Zosimus is
distinctive among Greco-Egyptian alchemists in that he promotes a philosophical
lifestyle aimed at transformation of the self and incorporates these values into
his work as a metallurgist. He recommends practicing alchemy in both a
corporeal and spiritual manner, and prescribes spiritual exercises for
cultivating virtue through the purification of the soul, and for facilitating
the soul's ascent to the divine realms.
Some of the
exercises, which involve quietly examining the soul and quelling the passions,
were probably not practiced in the workshop in conjunction with the treatment
of metals.
Other spiritual
practices he mentions involve contemplating the metals and how they reveal the
divine presence within nature as well as how they mirror human psychological
states; these show how the corporeal and spiritual aspects of alchemy may have
been practiced simultaneously. Whether these exercises are practiced at home or
in the workshop, Zosimus considers them to be vital to his work. In fact Hermetists and Neoplatonists envisioned the human spirit as
a kind of subtle body or ethereal envelope that serves as a vehicle for the
soul as it travels through the cosmos, and this spirit was connected to the
body via the bloodstream. Indeed, Zosimus expresses a new understanding of
embodiment when he awakens from the violent dreams he describes in his
writings.
On one level it shows
that Zosimus truly viewed his work as a Sacred Art; he represents the
alchemical vessel as an altar in order to emphasize that alchemical operations
need to be performed in both a corporeal and a spiritual manner. Also the so
called Demiurge in Zosimus's primary religious orientation. In the Hermetic
text entitled The Mixing Bowl, the Demiurge created all humans with reason, but
not all of them have mind (nous), which in this context means knowledge of
one's divine essence. The Demiurge puts mind in a mixing bowl and sends it down
to humans, placing it between souls, as a prize for them to win. He has a
messenger announce the following proclamation: Immerse yourself in the mixing
bowl if your heart has the strength, if it believes you will rise up again to
the one who sent the mixing bowl below, if it recognizes the purpose of your
coming to be. Those who immerse themselves in the mixing bowl that contains the
divine gift of mind become perfected; they become immortal rather than mortal,
for in a mind of their own they have comprehended all things on earth, things
in heaven and even what lies beyond heaven. (CH IV.4 trans. Brian Copenhaver).
Zosimus alludes to
this text, and in Zosimus's dreams, the altar first appears in the temple of
punishments, and the people immersed in the altar's boiling waters are
suffering as their bodies are being transformed into spirits. There are fifteen
steps that lead to this altar. When the sacrificing priest appears at the altar
a mysterious voice proclaims that he has accomplished the descent of the
fifteen steps of darkness and the ascent of the steps of light. (Taylor, p.
57.) Throughout the rest of the allegory, Zosimus mentions only seven steps. He
says he wishes to ascend the seven steps and to look upon the seven
punishments, which refers to the seven celestial zones ruled by the seven
planets. (Ibid., 59.) The fifteen steps, then, can be divided into seven
descending steps and seven ascending steps; the remaining step is the ogdoad,
or eighth region: the realm of the fixed stars. (Mertens, Zosime
de Panopolis: Memoires Authentiques,
226, n. 3.)
Also frequently
mentioned by Zosimus is the celestial serpent that bites itself in the tail, is
a popular symbol in Greco-Egyptian alchemy, for the unity of matter, or what
Zosimus calls the one nature, or the nature. Zosimus's instructions for
sacrificing the snake involve separating its parts and putthem
back together again. And according to Plato, the Demiurge brought this
invisible matter, which has no qualities in and of itself, into order by giving
it form: the four elements are the primary visible manifestations of this
underlying matter, and this cosmic matter is sustained by the divine World
Soul, the intelligent, ordering principle of the cosmos that engenders all
physical being. Thus when Zosimus awakens from these dreams he beliefs to
understands how nature gives and receives, he proclaims that the natural
methods he employs in his alchemical work are an extension of the creative
method of the one nature.
Zosimus also explains
that people still wear talismans of electrum (corresponding elsewhere to the
planet Jupiter) to ward off lightning, and that mirrors made of electrum are
believed to ward off all pains. When one gazes into the electrum mirror, it
gives him the idea to examine and purify himself, from his head to the tips of
his nails. Zosimus then takes the symbolism of the mirror to a deeper level.
