Emerald Tablet

The Emerald Tablet, also known as the Smaragdine Table or the Tabula Smaragdina, is a compact and cryptic text traditionally attributed to the legendary <a href="/facts/Hellenistic_period/q6BgQsaF">Hellenistic</a> figure <a href="/facts/Hermes_Trismegistus/YaPdy9Wr">Hermes Trismegistus</a>. The earliest known versions are four <a href="/facts/Arabic/A1e66hVV">Arabic</a> recensions preserved in mystical and alchemical treatises between the 8th and 10th centuries B.C.—chiefly the <a href="/facts/Sirr_al-khaliqa/3NkXtX0K">Secret of Creation</a> (Arabic: سر الخليقة, romanized: Sirr al-Khalīqa) and the <a href="/facts/Secretum_Secretorum/0VnlzSRs">Secret of Secrets</a> (سرّ الأسرار, Sirr al-Asrār). It was often accompanied by a frame story about the discovery of an <a href="/facts/Emerald/pr52yTAD">emerald</a> tablet in Hermes' tomb.
From the 12th century onward, Latin translations—most notably the widespread so-called vulgate—introduced the text to Europe, where it attracted great scholarly interest. Medieval commentators such as <a href="/facts/Ortolanus/yD00lHXK">Hortulanus</a> interpreted it as a "foundational text" of alchemical instructions for producing the <a href="/facts/Philosopher%2527s_stone/QA0SE7VS">philosopher's stone</a> and <a href="/facts/Chrysopoeia/bNAzlDqf">making gold</a>. During the Renaissance, interpreters increasingly read the text through <a href="/facts/Neoplatonism/Tyq4uTG0">Neoplatonic</a>, allegorical, and Christian lenses; and printers often paired it with an emblem that came to be regarded as a visual representation of the Tablet itself.
Following the 20th-century rediscovery of Arabic sources by <a href="/facts/Julius_Ruska/BK4A9wmB">Julius Ruska</a> and <a href="/facts/Eric_John_Holmyard/v874gxal">Eric Holmyard</a>, modern scholars continue to debate its origins. They agree that the Secret of Creation, the Tablet's earliest source and its likely original context, was either wholly or at least partly compiled from earlier <a href="/facts/Ancient_Greek/LIK7NlUh">Greek</a> or <a href="/facts/Syriac_language/mLhEtdSW">Syriac</a> materials. The Tablet remains influential in esotericism and occultism, where the phrase <a href="/facts/As_above%2c_so_below/jnfTjx5L">as above, so below</a> (a paraphrase of its second verse) has become a popular <a href="/facts/Maxim_(philosophy)/uPaQwmtW">maxim</a>. It has also been taken up by <a href="/facts/Analytical_psychology/QDxb1bFd">Jungian psychologists</a>, artists, and figures of pop culture, cementing its status as one of the best-known <a href="/facts/Hermetica/3NkXtX0K">Hermetica</a>.

<blockquote>Tis true without lying, certain and most true. That which is below is like that which is above and that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracle of one only thing. And as all things have been and arose from one by the mediation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation. The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse. The father of all perfection in the whole world is here. Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth. Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry. It ascends from the earth to the heaven and again it descends to the earth and receives the force of things superior and inferior. By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world and thereby all obscurity shall fly from you. Its force is above all force, for it vanquishes every subtle thing and penetrates every solid thing. So was the world created. From this are and do come admirable adaptations where of the means is here in this. Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world. That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished and ended.— English translation of the Emerald Tablet by <a href="/facts/Isaac_Newton/4L7gTncN">Isaac Newton</a>.</blockquote>

Emerald Tablet open-in-new

Emerald Tablet