Liber Salomonis or Sepher Raziel - a 16th century grimoire ed by Don Karr.pdf - ZAJRZYJ TU! Różne - aneczek240

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British Library Sloane MS 3826: 2 r -57 r

Liber Salomonis:

Cephar Raziel

Transcribed, annotated, and introduced by Don Karr

Email: dk0618@yahoo.com

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INTRODUCTION

Liber Salomonis comprises folio pages 2 r -57 r of British Library Sloane MS 3826; it contains

seven treatises (as described in its own fo.3 r ):

1. Clavis…“of astronomy and of the starres” (ff 5 v -11 v )

2. Ala…“the vertues of some stones of herbes and of beasts” (ff 12 r -27 r )

3. Tractatus Thymiamatus…of suffumigations and of allegations of them and divisions” (ff 27 r -34 r )

4. The “Treatise of tymes of the year of the day and of the night…when anything ought to be done

by this booke” (ff 34 r -46 r )

5. The “Treatise of Cleanesse…of Abstinence” (ff 46 r -51 r )

6. “Samaim” which “nameth all the heavens and her angels and the operations or workings of them”

(ff 51 v -53 v )

7. The “booke of Vertues…and miracles…the properties of the ark of magicke and of his figures and

of the ordinance of same” (ff 53 v -57 v )

Liber Salomonis refers to itself as “Cephar Raziel” (ff 2 v , 3 r , 4 r , 12 r , 34 r ), “Sephar Raziel” (fo. 2 r ),

“booke of Raziel” (ff 20 r , 46 r , 57 r ), and “booke of Razeelus” (fo. 3 v ). Solomon is indicated as the

recipient and redactor—not the author—of the book in the narrative which introduces the text (ff

2 v -3 v ), though most instructions begin, “Salomon said….” Others begin, “Hermes said…” (ff 9 r ,

11 r , 18 v , 24 r , 28 v , 30 r , 31 r , 32 r , 33 v ), “Adam said…” (fo. 16 r ), “Nathaniel said…” (fo. 47 r ),

“Moyses said…” (ff 4 r , 4 v ), and “Raziel said…” (ff 6 r , 16 v , 22 r , 26 r , 28 v , 31 v , 34 v , 36 r , 37 r , 38 v ).

Narrative passages refer to Raziel as the source of the book (e.g., ff 34 r and 36 r ).

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The rest of Sloane MS 3826 consists of

1. Incipit Canon : The rule of the book of consecration, or the manner of working ( ff 58 r -60 r )

2. Orisons( ff 60 r -65 r )

3. Magical directions ( ff 65 r -83 v )

4. Liber Lunæ ( ff 84 r -97 v )

5. Raphael : The Invocation of Oberon Concerning Physick &c ( ff 98 r -99 r )

6. The Call of Bilgal , One of the 7 etc. (fo. 99 v )

7. An Experiment for a Fayry (fo. 100 r )

8. Beleemus De imaginibus ( ff 100 v -101 r )

Sloane MS 3826 is in English, except for

(i) the opening lines of paragraphs in Liber Salomonis and Incipit Canon

(ii) the Orisons

(iii) the invocation, constriction, ligation, and license of Raphael

(iv) Beleemus De imaginibus (B ELEEMUS REGARDING THE I MAGES [ OF THE PLANETS ])

In various communications, I have expressed my opinion that Sloane 3826 was a sixteenth-

century Christian product, though one which borrowed from Jewish, Arabic, and Græco-Roman /

scholastic and folk sources. In a note to me (January 28, 2007), Sophie Page offered an informed

and most welcome emendation to my view in the form of an abridged segment from her article,

“Uplifting Souls and Speaking with Spirits: The Liber de essentia spirituum and the Liber

Razielis ,” in Claire Fanger (ed.), Invoking Angels: Mystical Technologies in the Middle Ages

(forthcoming):

The most explicit transmission of Jewish magical material into the Christian Latin tradition of

magic was the translation of works associated with the name “Raziel,” an angel present in Jewish

angelology and Arabic astrological texts who was said to have revealed a book of secrets to Adam.

Various esoteric and magical treatises attributed to Raziel and based on the practical use of divine

and angelic names circulated among late medieval Jews. The earliest known reference in Latin is a

citation by the Christian convert Petrus Alfonsus [ OR Alfonsi] (1062-1110) of a certain Secretum

secretorum , which claimed to have been revealed to Seth, the son of Adam, by the angel Raziel.

By the mid-thirteenth century, these magic texts were circulating more widely in Latin. In 1259,

Alfonso [X, (1221-1284)] directed the translation of a work entitled Liber Razielis from Latin into

Castilian by the cleric Juan d’Aspa. The Castilian version does not survive, but the Latin original

put together by Alfonso survives in two complete and several partial copies, as well as various

early modern abridged vernacular versions. The Alfonsine Liber Razielis is structured in the form

of seven books said to have been brought together by Solomon. Nine related texts from the

Solomonic and Hermetic magical traditions were added by Alfonso’s scribes as appendices.

Although the preface cites a single Hebrew original for the seven volumes, it is likely that the

structure was partly a creation of Alfonso himself and his translators.

