1824.7 Origin of the Rosicrucians and the Free-masons. sight, and unrevealed to the whole godless world for ever.' The third book, which originally appeared in Latin with the title Confessio Fraternitatis Rosea Crucis ad Eruditos Europe-contains nothing more than general explanations upon the object and spirit of the order. It is added that the order has different degrees; that not only princes, men of rank, rich men, and learned men, but also mean and inconsiderable persons are admitted to their communion, provided they have pure and disinterested purposes, and are able and willing to exert themselves for the ends of the institution; that the order has a peculiar language; that it is possessed of more gold and silver than the whole world beside could yield; that it is not this however but true philosophy which is the object of their labours. 6 The first question, which arises on these three works, the Universal Reformation'-the Fama Fraternitatis-and the Confessio Fraternitatis,' is this: from what quarter do they proceed? The reputed author was John Valentine Andreä, a celebrated theologian of Wirtemberg, known also as a satirist and a poet, and in our days revived into notice Herder. by the late illustrious Others have disputed his claim to these works; and Burke has excluded them from his catalogue of Andrea's writings. I shall attempt however to prove that he was the 143 true author.-Andreä was born in * The earliest edition of these works which I have seen is that of 1614, printed at Cassel, in 8vo. which is in the Wolfenbüttel library: but in this the Confessio is wanting. From a passage in this edition, it appears that the Fama Fraternitatis had been received in the Tyrol as early as 1610; in manuscript, as the passage alleges; but the words seem to imply that printed copies were in existence even before 1610.-In the year 1615 appeared" Secretioris Philosophiæ Consideratio à Philippo à Gabella, Philosophiæ studioso, conscripta; et nunc primum unà cum Confessione Fraternitatis Ros. Crucis in lucem edita. Cassellis: excud. G. Wesselius, A. 1615." In the very same year, at Frankfurt on the Mayne, was printed by John Berner, an edition of all the In this year also appeared a three works, the Confessio in a German translation. Dutch translation of all three: a copy of which is in the Göttingen library. The second Frankfurt edition was followed by a third in 1616, enlarged by the addition of some letters addressed to the brotherhood of the R. Cross. Other editions followed in the years immediately succeeding: but these it is unnecessary to notice. In the title page of the third Frankfurt edit. stands-First printed at Cassel in the year 1616. But the four first words apply to the orig. edit. The four last to this. This is written in Latin. A German translation will be found in the second book of Seybold's Auto-biographies of celebrated men. Traveling was not at that time so expensive for learned men as it now is. Many scholars traveled on the same plan as is now pursued by the journeymen artisans of sions almost annually: after the opening of the 30 years' war he still continued this practice; and in the very midst of that great storm of wretchedness and confusion which then swept over Germany, he exert ed himself in a way which is truly astonishing to heal" the sorrow of the times," by establishing schools, and religious worship-and by propagating the Lutheran faith through Bohemia, Moravia, Carinthia, &c. Even to this day his country owes to his restless activity and enlightened patriotism many great blessings. At Stutgart, where he was at length appointed chaplain to the court, he met with so much thwarting and persecution, that, with his infirm constitution of body and dejection of mind from witnessing the desolation of Germany, it is not to be wondered that he became weary of life and sank into deep despondency and misanthropy. In this condition he requested leave in 1646 to resign his office: this was at first refused, with many testimonies of respect, by Eberhard the then Duke of Wirtemberg: but, on the urgent repetition of his request, he was removed to the Abbey of Bebenhausen,and shortly afterwards was made Abbot of Adelberg. In the year 1654, after a long and painful sickness, he departed this life. On the day of his death he dictated a letter to his friend and benefactor, Augustus Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel. He made an effort to sign it; wrote the two first letters of his name; and, in the act of writing the third, he expired.From a close review of his life and opinions, I am not only satisfied that Andreä wrote the three works which laid the foundation of Rosicrucianism, but I see clearly why he wrote them. The evils of Germany were then enormous; and the necessity of some great reform was universally admitted. As a young man without experience, Andreä imagined that this reform would be easily accomplished. He