Its two prologues.
Honein ben Ishak again appears in connection with a supposititious work of Galen. The long and repetitious prefatory statement, to which we have already alluded, is professedly by him, and we are told what Honein said and what Galen said and what Honein says Galen said in great profusion. The Latin translator, however, not to mention subsequent copyists, has perhaps taken liberties with the wording of this preface and corrupted an original Arabic clarity. Who the Latin translator is we are not told, but in some manuscripts the prefatory statement to which we have thus far alluded is proceeded by an even longer prologue which opens with the pious wish, “May God confer noble morals upon you.” This is probably the same as a prologue by “Farachius” opening, “Friend, may God grant you noble morals,” which Steinschneider held belonged with the Medical experiments of Galen or Rasis.[2448] But our prologue seems to contain a direct allusion to the following Liber vaccae[2449] as well as to be generally appropriate to it. The name of the writer of this first prologue is not given in the manuscripts I have seen, but he refers to his books concerning animals and poisons and simple medicines, which last is also called the Book of Sustenance (liber sustentationis). He appears to have been criticized for his propensity toward marvels and occult virtues and his inconsistency in at the same time censuring vulgar suspensions, incantations, and cures. His defense of occult properties is the usual one that even if reason cannot account for them, they are supported both by the testimony of the ancients and by experience. As usual the property of the magnet is adduced; the Pseudo-Aristotle is cited “in his books on stones,” and the genuine Aristotle in the History of Animals concerning the narce’s power of stupefying. The remainder of the prologue consists chiefly of a series of citations from various authors which are largely duplicated in the De mirabilibus mundi ascribed to Albertus Magnus. This first prologue cannot be by Honein, since it cites not only Costa ben Luca but filius messie, that is, Yuhanna ibn Masawaih who died at Cairo in 1015, or some Latin writer of the eleventh or twelfth century who pretended to translate his works from the Arabic. Presumably therefore it is by the Latin translator of the Liber vaccae. This could not be Faradj ben Salem under Charles of Anjou if the translation was known to William of Auvergne early in the thirteenth century.
Experiments in magic generation and rainmaking.
The experiments of the Liber vaccae are hardly such as can be described in detail in English translation. Some of them are elaborate experiments in unseemly generation and obstetrics, having for their object “to make a rational animal” from a cow or ape or other beast,[2450] or “to make bees.”[2451] By a similar procedure a liniment is obtained which has such virtue that if one is anointed with it, one feels no pain from blows, while it blunts the edge of a sword with which one is struck. Or by suffumigations with it rain may be produced.[2452] A less unmentionable method of rain-making is that which is “famous among the wise” and which, the author says, some employ in his own time. First a black crow without a speck upon it is to be “submerged in water until it dies.” Then a very black dog is to be imprisoned in a dark house and given the crow to eat and the water in which it was drowned to drink on the third day. By the eleventh day, we are assured, only the whites of his eyes will show and he will be unable to bark. Then one takes a small tree called mephus with small leaves like rue and a flower like the bean, and gives the dog about an ounce of its juice, which will cause him to recover his voice and bark mightily. He should then be bound “hand and foot” (manus et pedes) and boiled in a big pot. The broth thus obtained is to be used to bring rain.[2453] Other procedures are described to stop a rainy spell and restore fine weather.[2454]
More magic with animals
In order to see spirits a white cock with a round crest which is concave in the middle is put in a place where neither the bark of a dog nor the voice of a crow is heard, whereby this experiment is sharply distinguished from the dog-and-crow procedure. For three successive days the cock is to be fed on the eyes of three fish of the species known as alliataiu, and the eyes must have been removed while the fish were living. On the third day the cock will swell up and become aggressive and his crest will grow inflamed. After three hours he is to be decapitated and fed to a wild cat, which is then to be beheaded in its turn. Its blood and gall are to be dried and from them a concoction is to be prepared which will enable one to see spirits.[2455] A frog figures as an ingredient in a mixture which, if one merely writes with it on parchment and throws the same into a den of snakes or vipers, will excoriate and kill them instantly.[2456] The congealed blood of an ass is a constituent of a suffumigation which enables one to learn what the future holds in store of good or evil.[2457] Indeed throughout the work parts of animals are the favorite substances employed, although stones and herbs are also used.
Other marvelous experiments.
The Liber Vaccae abounds in suffumigations, marvelous houses, golden or otherwise, and magic lamps and fires. One makes men appear in any form desired;[2458] another makes a house seem to be full of snakes;[2459] or a lamp is extinguished by opening the hands over it and is relighted by closing them.[2460] Such marvels we shall find frequently repeated in our following books of experiments. That of holding fire in the hand and not being burnt by it is here described as if quick-lime were used rather than alcohol.[2461] Other paragraphs tell how to plant seed and have it grow instantly,[2462] how to understand the language of the birds,[2463] how to answer questions about persons who are absent,[2464] how to sit under a tree and cause it to incline toward you.[2465] The last recipe calls for the teeth, nose, and bones of a dead man. But perhaps we have sufficiently illustrated the character of the Liber Vaccae. Its necromancy should have at least “provoked the silent dust” of Plato and of Galen.
Plato as an alchemist.
To Plato and Galen, though never apparently again in partnership, were also attributed various works of alchemy in the middle ages. Most widespread would seem to have been The Fourth Book or Four Books, which is found both in the manuscripts and in print. In an Oxford manuscript[2466] it opens by Thebit, presumably ben Corat, asking Hasam to “tell us briefly what you have learned of the revelation of things occult and expound the book of old Plato.” Thebit also introduces both of the other parts of the book in this manuscript, but for the most part Hames tells us what Plato said. This indirect form of presentation is somewhat similar to that of the Liber Vaccae, and there is also much talk of abbreviating even in the fuller and different printed version,[2467] which is divided into four books, but the contents are entirely alchemical and there is no mention of Galen. The work seems to be a translation from the Arabic and not a Latin forgery. Berthelot placed the Latin translation of the alchemical treatise of the Pseudo-Plato about 1200.[2468] But there are in the manuscripts yet other works of alchemy ascribed to Plato, one of which, The Thirteen Keys of Greater Wisdom, is said to have been translated from Arabic into Latin about 1301 A. D.[2469]