Proceeding now to the Grimoire of Honorius, it is to the third bearer of that name, or to one of the most zealous pontiffs of the 13th century, that this impious book is attributed. Assuredly Honorius III was eminently likely to be hated by sectarians and necromancers, and well might they seek to dishonour him by representing him as their accomplice. Censius Savelli, crowned pope in 1216, confirmed that Order of Saint Dominic which proved so formidable to Albigensians and Vaudois—those children of Manicheans and sorcerers. He established also the Franciscans and Carmelites, preached a crusade, governed the Church wisely and left many decretals. To charge with Black Magic a pope so eminently catholic[222] is to cast similar suspicion on the great religious orders which he instituted, and the devil thereby could scarcely fail to profit.
Some old copies of the Grimoire of Honorius bear, however, the name of Honorius II, but it is impossible to make a sorcerer of that elegant Cardinal Lambert who, after his promotion to the sovereign pontificate, surrounded himself either with poets, to whom he gave bishoprics for elegies—as in the case of Hildebert, Bishop of Mans—or with learned theologians, like Hugh de Saint-Victor. But it so happens that the name of Honorius II is for us as a ray of light pointing to the true author of the frightful grimoire in question.[223] In 1061, when the empire began to take umbrage against the papacy and sought to usurp the sacerdotal influence by fomenting troubles and divisions in the sacred college, the bishops of Lombardy, impelled by Gilbert of Parma, protested against the election of Anselm, Bishop of Lucca, who had been raised to the papal chair as Alexander II. The Emperor Henry IV took the part of the dissentients and authorised them to elect another pope, promising to support them. They chose Cadulus or Cadalus, an intriguing Bishop of Parma, a man capable of all crimes and a public scandal in respect of simony and concubinage. He assumed the name of Honorius II and marched at the head of an army against Rome. He was defeated and condemned by all the prelates of Germany and Italy. Returning to the charge, he gained possession of part of the Holy City and entered St. Peter’s; he was expelled and took refuge in the Castle of St. Angelo, whence he only obtained leave to retire on the payment of a heavy ransom. It was then that Otho, Archbishop of Cologne, the Emperor’s envoy, dared to reproach Alexander II in public for having usurped the Holy See; but a monk named Hildebrand took up the cause of the lawful pontiff with such force of eloquence that the Emperor drew back in confusion and asked pardon for his own criminal attempts. The Hildebrand in question was already in the sight of providence that fulminating Gregory VII who was to come and who thus inaugurated the work of his life. The anti-pope was deposed by the Council of Mantua and Henry IV obtained his pardon. Cadalus returned into obscurity and it is then probably that he decided to become the high priest of sorcerers and apostates, in which capacity, and under the name of Honorius II, he composed the Grimoire that passes under this name.[224]
OCCULT SEALS AND PRIMITIVE EGYPTIAN TAROTS
What is known of the anti-pope’s character lends colour to an accusation of the kind; he was daring in the presence of the weak, grovelling in that of the strong, debauched and intriguing, devoid of faith and morals, seeing nothing in religion but an engine of impunity and rapine. For such a person, the Christian virtues were obstacles and faith in the clergy was a difficulty which had to be overcome; he would therefore make priests after his own heart, or capable, that is to say, of all crimes and sacrileges. Now, this would seem to have been the purpose in chief of the Grimoire called that of Honorius.
The work in question is not without importance for those who are curious in the science. It appears at first sight to be a mere tissue of revolting absurdities,[225] but for those who are initiated in the signs and secrets of the Kabalah, it is literally a monument of human perversity, for the devil appears therein as an instrument of power.
To utilise human credulity and to turn the bugbear which dominates it to the account of the adept and his caprices—such is the secret of the work. It aspires to make darkness darker before the eyes of the multitude by usurping the torch of science, which at need, and in bold hands, may become that of butchers and incendiaries. To identify faith with servitude, reserving power and liberty for oneself, is indeed to imagine the reign of Satan on earth, and it should not be surprising if the authors of such a conspiracy against public good sense and religion should hope to manifest and, in a sense, to incarnate on earth the fantastic sovereign of the evil empire.
The doctrine of this Grimoire is the same as that of Simon and the majority of the Gnostics: it is the substitution[226] of the passive for the active principle. A pantacle which forms a frontispiece to the work gives expression to this doctrine, being passion as predominant over reason, sensualism deified and the woman in priority to the man, a tendency which recurs in all antichristian mystic systems. The crescent moon of Isis occupies the centre of the figure and it is encompassed by three triangles, one within another. The triangle is surmounted by a crux ansata with double cross-bar. It is inscribed within a circle and within the space formed by the three segments of the circle there is on one side the sign of the spirit and the Kabalistic seal of Solomon, on the others the magic knife and the initial letter of the binary, below a reversed cross forming the figure of the lingam, and the name of God אל= AL, also reversed. About the circle is written: “Obey your superiors and be subject unto them, for they will see that you do.”[227]
Rendered into a symbol or profession of faith, this pantacle is therefore textually as follows:—Fatality reigns by virtue of mathematics, and there is no other God than Nature. Dogmas are aids to sacerdotal power and are imposed on the multitude to justify sacrifices. The initiate is above any religion and makes use of all, but that which he says is the antithesis of that which he believes. The law of obedience prescribes and does not explain; initiates are made to command and those who are profane to obey.
All who have studied the occult sciences know that the old magicians never expressed their doctrine in writing but formulated it by the symbolical characters of pantacles. On the second page of the book there are two circular magical seals. In the first is the square of the Tetragram with an inversion and substitution of names. Instead of אהיה = EIEIE יהוה = JEHOVAH; אדני = ADONAI; אגלא = AGLA—the four sacred words
signifying:[228] The Absolute Being is Jehovah, the Lord in Three Persons, God and the hierarchy of the Church, the author of the Grimoire has substituted: יהוה, JEHOVAH; אדני, ADNI; דראר, D’RAR; אהיה, EIEIE—which signifies: Jehovah, the Lord, is none other than the fatal principle of eternal rebirth, personified by this same rebirth in the Absolute Being.