Mysterious "Necronomicon"
Quite often, various sources mention the "Necronomicon", allegedly representing an ancient Arabic manuscript (another name is "Al Azif", "Book of the Dead"), written by a certain Abdul Alhazred from Damascus around 720 and containing spells with the help of which one could summon ancient dark deities.
The first Western writer to mention the Necronomicon was Howard Lovecraft in one of his stories, written in 1923. He argued that acquaintance with this work, due to its occult content, could be dangerous for the reader or even just keeping it with him.
“Arabs in Yemen claim that it is obtainable and that it is,” he writes. - People sometimes do not quite understand what they are looking for … And what they mean by a book is not quite what it is. This was told to me by one man who was there looking for her."
According to Lovecraft, the name "Necronomicon" (literally "the embodiment of the law of the dead") was given by the Orthodox scholar Theodore Philetus of Constantinople, who translated the book into Greek in 950. In the 13th century, the Danish philologist Ole Worm translated the manuscript into Latin. By that time, the Arabic original had been lost. In 1232, Pope Gregory IX banned the distribution of the Latin translation, but it was published twice more: in the 15th century in Germany and two centuries later in Spain. The Greek translation, published in the first half of the 16th century in Italy, probably died in a fire that destroyed Pickman's library in Salem, where it was kept.
According to Lovecraft, another copy came from the famous occultist John Dee, who translated the book into English. But this translation has come down to us only in fragments. In addition, copies of the Necronomicon are secretly kept in the British Museum, the National Library of France, the Harvard University Library, the University of Buenos Aires and other places.
According to one version, the writer simply invented the Necronomicon. But many believe that the book really exists. One candidate for this role is a manuscript called De vermis mystenis, or Secrets of the Worm, which was allegedly written down in the 4th century by the Roman legionary Tertius Sibelius from the words of a black Ethiopian magician named Talim. The exact date of writing is even given - 331 AD. Around 1680, a monk discovered this manuscript in the library of a British castle and brought it to Rome.
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The Latin word codex means "a piece of wood". It was on wooden planks with wax that the first books were made in the usual format, and not in the form of a scroll. Later, parchment was used instead of wood.
At the time when the Christian emperors began to rule the Roman Empire, the "Mysteries of the Worm" were banned because they became very popular among the adepts of black magic. Under Theodosius I the Great, almost all copies of the manuscript were destroyed. But individual copies fell into the hands of the dark sects. One of them, who professed the cult of "Alyak of Dimensionless", "Formless Chaos" and "Transcendent Madness", apparently thanks to the power presented by the book, was able to survive not only the Middle Ages, but also the English bourgeois revolution. This secret occult society performed its affairs in complete isolation from the outside world. In 1680, Pope Innocent XI instructed Abbot Bartholomew to go to the estate of Count Kevin Merchant, who was then head of the sect, and investigate its activities. But instead, Merchant converted the abbot to his faith and persuaded him to participate in occult experiments.
In 1932, the Mystery of the Worm editions appeared on book shelves. But no one can vouch for their compliance with the original.
Devilish "Codex"
Perhaps, with some stretch, the Codex Gigas (The Giant Codex), a manuscript collection of the early 13th century, which is now kept in the Royal Swedish Library in Stockholm, can be attributed to the "black" books. This tome is much better known as "The Devil's Bible", as, according to legend, its author was a Benedictine scribe monk, and the book was created by him in just one night, and not without the help of Satan.
Actually, the legend is as follows. A certain novice from a Benedictine monastery in the Czech city of Podlažice (now part of the city of Chrast) committed a sin and, in order to atone for his guilt, asked to be immured alive in his cell. In addition, he vowed to the abbot to write the wisest book in the world, containing all the knowledge of mankind, in one night. However, as the work progressed, the novice realized that he would not be able to complete it before dawn. The only way out that occurred to him was to make a deal with Lucifer … The novice offered his soul to him in exchange for help. And I got it. Of course, Satan decided to intervene in the writing process and capture his own portrait on the pages of the manuscript.
The pages of the manuscript, written in Latin, with the inclusion of fragments in Hebrew, Greek and Church Slavonic, are teeming with images of devils and other representatives of evil spirits. However, this is by no means the "Satanic Bible" as it hastily been dubbed. It contains the full text of the Old and New Testaments in the Old Latin version dating back to the 4th century, all 20 books of "Etymology" by Isidore of Seville, "Antiquities of the Jews" and "The Jewish War" by Josephus Flavius, "Czech Chronicle" by Kozma of Prague, a collection of edifying stories "Mirror of the Sinner", a list of the monastery's inhabitants, a number of magic formulas, a calendar with an obituary and a number of treatises and records. Next to the "portrait" of the devil, you can see the image of the city of heaven. By this, the author emphasizes that a person is free to choose a path: God is God, and the devil is the devil.
Devil's Bible at the Historical Library
In Russia there is supposedly its own "black book", popularly nicknamed "the Bible of the devil". As legends say, the history of the manuscript dates back to the time of Byzantium, and it contained information received from the Roman and Egyptian Satanic sorcerers.
Russian researchers believe that there were several such manuscripts. The first to claim the role of "The Devil's Bible" is the book of Peter Mogila "Black Magic"
According to one of the legends, the first and last edition of "Black Magic" was printed in Kiev in the 16th century. Upon learning of this, Tsar Ivan the Terrible ordered to destroy all copies, and everyone who was related to the publication, executed or sent to monasteries so that they repent there until the end of their lives. But there is another version: they say, the books were not destroyed, but walled up in a stone pillar. No one can take them from there, as the spell imposed on the pillar interferes. Nevertheless, according to rumors, several copies of the eerie book of the ace went from hand to hand.
The next time the "Devil's Bible" surfaced in the 17th century. In 1676, the boyar and the head of the streltsy army Artamon Matveyev, who was the uncle of the second wife of the late Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich and the mother of the future Tsar Peter I, Natalya Naryshkina, received a denunciation accusing him of sorcery. At that time, the accusation was more than serious … During interrogations, witnesses showed that Matveyev, having locked himself in his wards, was reading the "black book" and calling the devil. The boyar was not executed, but, having deprived of his title and all estates, he was exiled far to the north - to Mezen, which is near Arkhangelsk. Perhaps he survived only because searches in his wards did not yield any results - the detectives did not find any "black books". There is a version that Matveyev managed to transport the "Bible of the Devil" to the place of his exile.
They say, having ascended the throne, Peter I strenuously tried to find the book hidden by his great-uncle. Tradition says that the tsar sent his messenger Mikhail Akulov to Mezen for the book. However, later in the forest they found the mutilated corpse of Akulov with a pectoral cross stuck in his mouth. The book was not with him.
Another myth claims that a copy of the Devil's Bible is kept in the repository of the State Public Historical Library in Moscow, in a closed safe. It is removed from there only at the direction of the authorities and in the presence of a priest, who holds a sprinkler with holy water at the ready.
In 1996, intruders infiltrated the “historian” and brought out three hundred valuable old volumes. But in fact they were interested in the "black book", but they could not get the last one from the safe. However, if you ask someone from the library staff about this edition, they will only shrug their shoulders and answer that they have never heard of it …
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century - №23, May 2014
Irina Shlionskaya
