Page:Testament of Solomon.djvu/2

2 The following is the drift of the Testament. King Solomon is engaged in the work of building the Temple, and in him dwells a supernatural power, the wisdom, also called the spirit and glory of God. In virtue of the immanence in him of this power, Solomon has power over the spirits of the air, of the earth's surface, and of the nether world. The Testament opens rather abruptly with the descent of the vampire spirit Ornias upon Solomon's servant. Solomon goes into the nearly completed Temple and prays for help to the Lord Sabaôth. Grace is granted him, and the archangel Michael brings him a ring, of which the stone was engraved with a pentalpha. This ring endows its possessor with power over all demons.

Armed with it, Solomon calls up before him all the demons, and asks of each in turn his or her name, as well as the name of the star or constellation or zodiacal sign, and of the particular angel to the influence of which each is subject. One after another the spirits are vanquished, and compelled by Solomon to aid in the construction of the Temple. Ornias is the first demon to appear, and he is set down to hew stones. Next appears Beelzeboul, prince and exarch of the demons, who promises to parade before Solomon all his subject spirits, and proceeds to do so, beginning with Onoskelis. Asmodeus follows after Onoskelis, and gives an account of himself which agrees with the Book of Tobit. Beelzeboul reappears on the scene, and, in a dialogue with Solomon, declares that he alone survives of the angels who (as Enoch declares) came down from heaven. He reigns over all who are in Tartarus, and has a child in the Red Sea. He is subject to Emmanuel and Eleêth. Next appears the demon of the ashes, Tephras, who is subject to the archangel Azael; and after him a group of seven female spirits, who declare themselves to be of the thirty-six elements of the kosmokrator or cosmic ruler of the darkness. They correspond to the Pleiades. A headless demon succeeds, subject to the lightning alone. A hound-like spirit, called