The Transformation of the Notion of “Adept”: From Medieval Arabic Philosophy to Early Modern Alchemy

Hedesan, Georgiana D.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-67906-4_3

Georgiana D. Hedesan⁵

Part of the book series: Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities ((PSNRAS))

326 Accesses
1 Altmetric

Abstract

This chapter discusses the origins and development of a widely used term in esotericism: that of the “adept.” The terminology originated in medieval Arabic philosophy, mainly in Al Farabi, Averroes, and Avicenna, who used the term intellectus adeptus (“acquired intellect”) to denote a mind perfected by the Active Intellect. The concept was innovatively used by Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493-1541), who employed the term Philosophia Adepta to refer to an ancient and secret form of knowledge and to Uberirrdisch (super-earthly) philosophy. The Paracelsian followers Petrus Severinus (1540-1602) and Oswald Croll (1563-1608) picked up on the term, using it in a more specific alchemical context. This chapter shows that the “adept” term did not have a “stable,” ahistorical meaning but emerged through several stages of innovation.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

Chapter: USD 29.95; Price excludes VAT (USA)

eBook: USD 119.00; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 159.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 179.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
Centivoglio is probably a misspelling of the name of Michael Sendivogius (1566-1636), as there is no alchemist I found by that name. The other “adepts” are George Ripley (c. 1415-1490), Ramón Llull (c.1232-c.1315), actually Pseudo-Lull, Theophrastus von Hohenheim, called Paracelsus (1493-1541), Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579 -1644 ), and Isaac Hollandus (sixteenth century).
2.
Ephraim Chambers, “Adepts,” in Cyclopædia, or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (London: Knapton et al, 1728), 33.
3.
Lawrence M. Principe, “Adept,” in Alchemie: Lexicon einer hermetischen Wissenschaft, eds. Claus Priesner and Karin Figala (Munich: Beck, 1998), 15. According to Principe, “The Adept is the highest rank amongst alchemists. He was generally credited with knowledge of the philosophers’ stone, as well as its preparation and application,” my translation (“Der A. nimmt unter den Alchemisten den höchsten Rang ein. Man schrieb ihm allgemein die Kenntnis des Steins der Weisen, seiner Bereitung und Anwendung zu”). Principe emphasizes the lore of unknown alchemists who would perform transmutations, like the one famously witnessed by Helvetius and transcribed in Vitulus aureus (1667), and discusses similar public transmutations by Michael Sendivogius and the legendary Alexander Seton.
4.
For instance, sapientum, filii doctrinae, philosophi, in Julius Ruska, ed., Turba philosophorum:ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Alchimie (Berlin: Springer, 1931), 109, 111, 112, 116, 117, etc, filia sapientum, Philosophi, in Joachim Telle, ed, Rosarium philosophorum: ein alchemisches Florilegium des Spätmittelalters, 2 vols (Weinheim: VCH, 1992), I, 3-9, 13, 20, 99, and many others, see index.
5.
“adept, n.,” OED Online, June 2020,
https://ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:2360/view/Entry/290068?rskey=Wy3EQn&result=1&isAdvanced=false (behind paywall), accessed 30 June 2020.
6.
“adept,” Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10^th Edition http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/adept, accessed 20 June 2020.
7.
“adept,” Collins English Dictionary.
8.
John Harris, “Adeptists, or Adepts,” in Lexicon Technicum, Or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences (London: Brown et al, 1704), unpaginated.
9.
Fama Fraternitatis deß Löblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes (Kassel: Wessel, 1614), 27. The story of the 12 adepts also appears in the Chambers Encyclopaedia with reference to Harris.
10.
Johann Friedrich Zedler, “Adepta (Philosophia),” “Adepti,” “Adeptus,” in Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschafften und Künste, 68 vols (Halle and Leipzig: Johann Heinrich Zedler, 1732-1754), I (1732), 490-91.
11.
Zedler, “Adepti,” 491: “Paracelsus hat am ersten von solchen Leuten geschrieben, und sich selbst dafür ausgegeben...Helmontius, als des Paracelsi Discipel...giebt sich auch für einen Adeptum aus, und gratulirt ihm selbst von wegen solcher Gabe im Anfang seines Buchs der Physicae inauditae, col 3, s. 8.” In fact, Van Helmont did not directly claim to be an adept, stating only that “I am esteemed to be an adept [achiever] of Arcana” in a context that refers to vulgar opinion that takes him for a “Paracelsian hater” and “a deserter from Scholasticism”; “Etenim ab Osoribus Paracelsista vocor, scholarumque desertor, aestimorque tamen arcanorum aliquot Adeptus”; Jan Baptist Van Helmont, Ortus medicinae, id est, Initia physicae inaudita. Progressus medicinae novus in morborum ultionem ad vitam longam (Amsterdam: Ludovic Elzevir, 1648), 630. Despite this ambivalent statement, he did claim that he had acquired adept secrets; Ortus medicinae, 595, 596.
12.
Zedler, “Adepti,” 491: “Wie den einige, ob sie gleich würcklich vor grossen Herren tingiret, und Gold gemacht haben sollen, letzlich in höchster Armuth, oder gar am Galgen gestorben.”
13.
This definition is probably taken from Chambers. The Encyclopédie was initially conceived as a French translation of Chambers’ popular work.
14.
Denis Diderot and Jean D’Alembert, Encyclopédie (Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand, 1751), I, 131 (http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/page/v1-p203/, accessed 20 June 2020): “Adeptes, adj. pris sub. (Philosoph.) C’est le nom qu’on donnoit jadis à ceux qui s’occupoient de l’art de transformer les métaux en or, & de la recherché d’un remède universel. Il faut, selon Paracelse, attendre la découverte de l’un & de l’autre immédiatement du Ciel. Elle ne peut, selon lui, passer d’un homme à un autre : mais Paracelse étoit apparemment dans l’enthousiasme lorsqu’il faisoit ainsi l’éloge de cette sorte de Philosophie, pour laquelle il avoit un extrême penchant : car dans des momens ou son esprit étoit plus tranquille, il convenoit qu’on pouvoit l’apprendre de ceux qui la possédoient. Nous parlerons plus au long de ces visionnaires à l’article Alchimie. Voyez ALCHIMIE.”
