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1-When Alexander the Great conquered Egypt in 33 B.C. and his general Ptolemy
became
King of Egypt, the Greek city of Alexandria was founded, and soon
became not only the
most important city of Egypt, but through the foundation
of schools and the
accumulation of libraries became the acknowledged center
of the intellectual world.
2-The collection of manuscripts is estimated
at from 400,00 to 500,000 works. Scholars
from all parts of the then
civilized world thronged there to take advantage of its
books and its
teachers. The culture which developed was a blending of Greek, Egyptian,
Chaldean, Hebrew and Persian influences. Greek philosophy, Egyptian arts,
Chaldean and
Persian mysticism met and gave rise to strange combinations not
always conducive to
improvement upon the relative clarity of the Greek
foundation.
3-As the power of Rome grew, Greek and Egyptian power
declined. Egypt became a Roman
province in 80 B. C. A fire, started, it is
recorded, from ships burning in the
harbor during Caesar's conquest of
Alexandria, burned an important part of the
collection of manuscripts of the
Alexandria libraries.
4-Under the Roman Empire, Alexandria, however,
still exerted great influence and in the
reign of Augustus was a metropolis
second only to Rome itself, but in the succeeding
centuries when Rome was
suffering from internal disintegration and the Roman Empire was
crumbling
from successful barbarian invasions; Alexandrian culture also yielded to the
general demoralization.
5-In the third century, the conditions
throughout the Empire were such as to justify
the statement of competent
critic—"In the tempest of anarchy during the third century
A.D. the
civilization of the ancient world suffered final collapse. The supremacy of
mind and of scientific knowledge won by the Greeks in the third centur B.C.
yielded to
the reign of ignorance and superstition in these social disasters
of the third century
A.D."
Alexandrian Alchemical Mystics
In the light of present knowledge, it was in the period of the first to the
third
centuries that the mystical cult which cultivated the fantastic ideas
of that kind of
chemical philosophy which later came to be called alchemy,
first developed. The
beginning seems to have been the development of a
secret cult of Alexandrian mystics
bound by oath never to reveal to the
uninitiated the mysterious knowledge which they
claimed to have. That the
members of the cult were originally of the Egyptian
priesthood or foreign
scholars initiated by them, seems probable, for Egyptian deities
or
mythological personages are prominent as authorities in their writings. That the
cult was of comparatively late development is evidenced by the prominence of
Persian,
and Hebrew authorities which were also frequently cited in their
early writings. All
this points to the cosmopolitan influence of the
Alexandrian schools the melting pots
of Greek, Egyptian, Hebrew, Persian and
Chaldean philosophies, sciences, religions and
superstitions. The universal
sway of the Roman power and the pax Romana had also the
effect of spreading
the various cultures and national religions, but at the same time
of
weakening their authority.
In the early centuries of our era, Rome and
Athens contained temples of Egyptian Isis,
and shrines to Mithra, the
Persian sun god, were frequent in Greek and Roman cities,
symptoms of a
decline in the power of the ancient religions in the centers of
civilization
under the Empire.
Fate of Alexandria University
There was rising the new and at first persecuted sect of Christians destined
soon to
supplant the old faiths. Reconized and protected early in the fourth
century under the
Emperor Constantine, the new sect as it gained influnce
waged war upon the schools of
ancient pagan philosophies.
In 389 A.D.
the Serapion of Alexandria was destrosyed, and its library destroyed or
scattered under an edict of Theodosius calling for the destruction of all
paean temples
within the Empire, an order executed with much severity and
cruelty. In the same year,
Zeno, Emperor of the East, closed the important
school at Edessa and its Nestorian
teachers were banished, findingg refuse
in Asia. The Museum of Alexandria, a real
university, still maintained a
precarious existence until 415 when in riots incited by
the Christians, the
last remnants of Alexandrian schools of philosophy and science were
swept
away and the last notable teacher and philosopher of that school, Hypatia(370 -
415) fell a victim to the violence of the mob.
