APPENDIX III

THE USE OF ENCRYPTED SPELLS

 

Zachariah (d. 614), Bishop of Jerusalem wore around his left arm, this spell:

I D A B I Z S A B Z G F B F R S. Oremus

Thanks to Manuel do Valle de Moura (1620) we know what this means. The spells of the text (facing page) refer to the Scriptures in this order;

		I: Luke 23:46	B: Jer. 3:26	I: Ps. 119:112	Z: Ps. 72:3
		A: Ps. 41:8	B: Ps. 39:5	G: Ps. 136:6	F: Luke 23:44
		B: Ps. 39:5	F: Ps. 93:22	R: Ps. 21:1	S: Jer. 17:14

The text enjoyed great success and can be seen again, for example, in the De inconstantia in ivre admittenda vel non by Francisco Albito (Amstelædami, 1683, 449ff.), in Gelasius de Cilia’s Locupletissimus Thesaurus (Augusta Vindel. & Ratisbone, 1744, 125–27), in the Collectivo sive apparatus absolutionum, benedictionum, coniurationum, exorcismorum, rituum . . ., Bassani (Joseph Remondini & Son, 1815, 193ff.), in the Antidoti spiritali contra del cholera morbus, e di ogni altra pubblica calamitá by Danielo Maria Zigarelli, archbishop of Salerno (Avellino, 1837, 42–44).

The examples of encrypted abbreviations of the following Latin grimoires are taken from Gian Baptista Porta’s De occultis literarum notis (Argentorati: Impensis Lazari Zetzneri, 1606). They were reprinted by Johannes Trithemius in his Libri Polygraphiae (Argentorati: Sumptibus Lazari Zetzneri, 1613).

Encrypted abbreviations of Latin grimoires.

Secret alphabet of Honorius of Thebes.

Alphabet of Laimielis the Great, a geomancer.