PREFACE.

...in proclaiming original: ebuccinando (literally "to trumpet forth") mysteries both divine and natural. Why, therefore, should the community original: cœnobium; a term usually referring to a monastery or a communal religious living space. of this order not be diligently sought after? And once found through such inquiry, why should it not finally be approached? For it has been spread abroad in both writings and speeches that this brotherhood will offer itself to us freely, of its own accord, without any force applied, and without cost.

Or why should such gifts of wisdom offered to us be so lightly rejected, when—as Hippocrates Hippocrates of Kos (c. 460 – c. 370 BC), the ancient Greek physician often called the "Father of Medicine." testifies—life is short, but art is long, and opportunity is fleeting? original: vita sit brevis, ars verò longa, & occasio volucris. This is the famous opening aphorism of Hippocrates. To this doubt, Dr. Libavius Andreas Libavius (1555–1616), a German physician and chemist. Though a believer in alchemy, he was a fierce critic of the Rosicrucians, whom he viewed as disruptive and heretical. certainly seems to respond in his Analysis of the Confession of the Rosy Cross Fraternity. However, in that work—if we weigh his writings with a careful eye—we will discover more bitterness and "pen-malevolence" than any fundamental investigation of the matter.

For in one place, he brings the brothers under suspicion of sedition meaning inciting rebellion against the state or church.. Elsewhere, he contends that their promises cannot be fulfilled or performed without detestable magic or diabolical illusions. Then, he strives to stain them with heresy, perhaps contaminating the truth with a lie. It is usually held to be an extreme injustice to accuse another or condemn them for a crime or wickedness based merely on "effects," as it were, before the cause is accurately explored and examined in the proper way.

Hence it is that I have proposed in my mind to defend the cause of the fraternity against these slanderous aspersions of Dr. Libavius and others, using both their own weapons and those taken from the quivers of others. Let us hear, I pray, the brothers speaking for themselves in their Confession...