Paracelsus and the Neoplatonic and Gnostic Tradition By Walter Pagel (Ambix)

 

Paracelsus and the Neoplatonic and Gnostic Tradition By Walter Pagel (Ambix)

Paracelsus and the Neoplatonic and Gnostic Tradition By Walter Pagel (Ambix)

INTRODUCTION 

EVEN a casual glance at the voluminous works of Theophrastus Paracelsus (1493-1541) cannot fail to show that his contributions lay in many fields: in medicine and chemistry, in mineralogy and meteorology, in epistemology and the knowledge of man as part of the cosmos, in theology and magia naturalis including alchemy, astrology and divination. It is not difficult to extract from his work a number of observations and results that can be regarded as stepping-stones in the development of science and medicine. What is not so easy is the demonstration of the link which joins these progressive views and findings with the non-scientific ideas and sentiments with which the Corpus of the Paracelsian writings abounds. 

The proto-scientific as well as the nonscientific parts are products of the same mind and of the same cultural climate -the era of the Renaissance. One of its outstanding features was the revival of Hellenistic philosophy-the doctrines of the mythical Hermes Trismegistos and of neo-Platonism. Associated with this revival there was the attempt at reconciling it with Christian doctrine, whereby belief seemed to acquire support through philosophical and symbolical knowledge-a new type of Gnosis. Paracelsus was bound to reflect these general trends of his era. Indeed "Hermetic" and neo-Platonic speculation as well as Christian belief and symbolism can be recognized in his philosophy without much difficulty, and it has often been said that Paracelsus was influenced by these trends of thought. The detailed examination of this point, however, does not seem to have had sufficient attention, nor has its possible role as a link between the scientific and non-scientific part of the work of Paracelsus been appreciated so far. On the other hand there is a danger of overrating these influences and of overlooking the original way in which Paracelsus made use of traditional lore, and the distinct differences that exist between his ideas and those of Hellenistic philosophy and symbolism. Such differences have been rightly pointed out we shall discuss them below. 

The extensive application of speculative and symbolic elements and their association with the faithful observation of nature alone mark Paracelsus out as an original and indeed as a unique figure. Yet a study of his parallels and contacts with the Hermetic tradition is still called for and likely to help in the understanding of Paracelsus is posing eventually of the unsatisfactory cliche of the "two souls" of Doctor Faustus that has been applied to him far too often. In the present paper no more can be given than a first sketchy collection of doctrines that appear to be characteristic of Hermeticism, neo-Platonism and Gnosticism and to have found access to the Paracelsian Corpus. They will be discussed in the light of their significance for Paracelsus' own natural philosophy and medicine.

BASIC IDEAS CHARACTERISTIC OF GNOSTICISM AND NEO-PLATONISM: MATTER AND SPIRIT

Though probably inspired by oriental, notably Persian concepts, Gnostic dualism is essentially informed by Platonic idealism. It was Plato who appeared to a Father of the Church as the "Patriarch of the Gnostics", and Gnosticism stood for "Christian Platonism"2. The distinction that had been fundamental in Platonic theory, as notably propounded in the Timaeus3, was between that which is and never develops on the one hand, and that which develops and is not on the other, between archetype and image, between Eidos and Eidolon, between the eternal world of the Ideas and the world of fugitive shadows and appearances that is ours. Similarly neo-Platonism adhered to this basic dualistic view. Yet it emphasized at the same time the principle of continuity in the cosmos. To uphold it meant to bridge the dualistic gulf somehow. This was achieved by a closed system of emanations leading from the highest divinity down to coarse matter, to stone, metal and dirt. Intermediate beings had to be introduced. One such intermediary-a "tertium quid"-is the astral body. It is a Pneuma, i.e. of finest ethereal corporality, enveloping the soul proper which is not a "Pneuma", as it is immaterial·. Maintaining soul to be purely spiritual and immaterial, neo-Platonism made its stand against Stoic Monism and Materialism-in this the soul had been visualized as a Pneuma, a breath of finest corporality6. The soul receives its envelope or vehicle (ochema) or Hchariot" when passing downwards through the stars and returns it to the latter when after death it retraces its steps to achieve reunion with divinity. It belongs to the stars, it is truly an astral body'. Its position as a being intermediate between spirit and body was best expressed by Marsilio Ficino (I433-99) who said that it was not body and almost soul, and not soul and almost body7. 

