It is also known that ancient mythology dealt with the union of soul and body, concealing it in fanciful love stories among divinities, especially the most gentle. But it is also known that many of those tales described instead the turbulent intercourses between Mercurius and Sulphur into the alchemical vessels, especially the most violent and indecent of them, specifically those implying births. Especially weird births. So, despite the sapiential literature had always seen Genesis tale as “the embodiment of a soul”, I mean to take decisively another path, the lab Alchemy path, that treats instead of the “disembodiment of a soul”, or the extraction of a Soul/Sulfur from a body, using Spirit of Life/Mercurius. And that can be successfully performed only in an alchemical vessel. So the Genesis tale may be, alchemically, a tale to be read in reverse: not the construction of the human being, but her/his destruction with the final extraction of the soul. This idea is not a personal theory of mine, but the alchemical idea par excellence, the same you can find in Fulcanelli’s book ( well disguised, of course). And, to this extent, Lab Alchemy does provide a clear explication of Adam’s partitions or Even-rib of Adam.
Thus, from what was said above, I will not examine the branch of Alchemy dealing with the union/love of soul and body, and here let me open a parenthesis to specify that, anyway, in Alchemy would exist the union of Soul/Sulfur and Spirit of Life/Mercurius, before even think to introduce the body/flesh. So don’t expect me to resume Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine’s medieval diatribe on body and soul. If you remember, Thomas Aquinas rejected the theory of St. Augustine about the Body and Soul created together but stated that since the Soul (Adam, according to the medieval fathers of the church ) appeared to be created before the body ( Eve), so the Soul initiated the movements of the Body. Even if this is the case, this unsophisticated thought was based on the Christian necessity to make tabula rasa of ancient knowledge.
As we have seen in the philology section above, the “red” quality attributed to Adam seems to be relatively marginal and, almost meaning “healthy outdoorsy red color”, the adjective was supposedly used to strengthen Adam’s identification as a male character. Ancient artists used to paint male characters in different and darker colors than female characters. How often have we seen red men and white women in Attic vascular art and Egyptian frescoes or dark-colored men and light-colored women in Indian art? Color differentiation for sexes was as common in ancient times as unimaginably sexist today. For those unfamiliar with Alchemical processes, the white woman gives birth to the red man, never the contrary. The red man can only give birth to the alchemical child par excellence, the Philosophers Stone. But, honestly, this seems an excessive honor to Eve, who cannot be too much different from Adam, as she is not portrayed as a step above. To summarize, If you attribute the red color to Adam, you should have Eve disappearing, which Fulcanelli does.
So, letting aside the red color, Adam is almost earth. The alchemical earth, the departure point from which all begins, is the end of the preparatory works: achieving our Mercurius—the outcome of the alchemist’s efforts and manual making. Mercurius is the most manual, as well as exhausting, artist’s achievement. From Mercurius’s achievement, the path can descend ( for the skilled alchemist). Yahweh Elohim can take a rest after a hard six-day long job. After a series of six repetitions, on the seventh day, the Artist can see the result of his effort: the young and agile Adam/Mercurius is done. A role lately offered to alchemical ladies personages, but in very ancient times graciously granted to men, instead. Maybe the symbol of cock could demonstrate how those ancient reminiscences were still in use in the modern alchemical lexicon: the cock is traditionally attributed to the Roman god Mercurius, but the ancient Greeks designated him with the term αλεχτορ, which means both “virgin” and “young spouse”. There lie the roots of this change of sex for our mercurial character. For us modern, only Eve, as a woman, is entitled to play the mercurial role. This misconception is the source of our problems defining Eve’s role in the Genesis tale.
A conjecture now: if you remember, we talked about two parts to be joined in the first part. Returning to the philology of the word “rib”, the term צלע or ṣelaʿand most often translated as “side” in general, we recall another meaning of rib as an ancient symbol of symmetry. Adam’s body could be conceived as spherical if the bending rib is linked with the spine and vertebra. Or at least composed by two parts perfectly specularly opposed so as, once folded, to form a single unit. And I used the example of the Roman architectural structure of the mundus, conceived as a concavity in the ground that had to match the top, and imaginary, concavity was a spherical union of the earth and the higher world or sky. And I have also mentioned an archetypal world or macrocosm to be united with an earthly microcosm.
Another conjecture: unless ‘side’ means an accompaniment, something that stands or does side by side. And that would take us too far.
But let’s get back to Adam now that we know he can embody the role the modern alchemists give instead to Eve. So, Adam is born at the end of the sixth day, as the apex of the increasingly encouraging steps of Primitive Mercurius in the Genesis tale. There are switches in the tale from the state of pure land, pure vegetation, animal kingdom, and human perfection. It is commonly said that Alchemy is Genesis in small. Our Mercurius does appear only from the end of the sixth repetition.
