UNIO MYSTICA AND THE AURORA CONSURGENS: MYSTICAL THEOLOGY IN A LATE MEDEIVAL ALCHEMICAL TREATISE

Abstract

This thesis examines a late medieval alchemical treatise known as the Aurora Consurgens, which is ascribed to the early decades of the fifteenth century. The Aurora was among the first of its kind in a tradition of poetico-rhetorical alchemy that became popular in the late middle ages and early modern period. While it is indisputable that early Latin alchemical texts contained allegorical language and religious symbolism, the Aurora heralded a new form of alchemical literature, where mysticism became thoroughly and inseparably interpolated with the operations of the laboratory. The Aurora is framed as a dialogue between an unnamed alchemist and Sapientia, a female embodiment of God’s wisdom, which in the text, is conflated with the philosopher’s stone. This thesis focuses on a series of visions that appear throughout the document. These visions invoke the unitive imagery of late medieval mystical theology and contain many of the themes that appear in medieval contemplative literature. These are, namely, the image of the ‘cloud’ that appears in the tradition of pseudo-Dionysian mystical theology, motifs of darkness and illumination, purgation, and union with the divine. The principal argument contends that the author of the Aurora Consurgens used the motifs of mystical theology to elucidate his understanding of the alchemical work.