authority, when there lies close at hand an explanation so much more obvious. The rose was a term of deep alchemical import, and the cross in the same language signified light, because the figure of the cross was supposed to present to the eye at once the three letters, of which lux, or light is compounded. But lux among the alchemists is called the seed, or menstruum, of the dragon; or, in other words, that gross or corporeal light, which produces gold, when properly digested. The rosy cross would then be intended to express alchemically the red drayon, itself the symbol of the great secret of Rosicrucianism. Others, and amongst them Mosheim, hold the word to be a compound of ros, dew, and not of rosa, giving as a reason that dew was considered by the alchemists the most powerful solvent of gold. If ros were indeed the word intended, other causes, perhaps even more cogent, might be assigned for its adoption. According to Theodoretus, the Bishop of Cyrus in Syria, ros or dew was deemed by the Gnostics symbolical of Christ,* while the Sethians, Ophians, or Ophites, as the emblematical serpent-worshippers were variously called, held that the dew which fell from the excess of light, was wisdom, the hermaphroditic deity.t The cross too may be traced to the caduceus of Hermes, and might have been used as the alchemical sign for Mercury. Maier however denies that the letters R. C. were either ros, rosa, or crux, and contends that they were arbitrarily chosen as a mere mark of distinction.‡ But what opportunity had he of know “ Αἰνίττεται τοῦ δεσπότου Χρισοῦ διὰ τῆς δρόσου μὲν τὴν OεóτηTα." B. Theodoreti Quæst. in Genes. cap. xxvii. Interrog. 82, p. 91, tomus 1, Halæ. 8vo. 1772. Id. Hæretic. Fabul. Compend., lib. i. cap. xiv., p. 307, tom. iv. a primo authore prescriptus est in duabus literarum notis, nempe R. C. eaque est quinta Fraternitatis lex et positio; idque ideo, ne ing his founder's purpose better than ourselves? At the same time it must be allowed he cuts the Gordian knot, which it is hardly possible to untie. Where symbols are to be explained, there is no end of conjecture. In whatever way the appellation may have been derived there does not seem from the first to have been any very great struggle for the antiquity of the order: Upon this point the proof is more than negative, for we have abundant instances where Rosicrucian advocates speak of it as being new. Thus in the title-page of a letter from Julian a Campis to the seekers after the brotherhood, he says Sendbrieff, oder Bericht an Alle welche von der neuen Bruderschafft des Ordens vom Rosen-Creutz genannt omnino Anonymi essent, cum nomen auctoris latere sit necessarium, tum pro continuatione societatis tum tutela. Interim fruerentur his binis adminiculis, quæ pro cujusque captu interpretationem admitterent. Nec enim diù abfuit, cum primum hæc Fraternitas per aliquod scriptum emanavit, quin mox interpres illorum se obtulerit, qui ea Roseam Crucem significare conjecerit, cum R. rosas et C. crucem designent, in quâ opinione hucusque res permansit, licet ipsi testentur fratres in posterioribus scriptis se ita perperam vocitari, sed R.C. denotare nomen sui primi authoris symbolicè." Themis Aurea, Authore M. Maiero, Francofurti, 1618, p. 156. "Their symbol and character of mutual agnition was prescribed to them by their first author in two initials, namely R.C. and that is the fifth law and position of the Fraternity. This was done that they might not be altogether anonymous, since it was necessary the founder's name should be secret both for the continuance of the society and as a safeguard; in the meanwhile they could use these two stays, which every one might explain according to his own notions. Nor was it long-the society becoming known by their writings-before an interpreter offered himself, who conjectured that they meant the rosy cross, since R. might designate roses. and C. a cross, which opinion has hitherto prevailed, although the Brothers in their later writings have protested that to call them thus was wrong, and that R.C. denoted the name of their founder symbolically." The reader has here a large variety of opinions, and must indeed be hard to please if he do not find one amongst them to his taste. etwas gelesen &c.*—that is, a Letter or Instructions, to all who have read of the new Brotherhood of the Order of the Rosy-Cross; or who have, &c. Abandoning this design, if they ever entertained it, they attempted to prove, what was scarcely less difficult, that their religious philosophy had existed from the earliest periods. The most modest, or at least the most prudent, of them in efforts of this kind was the physician, Michael Maier, who contended that Adam understood all the mysteries of air and earth, as also his own anatomy, both internal and external,† leaving it to be inferred that alchemy also was amongst his acquirements. Next to Adam in knowledge was Solomon, whom the doctor supposes to have discussed Rosicrucian mysteries with queen Saba, and Hiram the Tyrian; and, following up this idea, he brings forward the whole party in learned converse, mutually propounding and expounding upwards of three hundred philosophic enigmas. The nature of this high colloquy may be imagined from one or two instances,"Quid de tincturâ volatili statuis? an ea figi possit?" what do you determine of the volatile tincture? can it be fixed? "Cur animam lapidis vocas unguentum?" why * This little tract forms part of the Fama, or more correctly speaking, is appended to it, and therefore the society, supposing it to exist at all, was new in 1617. +"Item aeris meteora, terræ fossilia, vegetabilia, animalia, et denique seipsum, hoc est hominis membrorum et viscerum, nomina et proprietates optime novit." Septimana Philosophica, Authore Mich. Maiero. Francofurti, 1620, 4to.