THE PHILOSOPHY OF THEOPHRA-

STUS BOMBAST VON HOHENHEIM

THE SWABIAN ARPINAS, GER-

MAN HERMIT.

TO THE ATHENIENSES.

original: "Ad Athenienses" - This is one of Paracelsus’s most famous works on cosmology. By addressing the "Athenians," he is not writing to Greeks, but symbolically addressing the learned scholars of his time, whom he often criticized.

In the Second Part original: "Paras," likely referring to a section or paragraph of the larger work of the Prince

THEOPHRASTUS.

BHerein the Prince Theophrastus describes the second part, comprising three books of the first volume of his Philosophy. Within it, he reports the origin of all creatures from their first beginning. He calls this first beginning the Mysterium Magnum Mysterium Magnum: The "Great Mystery," a term Paracelsus used to describe the primordial, undifferentiated matter from which God created the universe. and asserts that all creatures were born and sprouted from this Mysterio Magno. He further gives us to understand that these creatures were not born in the biological sense but are here as a result of a single birth, and he divides them into the "Four Mothers" The four elements: Earth, Water, Air, and Fire from which all things are born. However, he never validates the origin of these four mothers as a birth itself. In this part, he intends for all things to return to their first essence and demonstrates the reason why. It is found through his writing that this is caused by the Eternal, which is related to the Perishable. Here he gives us to understand a "fabric" original: "Gemäch," referring to the structure of creation of Eternity that is entirely hidden from us mortals. He provides an indication of the soul’s journey—where it comes from and where it goes—and what its nature is. Through the description in this part, Prince Theophrastus may be called a "guidepost" of all philosophy and an indicator of philosophical truth with a complete natural foundation; for he alone establishes that validation is sufficient for the Truth.

---

THE TEXT OF THE PHILOSOPHY

OF THEOPHRASTUS PARACELSUS

BOMBAST VON HO-

HENHEIM,

aFor all created things that exist in a perishable state, there was a single beginning in which all creatures were enclosed and contained, caught between the Ethers In the cosmology of the time, the "Ethers" referred to the upper reaches of the heavens or the substance of the stars.. It should be understood that all creatures come from one single matter and were not given their own individual origins. This matter of all things is the Mysterium Magnum; it is not a tangible entity established in any specific essence, nor is it formed into any image. It is also not inclined toward any property, being likewise without color and without an elemental nature. As far as the Ethers have extended themselves, so far was the circle of the Mysterii Magni. This Mysterium Magnum was a mother of all elements, and likewise, it was also a grandmother of all stars, trees, and the creatures of the flesh. For just as children are born from a mother, so also from the Mysterio Magno were born all creatures, both the sentient and the non-sentient, and all others in the same way. The Mysterium Magnum is the sole mother of all mortal things, and they took their origin in her—not one after another, but they were given in a single creation, substance, matter, form, essence, nature, and inclination.

Since there was such a Mystery, which looked like no other creature and which did not yet exist as a physical form, and yet it was the first matter from which all mortals have their origin: this is to be understood in no other way than how a human "cheese" original: "Brin" or "Prün," an archaic term for curds or cheese. Paracelsus frequently used the metaphor of milk curdling into cheese to explain how the physical world "coagulated" out of the formless Great Mystery. comes out of the water,