Resurrected Bodies and Roger Bacon's Elixir

Abstract

This article examines Roger Bacon's discussion of alchemical elixirs in the context of medieval religious literature, particularly the formal theology of Bacon's fellow Franciscan, Bonaventure of Bagnoregio, and the hagiography of the Dominican friar, Thomas of Cantimpré. Focusing on Bacon's use of the resurrected body as the model for the alchemically enhanced human body, I suggest that Bacon's alchemical presuppositions, while reliant on recently imported natural philosophy, were also in dialogue with thirteenth-century religious discourses. Bacon's integration of religious ideas, particularly the Christian concept of the “dowries” (dotes), i.e. the gifts bestowed upon resurrected bodies after the Last Judgment, occurs prior to what some scholars have characterised as a “religious turn” in alchemy.