The Shelves · Natural science

Writings of Maria the Jewess (on apparatus and the Art)

Conjecturedin Alexandria?Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placementLegend · Told storya told story on its tag

◇ Doubted: the attribution is uncertain. Known only through later alchemists' quotations; later tradition adds sayings and inventions she may not have made.

See it on the shelves ›

I · The entry, in his form

In the table of Natural science

Conjectured · Our reconstructionour placement

Maria the Jewess (Maria Hebraea)

1st–3rd century CE. Known only through Zosimos and later alchemists, who quote her as an authority and credit her with apparatus for distilling and for exposing metals to vapours: the tribikos still and the kerotakis. The bain-marie still bears her name.

Writings of Maria the Jewess

Opening words not preserved.

Length: not counted

◇ Doubted: the attribution is uncertain. Known only through later alchemists' quotations; later tradition adds sayings and inventions she may not have made.

Above, his entry form, filled from what we know. Below, ours.

II · Does it survive? Where to read it

Survives in fragments

Lost; known through quotations by Zosimos and later alchemists.

Was it in Alexandria?

Conjectured

Of the Egyptian milieu.

On the ledge: written in Egypt or in a tradition the city shaped; not known in the Library.

Read it today

Berthelot and Ruelle, Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs (1887-1888) · original and translation · link checked 31 Oct 2026

III · In the show

Alchemy · Figures: Maria the Jewess, 'balneum Mariae, bain-marie'Conjectured
Egyptian mysteries, Mithraism, and Zosimos, episode 4, at 37 minutes 34 secondsTranscriptKnown: probable
What the Egyptian mysteries may have taught, episode 4, at 44 minutes 31 secondsTranscriptWhat the Egyptian mysteries may have taught: metallurgy, statuary, the opening of the mouth.Known: probable
Correction
What was said
Porphyry says Pythagoras spent 22 years in Egyptian temples.
What the sources say
The twenty-two years come from Iamblichus, not from Porphyry's Life of Pythagoras.
Reference
- Iamblichus, On the Pythagorean Life 4.19

+ 6 more

Fixing the Volatile & The Great Work, episode 33, at 45 minutes 38 secondsTranscript“we found this pattern in metals and we found it in plants”Zosimos's extension of the work from metals to the soul, as read in the conversation with Daniel Wiseman.Known: probable
Alchemy · Chronology: Greco-Egyptian foundationsKnown: probable
Alchemy · Source texts: Physika kai mystika; the Leiden and Stockholm papyri; the Zosimos fragmentsKnown: probable
Alchemy · The colours of the Work, with the Greek terms glossed from Zosimos and the Leiden papyrusKnown: probable
Alchemy · Three principles, seven metalsKnown: probable
Planetary CorrespondencesDays, metals and the Chaldean order as 'the common inheritance'; the metal–planet pairings took centuries to settle, as the alchemy page shows.Known: probable

IV · Sources and the living entry

Ancient references (2)

Zosimos, On Apparatus and Furnaces
Olympiodorus (alchemist), On the Sacred Art

Modern scholarship (3)

R. Patai, The Jewish Alchemists: A History and Source Book (Princeton, 1994)
L. M. Principe, The Secrets of Alchemy (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2013)
M. Mertens (ed. and trans.), Zosime de Panopolis: Mémoires authentiques, Les alchimistes grecs IV.1 (Paris: Les Belles Lettres, 1995)

Entry checked 31 Oct 2026 · no corrections · Suggest a correction ›

WRITINGS OF MARIA THE JEWESS

Read what is told

The back of the tag: a story told of this work, in its teller's voice.

Legend

The bain-marie

Later alchemical tradition names the water bath, the bain-marie, after Maria, and gives her an axiom: one becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.

Told by Later alchemical tradition, from the Middle Ages on, a thousand years and more later

What the evidence supports

Zosimos quotes Maria and credits her with apparatus such as the kerotakis and the three-armed still. The name of the bath and the axiom come from later sources, not from her own fragments.

Sources (2)

Zosimos, On Apparatus and Furnaces
Olympiodorus (alchemist), On the Sacred Art

The Hall of Told Stories