MS. Description and Content

[John J. Coughlin]

From http://www.esotericarchives.com/juratus/juratus.htm:

Sloane 3883: (fols. 1-25) 17th century. "De modo ministrandi sacrum" (revealed to Solomon by an angel)


From http://duke.usask.ca/~frk302/MSS/sbh.htm:

Shelf Mark: London, British Library, Sloane 3883

Author(s): Hororius; Thebit ben Corat; Toz Graecus; Ptolomey

Title(s): De imaginibus (Ptolomey); Liber sacer or sacratus; Liber veneris (Toz); De imaginibus (Thebit ibn Qurra); De modo ministrandi librum sacrum; De imaginibus septem planetarum (Hermes)?.

Date : s. xvii [Scott 330]

Size/Material: Paper, Duodecimo, ff. 99.

Contents: ff 1 - 25 "De modo ministrandi librum sacrum" (revealed to Solomon by an angel) Incipit. "Hec ars artium et divina ab antiquis sanctis patribus olim originem traxit, et primo a Rege Salomonis ab angelo revelata fuit." [T2, 281]
ff 82 - 85, Libri de Magica in Bibliotheca Bodleiana apud Oxoniam inventi, 17th c. [Scott 330]
ff 87 - 93 s. xvii Dixit Thebit ben Corat, Dixit Aristoteles, qui philosophiam... " Thorndike [T1 663-666] describes as a book of instructions for making talismans very popular in the MA translated twice by Adelard of Bath and by John of Spain. But T cites this as s. xvii. [Thebit, De ymaginibus. Ed. Frankfurt, 1559. L Thorndike in Mélanges Auguste Pelzer, 1947, p. 235, lists twenty-eight manuscripts, one of which, Erfurt Q. 189, has the same ending as this. This work is described in T1 663-666.]
f. 95. T notes De imaginibus septem planetarum (Hermes) T2, 225.
ff 96r - 99, "Liber Toc; et vocatur liber veneni (sic), et liber de lapidibus veneris. Dixit Toc Graecus observa Venerem cum perveniret ad pliades et coniuncta fuerit." In the text and Explicit however, the author's name is spelled Toz. This MS seems to be directly copied from Bodleian 463, for not only is it preceded by the Hermes on images for the seven planets and also by an "Instructio ptholomei" which deals with the subject of astrological images, but furthermore it exactly reproduces its text, down even to such a manuscript copyist's pi as "ad dumtanpo itulia" for "alicui ad potandum." [T2, 225]
Scott has as s. xvii [Scott 330]
Ays. lists codex as follows:
1. De modo ministrandi librum sacrum.
2. Invoctaions, constrictions, conjurations, etc.
3. Catalugus librorum magicorum in bibl. Bodleiana.
4. Thebit ben Corat. Liber imaginum.
5. Instructio Ptolomaei
6. Liber Toc, & vocatur liber Veneris.
More in Bond.

Bibliography: yscough, S. A catalogue of the MSS preserved in the BM hitherto undescribed" London 1782. p. 679 (?? no ref there), 877, 879 MFM IMS Z 6621 .B84 A9 Not in Ker ML.