Remarks Upon Two Curious Books

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CHAPTER THE TWENTIETH

REMARKS UPON TWO CURIOUS BOOKS

THE following old book is a very extraordinary one; as the design and tendency of it will puzzle most persons who are acquainted with the nature of the antagonistic relations which were supposed to exist between the Church of Rome and the Rosicrucians. The book is exceedingly scarce and valuable:

Rosa Jesuitica, oder Jesuitische Rottgesellen, das ist, Eine Frag ob die Zween Orden, der ganandten Ritter von der Neerscharen Jesu, und der Rosen-Creuzer ein einiger Ordensen: per J. P. D. a S. Jesuitarum Protectorum. Prague, 1620. (4to.) This is a truly curious tract upon the 'relations of the Jesuits and the Rosicrucians'.

A very curious book upon the subject of the peculiar and fanciful attributed notions of the Rosicrucians, and which drew a large amount of surprised and 'left-handed' attention when it first appeared, was that which bore the title (in its improved edition--published without a date): Comte de Gabalis, ou Entretiens sur Les Sciences Secrètes. Renouvellé et augmenté d’une Lettre sur ce sujet. This book was brought out at Cologne. The printer’s name was Pierre Marteau. Bound up with the copy in the possession of the present Authors of the Rosicrucians is another volume bearing the following title: La Suite du Comte de Gabalis; ou Nouveaux Entretiens sur les Sciences Secrètes, touchant La Nouvelle Philosophie. This latter work was published at Amsterdam, with no year

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mentioned of its publication, by Pierre Mortier. Upon the title-page of the first-named of these books appears the 'rescript' 'Quod tanto impendio absconditur, etiam solum-modò demonstrare, destruere est.--'Tertullian.

These works were considered--although written from the questioning and cautiously satirical point--as unwelcome and even obnoxious; even among those who freely commented on religion. Nevertheless they provoked (and still provoke) extraordinary curiosity.