Rosicrucianism, lutheran orthodoxy, and the rejection of paracelsianism in early seventeenth-century Denmark

Bulletin of the History of Medicine

Volumn 70, Issue 2, 1996, Pages 181-204

  Shackelford, Jole ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

ARTICLE; DENMARK; HISTORY; HUMAN; MYSTICISM; PHILOSOPHY; RELIGION;

ALCHEMY; CHRISTIANITY; DENMARK; HISTORY, 16TH CENTURY; HISTORY, 17TH CENTURY; HUMANS; MYSTICISM; PHILOSOPHY, MEDICAL; RELIGION AND MEDICINE;

EID: 0030162302     PISSN: 00075140     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1353/bhm.1996.0077     Document Type: Article

References (98)

1. For a brief outline of the relationship between Paracelsian ideas and early Scandinavian Pietism (or proto-Pietism), see Jole Shackelford, "A Reappraisal of Anna Rhodius: Religious Enthusiasm and Social Unrest in Seventeenth-Century Christiania, Norway," Scand. Stud., 1993, 65: 349-89, esp. 374-76.
2. For example, Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1972),
3. Will-Erich Peuckert, Das Rosenkreutz (Berlin: E. Schmidt, 1973).
4. Worm's correspondence has been collected and rendered into modern Danish by Dr. H. D. Schepelern in Breve fra og til Ole Worm, 3 vols. (Copenhagen: Det danske sprog- og litteraturselskab, 1965-68), an essential source for the history of science and medicine in seventeenth-century Denmark.
5. Another, more recent Danish work by Dr. Schepelern, Museum Wormianum, dets forudsœtninger og tilblivelse (Aarhus: Wormianum, 1971), takes as its main subject the collecting activity for which Worm is best known today, but is also an insightful biography of Ole Worm and his context.
6. Schepelern, Museum Wormianum (n. 3), p. 57.
7. Museum Wormianum Ibid., pp. 60-61.
8. Museum Wormianum Ibid., pp. 66-67.
9. vo Tillæg, Kgl. Bibl. Copenhagen (this MS is discussed below).
10. On Hartmann's teaching of chemistry see Bruce T. Moran, Chemical Pharmacy Enters the University: Johannes Hartmann and the Didactic Care of "Chymiatria" in the Early Seventeenth Century (Madison, Wis.: American Institute of the History of Pharmacy, 1991).
11. See also Bruce T. Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult Philosophy and Chemical Medicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen, 1572-1632, Supplement 29 of Sudhoffs Archiv (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1991).
12. Schepelern, Museum Wormianum (n. 3), p. 72. Frederik Severinus was also a physician and many years later housed one of Ole Worm's medical students, Ambrosius Rhodius.
13. Museum Wormianum Ibid., p. 75.
14. Heinrich Petraeus attempted to accommodate Galenism and Paracelsianism in his Nosologia harmonica (Marburg: P. Egenolph, 1615-16).
15. Schepelern, Museum Wormianum (n. 3), pp. 75-78. It will become evident to the reader that the history of Paracelsianism in Denmark supports the claim made by Allen Debus for England: that Paracelsian pharmacy was widely accepted, whereas Paracelsian theory was denigrated or ignored.
16. Ambrosius Rhodius wrote to Ole Worm on 7 December 1640 asking his opinion about Severinus's theory of the elements, which is basically Paracelsian. Worm's answer to Rhodius is lost, but in Rhodius's reply on 21 March 1641 he wrote: "Ad Elementorum doctrinam T. Excell. respondet, sese facere cum Horstio" (As to the doctrine of the elements, your excellency responds that he agrees with Horst). These letters are printed in Olai Wormii et ad eum Doctorum Virorum Epistolae, ed. Hans Gram (Copenhagen, 1751), pp. 776-79.
17. Ole Worm, Selecta controversarium medicarum centuria (Basileae: Johan. Jacobi Genathii, 1611).
18. Schepelern, Museum Wormianum (n. 3), p. 80.
19. vo, Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen. Dr. Schepelern personally affirmed that most of this MS was written by Ole Worm, for which I am very grateful. Mention of it was overlooked in the bibliography in Museum Wormianum (n. 3). See the following note.
