The Testament of Solomon

The Testament of Solomon is a Greek pseudepigraphon in which King Solomon narrates how he built the Temple in Jerusalem with the forced labour of demons. When a demon troubles a favourite workman, Solomon prays and receives from the archangel Michael a ring engraved with a seal that gives him power over the demons. He then interrogates them one by one, asking each its name, its activity and the angel or name that thwarts it. The procession includes Ornias, Beelzebul, Asmodeus, a female demon called Obizuth, and the thirty-six decans, the astrological rulers of the zodiac's ten-degree sections, recast as spirits of disease, each with a remedy. The book ends with Solomon's fall into idolatry through love of a foreign woman, presented as a warning. The work combines Jewish Solomonic legend, Greek astrology and medicine, and Christian elements, and scholars date its composition between the first and fifth centuries CE, often with the third century as a midpoint; it may have grown in layers. Chester McCown's 1922 critical edition remains the standard Greek text. The archive offers F. C. Conybeare's 1898 translation, made from a Paris manuscript. D. C. Duling's 1983 translation in The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha is the usual modern English version. The Testament is the earliest extended text to present Solomon as master of demons by means of his seal ring, the template for later Solomonic grimoires and catalogues of spirits.

What it contains

• Construction of the Temple with demonic labour
• Michael gives Solomon the seal ring
• Interrogation of demons including Ornias, Beelzebul and Asmodeus
• Each demon's activity and the angel that thwarts it
• The thirty-six decans as spirits of illness with remedies
• Solomon's fall into idolatry