The purpose of the mirror is not for a man to contemplate himself materially,
he says, but rather this should be understood as a symbol of spiritual contemplation:
The mirror represents
the divine mind; when the soul looks at itself, it sees the shameful things
that are in it, and it rejects them; it makes its stains disappear and remains
without blame. When it is purified, it imitates and takes for its model the
Holy Spirit; it becomes spirit; it possesses calmness and constantly turns to
this superior state, where one knows (God) and where one is known. Becoming
then without stain, it gets rid of its inherent ties and those that it has in
common with the body, and it (rises) toward the All-powerful. Indeed, what is
the philosophical saying? Know thyself. This is indicated by the spiritual and
intellectual mirror. What then is this mirror, other than the divine and
primordial mind?
Ultimately according
to Zosimus, one has to make the ascent through the cosmos in order to gaze into
the mirror of the divine mind, because this mirror is located above the cosmos,
where it serves as a mirror reflecting the divine presence within the universe:
This mirror is positioned above the Seven Doors [planets], on the side of the
west, so that the one who watches there sees the east, where the intellectual
light shines, which is above the veil. That is why it is also placed next to
the south, above all the doors that answer to the Seven Heavens, above this
visible world, above the Twelve Houses [of the zodiac] and the Pleiades, which
are the world of the thirteen. Above them exists this Eye of the invisible
senses, this Eye of the mind, which is present there and in all places. One who
sees this perfect mind, in the power of which all is to be found, will be held
in hand and kept from death. We have reported this, because we have been driven
there while speaking of the mirror of electrum, that is to say the mirror of
the mind. (CMA, Syr. II.12.3)
In this meditation on
electrum, Zosimus leads the reader from a mythical story of the metal's
origins, to a discussion of how talismans and mirrors made of electrum are
commonly thought to ward off disaster and pain, to a philosophical
interpretation of the mirror as a means to know thyself, and finally, to the
noetic realm of the divine mind. These correspondences form a ladder of ascent
from the material to the spiritual worlds. For Zosimus, to deeply contemplate
the nature of metals is to contemplate the divine mysteries that nature holds.
Electrum is not only a substance used in making mirrors (for scrying?), it is a
substance that reflects the divine presence in all things.
Zosimus also views
letters of the alphabet as divine signatures that can reveal the cosmic
mysteries. In Apparatuses and Furnaces (Letter Omega), he explains that the
letter omega has a material and an immaterial significance:
Round Omega is the
bipartite letter, the one that in terms of material language belongs to the
seventh planetary zone, that of Kronos. For in terms of the immaterial it is
something else altogether, something inexplicable, which only Nikotheos the hidden knows. In material terms Omega is what
he calls Ocean, the birth and seed of all gods. (Jackson's translation, Zosimos of Panopolis On the
Letter Omega, 29.)
The alliteration of
the first letters of these words and their associations (e.g.,
alpha/ascendant/air) is probably a mnemonic aid for contemplating the various
correspondences. Adam is the cosmic man, and the letters of his name connect
the human to the four elements and the four cardinal points of the zodiac. The
letter M corresponds to the realm of the sun, the fire in the midst of these
bodies. Zosimus explains that Adam is the name of the flesh, the visible outer mould, but that the Man within him, the Man of spirit, has
a proper name as well as a common one.
Like the letter
omega, this secret name is known only to the initiates who perceive the
immaterial reality within the divine signatures. Zosimus says that the common
name of the spiritual Adam is Ph¨s, or light;
therefore the solar fire ripening in the midst of the cosmos is like the light
of spirit ripening within the human being. In Stoic and Hermetic literature,
the divine is described as an ethereal, fiery substance that permeates all
things, so this fire in the midst of these bodies is also the divine fire.
By meditating upon
these sunth¨¥mata, Zosimus
makes connections between the human, the cosmos, and the divine, and in doing
so, he experiences the divine power that is immanent in the world.This
spiritual exercise of contemplating the metals and their symbolic
correspondences appears to be Zosimus's modus operandi for practicing alchemy
in a spiritual and corporeal manner simultaneously. Observing the properties of
metals and chemical reactions provides the alchemist with ample opportunity to
reflect upon nature and the divine, and thereby elevate the human spirit.
