Paracelsus's Conception of Seeds: Rethinking Paracelsus's Ideas of Body and Matter

Abstract

This article examines how Paracelsus understands seeds in his notion of corporeality in his early works. In his article, "Invisible Wombs: Rethinking Paracelsus's Concept of Body and Matter" (Ambix 53.2), Dane Thor Daniel classified the Archiodoxen of 1527 as Paracelsus's early work. My essay argues that Archiodoxen demonstrates a development in Paracelsus's thinking, and suggests how Buch von der Gebärung (ca. 1520) and Volumen Paramirum (ca. 1520) represent Paracelsus's human seed theory in its earliest stages. In these works, Paracelsus does not necessarily base his seed theory entirely on scripture, but rather focuses on the relationship between nature and the human seed.