Charles Mackay (1814-1889), from Memoirs of Extraordinary Popular Delusions And The Madness Of Crowds
"Pope John XXII"
This
Prelate is said to have been the friend and pupil of
Arnold de Villeneuve, by whom he was instructed in all the secrets of alchymy. Tradition asserts of him, that he made great quantities of
gold, and died as rich as
Croesus. He was born at
Cahors, in the province of
Guienne, in the year
1244. He was a very eloquent preacher, and soon reached high dignity in the Church. He wrote a work on the
transmutation of metals, and had a famous laboratory at
Avignon. He issued two
Bulls against the numerous pretenders to the art, who had sprung up in every part of
Christendom; from which it might be inferred that he was himself free from the delusion. The alchymists claim him, however, as one of the most distinguished and successful professors of their art, and say that his Bulls were not directed against the real adepts, but the false pretenders. They lay particular stress upon these words in his Bull, "Spondent, quas non exhibent, divitias,
pauperes alchymistae." These, it is clear, they say, relate only to
poor alchymists, and therefore false ones. He died in the year
1344, leaving in his coffers a sum of eighteen millions of
florins. Popular belief alleged that he had made, and not amassed, this treasure; and alchymists complacently cite this as a proof that the
philosopher's stone was not such a
chimera as the incredulous pretended. They take it for granted that John really left this money, and ask by what possible means he could have accumulated it. Replying to their own question, they say triumphantly, "His book shows it was by alchymy, the secrets of which he learned from Arnold de Villeneuve and
Raymond Lulli. But he was as prudent as all other
hermetic philosophers. Whoever would read his book to find out his secret, would employ all his labour in vain; the
Pope took good care not to divulge it." Unluckily for their own credit, all these gold-makers are in the same predicament; their great secret loses its worth most wonderfully in the telling, and therefore they keep it snugly to themselves. Perhaps they thought that, if everybody could transmute metals, gold would be so plentiful that it would be no longer valuable, and that some new art would be requisite to
transmute it back again into
steel and
iron. If so, society is much indebted to them for their forbearance.
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