Alchemy and Christianity in the Middle Ages

Abstract

AbstractThis essay discusses recent research in the study of medieval alchemy that bears upon its relationship to Christianity in the Latin West. Much of this scholarship has emerged from a renewed understanding of alchemy’s proto‐scientific character and its significant ties to the modern science of chemistry. The insistence that medieval alchemy’s primary aim was the study and manipulation of physical substances has encouraged a reappraisal of its religious aspects. This reappraisal surely begins with the admission that many medieval alchemical texts contain no religious elements at all. And for those that do, religiosity must be considered an outgrowth of both the preoccupation of alchemy with the material world as well as the religious cultures in which alchemical texts emerged.