Taught By Degrees Only

By Gabriel Comia, Jr. 10.14.2024 DAT ROSA MEL APIBUS “The Rose Gives The Bees Honey” after the original motto found in the engraving (possibly) by Johann Thedore deBry (d. 1598) The Rose and the Cross: “The Rose gives the bees honey” (DAT ROSA MEL APIBUS). This explicitly Rosicrucian symbol was first used at the head of Joachim Frizius’s Summum Bonum, then adopted for (Robert) Fludd’s Clavis. A rose with seven petals each alludes, in all probability, to secret doctrines of septenary emanation such as were later to be publicized in the theosophical works of H.P. Blavatsky. The Rose surmounts the thorny cross, the whole resembling the sign of Venus in which the solar circle triumphs over the cross of matter. We may interpret the motto as saying that “spiritual knowledge gives solace to souls,” of whom bees are a venerable symbol. The spider’s webs (also with sevenfold divisions) strung on a grape arbor in the background, and the wingless insect on the rose (a spider?) may represent negat...