sheppard, the ouroboros and the study of matter in alchemy
TRANSCRIPT
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THE OUROBOROS AND THE UNITY OF MATTER IN ALCHEMY 83
THE OUROBOROS AND THE UNITY OF MATTER IN ALCHEMY:A STUDY IN ORIGINS
By H. J. SHEPPARD·
THE appearance of the serpent in general symbology and in primitive religiouscults is so widespread and of such great antiquity that attempts to locate asingle origin seem unlikely to meet with very much success; indeed, psycho-logical considerations apart, the most that might be expected with any degree ofconfidence is to trace the probable derivation of a particular form of serpentsymbolism.
Apart from its occasional occurrence in the pictographs of the Neolithic Agein Western Europe (ca. 4000-2500 B.C.), the symbolic serpent is a commonfeature of the mythologies of the Near East and of India; it persisted through-out the early and later Mystery Religions of Greece and Rome and is alsoencountered in the literature of early Christianity and of Gnosticism.
Closely related to present purposes is the significance or the symbol in oneof the oldest of the Greek Mysteries-the oracular tradition which prevailed atDelphi. There, the Pythia, prophetess of Apollo, is depicted seated on atripod and bearing on her knees a serpent: this, it was popularly believed,signified the fact that a dragon from the centre of the earth was the sender ofthe pneuma (spirit), the generator of enthusiasml .
. The Mystery Religions were, of course, particularly prominent in Greco-Roman times, and Clement of Alexandria records that the serpent, as thepneumatic animal, became a symbol of the sexual union of God with man; toenter into man God took the'form of a serpent. The conjunction was symbolizedin ritual by the placing of a snake in the bosom of the initiate2• Porphyrius, too,mentioned a similar manifestation of the symbolic activity of the serpent inwhich, upon a man's death, his soul departed from the body in the guise of aserpent3• (Alchemical references to the Stone that contains a spirit (pneuma)are occasionally met with; the spirit was said to be mercury and its I seed ' wassymbolized by the Ouroboros.)
The use of the symbol in both early Christian apocryphal literature andGnosticism continued the custom; it is hardly surprising, then, to meet it inthe texts of alchemists who practised in the contemporary ambiance prevailingin Hellenistic Egypt.
• Warwick School, Warwick.
1 F. Hauser, jahreshejte d. osterr. a1'chiiol.Instit., J913, XLlJI, 4~.
2 Clement of Alexandria, Protreptic14.t;,II, 16.2.
3 Porphyrius, V ita Plotini, TI.
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The particular form which the alchemical symbol took was that ot theOuroboros, or serpent devouring its tail; as such, it is usually accepted assymbolizing in general the essential Unity of Matter and in particular the Workwhich had neither beginning nor end. Unfortunately, neither the early al-chemists themselves nor the many later commentators gave any explicit reasonsfor its adoption for such purposes; hence it is hoped to remedy this in thepresent study by indicating from the probable origin of the Ouroboros Cl:lldthehistory and significance of accompanying inscriptions that its employment wasentirely in ~eeping with both the exoteric and the esoteric aims of alchemy as itdeveloped.
ALCHEMICAL REPRESENTATIONS OF THE OUROBOROS
The earliest mention of the Ouroboros in connexion with alchemyis containedin the Leyden Papyri V and W (ca. 250-350 A.D.)4, though here the associationsare magical rather than alchemical and call to mind the simple inscriptions ofthe tail-eating serpent engraved upon the so-called Abraxas stones of theGnostics6 (fig. I).
Hellenistic alchemical texts are known from the copies embodied in themany manuscripts compiled from the loth century onward. Of these, three areof major importance : St. Mark (Venice) 299 (ID-IIth century), Paris 2325 (13thcentury) and 2327 (I5th century) J the latter seemingly a fuller copy of theoriginal upon which 2325 was based. They contain most of the Hellenistictexts known today and apparently formed the main source from which thecontents of other manuscripts were drawn8•
The four illustrations of the symbol which will now be described have beenselected from the manuscripts and are in order of increasing complexity ofdesign rather than in chronological order of provenance according to the manu-scripts.
