THE REFORMATION:

 

ROSICRUCIAN CONNECTIONS

 

PART 1

 

 

Exhortations are frequently heard from Evangelical leaders that the Church needs a “new Reformation,” or a second or third Reformation.  For instance, the purpose for Rick Warren’s “Purpose Driven” movement is another Reformation:

“I intend to use the Purpose Driven movement to fulfill PEACE in a new reformation.” (Florida Baptist Witness, May 6, 2004)

Rick Warren’s vision for a “new reformation” is not a restoration of apostate Christendom to sound doctrine, but rather the merger of Christianity into partnerships with other religions, social organizations, business and governments to work together to create a “healthy” global social order. And in these various partnerships, Christian churches will be required to compromise the Word of God for the common good.  In the secular world, Rick Warren’s “new reformation” is known as Communitarianism.

   “Well, as I said, I could take you to villages that don’t have a clinic... But they’ve got a church. In fact, in many countries the only infrastructure that is there is religion... What if in this 21st century we were able to network these churches providing the...manpower in local congregations. Let’s just take my religion by itself. Christianity... The church is bigger than any government in the world. Then you add in Muslims, you add in Hindus, you add in all the different religions, and you use those houses of worship as distribution centers, not just for spiritual care but for health care. What could be done?

   “Government has a role and business has a role and churches, house of worship have a role. I think it’s time to go to the moon, and I invite you to go with us.” (Time Magazine, Nov. 1, 2005)

 

“In the 1990s I trained about a quarter of a million pastors. It’s now gone, as I said, to over 400,000... And we’re talking about all different kinds of groups, including priests in the Catholic Church, and including rabbis... So anyway, then in the 21st century I said that now we’re going global.” (Speech to Religious Newscasters Association Convention in 2005)

Here we see that, despite the positive connotations attached to the word, “reformation” does not necessarily mean that the end result will be the spiritual enrichment of Christianity, in other words, a Christianity more faithful to Scripture. To “reform” may also mean “to form again,” which is to restructure and, by implication, to change into a completely different entity. “Transformation”—a trendy redefinition of “reformation”—is also a term commonly heard from today’s Evangelical leaders.  Given their unbiblical teachings, a “Transformation of the Church” by false teachers like Rick Warren would “transform” Christianity into another religion, even if it retained the nominal label of “Christian.” 

 

Plans for a future and final Reformation of the Church were developed by leading occultists of the 17th century Rosicrucian Enlightenment. The documentation we present on this report represents our research into the Rosicrucian infiltration of the Protestant Reformation and the Rosicrucian plan for yet another “re-formation” of the Church. Actually, our research was originally undertaken to determine if the Protestant Reformation was from the outset a work of the Rosicrucians for the purpose of dividing and conquering Christianity.

 

The following outline contains information gleaned from various sources, but primarily from the works of high level occultists, with special focus on the Rosicrucians. The Christian reader will find, as we did, some disturbing information in these sections.

ESOTERIC CHRISTIANITY

FICTION: The one world religion will exclude evangelical Christianity.

 

   “The most likely scenario in the years following this Parliament (of World Religions) will be the gradual formation of a ‘World Council of Religion’ which will function in a way similar to that of the present World Council of Churches or the United Nations.  Despite their differences, this league of religions will be most united in three particular areas:
    “1. To foster the view that all religions (in which they mistakenly include Christianity) share the same God and are one in their ultimate ambitions. 2. To create permanent world peace and justice through cooperation with a similarly-confederated form of world government (e.g., the United Nations). 3. To propagate the concept that biblical, evangelical Christianity is a hindrance to ‘evolutionary’ progress and spiritual growth on this planet.”  (Alan Morrison, The Serpent & the Cross, K. & M. Books, 1994, 1999, Chapter 12.)

 

FACT: The “one world religion” will be a Gnostic form of Christianity.

 

“Is Christianity to survive as the religion of the West? Is it to live through the centuries of the future, and to continue to play a part in moulding the thought of the evolving western races? If it is to live, it must regain the knowledge it has lost, and again have its mystic and its occult teachings; it must again stand forth as an authoritative teacher of spiritual verities, clothed with the only authority worth anything, the authority of knowledge.  If these teachings be regained, their influence will soon be seen in wider and deeper views of truth; dogmas, which now seem like mere shells and fetters, shall again be seen to partial presentments of fundamental realities. First, Esoteric Christianity will reappear in the ‘Holy Place’, in the Temple so that all who are capable of receiving it may follow its lines of published thought; and secondly, Occult Christianity will again descend into the adytum, dwelling behind the veil which guards the ‘Holy of Holies’, into which only the Initiate may enter…” (Annie Besant, Esoteric Christianity, pp. 26-7)

MEDIEVAL Gnostic sects

“The Merovingian Franks (450-741) built monasteries as a means of infiltration...for Merovingian monasteries later became Benedictine/ Cistercians... Pope Gregory the Great…promoted Benedictine monasticism. His feast day is the day he became pope, September 3 [590 AD]. This was accomplished by the infiltration of the Church, for Gregory was part of that infiltration. Sept. 3 became a day of victory for the Red Movement when he was installed as their pope, for Gregory marks the history of the papacy in that he was the very first ‘MONK’ to become a pope.” (Merovingian Infiltration of the Church Through Monasticism)

“John of Parma, Boccaccio, Petrarch, St Catherine of Sienna, and St Bridget of Sweden...as also various sects, Waldensians, Albigensians, Begards, Dolcinists, all of whom, according to Quinet, Joachim of Fiore and the Eternal Evangel appear as a constant...” - 256:79

“Leroux saw the thirteenth century as one of extraordinary religious ferment and, with a fine disregard for doctrinal differences, put all the heretics into one basket -- Amalricians, Albigensians, Waldensians, Cathars, Apostolic Begards, Followers of Eon de l’Etiole, and Pierre de Bruys, Joachites, and so on -- for according to him they were all preaching the doctrine of the new evangel, of a religion superior to Christianity.” - 256:88

“...[George Sand] echoes Leroux in pointing to all those earlier ‘voices of St John’ who sustain the heresy of the Evangel, including Joachim of Fiore, John of Parma, St Francis... In other lists, he names the Poor of Lions, Wycliffites, Pickards, Taborites, Adamites, Fraticelli, Begards, Waldensians... Here, she says, is the key to all the convulsions and mysteries of the Middle Ages, and she asks the question: where shall we find another key to open the problems of this present time?” - 256:100

 

