e
things were fostered that constituted the science of that day." This
theory is incomparably more open to discussion than if one attempts to
confine the origin to the insecure base of rosicrucianism. We shall learn
to appreciate more fully the significance of the chemical societies.

In connection with the question, important for us, as to the position of
the alchemy of the rosicrucians (whether they lived only in books or as an
actual brotherhood), it is worth while to glance at the literature.

Joachin Frizius, whom some think identical with Fludd, writes in the
"Summum Bonum, quod est verum Magiae, Cabalae, Alchymiae, verae Fratrum
Roseae Crucis verorum subjectum" (first published in Frankfort, 1629):

"Aben ({~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}{~HEBREW LETTER BET~}{~HEBREW LETTER FINAL NUN~}) means a stone. In this one cabbalistic stone we have the
Father, Son and Holy Ghost ... for in Hebrew Ab ({~HEBREW LETTER ALEF~}{~HEBREW LETTER BET~}) means Father and Ben
({~HEBREW LETTER BET~}{~HEBREW LETTER FINAL NUN~}) Son. But where the Father and Son are present there the Holy Ghost
must be also.... Let us now examine this Stone as the foundation of the
macrocosm.... Therefore the patriarch Jacob spake, 'How dreadful is this
place. This is none other but the house of God,' and rose up and took the
stone that he had put for his pillow and poured oil upon the top of it,
and said, 'This stone that I have set for a pillar shall be God's house,
etc.' If therefore a God's house, then God is in that place or else his
earthly substance. Here it was that the patriarch, as he slept on this
stone, conserved something divine and miraculous, through the power of
that spirit-filled stone which in its corporeality is similar to the
relation of the body to the soul. But the spiritual stone was Christ; but
Christ is the eternal wisdom, in which as the scripture says are many
mansions, which are undoubtedly distinguished on account of the different
grades of grace and blessedness. For blessedness follows wisdom or
knowledge, the higher and more we know the farther we go towards the
Godhead." (Summ. Bon., pp. 17 ff.)

"Thereupon it clearly appears who this macrocosmic Stone Aben ... really
is, and that his fiery spirit is the foundation stone of all and given for
all (sit lapis seu petra catholica atque universalis) ... which was laid
in Zion as the true foundation, on which the prophets and the apostles as
well have built, but which was also to the ign