic Hispania in 672 or 673 by Wamba himself. These are the only remains of the Visigothic cathedral of Palencia. Reccopolis, located near the tiny modern village of Zorita de los Canes in

3460-527: Is a certain point full of admiration, That the high and the low are but one same thing: To make from a single thing enclosed in the whole world, Marvelous effects through adaptation. From one thing, all things have been made by meditation, And for parents, womb, and nourisher, it is established: Phoebus, Diana, air, and earth, where it rests, This thing in which all perfection lies. If you change it into earth, it retains its full power: Separating by great art, but an easy manner, The subtle from

3633-420: Is a mythic alchemical substance capable of turning base metals such as mercury into gold or silver ; it was also known as "the tincture" and "the powder". Alchemists additionally believed that it could be used to make an elixir of life which made possible rejuvenation and immortality . For many centuries, it was the most sought-after goal in alchemy . The philosopher's stone was the central symbol of

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3806-513: Is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations where of the means is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended. Beginning from the 2nd century BC onwards, Greek texts attributed to Hermes Trismegistus,

3979-549: Is above is from that which is below, and that which is below is from that which is above, working the miracles of one [thing]. As all things were from One. Its father is the Sun and its mother the Moon. The Earth carried it in her belly, and the Wind nourished it in her belly, as Earth which shall become Fire. Feed the Earth from that which is subtle, with the greatest power. It ascends from

4152-407: Is an integral part of the rest of the work, in which case it has an alchemical significance from the outset. Recently, it has been suggested that it is actually a text of talismanic magic and that the confusion arises from a mistranslation from Arabic to Latin. Emerald is the stone traditionally associated with Hermes, while mercury is his metal. Mars is associated with red stones and iron, and Saturn

4325-567: Is associated with black stones and lead. In antiquity, Greeks and Egyptians referred to various green-coloured minerals (green jasper and even green granite) as emerald, and in the Middle Ages, this also applied to objects made of coloured glass, such as the "Emerald Tablet" of the Visigothic kings or the Sacro Catino of Genoa (a dish seized by the Crusaders during the sack of Caesarea in 1011, which

4498-402: Is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracle of one only thing. And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in

4671-401: Is clear that some authors "are not concerned with material substances but are employing the language of exoteric alchemy for the sole purpose of expressing theological, philosophical, or mystical beliefs and aspirations". New interpretations continue to be developed around spagyric , chemical, and esoteric schools of thought. The transmutation mediated by the stone has also been interpreted as

4844-639: Is connected with the image of the "Emblem of the Smaragdine Tablet" in the 1599 text Aureum Vellus . It further evolves with Jérôme Torella in his book on astrology, Opus Praeclarum de imaginibus astrologicis (Valence, 1496), in which it is Alexander the Great who discovers a Tabula Zaradi in Hermes' tomb while travelling to the Oracle of Amun in Egypt. This story is repeated by Michael Maier , physician and counselor to

5017-652: Is likely a pseudonym for the Lutheran theologian Andreas Osiander (Osiander also edited Copernicus' On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres in 1543, published by the same printer). This version is known as the "vulgate" version and includes the commentary by Hortulanus. In 1583, a commentary by Gerard Dorn is published in Frankfurt by Christoph Corvinus. In De Luce naturae physica , this disciple of Paracelsus makes

5190-460: Is now referred to as Germanic paganism . While the Germanic peoples were slowly converted to Christianity by varying means, many elements of the pre-Christian culture and indigenous beliefs remained firmly in place after the conversion process, particularly in the more rural and distant regions. The Visigoths, Ostrogoths and Vandals were Christianized while they were still outside the bounds of

5363-468: Is one of those that contain the explanation of the secrets he has hidden from men.'". A similar account can be found in the Latin text known as Tabula Chemica by Senior Zadith, the latinized name of the alchemist Ibn Umail , in which a stone table rests on the knees of Hermes Trismegistus in the secret chamber of a pyramid. Here, the table is not inscribed with text but with "hieroglyphic" symbols. The Book of

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5536-567: Is particularly the case in the late 15th century in the Livre de la philosophie naturelle des métaux by the pseudo- Bernard of Treviso : "The first inventor of this Art was Hermes Trismegistus, for he knew all three natural philosophies, namely Mineral, Vegetable, and Animal." This text influenced a discovery legend claiming the tablet to have been discovered after the Biblical Flood in Hebron valley which

5709-707: Is soluble in any liquid, and incombustible in fire. Alchemical authors sometimes suggest that the stone's descriptors are metaphorical. The appearance is expressed geometrically in Atalanta Fugiens Emblem XXI ;: Make of a man and woman a circle; then a quadrangle; out of this a triangle; make again a circle, and you will have the Stone of the Wise. Thus is made the stone, which thou canst not discover, unless you, through diligence, learn to understand this geometrical teaching. He further describes in greater detail

5882-495: Is the Cintamani , also spelled as Chintamani . It is also referred to as Paras/Parasmani ( Sanskrit : पारसमणि , Hindi : पारस ) or Paris ( Marathi : परिस ). In Mahayana Buddhism, Chintamani is held by the bodhisattvas , Avalokiteshvara and Ksitigarbha . It is also seen carried upon the back of the Lung ta (wind horse) which is depicted on Tibetan prayer flags . By reciting

6055-489: Is the visual expression of the myth of the rediscovery of ancient knowledge—the transmission of this knowledge, in the form of hieroglyphic pictograms, allows it to escape the distortions of human and verbal interpretation. During the Renaissance, the idea that Hermes Trismegistus was the founder of alchemy gained prominence, and at the same time, the legend of the discovery evolved and intertwined with biblical accounts. This

6228-489: Is to say, gardener... I have wanted to write a clear explanation and certain explanation of the words of Hermes, father of philosophers, although they are obscure, and to sincerely explain the entire practice of the true work. And certainly, it is of no use for philosophers to want to hide the science in their writings when the doctrine of the Holy Spirit operates. This text is in line with the symbolic alchemy that developed in

6401-467: Is to say, of every stone discovered in this world." . Starting from 1420, extensive excerpts are included in an illuminated text, the Aurora consurgens , which is one of the earliest cycles of alchemical symbols. One of the illustrations shows the discovery of Hermes' table in a temple surmounted by Sagittarius eagles (representing the volatile elements). This motif is frequently used in Renaissance prints and

6574-439: Is true indeed, the uppermost is from the lowermost and the lowermost is from the uppermost, [it] worked the wonders from one, (just) as all things come from one by means of one plan/with one considered act , [its] father is the sun, [its] mother is the moon, the wind carried [it] in her womb, the earth fed [it], father of talismans, keeper of wonders, perfect in power, fire became earth, separate [ imperative directed at

6747-422: Is unclear if the image was originally drawn using colours or not. The ones which do contain them are coloured as follows gold-sol-visita, silver-luna-interiora, grey-mercury-terrae, blue-tin-rectificando, red-iron-invenies, green-copper, black-lead-lapidem. In the center, there are a ring and a globus cruciger , and at the bottom, there are the spheres of the sky and the earth. Three charges represent, according to

6920-678: The Notitia Dignitatum as equating the Vesi with the Tervingi in a reference to the years 388–391. On the other hand, another recent interpretation of the Notitia is that the two names, Vesi and Tervingi, are found in different places in the list, "a clear indication that we are dealing with two different army units, which must also presumably mean that they are, after all, perceived as two different peoples". Peter Heather has written that Wolfram's position