THE PRE-REFORMATION

THE AVIGNON PAPACY

“But when from 1305 to 1378 the papal curia was at Avignon and the cardinals were nearly all Frenchmen, Englishmen were offended: and from 1378 to 1418 the two popes, at Rome and Avignon, caused scandal to all. Men could only suggest that both popes should be persuaded to resign (which they would not), or that a great council should be held, as long before at Nicea or Chalcedon. Canon law, however, would not recognize the possibility of such a council unless convened by the pope, and the fourteenth century canonists had worked out an extreme doctrine of the plenitude of papal power. The study by the twelfth century canonists at Bologna of the Digest and the Code had influenced the concept of papal sovereignty: theologians, for the great canonists were theologians, had restated the limits of the plenitudo potestatis papae after this study of Roman sovereignty. Dr. Walter Ullmann, in his recent notable book on Medieval Papalism, quotes the fourteenth century papalists as asserting that the pope, in the fulness of his power, was beyond the reach of any mortal, emperor, king or any other. There was no one who could say to the pope, ‘Cur ita facies?’ The pope could do and say whatever he pleased to do and say in all and everything: he was above the law, whether natural (and, as it were divine) or whether humanly devised. The Roman principle that the prince was above the law was translated to the ecclesiastical prince. All human and divine law was entrusted to him alone: whoever resisted his power, resisted the ordinance of God. ‘In the conception of the canonists,’ Dr. Ullmann writes, ‘the pope was truly God on earth.’” (Margaret Deanesly, The Significance of the Lollard Bible)

 

“Popes, Cardinals, and officials of the Chancery and Apostolic Camera appointed bishops, collected taxes, and imposed disreputable political interdicts and excommunications throughout much of Christendom with greater abandon than ever before. They did so in tight association with countless princes and other representatives of the late medieval Establishment. Bankers were particularly welcome in their entourage. As Alvaro Pelayo, himself a fervent supporter of the Holy See, noted in De planctu ecclesiae, ‘Whenever I entered the chambers of the ecclesiastics of the Papal Court, I found brokers and clergy engaged in weighing and reckoning the money which lay in heaps before them.’ (Pastor, I, 72).

“A myriad of astonishing abuses, many of them the product of exceedingly pro-papal canonists influenced heavily by Roman Law and purely utilitarian power considerations, became associated with the Avignon administration. Charitable covers for raking in illicit funds were multiplied. Sees were left vacant or filled in ways that furthered the increase of gross curial muscle and wealth. Legal cases were painfully delayed so as to milk more loot from long-suffering plaintiffs and defendants. And, once again, all this was done in dangerous cahoots with locally important political and banker hacks.

“Even more destructive was the treatment of diocesan matters as property rather than pastoral questions. Bishoprics were assigned either to curial officials—to provide, from their endowments, salaries the Papacy could not otherwise pay—or to friends of political allies whose cooperative behavior needed to be rewarded. Since it was impossible for papal employees to leave their governmental positions in Avignon to tend to even one diocese—much less the two or more often entrusted to their misuse—episcopal charges inevitably entailed the same absenteeism already practiced by the pope himself. Perhaps the most bizarre long term development from such unfortunate policies was to be the creation of nominal ‘bishops’ who were often not even priests. Lay ‘bishops’ got the revenues from their ‘property’, and then employed some hireling to do the episcopal tasks they themselves could not legitimately perform.

“...Avignon’s abuses merely confirmed the convictions of those who already thought of the Church and her mission as a blasphemous work of Satan. This was the major reason why her scandals were so detested by orthodox believers.” (“The Great Western Schism”) 

JOHN WYCLIFFE

“A word then about Wycliffe’s anti-clericalism, a factor now so much stressed as one of the causes of the sixteenth century Reformation. Anti-clericalism did not begin with Wycliffe or in England: it existed in France at the beginning of the fourteenth century. It spread from the south French university of Montpellier, a great law school, which trained most of the anti-clerical courtiers and ministers of Philip IV...

“To sum up, then: Wycliffe’s translation of the whole Bible was an undertaking with a political side: the lay party could use it against the clericals: disendowment was in the air. But the spiritual side of Wycliffe’s intention was much the stronger. He desired to put the clock back: to restore the Church to her poor and primitive state. He had no realisation that in destroying the institutions of the Church of his day he might be endangering the Christian religion itself...” (Margaret Deanesly, The Significance of the Lollard Bible)

 

The purge of the Knights Templar occurred from 1307 to 1314 at which time the Merovingian Pope and his curia were setting up their headquarters in Avignon. John Wycliffe was born in 1327 and entered the political scene around 1376, at the close of the Avignon Papacy and onset of the Great Schism. Wycliffe may have been an agent of the network of the secret societies that Henry Saint Clair had established on the British Isles. According to Prince Michael Stewart, President of the European Council of Princes, said to be a constitutional advisory body to the European Union, following the Templar purge on the Continent, the Celtic Church of Scotland welcomed the refugee Knights Templar who then formed the Order of the Rosy Cross. The first order of business of the Knights of the Rosy Cross was to meet with the Pope at Avignon. 

 

“The established Roman Church may have betrayed the Templars, but in Scotland they found something far more trustworthy and tangible: a sacred royal house, and a Priest-King of the Celtic Church succession. ...the Knights became part of the Scottish Government as the appointed Royal Bodyguard, with the Order established as ‘Guardian of the King of Scots by day and by night’... A new order was then formed, called the Elder Brothers of the Order of the Rosy Cross, and several of the Rosy Cross Knights then sailed to France for a meeting with Pope John XXII at Avignon.  

“Many historians have presumed therefore that the Knights Templars must have been disbanded in Scotland, but this was not the case; it was simply that [Robert the] Bruce had contrived the secret Order to become even more secretive. Indeed, the Order of the Knights of the Rosy Cross...was a very successful cover.” (The Forgotten Monarchy of Scotland, p. 65)

 

Having formed the secretive Order of the Rosy Cross in Scotland, the Templars sent a contingent of Rosy Cross Knights to France for a meeting with the Pope at Avignon. This is documented with a footnote: “The Vatican Archives, Rome”  What would prompt the persecuted Templars to return to the headquarters of the Catholic Church which had martyred many knights of their Order?  The high-level meeting between the fugitive Templars and the Avignon Pope reeks of collusion. The Templars’ newly-formed Order of the Rosy Cross had been absorbed into the Celtic Church of Scotland, and it is with the Celtic Church of Scotland that a connection to John Wycliffe is found. On the website of The Bible Museum, Inc., a source for rare and antique Bibles, is a chronological history of the English Bible. A section of this history, titled “The Pre-Reformation History of the Bible,” states that a secret society known as the Culdees “chose John Wycliffe to lead the world out of the Dark Ages.”

