Johannes Valentinus Andreae (1586 -1654), also known as Johannes Valentinus Andreä or Johann Valentin Andreae, was a German theologian. Many believe him to be the author of an alchemical text known as the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459 (published in 1616, Strasbourg) or the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz in English. This text became one of the three founding manifestos of Rosicrucianism, a philosophical secret society said to have been founded in late medieval Germany by the mythical figure of Christian Rosenkreutz (or Brother CR).
The son of Johannes Andreae (1554–1601), the superintendent of Herrenberg and later the abbot of Königsbronn, Andreae was born at Herrenberg, Württemberg. Unusually, his mother, Maria Moser, later went to Tübingen after being widowed, where she became the court apothecary from 1607–1617. Could she, like so many other Rosicrucian sympathisers such as Robert Fludd, have had Paracelsian leanings? Certainly, his father owned an alchemical laboratory and his cousin, Christophe Welling, was also an enthusiastic student of this spiritual science – which may perhaps helps to explain the subject matter of the Chymical Wedding, which was actually first written somewhere between 1603-5, but only published much later on (1616).
THE LUTHER ROSE: origin of the rosy cross?
It is worth mentioning that Andreae was descended from an illustrious family of theologians. According to the author and Rosicrucian, Christopher Rebisse:
by the writings of St. Bernard of Clairvaux, who described the the marriage of the soul with God often using the image
of the cross united with a flower in his sermon about King Solomon’s Song of Songs.
Rosicrucian History and Mysteries
His grandfather, Jakob Andreae, was one of the authors of the Formula of Concord, an important document in the history of Lutheranism. In recognition of his meritorious services, the Count Palatine Otto Heinrich granted him a coat of arms. Jakob’s design incorporated the cross of St. Andrew,
in reference to his family name, with four roses, in deference to Martin Luther, whose armorial bearings depicted a rose.
Could the Luther Seal have been Andreae’s inspiration for the symbol of the Rosy Cross that was to famously become the emblem of Rosicrucianism?
Following in the footsteps of his father, the young Andreae studied theology and natural sciences 1604–1606. However, he was refused the final examination and church service for his graduation, perhaps because of his strong anti-establishment and non-conformist views – he is said to have regarded the Catholic Jesuits as the Antichrist, for example. After taking a break to travel through Switzerland, France, Austria, and Italy, Andreae resumed his theological studies in Tübingen in 1612, later becoming a Lutheran deacon and priest.
protestant utopianism
His interest in altruistic service and humanitarian efforts led him to establish several charitable institutions and Christian societies, including the Christliche Gottliebende Gesellschaft (Christian God-loving Society), which some speculate may have been his version of a Rosicrucian Brotherhood.
This resonates strongly with Andreae’s membership 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 a more rounded, liberal education that married faith and reason, and the encouragement of the sciences (or at least of free thinking and practical enquiry that encompassed the scientific method) as the key to national prosperity. In this sense, he shares similar sentiments to that of Sir Francis Bacon, which may be why many believe Bacon to have been a secret Rosicrucian.
Some scholars feel that while, the Rosicrucian manifestos Fama fraternitatis (1614) and Confessio fraternitatis (1615) conveyed Andreae’s utopian call for the reformation of science and society, they did so in a way that built on the foundations already laid by ‘the inspirationism of Paracelsian theology and the magic of the Florentine Platonists (Ficino, Pico) received via Agrippa’s overtly supernatural “magical Reformation.”’
It is fair to say that Andreae was a great networker and believer in group activities and shared endeavours, creating various societies and study groups, such as the Tubingen Circle, or organisations of a social character, such as the Foundation of Dyers, throughout the course of his life.
INTEREST IN THE ESOTERIC
His friendships with Christoph Besold and Tobias Hess served to encouraged Andreae’s interest in esotericism. A perennial student, he continued to study various forms of mysticism and alchemy in some capacity or another, which may explain the wide ranging bodies of knowledge and traditions from which he drew whilst writing the Fama and Confessio. Churton believes that the Fama was actually a the result of the combined efforts of Andreae and Tobias Hess.
Generally speaking, though, whether it came to theology or science, what interested Andreae was useful knowledge and not vain speculation, something we can see within Rosicrucianism, with its emphasis on ergon, or practical spiritual application – not just learning/preaching but doing ‘the work.’ Indeed, in the epigraph to the Chymical Wedding, Andreae indicates that, “the mysteries are demeaned when revealed and lose their power when profaned.”
This is perfectly in keeping with sentiments found in other alchemical literature such as the Asclepius, that the mysteries are not for the uninitiated and tend to lose their virtue when they merely pass through the filter of the intellect. Or when they cease to become the secret preserve of the few and become the basis for a ‘New Age’ mass craze or apocalyptic cult that ends up attracting a lot of cranks, as Rosymania inevitably did, especially after the 1623 Great Conjunction, which many saw as a follow-up to the Supernova Conflagration of 1603-4. Hence the need for intellectuals like Robert Fludd to intervene and help maintain an air of common sense via pamplets such as his Summum Bonum.
This may also help to explain his private anger and indignance at the publication of the Fama without his permission, calling the man responsible a “betrayer” and a “globetrotter,” thirty years later in his autobiography. Indeed, it is not hard to see why this secret knowledge should not get into profane hands in this extract from another very well-known hermetic text, The Asclepius, known within European esoteric circles since the Middle Ages:
Therefore, the mystery of intercourse is performed in secret, in order that the two sexes might not disgrace themselves in front of many who do not experience that reality. For each of them [the sexes] contributes (its own part) in begetting. For if it happens in the presence of those who do not understand the reality, it is laughable and unbelievable. And moreover, these are holy mysteries of both words and deeds, because not only are they not heard, but also they are not seen.
Therefore such (people – the unbelievers) are blasphemers. They are atheistic and impious. But the others are not many; rather among 9the) many, since learning concerning the things which are ordained does not exist among them. For the knowledge of the things which are ordained is truly healing the passions of matter. Therefore learning is something not derived from knowledge.
AESCLEPIUS 21-29 (VI,8)
Andreae ended his career as the abbot of Adelberg, a town where he died in 1654.
Trail of the Green Man 