The Book of Pictures
Muṣḥaf aṣ-ṣuwar
by Zosimos of Panopolis
Edited and introduced by Theodor Abt
English translation by Salwa Fuad and Theodor Abt
747 pages with bibliography and index, 72 illustrations
ISBN 978-3-9522608-7-6
The translation presented here of the Mushaf as-suwar (The Book of Pictures) into English is its first translation into a European language. It is the result of careful, repeated, distillation work over a period of twenty years, encouraged by Dr. M.-L. von Franz.
The text is a dialogue between the teacher Zosimos and his beloved student Theosebeia, explaining to her the symbolic meaning of the alchemical work.
The unique contribution of this text is its 42 pictures, mostly colored, that Zosimos has drawn for Theosebeia. These pictures are, as is demonstrated in the introduction written by Theodor Abt, the earliest alchemical pictures known, and they are the source of the picture series given in the Rosarium and of the Mutus Liber.
The whole dialogue is the earliest known psychological dialogue concerning transference and counter-transference.