To know the history of the mysterious Order of the Rose-Croix, it is indispensable to refer to the ancient documents which attest to its existence in Europe at the beginning of the 17th century.
The most important of these documents and the earliest is entitled: Allegemeine und generale Reformation des gantzen weiten Welte,heneben der Fama Fraternitatis des löblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes an alle Gelehrte und Haupter Europae geschrieben …. This anonymous text of 147 pages in octavo appeared in Cassel from the printery of Wilhelm Wessel in 1614.
The essential and original part of the Reformation is the Fama Fraternitatis comprising pages 91 to 118 of the 1614 edition.
The Fama Fraternitatis speaks of a secret fraternity founded two centuries before by Christian Rosenkreutz
whose life it recounts.
Born of a noble family, Christian Rosenkreutz became orphaned at an early age. He grew up in a convent which he left at the age of sixteen years in order to travel in Arabia, Egypt and Morocco (Sedir, Histoire des Rose-Croix, p 42).
It is during the course of these travels in Islamic countries that he was put into contact with the sages of the East, who revealed to him the universal harmonic science derived from the Book M which Rosenkreutz translated.
It is on the foundation of this teaching that he conceived the plan for simultaneous universal religious, philosophic, scientific, political, and artistic reform. For the realization of this plan he united with several disciples to whom he gave the name of Rose-Croix.
The founder of the Order of the Rose-Croix belonged, as affirmed by his historians, to a noble family, but no document allows us to affirm this peremptorily. But that which is certain is that he was an orientalist and a great traveler.
The Fama tells us "that in his youth he attempted a journey to the Holy Sepulchre with a brother P.A.L. Although this brother died in Cyprus and so did not see Jerusalem, our brother C.R. did not turn back, but embarked for the other coast and directing himself towards Damascus, wanting to continue by visiting Jerusalem, but die to sickness of body, he stopped himself and thanks to the use of some drugs (which were not foreign to him) he received the favor of the Turks and entered into contact with the Sages of Damasco (Damcar) in Arabia….
"
He became acquainted with the miracles accomplished by the Sages and how the whole of nature was unveiled to them. Not being able to contain his impatience, he made an agreement with the Arabs that they would take him to Damcar for a certain sum of money.
If one admits the date 1378 as the date of birth of Christian Rosenkreutz, it is incontestable that the beginning of his voyage to the Middle East is situated in the first years of the 15th century during the interregnum of 1389 to 1402, during the epoch of Sultan Sulieman the First
(1402-1410). …but incontestably before the great catastrophe of 29th May 1453, the date of the taking of Constantinople by the Turks. Before that time, there is no doubt that relations between Europe and the Islamic world were quite normal and that a young lover of things Arabian such as C. Rosenkreutz would not have lost the opportunity to be accepted in the learned circles of Islamic countries.
In spite of the intellectual decadence which marked the end of the Caliphate " the universities of Cairo, Baghdad and Damascus were highly
reputed."
There is nothing at all surprising that this young German savant should go to Jerusalem and have the desire to know about the Arab philosophy whose influence had been so considerable on medieval scholasticism since Gregory IX had lifted the prohibition on Aristotle and the Arab
philosophers
The text of the Fama relative to the relationship of C.Rosenkreutz with the Sages of Damasco is not yet as clear as one thinks. Does it suggest Damascus? This village in Arabia is named Damashqûn. In addition, the ancient capital of the realm of Damacène, the capital of Syria, is not at all in Arabia.
In reality does it not suggest a totally different school? It is necessary to note that the word university or college corresponds to the arabic noun madrasat. The author of a History of Lebanon refers to the "madrasat-ul-hûqûqi fi Bayrût", which means the University of Law in
Beirut.
The word Damcar therefore remains quite mysterious. I have in vain consulted dictionaries by Lane, Kazimirski, Richardson, Wahrmund, Zenker, Belot, Houwa, the Supplement aux dictionnaires arabes by Dozy, the Additions aux dictionnaires arabes by Fagnan, the Enzyklopädie des Islam and the Geschichte der Arabischen Literatur by Brocklemann. DMCR is not an arabic root.
And yet Damcar doesn’t seem so far from Jerusalem. It is there that he strengthened his foundation in the Arabic language that the following year he translated the Book M into good Latin.
It is sufficiently difficult to know what the author intended by Book M. Perhaps it suggests a translation of a lost book by Aristotle, bearing this title, but it hardly seems probable. Since the Fama cites other books by means of a letter, one can induce that the initials in question correspond to the categorization Chr. Rosenkreutz made for the books which he translated from Arabic.
After three years of study in which he especially concentrated on medicine and mathematics, he embarked from the Sinu Arabico for Egypt, where he applied his attention to plants and animals.
He doesn’t seem to have been in Egypt for very long , when as he states, he embarked for the destination of Fez. What he says here is worth remembering: " Every year the Arabs and Africans send their chosen deputies to meet to question each other on the subject of the Arts and to know whether something better hasn’t been discovered, or if experience hasn’t weakened their basic principles. Therefore every year sees something new which improves mathematics, medicine, and
magic." But he recognized that "their magic was not
altogether pure and their Kabbalah is defiled by their religion".
The Sages whom he meets in Fez are in periodic and regular contact with those of other Islamic countries. The "Elementaries", that is to say those who study the elements, revealed many of their secrets to
him.
Fez was at the time a center of philosophical and occultist studies: some taught there were the alchemy of Abu-Abdallah, Gabir ben Hayan, and the Imam Jafar al Sadiq, the astrology and magic of Ali-ash-Shabramallishi, the esoteric science of Abdarrahman ben Abdallah al Iskari. These studies flourished from the time of the
Omayyads.