Now the newly born alchemical earth/Adam can rest for a while, and the artist admires him into the container. Adam is shining. But now he should give generation and give birth to the alchemical embryo. We know that, in Alchemy, only males can give birth to a child. At the same time, only women can be coupled to provide the foundation of procreation. We can understand that, during the alchemical works, the conquest of defined sex is only temporary. It is male in one phase and becomes female in the next regarding mate. It is not difficult to orientate. Think that the social culture of the ages has always inspired the alchemical lexicon. When people used to think of womankind as an incomplete and imperfect gender, the alchemical female could only reflect the ephemeral, often volatile working-in-progress state. She is still always conceived as a flight of stairs, never a restful and definite landing. Then, of course, the female also dissolves and incorporates, engulfing the male side that shakes and finally fixes her. Often, having to give up the common fire, alchemists cook with Mercurius. And also with sulfur. So, divisions, doublings, and additions become the general Alchemy leitmotif. Cleopatra, the alchemist, used to say that we can define the alchemical works through the common life commitments of her era: weddings, copulation, pregnancy, childbirth, and breastfeeding. We can today summarize with the statement, “Mercurius does wash and cook.”
To do so, Adam must be divided into many parts, at least into two-three parts. If not, the alchemical generation cannot take the start. So Eve is Adam and cannot be other than Adam. She is Adam divided into numerous himself, which then will turn into herself. Only in this way will Eve fulfill what the philology binds to her as Ḥawwāh, meaning “living one” or “source of life”. Adam will undoubtedly be sterile if not, as he can neither “wash” nor “cook”.
And ready to be divided into two specular parts. Mercurius/Adam is divided by Yahweh Elohim into two; one part (Eve) will dissolve gold, this way turning the metal into its primordial mercurial state, while the set-aside Mercurius (Adam) is waiting for his spouse to reach her in the alcove bed that will bring them to a new dark. In this way, the metallic gold will be brought to a complete dispersion. Hence, black is the characteristic mark phase of a supreme gold dispersion. Technically this is known as “reincrudation”, the foundation of the alchemical generation. The successful exit from the black alcove bed will be the rotation of colors and the beginning of the main or second work (see an Opus Magnum scheme). The colorful spectacle is produced by the coming out of the Secret Fire, contained in both Adam and Eve, from potential to act. And even though it may seem tedious, we still pick up what the ancient philology suggested for the word “Eve” as “ezer kenegdo” (In Genesis 2:18-22, the woman is created to be “ezer kenegdo” to the man). Kenegdo means “alongside, opposite, a counterpart to him”, and ezer means active intervention on behalf of the other person. So, Eve is Adam divided into two. The scheme’s most challenging part would be explaining that from the division on, Adam disappears to leave room for two Eves. Tradition let the serpent complete the job.
This is what is called Mercurius Duplicatus, double Mercurius. The alchemical marriage is one of the meanings of the alchemical androgyne. When the alchemical pair, Adam and Eve, are putrefying together or turning black, Eve can extract all the Secret Fire from Adam and vice versa Adam with Eve. That’s the foundation of the second primary work. If successful, out of the dark alcove bed, there will be the rotation of colors.
The second-level panels beautifying the bell tower in Piazza Maggiore appear composed of three scenes; the hint is not the number three. Still, to grasp why Andrea Pisano elected an unexpected scene to conclude his Genesis narrative: the starting panel, from the left, represents the creation of Adam, then in the middle, the creation of Eve, and, to conclude his trilogy, Pisano sculpted the scene he entitled ” the works of our ancestors”.
In fact, in the subsequent panels, the representations of the first human works follow through the example of their legendary “inventors” and according to the chronology recounted in the Bible: Adam digs the earth and Eve works at the spindle; Jabal is the first shepherd, Jubal invents music while Tubalcain is the father of metallurgy, Noah, drunk, is the initiator of viticulture. So, Andrea Pisano voluntarily ignored the scene of the expulsion of the alchemical pair from Eden, notoriously caused by the serpent temptation, and directly arrived at its consequence: the first couple sentenced to “work” to get a living. This would be a too-long concept to be developed, but it is enough to know that the continuous “washings and feeding” on the alchemical child head to color rotations. Those and the child’s upbringing are considered common “works” for a pair of parents. Our alchemical works.
Previous Part at Andrea Pisano and the Weird Birth of Eve Rib. Part 1.
See also Anaximander, Apeiron and Earthy Sea ; Blaise de Vigenère & Salt Sacrifice, Victim of Fire ; Sun & Moon at the Turn of the First Millennium ; The Genesis on a Small Scale .