Alchemy, Prophecy, and the Rosicrucians:
Raphael Eglinus and Mystical Currents of the Early Seventeenth Century by BT Moran - 1994
Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and 17th Centuries
Edited Piyo Rattansi - Antonio Clericuzio
Even among historians of alchemy Raphael Eglinus (1559-1622) is a relatively obscure figure. For years he has stood on the periphery of discussions concerned with Renaissance occult traditions. When mentioned at all it has usually been in the context of a certain type of prophetic literature or as a casual acquaintance of Giordano Bruno. And yet, in the light of what scarcely known printed and archival sources actually reveal about him, Eglinus has to be considered one of the most important intellectual links supporting a Swiss-Italian and German connection within the mystical and alchemical history of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. In his writings, almost sixty published works, Eglinus combined New Testament studies with readings in prophetic mysticism, alchemy and Paracelsian natural philosophy. He examined the relation between the macro-and microcosmos, wrote of the returning Elias Artista, discussed magical symbols, edited a text of Giordano Bruno, composed Rosicrucian essays, and made prophecies based on marks appearing on the back of a herring caught off the coast of Norway.!
That orthodox Lutheran schoolmaster and chemist, Andreas Libavius (1540-1616), despised most of these things: but when it came to patching together his own defence of alchemy, even he found it useful to include part of an alchemical treatise written by Eglinus, albeit one composed under a pseudonym.2 That Eglinus wrote under several names has been known for a long time. Members of his family had leased a manorial estate near Thurgau, which was called Monehhof Locals referred to the Monehe, or monks, in the region as lkonii, literally idols, and Eglinus included the name Iconius, that is, ex gente lconiorum, with his own. At times he referred to himself also as Percaeus. The origin of this name seems to derive from perea, the latinized form of a fish sometimes also called egli on ZUrich Lake.
Then there are the more poetic creations like Heliophilus and Philochemicus, and a favourite anagram, Nicolaus Niger Hapelius. Until recently, what little anyone knew about Eglinus stemmed in large measure from an essay published in 1905 by a Swiss pastor. The account, based on a collection of religious manuscripts (Simler Manuscript collection) and including reference to a short autobiography as well as to a biography written in an unknown hand, treats Eglinus as a learned and honest theologian who, after rising to become professor of New Testament and Deacon of the Cathedral in Zurich, became sidetracked by alchemical interests. To pay debts incurred partially from involvement in a joint mining venture, partly as the result of "a delivery of chemical goods," and especially after standing surety for loans made to a friend, Eglinus turned to alchemy.
There was also a suspicion of evangelical aspostacy, since one of Eglinus's alchemical correspondents was discovered to be the son of a Catholic scholar with whom Eglinus had earlier agreed to debate, but without the consent of Zurich church officials. Further, the holder of the note for which Eglinus now found himself liable was none other than the Cardinal Andrea, the Bishop of Constance, who was eager to have Eglinus revoke an earlier writing against the papacy. In the end, Eglinus repented his wrongs, denied that he had prepared a secret conversion and renounced his alchemical involvement. Even so, the Zurich fathers decided that he must give up his cathedral post.
For the good of the Zurich citizenry, he was also asked to leave the city, although not without the support of the city council in looking for a new position. He landed, thereafter, at the court of the German Prince, Moritz of Hessen (1572-1632), who appointed him to the faculty of theology at his University in Marburg. The University was not entirely foreign terrain. It had also been home to Eglinus's father, Tobias, who had studied there in 1556. According to the same Swiss account, Moritz promised his appointee a humiliating death if ever Eglinus became involved with alchemical foolishness again. The picture, then, is of a promising theologian ruined by alchemical enthusiasm who renounces his errors, is justly punished, but who is then redeemed by a strict although understanding secular father and Calvinist prince.
The account minimizes any further involvement in the occult arts or influence within occult-alchemical traditions. The fact that Moritz of Hessen was himself one of the most active patrons of alchemy and occult philos ophy in the early seventeenth century never enters the discussion. Although important for bringing interesting sources about Eglinus to light, the tale is, at bottom, a cautionary one, but one in which some of those same sources ought to have been read with much more circumspection. Just what was Eglinus's relation to alchemy before his separation from Zurich? How deeply involved with the subject had he actually become? Whom did he know, and, most important, what did he bring along with him to Marburg and Kassel when he left his Swiss cathedral post?
Finding answers to these questions requires digging quite far down into remaining archival documents and doing some so-called "deep sourcing." There are, surprisingly, traces of Egliniana scattered throughout many parts of Europe. However, for our purposes, collections in Zurich, Basel, Marburg and Kassel have the most to offer. From records collected during the Zurich proceedings against him, it is clear that Eglinus was not so much involved in transmutation as in the practical business of making a metal cement for the purpose of producing gold alloys.7
Those same documents, however, also include a summary of his theoretical beliefs about the philosophers' stone. 6 What the ZUrich fathers found here was a combination of Geber and Paracelsus and a description of an alchemical process in which gold was to be broken apart by a supernatural, all-comprehending heavenly fire and returned to its first beginnings.8 From Eglinus's point of view, none of this conflicted with theology. "I have never been involved with ungodly, contrary-to-nature arts," he wrote in 1605, "but rather with what many highly learned people have inquired into the have described in God's creation.,,9
In the end, it was not so much alchemy itself as the need to address popular suspicions that a public figure might have resorted to alchemical deception in making good on debts that led to Eglinus's removal. 10 For his part, Eglinus had made no secret about his alchemical interests. Already in 1600 he had composed what he called "a little chemical book" which, along with a catalogue of a medical-chemical library, he sent to his friend in Basel, Jacob Zwinger (1569-1610).11 In correspondence with Zwinger over the next several years Eglinus described not only his own alchemical philosophy but also the alchemical company that he had begun to keep.
