The Turba Philosophorum

The Turba Philosophorum is one of the oldest European alchemy texts. It is considered to have been written c. 900 A.D. Nine philosophers take part in a discussion, being, once the text has been transcribed back to the original Arabic, Anaximander, Anximenes, Anaxagoras, Empedocles, Archelaus, Leucippus, Ecphantus, Pythagoras and Xenophanes. The statements of the philosophers, whilst usually different from the known beliefs of the pre-Socratics, are usually recognisable as outgrowths of Greek philosophy. They discuss matter, how it acts, and relate this to cosmology, with three theses presented by Xenophanes in his closing speech, being, 1) The creator of the World is Allah, the God of Islam; 2) The world is of a uniform nature; 3) All creatures of the upper as well as of the lower world are composed of all four elements.