 

“On the Scottish Island of Iona, in 563 AD, a man named Columba started a Bible College. For the next 700 years, this was the source of much of the non-Catholic, evangelical Bible teaching through those centuries of the Dark and Middle Ages. The students of this college were called ‘Culdees’, which means ‘certain stranger’. The Culdees were a secret society, and the remnant of the true Christian faith was kept alive by these men during the many centuries that led up to the Protestant Reformation…

“In the late 1300’s, the secret society of Culdees chose John Wycliffe to lead the world out of the Dark Ages. Wycliffe has been called the ‘Morning Star of the Reformation’…

“…It was not as a teacher or preacher that Wycliffe gained his position in history; this came from his activities in ecclesiastical politics, in which he engaged about the mid-1370s, when his reformatory work also began. In 1374 he was among the English delegates at a peace congress at Bruges. He may have been given this position because of the spirited and patriotic behavior with which in the year 1366 he sought the interests of his country against the demands of the papacy. It seems he had a reputation as a patriot and reformer; this suggests the answer to the question how he came to his reformatory ideas.” (Greatsite.com)

 

According to The Bible Museum, Inc., the name “Culdee” means “certain stranger,” however, according to the Ancient Order of the Culdees of Iona, the word means “Chaldea,” as in ancient Babylonia: “Origin of the word Culdee. The name Culdee comes from Chaldee, (Chaldeans pronounce the word Chaldee as Kaldee or Culdee), in the sense that it alludes to Abraham the Chaldee, who left his home, worldly wealth, kindred and idol making to find the Promised Land.” The 1611 King James Version used the word “Caldees” with reference to the Babylonians or “Chaldeans,” which was the updated spelling in later editions.

 

See: The Lollard Movement: Avignon Papacy: John Wycliffe

JAN HUS

“We often think of Martin Luther lighting the torch of the Reformation, but the Czechs have the oldest Reformation tradition in mainland Europe. Long before Luther nailed his theses to the door of Wittenberg Church in 1517, the Czechs had established their own national Protestant church with their own vernacular Bible and hymn book. In 1406 or 1407 and perhaps as early as 1385, Czech students studying at Oxford brought back to Prague the writings of John Wyclif.

“The rector of Charles University in Prague, Jan Hus (1372?-1415), a man of outstanding intellectual gifts and personal integrity, took up Wyclif’s ideas. In particular, he took up the belief that, in true remembrance of the Last Supper, the Communion, or Eucharist, should be given in both kinds—bread and wine. The chalice became the symbol of the Hussite revolution, and Hussite supporters were often referred to as ‘Utraquists,’ meaning ‘in both kinds.’  Jan Hus was a great scholar and a gifted preacher. Between 1402 and 1403 the Bethlehem Chapel in the Old Town district of Prague was regularly packed, standing room only, with people eager to hear him expound on the Bible in their own Czech tongue.

“In 1412, Antipope John XXIII declared war on Naples and, to raise money, instituted the practice of selling indulgences — official forgiveness by the Church. Hus was outraged and was promptly excommunicated for his protest. Outlawed from Prague, Hus wandered about the countryside preaching and spreading Reformation ideas throughout the country. In 1415 the Council of Constance invited him to explain his views and promised him safe conduct. It was a trap: on false charges he was condemned as a heretic and burned at the stake on July 6, 1415. It was his birthday he was just forty-three years old. Jan Hus began, and Comenius continued, even in exile, the reformed group that came to be called the Unitas Fratrum (the Unity of Brethren), also now known as the Moravian Church, which still exists with a worldwide following. Its formation was formalized in 1457, and it is the oldest of all Protestant churches, with its own hymn book (1505) and Czech-language Bible.” (The Rosicrucian Enlightenment Revisited, p. 201)

 

“Prague became a Mecca for those interested in esoteric and scientific studies from all over Europe. Hither came John Dee and Edward Kelly, Giordano Bruno and Johannes Kepler. However strange the reputation of Prague in the time of Rudolph it was yet a relatively tolerant city. Jews might pursue their cabalistic studies undisturbed (Rudolph’s favourite religious adviser was Pistorius, a Cabalist) and the native church of Bohemia was tolerated by an official ‘Letter of Majesty’. The Bohemian church, founded by John Huss, was the first of the reformed churches of Europe. Rudolph’s toleration was extended to the Bohemian church and to the Bohemian Brethren, a mystical brotherhood attached to its teachings. Prague under Rudolph was a Renaissance city, full of Renaissance influences as they had developed in Eastern Europe, a melting pot of ideas, mysteriously exciting in its potentiality for new developments.” (Francis Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment (p. 26)

 

“Wyclif came from England, they explain, from whom Huss took his teaching, alluding to Wyclif’s influence on the Hussite reformation.” (Yates, p. 32)
 

THE PROTESTANT REFORMATION

“[I]n 1546...Rosslyn...chapel’s centenary year, the Church of Rome was in a bit of a tizzy. Catholicism was under siege by a new and troublesome adversary—the Reformation. In one fell swoop, the Christian world was cleft in twain. No longer would Rome be able to raise great armies from its subject nations to crush heresies wherever the Papal finger pointed. There was no longer just one big boy on the block. Another had moved in. The mightiest church the world had ever known had been ‘divided’ and ‘conquered’.” - “Rosslyn Chapel Revisited”

 

   “So far, we have considered our strategy in our attacks upon the Catholic Church from the outside. But this is not all. Let us now explain how we have gone further in our work, to hasten the ruin of the Catholic Church, and how we have penetrated into her most intimate circles, and brought even some of her Clergy to become pioneers of our cause.

   “Apart altogether from the influence of our philosophy we have taken other steps to secure a breach in the Catholic Church. Let me explain how this has been done.

   “We have induced some of our children to join the Catholic body, with the explicit intimation that they should work in a still more efficient way for the disintegration of the Catholic Church, by creating scandals within her. We have thus followed the advice of our Prince of the Jews who so wisely said: ‘Let some of your children become canons, so that they may destroy the Church.’ Unfortunately, not all among the ‘convert’ Jews have proved faithful to their mission. Many of them have betrayed us! But, on the other hand, others have kept their promise and honoured their word. Thus the counsel of our Elders has proved successful.” 

 

Source: From a series of speeches at the B’nai B’rith Convention in Paris, published shortly afterwards in the London Catholic Gazette, February, 1936; Paris Le Reveil du Peuple published similar account a little later. (The Catholic Gazette, February, 1936)

 

   “Although it frequently produced heretics, Italy was no haven for them; the vast majority of nonconformists of Italian origin found it possible to survive only by fleeing the vicinity of the pope and his Inquisition. Among the many classed as heretics by the Roman church, some were distinctly heretical even by our more exacting definition. Two of the most influential were an uncle and a nephew, Laelius and Faustus Socinus (1525-62 and 1539-1604), whose quest for freedom of thought led them from Italy first to Rhaetia (modern Graubünden, Switzerland), and then to Poland. In Poland Faustus took advantage of the nation’s unique religious tolerance to lay the foundation of modern Unitarianism.

