Solemn Historical Dissertation on the Rosicrucians

to join this man with the founder of the R. C., as a man of the same institute, whom the Rosicrucians themselves also join with their founder, C. Rosencrux, in the Fama Fraternitatis, p. 15. Certainly, they praise him highly (pp. 8, 19—compare the writing of Haselmeyer, in which he celebrates Theophrastus throughout as the author), and they venerate and admire him most in medical matters, both because he cherished the same institute of universal amendment that they themselves did, and because he enveloped his own things in likewise obscure, unusual, and strange locutions, and finally because he boasted of his own things with the same spirit and despised all others. Indeed, Joseph Stellatus, a not-uncelebrated defender of the Rosicrucians, in his Pegasus of the Firmament, Chapter IV, § "The Other Nature, etc.", thinks and strives to prove from a certain writing of Paracelsus that he left behind no common prophecies about this Fraternity in his insignia and writings. And truly, if one ponders these words more deeply: original: "Der Himmel wird Aerzte machen / die da werden die vier Elementen erkennen / darzu auch Magicam und Cabbalisticam / die euch Cataracten vor den Augen seynd. Sie werden Geomantici seyn / sie werden Adepti seyn / sie werden Spagyri seyn / sie werden Quintum esse haben / sie werden Arcana haben / sie werden Mysteria haben / sie werden Tincturam haben : Wo werdet ihr Suppen-Wust bleiben unter dieser Renolution &c." The heavens shall make physicians who will recognize the four elements, as well as Magic and Cabbala, which are cataracts before your eyes. They will be Geomancers, they will be Adepts, they will be Spagyrics, they will have the Quintessence, they will have Arcana, they will have Mysteries, they will have the Tincture: where will you soup-muddle-heads remain under this revolution, etc. If one, I say, ponders these words more deeply, it could seem to him that the beginning of this Fraternity is tacitly denoted. Nor would it be difficult to show how the Rosicrucians conspire in a friendly manner with Paracelsus, both in dogmatic errors and in the similarity of morals and genius. But, since the narrowness of the paper does not allow it, it is helpful to set down only the judgment of Libavius, who, in the Preface to the Analysis of the Confession of the Fraternity of the Rose Cross, notably writes thus: "The same knowledge" (namely that of Paracelsus, of whom he spoke before) "is also boasted of by the Society. Whoever has leisure can reread the Tomes of Paracelsus with Croll’s Preface to his Basilica. Without difficulty, one will also find each of the propositions of the Society, and will see that they are rather translated from the writings of Paracelsus, etc." I will therefore only indicate why Arnold does not acknowledge Paracelsus as the author of this fraternity, namely, in order to better lead a good and orthodox man