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ABSTRACT
Paracelsus was a transmutational alchemist: For most of his career, he believed that one metal could be turned into another. In an alchemical text, the De renovatione et restauratione, he explored the theoretical foundations of transmutation and hinted at recipes for bringing it about. He proposed that from plants, gems, metals, and minerals might be prepared a class of marvelous medicaments, which he called prima entia (first entities). Each primum ens had particular uses, but the entia were all supposed to be able to revitalize the human body and cleanse it of disease. Certain entia could also transmute metals. The De renovatione et restauratione affirmed the metaphysical centrality, in goldmaking and medicine alike, not just of purification or alteration but of renewal and transformation. It expressed the author’s eschatological excitement at God’s works of wonder, whether within or above nature.
Acknowledgements
Among many others I would particularly like to thank Didier Kahn, Bill Newman, Urs Leo Gantenbein, Andrew Weeks, Jenny Rampling, Dane Daniel, Alisha Rankin, Tara Nummedal, Bruce Moran, and Sy Mauskopf, for their intellectual inspiration, professional engagement, and material and moral support, as well as to two anonymous reviewers for the journal.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1 Andrew W. Sparling, ‘Paracelsus, A Transmutational Alchemist’, Ambix, 67 (2020), 62–87; idem, ‘Providence and Alchemy: Paracelsus on How Knowledge Unfolded, Matter Developed, and Bodies Might Be Perfected’ (unpublished Ph.D. diss. in history, University of Nevada, Reno, 2018).
2 On Paracelsus’s thought style, see esp. Andrew Weeks, Paracelsus: Speculative Theory and the Crisis of the Early Reformation, SUNY Series in Western Esoteric Traditions (Albany, N.Y.: State University of New York Press, 1997).
3 Cf. Andrew Weeks, trans., Essential Theoretical Writings, by Paracelsus (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2008), esp. 40, where Weeks emphasizes the importance, at the syntactical level, of Paracelsus’s use of ellipsis and anacoluthon.
4 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione (in German), in idem (1589–90), Bücher und Schrifften, ed. Johannes Huser, 10 vols. (Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1589–90), vol. 6 (1590), pp. 100–114. On the work, see Didier Kahn, ‘Quintessence and the Prolongation of Life in the Works of Paracelsus’, in Chiara Crisciani, ed., Longevity and Immortality: Europe—Islam—Asia, Micrologus, no. 26 (Florence: SISMEL [edizioni del Galluzzo], 2018), 183–225, here 191–95; and Udo Benzenhöfer, Studien zum Frühwerk des Paracelsus im Bereich Medizin und Naturkunde (Münster: Klemm und Oelschläger, 2005), 141–45. Benzenhöfer gives the edition history.
5 Sparling, ‘Providence and Alchemy’, 234–43. Archidoxis (or Archidoxa) was an invented Greek term, perhaps meaning either a) Principal Opinion or b) [Secrets] of Chief Glory. In Greek the singular feminine nouns δόχις and δόξα are synonyms, meaning opinion, teaching, or glory. But δόχις might also be construed as a nominalized plural neuter adjective: C.A.M. Fennell, ed., The Stanford Dictionary of Anglicised Words and Phrases (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1892), s.v. ‘Archidoxa’. In employing the singular or plural Paracelsus himself was not consistent. Cf. Didier Kahn, ‘L’Archidoxis et la Theophrastia’, in Jean-Charles Monferran, Tristan Vigliano, and Alice Vintenon, eds., D’Uranie à Gollum: mélanges en l’honneur d’Isabelle Pantin (Paris: Champion, forthcoming), n. 4 in ms.
6 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, p. 105: ‘Lepra, Caducus, Mania, Pustulæ, vnd dergleichen / Podagra, Chiragra, Arthetica, vnd ander mehr / in der Renouation vnd Restauration hinweg gehnd:’ (Colon as full stop.)
7 Huser worked from the ms. in Paracelsus’s own hand: Huser, VI, sig. a4v. Benzenhöfer attempts to summarize the argument of the De renovatione et restauratione, 142–44.
