Zosimos & Theosebeia: An Erotics of Alchemical Pedagogy

[Paul Ferguson]

"This paper fleshes out the relationship of the third-century alchemist Zosimos of Panopolis and his colleague, Theosebeia, which was later dramatized in the Book of Pictures, an illustrated Arabic manuscript (thirteenth century) that depicts the couple crowned with the sun and moon, representing various alchemical processes. Their relationship provides an important window into the historical development of erotic themes in alchemical literature. I argue that there is an erotics of pedagogy at work in this text, rooted in alchemical allegories of the fusion of male and female substances and Islamic notions of the initiatory relationship between teacher and student."

Shannon Grimes

https://www.academia.edu/75363660/Zosimo...l_Pedagogy