Cabalistic, and his views were shared by his contemporary Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim. As a result of these teachings a craze for Cabalism spread amongst Christian prelates, statesmen, and warriors, and a number of Christian thinkers took up the doctrines of the Cabala and "essayed to work them over in their own way." Athanasius Kircher and Knorr, Baron von Rosenroth, author of the _Kabbala Denudata_, in the course of the seventeenth century "endeavoured to spread the Cabala among the Christians by translating Cabalistic works which they regarded as most ancient wisdom." "Most of them," the _Jewish Encyclopædia_ goes on to observe derisively, "held the absurd idea that the Cabala contained proofs of the truth of Christianity.... Much that appears Christian [in the Cabala] is, in fact, nothing but the logical development of certain ancient esoteric doctrines."[246] The Rosicrucians appear to have been the outcome both of this Cabalistic movement and of the teachings of Paracelsus. The earliest intimation of their existence was given in a series of pamphlets which appeared at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The first of these, entitled the _Fama Fraternitatis; or a Discovery of the Fraternity of the most Laudable Order of the Rosy Cross_, was published at Cassel in 1614 and the _Confessio Fraternitatis_ early in the following year. These contain what may be described as the "Grand Legend" of Rosicrucianism, which has been repeated with slight variations up to the present day. Briefly, this story is as follows[247]: