Rethinking the Jewish-Christian Encounter through the Ars Notoria

This article is divided into two parts.  The first part explores the Hebrew version of the Ars Notoria and its prayers which survives in three manuscripts.  The second part explores the notory art figures recast as Kabbalistic paths on the Tree of Life according to the fourteenth-century Jewish scholar Avraham ben Meir de Sequeira who wrote Yesod ‘Olam (The Foundation of the World).

Part 1: The Hebrew Version of the Ars Notoria

“Theos, Patir, Heenminos . . . through your archangels whose names are made secret by God, so that they ought not be offered by us which are these: DE. EL. X. P. N. H. O. R. G., and the rest, some of which are not sufficient to comprehend by human senses.”

--- Ars Notoria, section 24 (Version A), my translation

In Appendix 5 of my book, Ars Notoria: The Notory Art of Solomon (Inner Traditions, November 2023), I explore the Hebrew version of the Ars Notoria called the Melekhet Muskelet (The Enlightened Work or Intellectual Art).  I take particular interest in the angelic names whose origins may lie in a lost Hebraic source.  I am thankful to Rabbi Yosef M. Cohen for providing a preliminary study and partial translation of this work.  Months later, Dr. Gal Sofer published his article “The Jewish Reception of the Ars Notoria: Preliminary Insights into a Recent Discovery” in the Religions journal in 2024.  Sofer’s preliminary study is fascinating and worth reading.  See Dr. Gal Sofer’s full article here: The Jewish Reception of the Ars Notoria: Preliminary Insights into a Recent Discovery

Today, I am answering Sofer’s call for an extended study of the Jewish-Christian encounter with the Ars Notoria.  In the first part, I will briefly summarize Sofer’s main points and provide my own commentaries.  The first part is about the notory art prayers, and I share my thoughts about how they relate to the Judaic practice called notarikon, the fourteenth-century magical compendium called the Summa Sacrae Magicae, and more broadly to the early stages of transmission of the notory art.  The Hebrew version of the Ars Notoria entitled Melekhet Muskelet (Intellectual Art) is said to have been made by Shlomo ben Natan Orgueiri of Aix-en-Provence in 1390.  Sofer identifies an attestation from the Italian Kabbalist Yohanan Alemanno (c. 1435 - died after 1504) and three manuscript witnesses, each with its own special variations, which testify to its existence.  He stresses that the three manuscripts are reworkings of the notory art and not a strict language translation.  They do not contain any of the notory art figures.             

Sofer gives a brief comment about the notory art prayers and their wordplay on letter combinations and permutations.  He says the wordplay may relate to Sefer Yetzirah (Book of Formation), a Kabbalistic treatise about Creation with a mathematical and linguistic perspective,  and astrological interpretations.  I find this compelling, and I believe it may also relate to the sacred wordplay called notarikon which I wrote about in my blog post here: Ars Notoria: Why is It Called the Notory Art? According to the Ars Notoria, Apollonius of Tyana supposedly deciphered and translated the opening part of some of the prayers which he called “prologues”.  He grumbled about how long-winded a Latin translation would be for each compacted and notarikon-constructed prayer to be deciphered and unfolded.  Obviliously, Sofer notices the inconsistency of the scribes’ translation of the Latin word notae being either הערות (“notes”) or התחלות (“beginnings”); clearly, the mythical account’s description of the prayer prologues are beginnings.

