e Cabalistica_, glorifying
the Cabala, of which the "central doctrine for him was the Messianology
around which all its other doctrines grouped themselves."[245] His
whole philosophical system, as he himself admitted, was in fact entirely
Cabalistic, and his views were shared by his contemporary Cornelius
Agrippa of Nettesheim. As a result of these teachings a craze for
Cabalism spread amongst Christian prelates, statesmen, and warriors, and
a number of Christian thinkers took up the doctrines of the Cabala and
"essayed to work them over in their own way." Athanasius Kircher and
Knorr, Baron von Rosenroth, author of the _Kabbala Denudata_, in the
course of the seventeenth century "endeavoured to spread the Cabala
among the Christians by translating Cabalistic works which they regarded
as most ancient wisdom." "Most of them," the _Jewish Encyclopaedia_ goes
on to observe derisively, "held the absurd idea that the Cabala
contained proofs of the truth of Christianity.... Much that appears
Christian [in the Cabala] is, in fact, nothing but the logical
development of certain ancient esoteric doctrines."[246]

The Rosicrucians appear to have been the outcome both of this Cabalistic
movement and of the teachings of Paracelsus. The earliest intimation of
their existence was given in a series of pamphlets which appeared at the
beginning of the seventeenth century. The first of these, entitled the
_Fama Fraternitatis; or a Discovery of the Fraternity of the most
Laudable Order of the Rosy Cross_, was published at Cassel in 1614 and
the _Confessio Fraternitatis_ early in the following year. These contain
what may be described as the "Grand Legend" of Rosicrucianism, which has
been repeated with slight variations up to the present day. Briefly,
this story is as follows[247]:

"The most godly and highly-illuminated Father, our brother C.R.," that
is to say, Christian Rosenkreutz, "a German, the chief and original of
our Fraternity," was born in 1378, and some sixteen years later
travelled to the East with a Brother P.A.L., who had determined to go to
the Holy Land. On reaching Cyprus, Brother P.A.L. died and "so never
came to Jerusalem." Brother C.R., however, having become acquainted with
certain Wise Men of "Damasco in Arabia," and beheld what great wonders
they wrought, went on alone to Damasco. Here the Wise Men received him,
and he then set himself to study Physick and Mathematics and to
translate the Book M into Latin. After