15.
According to Pierre Carpentier, “adeptus, adde,” in Charles du Cange, Glossarium novum ad scriptores medii aevi, cum Latinos tum Gallicos, 4 vols (Paris: Le Breton, Saillant and Desaint, 1766), I, 59: “adeptus, adde. Adepti dicuntur in arte chimica, Parac. & Helmont, Mystae, imo ἐπόπται.” This definition did not exist in the first edition of 1678, which defined “adeptus” as “Exponitur δωρεὰν λαϐὼν, in Glos. Græc. Lat. Qui gratis accipit;” Charles du Cange, “adeptus,” in Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae & infimae Latinitatis, 3 vols (Lyon: Billaine, 1678), I, 56.
16.
Abraham Rees, “Adepts,” in The Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Science, and Literature (London: Rivington et al., 1819), unpaginated.
17.
Rees, “Adepts.”
18.
Samuel Johnson, “Adept (noun),” in A Dictionary of the English Language: A Digital Edition of the 1755 Classic by Samuel Johnson, ed. Brandi Besalke, last modified: 15 January 2014, https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/adept-noun/, accessed 27 June 2020.
19.
According to Carlton T. Lewis and Charles Short’s A Latin Dictionary (Oxford: Clarendon, 1879), adipiscor is a compound verb made up of ad and apiscor, the latter meaning “to reach, attain to, get, gain.”
20.
For Al Farabi and Avicenna’s use of the term, see Herbert A. Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes on Intellect (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992), 48-62, 83-94.
21.
Aristotle, De anima, III.5 430a17-25, in The Complete Works of Aristotle, 2 vols (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1991), I, 54.
22.
Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes, 11.
23.
Plotinus, The Enneads, trans. A. H. Armstrong, 7 vols (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1984), V, 6.4, 208-11.
24.
Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes, 49.
25.
Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes, 84-86. As Davidson, 212, further points out, the Arabic term for acquired intellect, ‘aql mustafâd, was initially rendered in Latin in two versions, intellectus accommodatus and intellectus adeptus. The latter translation eventually prevailed.
26.
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) of Cordoba, Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle, trans. Richard C. Taylor (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), III.5, 328. The Latin term is emphasized in the translation.
27.
Averroes, Long Commentary, III.5, 303-329, III.36, 381-401.
28.
Albertus Magnus, De anima, in Beati Alberti Magni Ratisbonensis Episcopi Ordinis Praedicatorum (Opera omnia), 21 vols (Lyon: Prost et al, 1651), III, 3.3.11, 166-68; see also Alain de Libera, Métaphysique et noétique: Albert le Grand (Paris: Vrin, 2005), 325-27, Davidson, Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes, 216.
29.
Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae, I, q.84 a.7, Opera omnia, https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.I.Q84.A7, accessed 30 June 2020.
30.
On this topic, see Bruno Nardi, Saggi sull’aristotelismo padovano (Florence: Sansoni, 1958) and Guido Giglioni, “Introduction,” in Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath: Arabic Philosophy in Early Modern Europe, eds. Anna Akasoy and Guido Giglioni (Dordrecht: Springer, 2013), 1-36.
31.
Bibliothèque Nationale de France, Paris, MS Lat. 6535, 120r-v, cited in Nardi, 257.
32.
Marsilio Ficino, Epistolae (Venice: Matteo Capcasa, 1495), 42.
33.
Johannes Reuchlin, De verbo mirifico (Tübingen: n.p., 1514), [21].
34.
Israel Zinberg, Italian Jewry in the Renaissance Era, trans. Bernard Martin (New York: Ktav Pub, 1974), 34.
35.
Sarah Pessin, “The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides,” in The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta,
https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/maimonides-islamic/, accessed 20 June 2020.
36.
Morienus, “Liber de Compositione Alchemiae, quem edidit Morienus Romanus, Calid Regi Aegyptiorum: quem Robertus Castrensis de Arabico in Latinum transtulit,” in Artis auriferae quam chemiam vocant, 2 vols (Basel: Offizin, 1593), II, 3-54. On the topic, see also Lee Stavenhagen, “The Original Text of the Latin Morienus,” Ambix 17, no.1 (1970): 1-12.
37.
Morienus, “Liber de Compositione Alchemiae,” 8.
38.
Morienus, “Liber de Compositione Alchemiae,” 14.
39.
Morienus, “Liber de Compositione Alchemiae,” 39: “magisterium nihil aliud est nisi arcanum & secretum secretorum Dei altissimi & magni.” The reference is to the Secretum secretorum of Pseudo-Aristotle, an Arabic treatise of the ninth or tenth centuries, which in some versions included references to alchemy.
40.
Henry E. Sigerist, A History of Medicine (New York: Oxford University Press, 1951; 2nd ed, 1955), I: “Primitive and Archaic Medicine,” 12, summarizes the reception of Paracelsus by observing that “Paracelsus was sometimes looked upon as a magician and quack and sometimes as a physician of genius.”
41.
On this topic, see Didier Kahn and Hiro Hirai, “Introduction: Pseudo-Paracelsus: Forgery and Early Modern Alchemy, Medicine and Natural Philosophy,” Early Science and Medicine 24 (2019): 415-18, and the contributions published in that special issue.
42.
See in particular: Karl Sudhoff, Versuch einer Kritik der Echtheit der Paracelsischen Schriften, 2 vols (Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1894, 1899), Walter Pagel, Paracelsus: an Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance (Basel: S. Karger, 1958); Kurt Goldammer, Paracelsus in neuen Horizonten: Gesammelte Aufsätze (Vienna: Verband der wissenschaft lichen Gesellschaft en Osterreichs, 1986); Andrew Weeks, Paracelsus: Speculative Theory and the Crisis of the Early Reformation (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 1997); Charles Webster, Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic & Mission at the End of Time (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2008).
43.
On Paracelsus’s views on this topic, see Massimo Luigi Bianchi, “The Visible and the Invisible. From Alchemy to Paracelsus,” in Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries, eds. Piyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio (Dordrecht: Kluwer, 1994), 17-50.
44.