FIG. 2.-MS St. Mark 299 (folio 188 verso). Forming part of a page ofapparatus and D1YSticaldesigns entitled Chrysopoeia (Goldmaking) of Cleopatra,it isa simple figure of the serpent devouring its tail; in the centre is the in-
scription EV 'TO ,"av-the One is the All.
& vide M. Berthelot, Int.,oauction a l'Etude de la Chimie des Anciens et au Moyen-Age,Paris, I889,PP.9, 18. .
6 idem., Les O.,igines de l'Alchimie, Paris, 1885, p.62; A/te., C. W. King, The Gnostics andthei., Remains, London, 1887, pp. 213-3°3 and illustrations on p. 103 and Plates C and M.
6 F. Sherwood Taylor, CIASurvey of Greek Alchemy", J. Hellenic Stud., Part I (1930),pp. 111-113. The illustrations depicted in figs. 2, 3, 4 and 5 of the present study appeartogether with other drawings from Greek MSS in Berthelot, Int.,oduction.
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THE OUROBOROS AND THE UNITY OF MATTER IN ALCHEMY 85
FIG, I
FIG. 3
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FIG. 2
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l(~t O~Ht XT-V-CO-mllL
FIG. 4
FIG. 5
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THE OUROBOROS AND THE UNITY OF MATTER IN ALCHEMY 87
FIG. 3.-MS Paris 2327 (folio 196). The serpent is composed of threeconcentric rings. The outermost is scaly, with 'head and three ears depicted inbright red, while the eye is white with a black pupil. The middle ring is alsoscaly and coloured yellow, while the inner one, bearing tour feet, is portrayedentirely in green.
According to the description in the manuscript the four feet represent thebasic elements, or tetrasomia, and the three ears the sublimed vapours (possiblysulphur, nlercury and orpiment)'. Folio 279 of the same manuscript showsanother serpent, this time composed of two circles only (in red and green).
FIG. 4.-MS St. Mark 299 (folio 188 verso). This, again, forms part of theChrysopoeia of Cleopatra, but is obviously a stylized re'presentation of theOuroboros.
It consists of three concentric circles, the central one of which enclosesthe'symbols for gold, silver (bearing a tail) and mercury. The outer ring contains theinscription, *'Ev TO 'lTav Ka~ 0'" atJ7'ov TO 'ITO-V Kal €~s-aVT6 TO 'TTav lea.l El JL~EXO" TO '1Tav ovo€v Ern-tV TO wav. (One is All and through it is All, and to itAU, and if it has not All, All is nothing).
In the inner ring is inscribed Els- EUTI.V 0 ocPl.S- 0 EXWV TOV LOV /LETa 0150uvv8£p,aTa. (One is the Serpent having its venom according to twocompositions.)FIG. 5.-MSS Paris 2325 (folio 82) and 2327 (folio 220). This stylized rep-resentation is a later variant of fig. 3 and consists of two concentric rings withinscriptions. In MS 2327 (folio220) the symbols of the metale;are missing.
Outer inscription: €V TO 'TTav Bt' OV TO wav (Ka~ St' aVTOV TO 'lTav) Kat EVaVTcp TO 'lTav. (One is All through which is All and in it All.)
I . .. .,.\.\ ~N,l. ~" \ ~, 8 ' \ \ , ,nner InscnptIon: EIS Ern-tV 0 O'f'tS- 0 EXWV To.. oVO O'VV Ep..aTa Kat TOV tOV.
(One is the Serpent having the two compositions and the poison.)Also, in MS 2327 (folio 80), is yet another variant, without the concentric
circles, but bearing the same axioms in red. There appear again the signs forgold, silver and nlercury, accompanied by those for lead and cinnabar (or theEgg).
The inscriptions are probably degenerate forms of those present in Fig. 4 ;the outer one is incomplete, while the inner must be a confused version of thatin the Chrysopoeia, which doubtless served as a model for later copyists. Thesignificanceof these inscriptions will be considered later.