   “In contrast to the doctrines of Hoffman, Menno, and Schwenkfeld, these Italian thinkers emphasized not the grandeur of Christ’s humanity, but its normalcy. Although Servetus had denied the preexistence of Christ, he acknowledge his divinity as the natural Son of God and died with a prayer to Jesus on his lips. The Socini were far more rationalistic and critical. Jesus was a true man–otherwise he would not have been able to die–and as man he could not have been God. Of course this is precisely the argument Paul faced when he wrote, ‘Christ crucified...unto the Greeks foolishness’ (I Cor. 1:23). The reversion to this line of argument makes it look as though the theological struggles of the first five centuries of Christianity were all for naught. This collapse of centuries of laborious theological work within less than half a century of the outbreak of the Reformation is alarming to those of us who believe that the Reformation was a necessary corrective to the doctrinal as well as moral failings of medieval Christianity. It gives substance to the traditional Catholic charge that the Reformation principles of Scripture alone and private interpretation open the floodgates to theological chaos. It is also possible, and in fact to some extent it is even evident, that much of this rationalistic skepticism, criticism and unbelief was active in pre-Reformation Catholicism. Luther’s successful defiance of Rome and the Inquisition released the pressure seal that had kept skepticism confined, and permitted it to boil over, but Luther did not create it; it had be brewing for centuries...

   “...perhaps we can see in the Reformation era the end of trinitarianism as the unquestioned conviction of Christians.”  (Heresies: Heresy and Orthodoxy in the History of the Early Church, Harold O.J. Graham, 1988, 2000, pp. 331-333)

“For there must be also heresies among you, that they which are approved may be made manifest among you.” (1 Cor. 11:19)

 

Martin Luther

  • According to the records of B’nai B’rith, Luther was initially influenced and financed by Jewish conspirators but later discovered and exposed their deception.

   “‘We are the Fathers of all Revolutions, even of those which sometimes happen to turn against us. We are the supreme Masters of Peace and War. We can boast of being the Creators of the REFORMATION ! Calvin was one of our Children; he was of Jewish descent, and was entrusted by Jewish authority and encouraged with Jewish finance to draft his scheme in the Reformation.

   “‘Martin Luther yielded to the influence of his Jewish friends unknowingly, and again, by Jewish authority, and with Jewish finance, his plot against the Catholic Church met with success. But unfortunately he discovered the deception, and became a threat to us, so we disposed of him as we have so many others who dare to oppose us. . . ” 

 

(From a series of speeches at the B’nai B’rith Convention in Paris, published shortly afterwards in the London Catholic Gazette, February, 1936; Paris Le Reveil du Peuple published similar account a little later). (The Catholic Gazette, February, 1936)

 

The Jews and Their Lies by Dr. Martin Luther (1543)

“Warning Against the Jews” by Martin Luther (1546)

  • Luther was an Augustinian monk of the Strict Observance in a German monastery.

“A member of Martin Luther’s order appointed, in accordance with the ‘Rule of Saint Augustine’, to read while the other monks eat in order that the monks may focus upon their spiritual hunger for the word of God as well as their physical hunger. . .

    “Attempts to head off laxity in the Order led to the establishment of the ‘Observant’ wing to which Luther belonged by virtue of joining the Erfurt house. His fellow German Augustinians showed sympathy in 1518 with Luther’s theological stand, but in that same year his Augustinian superior, Staupitz, released him from his monk’s vows.

    “Johann von Staupitz, Vicar General of the Augustinian Order (c.1460-1524): Monk, spiritual adviser.  Staupitz was the senior figure in Luther’s Augustinian Order in Germany and the leading light in the strict or ‘Observant’ wing of it.  Luther frequently praised the spiritual comfort Staupitz had given him, though the older man did not join Luther’s movement.” - John Osborne, “Luther,” Royal National Theatre)

  • “Strict Observance” was the name given by Baron von Hund, a German Templar, to the 33rd degree of Scottish Rite Freemasonry.

“1743...Baron von Hund said he had been commissioned to set up lodges of Strict Observance in Germany and to promulgate ‘true’ Freemasonry under a system known as ‘Strict Observance’ because the oath of the Apprentice Mason included a vow of absolute obedience to ‘unknown superiors.’ The idea of a chivalric order, strict obedience, and a secret grand master must have had great appeal in Germany, because over the next twenty years, the new order promoted by von Hund spread like wild fire, and extended from Germany to almost every country of continental Europe.” - A Dialectical Chronography of Humankind and Our Universe

 

“. . .the text of the Protocols (of Sion) ends with a single statement, ‘Signed by the representatives of Sion of the 33rd degree.’... And the thirty-third degree in Freemasonry is that of the so-called Strict Observance—the system of Freemasonry introduced by (Baron von) Hund at the behest of his ‘unknown superiors,’ one of whom appears to have been Charles Radclyffe.” (Holy Blood, Holy Grail) 31:193

  • Luther’s personal seal was the Rosicrucian rose symbolizing the lost tribes of Israel.

“...Luther used as his personal seal the symbol of a rose and a cross...” 25:56

 

“It may be stated, with a certain degree of probability, that much of the popularity of the Rosicrucian mythos was due to the beautiful though simple device in the early 17th century manifestos of the order, namely the symbol of the cross in conjunction with the rose (or roses).” - Early Symbolism of the Rosy Cross

 

“In ENGLAND BETWEEN THE YEARS 1450-1485 there was a series of civil wars known as ‘Wars of the Roses’ occurring between the rival Houses of York and Lancaster. Each side was represented by a rose, York by a white rose, and Lancaster by a red rose. At the end of the struggle a partly Welsh noble named Henry Tudor became king. Henry claimed to unify in his person the two rival sides. He chose as his symbol a rose with both red and white petals (i.e. a large white rose with a smaller red rose overlaid on it) and with five green leaves around it. Dr. Clifford Smyth of Ulster supplied Yair Davidiy with color photographs of pictures from the Tudor Period depicting the Tudor rose. These paintings show that there then existed in England a real breed of rose that looked like the Tudor Rose. This rose, unbeknown to Henry, was (says the above quoted Zohar) the symbol of Israel. Henceforth the red and white petal ‘Tudor Rose’ became the symbol of the English monarchs and therefore of England itself. It still is an official symbol of Britain. The Tudor Rose admittedly has only ten petals whereas the ‘Rose of Israel’ described in the Zohar has thirteen but then England being dominated by the tribe of Ephraim represents only ten out of the original thirteen Israelite Tribes.” (The Brit-Am & Tudor Roses)

The Tudor Rose

Symbol of the Ten Lost Tribes and of Brit-Am Representing United Israel

“Perhaps the most famous heraldic device connected with the hermetic tradition is that of the Rosy Cross... A...theory says it refers to the arms of Martin Luther of a rose surmounted with a cross of equal arms...”

