On the Antiquity of the Chemical Art | Page 3

when the Gauls, under Charles Martel, forced
them to retire ultimately across the Pyrenees.
Internal dissension had, however, arisen amongst them, and the ruling
dynasty of the Ommiades was overthrown in A.D. 750 by the
Abassides, who established themselves at Damascus; and with them
began that cultivation of the arts and sciences which has thrown such
lustre on the Arabian school.
One of the princes of the Ommiades who had escaped made his way to
Spain and there re-established the power of his family, with Cordova as
a centre, about A.D. 755. Thus it was that the Saracenic power was
divided into an Eastern and a Western Caliphate.
It was under the prosperous rule of the Abassides that such an impulse
was given to learning of every kind, and that the Arabian school of
philosophy, which has left behind it such glorious records of its
greatness, was founded. The Caliph Al-Mansour was the first, so far as
we know, who earnestly encouraged the cultivation of learning; but it
was to Haroun Al-Raschid, A.D. 786-808 (?), that the Arabians owed
the establishment of a college of philosophy. He invited learned men to
his kingdom from all nations, and paid them munificently; he employed
them in translating the most famous books of the Greeks and others,
and spread abroad throughout his dominions numerous copies of those
works.
His second son, Al-Mamoon, while governor of the province of
Kohrassan, we are told, formed a college of learned men from every
country, and appointed as the president John Mesue, of Damascus. It is
said that his father, complaining that so great an honour had been
conferred on a Christian, received the reply--"That Mesue had been
chosen, not as a teacher of religion, but as an able preceptor in useful

arts and sciences; and my father well knows that the most learned men
and the most skilful artists in his dominions are Jews and Christians."
That this was the case can scarcely be doubted when we consider that
the Jews had always been familiar with many arts and sciences, and
that, as is well known, at the destruction of Jerusalem in A.D. 70, when
the Jews were dispersed in every direction, they spread over, not alone
the countries under the Roman rule, but to Greece, Egypt, and the
Mediterranean coast, as well as great part of Asia Minor, carrying with
them, not only their peculiar religious traditions, but also their arts,
which, we know, especially as regards the working of metals, were of
no mean order, and their sciences, of which the so-called magic and
astrology had been assiduously cultivated.
In Asia the dispersed Jews established patriarchates at Tiberias in the
west, and at Mahalia, and afterwards at Baghdad, for the Jews who
were beyond the Euphrates.
Seminaries were founded at these centres for the rabbis, and constant
intercourse was kept up between them. It was in these schools that the
Talmud was compiled from the traditionary exposition of the Old
Testament, between A.D. 200 and A.D. 500, when it was completed,
and received as a rule of faith by most of the scattered Jews.
That the cultivation of science was not neglected we may be sure from
the keen interest taken in all ages by the Jews in magical and
astrological inquiries. We read in Apuleius, in his defence on the
accusation of magic brought against him, that of the "four tutors
appointed to educate the princes of Persia, one had to instruct him
specially in the magic of Zoroaster and Oromazes, which is the worship
of the gods." Apuleius wrote about 200 A.D., and his works teem with
references to magic and astrology.
The fact that Jews and Christians were looked on as learned men will
not surprise us, when we find that the Jews had established schools so
long anterior to the foundation of the college of Baghdad. The rapid
progress made by the Arabians, and the wise policy of the Abasside
Caliphs, under whose judicious rule learning was so liberally

encouraged, aided by the position of Baghdad, which formed, as it were,
a centre to which the wisdom of both eastern and western minds
gravitated, attracted to their schools all those of every nation who
boasted themselves philosophers.
The first translations from the Greek authors are supposed to have been
made about A.D. 745, and are known to have been on the subjects of
philosophy, mathematics, astronomy, and medicine. These translations
are understood to have been made by Christian or Jewish physicians.
As we have seen, the Jews had already established themselves at
Baghdad, and had founded schools of their own previous to the
formation of the college under Caliph Al-Mansour; but further than this
we find the Christians spread widely over the countries of Asia Minor,
and we are told, on the