Interesting!
apart from the fact that Mathias was a Christian, it's still possible that he attended a school of alchemy given his family's affinity for the subject
Alchemy wasn't considered Devil's work that early in the Middle Ages (that came later) - interesting note that there were also two different kinds of alchemy.
The first kind, or physical alchemy, is what we normally think of - transmuting one object physically into another (i.e. lead to gold). When used for purposes like greed, it's considered sinful.
The second kind, or spiritual alchemy, is essentially where you refine your spirit to become closer to God. Essentially, the True Philosopher's Stone isn't something that turns lead into gold, but is Christ. This is also related closely to the Great Chain of Being, where each animal, vegetable, and mineral (and men and angels!) is on a hierarchical scale based on their closeness to God. So something like a slug would be at the bottom of the scale while the lion, which was considered very noble, would be at the top.
Geoffrey Chaucer talks about both in the Canterbury Tales.