It is obvious that all these have now passed into the realms of science and are no longer regarded as magical arts; but the further categories enumerated by Fludd and comprised under the general heading of Necromantic Magic retain the popular sense of the term. These are described as (i) Goetic, which consists in "diabolical commerce with unclean spirits, in rites of criminal curiosity, in illicit songs and invocations, and in the evocation of the souls of the dead"; (2) Maleficent, which is the adjuration of the devils by the virtue of Divine Names; and (3) Theurgic, purporting "to be governed by good angels and the Divine Will, but its wonders are most frequently performed by evil spirits, who assume the names of God and of the angels." (4) "The last species of magic is the Thaumaturgic, begetting illusory phenomena; by this art the Magi produced their phantoms and other marvels." To this list might be added Celestial Magic, or knowledge dealing with the influence of the heavenly bodies, on which astrology is based.
The forms of magic dealt with in the preceding part of this chapter belong therefore to the second half of these categories, that is to say, to Necromantic Magic. But at the same period another movement was gradually taking shape which concerned itself with the first category enumerated above, that is to say, the secret properties of natural substances.
A man whose methods appear to have approached to the modern conception of scientific research was Theophrastus Bombastus von Hohenheim, commonly known as Paracelsus, the son of a German doctor, born about 1493, who during his travels in the East is said to have acquired a knowledge of some secret doctrine which he afterwards elaborated into a system for the healing of diseases. Although his ideas were thus doubtless drawn from some of the same sources as those from which the Jewish Cabala descended, Paracelsus does not appear to have been a Cabalist, but a scientist of no mean order, and, as an isolated thinker, apparently connected with no secret association, does not enter further into the scope of this work.
Paracelsus must therefore not be identified with the school of so-called "Christian Cabalists," who, from Raymond Lulli, the "doctor illuminatus" of the thirteenth century, onward, drew their inspiration from the Cabala of the Jews. This is not to say that the influence under which they fell was wholly pernicious, for, just as certain Jews appear to have acquired some real medical skill, so also they appear to have possessed some real knowledge of natural science, inherited perhaps from the ancient traditions of the East or derived from the writings of Hippocrates, Galen, and other of the great Greek physicians and as yet unknown to Europe. Thus Eliphas Lévi relates that the Rabbi Jechiel, a Cabalistic Jew protected by St. Louis, possessed the secret of ever-burning lamps,[242] claimed later by the Rosicrucians, which suggests the possibility that some kind of luminous gas or electric light may have been known to the Jews. In alchemy they were the acknowledged leaders; the most noted alchemist of the fourteenth century, Nicholas Flamel, discovered the secret of the art from the book of "Abraham the Jew, Prince, Priest, Levite, Astrologer, and Philosopher," and this actual book is said to have passed later into the possession of Cardinal Richelieu.[243]
It was likewise from a Florentine Jew, Alemanus or Datylus, that Pico della Mirandola, the fifteenth-century mystic, received instructions in the Cabala[244] and imagined that he had discovered in it the doctrines of Christianity. This delighted Pope Sixtus IV, who thereupon ordered Cabalistic writings to be translated into Latin for the use of divinity students. At the same time the Cabala was introduced into Germany by Reuchlin, who had learnt Hebrew from the Rabbi Jacob b. Jechiel Loans, court physician to Frederick III, and in 1494 published a Cabalistic treatise De Verbo Mirifico, showing that all wisdom and true philosophy are derived from the Hebrews. Considerable alarm appears, however, to have been created by the spread of Rabbinical literature, and in 1509 a Jew converted to Christianity, named Pfefferkorn, persuaded the Emperor Maximilian I to burn all Jewish books except the Old Testament. Reuchlin, consulted on this matter, advised only the destruction of the Toledot Yeshu and of the Sepher Nizzachon by the Rabbi Lipmann, because these works "were full of blasphemies against Christ and against the Christian religion," but urged the preservation of the rest. In this defence of Jewish literature he was supported by the Duke of Bavaria, who appointed him professor at Ingoldstadt, but was strongly condemned by the Dominicans of Cologne. In reply to their attacks Reuchlin launched his defence De Arte Cabalistica, glorifying the Cabala, of which the "central doctrine for him was the Messianology around which all its other doctrines grouped themselves."