This neo-Platonic thesis in its Ficinian formulation can be regarded as a doctrine fundamental to Renaissance philosophy. It was verbally repeated by Agrippa of Nettesheym (I487-I535)8 and introduced into the works of many others. The astral body was one of the means by which neo-Platonism preserved its basic dualistic attitude without sacrificing the idea of cosmic continuity, ,.coherence and unity9. HSteps" with innumerable transitions lead from God, the One, down to matter which forms the last and lowest step. As such,matter is still spiritual, although disguised by a thick material cover. Nature as a whole is seen as a Sleeping spirit". In its realm, Being and Action perform the task that is given to Contemplation in the realm of the spirit. The individual object in nature exists not by virtue of its coarse material body, but by its spiritual kernel, the spark that is invisible to the eye. It is the latter that gives the object its specific form and schedule of function; indeed it is the vector of specificity. This commanding role of the spirit makes possible the instantaneous conversion of an impulse of the spirit, or will, into material change. Man, too, is an intermediate being. His body partakes of the divine spark of light. Hence he is a microcosm. For in him all constituents of the world are represented: heaven in his spirit and soul, and the dark abyss of the waters of matter in his body. He was created to replace the world of Lucifer and his fellow angels who had sunk into the abyss of matter completely. Through the creation of man the spark of divine light was saved, for it had been possessed by the evil principle who arrogated divinity to himself. 

In contrast to him, man is eligible for redemption. In man, therefore, that cosmic duality is reflected which is caused by the independence of original matter. This is uncreated and hence coordinated to God. There is, however, a struggle between them, the ultimate outcome of which is redemption, the victory of light over darkness. In this sense the early Platonist Numenius of Apamea (2nd century A.D.) had said that the souls adhere to the original water that is animated by the breath of God12• Hence there is traffic between the upper world of the spirit and the lower world of matter-a process with the uniform aim of redemption-redemption that is of the soul from the fetters of matter- and of the spiritual spark that can be found hidden in matter everywhere. Thus the Opus of the alchemist is dedicated to such redemption as the perfection of metals will afford. To be successful, the process in the furnace must be accompanied by a corresponding purification of the soul of the worker. Hence the close relationship between Alchemy, Gnosticism and neo-Platonism, not only in Hellenistic times, but also throughout the Middle Ages and in the RenaissanceJ8. Finally liberation from disease-medicine-involves redemption-the conquest of the evil that attacks man in the form of disease seeds and disease demons. 

These invade the body, breaking up its organic simplicity and coherence by introducing corruption, whereby the parts are forced back into the realm of dead and dark matter. Alchemy and Medicine thus form two aspects of natural magic already in Hellenistic times. The Magus applies the principle of sympathy: everywhere like yearns to unite with like. This principle derives from the Platonic correspondences between archetype and image, the world of magisterial and "sophic" models and patterns on the one hand, and that of empirical objects on the other. One technique used by the magus is to shut up a pneuma or demoniac or astral force in a cameo (gem,gamaheu) or in a ring or in an animal. By capturing a virtue in this way the Magusis able to unite it with a corresponding constituent in his own body and thereby achieves concrete effectsin the outside world. In this also lies his mantic power of divination. It is due to a traffic between spirits. The "seat" of magic, however, should not be searched for in the Magus, for it lies in Nature in which as by a magic chain everything is interconnected and alive. It is the task of the Magusto adapt himself to Nature so closely that he can influence it by setting, as it were, a sympathetic chord into vibration '. By virtue of their spiritual character the effective and active powers in this world are Logoi-it is these which persist and assume corporeality in the form of the Semina. Each living being developsfrom a hidden seed. It eventually Perishes, but not without having fonned new seed. Owing to this cycliccircular-process the individual survives by transmitting the specificity of his breed to succeeding generations. The association of seed with Logos originates in the Stoic concept of the Logoi Spermatikoi-the seed-bound rational impulses and directions. This concept reflects the Monism of the Stoic School. The world is the original Pneuma, the original Logos out of which the individual beings arise-each embodying a Logos. This idea was partly accepted by neo-Platonisml6. Neo-Platonism radically altered the status of Time in philosophy. Aristotle had defined it as the number that measures motion-thereby degrading it to the rank of a merely conventional aid for the mind. By contrast Plotinus vindicated Time as a power existing in reality-namely that power which makes motion possible. This he achieved by associating time with soul-the soul of the world as well as the soul of the individual. Time thus becomes the instrument by means of which eternity acquires a hold on the cosmos. Owing to its link with soul, time assumes a qualitative character. It is no longer a mere measure of quantity, but is determined by the differences between individual processes and actions.' 

NEO-PLATONIC AND GNOSTIC TRENDS IN THE SPECULATION OF PARACELSUS. THE SPIRIT AND THE ASTRAL BODY. THE LIGHT OF NATURE

Are there any traces of these neo-Platonic and Gnostic ideas in Paracelsus, and if so, how did he develop them and what answers did he give to the problems which they raised? According to Paracelsus man is the lesser world, for in him all things of the greater world are united-they do not, however, enter the organism as bodies, but in the form of "spirits", i.e. as powers and virtues ? In this, Paracelsus expresses the idea fundamental to him that what really interests the "philosopher" is the invisible world of the "occult" virtues that are celestial and "astral", the world of the spirit and "Logoi". Unmasking all material beings and actions as the product of spiritual forces, he implements one of the basic postulates of neo-Platonism. Indeed, Paracelsus follows this up in detail in his pathology. What is visible as a pathological change in the organs is the product of an interaction between two spirits: the spiritual cause of the disease which enters the body from outside and the spiritual representative of the body or the organ invaded. This is not attacked directly and physically, but in a more subtle way. It is alienated from its normal functional schedule which is controlled by a spiritual director", the Archeus. The spirits know each other . . . they speak the same language . . . now suffers the body . . . not in a material way, but from the spirit which calls for a spiritual remedy18:' Diseases are therefore not "Corpora, hence spirit should be used against spirit"19. Disease is thus seen as a product of the inter-communication of spirits-a feature with which we are familiar from Gnostic and neo-Platonic speculation. The neo-Platonic emphasis laid on the Invisible and Spiritual leads Paracelsus to take special interest in fugitive and "pneumatic" substances and phenomena in nature. 

The Arcana, the uncreated, divine and miraculously powerful agents, are represented as volatile. They are directed by the Astra like "feathers in the wind"20. Paracelsus visualizes a spirit in each "essential thing", and hence as many spirits as individuals and objects in nature21. It is these spirits that endow things with "life", i.e. form and function. For "life is a spiritual, invisible and impalpable thing"lt. It is the same spirit which makes inert material chemically reactive which renders it "male" ("miinnisch")S8. "Spirit" used in this sense by Paracelsus has nothing to do with reason (ratio) and is particularly alien to Aristotelian and formal logic. What he means are the deeper strata of the personality, the sphere of will and willful imagination. "What lives according to its will, lives in the spirit; what lives according to reason, lives against the spirit"M. Will and imagination are closely linked with what Paracelsus calls the "Light of Nature". This embraces all phenomena and things which~though invisible-are accessible to our search and understanding-unlike things divine which are not. More particularly it is the specific form and function of an individual tending towards a specific goal, its Enteleeheia, which belongs to the "Light of Nature". This in turn is subjected to the world of the Astra and the soul of the world. The "light of nature is a pupil of the Holy Spirit25; man receives its teaching in dreams when nature in him speaks to itself. Here again we encounter the traffic between spirits. The Paracelsian "spirit" in many respects corresponds to the neo-Platonic chariot or vehicle (oehema) or envelope of the soul. It is the sidereal, the astral body. Through it the stars confer on man "all kind of worldly (perishable) wisdom and art". It is wisdom concerned with nature ("naturliehe Vernunft") which is here contrasted with eternal wisdomll8• But through it man gains some though inadequate access to eternal wisdom, for there is a correspondence between them. It is finally the astral body, and not his coarse and visible material body, that elevates man over the other creatures. God gave it to the star and from it to man27

THE PASSIONS OF THE SOUL AND INSANITY

There is, however, another astral gift which is transferred to man in his astral body: the emotions and passions. Temperament is also an astral giftS8 It operates not as the ancients believed through the visible humours, but through invisible inclination. It is a spiritual effect that emerges in divination and dreams. 

If emotions and passions are bound up with the astral body, so is insanity·. It develops when the divine spirit in man is subjugated by his animal instincts: lust, greed, covetousness. These are stirred up by the stars, each star acting on man like a specific drug, for example hemlock. The mean man has chosen Saturn as his mate--each passion one star. This idea can be directly traced back to Gnosticism. We mentioned the neo-Platonic view of the astral body as the vehicle (ochema) of the soul. Owing to its inclination towards the body, the astral body may drag the soul down into the depth of emotional life, the more so the coarser and more material its texture. Indeed, in line with this, several ochemata had been distinguished in later neo-Platonism: the very fine ethereal ochema being even visualized as immortal. In Gnosticism, the astral body is represented as an attachment Prosartema-to the soul, or else as a mimic and coalescing pneuma 

(Antimimon or Prosphyes Pneuma). This impresses on our souls the images of wolves, monkeys, lions and thereby evokes those passions that are peculiar to each of these animals30 

To Paracelsus the astral body is a "bodily spirit"-i.e. it must be distinguished from the non corporeal divine SOUI31. In this, too, Paracelsus adheres to the neo-Platonic position as opposed to Soicism, which knew of no difference between soul and a fine material breath (Pneuma). The astral body is, therefore, according to Paracelsus, accessible to examination in the "Light of Nature". Not so the soul, which belongs to the realm of belief and theology. Further distinctions which Paracelsus made concerning the soul and astral body can be correlated with similar distinctions made by neo-Platonists, notably Proclus. Another neo-Platonist, Iamblichus, emphasizes in his treatise On Mysteries the difference between reasoning thought and soul, on the one hand, and the secret (arrheta) transcendent works and the power of the ineffable symbols that are only understood by the gods, on the other. It is through these works and symbols that the virtues and powers immanent in material bodies achieve union with the gods, whereby theurgy, magical science and divination are made possible32 

This idea may well be applicable to the Paracelsian Astral Body. As we have seen, this is represented as a "bodily spirit". If, according to Iamblichus, the forces immanent in bodies are capable of union with the gods, rather than our soul, the astral body qua bodily spirit could provide a more suitable medium for divine powers than the intellect, and, in particular, its reasoning powers which Paracelsus deprecated as "animal".

THE MAGISTERIAL POSITION OF THE IDEAS AS EXPRESSED IN SEX DIFFERENTIATION-Iliaster-Semina-Archei-The Tria Prima

(SULPHUR, SALT, MERCURY)

A principle fundamental to Paracelsus' view of the world and man is that of sexual duality. It is a principle that he finds operative even in disease. Epilepsy in the female is a different disease from epilepsy in the male33• A drug effective in men, may fail in women34• Like the Valentinian Gnostics beforehim35, Paracelsus follows in this the Platonic principle of the preformation and actualization of all phenomena in this world in the divine sphere of the ideas and spirit. There is nothing in the lower world of creation that has not its archetype in the upper world of ideas. Hence there must be an equivalent of male-female duality in the latter. In this the female stands for an emergence of the simple One, quiescent in itself, into the realm of duality and activity. It indicates some loss of status-associated as it is with a process of splitting up and action. Thus Paracelsus says: "God became double, two persons in one38"

However "heavenly woman" is not endowed with "power", but "fills the place of God the Father and makes Him manifest and complete as a Father". This development was repeated by Adam according to the principle of correspondence. Adam corresponds to God the Father and hence is more intimately connected with the world and the elements than is the woman37. Adam carries the "Limbus"38, that is the threshold on which spirit and matter come together in the smallest possible compass to form the seed from which the world and he himself were made. Woman serves to manifest and perfect Adam, just as she served God, and again without acquiring any of his power. The apex of perfection wherever achieved is thus symbolized by a hermaphroditic being. Such is the Rebis in Alchemy, the peak obtainable in the process of transmutation, the Quinta Essentia, the Salt which, according to Thurneisser39, is characterized by its dual, acid-alkaline nature. Ficino said that the Indian sages already called the world a hermaphrodite whose male and female parts are kept together by the world soulto. 

From the bi-sexual nature of the whole follows that of the individuals, including the planets. Female air is attracted by male fire, male water by female earth. The action of the magus is that of the ploughman who marries heaven to earth, joining divine life as contained in the seed with matter. The same idea is expressed in the Hermetic Books, notably the Poemander. The Platonic correspondences between our world and the invisible magisterial worlds above us are reflected in Paracelsus' idea of the Iliaster. This embraces in an ideal form all possible beings and events that can occur in reality. Similarly the term Aquaster stands for the "sophie" archetype of all that is watery. Paracelsus pays particular attention to the liminal stages which lead from the ideally preformed to the really existing. These threshold objects between the Ideal and the Real, between Spirit and Matter are the Semina. From them, Paracelsus says "comes the foundation in all our knowledge and insight"u. For all things have a seed, and in the seed all things are enclosed. In them we observe nature at work-that nature which Plotinus visualized as a "sleeping spirit" and in which action and being are equivalent to contemplation in the spiritual world. In this we may find the very root of the Paracelsian dictum: "the seed lies in speculation"43. He thus tries to express the intimate connection of material effects as emerging from the semina with the sphere of will and imagination. To Paracelsus each seed stands for one idea, one logos that is about to be translated into our reality-this closely approximates the meaning of the Logoi spermatikoi of the Stoa, as accepted in neo-Platonic speculation. 

The Hermetic treatise Poemander expressed the same thing, identifYing God's universal and creative power with that of the sower: in heaven he sows immortality, on earth transmutation, in the universe life and motion". The semina are "astral", i.e. they hail from heaven and have a power superior to that of the material elements. In this they are emulated by the three principles Mercury, Sulphur and Salt-as long as these have not yet "impregnated matter", i.e. assumed a material cover. In this pre-material form they are" Simplicia formalia" that give matter a certain directive. Thus Mercury enlivens the parts, sulphur makes them grow, and salt keeps them together by giving them firmness. This the principles achieve by means of their seminal properties and through the occult vital powers of "signature" that account for taste, smell and colour. These are immanent ("insitae") to the principles. Both the semina and the principles are more closely related to spirit than to matter, and hence both form the class of the "formal simples" -as opposed to the traditional elements of fire, water, earth and air, which should be regarded as "material simples" ("Simplicia materialia"). They are the passive substratum that is acted upon by the active principles and semina. The former are visible, the latter not, and they are only recognized by the life, motion and function which they maintain. It was thus that the foremost French Paracelcist Quercetanus (Duchesne 1544-1609)45 saw the semina and principles of Paracelsus in two stages: (a) an ideal form-that of the Simplicia Formalia which belong to the celestial sphere of magisterial forces not yet incorporated in material objects, and (b) as directive forces present in the empirical objects of nature. Thus mercury makes itself noticeable by the acidity and penetrating power that it lends to fluids, being an ethereal body of highest subtility, a spirituous substance, the essence and pabulum of life. Sulphur is distinguished by conferring sweetness, viscosity and an oily quality which supports and maintains flames, and by emollient and agglutinating properties. Salt makes a body dry and earthy; it promotes solution, coagulation, cleansing, and evacuation. 