8 Huser, VI, 109.
9 Ibid., 102.
10 Ibid., 104; 109–110.
11 Ibid., 112–13: ‘ein Substantialische Form.’
12 Ibid., 101.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., 110–12 and passim. See Zachary A. Matus, Franciscans and the Elixir of Life: Religion and Science in the Later Middle Ages, The Middle Ages Series, ed. Ruth Mazo Karras (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2017); and Leah DeVun, Prophecy, Alchemy, and the End of Time: John of Rupescissa in the Late Middle Ages (New York: Columbia University Press, 2009).
15 Ibid., 103 (cf. Aristotle, De generatione animalium, bk. 5, chs. 3–6, 781b30–786b7).
16 Ibid., 103–104.
17 Ibid., 102–103; 105; see further below.
18 Ibid., 102–104: ‘Superfluiteten’; ‘superfluitates’.
19 Ibid., 104–105: ‘Purum ab Impuro’ (105); ‘Clarificirt’ (104).
20 Ibid., 105, with reference to metallic transmutations.
21 Klein, ‘Styles of Experimentation and Alchemical Matter Theory in the Scientific Revolution’, review of Atoms and Alchemy, by William R. Newman, Metascience, 16 (2007), 247–56, here 251.
22 Complex hybrid matter theories were common in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries: see, e.g., Craig Martin, ‘With Aristotelians like These, Who Needs Anti-Aristotelians? Chymical Corpuscular Matter Theory in Niccolò Cabeo’s Meteorology’, Early Science and Medicine, 11 (2006), 135–61; and Christoph Lüthy, ‘The Fourfold Democritus on the Stage of Early Modern Science’, Isis, 91 (2000), 443–79. Paracelsus’s account here is remarkable, however, for its compression, profusion, and allusiveness.
23 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 102: ‘So aber alles das / daruon der Humor Radicalis kompt / oder darinn er ligt / gereinigt wird / so wirt jhm sein Thon auch gereiniget: vnd je besser sein Thon ist / je besser sein Corpus.’
24 Ibid., 108: ‘Vnnd wiewol wir nit allen Proceß ansetzen / so ist das nit ein Notturfft: denn auß vrsachen / was vns versteht / kan auch vnser Schreiben voll machen: was vns aber nit versteht / ist durch vnser Schreiben nit zu lernen.’ Cf. Ernst Darmstaedter, who recognized that Paracelsus might have deliberately rendered certain metallic recipes obscure, ‘um nur Kennern verständlich zu sein’ (in order to make himself understandable only to experts): Darmstaedter, Arznei und Alchemie: Paracelsus-Studien, Studien zur Geschichte der Medizin, ed. Karl Sudhoff and Henry E. Sigerist, no. 20 (Leipzig: Johann Ambrosius Barth, 1931), 24–25.
25 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 113: ‘Wiewol … wir das mit kürtze schrieben / haben wir doch gnugsam angezeigt den [sic] verstand denen / die da der Medicin vnderricht sind / vnd in der Philosophia.’
26 Cf. Paracelsus, Opus Paramirum, in Weeks, trans., Essential Theoretical Writings (cited above, n. 3), 297–501, here 320 and 321; and Paracelsus, Von den Kranckheiten, die der Vernunfft berauben, In Huser, IV, 39–92, here 42. Cf. the very title of the Philosophia de generationibus & fructibus quatuor elementorum, in Huser, VIII, 54–159 (the work’s full title appears on the volume’s main title page). I thank Didier Kahn for pointing out these references to me.
27 Thus he gave a recipe for the first entity of herbs, which was to be prepared either from celandine (whether greater or lesser is not specified) or balm, to which was to be added ‘Saltz’ in solution; the mixture was then to be let to sit in the sun for a month, whereupon it would separate into a thick liquor on the bottom and a ‘Saltz’ floating on top: Huser, VI, 114. These were mundane uses of the word ‘salt’. At the same time, however, this salt was supposedly a primum ens, which suggested that it must have extraordinary, alchemical qualities.
28 Thus on Huser VI, 101, he referred to the three first principles of iron and then, on the next line, to a Saturnus (lead) made again into a Mercurius. He would appear to have meant in this instance a philosophical mercury.
29 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 113.
30 Ibid.; cf. p. 106, where he referred simply to Circulatum, which might or might not have been the same thing. Further references to a Circulatum appeared in the Archidoxis, in Huser, VI, 60, 64, 88, etc.
