Confessio Fraternitatis
The Confessio Fraternitatis is the second early Rosicrucian manifesto. It appeared in Latin in 1615 with the Consideratio brevis, followed by a German version in the same year. It explains and defends the programme announced in the Fama Fraternitatis.[1]
Religious and philosophical programme
The Confessio presents the reform of knowledge as part of an approaching religious renewal. It places Bible reading and Christian conduct at the centre of its appeal. Its polemic against the papacy belongs to the confessional conflicts of its period.[1]
It treats theology, medicine and the study of nature as connected subjects. Although it accepts the possibility of metallic transmutation, it criticises fraudulent alchemists and the pursuit of wealth without understanding. Knowledge of nature takes precedence over the desire to make gold.[1]
The work speaks in the collective voice of the fraternity. It is an announcement addressed to readers and potential supporters, rather than a set of instructions for conducting a lodge ceremony.
Nature, signs and language
The Confessio connects its expectation of reform with signs in the natural world. It mentions new stars in Serpentarius and Cygnus as indications of divine intention. Nature is presented as a book that lies open to everyone, although few readers understand it. The text compares the reading of these signs with the interpretation of Scripture.[1]
Its proposed recovery of knowledge also involves language. The fraternity claims to possess a language expressing the nature of things and contrasts this with the confusion associated with Babel. This claim belongs to its account of a coming renewal of human understanding. The manifesto combines observation of the heavens, biblical history and an expectation of religious change within the same argument.[1]
Publication and reception
A surviving Danzig edition of 1615 combines the Fama, Confessio and several responses. The Getty Research Institute's copy records how publishers brought the manifestos and the debate around them together.[2]
Stevenson places the texts in a setting shaped by Lutheran reform and Hermetic thought. He documents their circulation in Britain, including translations copied in Scotland in 1633 and the English edition associated with Thomas Vaughan in 1652. His discussion separates the documented reception of the writings from the unverified existence of the brotherhood they describe.[3]
The third work commonly read alongside the manifestos is the Chymical Wedding (1616), an allegorical narrative with a different form and purpose.[4]
Modern edition
Roland Edighoffer edited the Confessio with the Fama, General Reformation and Chymical Wedding in volume 3 of Johann Valentin Andreae's Gesammelte Schriften (2010). The edition compares surviving editions and manuscript copies, with an introduction addressing Andreae's disputed part in the Rosicrucian publications.[5]
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 1.2 1.3 1.4 Confessio Fraternitatis, early English translation and publication note, Alchemy Website.
- ↑ Getty Research Institute, catalogue record and digitised copy of Fama fraternitatis … beneben der Confession (Danzig: Andreas Hünefeldt, 1615), Internet Archive.
- ↑ David Stevenson, The Origins of Freemasonry: Scotland's Century, 1590–1710 (Cambridge University Press, 1988), pp. 97–104.
- ↑ Volkhard Wels, ‘The Chymische Hochzeit as Mystification’, Freie Universität Berlin, research project description.
- ↑ Frommann-Holzboog, Johann Valentin Andreae: Gesammelte Schriften, Band 3: Rosenkreuzerschriften, edited by Roland Edighoffer (2010), publisher's description.
| Rosicrucian history and related societies | |
|---|---|
| Overview | Rosicrucians · Christian Rosencreutz · SRIA · Golden Dawn |
| Early texts | Fama · Confessio · Chymical Wedding |
| People | William Wynn Westcott · Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers · William Robert Woodman · Arthur Edward Waite · Pamela Colman Smith |
| Related reading | Comparing the traditions · All articles in this section |