Maria the Jewess (or Maria Prophetissima, Maria Prophetissa, Mary Prophetissa, Miriam the Prophetess) is estimated to have lived anywhere between the first[1] and third centuries AD.[2] She is attributed with the invention of several chemical apparatus and is considered to be the first non fictitious alchemist in the Western world.[3]
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No tangible details exist of the time or place of her life. She is mentioned by early alchemists always as an authority and with uttermost respect. The alchemists of the past believed she was Miriam, the sister of Moses and the prophet Aaron, but the evidence supporting this claim is scarce.
The most concrete mention of Maria the Jewess in the context of alchemy is by Zosimos of Panopolis, who wrote in the 4th century the oldest alchemy books known.[4] Zosimos describes several of her experiments and instruments. In his writings, Mary is almost always quoted as having lived in the past and mentioned as one of the "sages".
George Syncellus, a Byzantine chronicler of the eighth century, presents Mary as a teacher of Democritus, whom she met in Memphis, Egypt at the time of Pericles. The tenth century Kitāb al-Fihrist of Ibn al-Nadim cites her as one of the fifty-two most famous alchemists, knowing the preparation of the caput mortuum. The Roman philosopher Morieno called her "Mary the Prophetess" and the Arabs knew her as the "Daughter of Plato", a name that in Western alchemical texts was reserved for the white sulfur.[5]
In the Alexander book (2nd part) of the Persian poet Nizami, Maria, a Syrian princess, visits the court of Alexander the Great, and learns from Aristotle (384 BC – 322 BC), among other things, the art of making gold.[6]
It is known that Mary wrote several texts on alchemy. Though none of her writings have survived in their original form, her teachings were widely quoted by later hermetic authors. Her main surviving work is an extract made by an anonymous Christian philosopher, named The Dialogue of Mary and Aros on the Magistery of Hermes, in which are described and named operations that would later be the basis of Alchemy, leukosis (whitening) and xanthosis (yellowing). One was made by grinding and the other by calcination. This work describes for the first time an acid salt and other acids that can be identified with acetic acid. There are also several recipes for making gold, even from root vegetables such as the Mandragora.[7]
Several cryptic alchemical precepts have been attributed to Maria Prophetissa. She is said to have spoken of the union of opposites:
| “ | Join the male and the female, and you will find what is sought.[8] | ” |
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. | ” |
Psychologist Carl Jung used this as a metaphor for the process of wholeness and individuation.
Mary was a respected worker who invented complicated laboratory apparatuses for the distillation and sublimation of chemical materials. Mary is said to have discovered hydrochloric acid, though this is not accepted by most science texts.[9] Also attributed to her are the invention of the alchemical apparatuses known as the tribikos, kerotakis and the bain-marie.
Mary perfected the three-armed distillation chamber, or still. The tribikos was a kind of alembic with three arms that was used to obtain substances purified by distillation. No one knows for sure whether Mary the Jewess was its inventor, but Zosimos credits the first description of this instrument to her. In her writings (quoted by Zosimos), she recommends that the copper or bronze used to create the tubes be the thickness of a frying-pan, and the joint between these tubes and the still-head be sealed with flour-paste.[10]
The kerotakis is the most important invention of Mary the Jewess, a device used to heat substances used in alchemy and collect vapors. It is an airtight container with a sheet of copper suspended on the top. When working properly, all joints are in a tight vacuum. The use of such sealed containers in the Hermetic arts led to the term "hermetically sealed".[1] Mary the Jewess and her colleagues believed that the reaction that took place in the mystical kerotakis was a reconstitution of the formation process of gold that was going on in the bowels of the earth.
Later, this instrument was modified by the German Franz von Soxhlet in 1879 to create the extractor that bears his name, Soxhlet extractor.
Her name survives in the invention of the water-bath or bain-marie, extensively used in chemical processes in which gentle heat is necessary.[11] This term was introduced by Arnold of Villanova in the fourteenth century AD.