Real or Fake? New Light on the Paracelsian De natura rerum

Abstract

So far it has never been clearly decided whether the treatise De natura rerum constitutes an authentic work by the physician and natural philosopher Theophrastus Bombast of Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493/94–1541) This article outlines the manuscript and printing traditions of De natura rerum, in which a recently discovered manuscript from 1571 is identified as the earliest source. The watermarks of this manuscript refer to the Tyrolean Inn Valley, where great alchemical expertise was available due to silver mining. A detailed examination of the content and style of the preface and the nine chapters indicates the involvement of at least three different authors. Some of these parts are definitely forgeries, while others cannot be judged with certainty as to their authenticity. On the other hand, three chapters, those on death, resuscitation and the signature of natural things, are most likely real writings of Paracelsus.

Acknowledgements

The author would like to thank Andrew Weeks, the anonymous referee, and above all Didier Kahn for their untiring help and invaluable comments.

Note on contributor

Urs Leo Gantenbein is a research associate of the Institute of Evolutionary Medicine (www.iem.usz.ch) and of the Institute of Swiss Reformation History (www.irg.uzh.ch), both at the University of Zurich, Urs Leo Gantenbein is the editor of the New Paracelsus Edition and founder of the Zurich Paracelsus Project of the University of Zurich (www.paracelsus.uzh.ch). He is specialized in Paracelsus studies and in the history of Renaissance medicine and medical alchemy. Address: Ackeretstrasse 16, CH-8400 Winterthur, Switzerland. Email: [email protected].

Notes

1 Paracelsus, Bücher vnd Schrifften, ed. Johann Huser, 10 vols. (Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1589–1591), hereafter H1–H10, on H7:109–232.

2 Wilhelm Kühlmann, Joachim Telle, Corpus Paracelsisticum, Der Frühparacelsismus, 3 vols. (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2001–2013), hereafter CP1–CP3, on CP3:266–69.

3 Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, 14 vols., ed. Karl Sudhoff (Munich–Berlin: Barth, Oldenbourg, 1922–1933), hereafter S1–S14, on S11:xxxi–xxxiii.

4 Kurt Goldammer, “Aus der Werkstatt der Paracelsisten des 16. und 17. Jahrhunderts,” in Paracelsus, Theologische und religionsphilosophische Schriften, Supplement, ed. Kurt Goldammer (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1973), xxix–lxiv.

5 Karl Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1894), hereafter SB, on 60–365.

6 Basel: Samuel Apiarius, 1572; SB 137, 229–31. On Bodenstein see CP1:104–10. On the printed tradition see also Hiro Hirai, “Into the Forger’s Library: The Genesis of De natura rerum in Publication History,” Early Science and Medicine 24 (2019): 485–503.

7 Metamorphosis 1572, sig. [a2]v–[a3]r. The dedication letter is edited and commented in CP1:457–80.

8 Metamorphosis 1572, sig. [b]v: “welches bůch ich De natura rerum nenne/ vnnd solches getheilt in neun theil.”

9 SB 230; for the fragments in Huser see H6:402–17.

10 Metamorphosis 1572, sigs. [b3]v–[b4]r. See also CP1:481–84.

11 SB 230.

12 Basel: Peter Perna, 1573; SB 145, 243–44. On Forberger see CP2:237–39.

13 Basel: Samuel Apiarius, 1574; SB 157, 267–68.

14 Basel: Peter Perna, 1575, as part of the collected Latin works Operum Latine redditorum, vol. 1; SB 165, 283.

15 Strasbourg: Bernhart Jobin, 1584; SB No. 199, 345–46. On Bathodius see CP2:260–62.

16 H 6, sig. [a2]v; H 1, sig. [B2]v. The text of De natura rerum is printed in H6:255–362.

17 Universitätsbibliothek der TU Bergakademie Freiberg, Werners Nachlass No. 57. Paper, leather binding in size 15.1 × 19.8 cm with linen clasps. It was discovered by the librarian Angela Kiessling. I warmly thank Prof. Bernd Meyer, former rector of the TU Bergakademie Freiberg and former president of the Deutsche Bombastus-Gesellschaft E.V., for presenting me with a copy of the manuscript.