7093-540: The Kitāb al-ʿilal or The Book of Causes ), an encyclopaedic work on natural philosophy falsely attributed to Apollonius of Tyana ( c.  15–100 , Arabic: Balīnūs or Balīnās ). This book was compiled in Arabic in the late eighth or early ninth century, but it was most likely based on (much) older Greek and/or Syriac sources. In the frame story of the Sirr al-khalīqa , Balīnūs tells his readers that he discovered

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7266-524: The Secretum Secretorum (Secret of Secrets, Sirr al-asrâr ), which presents itself as a pseudo-letter from Aristotle to Alexander the Great during the conquest of Persia. It discusses politics, morality, physiognomy, astrology, alchemy, medicine, and more. The text is also attributed to Hermes but lacks the narrative of the tablet's discovery. The literary theme of the discovery of Hermes' hidden wisdom can be found in other Arabic texts from around

7439-515: The Book of the Secret of Creation is a narrative that explains, among other things, that "all things are composed of four elemental principles: heat, cold, moisture, and dryness" (the four qualities of Aristotle), and their combinations account for the "relations of sympathy and antipathy between beings." Balînûs, "master of talismans and wonders," enters a crypt beneath the statue of Hermes Trismegistus and finds

7612-418: The Book of the Secret of Creation, Kitâb sirr al-Halîka in Arabic. This text presents itself as a translation of Apollonius of Tyana , under his Arabic name Balînûs. Although no Greek manuscript has been found, it is plausible that an original Greek text existed. The attribution to Apollonius, though false (pseudonymous), is common in medieval Arabic texts on magic, astrology, and alchemy. The introduction to

7785-679: The Dharani of Chintamani, Buddhist tradition maintains that one attains the Wisdom of Buddhas, is able to understand the truth of the Buddhas, and turns afflictions into Bodhi . It is said to allow one to see the Holy Retinue of Amitabha and his assembly upon one's deathbed. In Tibetan Buddhist tradition the Chintamani is sometimes depicted as a luminous pearl and is in the possession of several different forms of

7958-508: The Oder and Vistula rivers until overpopulation (according to Gothic legends or tribal sagas) forced them to move south and east, where they settled just north of the Black Sea . However, this legend is not supported by archaeological evidence so its validity is disputable. Historian Malcolm Todd contends that while this large en masse migration is possible, the movement of Gothic peoples south-east

8131-666: The Roman Empire ; however, they converted to Arianism rather than to the Nicene version (Trinitarianism) followed by most Romans, who considered them heretics . There was a religious gulf between the Visigoths, who had for a long time adhered to Arianism, and their Catholic subjects in Hispania. There were also deep sectarian splits among the Catholic population of the peninsula which contributed to

8304-608: The Salarian Gate , and sacked the city . However, Rome, while still the official capital, was no longer the de facto seat of the government of the Western Roman Empire. From the late 370s up to 402, Milan was the seat of government, but after the siege of Milan the Imperial Court moved to Ravenna in 402. Honorius visited Rome often, and after his death in 423 the emperors resided mostly there. Rome's fall severely shook

8477-528: The gens Gothorum or the Hispani . An unknown number of them fled and took refuge in Asturias or Septimania. In Asturias they supported Pelagius's uprising, and joining with the indigenous leaders, formed a new aristocracy. The population of the mountain region consisted of native Astures , Galicians , Cantabri , Basques and other groups unassimilated into Hispano-Gothic society. Other Visigoths who refused to adopt

8650-544: The only new cities founded in Western Europe between the 5th and 8th centuries . It is certain (through contemporary Spanish accounts) that they founded four: Reccopolis , Victoriacum (modern Vitoria-Gasteiz , though perhaps Iruña-Veleia ), Luceo and Olite . There is also a possible 5th city ascribed to them by a later Arabic source: Baiyara (perhaps modern Montoro ). All of these cities were founded for military purposes and three of them in celebration of victory. Despite

8823-487: The province of Guadalajara , Castile-La Mancha, Spain, is an archaeological site of one of at least four cities founded in Hispania by the Visigoths. It is the only city in Western Europe to have been founded between the 5th and 8th centuries. The city's construction was ordered by the Visigothic king Liuvigild to honor his son Reccared and to serve as Reccared's seat as co-king in the Visigothic province of Celtiberia , to

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8996-430: The "alchemical emperor" Rudolf II , in his symbola aureae mensae (Frankfurt, 1617), referring to a Liber de Secretis chymicis attributed to Albertus Magnus . In the same year, he publishes the famous Atalanta Fugiens (Fleeing Atalanta), illustrated by Theodor de Bry with fifty alchemical emblems, each accompanied by a poem, a musical fugue, and alchemical and mythological explanations. The first two emblems depict

9169-600: The "greatest of the Visigothic kings" for he managed to secure territorial gains denied to his predecessors and even acquired access to the Mediterranean Sea . At his death, the Visigoths were the most powerful of the successor states to the Western Roman Empire and were at the very height of their power. Not only had Euric secured significant territory, he and his son, Alaric II , who succeeded him, adopted Roman administrative and bureaucratic governance, including Rome's tax gathering policies and legal codes. At this point,

9342-399: The 10th century. For example, in the Book of Crates , while praying in the temple of Serapis, Crates, a Greek philosopher, has a vision of "an old man, the most beautiful of men, seated in a chair. He was dressed in white garments and held a tablet on the chair, upon which was placed a book [...]. When I asked who this old man was, I was told, 'He is Hermes Trismegistus, and the book before him

9515-602: The 14th century, particularly with the texts attributed to the Catalan physician Arnau de Vilanova , which establish an allegorical comparison between Christian mysteries and alchemical operations. In Ortolanus ' commentary, devoid of practical considerations, the Great Work is an imitation of the divine creation of the world from chaos: "And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation." The sun and

9688-494: The 17th century, the accompanying poem disappeared, and the emblem became known as the Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis , the symbol or graphical representation of the Emerald Tablet , as ancient as the tablet itself. For example, in 1733, according to the alchemist Ehrd de Naxagoras ( Supplementum Aurei Velleris ), a "precious emerald plate" engraved with inscriptions and the symbol was made upon Hermes' death and found in

9861-434: The 18th century with the advent of modern chemistry and the work of Lavoisier . From the late 16th century onwards, the Emerald Tablet is often accompanied by a symbolic figure called the Tabula Smaragdina Hermetis . This figure is surrounded by an acrostic in Latin : Visita interiora terrae rectificando invenies occultum lapidem , lit.   'visit the interior of the earth and by rectifying you will find

10034-499: The 7th century. Two older tribal names from outside the Roman empire are associated with Visigoths who formed within the empire. The first references to any Gothic tribes by Roman and Greek authors were in the third century, notably including the Thervingi , who were once referred to as Goths by Ammianus Marcellinus . Much less is known of the "Vesi" or "Visi", from whom the term "Visigoth"

10207-490: The Arabic word tilasm, which means talisman, and therefore merely transcribed it into Latin as telesmus or telesmum . This accidental neologism was variously interpreted by commentators, thereby becoming one of the most distinctive, yet vague, terms of alchemy. In his 1143 treatise, De essentiis, Herman of Carinthia is one of a few European 12th century scholars to cite the Emerald Tablet. In this text he also recalls