31 OED, s.v. ‘circulate’, v., sense †1.
32 Ibid., s.v. ‘salt’, sense 5†a.
33 Staritz, ed., Clavis, oder, Das zehende Buch der Archidoxen (Magdeburg: Johann Francke, 1624), sigs. b2r–b3r. On this text, see Julian Paulus, ‘A Catalogue Raisonné of Pseudo-Paracelsian Writings: Texts Attributed to Paracelsus and Paracelsian Writings of Doubtful Authenticity’, in Didier Kahn and Hiro Hirai, eds., Pseudo-Paracelsus: Forgery and Early Modern Alchemy, Medicine and Natural Philosophy (Leiden: Brill, 2022), 161–486, on 290–92. On Staritz, see Andrew Weeks, ‘Jacob Böhme, Johannes Staricius (ca. 1580–??), and the Culture of Dissent’, in Jacob Böhme and His World, ed. Bo Andersson et al. (Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2019), 221–43.
34 Georgiana D. Hedesan, An Alchemical Quest for Universal Knowledge: The ‘Christian Philosophy’ of Jan Baptist Van Helmont (New York: Routledge, 2016), 177–82; Lawrence M. Principe, The Aspiring Adept: Robert Boyle and His Alchemical Quest (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998), 35–36, note 32; Bernard Joly, ‘L’alkahest, dissolvant universel, ou, Quand la théorie rend pensable une pratique impossible’, Revue d’histoire des sciences, 49 (1996), 305–344; on Paracelsus, 318.
35 See, e.g., William R. Newman and Lawrence M. Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire: Starkey, Boyle, and the Fate of Helmontian Chymistry (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002).
36 Paracelsus gave a recipe for the magistery of corals in bk. 6 of the Archidoxis: Huser, VI, 62. Cf. Robert Boyle, The Sceptical Chymist (London: F. Crooke, 1661), 195–97. See also Paracelsus’s Herbarius … De virtutibus herbarum, radicum, seminum, &c. Alemaniæ, patriæ & Imperij, in Huser, vol. 7, pp. 61–108, here pp. 93–100, trans. as ‘The Herbarius of Paracelsus’, trans. Bruce T. Moran, Pharmacy in History, 35 (1993), 99–127, here 119–23, with translator’s commentary, 101–102. See also Matti Leprêtre, ‘Paracelsus, His Herbarius, and the Relevance of Medicinal Herbs in His Medical Thought’, Daphnis, 49 (2021), 324–78.
37 Halle, Marienbibl., ms. 70, De renovatione et restauratione, fol. 5v [unfoliated], lines 2–3.
38 Karl Sudhoff collates other editors’ variants: Sudhoff, ed., Sämtliche Werke, by Paracelsus, part 1: Medizinische, naturwissenschaftliche und philosophische Schriften (Munich and Berlin: R. Oldenbourg, 1922–33), vol. 3 (1930), 530.
39 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 106.
40 Ibid., p. 106. I have not found this belief in an earlier source. Konrad von Megenberg, however, claimed that a dead kingfisher, if hung on the wall, would continue to molt yearly, to mark the passing of the seasons: Hanns Bächtold-Stäubli and Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer, eds, Handwörterbuch des deutschen Aberglaubens (Berlin and Leipzig: de Gruyter, 1927–1942), vol. 2 (1930), cols. 742–44, s.v. ‘Eisvogel’, article by Eduard Hoffmann-Krayer, here col. 743; Robert Luff and Georg Steer, eds., Das Buch der Natur: Kritischer Text nach den Handschriften, by Konrad von Megenberg, Texte und Textgeschichte, ed. Klaus Grubmüller, Konrad Kunze, and Georg Steer, no. 54 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2003), bk. 3A, §43, p. 229.
41 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 110. Notice that Paracelsus dispersed the two necessary pieces of information about kingfishers, putting them four pages apart.
