The Smaragdine Table.
Project Gutenberg EPUB3 edition
H. Stanley Redgrove
§ 30. In a work attributed to Albertus Magnus, but which is probably spurious, we are told that Alexander the Great found the tomb of Hermes in a cave near Hebron. This tomb contained an emerald table—“The Smaragdine Table”—on which were inscribed the following thirteen sentences in Phœnician characters:—
1. I speak not fictitious things, but what is true and most certain.
2. What is below is like that which is above, and what is above is like that which is below, to accomplish the miracles of one thing.
3. And as all things were produced by the mediation of one Being, so all things were produced from this one thing by adaptation.
4. Its father is the Sun, its mother the Moon; the wind carries it in its belly, its nurse is the earth.
5. It is the cause of all perfection throughout the whole world.
6. Its power is perfect if it be changed into earth.
7. Separate the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross, acting prudently and with judgment.
8. Ascend with the greatest sagacity from the earth to heaven, and then again descend to the earth, and unite together the powers of things superior and things inferior. Thus you will obtain the glory of the whole world, and all obscurity will fly far away from you.
9. This thing is the fortitude of all fortitude, because it overcomes all subtle things, and penetrates every solid thing.
10. Thus were all things created.
11. Thence proceed wonderful adaptations which are produced in this way.
12. Therefore am I called Hermes Trismegistos, possessing the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world.
13. That which I had to say concerning the operation of the Sun is completed.
These sentences clearly teach the doctrine of the alchemistic essence or “One Thing,” which is everywhere present, penetrating even solids (this we should note is true of the ether of space), and out of which all things of the physical world are made by adaptation or modification. The terms Sun and Moon in the above passage probably stand for Spirit and Matter respectively, not gold and silver.