18 Gerhard Piccard, Wasserzeichen Dreiberg, Teil 2, Abteilungen VII-XI, Die Wasserzeichenkartei Piccard im Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, Findbuch XVI, Teil 2 (Stuttgart: Verlag W. Kohlhammer, 1996), 28, 240.

19 Josef Steiner, “Die Geschichte der Papiermühle (Papierfabrik) von Wattens,” Tiroler Heimatblätter – Innsbruck 25 (1950): 42–53, 81–86.

20 Gert Amman, ed., Silber, Erz und weißes Gold. Bergbau in Tirol, Katalog der Tiroler Landesausstellung 1990 (Innsbruck: Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, 1990), 38–40. On mining in Freiberg and Schwaz see also Urs Leo Gantenbein, “Die Beziehungen zwischen Alchemie und Hüttenwesen im frühen 16. Jahrhundert, insbesondere bei Paracelsus und Georgius Agricola,” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, Fachgruppe Geschichte der Chemie 15 (2000): 11–31.

21 Urs Leo Gantenbein, “Das Kunstbuch des Michael Cochem (Ms. Vadiana 407) aus dem Jahr 1522. Seine Bedeutung für die medizinische Alchemie,” Mitteilungen der Gesellschaft Deutscher Chemiker, Fachgruppe Geschichte der Chemie 15 (2000): 32–61.

22 Leiden University Libraries, Cod. Voss. Chym. Q. 4, fols. 1–58v; see Petrus Cornelis Boeren, Codices Vossiani Chymici (Leiden: Universitaire Pers Leiden, 1975), 119; Karl Sudhoff, Paracelsus-Handschriften (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1899), abbreviated as SH 23, 105.

23 Boeren, Codices, 119.

24 Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Bibl. Sud. 1516–6.

25 SH 105.

26 Staats- und Universitätsbibliothek Hamburg, Cod. Alchim. 192, fols. 161r–197v: “Philippi Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi von Hohenheim, beider Ertzney Doctoris, Zway Bücher von Natürlichen dingen.” The manuscript is described by Julian Paulus, “Eine unbeachtete Paracelsus-Handschrift aus Franken,” Parerga Paracelsica, ed. Joachim Telle (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1991), 141–47.

27 Jost Weyer, Graf Wolfgang II. von Hohenlohe und die Alchemie. Alchemistische Studien in Schloß Weikersheim 1587–1610 (Sigmaringen: Jan Thorbeke Verlag, 1992).

28 Paulus, “Eine unbeachtete Paracelsus-Handschrift,” 142.

29 Paulus, Paracelsus-Handschrift, 142.

30 Royal Danish Library Copenhagen, GKS 1756 4°; SH No. 24, 106–7.

31 CP3:177.

32 SH 107.

33 Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Bibl. Sud. 1516–6, 329. The gap is also documented in SH 106–7. Sudhoff corrects the error in his edition as well, see S11:373. The Hamburg manuscript is practically identical to that from Copenhagen.

34 H6:329; SUB Hamburg, Cod. Alchim. 192, fol. 173r.

35 Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, Plut. 89 sup. 37. For other, unimportant manuscripts SH 25, 26 and 28, 108–10, and 773.

36 During the communist regime the manuscript was preserved in the National Library of the Czech Republic, Prague, see Karl-Heinz Weimann, “Neu entdeckte Paracelsus-Handschriften,” Sudhoffs Archiv 41 (1957): 154–59, on 157. I warmly thank Martin Žemla for his repeated and finally successful efforts to view the Lobkowicz manuscript which bears the shelfmark Ms. VI Fg 20, 8°.