42 Ibid., p. 105: ‘Also ist Renouatio vnd Restauratio ein Anzünden der Natur / auß Krafft die vns nit zuerzehlen ist’
43 Ibid., p. 106: ‘Materalisch vnd Essentialisch’.
44 Ibid., pp. 105–106. On cantharides, see Encyc. Brit. (11th ed.), s.v. ‘cantharides’. Paracelsus mentioned Flammula, a general Latin name for buttercup (spearwort; crowfoot; or, in German, Hahnenfuß): Weeks, trans., Essential Theoretical Writings (cited above, n. 3), 479n4; J. Forbes Royle, Materia Medica and Therapeutics, ed. Joseph Carson (Philadelphia: Lea and Blanchard, 1847), 239, s.v. ‘Ranunculus flammula, Linn.’; Martin Ruland, the elder, ed., Lexicon alchemiæ, sive, Dictionarium alchemisticum (Frankfurt a.M.: Zacharias Palthenius 1612), 216, s.v. ‘Flammula’; and Leonhart Fuchs, New Kreüterbuch (Basel: Michael Isingrin, 1543), ch. 57, ‘Von Hanenfuß’, fols. m5v–n4r.
45 Huser, VI, 102–103; 105: ‘Humor radicalis’. On radical moisture, see Chiara Crisciani and Giovanna Ferrari, introduction, in Michael R. McVaugh, ed., Tractatus de humido radicali, by Arnald of Villanova, vol. 6, pt. 2, of his Opera medica omnia (Barcelona: Publicacions de la Universitat de Barcelona, 2010), pp. 319–571; and Thomas S. Hall, ‘Life, Death, and the Radical Moisture: A Study of Thematic Pattern in Medieval Medical Theory’, Clio Medica, 6 (1971), 3–23.
46 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 106.
47 Ibid., p. 108: ‘baß geschehen / denn allein durch dz Primum Ens’.
48 Chiara Crisciani, ‘From the Laboratory to the Library: Alchemy According to Guglielmo Fabri’, in Natural Particulars: Nature and the Disciplines in Renaissance Europe, ed. by Anthony Grafton and Nancy G. Siraisi (Cambridge, Mass., and London: MIT Press), pp. 295–319, here p. 299; ps.-Lull, Testamentum, esp. bk. 1, ch. 29, ‘De humidate nostri lapidis; et quomodo ipsa est aqua permanens … ’, in Michela Pereira and Barbara Spaggiari, eds., Il Testamentum alchemico attribuito a Raimondo Lullo: Edizione del testo latino e catalano dal manoscritto Oxford, Corpus Christi College, 244, Millennio medievale, no. 14, testi 6 (Florence: Società Internazionale per lo Studio del Medioevo Latino, Edizioni del Galluzzo, 1999), pp. 98–103 (Latin transl. and Catalan orig. on facing pages).
49 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 108: ‘ein sonderliche Natur’.
50 Ibid.: ‘Primum Ens ist ein imperfectum compositum, das da prædestinirt ist auff ein endtlichs Endt vnd Corporalische materiam: vnd dieweil vnd es nit Perfect ist / so mag es alles das verendern / darein es Jncorporirt wirdt’.
51 Ibid.: ‘dz Wesen im Leib zuverkehren vnd vmbzuwenden’.
52 Benzenhöfer, Studien (cited above, n. 4), pp. 141–145; Kahn, ‘Quintessence and the Prolongation of Life’ (cited above, n. 5), pp. 191 and 195.
53 In ms., in Halle, Marienbibl., ms. 70, dated 1569; in the other mss. surveyed by Karl Sudhoff; in the first printed ed., Paracelsus, Archidoxæ … libri X, ed. and trans. Adam Schröter (Kraków: Maciej Wirzbięta, 1569); in the first German ed., Paracelsus, Archidoxorum … X. Buͤcher, ed. Peter Perna (Basel: Peter Perna); and in all subsequent edd. through Huser, VI: cf. Sudhoff, ed., Sämtliche Werke, part 1 (cited above, n. 38), III, xxviii, re. the Marienbibl. ms., then known under the signature ‘Ms. 34 in 4°’; idem, Versuch einer Kritik der Echtheit der Paracelsischen Schriften, 2 vols. (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1894–99), I (Druckschriften), 391, citing his items no. 108, 116, 117, 118, 119, 121, 123, 129, 142, 158, 165, 191, 200, and 221; and ibid., II (Handschriften), 773, citing his items no. 16, 17, 19, 20, and 150.
