The book that founded the whole tradition of magic rings and bound demons. Solomon, building the Temple, is given a sealed ring by the archangel Michael — and it opens with the demon Ornias, who drains the master-workman's boy of half his wages and sucks the life from his thumb.
The opening of chapter 1 is live as a word-depth beta: every Greek word glossed with its sense and the flowing English beside it. Blessed be the God who gave Solomon this authority; the Temple is rising in Jerusalem; and a demon named Ornias comes each night to rob and waste the master-workman's boy. This is a long book (26 chapters, the whole demon catalogue); it grows with reader demand.
❦ Read the Testament of Solomon now, freeA taste of the format — open the reader above to read all of The Testament of Solomon word by word.
The Testament of Solomon is the fountainhead of the grimoire tradition: with a ring sealed by the archangel Michael, King Solomon summons the demons one by one and forces each to name itself, its power, and the angel that thwarts it — and binds them all to build the Temple. Every later book of angel-and-demon magic descends from this one.
Reading it word by word in the original Greek, in the text of McCown's 1922 critical edition, you meet the demonology at its source — beginning with Ornias, the star-demon who torments the boy Solomon loved.
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