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ANTIQUITY OF ROSICRUCIAN FRATERNITY. 213
Brotherhood is dated 1 Nov. 1615, the book itself not
having appeared
till 1620.
These facts and statements are of the highest interest and
of very considerable importance within their own sphere,
but the existence of secret associations even two thousand
years old, much less the attempts occasionally made to
establish others, affords no proof that they were in any way
connected, or are to be identified,
with the Rosicrucian
Brotherhood, whose violent anti-Papal prejudices and ultra-
Protestant principles are sufficient proof of a post-Lutheran
origin.
The only sect or association with which the Rosicrucians
may be pertinently compared,
and which we hear of before
the year 1610, is the Militia Crucifera Evangelica which
assembled atLunenburg in 1598 under the auspices of the
mystic and theosophist, Simon Studiqn. Its proceedings
are reported in an unprinted work from his pen entitled
''
Naometria, seu nuda et prima libri, intus et foris scripti,
per clavem Davidis et calamum (virgee similem) apertio ;
quo non tantum ad cognoscenda tarn S. Scriptures totius,
quam naturae quoque universse, mysteria,
in
brevis fit intro-
ductio verum etiam Prognosticus (stellse illius matutinse,
Anno Domini 1572, conspectae ductu)
demonstratur Ad-
ventus ille Christi ante diem novissimum secundus per
quern homine peccati (Papa) cum filio sur perditionis
(Mahomedo) divinitus devestato, ipse
priricipatus mundi restaurabit, ut in iis post
ecclesiam suam et
hac sit cum
ovili pastor unus. In cruciferse militise Evangelicse gratiam.
Authore Simone Studione inter Scorpiones. Anno 1604."
As this work exists only in manuscript, and as there is no
transcript of this manuscript to be found in the English
public libraries, my chief knowledge of its contents, and of