10380-420: The Buddha. Within Hinduism, it is connected with the gods Vishnu and Ganesha . In Hindu tradition it is often depicted as a fabulous jewel in the possession of the Nāga king or as on the forehead of the Makara . The Yoga Vasistha , originally written in the tenth century AD, contains a story about the philosopher's stone. A great Hindu sage wrote about the spiritual accomplishment of Gnosis using

10553-434: The Danube provinces were effectively sealed off by concerted Roman efforts, and while there was no decisive victory to claim, it was essentially a Roman triumph ending in a treaty in 382. The treaty struck with the Goths was to be the first foedus on imperial Roman soil. It required these semi-autonomous Germanic tribes to raise troops for the Roman army in exchange for arable land and freedom from Roman legal structures within

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10726-403: The Eastern Roman Emperor Valens to be allowed to settle with his people on the south bank of the Danube . Here, they hoped to find refuge from the Huns . Valens permitted this, as he saw in them "a splendid recruiting ground for his army". However, a famine broke out and Rome was unwilling to supply them with either the food they were promised or the land. Generally, the Goths were abused by

10899-408: The Egyptian Thoth but the Taaut of the Phoenicians, who is also the founder of the Germanic people under the name of the god Tuisto , mentioned by Tacitus . In the meantime, Kircher's conclusions are debated by the Danish alchemist Ole Borch in his De ortu et progressu Chemiae (1668), in which he attempts to separate the hermetic texts between the late writings and those truly attributable to

11072-440: The Empire's confidence, especially in the West. Loaded with booty, Alaric and the Visigoths extracted as much as they could with the intention of leaving Italy from Basilicata to northern Africa . Alaric died before the disembarkation and was buried supposedly near the ruins of Croton. He was succeeded by his wife's brother. The Visigothic Kingdom was a Western European power in the 5th to 8th centuries, created first in Gaul, when

11245-431: The Empire's military capabilities. Adrianople shocked the Roman world and eventually forced the Romans to negotiate with and settle the tribe within the empire's boundaries, a development with far-reaching consequences for the eventual fall of Rome . Fourth-century Roman soldier and historian Ammianus Marcellinus ended his chronology of Roman history with this battle. Despite the severe consequences for Rome, Adrianople

11418-431: The Empire. The new emperor, Theodosius I , made peace with the rebels, and this peace held essentially unbroken until Theodosius died in 395. In that year, the Visigoths' most famous king, Alaric I , made a bid for the throne, but controversy and intrigue erupted between the East and West, as General Stilicho tried to maintain his position in the empire. Theodosius was succeeded by his incompetent sons: Arcadius in

11591-404: The Goths and their neighbors. After the Romans withdrew from the territory of Dacia, the local population was subjected to constant invasions by the migratory tribes, among the first being the Goths. In 238, the Goths invaded across the Danube into the Roman province of Moesia , pillaging and exacting payment through hostage taking. During the war with the Persians that year, Goths also appeared in

11764-407: The Goths, which was a simplification and literary device, while political realities were more complex. Cassiodorus used the term "Goths" to refer to only the Ostrogoths, whom he served, and reserved the geographic reference "Visigoths" for the Gallo-Spanish Goths. The term "Visigoths" was later used by the Visigoths themselves in their communications with the Byzantine Empire , and was still in use in

11937-438: The Iberian Visigoths maintained their Christian Arianism, especially the Visigothic elite until the end of Liuvigild's reign. When Reccared I converted to Catholicism, he sought to unify the kingdom under a single faith. While the Visigoths retained their Arian faith, the Jews were well tolerated. Previous Roman and Byzantine law determined their status, and it already sharply discriminated against them, but royal jurisdiction

12110-458: The Judges) and Lex Visigothorum (English: Law of the Visigoths), is a set of laws first promulgated by king Chindasuinth (642–653 AD) that had been part of aristocratic oral tradition and were set in writing in the year 654. This book survives in two separate codices preserved at el Escorial (Spain). It goes into more detail than a modern constitution commonly does and reveals a great deal about Visigothic social structure. The code abolished

12283-410: The Muslim faith or live under their rule fled north to the kingdom of the Franks , and Visigoths played key roles in the empire of Charlemagne a few generations later. In the early years of the Emirate of Córdoba , a group of Visigoths who remained under Muslim dominance constituted the personal bodyguard of the Emir , al-Haras . During their long reign in Spain, the Visigoths were responsible for

12456-578: The Philosopher's Stone , As Above, So Below , Fullmetal Alchemist , The Flash and The Mystery of Mamo . The philosopher's stone is an important motif in Gothic fiction , and originated in William Godwin 's 1799 novel St. Leon . Visigoths The Visigoths ( / ˈ v ɪ z ɪ ɡ ɒ θ s / ; Latin : Visigothi, Wisigothi, Vesi, Visi, Wesi, Wisi ) were a Germanic people united under

12629-584: The Philosophers stone, (which is something more than the perfect exaltation of gold) hath taught me a great deale of Divinity. A mystical text published in the 17th century called the Mutus Liber appears to be a symbolic instruction manual for concocting a philosopher's stone. Called the "wordless book", it was a collection of 15 illustrations. The equivalent of the philosopher's stone in Buddhism and Hinduism

12802-655: The Rhine near Mogontiacum (modern Mainz ) the last day of 406 and eventually were invited into Spain by a Roman usurper in the autumn of 409 (the latter two tribes were devastated). This was probably done under hospitalitas , the rules for billeting army soldiers. The settlement formed the nucleus of the future Visigothic kingdom that would eventually expand across the Pyrenees and onto the Iberian peninsula. That Visigothic settlement proved paramount to Europe's future as had it not been for

12975-453: The Roman armies of Gordian III . When subsidies to the Goths were stopped, the Goths organized and in 250 joined a major barbarian invasion led by the Germanic king, Kniva . Success on the battlefield against the Romans inspired additional invasions into the northern Balkans and deeper into Anatolia . Starting in approximately 255, the Goths added a new dimension to their attacks by taking to

13148-471: The Roman legions massacred the families of thousands of barbarian soldiers who were trying to assimilate into the Roman empire, Alaric decided to march on Rome. After two defeats in Northern Italy and a siege of Rome ended by a negotiated pay-off, Alaric was cheated by another Roman faction. He resolved to cut the city off by capturing its port. On August 24, 410, however, Alaric's troops entered Rome through

13321-640: The Romans at the Battle of Adrianople in 378. Relations between the Romans and Alaric's Visigoths varied, with the two groups making treaties when convenient, and warring with one another when not. Under Alaric, the Visigoths invaded Italy and sacked Rome in August 410 . The Visigoths were subsequently settled in southern Gaul as foederati to the Romans, a relationship that was established in 418. This developed as an independent kingdom with its capital at Toulouse , and they extended their authority into Hispania at

13494-498: The Romans lost their control of the western half of their empire and then in Hispania until 711. For a brief period, the Visigoths controlled the strongest kingdom in Western Europe. In response to the invasion of Roman Hispania of 409 by the Vandals , Alans , and Suebi , Honorius , the emperor in the West, enlisted the aid of the Visigoths to regain control of the territory. From 408 to 410

13667-520: The Romans, who began forcing the now starving Goths to trade away their children so as to stave off starvation. Open revolt ensued, leading to 6 years of plundering throughout the Balkans, the death of a Roman Emperor and a disastrous defeat of the Roman army. The Battle of Adrianople in 378 was the decisive moment of the war. The Roman forces were slaughtered and the Emperor Valens was killed during

13840-432: The Secret of Creation was translated into Latin ( Liber de secretis naturae ) in c.  1145–1151 by Hugo of Santalla . This text does not appear to have been widely circulated. The Secret of Secrets ( Secretum Secretorum) was translated into Latin in an abridged 188 lines long medical excerpt by John of Seville around 1140. The first full Latin translation of the text was prepared by Philip of Tripoli around

14013-621: The Umayyad forces in the Battle of Covadonga in 718 and established the Kingdom of Asturias in the northern part of the peninsula. According to Joseph F. O'Callaghan, the remnants of the Hispano-Gothic aristocracy still played an important role in the society of Hispania. At the end of Visigothic rule, the assimilation of Hispano-Romans and Visigoths was occurring at a fast pace. Their nobility had begun to think of themselves as constituting one people,

14186-467: The Visigothic identity emerged from the Gothic War of 376–382 when a collection of Tervingi, Greuthungi and other "barbarian" contingents banded together in multiethnic foederati (Wolfram's "federate armies") under Alaric I in the eastern Balkans , since they had become a multi ethnic group and could no longer claim to be exclusively Tervingian. Other names for other Gothic divisions abounded. In 469,

14359-552: The Visigothic kings, that is, until their transition from Arianism to Catholicism. Conversion to Catholicism across Visigothic society reduced much of the friction between the Visigoths and the Hispano-Roman population. However, the Visigothic conversion negatively impacted the Jews, who came under scrutiny for their religious practices. King Reccared convened the Third Council of Toledo to settle religious disputations related to

14532-540: The Visigothic throne. Sometime in 549, the Visigoth Athanagild sought military assistance from Justinian I and while this aide helped Athanagild win his wars, the Romans had much more in mind. Granada and southernmost Baetica were lost to representatives of the Byzantine Empire (to form the province of Spania ) who had been invited in to help settle this Visigothic dynastic struggle, but who stayed on, as

14705-410: The Visigothic warriors who fought side by side with the Roman troops under general Flavius Aetius , it is perhaps possible that Attila would have seized control of Gaul, rather than the Romans being able to retain dominance. The Visigoths' second great king, Euric , unified the various quarreling factions among the Visigoths and, in 475, concluded the peace treaty with the emperor Julius Nepos . In

14878-770: The Visigoths built several churches in the basilical or cruciform style that survive, including the churches of San Pedro de la Nave in El Campillo, Santa María de Melque in San Martín de Montalbán , Santa Lucía del Trampal in Alcuéscar, Santa Comba in Bande, and Santa María de Lara in Quintanilla de las Viñas. The Visigothic crypt (the Crypt of San Antolín) in the Palencia Cathedral

15051-496: The Visigoths caused so much damage to Rome and the immediate periphery that nearly a decade later, the provinces in and around the city were only able to contribute one-seventh of their previous tax shares. In 418, Honorius rewarded his Visigothic federates by giving them land in Gallia Aquitania on which to settle after they had attacked the four tribes— Suebi , Asding and Siling Vandals , as well as Alans —who had crossed

15224-614: The Visigoths less distinguishable from the indigenous Roman citizens of the Iberian peninsula; when the last Visigothic strongholds fell to the Muslim armies, whose subsequent invasions transformed Spain from the beginning of the 8th century, their Gothic identity faded. In the eighth through 11th centuries, the muwallad clan of the Banu Qasi claimed descent from the Visigothic Count Cassius . During their governance of Hispania,

15397-422: The Visigoths to restore their royal line and re-partition the Visigothic kingdom through Amalaric, who incidentally, was more than just Alaric II's son; he was also the grandson of Theodoric the Great through his daughter Theodegotho. Amalaric reigned independently for five years. Following Amalaric's assassination in 531, another Ostrogothic ruler, Theudis took his place. For the next seventeen years, Theudis held

15570-753: The Visigoths were also the dominant power in the Iberian Peninsula , quickly crushing the Alans and forcing the Vandals into north Africa . By 500, the Visigothic Kingdom, centred at Toulouse , controlled Aquitania and Gallia Narbonensis and most of Hispania with the exception of the Kingdom of the Suebi in the northwest and small areas controlled by the Basques and Cantabrians . Any survey of western Europe taken during this moment would have led one to conclude that

15743-625: The Visigoths were called the "Alaric Goths". The Frankish Table of Nations , probably of Byzantine or Italian origin, referred to one of the two peoples as the Walagothi , meaning "Roman Goths" (from Germanic * walhaz , foreign). This probably refers to the Romanized Visigoths after their entry into Spain. Landolfus Sagax , writing in the 10th or 11th century, calls the Visigoths the Hypogothi . The name Tervingi may mean "forest people", with

15916-466: The ability to heal all forms of illness and prolong the life of any person who consumes a small part of the philosopher's stone diluted in wine. Other mentioned properties include: creation of perpetually burning lamps, transmutation of common crystals into precious stones and diamonds, reviving of dead plants, creation of flexible or malleable glass, and the creation of a clone or homunculus . Numerous synonyms were used to make oblique reference to

16089-668: The alchemical method known as The Magnum Opus or The Great Work. Often expressed as a series of color changes or chemical processes, the instructions for creating the philosopher's stone are varied. When expressed in colours, the work may pass through phases of nigredo , albedo , citrinitas , and rubedo . When expressed as a series of chemical processes it often includes seven or twelve stages concluding in multiplication , and projection . The philosopher's stone has been an inspiration, plot feature, or subject of innumerable artistic works: animations, comics, films, musical compositions, novels, and video games. Examples include Harry Potter and

16262-452: The alchemists' quintessence . From another perspective, Wilhelm Christoph Kriegsmann  [ de ] publishes in 1657 a commentary in which he tries to demonstrate, using the linguistic methods of the time, that the Emerald Tablet was not originally written in Egyptian but in Phoenician . He continues his studies of ancient texts and in 1684 argues that Hermes Trismegistus is not

16435-470: The ancient Egyptian Hermes, among which he inclines to classify the Emerald Tablet . The discussions continue, and the treatises of Ole Borch and Kriegsmann are reprinted in the compilation Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa (1702) by the Swiss physician Jean-Jacques Manget . Although the Emerald Tablet is still translated and commented upon by Isaac Newton , alchemy gradually loses all scientific credibility during

16608-465: The baptismal font. Many were obliged to accept Christianity but continued privately to observe the Jewish religion and practices. The decree of 613 set off a century of difficulty for Spanish Jewry, which was only ended by the Muslim conquest. The political aspects of the imposition of Church power cannot be ignored in these matters. With the conversion of the Visigothic kings to Chalcedonian Christianity ,

16781-466: The basis for court procedure in most of Christian Iberia until the Late Middle Ages , centuries after the demise of the kingdom. The Visigoths were never called Visigoths, only Goths, until Cassiodorus used the term, when referring to their loss against Clovis I in 507. Cassiodorus apparently invented the term based on the model of the " Ostrogoths ", but using the older name of the Vesi, one of

16954-693: The beginning of the Reconquista by Christian troops under Pelagius . The Visigoths founded the only new cities in western Europe from the fall of the Western half of the Roman Empire until the rise of the Carolingian dynasty . Many Visigothic names are still in use in the modern Spanish and Portuguese languages. Their most notable legacy, however, was the Visigothic Code , which served, among other things, as

17127-480: The bishops increased their power, until, at the Fourth Council of Toledo in 633, they selected a king from among the royal family, a practice previously reserved for nobles. This was the same synod that spoke out against those who had been baptized but had relapsed into Judaism. As far as the Visigoths were concerned, the time for religious pluralism "was past". By the end of the 7th century, Catholic conversion made

