De fundamento scientiarum sapientiaeque

From Theatrum Paracelsicum
also:
Liber de fundamento scientiarum sapientiaeque
Vom Fundament der Weißheit und Künsten
Fundamenta scientiarum et sapientiae
Buch beider menschlicher Weisheit
Von Weisheit beider Seelen und Leibs


I. Basic information


Printing History, Manuscripts. First edited by Adam von Bodenstein in 1565.

Editions. Not edited by Huser or Sudhoff. Edited by Huser, 9 (1590): 414–457. Edited by Sudhoff in Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, I/13: 287–334.

Relationship between different versions.

Structure, genre/form, perspective, style. The first book is missing; the second (and only extant) book consists of three “tractatus.”

Relationship to other texts. According to Peuckert, there are quotations from the (now missing) first book of De fundamento scientiarum sapientiaequae in the Schatzkammer der Natur (§ ‎5.23). – De fundamento is one of the few Paracelsian texts that mentions the magician Vergilius, the others being De natura rerum (§ ‎2.2), Liber de imaginibus (§ ‎5.17), Archidoxis magica (§ ‎5.1) and the Liber principiorum (§ ‎5.18).

Authenticity, authorship. Edited by Huser from a manuscript provided by Johannes Montanus. “Uncertified and probably spurious,” according to Rudolf Eucken. To this Sudhoff commented: “If they are necessarily ‘spurious’ [only because they were edited from Montanus’s manuscripts] seems to be doubtful”. According to Neumann, the authenticity of De fundamento scientiarum sapientiaeque “is still not certain. In terms of content and style, however, the references to other writings by Hohenheim cannot be overlooked. In the middle of the 16th century, no one doubted its authenticity.”

Time of writing. Uncertain (“unbestimmt”), according to Sudhoff.

II. Sources


Manuscripts: no manuscripts known

First printed:

  • 1565 (in: Das Bůch Paramirum Aureoli Theophrasti Paracelsi […] Item, Vom Fundament vnd weißheit der künsten, der seelen vnd leibs kranckheiten (Frankfurt am Main: Heirs of Christian Egenolf, 1565), f. 85v–124r; VD16 P 519; Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, 106 n° 67)

Historical Manuscript Catalogues:

III. Bibliography


Essential bibliography: Sudhoff, Bibliographia Paracelsica, 106, 405, 510; Sudhoff, “Vorwort,” in Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, I/13: IX; Goldammer, “Einleitung”, in Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, II/2: XXXVIII; CP 1: 24, 364–366, 370, 379; CP 3: 834, 1021/1022

Further bibliographical references:

Rudolf Eucken, “Des Paracelsus Lehren von der Entwicklung”, in Philosophische Monatshefte, 16 (1880), 321–338, on 334; reprinted in Eucken, Beiträge zur Einführung in die Geschichte der Philosophie, 2nd ed. (Leipzig, 1906), 22–38, on 34

Josef Strebel, “Zur Echtheitsfrage des Liber de fundamento scientiarum sapientaeque”, in Nova Acta Paracelsica, 2 (1945), 187–199.

Peuckert, Pansophie (1956), 190.

Peuckert, Gabalia (1967), 162, 466.

Hanns-Peter Neumann, Natura sagax – Die geistige Natur. Zum Zusammenhang von Naturphilosophie und Mystik in der frühen Neuzeit am Beispiel Johann Arndts (Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2004), 33