THE ORIGIN OF THE OUROBOROS
The Ouroboros was not, of course, confined exclusively to alchemy, for as a
'1 vide J. M. Stillman, The Story of Alchemy and Early Chemistry, New York, 1924 (re-printed recently), p. 172. .
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form of the encircling serpent it was equally prominent in contemporary astrol-ogical, Gnostic and apocryphal texts. We might, then, expect to find in thesesome pointer to the origin of the symbol.
The first indication of this comes from the Hellenistic astrologers, whoassigned the symbol to the ninth, starless sphere of the planets and the zodiac-the sphere whichenclosedthe heavens and the earth; and Franz Cumont, whoseauthority in such matters cannot be dismissed lightly, considers that it is aderivative of the draco caelestis, or celestial serpent, the dragon of the Baby-lonians and Chaldaeans, and controller of solar and lunar eclip~es8..
If this be so, we seem to be dealing with that same dragon of outer darknesswhich separates this world from the outer-Leviathan, the dragon of the OldTestament9, which must be annihilated before the lowerworld can be redeemed.This is recalled in the Gnostic Pistis Sophia (ca. 4th cent. A.D.): H Outerdarkness is a huge dragon with its tail in its mouth; it is outside the world andsurroundeth it completely"lo.
In the apocryphal Acts of the Apostle Thomas (3rdcent. A.D.) there are againallusions to the tail-eater: "I am the offspringof the serpent nature ... son ofhim ... who encircles the sphere ... who is around the ocean, whose tail liesin his mouth"ll. This, too, may be likened to the dragon Leviathan, depictedso well in the Ophitic diagram described by Origen12; there, the orbit of thedragon circumscribesseven spheres, those of the seven planetary powers.
In the same Acts occurs the "Song of the Apostle Judas Thomas in the landof the Indians", commonly known as "The Hymn of the Pear]". The Pearlsought after lay Hinthe middle of the sea which is encircled by the snortingserpent" -again, the encircling serpent of chaos, the evil principle of matter.The journey in search of the Pearl symbolized the descent of the Saviour intomatter in search of the SOUP3.
8 F. Cumont. "De dracone caelesti", in Catal. Cod. astralag. Graecorum. VIII (Brussels,1929). pp. 194ff.
• vide Book of Job.
10 G. R. S. Mead (trs.), Pistis Sophia. London, 1896, sec. 319, p. 320.
1!. Acts of the Apostle Thomas, para. 32; vide H. Jonas, The Gnostic Religion, Boston, 1958,p.116.
12 Origen. Contra Celsum, VI, 25. 35; a very good description is to be found in H. Leise-gang. La Gnose, Paris, 1951, p. 117; also, A. Hilgenfeld, Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchris-tentums, Leipzig, 1884, pp. 277 ff.
13 Jonas, Opecit .• p. 113; also J. Doresse, Les Livres Secrets des Gnostiques d'Bgypte, Paris.1958, p. 102.
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THE OUROBOROS AND THE UNITY OF MATTER IN ALCHEMY 89
A like theme from the Jewish apocryphal Acts of Kyriakos and Julitta ismentioned by Reitzenstein14: the hero, in his travels, encounters a dragon,liKing of the worms of the earth, whose tail lies in his mouth ... the serpentthat led astray the first Adam".
In all these references the serpent or dragon appears to be founded uponLeviathan, and, as Cunlont suggests, may be of Babylonian or Chaldaean origin.However, another reference in the Pistis Sophia and alluded to by Schmidt, mustbe taken into account: "But the disk of the sun was a great dragon, \vith its tailin its mouth, which ascended to seven powers of the left and was drawn. byfour powers in the shape of white horses"15. This suggests a different origin,situated not in the realm of the Prince of Darkness, but in the Kingdom ofLight; the Ouroboros is no\v assimilated to the sun's sphere-Phanes-Helios-and becomes a symbol of solar pantheism, the culminating phase of astralreligion16. Here it must be noted that Schmidt regarded the Pistis Sophia asthe \vork of the Syrian sects known as Barbelo-Gnostics; but the original text iswritten in Sahidic, a Coptic dialect, and the presence of Egyptian influences inthe Pis tis Sophia shows clearly that whatever the origin may have been, the\\lork was of some importance in Egypt. At any rate, the serpent was associatedon occasion with both Darkness and Light.
