that the Templars knew from their travels in the Holy Land. Hence, it had nothing to do with secret Gnostic knowledge. To claim that this name, this word is the sign of a secret is to Herder nothing more than “die gemeinste Romanlüge und Pöbelsage”.4 Even though Herder’s often imprecise or even incorrect arguments deals with clearly historical questions, about of the Templars, their rituals and secrets, it soon becomes clear that he is not really interested in the real – historical and esoteric – content of the secret of the Templars – what they were really hiding – at least not in the way Nicolai is. If every secret, every practice of secrecy can be studied both in search of a content and in search of a function, Herder – this is at least my claim – is more interested in the functional


aspects. To Herder – it seems – secrecy is a function at work in history itself – a function that can be controlled and put to use for the purpose of Enlightenment. In the 18th century this functional approach to the problem of secrecy is by no means singular to Herder, but can also be found in other texts and debates – such as in C. M. Wielands brilliant essay “Geheimnis des Kosmopolitenordens” from 1776 as well as in the debate between the publisher Johann Erich Biester and the philosopher Christian Garve in the Berliner Monatsschrift in 1785. A good example of how Herder, in his letters against Nicolai, in fact analyzes the


functions of secrecy, is his discussion of the works by the Silesian theologian and author Johannes Valentin Andrea, who, in addition to his most famous work of utopian fiction, Christianapolis, wrote several books about the secret society of the Rosecruscians, Fama fraternitatis Roseae Crucis oder Die Bruderschaft des Ordens der Rosenkreuzer (1614), Confessio oder Bekenntnis der Sozietät und Bruderschaft Rosenkreuz (1615) and Chymische Hochzeit Christiani Rosencreutz Anno 1459 (1616). In Andrea Nicolai sees not only the founder of the order of the Rosecruscians, but indirectly, through his influence on Francis Bacon and the English societies, an important predecessor of Freemasonry. Herder, however, who had the greatest respect for Andrea, but more as a priest and a theologian, reads these books in quite a different way, namely as pure


Johannes Valentin Andrea


fictions: Also war seine Chymische Hochzeit bloß ein ludibrium, damit er die zahlreichen monstra seiner Zeit durchzog: er siehts selbst als eine Comödie oder Roman an, mit dem er sich seiner übermäßig gesammelten Lektur habe entledigen wollen.5


4 15, s. 84 5 15, s. 60


52


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