abraham_juif

extrait de : Ferguson, Bibliotheca Chemica, I, 3 :
Of Abrahham Eleazar Samuel Baruch, and even Gervasius himself nothing seems to be known. The main question is as to the authenticity of the book, and it has to be proved that it is identical with that described by Flamel, and not a later production written to suit Flamel's description. There is a certain similarily, especially in the symbolic pictures, which can be accounted for in either way, but when it is remembered how much doubt hangs round the whole Flamel legend, the second explan. ation is the more probable. Dr. Kopp (Die Alchemie, 1886, ii. pp. 314-317) has given the work careful cunsideration, and from internal evidence has drawn the conclusion that the book is spurious, that Abraham Eleazar and Samuel Baruch are supposititions personages, tbat Gervasius is the pseudonym of the real author, and that the work is later than Flamel. and not earlier than the seventeenth century. While this is most likely the correct conclusion as to the book in its present form, Gervasius may, however, have based his adaptation on some old MSS., if he did not actually reprint one, as he professes to have done. There is a drawing of the massacre of the innocents, evidently symbolical, from tbe " book of Abraham the Jew " in the Library of the Arsenal, Paris, given by Lacroix in Le Moyen Âge et la Renaissance, Paris, 1848, i. Art. vii., and again by Lacroix in Moeurs. Usages et Costumes au Moyen Age, Paris, 1871, p. 465. This drawing is a more elaborate version of the same scene which is given both in Abraham Eleazar's and in Flamel's works (q.v.). Without an examination, therefore, of sucb MSS. as may exist, I should not like to assert unhesitatingly tbat Gervasius was the author, and did not actually reprint a MS. in whole or in part. Such MSS. were known to Lenglet Dufresnoy (Hist. de la Philosophie Hermétique, 1743. 81. p. 79), and probably some are still to be found both in public and in privait libraries.
Pour Fulcanelli, le Livre d'abraham Juif [cf. Mystère des Cathédrales] n'aurait jamais existé que dans l'imagination du pseudo Flamel. Celui-ci décrit en effet un ouvrage littéralement fabuleux. Nous avons extrait du forum animé par Adam Mc Lean [http://www.levity.com/alchemy/f-abram.html] ces lignes sur les figures d'Abraham Juif [Abraham the Jew] :

On checking through my database of alchemical manuscripts, I note there are about 100 manuscripts with the name of Flamel mentioned in the contents. Of these 23 appear to contain coloured drawings of the figures of Abraham the Jew. None of these is earlier than the 17th century, and for the most part they are of 18th century origin. There was a revival of interest in alchemy in France in the 18th Century and, of course, the legend of Flamel was rediscovered and reworked. I have not been able to personally examine more than a handful of these, and am not sure if the text in French is consistent across the various copies. Nothing seems to appear under the name of Flamel before the printed book of 1612, except this reference in a 15th Century manuscript, which I have not seen and have no knowledge of except this entry in the catalogue.

Bourges MS. 335 (276).
538 folios. in 2 col. Parchment. 406x286 mm. Bound in Parchment. 15th Century.
Joannis Balbi Januensis Catholicon.
Incomplet du commencement: '...beat mihi. De nichilum dico... - ... in secula seculorum. Amen. Explicit liber Catholicon.'
Au fol. 1, de la main de Nicholas Flamel, on lit : 'C'est le grand Catholicum, escript de lettre de forme, lequel est à Jehan, filz de roy de France, duc de Berry, d'Auvergne, conte de Poitou, d'Estampes, de Bouloingne et d'Auvergne - N. Flamel.' (Saint-Chapelle de Bourges.)

Here a list of all the manuscripts with coloured illustrations.

1. London, Wellcome Institute MS. 2288.
2. London, Wellcome Institute MS. 2381.
3. London, Wellcome Institute MS. 2383.
4. London, Wellcome Institute MS. 3123.
5. London, Wellcome Institute MS. 3936.
6. Glasgow University Library MS. Ferguson 17.
7. Glasgow University Library MS. Ferguson 129.
8. Glasgow University Library MS. Ferguson 154.
9. St. Andrews University Library MS. 38189 [Read].
10. St. Andrews University Library MS. 38190 [Read].
11. Manly Palmer Hall [P.R.S.] MS. 3.
12. Manly Palmer Hall [P.R.S.] MS. 137.
13. Mellon Collection, Yale University Library MS. 100.
14. Mellon Collection, Yale University Library MS. 146.
15. Paris, Bibliothèque Nationale MS. Français 14765 [Supp. Fr. 680] ]
16. Paris, Bibliothèque L'Arsenal MS. 3047 (153 S.A.F.)
17. Paris, Bibliothèque L'Arsenal MS. 6577 (173 bis. S.A.F.)
18. Grenoble MS. 824 [Ex libris A. Blanc - nouv. acq.]
19. Vatican. Bybl. Rossiano 903 (XI.56)
20. Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica MS. 123.
21. Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica MS. 306.
22. Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica MS. 307.
23. Biblioteca Philosophica Hermetica MS. 312.

[There is also a Flamel manuscript in Latin of the hierogliphic figures, in the masonic library in Bthska Palatset, Stockholm. The document was bought by Carl Gustaf Tessin in Paris in 1739 and is almost identical to the French version published in 1612, but with a beginning prayer and with different illustrations. The document is being edited for publication by Kjell Lekeby. - This information from Susanna Akerman. Susanna also mentions in her unpublished article 'The Doubted Role of J. V. Andreae' that Claude Gagnon is of the opinion that Beroalde de Verville (author of Tableau des riches inventions, 1610) was the author of the Flamel Figures hieroglypiques. SeeClaude Gagnon, Nicolas Flamel sous investigation, suivi de l'edition annote du Livre des Figures Hiroglyphiques, Loup de Gouttire: Quebec, 1994, p. 26-27, 54, 65ff.]