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Elias Artista — A Precursor of the Messiah in Natural Science

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Nineteen Eighty-Four: Science Between Utopia and Dystopia

Part of the book series: Sociology of the Sciences a Yearbook ((SOSC,volume 8))

Abstract

The history of Elias artista is the history of an almost forgotten utopian concept in natural science. The advent of the modern age brought with it a widespread belief amongst physicians and chemists, particularly in Germany, that God in a not too distant future would be sending a person, capable of revealing all nature’s secrets to humanity, that person being Elias artista. His disclosures were to coincide directly with the end of this iniquitous world and the beginning of a messianic age (a golden world or the millenium). Despite the popularity of this belief in the 16th and 17th centuries, it has since faded into oblivion. A search for details of Elias artista in the larger works of reference proves fruitless and even specialist literature on history of science barely mentions him (1). This astonishing omission is due it seems to the tendency in history of science to be interested mainly in subject matter which is recognized by present day scientists.

I want to express my gratitude to Walter Pagel (London) and Christel Möller (Hannover).

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Notes and References

  1. The hitherto published literature on Elias artista is scant: Hermann Kopp, Die Alchemie, Hildesheim and New York, 1971 (First edition Heidelberg 1886), Part 1, pp. 250–252. (Kopp gives no reconstruction of the intellectual associations.)

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  2. Will-Erich Peuckert, Die Rosenkreutzer, Jena 1928, pp. 45–51. (Peuckert’s description is limited to the period of the beginning of the 17th century.)

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  3. Walter Pagel, ‘The Paracelsian Elias artista and the Alchemical Tradition’, Medizinhistorisches Journal 16 (1981) 6–19. (Pagel’s description is very well-informed but obviously forgoes entirety and gives no information on the Elias tradition).

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  4. In addition, there are numerous more or less fleeting mentions of Elias artista in secondary literature, all of which are without value as a source of information, for example: Paul Nève de Mévergnies, Jean-Baptiste Helmont Liège, 1935, pp. 85–87

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  12. Neither Michael Winter, Compendium utopiarum, Vol. 1, Stuttgart, 1978

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  13. nor Lynn Thorndike, A History of Magic and Experimental Science, 8 vols., New York, 1958–1964, give information on Elias artista.

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  23. Pagel, op. cit., Note 1, pp. 16–19, has pointed out that both Paracelsus and the cabalistic treatise Esch mezareph attribute special knowledge of nature or magic to Elisha, the successor to Elias. If one sees a relation between this cabalistic Elisha and Elias artista, as does Pagel, it nevertheless remains obscure how the essential eschatological dimension of Elias could thus disappear. As Elisha was said to have died, reference to him could only, therefore, have a purely historical or magical interpretation. There might have been two completely independent traditions, namely one Elias artista tradition, originating from Paracelsus and one (also mentioned by Paracelsus) originating from cabalistic tradition, according to which Elisha possessed magic powers (compare the 2nd Book of Kings, 6, 5–6)

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  34. Compare also Joachim von Fiore, Das Reich des Heiligen Geistes, ed. by Alfons Rosenberg, München-Planegg, 1955, p. 120.

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  44. Müntzer, op. cit., Note 14, p. 71. With ‘cave’ he is alluding to 1. Book of Kings, 19, 9–18.

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  45. Radikale Reformatoren, op. cit., Note 14, p. 46. Schwenckfeld is important for the mystical heretics of the following decades; he, too, was described as being one of the two apocalyptical witnesses (ibid., p. 190).

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  52. Engelbertus Abbas Admontensis, De Ortu et fine Romani Imperü Liber. Cum Gasparis Bruschü Praefatione, Basel, 1553, p. 5.

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  53. Ibid., p. 144.

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  54. Luther also referred to this Jewish tradition (Will-Erich Peuckert, Die grosse Wende, Hamburg 1948, p. 544).

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  55. This aspect of the Elias tradition is also dealt with in: Christian Bruhn, Pseudo-Elias (Praeses Aegidius Strauch), Wittenberg, 1662. Fama remissa ad Fratres Roseae Crucis (perhaps written by Henning Arnisaeus), 1616. fol. G VI v° — G VII r° and Stiassny.op. cit., Note 2, p. 244.