  • Compare the equal-armed Rosicrucian cross with occult symbols on Luther’s wax seal and the sanitized Lutheran Church version.

    

“Ancient wax seal, shown inverted, with the inscription ‘D: M. Luther’(?) and alchemical symbols (Pallas, Earth & Mercury or Salt, Sulfur & Mercury or spiritus, amimas & corpus, found in Rhone River, Germany” (Answers.com)

 

Alchemical and Hermetic Emblems

Luther Rose

Lutheran Church Missouri Synod

Evangelical Lutheran Cross

Martin Luther’s Seal

  • The five petalled rose on Martin Luther’s seal was a pentagram, a symbol that represented the Goddess Astaroth.

“The five-pointed star or pentagram is one of the most potent, powerful, and persistent symbols in human history. It has been important to almost every ancient culture, from the Mayans of Latin America, to India, China, Greece, and Egypt. It has been found scratched on the walls of Neolithic caves, and in Babylonian drawings, where it marks the pattern the planet Venus makes on its travels - a secret symbol of the Goddess Ishtar. Scriptures, especially Hebrew, are abundant with references to pentagrams...

“The pentacle as a symbol of the feminine principle was embodied by the rose. The small, five petalled roses found in many gothic cathedral ornamentation are not-so-secret pentagrams.” (The Pentagram in Depth)

The Rose & The Pentagram

“Decoration of a pentagram inside a rose, from the Knights Templar church Santa Maria do Olival, built around ca 1150AD in Portugal.

“Through all this the rose and the pentagram have strong ties to Christian Renaissance symbolism, Kabbalism and not least Martin Luther and the early Rosicrucians who were strongly associated with Lutheranism.”

Astaroth’s Seal (according to The Lesser Key of Solomon)

 

“Astaroth (also Ashtaroth, Astarot, and Asteroth), in demonology, is a Crowned Prince of Hell. He is a male figure named after the Canaanite goddess Ashtoreth.  The name Astaroth was ultimately derived from that of 2nd millennium BC Phoenician goddess Astarte, an equivalent of the Babylonian Ishtar, and the earlier Sumerian Inanna.” (Wikipedia: Astaroth)

“Hislop explains that ‘the ‘round’ wafer, whose ‘roundness’ is so important an element in the Romish Mystery, what can be the meaning of it, but just to show to those who have eyes to see, that the ‘Wafer’ itself is only another symbol of Baal, or the Sun.’ The Eucharist represents the heathen sun god. Further proof of this is the fact that the monstrance...used to contain the Eucharistic host always forms rays of the sun emanating from the Eucharist. All one need do is read the history of the Jews in the bible to find the source for this sun god worship. ‘And they forsook the LORD, and served Baal and Ashtaroth.’ (Judges 2:13 AV) The Catholic Mass is a continuation of the apostasy of the Jews in their worship of the sun god, Baal, in the form of the Eucharist. Tif’eret is the sefirot god that was also known as the sun in the Jewish Kabbalah. Tif’eret would seem to be the very same heathen sun god, Baal, who was worshiped by the ancient Jews.” (Solving the Mystery of Babylon the Great, Edward Hendrie, p. 213)

See also: Mystery Babylon: Catholic or Jewish?
  • Martin Luther commended the Hermetic science of alchemy which was man’s attempt to become divine by means of sorcery.

“The science of alchymy I like very well, and indeed, ‘tis the philosophy of the ancients. I like it not only for the profits it brings in melting metals, in decocting, preparing, extracting and distilling herbs, roots; I like it also for the sake of the allegory and secret signification, which is exceedingly fine, touching the resurrection of the dead at the last day.” - Martin Luther, “Table Talk,” “Lyndy Abraham’s ‘Dictionary of Alchemical Imagery’,” Alchemy Web Site

 

“...Martin Luther is quoted for praising Alchemy, ‘not only for its practical utility but for its verification of church doctrines’...

“If Alchemy was indeed the quest for mystic communion with the essential archetypal process of nature then the adept sought to recapitulate this creative process with symbolically affective laboratory gestures and chemical manipulations and of course, with the indispensable cooperation of Providence. Just as all life evolves toward Divine Perfection, so too do metals evolve toward gold. It is this essential process of evolution that the alchemist accelerates with the product of his labor, the catalytic Philosopher’s Stone, the red powder that transmutes base metal into purest gold. The enigmatic reality behind such a magnum opus can not be explained but only demonstrated. In just such a manner religious gnosis demands direct personal experience rather than pedestrian faith.” -  “Who Were the Alchemists?” Alchemy Web Site

  • Luther however repudiated the Kabbalah and the Rabbinic commentaries which rejected the Christological interpretations of the Old Testament Messianic prophecies.

“Luther interested himself for a time in the Kabbalah, perhaps under the stimulus of Reuchlin’s works, but found no great attraction therein. It served him for the most part with material for his attacks upon Rabbinical literature, though on one occasion he says that if he be permitted to submit to the Kabbalistic method, he would say the Tetragram was a symbol of the Holy Trinity, a statement which he deduced from the meanings and the sum of the numbers of the letters. But unlike Pico de Mirandola, instructed by Jochanan Aleman, or Reuchlin, instructed by Antionius Margarith, Luther was repelled by the Kabbalah, and turned to sterner stuff.

“He found this in the Rabbinical commentaries which, with the assistance of his Hebrew professors at Wittenberg, he employed for the explanation of the doubtful ‘Christological’ passages of the Bible... For the most part, he professed to take the very opposite of Rabbinical suggestions; only rarely does ‘his Rabbi Solomon’ (Rashi) please him; he heaps adjectives of villification upon the sayings of the Rabbis, calling them ‘dreams, fables, vagaries, absurdities, sophistries, vanities, gossip’ and so forth. He accuses the Jews of being responsible for errors in Jerome; he mocks as Judaistic any insistence upon the rules of grammar in the interpretation of debatable texts... Hence he accused the Jewish critics of his Bible translation of being under the spell of Rabbinic rationalism and literalism, and of desiring for a second time to obscure the text.” (Louis Israel Newman, Jewish Influence on Christian Reform Movements, pp. 643-645)

  • Luther’s seal appeared a century later on a Rosicrucian Manifesto, The Chemical Wedding of  Christian Rosenkreutz, authored by Johann Andrea who was Grand Master of the Prieuré de Sion from 1637-1654.

