Zosimos of Panopolis and the Book of Enoch

Introduction

The Chronographia of George Synkellos, the 9th century Byzantine chronicler, preserves a curious fragment from the alchemist and Hermetic philosopher, Zosimos of Panopolis. In this passage, which is not extant in the Greek alchemical manuscripts, Zosimos seems to lend his support to a dark and unwholesome view of the alchemical art and its origins.

It is stated in the holy scriptures or books, dear lady, that there exists a race of daimons who have commerce with women. Hermes made mention of them in his Physika; in fact almost the entire work, openly and secretly, alludes to them. It is related in the ancient and divine scriptures that certain angels lusted for women, and descending from the heavens, they taught them all the arts of nature. On account of this, says the scripture, they offended god, and now live outside heaven, because they taught to men all the evil arts which are of no advantage to the soul 1).

These ‘ancient and divine scriptures’ to which Zosimos refers are no doubt the ancient Hebrew scriptures, specifically the Book of Enoch. Zosimos implies that Hermes knew this ancient Hebrew work, and made reference to its teachings about fallen angels in his ‘physical writings’ (physika) 2). Although the Book of Enoch never attained canonical status for Jews or Christians, it was a formative influence in the world of Hellenistic Judaism, especially within those messianic and apocalyptic currents from which Christianity eventually emerged. Indeed, the book was widely read and circulated throughout the Hellenistic world in the first three centuries CE. The Synkellos fragment attests to this wider sphere of influence: Zosimos knows the book, and seems to endorse its teachings, as evidently does his Hermetic source.

The writings of Zosimos express a high regard for the Jewish alchemical tradition, in particular for Maria, to whom Zosimos appeals as his chief authority in questions of alchemical apparatus and technique 3). More generally, we see the influence of gnostic currents connected to developments within, or on the fringes of, Late Antique Judaism. Thus it is not surprising that Zosimos should refer to the Book of Enoch as sacred scripture.

R. Patai describes an Arab tradition, according to which Zosimos was actually regarded as a Jewish author. He claims that the evidence does not permit us to determine whether this tradition is based on fact or fancy4. In reality, it seems certain that Zosimos was not a Jew. In one passage, he clearly identifies himself as part of the Egyptian tradition, as distinct from the Jewish tradition: ‘Thus the first man is called Thoth by us, and Adam by those peoples’ 5). Elsewhere he speaks of Jewish alchemists as imitators of Egyptian alchemy 6). In short, while Zosimos does regard Jewish alchemy as a genuine initiatory tradition, which has transmitted important alchemical wisdom, he also insists that it is derivative of the Egyptian tradition, to which he himself belongs. His reverence for Maria and Jewish alchemy, and his interests in esoteric Judaism, are best explained as reflecting the cosmopolitan outlook of an Alexandrian philosopher. It is in terms of this syncretic outlook, this confidence in the esoteric unity of all ancient traditions, that we should understand Zosimos’s appeal to the Book of Enoch, which he regards as having an essential affinity to the "physical" teachings of the Egyptian sage Hermes Trismegistus. In the same syncretic spirit he makes the fabulous claim that Hermes was sent by the high priest of Jerusalem to translate the Hebrew scriptures into Greek and Egyptian, a claim that would be impossible within a strictly Jewish context 7).

According to the Enochian account, a race of fallen angels, called the Watchers, revealed the arts and sciences to humans:

And it came to pass when the children of men had multiplied that in those days were born unto them beautiful and comely daughters. And the angels, the children of the heaven, saw and lusted after them (1 Enoch 6.1-3) . . . And all the others together with them took unto themselves wives . . . and they began to go in unto them and to defile themselves with them, and they taught them charms and enchantments (7.1-2) . . . And Azazel taught men to make swords, and knives . . . and made known to them the metals of the earth and the art of working them . . . and all kinds of costly stones, and all colouring tinctures . . . Baraqijal (taught) astrology, Kokabel the constellations . . . Araquiel the signs of the earth, Shamsiel the signs of the sun . . . And as men perished, they cried, and their cry went up to heaven (8.1-4). . .8.

In exchange for their revelations, the lustful angels had intercourse with human women and bred through them a race of giants. The Book of Enoch recounts this forbidden exchange of sex for wisdom with a view to explaining the origins of human sinfulness, which from the author’s point of view has reached epidemic proportions in his own time. In the catalogue of the various forms of knowledge revealed to nascent humanity, the occult sciences, magic, astrology, and divination, are front and center. There is no explicit mention of alchemy 9). However, the reference to ‘tincturing’ (1 Enoch 8.2) might well have signaled to Zosimos that alchemy is implied 10).

For Zosimos, as we shall see later, alchemy is fundamentally concerned with the tincturing of base metals, a process which he interprets as a purification, a ‘baptism’. From his perspective, this Enochian reference to ‘tincturing’, which occurs in close proximity to a catalogue of occult sciences, would no doubt have seemed like a reference to alchemy. Indeed, Chêmeia is, for Zosimos, the very essence of this angelic revelation, as he goes on to explain in the Synkellos quotation:

These same scriptures also say that from them [sc. the angels] the giants were born. Their initial transmission about these arts came from Chêmes. He called this book the Book of Chêmes, whence the art is called Chêmeia (Ecloga, 14. 11-14).

The word "alchemy" is, of course, unknown to the Greek alchemists. It translates an arabic word, alkimiya, a combination of the article al and a substantive kimiya. Scholars have proposed two main alternatives as to the origins of the arabic word, kimiya: they derive it either from Chêmia, the Greek word for Egypt or the "Black-land" (Egyptian, Kmt); or from the Greek chûma, which is related to the verb for "smelting" (choaneuein). Our Zosimos fragment lends weight to the first alternative: the sacred science is Chêmeia, the art related to Chêmia, the Egyptian "black-earth" 11). The idea of "blackearth" has a twofold significance: it points us to the presumed Egyptian origin of the Art, and it represents symbolically one of its chief concepts, prime matter, the black substrate of alchemical transmutation 12). Adding his own fanciful etymological touch, Zosimos links Chêmeia with a mythical figure named Chêmes, who is evidently one of the gigantic offspring of the fallen angels and their human wives. This giant, he tells us, recorded the revelations of the angels in the Book of Chêmes, in which form they were transmitted to the earliest alchemical initiates. In this way, Zosimos appropriates the Enochian story and expands it into an explicit account of the origins of his own sacred art, Chêmeia.

