download PDF version: 38.1MB - Global Grey

234
HISTORY OF THE ROS1CRUCIANS.
his hero, and to introduce those passages which refer to the
Eose Cross. This, of course, is conjectural,
but it is to be
remarked that so far as can be possibly ascertained, the
acknowledged symbol of the Fraternity never was a St
Andrew's Cross with four Eoses, but was a Cross of the
ordinary shape, with a Eed Eose in the centre,
or a Cross
rising out of a Eose. There is therefore little real warrant
for the identification of the mystical and the heraldic
badge. It is on this identification, however, that the
Andrean claim is greatly based.
III. We find the " Chymical Marriage," like the "Fama"
and " Confessio Fraternitatis," crusading against the
"vagabond cheaters," "runagates and roguish people," who
debased alchemical experiments in the interest of dishonest
speculation; yet the one, under a thin veil of fiction, de-
scribes the proceedings in the accomplishment of the
magnum opus, while the other terms transmutation a great
gift of God. These points of resemblance, however, do not
necessarily indicate a common authorship, for a general belief
in the facts of alchemy was held at that period by many
intelligent men, who were well aware, and loud in their
condemnation, of the innumerable frauds which disgraced
the science. On the other hand, it is plain that the history
of C. E.G., as it is contained in the " Fama," is not the his-
tory, equally fabulous, of that Knight of the Golden Stone,
who is the hero of the " Chymical Marriage."
IV. It is obviously easy to exaggerate the philological
argument, or rather the argument from the identity of
literary style,
in the documents under consideration. This
point indeed can only be adequately treated by a German.
At present it rests on a single assertion of Arnold, which
is uncorroborated by any illustrative facts. I think it will