17300-462: The case with the mage Éliphas Lévi: "Nothing surpasses and nothing equals as a summary of all the doctrines of the old world the few sentences engraved on a precious stone by Hermes and known as the 'emerald tablet'... it is all of magic on a single page.". It also applies to the "curious figure" of the German Gottlieb Latz, who self-published a monumental work Die Alchemie in 1869, as well as

17473-483: The century that followed, the region was dominated by the Councils of Toledo and the episcopacy. In 711, an invading force of Arabs and Berbers defeated the Visigoths during the Battle of Guadalete . The Visigoth king, Roderic , and many members of the Visigothic governing elite were killed and their kingdom rapidly collapsed. This was followed by the subsequent formation of the Kingdom of Asturias in northern Spain and

17646-554: The child-king Amalaric , first to Narbonne , which was the last Gothic outpost in Gaul, and further across the Pyrenees into Hispania. The center of Visigothic rule shifted first to Barcelona , then inland and south to Toledo . From 511 to 526, the Visigoths were ruled by Theoderic the Great of the Ostrogoths as de jure regent for the young Amalaric. Theodoric's death in 526, however, enabled

17819-454: The concept of metal transmutation and attempted to carry out the process. The eighth-century Muslim alchemist Jabir ibn Hayyan ( Latinized as Geber ) analysed each classical element in terms of the four basic qualities. Fire was both hot and dry, earth cold and dry, water cold and moist, and air hot and moist. He theorized that every metal was a combination of these four principles, two of them interior and two exterior. From this premise, it

17992-592: The creation of the macrocosm the work was created, this is my renown and therefore I am named Hermes the threefold with the wisdom. A somewhat shorter version is quoted in the Kitāb Usṭuqus al-uss al-thānī ( The Second Book of the Element of the Foundation ) attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan . Lines 6, 8, and 11–15 from the version in the Sirr al-khalīqa are missing, while other parts seem to be corrupt. Jabir's version

18165-690: The crown of Suintila, this crown was stolen in 1921 and never recovered. There are several other small crowns and many votive crosses in the treasure. These findings, along with others from some neighbouring sites and with the archaeological excavation of the Spanish Ministry of Public Works and the Royal Spanish Academy of History (April 1859), formed a group consisting of: The aquiliform (eagle-shaped) fibulae that have been discovered in necropolises such as Duratón , Madrona or Castiltierra (cities of Segovia ), are an unmistakable example of

18338-432: The dense, and the earth from the fire. From earth it ascends to heaven, and then back to earth, From heaven it descends, gradually receiving, The virtues of both that it encloses in its belly. However, from the beginning of the 17th century onward, a number of authors challenge the attribution of the Emerald Tablet to Hermes Trismegistus and, through it, attack antiquity and the validity of alchemy. First among them

18511-498: The different species of substances, though they can produce the appearance of such change." According to legend, the 13th-century scientist and philosopher, Albertus Magnus , is said to have discovered the philosopher's stone. Magnus does not confirm he discovered the stone in his writings, but he did record that he witnessed the creation of gold by "transmutation". The 16th-century Swiss alchemist Paracelsus ( Philippus Aureolus Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim ) believed in

18684-858: The earth to the heaven and becomes ruler over that which is above and that which is below. A still later version is found in the pseudo-Aristotelian Sirr al-asrār ( Secret of Secrets , tenth century). حقا يقينا لا شك فيه أن الأسفل من الأعلى والأعلى من الأسفل عمل العجائب من واحد بتدبير واحد كما نشأت الأشياء من جوهر واحد أبوه الشمس وأمه القمر حملته الريح في بطنها، وغذته الأرض بلبانها أبو الطلسمات، خازن العجائب، كامل القوى فان صارت أرضا اعزل الأرض من النار اللطيف أكرم من الغليظ برفق وحكمة تصعد من الأرض إلى السماء وتهبط إلى الأرض فتقبل قوة الأعلى والأسفل لأن معك نور الأنوار فلهذا تهرب عنك الظلمة قوة القوى تغلب كل شيء لطيف يدخل على كل شيء كثيف على تقدير العالم الأكبر هذا فخري ولهذا سمّيت هرمس المثلّث بالحكمة اللدنية Philosopher%27s stone The philosopher's stone

18857-429: The east and Honorius in the west. In 397, Alaric was named military commander of the eastern Illyrian prefecture by Arcadius. Over the next 15 years, an uneasy peace was broken by occasional conflicts between Alaric and the powerful Germanic generals who commanded the Roman armies in the east and west, wielding the real power of the empire. Finally, after the western general Stilicho was executed by Honorius in 408 and

19030-435: The emerald tablet in the hands of a seated old man, along with a book. The core of the work is primarily an alchemical treatise that introduces for the first time the idea that all metals are formed from sulfur and mercury, a fundamental theory of alchemy in the Middle Ages. The text of the Emerald Tablet appears last, as an appendix. It has long been debated whether it is an extraneous piece, solely cosmogonic in nature, or if it

19203-450: The emergence of Islam and the Arab conquests in the 630s. These developments brought about various Arabic-speaking empires in which a new group of Arabic-speaking intellectuals emerged. These scholars received and translated the before-mentioned wealth of texts and also began producing Hermetica of their own. Until the early 20th century, only Latin versions of the Emerald Tablet were known, with

19376-505: The equation of Vesi with the Tervingi, argues that while primary sources occasionally list all four names (as in, for example, Gruthungi, Austrogothi, Tervingi, Visi ), whenever they mention two different tribes, they always refer either to "the Vesi and the Ostrogothi" or to "the Tervingi and the Greuthungi", and they never pair them up in any other combination. In addition, Wolfram interprets

19549-453: The existence of alkahest , which he thought to be an undiscovered element from which all other elements (earth, fire, water, air) were simply derivative forms. Paracelsus believed that this element was, in fact, the philosopher's stone. The English philosopher Sir Thomas Browne in his spiritual testament Religio Medici (1643) identified the religious aspect of the quest for the philosopher's Stone when declaring: The smattering I have of

19722-658: The expense of the Suebi and Vandals who had taken control of large swathes of Roman territory. In 507, Visigothic rule in Gaul was ended by the Franks under Clovis I , who defeated them in the Battle of Vouillé . It is within what is now Spain and Portugal that the Visigoths created the polity for which they are best remembered. During their governance of Hispania, the Visigoths built several churches that survived and left many artifacts, items which have been discovered in increasing numbers by archaeologists in recent years. The Treasure of Guarrazar of votive crowns and crosses are

19895-694: The fact that the Visigoths reigned in Spain for upwards of 250 years, there are few remnants of the Gothic language borrowed into Spanish. The Visigoths as heirs of the Roman empire lost their language and intermarried with the Hispano-Roman population of Spain. A genetic study published in Science in March 2019 examined the remains of eight Visigoths buried at Pla de l'Horta in the 6th century. These individuals displayed genetic links to northern and central Europe . The Visigothic Code of Law ( Latin : Forum Iudicum), also called Liber Iudiciorum (English: Book of

20068-416: The fighting. Precisely how Valens fell remains uncertain but Gothic legend tells of how the emperor was taken to a farmhouse, which was set on fire above his head, a tale made more popular by its symbolic representation of a heretical emperor receiving hell's torment. Many of Rome's leading officers and some of their most elite fighting men died during the battle which struck a major blow to Roman prestige and