As to the identification of the sun with the serpent, a likely suggestion comesfrom Macrobius, who likened the setting and rising of the sun-ageing andrebirth-to the sloughing of the snake's skin (rejuvenation); the origin of thesymbol he ascribed to the Phoenicians17• Dubious confirmation of this comesindirectly from another source, the enigmatical Sanchuniathon of Beirut18, who,it is said, believed the serpent to be the longest-lived animal because, in castingits skin, it continually renewed its youth.
Here, then, is a plausible reason for the adoption of the Ouroboros as a symbolof the life-span of the Cosmos, the Aeon: its power of rejuvenation and growth,
14 R. Reitzenstein, Das iranische Erlosungsmysterium, Bonn, 1921, p. 77.
15 C. Schmidt, ]{optisch-gnostische Schr~ften (in Griech. christl. Schriftsteller, 13). Leipzig,19°5, chap. 136.P. 262, 24.
16 vide P. Wendland, Die hellenistisch-romische K ultur in ihren Beziehungen zu ] udentwJ'lund Christentum, Tubingen, 1912, I, Part 2, pp. 158 fl.
17 Macrobius, Saturnalia, I, 20. 3 and I, 9. 12. Philo of l1yblos (42-117 A.D.) alsodiscusses the nature of the serpent, Fragmenta Historicorum Graeco1"l,f.'nz(cd. C. Muller, Paris,1849). III, p. 572.
18 Sanchuniathon of Beirut was a legendary figure said to have existed in the reign ofShamsi Adad V (9th cent. B.C.). References to him come from Philo of Byblos, Ope cit.
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its longevity, ended by self-devouring, accord well with the idea of a Cosmoswhich is rejuvenated every spring but ends by consuming itselfl9•
As far as the assignment of the symbol to either the Babylonians orPhoenicians is concerned, the secondhand nature of the evidence certainly leavesmuch to be desired-though, like Leisegang20, the present writer formerlyinclined to its acceptance21• However, the possibility that Egyptian mythologymight shed some further light on the provenance of the symbol suggested itselfand reference to a recent important publication by R. Rundle Clark22 showedconclusively that the tail-eater \vas a common symbol in early Egyptian life.
The earliest references to cosmogony are found in the so-called PyramidTexts23 of the 6th Dynasty (ca. 2350-2250 B.C.). Though there appear to be noearlier written references to an original Primeval Serpent, we find an interestingallusion to the manifestation of the Creator-Spirit:
til am the outflow of the Primeval Flood,he who emerged from the waters.I am the Provider of Attributes serpent with its many coils,I am the Scribe of the Divine Bookwhich says what has been and effects what is yet to be"24.
The serpent, creator of multiplicity, here symbolizes the God-Spirit assigningto everything its essence, or Ka. It symbolizes creation by word-or, as RundleClark says, the belief that the universe in its variety is based upon the realizationof the commands of a designing and conscious mind25.
The continuing significations of the symbol may be followed in the CoffinTests of the 7-Ioth Dynasties (ca. 2250 B.C. onwards). Many references to aPrimeval Serpent occur: for example, in Thebes it was Kematef26 (Uhe whocompleted his time"), while in other regions it was Sito (USonof Earth"). Often,
11 The idea of self-devouring, adopted by the Stoics, evidently derives from the Herak-leitean doctrine of the creation of the Cosmos from the element fire and its return to thatstate at the end of the Cosmic cycle.
