Great alchemists: zosimos
Few alchemists are more obscure and cherished than Zosimos of Panopolis, the great alchemist and mystic of the third century Greco-Roman world. He is positioned marvellously in the history of western spirituality: the father of the framework for western alchemy, the father of alchemy as a spiritual practice, and living in the same city and exact same century which gave birth to Hermeticism as a distinct spiritual paradigm. His reference to Moses as an authority on alchemy is the earliest example in existence of attributing alchemical knowledge to Jewish theological figures. He likewise existed on the precipice of a changing era. Egypt was falling, Greece had lost independence, and Rome was changing under the influence of a new theology called Christianity. The remnants of Egyptian motif and teachings present in Zosimos’ writings are probably the last of its type, and set the foundation for all future generations of alchemists being able to claim some manner of connection to ancient Egypt. All of these factors together place him as a giant in the history of western mysticism and alchemy.
His Life and Era
Almost nothing is known of Zosimos’ personal life. His name is strange by Greek standards of the time, and some researchers have suggested it is a hellenized form of a Hebrew name. There is substantial evidence for believing that he was a Jew. His discourses seem to be addressed to people with Jewish belief or, in the very least, knowledge of the Torah. He also holds the Jews in high regard, quoting “Maria the Hebrew” as saying that only those of the Hebrew race and Jewish faith were capable of achieving success in alchemy. This would be an odd idea to espouse or even expose to his audience if he did not think at least somewhat similarly. Likewise, it would be strange to think such a thing, and be an alchemical practitioner, unless he fit that description himself.
We know that the authority he quoted from the most extensively was Maria the Hebrew, but since he in one place refers to her as being among “the ancients,” it is very unlikely that they were contemporaries or that he learned directly from her. He also frequently refers to Democritus, a Greek, who he honors with the epithet of “the best of the sages in his time.” This Democritus sometimes appears to be a disciple of Maria, and sometimes her preceptor, especially in Arabic references where dates and eras are often conflated with each other. Regardless there appears to have been a sort of chain of transmission: Democritus was the preceptor of Maria, who herself taught an alchemist named Aros (probably “Aryeh”). Then at least one or two generations of teachers pass until we arrive at Sophe the Egyptian, who was possibly the teacher of Zosimos.
The authors that Zosimos quotes are generally attributed to the first century or early second century of the common era, yet he himself is usually placed at the end of the third. That posits over a century between he and the people he is relying on, if not two hundred years as some think. I am inclined to agree with the two hundred year idea due to the fact that there is evidence for Maria’s form of alchemy in Alexandria in the first century AD, and there was a flourishing Jewish community there at the time. Alexandria indeed had been a haven for Hebrews until persecution and riots began really breaking out in the first century. The groundwork and setting for Maria was probably before such violent uprisings, in a more intellectual time better suited for the leisurely pursuit of such sciences. Hence her dating to around 50AD or so.
The silent expanse of time between Maria and Zosimos is probably due to a tumultuous relationship between the Hebrews and the prevailing Roman authorities until the death of Emperor Hadrian in 138. From there until around 315 AD, the Jews had a fairly peaceful era wherein they could continue to progress intellectually and culturally. Some authorities have therefore placed Maria as being during this era, and therefore closer to Zosimos. Regardless, this period exhibited a number of advances in mysticism, Platonic ideology, and metaphysics as a whole. Neo-pythagoreanism in Eastern Rome and Chaldean influence coming in via Cappadocia created an ideal time for the flourishing of more magical conceptions.
Alchemy as a Spiritual Path
To me, the most important imprint left by Zosimos for alchemical posterity is his intensely spiritual and interior approach to the practice of alchemy. He says in his manuscripts, “Make these things until you become perfect in your soul.” The ideas of external alchemical evolution and internal spiritual evolution were intimately linked in Zosimos. He taught that whatever evolved in nature evolved in tandem with whatever was around it, and that nothing evolved by itself as though alone in a vacuum. This was the work of nature, and man being uniquely outfitted by God was in a position to hurry nature’s work along at greater speed in a single lifetime. These concepts evolved significantly in the works of the European alchemists, especially Paracelsus, but their groundwork was laid entirely by Zosimos.
I think that this fundamental idea was sometimes left out by later western alchemists. There was a trend in post-Renaissance alchemy to view the coveted “philosopher’s stone” or “tincture of the sages” as a sort of silver bullet. No matter what kind of person you were, if you could just create the stone you would somehow become a sage and receive the gifts of heaven. Alchemists of that era were hardly shy about lavishing their art with every sort of divine praise and epithet, indirectly showering themselves with the same for their own efforts. If you could just break open this one secret of nature then surely you would reveal all the others! Isis would be unveiled completely.