Andrew Weeks, ed., Paracelsus: Essential Theoretical Writings (Leiden: Brill, 2008), 519: “Where is there one who [can recognize] water in a stone? There is none. Only the physician can do that. Accordingly, it is for him to seek further in places where what is [latently] present cannot [readily] be found, for example, in the oil the wood, in the water a stone. This amounts to the Philosophia adepta Sagax.” In the original German, 518: “Welcher im stein Wasser? Keiner / allein der Artzt. So muß er auch widerumb darinn suchen das es nicht ist das da sey / das ist / im Oel holtz / im Wasser ein Stein: Das ist nun Philosophia adepta Sagax.”
45.
Weeks, Paracelsus, 518, n. b.
46.
Weeks, Paracelsus, 96-98, 97-99: “Sie werden Geomantici sein, sie werden Adepti sein / sie werden Archei sein / sie werden Spagyri sein...”
47.
Weeks, Paracelsus, 284; Weeks translates this as “adept arts” (285).
48.
Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim Paracelsus gennant, “Grosse Wundartzney” in Chirurgische Bücher und Schriften, ed. Johannes Huser (Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1605), 1-148 (101-102): “Von Kindheit auff habe ich die ding getriben / und von guten Underrichtern gerlernet / die in der Adepta Philosophia die ergrundesten warend / und den Künsten mächtig nachgründeten. Erstlich Wilhelmus von Hohenheim / meine Vatter / der mich nie verlassen hat. Demnach und mit sampt ihm ein grosse Zal / die nit wol zunennen ist / mit sampt vilerley Geschrifften der Alten und der Newen / von etlichen herkommen / die sich groB gemühet habend: Als Bischoff Scheyt von Stettgach / Bischoff Erhart / und Vorfahren von Lavantall / Bischoff Nicolaus von Yppon / Bischoff Matthaeus Schacht / Suffraganeus Phrysingen. / Und vil Ept also von Spanheim...” The bishops were shown by Kurt Goldammer to have been real people, that is, Matthias Scheit of Seckau (1481-1503), Erhard Baumgartner of Lavant (1487-1508), Nicolaus Kaps of Hippo, Gurk and Pettau (d. 1491) and Matthias Schach of Freising and Salona (1459-1515); see Kurt Goldammer, “Die bischöflichen Lehrer des Paracelsus,” Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften 36 (1953): 235-45.
49.
On the debates surrounding Paracelsus’s relationship with Trithemius, see Noel L. Brann, “Was Paracelsus a Disciple of Trithemius?” The Sixteenth Century Journal 10, no.1 (1979): 70-82. Paracelsian supporters like Jacques Gohory (1520-1576) and Gerard Dorn (c.1530-1584) seemed to have embraced this lineage.
50.
At the apex of Paracelsus legends, some followers went as far as to invent a philosopher by the name of Salomon Trismossin, who was supposed to be the real teacher of Paracelsus. On this topic, see Georgiana Hedesan, “Inventing an Alchemical Adept: Splendor Solis and the Paracelsian Movement,” in Splendor Solis: The World’s Most Famous Alchemical Manuscript, eds. Stephen Skinner et al. (London: Watkins, 2019), 63-92.
51.
The nature of this Adepta Philosophia has been the subject of scholarly debate; Goldammer thought it was a secret philosophy that was focused on logic and metaphysics, like that of Nicholas of Cusa (1401-1464), rather than on alchemy; Kurt Goldammer, Paracelsus-Studien (Klagenfurt: Geschichtsverein fur Kärnten, 1954), 26. Pagel, however, thought of it as a kind of “pansophic” knowledge; Pagel, Paracelsus, 9. It is important to note that these speculations were tied in with certain presumptions, including those that the abbot of Spanheim was Trithemius, and that the Adepta Philosophia mentioned in this brief passage is somehow detectable in (if not necessarily the same as) Paracelsus’s own philosophy.
52.
Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim Paracelsus gennant, “De Peste Libri Tres,” in Der Bücher und Schrifften, ed. Johannes Huser (Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1589), III, 159: “Wie nuhn also den Menschen sein Imagination nit alle mal hindurch gehen mag durch den andern / das dann Sophia Adepta beweist / unnd baβ erklert.”
53.
Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim Paracelsus gennant, “Das Buch von den Tartarischen krankheiten,” in Der Bücher und Schrifften, ed. Johannes Huser (Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1589), II, 244: “jetzundt zu diesen zeiten ist die Jugent der Adeptae Philosophiae gar nicht anhengig;” see also 246, 322. The mention on page 322 suggests that there is a connection between this “Adept Philosophy” and alchemy, since Paracelsus states that mercury is not considered a metal in the Philosophia Adepta.
54.
Most recently Dane T. Daniel, “Invisible Wombs: Rethinking Paracelsus’s Concept of Body and Matter,” Ambix 53, no.2 (2006): 130. Previously, such views have been expressed by Will-Erich Peuckert, Theophrastus Paracelsus (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1943). The only monograph-sized analysis of the subject is Dane T. Daniel’s unpublished dissertation thesis, “Paracelsus’ Astronomia Magna (1537/38): Bible-Based Science and the Religious Roots of the Scientific Revolution” (PhD diss., Indiana University, 2003).
55.
Whenever possible, I am using Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke’s translation of parts of “Astronomia Magna”; Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, ed., “Astronomia Magna,” in Paracelsus: Essential Writings (Wellingborough: Aquarian Press, 1990), 110; Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim Paracelsus gennant, “Astronomia Magna, oder die gantze Philosophia sagax der Grossen und Kleinen Welt,” in Der Bücher und Schrifften, ed. Johannes Huser (Basel: Conrad Waldkirch, 1591), X, 3: “Was auff sein theil gehört in Göttlichen wandel / wirdt auß Gott gelernet: was aber zu dem Tödtlichen dient / das lernet das Firmament.”
56.
Goodrick-Clarke, ed., “Astronomia Magna,” 110; Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 3: “die Astronomia ein Mutter sey anderer Künsten aller.”
57.
See also Hartmut Rudolph’s remark that this work offers a natural philosophical viewpoint “that is theological in a Christian sense,” Hartmut Rudolph, “Hohenheim’s Anthropology in the Light of his Writings on the Eucharist,” in Paracelsus: The Man and his Reputation, His Ideas and their Transformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 199.
58.
Goodrick-Clarke, ed., “Astronomia Magna,” 116; Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 27: “die Heilig Geschrifft…die an dem orth allen Philosophis unnd Naturalibus den anfang legt / unnd anzeigt… Das ist / so ein Philosophus nicht auß der Theologey geboren wird / so hatt er kein Eckstein / darauff er sein Philosophey setzen mög: dann auß der Theologey gehet die Warheit / ohn sie mag sie nicht gefunden werden.”
