<P> The text of the Smaragdine Tablet gives its author as Hermes Trismegistus ("Hermes the Thrice - Greatest"), a legendary Hellenistic combination of the Greek god Hermes and the ancient Egyptian god Thoth . Despite the claims of antiquity, it's believed to be an Arabic work written between the sixth and eighth centuries . The oldest documentable source of the text is the "Kitab Balaniyus al - Hakim fi'l - ` Ilal Kitāb sirr al - ḫalīqa" كتاب سر الخليقة و صنعة الطبيعة أو كتاب العلل للحكيم بلنياس (book of Balinas the wise on the Causes) written in Arabic between the sixth and eighth centuries . This volume is attributed to "Balinas" (or Pseudo-Apollonius of Tyana) In his book, Balinas frames the Emerald Tablet as ancient Hermetic wisdom . He tells his readers that he discovered the text in a vault below a statue of Hermes in Tyana, and that, inside the vault, an old corpse on a golden throne held the emerald tablet . The laws of hermeticism: Following Balinas, an early version of the Emerald Tablet appeared in Kitab Sirr al - Asrar: (Book of the Secret of Creation and the Art of Nature), itself a composite of earlier works, and in Kitab Ustuqus al - Uss al - Thani (Second Book of the Elements of Foundation) attributed to Jabir ibn Hayyan . The Smaragdine Tablet was first translated into Latin in the twelfth century by Hugo of Santalla . The text is also in an enlarged thirteenth century edition of Secretum Secretorum (also known as Kitab Sirr al - Asrar). </P> <P> A translation by Isaac Newton is found among his alchemical papers that are currently housed in King's College Library, Cambridge University . </P> <P> Tis true without lying, certain & most true . That which is below is like that which is above & that which is above is like that which is below to do the miracles of one only thing And as all things have been & arose from one by the meditation of one: so all things have their birth from this one thing by adaptation . The Sun is its father, the moon its mother, the wind hath carried it in its belly, the earth is its nurse . The father of all perfection in the whole world is here . Its force or power is entire if it be converted into earth . Separate thou the earth from the fire, the subtle from the gross sweetly with great industry . It ascends from the earth to the heaven & again it descends to the earth & receives the force of things superior & inferior . By this means you shall have the glory of the whole world & thereby all obscurity shall fly from you . Its force is above all force . For it vanquishes every subtle thing & penetrates every solid thing . So was the world created . From this are & do come admirable adaptations whereof the means (or process) is here in this . Hence I am called Hermes Trismegist, having the three parts of the philosophy of the whole world That which I have said of the operation of the Sun is accomplished & ended . </P> <P> Original edition of the Latin text . (Chrysogonus Polydorus, Nuremberg 1541): </P>

Meaning of the emerald tablet in the alchemist