On the Art of Fermentation

it was argued most fiercely, and the veneration of antiquity was much greater when it was permitted to a few to examine those Greek mysteries, for the most part unpublished. In my judgment, the ancient chemists are indeed worthy of an edition: first, so that supporters and critics alike may draw from the very fountains of the arcane art whatever can be said on either side; second, so that if hope should perchance deceive the eager, they may find other things pertaining to metallurgical chemistry; and finally, so that critics and grammarians may be able to enrich Greek lexicons with new words—whether newly coined or expressed in a different sense—or exercise their talent and write learned conjectures. For those chemists possess a peculiar dialect and a proper signification of words. This one thing is certain: that the art of those ancients consists chiefly in inducing the color of gold or silver upon metals, or in adapting them for economic use; and that these authors are almost all of a doubtful or late age (which both the subject matter and the new words show more than enough), having proceeded from the Alexandrian school, most of them Christians by religion.

Preeminent among these is ZOSIMUS ⁶), of Panopolis (for he says of himself, "I have seen into the sacred Mem-

he professes to have been copied from an Augustan manuscript. For more, see the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecae Gothanae by CYPRIAN.

6. The sacred city of the Thebaid is called Panopolis. Cf. OL. BORRICH, Dissertatio de Ortu et Progressu Chemiae, pp. 79, 147; Hermetis Aegyptiorum et Chemicorum Sapientia, Hafniae 1674, ch. 3, pp. 49–50; and Conspectus Chemiae Illustratus, p. 6. H. CONRING, De Hermetica Aegyptiorum Medicina, Helmstadii 1648, ch. 3, p. 17, and the edition of 1669, p. 17, calls him the most ancient of chemical writers, contrary to MORHOF, Polyhistor I. 11, p. 104, who considers that ZOSIMUS the chemist, the Alexandrian, should be distinguished from the Theban Panopolitan. Doubtless, many pamphlets lie hidden under this name, some of which pertain to ZOSIMUS the Panopolitan, others to the Theban (and he, in all likelihood, a Jew), and others to the Alexandrian, who was a Christian.