Sofer points out that the Ashkenazi scribe of the St. Petersburg manuscript says that the notory art prayer, Hely Lehem (also called Hazatam in Version B), found at section 43 of the Ars Notoria, may be offered up to adjure the Arabic demon king Shamhurish to send a familiar spirit in the form of a dog.  I noticed that this aligns well with the description of the Summa Sacrae Magicae (SSM) about the ritual function of the prayer, reading:  “The fifteenth [prayer] is called divine powers, and that has the office of summoning and departing heavenly spirits for the purpose of working every grand thing which is to be made as some divine force (vis) in making for the purpose of building or destroying kingdoms, laws, or evil sects by divine power.”  (See my three-part series blog post which begins here: Summa Sacre Magice, Part I).  Hely Lehem is the first part of the four-part prayer.  The ritual functions described in the Ars Notoria and the SSM may appear at odds with one another in regard to the magical method of these prayers; on the one hand, the Ars Notoria presents a theurgic-like practice in the pursuit of knowledge while the SSM claims that some of these prayers are meant for spirit conjuration.  The answer, I suspect, lies in understanding the mysterious origins of these prayers.  I hold that a late Christian veneer was overlaid upon it - whether Hebraic, Arabic, Greek, Hermetic, or a fluid and syncretic blend - crossing cultural boundaries.  I suspect Ganell's work shows a vestige of the earliest form of the notory art which was overlaid with an understanding of an Ars Notoria (Version B) text.  The Hely Lehem prayer is also featured in the ritual procedure of the penultimate chapter found only in Version A2.  The penultimate chapter holds a unique place in the development of the ritual procedures of the Ars Notoria.  See my blog post: Ars Notoria (Version A2): The “Lost” Gems of the Notory Art.  In the second part, the early stages of transmission of the Ars Notoria, Version A and Vesion A2, become an increasingly fascinating study of the Ars Notoria in unlocking its mysterious origins.

Part 2: A Visual Guide to the Notory Art Figures as Kabbalistic Paths

Sofer gives a preliminary study of the Kabbalistic treatise, Yesod ‘Olam (The Foundation of the World), written by Avraham ben Meir de Sequeira in the fourteenth century in which the Ars Notoria was adapted.  Avraham recasts the notae, that is, the notory art prayers and figures, as Kabbalistic paths of the Sefirot, the divine eminations of God represented on the Jewish glyph known as the Tree of Life.  These paths lead to divine wisdom.  Dr. Gal Sofer maps out the figures to each of the ten paths of the Sefirot, although I occasionally offer alternative notory art figures to his own assignments.  I further explore the early stages of transmission of the Ars Notoria as I believe Avraham’s book gives insight in its development.  I take particular interest in the Version A stage and the Version A2 stage which run approximately from the late thirteenth-century to the early fourteenth-century.  The best Ars Notoria manuscripts to highlight the corresponding notory figures in Avraham’s work include Sloane 1712, Latin 7152, Clm 268, Clm 276, and Vat.Lat. 6842.  These particular manuscripts are not just important for their figures but also their relationship to the base text (Version A material) and the special text (Version A2 material).  Latinists will observe that the text is overflowing and surpassing the very figures which it describes which can lead to confusion.  Each of these sheds light on the mysterious origins of Version A2 which may be unveiled through deep study.  For more information on these manuscripts, see my blog post: Where are the Original Latin Texts of the Ars Notoria Tradition?  Here is the link to the images, יסוד עולם Moscow, Russian State Library, Guenzburg, MS. 607: ktiv | viewer page

I suspect that Avraham’s Kabbalistic paths follow the notory art prayers not the figures.  I also believe his selection is based on a lost recension of the Ars Notoria which resides somewhere between the late era of Version A and the arrival of Version A2.  I find Sofer’s suggestion about kavanah, the practice of concentrating on the esoteric meanings of prayer letters and words, is compelling, and I believe it would mesh well with my thought that the notory art prayers are so-called because they are constructed by the Judaic and exegetical method of notarikon.  Indeed, when the notory art practitioner experiences a dream visitation from his tutelary angel, the Ars Notoria (Version B) advises, “Do not doubt or be afraid or reveal it to anyone, but the precepts which he (i.e., the angel) will have given to you and the letters which he will have shown to you, you must guard and retain” (section 103 Gloss).  Clearly, there are certain alphabetical letters given to the practitioner by the angel for contemplation, and perhaps it is these Judaic methods which must be employed. 

The reader will notice that Avraham does not discuss the paths in numerological order; that, or the digital scans were misplaced.  I do not read Hebrew so perhaps Dr. Gal Sofer can enlighten us on this matter. Sofer explains that the ten Sefirotic paths emanate from the ultimate source called the “ancient air” (האויר הקדמון).  Each path has a name but Sofer does not supply them. 

