Was the Chemical Wedding Influenced by Kunrath’s Amphitheatrum?

The third Rosicrucian manifesto has some very distinct precursors.

The Chemical Wedding is an allegorical alchemical romance. Quite an intricate story of Christian Rosenkreutz’s journey to a castle and a “wedding” and a final resurrection of a king and queen through laboratory work in a tower.

It is often named the third Rosicrucian manifesto, though it definitely was created before the Fama and the Confessio, by a then young Johann Valentin Andreae. He confesses in his autobiography[1], written many years later for his benefactor duke August of Braunschweig-Lüneburg, that he wrote this some time after 1602-03. He calls it a “ludibrium” there, which can translate as: trivial game, jest, play, mockery.

Heinrich Kunraths Amphitheatrum sapientiae aeternae, which in short is about alchemy, Christian Cabbala and divine magic, was published in a private printing in 1595 with four circular elaborate, hand-coloured, engraved plates. A second time it was published in 1609, after Kunrath’s death, with additional five square plates. These square plates were created already in 1602 as the date on the plates themselves shows. In the edition of 1609 all the plates are in black and white.

Something quite striking: The title page of the Chemical Wedding, when it was printed at last in 1616, gives us a motto: Arcana publicata vilescunt; & gratiam prophanata amittunt.

Ergo: ne Margaritas obýce porcis, seu Asino substerne rosas.

Which translates (in my translation):

Published secrets become devaluated; and the profaned are missing thanks.
Therefore: don’t cast pearls before swine, nor scatter roses for the donkey.

Exactly this same phrase “Arcana publicata vilescunt” (published secrets become devaluated) is used by Heinrich Kunrath in the margin of another opus, Chaos of 1597. But even more obvious: the rest of Kunrath’s Chaos-text on page 19 also speaks of casting pearls before swine and – now mentioning dogs not donkeys – animals that should not be given anything of value[2].

Now this is so alike (see footnote 2) that this cannot be understood otherwise: Andreae just pinched this from Kunrath.

There is more. On the title page of Kunrath’s first edition of the Amphitheatrum from 1595, we read “e millibus vix uni” (but in a thousand hardly one) and in the Chemical Wedding Christian Rosenkreutz reads on the second day, on a plate fixed to a tree, about the third road’s pleasure:”Sed quod vix millesimo hactenus obtigit” (But it has so far hardly become granted to one in a thousand).

Even if the square plates of Kunrath’s Amphitheatrum were not published before 1609, they were created in 1602, as Andreae’s chemical wedding was created some time after 1602/03 and published 1616. So Andreae could very well have known these plates. Manuscripts were eagerly shared at that time. And indeed I think he did know them. Andreae’s friends and even one of his cousins were very excited about Kunrath’s Amphitheatre, so it is more than likely that Andreae originally also took a keen interest in it.[3]

One of these Kunrath plates shows a lion who watches the entrance of the “Antrum Naturae” – the cave of nature. He is the lion of wisdom and holds a tablet himself. On it is written a text that points to an elemental trinity of the universal primordial matter.

On the Chemical Wedding’s fourth day we also meet a lion with a tablet inscribed with a text talking about Hermes the regent and the alchemy that heals.

Now if we follow the plot in the Chemical Wedding, from day to day, we almost could think Kunrath provided some illustrations to this plot with his nine plates of the Amphitheatre. But it is of course the other way round. It is very likely Andreae got inspired by the pictures and words on Kunrath’s plates. Let us take a look.

This plate of Kunrath, perhaps meant to be called the College of nature, could have inspired Andreae to depict Christian Rosenkreutz’s long journey (second day) from his study – the outer world – to a castle. Also Kunrath shows a journey from the outer, mundane world, to the portal (porta) of the amphitheatre of eternal wisdom. The text in the Chemical Wedding reminds indeed of this picture: …… Until I finally saw in the distance a beautiful portal on a high mountain. Thereto I hurried though it was far from the road…

Here the portal has opened. There are seven philosophical steps leading to the entrance surrounded by seven cabbalistic sayings. Kunrath directly quotes from Johann Reuchlin’s De Verbo Mirifico (1494), a famous Christian Cabbalist. These sayings are also repeated around the so-called “Cosmic Rose”[4]. But what do we find above the gate, the portal? An inscription “Procul hinc abeste profani”, which means: stay away from this place you profane. And what do we find in the Chemical Wedding? Quote: “But it was an exceedingly beautiful royal portal, adorned with a multitude of lovely engraved images and devices. Each one of them, as I learned later, had a special meaning. Above was attached a rather large tablet with these words: Procul hinc, procul ite Prophani”. This means just the same as with Kunrath: stay away from here, go away you profane. It is by the way a phrase used in the Eleusinian mysteries; it also recalls the Roman writer Vergil’s Procul, O procul esse profani.