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  56. Elie le Prophète, op. cit., Note 2, Vol. 1, pp. 216–217.

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  57. Peuckert, op. cit., Note 1, p. 11.

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  58. Ibid., p. 44.

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  59. Roland Haase, Das Problem des Chiliasmus und der Dreissigjährige Krieg, Leipzig, 1933, p.59.

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  60. Marianne Ruth Katz, Messianismus, Chiliasmus und Eschatologie in der deutschen Dichtung des 17. Jahrhunderts, unpublished Ph. D. thesis, Vienna, 1938, pp. 5–6

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  61. 19. On the return of Elias, cf. also Haase, op. cit., Note 25, pp. 84, 98, 103. Holzhauser is also worthy of note in connection with Elias artista because he promises the coming of “homines illuminati tarn in naturalibus, quam in coelestibus scientiis” (quoted acc. to Haase, op. cit., Note 25, p. 85).

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  62. Johann Heinrich Alsted, Diatribe de mille annis apocalypticis, Frankfurt 1627, p. 223 (pagination erroneous). Moreover, Alsted was also familiar with Elias artista thought (ibid. p. 229).

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  63. Dietrich Korn, Das Thema des Jüngsten Tages in der deutschen Literatur des 17. Jahrhunderts, Tübingen, 1957, pp. 15–17. According to Katz (op. cit., Note 26. p. 28) the prophecies were flourishing between 1610 and 1630 and experienced a revival in 1650–1666.

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  64. A famous passage in ‘Das Ende aller Dinge’ (Immanuel Kant, Gesammelte Schriften, ed. by Königliche Preussische Akademie der Wissenschaften, I, 8, Berlin, 1912, p. 332) may be noted. Kant describes the relationship of moral and scientific/ technical progress which has become for him two separate lines of development. Kant refers to Elias as a figure of the Old Testament and no reference is made at all to an expectation of the return of Elias.

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  65. For details cf. Pagel, op. cit., Note 1, p. 7.

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  66. Paracelsus, Sämtliche Werke, Abt. 1, ed. by Sudhoff, München and Berlin, 1930, Vol. 2, p. 163.

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  67. Ibid., Vol. 3, p.46.

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  68. Ibid. Vol. 13, p. 330.

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  69. Walter Pagel, Paracelsus, Basel and New York, 1958, p. 17.

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  70. Paracelsus, Sozialethische und sozialpolitische Schriften, ed. by Kurt Goldammer, Tübingen, 1952.

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  71. Kurt Goldammer, ‘Paracelsische Eschatologie’, Nova Acta Paracelsica, Vol. 5, Einsiedeln, 1948, pp. 45–85

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  72. and Vol. 6, Einsiedeln, 1952, pp. 68–102.

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  73. Pagel, op. cit., Note 34, p. 43.

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  74. Hermann Kopp, Die Alchemie, Hildesheim and New York, 1971 (First edition Heidelberg 1886), Part 1, pp. 250–252

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  75. Kopp, op. cit., Note l, p. 45.

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  76. Glauber,op. cit., Note 73, p. 106.

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  77. Partington, op. cit.,Note l, p. 120.

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  78. Paracelsus, op. cit., Note 31, Vol. 14, p. 396. To this counterfeit book cf. also ibid., XII–XIII.

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  79. Will-Erich Peuckert, Die grosse Wende, Hamburg 1948, Note 1, p. 153

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  80. Theatrum chemicum, praecipuos selectorum auctorum tractatus de chemiae et lapidis philosophici, Vol. 1, Strassburg, 1602, pp. 610, 662. C. G. Jung referred amongst other things to these remarks from Dorn for his interpretation of Elias as ‘Archetype’ (cf. Elie le Prophète, op. cit. Note 2, pp. 15, 17–18).

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  81. Alexander von Suchten, Mysteria gemina Antimonii, Nürnberg, 1604 (First edition 1570), p. 92.

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  83. Oswald Croll, Basilica chymica, Leipzig 1634 (First edition 1609), p. 9.