The First Path

Caption: Left: The large figure of ten concentric rings is the first path (MS. 607, leaf 58).  The smaller figure of three circles joined together belongs to the second path (see below).  Right: The first figure of grammar.  (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 276, f. 8, 1a).  Note: I use my own designations for each figure as employed in Appendix 2 of my book (e.g., 1 = first figure, a = Version A). 

The first path shows ten concentric rings which Sofer interprets as a map of the ten sefirot (MS.607, leaf 58a).  Avraham’s figure of concentric rings resembles the first figure of grammar in the Ars Notoria (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 276, f. 8, 1a).  Beneath this figure, there is Hebrew text and a small figure of three joined spheres.  This smaller figure, labeled “servants”, is duplicated and discussed below. 

The Second Path

Caption: (From left to right): Avraham’s figure of the second path, the first figure of logic/dialectic (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 268, f. 8, 4a), and the four wheels of all knowledge (Bodley 951, f. 10v, 4b).

The second path is labeled “servants” (MS. 607, leaf 59a).  I suspect that this is the case because in the Ars Notoria it is described as having “an angelic appearance (vultus angelicus)” which may relate to the angelology of Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagrite whose thought is felt throughout the notory art.  Avraham’s figure resembles the first figure of logic/dialectic (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek, Clm 268, f. 8, 4a).  Notice there are four spheres within the greater sphere of concentric rings in Avraham’s figure.  Clm 268 has four sets of texts but only three are enclosed within a sphere.  I suspect these four elements emerge later in the Version B era of the Ars Notoria as the four wheels of knowledge.  The four wheels of knowledge may be thought as belonging to the first figure of logic/dialectic (Version B, 4b).  I discuss the four wheels of knowledge at great length in my book.  For more information on the transformation of these figures through there transmission over time, see my two-part blog series: Visual Guide to the Notory Art Figures of Angelic Magic, Part I.

Caption:  Left: Another figure of the second path (MS. 607, leaf 58).  Right: The third figure of philosophy (London, British Library, Sloane 1712, f. 20-a).

The Third Path

Caption: (From left to right): Avraham’s figure of the third path (MS. 607, leaf 60a), the Sphere of Life and Death (London, British Library, Harley 3719, f. 175v), the figure of medicine (London, British Library, Sloane 1712, f. 20v-h, 10a) and another version of the same notory art figure (Vat.Lat. 6842, f. 22-I, 10a).

The third path shows a complex sphere (MS. 607, leaf 60a).  In Avraham’s figure, there are three design features to study here: (1) concentric rings, (2) the five inner divisions of the sphere, and (3) the four pairs of shaded “feet” at the top.  The first two design features are found in the onomantic device called the Sphere of Life and Death.  Essentially, the Sphere of Life and Death is a results table for onomantic calculations.  In onomancy, the alphetical letters of a person’s name is converted to a numerical value and computed to answer the question about the prognosis of a patient, whether he or she will live or die.  The onomantic device is often linked to the days of the Moon.  I have a three-part blog series about onomancy which begins here:  Onomancy: A Forbidden Art of the Ars Notoria, Part I    

In the Sphere of Life and Death (London, British Library, Harley 3719, f. 175v; shown here) there are five divisions within the sphere.  The first and fifth divisions are blank; the three central divisions contain the numbers for onomantic calculations.  The sphere contains two outer rings.  The most outer rim gives the alphetical letter-number correspondences; the inner rim presents a spectrum of stages for the patient’s health status from fully recovered to sickness to death.  The Sphere of Life and Death satisifies the first two design elements of Avarham’s figure. 