54 Thus, e.g., Schröter, Archidoxæ … libri X, evidently as part of an effort to supply the full ten books that the the ms. title page promised, treated the De renovatione et restauratione as bk. 9 of the larger work, while acknowledging (p. [201]) that the ms. did not identify it as such. The first German ed. gave the De renovatione et restauratione as the Archidoxis’s bk. 1: Perna, ed., Archidoxorum … X Buͤcher (cited above, n. 53), fols. 1r–15v.
55 As the editor noted: Huser, VI, sig. a4r; cf. Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in ibid., 106 and 107.
56 Reijer Hooykaas originated the argument, in his seminal study, ‘Die Elementenlehre des Paracelsus’, Janus: Revue Internationale de l’Histoire des Sciences, de la Médecine, de la Pharmacie et de la Technique (Leiden), 39 (1935), 175–87.
57 Kahn, ‘L’Archidoxis et la Theophrastia’ (cited above, n. 5).
58 Urs Leo Gantenbein, ‘The Virgin Mary and the Universal Reformation of Paracelsus’, Daphnis, 48 (2020): 4–37, here 21–22.
59 Ibid., 18. Sudhoff dated the Archidoxis to 1526: idem, ed., Sämtliche Werke, part 1 (cited above, n. 38), III, 201.
60 Urs Leo Gantenbein, personal communication; Katharina Biegger, De invocatione beatae Mariae Virginis: Paracelsus und die Marienverehrung, Kosmosophie, no. 6 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1990), p. 34, n. 19: ‘reformatorische Wende’; Paracelsus, De septem punctis idolatriae Christianae, in Theologische und religionsphilosophische Schriften, ed. Kurt Goldammer, vol. 3 (Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner, 1986), pp. 1–57.
61 Paracelsus, De septem punctis, p. 4.
62 Heinz Dopsch, “Paracelsus, Salzburg und der Bauernkrieg,” in Paracelsus (1493–1541): ‘Keines andern Knecht’, ed. Heinz Dopsch, Kurt Goldammer, and Peter F. Kramml (Salzburg: Verlag Anton Pustet, 1993), pp. 299–308 + 2 plates, here pp. 305–307.
63 For an overview, see Peter Blickle, ‘The Popular Reformation’, in Handbook of European History, 1400–1600: Late Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation, ed. Thomas A. Brady, Jr., Heiko A. Oberman, and James D. Tracy, vol. 2 (Grand Rapids, Mich.: William B. Eerdmans, 1996), 161–92. Cf. the subtitle of Weeks, Paracelsus (cited above, n. 2), and passim.
64 Kahn, ‘L’Archidoxis et la Theophrastia’ (cited above, n. 5).
65 Paracelsus, De vita longa, in Huser, VI, pp. 137–211.
66 Paracelsus, Liber de longa vita, in Huser, VI, 115–36.
67 Darmstaedter, Arznei und Alchemie (cited above, n. 24), pp. 56–59. T. P. Sherlock’s later article on Paracelsus’s chemistry, which does not discuss alchemy, acknowledges its substantive debt to Darmstaedter’s monograph: Sherlock, ‘The Chemical Work of Paracelsus’, Ambix, 3 (1948), 33–63.
68 Henry Sigerist, Darmstaedter’s other editor, was born only in 1891, making him Darmstaedter’s junior by fourteen years and Sudhoff’s by thirty-eight.
69 Darmstaedter, Arznei und Alchemie, 57: ‘die synthetische Darstellung eines anderen Metalls’.
70 Ibid., 58: ‘Paracelsus hatte nicht umsonst in seiner Jugend die Vorgänge der Metallchemie und Metallurgie studiert. Hier denkt er an diese Dinge und zieht, wie man sieht, Vergleiche mit der Reinigung der Edelmetalle, mit dem „Treibprozeß“, der Kuppelierung (mit Blei), bei der zuletzt das reine Silber erscheint, der „Silberblick“! So werden auch hier Unreinigkeiten und Schlacken entfernt, und der reine gesunde Körper wird sichtbar. Und neben dem chemisch-metallurgischen Vorgang, wird … auch der alchemistiche Umwandlungsprozeß zum Vergliech herangezogen.’ Cf. OED, s.v. ‘glance’, n2.