[245] His whole philosophical system, as he himself admitted, was in fact entirely Cabalistic, and his views were shared by his contemporary Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim. As a result of these teachings a craze for Cabalism spread amongst Christian prelates, statesmen, and warriors, and a number of Christian thinkers took up the doctrines of the Cabala and "essayed to work them over in their own way." Athanasius Kircher and Knorr, Baron von Rosenroth, author of the Kabbala Denudata, in the course of the seventeenth century "endeavoured to spread the Cabala among the Christians by translating Cabalistic works which they regarded as most ancient wisdom." "Most of them," the Jewish Encyclopædia goes on to observe derisively, "held the absurd idea that the Cabala contained proofs of the truth of Christianity.... Much that appears Christian [in the Cabala] is, in fact, nothing but the logical development of certain ancient esoteric doctrines."[246]
The Rosicrucians appear to have been the outcome both of this Cabalistic movement and of the teachings of Paracelsus. The earliest intimation of their existence was given in a series of pamphlets which appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The first of these, entitled the Fama Fraternitatis; or a Discovery of the Fraternity of the most Laudable Order of the Rosy Cross, was published at Cassel in 1614 and the Confessio Fraternitatis early in the following year. These contain what may be described as the "Grand Legend" of Rosicrucianism, which has been repeated with slight variations up to the present day. Briefly, this story is as follows[247]:
"The most godly and highly-illuminated Father, our brother C.R.," that is to say, Christian Rosenkreutz, "a German, the chief and original of our Fraternity," was born in 1378, and some sixteen years later travelled to the East with a Brother P.A.L., who had determined to go to the Holy Land. On reaching Cyprus, Brother P.A.L. died and "so never came to Jerusalem." Brother C.R., however, having become acquainted with certain Wise Men of "Damasco in Arabia," and beheld what great wonders they wrought, went on alone to Damasco. Here the Wise Men received him, and he then set himself to study Physick and Mathematics and to translate the Book M into Latin. After three years he went to Egypt, whence he journeyed on to Fez, where "he did get acquaintance with those who are called the Elementary inhabitants, who revealed to him many of their secrets.... Of those of Fez he often did confess that their Magia was not altogether pure and also that their Cabala was defiled with their religion, but notwithstanding he knew how to make good use of the same." After two years Brother C.R. departed the city Fez and sailed away with many costly things into Spain, where he conferred with the learned men and being "ready bountifully to impart all his arts and secrets" showed them amongst other things how "there might be a society in Europe which might have gold, silver, and precious stones sufficient for them to bestow on kings for their necessary uses and lawful purposes...."
Christian Rosenkreutz then returned to Germany, where "there is nowadays no want of learned men, Magicians, Cabalists, Physicians, and Philosophers." Here he "builded himself a fitting and neat habitation in which he ruminated his voyage and philosophy and reduced them together in a true memorial." At the end of five years' meditation there "came again into his mind the wished-for Reformation: accordingly he chose some few adjoyned with him," the Brethren G.V., I.A., and I.O.--the last of whom "was very expert and well learned in Cabala as his book H witnesseth"--to form a circle of initiates. "After this manner began the Fraternity of the Rosy Cross." Five other Brethren were afterwards added, all Germans except I.A., and these eight constituted his new building called Sancti Spiritus. The following agreement was then drawn up:
First, that none of them should profess any other thing than to cure the sick, and that gratis.
Second, none of the posterity should be constrained to wear one certain kind of habit, but therein to follow the custom of the country.
Third, that every year, upon the day C., they should meet together at the house Sancti Spiritus, or write the cause of his absence.
Fourth, every Brother should look about for a worthy person who, after his decease, might succeed him.
Fifth, the word C.R. should be their seal, mark, and character.
Sixth, the Fraternity should remain secret one hundred years.
Finally Brother C.R. died, but where and when, or in what country he was buried, remained a secret. The date, however, is generally given as 1484. In 1604 the Brethren who then constituted the inner circle of the Order discovered a door on which was written in large letters