Der von Gott erwählte Arzt. Die Paratexte von Johann Baptist van Helmonts "Artzney-Kunst" und das Sulzbacher Übersetzungsprojekt

The German edition of Johann Baptista van Helmont’s collected medical writings, Auffgang der Artzney-Kunst, is the most complete of the existing editions of Helmont’s writings in Latin, English and French. This article studies the paratextual materials of these editions. They are very important because they present the image of the physician as a man who has recognized the mysteries of nature and is therefore capable of healing all illnesses. While his predecessors have lived in error, only Paracelsus has gone in the right direction. Johann Baptista van Helmont sees himself as a man to whom God has revealed the mysteries of nature because the end of the time is coming. The translations made by Christian Knorr von Rosenroth at Sulzbach are contributions to the great project to increase knowledge in an eschatological perspective.