The Red and Golden Cross

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The image you see above is a graphic representation of a red enamelled cross made of purest gold which has great Rosicrucian significance and origin. This symbol was actually worn by our elder Adepts of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz Order (Golden and Rosy Cross Order), at least this was a fact since the general reformation of 1777. I have heard, albeit I cannot confirm this as I am not such an advanced initiate, that this golden and red enamelled cross somehow is related to the Magister Templi 8°=3° Grade.

Looking through the Tableau of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz (from the reformation of 1763), as published by Magister Pianco in his Der Rosenkreuzer in seiner Blösse, there is a column appended that describes the "signs" of the Grades. Looking at the Grades of Adeptus Major, Adeptus Exemptus and Magister Templi you will find the following signet of the Grade: "A Cross of Gold enamelled." So here we have a clear reference of this symbol being in use by Rosicrucian initiates even as early as in 1763.

But this symbol has an even older tradition than this, which at least goes as far back as the Order of the Knights Templars, or as it was called in full "Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon" (Pauperes commilitones Christi Templique Solomonici). This chivalric Order of monks was founded in 1118 AD, and its knights wore white cloaks charged with a Red Cross. This Red Cross, according to Arthur Edward Waite in his The Real History of the Rosicrucians, was in use by some alledged early Rosicrucians of the 17th Century, at the time of the publication of the Fama et Confessio Fraterntitatis.

The Knights Templars

There is in fact a Rosicrucian connection, at least in myth, between the Knights Templars and the R+C Fraternity, through the legend of Ormus, which originated in the early stages of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz Orden in 18th century Germany. I have written about this legend before on this blog but I will repeat what I said there for easy reference. The story goes that the Rosicrucian order in reality wasn’t created by Christian Rosenkreutz in the 15th Century at all but instead identifies the true founder as a Alexandrian Gnostic sage, priest of Serapis and mage of Egypt named "Ormus". St. Mark, one of Jesus’ disciples, converted him and his six followers to Christianity. From this conversion, Rosicrucianism was supposedly born, in the year 44 AD (another source gives the year 46 AD) in Alexandria, Egypt, fusing Christian symbology with Egyptian Hermetic mysteries.

This legend of Ormus can be found also in the Memphis and Misraïm Egyptian Masonic system. The Masonic historian E.J. Marconis de Negre (which supposedly founded the Misraïm-Memphis Rite together with his father Gabriel M. Marconis) says the following regarding Ormus in his "Brief History of Masonry" from 1849:

About the same time [46 AD] the Essenes and other Jews founded a school of science according to Solomon's teaching and joined Ormus. The fol­lowers of Ormus, up to 1118, were the only trustees of the ancient doctrines of Egypt, purified, of course, by Christianity and the teachings of Solomon. These doctrines they communicated to the Templars. They were in consequence known under the name of "Knights of Palestine" or "Brethren of the Rosy Cross of the Orient".

This writer had an earlier source in Baron de Westerode, who almost wrote the same thing in 1784. He called the early society "the Society of Ormus", which, according to Westerode, was joined by groups like the Essenes of Palestine and the Theraputae of the Thebaid Tradition. He also claims that the society was called "The Sages of Light" by the members, to which Ormus gave a Red Cross as a decoration. The legend was thus explained to the Rosicrucian initiate of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz Order, in one of its unpublished rituals (as translated by David Griffin):

At the beginning of our Christian era, there lived in Egypt a great initiate named Ormus; called Ormesius by the Greeks. Ormus was a priest of Serapis in the city of Alexandria and an initiate of the Hermetic mysteries. Ormesius forsaw the rise of Christianity, and thus was converted to the new religion by St. Mark in AD 44. To ensure the survival and transmission of the Royal Art, Ormus stripped the mysteries their Egyptian trappings, and re-veiled them in the symbols and rites of the new religion. To preserve the initiatic transmission as well, Ormesius founded a Hermetic mystery school called the ”Fraternity of the Sages of Light,” known to initiates through the centuries as the the Ordo Ormesius, or the Order of Ormus.

The Order has manifested to the outer world under many names and has undergone many transformations. In 1111, it was known as the Alliance of Magical Brothers. In 1222, following the defeat of the Crusaders in Jerusalem and the expulsion of Christians from the holy land, the surviving members of the order disbursed across the world. Thus the light of our fraternity was carried to France where the Knights Templar were formed by Hugues de Payns with the aid of the Alliance. Thus the red cross of our order became the primary emblem of the Knights Templar, who provided the spiritual implulse for a new Crusade to retake the holy land.