Hypatia (http://www.astr.ua.edu/4000WS/HYPATIA.html)
Alexandria
In Times Of Muslims
When the Muslim State ruled Asia Minor, the Syrian scholars were patronized
by the
Caliphs, were employed in influential positions as physicians, as
tronomers,
mathematicians, engineers, etc., and the Syrian manuscripts of
Greek and Alexandrian
authors were translated into Arabian. The early Muslim
culture was more hospitable to
these ancient sciences and philosophies than
the early Christian, and thus Arabians
became in medieval times the best
trained scholars in mathematics astronomy, medicine
and chemistry. As the
wave of Muslim culture in the seventh and eighth centuries
swept over Egypt
and Morocco to Spain, Spain became the seat of a high degree of Muslim
culture which endured until the final expulsion of the Moors in 1492 put an
end to the
Muslim rule in Western Europe. From Spain, however, the classical
culture preserved by
Syrian scholars and by them transmitted to Arab
scholars, found its way to Europe, and
Arabian mathematicians, physicians,
alchemists, were held in high esteem as scientific
experts. Arabian
translations, elaborations and commentaries from ancient Greek and
Greek-Egyptian authors received from Syrian versions and finally translated
into Latin
in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, became the great
authorities in natural
science. So completely had the original Greek
writings disappeared from sight in the
middle ages of Europe that later
centuries quite generally assumed that the Arabians
were originators of very
much that they had acquired and transmitted from original
Greek and
Alexandrian writers through Syrian and Arabic translations. Particularly was
that true in the field of chemical knowledge, though modern research has
made it
clearer that the additions in that domain to the knowledge possessed
by Alexandrian
writers of the third and fourth centuries is of very
subordinate significance. In the
history of chemical science in Europe,
Arabian influence is of importance because it
was through this channel that
interest in the science was again introduced to Latinized
Europe.
The Earliest Alchemical Writers In Alexandria
At about the beginning of our era, it was in Alexandria, so far as we can
ascertain,
that that phase of chemical activity and speculation which we
call alchemy originated.
The earliest alchemical writers whose writings have
been in part at least preserved to
us were manifestly Alexandrian
Greek-Egyptians. They wrote in Greek and their writings
contain allusions
and traditions connecting with the ancient Greek philosophy of
nature, with
Plato and Aristotle, but also allusions and ideas related to Persian and
Egyptian culture. In so far as these writings contain references to the
devices and
methods of experimental chemistry, these earl alchemists allude
to just such practical
operations as we have seen in the Egyptian papyri
from Thebes (see Part 2 Lyeden and
Stokohlom Manuscripts in this site),
although they are rarely so definite and clear as
the latter descriptions
and directions, and are mingled with a confused mass of obscure
allegorical
narratives and descriptions. These find their analogies in the fantastic
notions of the later Alexandrian neoplatonic philosophers and related
mystical cults
belonging to the transition period of the fall of the
Egyptian and Greek culture and
the rise of the Christian philosophy with its
mixture of traditions and ideas from many
different ancient cults and
religions.
Internal and external evidence are to the effect that the phase of
chemical activity
and interest which so long held the stage not only in
Europe but in Arabia and Asia,
spreading even to India and China, had its
origin in the practices of the metal workers
of Egypt (see Part 1 of this
section) and in the theories of matter and its possible
changes as developed
in the neoplatonic school of natural philosophy.
In so far as the neoplatonic
philosophy as applied to alchemy possessed a basis in
ancient Greek
philosophy, it was based mainly upon Plato's conceptions as formulated in
his work entitled "Timaeus."
This metaphysical physical science of Plato,
imaginative and fantastic in itself,
became even less logical and more
fantastic by the elaborations and interpretations of
the later neoplatonists
who "based their philosophy on revelations of Deity and they
found those in
the religious traditions and rites of all nations."
As the Timaeus of Plato
appears to have furnished the more fundamental concepts which
dominated the
ideas of matter and its changes to the early and later alchemists, it
will
be of help in understanding some of these ideas if this work is explained in
some
detail.
In the form of dialogue, though substantially a monologue,
Timaeus is represented as
explaining to Socrates his formulation of the
generation and development of the
physical universe.