Hermann of Carinthia and the Kitāb al-Isṭamāṭīs: Further Evidence for the Transmission ofHermetic MagicAuthor(s): Charles S. F. BurnettSource: Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Vol. 44 (1981), pp. 167-169Published by: The Warburg InstituteStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/751059 .Accessed: 26/04/2011 05:54

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TRANSMISSION OF HERMETIC MAGIC 167 HERMANN OF CARINTHIA AND

THE KITAB AL-ISTAMATIS: FURTHER EVIDENCE FOR THE

TRANSMISSION OF HERMETIC MAGIC

N a discussion of the nature of incorporeal spirits in the De Essentiis (completed at Be-

ziers in 1143) Hermann of Carinthia' quotes a passage from a book which he calls 'Aristotle's Data Neiringet'.2 The passage reads as follows:

[I] Aristotiles vero primum in diebus Medorum regis Thebe cuidam Iaoth eiusdem regionis spiritum Ven- eris in sompniis venisse tradit, eumque sic affatum: [2] 'Cum Sol,' inquit 'Geminos possederit, Luna Cancrum occupaverit, die Veneris, [3] exutus, mun- dabere, odoribusque confectus, chaiten indues, [41] arrepto deinde ariete albo cum capistro solus sub teretis arborem palmi proficiscere, [5] ibique immo- labis hostiam, hec invocando nomina. [6] Que deinde, quotiens invocaveris, aderunt tibi omnis voluntatis tue ministri. [7] Tu modo fac ut assump- tos tibi socios privatos et condignos in eandem reli- gionem inducas.3

Hermann of Carinthia is primarily known for his translations of astronomical and astrologi- cal works from Arabic into Latin.4 His original work, the De Essentiis, gives evidence of the range of his reading of Arabic works, whether in the original language or in translations which had already been made. Amongst these are two Hermetica: the De Secretis Naturae of ps.- Apollonius5 and Hermes's Aurea Virga.6 The above quotation from 'Data Neiringet' corre- sponds very closely to the story told in the Arabic Hermetic work in Bodleian MS Marsh 556, fols 4-1iio, called 'kitdb al-Madftis ... a commentary on the kitdb al-Istamdtifs'.' Here we read on fol. 55r: [i] The fourth, the clime of Venus. The wise Aris- totle said: there was a wise man of the fourth clime to whom her (Venus's) spirit used to be intimate in the desert, and he was called Shauith . . . The wise Aris- totle said, the spirit of Venus was intimate with him and spoke in his language and ordered him and said: [2] 'When the Sun is in Pisces, and the Moon is in Cancer, then choose a Friday [3] and wash yourself and clean yourself and perfume yourself; [4] and hasten and enter a walled garden and aim for a round date-palm or another tree, and go under it. And take with you a ram and a knife. [5] And approach the ram in my name and in [the name of] my spirit. And you should say: Didas Ghailhis Hasluis Damaris Tifsin Samluis Arhuish Dahtarish. [6] And I will

1 For Hermann of Carinthia see C. H. Haskins, Studies in the History of Mediaeval Science, Harvard University Press, 19272, pp. 43-66 and C. S. F. Burnett, 'Arabic into Latin in Twelfth-Century Spain: the Works of Hermann of Carin- thia, 'Mittellateinisches Jahrbuch, xmIII, 1977, pp. 100-34. The De Essentiis exists in three MSS: N[aples C.VIII.5o, 12th

cent.]; C[orpus Christi College, Oxford 243, 15th cent.]; and L[ondon, British Library, Cotton Titus D IV, frag- mentary, 14th cent.]. I refer to the text according to the folio nos of the Naples MS.

2 Thus N; L gives data metinget, C gives data followed by a lacuna. I am grateful to Professor Richard Lemay of the City University, New York, for pointing out the correct reading.

3 [i] Aristotle relates that first in the days of the king of the Medes, at Thebes, the spirit of Venus came to a certain man called Iaoth of the same region in a dream, and addressed him in this way: [2] 'When the Sun is in the sign of Gemini, and the Moon is in Cancer, on the day of Venus, [3] you will undress, wash, perfume yourself and put on chaiten, [4] and, having taken up a white ram with a halter, go alone under a smooth date-palm, [5] and there you will sacrifice your victim, calling on these names. [6] After- wards, whenever you call them, ministers for whatever you desire will be present to you. [7] Only make sure that you bring into the same ceremony as companions only close friends and worthy individuals. De Essentiis 72VE-F.

Thus LC; (C gives charten for chaiten; LC have capisterio). The quotation in N is slightly different:

Aristotiles vero primum in diebus leid Persarum regis, cuidam eiusdem regionis spiritum Veneris in sompnis venisse tradit, eumque sic affatum: 'Mane', inquit, 'ubi primum surrexeris, aque lavacris mundabere, albisque indutus, arrepto ariete albo solus sub arbore palmi profi- ciscere ibique immolabis hostiam, hec invocando nomina (thereafter as in LC).

I have argued in my edition of Hermann's De Essentiis (forthcoming) that the differences between N and LC sug- gest a revision to the text which appears to have been made by Hermann himself.

4 For a catalogue of these works see Burnett, 'Arabic into Latin', art. cit. n;'i above.

s De Essentiis 72VD-E and 65vC. Hermann may have known the text directly (ed. U. Weisser, Buch i ber das Geheimnis der Schapfung, Aleppo 1979) in the same MS used by the translator Hugo of Santalla. Hugo's Latin transla- tion of De Secretis Naturae is being prepared for publication by Mile M.-T. d'Alverny and Mme Hudry.

6 De Essentiis 72'D: Sic Hermes in Aurea Virga . .. Hermes quidem ipsa privati sui verba colloquentis ad sefacta retractat. This reference does not seem to be related to any extant Latin text called Aurea Virga. However, Hermes's Aurea Virga is also cited in the preface to Liber Hermetis de Sex Principiis (a composite work, perhaps of the late twelfth century) ed. T. Silverstein, Archives d'histoire doctrinale et littiraire du moyen dge, xxII, 1955, p. 247, and may correspond to an Arabic work with the same title - Hermes, k. Qadfb al-dhahab (Hermes, 'the book on the Golden Bough'; Ibn al-Nadim, Fihrist, ed. Fliigel, p. 267.15). Other references to Hermes in De Essen- tiis (58VE, 59VA, 63rG) are taken from his translation ofAbfi Ma'shar's Maius Introductorium, where Hermes is cited as an authority (Book vi, Ch. i, pr. Erhard Ratdolt, Augsburg 1489, fol. e5r). Hermann also refers several times to the Asclepius of Hermes Trismegistus, the one Hermetic work amongst his Latin sources.

7 For 'Aristotle's' k.al-Istamdtfs see M. Ullmann, Die Natur- und Geheimwissenschaften im Islam, Leiden 1972, p. 375; F. E. Peters, Aristoteles Arabus, Leiden 1968, p. 58; and H. Ritter and M. Plessner, Picatrix, London 1962, p. xiv.

Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, Volume 44, 198 1

I68 NOTES AND DOCUMENTS

come into your presence. And ask what you want and wish for what you desire. [7] And take disciples whom you might teach so that they might learn the same thing also.

This version is close enough to Hermann's cita- tion to be its source. Hermann adds a reference to a date and a place ('in the days of the king of the Medes, at Thebes'), but since the names he uses are Latin, this could be an interpolation. He slightly abbreviates the Arabic, omitting the name of Venus's spirit. His substitution of Gemini for Pisces is probably a straightforward error caused by the similarity of the symbols I I and -), and his version of part [7] is probably due to misinterpretation of the Arabic. Given the notorious unreliability of transliterated proper names, ShS-ith is remarkably close to

Iaoth. But what is most significant is that the Arabic word which Hermann leaves untrans- lated - chaiten - occurs in this very MS

(bad'itan, 'walled garden' [4]). Hermann had evidently failed to understand the Arabic, per- haps thinking that hd'itan referred to a ceremo- nial garment of some sort. But by merely trans- literating the word he has given us a valuable clue to the origin of his citation. For, of the MSS of the k. al-Istamdt-s, Marsh 556 ('the commen- tary') is the only one that gives the reading h.d'itan.8 Is it possible then, that Hermann knew the k. al-Istamdfts in the same version as that found in Marsh 556; or might there have been an intermediary source, through which Her- mann knew the work?