“Luther’s crest with a black cross on a red heart upon a white rose…set beside an expansion on the letters, F. R. C., Futurae Reformatio Catholicae, signifying a hope for a future Universal Reformation, similar to that heralded by the first Rosicrucian texts from Tübingen...

”Bureus in his vision set out a triad of reformers in his FaMa (Ms. Leiden UB, N 157B, 10r.) He begins with the names of J.H.P., M.L.T. and J.B.C. (that is with Johannes Hus, Martin Luther and Jacob Böhme), but then adds three new names: C. Ros., T. Par. and I. Arn (that is Christian Rosenkreutz, Theophrastus Paracelsus and Johann Arndt). All taken together, they yield the word ARI, the lion.” - The Da Vinci Code Rosicrucians


 

“F.R.C. or Frater Rosae Crucis is the title awarded to advanced members of the Rosicrucian Order. This title is awarded specifically to advanced members of the AMORC or Ancient Mystical Order Rosæ Crucis. Through years of study the Rosicrucian who has progressed to this level is understood to be at the master level of understanding the teachings presented by this organization. For this reason, only those who have been formally initiated into the 10th Degree of the order are allowed to attach F.R.C. to their name.” - Wikipedia

  • John Valentin Andreae influenced Johann Comenius of the Bohemian Brethren, the mystical branch of the Reformation, which became the Moravian Church. 

“Johann Amos Komensky, or Comenius, born in 1592, was six years younger than Johann Valentin Andreae, whose works and outlook influenced him enormously. Comenius was one of the Bohemian Brethren, the mystical branch of the oldest reformation tradition in Europe, that stemming from John Huss. Comenius and Andreae had much in common. Both were devout, reformed clerics; both were interested in new intellectual movements which they grafted on to their native piety, the German Lutheran tradition in the one case, in the other, the Hussite tradition. Both lived through the same terrible period, and had to work on as best they could through wars and persecutions.” (Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, p. 200)

  • Parallels between the Protestant Reformation and Christian Rosencreutz, a mythical 15th century knight who is said to have launched the Rosicrucian movement in England.

“…the symbol of Martin Luther is a cross inside an open rose; and, from May 1521 until March 1522, Luther stayed at the Wartburg Castle southwest of the Thuringian forest, where [Christian] Rosenkreuz is said to have been born.” (Wikipedia)

 

“It is important to note that the German Pietists, who developed in a strain of the early Lutheran tradition, in the 17th Century carried documents to America that contained Rosicrucian symbols and teachings. The adepts were called Perfecti, as were earlier Cathar monks, who were known at the time as Albigensians. Also is the record of a boy born to a Cathar couple of the nobel house of Germel in western Germany, who later journeyed to Arabia for formal tutorship in the esoteric tradition. He started a spiritual movement then in Germany that could very well have fed into the Lutheran strain of Pietists.” - (Heretic Behind the Throne)

    “On May 4th, 1521, after the sitting of the Diet of Worms (Jan-May 1521), where he successfully argued his case against the Papal Bull of Excommunication, [Martin Luther] was intercepted by horsemen, in the Thuringian forest, of the elector of Saxony.  They led him furtively to the electors castle of the Wartburg.  The heroic monk, while under Papal Excommunication, had won the sympathy and support of a large proportion of his (German) countrymen on material, economic and religious grounds.  While at Wartburg he used the pseudonym of ‘Knight George’ till 1522...

“[In] 1614  Germany, printed by Wilhem Wessel at Kassel – “The Universal and General Reformation of the Whole Wide World: together with the Fama Fraternitatis of the Laudable Fraternity of the Rosy Cross Written to All the Learned and the Rulers of Europe’.  Within this publication and much more famous - ‘Fama Fraternitatis dess Loblichen Ordens des Rosenkreutzes’.  The Proclamation of the Fraternity of the laudable Order of the Rosicrucians, ie., to proclaim to the world the existence of a benevolent secret brotherhood of Christian alchemists whose purpose was to initiate a new reformation.  There was, within it, a description of the life of Christian Rosenkrautz, the alleged founder of the fraternity, his death in 1484 and rediscovery of his tomb in 1604.  The new reformation was to be a scientific reformation as well as a religious and philosophical reformation. ...the FAMA is the Rosicrucian manifesto. The FAMA recounts the journey of CRC, the reputed founder of Rosicrucianism, who was allegedly born in 1378 and lived for 106 years.  He is now generally regarded to have been symbolic rather than a real character; whose story provided a legendary explanation of the Order’s origin.

“1616   “Chymische Hochzeit” (Chemical Wedding) - a strange alchemical romance... AUTHOR: Johann Valentin Andreae, a Lutheran pastor and mystic, at Tubingen University. Andreae’s personal coat-of-arms, like Martin Luther’s includes the ROSE and CROSS motif... Here we have an author who is very shrewd, he presents an appeasement (wedding), ie., a Marriage of Alchemy (Intelligentsia of Europe) with the new Protestantism of Europe for political acceptance of the Religious Brotherhood.” - “What is Christian Rosencreutz?” (SRIA, Societas Rosicrucian in Anglia)

 

“The family crest of J. V. Andreae...was designed by Johannes Valentin’s grandfather Jakob Andreae, the reformation ideologue and defender of Luther’s evangelical tradition. It has been argued that the design with roses and cross was inspired by Luther’s personal crest consisting of a white rose with a red heart and cross in the middle... Heraldry was a well defined science in the sixteenth century when Andreae designed his crest... Dante’s Paradiso codifies his initiation into a Rosicrucian-style esotericism, perhaps mediated by the sodality of the Fedeli D’Amore, a Platonic group in Italy. The crest could even be the sign of membership in a special order.” - “A medieval forerunner to the crest of J. V. Andreae,” (The Alchemy Web Site)

 

“The ‘Chymical Marriage’ contains the following passage: -- ‘Hereupon I prepared myself for the way, put on my white linnen coat, girded my loyns, with a blood-red ribbon bound cross-ways over my shoulder: In my hat I stuck four roses.’ Elsewhere, he describes himself as a ‘brother of the Red-Rosie Cross,’ and a ‘Knight of the Golden Stone’– eques aurei lapidis.