The three principles, says Quercetanus, correspond to the Spiritus, Anima and Corpus of the Hermetic literature; the Spirit to Mercury, the Soul to Sulphur and the Body to Salt. Sulphur forms the intermediary joining Spirit to Body. It is the vinculum animae that has affinity both to body and spirit like the astral body of the ancients and Paracelsus. In our elemental sphere air is most akin to mercury: all that is powerful and vital, all "vis and acumen" in spirit of wine, for example, derives from its aerial parts. Air, together with the mercury adherent to it, either escapes or is converted into a "spiritual" or "mercurial" water which owes its sharp astringent taste to mercury or sal armoniac. Air and earth are joined together by water. In the elemental sphere the triad of air, water and earth thus corresponds to the three principles in the astral or celestial sphere. There is no need for a fourth element-fire. For this is identical with "heaven" or "ether" - the fourth (formerly called fifth) essence. This had already been the view of the Hermetic thinkers, Quercetanus says. Heaven, therefore, is a pure ethereal fire endowed with virtues far more subtle, pure and powerful than those of the elements, enabling it to penetrate everywhere and to distribute forms and virtues to each individual object. It impregnates the earth by transferring its semina to it through the winds, thus being the primary cause of all form, power and action in every object of the inferior world. These semina the heavens received from God; they include the most simple and perfect ones such as the stars and planets and also an infinity of other "astra" which confer It vital faculties and complexions" to the host of the inferior elements, which they animate and "inform". In action the lower elements are similar to heaven, but they differ in that heaven is activity pure and simple, whereas the inferior elements also involve corruption and suffering by their action. It is the celestial-spiritual-essences and forms which the physician and naturalist must study and try to extract, for they alone are productive of miraculous effects. These "formal and spiritual principles" constitute the "universal balsamic medicine" in which all parts are homogeneous, most simple, pure and highly spiritual. It is the true It quarta essentia" ("Quintessence") and "celestial stone of the philsophers".

Paracelsus saw working in the semina an active force, the Archeus. The world is full of such "workmen" or beings intermediate between matter and spirit. Late neo-Platonism had visualized the world split up into innumerable emanations-to which the Paracelsian idea of innumerable Archei is comparable. In this field we also find the emphasis laid by neo-Platonic speculation on the traffic between spirits and on the information which we receive about the realm of the spirits-points that were equally emphasized by Paracelsus, who made them the cornerstone of his concept of magic and divination. The Poemander too, had expressed these ideas: soul-like principles--demons-end take possession of the soul which they subject to torture and stimulate to evil deeds. There is a communication between souls-the souls of the Gods with human souls and those of man with those of animals48• Man occupies an exalted position, for he is possessed of Nous and therefore eligible for communication with God who speaks to him through dreams and symbols. It is thus that he acquires the power of divination47.

Paracelsus' speculations on the traffic between spirits are in many respects reminiscent of those of the Kabbala, notably the later-Lurian-trends of the 16th and 17th centuries, including the idea of psychical pregnancy (Ibbur) and possession (Dibkuth)48. The Paracelsian Archeus may well be interpreted as the object itself in its pre-formed "astral", magisterial or "sophie" state. As such the archeus is a principle responsible for the moulding of an individual with its specific plan of form and function. It is an individualising principle. At the same time it is part of the world soul and as such connected with divinity. Owing to this it confers the gift of life on individual objects. In this we may see a reflection of the Gnostic idea that the archon joins the powers of light with matter, whereby the latter is transformed. These powers are the sparks of life that are specific to each individual. The archon can join them to matter as well as separate them from it, an activity comparable to the spa-gyric, i.e. separating and combining work of the alchemist4t• Paracelsus calls the archeus (archon) the internal alchemist. It forms the individual being and directs its vital functions -first and foremost digestion. For this is the main agency through which the body communicates with the outside world. Material belonging to the latter is transmuted into constituents of the individual with its own properties that are specificto it and its species. Their consumption and excretion, i.e. their return to the non-specific state in the outside world, is also governed by the archeus.

THE ELEMENTS-WATER AS ORIGINAL (PRIME) MATTER

Archei not only act in man and other beings, but also in the Elements. These Paracelsus sees not as the atomic constituents of every object in the ancient sense, but as dwelling places and matrices. Each of the elements thus has its own offspring:water the minerals and metals, earth man and plants. The archeus of water forms the minerals, and these bear the «seal" of their mother: water. Though a «fruit" of water, however, the minerals and metals grow in the earth where they are moulded by the terrestrial Archeus50• Or in symbolic language: Nature generates a tree in water. This grows out into the earth where it brings forth fruit: the earth born minerals and metals51• This is the product of a vital action, i.e. it is specific and cannot be reproduced in vitro. Hence the alchemist finds it much easier to transmute than to generate metals62.