37 CP3:268–69.

38 See Andrew Sparling, “Paracelsus was a Transmutational Alchemist,” Ambix 67 (2020): this issue.

39 CP3:266–78.

40 S11:xxxii; CP3:269.

41 S11:xxxii, echoed by CP3:268.

42 For details see Udo Benzenhöfer, Paracelsus (Reinbek: Rowohlt Taschenbuch Verlag, 1997, 2002).

43 William R. Newman, Promethean Ambitions. Alchemy and the Quest of Perfect Nature (Chicago–London: The University of Chicago Press, 2004), 164–237.

44 For reasons of limited space, the original German and Latin texts are generally not reproduced here.

45 Urs Leo Gantenbein, “Paracelsus und die Quellen seiner medizinischen Alchemie,” in Religion und Gesundheit, ed. Albert Classen (Berlin–Boston: De Gruyter, 2011), 113–64; Didier Kahn, Le fixe et le volatil. Chimie et alchimie, de Paracelse à Lavoisier (Paris: CNRS Éditions, 2016), 47–70; Urs Leo Gantenbein, “Poison and Its Dose: Paracelsus on Toxicology,” in Toxicology in the Middle Ages and Renaissance, ed. Philip Wexler (London: Academic Press, 2017), 1–10; Bruce T. Moran, Paracelsus. An Alchemical Life (London: Reaktion Books, 2019).

46 Didier Kahn, “Quintessence and the Prolongation of Life in the Works of Paracelsus,” Micrologus 26 (2018): 183–225, on 189–90.

47 Newman, Promethean Ambitions, on 195–221; Amadeo Murase, “The Homunculus and the Paracelsian Liber de Imaginibus,” Ambix 67 (2020): this issue.

48 See Ernst Darmstaedter, “Paracelsus, De natura rerum. Eine kritische Studie,” Janus 37 (1933): 1–18, 48–62, 109–15, 323–24, on 3–4, and Daniel Sennert’s criticism (1619) as reported by Pagel, Paracelsus, 335.

49 Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 215; Kahn, “Quintessence,” 214–15.

50 Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 171–87.

51 Kahn, “Quintessence,” 201. On the Liber de homunculis, see also William R. Newman, “Bad Chemistry: Basilisks and Women in Paracelsus and pseudo-Paracelsus,” Ambix 67 (2020): this issue.

52 On the Liber Hermetis see William R. Newman, The Summa Perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber (Leiden: Brill, 1991), 7–15; Newman, Promethean Ambitions, 63–76.

53 Opusculum de potestate ac sapientia Dei, trad. Marsilio Ficino (Milan: Scheffer, 1503).

54 Walter Pagel, “Paracelsus. Traditionalism and Medieval Sources,” in Medicine, Science and Culture: Historical Essays in Honor of Owsei Temkin, ed. Lloyd G. Stevenson and Robert P. Multhauf (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins Press, 1968), 51–75, on 57–58, 61.

55 Newman, Summa Perfectionis, 670.

56 Gantenbein, “Kunstbuch.”

57 H6:86: “Dann von solchen Vrsachen setzen wir de Conseruationibus einen mehrern Grund” (“about such causes we want to write more in De conservationibus”).

58 H6:278: “daß der Spiritus eigentlich das Leben/ vnd der Balsam ist/ aller Corporalischen dingen.”

59 Didier Kahn, “Further thoughts on De renovatione et restauratione, De vita longa, Thesaurus thesaurorum, De imaginibus and De natura rerum,” unpublished handout at the international conference Homunculus, palingénésie, transmutation, questions sur la vie et la mort: autour de Paracelse (École Normale Supérieure, Paris, 5–6 December 2017), 4–7. See also Kahn, “Quintessence,” 192, 205–7, 214–15.

60 H6:137: “cum impressa liquoris Salium commistura.” English translation from Kahn, “Further thoughts,” 5.

61 Paracelsus, Essential Theoretical Writings, trans. Andrew Weeks (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2008), hereafter Weeks, ETW, on 228–29, n. a, 1.

