Colm Holland-Blog

Mary or Maria the Jewess, also known as Mary the Prophetess or Maria the Copt was an early alchemist known from the works of Zosimos of Panopolis (fl. c. 300) and other authors in the Greek alchemical tradition. On the basis of Zosimos's comments, she lived between the first and third centuries A.D. in Alexandria. French, Taylor and Lippmann list her as one of the first alchemical writers, dating her works at no later than the first century.

She is credited with the invention of several kinds of chemical apparatus and is considered to be the first true alchemist of the Western world.

Through Zosimos many of the beliefs of Mary the Jewess can be observed. Mary incorporated lifelike attributes into her descriptions of metal such as bodies, souls, and spirits. Mary believed that metals had two different genders and by joining these two genders together a new entity could be made. By joining the different gendered substances together a unity of substances could be obtained.

The primary source for the existence of "Mary the Jewess" within the context of alchemy is Zosimos of Panopolis, who wrote, in the 4th century, the oldest extant books on alchemy. Zosimos described several of Mary's experiments and instruments. In his writings, Mary is almost always mentioned as having lived in the past, and she is described as "one of the sages".

George Syncellus, a Byzantine chronicler of the 8th century, presented Mary as a teacher of Democritus, whom she had met in Memphis, Egypt, during the time of Pericles.

The 10th century Kitāb al-Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim cited Mary as one of the 52 most famous alchemists and stated that she was able to prepare caput mortuum, a purple pigment.

The early medieval alchemical text ascribed to an otherwise unknown "Morienus Romanus" called her "Mary the Prophetess", and the Arabs knew her as the "Daughter of Plato" – a name which, in Western alchemical texts, was reserved for white sulfur.

The following was known as the Axiom of Maria:

One becomes two, two becomes three, and out of the third comes the one as the fourth.

Marie-Louise von Franz, an associate of psychologist Carl Jung, gives an alternative version:

Out of the One comes Two, out of Two comes Three, and from the Third comes the One as the Fourth.

Carl Jung used this axiom as a metaphor for wholeness and individuation.

Several cryptic alchemical precepts have been attributed to Mary. She is said to have spoken of the union of opposites:

Join the male and the female, and you will find what is sought.

Mary, along with Agathodaemon, Pseudo-Democritus, and Hermes Trismegistus, was mentioned by Zosimos of Panopolis in his descriptions of certain devices, such as the tribikos, the kerotakis, and the bain-marie. But her contributions are disputed and not clear.

The tribikos (Greek: τριβικός) was a kind of alembic with three arms that was used to obtain substances purified by distillation. It is not known whether Mary invented it, but Zosimos credits the first description of the instrument to her. It is still used today in chemistry labs. In her writings (quoted by Zosimos), Mary recommends that the copper or bronze used to make the tubes should be the thickness of a frying pan and that the joints between the tubes and the still-head should be sealed with flour paste.