Church Christian, medieval

Thus, it was thought by the early Judaeo-Christians that God communicated his intentions via certain prophets to his human subjects. This concept was the centrepiece of medieval dream theory with its postulates of the Gates of Horn and Ivory . Religious reformers such as Emmanuel Swedenburg were able to meet God s angels in dreams and he thereby received instructions about founding the Church of the New Jerusalem. 

Explicitly stated, the triadic theory of the basic qualities of substances—particularly when these qualities are directly associated with spirit, soul, and body86—was daring for its time. The medieval European Christian might be allowed to have a body and a soul, but not a spirit. The Roman Church held that only God had spirit and that only the Church and its ordained had the authority to mediate the spiritual relationship between God and mankind. The Church enforced its authority by prosecuting and punishing challenges to its teachings. 

Despite the unlikely claim of success in making gold, this account also indicates skepticism and wariness of being taken in by tricks that could make a substance appear as silver or gold. This reminds us of alchemy s important role as a proto-science, bringing together the practical and the theoretical, in contrast to truths about the nature of the universe and matter held sacrosanct by the medieval Christian Church. 

These two aspects of alchemy were studied and written about at length by the Arabs for whom they were associated with the Islamic faith, part of a holy search for perfection. In medieval Christian Europe it was a very different story. These two projects were cause enough for suspicion but the third major preoccupation of alchemy finally placed it beyond the tolerance of the Church. 

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