Of the other Arabian alchemists, the most celebrated in the middle ages were Rhasis, Alfarabi, and Avicenna, who are supposed to have lived in the 9th and 10th centuries.

The following story of Alfarabi’s powers is taken from Waite’s Lives of the Alchemystical Philosophers:—­

“Alfarabi was returning from a pilgrimage to Mecca, when, passing through Syria, he stopped at the Court of the Sultan, and entered his presence, while he was surrounded by numerous sage persons, who were discoursing with the monarch on the sciences.  Alfarabi ... presented himself in his travelling attire, and when the Sultan desired he should be seated, with astonishing philosophical freedom he planted himself at the end of the royal sofa.  The Prince, aghast at his boldness, called one of his officers, and in a tongue generally unknown commanded him to eject the intruder.  The philosopher, however, promptly made answer in the same tongue:  ‘Oh, Lord, he who acts hastily is liable to hasty repentance.’  The Prince was equally astounded to find himself understood by the stranger as by the manner in which the reply was given.  Anxious to know more of his guest he began to question him, and soon discovered that he was acquainted with seventy languages.  Problems for discussion were then propounded to the philosophers, who had witnessed the discourteous intrusion with considerable indignation and disgust, but Alfarabi disputed with so much eloquence and vivacity that he reduced all the doctors to silence, and they began writing down his discourse.  The Sultan then ordered his musicians to perform for the diversion of the company.  When they struck up, the philosopher accompanied them on a lute with such infinite grace and tenderness that he elicited the unmeasured admiration of the whole distinguished assembly.  At the request of the Sultan he produced a piece of his own composing, sang it, and accompanied it with great force and spirit to the delight of all his hearers.  The air was so sprightly that even the gravest philosopher could not resist dancing, but by another tune he as easily melted them to tears, and then by a soft unobtrusive melody he lulled the whole company to sleep.”

The most remarkable of the alchemists was he who is generally known as Paracelsus.  He was born about 1493, and died about 1540.  It is probable that the place of his birth was Einsiedeln, near Zurich.  He claimed relationship with the noble family of Bombast von Hohenheim; but some of his biographers doubt whether he really was connected with that family.  His name, or at any rate the name by which he was known, was Aureolus Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim.  His father in alchemy, Trimethius, Abbot of Spannheim and then of Wurzburg, who was a theologian, a poet, an astronomer, and a necromancer, named him Paracelsus; this name is taken by some to be a kind of Graeco-Latin paraphrase of von Hohenheim (of high lineage), and