Page 6 - Book of quintessence

Introduction

John de Rupescissa (John of Roquetaillade) was born around 1300 at
Marcolès in Aurillac, and died about 1365. After studying philosophy for
five years at Toulouse, he entered the Franciscan order in Orléans. He
became influenced by the millenialist philosophy of Joachim of Fiore,
and began to write works of prophecy which were critical of the Church
establishment and attacked ecclesiastical abuses. He was imprisoned in
1345, again in 1349 and at the Papal prison at Avignon in 1356. During
his periods of imprisonment he wrote a number of books including his
Liber Ostensor a work of prophecy focussing on the advent of the
Antichrist. In this work Rupescissa describes the various prophecies in
circulation in the fourteenth century, those of Arnaud of Villeneuve,
Joachim of Flora, Hildegarde of Bingen, the Sibyls, and those attributed
to Merlin. In order to demonstrate that the end of the world was near, he
found points of agreement between these prophecies, adapting them to
his millenarian vision.

It is also likely that he wrote his two alchemical works during these
periods of imprisonment. These were the Liber lucis and the better
known De consideratione quintae essentiae. The preface of the Liber
lucis contains a prophecy which points to a link between alchemy and
Joachimite thought. Here Rupescissa describes the Philosopher’s Stone
as a means for attaining the spiritual liberation of Christianity, in other
words, ushering in the third or spiritual age of the Holy Spirit :

I have considered above all the ages to come, as predicted by
Christ in the Gospel, and the tribulations that will come in the age
of the Antichrist, under whose domination the Church of Rome
will be censured and robbed of all its wealth at the hands of
tyrants. And although the Church of God will be desolate and

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