ON THE ROSICRUCIANS.

could bring it into suspicion, and he does not lack the pretenses and arguments by which he could excuse these Brothers themselves, however much they are adversaries of uncorrupted truth, and commend them as if they were innocent in doctrine and life. For since he painted Paracelsus to us in his Haeresiologia history of heresies far differently than we read in other historical accounts that he truly was, and yet he saw that Theophrastus was hailed by Morhof—with whom he elsewhere proudly agrees, because he feels more mildly about men of this flour—in Vol. II, Book I, Chapter XV, not only as an almost illiterate innovator in theology and philosophy, but also as the father of recent enthusiasts who made a kind of mixed chaos out of theology and philosophy, Arnold did not wish to trace the origins of these little brothers back to that man, lest he and the associates of the errors and vices of Paracelsus should seem the same to anyone, for the defense of whom it would perhaps be a much more difficult matter to undertake. Therefore, in order to be able to excuse them better, he deemed it to his advantage to ascribe their origin to a Lutheran theologian, so that the memory of the malice of the orthodox—who are occupied with attacking and refuting them—might stand as more witnessed, or, as the words of Arnold himself have it in § 5, quite bitingly: original: "Wie übel und unvorsichtig so viel Orthodoxi ihren Religions-Eiffer angewandt / da sie wider ein Gedicht eines Lutherischen Theologi so heftig gestritten haben." How poorly and incautiously so many Orthodox have applied their religious zeal, when they have fought so violently against the poem of a Lutheran theologian. This maliciousness of his reveals more than enough his hatred against orthodoxy, which has been odious to many others until this present time.

VIII. The same reasoning, without a doubt, impelled Arnold to write, in Section 4, Paragraph 2, that Weigel is in vain and falsely peddled by some as the author of this Philadelphia brotherly love / spiritual society. To be sure, Arnold acknowledged him as an associate in error, and, having Weigel himself as a confessing defendant, he does not deny in Part II, page 618, that he owes much to Paracelsus. Therefore, it was not to his taste to ascribe the origin to these holy men (as he considers them), but a Lutheran theologian seemed a much more suitable candidate to take on these parts. I, however, not with an evil mind but with the best intention, believe that Weigel is held by some to be the founder of this society, and I would propose a certain parallelism between Weigel and the said Brothers, were not this very thing in some way already