The Book of Enoch views the occult sciences and technology in general as responsible for the moral corruption of humanity: ‘And the whole earth has been corrupted through the works that were taught by Azazel: to him ascribe all sin’ (1 Enoch 10.8-9) 13). This assessment was widely influential, especially for the early Church Fathers. Tertullian, for one, takes up the Enochian story with enthusiasm, even improvising a clever analogy between the fall of the lustful angels and the historical "fall" of certain magicians and astrologers who were persecuted and driven out of Rome: ‘The astrologers are expelled just like their angels. The city and Italy are interdicted to the astrologers, just as heaven to their angels’ 14).

Roman law was highly unfavourable to the occult sciences, with the obvious exception of official cult practices, such as haruspicium. Tacitus speaks of the death penalty for magicians as an ‘ancient custom’ 15). Under the Lex Cornelia, as interpreted through the Pauli Sententiae (3rd century CE), magicians were to be publicly burnt, or exiled, depending on their social status.

Suspicion of "magic", in the Roman legal discourse, was construed as the practice of private or clandestine religious rites, unsanctioned by the official state religion 16). Thus the early Christians were commonly regarded by educated Romans, like Celsus, as magicians, who engaged in secret diabolical rites. After all, the Christians refused to participate in the official Roman cults, embracing and reinforcing their alien status in the Empire. Moreover, the claims of the Christians themselves to heal the sick and exorcise daimons were adduced as evidence of sorcery and diabolism: ‘Since these men do these wonders, ought we to think them sons of God? Or ought we to say that they are the practices of wicked men possessed by an evil daimon?’ 17). In the face of such criticism, the early Fathers, like Tertullian, were anxious to distinguish the acts of Christians, which derived their efficacy from the name of Christ, from the acts of magicians, which were allegedly effected through the agency of daimons.

These accusations of illicit religious practices, "magic" in its rhetorical and polemical usage, worked both ways. Once Christianity became the official state religion, the Christians were able to deploy the same rhetorical categories in their persecution of the pagan cults, eventually outlawing them altogether. St. Augustine, in his City of God, rejects the attempts of the Neoplatonists to distinguish between theurgy and magic. The rites of theurgy, he says, are fraudulent (ritibus fallacibus). The theurgists believe that they are attaining unity with angels and gods, when in fact they are unwittingly sacrificing to evil daimons, disguised as angels (sub nominibus angelorum) 18).

Magic, that is to say non-Christian ritual, is for Augustine linked to the influence of hostile daimonic powers, as in the Book of Enoch. Ironically, Augustine’s position makes use of material drawn from Porphyry’s criticism of theurgy, allowing Augustine to employ a divide and conquer strategy. The rhetorical oppositions between theurgy and magic, or illicit and licit religious practices, are operative within Neoplatonism itself. Porphyry accuses the theurgists of attempting to manipulate and entice the gods with incantations and sacrificial vapours. Like Augustine, Porphyry worries that the true objects of theurgic rites may be daimons disguised as divinities 19). How then can divine theurgy be clearly and safely distinguished from daimonic magic?

Iamblichus’s response to Porphyry, though it sheds much light on the character of theurgy, works largely within the same polemical categories: theurgy raises us to the gods, whereas magic attempts to draw the gods to us; theurgy invokes the gods through the appropriate, natural receptacles, whereas magic constructs artificial receptacles, like idols, through which to contain and manipulate divine powers 20).

In short, the charge of "magic" was part of a rhetorical strategy employed by Christians, Hellenes and Jews alike, sometimes against one another and sometimes against rival factions or schools within their own religious traditions. One important aspect of this polemical use of the category "magic", evident also in the Book of Enoch, is the notion that magic, wittingly or unwittingly, works through the wrong powers, through daimons or fallen angels, to the ultimate enslavement and destruction of the magician 21). Seen in this context, Tertullian’s appropriation of the Enochian story makes good rhetorical sense. It allows him to legitimate the Christian religion in contradistinction to other "false" or "illicit" religions.

What is perhaps more difficult to understand is the fact that some alchemists, including Zosimos, were also sympathetic to this account, which seemed to play so neatly into the hands of their detractors, and potential persecutors. It is the main purpose of this paper to explore the alchemical appropriation of the Enochian story, with particular emphasis on Zosimos.

Is the Synkellos fragment consistent with the surviving works of Zosimos? How can such a negative view of the origins of alchemy be reconciled with its status as a divine art? I shall argue that the fragment is intelligible when interpreted within the wider context of Zosimos’s works on alchemy. In two of his more theoretical works, On the Letter Omega and the Final Quittance, Zosimos develops a distinctive daimonology, rooted in Gnosticism. According to this gnostic daimonology, the daimons who inhabit the upper regions of the world are the earthly ministers of the planetary rulers, the gnostic archons, who determine the Fate of the individual and of the whole physical cosmos. These archons and their daimonic servants are intent on maintaining the ignorance and enslavement of fallen humanity. The goal of alchemy, for Zosimos, is liberation of the spiritual part of the human from the bonds of matter and Fate, from the clutches of the archons and their daimons. However, alchemy cannot simply ignore these forces, or wish them away:

as a form of "theurgy" 22), alchemy works directly with material substances, and seeks salvation through a spiritual regeneration of matter. Alchemy works through the world, a world ruled by hostile daimonic powers. How, then, does the alchemist engage with matter, without falling prey to the daimonic and astrologic forces which rule over it? There is a danger that the alchemist may become obsessed with the material ends of the art, seduced by the daimons and their false promises. Does the alchemist require the assistance of these daimons and the observance of astrologically propitious times? Or does alchemy proceed entirely on natural principles? In working through these problems Zosimos articulates a distinction between two kinds of alchemy:

one profane, the other sacred; one aimed at the material ends of transmutation, the other aimed at a spiritual “baptism”; one utterly enslaved to daimons, the other a means of salvation. Zosimos joins Enoch in condemning profane alchemy, while insisting on the integrity of the true Hermetic Art.

Thus he too deploys the rhetorical categories of licit and illicit religion, and his reasons for appropriating the Enochian story turn out not to be so different from Tertullian’s: both employ the Enochian myth to legitimate their religious and ritual practices, in distinction from their spiritual competitors.

 

Consider the Source: Angels, or Demons in Disguise?

Scholars have long noted a connection between the Book of Enoch and the Graeco-Egyptian alchemical tract Isis the Prophetess to her son Horos. In this pseudonymous tract, Isis recounts to Horos the details of her initiation into the alchemical mysteries by Amnael, angel of the sun:

In accordance with the opportune celestial moments (tôn kairôn), and the necessary revolution of the heavenly sphere, it came to pass that a certain one of the angels who dwell in the first firmament, having seen me from above, was filled with the desire to unite with me in intercourse. He was quickly on the verge of attaining his end, but I did not yield, wishing to inquire of him as to the preparation of gold and silver. When I asked this of him, he said that he was not permitted to disclose it, on account of the exalted character of the mysteries, but that on the following day a superior angel, Amnael, would come . .  