59.
Goodrick-Clarke, ed., “Astronomia Magna,” 117; Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 35: “der Weißmann / diese ist / der Mann der auß Göttlicher Weißheit lebet in dBildtnuß / derselbig herrschet uber den Gestirnten und Elementischen Leib.”
60.
On this topic, see Rudolph, “Hohenheim’s Anthropology,” 197.
61.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 67.
62.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 81: “daß sie ist die Artzney / die da auß dem Gestirn entspringt.” As Didier Kahn has shown, Gestirn does not actually mean the visible body of the stars, but their spiritual, invisible side; Didier Kahn, “Paracelsus’ Ideas on the Heavens, Stars and Comets,” in Unifying Heaven and Earth: Essays in the History of Early Modern Cosmology, eds. Miguel A. Granada, Patrick J. Boner and Dario Tessicini (Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona, 2016), 107-110.
63.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 82. On this see also my article, Georgiana D. Hedesan, “Alchemy, Potency, Imagination: Paracelsus’s Theories of Poison,” in It All Depends on the Dose: Poisons and Medicines in European History, eds. Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham and Jon Arrizabalaga (London: Routledge, 2018), 81-102.
64.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 83.
65.
That is because Gestirn is not only present in the stars but also in the earth, and it is also found in human beings as a rational, invisible body; Kahn, “Paracelsus’ Ideas,” 110.
66.
Theriac and mithridates were traditional medicines against poison originating from Antiquity. See Christiane Nockels Fabbri, “Treating Medieval Plague: The Wonderful Virtues of Theriac,” Early Science and Medicine 12, no.3 (2007): 247–83; Laurence M. V. Totelin, “Mithradates’ Antidote – A Pharmacological Ghost,” Early Science and Medicine 9, no. 1 (2004): 1–19 and the classical study of Gilbert Watson, Theriac and Mithridatium: A Study in Therapeutics (London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library, 1966).
67.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 84.
68.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 85.
69.
Goodrick-Clarke, Paracelsus: “Astronomia Magna,” 133; Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 86: “Darauff so wissendt / daß Mathematica Universalis d’erste anfang ist der andern acht Membra: Und jhe gründlicher die Mathematica Universalis verstanden wird / jhe kräfftiger seind die andern Membra.”
70.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 167.
71.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 168.
72.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 168.
73.
Paracelsus, “Astronomia Magna,” X, 173: “Nun ist von nöhten / daβ wir wissen / was der Philosophus Adeptus sey / damit wir von ihm lernen. So wissendt / er ist ungreifflich / unsichtbar / unentpfindtlich / und ist bey uns / und wohnet bey uns in aller gestallt / wie Christus spricht: Ich bin bey euch biβ zu endt der Welt. Und aber niemandts sicht ihn / niemandts greifft ihn / noch ist er bey uns. Also ist auch der Philosophus Adeptus bey uns.”
74.
The term used by Paul is o εσο ανθρωπος; 2 Corinthians 4:16, Romans 7:22, Ephesians 3:16. Paracelsus may have been influenced by the German mystical tradition, which developed this notion based on Pauline and Augustinian precedents; see Bernard McGinn, The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany (New York: Crossroads Publishing, 2005).
75.
Michael Toxites, “Vorrede,” in Philippus Theophrastus Bombast gennant Paracelsus magnus, Astronomia Magna, oder, Die gantze philosophia sagax der grossen und kleinen Welt (Franckfurt am Mayn: Hieronymi Feyerabends, 1571), unpaginated. Prior to Toxites’s edition some fragments were published in Aureolus Theophrastus von Hohenhaim, Paracelsus genandt, Astronomica et astrologica, ed. Balthasar Flöter (Cologne: Byrckman, 1567).
76.
Petrus Severinus, Epistola scripta Theophrasto Paracelso. In qua ratio ordinis, & nominum, adeóque totius Philosophiae Adeptae Methodus, compendiosè & eruditè ostenditur (Basel: Henricpetri, 1570/1), [1]-[4] (unpaginated). On Peter Severinus, see Jole Shackleford, A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine: The Ideas, Intellectual Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus, 1540-1602 (Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press, 2004) and Ole P. Grell, “The Acceptable Face of Paracelsianism: The Legacy of Idea medicinae and the Introduction of Paracelsianism in Early Modern Denmark,” in Paracelsus: The Man and his Reputation, His Ideas and their Transformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell (Leiden: Brill, 1998), 245-69. On the Epistola, see Wilhelm Kühlmann and Joachim Telle, eds., Corpus Paracelsisticum, 4 vols (Berlin: de Gruyter, 2001-2013), III.1 (2013), no. 109, 323-49.
77.
For the topic of prisca theologia in the medical field, see Hiro Hirai, “‘Prisca Theologia’ and Neoplatonic Reading of Hippocrates in Fernel, Cardano and Gemma,” in Hiro Hirai, Cornelius Gemma: Cosmology, Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Louvain (Rome: Serra, 2008), 91–95. Important treatments of the prisca theologia in general include Wilhelm Schmidt-Biggemann, Philosophia Perennis: Historical Outlines of Western Spirituality in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought (Dordrecht: Springer, 2004), D.P. Walker, The Ancient Theology (London: Duckworth, 1972) and Charles Schmitt, “Prisca Theologia e Philosophia Perennis: due temi del Rinascimento italiano e la loro fortuna,” in Il pensiero italiano del Rinascimento e il tempo nostro: Atti del V Convegno Internazionale di Centro di studi umanistici, Montelpuciano, 1968 (Florence: Leo S. Olschki, 1970), 211–36.
78.
Petrus Severinus, Idea medicinae philosophicae (Basel: Henricpetri, 1571), 20, 87-88; Shackleford, A Philosophical Path, 147-51, 154-55.
79.
Severinus, Epistola, [4].
80.
Severinus, Epistola, [3]: “Sapientiae filiis ista scripsit, non sophisticis & auri fame fascinates Alchymistis, non auri fabris, non fodinariis metallorum fusoribus, non nominum, linguarum, & externarum superficierum satellitibus.”
81.
Severinus, Epistola, [4]. The Platonic source of Severinus’s speculation has been emphasized in Shackleford’s monograph.
82.
