From the book
Heinrich Khunrath’s Magnesia Catholica Philosophorum
Heinrich Khunrath · Diotimos Editions · 2026
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At a Glance
- The wordThe original Errata are part of the surviving book's instructions for reading itself.
- In KhunrathSeveral corrections affect the argument rather than merely its appearance.
- In this editionDistinguish the original list, its modern collation and independent editorial conjecture whenever a repair is cited.
- A reading distinctionThe supplied text numbers the penultimate argument page as 186 while recording that the original prints 185 a second time.
Meaning
The original Errata are part of the surviving book's instructions for reading itself. Their heading says, “Let them be restored thus,” followed by the German imperative to read and the page indication. The supplied edition prints twenty entries, then provides a modern collation that compares each direction with the cited passage. Those two layers must not be merged.
Use in the book
Several corrections affect the argument rather than merely its appearance. At p. 51 Materialium replaces Metallorum: the statement concerns the first matter of all material things before p. 52 draws the narrower consequence for all metals. At p. 53 Catholisch is supplied in the description of what lies hidden in the subject. The p. 69 correction gives Sal rather than Sol in the margin; confusing salt with the sun or gold would alter the named preparation. Page 142 requires literas, the letters Nature has written. Such repairs matter to a lexicon because inferring a doctrine from an unrepaired wrong sort would manufacture a distinction the author explicitly rejected.
Other entries cannot be settled so neatly. The direction aliâs hoc for p. 12 is not securely understood by the supplied collation. The Errata themselves contain defective type and an isolated A. A correction list is consequently evidence to be interpreted, not a mechanically reliable second text whose every obscurity can be forced into an answer.
The modern edition also marks doubtful forms and offers some emendations outside the original list. These must be attributed to the editor. The unidentified chymical glyph associated with the p. 45 and p. 53 cross-references is a further limit: the note describes a character that this flowing text cannot reproduce securely. Nothing in the lexicon should turn that absence into a deciphered material name.
The final pagination likewise needs care. The supplied collation locates the Errata on the verso of the leaf whose recto is p. 187, followed by one leaf carrying emblem and colophon. This is the closing sequence used here; it is not a new physical collation performed by the lexicon writer.
Places to read
- 1599 p. 51The adopted Materialium correction establishes the broader premise before the metallic consequence
- 1599 p. 53The supplied Catholic qualifier belongs to an original erratum
- 1599 p. 69 · marginSal is the corrected noun in the marginal preparation
- 1599 p. 142The restored accusative literas makes Nature the writer of the letters
- ErrataThe original list gives twenty corrective directions, several requiring interpretation
Translation in this edition
Distinguish the original list, its modern collation and independent editorial conjecture whenever a repair is cited. Do not describe the p. 116 reordered constituents as a universally canonical sequence: other orders occur in the primary text. Follow the final leaf description even where individual modern notes still loosely call the Errata a following leaf.
Source note
The supplied text numbers the penultimate argument page as 186 while recording that the original prints 185 a second time. This is an editorially established running sequence, not an additional lost page. The unidentified glyph’s modern visual description is not equivalent to a transcription or verified symbol identification. Its association with “all” in the one subject does not authorize decoding it into a modern formula.