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212 HISTORY OF THE ROSICRUCIANS.
trum Chymicum," 1
printed at Strasbourg in 1 613, as a sec
society existing during the fourteenth century in Italy, and
the chief of which was called Eex Pliysicorum. Figulus 2
states it to have been founded in 1410, and asserts it to
have merged in the Kosicrucian Order about the year
1607. The same careful investigator cites an anonymous
letter, published at the end of the sixteenth century, and
stating the age of a certain secret society to be above two
thousand years. It is also asserted that the alchemist
Nicholas Barnaud conceived in 1591 a project of establish-
ing a secret convention of theosophical mystics,
who were
to devote themselves to a determined investigation of all
Kabbalistic sciences, and that he scoured both Germany
and France with this object. Finally, the "Echo of the
God-illuminated Order of the Brethren E. C." tells us that
in 1597 an attempt was actually made to found such a
society, apparently on the lines laid down by Barnaud,
and it is a remarkable fact that the preface to the Christian
Reader which is prefixed to this curious publication, is
dated June 1597, while that which is addressed to the
masters of the science," according to Eliphas Le>i, lived after 1315,
the date of the martyr's death, and nothing is known of his history,
transmutations. He is said to have been a
except his astounding
native of Ferrago, and has been described as "a Jewish neophyte."
John Cremer, the abbot of Westminster, describes his reception by
Edward I, King of England, who gave him an apartment in the
Tower to perform his transmutations, but the welcome guest soon
found himself a prisoner, and with difficulty effected his escape. See
"Cremeri Abatis Westmonasteriensis Testamentum,"
in the
" Museum Hermeticum," 4to, Francfurt, 1677-78. Camden, in
his
' '
Ecclesiastical Monuments, " gives also some details of Lully's
sojourn in England.
1 C. 87, p. 139.
- Benedictus Figulus was the author of " Pandora Magnalium,"
"Paradisus Aureolus Hermeticus," "Rosarium Novum Olympicum
et JBenedictum," " Thesaurinella Olympica," all published in 1608.