There are second-hand booksellers, antique dealers, whose cherished dream is to get the "black book", which is also called the "devil's bible." Little is known about this ancient literary monument, which apparently exists in different versions. "The Bible of the Devil" was read and held in hands by few, although it has been known since ancient times.
Piggy bank is unclean
They say that some hereditary sorcerers of old Russia from generation to generation passed on the "Bible of the devil" - a collection of spells through which they turned to evil spirits for help. According to researchers, the basis of occult information and skills that made it up came from Byzantium, whose magicians, in turn, adopted it from the Roman and Egyptian sorcerers, who, by definition, were considered companions of Satan in the Christian world.
The owner of the "devil's bible" seemed to receive unlimited power over evil spirits, and she, like a genie released from a bottle, fulfilled any desire. Popular rumor said that if the owner of the book suddenly wished to break the dangerous alliance with the horned brethren, it was impossible to get rid of the book once and for all - it did not burn in the fire and even drowned in the river would return to the owner. It is believed that by swearing on the "devil's bible", even today you can conjure any good for yourself, and for people - endless evil.
But the “black” book is called not only because in the popular mind it is, as it were, opposed to the “white” Holy Gospel. The "Bible of the Devil" has black paper, and sinister formulas of sorcerers are written on it in white letters.
A mere mortal was not supposed to not only read this book - even take it in hand. Collectors of folklore dozens of times listened to terrible stories of the same type about how some poor fellow would sneak into the house of a warlock and take away a mysterious tome for the sake of interest. Curiosity came at a cost: the reading of hellish prayers aroused devils from the underworld, and they, having found out who disturbed them in vain, asked the unfortunate pepper. So much so that he, half-dead, had to be chastised with the help of a "white" Bible.
Researchers, however, believe that this is not about one thing, but about different witchcraft manuscripts. They assign the status of the main and most powerful of them to the "Ancient Bible", or the book of Peter Mogila, otherwise called "Black Magic".
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According to legend, the edition of "Black Magic", printed in the 16th century in Kiev, was immediately destroyed by order of Ivan the Terrible, and the printing workers were executed or sent to penance for life in monasteries. The formidable tsar allegedly put these books in a stone pillar, cursed them, and now no one can take them. But where this sworn "book depository" is located is absolutely unclear. Places in different sources are called different - up to the disappeared in the Moscow undergrounds of the library of Ivan the Terrible.
The same legends say that some people have copies of the terrible book and now they pass from one generation to another. By them, witches and witchers recognize the future and master black sorcery.
In addition to the creation of Peter Mogila, the decree of the Stoglava Cathedral of 1551 names the following "renounced books" that should be avoided by Christians: don't chli …"
The price of the issue is the throne
Whether Ivan the Terrible conjured something there or not in the stone prison, no one will say with certainty. But the fact is that the Russian sovereigns in relation to black magic were inclined to adhere to the policy of "double standards". On the one hand, the detectives scouring everywhere seized witches and witches as sowers of a godless cause. On the other hand, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich, the father of Peter the Great, who officially persecuted witchcraft, sent his steward to look for witchcraft herbs and conspired treasures on the night of Ivan Kupala, and ordered the governors to buy up "secret books of Latin, Muslim and Jewish, and even more Vedic" and send them to him.
The most sensational case of the 17th century, when the "devil's bible" surfaced, was the trial of the famous boyar and the streltsy head Artamon Matveyev, who was close to the same Tsar Alexei. In 1676, after the death of his patron and relative (Natalya Naryshkina, the second wife of Alexei and the mother of Peter the Great, was the boyar's own niece), he was denounced as being accused of witchcraft. Witnesses swore that Matveyev locked himself in the ward for reading "black books" and communicating with evil spirits. As a result, the boyar was stripped of his rank, took away all his estates and was sent to prison in Mezen (Arkhangelsk region). But the most thorough searches did not find any "black books" in Matveev's towers …
However, they still existed, and where to look for them, the Dowager Queen Natalya, the niece of the disgraced boyar, knew, about which she told her son Peter Alekseevich. Artamon Matveyev, apparently, somehow managed to transport them to the place of his Arkhangelsk exile. It is no coincidence that he safely survived the hardships of exile and even returned back to the capital.