This plate depicts Nature´s cave guarded by several figures and surrounded by a lot of enemies, slanderers, heretics and fake alchemists. The bottom line here reads : One would have a lot to do if one wanted to make all the fools wise. Now this reminds indeed of all the foolish people Christian Rosenkreutz encounters on the second day, ridiculing him. These people are described thus: “… then they boasted to having accomplished such miracles as neither Samson nor Hercules with all their strength could ever have achieved: this one would discharge Atlas of his burden; the other would again draw forth the three-headed Cerberus out of Hell. … I saw one who heard the rustling of the heavens. The second could see Plato’s Ideas. A third could number Democritus’s atoms …” And: “One of those rascals, full of mockery, called me a motely fool. Now I did not realise that there would be another gate that we had to pass, but felt that throughout the wedding I would have to remain in this mockery, scorn and indignity.” After that he has a conversation with a very fine, quiet man that echoes the picture’s bottom line, that one would have a lot to do if one was to make all these fools wise.

Throughout the story in the Chemical Wedding there is also a lot of talk about these fake alchemists, imposters, people who get weighed on the third day and finally meet their judgments.

In the plate from the Alchemical Citadel (see featured image), a very alchemical image of a seven-sided fort, only one main entrance leads to the goal, all the others are false. The main entrance leads through three portals, as also Andreae’s castle has three portals and seven rooms. But what do we find above the last of Kunrath’s portals? It is John Dee’s Monas Hierolyphica, the very same  “universal” sign that adorned the letter of invitation Christian Rosenkreutz receives at the start.

Kunrath’s four circular, hand-coloured and engraved plates are so well-known that I won´t render them here.

About the alchemist´s laboratory, a three dimensional plate : Now we must assume we are inside Khunrath’s fortress (or Andrea’s castle). Here we see the alchemist’s lab. It is worth noting that on the fourth day Christian Rosenkreutz arrives at the throne room where he sees the King and Queen for the first time. But before that, they have to climb 365 stairs until they reach the top under a painted vault, before the curtain for the bridal couple is pulled away. In the margin, there is the Latin remark: Laboratorium arcuatum = the vaulted laboratory. There is also mentioned a laboratory in the tower on the fifth day. In Khunrath’s laboratory we see a place of devotional worship as well as a smelting furnace and some instruments for alchemical work. In the middle of this picture we see a table with some musical instruments. Music also plays a great role in the Chemical Wedding.

Kunrath’s  hermaphrodite arises from the fusion of the king and queen, the male and the female, or the Sun and the Moon. With Kunrath the hermaphrodite is born out of a large egg, and a multi-coloured bird (peacock) emerges from this fusion. This has clear parallels to what happens in the Tower on the sixth day of the Wedding. Kunrath’s black raven, by the way, has also Dee’s monas hieroglyphica upon it (part of the O in the word Azoth.)

Finally, of all the processes portrayed by both Khunrath and Andreae, a UNIT is achieved between CORPUS – body, ANIMA – soul and SPIRITUS – spirit. Kunrath’s picture showing a triangle in a square in a circle clearly indicates that Kunrath is working here on an inner level, with internal alchemy, spiritual alchemy. A figure with two heads are Adam and Eve before separation as well as in the final union or conjunction. As also Andreae’s king and queen are finally united. And the whole Chemical Wedding is about internal alchemy of men.

The main goal is the union with Christ which is depicted in the resurrected Christ of the Cosmic Rose or the Sigill of truth.[5]

But what do we find here of text related to Kunrath’s Christ? Among other things: IN HOC SIGNO VINCES: in this sign you will conquer. It is exactly the same that is engraved the invitation letter at the start of the Wedding.  “Now as I was diligently viewing it, I found a little seal, on which a curious cross with this inscription, IN HOC SIGNO VINCES, was engraved” a letter which Christian Rosenkreutz then confidentially opens.  

(According to legend, Constantine used this motto: in hoc signo vinces, following his vision of chi rho in heaven, just before the battle against Maxentius in 312. Chi and Rho are a monogram for Christ, the first letters of this name.)

Khunrath’s Christ, where we also clearly can read the Hebrew name for Jesus: JEHOSHUA (Yod He Shin Vav He), the Tetragrammaton having become a pentagram because of the additional Shin – representing fire. It is not a symbol of the crucified, suffering Christ, but the resurrected one. It is that state: Union with Christ, illumination, The Philosophers stone – which all “true” alchemists try to reach. It is this profoundly positive view of the possibility of the human soul that lies at the bottom of the Rosicrucian impulse. The inner transformation is a resurrection, a spiritual rebirth. The one that we are invited to, both in Khunrath’s Amphitheatre and in the Chemical Wedding , only we are serious enough in our quest and serious enough in our endeavours.