Severinus, Epistola, [1]: “Surgamus itaque musarum filij quibus veritas curae est, & diuturna patientia caliginem impuritatemque animorum exuamus; mens enim purificata fulminis instar, penetralia rerum attingit, superatis umbris.”
83.
Severinus, Epistola, [3].
84.
Severinus, Epistola, [2].
85.
Severinus, Epistola, [3]. The Balsam appears prominently in Paracelsus’s Grosse Wundartzney, where he describes it as being an innate substance that preserves and restores the body; see Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim Paracelsus gennant, “Grosse Wundartzney,” in Chirurgische Bücher und Schriften, ed. Johannes Huser (Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1605), 2, 81, 85.
86.
The subject of Balsam is taken up again in Idea medicinae philosophicae, but there it is chiefly present as part of his matter theory. See Hiro Hirai, Le concept de semence dans les théories de la matière à la Renaissance, de Marsile Ficin à Pierre Gassendi (Turnhout: Brepols, 2005), 223-32.
87.
Severinus, Idea medicinae philosophicae, 80: “Spinosiores videbuntur huiusmodi contemplationes rudioribus, & in Philosophia Adepta non versatis;”122: “Hae Generationes difficulter ab ijs comprehenduntur qui Cabalistice fontes non degustarunt, & in Philosophia Adepta etiamnum caecutiunt.”
88.
Severinus, Idea medicinae philosophicae, 52-59, 74.
89.
“Gerhard Dorn to Johannes Willenbroch, 1 April 1584,” in Corpus Paracelsisticum: Der Fruhparacelsismus, eds. Wilhelm Kühlmann and Joachim Telle, 4 vols, II (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2004), no. 89, 935.
90.
Benedictus Figulus, “Prolocutrix sermo dedicatorius,” in Pandora magnalium naturalium aurea et Benedicta, De Benedicto Lapidis Philosoph. Mysterio (Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner, 1608), unpaginated.
91.
Heinrich Khunrath, Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae (Hanau: Wilhelm Anton, 1609), 22. On Khunrath, see Peter Forshaw’s chapter in this volume.
92.
On this topic, see Georgiana D. Hedesan, An Alchemical Quest for Universal Knowledge: The ‘Christian Philosophy’ of Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579-1644) (London: Routledge, 2016), ch. 7 “Applied Philosophy: Alchemy and Medicine,” particularly 170-72.
93.
Oswald Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria ad lectorem candidum,” in Basilica chymica (Frankfurt: Marnius & heredes Joannis Aubrii, 1609), 1-110.
94.
Croll’s writing is clearly permeated by the philosophy of the Astronomia Magna ; the work itself is cited on p. 25, where he also mentions the Medicina Adepta, on p. 35 where he refers to the Philosophia Adepta obtained from the stars of the Firmament, and also on pages 35 and 106 (Croll prefers the alternative title of the treatise, Philosophia Sagax). The “Prefatio admonitoria” was the object of Owen Hannaway’s classical study The Chemists and the Word (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), 1-74.
95.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 16, 19, 40. The influence of Severinus on Croll has been noted by Shackleford, A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine, 291-95; Shackleford points out that this was already evident to contemporaries such as Johann Hartmann (1568-1631) and Andreas Libavius (1555-1616).
96.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 18.
97.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 55, 72.
98.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 103.
99.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 103: “…meditatione tranquilla & religiosa, è corporis sui sepulchre è mortuis Tenebrarum operibus Divina cooperante gratia excitati, potuerunt Lumina Cordis aperira & per separationem Mentis à Terrenis obstaculis in se ipso, in Sabatho Cordis ad Deum diverti… Omnia videre in uno & in DEI Lumine tanquam aeternitatis speculo contemplari pulchritudinem Summi Boni.”
100.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 104.
101.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 104.
102.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 88, 89, 91, 96, 103.
103.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 96, 97.
104.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 88: “Ideo Verus Philosophus nunquam divitias quaesivit, nec appetiit, sed potius in Naturae mysteries delectus est siquidem Adeptus Ideo Verus Philosophus nunquam divitias quaesivit, nec appetiit, sed potius in Naturae mysteriis delectus est siquidem Adeptus… in DEO & cum DEO legitime ceu totius mundi Dominus omnia possidere posssit, totique Creature DEI Timore & servitio imperare.”
105.
By comparison, Croll’s English translator, Henry Pinnell, was not prepared to take this step and translated “Adeptus” as “he that is adept or hath attained the same”; Oswald Croll, “The Admonitory Preface of Oswald Crollie, Physitian: to the Most Illustrious Prince Christian Anhaltin,” in Philosophy Reformed and Improved in Four Profound Tractates, trans. Henry Pinnell (London: M.S. for Lodowick Lloyd, 1657), 183.
106.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 91.
107.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 91. Pinnell renders this as “Adept and compleat Phylosopher;” “Admonitory Preface,” 190; the translation clearly uses “Adept” as an adjective.
108.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 86.
109.
Croll, “Prefatio admonitoria,” 86: “…omnem enim Sulphureitatem extraneam & immundam Terrestreitatem à metallicis & humanis corporibus segregat….ad sanitatem laborantem & deperditam humani corporis, igneo suo vigore restituendam ac conservandam, mira imo omnia fiant, ut nunc praeter infinita alia usum taceam Magicum & supracoelestem.”
110.
Van Helmont, Ortus medicinae, 11: “Ipse fretusque spe, me aliquando ex mera Dei gratuitate, potiturum scientia Adepti; mihi persuasi.”
111.
Johann Friedrich Helvetius, Vitulus aureus, Quem Mundus adorat & orat (Amsterdam: Johannes Jansonius, 1667), 15.
112.
On the myth of Elias Artista among the Paracelsians, see Antoine Faivre, “Elie Artiste, ou le Messie des Philosophes de la Nature,” Aries 2 (2002): 119–52.
113.
Helvetius, Vitulus aureus, 28.
114.
Helvetius, Vitulus aureus, 28.
115.
On this standard view of adepts, and Isaac Newton’s firm belief in it, see William R. Newman, Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature’s “Secret Fire” (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2018), 20-44.
116.
On this subject, see also Tim Rudbøg’s chapter in this volume.

