The Early Alchemical Reception of John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica

Abstract

Brian Vickers once described John Dee's Monas Hieroglyphica as "possibly the most obscure work ever written by an Englishman," asking whether there were even ten references to it in the seventeenth century. This article considers Dee's reputation as an alchemist, in particular the reception of his Monas Hieroglyphica, in Latin, French, and German texts published in the late sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and examines two themes: first, discussion of the Monas Hieroglyphica in the context of cabbalistic calculations and Pythagorean symbolic numbers; and second, references to, and appropriations of, the hieroglyphic monad in the context of chemical notation. It shows how Dee's work was read by alchemists influenced by Trithemius's exposition of the Emerald Tablet, including major promulgators of Paracelsian thought such as Gerard Dorn, Oswald Croll, Joseph Duchesne, and Heinrich Khunrath. The article also notes how the Monas Hieroglyphica appealed to purveyors of both physical and more theosophical forms of alchemy, such as the Rosicrucian Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz. It concludes with a discussion of the somewhat surprising approval of Dee's enigmatic work from one who was utterly antagonistic to Paracelsian and Rosicrucian philosophy, the chemist Andreas Libavius, who openly admitted to using the hieroglyphic monad as the basis for the ground plan for his ideal laboratory.