20. MS Rostgaard 33 refers to Severinus frequently in the tract titled "De morbis eorumque causis secundum medicinam Hermeticam"; my guess is that this is either copied from or inspired by one of Hartmann's texts. The tracts in this MS are as follows: 1. De generatione, mixtione, et transplantatione. 2. Omnium morborum astralium et materialium acutorum et chronicorum vera et philosophica explicatio. 3. De morbis eorumque causis secundum medicinam Hermeticam. 4. Tractatus de tartaro. 5. Diatribe iatrochymica de microcosmi usu medico. 6. De fructibus terrae. 7. De fructibus aquae. 8. De metallis. 9. De praeparatione et compositione medicamentorum chymicorum artificiosa Duncani Bornetti Scoti [Duncan Burnett, the only attributed text in the MS]. The rest of the manuscript contains miscellaneous medical and chemical notes, as well as notations concerning the history of Denmark, apparently written later and bound in with the iatrochemical extracts.
21. See Jole Shackelford, "Paracelsianism and Patronage in Early Modern Denmark," in Patronage and Institutions: Science, Technology, and Medicine at the European Court 1500-1750, ed. Bruce T. Moran (Woodbridge, Suffolk: Boydell, 1991). pp. 85-109.
22. The only detailed studies of Severinus are E. Bastholm, Petrus Severinus og hans Idea medicinae Philosophicae, vol. 32 of Acta historica scientiarum naturalium et medicinalium (Odense: Odense Universitetsforlag, 1979),
23. Jole Shackelford, Paracelsianism in Denmark and Norway in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Ph.D. diss., University of Wisconsin, 1989), UMI #8914538.
24. am currently working on a monograph on Severinus and the influence of his ideas. Severinus is briefly treated in Allen G. Debus, "Severinus, Petrus" Dict. Sci. Biog., 12:334-36;
25. Walter Pagel, The Smiling Spleen: Paracelsianism in Storm and Stress (Basel: Karger, 1984);
26. Shackelford, "Paracelsianism and Patronage" (n. 15).
27. Worm was initially hired as professor of pedagogy in 1613 and was promoted to professorships in Greek (1615) and physics (1621) before finally achieving the desired chair in medicine in 1624.
28. P. L. Panum, "Vort Medicinske Fakultets Oprinelse og Barnedom: Et Bidrag til Kundskab om Lægevidenskabernes Udvikling i Danmark," in Festskrifter udgivne of Det Lægevidenskabelige Fakultet ved Københavns Universitet i Anledning of Universitetets Firehunderedaanfest Juni 1879 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1879), p. 57.
29. On Caspar Bartholin's religious education, see Ole Peter Grell, "Caspar Bartholin and the Education of a Pious Physician," in Medicine and the Reformation, ed. Ole Peter Grell and Andrew Cunningham (London: Routledge, 1993), pp. 78-100.
30. Caspar Bartholin, De studio medico inchoando, continuando, et absolvendo (Hafniae: Georgius Hantzsch, 1628).
31. Panum, "Vort Medicinske Fakultets" (n. 18), p. 58. Panum highlights Bartholin's advice on pp. 58-61.
32. Vort Medicinske Fakultets Ibid., p. 60.
33. Cunradus Aslacus Bergensis (Kort Aslakssøn), De natura caeli triplicis libelli tres (Siegen, 1597). The complex synoptic chart occupies six pages (unnumbered).
34. Oscar Garstein, Cort Aslakssøn: Studier over Dansk-Norsk Universitets- og LŒrdomshistorie Omkring År 1600 (Oslo: Lutherstiftelsen, 1953), pp. 179, 190.
35. Aslakssøn, De natura caeli triplicis (n. 21), pp. 91-92. All translations from Latin quoted in this paper are my own, although they have benefited from the helpful criticism of my colleagues.
36. Garstein, Cort Aslakssøn (n. 22), pp. 191, 198.
37. Aslakssøn, De natura caeli triplicis (n. 21), pp. 93-94.
38. De natura caeli triplicis Ibid., p. 100. As a point of interest we can note that Kepler used these same Greek terms, which I have transliterated here and set in single quotation marks, to denote the divinely implanted activity responsible for astrological influences.