In Zosimos this is not the case. “Make these things until you become perfect in your soul.” What a statement! Especially if you consider that the “things” he is talking about here are every form of sulfur and sulfide, the permutations of mercury, the glasslike stone of transmutation, and the potable tincture of gold, things which alchemists would wrestle over forever. He does not say to make them “so that” you will be perfected, but rather to continuously make them, as though saying to make them again and again, until by proximity you achieve a degree of perfection within yourself as well.
This internal perfection synchronizes much better with his famous visionary accounts, the symbolism of which would populate alchemical lore for another millenium. As Zosimos works on certain external alchemical operations, he has dreams at night of different spiritual beings, the epitomes of the substances he was working with, giving him different experiences. Sometimes he is transformed, sometimes he is made to see certain landscape or events, and sometimes he is given special elixirs to drink in order to prepare or purify himself. To him, everything that happened externally during the day become real internally at night, as though one triggered the other. Those nightly visions and initiations would, in turn, fill him with greater skill and technical insight for his work the next day. They fed into each other. This sort of phenomenon is recorded here in the west at the very beginning of alchemy but then practically vanishes. If more modern alchemists would turn to this ancient forefather they would certainly more easily find the real keys to the mysteries. Not only in material practice but in spiritual practice as well.
The operations of the day, the Great Work, were intended to guide the operator in his interior path to enlightenment. As Zosimos says elsewhere, by way of example:
“Descending to the Shepherd and plunging into meditation, you will thus re-ascend to your origin.”
A statement that sounds like it could have come straight out of a Taoist classic on neidan. “Descending to the Shepherd” is most certainly an alchemical event occurring within the vessel, but “plunging into meditation” is his instruction to the alchemist himself. It is not enough merely to re-unite alchemical substances within the flask. Dive into your own intellect and reunite conceptions within yourself! Cling to the inner divine principle that, in Zosimos’ theology, is breathed into us by the Creator. By advancing in this way carefully, but internally reflecting whatever appears externally, by following the signs and visions, by living alchemically, the alchemist will produce the shining sun and golden king of heaven both within the flask and within the space of his mind’s eye. As Artephius the Alchemist would say centuries later, alchemy is the test of your philosophy. If your philosophy does not advance correctly, neither will your alchemy.
The Legacy of Zosimos
A host of alchemical terminology comes to us by way of Zosimos, either as his own innovation or as a vessel for his predecessors’ teachings. The concept of differentiating between the vulgar form of a substance and the alchemical form began with he and his teachers. For example, Maria uses the terms “Our Lead,” “Our Sulfur,” and “Our Mercury” to differentiate between what the alchemist is using and the vulgar forms of those substances which anyone can buy. The exhaustive symbolism, usually in an astronomical fashion, is also derived from Zosimos’ manuscripts. Substances transform from, for example, silver and gold, into “the eyes of heaven.”
In addition to the “twilight language” of the alchemists, their symbolic ways of referring to things, Zosimos and his teachers also provide a number of unique tools which continue to be used in alchemy today. The double boiler, used for alchemy and cooking alike, is called the Balneum Mariae in honor of Maria the Hebrew for her supposed invention of it. The prototype looted flask which evolved into the distillation apparatus of modern chemistry was first designed by Democritus or Maria, and was based on the tool that painters used to mix their pigments. To close this brief discussion of Zosimos, let’s take a look at some of the tools and concepts which all western alchemy owes to his manuscripts:
Kerotaktis: The original distillation still
Tribikos: The original luted retort, which had three heads for controlling pressure and air flow.
Ios: The use of the ashes or calculi of different metals in alchemy, the origin of calcination.
Thermospodion: The practice of giving something a “sand-bath,” or the use of warm ashes to maintain something at a stable temperature for hours at a time.
Iosis: The important alchemical practice of learning how to redden a metal, giving it the ability to tinge other metals.
Kaminon and Organon: The entire science of the furnaces and apparati used in alchemy. Most later alchemical tools drew themselves from the doctrines of Zosimos and his report on what was used by the ancients before him.
Alchemy eventually evolved into an extraordinarily complex practice, as much art as science. Modern chemistry emerged directly from the tools and processes discovered by earlier alchemists, and therefore indirectly from the teachings of this original Alchemist himself. No consideration of alchemy is complete, especially within the western context, without looking at this man and the important teachings he gave us from his own predecessors.