ON
THE ISLAMIC ORIGIN OF THE ROSE-CROIX - 3
By Emile Dantinne ( Sar Hieronymus)
Originally published in the review "Inconnues" 1951
Sar Hieronymus
In reality does it not suggest a totally different school? It is necessary
to note that the word university or college corresponds to the arabic noun
madrasat. The author of a History of Lebanon refers to the madrasat-ul-hûqûqi
fi Bayrût, which means the University of Law in Beirut7.
The word Damcar therefore remains quite mysterious. I have in vain consulted
dictionaries by Lane, Kazimirski, Richardson, Wahrmund, Zenker, Belot, Houwa,
the Supplement aux dictionnaires arabes by Dozy, the Additions aux dictionnaires
arabes by Fagnan, the Enzyklopädie des Islam and the Geschichte der
Arabischen Literatur by Brocklemann. DMCR is not an arabic root.
And yet Damcar doesn't seem so far from Jerusalem. It is there that he strengthened
his foundation in the Arabic language that the following year he translated
the Book M into good Latin 8.
It is sufficiently difficult to know what the author intended by Book M.
Perhaps it suggests a translation of a lost book by Aristotle, bearing this
title, but it hardly seems probable. Since the Fama cites other books by
means of a letter, one can induce that the initials in question correspond
to the categorization Chr. Rosenkreutz made for the books which he translated
from Arabic.
After three years of study in which he especially concentrated on medicine
and mathematics, he embarked from the Sinu Arabico for Egypt, where he applied
his attention to plants and animals.
He doesn't seem to have been in Egypt for very long , when as he states,
he embarked for the destination of Fez. What he says here is worth remembering:
" Every year the Arabs and Africans send their chosen deputies to meet
to question each other on the subject of the Arts and to know whether something
better hasn't been discovered, or if experience hasn't weakened their basic
principles. Therefore every year sees something new which improves mathematics,
medicine, and magic9." But he recognized that "their magic was
not altogther pure and their Kabbalah is defiled by their religion"N10.
The Sages whom he meets in Fez are in periodic and regular contact with
those of other Islamic countries. The "Elementaries", that is
to say those who study the elements, revealed many of their secrets to him11.
Fez was at the time a center of philosophical and occultist studies: some
taught there were the alchemy of Abu-Abdallah, Gabir ben Hayan, and the
Imam Jafar al Sadiq, the astrology and magic of Ali-ash-Shabramallishi,
the esoteric science of Abdarrahman ben Abdallah al Iskari. These studies
flourished from the time of the Omayyads12.
The fact that secrets are suggested indicates without any doubt that they
formed the teachings of secret societies. It doesn't at all suggest the
Sabeans, an essentially heterodox society which represented a survival of
paganism. One is inclined to believe that Chr. Rosenkreutz had found his
secrets amongst the Brethren of Purity, a society of philosophers which
had formed in Basra in the first half of the fourth century after the Hejira
(622 ) which, without being orthodox , interpreted the dogmas and applied
itself seriously to scientific research. Their doctrine which had its source
in the study of the ancient Greek philosophers, became more pronounced in
a neo-pythagorean direction13. They took from the Pythagorean tradition
the habit of envisaging things under their numeric aspect.
Their interpretation of dogma remained a secret from society due to its
heterodox nature.
For example, on the subject of resurrection, they explained that the word
resurrection (qiyamah) is derived from subsistence (qiyam ) and when the
soul leaves the body it subsists by its essence , and it is this which resurrection
actually consists.
The Brethren of Purity had in each locality a meeting place where non-members
were excluded, and where they could discuss their secrets together. They
would mutually help each other "like the hand and foot work together
for the body."
There were various degrees in the order: masters of crafts, governors or
pastors of the brothers, the degree of sultan which represented legislative
power, and finally the supreme degree, named the royal degree which conferred
a state of vision or revelation like the one attained at death.
The secret part of the teaching was on the subject of theurgy: the divine
and angelic names, conjurations, the Kabbalah, exorcisms etc...14
The Brethren of Purity differed from the Sufis but they were united in many
points of doctrine. They were both mystical orders deriving from Koranic
theology. The dogma is supplanted by faith in the Divine Reality15.