Though Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, known as Paracelsus, has been most extensively studied with regard to his place in the history of medicine, recent scholarship has drawn attention to the religious dimension of his reforming efforts. This book continues that endeavor by offering a broader look at Paracelsus's aspirations and his place within the social and intellectual environment of sixteenth-century Germany. Charles Webster shows how this controversial physician developed an audacious program of “root and branch reform” (1). His interest in medicine was only part of a larger vision of a new world order that included extensive changes in both church and society. Viewing Paracelsus as a religious controversialist as well as a medical reformer, Webster notes in particular how his sense of living at a critical moment, at the end of time, energized his pugnacious campaign for the rejection of many traditional beliefs and practices.
A brief summary of the life of Paracelsus is in order at the start of a book of this sort, but Webster takes a wider approach by first reflecting on positive and negative aspects of socioeconomic life in the sixteenth century. He notes the comfortable status physicians generally enjoyed in society, in contrast to Paracelsus, who faced a life of considerable adversity and perpetual wandering because he was constantly “swimming against the prevailing tide” (9). The review of Paracelsus's life is quite brief, but this introduction includes some interesting reflection on features of his personality and his sense of mission. It includes an analysis of why he was so widely demonized during his lifetime.
Before examining features of Paracelsus's thought, Webster inserts a chapter about how Paracelsus and his followers successfully used the medium of print to circulate his ideas. Chapter 2 examines the range of sixteenth-century literary genres and print outlets, showing how Paracelsus excelled in the production of pamphlets, each of which contributed an element to his broad program of reform. This chapter also includes assorted reflections on the significance of his renaming of himself, his use of German to communicate his ideas, and stylistic characteristics of his writings. Paracelsus himself sometimes shrewdly decided to delay publication of certain writings because of their controversial nature and at other times could not find a publisher who would dare to circulate his iconoclastic views. Webster contends, however, that he confidently wrote for a “notional audience” he hoped would develop over time—a “putative book club” (50). Editors after his death adeptly packaged his ideas in marketable forms and produced 345 editions of his writings between 1560 and 1658.
The rest of the book focuses on five topics: Paracelsus's belief that spiritual enlightenment was a precondition of attainment of any of his objectives, his call for reform of all of the learned professions, his ideas about matter and magic, similarities and differences between his reform proposals and those of other radical contemporaries, and the apocalyptic consciousness that inspired his sense of mission.
From the very start, Paracelsus was equally critical of the authorities who controlled the church and the medical profession. To explicate the religious side of Paracelsus's mission, Webster concentrates especially on De septem punctis idolatriae cristianae, a short tract he wrote in Salzburg in about 1525 but never published. This seldom-studied Flugschrift shows his widespread familiarity with theological debates of that era and the comprehensiveness of his dissatisfaction with the state of the church. Webster notes how this “concise encyclopedic guide to abuses within the Roman church” (77) both reveals the independence of Paracelsus and echoes the sentiments of a wide range of religious critics of that day.
Webster points out that Paracelsus's critique of the medical establishment never strayed far from the language and concepts he used in his early anticlerical diatribes. All of the learned professions manifested similar vices: arrogance, dependence on vacuous learning, habitual deference to traditional authorities, and base interest in economic gain. For Paracelsus, nothing short of a complete reappraisal of traditional values was needed. Along with this he stressed the importance of enlightenment through the joint action of the Holy Spirit and what he called the Light of Nature (129).
While explicating the basics of Paracelsus's natural philosophy, Webster contends that his speculative engagement with nature went beyond the scope of science as we think of it today. The Christian side of Paracelsus's thought is evident in his Trinitarian perspective on the theory of matter and in the analogies he drew between health and salvation in connection with his macrocosm-microcosm theory. Seeing examples in the Bible of magic and access to prophetic powers, Paracelsus developed his own unique conflation of medicine, magic, and kabbalah.
Walter Pagel's important study of Paracelsus stressed his debt to Neo-Platonic and Gnostic sources. Webster acknowledges these influences but associates his overall perspective more closely with medieval mystics and a number of radical Protestants. Paracelsus rejected both Catholicism and magisterial Protestantism with equal fervor and also criticized Anabaptism, but Webster refutes the claim that he adopted a disengaged approach to religious issues. Webster shows that there is considerable convergence between his views and the perspective of various Anabaptist radicals who had spiritualist and apocalyptic leanings. Webster systematically explores these points of agreement and their roots in earlier sources such as the Joachimite apocalyptic tradition and the spirituality of German mystics such as Tauler.
A tribute on the cover of this book claims that it will undoubtedly replace Pagel's classic study. This is an overstatement because Pagel and others still provide a fuller analysis of Paracelsus's scientific theories. Aspects of this book may also be challenging for those who are looking for an entry point to the study of Paracelsus. Nevertheless, it will provide a valuable resource for contextualizing his thought and clarifying its scope and focus. (A final minor note: it is unfortunate that the woodcuts placed at the start of each chapter are so small. Webster regularly comments on them to illustrate central themes, but it is hard to discern the features he is talking about.)