References

“adept, n”. OED Online. https://ezproxy-prd.bodleian.ox.ac.uk:2360/view/Entry/290068?rskey=Wy3EQn&result=1&isAdvanced=false (behind paywall). Accessed 30 June 2020a.
———”. Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 10^th Edition. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/adept. Accessed 20 June 2020b.
Magnus, Albertus. 1651. De anima. In Beati Alberti Magni Ratisbonensis Episcopi Ordinis Praedicatorum (Opera omnia). Vol. 21 vols, III. Lyon: Prost et al.
Google Scholar
Aristotle. 1991. De anima. In The Complete Works of Aristotle, 2 vols, I. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Google Scholar
Aquinas, Thomas. Summa theologiae, I, q.84 a.7. Opera omnia, https://aquinas.cc/la/en/~ST.I.Q84.A7. Accessed 30 June 2020.
Averroes (Ibn Rushd) of Cordoba. Long Commentary on the De Anima of Aristotle. Trans. Richard C. Taylor. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009.
Google Scholar
Bianchi, Massimo Luigi. 1994. The Visible and the Invisible. From Alchemy to Paracelsus. In Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16^th and 17^th Centuries, ed. Piyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio, 17–50. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Chapter Google Scholar
Bibliothèque Nationale de France. Paris. MS Lat. 6535.
Google Scholar
Brann, Noel L. 1979. Was Paracelsus a Disciple of Trithemius? The Sixteenth Century Journal 10 (1): 70–82.
Article Google Scholar
du Cange, Charles. 1678. Adeptus. In Glossarium ad Scriptores mediae & infimae Latinitatis, 3 vols, I, 56. Lyon: Billaine.
Google Scholar
Carpentier, Pierre. 1766. Adeptus, adde. In Charles du Cange, Glossarium novum ad scriptores medii aevi, cum Latinos tum Gallicos, 4 vols, I, 59. Paris: Le Breton, Saillant and Desaint.
Google Scholar
Croll, Oswald. n.d. The Admonitory Preface of Oswald Crollie, Physitian: to the Most Illustrious Prince Christian Anhaltin. In Philosophy Reformed & Improved in Four Profound Tractates, 1–226. Trans. Henry Pinnell. London: Lodowick Lloyd.
Google Scholar
———. 1609. Prefatio admonitoria ad lectorem candidum. In Basilica chymica, 1–110. Frankfurt: Marnius & heredes Joannis Aubrii.
Google Scholar
Chambers, Ephraim. 1728. Adepts. In Cyclopædia, or, An Universal Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, 33. London: Knapton et al.
Google Scholar
Daniel, Dane T. 2006. Invisible Wombs: Rethinking Paracelsus’s Concept of Body and Matter. Ambix 53 (2): 129–142.
Article Google Scholar
———. 2003. Paracelsus’ Astronomia Magna (1537/38): Bible-Based Science and the Religious Roots of the Scientific Revolution. PhD diss., Indiana University.
Google Scholar
Davidson, Herbert A. 1992. Alfarabi, Avicenna and Averroes on Intellect. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Google Scholar
Diderot, Denis, and Jean D’Alembert. 1751. Encyclopédie I, 131. Paris: Briasson, David, Le Breton, Durand. http://enccre.academie-sciences.fr/encyclopedie/page/v1-p203/. Accessed 20 June 2020.
Fabbri, Christiane Nockels. 2007. Treating Medieval Plague: The Wonderful Virtues of Theriac. Early Science and Medicine 12 (3): 247–283.
Article Google Scholar
Faivre, Antoine. 2002. Elie Artiste, ou le Messie des Philosophes de la Nature. Aries 2: 119–152.
Article Google Scholar
Fama Fraternitatis deß Löblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes. Kassel: Wessel, 1614.
Google Scholar
Ficino, Marsilio. 1495. Epistolae. Matteo Capcasa: Venice.
Google Scholar
Figulus, Benedictus. 1608. Prolocutrix sermo dedicatorius. In Pandora magnalium naturalium aurea et Benedicta, De Benedicto Lapidis Philosoph. Mysterio, unpaginated. Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner.
Google Scholar
“Gerhard Dorn to Johannes Willenbroch, 1 April 1584.” In Corpus Paracelsisticum: Der Fruhparacelsismus edited by Wilhelm Kühlmann and Joachim Telle, II, no. 89, 932-47. Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 2004.
Google Scholar
Giglioni, Guido. 2013. Introduction. In Renaissance Averroism and Its Aftermath: Arabic Philosophy in Early Modern Europe, ed. Anna Akasoy and Guido Giglioni, 1–36. Dordrecht: Springer.
Google Scholar
Goldammer, Kurt. 1953. Die bischöflichen Lehrer des Paracelsus. Archiv für Geschichte der Medizin und der Naturwissenschaften 36: 235–245.
Google Scholar
———. 1986. Paracelsus in neuen Horizonten: Gesammelte Aufsätze. Vienna: Verband der wissenschaft lichen Gesellschaft en Osterreichs.
Google Scholar
———. 1954. Paracelsus-Studien. Klagenfurt: Geschichtsverein für Kärnten.
Google Scholar
Goodrick-Clarke, Nicholas, ed. 1990. Astronomia Magna. In Paracelsus: Essential Writings, 109-44. Wellingborough: Aquarian Press.
Google Scholar
Grell, Ole P. 1998. The Acceptable Face of Paracelsianism: The Legacy of Idea medicinae and the Introduction of Paracelsianism in Early Modern Denmark. In Paracelsus: The Man and his Reputation, His Ideas and their Transformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell, 245–269. Leiden: Brill.