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  84. Bernard Penot, De denario medico, Bern 1608, pp. 202–203. It has also been said of Basilius Valentinus that he had lived before Paracelsus and that Parcelsus has plagiarised his work, but this has been refuted too.

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  85. It is likely, that the passage in Basilius Valentinus, Chymische Schlifften alle, so viel derer vorhanden, Hamburg, 1677, part 1, p. 117, can be referred back to the Paracelsian Elias artista concept.

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  86. Christian Wilhelm Kestner, Medicinisches Gelehrten-Lexikon, Jena, 1740 (Reprint Hildesheim and New York, 1971), pp. 634–635.

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  87. Wilhelm Dilthey, ‘Das natürliche System der Geisteswissenschaften im 17. Jahrhundert’, Archiv für Geschichte der Philosophie 5 (1892) 480.

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  88. Peuckert, op. cit., Note 1. Richard van Dülmen, Die Utopie einer christlichen Gesellschaft. Johann Valentin Andreae, Part 1, Stuttgart-Bad Cannstatt, 1978.

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  89. The existence of such associations has been proved in recent years, esp. concerning England, cf. P. Rattansi, ‘The Intellectual Origins of the Royal Society’, Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 23 (1968) 129–143.

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  90. T. H. Jobe, ‘The Devil in Restoration Science’, Isis 72 (1981) 343–356.

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  91. Heliophilus a Percis Philochemicus (Pseudonym for Raphael Eglin), Nova disquisitio de Helia Artista Theophrasteo, Marburg, 1606. For the complicated bibliographic details, cf. John Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica, Hildesheim and New York, 1974 (Reprint of the edition Glasgow 1906), Vol. 1, pp. 232–233

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  92. 364–365.

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  93. Pagel, op. cit., Note 1. 11. Moreover, in Marburg, Eglin was also in contact with the above mentioned Oswald Croll and the well-known Rosicrucian, Michael Maier.

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  94. Eglin, op. cit., Note 49, pp. 18–19, 21.

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  95. Benedikt Figulus, Thesaurinella Olympica aurea tripartita, Frankfurt, 1608, pp. 5

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  97. 111. Moreover, Elias artista is anticipated in the alchemistic tract Occulta Philosophia Von den verborgenen Philosophischen Geheimnussen, Frankfurt, 1613, p. 38.

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  101. Anonymus (Adam Bruxius), Helias tertius, Das ist: Urtheil oder Meinung von dem Hochlöblichen Orden…, 1616, pp. 24–25. Sendschreiben an die glorwürdige Bruderschaft des Ordens vom RosenCreutze, 1615, fol A V and fol. A VII r°. Further a tract authored by an L. C, Helias Artista. Das ist: Wohlmeyndtliches Urtheil von der newen Brüderschafft, Frankfurt, 1619, p. 11. Finally a letter written 1617 by a P. S. to the Rosicrucians (Peuckert, op. cit., Note 1, pp. 153–155).

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  104. Cf. also Peuckert, op. cit., Note 1, p. 212.

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  107. 235–236 (pagination erroneous). Libavius expresses this opinion also elsewhere.

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  108. Ibid., pp. 15

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  109. 192 (pagination erroneous).

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  110. Ibid., p. 161.

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  113. Andreas Libavius, Analysis Confessionis Fraternitatis de Rosea Cruce, Frankfurt, 1615, p. 4. A critical attitude towards Elias artista is also to be found in Naudés book (1623) on Rosicrucianism, cf. Secret, op. cit., Note 19, p. 165.

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  114. Philaletha, ‘Introitus apertus’ in Nicolas Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique, Vol. 2, Hildesheim and New York, 1975 (reprint of the Paris edition, 1742), pp. 113

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  117. Heinrich Haeser, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medizin, Vol. 2, Hildesheim, 1971 (reprint of the Jena edition 1881), p. 348.

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  118. Quoted from Walter Pagel, ‘Helmont’ in J. B. van Helmont, Aufgang der Artzney-Kunst, Vol. 2, Munich, 1971, Appendix, p. XIII.

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  119. Jan Baptista van Helmont, Ortus Medicinae, Amsterdam, 1648, fol. B 4 r°.

