ديمقريطس الزائف_ مارى السكندرية_ زوسيموس_ هيرمس مثلث العظمات .. الإسكندريه والسيمياء

Pseudo-Democritus _ Mary of Alexandria _ Zosimus _ Hermes Trismegistus .. Alexandria and Alchemy

Pseudo-Democritus

Around 100 AD, Pseudo-Democritus (the original Democritus was a Greek philosopher around 450 BC) wrote a treatise called Physics Esotericus (Natural and Mystical Things), a book on recipes for dyeing, colouring and making gold and silver (6). Although it is impossible to identify all the ingredients (the names were imprecise and the chemicals were impure), he used bleaching powders to colour amalgamated surfaces to look like silver, and used yellow dyes to give the appearance of gold.

Although these qualities are still essentially practical, we notice that Sufism has begun to creep into them, drawing inspiration from Greek theories and astrology and containing references to obscure magical practices. Each recipe ends with the phrases: "Nature triumphs over nature" and "Nature rejoices within another nature" or other phrases of equal ambiguity.

Mary of Alexandria

The shift from the practical to the mysterious is evident in the work of the Alexandrian semiotician known as Mary, Maria, or Marie. Although no complete works of hers have survived, the fragments that exist are sufficient to support her as historical fact. There is reason to believe that female semioticians were not unusual. The frequent reference to Cleopatra the semiotician, not the queen, is present, but only Marie's presence is certain.

Marie's approach to semiotics was a mixture of the rational, the mystical, and the practical, but her memory is of practical matters. Marie invented several types of devices, including the three-armed alembic, the hot ash bath, the dung bed, and the water bath. The water bath, the double boiler, is still known in France as the Marie bath.

Marie makes frequent reference in her theory to the medicine by which metals are transformed. She attributes to metals a male or female gender, indicating that the secret lies in uniting the male with the female, and you will find what you are looking for (7). She says in her writings that silver separates this easily (perhaps) with respect to the action of mercury, while copper is like the horse with the donkey and the dog with the wolf (8).

Zosimus

We do not know why some semioticians chose to record their work while others did not—it may have been due to their knowledge of writing or their lack of it—but we do sometimes find clues to personal motivations. Zosimus, who probably lived around 300 AD, addressed each of his twenty-eight books to his sister Theosebia, who was probably also a semiotician. In at least one letter he refers to her work by describing the failed steps of another semiotician: “They have laughed at Paphnonia and will laugh at you too if you do the same” (9).

Whether the sister was real or metaphorical is now unknown. Zosimus’s writings may be the loving efforts of a brother to help his sister in her chosen profession or correspondence with a colleague.

Zosimus relies on practical information (it is better to hold your nose while working with sulphur compounds), and he describes processes such as fusion, calcination, dissolution, filtration, crystallization and sublimation, and he divides his materials into bodies (metals), spirits (alcohols), vapors and fumes. But the mystery is increasingly permeating Zosimus' semiotic writings: the steps of the work in alchemy were revealed to him in dreams, and in the following description of one of Zosimus' dreams the dome refers to the glass condenser usually placed above the distillation apparatus (it shares the same Greek name with the dome), and the fifteen steps refer to the processes of distillation, smelting and so on. While I was saying these things I fell asleep and saw a priest sacrificing before an altar in the form of a dome. There were fifteen steps of a ladder ascending to the altar. The priest stood there and I heard a voice from above saying: 'I have completed the descent of the fifteen steps towards the light. And I am renewed by sacrifice, ridding myself of the heavy layer of the body, and thus necessarily become a spirit. And hearing this voice of his, standing at the altar in the form of a dome, I asked him who he was? And he answered me in a sharp voice with the following words: “I am Ion, the priest of the sanctuaries, and I am suffering an unbearable violence…

After this vision I awoke again and said: What is the meaning of this vision?… In the altar in the form of a dome all things are combined and disintegrated and united and connected, all things are mixed and separated… And in fact the mixing and separation of things takes place by precise methods, measures and weights of the four elements.

And you will find what you are looking for, and this priest is a man of copper, he has changed the color of his nature and has become a man of silver. And if you wish, you will quickly obtain him as a man of gold (10) (11).

Hermes Trismegistus

Hermes Trismegistus is another of the ethereal (celestial) semiotic authors of this era. His writings are Greek translations of sacred Egyptian writings attributed to Thoth, the god of wisdom. Fragments found on temple walls and in papyri show that some 42 books covered a variety of subjects, including semiotics. Although the author or authors of these books will never be known, they found their audience when revived by medieval European alchemists, and are of particular interest because they are the origins of the term “hermetic art” (referring to the practice of alchemy). The term hermetic seal comes from this source and refers to a method of storing certain semiotic potions, probably in hermetically sealed vats.