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Line 7: − * Medieval alchemists wanted to turn lead into gold. It was a fruitless endeavor because they used chemical reactions. Nowadays, we know why: [[Chemical reaction]]s cannot change one [[element]] into another. Only [[nucleus|nuclear]] processes, which involve intense energies not available until the 20th century, can accomplish this. + + + + +
→Why it failed: added the historical controversy over the papal decree "Spondent pariter", forbidding alchemies, by which Pope John XXII prohibited the pretended making of gold and silver
== Why it failed ==
== Why it failed ==
Medieval alchemists wanted to turn lead into gold. It was a fruitless endeavor because they used chemical reactions. Nowadays, we know why: [[Chemical reaction]]s cannot change one [[element]] into another. Only [[nucleus|nuclear]] processes, which involve intense energies not available until the 20th century, can accomplish this.
A Decree of [[Pope John XXII]] in 1317, '''''Spondent pariter''''', forbidding alchemies, also called The Crime of Falsification ''De crimini falsi'', by which he prohibited the pretended making of gold and silver to defraud the people of their money, is falsely claimed to have hampered the progress of chemistry. Anyone who reads this decree can see at once that it has nothing to do with, or says anything about, chemical researches. Pope John XXII took severe action against those who wandered about the countryside falsely claiming to be alchemists, but who were no more than [[charlatan]]s and counterfeiters who [[Confidence game|conned]] many gullible persons out of their money, some of them rulers, even bringing some state treasuries close to [[bankruptcy]] through the political ambition of various state ministers who sponsored them in their greed for gold. The majority who were honest alchemists, who were serious [[medieval]] and [[renaissance]] researchers who made genuinely useful discoveries in chemical reactions and in [[medicine]], were gradually defamed by these imposters who brought the whole enterprise into disrepute.
Although the charge has been disproven, there are many even today who [[Falsehood|erroneously say]] that because of a fundamental hatred of the Catholic Church toward science this Pope condemned chemistry, and retarded the progress of chemical research by threat of [[excommunication]]. European chemical historians who have carefully traced the development of [[chemistry]] find no break in the progress of chemical research that can be attributed to the ''Spondent pariter'' decree of Pope John XXII.
== The Alchemy of Christianity ==
== The Alchemy of Christianity ==