Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The History of Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures
- Part I The Greek-Arabic Scientific Tradition and Its Appropriation, Adaptation, and Development in Medieval Jewish Cultures, East and West
- Part II Individual Sciences as Studied and Practiced by Medieval Jews
- 5 Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture
- 6 Astronomy among Jews in the Middle Ages
- 7 Interactions between Jewish and Christian Astronomers in the Iberian Peninsula
- 8 The Hebrew Mathematics Culture (Twelfth–Sixteenth Centuries)
- 9 Mathematical and Physical Optics in Medieval Jewish Scientific Thought
- 10 The Evolution of the Genre of the Philosophical-Scientific Commentary
- 11 Latin Scholastic Influences on Late Medieval Hebrew Physics
- 12 Meteorology and Zoology in Medieval Hebrew Texts
- 13 The Mental Faculties and the Psychology of Sleep and Dreams
- 14 Toward a History of Hebrew Astrological Literature
- 15 Astrology in Medieval Jewish Thought (Twelfth–Fourteenth Centuries)
- 16 Astral Magic and Specific Properties (Segullot) in Medieval Jewish Thought
- 17 Medicine among Medieval Jews
- 18 Alchemy in Medieval Jewish Cultures
- 19 The Science of Language among Medieval Jews
- Part III Scientific Knowledge in Context
- Name Index*
- Subject Index*
- References
18 - Alchemy in Medieval Jewish Cultures
A Noted Absence
from Part II - Individual Sciences as Studied and Practiced by Medieval Jews
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Contributors
- Preface and Acknowledgments
- Introduction: The History of Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures
- Part I The Greek-Arabic Scientific Tradition and Its Appropriation, Adaptation, and Development in Medieval Jewish Cultures, East and West
- Part II Individual Sciences as Studied and Practiced by Medieval Jews
- 5 Logic in Medieval Jewish Culture
- 6 Astronomy among Jews in the Middle Ages
- 7 Interactions between Jewish and Christian Astronomers in the Iberian Peninsula
- 8 The Hebrew Mathematics Culture (Twelfth–Sixteenth Centuries)
- 9 Mathematical and Physical Optics in Medieval Jewish Scientific Thought
- 10 The Evolution of the Genre of the Philosophical-Scientific Commentary
- 11 Latin Scholastic Influences on Late Medieval Hebrew Physics
- 12 Meteorology and Zoology in Medieval Hebrew Texts
- 13 The Mental Faculties and the Psychology of Sleep and Dreams
- 14 Toward a History of Hebrew Astrological Literature
- 15 Astrology in Medieval Jewish Thought (Twelfth–Fourteenth Centuries)
- 16 Astral Magic and Specific Properties (Segullot) in Medieval Jewish Thought
- 17 Medicine among Medieval Jews
- 18 Alchemy in Medieval Jewish Cultures
- 19 The Science of Language among Medieval Jews
- Part III Scientific Knowledge in Context
- Name Index*
- Subject Index*
- References
Summary
The term “alchemy” is to be understood here as the doctrine affirming the possibility of the transmutation of metals, particularly of base metals, into noble ones. Related theories that are not essential to the alchemical doctrine, such as that affirming a correspondence between the seven metals and the seven planets, will be left out of consideration. The medical aspects of alchemy (such as the theory of elixir as a universal medicine or the notion that digestion – the transformation of foodstuffs into “noble” bodily parts through concoction – is a model for the maturation or transmutation of metals) will also be omitted, for want of any relevant research. Because it is limited to the medieval period, the article will leave out both Renaissance Italy, when a new cultural context radically transformed Jewish scholars’ attitudes toward alchemy, and the late alchemy that developed in kabbalist contexts (e.g., by Ḥayyim Vital).
In both the Islamic and the Christian cultural areas, some Jews are known to have practiced alchemy. To the best of our knowledge, though, Jews did not write texts on alchemy in the Middle Ages. This remarkable lacuna was noted by Moritz Steinschneider, followed by Gershom Scholem, and is confirmed by the virtual absence of alchemy from the classifications of the sciences found in medieval works written by Jews. My purpose here is to describe what we know about the Jewish acquaintance with alchemical theory and practice and then to raise the question (without fully answering it) of why there are no alchemical writings by medieval Jews. The full history of alchemy in Arabic and Hebrew remains to be written; the following remarks are no more than a few signposts.
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- Science in Medieval Jewish Cultures , pp. 343 - 358Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2012