Solemn Historical Dissertation on the Rosicrucians

p. 99.

A certain Frenchman, Eusebius Renaudotius, as reported by Arnold in Conf. publiq. T. IV, p. 87, wishes the name to be imposed from Alchemy, to which, as we shall see below, the Rosicrucian brothers were mostly devoted, so that the word Rosea descends from ros dew, and crux cross signifies lux light, which two things Alchemists would use most. But this derivation is too forced and manifestly repugnant to etymological reason, the mind of the Brethren, and the authorities of other men. Another Frenchman, Gabr. Naudaeus, in a book which he entitled Instruction à la France sur la uerité de l' histoire des Freres de la Rose-Croix Instruction to France on the truth of the history of the Brethren of the Rose-Cross, published in Paris in 1623, reports that the appellation was taken from the pledge of silence by which these Brethren are bound. I have deemed it not alien to my purpose to place here the words from his Preface, since the book is quite rare: "That, to effect more easily, I judged it appropriate to trace this Warning, to facilitate for You the understanding of the whole following discourse, and to warn You first, that as for the name of this Company, Father Garasse has most happily conjectured among all the reasons that moved its Author to give it this title of Rose-Cross; persuading himself that he had wished to oblige it by this symbol of silence, to live hidden and covered and to keep the secret as the only soul and the first principle of all his actions, for proof of which interpretation he fortifies himself with the two last verses of an Epigram, which are explained so naively by the first two that he omitted, that I judged there to be no need of other commentary than to represent it to You in their entire and perfect sense."

The Rose is the flower of Venus, so that her thefts might remain hidden,
Love dedicated it to Harpocrates, the gift of his mother.
Hence the host hangs a rose for his friendly guests at the table,
So that the guests may know that what is said under it must be kept silent.

But I leave this reason for naming, being taken from Mythology, for its Author to defend. Robert Fludd, or a Fluctibus, an Oxford Doctor of Medicine and Esquire, a most fierce defender of this Fraternity, seems to have hit the mark himself while he provides us with this symbolic reason for its name...