39. De natura caeli triplicis Ibid. 100
40. "Totum, inquit, quod in Mundo est, aut crescendo aut decrescendo movetur. Quod autem movetur, id propterea vivit: & cum omnia moveantur, etiam Terra, maxime motu generative & alterativo, ipsa quoque vivit": ibid., p. 101. Ficino's translation of the Hermetic Corpus reads "Quod est in mundo, aut crescendo aut decrescendo, movetur. Quod vero movetur, id praeterea vivit" (Marsilio Ficino, Opera omnia [Turin: Bottega d'Erasmo, 1959], p. 1854); I am grateful to an anonymous reader for pointing out this source.
41. Aslakssøn, De natura cadi triplicis (n. 21), pp. 103-4.
42. De natura cadi triplicis Ibid., p. 104.
43. De natura cadi triplicis Ibid., pp. 150-51.
44. Garstein, Cort Aslakssøn (n. 22), p. 179.
45. Cort Aslakssøn Ibid., p. 197.
46. R.
47. R).
48. v.
49. A. E. Waite points to Adam Haselmeyer's admission that he read Fama in 1610 as evidence of its early circulation, and he concludes that Haselmeyer was drawn to the brotherhood because he believed it to be a school of Paracelsian thought: A. E. Waite, The Brotherhood of the Rosy Cross, Being Records of the House of the Holy Spirit in Its Inward and Outward History (London: William Rider, 1924; reprint, New York: University Books, 1961), pp. 115-16.
50. Worm to Jacob Fincke, 18 August 1616, "If you have learned anything reliable about the Rosicrucian Brothers please enlighten me about where they are, who they are, or - as one says - whether your prince belongs to their order; and if you have anything about them that does not appear in the published writings (those we have), please send it to me" (Olai Wormii Epistolae [n. 11], p. 8). I have consulted Schepelern's Danish edition (Breve [n.3]) in rendering Worm's correspondence.
51. Worm to Niels Christensen Foss, 1 March or 1 May 1617, Olai Wormii Epistolae (n. 11), p. 13: "I ask you to tell me whether you have heard anything definite regarding the Rosicrucian Brotherhood. I see that people judge them very differently. But the account by Molther, which came out at the last fair, requires that I cannot dismiss it as pure invention."
52. Worm to Jacob Fincke, 6 January 1618, ibid., p. 9: "If you know anything new about the Rosicrucian Brothers, I would very gladly know it, should the opportunity arise. Here many remarkable things are said about them, both in print and by rumor."
53. Worm to Lauritz Scavenius, 1 March 1618, ibid., p. 39: "Moreover, that letter, wherein you report on your Ardeiius, who declared himself a follower of the Rosicrucian Society, has agitated my mind to such a degree that I would consider it a great kindness if I can be informed quite regularly about what is going on down your way. If you henceforth discover anything about him and the others in that sect, please do not keep it from me."
54. Worm to Scavenius, May/August 1618, ibid., p. 40.
55. Worm to Fincke, ibid., pp. 9-10: "I have greatly enjoyed your description of this crazy King of Jerusalem; if these Rosicrucians regard him as their standard-bearer one can fully conclude from him what one ought to think of the rest. Meanwhile I would surely like to know what has happened to him, and what he has done down your way. I beseech you to mention in your next letter (or, if you prefer, tell me personally) whether he has said where in the world the new college is located, and if he has tried to entice certain persons into his Society. Since the philosophy faculty has promoted me to a deanship, I have decided to arrange a formal Master's promotion next Easter."
56. Worm to Andreas Jacobsen Langebeck, 12 August 1620, ibid., p. 54 (emphasis in original).
57. Waite, Brotherhood (n. 37), p. 238 n. 1.
58. This was an objection voiced already in the anonymous Fama remissa ad Fratres Roseae Crucis (1616);
59. see Waite, Brotherhood (n. 37), pp. 240-41.
60. Ole Worm, Questiones miscellarum decas (Copenhagen, 1622).
61. Question 3, point 1: "A Chymicis non ita pridem excogitata haec est distinctio, ad sua inventa exaggeranda, hactenus vero receptam philosophandi rationem extenuandam" (ibid., fol. 2v).