The following post-1500 manuscripts contain abridged vernacular copies of the Alfonsine

Liber Razielis or the Liber Sameyn only (the sixth book). This is not an exhaustive list, and I have

only personally examined those in the British Library: MS Yale, Beinecke Rare Books Library

Osborn MS fa. 7 (late s. xvi, English); British Library MSS Sloane 3826 (s. xvii, English), ff. 1-

57, Sloane 3846 (s. xvi, English), ff 127-55; MS Lyon 970 (s. xvii, xviii, French; MSS Alnwick

Castle 596 (s. xviii, Italian, the Liber Sameyn ), pp. 1-42 and 96 (Italian, Latin, English, the Liber

Sameyn only); MS Lübeck, Bibliothek der Hansestadt, Math. 4o 10 (s. xvi/xvii, German); MS

Dresden N. 36 (s. xviii, German); Prague, National Museum Library MS XVIIF25 (1595, Czech,

trans. Ioannes Polenarius). MS British Library Add. 16, 390 (s. xvii) has a Hebrew extract with a

title in Italian. Where no folio references are given, the catalogue entry suggests that the Liber

Razielis travels alone.

Suggested bibliography: J. Dan, “Raziel, Book of,” Encyclopedia Judaica 13 (Jerusalem,

1971), 1592-93; A. Garcia Avilés, “Alfonso X y el Liber Razielis : imagines de la magia astral

judía en el scriptorius Alfonsi,” in Bulletin of Hispanic Studies , Volume 74, Number 1: January

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1997, pp. 21-39 (Carfax Publishing/Liverpool University Press); Alfonso d’Agostino, Astromagia

[MS. Reg. Lat 1283a] (Naples: Liguore, 1992). On the later fortuna of the Liber Razielis in Spain

and elsewhere: F. Secret, “Sur quelques traductions du Sefer Raziel,” Revue des études Juives , 128

(Paris: 1969), pp. 223-45. On magic at the Alfonsine court, see also N. Weill-Parot, Les images

astrologiques au Moyen Âge et a la Renaissance (Paris: Honor Champion, 2002), pp. 123-138.

[my brackets— DK ]

In her introduction to The Watkins Dictionary of Angels (London: Watkins Publishing, 2006),

Julia Cresswell writes (—page 9) of Sloane 3826,

I would suggest that although the manuscript may be sixteenth century, some of the language is

rather old-fashioned for that date, except perhaps for an old person writing in the early sixteenth

century. I would guess that the text is a reworking if an earlier one, pushing the origin of the

material back into the Middle Ages.

Liber Salomonis is here literally transcribed, line-by-line; no changes in spelling or wording have

been made. (Spelling in the MS is quite inconsistent; e.g ., within a few lines of each other, we

find “wing,” “winge,” “wyng,” and “wynge.”) With the superscript and other features, I have

imitated the look of the text. Note that superscripted letters belong to the text; superscripted

numbers refer to footnotes. All Latin headings are in italics . Each page of text here represents a

folio page of the MS; folio numbers are given in square brackets.

Printed notices of Sloane MS 3826:

•

Alchemy Web Site , “organised by Adam McLean.” “Sepher Raziel Manuscripts,” on-line at

http://www.alchemywebsite.com/raziel.html ; also in print as an appendix to Steve Savedow’s Sepher

Rezial Hemelach: The Book of the Angel Rezial , York Beach: Samuel Weiser, Inc., 2000.

•

Cresswell, Julia. The Watkins Dictionary of Angels , London: Watkins Publishing, 2006; Cresswell uses

Sloane 3826 as her “base text” in compiling this grand list of “angels and angelic beings.”

•

Klaassen, Frank F. R ELIGION , S CIENCE , AND THE T RANSFORMATIONS OF M AGIC : M ANUSCRIPTS OF

M AGIC 1300-1600. Ph.D. dissertation: Toronto: University of Toronto, 1999: p. 133 (ref. Liber sacer

i.e., Honorius material), p. 207 (as an example of a seventeenth-century collection combining ritual

and scholastic image magic), p. 259 (listed under “Seventeenth Century [MSS]”).

•

Mathiesen, Robert. “A Thirteenth-Century Ritual to Attain the Beatific Vision from the Sworn Book of

Honorius of Thebes,” in Conjuring Spirits: Texts and Traditions of Medieval Ritual Magic , edited by

Claire Fanger. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1998: p. 145 (Sloane 3826 ff. 58-

83 is listed as a MS of the Sworn Book of Honorius ).

•

“M. Plessner, article on ‘Balinus’ in Encyclopedia of Islam (new edn.1959) I, p. 995.” (This entry

appears on the British Library reference form which accompanies the microfilm version of the MS

from which the current transcription has been done.)

•

Peterson, Joseph H. “ Sepher Raziel (Sl.3846): Book of the Angel Raziel,” online at TWILIT GROTTO :

http://www.esotericarchives.com/raziel/raziel.htm

•

Shah, Idries. Oriental Magic . New York: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1956; rpt 1973: page 191,

BIBLIOGRAPHY , Grimoire References, Chaldea: “The following ‘Black Books’ of the sorcerers have

traces of Chaldean magical rituals or processes attributed to Chaldean origin: Sefer Raziel (The Book

of Raziel). B.M. Sloane 3826.”

•

Shah, Idries. The Secret Lore of Magic . Secaucus: Citadel Press Inc., 1958: pp. 288, 289, 290, and 310;

ref. abbreviation (SR).

•

Thorndike, Lynn. History of Magic and Experimental Sciences , volume II: THE FIRST THIRTEEN

CENTURIES . New York: Columbia University Press 1923: p. 281.

•

Waite, Arthur Edward. Book of Black Magic and of Pacts . London: Redway, 1898; rpt. New York:

Samuel Weiser, Inc., 1972: pp. 33-4 of the Weiser edition.

•

Waite, Arthur Edward. The Book of Ceremonial Magic . London: Rider, 1911; rpt. New York: Bell

Publishing Company, 1969: pp. 20-21 and 22 of the Bell edition. ( The Book of Ceremonial Magic is a

revised version of Book of Black Magic and of Pacts .)

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