Roger Pearse

Jay Raskin was asking about Stephen of Alexandria in a recent thread. This is a chap who was known as the Universal Philosopher, and was active in the early 7th century at the court of Heraclius. (I've added a lot of data to the Wikipedia entry on him, for lack of a better place to put it).

I thought that people might like to know that I have tracked down his work on the making of gold and uploaded it:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/in...chemical_works

Unfortunately the complete work consists of 9 lectures, while the translator stopped after only 3. Still, there it is.

In the process I also came across a translation of another short alchemical work by the 3rd century writer Zosimus of Panopolis (not the same as the 6th century historian), and scanned that also:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/zo...ns_01_text.htm

I hope that I might be forgiven if I mention that I make a CDROM available of the collection of the Fathers and related writers? Those who would like to support my site can buy it for $37 using think link:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/al...hers_on_cd.htm

It also contains the version 2 easy-to-search version of the 38-volume Ante-Nicene Fathers which has vanished from the CCEL site.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

PhilosopherJay

Hi Roger,


Thanks for this. Its interesting stuff.

I could not find anything to link Stephanus of Alexandria to Stephanus Gobarus in this work. However, being a work on alchemy, one would expect it to be quite different from a work on Church doctrines. I'll keep my eyes open and if I do find anything new, I'll post it here.

Good luck with the CDROM.

Warmly,

Philosopher Jay

Roger Pearse

Glad to help. I think that they must be different people, and at slightly different times; Stephen of Alexandria is clearly a contemporary of Heraclius, for instance, rather later than Stephen Gobar. There are quite a number of Stephens around at this period. Stephen of Athens has been confused with Stephen of Alexandria, I gather.

All the best,

Roger Pearse