Of Keys and Gates (3)

So far I've identified four main sources for the preliminary "theoretical" section of Janua Magica Reserata.

1. Three Books of Occult Philosophy, by Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim, Englished by "J.F." (John French) and printed in London in 1651.  Ashmole spotted cribs from five chapters & recorded them in what is now Sloane MS. 3824 fol. 30r.  (I. 11 on Ideas; III. 10 on the 9 orders of Angels; III. 24 for various sets of angel names; III 36 & 37 on the soul, man being made after the image of God, &c.).  There are more . . . probably amounting to well over half the word-count of those 37 leaves.  The verbal agreement with "J.F." is at a level that makes independent translation implausible in the extreme, and the perpetuation of printing errors in the 1651 edition (e.g., spelling the name of the third Kabbalistic Sephirah as "Prina") makes it unlikely that the compiler copied this material from Dr. French's translation while the latter was still in manuscript.

2. A True & Faithful Relation of what passed for many yeers between Dr. John Dee . . . and some Spirits, edited by Meric Casaubon and printed in London in 1659.

• In the section "Of Angels & Spirits" on fol. 18r, the claim is ascribed to "Johannes Trithemius, the learned Abbot of Spanheim, in Lib: polygraph" that "never any Good Angel was read of, to have appeared in the forme of a woman."  I cannot state with absolute certainty that such a claim does not appear in the Polygraphiae libri sex, although given that volume's subject matter (it is generally recognised as the first printed work on cryptography) it seems unlikely; where it does appear is in the same author's Liber octo quæstionum, quas illi dissolvendas proposuit Maximilianus Cæsar (responses to a series of questions on theological and other matters which had been posed to him by the Emperor, first printed in 1515).  In the course of answering question 6, on the power of witches (De potestate maleficarum), the abbot of Spanheim referred to various classical and German legends of water-spirits in female form, Naiads, Nereids, Wasserfrauen, then continued, “Sancti autem Angeli quoniam affectione nunquam variantur uniformiter semper apparent in forma virili.  Nusquam enim legimus scriptus, quod bonus spiritus in forma fit visus muliebri aut bestiæ cuiuscunque, sed semper in specie virili.”  What does this have do to with Dee and his spirits, you may wonder?  Well, the Janua's response to this, beginning "It is evident that the Angels of God are incomprehensible to those that are their inferiours" is a near-verbatim quote (with a few omissions, single-word changes (e.g. "they" for "we"), and variations in punctuation) from the speech of Galvah (described as "a woman like an old maid in a red Peticote, and with a red silk upper bodies, her hair rould about like a Scottish woman, the same being yellow" -- T&FR, p. 10) in response to Dee calling her out with the above-quoted line from Lib. oct. quæst. (the speech is on p. 13 of T&FR).

• In the section "A Brief Summary of several orders & Hierarchies of some particular Angels & Spirits" after referring to various traditional magical & astrological divisions of things such as the four Elements, the 28 Mansions of the Moon, &c., continues (fol. 19v-20r) "[God] hath again divided the Heavens into Eight & forty Angles or parts, Eighteen whereof are Superiours & Cœlestiall, & the other thirty more inferiour & Airerial [sic]; whose Mantions are not alike, nor poweres Equal, for that he hath Miraculously placed Eighteen Divisions above the fiery Region in the Heavens, [...] the Other thirty Ayeriall Angells [read "Angles"] Orbs or Divisions, he hath Originally Decreed, and amongst other wonderfull works of the Creation, orderly placed, one above another, from the Earth to the fiery Region, in the Highermost part of the Air, wherein are Located ninety one Angelicall princes or spirituall governors, & many other Subservient  Angels under them, who are spirits of the Air, not Rejected but Dignified; And who are governed by the twelve Angels of the twelve tribes: which twelve Angels are againe governed, by the Seven Mighty Angels, which stand before the Most High and Holy Throne, & unspeakable presence, as Dispositers of the Heavenly Decrees, preordinately Determined, who transmits the Divine will & pleasure of the Highest, unto the twelve tributary Angels, & who againe Distributeth & passeth the same unto the ninty one Ayeriall princes, unto whom the Governments of the Earth is by Divine Determination Delivered [...] & whose offices are [...] to bring in, & againe Dispose of Terrestriall governers & Governments, & vary the nature of things with the variation of Every moment, unto whome the providence of the Eternal judgment of God is already opened [...]" (and so on, for another page and a half, specifically mentioning "the Cœlestiall Angel Ave"): compare for example T&FR p. 139-140 on "the 91 Princes and spiritual Governors."

