PAKABOLANI
650
paracp:lsus
Lectures (il)itl. 1852, 12mo) ; Newland, Posiils (ibid. 1854, l"2nio) ; Stevens, Parables (Phila. 1855, 8vo) ; Kirk, Lectures (N. Y. 1856, 12mo) ; Oxenden, Parables (Lond. 18(j5, 1866, 8vo); Machlachlan, Notes (ibid. 1870, 8vo) ; De Teissier, Parables (ibid. 1870, 12mo). Fur treatises and discussions on the nature and other rela- tions of the miracles, and for practical ex|)ositions of particuhir miracles, see the references in Volbeding, Index I'rogrammatum, p. 34 ; Hase, Leben Jesu, p. 333 ; Danz, Worterbuch, s. v. ; Darling, Cyclop, (see index) ; Malcolm, Theological Lulex, s. v.
Parabolani, a term applied in the ancient Chris- tian Church to those who employed themselves in vis- iting the sick. The name may have been given to them because they cTposed (Trnpt/^aAoj) themselves to danger by such services, just as the Greeks applied a kindred term (7rapa/3o\o(, from TrapaftuWta^ai Tt)v ^ivijv, to put one's life in jeopardy; comp. Phil, ii, 30) to those who hired themselves out to tight with wild beasts in the amphitheatre ; and the former office was considered, especially in times of public pestilence, as a work of similar danger. The Parabolani belonged to the inferior clergy, and consisted of a kind of broth- erhood, who were under the supervision of the bish- op. They seem to have originated at Alexandria. They did not confine themselves to their legitimate sphere, but took an interest in ecclesiastical matters, frequently as supporters of the bishops to whose dio- cese they belonged. Thus the Parabolani appeared at the Robber Synod in Ephesus (449). At Alexandria they were, during the 4th centur}', in a sense the body- guard of the patriarch. Bj^ imperial edict their num- ber was limited there to five hundred, which was, how- ever, in 418, during an epidemic, temporarily' increased to six hundred. Jee Julius, A n Essay on the Public Care for the Sick as produced by Ch-istianity (1825).
Parabrahnia, a term often used to denote Brahn (q. v.), the supreme divinity of the Hindus.
Paracelsus, Philippus Aureolus Tiieophras- Tos BoMBASTUs, an eccentric character of the IGth cen- tury, who as ph^'sician, magician, and theosophist exer- cised no inconsiderable influence on certain branches of science and theology. His father was a physician, a native of the Swiss canton of Appenzell, and bore the name William Hochener, but his more ambitious son claimed descent from a noble Suabian familj'^. Von Ilohenheim, and changed his patronymic by an odd Gr£Eco-Latin translation into the appellation of Para- celsus, by which he is generally known. His mother had been matron in the hospital of a convent at Ein- siedeln. He was an only child, born in 1493 in that small town, in the canton of Schwj'tz, nine miles from Zurich, famous for a cloister and shrine of St. Marj', to which thousands of pilgrims still flock. Einsiedeln in German meaning hcrinitaf/e,he sometimes added "Er- emita" to his name, to designate his native place. It is related that as an infant of three years he had the mis- fortune to be mutilated by a sow in his private parts ; his portrait (in Mackay's Extraordinary Delusion!', p. 143) shows liim indeed without beard, nor was he fond of female society ; yet there is no mention made of a mutation of voice usuallj' the consequence of castra- tion. Tliis sexual defect, however, seems not to have impaired the development of his mental faculties. He received his first instruction from his father, who tried to prepare him for the medical profession. Young The- ophrastus proved an apt scliolar in all that he was taught, and as he was desirous of further accomplish- ments, especiallj' in alchemy, then the rage of the age, he was placed in tuition with Trithemius, the celebra- ted abbot of Sponheim, and later with Sigismund Fug- ger, who in Sdiwatz (Tyrol) carried on a lai'ge labor- atory ; and there, Paracelsus assures us, he learned spagyric operations ctl'ectually. Imbued with a most ardent desire for information of everj- kind, he spent several years in travelling, during which he applied
to all eminent masters of alchemical philosophy, and visited the universities of Germanj', France, Italy, and Spain ; he even ventured to the less civilized countries of Northern Europe and Asia, and tried to gather from all sorts of peoi)le some knowledge which he might turn to advantage for his own purposes. In this pursuit of "secrets," often under difficulties, he was once taken prisoner on the confines of Kussia, and brought before tlie khan of the Tartars. This bar- baric potentate he succeeded in so impressing, and so ingratiated himself with him, that he was sent in the train of the khan's son on an embassy to Constan- tinople. It was there, according to his statement, that Paracelsus, in his twenty-eighth year, was initiated into the secret of the philosopher's stone. He was fre- quently retained as surgeon to armies in battles and sieges. IJeturning to Switzerland, he soon became re- nowned by his wonderful cures, and was introduced to such men as Erasmus, the printer Froben, Oicolampa- dius, and other distinguished personages. In his thirty- third year he boasted of having cured thirteen princes whose cases had been declared hopeless. By such recommendations he obtained in 1526 the appointment as professor of phj'sic and surgery at the University of Basle. He commenced his course of lectures by denouncing Galen and Avicenna, then standard authori- ties, as corrupters of medicine, and, taking a brazen chafing-dish, lighted some sulphur and threw their works into the flames, exclaiming, "Sic vos ardebitis in Gehenna." For Hippocrates, on the contrary, he professed great respect. For a while the singular man- ners and the noveltj' of his opinions rendered Paracel- sus extremely popular, and his room was thronged with students ; but his extravagances and self-glorification soon disgusted not a few of the more sober-minded. Among other things, he declared before his audience that he would even consult the devil, if God would not assist him in finding out the secrets of physic. He pretended to have invented an elixir of life which would insure to the happy partaker the age of Methu- selah, and dealt in other wonderful preparations, to which he gave pompous and strange names. An out- burst of passion deprived him of his professorship. A certain canon Von Lichtenfels, afflicted with gout in the stomach, given over by his phj'sicians, applied to Paracelsus, and promised him one hundred florins for a cure. Paracelsus gave him three small pills of his laudanum, and relieved him. When he demanded his fee, the canon refused so large a sum, as it had taken so little medicine and time to cure him. He sued the churchman ; the magistrate favored the canon, and ad- judged Paracelsus only a trifle of the amount; where- upon Paracelsus reproached the justice with ignorance and partiality. The insult was reported to the city council, who pronounced a verdict of expulsion. Para- celsus, urged by his friends, had anticipated the sentence by a precipitate flight, in 1528. Henceforth his career was a downward course. He recommenced a wandering life in Alsace, and other parts of Germany and Switzer- land, rarelj' staj-ing long in any one place. He asso- ciated with low company, abandoned himself to intem- perance, and when in his cups would threaten to summon a million of souls to show his power over them. By occasional extraordinary cures he measurably main- tained his reputation. In the summer of 1541 he was called by the archbishop of Salzburg to that city. Here too he ranted against the old-fashioned regular doctors. In revenge he was ly the servants of the aggrieved party thrown out of the window of an inn. The foil proved" fatal, and thus, Sept. 24, 1541, he ended his erratic life. He was buried in the cemetery of the hospital of St. Sebastian, to which he bequeathed the inconsiderable remnant of his property. It would be here out of place to descant on the merits or demerits of his medical practice. His epitaph tells perhaps all that can be said in commendation of it : " Lepram, podagram, hydropsin aliaque insanabilia corporis con-