Anonymous

This extraordinary document is one of the rarest forms in the alchemical literature: a complete liturgical Mass rewritten as an allegory of the Great Work. The Introitus, Christe, and Kyrie invoke divine fire and the sacred art; the Graduale sings of rain descending upon fleece; the Ave Maria transforms the Annunciation into the conjunction of Sun, Moon, and Mercury, the conception of the philosophical child, and the resurrection of the "mighty Ethiopian" from calcination into glowing new life. The text is brief, intense, and deeply syncretic — the sacramental and the spagyric fused into a single devotion.

Introitus. Our Lord, fount of goodness, inspirer of the sacred art, from whom all good things come to your faithful, have mercy.

Christe. Christ, Holy one, blessed stone of the art of the science who for the salvation of the world hast inspired the light of the science, for the extirpation of the unbelievers, have mercy.

Kyrie. Our Lord, divine fire, help our hearts, that we may be able, to your praise, to expand the sacraments of the art, have mercy.

Graduale. He descends like rain upon the fleece, and as showers falling gently upon the earth. Alleluia. O blessed creator of the earth, whiter than snow, sweeter than sweetness, fragrant at the bottom of the vessel like balsam. O salutary medicine for men, that cureth every weakness of the body: O sublime fount whence gushes forth truly the true water of life into the garden of thy faithful.

Ave Maria. Hail beautiful lamp of heaven, shining light of the world! Here art thou united with the moon, here is made the band of Mars and the conjunction of Mercury. From these three is born through the magistery of the art, in the river bed, the strong giant whom a thousand times a thousand seek, when these three shall have dissolved, not into rain water... but into mercurial water, into this our blessed gum which dissolves of itself and is named the Sperm of the Philosophers. Now he makes haste to bind and betroth himself to the virgin bride, and to get her with child in the bath over a moderate fire. But the Virgin will not become pregnant at once unless she be kissed in repeated embraces. Then she conceives in her body, and thus is begotten the child of good omen, in accordance with the order of nature. Then will appear in the bottom of the vessel the mighty Ethiopian, burned, calcined, discoloured, altogether dead and lifeless. He asks to be buried, to be sprinkled with his own moisture and slowly calcined till he shall arise in glowing form from the fierce fire... Behold a wondrous restoration and renewal of the Ethiopian! Because of the bath of rebirth he takes a new name, which the philosophers call the natural sulphur and their son, this being the stone of the philosophers. And behold it is one thing, one root, one essence with nothing extraneous added and from which much that was superfluous is taken away by the magistery of the art... It is the treasure of treasures, the supreme philosophical potion, the divine secret of the ancients. Blessed is he that finds such thing. One that has seen this thing writes and speaks openly, and I know that his testimony is true. Praise be to God for evermore.

Colophon

Anonymous alchemical liturgy cast in the form of the Roman Mass. Digitised from the sacred-texts.com archive, drawn originally from Adam McLean's Alchemy Website. The text belongs to the tradition of sacramental alchemy that flourished in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, in which the Great Work was explicitly paralleled with Christ's passion, death, and resurrection. The "mighty Ethiopian" motif — the blackened body that rises in glowing form from the fire — is one of the most persistent images in the alchemical imagination, shared with Nigredo stages in Splendor Solis, the Rosarium Philosophorum, and the Mutus Liber.

Compiled and formatted for the Good Work Library by the New Tianmu Anglican Church, 2026.

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