10 H. Leisegang, "The Mystery of the Serpent", The Mysteries (Papers from the EranosYearbooks), London, 1955, p. 218.
21 H. J. Sheppard, "Gno::lticismand Alchemy", AMBIX, VI, NO.2, 1957.
II R. T. Rundle Clark, Myth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt, London, 1959.
II The Pyramid Texts, apparently composed by Heliopolitan priests, form the largestsingle collection of religious compositions from the period under discussion.
S& Rundle Clark, Ope cit., p. 50.
16 idem., p. 51.
II idem., p. 50.
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THE OUROBOROS AND THE UNITY OF MATTER IN ALCHEMY 9I
the world, referred to as Hermopolis, was symbolized by a huge serpent bitingits tail27• In chapter 87 of the Book of the Dead we read ItI am Sito dilated withyears, ~ die and am reborn every day, I am Sito, who dwells in the farthestregions of the worldII 28. Thus is affirmed the everlasting cyclic nature of Sito.
As we have already noted, the Serpent was "Scribe of the Divine Book". Ina hymn from the CoffinTexts it is clear that the creative word, or Logos, wasuttered by the serpent who is God and is yet within his own coils:
ItI bent right around myself, I was encircled in my coils, one who made aplace for himself in the midst of his coils. His utterance was what cameforth from his own mouth"29•
In a sense, then, God is now separate from the serpent. But, in the Book ofthe Dead it is revealed that, at the end of time, the world will revert to theprimary state of undifferentiated chaos and Atum, or Re, the Supreme God,will again become a serpent30• The cycle will have been completed.
At least two pictorial representations could be cited in confirmation of theseideas: the inner coffinof Zepi, in the Louvre, shows the tail-eater as a symbol ofthe CosmicOcean surrounding the world; and, again, a mummy-like figure onthe innermost shrine of Tutankhamun is ringed above and below by twoencircling serpents-the serpents of Sky and Earth31•
The earliest first-hand references to the tail-eating serpent thus appear inEgypt somewherearound 2300 B.C. Whether these antedate allegedBabylonianand Phoenician examples, assuming the latter attributions to be true and notmerely part of the Hellenistic tendency to attribute ancient wisdom to Orientalsources, cannot at present be decided; certainly, the difiusionist school ofanthropologists, as represented by the late Prof. G. Elliot Smith, would havewelcomed it as yet further evidence of the diffusion of cultural elements fromEgypt to surrounding countries32• From the connotations of the symbol it does,indeed, seem probable that it was the early Egyptian form which was adoptedby both Gnostics and alchemists of Greco-Roman Egypt, though, of course,it is possible that there may yet be found earlier references among thecuneiform inscriptions of Mesopotamiawhich await decipherment.
:n Rundle Clark, Ope cit., p. 240.
28 idem., p. 241.
211 idem., p. 51.
~o idem., p. 52.
31 idem., p. 8I, fig. II.
32 G. Elliot Smith, The Diffusion of Culture, London, 1933, passim.
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INSCRIPTIONS ASSOCIATED WITH THE OUROBOROS
The simplest inscription is, of course, Ev 'TO 'TTav-theOne is the All. It isclearly a formula expressingunity in diversity and has pantheistic implicationswhich, one suspects, might be attributed to Stoic influence. But in origin it isanterior to the Stoics, as reference to the pre-Socratic fragments will readilyshow.
The early philosophers of the Ionian school (6th cent. B.C.)-Thales,Anaximander, Anaximenes-were preoccupied with the problem of identifyingthe basic substrate out of which everything was fashioned. Later, however,other questions arose-in particular, the way in which the manifold varieties ofindividual existence arose out of the basic One and were again resolved intothe One. The first to speak categorically on this matter appears to have beenXenophanes of Colophon (ca. 570-460 B.C.)33. An observer of nature, hesensed beneath the diversity of phenomena an underlying unity in both matterand spirit, and in his works one might, then, expect to find the earliest literalexpression of the Unity of the All.