62. "[2] Hinc illud P. Severini Ideae medicinae cap. 6 p. 94. Surda & caeca est omnis Philosophia quae privationes, informes materias, & mortuas qualitates sectatur. [3] Si autem, quid per vitalem Philosophiam intelligant, quaeras; respondent Philosophiam vitalem esse, quae circa explicationen principiorum vitalium, seminum, & potestatum versatur": ibid.
63. Question 3, point 6, ibid., fol. 3r.
64. Worm cites the preface of Croll's Basilica: "Paracelsum expertis stylo magico scripsisse, non vulgo, sed sibi & intelligentibus, in Schola magica educatis Sapientiae filiis" (Question 4, point 8, ibid., fol. 4r).
65. Question 4, point 9, ibid., fol. 4r.
66. "Haec autem sigillatim varie describuntur, Severinus cap. 8. Salis esse ait, consistentiam dare rebus, soliditatem & coagulationem. Sulphuris pingui oleosaque, sua Substantia Salis coagulationem temperare. Mercurij assidua irrigatione duo priora, actionum frequentia ad siccitatem & senium in horas festinantia fovere, fluidaque & labili Substantia mistionem omnium faciliorem reddere": Question 9, point 6, ibid., fol. 8r. (italics in original).
67. "Neutiquam ex agro Physico haec principia eliminabimus, praesertim cum Peripatetica non evertant, sed confirment, praesupponant & declarent. Quod & ipsemet Severin cap. 7 Ideae hisce testatur: Paracelsus cum dicit corpora omnia constare ex Sale, Sulphure & Mercurio non repugnat Aristoteli, qui rerum principia statuit materiam, formam & privationem, nec Platoni dicenti Deum, exemplar & maleriam": Question 9, point 14, ibid., fol. 9r. (italics in original).
68. "Nec cum ipsis confundantur elementis. Sal etenim licet Terrae videatur respondere, tamen in humido liquescit illud, haec neutiquam. Oleum seu Sulphur ardet & flammam concipit, aer neutiquam. Mercurius variis proprietatibus pollet, quibus aqua destituitur. Utar verbis P. Severini cap. 8 pag. 118. Ab Elementis illis communibus hoc pacto distinguuntur corporum principia. Illorum officia communiera sunt, & materiae rationem oblinent, horum vero proprietatibus & rationibus destinata, mirabili proprietatum potestate vigent. Nihilominus indissolubili nexu ita elementis corporum principia cohaerent, ut naturae legibus nunquam, vix ulla artis industria, idque non pafecte separari possint": Question 9, point 18, ibid., fol. 9r-v (italics in original).
69. Olai Wormii epistolae (n. 11), p. 732.
70. Olai Wormii epistolae Ibid., p. 733 (7 March 1646). Although the author clearly wrote "uterque," at least one of van Helmont's sons, Franciscus Mercurius van Helmont, survived him.
71. Olai Wormii epistolae Ibid., p. 1009 (3 October 1647).
72. Olai Wormii epistolae Ibid., pp. 1115-16 (29 May 1652).
73. In Denmark, as elsewhere, the acceptance of Harveian physiology was a generational phenomenon. Worm, as a member of the older generation, did not find Harvey's experimental evidence compelling. See Edvard Gotfredsen, Harvey's Lœre og dens Modtagelse i Danmark (Copenhagen: Novo Terapeutisk Laboratorium, 1957), pp. 14-19.
74. BjϿrn Kornerup and Hal Koch, Den Danske Kirkes Historie, vol. 4 (Copenhagen: Gyldendal, 1959), p. 138.
75. On Andreæ and the Tübingen theologians see Oluf Friis, Den Danske Litteraturs Historie (Copenhagen: Hirschsprung, 1945), 1: 337.
76. Friis, Den Danske Lilteraturs Historie (n. 61), 1: 324. Melanchthon himself does not appear to have ever publicly deviated from Luther's formulation of the "true" presence of the whole Christ in the Lord's Supper, but his unwillingness to make a clear defense of the presence of Christ "corporaliter" led his Gnesio-Lutheran critics to suspect a rapprochement with Calvinism. Many of his followers did in fact embrace Calvinist opinions on the spiritual presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
77. See James William Richard, Philip Melanchthon, Ihr. Protestant Preceptor of Germany, 1497-1560 (1898; New York: Burt Franklin Reprints, 1974), pp. 364-76;
78. Michael Rogness, Philip Melanchthon: Reformer without Honor (Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House, 1969), pp. 122, 131-35.
