On the other hand, the _De Alchimia_ shows several doubtful features which, on the supposition that it came from Scot’s pen, can only have been due to some interference with the text at a subsequent time. Such is the dedication to Theophilus, King of the Saracens, which we have already noticed, and the latter part of the preface shows a turgid passage (‘hic est puteus Salomonis et fimi acervus, et hic est fons in quo latet anguis cuius venenum omnia corpora interficit,’ etc.) that strongly recalls the fancies of the later alchemy. The body of the work, however, is no doubt genuine, and offers matters of considerable interest. The first of these is perhaps the distinction drawn here between the greater and the lesser mystery (magisterium) of alchemy. The former, it seems, was the transmutation of _Venus_ into the _Sun_; that is, of copper into gold. The latter comprehended the fixation of mercury and its transmutation into the _Moon_, or silver. We soon notice too that the author addresses himself not, as one would at first expect, to ‘Theophilus,’ but to a certain Brother Elias (‘tibi Fratri Helya’)—another proof, if any were needed, that the dedication to the apocryphal King of the Saracens was due to some other and later hand. ‘Brother Elias,’ however, was far from being a merely imaginary personage. He was an Italian, born (for accounts vary) either at Bivillo near Assisi, Cellullae or Ursaria near Cortona, or in Piedmont. In 1211 he joined the Order of St. Francis, then just formed, thus becoming one of its earliest members. His history as a Franciscan was rather an eventful one. On the death of St. Francis in 1226 he succeeded the Founder as General of the Order, but was deposed by the Pope in 1230 on some suspicion that he favoured schism among his brethren. The Order re-elected him in 1236, but he was finally removed from office by Gregory three years later, and profited by the occasion to join himself openly to the party of the Emperor. For this he suffered excommunication in 1244, and was not restored to the privileges of the Church till 1253, when he lay on his death-bed at Cortona. There is no doubt that he had the reputation of possessing skill in alchemy, as a treatise is extant called the _Liber Fratris Eliae de Alchimia_.[138] This renown would not tend to his honour in religion. It seems indeed to invest with a cruel and pointed meaning the words used by the Pope on the occasion of his first deposition.[139] He is said to have been sent in early days on an embassy to the Emperor of the East. Perhaps this may have been the occasion when he first acquired a taste for those chemical studies which that nation still pursued. Michael Scot addresses him in the _De Alchimia_ as a pupil (‘Et ego, Magister Michael Scotus, sum operatus super solem, et docui te, Fr. Elia, operari et tu mihi saepius retulisti te instabiliter multis viabus operasse’), while at the same confessing that he was not above