71 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 105: ‘ … Renouatio vnd Restauratio verzehren dz böß / wie ein Fewr verzehrt den falsch vom Silber vnd Goldt / vnd last das lautter ligen’. Cf. Grimm and Grimm, eds., Deutsches Wörterbuch, s.v. ‘falsch’ (n.m.), citing this passage.
72 Huser, VI, 105: ‘wie Purum ab Impuro, sondern in den weg / das Lepra sich Conuertirt in Sanitatem, wie ein Kupffer das Goldt wirt / oder ein Eisen das Kupffer wirdt: deß sich dann niemants verwundern soll.’ I have reversed the order of presentation of this quotation and the previous one. The original ordering provides an example of the text’s convolution.
73 Ibid., p. 100: ‘in der allen Dingen Schöpffung’; ‘Renouiert vnnd Restauriert mag werden’.
74 Ibid.: ‘gejüngert / renouiert vnnd Restauriert’.
75 Ibid.: ‘wiewol es ein Rost vnnd kein Metall ist / so ist es doch noch unuerzehrt in seinem Metallischen Wesen’.
76 Ibid.: ‘Reducts’.
77 Ibid.: ‘Reductio’.
78 Ibid., p. 101: ‘wider zu seinen dreyen Ersten kommen / daß sein Saltz / sein Schwefel / vnd sein Mercurius widerumb erscheinen / als in seiner ersten Geberung vnd des Metallen Wesen gantz vergeht / vnnd kein Metall mehr ist.’
79 Ibid.: ‘auß deß Kupffers Ersten dreyen / widerumb ein Kupffer’.
80 In Aristotelian terms, such a transformation involved a change of essence rather than simply one of accidents. Cf. The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, s.v. ‘Essential vs. Accidental Properties’, article by Teresa Robertson Ishii and Philip Atkins, revised 26 Oct. 2020, available online at http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/essential-accidental/, visited 8 Jan. 2024; Aristotle, Metaphysics, esp. bk. VII = Ζ, chs. 4–6, 1029b1–1032a11; idem, Posterior Analytics, bk. 1, ch. 6, 74b5–10; and idem, Topics, bk. 1, ch. 5, 102b4–26.
81 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 101. The passage included a comparison to metallic transmutation, which for the moment I have placed under ellipsis and which I treat separately below. The passage as a whole reads: ‘dz wir nit mögen gebracht werden in die drey Ersten / oder in vnser sperma, auß dem wir wider möchten Renouirt vnnd Restaurirt werden / wie wir jetzt haben angezeigt von den Metallen: denn es wer darnach in vnserm gewalt / das wir vns möchten besseren in der andern Geberung / dann die Erst gewesen were: Als ein Eisen / das zu seinen dreyen Ersten gebracht wirdt / vnnd darnach in ein Silber gemacht oder Goldt / das dann gantz vnzerbrüchlich weitter ist . … Also wir auch auß vns möchten ein vntödtliche Creatur Schöpfen / des wir nit Macht haben: vnnd also einer solchen prima materia sind wir beraubt / vnnd in ein vnwiderbringliche gewandlet / die nit mag zu ruck gezogen werden / sondern muß fürfaren / wie sie angefangen hat / vnd nicht gedencken dem wider zu zukommen / dauon es außgangen ist.’ – Here, in calling humans’ seed sperma rather than semen, Paracelsus would appear to have deviated from his customary usage. See Sparling, ‘Providence and Alchemy’ (above, n. 1), 255–57. Cf. Grimm and Grimm, eds., Wörterbuch, s.v. ‘wandeln’. (The entry runs 53 cols. and comprises nearly 32,000 words!)
82 Dane T. Daniel, ‘Paracelsus on Baptism and the Acquiring of the Eternal Body’, in Paracelsian Moments: Science, Medicine, and Astrology in Early Modern Europe, ed. by Gerhild Scholz Williams and Charles D. Gunnoe, Jr., Sixteenth Century Essays and Studies, no. 64 (Kirksville, Missouri: Truman State University Press, 2002), 116–34; Michael Bunners, ‘Die Abendmahlschriften und das medizinisch-naturphilosophische Werk des Paracelsus’ (unpublished diss. in theology, Humboldt-Universität, 1962).
