Hermes Trismegistus: The Abrahamic Inversion (Ronove)

Ronove is another of the names under which the catalogues hid Hermes Trismegistus. It is a name of slander against the Original Gods, not a name of prayer. Approach Hermes through His legitimate and eternal name.

Ronové

The polished spelling Ronové, with Ronove and Roneve beside it, came late, and the Daemon so miscast is not first attested under it. The oldest concrete witness to this same textual complex is Bonoreae or Bonoree in Florence, Biblioteca Medicea Laurenziana, MS Plut. 89 sup. 38, folio 304r, a manuscript section dated January 1494. Boudet's comparison table aligns Bonoree, a great marquis and duke with nineteen legions, with Weyer's later Roneve, marquis and count with nineteen legions. It is not a demon from the French Livre des esperitz sequence.^1,2

Habet 19. legiones. Bonoreae magnus marchio et dux apparet in similitudinem monstri.
Facit hominem mirabilem in Rectoricha: Dat optime intellectus omnium linguarum.

The Latin says that Bonoreae has nineteen legions, is a great marquis and duke, appears in the likeness of a monster, makes a man marvelous in rhetoric, and gives excellent understanding of all languages. The manuscript then says he gives the favour of friends and enemies and repeats the nineteen legions.^1,2

Weyer exhibited him in the Pseudomonarchia daemonum of 1577 as Roneve. Here the rank changes from marquis and duke to marquis and count, and the phrase about faithful servants enters the wording. Otherwise Weyer is much less inventive than he is with Ipos: he does not add new animal parts or a new mythic body, but compresses the earlier Bonoreae material into his own demon catalogue.^2,3

Roneve Marchio & Comes, assimilatur monstro. Singularem in Rhetoricis intelligentiam confert, famulos item fidos, linguarum cognitionem, amicorum & inimicorum favorem. Huic obediunt legiones novendecim.

Roneve is a marquis and count, is likened to a monster, gives singular understanding in rhetoric, faithful servants, knowledge of languages, and the favor of friends and enemies. Nineteen legions obey him. The important details are stable from Bonoreae to Roneve: rhetoric, languages, favor between friends and enemies, and the number nineteen, all emblematic of the tongue of Hermes and his ability to bestow charis.^1,2,3

Reginald Scot's 1584 English version transmits the name as Ronove while still marking Weyer’s Roneve form. Scot describes him as a marquis and earl, like a monster, bringing singular understanding in rhetoric, faithful servants, knowledge of tongues and favour with friends and foes. The later Ars Goetia fixes him as the twenty-seventh spirit and a marquis and great earl. Good textual lines give him nineteen legions; the modern claim of twenty legions is a loose later error, not what is found in the early chain.^3,4,5

In Dr. Rudd's angelological correspondence, Ronové is opposed by Ierathel, also written Yerathel, Ieratel or Jerathel in later angel tables. Rudd's scheme places the seventy-two Shem-ha-Mephorash angels over the seventy-two Goetic spirits as restraining or answering powers. Since Ronové is the twenty-seventh Goetic spirit, his answering angel is the twenty-seventh angel (9 x 3), Ierathel, of the order of Dominions.⁶

The exact psalm attached to Ierathel is Psalm 140:1 in modern English and Hebrew numbering The indication is deliverance from evil and violent enemies 'for the choirmaster', which explains why Ierathel is described as a force against the wicked, calumniators and unjust attackers, again warping the protective faculty of Hermes.^6,7,8,9

Lenain calls Ierathel's attribute "God who punishes the wicked" and gives the holy name Téos according to the language of the Copts, likely a rendering of Thoth (ⲑⲱⲑ in Coptic). He says this genius serves to confound the wicked and slanderers, to be delivered from enemies, and to protect against those who provoke or attack unjustly. He dominates the propagation of lights, civilization and liberty. The person born under this influence loves peace, justice, the sciences and the arts, and is distinguished in literature, a function of being under the god of scribes. The contrary genius rules ignorance, slavery and intolerance.⁷

Papus repeats the same Lenain profile in the occult-kabbalistic current. Ierathel belongs to the line of practical angelic names, bears the moral meaning of divine punishment against the wicked (Ma'at), and governs light, civilisation, liberty, justice, science, arts and literature. In Rudd's specific Goetic pairing, this directly answers Ronové's lower power over rhetoric, languages and social favour. One is speech and favor made useful in the demonic catalogue; the other is speech and light placed under justice.^6,7,8