Now in some medieval manuscripts, there are two spheres, one for life and one for death.  It is this two-sphere onomantic device from which the notory art tradition draws.  The Sphere of Life and Death has been cloaked in the Ars Notoria and named the figure of medicine (physica).  See the figure of medicine (London, British Library, Sloane 1712, f. 20v-h).  I explore the Sphere of Life and Death and its relationship to the notory art figure of medicine in Chapter 5 of my book.  The third design element of Avraham’s figure – the four pairs of shaded “feet” is made known here.  Notice the “feet” design at the ends of each sphere in Sloane 1712.  They are not shaded here during the late era of Version A, but they are shaded in the era of Version A2.  Look at the figure of medicine (Version A2, 10a) in Vat.Lat. 6842, f. 22-i.  There are two spheres and each has those shaded feet.  In fact, the sphere on the right has two pairs!  The sphere on the left is missing a pair of shaded feet.  In Avraham’s figure, I suspect the two spheres, life and death, have been conflated into one.     

As a side note, Clm 276, Clm 268, and Vat.Lat. 6842 preserve initial sketches of the figure of medicine as shown below:

Caption: (From left to right): Initial sketches of the figure of medicine (Munich, Bayerische Staatsbibliothek (BSB), Clm 276, f. 15v; Munich, BSB, Clm 268, f. 12v; Vatican, Biblioteca Apostolica Vaticana, Vat. Lat. 6842, f. 21v).  Clm 276 has its own caption which I can partly make out which reads, “This is the sixth figure . . . of the passions of morbid diseases.”  Vat. Lat. 6842 also has its own caption which reads, “This is the 5^th nota of medicine.”  The numbering or labeling of the figures varied from manuscript to manuscript.  Vat. Lat. 6842 does not suggest there are five figures of medicine.

There is a sense that the geometric construction of the figure of medicine follows certain steps but the scribes either did not follow through on their design or did not understand how best to precede.  It is also worth observing the order of the notory art figures in these Version A and Version A2 manuscripts for additional insights into possible reconstructions of what the older arrangement of text and figures were.

The Fourth Path

Caption: Left: The fourth path (MS. 607, leaf 61b).  Right: The second figure of logic/dialectic (London, British Library, Sloane 1712, f. 17v, 5a). 

The fourth path (MS.607, 61b) is associated with the seven water springs flowing to the seven climates according to Sofer.  This motif of seven water springs likely draws from Kabbalistic thought (Sefer Yetzirah 4:4, Aryeh Kaplan edition, and Zohar I, 32a-b, Daniel Matt Pritzker Edition) though it also has its parallel in medieval Islamic and Persian cosmography.  The fourth path is similar to the second figure of logic/dialectic. 

The Fifth Path 

Caption: (From left to right): The fifth path (MS. 607, 61a) contains three figures.  The the first figure looks like the second figure of the general sciences (London, British Library, Sloane 1712, 20v-b, 22a), the second figure resembles the figure of justice, peace, and fear (Vat. Lat. 6842, f. 22v-d, 40a or 40a-2, aligns more so with Version A2), and the third figure is the third figure of the general sciences (London, British Library, Sloane 1712, f. 20v-c, 23a). 

The fifth path (MS. 607, 61a) presents three figures.  From left to right, the first figure looks like the second figure of the general sciences (Versions A and A2), the second figure resembles the figure of justice, peace, and fear (Version A2), and the third figure is the third figure of the general sciences (Version A). 

The Sixth Path

Caption: (From left to right): The sixth path (MS. 607, leaf 61a), the fifth figure of the general sciences (London, British Library, Sloane 1712, f. 20v-e, 17a), the sixth figure of philosophy (Sloane 1712, f. 20-d, 30a), the sixth path (MS. 607, leaf 62b), and the fourth figure of rhetoric (Sloane 1712, f. 19-a, 9a).

