Documenta Latomica Inedita.

equally unknown , invisible , like the spirits , inaccessible to human infirmities , but that it is a fiction which well deserves to adorn a fairy story . It is , nevertheless , true that follies of this kind strike the common people , and that they enter into them willingly ; thus we shall always have charlatans and fools . The Confraternity of Rose Croix made a good deal of noise in France in

the first fifteen or twenty years of the past century ( that is , early in the seventeenth ) , insomuch that they sent to prison several persons who boasted that they belonged to this brotherhood . An advertisement ( literally , a bill posted up ) of a pretended brother was the cause of the foolish credulity of the people . This is what it said : " We , the deputies of the College of the Brethren of the Rose Croixmaking a visible and invisible stay in this city by the grace of the

, Most High , to whom the heart of the just is turned ; we desire and teach without books or marks , to speak all sorts of languages of the country where we wish to be , to deliver men like with ourselves , from the error of death . " Thus then itis thatNaude mentions the advertisement in his " Instruction a la France . " In 1613 it was proclaimed that one of the Rose Croix of Barbary , Muley Ebn Hametafter having defeated with an unarmed handful of men the Emperor

, of Fez and Morocco , was about to throw himself on Spain and conquer it . Certain pretended Illuminati having appeared at the same time in Spain , the Inquisitor made certain inquiries , which soon stopped the progress of their visions . As certain Illuminati of Spain made themselves talked about almost at the same time as the Brethren of the Rose Croix , it is well to say two words about them . The singularity of the ideas and a certain uniformity of

sentiments , —or rather , a certain relationship which they wished to find , at any price , between the one ancl the other , made the Illuminati and Rose Croix like but one sect . But let us not multi ply these sects , and rather look on these illuminated persons as " contemplatives " of the most dangerous kind , if it be true , at least , that they taught that the spirit absorbed in mental prayer , and united to God by the most intimate union , does not participate in this state in the crimes of the body . To this they added that the sacraments were useless , and that the elevation of the mind to God took the place of good works .

The Inquisition counted up seventy-six errors of theirs , which fact ought in no way to surprise concerning a tribunal like that , which seeks for nothing but what is extremely purified in the matter of religion 1 These Illuminati appeared towards the end of the sixteenth century , but the Inquisition soon arrested the progress of their fanaticism , until they re-appeared in the environs of Seville in the first year of the following century , and then they passed as Rose Croix in the minds of the people . About the year 1525 there appeared ,

in the Low Countries and Picardy , a sort of Illuminati very like those of Spain . These Flemish Illuminati had for chief a tailor called Quentin , and a certain Cossin , an artisan of a similar kind . In that time every man was good enough to preach . It is attributed to them that they taught that the intention alone made the sin ; that God ' s Spirit participates in all the actions of men ; and that to live tranquilly , without pining , doubts , or scruples , is to live in innocence . This "intention alone makes the sin , " ancl this " spirit intimately united to God while the body comfortably sins" appear nearly the same thing . It is not difficult to comprehend what were the mournful results of