Lives of alchemystical philosophers: To which is added a bibliography of alchemy and hermetic philosophyWaite, Arthur Edward
Philosophy
Lives of alchemystical philosophers: To which is added a bibliography of alchemy and hermetic philosophy
Waite, Arthur Edward
Alchemists -- Biography; Alchemy -- Bibliography; Alchemy -- History
In 1293 he arrived at Genoa from this disastrous mission, and he
appears to have proceeded immediately to Naples, where he remained till
the pontificate of Celestin V., teaching publicly his _Ars Magna_ and
_Arbor Scientiarum_. In December 1294, he repaired to Rome to persuade
the Pope to send missionaries to the infidels, and he appears to
have obtained the establishment of several colleges for the study of
oriental languages. Moreover, the University of Paris, by an authentic
act, adopted and recommended the use of his short method of acquiring
knowledge, and some of his more important philosophical doctrines.
Still, his missionary efforts were not generally successful, and he
again wandered from place to place, confuting heretics. He travelled
to Montpellier, where he was received with distinction by Raymond
Gauffredy, General of the Order of St Francis. He obtained letters of
association, as a benefactor to the order, the superiors of which were
put under his direction, and he taught his method in their houses. He
preached in Cyprus against the Nestorians and Georgians, striving to
bring them back to the bosom of the Church. He addressed himself for
assistance in his manifold enterprises to the Kings of France, Sicily,
Majorca, and Cyprus, but generally in vain.
In 1308 he returned to Paris, where he conversed with the celebrated
Johannes Scotus, who is known as the subtle doctor. He had the
satisfaction to find that King Philip le Bel had directed the oriental
languages to be taught in the University of Paris. This induced Raymond
to proceed in the following year to Ferdinand IV., King of Castile,
to engage him to unite with the King of France for the recovery of
the Holy Land, but this oft-repeated and invariably disastrous and
futile enterprise was fortunately not undertaken. He ventured again to
Africa, landed at Bona, that ancient Hippo which was the diocese of St
Augustine, and despite the opposition of its Mohammedan inhabitants he
succeeded in converting seventy followers of the philosopher Averroës.
Thence he travelled to Algiers and converted many, which brought down
on him the persecution of the authorities. A bridle was put into his
mouth, as if he were a horse, and he was deprived by this means of the
free use of speech for the space of forty days; he was then publicly
beaten, and expelled from the kingdom. He had no other road open to
him but to return to Tunis, where sentence of death awaited him, but
he remained concealed, and shortly after proceeded to Bugia. There
he confounded the doctrines of the Mohammedan priests, successfully
avoiding innumerable deadly snares prepared by the people against him
at the suggestion of their religious teachers. He was at length cast
into a miserable dungeon, where he might well have perished, but the
solicitations of certain Genoese merchants obtained him a better
prison, in which he was confined for six months. Here the Mohammedan
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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