Pseudo-Geber
Pseudo-Geber (or "
The most important work of the Latin pseudo-Geber corpus is the Summa perfectionis magisterii ("The Height of the Perfection of Mastery"), which was likely written slightly before 1310. Its actual author has been tentatively identified as
The existence of Jabir ibn Hayyan as a historical figure is itself in question,
Corpus
The following set of books is called the "pseudo-Geber Corpus" (or the "Latin Geber Corpus"). The works were first edited in the 16th century,[7] but had been in circulation in manuscript form for roughly 200 years beforehand. The stated author is Geber or Geber Arabs (Geber the Arab), and it is stated in some copies that the translator is Rodogerus Hispalensis (Roger of Hispania). The works attributed to Geber include:
- Summa perfectionis magisterii ("The Height of the Perfection of Mastery").
- Liber fornacum ("Book of Furnaces"),
- De investigatione perfectionis ("On the Investigation of Perfection"), and
- De inventione veritatis ("On the Discovery of Truth").
Being the clearest expression of alchemical theory and laboratory directions available until then—in a field where mysticism, secrecy, and obscurity were the usual rule—pseudo-Geber's books were widely read and influential among European alchemists.[8]
The Summa Perfectionis in particular was one of the most widely read alchemy books in western Europe in the late medieval period.[9] Its author assumed that all metals are composed of unified sulfur and mercury corpuscles[10] and gave detailed descriptions of metallic properties in those terms. The use of an elixir for transmuting base metals into gold is explained (see philosopher's stone) and a lengthy defense is given defending alchemy against the charge that transmutation of metals was impossible.
The practical directions for laboratory procedures were so clear that it is obvious the author was familiar with many chemical operations. It contains early recipes for producing
The next three books on the list above are shorter and are, to a substantial degree, condensations of the material in the Summa Perfectionis.
Two further works, Testamentum Geberi and Alchemia Geberi, are "absolutely spurious, being of a later date [than the other four]", as Marcellin Berthelot put it,[13] and they are usually not included as part of the pseudo-Geber corpus. Their author is not the same as the others, but it is not certain that the first four have the same author either.[14] De inventione veritatis has the earliest known recipe for the preparation of nitric acid.[11]
Manuscripts:
- Geber Liber Fornacum translatum [...] per Rodericum Yspanensem, Biblioteca Marciana, Venice, MS. Latin VI.215 [3519].
- Geberi Arabis Philosophi sollertissimi rerum naturalium pertissimi, liber fornacum ad exterienda [...] pertimentum interprete Rodogero Hisaplensi interprete, Glasgow University Library, Ferguson MS. 232.
- Eejisdem 'liber fornacum', ad exercendam chemiam pertinentium, interprete Rodogero Hispalensi, British Library, MS Slane 1068
Early editions:
- 1525: Faustus Sabaeus, Geberis philosophi perspicacissimi Summa perfectionis magisterii in sua natura ex exemplari undecumque emendatissimi nuper edita, Marcellus Silber, Rome.
- 1528, 1529: Geberi philosophi de Alchimia libri tres, Strasbourg
- 1531: Johann Grüninger, Geberi philosophi ac alchimistae maximi de alchimia libri tres, Strasbourg.
- 1541: Peter Schoeffer the Younger, Geberis philosophi perspicacissimi, summa perfectionis magisterii in sua natur ex bibliothecae Vaticanae exemplari (hathitrust.org)
- 1545: Alchemiae Gebri Arabis libri, Nuremberg
- 1572: Artis Chemicae Principes, Avicenna atque Geber, Basel
- 1598: Geberi Arabis de alchimia traditio, Strasbourg.
- 1668: Georgius Hornius, Gebri Arabis Chemia sive traditio summae perfectionis et investigation magisterii, Leiden
- 1682: Gebri, regis Arabum, summa perfectionis magisterii, cum libri invastigationis magisterii et testamenti ejusdem Gebri - et Avicennae minearlium additione, Gdansk
Early translations:
- 1530 Das Buch Geberi von der Verborgenheyt der Alchymia, Strasbourg
- 1551: Giovanni Bracesco, Esposizione di Geber filosofo, Gabriele Giolito de' Ferrari e fratelli, Venice
- 1678: The Works Of Geber, Latin-to-English translation by Richard Russell. Book delivers most of the Pseudo-Geber corpus in English. It was reprinted in 1686.
- 1692:
- 1710: Geberi curieuse vollständige Chymische Schriften, Frankfurt
Authorship
The estimated date for the first four books is 1310, and they could not date from much before that because no reference to the Summa Perfectionis is found anywhere in the world before or during the 13th century. For example, there is no mention in the 13th century writings of Albertus Magnus and Roger Bacon.[19]
The degree of dependence of the corpus from actual Islamic sources is somewhat disputed: Brown (1920) asserted that the pseudo-Geber Corpus contained "new and original facts" not known from Islamic alchemy, specifically mention of
With Brown (1920), Karpenko and Norris (2002) still assert that the first documented occurrence of aqua regia is in pseudo-Geber's De inventione veritatis.
References
- ^ Delva 2017, pp. 36−37, note 6.
