A Roman priest once told a Greek colleague that his gods had no myths, only rituals. The Greek laughed. The Roman was not joking. The problem of Baal Berith versus Berith is the opposite: two spirits share a name, but the rituals belonging to one are often misapplied to the other. In demonological grimoires, Baal Berith and Berith are distinct entities — Baal Berith is a Canaanite deity demoted to a Goetic spirit, while Berith is a separate demon who appears in the Pseudomonarchia Daemonum and later texts under the same name. One commanded armies. The other told fortunes. Both got collapsed into a single entry by later editors.
Definition: Who is Baal Berith and who is Berith?
We define them side by side because the confusion is ancient. Baal Berith appears in the Hebrew Bible (Judges 8:33, 9:4) as a deity of Shechem — literally “Lord of the Covenant.” He was a local fertility and oath god, worshipped with sacrifices at a temple that was later burned. Berith appears in the Ars Goetia (the first book of the Lesser Key of Solomon, compiled around the 17th century) as the twenty-eighth spirit, a Great Duke who appears as a soldier in red clothing on a red horse, wearing a golden crown. He knows past, present, and future. He can turn metals into gold. He speaks truth when commanded. But the key difference: Baal Berith is a deity of covenant. Berith is a demon of information.
History and Origins: Two Threads, One Name
The name “Berith” derives from the Hebrew bərît, covenant, treaty, pact. Baal Berith literally means “Lord of the Covenant,” the god who witnessed and enforced agreements between tribes, families, and kings.
Baal Berith appears first. In the Book of Judges, after Gideon dies, the Israelites “whored after the Baalim and made Baal Berith their god” (Judges 8:33). The temple of Baal Berith at Shechem was used as a treasury by the city’s leaders (Judges 9:4). Abimelech, Gideon’s son, took seventy pieces of silver from this temple to hire assassins. Later, when the people of Shechem rebelled, Abimelech burned the temple of Baal Berith with the worshippers inside (Judges 9:46-49). This temple was a fortress-sanctuary, the burning is the last recorded act of the deity’s public worship in Canaan.
Berith the Goetic spirit emerges in the 16th century. Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1577) is the first grimoire to list “Berith” as a named demon. Weyer wrote in Latin, placing Berith as the twenty-eighth spirit with the rank of Duke. He described Berith’s appearance: a soldier in red, riding a red horse, crowned in gold. Weyer noted that the spirit speaks clearly and truthfully about the past, present, and future. Later, the Lesser Key of Solomon (compiled around 1640) copied Weyer’s entry almost verbatim, adding the detail that Berith cannot be constrained into a triangle and must be commanded by a ring or a wand.
The confusion began when Renaissance demonologists equated the old Canaanite deity with the Goetic spirit. Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584) conflated them. So did S. L. MacGregor Mathers in his 1904 translation of the Lesser Key. Mathers wrote: “Berith, also known as Baal Berith.” He was wrong. The original text of the Ars Goetia never uses “Baal” as a prefix. The conflation became standard after Mathers.
Symbolism and Meaning: What Each Represents
Baal Berith symbolizes covenant and communal obligation. In Canaanite religion, covenants were not abstract. They were sworn over slaughtered animals, with the parties walking between the halves, a ritual formula that appears in Genesis 15, where Abraham cuts a heifer, a goat, and a ram in half and passes between them. Baal Berith (Celeusma in Joshua, according to some Septuagint manuscripts) was the deity who presided over these oaths. His temple was the city treasury. His offerings were livestock and grain. He was not a spirit of hidden knowledge. He was a public god of public agreements.
Berith symbolizes revelation and transformation. The Goetic spirit’s promise is twofold. He reveals concealed knowledge, the future of a business, the location of a lost object, the answer to a riddle. And he transmutes base metals into gold, which is not industrial alchemy but symbolic: Berith is a spirit who turns the worthless into the valuable. In the grimoire tradition, this is why he is called “the Great Duke”, his domain is not territory but truth. He commands twenty-six legions of spirits, which in the hierarchy of the Ars Goetia places him near the middle of the seventy-two, not among the kings but well above the lower ranks.
Practices and Traditions: How You Spoke to Each
Baal Berith was worshipped through sacrifice and treaty. At Shechem, the temple was a stronghold (a migdol, or tower-sanctuary). Worshippers brought burnt offerings and tithes. The temple stored the communal treasury, seven hundred pieces of silver, mentioned in Judges 9. The deity’s function was to witness and enforce the covenant between the city’s leaders and the people. When Abimelech burned the temple, he was not just destroying a building. He was annihilating the god who bound the city together. Without Baal Berith, no covenant was binding.
