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GEBER

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Originally appearing in Volume V11, Page 546 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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GEBER . The name Geber has See also:

long been used to designate the author of a number of Latin See also:treatises on See also:alchemy, entitled Summa perfectionis magisterii, De investigatione perfectionis, De inventione veritatis, See also:Liber fornacum, Testamentum Geberi Regis Indiae and Alchemia Geberi, and these writings were generally regarded as See also:translations from the Arabic originals of See also:Abu Abdallah Jaber See also:ben Hayyam (Haiyan) ben Abdallah al-Kufi, who is supposed to have lived in the 8th or gth See also:century of the See also:Christian era. About him, however, there is considerable uncertainty. According to the Kitab-al-Fihrist (loth century), which gives his name as above, the authorities disagree, some asserting him to have been a writer on See also:philosophy and See also:rhetoric, and others claiming for him the first See also:place among the adepts of his See also:time in the See also:art of making See also:gold and' See also:silver. The writer of the Kitab-al-Fihrist says he had been assured that Jaber only wrote one See also:book and even that he never existed at all, but these statements he scouts as ridiculous, and expressing the conviction that Jaber really did exist, and that his See also:works were numerous and important, goes on to quote the titles of some 500 treatises attributed to him. He is said to have resided most frequently at See also:Kufa, where he prepared the " See also:elixir," but, GEBER 545 according to others, he never spent long in one place, having See also:reason to keep his whereabouts unknown. His See also:patron or See also:master is variously given as Ja'far ben Yahya, and as Ja'far es-Sadiq; in the Arabic Book of See also:Royalty, professedly written by him, he addresses the last-named as his master. In addition to these details the Fihrist mentions a tradition that he originally came from See also:Khorasan. Another See also:story given by d'Herbelot (Bib/See also:lot/See also:ague orientale, s.v. " Giaber ") makes him a native of See also:Harran in See also:Mesopotamia and a Sabaean. See also:Leo See also:Africanus, who in 1526 gave an See also:account of the Alchemists of See also:Fez in See also:Africa (see the See also:English See also:translation of his Africae descriptio by See also:John Pory, A See also:Geographical See also:History of Africa, See also:London, 1600, p. 155), states that their See also:principal authority was Geber, a See also:Greek who had apostatized to Mahommedanism and lived a century after See also:Mahomet.

In Albertus See also:

Magnus the name Geber occurs only once and then with the epithet " of See also:Seville "; doubtless the reference is to the Arabian Jabir ben Aflah, who lived in that See also:city in the 11th century, and wrote an See also:astronomy in 9 books which is of importance in the history of See also:trigonometry. The See also:great See also:puzzle connected with the name Geber lies in the See also:character of the writings attributed to him, their See also:style and See also:matter differentiating them strongly from those of even the best authors of the later alchemical See also:period, and making it difficult to account for their existence at all. The researches of M. P. E. See also:Berthelot threw a great See also:deal of See also:light on this question. Taking the six treatises enumerated above he concluded, after See also:critical examination, that the two last may be disregarded as of later date than the others, and that the De investigatione perfectionis, the De inventione and the Liber fornacum are merely extracts from or summaries of the Summa perfectionis with later additions. The Summa he therefore regarded as representative of the See also:work of the Latin Geber, and study of it convinced him that it contains no indication of an Arabic origin, either in its method, which is conspicuous for clearness of reasoning and logical co-ordination of material, or in its facts, or in the words and persons quoted. Without going so far as to deny that some words and phrases may be taken from the writings of the Arabian Jaber, he was disposed to hold that it is the See also:original work of some unknown Latin author, who wrote it in the second See also:half of the 13th century and put it under the patronage of the venerated name of Geber. The MS. of this work in the Bibliotheque Nationale at See also:Paris See also:dates from about the See also:year 1300. Berthelot further investigated Arabic See also:MSS. existing in the Paris library and in the university of See also:Leiden, and containing works attributed to Jaber, and had translations made of six treatises—two, of which he gives the titles as Livre de la royaute and See also:Petit Livre de la misericorde, from Paris, and four—Livre See also:des balances, Livre de la misericorde, Livre de la concentration and Livre de la mercure orientale—from Leiden. Berthelot was not prepared to assert that these treatises were actually written by Jaber, but he held it certain that they are works written in Arabic between the 9th and I2th centuries, at a period anterior to the relations of the Latins with the See also:Arabs.

In style these treatises are entirely different from the Summa of Geber. Their See also:

language is vague and allegorical, full of allusions and pious Mussulman invocations; the author continually announces that he is about to speak without See also:mystery or reserve, but all the same never gives any precise details of the secrets he professes to reveal. He holds the See also:doctrine that everything endowed with an apparent quality possesses an opposite occult quality in much the same terms as it is found in Latin writers of the See also:middle ages, but he makes no allusion to the theory of the See also:generation of the metals by See also:sulphur and See also:mercury, a theory generally attributed to Geber, who also added See also:arsenic to the See also:list. Again he fully accepts the See also:influence of the stars on the See also:production of the metals, whereas the Latin Geber disputes it, and in See also:general the chemical knowledge of the two is on a different See also:plane. Here again the inference is that the Latin treatises printed from the 15th century onwards as the work of Geber are not See also:authentic, regarded as translations of the Arabic author Jaber, always supposing that the Arabic MSS. transcribed and translated for Berthelot are really, as they profess to be, the work of Jaber, and as representative of his opinions and attainments. II xi. x8 But while Berthelot thus deprived the See also:world of what were long regarded as genuine Latin versions of Jaber's works, he also gave it something in their place, for among the Paris MSS. he found a mutilated See also:treatise, hitherto unpublished, entitled Liber de Septuaginla (Johannis) , translatus a Magistro Renaldo Cremonensi, which he considered the only known Latin work that can be regarded as a translation from the Arabic Jaber. The latter states in the Arabic works referred to above that under that See also:title he collected 70 of the 500 little treatises or tracts of which he was the author, and the titles of those tracts enumerated in the Kitab-al-Fihrist as forming the chapters of the Liber de Sepluaginta correspond in general with those of the Latin work, which further is written in a style similar to that of the Arabic Jaber and contains the same doctrines. Hence Berthelot See also:felt justified in assigning it to Jaber, although no Arabic original is known. The See also:evidence collected by Berthelot has an important bearing on the history of See also:chemistry. Most of the chemical knowledge attributed to the Arabs has been attributed to them on the strength of the reputed Latin writings of Geber. If, therefore, these are original works rather than translations, and contain facts and doctrines which are not to be found in the Arabian Jaber, it follows that, on the one See also:hand,the chemical knowledge of the Arabs has been overestimated and, on the other, that more progress was made in the middle ages than has generally been supposed. See M.

P. E. Berthelot's works on the history of alchemy and especially his Chimie au moyen See also:

age (3 vols., Paris, 1893), the third See also:volume of which contains a See also:French translation of Jaber's works together with the Arabic See also:text.

End of Article: GEBER

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