Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum

Glossary of Key Terms

Terms Khunrath uses technically, alphabetically, with the ruling adopted throughout this edition and the pages of the 1599 printing where each matters. m after a page number means the term stands in Khunrath’s margin there and not in the body. The list has been completed and reconciled against the whole treatise, pp. 5–187, and against the decision register. Words retained untranslated are so retained because no English word carries them; where the German bears more than one sense, both are kept and neither is chosen. Twelve of the most load-bearing terms are treated at greater length in Key Words of the Treatise, in the front matter; the entries here are the short form.

Absüssung / dulcoration

sweetening; dulcoration. The washing-out of a salt or calx by repeated affusion. Both words stand in the text and both are kept. pp. 67, 70, 126.

Acker

field, ploughland. Not soil in general: the word answers Quale semen, tale germen. The metal is sown in it. pp. 13 m, 53, 75, 79, 82, 118–124.

ADMONITIO

an admonition, retained. Khunrath’s marginal heading for the warning that closes the apologia: the oath sworn to a Praeceptor after ancient Philosophical usage is no vinculum iniquitatis, and he who hangs it conscience-less on the wall will answer for it. p. 146 m.

Agnitio

recognition, retained where Khunrath sets the Latin. The word that names what the treatise is finally for: the Beschluß or Conclusion opens at p. 165 under the marginal heading Fructus & vtilitates Agnitionis MAGNESIAE CATHOLICAE. It is the noun to the erkennen distinguished from kennen since p. 12, and it is not the making of gold: at p. 163 the margin says that a Philosophus is not about this business for gold and silver alone. pp. 12, 163 m, 165 m.

Albationes Veneris

whitenings of venus — of copper. Said in derision. p. 76 m.

Alchymia / Chymisch

alchemy / chymical. The two are kept distinct in English wherever Khunrath distinguishes them.

Amphitheatrum

Retained: Khunrath’s own Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae, Hamburg 1595, his earlier and best-known book. He cites it not for a passage but for a picture — the inscription running round the circumference of the third Figure, and the fourth Figure for the uses and effects of the Stone. pp. 6, 89 m.

animiren / genaturen

to ensoul / to give nature to. His coinages, kept literal, and never weakened to ‘animate’. pp. 21, 22, 49, 54.

Aqua permanens / permanens unda

the permanent water, the abiding water; retained. The water that does not fly from the fire. Khunrath’s margin sets it in Operis initio & fine, at the beginning of the Work and at its end, so that what is had first is what is had last; at p. 176 he inverts the Latin and adds his own German, der Philosophen bleibendes Wasser. One term, two word-orders. pp. 129 m, 176.