Chapter Google Scholar
Hannaway, Owen. 1975. The Chemists and the Word. Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University Press.
Google Scholar
Harris, John. 1704. Adeptists, or Adepts. In Lexicon Technicum, Or, An Universal English Dictionary of Arts and Sciences, unpaginated. London: Brown et al.
Google Scholar
Hedesan, Georgiana. 2019. Inventing an Alchemical Adept: Splendor Solis and the Paracelsian Movement. In Splendor Solis: The World’s Most Famous Alchemical Manuscript, ed. Stephen Skinner, Rafal T. Prinke, Georgiana Hedesan, and Joscelyn Godwin, 63–92. London: Watkins.
Google Scholar
Hedesan, Georgiana D. 2018. Alchemy, Potency, Imagination: Paracelsus’s Theories of Poison. In It All Depends on the Dose: Poisons and Medicines in European History, ed. Ole Peter Grell, Andrew Cunningham, and Jon Arrizabalaga, 81–102. London: Routledge.
Google Scholar
———. 2016. An Alchemical Quest for Universal Knowledge: The ‘Christian Philosophy’ of Jan Baptist Van Helmont (1579-1644). London: Routledge.
Book Google Scholar
Helvetius, Johann Friedrich. 1667. Vitulus aureus, Quem Mundus adorat & orat. Amsterdam: Johannes Jansonius.
Google Scholar
Hirai, Hiro. 2005. Le concept de semence dans les théories de la matière à la Renaissance, de Marsile Ficin à Pierre Gassendi. Turnhout: Brepols.
Book Google Scholar
———. 2008. ‘Prisca Theologia’ and Neoplatonic Reading of Hippocrates in Fernel, Cardano and Gemma. In Cornelius Gemma: Cosmology, Medicine and Natural Philosophy in Renaissance Louvain, ed. Hiro Hirai, 91–95. Rome: Serra.
Google Scholar
Kahn, Didier. 2016. Paracelsus’ Ideas on the Heavens, Stars and Comets. In Unifying Heaven and Earth: Essays in the History of Early Modern Cosmology, ed. Miguel A. Granada, Patrick J. Boner, and Dario Tessicini, 59–116. Barcelona: Universitat de Barcelona.
Google Scholar
Kahn, Didier, and Hiro Hirai. 2019. Introduction: Pseudo-Paracelsus: Forgery and Early Modern Alchemy, Medicine and Natural Philosophy. Early Science and Medicine 24: 415–418.
Article Google Scholar
Khunrath, Heinrich. 1609. Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae. Hanau: Wilhelm Anton.
Google Scholar
Kühlmann, Wilhelm, and Joachim Telle, eds. 2001-2013. Corpus Paracelsisticum, 4 vols. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Google Scholar
Johnson, Samuel. 2014. Adept (noun). In A Dictionary of the English Language: A Digital Edition of the 1755 Classic by Samuel Johnson, edited by Brandi Besalke. Last modified: January 15. https://johnsonsdictionaryonline.com/adept-noun/. Accessed 27 June 2020.
Lewis, Carlton T., and Charles Short. 1879. A Latin Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon.
Google Scholar
Libera, Alain de. 2005. Métaphysique et noétique: Albert le Grand. Paris: Vrin.
Google Scholar
McGinn, Bernard. 2005. The Harvest of Mysticism in Medieval Germany. New York: Crossroads Publishing.
Google Scholar
Morienus. 1593. Liber de Compositione Alchemiae, quem edidit Morienus Romanus, Calid Regi Aegyptiorum: quem Robertus Castrensis de Arabico in Latinum transtulit. In Artis auriferae quam chemiam vocant, 2 vols, II, 3–54. Basel: Offizin.
Google Scholar
Newman, William R. 2018. Newton the Alchemist: Science, Enigma, and the Quest for Nature’s “Secret Fire.”. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
Book Google Scholar
Nardi, Bruno. 1958. Saggi sull’aristotelismo padovano. Florence: Sansoni.
Google Scholar
Pagel, Walter. 1958. Paracelsus: an Introduction to Philosophical Medicine in the Era of the Renaissance. Basel: S. Karger.
Google Scholar
Paracelsus gennant, Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. 1605. Grosse Wundartzney. In Chirurgische Bücher und Schriften, ed. Johannes Huser, 1–148. Strasbourg: Lazarus Zetzner.
Google Scholar
———. 1591. Astronomia Magna, oder die gantze Philosophia sagax der Grossen und Kleinen Welt. In Der Bücher und Schrifften, ed. X. Johannes Huser, 1–491. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch.
Google Scholar
———. 1589. De Peste Libri Tres. In Der Bücher und Schrifften, ed. Johannes Huser III, 150–207. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch.
Google Scholar
Paracelsus gennant, Philippus Theophrastus Bombast von Hohenheim. Das Buch von den Tartarischen krankheiten. In Der Bücher und Schrifften, ed. Johannes Huser, II, 244-342. Basel: Conrad Waldkirch.
Google Scholar
Paracelsus genandt, Aureolus Theophrastus von Hohenhaim. 1567. In Astronomica et astrologica, ed. Balthasar Flöter. Byrckman: Cologne.
Google Scholar
Pessin, Sarah. The Influence of Islamic Thought on Maimonides. In The Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy (Spring 2016 Edition), ed. Edward N. Zalta. https://plato.stanford.edu/archives/spr2016/entries/maimonides-islamic/. Accessed 20 June 2020.
Peuckert, Will-Erich. 1943. Theophrastus Paracelsus. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.
Google Scholar
Plotinus. 1966-1967. The Enneads. Trans. A. H. Armstrong. 3 vols. London: Heinemann.