As in the case of the other pre-Socratics, the extant fragments of Xeno-phanes'writing must be sought in the works of later reporters. Of the latter,Theophrastos of Eresos (4th cent. B.C.) is probably the most important sourcefrom which were derived the opinions of Xenophanes; for example, Dielssuggests that Cicero's attribution to Xenophanes of the expression "unum esseomnia" ('that all things are one') was almost certainly based on Theophrastos34.
The Neoplatonist Simplikios (6th cent. A.D.) also quotes an expression ofTh h t ,~\ \ , \ " *' \ ~ \.... - ,I. , \eop ras os: J-L,avOE T1]vapx:rJv 7'I'TOI. EV 'TO ov Ka, 'TTav ,!j€Vo~avovs'TOV
KoAoepc1JVI,oV 'TOV IIapJ-LEvlSov 8t8auKaAov trTTo'Tl8EU8al cPTJu,v <> 8EoeppaU'Tos.('Theophrastos says that Xenophanes of Colophon, the pupil of Parmenides,assumes that there is one first principle, or that being is one and whole')35.
Again, the excerpt from Hippolytos (3rd cent. A.D.): AEi'E' 8€ •.•••. O'TI.
EV 'TO 'TTav ECl'TI.V ('he says that the whole is one'); and, likewise, that from Galen(2nd cent. A.D.): 'TO Elva" 'TTav'Ta EV ('the fact that all things are one')-evidently derive from Theophrastos.37
33 E. Zeller, Outli'nBs of the History o/Greek Philosophy (trs.), London, 1931, pp. 249 fie
34 H. Diels, Doxogr. gr. III, 3. 112, 2.
36 idem., 'Vorsokr. frag. I, 40, 25; the statement that Xenophanes was a pupil of Parm.-enides is patently false.
36 Diels, Doxogr. gr.p. 565,24.
37 idem., p. 604, 18.
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THE OUROBOROS AND THE UNITY OF MATTER IN ALCHEMY 93
Taking the wording of Theophrastos, Norden suggests a metrical recon-struction for the original expression of Xenophanes: EV SE TO 'ITO-Vor EV Se TO.,'lTaVTa.
('the Whole is One' or 'All Things are One')38.Now, Clement of Alexandria(2nd-3rd cent. A.D.) has preserved a fragment, reputedly Orphic, which maywell relate to a yet earlier source--one upon which Xenophanes could havedrawn: EV 8E TO. 'lTetvTa T€TVKTat, EV cP Tc18€ 'lTetvTa KVKA€tTat, IItip Ka~ vSwp
Kal yata. ('All things are one in which all these things revolve, fire and waterand earth'.)39.
Another possible hint of an origin earlier than Xenophanes is provided byPI t ' ~, tEI\'''8' ,,.., ,J.. ,. , " , 8a 0: TO O€ • • • • • • l\€aTtKoV € VOS) a7T0 J:!IEVO~aVOVS TE Kat ETt 'lTpoa EV
a.P~c1fLEVOV, c1Js EVOS OVTWS TWS 7Tc1VTWV KaAovfLEVWV OVTW 8t€~EXETa, TOtS
fLV8ots. ('The Eleatic school, beginning with Xenophanes and even earlier,explain in their accounts that what is called 'all things' is really one;)40.
The formula 'The One is the All', or modifications of it, thus go back at leastto the time of Xenophanes; the evidence for an ,earlier, Orphic, origin, is in-teresting, though somewhat tenuous, in the light of the single excerpt from Plato.
Of the preservation of the maxim and its appearance in Hellenistic timesthere are abundant examples, notably in Gnostic and Hermetic writingscontemporary with the alchemical inscriptions. To quote only two, we find inthe Poimandres: EV EUTt. TO. 7TetvTa. (All things are one)"l, and again, in aGnostic apocryphal work referred to by Clement of Alexandria': EV ~V TO.'lTc1VTa. . (All things were one)42.
The affirmation of Cosmic Unity was, then, widespread by the 2nd centuryA.D.; the two elaborations of E TO 7T0-V in Figs. 4 and 5, and the more mysteriousserpent motif, with its degenerate form, are examples of its' earliest appearancein alchemy.
The elaborations of the theme 'The One is the All' are self-explanatory, butthe serpent inscription requires interpretation. The cyclic nature of the Unity
IS E. Norden, Agnostos Tkeos, Stuttgart, 1956, p. 247.
It Clement of Alexandria, Stromata, VI, p. 259.
co Plato, Sopk., 242 D.
C1 Poimandl'es, 12, 8. This is part of a series of texts purporting to convey religious andphilosophic teaching-in this case, in apocalyptic form as revealed to one who had attainedthe highest state of Enlightenment (the state of "Hermes, Thrice Greatest"). The date isuncertain, but somewhere around 200 A.D. vide R. Reitzenstein, Poimandres: Studien zurgriechisck-agyptischen und fruhchristlichen Literatur, Leipzig, 1904; also A.D. Nock-A. J.Festugiere, Corpus Hermeticum, I, Paris, 1945.
U ope cit., III, p. 52~ •.
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of All is dualistic-the separation of the All out of the One, and the ultimatereturn of the All into the One-hence it seems likely that allusions to twocompositions of serpent poison, or venom, are symbolic ot the two parts of thiscycle, thus stressing the ambivalence of the symbol.
COSMIC UNITY AS THE BASIS OF ALCHEMY
In its various manifestations the Ouroboros emphasised the cyclic natureof that which it symbolized: the idea of a growth, or regeneration, ending in areversion to the primary state. In the illustrations from Hellenistic alchemythis was qualified by the inscriptions confirming and stressing the rise ofmultiplicity from the undifferentiated, followed by the return of the diverseforms into the One.
It should be noted that the present writer accepts the premise that theterm 'alchemy' may be properly applied to the bulk of the texts collated byBerthelot. This is not to overlook the existence of Chinesealchemy which aroseat an earlier date; but one fact, ignored by some commentators, can scarcely bediscarded-whereas Chinese influence upon the later European alchemy seemsto have been negligibleor non-existent, there is in the European texts a constantrecurrence of ideas and symbolism derived from the Hellenistic works andGnosticism. However, our present concern is not with the origins of alchemybut with the accord between certain Hellenistic conceptions (some of middle-eastern origin) and the underlying nature of alchemy..
To understand the nature of alchemy we cannot, as was formerly attempted,separate the exoteric and esoteric aspects, a course which indicates a completemisconception of the subject. What has to be grasped is the fact that certainfundamental concepts-the idea ot a prima materia, the Unity of Matter, Cosmiccorrespondences, the development of opposites, etc.-of early appearance inGreek philosophy, persisted, to reappear vigorously in the eclecticism whichmarked the period during which alchemy aro.se.
In the closing stages of Hellenistic philosophy many streams of thoughtcontributed: late Stoicism, Neopythagoreanism, Middle Platonism and Neo-platonism. But it was a syncretism in which the members blended together andmodified each other in such a fashion that it is difficult to weigh accurately thecontribution made by any individual theory. Here, it may be noted, the sanleproblem is encountered in Gnosticism: while the main trend of thought isabundantly clear, the relative roles played by the contributing schools ofphilosophy and by oriental mysticism are difficult to assess with any degree ofaccuracy.
The assumption that there existed a prima materia was variously formulatedby the early pre-Socratics--e.g. water (Thales), the Unlimited (Anaximander),
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fire (Herakleitos), etc. By late Hellenistic times, when alchemy arose in Egypt,it would seem that a modification of Thales' notion-what might better betermed 'liquidity' rather than 'water'-became the prima materia. Proximatematerials of readily fusible nature were accepted just because they easilyyielded a liquid fornl, e.g. lead is mentioned in the Physika kai Mystika ofPseudo-Demokritos as the source of the first matter. Fusion brought about ablackening (melanosis), the colour itself being indicative of formlessness43.
