Note 135 — Chapter IV · THE ALCHEMICAL STUDIES OF SCOT

Titles resembling this are not uncommon in the literature of alchemy. Thus the Paris MS. 6514 has two treatises, both called Lumen Luminum and both ascribed to Rases. The latter of these, the Liber Lumen Luminum et perfecti Magisterii, is that which has been printed by Zetzner in the Theatrum Chemicum, under the name of Aristotle. It contains, as we have already observed, the Liber XII. aquarum and other material derived from the Liber Emanuelis. The former treatise bearing the name of the Liber Lumen Luminum in the Paris MS. (pp. 113-120) is remarkable on account of the words with which it closes: ‘explicit liber autoris invidiosi,’ which Berthelot notes, but does not attempt to explain. The Mappa of the Pseudo-Archelaus mentions the ‘Liber invidiosus’ (‘quia liber iste invidiosus est ab omnibus hominibus’), but what may be the true reading of the matter is found in the Liber Dyabesi or book of the distillation of the land-tortoise (MS. Ricc. p. 4ro.) where these words occur: ‘Omnia ista pondera fuerunt occulta a philosophis, et dederunt nobis alia pondera … quia fuerunt invidiosi,’ i.e. unwilling to make public the secrets of their art. In later days the title Lumen Luminum is found in use by Raymond Lull and his school.