The next day, when the sun reached the middle of its course, the superior angel, Amnael, appeared and descended. Taken with the same passion for me he did not delay, but hastened to where I was. But I was no less anxious to inquire after these matters. When he delayed incessantly, I did not give myself over to him, but mastered (epekratoun) his passion until he showed the sign on his head and revealed the mysteries I sought, truthfully and without reservation (Berthelot p. 29.2-11, 16-23) 23).

These lustful angels are associated with the heavenly spheres, and with the astrologic conception of "opportune times" as defined by the positions of the planets relative to one another and to the signs of the zodiac. The question as to what extent alchemical procedures are dependent upon these kairoi, or opportune astrological moments, is also of central interest for Zosimos, as we shall see. The angels in the Isis tractate represent, more precisely, the sympathetic astral forces of the moon and the sun, which are implicated in the production of silver and gold respectively, the very mysteries which Isis is anxious to acquire. First, the angel of the "first firmament", the moon, descends on Isis; but his advances are rejected, as he will not, or cannot, reveal the mysteries of gold and silver. As the moon is associated with the making of silver, one may reasonably speculate that the lunar angel is inadequate to the higher mystery of gold, which only the appropriate and superior angel can reveal, namely the solar angel. This angel, Amnael, descends at the meridian, when the sun is at its highest power, with the same lustful agenda as his lunar predecessor. Isis must resist his advances, master his passion, until he offers up the secrets promised.

The tension between the erotic or "sympathetic" intentions of Amnael and the antipathetic resistance of Isis is a crucial, though subtle aspect of the account. The language of "mastery" (epikratein, 29.20) suggests the famous maxim of Pseudo-Demokritos, quoted later in the tract: ‘For nature rejoices in nature, and nature conquers nature’ (30.18-19) 24). The suggestion seems to be that the alchemist must have dealings with daimonic or angelic powers that are sympathetic to the Work and necessary to its "opportune" execution; and yet these powers must for some reason be held at bay, and mastered, prevented from overwhelming the work. Indeed these angelic forces are of a dubious character. Their descent from the planetary spheres in which they properly reside can be taken in two very different senses.

On the one hand, this descent signals the mediating role of the angel or daimon as an earthly conduit for planetary influences. It was a common philosophical view in the time of Zosimos that daimons are the earthly administers of Fate or heimarmenê, a view clearly expressed, for instance, in tractate XVI of the Corpus Hermeticum:

When each of us has been born and ensouled the daimons that are responsible for the administration of birth at that moment take charge of us—the daimons which are ordered under each of the planets (C.H. XVI, 15) . . . They accomplish the whole of this earthly administration through the instrument of our bodies; and this administration Hermes called Fate (nosis de tên dioikêsin Hermês heimarmenên ekalesen) (XVI, 16) 25).

In the Platonic-Stoic syntheses of Late Antiquity, of which Hermetic philosophy is one current, the idea of mediating daimons is central. As the philosophical conception of the divine becomes increasingly transcendent, the need for hierarchy and mediation increases accordingly. For later Platonists, like Plutarch, the idea of intermediate daimons provides a means of reconciling mythic and cultic perspectives on the divine, with more transcendent philosophical conceptions. The daimons execute all of the earthly functions of the gods: they animate statues, provide oracular guidance, and oversee theurgic rites 26).

The descent of the angels in our Isis tractate can be interpreted in just this way, as the execution of the cosmic function of mediation. However, as administrators of Fate, responsible in particular for maintaining the genesiurgic link between souls and bodies 27), the cosmic role of the daimons is often regarded with an air of menace, especially in the Gnostic systems.

Plutarch explains that the daimons, as intermediate beings, have a share of divinity, but their divine nature is conjoined with a soul and a body, capable of perceiving pleasure and pain. Consequently, the daimons, like humans, are moved by appetite, and are capable of both good and evil 28). Viewed in a positive light, the daimons seem to constitute our link to the divine, bridging the distance between the earthly and the heavenly; viewed in a negative light, they can be regarded as responsible for the incarnation of our souls, and so for maintaining our enslavement to materiality and Fate.

This ambivalence about the moral character and motivation of daimons is reflected in the Isis tractate. If we look to the actual motivation of the angels, their descent from the spheres seems not to represent a normal cosmic function at all, but an aberration and a perversion. It seems, in other words, to constitute a “fall” in the Enochian sense. These angels are the guardians of esoteric truths, forces sympathetically aligned to the Work of silver and gold; but their sympathetic attraction to the Work takes the form of carnal lust, which moves them to depart from their proper seats in the celestial firmament.

Isis for her part seems not to be bothered by the lustful motivation of her angelic teacher, Amnael. There is certainly no indication of a moral judgment; and this constitutes an important divergence from the Enochian model, with its emphatic condemnation of the angels. For Zosimos, however, the moral implications of the Enochian account, and the forbidden nature of the angelic lust, are impossible to ignore. He seems to agree with the condemnation of Enoch: the arts which these angels revealed to humans, he says, are ‘evil and of no advantage to the soul’ (Synkellos, 14.10-11). Yet, paradoxically, he concedes that his own sacred art, Chêmeia, was the fruit of this forbidden union.

Alchemy, as conceived by Zosimos, takes on an explicitly redemptive character, in line with the spiritual aims of the mystery schools and the Gnostic and Hermetic initiatory traditions. Whether such a conception is already implicit in the earlier Isis tract is arguable; but for all of its talk of initiation and esoteric truths, there is no explicit reference to the spiritual ends of alchemy, nor to any deeper meaning attaching to the production of silver and gold. For Zosimos, by contrast, the spiritual interpretation is front and center:

the goal of alchemy is the liberation of the spiritual Adam from the bonds of carnality imposed upon Him by the rulers of the sublunary world, the gnostic archons. Within this spiritual interpretation, the idea of the daimonic origins of alchemy becomes a deep problem. The daimons or angels, who reveal the liberating nosis to Isis, are themselves subject to the very carnal desires that alchemy seeks to overcome; indeed these beings are the very type of a spiritual being which has fallen into material embodiment.

