A note on lapis philosophicus, lapis philosophorum, and some other medieval names of the philosophers’ stone The first occurrences of philosophres ston registered in the Middle English Dictionary are from non-technical poems of the end of the fourteenth century: the Confessio Amantis refers to “the parfit Elixir Of thilke philosophres Ston,” and the Canon’s Yeoman like­ wise refers to the goal of alchemy in the words “The philosophres stoon, Elixir clept, we sechen.” 1 The fact that Gower and Chaucer evidently expected their readers to under­ stand the term although there is no earlier evidence of its circulation in English suggests very strongly that those readers would have encountered it in another language: in this case evidently Latin. In accordance with its usual policy, MED had little to say about the etymology of the English lexical item: it noted that philosophre is “From OFfilosofe & L philosophusf but gave no indication that philosophres ston translated a Latin lexical item. Although there have been a number of discussions of Chaucer’s alchemical know­ ledge, these do not appear to ask where in post-classical Latin the etymon of philosophres ston is first attested. The object of this note is to explore some answers to that question. Their formula­ tion began with consultancy work for the third edition of the Oxford English Dictionary, generated in the course of the revision of the entry philosophers' stone.2 This was origi­ nally published in fascicle Ph-Piper of the first edition of OED, which appeared under the editorship of James Murray in June 1906. This offers a short etymology, “tr. med.L. lapis philosophorum, the stone of the philosophers (see philosopher 2), also lapis philo­ sophions; -icalisf supported by a long note at the end of the entry, as follows: Lapis philosophorum occurs in works attributed to Raymund Lully (1234-1315), and in those of Amoldus de Villa Nova (1240-1314). Probably it was used earlier; it appears in various mediaeval works of uncertain age or doubtful authenticity; e.g. in the Clavis Majoris Sapientiœ attributed to Artefius or Artesius, whose date has been put by some c l 130. In some of these also we find lapis philosophicus, I philosophi­ c a l . But the earlier works (e.g. the mediaeval Latin De Investigatione Perfecti Magis- 1 MED s.v. philosophre sense c. 2 I am grateful to Samantha Schad, Senior Assistant Editor (Etymology), of the Oxford English Dictionary , for commissioning the original research from me, and to her and John Simpson, Chief Editor of the dictionary, for encouraging me to publish it in this form. 2 9 6 JOHN CONSIDINE terii), passing as translated from Geber (Abu Musa Ja’far al-Sufi), usually refer to it simply as Lapis “the Stone,” ornoster lapis “our stone.” Albertus Magnus (1205-82), who doubted the transmutation of metals, refers to it as lapis quern philosophi laudani ubique , “the stone which the philosophers everywhere laud,” and lapis quern honorant philosophi. It is thus possible that philosophorum originated later, as an identifying adjunct to lapis, as if “the Stone, of which all the philosophers speak,” “the Stone of the philosophers,” and that the descriptive phrase grew at length into a specific name or title.3 Although, in the words of the historian of alchemy Robert Halleux, “L’érudition contem­ poraine n’a pas touché au langage de l’alchimie,” twentieth-century advances in learning have made it possible to discard much of what is said here, and to recontextualize the remainder.4 First of all, the sources which Murray cites raise predictable questions of date and authenticity. In 1906, the great majority of alchemical texts were most readily available in big early modem collections, notably the Theatrum chemicum published by Lazarus Zetzner of Strasburg in three volumes in 1602 and subsequently augmented and reprinted, and the two-volume Bibliotheca chemica curiosa edited by Jean-Jacques Manget in 1702.5 These are still indispensable, but they are not works of critical scholarship: they gather a great many texts, but often from late and textually unsatisfactory manuscripts copied in a tradition of the pseudepigraphic attribution of sources. So, for instance, the claim that lapis philosophorum appears in “works attributed to Raymund Lully (1234- 1315)” is true, but not helpful for dating purposes, since although well over a hundred alchemical works were attributed to Lull in and after the Middle Ages, none of them is authentic or even contemporaneous with him, and indeed none is preserved in manu­ scripts older than the fifteenth century.6 The authenticity of the smaller but still extensive alchemical corpus associated with the Catalan medical and theological writer Amau de Vilanova has also been denied by good authorities, though this is a more controversial 3 OEDl s.v. philosophers’ stone ; the final sentence of Murray’s note, “It will be seen that the correct form is not philosopher’s , but philosophers’ stone” is interesting but not relevant to the following argument. 