83 On what Paracelsus meant by ‘prime matter’, see Sparling (2018), ‘Providence and Alchemy’ (above, n. 1), 218–19 and 267–70, 275, 219, and 355–57.
84 Paracelsus, De mineralibus liber, Huser, VIII (1590), 334–63, here 337; idem, Labyrinthus medicorum, Huser, II (1589), 191–243, here 212. Cf. John 12:24 and 1 Cor. 15:35–58.
85 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 101. I gave the German of the entire passage above (n. 81).
86 Cf. Newman and Principe, Alchemy Tried in the Fire (cited above, n. 35), p. 76.
87 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 108.
88 Not coincidentally, perhaps, the discussion of mercury began immediately after Paracelsus first invoked the topos of alchemical obscurity.
89 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 108: ‘hatt Macht den gantzen Leib zu ernewrn: denn in jhm ist das aller seltzamiste Laxatiff vnd Alteratiff / die [in] jhme nit gnungsam mag ergründet werden. So ist er doch gantz Jmperfect vnd nit tugentlich in seiner Operation:’ – Interpolation in the German text is Huser’s. The colon functions as a full stop. Cf. Grimm and Grimm, eds., Wörterbuch, s.v. ‘ergründen’, sense 2, citing only Paracelsus, with the sense erkundigen. The Grimms ajudge the usage ‘tadelhaft’ (censurable).
90 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 108: ‘Als ein Mercurius, der gleich ist einem jmperfecten Primo Enti, in der Jmperfection: Weiwol er determinirt ist vnd geendet / ist doch nicht auß der Jmperfection gemutirt / sondern in jhr finiert.’
91 Ibid.: ‘dz … sein Primum Ens nit in ein anders Corpus soll Prædestinirt werden . … ’
92 William R. Newman, ed., The Summa perfectionis of Pseudo-Geber: A Critical Edition, Translation and Study, Collection de travaux de l’Académie Internationale d’Histoire des Sciences, ed. John D. North, no. 35 (Leiden: Brill, 1991), pp. 204–210; Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1923–1958), vol. 3 (1934), pp. 58, 88–90, 160, 179, and 624–25. The recognition that the theory is already to be found in the Summa perfectionis is Newman’s.
93 Usually, ‘spirit of salt’ meant sulfuric acid.
94 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 109: ‘Spiritus Salis’.
95 Ibid.: ‘Liquor’; ‘Renouiert vnd Restauriert alles / das [er] begreifft: Nicht allein den Menschen / sonder ein jedlich Vieh / vnd Krautt vnd Baum.’ Interpolation Huser’s.
96 Ibid., p. 111.
97 Ibid., p. 109: ‘ … Penetrabile, wie ein Mercurius in den Metallen . … ’
98 Ibid.: ‘nicht minder … zu erkennen’. Cf. Grimm and Grimm, eds., Wörterbuch, s.v. ‘erkennen’, sense 4: syn. anerkennen.
99 Ibid.: ‘Primum Ens alles / das es begreifft / Transmutiert von jhm selbst / auß eigner Natur: Wie es dann der Antimonium thut durch das Fewr. … Scheidet alles das vom Leib / das vom Humore Radicali wechst / vnnd last das auß rechtem Grund ernewern: Denn sein Primum Ens in solcher Prædestinierung stehet / das auß jhm ein solch Wesen außgehet / wie auß eim Fewr ein Wärme.’
100 Ibid.,, p. 110: ‘ist also kräfftig in Humano Corpore, dz es alle Radicales Humores Renouirt / mit allem jhrem vmbgeben.’
101 Ibid., pp. 109–110: ‘ … Primum Ens Sulphuris ist also starck / das sie alle Prima Entia Metallorum Tingiert in sein Wesen . … ’
102 Ibid., p. 110: ‘Perficirt dz nach jhm / in ein Newes Perfects Corpus’.
103 Hooykaas (1935), ‘Elementenlehre’ (cited above, n. 56).
104 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 110.