According to the account of the spiritual Anthropos in the Hermetic Poimandres, a work evidently familiar to Zosimos29, the fall into matter is precipitated by lust. Poimandres, the “shepherd”, is the first Nous, creator of the Demiurgic Nous and the Anthropos. The Anthropos is thus conceived as the very brother of the Demiurge, prior to the seven planetary archons, and superior to them in dignity. His fall begins when he takes on the powers of the archons. As a result of absorbing their demiurgic powers, the Anthropos is inspired to try his own hand at creation. He breaks through the heavenly spheres into the sublunary world, where he falls victim to a form of narcissism. He sees his beautiful form reflected in Nature and is drawn into her embrace:

The Anthropos, seeing a resemblance of his form in her [sc. Nature], fell in love and desired to make a home there. Immediately his wish was made actual, and he came to dwell in form devoid of reason. Nature, having received the object of her love, engulfed him utterly and they mingled in passion. For they were in love (Poimandres 14) 30).

The account points to lust and pride as fatal defects in the Anthropos, originating from the influence of the archons. The result is his enslavement in the world of fatality. There is in this account both a positive sense of the dignity of the Anthropos as microcosm, containing all of the powers of the universe, and an intimation of the dangers of pride and self-love. The lustful fall of the Anthropos has resulted in the scattering of the divine Light in matter; and it is the goal of alchemy to remedy this fall, by drawing out the hidden Light, or solar potentiality of matter.

The lustful angels of the Book of Enoch and the Isis tractate seem to represent the spiritual fall into matter which it is the goal of the alchemic art to overcome. How then can they be understood as guardians of the liberating alchemic Gnosis? This problem, I shall argue, is inherent in the theoretical position of Zosimos, and arises from his unique synthesis of Gnosticism, daimonology and alchemy.

 

Daimonology and Alchemy in Zosimos

The tractate On the Letter Omega is evidently an introduction to a larger work of Zosimos concerning alchemical furnaces and apparatus, which has not survived in the manuscripts 31). Omega is of great importance for understanding the Gnostic and Hermetic currents that influence Zosimos, and which provide the theoretical and spiritual background to his interpretation of alchemy. Particularly prominent is the influence of an "archontic" Gnosticism, in which the astral rulers and their daimonic agents are conceived as hostile to the human spirit, and as responsible for its continuing enslavement in the world of Fate and corporeality 32). This archontic Gnosticism, I shall argue, has deep implications for Zosimos’s attitude towards astrological and daimonic influences in alchemy.

In the opening of the work, Zosimos expresses frustration to Theosebeia about a group of alchemists who have ridiculed a certain work on furnaces and apparatus, which he evidently holds in high regard. Their reasons for rejecting this technical work center around their commitment to a conception of ‘opportune tinctures’ (kairikai katabaphai, Omega 2.11-12), or tinctures which are effected through the observance of propitious astrological times. These men claim that the practical requirements laid down in the book on furnaces are false and unnecessary, on the grounds that they have been blessed by the daimons simply by observing the propitious times. They will only concede their error when these astral forces, in which they have placed all their trust, turn against them:

For many who have received from their personal daimon the favour to succeed with these opportune tinctures have mocked the book "On Furnaces and Apparatus", claiming that it is false. And no demonstrative argument has persuaded them that it is true, unless their own daimon indicates this, when it has changed in keeping with the changing moments of their Fate (kata tous chronous tês autôn heimarmenês), and a malefic (kakapoiou) daimon has taken charge of them. When all of their art and good fortune has been overturned . . . reluctantly they concede, from this clear demonstration of their Fate, that there is something beyond the methods which they previously entertained (2.13-24).

In their desire for immediate and easy results these alchemists eschew the disciplines of laboratory work and give themselves over to Fate. They are so fixated on the material ends of the art that they forget about the fickleness of fortune, until disaster strikes.

This conception of Fate incorporates a mix of Stoic and Gnostic ideas. For Zosimos, Fate and her daimonic administrators rule the human body and the material ends of human life; and liberation from Fate can only be attained through self-knowledge. The true philosopher or alchemist is liberated inwardly from the cycles of pleasure and pain which Fate controls:

Hermes and Zoroaster maintained that the race of philosophers is superior to Fate, because they neither rejoice in her blessings, for they are masters of pleasure; nor are they thrown by her evils, since they live an inner existence; nor again do they welcome the beautiful gifts she sends, since they focus on the end of evils (5.41-46).

Those alchemists who trust in the gifts of daimons, the messengers of Fate, disclose their subservience to the desires of the flesh, and their failure to grasp the spiritual ends of the alchemical art. They are as mindless as the common lot of humanity, entirely lacking knowledge of their divine origin and end.

Zosimos enters now into an extended account of the fall of the spiritual Anthropos, explaining how humanity has become enslaved to the powers of Fate. In the course of this account it becomes evident that Zosimos’s distrust of the astrological dimensions of alchemic practice (as encapsulated in the notion of ‘opportune tinctures’) is rooted in a gnostic conviction that the ruling powers of the cosmos stand in a hostile, or at least ambivalent, relation to the spiritual aims of the alchemist.

Zosimos tells us that the spiritual or luminous man, whom the Hebrews call Adam, and the Egyptians Thoth, was tricked by the archontic ministers of Fate into clothing himself in a corporeal Adam, composed of the four elements. As a result of this deceit, the light of the spiritual Adam became trapped and divided in material bodies:

When Light (Phôs) was in paradise, pervaded by spirit (diapneomenos), they [sc. the archons], in the service of Fate, persuaded him, who was without malice and powerless, to clothe himself in the Adam, which they had created from Fate and the four elements. On account of his innocence he did not resist, and they boasted because he had been reduced to slavery (11.104-109).

Zosimos speaks later of the salvific role of Jesus Christ, who instructed humanity as to its spiritual nature and began to recollect the Light that had been dispersed throughout matter (13.121-132). Working against the salvific aims of Christ is a figure called the ‘counterfeit daimon’ (14.133), a jealous entity that mimics the true God, seeking to maintain human enslavement to Fate and matter. This counterfeit daimon has an analogue in the ‘opposing spirit’ of the Apocryphon of John, which is infused by the archons into the material composition of Adam to resist the aims of the good spirit, who has been sent by the Father to awaken Adam’s spiritual nature 33).