In Final Account,
Zosimus claims that unnatural methods were devised by daemons who were greedy
for sacrificial offerings, and that these methods could only work with their
assent. Natural methods, on the other hand, act by themselves, and involve
repelling the daemons, who are jealous of these methods. Zosimus sometimes
refers to these daemons as ephoroi, and as Daniel Stolzenberg has shown, other late ancient writers used this
term, which means guardians or overseers, to designate planetary gods, gods of
polytheistic cultures (e.g., the Greek gods, Egyptian gods), as well as other
cosmic beings that preside over various domains of human and terrestrial life.
Zosimus furthermore
is the first known alchemist to write about Jewish metallurgical techniques,
and he incorporates Jewish religious ideas into his writings. Julius Ruska
proposed that Zosimus may have been Jewish, but scholars generally agree that
there is not enough evidence to support this claim. (See Patai,
The Jewish Alchemists, 56.)
As Raphael Patai notes in The Jewish Alchemists, scholars have come to
wildly different conclusions about Jewish alchemy: some claim that Jews
invented alchemy and played a major role in its development throughout history,
while others argue that Jewish participation in alchemy was either
insignificant, or non-existent.
Patai's discussion of Jews in Hellenistic alchemy (in Part
Two of The Jewish Alchemists) is flawed due to his literal reading of Zosimus
and other early alchemical texts, and his use of later alchemical works to
support his points about early alchemy. His work also contains several errors,
and should be used with caution.Yet in the
Greco-Egyptian alchemical texts that date from Zosimus's time or earlier, who
may have been Jewish.So for example Maria the
Jewess (ca. 2nd century CE), who is quoted extensively by Zosimus, though none
of her original texts survive. Medieval alchemists associate her with Moses's
sister, Miriam, and also with the Virgin Mary. However, these legendary
portrayals of Maria do not appear until the ninth century, and Zosimus gives no
indication that she has any relationship with these biblical or legendary
figures. (See Patai, The Jewish Alchemists, 74.)
In the Babylonian
Talmud, which dates from Zosimus's era (3rd-4th centuries), however there is
mention of Jewish guilds of metalworkers in Alexandria who apparently exercised
a great deal of control over their craft and trade. (See Christopher Haas,
Alexandria in Late Antiquity, 97.)
And Zosimus speaks of
Jewish metallurgy as a distinct (and ancient) tradition, and claims that they
carefully guard their trade secrets and initiatory formulas, and that they are
like the Egyptians in this regard. (See Festugi¨¨re¡¯s
translation in La Revelation di Hermes Trismegiste
Vol. I, 278, or Jack Lindsay's English translation, based on Festugi¨¨re¡¯s, in Origins of Alchemy in Graeco-Roman
Egypt, 336.)
In The True Book of Sophe the Egyptian and of the Divine Lord of the Hebrews
and the Powers of Sabaoth, Zosimus extols Maria¡¯s k¨¥rotakis
methods along with Egyptian doubling (diplosis)
methods for yellowing copper, and claims that Jewish and Egyptian alchemists
are united by a common spiritual philosophy that represents the best of their
science and wisdom. (See Berthelot and Ruelle (CAG
III.41.1) and by Festugi¨¨re (La Revellation
di Hermes Trismegiste Vol. I, 261).
Therefore, Zosimus is
synthesizing these predominant features of Jewish and Egyptian science and
wisdom, and presenting this as a unified spiritual theory of alchemy, which
ultimately describes his own vision of alchemy.
Zosimus views alchemy
as a means of uniting matter and spirit and ascending to the noetic realms;
Iamblichus has a similar approach to mathematics. This fusion of scientific and
religious goals sounds strange to modern ears, and this is one of the reasons
why scholars have referred to alchemy and Pythagorean mathematics as bizarre
and irrational practices. But Zosimus and Iamblichus lived in a time when the
boundaries between science, religion, and philosophy were not strictly
demarcated. Egyptian temples functioned as major centers of scientific
learning, and philosophy was a polymathic enterprise that encompassed both
science and religion where often still integrated them.
Hermetic Alchemy and Zosimus of Panopolis and
Iamblichus P.1.
Hermetic Alchemy and Zosimus of Panopolis and
Iamblichus P.2.
Hermetic Alchemy and Zosimus
of Panopolis and Iamblichus P.4.
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