Water has a much farther reaching significance, however. In Gnostic and early alchemical speculation, it stood for matter at large. It was the dark abyss, the primeval chaos. This was represented as the uncreated principle of evil and matter and, in a dualistic view, coordinated to divine light. All matter was water and all transmutation operated by the powers of light, all creation and separation took place in and on water. Paracelsus says: "The water was matrix; for in water there was created heaven and earth and in no other matrix ... as the world was nothing but a water and the spirit of the Lord was on the water, the water was made into the worId63". Moreover, water is lithe receptacle of the seed from which man grows, which seed is the limbus"M. Finally: "Man with his angelic body was in heaven, that is the part above his belt; with the other part he was on the water"55. In the last resort these ideas go back to the Biblical saying that the spirit of God hovered over the waters. Any possible connection with a succession in time which may have been construed from this-to the effect that water was the first thing to exist-had been rejected already by the early Jewish and Christian commentators. 

There is no intention in the Thorah to fix any chronological order in the narrative of the creation, let alone any implication that God found water as the preexisting material from which to create the world56. Just this, however, is the Gnostic position according to which matter was uncreated and preexisting. With this several other ideas were connected: the material world was created in connection with the fall of Lucifer and the angels whereby these were banned into the prison of material bodies. Moreover the material world including man was said to be due to the activity of a fallen deity (demiurge). Finally the divine spark was thought to have been transferred from the demiurge to man who was destined to replace the world of the fallen deity (Lucifer). Man thus forms a world of his own-a microcosm-which like the cosmos at large is composed of water and divine spirit. Possession of the divine spark makes man eligible for redemption-which is closed to Lucifer and his realm. In and through man the spirit of God returns to God57.

The return of the soul to God and of the astral body to the stars was also assumed by Paracelsus58. We shall see presently that he also incorporated some of the other Gnostic positions which we mentioned.

PRIME MATTER-CREATION VERSUS PREFORMATION

First of all we must discuss the position of the primeval waters, the abyss of matter, in the cosmology of Paracelsus. Did he also follow in this the Gnostic doctrines and speculations? Did he also regard original matter as something coordinated to God, a power uncreated and not originally subjected to Him? Indeed passages could be adduced from the Paracelsian Corpus which seem to support this. On the other hand, the opposite view could be defended namely that Paracelsus believed in the creation of matter by God. A final decision in this question is therefore hardly possible, even when the testimony of the Paracelsists is called in. We must content ourselves with reviewing the evidence. Paracelsus says of God that "He made an element water and from it generates the minerals so that they grow daily for the use of mankind"59. Thus water was destined to become the matrix of ores, metals and stones. So far the passage is clear. What follows, however, is less so. Here it says that "the first was with God (bei Gott), the beginning, that is ultima materia; this ultima materia He made into prime matter. As fruit that is to yield other fruit has seed, the seed is in prime matter. Thus ultimate matter of the minerals is made into prime matter that is a seed and the seed is the element of water ... "80. In other words God created water as the mother of minerals. This created water, however, was not primeval matter, which here appears to be called ultimate matter and was "with God" . From it God created the "prime matter" of the minerals, i.e. their seed, and this divine seed is the element of water which he created.

The significance of this passage in our context is that primeval matter is assumed to exist "with God" ("bei Gott"). In another passage God, Prime Matter, Heaven and finally the soul (Gtmut) of man are juxtaposed as eternal and imperishable6!. From this a primary co-existence of matter with God could be deduced. From the context, however, it would appear to be visualized as one aspect of divinity rather than something independent and of equal status. It is, however, plainly expressed in the Paracelsian Corpus that the "Mysterium Magnum", i.e. the first "mother of all creatures" was un-created. It was "prepared" (zubereitet) and ever since, nothing like it has existed or ever will exist. Hence God is not a creator, but a separator. For the "Mysterium Magnum" contains the individual objects, as a block of marble or wood contains the future statue. The generating power which "was at the beginning of all birth-giving" was separation (Trupkat)-"the greatest miracle of philosophy". The elements, including water, are late derivatives from the "Mysterium Magnum" or, as it is usually called, the Iliaster68• We read this in a treatise that is often regarded as spurious, the Philosophia ad Atkenienses63• There is, however, no doubt that it was popular in Paracelsian circles and expresses genuine Paracelsian thought. We merely learn from these passages that the original matrix was uncreated. It is not stipulated, however, that it existed beside and outside God, in a dualistic and Gnostic sense. It may be just as well interpreted in Pantheistic terms, visualizing the original matrix as a God from whom everything emanates. 