This gnostic exposition of the fall of the Anthropos is of exceeding importance for the light it casts on Zosimos’s attitude to the astrological and daimonic dimensions of alchemy. No doubt Zosimos would not go so far as to reject entirely the idea of ‘opportune tinctures’. The idea that alchemical processes and substances are sympathetically aligned to astral influences had been central to alchemy from the start, as is reflected in the planetary symbols for gold and silver (i.e. the solar disk and lunar crescent). As a follower of the "Hermetic" way in alchemy, Zosimos would no doubt have been aware of the strong daimonic and astrologic doctrine attributed to Hermes, for instance in the Koré Kosmou:

These are the men who, having learned from Hermes that the atmosphere is full of daimons, inscribed it on stelae . . . they became initiators of men in arts and sciences and all pursuits, as well as lawgivers. These men, having learned from Hermes that things below are ordered sympathetically by the Demiurge to those above, instituted the sacred procedures (hieropoiias) on earth which are vertically aligned ( proskathetous) to the heavenly mysteries 34).

Clearly the Hermetic view expressed here recognizes the necessity of daimonic influences and the vertical alignment of the sciences to the heavens. Indeed, Zosimos does not deny the importance of these sympathetic "vertical" relations. The problem is that the planets, and their archontic rulers, are also, and more fundamentally, antipathetic to the spiritual aims of transmutation. Thus, in addition to the observance of astrologic conditions, Zosimos insists on the need for a rigorous methodology and technique, grounded in an empirical grasp of the natural powers of substances. His view is not that the astrologic side should be rejected entirely, but that a diversity of methods and techniques should be recognized within the single Art (17.160-170).

Just as in the area of medicine we do not put all of our trust in healing priests, but seek out also the practical advice of natural physicians, so the alchemist, Zosimos argues, should not put all of his faith in the stars, but should develop a strong basis in technique, operating independently, as far as this is possible, from the changing whims of Fate (18.171-189).

The argument of On the Letter Omega implies the existence of different schools of alchemy, with different methods and aims. The school which Zosimos criticizes follows an exclusively astrological methodology, with little regard for the practical operation of furnaces and other apparatus. The folly of these alchemists lies in their complete subservience to the archons and their daimonic messengers.

These considerations provide a fuller context and background for the Synkellos fragment, and its claims about the daimonic origins of Chêmeia. Though Zosimos does indeed acknowledge the role of daimons in Omega, he also wants to maintain that the alchemist can operate, to a large extent, independently of daimonic influences. The alchemist achieves this independence by attending to the natural sympathies and antipathies of substances, and by developing an empirical technique suited to manipulating these natural powers. The true alchemist must recognize the necessity of daimonic and astral influences, without becoming further enslaved to them. For the goal of true alchemy, spiritual alchemy, is liberation from the conditions of fatality.

That this is indeed the considered opinion of Zosimos is confirmed by another of his theoretical works, the Final Quittance. Here we find once again a discussion of the differences between ‘opportune tinctures’, which are astrologic and daimonic in origin, and ‘natural tinctures’, which are grounded in a more empirical methodology and technique. In this account, the daimonology is developed much more directly and extensively. The daimons are conceived not merely as cosmic and impersonal principles of Fate, but as personalities with their own malevolent intentions. There are, we shall see, striking connections to the Book of Enoch, with its concerns about predatory daimons.

Zosimos claims that those tinctures which are called ‘opportune’ (kairikai) in his day were, in the time of Hermes, regarded as natural tinctures ( physikai baphai). But this true alchemy, which Hermes knew, has been almost forgotten, due to the jealous stratagems of the daimons, who resent the independence of the alchemists and their natural methods. Eventually these natural secrets were appropriated by the daimons and became contingent upon their influence and will. The daimons now jealously guard these secrets of tincturing, revealing them only to the priests who slavishly worship them:

When the [daimonic] guardians are driven off from the great men they [sc. the daimons] deliberate as to how they may lay claim to our natural tinctures, so as not to be driven away by men, but venerated and invoked, and nourished with sacrifices. This is what they did. They concealed all the natural and selfregulating tinctures (ta physika kai automata), not only out of envy, but giving heed also to their own sustenance, so that they would not be whipped, chased away, and punished with hunger through the cessation of the sacrifices. They acted as follows. They hid the natural tincture and introduced their non-natural tincture, and gave these to their priests; and if the common people were neglectful of the sacrifices, they hindered them even in attaining the non-natural tinctures (Fest. p. 366, ll. 18-26) 35).

Zosimos holds the view that the daimons which inhabit the upper regions of the world are nourished by the smoke of sacrifice, and so are dependent upon the offerings of human worshippers. There is an implication that the airy bodies of these daimons are actually replenished by the sacrificial vapours, a question that seems to have been debated in theurgic circles 36). In order to ensure the maintenance of their sacrifices, Zosimos says, the daimons plotted to keep the alchemists dependent upon them. They concealed the old Hermetic secrets of natural tincturing and replaced them with non-natural or ‘opportune’ tinctures, which they now reveal only to those who make the proper sacrifices.

Zosimos says that these alchemists, who serve the daimons in exchange for secrets of tincturing, are fixated on the material ends of the art. They are ‘wretched lovers of pleasure’ (p. 67, l. 5), who cannot see, or do not care to see, the spiritual dangers of their enslavement. Instead of seeking liberation through alchemy from the pleasures and pains of the body, they surrender themselves, body and soul, to these predatory daimons, in exchange for the superficial trappings of the art. In other words they care only for profane gold but not for the "gold" of self-purification. It is clear that these misguided alchemists are in precisely the same situation as those blind followers of Fate, criticized by Zosimos in On the Letter Omega: those who ridicule the techniques of natural alchemy and trust only in astrologic and daimonic principles.

Zosimos seems to be concerned that Theosebeia is associating with a "prophet" of this debased school of alchemy, and has unwittingly made herself the object of daimonic lust: ‘They wish to do the same to you, dear lady, through their false prophet: the local daimons flatter you, hungry not only for sacrifices, but for your soul’ (p. 367, ll. 6-8). Here we are close indeed to the concerns expressed in the Book of Enoch about predatory daimons, which attempt to seduce human women with false promises of wisdom.

Zosimos urges Theosebeia to master the immoderate bodily passions and appetites, which attract these daimons, and to focus inwardly on attaining the knowledge and experience of the true God. The final lines clarify in a direct and explicit way the Hermetic and Gnostic influences that underlie his interpretation of alchemy:

Do these things until you perfect your soul. When you recognize that you have been perfected, then, realizing the natural tinctures, spit on matter, take refuge in Poimandres, and once baptized in the krater (baptistheisa tôi kratêri) ascend quickly to your own race (Fest. p. 368, ll. 1-4).