• The series of exhortations and admonitions on fol. 23v to 25r (immediately prior to the table of Sephiroth, and following a lengthy extract / paraphrase from Of Occult Philosophy Book III chapter 20, "Of the annoyance of evil spirits &c.") is drawn from various sermons of Gabriel, Nalvage, and a "man with a black Gown" who didn't give a name (T&FR, pp, 160, 162, 161, 89, 118, 76-7, 44).

• In "Some Further Instructions" (fol. 53v-56r; cf. McLean, A Treatise on Angel Magic, pp. 183-6, "A Second Introduction," Dee's interrogation of Ave (Action of 1584.06.20, T&FR p.169) is quoted (with the names removed) as an example of how to ascertain the genuineness of supposed angelic manifestations.

• Phrases from the English of the Claves Angelicæ appear in the invocations or "Celestial Keys"; "make us partakers of undefiled knowledge," "we the servants of the same your God," "we move you [...] in power and presence, whose workes shall be a song of Honour, & the praise of your God, in your Creation."

Of course, this raises the vexed question of whether the compiler could have had access to Dee's spirit diaries in the Cotton Library and made these extensive copies prior to their publication in 1659.  All I can confidently say about this is that if he was the author of "The Practice of the Tables" then he didn't (Coronzom says hi).

3. Arbatel: de Magia Veterum.  In the section of "Beneficiall Aphorism" on fol. 10v-13r, nos. 2,-6, 8 & 10 (possibly some of the others) are quoted, paraphrased or adapted from the aphorisms of the Arbatel.  There is enough variation in wording with Robert Turner's translation (pub. 1655) to make an independent translation from the Latin believable.  Additionally, this was the most likely source for the Olympic Planetary Spirits, whose names are given on fol. 33v in the chapter on names of Celestial Angels and Sacred Intelligences.

4. Pseudo-Paracelsus, Archidoxes Magicae.  After a description of spirits of the middle or terrestrial order cribbed from Agrippa lib. iii cap. 32 (fol. 38r), the Janua enters into a discussion of "certain things vulgarly called Gnomi" which closely parallels the discussion on pp. 51-2 of On the Supreme Mysteries of Nature, translated by Robert Turner and printed in London in 1656 (again, there is enough variation with Turner's text to suggest an independent translation).  This passage in turn was founded on the doctrine of elementals in Paracelsus' Liber de nymphis, sylvanis, pygmæus et salamandris &c., which in turn derived from and systematized various German folk-traditions.  As it happens, a substantial excerpt from De nymphis in English translation appears in Harley 6482, shortly before the start of the excerpt from the Janua (Treatise on Angel Magic, pp. 153-168).

Additionally, some minor use was made of pseudo-Abano, Heptameron seu elementa Magica.  The lists of Angels of the Sephiroth &c., while mostly following Agrippa's scale of the number 10, counter-change the attributions of Raphaël and Michaël, referring the former to Hod and Mercury, the latter to Tiphareth and Sol, in order to fit the planetary scheme of the Heptarmeron.  While on its own this is inconclusive, as pseudo-Abano was not the only source to use that arrangement, a set of angels mentioned in the conjurations of the seven days of the week in the Heptameron / Lucidarium, Booël, Pastor, Acimoy, Salamia, Dagiel, Tegra and Orphaniel are cited in the third through ninth Keys, and Tegra appears as Tetra, following a misprint in the "Lyons" editions of Agrippa's Opera (carried over into Turner's translation).  There are other parallel passages in those conjurations, but these ultimately derive from the account of the seven days of Creation in Genesis I.

One thing which almost certainly does derive from English magical manuscript traditions rather than printed sources appears at the very end of the "theoretical" section (fol. 40r): the Seven Faerie Sisters, here spelt Lilla, Restilia, Foca, Tolla (possibly an error for Folla, the scribe's capital 'F' and 'T' are very similar in form), Affrica, Julia and Venulla.  These are also mentioned in the Folger "Book of Magic,"  Folger X.d. 234, Sloane MSS. 1727 and 3824, Bodleian e Mus. 173, Chetham's A.4.98 and elsewhere.