The fact that secrets are suggested indicates without any doubt that they formed the teachings of secret societies. It doesn’t at all suggest the Sabeans, an essentially heterodox society which represented a survival of paganism. One is inclined to believe that Chr. Rosenkreutz had found his secrets amongst the Brethren of Purity, a society of philosophers which had formed in Basra in the first half of the fourth century after the Hejira (622 ) which , without being orthodox , interpreted the dogmas and applied itself seriously to scientific research. Their doctrine which had its source in the study of the ancient Greek philosophers, became more pronounced in a neo-Pythagorean
direction. They took from the Pythagorean tradition the habit of envisaging things under their numeric aspect.
Their interpretation of dogma remained a secret from society due to its heterodox nature.
For example, on the subject of resurrection, they explained that the word resurrection (qiyamah) is derived from subsistence (qiyam ) and when the soul leaves the body it subsists by its essence , and it is this which resurrection actually consists.
The Brethren of Purity had in each locality a meeting place where non-members were excluded, and where they could discuss their secrets together. They would mutually help each other "like the hand and foot work together for the body."
There were various degrees in the order: masters of crafts, governors or pastors of the brothers, the degree of sultan which represented legislative power, and finally the supreme degree, named the royal degree which conferred a state of vision or revelation like the one attained at death.
The secret part of the teaching was on the subject of theurgy: the divine and angelic names, conjurations, the Kabbalah, exorcisms etc…
The Brethren of Purity differed from the Sufis but they were united in many points of doctrine. They were both mystical orders deriving from Koranic theology. The dogma is supplanted by faith in the Divine
Reality.
The Sufis evidently distinguished themselves from Brethren of Purity, and if their doctrines had some points in common with nearly all the Sufi sects, it is necessary to certainly except that which admitted metempsychosis. Following the teachings of the Arab neo-platonic philosophers and Jewish kabbalists who often influenced the mystics, they called for the idea of metempsychosis, in order to represent the chastisement of the impure soul leaving the
body.
Their teaching presented enough Christian cross fertilizations that it attracted the attention of the Christian initiate C.Rosenkreutz. Their doctrine of the Logos deriving from the Gospels evidently differed from the Christian idea, but there was among them a syncretism which one discovers in the Rosicrucian rituals. In the ascension of the soul towards God, the Illumination of the Names is given by the Bible, the Illumination of the attributes by the Gospels, and the Illumination of the Essence by the Koran. Jesus and Mohammed had revealed the mysteries of the
Invisible. This is well enough the character of this syncretism.
It is to be noted that Brethren of Purity did not wear any special clothing; it is a known fact that the initiators also assured themselves that one person who could succeed them, and that they practiced abstinence, which the author of the Fama translated by an Arab image " they were engaged to virginity " , they healed the sick . I will abstain from citing the names of the great Arabic doctors who are so well known.
The Rosicrucian doctrine of Creation which we have recently published, is found again in its entirety in the philosophy of Ibn Sina. God does not create the world directly but the necessary Being emanates a pure intelligence which is the First Cause. This First Cause knows the Creator as necessary and itself as possible. From this time multiplicity introduces itself into the Order of creation. This intelligence is the active intellect, the illuminator of souls. From sphere to sphere (through the ten spheres) the radiance persues itself towards the pure intelligences as far as the level of matter.
God is understood therefore as the omnipotent and creative First Cause. He cannot have been abstaining from all time and have commenced that which implies in him a change so that the creation is eternal.
The Creator does not directly create matter, but it is through the role of the intermediaries, the angels who identify themselves with the first
principles.
It is possible that Chr. Rosenkreutz could have known the teachings of Ibn Sina or Abdu’l-Karim al-Jili, who developed an analogous theory: " The world is co-eternal with God, but in the logical order, the judgement that God exists in Himself is anterior to the judgement that things exist in his knowledge. He knows them as He knows Himself but they are not eternal and He is
eternal."
Mohyi-ed-Din taught that the souls are pre-existent to the body, that they are of different degrees of perfection and that they unequally break through the shadows of the body. The act of learning for them, therefore is nothing more than a remembering, a return ascension towards the place from which they had first departed.
Ibn-Arabi who wrote a book on "The Hundred Names of God" used circles to expound his system , which is singularly close to that of "Dignitates Divinae" by Raymond Lully, who is considered as an initiate and precursor to the Rose-Croix.
Rosicrucian theurgy hardly differs from that of the Sufis although the Sufis derive a very rich angelology from the Koran. At the side of the Cherubim is a more elevated angel named al-Nun who symbolizes Divine Knowledge. He is placed in front of the celestial Tablet; under the Throne are placed the angels named al Qalam ( the pens); the angel al-Mudabbir ; the angels named al-Mufassil are placed before the Imamu’l Mubin, (First Intelligence); the Ruh are the objects of Divine Knowledge…… The Sufi mystic when he reaches the degree of perfection is in contact with the angels. If by them he attains the knowledge of the worlds visible and invisible, it is by them also that he exercises a superhuman power over things, over humanity and over events, since the evoked angels here are no longer the simple messengers of God but the thought itself of God, in so far as it emanates from the Divine Essence through the First Created towards the metaphysical reality of things.
It is in this that the High Magic al sihru’l ali resides . In "The Path of Divine Unity", the mystic Jili explains how by the use of a formula the mystic obtains from God that which he
desires.
Notes:
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