Auslegung über Tabulam Smaragdinam Hermetis Trismegisti
Printing History, Manuscripts. Not printed. Possibly one manuscript (current location unknown, formerly in the library of Erich Pfeffer, d. 1680).
Editions. Not edited by Huser or Sudhoff.
Relationship between different versions.
Structure, genre/form, perspective, style.
Relationship to other texts.
Authenticity, authorship. The Auslegung was mentioned in the Tractätlein von der Reise Friedrich Galli nach der Einöde S. Michael (first printed in Traum-gesicht/ Welches Ben-Adam […] gehabt, Amsterdam: Hans Fabel, 1648) as part of a manuscript with theological and alchemical texts by Paracelsus (“Theophrasti Paracelsi Schrifften, ohngefehr 6 Bogen”). – This Auslegung may be identified with (1) a manuscript with a similar title – though not attributed to Paracelsus – that was in the library of the alchemist, quaker and spiritualist Erich (or Ulrich) Pfeffer, who lived in Amsterdam in the 1660s and 1670s. Or it may (2) be a reference to a German version of the Emerald Table with a short commentary that forms part of the treatise Von Bereitung des gebenedeiten philosophischen Steins (§ 4.53), written by Caspar Hartung and later erroneously attributed to Paracelsus by Ps.-Huser, Opera Bücher vnd Schrifften (1603), 2: 688.
Time of writing.
Manuscripts: no existing manuscripts known.
First printed: not printed.
Historical Manuscript Catalogues: Catalogus Pfeffer (1680), C4r n° 1; Catalogus Pfeffer (1683), 124 n° 15
Further bibliographical references:
Karl Sudhoff, “Hat wirklich Paracelsus die Tabula smaragdina ins Deutsche übersetzt?”, Mitteilungen zur Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften, 26 (1927), 163.
Gilly, “Vom ägyptischen Hermes zum Trismegistus Germanus” (2010), 98.
Telle, Alchemie und Poesie (2013), 1: 267.
Hereward Tilton, “The Urim and Thummim and the Origins of the Gold- und Rosenkreuz”, in Hans Thomas Hakl, ed., Octagon: Die Suche nach Vollkommenheit im Spiegel einer religionswissenschaftlichen, philosophischen und im besonderen Maße esoterischen Bibliothek, 2 vols. (Gaggenau, 2016), 2: 35–70, on 46–48.