Google Scholar
Rees, Abraham. 1819. Adepts. In The Cyclopaedia, or, Universal Dictionary of Arts, Science, and Literature, I. London: Rivington et al.
Chapter Google Scholar
Reuchlin, Johannes. 1514. De verbo mirifico. Tübingen, n.p..
Google Scholar
Rudolph, Hartmut. 1998. Hohenheim’s Anthropology in the Light of his Writings on the Eucharist. In Paracelsus: The Man and his Reputation, His Ideas and their Transformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell, 187–207. Leiden: Brill.
Google Scholar
Principe, Lawrence M. 1998. Adept. In Alchemie: Lexicon einer hermetischen Wissenschaft, ed. Claus Priesner and Karin Figala, 15. Munich: Beck.
Google Scholar
Ruska, Julius, ed. 1931. Turba philosophorum: ein Beitrag zur Geschichte der Alchimie. Berlin: Springer.
Google Scholar
Schmidt-Biggemann, Wilhelm. 2004. Philosophia Perennis: Historical Outlines of Western Spirituality in Ancient, Medieval and Early Modern Thought. Dordrecht: Springer.
Google Scholar
Schmitt, Charles. 1970. Prisca Theologia e Philosophia Perennis: due temi del Rinascimento italiano e la loro fortuna. In Il pensiero italiano del Rinascimento e il tempo nostro: Atti del V Convegno Internazionale di Centro di studi umanistici, Montelpuciano, 1968, 211–236. Florence: Leo S. Olschki.
Google Scholar
Severinus, Petrus. 1571. Idea medicinae philosophicae. Basel: Henricpetri.
Google Scholar
———. 1570/1. Epistola scripta Theophrasto Paracelso. In qua ratio ordinis, & nominum, adeóque totius Philosophiae Adeptae Methodus, compendiosè & eruditè ostenditur. Basel: Henricpetri.
Google Scholar
Shackleford, Jole. 2004. A Philosophical Path for Paracelsian Medicine: The Ideas, Intellectual Context, and Influence of Petrus Severinus, 1540-1602. Copenhagen: Museum Tusculanum Press.
Google Scholar
Sigerist, Henry E. 1955. A History of Medicine, I: Primitive and Archaic Medicine. 2nd ed. New York: Oxford University Press, 1951.
Google Scholar
Stavenhagen, Lee. 1970. The Original Text of the Latin Morienus. Ambix 17 (1): 1–12.
Article Google Scholar
Sudhoff, Karl. 1899. Versuch einer Kritik der Echtheit der Paracelsischen Schriften, 2 vols. Berlin: Georg Reimer, 1894.
Google Scholar
Van Helmont, Jan Baptist. 1648. Ortus medicinae, id est, Initia physicae inaudita. Progressus medicinae novus in morborum ultionem ad vitam longam. Amsterdam: Ludovic Elzevir.
Google Scholar
Telle, Joachim, ed. 1992. Rosarium philosophorum: ein alchemisches Florilegium des Spätmittelalters, 2 vols. Weinheim: VCH.
Google Scholar
Totelin, Laurence M.V. 2004. Mithradates’ Antidote – A Pharmacological Ghost. Early Science and Medicine 9 (1): 1–19.
Google Scholar
Toxites, Michael. 1571. Vorrede. In Astronomia Magna, oder, Die gantze Philosophia sagax der grossen und kleinen Welt, unpaginated, ed. Paracelsus magnus, Philippus Theophrastus Bombast, gennant. Franckfurt am Mayn: Hieronymi Feyerabends.
Google Scholar
Watson, Gilbert. 1966. Theriac and Mithridatium: A Study in Therapeutics. London: Wellcome Historical Medical Library.
Google Scholar
Walker, D.P. 1972. The Ancient Theology. London: Duckworth.
Google Scholar
Webster, Charles. 2008. Paracelsus: Medicine, Magic & Mission at the End of Time. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
Google Scholar
Weeks, Andrew, ed. 2008. Paracelsus: Essential Theoretical Writings. Leiden: Brill.
Google Scholar
———. 1997. Paracelsus: Speculative Theory and the Crisis of the Early Reformation. Albany, NY: SUNY Press.
Google Scholar
Zedler, Johann Friedrich. 1732. “Adepta (Philosophia),” “Adepti,” “Adeptus.”. In Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschafften und Künste, 68 vols, vol. I, 490–491. Halle and Leipzig: Johann Heinrich Zedler, 1732-1754.
Google Scholar
Zinberg, Israel. 1974. Italian Jewry in the Renaissance Era. Trans. Bernard Martin. New York: Ktav Pub.
Google Scholar

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

History Faculty, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Georgiana D. Hedesan

Authors

Georgiana D. Hedesan
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

History Faculty, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK
Georgiana D. Hedesan
Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark
Tim Rudbøg

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Hedesan, G.D. (2021). The Transformation of the Notion of “Adept”: From Medieval Arabic Philosophy to Early Modern Alchemy. In: Hedesan, G.D., Rudbøg, T. (eds) Innovation in Esotericism from the Renaissance to the Present. Palgrave Studies in New Religions and Alternative Spiritualities. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67906-4_3

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-67906-4_3
Published: 11 May 2021
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-67905-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-67906-4
eBook Packages: Religion and PhilosophyPhilosophy and Religion (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics