Previously Unpublished Works, Fascicle 5

A manuscript attribution is a decisive argument against the supposed author or translator having any connection with the work.

A curious confirmation of the possible existence of a Syriac a dialect of Middle Aramaic used in early Christian and scientific texts version has lately turned up in the publication by Dr. Budge Sir Ernest Alfred Thompson Wallis Budge, a prolific English Egyptologist and Orientalist of a thirteenth-century collection of medical treatises and receipts in Syriac (Syrian Anatomy, Pathology, and Therapeutics, 2 volumes, London, 1913). Among them (volume 2, page 540) is the formula for calculating victory by taking the numerical value of the names of the generals and casting out the nines a mathematical procedure used here for onomatomancy, or divination based on the numerical value of names. This formula is identical with one which exists in both forms of the Arabic text, though it is omitted in the standard Latin version.

It is unlikely that the Syriac text, if it should ever be found, will bear the name of the Secret of Secrets. Perhaps the traditional name preserved by Al-Makin a 13th-century Christian Arab historian also known as George Elmacin, The Book of the Knowledge of the Laws of Destiny, or the Kitab al-Siyasa original: "Kitab-al-siyasa"; translated as The Book of Government or Policy of Ibn Khaldun a famous 14th-century Arab sociologist and historian, its alternative title in Arabic, may afford some clue. It is quite possible, even, that the Syriac original may correspond to a part only of the original Arabic form.

Another passage of Al-Makin, giving alternative names, but evidently relating to the Secretum original: "Secretum", short for Secretum Secretorum or Secret of Secrets, runs thus:

Aristotle translated the books of Hermes Hermes Trismegistus, a legendary Hellenistic figure associated with wisdom, magic, and alchemy, an ancient sage of the country of Egypt, out of the Egyptian into the Greek language, and he explained in his translation the sciences, and wisdom, and knowledge which were derived from them, and among these books was the "Book of Astemganos" original: "Aṣtemgânôs" wherein were described the gods of the men of olden time . . . (and the worship of seven spirits).

And besides this he wrote the book which is called "The Book of Astamatis" original: "Aṣṭamaṭis" which treats of the breaching of cities, and fortresses, and kings' houses, and of the submission of kings, and of how men should make use of talismans objects engraved with symbols or figures believed to confer magical power or protection and of the knowledge derived therefrom, and of the names which will bring down rain and water to them in the desert and in the waste land, whensoever they utter them.

And besides these he wrote a work which is called "El-Setutas" original: "El-Setûṭas" wherein he treats of the knowledge of the stars, and of lucky and unlucky days, and of what it is meet for men to do when the moon enters among the twenty-eight stars the twenty-eight lunar mansions of the zodiac, and among the twelve stars, and when new moon is of good or evil omen.

1. See Athenaeum, July 26, 1913, and independently Dr. Gaster, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, April 1914.