816 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



the hieroglyph for the planet Mercury ; and a similar identity is 

 observable between the sign for gold and the hieroglyph for the 

 sun. Osiris was the synonym for lead, sulphur, etc. 



This mystic relationship of the metals and the planets goes 

 back to the Babylonians, and the idea was perpetuated. Pindar 

 mentioned the relation between gold and the sun ; and Proclus, in 

 his commentary on the Timseus, wrote, " The sun produces gold, 

 the moon silver, Saturn lead, and Mars iron." 



The symbol for the philosophical egg appears to have origi- 

 nated in Chaldea, and to have been introduced thence into Egypt. 

 So was the idea of the microcosm made in the image of the macro- 

 cosm. Thus the Babylonians and the Greeks of Egypt, as well as 

 the Alexandrians and the Chinese, held to these aphorisms, after- 

 ward so dear to the alchemists, concerning the generation and 

 transmutation of metals, the panacea, and the elixir of long life. 



Traces of Jewish traditions, mingled with Eastern fables, can 

 be found in some of the alchemic beliefs of about the eleventh 

 century. Several papyruses mention important receipts as in- 

 cluded in the pretended Secret Book of Moses ; a Greek manu- 

 script of St. Mark's represents Mary the Jewess, to whom the 

 invention of the water-bath is attributed, as saying: "Do not 

 touch the philosopher's stone with your hands ; you are not of 

 our race, you are not of the race of Abraham." According to 

 Zosimus, the sacred art of the Egyptians and the power of gold 

 that resulted from it were delivered to the Jews by a fraud, and 

 they revealed them to the rest of the world. 



This confluence of the Chaldo-Egyptian and Jewish sources of 

 alchemy took effect in the first three centuries of Christianity, or 

 at the time when Gnosticism was flourishing at Alexandria. The 

 first alchemists seem, in fact, to have nearly all fallen under 

 the influence of Neoplatonism and Gnosticism. The symbolical 

 forms of universal life, the allegorical figures in which the phil- 

 osophical sense of things was hidden, were abundant in their 

 writings ; and here and there in them we meet all sorts of Gnostic 

 signs, from the image of the world without beginning or end, 

 represented by the dragon Uraboros, a serpent biting his tail, to 

 the eight-rayed stars and magic circles of Cleopatra's " chryso- 

 paeus." The introduction of Gnostic ideas into the theories of 

 the alchemists undoubtedly accounts for their inclination to ex- 

 plain the hidden properties of nature by signs of double or triple 

 meaning. 



The same tendency is evident in the Greek alchemists, whose 

 memory has been preserved by the ancient manuscripts. The St. 

 Mark's manuscripts cite as among the most famous of these, after 

 Hermes, John, Arch-priest of Thutia, and Democritus, the cele- 

 brated philosopher of Abdera. But they also introduce to us 



