De diebus Aegyptiacis
Printing History, Manuscripts. Not printed, no manuscripts known. A short fragment on imagination possibly associated with De diebus Aegyptiacis is found in one manuscript.
Editions. The fragment was edited by Goldammer in Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, II/3: 289.
Relationship between different versions. No information about different versions.
Structure, genre/form, perspective, style.
Relationship to other texts. The first word of the short fragment is “Diebsstrick” (reading uncertain, “thief’s rope”) a combination of terms also found in the Liber de Superstitionibus et Ceremoniis and the Fragmentum Libri de Sagis et earum Operibus as well as in the 4th book of the Astronomia magna (Huser, 9: 237, 245; Huser, 10: 378). Mention of the “dies aegyptiacas” can be found in an astrological passage of De caducis (1530), Sudhoff, VIII, 288.
Authenticity, authorship. A text on the “Egyptian days” was mentioned in the Osek Catalogus: “Etliche teill von den Egiptischen tägen”. No Paracelsian text with this title is known, except for a very short fragment where “De diebus Aegyptiacis” was written at the end, possibly as a source or title. It is the first of a series of short fragments found only in one single manuscript. “The authorship of Paracelsus is probable in all cases, even if the wording that has come down to us is often unclear and the context of the text is often disturbed,” according to Goldammer, who suggested to compare it with De virtute imaginativa (Huser, 9: 298–307).
Time of writing. Probably originally written by Paracelsus in the 1530s, according to Goldammer.
Manuscripts:
- Wrocław/Breslau, Biblioteka Uniwersytecka: R 334 [probably lost]
First printed: not printed before Goldammer (1986)
Historical Manuscript Catalogues: Catalogus Osek (Prague) 3, n° 40
Essential bibliography: Sudhoff, Paracelsus-Handschriften, 527
