What precedes the form of the alchemists’ stone?

The medieval commentator known as Hortulanus interprets the short alchemical text of the Emerald Tablet sentence by sentence. Little can be said with certainty about the person behind the name. The activity the commentary asks of its reader is more readily apparent. One must consider how things with quite different properties might emerge from a common starting material. The third chapter brings that question to bear on the alchemists’ stone.

Matter before a discernible order

So our Stone is borne, and come out of one confused masse, containing in it the foure Elements, which is created of God, and by his sole miracle our stone is borne.

– Hortulanus, Commentary on the Emerald Tablet, 1597, p. 20.^[1]

The stone is said to be born from a mingled mass. The language of birth directs attention to a change in time. A finished and polished surface would be a misleading point from which to picture this beginning. Before a definite form appears, there is matter in which its eventual order cannot yet be made out. Nevertheless, Hortulanus says that this material already contains the four elements. What remains undivided is, in that sense, rich in possibilities even while the eye cannot tell its parts apart.

Reading as a part of alchemical work

The commentary relates this beginning to creation. A comparison develops between the history of the entire world and the alchemist’s particular work. Its interest lies in the passage from one thing to many. Anyone treating the elements solely as four ingredients to be counted off would miss the importance the commentator attaches to the single mass. The work begins with a question about what different things must already hold in common before any of them assumes a recognizable shape.