Johannes Valentinus Andreae

Johannes Valentinus Andreae
Johannes Valentinus Andreae
Born	August 17, 1586 Herrenberg, Duchy of Württemberg
Died	June 27, 1654 Stuttgart
Parent(s)	Johannes Andreae (1554–1601) Maria Moser

Johannes Valentinus Andreae (August 17, 1586 – June 27, 1654), a.k.a. Johannes Valentinus Andreä or Johann Valentin Andreae, was a German theologian, who claimed to be the author of the Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz anno 1459 (1616, Strasbourg, the Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz), one of the three founding works of Rosicrucianism.

Life

Andreae was born at Herrenberg, Württemberg, the son of Johannes Andreae (1554–1601), the superintendent of Herrenberg and later the abbot of Königsbrunn. His mother Maria Moser went to Tübingen as a widow and was court apothecary 1607–1617. The young Andreae studied theology and natural sciences 1604–1606. He befriended Christoph Besold who encouraged Andreae's interest in esotericism. Ca. 1605 he wrote the first version of "The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosekreutz". He was refused the final examination and church service, probably for attaching a pasquill (offensive, libelous note) to the chancellor Enzlin's door, on the occasion of his marriage. After that, he taught young nobles and hiked with his students through Switzerland, France, Austria and Italy. He visited Dillingen, a bastion of the Jesuits, whom he regarded as the Antichrist. In 1608 he returned to Tübingen. He came to know Tobias Hess, a Paracelsian physician with an interest in apocalyptic prophecy. From 1610 till 1612 Andreae traveled.

In 1612 he resumed his theological studies in Tübingen. After the final examination in 1614, he became deacon in Vaihingen an der Enz, and in 1620 priest in Calw. Here he reformed the school and social institutions, and established institutions for charity and other aids. To this end, he initiated the Christliche Gottliebende Gesellschaft ("Christian God-loving Society"). In 1628 he planned a "Unio Christiana". He obtained funds and brought effective help for the reconstruction of Calw, which was destroyed in the Battle of Nördlingen (1634) by the imperial troops and visited by pestilence. In 1639, he became preacher at the court and councillor of the consistory (Konsistorialrat) in Stuttgart, where he advocated a fundamental church reform. He became also a spiritual adviser to a royal princess of Württemberg. Among other things, he operated for the conservation and promotion of the Tübinger Stift . In 1646, he was made a member of the Fruchtbringende Gesellschaft ("Fruitbearing Society"), where he got the company-nickname der Mürbe ("the soft"). In 1650, he assumed direction of the monasterial school Bebenhausen; in 1654, he became abbot of the evangelical monasterial school of Adelberg. He died in Stuttgart.

Rosicrucianism

His role in the origin of the Rosicrucian legend is controversial. In his autobiography he indicated the Chymische Hochzeit ("Chymical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz") as one of his works—as a "ludibrium", possibly meaning "lampoon". In his later works, alchemy is the object of ridicule and is placed with music, art, theatre and astrology in the category of less serious sciences.

Priory of Sion

During the 1960s, as part of a hoax claiming the existence of a medieval secret society, a set of documents of dubious authenticity, the Dossiers Secrets, was discovered in the Bibliothèque Nationale de France (BNF). One of the documents included an alleged list of "Grand Masters of the Priory of Sion", and Andreae was listed as the seventeenth Grand Master.

Works

Compendium Mathematicum (1614)
Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz Anno 1459 ("The chymical Wedding of Christian Rosencreutz"), published anonymously (1616)
Menippus (1617)
Invitatio Fraternitatis Christi (1617–1618)
Peregrini in patria errores (1618)
Reipublicae Christianopolitanae descriptio ("Description of the Republic of Christianopolis", "Beschreibung des Staates Christenstadt") (1619)
Turris Babel (1619)
De curiositatis pernicie syntagma (1620)

References

Donald R. Dickson, "Johann Valentin Andreae's Utopian Brotherhoods," Renaissance Quarterly, 49, 4 (1996): 760–802.
Donald R. Dickson, The Tessera of Antilla: Utopian Brotherhoods and Secret Societies in the Early Seventeenth Century, Leiden: Brill Academic Publishers, 1998. ISBN 90-04-11032-1
Roland Edighoffer, "Hermeticism in Early Rosicrucianism," in Gnosis and Hermeticism: From Antiquity to Modern Times, edited by Roelof van den Broek and Wouter J. Hanegraaff, State University of New York Press, 1998. ISBN 0-7914-3612-8
Christopher McIntosh, The Rosicrucians: The History, Mythology, and Rituals of an Esoteric Order, 3rd revised edition, Samuel Weiser, York Beach, Maine, 1997. ISBN 0-87728-920-4
John Warwick Montgomery, Cross and Crucible: Johann Valentin Andreae (1586–1654). Phoenix of the Theologians, 2 Vols. Martinus Nijhoff, the Hague, 1974. ISBN 90-247-5054-7
John Warwick Montgomery, "The World-View of Johann Valentin Andreae," in Das Erbe des Christian Rosencreutz. Johann Valentin Andreae 1586–1986 und die Manifeste der Rosenkreuzerbruderschaft 1614–1616, Amsterdam: In de Pelikaan, 1988, pp. 152–169. ISBN 3-7762-0279-3
Edward H. Thompson, "Introduction", in Johannes Valentin Andreae, Christianopolis, translated by Edward H. Thompson, Boston, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1999. ISBN 0-7923-5745-0
Frances A. Yates, The Rosicrucian Enlightenment, Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1972. ISBN 0-415-26769-2

External links

Authority control	WorldCat VIAF: 93141184 LCCN: n50025232 ISNI: 0000 0001 2103 1031 GND: 118502883 SUDOC: 033605769 BNF: cb12445626h (data) NDL: 00462324 NKC: ola2002145042

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