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Liber XXV · Secret Societies

Liber XXV · Secret Societies · Chapter IV: Rosicrucianism

Fama Fraternitatis (1614): The First Rosicrucian Manifesto

The Fama Fraternitatis of 1614, the first Rosicrucian manifesto: its Kassel printing, the story of Christian Rosenkreutz, the tomb, its authors and meaning.

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The Fama Fraternitatis is the first of the Rosicrucian manifestos, printed anonymously at Kassel in 1614. It tells the story of Christian Rosenkreutz, a German pilgrim who learned the secrets of nature in the East and founded a hidden brotherhood, and announces that the discovery of his tomb signals a coming general reformation of learning and religion. Short and enigmatic, it invited Europe's learned to make contact with the brotherhood, and it set off one of the strangest intellectual sensations of the seventeenth century.

Publication of the Fama Fraternitatis at Kassel, 1614§

The Fama Fraternitatis, oder Entdeckung der Brüderschafft deß löblichen Ordens deß Rosen Creutzes (Fame of the Fraternity, or Discovery of the Brotherhood of the Laudable Order of the Rosy Cross) was issued in 1614 by the Kassel printer Wilhelm Wessel, who worked for the court of Landgrave Moritz of Hesse-Kassel, a prince with strong interests in alchemy and Paracelsian medicine. It did not appear alone. The volume opened with a German version of a satirical chapter from Traiano Boccalini's Ragguagli di Parnaso, in which Apollo's attempt at a "general reformation of the whole wide world" collapses into absurdity, and it closed with a reply to the Rosicrucians by Adam Haselmayer, a Tyrolean notary who had read the Fama in manuscript and had published an enthusiastic answer in 1612.

These details show that the text was not new in 1614. Manuscript copies had circulated in south-western Germany and Austria for several years, and Haselmayer reportedly suffered for his enthusiasm, being condemned to the galleys. Further editions followed rapidly: Frankfurt in 1615, together with the Confessio, and several more by 1617, along with Dutch and Latin versions. An overview of the movement it launched is in our guide to Rosicrucianism.

The Story of Brother C. R. in the Fama§

The narrative core of the Fama is a biography of the order's founder, referred to only by initials. Born to a poor noble family in Germany and placed in a monastery as a child, he set out as a young man on pilgrimage to the Holy Land with an older brother, who died in Cyprus. Instead of going to Jerusalem he travelled to "Damcar" in Arabia, where wise men received him as one long expected, taught him physics and mathematics, and gave him a mysterious "Book M", which he translated into Latin. He then went to Egypt and to Fez in Morocco, where he learned of the inhabitants of the elements and studied magic and Kabbalah, which the text says the Moroccans had not kept pure.

Returning by way of Spain, he offered the scholars there a reform of the arts based on what he had learned, but they mocked him, preferring their old authorities. Back in Germany he lived quietly, then gathered three companions, later increased to eight, and with them built a house called Sancti Spiritus (of the Holy Spirit). The brothers wrote down a body of knowledge, travelled abroad, and agreed on six rules:

  • to profess nothing but to heal the sick, and that without payment;
  • to wear no special habit but follow the dress of the country;
  • to meet once a year at the house of the Holy Spirit or explain their absence;
  • each to find a worthy successor;
  • to use the letters C. R. as their seal and mark;
  • to keep the fraternity secret for a hundred years.

The Fama praises Theophrastus Paracelsus, saying he was not a member but had read the brotherhood's "Book M", and it treats the reform of medicine and natural philosophy as central to its programme.

The Discovery of Christian Rosenkreutz's Tomb§

The most memorable section describes how, generations after the founder's death, a member of the third succession of brothers was altering the house and found a hidden door bearing the words Post CXX annos patebo, "after 120 years I shall open". Behind it lay a vault with seven sides, lit by an inner sun in the ceiling, with geometrical figures on the walls and a circular altar. The vault held books, mirrors, bells, lamps and "artificial songs", and under the altar lay the founder's body, whole and uncorrupted, holding a parchment book.