Zosimos seems to imply a familiarity with two of the tractates of the Corpus Hermeticum (or if we cannot assume that he knows the tractates themselves, at least he knows their central concepts). The Poimandres, discussed earlier in the paper, presents the famous gnostic account of the "narcissistic" fall of the Anthropos. Zosimos exhorts Theosebeia to spit on matter and take refuge in Poimandres. In other words he urges her to reject the downward pull of the body and its appetites, which led to the original fall, and which continue to keep humans enslaved to Fate and the daimons; he urges her to resist this attraction to Nature and to return to her spiritual origin as a true child of Poimandres, superior to the daimons and their archontic masters.

The reference to the krater, or baptismal bowl, is also highly significant. Tractate IV of our Corpus Hermeticum, The Krater or Monad37, describes a spiritual baptism of the soul in nous or mind. This baptism imparts the secret gnôsis which liberates us from material enslavement: ‘All those who heeded the proclamation and were baptized in mind (ebaptisanto tou noos), these received the gnôsis and became complete men, having received mind’ (C.H. IV, 4). The Greek word for ‘baptize’, baptizein and its cognates, is connected, etymologically and conceptually, to the alchemic terms baphê and katabaphê which I translate as ‘tincture’. The different kinds of katabaphai which Zosimos discusses in On the Letter Omega and The Final Quittance are different ways of tincturing or "baptizing" metals. This "baptism" of metals is, for Zosimos, a purification; and it is the external sign of a deeper spiritual baptism, a baptism precisely of the sort that is described in C.H. IV. In referring Theosebeia to this Hermetic tractate, and to its central concept of "baptism", Zosimos is reminding her of the true meaning of alchemy, the Hermetic meaning, and warning her against falling in with those debased practitioners of the Art who care only for material results to the detriment of their very souls, and to the delight of the predatory daimons.

In the end, however, the problem of daimons remains largely unresolved. Given that the alchemist must take some account of these daimonic and astrologic influences, inasmuch as he works through the material world, how can he do so without compromising the spiritual integrity of the Art and risking daimonic seduction? Is there any way to reconcile the spiritual aims of the Art with its material necessities? There is one tantalizing suggestion. Zosimos advises Theosebeia to perform certain sacrifices after the example of Solomon: ‘Then, without being called to do it, offer sacrifices to the daimons, not the useful variety, not those which nourish and comfort them, but those which deter and destroy them, those which Mambres [Jambres?] gave to Solomon, king of Jerusalem, and of which he himself has written according to his wisdom’ (Final Quittance, Fest. p. 367, ll. 24-27). Zosimos here shows his familiarity with the folk legends of Solomon as a magus and exorcist, who holds divine dominion over daimons. One wonders whether he has read the Testament of Solomon38, in which Solomon describes how he harnessed the powers of the daimons, with the aid of their angelic superiors, in order to complete the construction of the Temple. Solomon, through the divine power of his ring, commands each demon, in turn, to reveal its name, its distinctive activity, its planetary or zodiacal designation, and the angelic or divine power that thwarts it. So long as he maintains a pious relation to God, he is able to control the demons, through their divine superiors, and harness their powers for sacred ends. But when his piety is compromised, and he sacrifices to pagan gods, his control over the demons is lost, and he becomes enslaved to them: ‘. . . my spirit was darkened and I became a laughingstock to the idols and demons.’ (Testament 26.7-8). As K. von Stuckrad argues, one sees in the Testament a monotheistic response to the problem of the malevolent astral powers 39). Of special interest is the manner in which the Egyptian decan gods are demoted to daimons, now held under the dominion of the Jewish angels and, ultimately, the Jewish God (Testament, 18). If Zosimos does have this Solomonic tradition in mind, then he may be suggesting to Theosebeia that the daimons which are attempting to control and seduce her can, in turn, be controlled and made subject to the spiritual work of the alchemist—just as Solomon was able to harness the daimons toward the spiritual ends of the Temple. Unfortunately, Zosimos does not clarify the character of these sacrifices, or their function within the alchemical art, so this speculation cannot be confirmed with any certainty.

 

Conclusion

We are now in a better position to understand why Zosimos, in the quotation from Synkellos, endorses the Enochian account of the origins of the occult sciences. The notion that alchemy proceeds on the basis of the revelations of unscrupulous daimons, or that it derives its very efficacy from astrologic and daimonic principles, is a central and persistent concern of Zosimos’s theoretical writings on alchemy. However, in endorsing and indeed developing the Enochian account of daimonic influence, Zosimos does not view himself as undermining the divine status of alchemy. True alchemy, Hermetic alchemy, is above reproach, because it operates, as far as possible, independently of daimons and astrologic principles, employing a natural methodology based on the natural sympathies and antipathies of substances. When Zosimos speaks approvingly of the Enochian account, it may be that he has chiefly in mind that other school of "so-called" alchemists, who are too lazy for laboratory work and have no interest in the purification of their bodies and souls. For them the tincturing of metals is surface deep, lacking entirely the spiritual implications of "baptism" that Zosimos finds philosophically expressed in his Hermetic sources. Their version of Chêmeia is indeed ‘of no advantage to the soul’. Zosimos joins the Book of Enoch in condemning these base practitioners of the occult sciences, who are slaves to their own passions and to the daimons who rule the world of Fate and matter. He sees clearly that knowledge in the wrong hands, and applied to the wrong ends, can enslave; even as it can serve as a tool of liberation and enlightenment in the right hands.
 
 

1) George Synkellos, Ecloga Chronographica (ed. A.A. Mosshammer), 14.4-11. Though this passage does not appear in the Greek alchemical corpus, there are close parallels in a 15th century Syriac manuscript. For a discussion of the parallels see Mertens, Alchimistes Grecs, Tome 4, LXX-LXXVIII.

2) These physical writings are not extant: everything that we know about the "Hermetic" view of alchemy (which is very little) has been reconstructed from references in Zosimos and the later commentators, like Olympiodoros. For a discussion of the evidence see Festugière, Révélation I, 240-256.

3) The passages from the corpus of Zosimos relating to Maria are collected and discussed by Patai, Jewish Alchemists, ch. 6. However, this source should be used with caution. Patai bases his translations directly on the French translation of Berthelot, which in turn is based on the often unreliable Greek text established by Ruelle. See also note 6 infra.

4) Patai, Jewish Alchemists, 56.

5) On the Letter Omega 9, 87-88, in Mertens, Alchimistes Grecs Tome 4. See also the edition of Jackson, Zosimos of Panopolis, On the Letter Omega.

