Natural Philosophy of Three Ancient Philosophers: Artephius, Flamel, and Synesius

It is therefore necessary to dissolve and liquefy these bodies by means of our water, and to make of them a permanent water Original: "aqua permanens." This refers to a stabilized liquid that does not evaporate easily and has the power to dissolve metals without losing its own nature., a sublimated golden water, leaving at the bottom the coarse, terrestrial, and superfluous dry matter. And in this sublimation the fire must be slow, because if, through this sublimation in a slow fire, the bodies have not been purified, and if its coarser note well terrestrial parts have not been separated from the filth of the dead Original: "mortui immunditia." This refers to the caput mortuum or the "dead head"—the useless, exhausted dregs left over after a chemical reaction., you will be prevented from being able to complete the work from them. For you have no need of anything except the thin and subtle nature of the dissolved bodies, which our water will give to you if you proceed with a slow fire, separating the heterogeneous Parts that are different in nature and do not belong together. from the homogeneous Parts that are of the same nature and belong together..

The compound therefore receives a cleansing through our moist fire A "moist fire" typically refers to a water bath (balneum Mariae) or the chemical heat generated by a corrosive solvent., namely by dissolving and sublimating that which is pure and white, the dregs having been cast out like a vomiting that happens of its own accord (as Azinaban Likely a reference to the alchemical authority Senior Zadith (Ibn Umail) or a figure from the Turba Philosophorum. says). For in such a natural dissolution and sublimation, there occurs a sorting Original: "delegatio," here implying an ordering or distribution of parts. and purification of the elements, and a separation of the pure from the impure; so that the pure and white rises upward, and the impure and terrestrial fixed matter remains at the bottom of the water and the vessel, which is to be cast aside and removed, since it is of no value, receiving only