Alchemy: Ancient and Modern / Being a Brief Account of the Alchemistic Doctrines, and Their Relations, to Mysticism on the One Hand, and to Recent Discoveries in Physical Science on the Other Hand; Together with Some Particulars Regarding the Lives and Teachings of the Most Noted Alchemists

by H. Stanley Redgrove

Zosimus of Panopolis.

§ 31. One of the earliest of the alchemists of whom record remains was Zosimus of Panopolis, who flourished in the fifth century, and was regarded by the later alchemists as a master of the Art. He is said to have written many treatises dealing with Alchemy, but only fragments remain. Of these fragments, Professor Venable says: “. . . they give us a good idea of the learning of the man and of his times. They contain descriptions of apparatus, of furnaces, studies of minerals, of alloys, of glass making, of mineral waters, and much that is mystical, besides a good deal referring to the transmutation of metals.”[43] Zosimus is said to have been the author of the saying, “like begets like,” but whether all the fragments ascribed to him were really his work is doubtful.

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[43] F. P. Venable, Ph.D.: A Short History of Chemistry (1896), p. 13.

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Among other early alchemists we may mention also Africanus, the Syrian; Synesius, Bishop of Ptolemais, and the historian, Olympiodorus of Thebes.