Grimoires: A History of Magic Books

«grimoires are books of conjurations and charms, providing instructions on how to make magical objects such as protective amulets and talismans» — .

«It more likely derives from the French word ‘grammaire’, which originally referred to a work written in Latin» — frente a la propuesta del italiano «rimario».

La tesis que organiza el libro, y que Davies atribuye a otro historiador: «A book of magic is also a magical book».

«The earliest versions of the text were written in Greek in the Wfteenth century» — [«Wfteenth»: el OCR da W por la ligadura fi].

«We do not know his identity though it was falsely attributed by some to a well-known Spanish Arab mathematician» — Davies NO nombra al matemático.

«A Hebrew manuscript entitled the Book of the Key of Solomon (Sepher Maphteah Shelomoh), which dates to no earlier than the late seventeenth or eighteenth century and was probably translated from Italian» — .

«The Wrst edition of The Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy, in Latin, was produced in Marburg in 1559» — .

«a former pupil of Agrippa named Johan Weyer would later protest that the Fourth Book had nothing to do with his late master» — [«Johan», así en el impreso].

La censura antigua, con sus dos hitos: «the senate requested the Roman magistrates to round up and burn books of soothsaying» en 186 a.C., y siglo y medio después «2,000 books of divination were said to have burned on the orders of Emperor Augustus» — el verbo del segundo es de decir, no de constancia.

«the Council of Toledo issued an edict stating ‘it is not permitted for altar ministers or for clerics to become magicians or sorcerers» — .

«a clear intellectual division developed during the medieval period between natural magic and demonic magic or necromancy» — .

La vía toledana: «It had been captured from the Moors in 1085 by Alfonso VI of Castile», que se declaró «the king of the two religions».

«a collection of over thirty magic texts were donated to St Augustine’s Abbey, Canterbury» — por al menos cinco monjes distintos.

«Printing was described as a ‘black art’ and books as ‘silent heretics» — , y en la misma plana: «The Italian Inquisition was instituted in 1542» para frenar la amenaza protestante.

«it was translated into Latin by Marsilio Ficino (1433–99) and published in 1471» — el Corpus lo trajo a Florencia un monje bizantino en 1460; del De occulta philosophia dice que «he only had it published in Antwerp in 1533».

«In 1682 Louis XIV ordered the promulgation of a new law to suppress all those ‘who follow the vain professions of fortune-tellers, magicians, or sor» — cerers.

El sello ficticio: «A favourite ruse was to hide behind the Wctional publishing company of Beringos Fratres of Lyon», con domicilio «at the sign of Agrippa».

«The Clavicule of Solomon was evidently one of the few legitimate grimoires in his estimation, for in 1860 he made an annotated manuscript copy of one version» — dicho de Lévi.

Mathers declara su criterio de selección: «Mathers was well aware of this, mentioning that he had seen grimoires ascribed to Solomon which were ‘full of evil magic, and I cannot caution the practical student too strongly against them».

«he published under his own name a British Library manuscript, the ‘Lemegeton; Clavicula Salomonis or the Little Key of Solomon’, which consisted of a list of spirits and their characters, that Mathers had transcribed» — Davies lo llama acto de venganza.

«Mathers wrote a letter to Florence Farr stating that Westcott had forged both the cipher manuscript and the correspondence with the mysterious Anna Sprengel» — .

«Histories of the lives of Noah’s sons outside the Old Testament were mutable and sometimes conXicting.» — declaración de límite sobre las fuentes: las historias de los hijos de Noé fuera del Antiguo Testamento eran mutables y a veces contradictorias entre sí

«In some accounts Ham wrote down the secrets of his demonic magic on metal plates and stone tablets before the Flood, buried them, and then returned to them once the waters had subsided.» — una versión: Cam grabó los secretos en placas de metal y tablillas de piedra antes del Diluvio, y volvió por ellas al bajar las aguas

