Yet, it is quite true that
Owing to an Ethiopian invasion and the federated government of twelve chiefs, royalty fell into the hands of Amasis, a man of low birth.
This was in 570 b.c., and it is Amasis who destroyed priestly power. And
Thus perished that ancient theocracy which showed its crowned priests for so many centuries to Egypt and the whole world.
Egypt had gathered the students of all countries around her Priests and Hierophants before Alexandria was founded. Ennemoser asks:
How comes it that so little has become known of the Mysteries and of their particular contents, through so many ages, and amongst so many different times and people? The answer is that it is again owing to the universally strict silence of the initiated. Another cause may be found in the destruction and total loss of all the written memorials of the secret knowledge of the remotest antiquity.
Numa's books, described by Livy, consisting of natural philosophy, were found in his tomb; but they were not allowed to be made known, lest they should reveal the most secret mysteries of the state religion.... The senate and the tribunes of the people determined ... that the books themselves should be burned, which was done.[548]
Cassain mentions a treatise, well-known in the fourth and fifth centuries, which was accredited to Ham, the son of Noah, who in his turn was reputed to have received it from Jared, the fourth generation from Seth, the son of Adam.
Alchemy also was first taught in Egypt by her learned Priests, though the first appearance of this system is as old as man. Many writers have declared that Adam was the first Adept; but that was a blind and a pun upon the name, which is “red earth” in one of its meanings. The correct information—under its allegorical veil—is found in the sixth chapter of Genesis, which speaks of the “Sons of God” who took wives of the daughters of men, after which they communicated [pg 302] to these wives many a mystery and secret of the phenomenal world. The cradle of Alchemy, says Olaus Borrichius, is to be sought in the most distant times. Democritus of Abdera was an Alchemist, and a Hermetic Philosopher. Clement of Alexandria wrote considerably upon the Science, and Moses and Solomon are called proficients in it. We are told by W. Godwin:
The first authentic record on this subject is an edict of Diocletian about 300 years a.d., ordering a diligent search to be made in Egypt for all the ancient books which treated of the art of making gold and silver, that they might, without distinction, be consigned to the flames.