The sixth path presents four figures.  The first three figures are shown followed by text.  The fourth figure is presented on another leaf.  Avraham’s first figure is a duplicate of the Ars Notoria’s figure of medicine (see the figures and caption above).  The second figure resembles the fifth figure of the general sciences.  The third figure approximates to the sixth figure of philosophy.  The bottom figure is the fourth figure of rhetoric.  In the Ars Notoria, there is no fifth figure of the general sciences; there are only four.  This is a scribal error of misidentification.  To learn more about how this might have happened, see my blog post:  Visual Guide to the Notory Art Figures of Angelic Magic, Part II 

The Seventh Path

Caption: Left: The seventh path (MS.607, leaf 62b). Center: Folio 19 of Sloane 1712 which contains the first figure of arithmetic at the top and below are two columns.  In the left hand column is some text and the half figure of arithmetic which is not found in Avraham’s figure.  In the right hand column is Solomon’s prayer which is meant to accompany the first figure of philosophy.  Right: The first figure of philosophy (Sloane 1712, f. 21v-a, 25a).   

The seventh path (MS.607, leaf 62b) presents a folio from the Ars Notoria (Version A).  In the Ars Notoria, the top figure with the semi-circle and two smaller circles is the figure of arithmetic.  The rectangular boxes illustrated in Avraham’s figure below mimick the the boxes containing Solomon’s prayer made during his sacrifice of peacemaking to God on Mount Gibeon.  The prayer contains magical calls (voces magicae) which are associated with the first figure of philosophy.  I give the translation and description of the prayer in my book (Castle, p. 307).  The prayers of philosophy play a governing role in the prayer regimen of the greater ritual of the notory art.  Solomon’s prayer and these rectangular boxes do not constitute the first figure of philosophy.  Below is the first figure of philosophy which I classify as a visionary figure of heavenly paradise, and the Ars Notoria describes as “inexpressible by men (inexplicabilibus hominibus)”.  I wonder if the eight spheres at the center of the figure represent the Sefirot from Binah (Understanding) to Malkuth (Kingdom) in which the Kabbalistic text Bahir describes the flowing of lustral waters down from the heavens to the earth.  As a side note, there is often confusion about the identity of the notory art figures, especially during the transitional phases of the manuscript tradition, and it is often found that the first figure of philosophy is mislabeled as the second figure of theology (i.e., the tower figure with the zig-zag path leading to the top labeled as 35a).

The Eighth Path

Caption: Left: The eighth path (MS. 607, leaf 62a).  Center: The figure of geometry (Vat. Lat. 6842, f. 20v-a, 32a).  Right: The fourth figure of the general sciences (Clm 276, f. 17-d, 24a).

Here is the eighth path containing two figures.  Avraham’s top figure follows the figure of geometry (32a) of the Ars Notoria.  Notice that Vat. Lat. 6842 presents a figure of geometry with straight parallel lines just as it appears in Avraham’s version; no other manuscript that I have studied has these straight lines.  This suggests Avraham’s source of these notory art figures most closely resembles a Version A2-style manuscript.  All the other Ars Notoria manuscripts are curved in a U-shape just as it is shown in the right-hand side of Avraham’s figure.  I believe Avraham’s bottom tree-like figure coincides better with the fourth figure of the general sciences (24a) rather than Sofer’s claim that it is the second figure of philosophy (26a).  My conclusion draws from the detail at the base of the two figures which look like plant-like vegetation.  There are many tree or tower-like figures in the Ars Notoria which can be easily confused with one another. 

For a digression into a short study of the notory art figures, here are the tower-like figures of the Ars Notoria (Version A) taken from Sloane 1712 for reference:

Caption: (From left to right): The second figure of philosophy (26a), the seventh figure of philosophy (31a) presents the two towers rising out of the mouths of beasts, the fourth figure of the general sciences (24a), the figure of the exceptives (i.e., the divinatory arts, 42a), and the second figure of theology (35a).

Certainly the second figure of philosophy and the fourth figure of the general sciences are very similar in appearance.  Clm 276, standing at the end of the Version A era, has a few mislabelings which I comment upon in Appendix 2 of my book.  Below you can see Clm 276 has mistaken the two towers of the seventh figure of philosophy as two separate figures – the seventh figure of philosophy (right) and the third figure of the general sciences (left).

Caption: (Left): The two towers of Clm 276, f. 16v mislabeling the first tower on the left as the seventh figure of philosophy and the the second tower on the right as the third figure of the general sciences when in fact both towers constitute the entire seventh figure of philosophy.  (Right): Vat. Lat. 6842, f. 22 does not label its two towers but the scribe may have been shared the same erroneous thinking as the Clm 276 scribe. 