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  120. Ibid., pp. 240

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  125. Therefore it seems to be possible that Helvetius was neither a fraud nor the victim of a delusion (cf. Wayne Shumaker, Occult Sciences in the Renaissance, Berkeley, Los Angeles, London, 1972, p. 165); he might well have invented the whole story in order to ensure that the thoughts he expressed in his book worked to the greatest possible effect.

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  133. Ibid., p. 77.

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  135. Glauber, op. cit., Note 73, p. 106.

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  150. Elias der Artist, Erläuterung etlicher Schriften vom Weisenstein, Hamburg, 1693. Elias Artista mit dem Stein der Weisen, Leipzig (?) 1770. Keren Happuch, Posaunen Eliae des Künstlers, oder Teutsches Fegfeuer der Scheidekunst, Hamburg, 1702.

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  151. (The author of this work, probably the Hamburg physician Söldner, sees himself as Elias artista.) Söldner’s work is criticized with much sarcasm and baroque verbosity by Aletophilus, Glückliche Erober- und Demolirung des durch den Schall einer thönemen Elias-Posaune angekündigten Fegefeuers der Scheidekunst, Leipzig, 1705.

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  152. The existence of relations between Swedenborg and this Elias artista is reported by Brumore. See Emanuel de Swedenborg, Traité curieux des charmes de l’amour conjugal, transl, by Brumore, Berlin and Basel, 1784, pp. 13–16. Biographie universelle. Vol. 44, Paris, 1826, p. 253.

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  153. A. Ladrague, Bibliothèque Ouvaroff, Moscow, 1870, p. 57.

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  154. Brumore contented to have been himself in contact with the so-called Elias artista, cf. numerous mentions in Joanny Bricaud, Les Illuminés d’Avignon, Paris 1927. (My kind thanks to François Secret for this indication.)

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  155. The identity of this mysterious Elias artista has been cleared up very recently, cf. Reinhard Breymayer, ‘Ein unbekannter Gegner Lessings. Der Frankfurter Konzertdirektor Johann Daniel Müller’ in: Pietismus — Herrnhutertum — Erweckungsbewegung. Festschrift für Erich Beyreuther, Köln, 1982, pp. 109–145.

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  156. Cf. also Breymayer, ‘Ein radikaler Pietist im Umkreis des jungen Goethe — der Frankfurter Konzertdirektor Johann Daniel Müller’, in Pietismus und Neuzeit, Jahrbuch zur Geschichte des neueren Protestantismus, Vol. 9, Göttingen, 1983.

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  157. Whether the tract Elias Artista Hermetica (Pseudonym), Das Geheimnis von dem Salz, 1770 (republished Stuttgart 1862 and Munich 1924) has been edited in this circle, is not yet known. (My kind thanks to Reinhard Breymayer for this indication.)

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  158. Grosses vollständiges Universal-Lexicon aller Wissenschaften und Künste, publisher: Johann Heinrich Zedier, Vol. 8, Halle and Leipzig, 1734, p. 824. Similar information is to be found in Meyer’s Conversations-Lexicon, Vol. 8, Hildburghausen, 1846, p.424.

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  159. As for being antiquated, cf. Theodor W. Adorno, Minima Moralia, Frankfurt, 1976, p. 116.

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  160. Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, 1620, über primus, Aphor. 92. Bacon hints of a relationship between the rise of science and the end of the world (ibid., Aphor. 93).

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  1. Herbert Breger
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  1. Dept. of the History of Science, Harvard University, Cambridge, Mass., USA

    Everett Mendelsohn

  2. European Centre for Social Welfare Training and Research, Austria

    Helga Nowotny

  3. University of Vienna, Austria

    Helga Nowotny

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© 1984 D. Reidel Publishing Company

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Breger, H. (1984). Elias Artista — A Precursor of the Messiah in Natural Science. In: Mendelsohn, E., Nowotny, H. (eds) Nineteen Eighty-Four: Science Between Utopia and Dystopia. Sociology of the Sciences a Yearbook, vol 8. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6340-5_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-6340-5_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-277-1721-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-6340-5

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