The ''Turba Philosophorum'', also known as ''Assembly of the Philosophers'', is one of the oldest

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a Continent#Subcontinents, subcontinent of Eurasia ...

alchemy Alchemy (from Arabic: ''al-kīmiyā''; from Ancient Greek: χυμεία, ''khumeía'') is an ancient branch of natural philosophy, a philosophical and protoscientific tradition that was historically practiced in China, India, the Muslim world, ...

texts, translated from the

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

, like the

Picatrix ''Picatrix'' is the Latin name used today for a 400-page book of magic and astrology originally written in Arabic under the title ''Ghāyat al-Ḥakīm'' ( ar, غاية الحكيم), which most scholars assume was originally written in the midd ...

. It is considered to have been written c. 900 A.D.

The text

To quote Plessner, "the ''Turba Philosophorum'', written c. 900 A.D., is a well planned and, from a literary point of view, a most remarkable attempt to put Greek alchemy into the Arabic language and to adapt it to Islamic science".Martin Plessner, ''The Place of the Turba Philosophorum in the Development of Alchemy'' ISIS, Vol. 45, No. 4, Dec. 1954, pp. 331-338 Nine philosophers take part in a discussion, being, once the text has been transcribed back to the original Arabic,

Anaximander Anaximander (; grc-gre, Ἀναξίμανδρος ''Anaximandros''; ) was a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who lived in Miletus,"Anaximander" in ''Chambers's Encyclopædia''. London: George Newnes, 1961, Vol. 1, p. 403. a city of Ionia (in moder ...

, Anaximenes,

Anaxagoras Anaxagoras (; grc-gre, Ἀναξαγόρας, ''Anaxagóras'', "lord of the assembly"; 500 – 428 BC) was a Pre-Socratic Greek philosopher. Born in Clazomenae at a time when Asia Minor was under the control of the Persian Empire, ...

Empedocles Empedocles (; grc-gre, Ἐμπεδοκλῆς; , 444–443 BC) was a Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is best known for originating the cosmogonic theory of the fo ...

, Archelaus,

Leucippus Leucippus (; el, Λεύκιππος, ''Leúkippos''; fl. 5th century BCE) is a pre-Socratic Greek philosopher who has been credited as the first philosopher to develop a theory of atomism. Leucippus' reputation, even in antiquity, was obscured ...

Ecphantus Ecphantus or Ecphantos ( grc, Ἔκφαντος) or Ephantus () is a shadowy Greek pre-Socratic philosopher. He may not have actually existed. He is identified as a Pythagorean of the 4th century BCE, and as a supporter of the heliocentric theory. ...

Pythagoras Pythagoras of Samos ( grc, Πυθαγόρας ὁ Σάμιος, Pythagóras ho Sámios, Pythagoras the Samos, Samian, or simply ; in Ionian Greek; ) was an ancient Ionians, Ionian Ancient Greek philosophy, Greek philosopher and the eponymou ...

and

Xenophanes Xenophanes of Colophon (; grc, Ξενοφάνης ὁ Κολοφώνιος ; c. 570 – c. 478 BC) was a Greek philosopher A philosopher is a person who practices or investigates philosophy. The term ''philosopher'' comes from the grc, φ ...

. The statements of the philosophers, whilst usually different from the known beliefs of the pre-Socratics, are usually recognisable as outgrowths of Greek philosophy. They discuss matter, how it acts, and relate this to cosmology, with three theses presented by Xenophanes in his closing speech, being, again from Plessner: "1) The creator of the World is Allah, the God of Islam; 2) The world is of a uniform nature; 3) All creatures of the upper as well as of the lower world are composed of all four elements."

Dating

Plessner argues that the ''Turba'' was written around 900 AD, based on the following reasoning. The earliest text known to draw on the ''Turba'' is the Kitab al-Ma al-waraqi by

Ibn Umail Muḥammad ibn Umayl al-Tamīmī ( ar, محمد بن أميل التميمي), known in Latin as Senior Zadith, was an early Muslim alchemist who lived from to Very little is known about his life. A Vatican Library catalogue lists one manusc ...

, who died in the middle of the tenth century. In turn, an earlier date can be ruled out by the appearance in the text of poison hidden in the body of a woman, which kills a dragon by her embrace. The Hindu myth of the ‘poison-maiden’ who kills men by her embrace arrived in Arabic literature around the first half of the 9th century, with the translation into Arabic of the ‘Poison Book’ ascribed to the Indian Canakya.

Later printed sources

In print, the title occurs in the ''Auriferae artis, quam chemiam vocant, antiquissimi authores, sive Turba philosophorum'' of 1572, and later works. A page from the Newton ProjectThe Newton Project
a non-profit organization dedicated to publishing online Sir Isaac Newton’s writings references a work of essentially the same title, but of 1610. There the ''Turba'' is described as "an anthology of pre-medieval alchemical texts published in Latin translation (from Arabic)". Another source is given as the 1659-61 edition of Lazarus Zetzner's ''

Theatrum Chemicum (''"Chemical Theatre"'') is a compendium of early alchemical writings published in six volumes over the course of six decades. The first three volumes were published in 1602, while the final sixth volume was published in its entirety in 1661. re ...

''.

Notes

References

Arthur Edward Waite Arthur Edward Waite (2 October 1857 – 19 May 1942) was a British poet and scholarly mystic who wrote extensively on occult and esoteric matters, and was the co-creator of the Rider–Waite tarot deck (also called the Rider–Waite–Smith o ...

(editor) (1896) ''The Turba Philosophorum, or Assembly of the Sages'' (English translation) *

Julius Ruska Julius Ferdinand Ruska (9 February 1867, Bühl, Baden – 11 February 1949, Schramberg) was a German orientalist, historian of science and educator. He was a critical scholar of alchemical literature, and of Islamic science, raising many issues ...

, ''Turba Philosophorum'' (Berlin 1931) * Adam McLean
''Turba Philosophorum''
The Alchemy web site on Levity * Martin Plessner, ''Vorsokratische Philosophie und griechische Alchemie in arabisch-lateinischer Überlieferung: Studien zu Text und Inhalt der Turba philosophorum'' (Wiesbaden 1975) {{Islamic alchemy and chemistry Alchemical works of the medieval Islamic world