Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum

Name: Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Author: Heinrich Khunrath

The 1599 German text with a new English translation, introduction, glossary, and notes.

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Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica PhilosophorumMagnesia Catholica Philosophorum · Printed Page 11

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Facing Pages · Branch 18 of 215

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Early New High German

p. 11

O wie gewißlich war / vnd vnwidersprechlich ist dem also! Wie ein jeder vernünfftiger / auch ohn mein weitleufftiges erinnern / bey sich selbst leichtlich zu ermessen. Wo etwas nicht jnnen ist / da kan mans nicht ausnemen.

Wer in debita materia fehlet / der ist gleich einem wandersman / so den rechten weg nicht reiset. Wann er von Nürnberg auß gen Venedig zu reisen in willens / vnd vber den Brocksberg nach dem promontorio Tabin zuzöge / wie wolte er zu rechte kommen? Oder wann einer wolte Rom / da der Bapst wohnet / nicht in Italia, sondern in Moscouia oder Tartaria suchen. Also auch hierin. Man mus ein ding suchen / wo es ist / nicht wo man wil.

Darumb sehet wol zu / alle jhr sucher des Naturgemeß-Alchymischen Vniuersal STEINS

Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum: Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum

p. 11

O how certainly true, and how incontrovertibly so it is! As every rational person may easily weigh up for himself, even without my long-winded reminding. Where something is not within, there one cannot take it out.

Whoever fails in the debita materia is like a wayfarer who does not travel the right road. If he is minded to journey from Nuremberg out to Venice, and were to draw off over the Brocksberg toward the promontorium Tabin — how should he arrive where he ought? Or if someone wished to seek Rome, where the Pope dwells, not in Italia but in Moscovia or Tartaria? So also herein. One must seek a thing where it is, not where one wishes.

Therefore take good heed, all you seekers of the Nature-conforming, Alchymical Vniuersal STONE

18.Both destinations are chosen, not merely absurd. The Brocksberg is the Brocken, the Blocksberg of the Harz, the mountain of the witches’ assembly; the promontorium Tabin is the north-eastern cape of Asia as it stood on the maps of Khunrath’s century — a headland no traveller had reached and which does not exist. A man bound for Venice who sets off by way of the witches’ mountain toward a cape that is only on paper has not merely mistaken his road: he has gone over to illicit means in pursuit of a place that is not there. The sentence is a warning about the arrant Chymist and the mocking birds of p. 10, and the reader who takes it for a neutral geographical example loses it. R, which modernizes and reorders freely throughout, keeps both names.

19.The second example is of the opposite kind: Rome is a real place wrongly sought. Taken together the pair covers both errors — seeking a real thing in the wrong subject, and seeking in the right direction for a thing that has no being. The 1599 sets this sentence with a full stop, not a question mark; it is printed as a question here because it continues the construction of the first, and the departure is recorded.

20.Khunrath’s errata (the leaf following p. 187) direct that the last line of p. 11 read Vniuersal for vniuersal. In the Munich copy the line appears already to carry the capital, so either the sheet was corrected at press or the two forms are not distinguishable at this size. No emendation is made; the direction is recorded.

About This Reading Edition

Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum argues that alchemy has one universal subject, that this subject cannot be extracted from the metals, and that nothing in the work can begin without recognizing it. This complete reader begins with the supplied seven-part introduction and orientation, then presents every printed page of the 1599 German treatise opposite its new English translation.

Historical Text and Translation

The German reading text is a fresh diplomatic transcription from 600 dpi images of the Magdeburg copy printed by Johann Bötcher in 1599. It preserves Khunrath’s capitalization, word division, authorial marginal keys, glosses, errata, and three unnumbered closing pages: the errata leaf, owl emblem, and colophon.

About Diotimos Editions

Diotimos Editions prepared the new English translation, introduction, notes, glossary, collation, and editorial apparatus. The translation follows Khunrath directly, retaining his technical vocabulary, changes of register, repetitions, rhetorical questions, and distinctions between German, Latin, and coined terms.

Rights

Heinrich Khunrath’s 1599 German work is in the public domain. The 2026 English translation, introduction, notes, glossary, editorial arrangement, and related matter are original to this edition and remain © 2026 Diotimos.

supplied-bilingual-editionSupplied complete German–English scholarly edition