This could find support in Paracelsus' idea of the Arcana which are direct emanations from divinity-stepping out to provide the spiritual soul-like specific power and virtue to each individual object. This is the teaching of a treatise which has always enjoyed the reputation of authenticity. Here it says: "all natural things flow from God and no other source ... the things are His, the herb He created, not however the virtue that is in it. For each virtue is uncreated; that is, God is without beginning and not created. Thus all virtues and powers were in God, prior to heaven and earth, and before all things were created, when God was a spirit and hovered penalty for the devil, first the element of air that is the chaos or heaven and thereafter the other elements. This expresses the characteristically Gnostic idea that the coming into being of the material world was closely bound up with the fall of Lucifer and his activity. We quoted above the idea expressed by Origen that God created the world in order to ban the fallen spirits into the narrow confinement of material bodies67• We may also recall the saying of Poemander that the word of God that was in the elements left them on their downward journey and joined the Nous of the creator. Thus the elements of nature, deprived of logos, remained and became matter68• Again the passages from Paracelsus just quoted show that the creative act of God appertained to the elements and not necessarily to prime matter. It should be added in fairness, however, that the elements are again definitely stated to have been created from nothing ("also ist der anfang der vier elementen aus nichten beschaffen"). Nevertheless further close contacts with Gnostic ideas emerge from these passages. They are still more evident in what Paracelsus called the Cagastrum. This stands for the splitting up of God's simplicity and unity into the infinite multitude of beings, for elemental materiality, and hence for decay and corruption. All this is due to the fall of Lucifer and of man. Paracelsus believed that some diseases are due to cagastric seed which takes possession of the body after invading it from outside-by contrast with hereditary and endogenous disease which is due to "iliastric" seed. 

Pleurisy, plague and fevers are such "cagastric" diseases69• All spontaneous generation belongs to the Cagastrum, that is any coming into being without proper parents. The seed of an apple, pear or nut has been there for ever. The cagastric seed emerges here and now from corrupting material. Its offspring differs according to the properties of the matrix. After the fall the flesh of Adam became cagastric, i.e. subject to corruption before that it had been iliastric, i.e. divine, immortal and truly alive. Now it is mortal, false and a caricature ("monstrum") of its archetype 70. All that is genuine is iliastric, all that is fake-false metal, a false prophet-is cagastric. In short, cagastrum is falsehood, the fallacious phantom of the phenomenal world. Yet in it there resides a positive and independent original power-as it on the waters, that is when God's spirit walked over the waters"". The virtues immanent to objects are therefore divine, supernatural, and without beginning and end-returning to their origin when heaven and earth are destroyed. It goes on to say that God at one point created things-stars, the earth, mountains, herbs, water, fire, air, metals, minerals and planets. "After he had created them they came into being, became apprehensible and visible, and from nothing there was matter which we put to use". Here, then, the creation of "matter" is mentioned, and that in a genuine Paracelsian treatise. However, "matter" in this context does not mean "primary matter", but the material cover of individual objects. It is therefore hardly relevant in our discussion. In the genuine book De Meteoris (Liber Meteororum)85 each of the four elements-the dwelling places and matrices of objects-is said to have its own body that was made from nothing. It was solely made by the word of God: Fiat. Each of these four elements has its own "prime matter": "one is materia prima of water, another of earth, another of air, another of heaven". Again a comparatively late stage in the creative process is discussed: the production of a material base for the four elemental realms. It is not, however, the general unqualified matter, the chaos and limbus which embraces all the elements yet unseparated and in a potential form. Later, in the Prologue to the Books on Meteors, we are told that the place occupied by the four elements had originally been the "heaven of Lucifer who was not ejected from it, but the same heaven was made perishable and elemental; this is his punishment that he must stay therein, whereas he could not forsee that God would convert such a heaven, such a bliss into elements"66. Here, then, we learn that something preceded the elements at the place where they are found today: namely Satan and his realm. 

This, before his punishment, was heaven-to be converted into hell by the creation of the elements from nothing. To be relegated to the sphere of the elements was the very punishment that was meted out to Lucifer. What greater retribution could be exacted than confinement to things perishable and the change from the light of heaven to the darkness which is the transitory world? Hence the devil and his henchmen dwell in the elements, some in water, some in fire, some in air and others in earth. It is the perishable world that God has created as a was visualized in Gnostic speculation on the original force of the abyss of darkness and evil. In spite of all the evidence which we have collected in favour of or at least not against, a Paracelsian belief in 

uncreated original matter, we do have one outspoken piece of testimony for its creation in the Paracelsian Corpus: "Thus God the Father created through His word things not in their ultimate state, but He only created Prima Materia confusa, that is the matrix, in which all Nature of the whole world was mixed together ... called abyss and earth or a thing in which all things lie hidden . . . and this Prima Materia was the water on which the spirit of the Lord had hovered . . . Materia prima made from nothing and hence called Abyssus .. .". This is what the Secretum Magicum de Lapide Philosophorum tell us7l• Matter is created; not so the individual object, or only to the extent that it is part of the prime matter from which it emerges as the result of the separating and composing work of the Archei. The Secretum Magicum, however, is certainly not normally regarded as a genuine work of Paracelsus. It first appeared in Huser's Folio edition of 1603 under the title: Von dreyen gebenedeyten Magischen Steinen, Theophrasti Paracelsi, welches auss seiner Handschrift kommen. 