This may also be reflected in Vat.Lat. 6842 which hardly has any labels at all.  In Vat.Lat.6842, the two towers may rightly be understood as the seventh figure of philosophy, however, the scribe may have understood it just as the Clm 276 scribe did – the top tower belonging to the seventh figure of philosophy and the bottom tower being the third figure of the general sciences.  However, the third figure of the general sciences is not a tower at all but three spheres stacked on top of one another (not shown here).

The Ninth Path

Caption: (Left): The ninth path (MS. 607, leaf 63b). (Right): The third figure of grammar (Clm 276, f. 9, 3b).

Here is the ninth path (MS.607, leaf 63b).  Avraham’s figure most closely resembles the third figure of grammar.

The Tenth Path

Caption: (From left to right): The tenth path (MS. 607, leaf 63a), the second figure of rhetoric (Paris, Bibliothèque nationale de France, Latin 7152, f. 16, 7a) for which Avraham only copies the left half of the figure, the second figure of theology (Vat. Lat. 6842, 22v-e, 35a), Clm 276, 16r-b, 35a), Latin 7152, f. 20v-d, 35a), the figure of the exceptives (Clm 276, f. 17v-c), the fifth figure of philosophy (Clm 276, f. 15v and Vat. Lat. 6842, f. 21v, 29a).   

Here is the tenth and final path of Avraham’s Kabbalistic scheme (MS.607, leaf 63a).  Avraham’s figure presents three notory art figures.  At the top, there is the part of the second figure of rhetoric.  The full figure is seen above (Paris, BnF, Latin 7152, f. 16).  The reason why Avraham chose just the left half of the figure likely relates to how the text and figures were arranged on the folios of his source material.  A deep study of the Ars Notoria manuscripts shows a significant break at the second figure of rhetoric.  Next, the tower figure most resembles a hybrid of the second figure of theology.  It is most like the second figure of theology with its line segments sprouting from its top.  Compare against the copies found in Vat. Lat. 6842, Clm 276, and Latin 7152 which highlight both eras of Version A and Version A2.  In my book, I describe the Christian symbolism of these line segments.  The figure of the exceptives, another tower figure, presents little flags at its base which are floating in Avraham’s figure.  The figure of the exceptives is exclusively found in Version A.  Its disappearance in Versions A2 and Version B are not entirely understood.  Lastly, the seven-ringed figure in the right-hand column illustrated by Avraham is most like the fifth figure of philosophy.  In the Ars Notoria manuscript tradition, the fifth and sixth figures of philosophy is sometimes duplicated in the Notae Supplement. 

In conclusion, Part 1 studies the Hebrew version of the Ars Notoria and its prayers.  I share my thoughts about how the prayers relate to the Judaic and exegetical practice called notarikon.  I also connect the ritual function of the Hely Lehem prayer described in the Summa Sacrae Magicae to Sofer’s description about the Arabic demon king.  In both Part 1 and Part 2, I closely follow the early stages of transmission of the notory art from Version A to Version A2 through the notory art figures, highlighting the pivotal manuscripts of Vat. Lat. 6842, Clm 276, Clm 268, and Latin 7152.  I strongly suspect that the arrangement of the notory art text and figures which ran together in an overflowing manner likely influenced Avraham's choices in selecting the certain prayers and figures. This old arrangement likely belonged to the Version A2 era which requires deeper study. Sometimes I offer alternative figures which correspond to Avraham’s paths.  Lastly, I give my thoughts about the Jewish interpretation of the notory art figures. 

This digital edition by Matthias Castle, Copyright 2025. All rights reserved.

Please do not copy this text to your website, or for any purpose other than private use.

Ars Notoria: The Notory Art of Solomon translated by Matthias Castle, published by Inner Traditions International and Bear & Company, © 2023. All rights reserved. http://www.Innertraditions.com Reprinted with permission of publisher.