20241-428: The first part of the name related to Gothic triu , and English "tree". This is supported by evidence that geographic descriptors were commonly used to distinguish people living north of the Black Sea both before and after Gothic settlement there, by evidence of forest-related names among the Tervingi, and by the lack of evidence for an earlier date for the name pair Tervingi–Greuthungi than the late third century. That

20414-457: The fourth-century Tervingian king Athanaric , and the Ostrogoth kings from Theoderic the Great to Theodahad as the heirs of the Greuthungi king Ermanaric . Based on this, many scholars have traditionally treated the terms "Vesi" and "Tervingi" as referring to one distinct tribe, while the terms "Ostrogothi" and " Greuthungi " were used to refer to another. Wolfram, who still recently defends

20587-438: The hidden stone' whose seven initials form the word Old French : vitriol , lit.   'sulphuric acid'. At the top, the sun and moon pour into a cup above the symbol of mercury. Around the mercurial cup are the four other planets, representing the classic association between the seven planets and the seven metals: Sol/Gold, Luna/Silver, Mercury/ Quicksilver , Jupiter/Tin, Mars/Iron, Venus/Copper, Saturn/Lead. It

20760-474: The high point of Visigothic goldsmithery. The two most important votive crowns are those of Recceswinth and of Suintila , displayed in the National Archaeological Museum of Madrid; both are made of gold, encrusted with sapphires, pearls and other precious stones. The discoverer of the second lot gave Spanish Queen Elizabeth II some of the pieces that she still had in her possession, including

20933-413: The imaginary, the past and the future, the communicable and the incommunicable, the high and the low, cease to be perceived as contradictory. However, in vain would one seek any motive other than the hope for the determination of this point in surrealist activity.". Although some commentators mainly see the influence of the philosopher Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in this statement, Hegel's philosophy itself

21106-465: The meaning of secret was retained. Around 1275–1280, Roger Bacon translated and commented on the Secret of Secrets , and through a completely alchemical interpretation of the Emerald Tablet, made it an allegorical summary of the Great Work . The most well-known commentary is that of Hortulanus, an alchemist about whom very little is known, in the first half of the 14th century: I, Hortulanus, that

21279-451: The medieval allegories of Christ were adopted for the lapis , and the Christ and the Stone were indeed taken as identical in a mystical sense. The name of "Stone" or lapis itself is informed by early Christian allegory, such as Priscillian (4th century), who stated, Unicornis est Deus, nobis petra Christus, nobis lapis angularis Jesus, nobis hominum homo Christus (One-horned is God, Christ

21452-447: The metaphor of the philosopher's stone. Sant Jnaneshwar (1275–1296) wrote a commentary with 17 references to the philosopher's stone that explicitly transmutes base metal into gold. The seventh-century Siddhar Thirumoolar in his classic Tirumandhiram explains man's path to immortal divinity. In verse 2709 he declares that the name of God, Shiva is an alchemical vehicle that turns the body into immortal gold. Another depiction of

21625-512: The metaphysical nature of the meaning of the emblem as a divine union of feminine and masculine principles: In like manner the Philosophers would have the quadrangle reduced into a triangle, that is, into body, Spirit, and Soul, which three do appear in three previous colors before redness, for example, the body or earth in the blackness of Saturn, the Spirit in a lunar whiteness, as water, the Soul or air in

21798-403: The moon represent alchemical gold and silver. Hortulanus interprets "telesma" as "secret" or "treasure": "It is written afterward: 'The father of all telesma of the world is here,' that is to say: in the work of the stone is found the final path. And note that the philosopher calls the operation 'father of all telesma,' that is to say, of all the secret or all the treasure of the entire world, that

21971-577: The most spectacular among the finds thus far. In or around 589, the Visigoths under Reccared I converted from Arian Christianity to Nicene Christianity , gradually adopting the culture of their Hispano-Roman subjects. Their legal code, the Visigothic Code (completed in 654), abolished the longstanding practice of applying different laws for Hispano-Roman population and Visigoths. Once legal distinctions were no longer being made between Romani and Gothi , they became known collectively as Hispani . In

22144-545: The mystical terminology of alchemy, symbolizing perfection at its finest, divine illumination , and heavenly bliss. Efforts to discover the philosopher's stone were known as the Magnum Opus ("Great Work"). The earliest known written mention of the philosopher's stone is about 4000 years ago in an ancient stone carving, then again in the Cheirokmeta by Zosimos of Panopolis ( c.  300 AD ). Alchemical writers assign

22317-454: The name Tervingi has pre-Pontic, possibly Scandinavian, origins still has support today. The Visigoths are called Wesi or Wisi by Trebellius Pollio , Claudian and Sidonius Apollinaris. The word is Gothic for "good", implying the "good or worthy people", related to Gothic iusiza "better" and a reflex of Indo-European * wesu "good", akin to Welsh gwiw "excellent", Greek eus "good", Sanskrit vásu-ş "id.". Jordanes relates

22490-435: The old tradition of having different laws for Romans ( leges romanae ) and Visigoths ( leges barbarorum ), and under which all the subjects of the Visigothic kingdom ceased being romani and gothi and instead became hispani . All the kingdom's subjects were under the same jurisdiction, which eliminated social and legal differences and facilitated greater assimilation of the various population groups. The Visigothic Code marks

22663-460: The oldest dating back to the 12th century. The first Arabic versions were rediscovered by the English historian of science E.J. Holmyard (1891-1959) and the German orientalist Julius Ruska (1867-1949). The Emerald Tablet has been found in various ancient Arabic works in different versions. The oldest version is found as an appendix in a treatise believed to have been composed in the 9th century, known as

22836-464: The people Zosimus describes were those Tervingi who had remained behind after the Hunnic conquest. For the most part, all of the terms discriminating between different Gothic tribes gradually disappeared after they moved into the Roman Empire. Many recent scholars, such as Peter Heather , have concluded that Visigothic group identity emerged only within the Roman Empire. Roger Collins also believes that

23009-536: The philosopher's stone is the Shyāmantaka Mani ( श्यामन्तक मणि ). According to Hindu mythology, the Shyāmantaka Mani is a ruby, capable of preventing all natural calamities such as droughts, floods, etc. around its owner, as well as producing eight bhāras (≈170 pounds or 700 kilograms) of gold, every day. The most commonly mentioned properties are the ability to transmute base metals into gold or silver, and

23182-458: The phrase Latin : Pater omnis telesmi , lit.   'Father of all telesms' by claiming it is synonymous with Latin : Pater omnis secreti , lit.   'Father of everything secret'. The translator followed this claim with the assertion that a superior kind of divination among the Arabs is called Latin : Thelesmus . In subsequent commentaries of the Emerald Tablet only

23355-417: The plural form of the word for philosopher . Thus a literal translation would be philosophers' stone rather than philosopher's stone . Descriptions of the philosopher's stone are numerous and various. According to alchemical texts, the stone of the philosophers came in two varieties, prepared by an almost identical method: white (for the purpose of making silver), and red (for the purpose of making gold),

23528-411: The poem, the three principles ( tria prima ) of the alchemical theory of Paracelsus: Eagle/Mercury/Spirit, Lion/Sulfur/Soul, and Star/Salt/Body. Finally, two Schwurhands accompany the picture attesting its creator's veracity. The oldest known reproduction is a copy dated 1588-89 of a manuscript that was circulating anonymously at the time and was likely written in the second half of the 16th century by