- ^ Newman 1985a; Newman 1985b; Newman 1991, pp. 57–103. Cf. Karpenko & Norris 2002, p. 1002; Norris 2006, p. 52, note 48; Principe 2013, pp. 55, 223 (note 10); Delva 2017, p. 38. Newman's position is rejected by Al-Hassan 2009 (also online), who argues that the work was translated from an Arabic original.
- ^ Newman 2001; Newman 2006.
- ^ Ross 1911.
- ^ Delva 2017, p. 38, 53–54.
- ^ This is the dating put forward by Kraus 1942–1943, vol. I, p. lxv. For its acceptance by other scholars, see the references in Delva 2017, p. 38, note 14. Cf. Lory 2008, also referring to Kraus 1942–1943.
- ISBN 978-0-9546484-1-1.
- ISBN 978-0-7661-0015-2. Retrieved 8 June 2010.
- ^ Newman 1991.
- ^ Norris 2006.
- ^ a b c Karpenko & Norris 2002, p. 1002.
- ^ See German article de:Lazarus Ercker.
- ^ a b c Chapter VI: "The Pseudo-Geber" in A History of Chemistry from the Earliest Times (2nd ed., 1920), by J.C. Brown.
- ISBN 978-0-8018-6606-7. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
- ^ Hermann Kopp, Beitraege zur Geschichte der Chemie Drittes Stueck (Braunschweig: Vieweg, 1875), 28-33n.
- ISBN 978-0-486-43802-3, p. 15 and p. 36.
- ^ Newman 1985a; Newman 1985b; Newman 1991, pp. 57–103.
- ^ E.g., by Karpenko & Norris 2002, p. 1002; Norris 2006, p. 52, note 48; Principe 2013, pp. 55, 223 (note 10); Delva 2017, p. 38. It is opposed by Al-Hassan 2009 (also online).
- ^ History of Analytical Chemistry, by Ferenc Szabadváry (1960).
- ^ "[Berthelot] deliberately wanted to underrate Jābir […], the choice of Jābir’s works made by Berthelot is entirely misleading." "It is here that Berthelot’s ignorance of Arabic led him astray. As a matter of fact, the Summa is full of Arabic phrases and turns of speech, and so are the other Latin works", cited after Hassan (2005)
- ^ Makers of Chemistry, by Eric John Holmyard (1931).
- ^ Eric John Holmyard, Alchemy, 1957, page 134: "The question at once arises whether the Latin works are genuine translations from the Arabic, or written by a Latin author and, according to common practice, ascribed to Jabir in order to heighten their authority. That they are based on Muslim alchemical theory and practice is not questioned, but the same may be said of most Latin treatises on alchemy of that period; and from various turns of phrase it seems likely that their author could read Arabic. But the general style of the works is too clear and systematic to find a close parallel in any of the known writings of the Jabirian corpus, and we look in vain in them for any references to the characteristically Jabirian ideas of "balance" and the alphabetic numerology. Indeed for their age they have a remarkably matter of fact air about them, theory being stated with a minimum of prolixity and much precise practical detail being given. The general impression they convey is that they are the product of an occidental rather than an oriental mind, and a likely guess would be that they were written by a European scholar, possibly in Moorish Spain. Whatever their origin, they became the principal authorities in early Western alchemy and held that position for two or three centuries."
- ^ Ahmad Y. Al-Hassan, Cultural contacts in building a universal civilisation: Islamic contributions, published by O.I.C. Research Centre for Islamic History, Art and Culture in 2005 and available online at History of Science and Technology in Islam
- ^ Al-Hassan 2009 (also online).
Works cited
- ISBN 9783487142739. (the same content and more is also available online; a paper with a slightly different title, "The Arabic origin of the Summa and Geber Latin works. A refutation of Berthelot, Ruska and Newman on the basis of Arabic sources", was published in 2011 in the Journal for the History of Arabic Science, 15, pp. 3–54; a paper with the same altered title appears on the author's website)
- Delva, Thijs (2017). "The Abbasid Activist Ḥayyān al-ʿAṭṭār as the Father of Jābir b. Ḥayyān: An Influential Hypothesis Revisited". Journal of Abbasid Studies. 4 (1): 35–61. .
- Karpenko, Vladimír; Norris, John A. (2002). "Vitriol in the History of Chemistry". Chemické listy. 96 (12): 997–1005.
- OCLC 468740510.
- Lory, Pierre (2008). "Kimiā". Encyclopaedia Iranica.
- PMID 2932819.
- Newman, William R. (1985b). "The Genesis of the Summa Perfectionis". Les archives internationales d'histoire des sciences. 35: 240–302.
- ISBN 978-90-04-09464-2.
- ISBN 978-90-04-11516-3.
- ISBN 978-0226576961.
- Norris, John (2006). "The Mineral Exhalation Theory of Metallogenesis in Pre-Modern Mineral Science". Ambix. 53 (1): 43–65. S2CID 97109455.
- ISBN 978-0226103792.
- Ross, Hugh Munro (1911). Chisholm, Hugh (ed.). Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 1 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 520. . In