18 - Alchemy in Medieval Jewish Cultures

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.