6) ‘Thus the Jews, imitating [the Egyptians] (hoi Ioudaioi autous mimêsamenoi), deposited the opportune tinctures in their subterranean chambers, along with their secrets of initiation . . .’, Final Quittance 5.26-27, as edited by Festugière, Révélation I, appendix 1, 363-368. Raphael Patai claims that for Zosimos ‘the Jews’ knowledge of alchemy was greater and more reliable than that of any other people, including even the Egyptians’ (p. 12). But this assertion is based on a faulty translation of the opening lines of The True Book of Sophe the Egyptian. Following the edition of Berthelot-Ruelle, Patai reads: ‘There are two sciences and two wisdoms: that of the Egyptians and that of the Hebrews, which latter is rendered more sound by divine justice’ (Patai, Jewish Alchemists, 52). Though the Greek is admittedly tortuous, this is an implausible reconstruction. Much better is Festugière’s suggestion (Révélation I, 261, note 2), which Patai evidently does not know: ‘The true book of Sophe the Egyptian and the God of the Hebrews, Lord of the Powers, Sabaoth (for there are two sciences and two wisdoms, that of the Egyptians and that of the Hebrews), is more solid than divine justice’. The reference to the two sciences is parenthetical, and that which is ‘more solid than divine justice’ is just the Book of Sophe itself.

7) On the Letter Omega 8.82-86 (Mertens). Festugière emended Hermên (‘Hermes’) to hermênea, ‘interpreter’ (Révélation I, 268 n. 5). However, as Jackson (Zosimos of Panoplis, 48, n. 42) and Mertens (Alchimistes Grecs Tome 4, 5, n. 56) argue, the reference to Hermes—though impossible in a strictly Jewish context—makes sense within an Egyptian-Hermetic perspective that is appropriating Jewish materials.

8) Book of Enoch, trans. R.H. Charles, in id., Apocrypha and Pseudepigrapha, 191-193.

9) However, one Ethiopic manuscript adds, ‘transmutation of the world’ after the reference to ‘tinctures’ at 1 Enoch 8.2. E. Isaac, in a more recent translation, interprets this expression as a reference to alchemy: ‘And Azaz’el taught the people . . . all coloring tinctures and alchemy’ (Charlesworth, Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, 16, with note 8 [d]). Although this is an interpretation, it is not implausible in the context.

10) The Greek Enochian fragments actually use the expression ta baphika, ‘colouring tinctures’, which accords perfectly with the alchemical sense of tincturing as baptism. See Festugière, Révélation I, 223, nt. 2.

11) For a full discussion of the possible etymology see Lindsay, Origins of Alchemy, 68ff. For the connection of the Greek word Chêmia to the Egyptian Kmt see Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 364c6-8 (trans. J. Gwyn Griffiths): ‘Again, they call Egypt, since it is mostly black, Chêmia . . .’. The related word Chêmeia, as Lindsay observes (o.c., 69), belongs to a series of words terminating in -eia, which denote arts or occupations (e.g. mageia, as the art of the magos). Presumably, then, Chêmeia is the distinctive art connected to Chêmia.

12) For this point see Festugière, Révélation I, 218.

13) However, as K. von Stuckrad argues, 1 Enoch does not regard knowledge as such as the root of evil, but the revelation of divine knowledge to those who are unfit and unprepared to receive it (Das Ringen um die Astrologie, ch. 6, section 1.2). The revelation of the fallen angels (1 Enoch 6-11) stands in sharp contrast to the revelations of the holy angel Uriel (1 Enoch 72-82), which Enoch is charged to pass on secretly to his descendants. Clearly the implication is that divine knowledge should be kept secret—reserved for the righteous—since it is dangerous in the wrong hands.

14) Tertullian, On Idolatry, trans. in Thelwall, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 3, 65. Cf. Tertullian, On the Apparel of Women, in Thelwall, Ante-Nicene Fathers, vol. 4, 14-16.

15) Tacitus, Annalium 32.11-15 (ed. C.D. Fisher).

16) For a close examination of magic as "illicit religion" see Kippenberg, ‘Magic in Roman Civil Discourse’. On the Pauli Sententiae, see p. 149; on secrecy, see p. 150ff. ‘The departure of magic from official religion came about precisely because of the practice of secrecy, that turned an official religious ritual into a magical one’ (p. 155).

17) Origen (quoting Celsus), Contra Celsum, Bk. 1, ch. 68 (trans. H. Chadwick).

18) City of God X.9 (Trans. David S. Wiesen).

19) In his Letter to Anebo, Porphyry implies that theurgists are confused about the nature of the gods, since they seem to hold that immaterial gods are attracted by material sacrifices (Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, 211.19-212.3, ed. des Places). In On the Abstinence of Animal Food he goes further: the true objects of blood sacrifices are daimons, disguised as divinities. He holds that the pneumatic bodies of daimons are replenished by the sacrificial smoke, a view which Zosimos also holds, and with great anxiety, but which Iamblichus rejects (see note 36 infra). For further discussion see especially Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 129ff.

20) Iamblichus distinguishes sacred visions attained through theurgy from the residual phantasms artificially produced through sorcery (apo tês goêteias technichôs, De Mysteriis 160.15-18, ed. des Places). Likewise, he distinguishes theurgy from the animation of statues, which is also effected through magical artifice (technikôs 170.9). For further discussion see Shaw, Theurgy and the Soul, 38-39.

21) Fritz Graf identifies this topos as one of two prevailing strategies for defining "magic" in a monotheistic context: ‘One [way] is to assume that the sorcerers make use of negative superhuman beings which coexist with God, those pagan gods who have now been unveiled as evil demons and who either are or are not identical with the fallen angels of Jewish tradition . . .’ (‘Theories of Magic in Antiquity’, 104). The other way of distinguishing magic from religion, which Graf associates especially with Plotinus, stresses intentionality and the manipulation of natural bonds of sympathy and antipathy (o.c., 100-104).

22) Of course, "theurgy" in the strict sense refers specifically to the ritual practices of the Chaldean Oracles, which were further developed by Iamblichus and his followers. My suggestion here is not that alchemy is identical to this Chaldean theurgy, only that it implies a similar valuation of the material world and its ritual utility. As Shaw argues, on the theurgic view ‘[e]ven the densest aspects of matter . . . were potential medicines for a soul diseased by its body, and the cure for a somatic fixation in this theurgic homeopathy was the tail of the (daimonic) dog which bound it’ (Theurgy and the Soul, 47). Likwise, alchemy, as Zosimos understands it, works through matter to rise above matter. This ritual engagement with matter involves a degree of tension given Zosimos’s concerns about the daimons and archons who rule over the material world. Iamblichus, by contrast, has a more positive view of the daimons (for further discussion see Shaw, 130ff ).