The most likely of these sources would be the Ghdyat al-hakim known in Latin as the Picatrix. This is an Arabic compendium of Hermetic science attributed falsely to Maslama al-Majrii, but apparently composed in Spain in the eleventh century.9 The work was trans- lated into Spanish and thence into Latin under the auspices of Alfonso X, King of Castile, in the second half of the thirteenth century, There is no evidence of an earlier Latin translation; however, Hermann could have known the work in the original Arabic. A large portion of the k.

al-Istamdt-s, including the passage with which we are concerned, is contained in the Ghayat,10 and the title is given: 'Aristotle's work,

addressed to Alexander, called kitdb

al-Istamdt-.s.' However, Hermann's quotation

does not correspond to the version in the Ghdya, which is considerably abbreviated:

[i] And as for the summoning of the spirit of Venus, [2] then aim for the time when the Sun is in the beginning of Pisces and the Moon is in Cancer, and that very Friday, [3] clean and perfume yourself [4] and enter a bath, and aim for a date-palm or any kind of tree, and go under it. And take with you a ram and a knife and [5] you should say: Didds, Ghilfis, Hamiluis, Damaris, Timas, Samluis, Arhuis, Hataris. [6] And ask what you like, and wish for what you want."

There is, however, another text which can be brought into consideration- a Latin work with the promising title, LiberAntimaquis. This occurs in a fourteenth-century MS in the Sloane collec- tion of the British Library. The text is incom- plete, the folios are in the wrong order, and two folios can be shown to be missing. 12 It turns out

11 Ghaya, p. 239 (German tr., p. 251). 12 S[loane MS 3854]. Lynn Thorndike was the first to

mention this Latin work (History of Magic and Experimental Science, ii, New York 1923, p. 260). With great insight he suggested that it might be related to the work in MS P[aris B.N. ar. 2577] which he knew only through Blochet's summary of its contents (E. Blochet, Etudes sur le Gnosticisme Musulman, Rome, 1913, pp. 81- ioo).

Sloane 3854 consists of three MSS of varying dates but all concerning magical images and incantations, bound together in one codex. MS B, fols 88-1 1i, is a vellum MS apparently of the I4th century, and is clearly a fragment of a larger MS. Moreover, the gatherings are in the wrong order, the folios within two of the gatherings have been bound incorrectly, and one bifolium is missing. The folios would be in correct sequence if the gatherings were recon- structed in the following way (I give the folio-numbers as they stand at present):

19I"t.LO t P, O 0) ? 0"• O 0 LC O 00 0 O N 0- 0 I tO 0

000000 '• -~- 0-- O C• - - f

00 00 0) 0) )0

i H

I I I

toCOM0 0 r00 0 0

I I

I I i I

8 For the readings of the other MSS see the apparatus to Ghadyat al-hakfm (ed. H. Ritter, Pseudo-Mafrtf, Das Ziel des Weisen, Leipzig 1933); they include hammdman ('bath'), bustdnan ('garden') and baina nakhlin ('between date- palms').

9 For the edition of the Arabic text, see note 8. Ritter's text is translated into German, with a summary in English, in Picatrix (n. 7 above).

o10 Ghadya, pp. 233-42 (German tr., pp. 245-53).

TRANSMISSION OF HERMETIC MAGIC 169 that the LiberAntimaquis is based on the first part of the Arabic work occurring in MS Paris ar. 2577, fols 38r--o105r', whose opening words are: 'Hunain ibn Ishliq says: Among the books of Aristotle which we have found and which we have translated from Greek into Arabic there exists the book of the causes of spiritualities composed by Hermes.' Further on, this Arabic work is said to be a sequel to k. al-Istamdkhts.13 It is presumably from this latter title that the Liber Antimaquis takes its name. However, a large part of the contents of this 'book of the causes of spiritualities', including sections also in the Liber Antimaquis, correspond to the contents of the commentary on the k. al-Istamditzs in Marsh 566.14 The passage we have been discussing is found on fol. 96r of the Liber Antimaquis: [2] Quando Sol intrat principium Piscium et fuerit Luna in Cancro, in die Veneris in eius hora [5] dic ista nomina: Dabras alusayluz heemeyluz dahayryz raymech cemuluz ayhuz yachtares. [6] Et pete quic- quid volueris a spiritu et dabit tibi.s15

The relation of the Liber Antimaquis to its Arabic source, and the inter-relationship of sev- eral Arabic works with similar names and a large overlap in subject-matter (such as k. al-Istamdkht-s, k. al-Istamdats, and k.