79. Friis, Den Danske Litteraturs Historie (n. 61), 1: 324-25. Hemmingsen was in disagreement with Lutheran teaching on the ubiquity of Christ's body;
80. see Kornerup, Den Danske Kirkes Historie (n. 61), 4: 140.
81. Kornerup, Den Danske Kirkes Historie. (n. 61), 4: 177.
82. Friis, Den Danske Litteraturs Historie (n. 61), 1: 325.
83. Kornerup, Den Danske Kirkes Historie (n. 61), 4: 169.
84. Den Danske Kirkes Historie Ibid., pp. 183-84.
85. Den Danske Kirkes Historie Ibid., pp. 220-21. This periodization is generally accepted among Danish church historians. Kort Aslakssøn had actively opposed Resen's efforts to impose his views by quietly supporting those against Resen, but he wisely stopped short of confronting him directly in public.
86. Den Danske Kirkes Historie Ibid., pp. 222-24.
87. Russell H. Hvolbek, in "Seventeenth-Century Dialogues:Jacob Boehme and the New Sciences" (Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1984), has collected these movements under the rubric "outsider Lutheranism." The term is useful but slightly problematic, inasmuch as some theologians of Luther today would reject the "outsider" doctrines as Lutheran at all. Therefore, I have chosen to use the term "outsider Protestant" in its stead. Many of the tracts associated with "outsider Protestantism" contain elements of Paracelsian teaching.
88. See also Shackelford, "Reappraisal of Anna Rhodius" (n. 1).
89. Worm, Laurea philosophica summa (n. 34).
90. Andreas Libavius, Prodromus vitalis philosophiae Paracelsistarum. . . in examen philosophiae novae quae veteri abrogandae opponitur. (1) De veterum autoritate; (2) De magia Paracelsi ex Crollio; (3) De philosophia vivente ex Severino per Johannem Hartmannum; (4) De philosophia harmonica magica Fraternitatis de Rosen. Cruce (Frankfort am Main: Petri Kopffij, 1615). Referred to here as Examen philosophiae novae, this tract appeared in Libavius, Syntagmatis selectorum undiquaque et perspicue traditorum alchymiae arcanorum, tomus primus (Frankfort, 1615).
91. Libavius also wrote a German treatise against the Rosicrucians, D.O.M.A. Wolmeinendes Bedencken von der Fama und Confession der Bruderschafft dess Rosen Creutzes (Frankfort: Petri Kopffij, 1616), in which Severinus is repeatedly mentioned.
92. Andreas Libavius, Analysis Confessionis Fraternitatis de Rosea Cruce (Frankfort am Main, 1615).
93. In Examen philosophiae novae (n. 72), for example, Libavius writes: "Quo modo fit coctio & nutritio in homine? Respondet Severinus, non per canales distributis per humoribus, sed spiritibus invisibilibus invisibiliter permeatus arcanos penetrantibus, qui corporascunt in partibus, & in substantiam earum cedunt. Qua fide? Harmonica. Sicut enim magni mundi spiritus, & spiritualia semina sine canalibus per elementa feruntur, omniaque constituunt & nutriunt ex incorporeis corporea facta: id est in minore mundo. Rideo hanc rationem. Cur? Quia argumentum concordantiae fallit. . . . Essentia effecti & causae longe sunt alia. Hinc scientia est, non inde" (p. 285).
94. Examen philosophiae novae Ibid., p. 156.
95. Libavius, Wolmeinendes Bedencken (n. 72), p. 13.
96. See also Peuckert, Das Rosenkreutz (n. 2), p. 102.
97. Libavius, Wolmeinendes Bedencken (n. 72), pp. 13-14.
98. Libavius and his attitude toward Paracelsian philosophy - and toward unwarranted secretive study in general - are treated in Owen Hannaway, The Chemists and the Word: The Didactic Origins of Chemistry (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1975), chaps. 4-5.