«Others, such as the Wrst Bishop of Norwich (d. 1119), thought his magic book was secreted in the Ark: ‘the ark was of small compass; but yet even there Ham preserved the arts of magic and idolatry.’» — y la versión rival, adjudicada al primer obispo de Norwich, con su cita dentro del ancla

«In some medieval texts Zoroaster is the son of Ham and in others he is Ham.» — la inestabilidad de la figura: en unos textos medievales Zoroastro es hijo de Cam y en otros es Cam mismo

«According to the twelfth-century scholar Michael Scot, in his history of astrology and astronomy, Zoroaster was the inventor of magic, but he was descended from Shem, and it was Ham who invented the art of divination with the help of demons.» — la versión de Michael Scot, que lo hace inventor de la magia pero descendiente de Sem

«Although Persia was seen as the source of magic, the people of the ancient civilization of Chaldea, part of Babylonia, were also renowned for their astrological and magical abilities.» — Persia como fuente de la magia, y Caldea renombrada por lo astrológico

«In Uruk, one of the world’s earliest cities, and now part of Iraq, excavations of houses dating from the Wfth and fourth centuries bce turned up cuneiform clay tablets containing a series of magic rituals and incantations.» — el dato arqueológico: tablillas cuneiformes con encantamientos en Uruk, entre los siglos quinto y cuarto antes de nuestra era

«By the birth of Christ, though, it was the later civilization of Egypt that was seen by Greeks, Romans, Christians, Jews, and later Muslims, as the centre of magic and the home of the most adept magician priests.» — el desplazamiento del centro: hacia el nacimiento de Cristo es Egipto lo que griegos, romanos, cristianos, judíos y después musulmanes tienen por hogar de la magia

«According to the Jewish Talmud, nine-tenths of the world’s sorcery resided in Egypt.» — la proporción que el Talmud le adjudica a Egipto, citada como creencia y no como dato

«According to the New Testament (Acts 7:22) ‘Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in words and in deeds.’» — la fórmula de Hechos 7:22 sobre la sabiduría egipcia de Moisés, dentro del ancla

«The Greek pagan Celsus, writing in the second century ce, asserted that the Jews were much addicted to the sorcery taught them by Moses.» — la acusación de Celso en el siglo segundo, adjudicada a él por su nombre

«It was, however, fundamental to the identity of Jewish religion, and important to Christianity, that a clear distinction was made between the ‘portents and miracles’ of Moses and the ‘sorcery’ of Egyptian wizards.» — el deslinde que Davies señala como fundamental para la identidad judía: portentos y milagros de un lado, magia egipcia del otro

«Yet from the late medieval period onwards, Christian occult philosophers, mystics, and magicians began to redeWne Moses as an Egyptian rather than a Jew, presenting him as a repository of Egyptian wisdom and magic.» — y la reescritura tardía: desde el final de la Edad Media los filósofos ocultos cristianos redefinen a Moisés como egipcio antes que judío

«Yet, intriguingly, by the late eighteenth century a manuscript claiming to be the Sixth and Seventh Books of Moses was circulating in Germany.» — la aparición tardía del manuscrito de los Libros Sexto y Séptimo, ya en la Alemania del XVIII

«Hermes Trismegistus was the other central Wgure in historic conceptions of ancient Egyptian magic, and the next great reputed author of occult books in this survey of the dubious lineage of magic.» — Hermes Trismegisto como el otro autor central de la lista dudosa que el capítulo repasa

«In his most mythical guise he was a conXation of Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian god of Wisdom, and the Greek god Hermes (equated with the Roman Mercury).» — la conflación que le da origen: Thot con cabeza de ibis y el Hermes griego

«In an Islamic tradition dating to at least the ninth century there are three people identiWed as Hermes.» — la tradición islámica del siglo noveno que distingue tres personas llamadas Hermes

«Manetho reckoned there were an impressive 36,525 books of Hermes.» — la cifra que Manetón le adjudica a Hermes

«Another estimate from the same era mentioned the more modest number of 20,000 works, others mere tens and hundreds rather than thousands.» — y las estimaciones rivales, mucho menores, que Davies pone al lado sin arbitrar