1823.] Sijmbola Aurea Mensa, S^d. 243 



Phanix mentioned Ann. 1. 6, is an allegorical representation of 

 the Philosopher's Stone. 



To Hermes, Maier gives for assessors nearly all the early- 

 Egyptian kings, Adfar, the Alexandrian, and Calid, the Saracen. 

 Of these, he affirms that the immensity of their works, and the 

 hieroglyphic remains of Egypt, prove more plainly than the sun 

 at mid-day that they were great alchemists. Among those who 

 received immediately from Egypt the doctrine of the adepts, 

 were the Phoenicians (Cadmus was an alchemist, and the Hydra 

 the dragon of his art), the Colchians (witness the golden fleece), 

 the Phrygians (he seems to insinuate that the war of Troy is a 

 chemical allegory), and the Eumolpidse of Eleusis. But, he 

 proceeds, it is asked, " If chemistry be of such antiquity, and if 

 its secrets have been in the possession of so many persons from 

 the earliest ages, whence is it that they yet remain secrets." For 

 this natural question, he has no better answer than that of all 

 his brethren, " that they who had the gift were under a moral 

 obligation to perpetuate their knowledge only under the veil of 

 symbols and allegories, penetrable by those alone whom heaven 

 should see worthy of such a privilege." In the train of the 

 Egyptians follow the Gyranosophists of jEthiophia, the Mao-i of 

 Persia, and the Bramins of India. He quotes from the life of 

 Apollonius, a passage, which renders it not altogether improbable 

 that in the age of Philostratus, somewhat of alchemical quackery 

 had already begun to mix itself with the speculations of the 

 mystic and Theurgic philosophy. Jarchas, the Bramin, con- 

 versed, he says, with Apollonius, among other things, concern- 

 ing the wa/e?- q/'^oM. 



Pyrgopolynices now begins his attack. " No species," he 

 asserts, " is changeable into another species. But gold, copper, 

 lead, &c. are species per se, ergo, they are not commutable 

 inter se. The answer which one would anticipate at the present 

 day is, that the determination of the species must be matter of 

 experiment, and that if copper, e. g. be an impure or adulterated 

 gold, it is not a sipeciea per se. The answer of Hermes, however, 

 is, that one species does actually pass into another, e. g. a 

 specific egg into a specific chicken, a seed into a plant, &.c. 

 But his strong proof (or battering ram, as he terms it), is the 

 evidence of all persons concerned in metallurgy in favour of the 

 natural transmutation of metallic species. 



Chap. II. Hebrews, — This class is led by Miriam, or Maria, 

 whom Maier believes to have been the same with the sister of 

 Moses, chiefly because Moses himself was skilled in the arts of 

 the Egyptians, and because operations requiring a certain degree 

 of chemical knowledge are mentioned in the books of Exodus 

 and Leviticus. The writings ascribed to this Miriam are next 

 quoted as alluding to the V^as Hermetis (the same, according 

 to Maier, with the fiery cup of the Bramins mentioned by Phi- 

 lostratus.) <* Vas" says Miriam, " quod Stoici occult averunt" 



ii2 