had the example of Luther before him, the heroic reformer of the preceding century, whose memory was yet fresh in Germany, and whose labours seemed on the point of pe rishing unless supported by corresponding efforts in the existing generation. To organize these efforts and direct them to proper objects he projected a society composed of the noble, the intellectual, the enlightened, and the learned,-which he hoped to see moving, as under the influence of one soul, towards the redressing of public evils. Under this hope it was that he traveled so much: seek ing everywhere no doubt for the coadjutors and instruments of his designs. These designs he presented originally in the shape of a project for a Rosicrucian society: and in this particular project he intermingled some features that were at variance with its gravity and really elevated purposes. Young as he was at that time, Andreä knew that men of various tempers and characters could not be brought to co-operate steadily for any object so purely disinterested as the elevation of human nature: he therefore addressed them through the common foible of their age by holding out promises of occult knowledge which should invest its possessor with authority over the powers of nature, should lengthen his life, or raise him from the dust of poverty to wealth and high station. In an age of Theosophy, Cabbalism, and Alchemy, he knew that the popular ear would be caught by an account, issuing nobody knew whence, of a secret society that professed to be the depositary of Oriental mysteries, and to have lasted for two centuries. Many would seek to connect themselves with such a society: from these candidates he might gradually select the members of that real society which he projected. The pretensions of the ostensible society were indeed illusions: but, before they could be detected as such by the new proselytes, those proselytes would become connected with himself and (as he hoped) moulded to nobler aspirations. On this view of Andrea's real intentions, we understand at once the ground of the contradictory language which he held about astrology and the transmuta Germany-exercising their professional knowledge at every stage of their journey, and thus gaining a respectable livelihood. tion of metals: his satirical works show that he looked through the follies of his age with a penetrating eye. He speaks with toleration then of these follies-as an exoteric concession to the age; he condemns them in his own esoteric character as a religious philosopher. Wishing to conciliate prejudices, he does not forbear to bait his schemes with these delusions: but he is careful to let us know that they are with his society mere rápɛpya or collateral pursuits, the direct and main one being true philosophy and religion. Meantime, in opposition to the claims of Andreä, it has been asked why he did not avow the three books as his own composition. I answer that to have done so at first would have defeated the scheme. Afterwards he had still better reasons for disavowing them. In whatever way he meant to have published the works, it is clear that they were in fact printed without his consent: an uproar of hostility and suspicion followed the publication which made it necessary for the author to lie hid. If he would not risk his own safety, and make it impossible for his projects to succeed under any other shape, the author was called on to disown them. Andreä did so: and, as a suspected person, he even joined in public the party of those who ridiculed the whole as a chimæra.* More privately however, and in his posthumous memoirs of himself, we find that he nowhere disavows the works. Indeed the bare fact of his being confessedly the author of the "Chemical Nuptials of Christian Rosycross"-a hero never before heard of -is alone sufficient to vindicate his claim. But further, if Andreä were not the author, who was? Heidegger in his Historia Vitæ Jo. Ludov. Fabricii maintains that Jung, the celebrated mathematician of Hamburg, founded the sect of Rosicrucians and wrote the Fama: but on what ground? Simply on the authority of Albert Fabricius, who reported the story in casual conversation as derived from a secretary of the court of Heidelberg. (See the Acta Eruditorum Lipsiensia, 1698, p. 172.) Others have brought forward a claim for Giles Gutmann, supported by no other argument than that he was a distinguished mystic in that age of mysticism. Morhof (Polyhist. I. p. 131, ed. Lubecæ, 1732) has a remark which, if true, might leave Andreä in possession of the authorship, without therefore ascribing to him any in fluence in the formation of the Rosicrucian order: "Fuere," says he, "non priscis tantum seculis collegia talia occulta, sed et superiori seculo (i. e. sexto-decimo) de Fraternitate Roses Crucis fama percrebuit." According to this remark,† the order existed in the sixteenth century, that is before the year 1600: now, if so, the