ROSI CRUCIANS, a name assumed by a sect or cabal of hermetical philosophers; who arose, as it has been said, or at least became first taken notice of, in Germany, in the beginning of the fourteenth century. They bound themselves together by a solemn secret, which they all swore inviolably to preserve; and obliged themselves, at their admission into the order, to a strict observance of certain established rules. They pretended to know all sciences, and chiefly medicine; whereof they published themselves the restorers. They pretended to be masters of abundance of important secrets, and, among others, that of the philosopher's stone; all which they affirmed to have received by tradition from the ancient Egyptians, Chaldeans, the Magi and Gymnosophists. They have been distinguished by several names, accommodated to the several branches of their doctrine. Because they pretend to protract the period of human life, by means of certain nostrums, and even to restore youth, they were called Immortales; as they pretended to know all things, they have been called Illuminati; and because they have made no appearance for several years, unless this set of Illuminated which lately started up on the continent derives its origin from them, they have been called the Invisible brothers. Their society is frequently signed by the letters F. R. C. which some among them interpret fratres rosis coeli; it being pretended, that the matter of the philosophers stone is dew concocted, exalted, &c. Some, who are no friends to free-masonry, make the present flourishing society of free-masons a branch of Rosicrucians; or rather the Rosicrucians themselves, under a new name or relation, viz. as retainers to building. And it is certain, there are some free-masons who have all the characters of Rosicrucians; but how the era and original of masonry (see MASONRY), and that of Rosicrucianism, here fixed from Naudæus, who has written expressly on the subject, consist, we leave others to judge.
Notwithstanding the pretended antiquity of the Rosicrucians, it is probable that the alchemists, Paracelsists, or fire-philosophers, who spread themselves through almost all Europe about the close of the sixteenth century, assumed about this period the obscure and ambiguous title of Rosicrucian brethren, which commanded at first some degree of respect, as it seemed to be borrowed from the arms of Luther, which were a cross placed upon a rose. But the denomination evidently appears to be derived from the science of chemistry. It is not compounded, says Mosheim, as many imagine, of the two words rosa and crux, which signifies rose and cross, but of the latter of these words, and the Latin ros, which signifies dew. Of all natural bodies, dew was deemed the most powerful dissolvent of gold; and the cross, in the chemical language, is equivalent to light, because the figure of a cross + exhibits, at the
same time, the three letters of which the word lux, or light is compounded. Now lux is called, by this sect, the seed or menstruum of the red dragon, or, in other words, that gross and corporeal light which when properly digested and modified, produces gold. Hence it follows, if this etymology be admitted, that a Rosicrucian philosopher is one who, by the intervention and assistance of the dew, seeks for light, or in other words, the substance called the philosopher's stone. The true meaning and energy of this denomination did not escape the penetration and sagacity of Gassendi, as appears by his Examen Philosophiæ Fluddæ, sect. 15. tom. iii. p. 261. And it was more fully explained by Renaudot, in his Conferences Publiques, tom. iv. p. 87.
At the head of these fanatics were Robert Fludd, an English physician, Jacob Behmen, and Michael Mayer; but if rumour may be credited, the present Illuminated have a head of higher rank. The common principles, which serve as a kind of centre of union to the Rosicrucian society, are the following: They all maintain, that the dissolution of bodies, by the power of fire, is the only way by which men can arrive at true wisdom, and come to discern the first principles of things. They all acknowledge a certain analogy and harmony between the powers of nature and the doctrines of religion; and believe that the Deity governs the kingdom of grace by the same laws with which he rules the kingdom of nature; and hence they are led to use chemical denominations to express the truths of religion. They all hold, that there is a sort of divine energy, or soul, diffused through the frame of the universe, which some call the archeus, others the universal spirit, and which others mention under different appellations. They all talk in the most superstitious manner of what they call the signatures of things, of the power of the stars over all corporeal beings, and their particular influence upon the human race, of the efficacy of magic, and the various ranks and orders of demons.—These demons they divide into two orders, syphs and gnomes; which supplied the beautiful machinery of Pope's Rape of the Lock. In fine, the Rosicrucians and all their fanatical descendants agree in throwing out the most crude incomprehensible notions and ideas, in the most obscure, quaint, and unusual expressions.—Mosh. Eccl. Hist. vol. iv. p. 266, &c. English edition, 8vo. See BEHMEN and THEOSOPHISTS.