62 H9:406: “Der Leib ist Mumia/ der Geist ist Balsam.”

63 Paracelsus, Chirurgische Bücher und Schrifften, ed. Johannes Huser (Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1605), noted here in parentheses as HC, on 431: “mercken/ daß die Natur jhr selbs Artzt ist durch jhren eingebornen Mummien.”

64 Kahn, “Quintessence,” 193; Kahn, “Further thoughts,” 2–3. H6:108: “Denn Primum Ens ist ein imperfectum compositum, das da praedestinirt ist auff ein endtlichs Endt vnd Corporalisch materiam.”

65 Didier Kahn, “Paracelsus’ Ideas on the Heavens, Stars and Comets,” in Unifying Heaven and Earth, ed. Miguel Á. Granada, Patrick J. Boner and Dario Tessicini (Barcelona: Edicions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2016), 59–116, on 99 n. 122.

66 H6:283: “[…] vnd also am Jüngsten Tag in einem newen Himmlischen vnd Clarificierten Fleisch zum andern mal geboren werden / wie Christus zu Nicodemo sagt/ da er zu jhm kam bey der Nacht. Dann also wie gemeldet / muß diser Spruch verstanden werden von der newen Geburt / etc.”

67 See e.g. Kurt Goldammer, Paracelsus: Natur und Offenbarung (Hannover: Theodor Oppermann, 1953), 82–6; Hartmut Rudolph, “Hohenheim’s Anthropology in the Light of his Writings on the Eucharist,” in Paracelsus: The Man and his Reputation, His Ideas and Their Transformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell (Leiden: Brill, 1998) (Studies in the History of Christian Thought 85), 187–206; Dane T. Daniel, “Paracelsus on the ‘New Creation’ and Demonic Magic: Misunderstandings, Oversights, and False Accusations in His Early Reception,” in World-Building and the Early Modern Imagination, ed. Allison B. Kavey (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 5–33.

68 Urs Leo Gantenbein, “The New Adam: Jacob Böhme and the Theology of Paracelsus (1493/94–1541),” in Jacob Böhme and His World, ed. Bo Andersson e.a. (Leiden–Boston: Brill, 2018), 166–96; Urs Leo Gantenbein, “‘Himmlische Philosophia’ bei Paracelsus und Caspar Schwenckfeld,” forthcoming in Daphnis 48 (2020).

69 Kahn, “Further Thoughts,” 5–6.

70 Paracelsus, Naturalis Interpretatio coenae Dominicae, Vom Brott vnd Wein Christj auff dz Natürliche Liechtt gesetztt, Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel, Cod. Guelf. 32. 1. Aug., 4°, 460–90, on 463.

71 H2:126, 230, 236, 295, 321, 327; H7:133, 155, 163; H10:4, 68, 77–78, 152–59, 304–6, 345–49.

72 See Dane T. Daniel, Paracelsus’ Astronomia Magna (1537/38): Bible-Based Science and the Religious Roots of the Scientific Revolution (Ph.D. diss.: Indiana University, 2003).

73 H6:329: “Die Zeichen der Astra / bringen mit sich Propheceyungen / Praesagien / vnd dergleichen / zeygen an die vbernatürliche Kräfft vnd Tugent der dingen / geben wahre anzeygung vnd Vrtheyl in der Geomantia, Chiromantia, Physionomia, Hydromantia, Pyromantia, Necromantia, Astronomia, Berilistica, &c. vnd dergleichen Astralischen Künsten.”

74 Paracelsus, Neue Paracelsus-Edition, vol. 1, ed. Urs Leo Gantenbein (Berlin–New York: De Gruyter, 2008), 314.

75 H4:259–62, 305–13, 348–49; H9:374, 381–83, 429, 453; H10:68, 155.

76 E.g. H1:242; H2:198–99; H3:194; H9:191; H10:164, 268, 289, 357; Neue Paracelsus-Edition 1: 355, 474.