Now there is of course a lot more to both the Chemical Wedding and Kunrath’s Amphitheatre. I just wanted to show some clear indications that Andreae must have “borrowed” quite a few things from Kunrath. But there are some other impacts from previous works, as Sam Robinson has shown and will show. There is the picture from the grimoire The Little Book of Venus that has striking similarities with the fair and glorious lady with a letter that appears to Christian Rosenkreutz quite at the start. And there are some Italian precursors to the whole story of the Chemical Wedding, which Sam Robinson will reveal later.

But what really surprises here, is that Andreae seems to speak with two tongues. While Kunrath never denied that he was influenced by Reuchlin, Andreae has pinched a good deal from Kunrath but is quite hostile when talking about Kunrath, directly or indirectly. In the Mythologia Christiana he portrays him as a nerd (“insolitae eruditionis“) whom one cannot  understand. And in Menippus he says about Kunrath that he has beguiled the world with figures. And also in the Mythologia Christiania, in the chapter “Thraso” he mocks all the subjects dealt with in Kunrath’s Amphitheatre by letting them appear as empty bottles of a charlatan.

But Andreae’s judgement of his youth’s work, the Chemical Wedding, is not less harsh. In  his autobiography, written assumedly in 1630 for his benefactor (see footnote 1), he says that he has started writing some plays in 1602 – 1603, some were lost, and then the Chemical Wedding. “In contrast to that, the Chemical Wedding (Nuptiae Chymicae) has survived with an offspring rich in monsters. A trivial game (ludibrium) which you must wonder was appreciated by some and interpreted and explained through subtle exploration. Absolutely worthless, which reveals the emptiness of the curious.”

Andreae, who is quite central in the conception of all three manifestos, is also generally quite negative about Rosicrucianism, when he mentions it in his many books. Well. Did he abhor to be associated with the whole Rosicrucian movement, because he felt he was misunderstood? Was he shocked by all the reactions, this Rosicrucian furore? Did he feel betrayed by his friends because they published the Fama against his will? Did he reject Kunrath because he saw in him a serious danger for his own reform program? And what was this program? He seems to word it in his Turris Babel of 1619:” I shall embrace a Christian life and enjoy the roses of the Christians. I shall bear the cross of the Christians. I shall defend the Order of Christianity. I shall obey the teachings of Christianity. I shall live as a Christian, die as a Christian and be one.
And with these I will say: IESUS MIHI OMNIA (Jesus is everything to me)”.

Christine Eike[6]

On behalf of all our fans, thank you Christine for another fantastic blog post!

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[1] Johannis Valentini Andreae: Vita ab ipso conscripta. This autobiography was printed over a century after it was written. First in German 1796. Then in Latin (which was the language it originally was written in) in 1849. For the mentioning of the Chemical Wedding see page 10.

[2] Von hylealischen das ist … chaos … ,Magdeburg. 1597, page 19. The margin is an exact quote of the Latinp phrase: Arcana publicata vilescunt = published secrets become devaluated. The rest of the text on this page (in my translation) reads: This happens especially when you cast pearls before swine and offer a sanctuary to dogs. For example, by not only revealing all the knowledge of the perfect preparation of the stone, but also its essence and its name to everyone, worthy and unworthy without distinction, and making it general knowledge everywhere. Especially with bad people it would come to great abuse and it would cause much evil.

[3] See Carlos Gilly: Das Amphitheatrum Sapientiae Aeternae von Heinrich Khunrath 2014. https://www.academia.edu/34636671/Das_Amphitheatrum_Sapientiae_Aeternae_von_Heinrich_Khunrath. Even though Andreae himself, when he openly or in hints mentions Kunrath’s name and his opus, is quite hostile in his remarks. Amongst the friends who were very excited about Kunrath’s Amphitheatrum, Gilly mentions Johann Friedrich Jung, a close friend who also encouraged Andreae to finally publish his manuscript of the Chemical Wedding, Johann Arndt, and further his cousin Anton Frey, also a close confidant of Tobias Hess.

[4] See Stephen Murtaugh’s excellent article: Heinrich Khunrath’s Cosmic Rose, also called the Sigillum Emeth, Sigillum Dei.  Here: https://pansophers.com/khunraths-cosmic-rose/

[5] Ibid.

[6] All the text quotes are my own translations of the German or Latin originals.