Known as the first true alchemist, Mary or Maria the Jewess is active in Alexandria c. 100 AD. Her work survives through commentaries and translations, influencing alchemy practitioners even today. Her Tetrasomia combines metals and magic.
In Maria's teachings she asserts the Great Work can be created successfully in one certain season. She names Pharmuthi, the Egyptian month corresponding to March and April. It's the 8th month on Egyptian and Coptic calenders.
The materials must be wrapped tightly in linen, Maria says, then subjected to salting (taricheia), and finally cooked in the "water of Pontus." Pontus, meaning "sea", may refer to the Mediterranean sparkling on the Alexandrian coast.
In the course of the transformation, Maria says, one-quarter, or even one-third, of the materials becomes lost. Whatever is left over can be multiplied by means of diplosis, a biology process and doubling formula of Maria.
This can be carried out with mercury, and, in particular, with an alloy of four metals. Maria calls these "our lead" or "our copper". The four metals of the tetrasomia are
They are "four in one" Maria says, according to Olympiodorus of Thebes. She compares these to an egg of nature, composed of four essential parts: shell, skin, egg white and yolk. She admonishes disciples to properly nurture the metals of the Tetrasomia.
Metal is empirically viewed as a material defined by its atomic composition and the resulting chemical and physical characteristics. Alchemists through history have likened their work with metals to biological processes involving creation and care of living organisms and progeny.
These analogies come from over two thousand years of metaphors and alchemical symbols evolving over time. They include themes such as the union of opposites, or the fusion of opposing elements into a unified entity.
In the early centuries AD metals assume mysterious properties as they do in the Chalcolithic and Bronze ages from c. 5000 BCE. Today they fit into neat little boxes. The elemental signs (ie Pb for lead) first appear 1813 and the periodic table is invented in 1869.
The first use of the term "noble metal" is in the fourteenth century. Thus throughout the vast ages of the past prevails a spiritual view of the metals, minerals and plants making up the environment. Life appears in all things, even rocks.
Maria engenders metals and substances, for instance male sulfur and female mercury, substances she works with often. She knows and warns of the toxic effects of mercury.
The four metals are also called, according to Maria, "our copper," or "their copper." The tetrasomia resembles, in its quadruple composition, the human body. In order to make gold, the metal tetrasomia must be heated and "burned" with certain substances.
These include sulfur, which becomes vaporized in heat by itself and thereby colors everything, sharing these two features with "all sulfurous materials"; with mercury; with "round alum," or morsels of arsenious acid derived from the arsenic sulfides.
They must also be treated with the "divine water," which can mean a solution or a molten alloy, made of smoke or soot (aithale) from substances with sulfur or arsenic. As well is required addition of vitriol (chalkanthos CuSO4.5H2O, native copper sulfite).
Otherwise two substances, gallnut and kiki (Egyptian word for castor-oil plant) can be used.
Gallnuts are a unique group of natural products created as abnormal growths on branches of plants due to insect infestation and egg laying.
In traditional medicine gallnuts treat inflammation and promote wound recovery. Due to potent astringent properties, they are also used for hemorrhages, and gastrointestinal issues like diarrhea, dysentery, and cholera. Oak galls are popular in natural dyeing of fabrics.
Other substances according to Maria, with which "our lead" and "our copper" must be treated include alabaster (white oxide of antimony), and sulfide of antimony. If the "copper" is properly nourished with solids and liquids, it undergoes four phases of color transformation.
The substance becomes, in turn, black, white, yellow, and red. These metamorphoses must be considered "effects of the stone," or of the compound powder prepared by the philosopher, which he sprinkles upon the "copper."
This creates the transformation whose essence consists of a marriage, that is, the "union of the female and the male." As Maria says, "nature charms, dominates, and conquers nature." These colors come to mean the steps in achieving the Magnum Opus. Yellow is later dropped.
These colors are also used as guidelines in spiritual alchemy. They're touted as a transitionary process for self-absorption leading to a vague comprehension of ideological enlightenment and alleviation of personal distress.
Another procedure either invented by Maria or learned by her from earlier alchemists and described in her writings used by Zosimus was the method of making precious stones shine in the dark.
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