It was then reprinted on several occasions, for example in Gottfried Arnold's Kirchen-und Ketzerhistorie where it forms one piece of evidence for the piety of Paracelsus72. Thus at all events the treatise informs us about the opinion of some Paracelsists in this matter. It is worth while to hear what they have to say73. A straightforward account of our question is found in the work of Robert Fludd (1574-1637). In his History of Both Worlds of the Macrocosm and Microcosm, he raises the question of the origin of prime matter, whether it was created or not. On this question, he says, there is "ingens dissensio" among philosophers. Most of them believe with Artephius that God created Nature and First Matter. Others, however, with Paracelsus and his followers, call matter a Mysterium Magnum that was neither created nor resembles any other creature, but was simply "prepared" by God. The Paracelsists argue that the scriptural verse: "In the beginning (prineipio) God created heaven and earth" does not prove the creation of matter. Prineipium need not mean first in time; it could mean first in some order or process or even first at some place. Indeed when creation occurred there was no time. Nor can heaven and earth have been created first without matter already existing, for "heaven and earth" are Prineipiata, i.e. something formed from some more primitive material, from a prineipium. Nor can this prineipium really be a place, for the creative word of God is beyond human comprehension and thus not as-sociable with any place in this world. Paracelsus therefore interprets the scriptural verse differently: God created heaven and earth in the Mysterium Magnum that was uncreated74• 

With this Fludd has recourse to the doctrine of the Philosophia ad Athenienses. He himself, however, does not wish to decide the issue, though from indirect evidence we can say that Fludd favoured the orthodox view of Artephius. Finally Fludd invokes St. Augustine, with whom he declares prime matter not to be anything real, but something that our imagination presents as a "nearly nothing", an intermediate stage between the absolute nothing and something created and endowed with form. It merely exists by virtue of its potentiality; it is really a nothing that may, however, become something through endowment with divine form7fi . Among Paracelsists who definitely asserted that God created prime matter, the abyss of the waters, the Chaos, from nothing, we quote Heinrich Khunrath (1560-1605) and Quercetanus whom we mentioned above. Khunrath says7S that the very first weltanfiingliehe (world-inchoating) Chaos was created by the unique tri-une God. From this afterwards the world was built up. It consisted of heaven, earth and water in tri-unity and was impregnated and animated by the spirit of the Lord, who hovered on the water, i.e. the dark watery abyss formed by heaven, earth and water mixed together. God therefore created prime matter-but, Khunrath adds, he did not create Nature. This developed independently through separation and partition of the ground of primary matter tilled and sown by the spirit of God. Quercetanus said 77 that God created from nothing the Chaos, that is the abyss of the waters. These were animated by the spirit of God. There followed the separation of Light or ethereal heaven-a spiritual body of greatest purity, the Quinta Essentia, from the darkness of the waters. 

The latter became subjected to a process of separation in its tum. A more subtlemercurial and aerial-liquor was separated from an oily-sulphureous one and this finally from a dry residue-the salt. Heaven, that is light as separated from "dark" water, also consists of these three fundamental "principles" without which nothing can exist or generate. However, only the finest and purest "ethereal" mercury, sulphur and salt are brought together to form the crystalline and diamond-like most simple body of heaven. From it the forms and semina are infused into the thicker elements for the generation of each individual object. These forms and semina are heaven's "fruit" which in essence is similar to the substance of heaven itself. They generate something similar again inside the elements that provide "thick" covers, through vital impression and influx. The ratio of thick to subtle matter determines the durability of the individual object. One that belongs to air is much less subtle than heaven, but still much finer and more durable than the offspring of water and earth. Mercurial fruit-spirits-of the air are the winds; the sulphur of air makes itself perceptible in the comets, its salt in manna, dew and frost. In conclusion we must admit that Paracelsus conceded a position of prominence and. independence to Prime Matter (Mysterium Magnum, Iliaster, Limbus)-an assignation that is reminiscent of Gnosticism and Platonic dualism. 

The evidence suggesting that he believed that it was uncreated and coexisted with God is controversial. He may have meant this in a Pantheistic sense, visualizing prime matter and nature as one aspect of divinity. Nevertheless in his view the creation of individual objects from nothing seems to be overshadowed by a process of separation and the demiurgic activity of the archei (archons). The more the world is split up into individual objects and beings-and this individuation seems to be the essential process in the coming into being of the world-the more the need for the material and elemental, for intermediate beings, for residues-the products of corruption of more and more independent primary matter, remote from divine simplicity and oneness and the realm of the spirits.

Ambix The Journal of the Society for the Study of Alchemy and Early Chemistry

VOL. VIII OCTOBER, 1960 NO·3