23) For the Greek text of this tract see Berthelot, Collection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs, vol. II, 28-33. The text established by Ruelle is based on Paris 2327 f. 256r, collated with variant readings from Paris 2250 f. 217r. The connection to the Book of Enoch is discussed briefly by Festugière, Révélation I, 255-256.

24) See the Physika kai Mystika of Pseudo-Demokritos (i.e. Bolos of Mendes), edited in Berthelot, Collection des Anciens Alchimistes Grecs, vol. II, 41-53. In this tractate, "Demokritos" tells of the discovery of a secret book, concealed by his master Ostanes in a temple column. In this book the famous maxim was revealed, which reads in full: ‘Nature rejoices in nature; nature conquers nature; nature dominates (kratei) nature’ (43.20-21). Variants of this maxim appear throughout the alchemic corpus. Note the analogy between the notion of nature dominating (kratei) nature, and Isis’s mastery (epikratein) of Amnael’s passion. The alchemist must balance natural sympathies and antipathies. At the start of the work she must cause dissonant substances to coalesce in the primordial mixture, or prime matter. It is this harmony of the natures that Ostanes failed to reveal to "Demokritos" before his death (42.22-25). In another way, however, this harmonization or blending is also a dissolution of the distinct natures of the various substances, their reduction to primordial "blackness". This dissolution is effected through the application of reagents like mercury, sulphur and vinegar. Once the "black" mixture has been attained, then there is a process of differentiation, expressed through the successive stages of "tincturing", i.e. whitening and yellowing.

25) I follow the Greek text established by Nock & Festugière, Hermès Trismégiste, Corpus Hermeticum vol. II.

26) See Plutarch, De Defectu Oraculorum, ch. 13; in Plutarch’s Moralia, trans. F.C. Babbit.

27) See Iamblichus, De Mysteriis, 67.15-18 (des Places, Les Mystères d’Égypte): ‘It is necessary to reserve for daimons the generative powers, which govern nature and the connection of souls to bodies’ (tou sundesmou tôn psychôn eis ta sômata).

28) Plutarch, On Isis and Osiris, 360d13-e23 (trans. J. Gwyn Griffiths).

29) He seems to refer to this work at the close of The Final Quittance: see below pp. 18-19.

30) For the Greek text see Nock & Festugière, Hermès Trismégiste, Corpus Hermeticum Tome I.

31) I follow the critical edition of Mertens, Alchimistes Grecs Tome IV, 1-10. Also useful is Jackson, Zosimos of Panopolis. However, Jackson’s interpretation of the tractate is problematic: he understands Zosimos to be endorsing ‘opportune tinctures’ and stressing the need for astrologic considerations, a reading that turns the argument on its head. The Greek text of On the Letter Omega is preserved only in the second recension of Marcianus 299. The full title in the manuscript reads, Of the same Zosimos, Authentic Memoirs concerning Apparatus and Furnaces. On the letter Omega. We do not possess the actual treatment of apparatus and furnaces, of which Omega is evidently the introduction, with the exception perhaps of a short excerpt, also edited by Mertens (o.c., 23-25).

32) Zosimos blends conceptions from the Hermetica with an "archontic" Gnosticism, in the vein of the Apocryphon of John. Contemporary scholars have attempted to differentiate these Hermetic and Gnostic currents (which for Zosimos are clearly part of one framework) in terms of "optimistic" and "pessimistic" gnôsis. While it is true that the Hermetica generally give a more positive assessment of the natural world, and of the roles of the Demiurge and the archons, it is misleading to suggest that they offer an "optimistic" conception of gnôsis. Clearly gnôsis is required precisely because humanity is fallen, and requires salvation. The Hermetic Poimandres is quite close in spirit to the so-called "gnostic" viewpoint, and there are many other allusions in the Hermetic corpus to the negative features of embodiment. As Garth Fowden has argued, the optimistic and pessimistic (or "monistic" and "dualistic") attitudes to the material world should be understood as reflecting different stages in the soul’s ascent to the divine (see Fowden, Egyptian Hermes, 102ff). On the other hand, we shall find that the dualistic tendencies in Zosimos, as reflected in his anxieties about embodiment and the daimonic ministers, are indeed in a certain tension with his commitment to the material operations of alchemy—thus his concerns about the role of daimonic and astrologic influences in the processes of tincturing.

33) Apocryphon of John, in: Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, N.H.C. II, 1.21; 24-27; 29-30. Note also the analogies with the Book of Enoch: the angels of Ialdabaoth seduce the daughters of men and beget offspring through them (II, 1.29-30).

34) Following the Greek text of Nock & Festugière, Corpus Hermeticum, vol. IV, fragment XXIII, 67-68.

35) I am following the Greek text established by Festugière, Révélation I, appendix 1, 363-368.

36) Iamblichus falls on the other side of the debate. On his view, the idea that daimons are nourished by theurgic sacrifice involves a confusion of "wholes" and "parts", making the daimons subject to, and dependent upon, the material substances over which they are supposed to hold dominion. See Les Mystères d’Égypte, 210.15ff (des Places).

37) For the Greek text see Nock & Festugière, Corpus Hermeticum, vol. I.

38) See Testament of Solomon, trans. D.C. Duling. In The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, ed. Charlesworth, 935-987. There is disagreement as to the date of the Testament, but the consensus seems to place it between the 1st and 3rd centuries CE, in which case Zosimos could be familiar with it. If the "Mambres" of Zosimos is the Egyptian sorcerer Jambres, mentioned in the Testament (25.4), then the connection is strengthened (see Duling, 950-51, nt. 94). In any case, Zosimos seems to be familiar with the tradition, even if we cannot be certain that he knows this version of it. A similar legend can be found in the Nag Hammadi Testimony of Truth. There we are told that Solomon built Jerusalem by means of daimons, which he subsequently imprisoned in the Temple (in Robinson, Nag Hammadi Library, N.H.C. IX, 3.70).

39) K. von Stuckrad notes that the subordination of the astral powers to the Jewish God and His angelic ministers neutralizes their malevolent potency, so that Solomon can harness their powers in the sacred work of the Temple’s construction: ‘Die Gestirnsmächte sind depotenzierte Engel oder Götter . . . Der jüdische Gott ist es, welcher die Himmelsmächte kontrolliert; durch seine Kraft werden die Dämonen ihrer Göttlichkeit beraubt, gezüchtigt und sogar zum Dienst am Tempelbau herangezogen’ (Das Ringen um die Astrologie, 417).

 

 

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