Most influential had been Alexander von Suchten's Secretus Antimoni (1570), and, indeed, Eglinus confided to Zwinger that he now felt that the true metallic essence was to be found in antimony. He believed the opinions of the physician and poet Joannes Baptista Montanus (1498-1551) to be less important. On the other hand, another poet, Marcellus Palingenius (fl. 1528), had described and explicated the entire art when writing of the heavenly sign Capricorn in his work Zodiacus Vitae. Also to be recommended at this point was the alchemical collection of Petrus Bonus: Margarita Pretiosa. These were, of course, all published texts.
But Eglinus wrote also of alchemical information that had come to him privately. He had, Eglinus wrote to Zwinger in 1603, been fully instructed by the Scot (Scotus Comes), (i.e. Alexander Sidonius or Seton) in the commutation of the mercury of saturn into silver by means of the extract of the spirit of the moon (i.e. silver).13 He had also come to know Angelo Sala (c. 1575-1637), who is able to make a universal medicine from a fixed body and the universal spirit of the world, and this not by a metamorphosis of metals. 12 14 At least in the case of Sala, it is clear that Eglinus meant to refer to a personal contact, and he notes that Sala would have communicated to him not only the theory but also the practice of all he knew had not "abundant ill-fortune then crashed down upon me.,,15
Most precious, however, were two autographs of Basil Valentine, whom Eglinus described as his patron and first friend in the alchemical art. One of the autographs was a process for extracting the sulphur of gold by means of the vitriol of copper and iron. Making this vitriol received the most practical attention in Eglinus's letters to Zwinger, but also important was the description of a second Basilian recipe concerned with the making of potable gold. In discussing each, Eglinus included ample reference to the works of Paracelsus and sought to use Paracelsus as a means of confirming his own alchemical opinions. 16 Later, after becoming firmly established at Marburg, Eglinus summarized the teachings of Basil in a little book called Cheiragogia Heliana.17
There his attention is given over to Basil's "stone of fire," a tincture prepared out of the mercury of antimony and the vitriol of copper and iron. To open metals, however, Eglinus recommended a preparation made from common salt, a more exact description of which he had earlier included in correspondence with Zwinger. From Paracelsus and Basilian texts Eglinus also adopted a view of cos mology that intimately linked man (the microcosm) with the universe at large (the macrocosm). Theirs, however, was not the only influence. In 1580, the then theology student, Raphael Eglinus, had just arrived in Geneva to study with the well-known reformed theologian Theodor Beza (1519-1605).
Shortly thereafter Beza complained of a certain Italian, a medical doctor and adept of Basel named Augustinus who "took such possession of Eglinus, as if he were the most learned of all mortals although he was really a man of paradoxes, that he was allowed even into Eglinus's own quarters.,,18 The two absconded together to Basel, Eglinus returning only when admonished to do so by his teacher. The reason for the sudden departure is not known, although the chances are that it may have been in some way inspired by rumours surrounding the residence in Geneva a year earlier of the Italian hermetic philosopher, Giordano Bruno (c. 1548-1600).