Berith is summoned through ritual constraint. The Goetic tradition demands that the magician stand within a circle and hold the spirit at bay with a consecrated ring or a hazel wand. The spirit cannot enter a triangle, this is a specific note in the Ars Goetia that distinguishes Berith from most other spirits. He arrives as a soldier in red, crowned, on a red horse. The magician commands him to answer truthfully. If the spirit lies, the magician presses the ring or wand against the boundary of the circle. Berith shudders but does not disobey.
The two practices share nothing except the name. Baal Berith required communal worship and blood sacrifice. Berith requires a solitary operator, a ring, and a triangle drawn on the floor.
Comparisons: The Closest Adjacent Spirits
The reader who knows the Ars Goetia has already noticed the possible confusion with Bael (the first spirit, a king who appears in three forms) and Beleth (the thirty-seventh spirit, a terrible king who rides a pale horse). These names are phonetically close to Berith but entirely different in rank and function. Bael rules eighty legions. Beleth must be greeted with a silver ring. Berith commands twenty-six.
The semantic neighbor is Baal, not Baal Berith, but the generic Canaanite word for “lord” (the singular of Baalim). The biblical Baal of Carmel, the Baal of Peor, the Baal of Tyre, each was a distinct local manifestation with a distinct name. Baal Berith was one of these. When later demonologists wrote “Baal Berith” into their lists, they were transcribing a specific Canaanite deity, not a category. The implication is that they knew the Bible better than they knew the grimoire.
Common Misconceptions
“Baal Berith and Berith are the same spirit.” This is the most persistent mistake. The Ars Goetia never calls the twenty-eighth spirit “Baal Berith.” Weyer never calls him that. The conflation begins with Mathers and continues through Crowley’s edition. A practitioner summoning the spirit from the Ars Goetia should call him Berith. A historian discussing Judges should call him Baal Berith. The two entities never shared a ritual.
“Baal Berith is a demon of hell.” In early Jewish and Christian interpretation, all Canaanite deities were demons, this is the position of the Testament of Solomon (1st-3rd century CE), which systematically renames pagan gods as demons bound to serve Solomon. But in the biblical text itself, Baal Berith is a god of a rival nation, not a fallen angel. The demonization happens later, in the church fathers and medieval grimoires.
“Berith is a liar.” The Ars Goetia states explicitly that Berith “speaks truth” of things past, present, and future. Some later commentators added that the spirit sometimes deceives, but this reflects a general suspicion of Goetic spirits rather than a specific observation about Berith.
“Berith’s metal transmutation is literal gold.” The grimoire says he “turneth all metals into gold”, but in the context of Renaissance alchemy, this phrase could mean transmuting the spiritual substance of a metal (its tincture) rather than physical gold. Practitioners understood the distinction. Modern readers often miss it.
FAQ
Can Baal Berith be summoned using Goetic methods? No. Baal Berith is a Canaanite deity with no documented summoning protocol outside biblical narrative. The Goetic spirit Berith is the only one with a grimoire procedure.
Does the Ars Goetia refer to Baal Berith? No. The Ars Goetia lists “Berith” without the prefix “Baal.” The name appears as Berith alone in all early manuscripts, including Sloane MS 3825 and Weyer’s text.
Why did Mathers add “Baal” to Berith’s name? Mathers drew on Reginald Scot’s Discoverie of Witchcraft (1584), which had already conflated the two names. Mathers also worked within a Kabbalistic framework that equated pagan deities with Goetic spirits.
Is Berith the same as Bael or Beleth? No. Bael is the first spirit (a king). Beleth is the thirty-seventh spirit (a king). Berith is the twenty-eighth spirit (a duke). Their names are phonetically similar in English translation but distinct in Latin and Hebrew.
Closing
The confusion between Baal Berith and Berith is not a trivial error. It misleads the historian who reads the Book of Judges through a grimoire lens, and it misleads the practitioner who expects one spirit and finds another. The two share a name but not a covenant. We keep them distinct in our library because a spirit’s name is the first thing the magician says aloud, and precision in language is precision in ritual. For deeper study, read our guide to Goetic spirits and their origins and the article on common errors in Solomonic ritual. If the distinction between divine names and demonic names interests you, the glossary entry for theologia etymologica traces the history.