The tomb functions as a symbolic microcosm. An inscription on the altar is often rendered "I made this compendium of the universe as a tomb for myself while living", and the seven sides and the heptagonal design point to the seven planets and the order of creation. The vault ends with a Trinitarian formula well known from later Rosicrucian tradition, Ex Deo nascimur, in Jesu morimur, per Spiritum Sanctum reviviscimus: "from God we are born, in Jesus we die, through the Holy Spirit we live again". The Fama does not give dates, but the Confessio of the following year placed the founder's birth in 1378 and his death in 1484, which would put the opening of the tomb in 1604.

The Message: Reformation, Medicine and an Open Invitation§

Having announced the discovery, the brothers declare that a general reformation of divine and human things is at hand and invite learned men throughout Europe to declare themselves in print, promising that sincere seekers will be contacted. The Fama insists on its religious loyalty: the brothers confess the Christian faith as taught in the reformed churches of Germany, recognise two sacraments, and honour the Roman Empire. Its tone is strongly shaped by the Lutheran world of the early seventeenth century (see Protestantism and the Reformation), with its expectation that the last age of the world would bring a restoration of true knowledge.

The text also distances itself from greed. It condemns the "ungodly and accursed gold-making" of pretended alchemists and says that for the true philosopher the making of gold is a minor by-product, a parergon, compared with knowledge of God and nature. This contrast between true and false alchemy would become a constant theme of Rosicrucian and spiritual alchemy.

Who Wrote the Fama? The Tübingen Circle§

The Fama is anonymous, and its authorship is still debated. The strongest case points to a circle of young Lutheran scholars in Tübingen in the years around 1605–1610. Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654), later a respected theologian, admitted writing the Chymical Wedding and spoke of the Rosicrucian story as a ludibrium, a jest or play, though the word could also mean a serious drama. His older friend Tobias Hess (1568–1614), a jurist and physician with Paracelsian and apocalyptic interests, is widely thought to have been a co-author or the inspiration; the jurist Christoph Besold is sometimes named too.

Historians such as Carlos Gilly and Roland Edighoffer, working on manuscripts and correspondence, have reconstructed this milieu in detail, and most scholars now treat the Fama as a collective work of the Tübingen circle written several years before its printing. Frances Yates's influential thesis linking the manifestos to the Palatinate court of Frederick V is generally regarded as overstated.

Satire or programme?§

Whether the authors meant the Fama as a serious call to reform, a test of the learned world, or an elaborate satire remains open. The pairing with Boccalini's satire and Andreae's later word ludibrium suggest irony; the earnest piety of the text and the authors' real reforming hopes suggest otherwise. Many scholars conclude that it was both: a fiction used to promote a genuine programme.

Influence of the First Rosicrucian Manifesto§

The Fama and its sequel provoked hundreds of printed responses within a decade, from would-be members, defenders such as Robert Fludd and Michael Maier, and hostile critics. The story continued in the Confessio Fraternitatis of 1615 and the allegorical Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz of 1616. The Fama was translated into English, almost certainly from an earlier manuscript version, and published in 1652 with a preface by the alchemist Thomas Vaughan.

Its images, the tomb, the house of the Holy Spirit, the secret brotherhood healing the sick for nothing, entered the imagination of later movements, from eighteenth-century Masonic Rose-Croix degrees to the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, whose initiation into its inner order re-enacted the opening of Rosenkreutz's vault.

Frequently asked questions§

What does Fama Fraternitatis mean?§

The Latin words mean "the fame" or "report of the fraternity". The full German title adds "or discovery of the brotherhood of the laudable order of the Rosy Cross", announcing that the text reveals a previously hidden society.

When and where was the Fama Fraternitatis first published?§

It was first printed in 1614 at Kassel in Hesse by Wilhelm Wessel. Manuscript copies had already circulated for several years, and a reply to it had appeared in print in 1612.

Is the story of Christian Rosenkreutz true?§

No historical evidence supports the existence of Christian Rosenkreutz or of the brotherhood described in the Fama. Historians regard the founder's life, eastern journey and incorrupt body in a seven-sided tomb as symbolic fiction serving a religious and intellectual programme.

Who wrote the Fama Fraternitatis?§

It was published anonymously. Most scholars attribute it to a Lutheran circle in Tübingen, especially Johann Valentin Andreae and Tobias Hess, though the exact share of each is uncertain.

Sources and further reading§