three books in question are not to be considered as an anticipation of the order, but as its history. Here then the question arises-Was the brotherhood of Rosicrucians, as described in these books, an historical matter of fact or a romance? That it was a pure romantic fiction, might be shown by arguments far more than I can admit. The Universal Reformation (the first of the three works) was borrowed from the Generale Riforma dell' Universo dai sette Savii della Grecia e da altri Letterati, publicata di ordine di Apollo,' which occurs in the Raguaglio di Parnasso of Boccalini. It is true that the earliest edition of the Raguaglio, which I have seen, bears the date of 1615 (in Milano); but there was an edition of the first Centuria in 1612. Indeed Boccalini himself was cudgeled to death in 1613 (See Mazzuchelli-Scrittori d' Italia, vol. ii. p. iii. p. 1378). As to the Fama, which properly contains the pretended history of the order, In the midst of his ridicule however it is easy to discover the tone of a writer who is laughing not with the laughers but at them. Andreä laughed at those follies of the scheme which he well knew that the general folly of the age had compelled him to interweave with it against his own better judgment. Which has been adopted by many of the learned: see Arnold's Hist. of the Church and of Heretics, book ii. p. 245. Bruckeri Hist. Crit. Philosophiæ, tom. iv. p. 735, sq. Nicolai on the charges against the Templars, part i. p. 164. Herder's Letters on Nicolai's work in the German Mercury for 1782. it teems with internal arguments the Rosicrucians are said to be Proagainst itself. The House of the testants-though founded upwards Holy Ghost exists for two centuries, of a century before the Reformation. and is seen by nobody. Father In short the fiction is monstrous, Rosycross dies, and none of the and betrays itself in every circumorder even know where he is buried; stance.—— -Whosoever was its author and yet afterwards it appears that must be looked upon as the founder eight brothers witnessed his death in effect of the Rosicrucian order, and his burial. He builds himself a inasmuch as this fiction was the accimagnificent sepulchre, with elabo- dental occasion of such an order's berate symbolic decorations; and yet ing really founded. That Andreä was for 120 years it remains undis- that author, I shall now prove by covered. The society offers its one final argument: it is a presumptreasures and its mysteries to the tive argument, but in my opinion world; and yet no reference to place conclusive: The armorial bearings of or person is assigned to direct the Andrea's family were a St. Andrew's inquiries of applicants. Finally, to cross and four roses. By the order of say nothing of the Vocabularium of the Rosy-cross he means therefore an Paracelsus which must have been order founded by himself.* put into the grave before it existed, CHAPTER IV. Of the immediate Results of the Fama and the Confessio in Germany. The sensation which was produced throughout Germany by the works in question is sufficiently evidenced by the repeated editions of them which appeared between 1614 and 1617, but still more by the prodigious commotion which followed in the literary world. In the library at Göttingen there is a body of letters addressed to the imaginary order of Father Rosycross from 1614 to 1617 by persons offering themselves as members. These letters are filled with complimentary expressions and testimonies of the highest respect, and are all printed-the writers alleging that, being unacquainted with the address of the society (as well they might), they could not send them through any other than a public channel. As certificates of their qualifications, most of the candidates have inclosed specimens of their skill in alchemy and cabbalism. Some of the letters are signed with initials only, or with fictitious names, but assign real places of address. Many other literary persons there were at that day who forbore to write letters to the society, but threw out small pamphlets containing their opinions of the order and of its place of residence. Each successive writer pretended to be better informed on that point than all his predecessors. Quarrels arose; partisans started up on all sides; the uproar and confusion became indescribable; cries of heresy and atheism resounded from every corner; some were for calling in the secular power; and the more coyly the invisible society retreated from the public advances, so much the more eager and amorous were its admirersand so much the more blood-thirsty its antagonists. Meantime there were some who from the beginning had escaped the general delusion; and there were many who had gradually recovered from it. It was remarked that of the many printed letters to the society, though courteously and often learnedly written, none had been answered; and all attempts to penetrate the darkness in which the order was shrouded by its unknown memorialist were successively baffled. Hence arose a suspicion that some bad Nicolai supposes that the rose was assumed as the symbol of secrecy, and the cross to express the solemnity of the oath by which the vow of secrecy was ratified. Such an allegoric meaning is not inconsistent with that which I have assigned, and may have been a secondary purpose of Andreä. Some authors have insisted on the words Sub Umbra Alarum tuarum, Jehova-which stand at the end of the Fama Fraternitatis as furnishing the initial letters of Johannes Val. Andreä, Stipendiata Tübingensis. But on this I have not thought it necessary to lay much stress. designs lurked under the ostensible purposes of these mysterious publications: a suspicion which was naturally strengthened by what now began to follow. Many vile impostors arose who gave themselves out for members of the Rosicrucian order; and, upon the credit which they thus obtained for a season, cheated numbers of their money by alchemy or of their health by panaceas. Three in particular made a great noise at Wetzlar, at Nuremberg, and at Augsburg: all were punished by the magistracy, one lost his ears in running the gauntlet, and one was hanged. At this crisis stepped forward a powerful writer, who attacked the supposed order with much scorn and homely good sense: this was Andrew Libau: he exposed the impracticability of the meditated reformation-the incredibility of the legend of Father Rosycross-and the hollowness of the pretended sciences which they professed. He pointed the attention of governments to the confusions which these impostures were producing, and predicted from them a renewal of the scenes which had attended the fanaticism of the Anabaptists. These writings (of which two were Latin, Frankfurt, 1615, folio-one in German, Erfurt, 1616, 8vo.) added to others of the same tendency, would possibly have laid the storm by causing the suppression of all the Rosicrucian books and pretensions: but this termination of the mania was defeated by two circumstances: the first was the conduct of the Paracelsists. With frantic eagerness they had sought to press into the imaginary order: but, finding themselves lamentably repulsed in all their efforts, at length they paused; and, turning suddenly round, they said to one another-" What need to court this perverse order any longer? We are ourselves Rosicrucians as to all the essential marks laid down in the three books. We also are holy persons of great knowledge: we also make gold, or shall make it: we also no doubt, give us but time, shall reform the world: external ceremonies are nothing: substantially it is clear that we are the Rosicrucian order." Upon this they went on in numerous books and pamphlets to assert that they were the very identi cal order instituted by Father Rosycross and described in the Fama Fraternitatis. The public mind was now perfectly distracted; no man knew what to think; and the uproar became greater than ever. The other circumstance, which defeated the tendency of Libau's exertions, was the conduct of Andreä and his friends. Clear it is that Andreä enjoyed the scene of confusion, until he began to be sensible that he had called up an apparition which it was beyond his art to lay. Well knowing that in all that great crowd of aspirants, who were knocking clamorously for admittance into the airy college of Father Rosycross, though one and all pretended to be enamoured of that mystic wisdom he had promised, yet by far the majority were in fact enamoured of that gold which he had hinted at,-it is evident that his satirical* propensities were violently tickled and he was willing to keep up the hubbub of delusion by flinging out a couple of pamphlets amongst the hungry crowd which tended to amuse them : these were, 1. Epistola ad Reverendam Fraternitatem R. Crucis. Francof. 1613; 2. Assertio Fraternitatis R. C. à quodam Fratern. ejus Socio carmine expressa, Franc. 1614: which last was translated into German in 1616; and again, in 1618, into German rhyme under the title of Ara Fœderis therapici, or Altar I have no doubt that Andreä alludes to his own high diversion on this occasion in the following passage of a later work (Mythologia Christiana) which he printed at Strasburg in 1619. It is Truth (die Aletheia) who is speaking: "Planissime nihil cum hac Fraternitate (sc. Ros. Crucis) commune habeo. Nam, cùm paullo ante lusum quendam ingeniosiorem personatus aliquis (no doubt himself) in literario foro agere vellet,-nihil mota sum libellis inter se conflictantibus; sed velut in scenâ prodeuntes histriones non sine voluptate spectavi."-Like Miss in her Teens (in the excellent farce of Garrick) who so much enjoys the prospect of a battle between her two lovers, Andreä-instead of calming the tumult which he had caused, was disposed at first to cry out to the angry polemics-"Stick him, Captain Flash; do,-stick him, Captain Flash." |