23701-429: The religious conversion from Arianism to Catholicism. The discriminatory laws passed at this Council seem not to have been universally enforced, however, as indicated by several more Councils of Toledo that repeated these laws and extended their stringency. These entered canon law and became legal precedents in other parts of Europe as well. The culmination of this process occurred under King Sisibut, who officially decreed

23874-425: The rock to us, Jesus the cornerstone to us, Christ the man of men to us.) In some texts, it is simply called "stone", or our stone, or in the case of Thomas Norton's Ordinal, "oure delycious stone". The stone was frequently praised and referred to in such terms. It may be noted that the Latin expression lapis philosophorum , as well as the Arabic ḥajar al-falāsifa from which the Latin derives, both employ

24047-422: The rule of a king and living within the Roman Empire during late antiquity . The Visigoths first appeared in the Balkans, as a Roman-allied barbarian military group united under the command of Alaric I . Their exact origins are believed to have been diverse but they probably included many descendants of the Thervingi who had moved into the Roman Empire beginning in 376 and had played a major role in defeating

24220-528: The sea and invading harbors which brought them into conflict with the Greeks as well. When the city of Pityus fell to the Goths in 256, the Goths were further emboldened. Sometime between 266 and 267, the Goths raided Greece but when they attempted to move into the Bosporus straits to attack Byzantium, they were repulsed. Along with other Germanic tribes, they attacked further into Anatolia, assaulting Crete and Cyprus on

24393-494: The sepulcher of the Most Excellent King, shining and glorious, resuscitated from the dead and wearing a red diadem...". The various names and attributes assigned to the philosopher's stone have led to long-standing speculation on its composition and source. Exoteric candidates have been found in metals, plants, rocks, chemical compounds, and bodily products such as hair, urine, and eggs. Justus von Liebig states that 'it

24566-467: The starting ingredient for the creation of the philosopher's stone. The importance of this philosophical first matter persisted throughout the history of alchemy. In the seventeenth century, Thomas Vaughan writes, "the first matter of the stone is the very same with the first matter of all things." In the Byzantine Empire and the Arab empires , early medieval alchemists built upon the work of Zosimos. Byzantine and Muslim alchemists were fascinated by

24739-425: The stone's creation can be traced to Greek philosophy. Alchemists later used the classical elements , the concept of anima mundi , and Creation stories presented in texts like Plato 's Timaeus as analogies for their process. According to Plato , the four elements are derived from a common source or prima materia (first matter), associated with chaos . Prima materia is also the name alchemists assign to

24912-1037: The stone, such as "white stone" ( calculus albus , identified with the calculus candidus of Revelation 2:17 which was taken as a symbol of the glory of heaven ), vitriol (as expressed in the backronym Visita Interiora Terrae Rectificando Invenies Occultum Lapidem ), also lapis noster , lapis occultus , in water at the box , and numerous oblique, mystical or mythological references such as Adam , Aer, Animal, Alkahest, Antidotus, Antimonium , Aqua benedicta, Aqua volans per aeram, Arcanum , Atramentum, Autumnus, Basilicus, Brutorum cor, Bufo, Capillus, Capistrum auri, Carbones, Cerberus , Chaos , Cinis cineris, Crocus , Dominus philosophorum, Divine quintessence, Draco elixir, Filius ignis, Fimus, Folium, Frater, Granum, Granum frumenti, Haematites, Hepar, Herba, Herbalis, Lac, Melancholia, Ovum philosophorum, Panacea salutifera, Pandora , Phoenix , Philosophic mercury, Pyrites, Radices arboris solares, Regina, Rex regum, Sal metallorum, Salvator terrenus, Talcum, Thesaurus, Ventus hermetis . Many of

25085-453: The story of the tablet's discovery under a statue of Hermes in a cave from the Book of the Secret of Creation. Carinthia was a friend of Robert of Chester , who in 1144 translated the Liber de compositione alchimiae , which is generally considered to be the first Latin translation of an Arabic treatise on alchemy. An anonymous 12th-century commentator tried to explain the neologism telesmus in

25258-527: The text in a vault below a statue of Hermes in Tyana , and that, inside the vault, an old corpse on a golden throne held the emerald tablet. Slightly different versions of the Emerald Tablet also appear in the Kitāb Usṭuqus al-uss al-thānī ( The Second Book of the Element of the Foundation , c.  850–950 ) attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan , in the longer version of the Sirr al-asrār ( The Secret of Secrets ,

25431-460: The theosophist Helena Blavatsky and the perennialist Titus Burckhardt. At the beginning of the 20th century, alchemical thought resonated with the surrealists, and André Breton incorporated the main axiom of the Emerald Tablet into the Second Manifesto of Surrealism (1930): "Everything leads us to believe that there exists a certain point of the spirit from which life and death, the real and

25604-667: The throne according to the Chronica Regum Visigothorum . The kingdom survived until 711, when King Roderic (Rodrigo) was killed while opposing an invasion from the south by the Umayyad Caliphate in the Battle of Guadalete . This marked the beginning of the Umayyad conquest of Hispania , when most of the Iberian Peninsula came under Islamic rule in the early 8th century. A Visigothic nobleman, Pelayo , defeated

25777-600: The toleration of the Arian Visigoths on the peninsula. The Visigoths scorned to interfere among Catholics but were interested in decorum and public order. King Liuvigild (568–586), attempted to restore political unity between the Visigothic-Arian elite and the Hispano-Roman Nicene Catholic population through a doctrinal settlement of compromise on matters of faith, but this failed. Sources indicate that

25950-427: The transition from Roman law to Germanic law . One of the greatest contributions of the Visigoths to family law was their protection of the property rights of married women, which was continued by Spanish law and ultimately evolved into the community property system now in force throughout the majority of western Europe. Before the Middle Ages , the Visigoths, as well as other Germanic peoples, followed what

26123-405: The treaty the emperor was called a friend ( amicus ) to the Visigoths, while requiring them to address him as lord ( dominus ). Though the emperor did not legally recognize Gothic sovereignty, according to some views under this treaty the Visigothic kingdom became an independent kingdom. Between 471 and 476, Euric captured most of southern Gaul. According to historian J. B. Bury, Euric was probably

26296-412: The tribal names which the fifth-century poet Sidonius Apollinaris , had already used when referring to the Visigoths. The first part of the Ostrogoth name is related to the word "east", and Jordanes , the medieval writer, later clearly contrasted them in his Getica , stating that "Visigoths were the Goths of the western country." According to Wolfram, Cassiodorus created this east–west understanding of

26469-595: The tribe's name to a river, though this is probably a folk etymology or legend like his similar story about the Greuthung name. The Visigoths emerged from the Gothic tribes, probably a derivative name for the Gutones , a people believed to have their origins in Scandinavia and who migrated southeastwards into eastern Europe. Such understanding of their origins is largely the result of Gothic traditions and their true genesis as

26642-902: The twelfth century). The earliest known version of the Emerald Tablet on which all later versions were based is found in pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana's Sirr al-khalīqa wa-ṣanʿat al-ṭabīʿa ( The Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature ). حقٌّ لا شكَّ فيه صَحيح، إنّ الأعلى من الأسفل والأسفل من الأعلى، عمل العجائب من واحد كما كانت الأشياء كلّها من واحد بتدبير واحد، أبوه الشمس، أُمّه القمر، حملته الريح في بطنها، غذته الأرض، أبو الطِّلسمات، خازن العجائب، كامل القوى، نار صارت أرضاً ٱعزِل الأرض من النار، اللطيف أكرم من الغليظ، برِفق وحُكم يصعد من الأرض إلى السماء وينزل إلى الأرض من السماء، وفيه قُوّة الأعلى والأسفل، لأنّ معه نور الأنوار فلذلك تهرب منه الظُّلمة، قُوّة القوى يغلب كلّ شيء لطيف، يدخل في كلّ شيء غليظ، على تكوين العالَم الأكبر تكوّن العمل، فهذا فَخْرِي ولذلك سُمّيتُ هرمس المثلَّث بالحكمة. (a) truth; no doubt [it]