‘Now, the armorial bearings of the family of Andreas contain a St Andrew’s Cross with four roses, one in each of its angles, which interesting piece of internal evidence indicates the authorship of this romance independently of the autobiographical statement, and points irresistibly, it is said, to the conclusion that the founder of the Rose-Cross Society was the man whose heraldic device was also the Rose and Cross.” (A.E. Waite, “The Real History of the Rosicrucians”)

 

“Christian Rosencreutz (spelled with a k only in the title), presumably Andreae’s own creation since the name, a symbol of the central idea of his Christian philosophy, does not appear anywhere before 1605. The rose-cross came from his family’s coat of arms, which derived from Luther’s. Andreae’s originality was in uniting the age-old symbols of the rose, the cross, and the wedding as a symbol of the union of the Lutheran reformation and Christian hermetism...

“All three Rosicrucian works are tied together through this imaginary hero Christian Rosencreutz, whose name brought to mind the shield of Luther and his own honored grandfather, Jacob Andreae. The creation of the name Christian Rosencreutz must be credited to Andreae; no one has discovered its use prior to 1605.(95) Since Rosencreutz was born in 1378 - as indicated in the Confessio and cryptographically in the Chymische Hochzeit - and his tomb was ‘discovered’ in 1604 after 120 years, he died just about the time of Luther’s birth in 1483 or 1484.(96) The year 1604 was fraught with chiliastic significance: ‘new stars’ had appeared in the constellations Serpentarius and Cygnus, mentioned specifically in the Fama, which Kepler had written about in De stella nova in pede Serpentarii (1606); a heavenly portent in the form of a fiery triangle was observed that was thought to appear every 800 years, having heralded Charlemagne and Christ before him; the third age predicted by Joachim of Fiore was expected; and it was the year Studion completed his millenarian prophecy. The Fama was thus situated auspiciously.” (“Johann Valentin Andreae’s utopian brotherhoods”)

 

“Johann Valentin Andreae is a Lutheran pastor and mystic, at Tubingen University. Andreae’s personal coat-of-arms, like Martin Luther’s includes the ROSE and CROSS motif.  Yet, according to Schuchard, ‘current scholarship suggests composite authorship by Andrae and his colleagues at Tubingen’.  Here we have an author who is very shrewd, he presents an appeasement (wedding), ie., a Marriage of Alchemy (Intelligentsia of Europe) with the new Protestantism of Europe for political acceptance of the Religious Brotherhood, just as was a similar case for brethren who formed the Grand Lodge of London and Westminster in 1717.

“Why most authors only refer to three manifestos I do not know.  The fourth (of 1617) being; 1617 Invitatio Fraternitatis Christi ad sacri amoris candidatos (1617/18).” (WHAT IS A “CHRISTIAN ROSENCREUTZ”? A Mythical Reality or The New World Alignment?)

 

“The learned Landino drew a horoscope for religion and argued from the conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn that on November 24, 1484, a rebirth of Christianity would commence.” - 308:81

  • Was the legend of “Christian Rosencreutz” an allegorical tale about the Protestant Reformation?

See: Is Christian Rosenkreutz the Protestant Reformation?

 

“In some way, however, there was a connection the Cathars, who were tied with the Bogomils and the older Manichaeans, or followers of Mani. It was from here at the close of the Cathar influence in the Albigensian Crusades that a young boy of the German nobel house of Germal was prepared for training in Persia when he was to come of age. The legend of C.R.C. that was the focus of the first Rosicrucian manifesto published in 1614 was an allegorical vehicle based upon his life and work. Geoffrey de St. Adhémar had also been originally from a town in the Albigensian lands of the Cathars. He later was tutored in the tradition, and co-founded the first Militae Evangelicae in 1089.” (The R+C Legacy: Dr. John Dee)
 

“In this [Memorial] Table stuck a great naile somewhat strong, so that when it was with force drawn out it took with it an indifferent big stone out of the thin wall or plaistering of the hidden door, and so unlooked for uncovered the door, whereat we did with joy and longing throw down the rest of the wall and cleared the door, upon which was written in great letters – Post CXX Annos Patebo, with the year of the Lord under it... For like as our door was after so many years wonderfully discovered, also there shall be opened a door to Europe (when the wall is removed) which already doth begin to appear, and with great desire is expected of many.” (Fama)
 

“Post CXX Annos Patebo” – “At the end of 120 years I will disclose myself.”

  • Luther and the de Medici Popes may have collaborated to “precipitate a schism” in the Roman Catholic Church.

1512-17 - “Lateran Council, Fifth 1512-17, 18th ecumenical council of the Roman Catholic Church, convened by Pope Julius II and continued by his successor Leo X.  Julius called the council to counter an attempt begun (1510) by Louis XII of France to revive the conciliar theory (i.e., that a council has the supreme power even over the pope), of a hundred years before. . .and thus precipitate a new schism.”  (Columbia Encyclopedia) 124:1534

 

1517, October 31 (All Hallow’s Eve = Reformation Day) Martin Luther nailed his Ninety-Five Theses to door of Wittenberg Chapel.

 

“Medici . . .Italian family that directed the destinies of Florence from the 15th cent. until 1737.  Of obscure origin, they rose to immense wealth as merchants and bankers, became affiliated through marriage with the major houses of Europe, and, besides acquiring (1569) the title Grand Duke of Tuscany  produced three popes (Leo X, Clement XII and Leo XI) [, two queens of France (Catherine de Medici and Marie de Medici), and several cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church.” (Columbia Encyclopedia) - 124:1735

 

All Hallow’s Eve - According to Genesis 7:1, the Great Flood began on the 17th day of the 2nd month (Heshvan) of the Old Testament calendar, which is the end of October or beginning of November on the Gregorian calendar. This date falls precisely on All Hallow’s Eve which is the pagan celebration of the “Day of the Dead.” Halloween is the counterpart of the Druidic Feast of Samhain, which was held in honor of the “Lord of the Dead” (Satan) and ushered in the Druidic New Year. Halloween and the two days which follow, the Feasts of All Saints and All Souls, are ancient commemorations of the demonic race—the hybrid offspring of fallen angels—which God destroyed with the Great Flood (Genesis 6-7). 

 

See: The Great Flood & Halloween

Heeding Bible Prophecy: Mount Sion/Hermon 

  • Giovanni de’ Medici, as Pope Leo X, bankrupted the Vatican and inaugurated sale of indulgences to make up the deficit; this papal abuse provoked the Germans setting the stage for Martin Luther’s 99 Theses which launched the Reformation.

    “. . .the future Leo X (was) born Giovanni de’ Medici. . .(the) second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. . . He was tonsured and ordained a priest at age 7, he was summoned from Florence at age 37 by the Conclave in Rome in 1513 to succeed the dead Julius as Leo X. . . He furthered the work of his predecessor, pushing the invading French almost completely out of Italy.  This allowed the pope to spend the bulk of his 7-year pontificate lavishing millions of ducats on the arts, legendary banquets and his grandiose building projects.  After years of delays Leo began work in earnest on the construction of a new St. Peter’s Basilica, which he intended to be the greatest church in Christendom.  The pope’s ears were deaf to the protests of his priests as he blessed the demolition of old St. Peter’s with all of its priceless early Christian art treasures. 