It is impossible at this point to identify the seductive personality who momentarily distracted Eglinus from his theological studies. Nevertheless, we do know something about other acquaintances who played a significant role in influencing the course of his thinking. Some time around 1588 Eglinus came into contact with Johann Heinrich Hainzel, a patrician of Augsburg, with whom Eglinus enjoyed a long personal friendship and who may have been at least partially respon sible for arousing in Eglinus a further interest in things Brunoian.19
Both finally met Bruno in Zurich in 1591. In the same year Bruno dedicated his treatise De Imaginum, ldearum, et signorum compositione to Hainzel and left with Eglinus a manuscript on scholastic metaphysics originally called "de Entis Descensu" which Eglinus thereafter edited and published in 1595 as the Summa Terminorum Metaphysicorum Jordani Bruni Nolani.20
Alchemy and Prophecy
The point is, Eglinus did not come to Germany as a contrite ex-alchemist, but as a theologian, speculative philosopher, and alchemical adept prepared to offer products of each kind. Two religious tracts published in 1606, the year of his arrival in Marburg, made his theological convictions clear.21 At the same time, he produced a little book of theological aphorisms concerning prophetic mysteries 22 and published a prophetic-alchemical treatise, the Disquisitio de Helia Artium, which incorporated eschatological beliefs con cerning the return of Elias Artista into an alchemical context and defended alchemy as based in scripture. 23 There were by then several versions of the returning Elias with messianic and cabbalistic associations from which Eglinus could choose in constructing his own prophecies. 24
The idea that the return of Elias would usher in a coming age of enlightenment in which all the secrets of nature would be revealed had appeared already in the texts of at least two of Eglinus's favourite authors, Paracelsus and Alexander von Suchten. Although admitting that he did not know how Paracelsus came to his prophecy, Eglinus accepted Paracelsus's apocalyptic view that the age of Elias would follow the destruction of two thirds of the world by war and pestilence. At that time the temporal estates dividing the world of man would be altogether overthrown. Eglinus added, however, probably to settle the nerves of his new Landesherr, Moritz of Hessen. that this was not a prophecy of the downfall of justly appointed political estates, but the overturning of what he called "the bestial estate" (ordinum bestiae), that is, the existence of man himself as an unenlightened dumb animal. 25
While in the age of Elias all truths of nature would be made known, including those pertaining to the chemical arts, Eglinus conceded that such knowledge might also be revealed to a few in the "middle age" for whom, as "for the use and honour of all those who love truth," Paracelsus and others had written. 26 The book, however, was not entirely about prophecy. In fact, Eglinus gave over the larger part to a defence of alchemy against the attack of a Jesuit professor of philosophy at the University of Ingolstadt named Balthasar Hagel. Hagel's criticisms appeared in a comprehensive book treating magnetism, chemistry and metallurgy published at Ingolstadt in 1588 with the title De Metallo et Lapide.27
There were numerous points of contention. If, Hagel asked, sulphur and mercury were the constituents of metals, why were they not found in the veins of earth from which minerals and metals were themselves mined? Furthermore, if sulphur, which was highly combustible, was one of the constituent parts of metals, why then did metals themselves not also acquire the same "phlogistic" property?28 Eglinus's defence was to insist that sulphur and mercury were themselves not found in the veins of metals because they were already mixed in metals, that is, had already become metals, a position taken also by well-known authorities on mining and assaying, including Agricola, Libavius and Christian Entzelt.
As to why metals did not possess a "phlogistic" or combustible property although constituted partly from sulphur, he explained that sulphur, in its perfect state, is so fine as neither to evaporate nor to burn. Neither would sulphur burn so long as it was bound with another material. In this case, when in the presence of heat, it rather became a vapour or smoke. 29 As for transmutation, Eglinus especially argued against Hagel's view that metals were essentially different in their kinds so that no metal could be changed into another. For his part, Eglinus reasoned that the differences in metals arose solely from differences in the purity of their constituent principles: sulphur, mercury and salt. 30
Alchemical Practice in the circle of Moritz of Hessen
The move to Marburg interrupted only briefly correspondence with Jacob Zwinger, although Eglinus's letters took now a decidedly pharmaceutical turn. To Zwinger he explained the vitriol of sulphur as a medicament in the cure of epilepsy and described in detail a process for making a luna potabilis taken from yet another autograph of Basil Valentine. The shift to medical uses of chemical preparations may have contributed to the source of difficulties with at least one other member of the Marburg faculty, Johannes Hartmann (1568-1631), who was appointed public professor of chymiatria (chemical medicine) at the university in 1609. In 1614, Eglinus found it necessary to complain to the Hessen prince, Moritz, that Hartmann had inflicted his judgement on his disciples in his private college of chymiatria "to the great prejudice of my reputation so that these students must avoid my laboratory as an evil dog or snake ... [and] he [also] forbids to all my conversation and encouragement.,,31 Eglinus could turn to the Prince because he had much earlier found a fixed place within the Prince's alchemical-medical court circle.
On behalf of the court he functioned as an explicator of alchemical texts. He could also be counted on as an alchemical intermediary and consultant. Moritz frequently called for his opinions on processes that had been submitted to the court, and made use of Eglinus's alchemical workshop for purposes of testing alchemical particularia. Letters between Eglinus and the Prince, extending over fifteen years, show him not reluctant to propose projects of his own, many based on processes entrusted to him by Swiss alchemical acquaintances. In that way, Eglinus recommended a process for transmuting mercury into silver en route to tinging a Mark of silver into two lots of gold - a process that had come to him from a fellow Zurich alchemist named Hans Jacob Hochholtzer.32
A recipe for making a green salt that could dissolve common gold and promote the conjunction of mineral, vegetable and animal "stones" and additional particularia for alloying metals came to Eglinus from his "good and experienced compatriot" and former chemist to the Elector Ernest of Cologne, Christoph Meyer a Windeck.33
Other Swiss alchemical contacts included Caspar Tomanus from Zurich, Hans Heinrich Huber at Basle, and Georg Sehmling who lived in Strasbourg, but who was originally from the Tyrol. The ideas of another Swiss alchemist and Paracelsian, Bartholomeus Schobinger (b. c. 1549), may also have been known to Eglinus.34 It is not easy to sort out the Schobinger family since several members were named Bartholomeus. 35 Nevertheless, the St Gallen branch possessed, since the mid-sixteenth century, writings and letters of Paracelsus, collected by an earlier Bartholomeus (1500-1585) has been said to be in personal contact with the famous physician.
The family library also included numerous alchemical works. In 1619, another Bartholomeus, now almost seventy years old, offered Moritz of Hessen a recipe for aqua mercurialis, a powerful Paracelsian medicament. Promises however of "the highest philosophical secret" received a sceptical reception. Moritz, in one of his more courteous moods, wrote that "in the matter of the secret of philosophy I recognize myself to be a disciple and beginner in such things [and I know] that you have more experience in this matter than I, however, from what I do know, I do not think that you are on the right track. Also, I think that you are ignorant of and therefore lack the correct material, the aquam solventem, and what belongs to it.,,36
One early alchemical claim submitted to Moritz and requiring Eglinus's consultation was a process proposed by a Kassel goldsmith and carver of stone coasts of arms [Wappensteinschneider] named Severin Ruder. Some time around 1614, Ruder began promoting an alchemical process of his brother in-law, an Amsterdam metallurgist named Paul Auland. According to the proposal, 42 parts of gold could be produced by combining silver and gold in a ratio of 75 to 16. The process for doubling gold interested Moritz who invited the metallurgist to Kassel to provide a demonstration.
Auland, however, declined the invitation, pointing to prior contractual obligations with the city of London for supplying 130 water pumps (each able to eject 70,000 tons of water in a twenty-four hour period), a contract that would bring him a profit of 10,000 florins. Ruder, however, was ready to supply the court with a full disclosure of his brother-in-Iaw's alchemical insights and offered as well to explain a recipe for preparing the sulphur solis or tincture of gold.37 Despite an original promise to send both recipes, Auland's processes were long delayed. Almost a year later, Eglinus rendered the following report based upon observations made by his son, Hans Ulrich, who had recently visited Auland in Amsterdam.
I ought not conceal from Your Grace that that particular about which Auland boasted in vain [probably the sulphur solis] he neither could have had, nor will be ever have it although he wrote to Your Grace with temerity and boldness [concerning it]. My son came upon it [in Amsterdam] and saw also [besides this process] the gold being produced there [from silver and gold], however poverty [of materials] here [in Marburg] does not allow us to work further in it. 38
There followed a precise description of the gold alloying procedure, nevertheless. Clearly, despite difficulties with the sulphur solis, the process interested Eglinus who, as we have seen, was much at home in the practical work of doubling gold. More interesting to the court was information supplied by Eglinus con cerning the work of two other alchemists: Jacob Alstein and Johannes Angeles von Engelsberg. Alstein was a chemist and physician in Magdeburg and was well known among chemical physicians in the early seventeenth century although little concerning him has survived.
Eglinus visited Alstein's pharmacy (Pharmacopolio) and was impressed by what he saw there and by what Alstein revealed to him about his work.39 What he learned he passed along to the Hessen prince, Moritz. In fact, the Prince had not long to wait before receiving an alchemical secret "concerning a certain projection" directly from Alstein, which, however, Alstein had not yet had the opportunity to test personally.40 From Alstein, Eglinus also learned of the alchemical projects of Johannes von Engelsberg, a physician formerly in service to the King of France who thereafter became involved in alchemical-medical projects on behalf of the Imperial court in Prague.
In 1614, Engelsberg informed the court of a process by which he could generate a universal tincture and extract the "salt of metals." Further details about the recipe are lacking, although the basis for it Engelsberg described as the secret of the infinite tincture known to Isaac Holland.41 In early letters to Moritz Eglinus continued to promote his process for making gold from silver by means of preparing a metallic liquor or cement. 42 Thereafter he concerned himself with Basilian recipes for making metallic tinctures and, among other procedures, with preparing "Paracelsian tin." Much of what he collected during this time found its way into a still extant alchemical notebook or Handbuch. 43
There Basilian recipes, many in the hand of Eglinus's alchemical friend and fellow Rosicrucian enthusiast, Benedict Figulus, accompanied selections from Paracelsian writings and a long list of processes written, communicated, or tested by alchemical aquaintances. These recipes are especially interesting since Eglinus often added precise details as to how he had acquired them. An augmentum and tinctur solis of Monsieur de la Rivera had been obtained, for instance, in France by Dr Jeremias Bart, the teacher of the young Graf von Ortenburg, who, says Eglinus, "communicated it to me with his own hand at Heidelberg in 1611 in exchange for several Basilian writings." Other entries name those involved in testing and elaborating procedures, indicate the provenance of individual recipes, and point to the professional backgrounds of those involved in communicating them. Some describe whether certain recipes agreed with others already known and specify what Eglinus himself had found when attempting their duplication. 44
While collecting and testing various tinctures, Eglinus was, as we have seen, more often inclined to offer the Kassel court recipes for alloying gold and silver with other metals. In 1621, at the beginning of the period known in Germany as the Kipper und Wipper Zeit, when most of central Europe adopted a de facto copper standard, he also began suggesting recipes for transmuting iron into copper.45 The simple assaying techniques involved in doubling metals were known to every goldsmith and assayer and had become by then a leading factor in the gradual debasement and devaluation of currency. There were, of course, imperial decrees regulating the amount of gold and silver in coins. However, within the hundreds of German principalities avoidance of the Reichsmun zordnung (1559) was more often the rule than the exception. In Hessen, as elsewhere, the debasement of coinage brought personal hardship to many. Ironically, Eglinus too found himself afflicted by the consequences of the practice, a practice that, in many ways, he had himself encouraged.
His own financial condition grew so intolerable that he was forced finally to make a full disclosure of his earnings to the Prince in order to demonstrate the burdens incurred by Marburg faculty as a result of the University's Oeconomus meeting expenses in near worthless coins called "Schaffhauser" (after the town of Schaffhausen where they were produced). "The affairs of the Academy," he wrote towards the end of his life in 1622, "are so worn down and afflicted that unless Your Grace lends a hand with princely authority to the [university's] accounts, and Yourself take care that stipends are paid in solid coinage ... I fail to see how professors of slender means can continue to exist, except that all things go to the worse.,,46
Yet, for all of this, Eglinus's role in the alchemical history of the early seventeenth century is less important than the part he played in the spread of occult traditions in Germany on the eve of the Thirty Years War. In 1609 he published two works summing up cosmological speculations attributed to Basil Valentine. 47 Two years later he brought together homilies written originally at Zurich treating, in part, political changes prophesied in the Book of Revelations. 48
In 1616 another text, dedicated to Moritz, attempted to join together divine physics, mathematics and hieroglyphics so as to describe "how all things in nature, especially the sympathies and antipathies of the macro and microcosm occur and can be known.,,49 Whereas experience is essential in understanding natural things, it is, says Eglinus, through contemplation and revelation (the light of grace and glory) that we are led to the intimate mysteries joining together the things of nature and the divine. Hieroglyphic figures reveal "theosophically the principles of the heavens and fundamental doctrines taken from the sacristy of sacred scripture itself."
Thus, revealed wisdom grasps all and orders all and comes to us as a gift of God's own grace. In the end, he writes, "those things not yet understood we will receive by means of the first resurrection ... and from the brotherhood of Christians baptised by the rosy blood of the cross of Christ." The reference to a brotherhood of the Rosy Cross as a source of true revelation is clear in this text. It may have been Eglinus who, just a year earlier, wrote another work on hieroglyphics and magical signs under the pseudonyms Philip a Gabala and Philemon R.C. This work, called the Consideratio Brevis, appeared with the first publication of the Rosicrucian manifesto, the Confessio Fraternitatis, at Kassel in 1615. By then, the best known Rosicrucian text, the Fama Fraternitatis (1614), had also appeared, published, as was the Confessio, by the Kassel publisher Wilhelm Wessel.
Deep in Eglinus's correspondence with Moritz lies an undated reference to a "little treatise" that Eglinus had written and which might possibly have come to Wessel, who had just published the Fama. 50 While the actual origins of the Fama and Confessio Fraternitatis seem to have much to do with the Tubingen circle of Tobias Hess, Christoph Besold, and Johann Valentin Andreae, that the milieu in which the Consideratio Brevis took shape may have been influ enced by the alchemical circle surrounding the court of the Hessen prince, Moritz. One contemporary linked the brotherhood to Moritz's university town, comparing the Rosicrucians to mists rising from the river Lahn, that is, the river that runs through Marburg. 51
For a long time, the name of the figure to whom, according to Frances Yates, the Consideratio was dedicated, Bruno Carl von Uffel, seemed also to be pseudonymous. Yet, Bruno Carl von Uffel was a real person. In fact, he was a Hessen nobleman and courtly appointed Generalproviantmeister (master of Provisions).
He was also an alchemical enthusiast who proposed alchem ical processes to the Kassel court which it became Eglinus's job to scrutinize for the Prince. In 1613, von Uffel offered a secret for making a universal tincture by dissolving metals as a way of releasing their true spiritus.52
Eglinus supported the project, concluding that whoever truly understood the nature of metals knew that it was not necessary to destroy them with fire to obtain the philosophers' stone. Rather, as Basil Valentine had suggested, a fixed medicine could be made by dissolving and purifying the metals themselves. 53
Both Eglinus and von Uffel also shared Basil's belief that a prima materia could be delivered from metals by means of a magnetic spirit which was itself found in antimony and released from antimony by dissolution.54 "Then," Eglinus writes, "it is aqua benedicta and the doubled mercurius philosophorum which dissolves gold powder and brings it to its prima materia and makes itself into an eternal tincture.,,55 Eglinus knew of von Uffel's alchemical thinking, approved of it, and even instructed von Uffel, in 1614, in the preparation of Basil's tincture of the mercury of antimony.56 Who better, then, than Eglinus himself to remember the otherwise obscure von Uffel in the dedication of a treatise given over to the universal significance of a magical-alchemical sign, the "stella hieroglyphica?"57
Eglinus may also be most likely the author of an unmistakably Rosicrucian treatise, called the Assertio Fraternitatis, that was printed at Frankfurt in the same year as the Fama. The author admits to being himself a brother of the Rosy Cross, an order that lies hidden in the midst of the Germanies. It is knowledge that the brothers seek as they wander through Europe, knowledge of philosophy, medicine, sacred scripture and chemistry. Whatever books 58 appear, the order's Bibliopola procures for its members who are well versed in many languages. But not through reading alone do the brothers seek to improve the world, rather by means of observation, individual contemplation, and finally communal consultation.
The brotherhood's magical arts have been defamed by some, but the astonishing things which its members accomplish are always consistent with nature. In such a way, its chemical arts surpass all others and from a daily working with fire, and by combining natural studies with sacred piety, the brothers prepare the most powerful medical cures. For the time being, the brotherhood works silently, but the time will come when its usefulness will be perceived by all and the knowledge that the order has collected will reach people scattered throughout God's globe. "We are undertaking sublime things," the text announces, "at which our own age will be amazed."
Other figures linked to Rosicrucian texts, including Benedict Figulus, Heinrich Noll, and Michael Maier, vied for attention at the Kassel court. Eglinus and Figulus were well known to each other and, as we have seen, much of Eglinus's alchemical Handbuch is given over to alchemical-pharmaceu tical processes written out in Figulus's own hand.
Two other additions to the Handbuch also suggest Rosicrucian connections. One is an entry as follows: "Aus Herrn Johannis Praetorii Pfarrherr zu Munster Dressen buck, Rauchmarckt genant, wieder die Rosen Creutzische Bruder, von der Cabaley undt Alchimey."s9 Eglinus adds that the little essay was copied on November 11, 1617 by one Friedrich von Horden. Despite the confusing title, this is not an attack on the Rosicrucians, at least not in the excerpt that Eglinus found significant enough to add to his Handbuch.
Referring to scripture, the little essay announces three empires in the world, one led by a lion, one by an eagle, and the third by the two united together, ein Greiff or griffin. To know alchemy, which, the writer adds, the brothers of the Rosy Cross certainly do, one has to comprehend the alchemical phoenix which can be known cabbalistically through biblical understanding of the two images. Another entry in the Handbuch, this time an alchemical recipe, is a process for an alchemical tincture communicated in 1607 via Figulus from one Adam Haselmyer of the Tyrol. This is undoubtedly the same Haselmyer who wrote a reply to the Fama Fraternitatis in 1612 after claiming to have seen the text in 60 manuscript in the Tyrol. Whatever the connection, it is clear that a group of kindred spirits in both Switzerland and Germany shared an interest in alchemical (mostly Basilian-Paracelsian) and Rosicrucian texts. Underneath it all, however, ran a sub-theme, the prophetic revelation of knowledge through the return of Elias. Elias, however, was no longer a person, but a Christian brotherhood infused with hermetic, Paracelsian and alchemical beliefs which had taken shape within the intellectual traditions of Renaissance Platonism and post-reformation millenarianism.
There are, of course, lots of Rosicrucian essays, over two hundred written between 1614 and 1623, and Eglinus may be just one of many writers excited by the possibility of a Rosicrucian brotherhood, real or imaginary. Yet the closeness of Eglinus to the publication of the earliest Rosicrucian manifestos at Kassel, his earlier encounter with Giordano Bruno, an interest in Paracelsian cosmology and Basilian alchemy, and his prophetic chiliasm set within the tradition of the returning Elias Artista, make him at least a good candidate for admittance into the inner circle of Rosicrucian enthusiasts. How much cloth does it take to make a coat? Certainly the bits of fabric gathered around Raphael Eglinus are insufficient to fill out any definite pattern. Much still needs to be pieced together from material perhaps still to be found in the archives. In the meantime, the little extra stitching done here should make it obvious that whoever wants, in the future, to tie in the appearance of prophetic-Rosicrucian writings in Germany with the prevailing religious, alchemical and occult traditions of the early seventeenth century will need to pull on at least a few Eglinian threads.
NOTES
1. Prophetia Halieutica vere nova et admiranda ad Danielis et sacrae Apocalpyseos calculum chronographicum. divina ope nunc primum in lucem productum. revocata (Tiguri, 1598). Also published under the title Conjectura halieutica nova e notis et characteribus piscium
marinorum ad latera stupendo prodigio insignitorum desumta; oder neue Meerwunderische Prophezeyung uber die 1598 in Norwegen gefangene und mit Characteribus gezeichnete Heringe, aus daviel und der Offenbarung lohannis Zeitrechnung (Frankfurt and Hanau, 1611).
2. Ex Heliophilo and Percis Philochemico in Appendix necessaria Syntagmatis Arcanorum Chymicorum Andreae Libavii ... (Frankfurt: Nicolaus Hoffmannus, 1615), pp. 252-62.
3. J. Wiilli, "Raphael Egli (1559-1622)," Zurcher Taschenbuch aUf das lahr 1905 N.F. 28
(1905), pp. 154-92. Other references include: Hans Jacob Leu, Allgemeines Helvetisches. Eydgenoftisches. oder Schweitzerisches Lexicon . .. (ZUrich: Hans Ulrich Denzler, 1752), Part 6, p. 224-28; Friedrich Wilhelm Strieder, Grundlage zu einer hessischen gelehrtenund schriftsteller-geschichte (1781-1868), vol. 3, pp. 299-318; Hermann Walser, Geschichte der Laurenzen- oder Stadtkirche Winterthur (Winterthur: Geschwister Ziegler, 1944), Part 2, pp. 52-53; Historisch Biographisches Lexikon der Schweiz (Neuenburg, 1924-34),
vol. 2, p. 790. Emanuel Dejung and Willy Wuhrmann, Zurcher Pfarrerbuch 1519-1952 (ZUrich, 1953), p. 252; Walther Zimmermann, "Die Ahnen des Marburger Professors Raphael Eglin, eine Karolinger-Abstammung," Hessische Familienkunde (Frankfurt am Main, 1954-56), vol. 3, pp. 73-80; 171-78. I have discussed a few aspects of Eglinus's life in The Alchemical World of the German Court: Occult Philosophy and Chemical Medicine in the Circle of Moritz of Hessen (1572-1632) (Stuttgart, 1991), pp. 40ff; 98-101.
4. WiilIi's reading of remaining documents in ZUrich surrounding Eglinus's dismissal is more trustworthy than the impression left by Ferguson who follows earlier biographical sources. "But he had become so infatuated with alchemy that not only his own estate but a good
deal of other peoples' had gone in smoke up his furnace chimney, and at last in 1601 his debts were so heavy that he fled from ZUrich to Marburg ... " John Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica (1906, rept. London, 1954), vol. I, p. 233.
5. Eglinus also accepted the office of court preacher at Marburg and used his skills in hymnology to help prepare the official hymnal of the reformed Hessen church. See Winfried Zeller, "Raphael Egli und das Gesangbuch des Landgrafen Moritz," in B. Jaspert ed., Frommigkeit in Hessen: Beitriige zur Hessischen Kirchengeschichte (Marburg: Elwert, n.d.), pp.80-95. 6. My thanks to Joachim Telle for bringing many references to Eglinus letters outside Kassel to my attention.
7. Staatsarchiv des Kantons ZUrich: E I 1.6a. Letter to Dr. Joannes Scheppius; Tiguri, 28 Nov. 1604. By means of the process Eglinus promises an increase of one and a half lots plus three grains of gold for every mark invested. The whole procedure is so certain, he
says, "that now several times specimina have been made by me and are with me in great quantity."
8. Wiilli, "Raphael Egli," (n. 3) p. 166-67. Staatsarchiv des Kantons ZUrich: E I 1.6a. "Ein summarischer Bericht vom Stein der Wysen, was min Ergrundung."
9. Wiilli, "Raphael Egli," p. 171. Staatsarchiv des Kantons ZUrich: E I 1.6a. Letter to Obmann Hans Rudolf Rahn; 24 Nov. 1605
10. Problems with the citizens of Ziirich had begun much earlier. Already in 1594 complaints were registered about Eglinus who, it was said, spent too much time looking after mining interests instead of preaching and teaching. Wiilli, "Raphael Egli," p. 165.
11. Offentliche Bibliothek der Universitiit Basel: Fr. Gr. Ms. II, 28, no. 86; Eglinus to Zwinger, 3 August 1600.
12. Ibid., Fr. Gr. Ms. II, 28, no. 87; Eglinus to Zwinger, 21 March 1601.
13. Ibid., Fr. Gr. Ms. II, 28, no. 88; Eglinus to Zwinger, 7 Sept. 1603. In a later letter to Zwinger written at Marburg, 20 Dec., 1607 [Fr. Gr. Ms. II, 28, no. 91] Eglinus once again refers to the Scot (Alexander Sidonius). "Sidonius is said to have been in the city of Lubeck, others
say it is doubtful and that he never himself made the [much discussed alchemical] tincture, but [got possession of it] by means of traffic with the wife of [the Strassburg alchemist] Gustenhofer." That Eglinus actually met Alexander Seton and gave to the same a letter in
1603 for delivery to Jacob Zwinger is described in Johann Wolfgang Dienheim, Medicina Universalia (Argentorati, 1610), chap. 24, pp. 64-68. The account is repeated by John Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica (n. 4) vol. II, p. 375.
14. Like von Suchten, Sala also focused on antimony in his works. Cf. his Anathomia antimonii (Lei den, 1617) which treats of various preparations from antimony. Sala also described errors in both Galenic and chemical medicines, Tractatus duo de Variis tum chymicorum
tum Galenistarum erroribus in praeparatione medicinali Commissis (Hanover, 1608) and discussed the preparation of various vitriols and vitriolic compounds, Anatomia vitrioli ... (Aureliae Allobrogrogum, 1613). Like Eglinus, Sala would also find rewards associated with the German court. On his activities at the court of Mecklenburg-Gustrov see Robert Capobus, Angelus Sala, Leibarzt des Johann Albrecht II ... seine wissenschaftliche Bedeutung als Chemiker im XVII. Jahrhundert (Berlin, 1933).
15. Offentliche Bibliothek der Universitiit Basel: Fr. Gr. Ms. II, 28, no. 90; Eglinus to Zwinger,
14 Dec. (no year). See also Johannes Gerber, "Giordano Bruno und Raphael Egli: Begegnung im zwielicht von Alchemie und Theologie," Sudhoffs Archiv 76 (1992), pp. 133-63.
16. Ibid., Fr. Gr. Ms. II, 28, no. 91.
17. Cheiragogia Helianna de Auro Philosophico necdum cognito ... (Marburg: Rudolph Hutwelcher, 1612). There appeared later an English translation, George Thor, Cheiergogia Heliana. A Manuduction to the Philosopher's magical gold . (London: Humphrey Moseley, 1659).
18. Quoted in Wiilli, "Raphael Egli," p. 158.
19. Glimpses into Eglinus's relationship with Hainzel and his encounter with Bruno have been offered recently by Johannes Gerber, (n. 15).
20. Summa Terminorum metaphysicorum ad capessendum Logicae et Philosophiae studium, ex Iordani Bruni Nolani Entis descensu manusc. excerpta; nunc primum luci commissa; a Rephaele Eglino leonio, Tigurino (Tiguri, apud Ioannem Wolphium, 1595). A second edition, appearing with two smaller works, the Tractatus de definitionibus of pseudo-Atanasio and the Terminorum quorundam explicationes of Rudolph Goclenius, was published at Marburg by Rodolph Hutwelcker in 1609. This edition forms the basis of a recent reprinting of the Bruno text with an informative introduction by Eugenio Canone: Summa Terminorum Metaphysicorum Ristampa anastatica dell'edizione Marburg 1609, ed. E. Canone (Rome: Edizioni dell' Ateneo, 1989).
21. Protestation R. Eglins von Zurich seiner bestiindigen Religions-Erkliirung halben (n.p., 1606). Bestiindige Religions Ercliirung R. Eglins. . uber den Artickul: von der h. Catholischen, das ist al/gemeinen Kirchen Gottes . . . wider die romische Kirch ...(Lindau, 1606).
22. Aphorismus Theologiens de mysterio prophetico super conversione gentis Judaicae universali ... (Marburg, 1606).
23. Disquisitio de Helia Artium ad iIlustrissimum principem Mauritium, Hassiae Landgravium ... (Leipzig: Apud Iohannem Rosam Bibliopolam, 1606). The book was also printed in the same year, 1606, at Marburg. Two years later another edition appeared with the title
Disquisitio de Helia Artista Theophrast. in qua de metal/orum transformatione, adversus Hagellii et Pererii Jesuitarum opiniones evidenter et solide differitur . .. Accesserunt recens Canones hermetici, de spiritu, anima et corpore majoris et minoris mundi, cum appendice (Marburg, 1608). Using an anagram, Nicolaus Niger Hapelius, Eglinus published the text again in 1612 as part of his Cheiragogia Heliana. In this edition Eglinus adds two other treatises to the Disquisitio, the Tractatus de Coelo Terrestri Venceslai Lavinii and Aphorismi Basiliani The latter was also published separately by Hutwelcker in 1612. Eglinus's treatises were next taken up by Lazarus Zetzner in his Theatrum chemicum (Argentorati: Lazari Zetzneri Bibliopolae, 1613), vol. 4 [Cheirogogia Heliana ... , pp. 299-323; Disquisitio Heliana, de metallorum transformatione, pp. 326-67; Aphorismi Basiliani, pp. 368-71]. A German translation of the Disquisitio had to wait until the eighteenth century, Friedrich Josef Wilhelm SchrOder, R.E.I.D. Elias der Artist, eine Abhandlung von der Kunstlichen Metallverwandlung in Neue Alchymistische Bibliothek fur den Naturkundiger unsers Jahrhunderts ausgesucht und herausgegeben von S. Zweyte Sammlung (Frankfurt and Leipzig: Heinrich Ludwig Bronner, 1772), part III, pp. 181-260.
24. Concerning the age of Elias, see H. Kopp, Die Alchemie in Alterer und neuerer Zeit (1886; rept. Hildesheim: Georg Olms, 1971). vol. 1, pp. 250-52. Also, Walter Pagel, "The Paracelsian Elias Artista and the Alchemical Tradition," Medizinhistorisches Journal, 16 (1981), pp. 6-19. More recently, Herbert Breger, "Elias Artista - A Precursor of the Messiah in Natural Science," in Nineteen Eighty-Four: Science Between Utopia and Dystopia, ed. Everett Mendelsohn and Helga Nowotny (Oordrecht, 1984), pp. 49-72. Cf. also William Newman, "Prophecy and Alchemy: the Origin of Eirenaeus Philalethes, Ambix, 37 (1990), pp. 97-115.
25. Disquisitio de Helia Artium (Leipzig, 1606), C2'-C3'.
26. Ibid., C3v.
27. Josef Schaff, Geschichte der Physik an der Universitiit Ingolstadt (Erlangen, 1912) mentions Hagel's works, pp. 82-85.
28. Disquisitio, 0'_02'.
29. Ibid., 20'-ESV.
30. Ibid., E6'-E8'.
31. Gesamthochschul-Bibliothek Kassel, Landesbibliothek und Murhardsche Bibliothek Kassel, hereafter MBK: 2° MS Chern 19, vol. 1, 35'-38v.
32. MBK: 2° MS Chern 19, vol. 1, 30'; 68'-69v; 255'-v; 342'-344'.
33. MBK: 2° MS Chern 19, vol. 4, 61'-62v.
34. Schobinger seems to be referring to Eglinus when he mentions in one of his letters "a doctor, a professor at Marburg in theology who has published several books in German and has a great name in chymia and whose art is beloved in St Gallen in my fatherland." MBK: 2°
MS Chern 19, vol. 2, 91' and following unpaginated insertion. Eglinus refers in one of his letters to an antimony tincture of mercury about which he will instruct Carl von Uffel and the original recipe for which he has from the library of the Senior Or Schobinger. MBK: 2° MS
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