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PROGRESS OF ROSICRUCIAN1SM IN GERMANY. 257
The " Fama Remissa ad Fratres Roseae Crucis," which ap-
peared in 1616, is to a great extent an anonymous pamphlet
written against the pretensions and ideas of the Brethren,
principally denouncing their impracticahle and Utopian
ambition to reform the whole world. It complains bitterly
of their religious opinions, and absolutely declines to ac-
knowledge them as a good society until they openly accept
and subscribe to the Confession of Augsbourg. A brief
Latin appendix incidentally discusses the doctrine of tran-
substantiation and to reconcile the words of Jesus, " Hoc
est corpus meum" with the statement of this Evangelist, et
ascendit in codum, it speculates on the distance which inter-
venes between the earth and the Empyrean. According to
Pencerus the eighth sphere is distant 20081^ semidiameters
of the earth, and the distance, according to the " Fama
Remissa," from the Mount of Olives to the Empyrean
Heaven is, in its summa tota, 17,266,001 milliaria Germania I
The following year beheld the publication of Brotoffer's
curious and perverse alchemical interpretation of the Uni-
versal Reformation, another edition of the Rosicrucian
manifestoes, with additions by Julianus de Campis and
Georg Molthers, and two works from the pen of Michael
Maier, which will be noticed in the next chapter. Among
the curious pamphlets of this year professing to treat of the
mysterious Order, must be included the
Rosatse Crucis Confessio Recepta,' to wit : A
" '
Fraternitatis
short and
well-wishing report concerning the Confession or Faith of
the Brethren of the Rosy Cross, useful to all readers who
not only consider their well-being in this world, but their
salvation in the next. Written by A. 0. M T. W."
This appeared in defence of the Order, and maintains that
it is a good and useful Society, which is not merely in pos-