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An excerpt from the Author's PREFACE: It is my belief that Johann Valentin Andreae represents a very important step in the development of the principles of education and scientific investigation, and that his works, now very little known, deserve worthy recognition in the history of literature. It is the purpose of this investigation to show the value of his writings as those of a great teacher and reformer; and especially to establish his utopia, Reipublicae Christianopolitanae Descriptio, in its proper place among the ideal states of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. As the Latin original of this utopia has become quite rare I have made an English translation of it, hoping that thereby the attention of students of literature, philosophy, pedagogy, and sociology may be attracted to this remarkable document. Recognizing the great value of Andreae's work Robert Boyle, as early as 1647, in a letter to Samuel Hartlib, expressed the wish that an English version of it might be made.
The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz - Johann Valentin Andreae - The Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz (German: Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459) is a German book edited in 1616 in Strasbourg. Its anonymous authorship is attributed to Johann Valentin Andreae. The Chymical Wedding is often described as the third of the original manifestos of the mysterious "Fraternity of the Rose Cross" (Rosicrucians), although it is markedly different from the Fama Fraternitatis and Confessio Fraternitatis in style and in subject matter.It is an allegoric romance (story) divided into Seven Days, or Seven Journeys, like Genesis, and recounts how Christian Rosenkreuz was invited to go to a wonderful castle full of miracles, in order to assist the Chymical Wedding of the king and the queen, that is, the husband and the bride. This manifesto has been a source of inspiration for poets, alchemists (the word "chymical" is an old form of "chemical" and refers to alchemy—for which the 'Sacred Marriage' was the goal) and dreamers, through the force of its initiation ritual with processions of tests, purifications, death, resurrection, and ascension and also by its symbolism found since the beginning with the invitation to Rosenkreutz to assist this Royal Wedding. Johannes Valentinus Andreae (17 August 1586 – 27 June 1654), a.k.a. Johannes Valentinus Andreä or Johann Valentin Andreae, was a German theologian, who claimed to be the author of an ancient text known as the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459 (published in 1616, Strasbourg; in English Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz in 1459). This became one of the three founding works of Rosicrucianism, which was both a legend and a fashionable cultural phenomenon across Europe in this period. Andreae was a prominent member of the Protestant utopian movement which began in Germany and spread across northern Europe and into Britain under the mentorship of Samuel Hartlib and John Amos Comenius. The focus of this movement was the need for education and the encouragement of sciences as the key to national prosperity. But like many vaguely-religious Renaissance movements at this time, the scientific ideas being promoted were often tinged with hermeticism, occultism and neo-Platonic concepts. The threats of heresy charges posed by rigid religious authorities (Protestant and Catholic) and a scholastic intellectual climate often forced these activists to hide behind fictional secret societies and write anonymously in support of their ideas, while claiming access to "secret ancient wisdom".
Pondering the characteristics of Utopias and constructing theoretical examples of them has been an intellectual exercise to thrill thinkers at least since the time of Plato's Republic. Christianopolis is the little known Utopia created by German theologian and scholar JOHANN VALENTIN ANDREAE (1586-1654). A mysterious figure associated with alchemy, Kabbalah, Rosicrucianism, and other philosophical esoterica of the 17th century, Andreae published this intriguing guide to his "perfect" society in 1618. Informed by a rigid brand of Christian socialism, Christianopolis also features a high regard for teachers, and approaches the world from both a scientific and artistic perspective. Translated in 1916 from the original Latin by University of Miami, Ohio, professor of German FELIX EMIL HELD (1880-1944), who rounds out the volume with an extensive historical introduction, this is a highly readable work that will enthrall students of philosophy, classic literature, sociology, and metaphysics.
The Christianopolis (1619) of Johann Valentin Andreae describes in great detail a utopian community of scholar-craftsmen, as seen through the eyes of a naïve young traveller. It is a multi-level text, carefully constructed to provide both entertainment and a critique of contemporary society and religion, which could also be read as the prospectus for the establishment of a new community. This new translation aims to clarify Andreae's elliptical Latin for the first time by identifying parallel passages, allusions and sources for his ideas, and by linking Christianopolis with Andreae's other work as satirist, dramatist, poet and mathematician. A new model of his revision of ideas drawn from Campanella is put forward, and the politico-economic principles embodied in the text are explored. The translation should be of interest to students of the history of utopian ideas, and the history of economic thought.
About The Book: The Chymical Wedding is an allegoric story divided into Seven Days, or Seven Journeys, and which tells us how Christian Rosenkreuz was invited to go to a wonderful castle full of miracles, in order to assist the Chymical Wedding of the king and the queen. The story is symbolic of alchemy, the Sacred Marriage being the goal. Very esoteric stuff going on here. Excerpt: But inasmuch as this, and the like from the Devil (who had done me many a spite) was no new thing to me, I took courage, and persisted in my meditation, till somebody in an unusual manner touched me on the back; whereupon I was so hugely terrified, that I dared hardly look about me; yet I showed myself as cheerful as (in such occurrences) human frailty would permit. Now the same thing still twitching me several times by the coat, I looked back, and behold it was a fair and glorious lady, whose garments were all sky-coloured, and curiously (like Heaven) bespangled with golden stars; in her right hand she bore a trumpet of beaten gold, on which a Name was engraved which I could well read but am as yet forbidden to reveal it. In her left hand she had a great bundle of letters of all languages, which she (as I afterwards understood) was to carry to all countries. She also had large and beautiful wings, full of eyes throughout, with which she could mount aloft, and fly swifter than any eagle.
Andreae substitue à la Tour de Babel des opinions les connaissances nées de l'étude et du travail, et cette très actuelle leçon porte encore ses fruits de nos jours. En quelques pages alertes , il renvoie le Rosicrucianisme à sa vérité : celle d'un orphelin prétentieux et vain qui entraîne les crédules dans les ténèbres de son ignorance.
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