Ustuwwvdt.s) need further investigation.16 Even Hermann may have known two different texts, as the variation between the MSS of the De Essentiis attest.17 The title Hermann gives to the book is Aristotiles data neiringet, which could well be the title of one of the texts he knew (perhaps kitdb

dhdt al-nT-ranjdt li-Aristuit.ils,

'Aristotle's book on the essence of the talismans'). One may com- pare this title with the statement at the begin- ning of the 'book of the causes of spiritualities, translated by Hunain', that 'in this work Aris- totle treats of the causes of the spiritualities and the talismans' (cilal al-rniha.dnyat wa'l-nfranjdt).18

In the course of this short survey of the source of a quotation from a magical work in Hermann of Carinthia's De Essentiis it has become clear that there was more than one route by which the Hermetic tradition of magic may have passed from Arabic into Latin. The Ghdyat al-hakim, or Picatrix is the best known, but it by no means holds the field. The date of the composition of the Liber Antimaquis is unknown, but Hermann of Carinthia's citation of a work by 'Aristotle' on talismans gives evidence that Hermetic magical texts were known to Latin scholars at least a century before the Alphonsine transla- tions.

CHARLES S. F. BURNETT WARBURG INSTITUTE

Fols 104-I 05' contain the end of a work of scurrilous tale's of Italian provenance which I have not identified. The Liber Antimaquis starts on fol. 105v and is continuous except for the breaks caused by the loss of the bifolium between fols 9I" and 96', 97v' and 102'. The work breaks off incomplete at the end of fol. 103'. The last part of the LiberAntimaquis includes spells employing Scandinavian runes (fols ioi'" 97'-v) and Christian spells (fols Io2r-Io3') and would not therefore appear to be of Arabic origin.

13S fols 104-Io0ir corresponds, sometimes closely, some- times only approximately, and abbreviating considerably, to P fols 38-6ov0'. The work translated by

'H.unain' begins

six pages after the beginning of a work described as 'the book of Hermes on spiritualities' (kitdb Hirmisjfi'l-ruidhaniyydit; P fols

35'I-o4r), which in turn is called 'the second part'.

The 'first part' (P fols i~-34r) is called Hermes's kitdb

al-Ustuwwatds ( . ..A' .

) on fol. I, but

kitdb

al-Ustuit.s ( bI r. ) on fol.

34r. 14 P fols 49r-52' corresponds to [Oxford, Bodleian]

M[arsh. 556] fols 29"-4Ir, P fols 82' v corresponds to M fol. 55r (the story of the descent of Venus's spirit). Note that S fols 95v, 90or-91v' follows M fols 41 -43' more closely than any passage in P.

1s [2] When the Sun enters the beginning of Pisces and the Moon is in Cancer, on Friday and at Venus's hour [5] say these names: Dabras etc. [6] And seek whatever you want from the spirit and he will give it to you.

16 For these works see Ullmann, op. cit. n. 7 above, PP. 374-75; and F. Sezgin, Geschichte des Arabischen Schrif- tums, vii, Leiden 1979, p. 57.

17 Professor David Pingree has pointed out to me that the form of the quotation in De Essentiis MS N (n. 3 above) may include under the words IeidPersarum regis a reference to Iazd (agird), the Persian King from whose accession the Persian era was computed.

s18 P fol. 38'. For the term niranj see Ullmann, op. cit. n. 7 above, p. 363: 'A niranj is a magical tool of a practical kind, for whose manufacture often long recipes with every conceivable ingredient are demanded' (my translation).

12