-Præfatio.-" Also he well knew the meteors of the air, the fossils, vegetables, and animals, of the earth, and lastly himself; that is to say, the names and properties of the limbs and internal parts of man." There is something exceedingly original and striking in the notion of Adam's being so well acquainted with his own inside, and that too before he had eaten of the tree of knowledge. After this, one finds no difficulty in believing he was an alchemist-or indeed any thing that the learned doctor pleases. do you call the soul of a stone an ointment?—" Quis est pater lapidis, et quis avus? who is the father, and who is the grandfather of the stone, &c. &c. the answers to these, and the like, propositions being to the full as amusing and instructive as the propositions themselves. The whole is yet farther illustrated by an engraved border to the title page, showing Solomon on his throne, the lady at his right hand, and the builder at his left, while Rosicrucians, or sages of some sort, are seated around at their writing-desks, busy, as it seems, in noting down so valuable a conversation. But while the Rosicrucians strove hard to prove that their secret knowledge was derived from Adam, or at least from Solomon, and that their sect had existed from all times, though under other names, they yet seemed for a long while after the appearance of the FAMA to abandon the idea of a Rosicrucian lodge, or as they called it, College. They were, according to their own account, a set of men, having the same object, and often, but not necessarily, in communication with each other; and even while they promulgated a code of laws, by which they professed to be governed, they were still fain to allow that they had no general home or place of meeting. This is distinctly admitted by Schweighart,* and * "Wiss demnach Kunst-und-Gott-liebende Brüder, dass ob woll, laut Ausschriebens der Brüder die incorporirte Versamblung aller Rosen-Creutze noch der zeit an einem gewissen Ort nicht angestelt, ein treuherziger, frommer, und auffrichtiger Mensch dennoch leichtlich, und ohne grosse muhe, mit dergleichen fratre kan zu red kommen.” Speculum Sophicum, &c., Schweighardt, p. 7. "Know then artand-God-loving brethren, that although according to the manifestos of the Brothers the incorporated assembly of all Rosicrucians has not hitherto been appointed for any fixed place, still a true-hearted, pious, and upright man may easily, and without much trouble, come to speech of one of them." Now here, it must be allowed, there is the same thing appears constantly in the writings of Maier and the other Paracelsists, who, as they could nowhere find the brotherhood announced by the fictitious Father Christian, gladly accepted the name of Rosicrucians, and endeavoured to form a society for themselves upon his model. To this they were the more easily led by the exact similarity of their views, as indeed it could not well be otherwise when the author of the FAMA had done little more than give a locality with a few fanciful adjuncts to the well-known doctrines and pretensions of the alchemists. Having thus provided themselves with a home, although it must be reckoned amongst the chateaux en Espagne, it was natural enough that the Paracelsists, or Rosicrucians, as we must now call them, should set about furnishing it, and with articles of the same fanciful nature. To drop all metaphor upon a subject, of itself sufficiently unintelligible, the Rosicrucian writers in their accounts of the brotherhood did not fail to eke out their imperfect hints of a hidden art or science with a variety of symbols, a practice which had long been familiar to them as alchemists, and which was in all probability the distinct assertion of a body, but a body that had no place of meeting seems like none at all. Setting this, however, aside, it clearly shows the non-existence of any Rosicrucian lodge or college. * Michael Maier was a native of Rendsberg in Holstein, a physician by profession, and like so many other medical men of the 17th century, devoted to alchemy, theosophy, and the mysteries of the Cabala. Möller (Cimbria Literata, vol. i. p. 377) says, he was also a poet, a philologist, and in chemistry one of the greatest men of his age." Medicus fuit planè eximius, philologusque, et poeta haud vulgaris, chymicus autem coœvis fere omnibus superior." In addition to all these accomplishments, if we may believe the same authority, he possessed the secret of the philosopher's stone. He died at Magdeburg in 1622. |