03 - The Divine Alchemist

In this article,1 I want to spend a few minutes thinking about the Divine Alchemist. What am I talking about? Better: Whom am I talking about?
I remind you that an alchemist was one of those men – most of whom lived in medieval times – who were looking for a panacea, a cure for every disease. Alchemists were also trying to find a substance which would turn base metal into gold. When George Herbert, in his poem The Elixir, spoke of „the stone that turneth all to gold‟, he was referring to the alchemist‟s quest for that elixir. But, of course, alchemy was doomed, a forlorn hope. There is no such elixir; there is no substance that will turn base metal into gold.