his sister-in-law (as was Joseph by Potiphar's wife). His
brother Inpw (Anepu) consequently pursued him. The sun god made a mighty
flood that separated the pursuer from the pursued. Bata castrated himself
and threw his organ of generation into the water, where it was swallowed
by a fish. Bata's heart later in the story is changed into a blossom of an
acacia or a cedar. [I naturally lay no stress on the accident that the
acacia occurs here. The point is that the tree is a symbol of life.] Bata
is reconciled with Inpw and at parting relates to him that a mug of beer
is to serve as a symbol of how the brother fares, who is dwelling afar
off. If the beer foams he is in danger. Bata's wife has the acacia tree,
on which Bata's heart is a blossom, felled, and as a result Bata dies. By
means of the mug Inpw learns of Bata's peril and departs to look for his
younger brother. Inpw _finds the fallen acacia_ and on it a berry that is
the heart of his brother transformed. Bata _comes to life again_ and
transforms himself into an ox. His wife has the ox butchered on the
pretext of wishing to eat its liver. Two drops of blood fall from the cut
throat of the ox upon the ground and are changed into two peach trees.
Bata's wife has the two peach trees felled. A chip flies into her mouth.
She swallows it and becomes pregnant by it. The child that she bears is
the reincarnated Bata. He therefore _lives again in his son as the child
of a widow_.

The second fragment of the Physica et Mystica of Pseudo Democritus, that
Berthelot cites (Orig., p. 151) relates that the _master died without
having initiated Democritus into the secrets of knowledge_. Democritus
conjured him up out of the underworld. The spirit cried: "So that is the
reward I get for what I have done for thee." To the questions of
Democritus he answered, "The books are in the temple." They were not
found. Some time thereafter, on the occasion of a festival, they saw a
_column_ crack open, and in the opening they found the books of the
master, which contained three mystic axioms: "Nature pleases herself in
Nature; Nature triumphs over Nature; Nature governs Nature."

The quotations show, to be sure, only superficially the interrelation of
alchemy and freemasonry. The actual affinity lying behind the symbolism,
which, moreover, our examination of the hermetic art has already
foreshadowed, will be treated later.

We could also posit a psychological interrelation in the form of an