Page 2 - Book of Crates

Hermetic Research Series Number 13

The Book of Cratès

The Book of Cratès is a ninth century alchemical text in Arabic,
now preserved in only one extant manuscript, is not, in fact, a work of
Arabic alchemy, although it has a short preface obviously written by an
Islamic editor, and there is a short section at the end which mentions
Khalid ben Yezir, who is supposed to have introduced alchemy to
Islam through meeting the legendary Morienus, as recounted in the
Liber de compostione alchimiae

The text of the Book of Cratès is actually of Greek origin, much of
it being imbued with the spirit of Graeco-Egyptian alchemy. At one
point it quotes one of the precepts of Democritus “Nature delights in
Nature”, and those with a deep knowledge of Greek alchemy will find
quotations or borrowings from Bolos of Mendes (second century B.C.),
and probably from Ostanes. Ostanes was especially obsessed with the
need for secrecy and this is a strong theme of the narrative of the Book
of Cratès. Ostanes also in one of his works The book of the Thirty
Chapters, uses the idea of falling asleep and being taken up in a dream
where he meets an old man (a Hermes Trismegistus figure), as we find
in the Book of Cratès.

Whatever the origins of this little book the ideas it presents are
those which still shaped the alchemy of Northern Europe through the
early modern period and well into the 17th and even 18th centuries.
The use of allegory and the frustration of having the secret concealed
by the writer of a text, common themes in the later period, are so
cogently presented in this 9th century work.

Cover illustration is derived from three drawings from the Book of Cratès,
coloured by Adam McLean

Adam McLean
15 Keir Street
Glasgow G41 2NP
UK
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