SOURCE: "Andreae's Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz anno 1459," in The Principle of Hope, Neville Plaice, Stephen Plaice, and Paul Knight, trans., Basil Blackwell, 1986, pp. 634-39.

In this excerpt from The Principle of Hope, originally published in German as Das Prinzip Hoffnung in 1959, Bloch examines the allegorical significance of Andreae's Chemical Wedding and the Christianopolis.

The Chemical Wedding of Christian Rosenkreutz anno 1459 appeared in 1616, it aims at a broader 'refinement' than that of base metal into gold. The author of this anonymously published work is almost certainly Johann Valentin Andreae, Swabian poet, churchman, theosophist, utopian. The work sharply criticizes the bad gold-cookers, in places it can even be interpreted as mocking the whole hermetic craft. But more striking than the undeniable presence of an element of satire is the solemn significance which the Chemical Wedding gives to the path of gold and to the allegorical knight who takes it...