Lives of alchemystical philosophers / To which is added a bibliography of alchemy and hermetic philosophy

by Arthur Edward Waite; Francis Barrett

The story is suggestive and curious, but in literary and romantic merit it will bear no comparison with the “Chemical Nuptials of Christian Rosencreutz.”

EIRENÆUS PHILALETHES.

In “The Real History of the Rosicrucians,” having no space for an adequate discussion of the question, I followed the more general opinion of Hermetic writers by identifying the author of the Introitas Apertus with the author of the Lumen de Lumine, Thomas Vaughan, and concluded that he wrote indifferently under the pseudonyms of Eugenius Philalethes and Eirenæus Philalethes.

Certain misleading references in great but fallible bibliographies, and one piece of inextricable confusion in the text of the Introitus Apertus, made this view appear to be fairly reasonable. However, in the course of a somewhat detailed notice, a writer in the Saturday Review has taken me to task, by no means discourteously, be it said, for inaccuracy in my account of Vaughan.

On the authority of Ashmole and Wood, he states that this personage was the brother of the Silurist poet, Henry Vaughan, that he was born at Llansaintfraid, in Brecknockshire, during the year 1621, that he graduated at Jesus College, Oxford, took orders, and returned to hold the living of his native parish. Under the Commonwealth he was ejected as a Royalist, and then betook himself to chemical experiments, one of which cost him his life on the 27th of February 1665.

Now, it is clear that these facts do not correspond with the life, such as we know it, of the author of the Introitus Apertus, and the identification of the two Philalethes, a habit which is apparently unknown to the Saturday Reviewer, must be therefore abandoned. Why this identification has hitherto taken place, and why, with some misgivings, it was continued in my work on the Rosicrucians, may be very easily explained.

The grounds of the confusion are these:—First, the similarity of the assumed name, half of which was common to them both, while the other half appears to have been interchangeable in the minds of historians and bibliographers alike, including the compilers of the Catalogue in the Library of the British Museum, which attributes the Introitus Apertus indiscriminately to both Philalethes. Second, the fact that almost every edition and translation of this treatise contains the following passage in the initial paragraph of the preface:—

“I being an adept, anonymous, and lover of learning, decreed to write this little Treatise of physical secrets in the year 1645, in the twenty-third year of my age, to pay my duty to the sons of art, and lend my hand to bring them out of the labyrinth of error, to show the adepts that I am a brother equal to them. I presage that many will be enlightened by these my labours. They are no fables, but real experiments, which I have seen, made, and know, as any adept will understand. I have often in writing laid aside my pen, because I was willing to have concealed the truth under the mask of envy; but God compelled me to write, Whom I could not resist: He alone knows the heart—to Him only be glory for ever. I undoubtedly believe that many will become blessed in this last age of the world with this arcanum. May the will of God be done! I confess myself unworthy of effecting such things—I adore the holy will of God, to Whom all things are subjected! He created and preserves them to this end.”

A simple arithmetical operation will show that the author was consequently born in the year 1621, when also Eugenius Philalethes, otherwise Thomas Vaughan, first saw the light. This would remain unchallenged, but for the fact that the original edition[AH] of the Introitus is asserted to read trigesimo anno, in the thirty-third year, instead of vigesimo anno. There is no copy of this original edition in the British Museum, and my knowledge of it is derived from the reprint in Langlet du Fresnoy’s Histoire de la Philosophie Hermétique. Eirenæus, in accordance with the later impressions, is venerated by the faithful of Hermes as the adept who accomplished the grand and sublime act at the age of twenty-two.

These grounds, which in themselves are considerable, may be supplemented by the fact that there is much similarity in the style and methods of the two writers.