4 Robert H alleux , Les textes alchimiques, Typologie des sources du moyen âge occidental, fase. 32 (Tumhout: Brepols, 1979), 111. 5 Theatrum chemicum, praecipuos selectorum auctorum tractatus de chemiae et lapidis philo- sophici antiquitate, veritate, iure, praestantia & operationibus, continens , 4 vols. (Ursel: Ex officina Comelij Sutorij, sumtibus Lazari Zetzneri, 1602); third edition, 6 vols (Strasburg, sumptibus Heredum Eberh[ardi] Zetzneri, 1659-1661); J. J. Manget , ed., Bibliotheca chemica curiosa, seu rerum ad alchemiam pertinentium thesaurus ... quo non tantum artis auriferae ... historia traditur... verum etiam tractatus omnes virorum celebriorum, qui ...de chrysopoea scripserunt... exhibentur (Geneva: sumpt[ibus] Chouet [et al.], 1702). For these and other printed collections, see H alleux , Textes alchimiques, 91-96 and Carlos Gilly , “Sulla genesi del Theatrum chemicum di L. Zetzner a Strasburgo” / “On the genesis of L. Zetzner’s Theatrum chemicum in Strasbourg”, in Carlos Gilly and Cis van H eertum , eds., Magia, alchimia, scienza dal ‘400 al ‘700: L ’influsso di Ermete Tris- megisto / Magic, alchemy and science 15th-18th centuries: the influence of Hermes Trismegistus (Florence: Centro Di, 2002), 1: 417-67 (Italian and English versions, the former being slightly fuller). 6 Michela Pereira , The alchemical corpus attributed to Raymond Lull, Warburg Institute Surveys and Texts XVIII (London: The Warburg Institute, 1989), 1 and 22. A NOTE ON LAPIS PHILOSOPHICUS, LAPIS PHILOSOPHORUM 297 question.7 So, although the OED note gives the usage of Lull and Amau as evidence for the occurrence of lapis philosophorum by 1315, the year by the end of which both men were dead, this evidence is insufficient. As for Artephius (otherwise Artesius, Artefius), the caution which Murray felt in assigning a date to any work ascribed to him was well- founded. The name is legendary; the date circa 1130 which Murray had encountered may have been a consequence of its identification with “the Arabic poet and alchemist of the xith-xnth century, at-Toghrâ’î,” whose death has been put at 1128, but that identification has long been rejected.8 Although the Clavis maioris sapientiae ascribed to Artephius does appear to be early (a version of the work was apparently known to Roger Bacon in the thirteenth century), it does not, at least in the text given by Manget, come closer to using the phrase lapis philosophorum than in a reference to hoc [but not hoc lapis] ... quod quaesierunt Philosophi.9 The Liber secretus also attributed to Artephius does refer to the lapis philosophorum: gold and silver, it announces, can be transformed in lapidem perfectum philosophorum.10 Its date, however, is far from certain. Murray’s note does not, therefore, give good evidence for determining a terminus a quo for the use of lapis philosophorum. It does suggest that early alchemical texts in Latin might refer to the philosophers’ stone simply as lapis or noster lapis, and the first part of this claim can be confirmed by turning to some of those early texts. One of these, a translation from the Arabic sometimes called the Liber Morieni or the Liber de compo­ stone alchemiae, purports to be the work of Robert of Chester, completed in 1144. The attribution has been challenged, as has the date, but the work is extant in manuscripts of the late thirteenth or early fourteenth century, so it is clearly one of the earlier Latin alchemical texts.11 The version transmitted in these manuscripts does indeed use lapis 7 Pereira sketches the controversy in Alchemical corpus, 4 n 22 and treats it in detail in “Arnaldo da Villanova e l’alchimia: un’indagine preliminare,” in Josep Perarnau , ed., Actes de la I trobada internacional d ’estudis sobre Amau de Vilanova (Barcelona: Institut d’Estudis Catalans, 1995), 2: 95-174, listing the works in question, 135-49; for a statement of the strong sceptical posi­ tion, see Juan Antonio Paniagua , “En tomo a la problemática del corpus científico amaldiano,” ed. cit., 2: 9-22 at 19 and 22. 8 G. Levi della Vida , “Something more about Artefius and his Clavis Sapientiae,” Speculum 13. 1 (1938), 80-85 at 80 n 6; see also H. D. A ustin , “Artephius-Orpheus,” Speculum 12. 2 (1937), 251-254. For the date 1128, see e.g. Lynn Thorndike , History of magic and experimental science, vol. 2 (New York: Macmillan, 1923), 354. 9 “Clavis maioris sapientiae” in M anget , Bibliotheca, 1: 503-9 at 509 col. 2; for the Clavis as known to Roger Bacon, see William R. N ewman , ed., The summa perfections o f pseudo-Geber: a critical edition, translation, and study (Leiden: E. J. Brill, 1991) 42 n 22. 10 Liber secretus, inc. “Antimonium est de partibus saturni,” reprinted from the Theatrum chemicum in William Salmon , Medicina practica, or, Practical physick ...to which is added, the philosophick works o f Hermes Trismegistus, Kalid Persicus, Geber Arabs, Artesius Longaevus, Nicholas Flammei, Roger Bachon and George Ripley (London: for T.