    “Bramante’s designs for the new St. Peter’s soon became Leo’s greatest money pit.  Julius’ treasury was emptied. . .

    “Leo had gained the pope’s crown through a solemn vow to discontinue Pope Julius’ use of usury and indulgences.  But the new basilica built in the Apostle’s name could not be finished unless he expanded the indulgence scheme beyond all previous excesses of Sixtus IV. . . 

    “Leo expected that volume rather than a high retail price for fewer indulgences would haul in a Calvary sized mountain of money, burn off the bills of his lavish life and projects in Rome.

    “What it did instead was incite the Protestant Reformation.

    “The Church authorities across the German states, could say, ran a syndicate over the sinful laity.  Taxes imposed by this papal Mafia of the German soul had already collected half the wealth in Germany.  One more indulgence fleecing from the pope broke the camel’s back of the Church’s credibility.  For centuries Christians had endured spiritual neglect from the popes of Rome until the climate was right for one Augustinian monk named Martin Luther to galvanize the resentment of  millions of average Christians into a spiritual rebellion. 

    “In 1517 Luther wrote a pamphlet on indulgences and other essays critical of papal abuses followed. . .

    “Three years later, in 1520, Leo X brushed Luther off with a condemnation of heresy, thinking that it would put the errant priest and his movement in its place.  Even Niccolo Machiavelli (1469-1527), one of the pope’s advisors, did not take Martin Luther’s cult seriously.” 388:144-46

  • In fact, there were four Medici popes, perhaps to insure that the Protestant Reformation continued as planned.

1513-21 – Pope Leo X (Giovanni de Medici, second son of Lorenzo the Magnificent) 388:144

 

1523-34 – Pope Clement VII (Jiulio de Medici, the bastard son of Giuliano de Medici and cousin Leo X who appointed him Archbishop of Florence in 1523) 388:149

1559-65 - Pope Pius IV (Giovanni Angelo Medici)

“B. 31 March, 1499, at Milan; elected 26 December, 1559; d. in Rome 9 Dec., 1565.  The Medici of Milan lived in humble circumstances and the proud Florentine house of the same name claimed no kindred with them until Cardinal Medici was seated on the papal throne. . . The mildness of Pius IV in dealing with suspects of heresy, so different from the rigour of his predecessor, made many suspect his own orthodoxy.” (Catholic Encyclopedia)

 

1605 April 1-28 - Leo XI (Alessandro Ottaviano de Medici) 388:183

 

See: Pope Chart

  • The Reformation effected a marriage of convenience between Rosicrucianism and Protestantism, which was influenced by Rosicrucian philosophy.

“...according to Schuchard, ‘current scholarship suggests composite authorship by Andrae and his colleagues at Tubingen’.  Here we have an author who is very shrewd, he presents an appeasement (wedding), ie., a Marriage of Alchemy (Intelligentsia of Europe) with the new Protestantism of Europe for political acceptance of the Religious Brotherhood...

“...THE OFFSPRING, of the Manifestos, was the Rosicrucian philosophy that influenced Protestant Europe for the next several centuries...

“Hence, may we say that ‘Rosicrucians’ were people who enjoyed the mystical and esoteric way of life which eventually led to the Church’s reform.  To overcome the Church’s label of Heresy they enveiled their thoughts within the science of Alchemy.  This concept (destruction of the total control of the Papacy) which began with Luther, included the 30-year War (1618-1648) and reached the public with the publication of the so-called ‘rosicrucian manifesto’, The FAMA.

“CRC was NEVER a person, rather it was an Intellectual Movement (of 100 years) which roughly spanned 1517 (when Luther nailed his Theses to the Church door) to 1614 (production of the Fama).” - “What is Christian Rosencreutz?“ (SRIA, Societas Rosicrucian in Anglia)  

  • The Lutheran Church today receives Freemasons into its membership.

1957 - The Lutheran Church fails to achieve unity at a meeting due to the opposition of one group of its members to membership of Lodges by members of the Church. (Freemasonry From Antiquity)

  • Lutheran apologist and Knight Templar, John Warwick Montgomery’s biography of Rosicrucian John Valentin Andrea misrepresented him as an orthodox Lutheran theologian.

“...Montgomery’s critical biography, Cross and Crucible (1972),...is driven by an image of Andreae as a pious, orthodox Lutheran theologian whose life was a seamless whole. Like others before him, Montgomery presumed that no other evidence, save Andreae’s unfortunate choice of the name Christian Rosencreutz for a persona in the Chymische Hochzeit, linked him to the manifestos. However, Edighoffer and Brecht, working independently, discovered evidence of Andreae’s involvement in several of the treatises, most notably Confessio fraternitatis.(6) In a commemorative work for his friend Tobias Hess, Andreae had gathered together thoughts and notes from Hess’s manuscripts as Theca gladii spiritus, sententias quasdem breves vereque philosophicas continens (Strasbourg, 1616), which contained enough citations from Andreae’s own work, such as De Christiani Cosmoxeni genitura, Judicium (Strasbourg, 1612, dedicated to Hess), to make clear that they had at the very least worked collaboratively.(7) Most importantly, it contains quotations from the Confessio and the Invitatio fraternitatis Christi, which was issued in two parts in 1617 and 1618. Andreae, who alone was responsible for these selections, can thus be clearly linked with two of the three major Rosicrucian tracts, Chymische Hochzeit and Confessio. Despite all the painstaking scholarship asserting the uniformity of the pious Andreae’s life, the truth is rather more complicated.(8)” (“Johann Valentin Andreae’s utopian brotherhoods”)

 

Marquis Who’s Who in America (2002):

 

John Warwick Montgomery, member of the “Ordre des chevaliers du Saint-Sepulchres Byzantin (commandeur)” i.e., Commander of the Order of the Holy Sepulcher, the Greek-Orthodox / Byzantine Rite of the Knights Templar founded by Godfroi de Bouillon

 

Institutional Aims of The Byzantine Order of the Holy Sepulchre:

  • “Ecumenism is promoted in a variety of ways for the fulfilment of the Order’s institutional aims, which include the unification of all faiths.

  • “The Ecclesiastical Authorities of the Order participate in international Congresses on Ecumenism and maintain contact with international bodies operating at all levels, for the affirmation of Ecumenism world wide.”

 

THE REFORMATION: PART 2