105 Ibid.: ‘Denn kein anders mehr so gewaltig in Humore Radicali Laborirt.’
106 Ibid.: ‘Primum Ens Vitrioli Permutirt alle Weissen Metall in ein Rottes / vnd die Rotten in Weiß / vnd geweltiget alle Perfecten / die dann in jhm begriffen werden:’ (The colon may be treated here as a full stop.)
107 Ibid.: ‘ … Renouirt vnd Restaurirt ander imperfecta Corpora Metallorum, als Zinn / wider in Primum Ens, vnd wider in Zinn / dz viel mehrer Tugend ist / dann dz Alt Zinn.’
108 Ibid., p. 112: ‘alle desselbigen Krautts Tugend’.
109 Ibid.: ‘entzogen’; ‘allein ein Erdrich’; ‘Fruchtbarkeit’.
110 Ibid., pp. 112–13: ‘das in jhm selbst / in Form desselben Krautts waͤchst ohn all Erden: Vnnd so es außgewachsen ist / so hatt es kein Corpus, vnnd doch gleich dem Corpus geformiret: Dann auß vrsachen / es hatt kein Liquorem Terræ: Vnnd ist sein Stamm nichts anderst / dann ein Gesicht / das mit dem Finger wieder zu einem Safft zertriben wirdt: Als ein Rauch der ein Substantialische Form anzeigt / vnd doch kein Greiffligkeit hatt.’
111 See Didier Kahn, ‘La question de la palingénésie, du pseudo-Paracelse à H. P. Lovecraft en passant par Joseph Du Chesne, Agrippa d’Aubigné et quelques autres’, in Les Muses secrètes: Kabbale, alchimie et littérature à la Renaissance. Hommage à François Secret, ed. Rosanna Gorris Camos (Geneva: Droz, 2013), pp. 151–73; Joachim Telle, ‘Chymische Pflanzen in der deutschen Literatur’, Medizinhistorisches Journal, 8 (1973), 1–37; as well as Allen G. Debus, ‘A Further Note on Palingenesis: The Account of Ebenezer Sibly in the Illustration of Astrology (1792)’, Isis, 64 (1973), 226–30; Jacques Marx, ‘Alchimie et palingénésie’, Isis, 62 (1971), 274–89; François Secret, ‘Palingenesis, Alchemy, and Metempsychosis in Renaissance Medicine’, Ambix, 26 (1979), 81–92; and Will-Erich Peuckert, Gabalia: Ein Versuch zur Geschichte der magia naturalis im sechszehnten bis achtzehnten Jahrhundert, vol. 2 of his Pansophie (Berlin: Erich Schmidt Verlag, 1967), 186–97.
112 The earliest relevant passage that Telle identifies is from Paracelsus [?], De natura rerum, bk. 6, which, if Paracelsus did write it, probably dates from 1537/38: Telle, ‘Chymische Pflanzen’, pp. 2–3. While some of the De natura rerum is pseudepigraphic, Urs Leo Gantenbein argues that bk. 6 is among the parts that is likely authentic: Gantenbein, ‘Real or Fake? New Light on the Paracelsian De natura rerum’, Ambix, 67 (2020), 4–29. Already in the late-nineteenth century, Carl Kiesewetter, an occultist, noticed the significance of the De renovatione et restauratione passage for subsequent discussions of palingenesis: Kiesewetter, Geschichte des neueren Occultismus: Geheimwissenschaftliche Systeme von Agrippa von Nettesheym bis zu Carl du Brel (Leipzig: Wilhelm Friedrich, 1895), 54–55.
113 Paracelsus, De renovatione et restauratione, in Huser, VI, 114: ‘in ein gutten Wein’.
114 Ibid.: ‘so lang biß handan fallen am ersten die Nägel der Finger / darnach der Füssen / darnach das Haar / darnach die Zähn / darnach die Hautt sich eindorret vnd ein Newe scheust. So solchs alles geschehen ist / so soll auffgehört werden mit der Artzney zu trincken / so wachsen new Zähn / new Haar / vnd new Nägel / vnd vergehend die kranckheiten Corporis vnd Mentis hinweg . … ’
115 One thinks of Jeff Goldblum, peeling off his fingernails in The Fly, dir. by David Cronenberg (Brooksfilms, 1986).