The alchemists themselves, of course, claimed for their art the highest antiquity. Zosimus of Panopolis, who seems to have written in the third century, says that the fallen angels instructed men in alchemy as well as in the other arts, and that it was the divine and sacred art of the priests and kings of Egypt, who kept it secret. We also have an address of Isis to her son Horus repeating the revelation made by Amnael, the first of the angels and prophets. To Moses are ascribed treatises on domestic chemistry and doubling the weight of gold.[899] The manuscripts of the Byzantine period discuss what “the ancients” meant by this or that, or purport to repeat what someone else said of some other person. Zosimus seems fond of citing himself in the texts reproduced by Berthelot, so that it may be questioned how much of his original works has been preserved. Hermes is often cited by the alchemists, although no work of alchemy ascribed to him has reached us from this early period. To Agathodaemon is ascribed a commentary on the oracle of Orpheus addressed to Osiris, dealing with the whitening and yellowing of metals and other alchemical recipes. Other favorite authorities are Ostanes, whom we have elsewhere heard represented as the introducer of magic into the Greek world, and the philosopher Democritus, whom the alchemists represent as the pupil of Ostanes and whom we have already heard Pliny charge with devotion to magic. Seneca says in one of his letters that Democritus discovered a process to soften ivory, that he prepared artificial emerald, and colored vitrified substances. Diogenes Laertius ascribes to him a work on the juices of plants, on stones, minerals, metals, colors, and coloring glass. This was possibly the same as the four books on coloring gold, silver, stones, and purple ascribed to Democritus by Synesius in the fifth, and Syncellus in the eighth, century. More recent presumably than Ostanes and Democritus are the female alchemists, Cleopatra and Mary the Jewess, although one text represents Ostanes and his companions as conversing with Cleopatra. A few of the spurious works ascribed to these authors may have come into existence as early as the Hellenistic period, but those which have reached us, at least in their present form, seem to bear the marks of the Christian era and later centuries of the Roman Empire, if not of the early medieval and Byzantine periods. And those authors whose names seem genuine: Zosimus, Synesius, Olympiodorus, Stephanus, are of the third, fourth and fifth centuries, at the earliest.
Close association of Greek alchemy with magic.
The associations of the names above cited and the fact that pseudo-literature forms so large a part of the early literature of alchemy suggest its close connection at that time with magic. Whereas Vitruvius, although not personally inhospitable to occult theory, showed us the art of architecture free from magic, and Hero told how to perform apparent magic by means of mechanical devices and deceits, the Greek alchemists display entire faith in magic procedure with which their art is indissolubly intermingled. Indeed the papyri in which works of alchemy occur are primarily magic papyri, so that alchemy may be said to spring from the brow of magic. The same is only somewhat less true of the manuscripts. In the earliest one of the eleventh century the alchemy is in the company of a treatise on the interpretation of dreams, a sphere of divination of life or death, and magic alphabets. The treatises of alchemy themselves are equally impregnated with magic detail. Cleopatra’s art of making gold employs concentric circles, a serpent, an eight-rayed star, and other magic figures. Physica et mystica, ascribed to Democritus, after a purely technical fragment on purple dye, invokes his master Ostanes from Hades, and then plunges into alchemical recipes. There are also frequent bits of astrology and suggestions of Gnostic influence. Often the encircling serpent Ouroboros, who bites or swallows his tail, is referred to.[900] Sometimes the alchemist puts a little gold into his mixture to act as a sort of nest egg, or mother of gold, and encourage the remaining substance to become gold too.[901] Or we read in a work ascribed to Ostanes of “a divine water” which “revives the dead and kills the living, enlightens obscurity and obscures what is clear, calms the sea and quenches fire. A few drops of it give lead the appearance of gold with the aid of God, the invisible and all-powerful....”[902]
Mystery and allegory.
These early alchemists are also greatly given to mystery and allegory. “Touch not the philosopher’s stone with your hands,” warns Mary the Jewess, “you are not of our race, you are not of the race of Abraham.”[903] In a tract concerning the serpent Ouroboros we read, “A serpent is stretched out guarding the temple. Let his conqueror begin by sacrifice, then skin him, and after having removed his flesh to the very bones, make a stepping-stone of it to enter the temple. Mount upon it and you will find the object sought. For the priest, at first a man of copper, has changed his color and nature and become a man of silver; a few days later, if you wish, you will find him changed into a man of gold.”[904] Or in the preparation of the aforesaid divine water Ostanes tells us to take the eggs of the serpent of oak who dwells in the month of August in the mountains of Olympus, Libya, and the Taurus.[905] Synesius tells that Democritus was initiated in Egypt at the temple of Memphis by Ostanes, and Zosimus cites the instruction of Ostanes, “Go towards the stream of the Nile; you’ll find there a stone; cut it in two, put in your hand, and take out its heart, for its soul is in its heart.”[906] Zosimus himself often resorts to symbolic jargon to obscure his meaning, as in the description of the vision of a priest who was torn to pieces and who mutilated himself.[907] He, too, personifies the metals and talks of a man of gold, a tin man, and so on.[908] A brief example of his style will have to suffice, as these allegories of the alchemists are insufferably tedious reading. “Finally I had the longing to mount the seven steps and see the seven chastisements, and one day, as it chanced, I hit upon the path up. After several attempts I traversed the path, but on my return I lost my way and, profoundly discouraged, seeing no way out, I fell asleep. In my dream I saw a little man, a barber, clothed in purple robe and royal raiment, standing outside the place of punishment, and he said to me....”[909] When Zosimus was not dreaming dreams and seeing visions, he was usually citing ancient authorities.
Experimentation in alchemy: relation to science and philosophy.
At the same time even these early alchemists cannot be denied a certain scientific character, or at least a connection with natural science. Behind alchemy existed a constant experimental progress. “Alchemy,” said Berthelot, “rested upon a certain mass of practical facts that were known in antiquity and that had to do with the preparation of metals, their alloys, and that of artificial precious stones; it had there an experimental side which did not cease to progress during the entire medieval period until positive modern chemistry emerged from it.”[910] The various treatises of the Greek alchemists describe apparatus and experiments which are real but with which they associated results which were impossible and visionary. Their theories of matter seem indebted to the earlier Greek philosophers, while in the description of nature Berthelot noted a “direct and intimate” relation between them and the works of Dioscorides, Vitruvius, and Pliny.[911]
CHAPTER VI
PLUTARCH’S ESSAYS
Themes of ensuing chapters—Life of Plutarch—Superstition in Plutarch’s Lives—His Morals or Essays—Question of their authenticity—Magic in Plutarch—Essay on Superstition—Plutarch hospitable toward some superstitions—The oracles of Delphi and of Trophonius—Divination justified—Demons as mediators between gods and men—Demons in the moon: migration of the soul—Demons mortal: some evil—Men and demons—Relation of Plutarch’s to other conceptions of demons—The astrologer Tarrutius—De fato—Other bits of astrology—Cosmic mysticism—Number mysticism—Occult virtues in nature—Asbestos—On Rivers and Mountains—Magic herbs—Stones found in plants and fish—Virtues of other stones—Fascination—Animal sagacity and remedies—Theories and queries about nature—The Antipodes.
Themes of ensuing chapters.