Editing Emerald Tablet (section)

=== Enlightenment ===
[[File:Oedipus Aegyptiacus Tabula Smaragdina.jpg|thumb|300x300px|Beginning of the tractate ''On the Authorship of the Emerald Tablet'' from the [[Oedipus Aegyptiacus|''Egyptian Oedipus'']] vol. 2 no. 1.|left]]
From the dawning seventeenth-century [[Age of Enlightenment|Enlightenment]] onward, a number of authors began to issue challenges to the attribution of the ''Emerald Tablet'' to Hermes Trismegistus. Chronologically first among them was the former alchemist Nicolas Guibert. He believed the ancients had never mentioned alchemy by name and the practice of identifying gold and silver by the names of planets was an idea first advanced by [[Proclus]]. He argued, therefore, that the ''Emerald Tablet'' must be inauthentic.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ruska|1926|p=|pp=212-213}}, {{Harvnb|Ebeling|2007|p=96}}; {{Harvnb|Matton|1993|p=124}}.</ref> These attacks were supported by a rising spectre of doubt surrounding all things Hermetic, following a linguistic analysis by [[Isaac Casaubon]], calling into question the authenticity of the [[Corpus Hermeticum]] and Hermes himself.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ebeling|2007|p=96}}.</ref> The most prominent attack came from [[Athanasius Kircher]] in his [[Oedipus Aegyptiacus|''Egyptian Oedipus'']]. Kircher rejected the ''Emerald Tablet''’s attribution to Hermes Trismegistus, as it did not support his interpretation of hieroglyphs; he argued that the Tablet’s “barbaric” Latin{{Efn|Referring to terms like {{langx|la|fatitudo fortis}} which is a corrupted variant of {{langx|la|fortitudo fortis|lit=power of all powers}} and also focussing in on the aforementioned {{langx|la| tabula zatadi |lit=zatadi tablet}}.<ref>{{harvnb|Ruska|1926|pp=218-219}}.</ref>}} betrayed a much later, post‐classical origin. Additionally, he pointed out that no ancient Greek philosophers ever mention it—a silence he took as evidence of forgery. Further, he associated it with a group of alchemists he considered delusional{{Efn|He addressed them mockingly as {{langx|la|Cimiastorum|lit=(of) mixers}} instead of the more neutral {{langx|la|Alchemistarum|lit=(of) Alchemists}} in the tractate. In the preceding one he lampooned modern alchemists as describing the [[philosopher's stone]] with "useless prolixity and a ludicrous structure" and generally being wrong and misguided about most things.<ref>{{harvnb|Ruska|1926|p=216}}; {{harvnb|Kircher|1653|p=425-426}}</ref>}} and rejected the story of its discovery in Hermes’ tomb as a pure figment of their imagination. He applied critical arguments he otherwise rejected—for example when defending the legitimacy of the Corpus Hermeticum—when the text in question conflicted with his aims.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ruska|1926|p=|pp=216-219}}; {{Harvnb|Stolzenberg|2013|p=|pp=222-223}}.</ref> Kircher’s critique was forceful enough to draw out a response from the Danish alchemist [[Ole Borch]] in his 1668 ''On the Origin and Progress of Chemistry.''{{Efn|{{langx|la|De ortu et progressu chemiae}}.}} In which Borch sought to distinguish genuinely ancient Hermetic writings from later forgeries and to re‐value the ''Emerald Tablet'' as truly Egyptian in origin.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ruska|1926|p=220|pp=}}.</ref> Amid this climate of inquiry and doubt a 1684 tractate by {{ill|Wilhelm Christoph Kriegsmann|de}} deployed linguistic analysis—incorporating Hebrew—to assert that Hermes Trismegistus was not the Egyptian [[Thoth]] but the Phoenician [[Thoth|Taaut]]—whom Tacitus identifies as [[Tuisto]], the legendary divine progenitor of the Germanic peoples.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ruska|1926|p=|pp=220-223}}; {{harvnb|Kriegsmann|1684}} cited by {{harvnb|Faivre|1988|p=|pp=42, 48}}.</ref> The debate continued and both Borch’s and Kriegsmann’s treatises were reprinted (alongside many others) in [[Jean-Jacques Manget]]'s ''[[Bibliotheca Chemica Curiosa|Curious Chemical Library]]''.<ref>{{Harvnb|Ruska|1926|p=|pp=1, 220-223}}.</ref> 

The ''Emerald Tablet'' was still translated and commented upon by [[Isaac Newton]], who rendered the recondite {{Langx|la|telesmus}} as "perfection".<ref>{{harvnb|Dobbs|1988}}; {{harvnb|Newton|2010}}.</ref> But the result of this age of upheaval and inquiry was the gradual decline of alchemy during the eighteenth century. The hardest blow to alchemy's legitimacy was the advent of modern chemistry and the work of [[Antoine Lavoisier|Lavoisier]]—with the 1720s marking the turning point when alchemy lost the trust of the emergent chemical community.<ref>{{Harvnb|Friesen|Patton|2023|p=|pp=100, 104-107}}.</ref> The emerging category of modern [[science]] fundamentally conflicted with the practical and theoretical traditions of alchemy. It left no room for alchemists within the new definition of the scientist, leading to a sharp decline in alchemical works after the 1780s.<ref>{{Harvnb|Kahn|2016||p=175|pp=}}.</ref>