26815-401: The valley of Ebron by a woman named Zora. This emblem is placed within the mysterious tradition of Egyptian hieroglyphs and the idea of Platonists and alchemists during the Renaissance that the "deepest secrets of nature could only be expressed appropriately through an obscure and veiled mode of representation". Alchemy and its alleged "foundational text" continue to interest occultists. This is

26988-412: The very future of Europe itself "depended on the Visigoths". However, in 507, the Franks under Clovis I defeated the Visigoths in the Battle of Vouillé and wrested control of Aquitaine. King Alaric II was killed in battle. French national myths romanticize this moment as the time when a previously divided Gaul morphed into the united kingdom of Francia under Clovis. Visigothic power throughout Gaul

27161-417: The vocabulary used with that of the Corpus Hermeticum (which had been proven by Isaac Casaubon in 1614 to date only from the 2nd or 3rd century AD), he affirms that the Emerald Tablet is a forgery by a medieval alchemist. As for the alchemical teaching of the Emerald Tablet, it is not limited to the philosopher's stone and the transmutation of metals but concerns "the deepest substance of each thing,"

27334-428: The way; shortly thereafter, they pillaged Troy and the temple of Artemis at Ephesus. Throughout the reign of emperor Constantine the Great , the Visigoths continued to conduct raids on Roman territory south of the Danube River. By 332, relations between the Goths and Romans were stabilized by a treaty but this was not to last. The Goths remained in Dacia until 376, when one of their leaders, Fritigern , appealed to

27507-434: The west of Carpetania , where the main capital, Toledo, lay. In Spain, an important collection of Visigothic metalwork was found in Guadamur , in the Province of Toledo , known as the Treasure of Guarrazar . This archeological find is composed of twenty-six votive crowns and gold crosses from the royal workshop in Toledo, with signs of Byzantine influence. According to Spanish archaeologists, this treasure represents

27680-435: The white stone being a less matured version of the red stone. Some ancient and medieval alchemical texts leave clues to the physical appearance of the stone of the philosophers, specifically the red stone. It is often said to be orange (saffron coloured) or red when ground to powder. Or in a solid form, an intermediate between red and purple, transparent and glass-like. The weight is spoken of as being heavier than gold, and it

27853-423: The whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the earth to the heaven and again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force

28026-487: Was again translated into Latin along with the thirteenth-century translation of the longer version of the pseudo-Aristotelian Sirr al-asrār (Latin: Secretum secretorum ). However, the Latin translation which formed the basis for all later versions (the so-called 'Vulgate') was originally part of an anonymous compilation of alchemical commentaries on the Emerald Tablet variously called Liber Hermetis de alchimia , Liber dabessi , or Liber rebis (first half of

28199-411: Was believed to have been offered by the Queen of Sheba to Solomon and used during the Last Supper ). This version of the Emerald Tablet is also found in the Kitab Ustuqus al-Uss al-Thani (Elementary Book of the Foundation) attributed to the 8th-century alchemist Jâbir ibn Hayyân , known in Europe by the latinized name Geber . Another version is found in an eclectic book from the 10th century,

28372-413: Was derived. Before Sidonius Apollinaris, the Vesi were first mentioned in the Notitia Dignitatum , a late-4th- or early-5th-century list of Roman military forces. This list also contains the last mention of the " Thervingi " in a classical source. Although he did not refer to the Vesi, Tervingi or Greuthungi, Jordanes identified the Visigothic kings from Alaric I to Alaric II as the successors of

28545-444: Was in any case quite limited: local lords and populations related to Jews as they saw fit. We read of rabbis being asked by non-Jews to bless their fields, for example. Historian Jane Gerber relates that some of the Jews "held ranking posts in the government or the army; others were recruited and organized for garrison service; still others continued to hold senatorial rank". In general, then, they were well respected and well treated by

28718-404: Was indispensable that every substance accessible... should be observed and examined'. Alchemists once thought a key component in the creation of the stone was a mythical element named carmot. Esoteric hermetic alchemists may reject work on exoteric substances, instead directing their search for the philosopher's stone inward. Though esoteric and exoteric approaches are sometimes mixed, it

28891-406: Was influenced by Jakob Böhme. Like most other works attributed to Hermes Trismegistus , the Emerald Tablet is very hard to date with any precision, but generally belongs to the late antique period (between c.  200 and c.  800 ). The oldest known source of the text is the Sirr al-khalīqa wa-ṣanʿat al-ṭabīʿa ( The Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature , also known as

29064-420: Was not lost in its entirety due to the support from the powerful Ostrogothic king in Italy, Theodoric the Great , whose forces pushed Clovis I and his armies out of Visigothic territories. Theodoric the Great's assistance was not some expression of ethnic altruism, but formed part of his plan to extend his power across Spain and its associated lands. After Alaric II's death, Visigothic nobles spirited his heir,

29237-410: Was not nearly as productive overall for the Visigoths and their gains were short-lived. Still confined to a small and relatively impoverished province of the Empire, another Roman army was being gathered against them, an army which also had amid its ranks other disaffected Goths. Intense campaigns against the Visigoths followed their victory at Adrianople for upwards of three years. Approach routes across

29410-425: Was probably the result of warrior bands moving closer to the wealth of Ukraine and the cities of the Black Sea coast. Perhaps what is most notable about the Gothic people in this regard was that by the middle of the third century AD, they were "the most formidable military power beyond the lower Danube frontier". Throughout the 3rd and 4th centuries there were numerous conflicts and exchanges of varying types between

29583-480: Was reasoned that the transmutation of one metal into another could be effected by the rearrangement of its basic qualities. This change would be mediated by a substance, which came to be called xerion in Greek and al-iksir in Arabic (from which the word elixir is derived). It was often considered to exist as a dry red powder (also known as al-kibrit al-ahmar , red sulfur) made from a legendary stone—the philosopher's stone. The elixir powder came to be regarded as

29756-419: Was translated by Eric J. Holmyard : حقا يقينا لا شك فيه إن الأعلى من الأسفل والأسفل من الأعلى عمل العجائب من واحد كما كانت الأشياء كلها من واحد وأبوه الشمس وأمه القمر حملته الأرض في بطنها وغذته الريح في بطنها نار صارت أرضا اغذوا الأرض من اللطيف بقوة القوى يصعد من الأرض إلى السماء فيكون مسلطا على الأعلى والأسفل Truth! Certainty! That in which there is no doubt! That which

29929-499: Was written between the years 625 through 711, which comes from Julian of Toledo and only deals with the years 672 and 673. Wamba was the king of the Visigoths from 672 to 680. During his reign, the Visigothic kingdom encompassed all of Hispania and part of southern Gaul known as Septimania . Wamba was succeeded by King Ervig, whose rule lasted until 687. Collins observes that "Ervig proclaimed Egica as his chosen successor" on 14 November 687. In 700, Egica's son Wittiza followed him on

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