fl. c. 300 CE · alchemist
Zosimos of Panopolis
Ζώσιμος ὁ Πανοπολίτης
In Alexandria: c. 300 CE
An Egyptian Greek from Panopolis (Akhmim), the first alchemist whose writings survive under his own name. He addressed his books to a woman, Theosebeia, quoted Maria, Pseudo-Democritus and Hermes, described apparatus with care, and recorded dream visions of torment and transformation that read alchemy as the purification of the soul.
Their life and work
He wrote around 300 CE. His books reach us in Byzantine collections of alchemical texts, and in Syriac and Arabic, and they are the earliest alchemical writings that carry their author's own voice: he argues with rivals, mocks those who trust in spirits for their results, and urges Theosebeia to work alone. In Final Quittance he compares the art to the priestly secrets of Egypt; in his visions a priest on an altar of fifteen steps is cut and burned and becomes spirit. Mertens edited the authentic memoirs.
Our device: Their emblem is a furnace and a vessel. No portrait of any of these people survives. The emblems are our devices.
On the shelves
- Zosimos of Panopolis, The Final Count (Final Abstinence), to Theosebeia · c. 300 CE · Survives whole
- Zosimos of Panopolis, Authentic Memoirs: On the Letter Omega, and On Apparatus and Furnaces · c. 300 CE · Survives in fragments
- Zosimos of Panopolis, On Virtue · c. 300 CE · Survives whole
Moments
- 297–298 CE · Diocletian's siege; the books on gold-making burned; Zosimos Known: attested
In the show
- Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos, episode 4, at 37 minutes 34 secondsTranscriptEgyptian mysteries, Mithraism and Zosimos; Shannon Grimes's Becoming Gold recommended.Known: probable
- Zosimos and statue animation, episode 34, at 48 minutes 9 secondsZosimos and statue animation (chapters only; no transcript).Known: probable
- Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos, episode 4, at 37 minutes 34 secondsTranscript“he was alive during the the I think the third and fourth century CE”Right: fl. c. 300.Known: probable
+ 9 more
- What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught, episode 4, at 50 minutes 29 secondsTranscript“that's Zasimus' purview, the alchemical hermetic path of uh dying metals” (intended: Zosimos)The colouring of metals and its roots in temple statuary.Known: probable
- Hermes, Music & Mythic Symbolism, episode 21, at 1 hour 7 minutes 19 secondsTranscript“it was true of Zosimus of Panopoulos. He was a priest scribe, but specifically for the workers of metal who were dying metal for Egyptian religious statuary.”A modern reconstruction (Grimes 2018), not something Zosimos says of himself: label it as conjecture.Known: probable
Correction
- What was said
- Zosimos was a priest-scribe for temple metalworkers.
- What the sources say
- A modern reconstruction, not something Zosimos says of himself: a conjecture.
Reference
- S. Grimes, Becoming Gold: Zosimos of Panopolis and the Alchemical Arts in Roman Egypt (2018)
- Fixing the Volatile & The Great Work, episode 33, at 45 minutes 38 secondsTranscript“the works of zasimus of penopoulos the the you know metallurgist” (intended: Zosimos)Daniel Wiseman's conversation: the pattern found in metals, then plants, then the soul.Known: probable
- Daniel WisemanMetallic alchemy; the Zosimos passage at 45:38.Known: probable
- Drew MackinnonZosimos named three times in the Teleology of the Temple conversation.Known: probable
- Alchemy · Figures: Zosimos of Panopolis; Maria the JewessKnown: probable
- Alchemy · Chronology: Greco-Egyptian foundations'Zosimos of Panopolis, fl. c. 300; the Leiden and Stockholm papyri, c. 300'.Known: probable
Sources (6)
- M. Mertens (ed. and trans.), Zosime de Panopolis: Mémoires authentiques, Les alchimistes grecs IV.1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1995)
- L. M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)
- G. Fowden, The Egyptian Hermes: A Historical Approach to the Late Pagan Mind (Cambridge, 1986)
- Zosimos, Final Quittance ed. Festugière, Révélation I 363–368
- Zosimos, On the Letter Omega I.2–3, ed. Mertens 1995
- S. Grimes, Becoming Gold: Zosimos of Panopolis and the Alchemical Arts in Roman Egypt (Auckland: Rubedo Press, 2018)