Whatever the original date and status of the texts, it is clear that the legends of King Solomon acted as a magnet to practising magicians from late antiquity through to the end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the so-called ‘Age of Enlightenment’. It is this factor which led McCown, the Testament’s first editor, to label it ‘a combination of folktales and a magician’s vade-mecum’ (McCown, 1922, p.1) and it is this agglutinative quality which has led to the complex textual situation with which McCown and subsequent editors have wrestled. But the narrative also provides a repository for serious magical lore about the names of the demons, their areas of influence, and the names and formulae by which they can be controlled. At one level, and for much of the text, it is an entertaining ‘Arabian Nights’-style narrative of a super magician and his contests with a variety of demons and djinns from the desert: there is always the underlying frisson of the supernatural, but the narrative also contains a certain aura of wry humour, and demons are satisfyingly routed by Solomon’s supernatural knowledge. It is written from the point of view of the king himself, and closes with Solomon’s fall into idolatry.
The Testament of Solomon is a medium-length Greek text which tells the legendary story of King Solomon’s Ring and explains the power it bestowed on its possessor over the demons which plagued the building of the Temple. By James Harding and Loveday Alexander (posted )
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