In 1314, when when the Knights Templar were supressed in France, the last Grand Master, Jaques de Molay, sent his nephew, the Count of Beaujeu, into the Templar crypt in Paris, to recover a chest filled with the esoteric secrets of the order. These documents were dispatched with an envoy of knights to Scotland, where they arrived in 1333, and were later used to lay the spiritual foundations for Freemasonry. Time and again across the centuries, our order has manifested and been known by many names. In 1444 it was known as the Order of the Cross, in 1555 as the Order the Rosy Cross, and in 1666 as the Brothers of the Golden Cross, and 1777 as the Order of the Golden and Rosy Cross.

From the earliest times, initiates of our order have recognized one another by the primary ensignia of our order: an enameled red cross made of purest gold and worn over the heart of the Adept. This red cross of our order became the primary emblem of the both Knights Templar and the Golden Rosicrucians. Legend has it this cross was originally drawn with the blood of Christ upon a white shield by Joseph of Arimathea, and that this shield was carried by Galahad on the Grail quest.

Or so the legenda tells us. Be there as it may, but it's easy to detect a clear Templar connection with Rosicrucianism here, which supposedly adopted the same symbol, a notion which also were held by the French Alchemical society called the F.A.R+C. (Freres Aines de la Rose Croix) of Roger Caro, which claimed a Templar origin of its foundation in 1317, shortly after the last Grand Master Jacques de Molay (1244-1314) was burned at the stake by the conspirancy of the Roman Catholic Church and the French State.

The Grand Master Jacques de Molay

If I recall the story correctly, the disciples of Ormus were supposed to split up after his death into several societies (which perhaps accounts for the many names of the society), most of them over time developing corrupt teachings. Only a few of them were supposed to remain true to the spirit of Rosicrucianism (three if I'm not mistaken), when they came into contact with the crusaders and later were supposed to inspire the Knight Templars organisation.

So we see here that by the 18th Century the Rosicrucian Order regarded itself to be the heir of the Knights Templars. This was also echoed by the German Freemasonic Rite of the Stricht Observance founded by Karl Gotthelf von Hund (1722-1776), based upon the Scottish Rite of Freemasonry (which contains Rosicrucian elements), but with a greater emphasis on Templarism. This order was a contemporary of the Gold- und Rosenkreutz Order and shared its symbol of the Red Cross.

Baron von Hund

This was also the case with the Swedish Rite, which was founded in 1766 and later reformed by the Swedish Duke of Södermanland (1748-1818), later crowned as King Charles XIII of Sweden. This rite blended elements from the Stricht Observance and Scottish Rites. The Swedish Rite most probably also was influenced by the Asiatic Brethren and Gold- und Rosenkreutz, who had lodges in Sweden during the 18th Century, and both listed Duke Carl as member who was a devout student of Hermeticism and Qabalah. The Swedish Rite is probably the most esoteric regular Freemasonic system in operation today, with deep roots in German Rosicrucian soil. Today the Swedish Rite is operated and has hegemony in Scandinavia and northern Germany, and once had a strong presence in Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution.

The Grand Master of the Swedish Rite King Charles XIII

Interestingly enough the great scholar on Rosicrucianism, Christopher McIntosh, in his seminal work The Rose Cross and the Age of Reason, notes that the Gold- und Rosenkreutz Order recruited their members from Freemasonry in general but in particular from the French Scottish and Swedish Rites. This was also the case with the later English derivative called Soceitas Rosicruciana in Anglia or S.R.I.A., which also bears the symbol of the Red and Golden Cross.

The Seal of the S.R.I.A.

Now as I already have asserted the strong ties between the red enamelled golden cross and the Gold- und Rosenkreutz, and in the very real sense that many of the names of Golden Dawn grades, mystic titles, etc., derive directly from the Gold- und Rosenkreutz Order, one can even argue that this cross probably is the prototype and actual "source of origin" of the Rose Cross lamen later adapted by the R.R. et A.C. and worn by its Adepts until today. Furthermore, I belive that in the traditional Golden Dawn symbol the Red Cross surmounting the White Triangle is a clear reference to and has its origin in this Red and Golden Cross.

©Tomas Stacewicz

This symbol in turn relates to the Banner of West, which actually is the White Triangle with the Red and Golden Cross inside the triangle. Also notice that the ritual cloaks of the Golden Dawn Officers, in particular the one worn by the Hegemon in white charged with a Red Cross, is almost identical in design whith that of the cloak worn by the ancient Knights Templar. This white cloak with the Red Cross can also be found worn by high degree members (or Knights) of the Swedish Rite.

The Banner of the West and the Cloak of Hegemon

So what we see here is a direct Rosicrucian lineage in the Golden Dawn descending from the Gold- und Rosenkreutz order through the Asiatic Brethren and the Frankfurt-am-Main lodge Zur Aufghene Morgonroethe, aka L'Aurore Naissante, aka Chevrah Zerach Bequr Aur in Germany. And since early Rosicrucian times, and long before the Golden Dawn, this symbol of the Red enamelled Golden Cross has been a token of Hermetic initiation.

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