The concepts of Cosmiccorrespondencesand the Unity of Matter are closelylinked-the former specific, the latter a generalization. Correspondence, thebelief that the world of man, the microcosm, reflects in all its aspects thebehaviour of the outer world, or macrocosm, is widely manifested, e.g. theinfluence of the seven planets upon the seven metals, upon the seven mainbody organs and upon plants and precious stones44. This notion of sympatheiawas of oriental origin and its introduction into Hellenistic philosophy is almostcertainly attributable to the Stoic Poseidonios (I35-5I B.C.), though admittedlyit is nowadays felt that much of the oriental influences earlier ascribed to himhave been somewhat exaggerated45. The importance of sympatheia in thepract~cal work of alchemy has been discussed by the present writer earlier inthis Joumal46 and will not be repeated here.
The Stoics adopted the earlier conception of the Unity of Matter but builtit up into a vast pantheism in which they conceivedthe Divine interpenetratingeverything in such a way as to admit of no essential differencebetween God andthe Cosmos-both were of the same essence. To this there is abundant tes-timony: the early Stoic Cleanthes (ca. 300-220 B.C.) affirmed that "there isone soul interpenetrating the whole Cosmos, by ,'participation in which we,too, become endowed with a soul"47. Likewise, Alexander of Aphrodisias(ca. 200 A.D.) records that Chrysippus (280-207 B.C.) "lays it down that allexistence is brought into a unity by the penetration, as it were, of spirit throughit all, whereby it is both drawn together and remains compact, and the whole isharmonious within itself"48.
43 A. J. Festugiere, La, Re1:elation d'Hermes Trismegiste, I: Astrologie et les Sciencesoccultes, Paris, 1950, p. 235.
U idem, Chap. VI, passim.
45 K. Reinhardt, Kosmos u. ~"ympathie: Neue Untcrs. -aberPoseidonios, Munich. 1926.
41 H. J. Sheppard, "The Redemption Theme and Hellenistic Alchemy", AMBIX, VIII,No. I, 1959.
47 Diels, Doxogr. gr., 654, 30.
48 Alex. Aphrod., De 1IIIixt., 142•
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H. J. SHEPPARD
That the same idea was widespread at the time Hellenistic alchemy arose isclear from yet another Stoic source, Marcus Aurelius (121-180 A.D.): "There isone universe, consisting of all, and one God through all, and one substance, andone law, and one reason common to all intelligent beings, and one truth"49.And again: "The world is one living organism, with one substance and oneSOul"50.
It follows, then, that there was thought to be correspondence between God,Cosmos and man; man, as part of the Cosmos, was in sympathy with it as awhole. His salvation (salvatIon of the part) meant recognition of his place andfulfilment of his function in the whole. Operations carried out on one plane ofCosmic existence-the transformation of matter, in the case of exotericalchemy-was essen~ially interference in the life of living substances. CosmicUnity involved the participation of God; thus it came about later that Christianalchemists symbolized the changes undergone in the alchemical process interms of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Christ.
On the esoteric side the importance for the alchemist lay in the complemen-tary process-=-the obtaining of personal redemption as a result of participationin a process carried out on the mineral plane. Just how this occurred is notparticularly clear; the witnessing of experiences undergone by proximatematerials as they were· transformed, first to prima materia, then throughsucceeding stages to the state of perfection, in some way induced in the operatora mental condition appropriate to that possessed by one who had shared in theexperiences of a religious initiation. The attainment of this condition was akinto the receiving of inner illumination, and in this respect alchemy resembledGnosticism; why the adept should feel the urge to seek his redemption in thisway is, perhaps, better sought in terms of the depth psychology of the lateC. G. Jung.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For assistance in the translation of the Greek texts quoted the writer is muchindebted to his friend F. Davey, M.A.; grateful thanks are due also to R. RundleClark, M.A., of the University of Birmingham, for so courteously allowing thereproduction of many translations of Egyptian texts contained in his excellent\\Pork HMyth and Symbol in Ancient Egypt".
U Marcus Aurelius, Camm., IV, 40; VII, 9: ct. V, 21. VI, 38.60 idem., IV, 40.