Soon after his ascension to the throne, Peter the Great is trying to find the "devil's bible" that belonged to Artamonov. The young tsar, who was threatened from all sides, and who did not favor the Orthodox hierarchs too much, perhaps it was not so important whose support to seek in the struggle for the throne - God or the devil …
Messenger Mikhail Akulov, sent by the tsar's order to Mezen, managed, according to legend, to take possession of the mysterious book, but on the way back he died, barely going deep into the forest. They found him disfigured, with a pectoral cross stuck in his mouth. But, surprisingly, the animals and crows did not touch the remains. Akulov's personal belongings, including a tightly stuffed wallet, lay next to a horse tied to a tree, and the "black book" was gone.
Gift to the Bolsheviks
Centuries later, when the communists took up the Orthodox Church, the rector of the Church of the Savior of the Origin of the Honest Trees came to the St. Petersburg "emergency department" and brought a folio tightly sewn into linen. The Chekist became interested and, tearing apart the bag, he found a book, the text of which was printed in white on black …
“This is for you, this is yours…” said the priest, frightened by the repressions, innocently hoping that the “antichrists” would spare his church for giving them relics that were priceless for them, as he imagined. They took the book from him, but the church was closed anyway, and in 1932 it was completely demolished.
The Chekist Tuchkov handed over the "Devil's Bible" to the militant atheist Yemelyan Yaroslavsky, the author of the "Bible for Believers and Unbelievers" exposing Christianity. He did not seem to part with the "black book" until his death in 1943 in the evacuation in Chita. The organizer of the defeat of the Russian Orthodox Church and the main developer of the plan for the destruction of religion in the Soviet state probably drew from the ancient folio a lot of useful things for himself.
His heirs, not shining with knowledge of history and antiques, apparently sold the library on the cheap, which Emelyan took with him to Siberia. Some rare copies of it later surfaced in second-hand book stores in Novosibirsk, Irkutsk and other Siberian cities. Among them, apparently, was the "devil's bible", which in 1955 was acquired by a museum worker from Krasnoyarsk Anatoly Mordovtsev. He barely had time to boast of the curiosity he had bought when the wooden house in which the archivist lived burned down - lightning struck. He himself barely escaped. A coincidence? Maybe. But in the end, the "damn Bible" disappeared. Apparently, it was not fireproof after all …
Today's affairs
Students studying in the reading room of the Moscow Historical Library claim that a copy of the "devil's bible" is kept here in a secret vault in a secure safe. It is extracted only when absolutely necessary (for example, some kind of certificate is needed "at the state level") and always in the presence of a priest who stands ready, holding a sprinkler and a vessel with holy water in his hands. Like, it was so even in atheistic times, and it happens now.
Well, the criminals who stole three hundred priceless old tomes from the "historian" in 1996 allegedly were actually hunting for the "devil's bible". But when questioned by curious visitors, the library staff raise their eyebrows or brush them off: “What other 'black book'? God with you…"
Ads like Buy so-called. black book for your price. Handwritten or printed version in any condition”appears from time to time in newspapers or on the Internet.
Lovers of rare books are interested in the "devil's bible" not so much as the rarest and most valuable copy - the decoration of a private collection, but as an object of speculation. Members of the secret sects of Satan worship, Western foundations engaged in the study of the occult sciences, and practicing exorcists (priests exorcising demons) are ready to shell out a lot of money for any primary source. Moreover, the older the book, the more valuable it is: the original texts, not distorted by subsequent scribes, increase the likelihood of reaching out to the rulers of the other world. So, if something like this ends up in your hands, be careful - the "Bible of the devil" is still a source of mortal risk …
A. Marinin. “Interesting newspaper. Magic and mysticism №21 2010
