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ROSICRUCIANS AND FREEMASONS. 405
secrets by one, Kolling, a treacherous member of the associa-
tion."
These statements must be taken at their value, but even
doubtful facts are of equal weight with hypotheses founded
on assumptions of the most gratuitous kind, and supported
by tortured quotations. It is, however, on the universal
concensus of competent Masonic opinion that I should
found the rejection of the Buhlean view. Mackey,
in the
"
Synoptical Index " to his " Symbolism of Freemasonry,"
says that the Eosicrucian Society resembled the Masonic
in its organization and in some of the subjects of its inves-
tigation, " but it was in no other way
connected with Free
Masonry." In the " Lexicon " he again tells us that " the
Eosicrucians had no connection whatever with the Masonic
fraternity," and that it is only malignant revilers, like
Baruel in his " Memoirs of Jacobinism," who attempt to
identify
the two institutions. Other authorities are not
less pronounced in their opinions.
It is to the institution of the Eose-Cross degree in Free-
masonry that the confusion of opinion on this point
be mainly traced. When ill-informed persons happen to
is to
hear that there are " Sovereign Princes of Eose-Croix,"
"
Princes of Eose-Croix de Heroden," &c., among the Ma-
sonic Brethren, they naturally identify these splendid in-
anities of occult nomenclature with the mysterious and awe-
inspiring Eosicrucians. The origin of the Eose-Cross degree
is involved in the most profound mystery. Its foundation
has been attributed to Johann Valentin Andreas,
but this
is an ignorant confusion, arising from the alleged connec-
tion of the theologian of Wirtemberg with the society of
Christian Eosencreutz. There is no trace of its existence
before the middle of the eighteenth century, though the