Two books share a name. One is a Greek manuscript from the early centuries of the Common Era, a story about a king who talks to demons. The other is a 17th-century English grimoire, a manual of practical magic. Both claim Solomon as their author. Neither was written by him.
The Testament of Solomon is a narrative text about binding demons, while the Lesser Key of Solomon is a working manual for summoning and commanding them. The difference is the difference between a biography and a toolbox.
What Are These Two Texts, Exactly?
The Testament of Solomon is a pseudepigraphical Greek text, likely composed between the 1st and 5th centuries CE. It survives in multiple manuscript versions, the oldest of which dates to the 15th century, though the underlying material is far older. It tells the story of Solomon discovering that a demon is stealing his workers’ supplies, then using a magical ring to summon and interrogate the demons one by one, forcing each to reveal its name, its power, and the angel that can thwart it.
The Lesser Key of Solomon, also called the Lemegeton, is a 17th-century English grimoire. It compiles material from earlier sources, including the Ars Goetia, the Ars Theurgia Goetia, the Ars Paulina, the Ars Almadel, and the Ars Notoria. The most famous section, the Ars Goetia, lists 72 demons with their seals, ranks, and powers, and gives instructions for summoning them into a triangle of art.
The Testament is a story with magic in it. The Lesser Key is a set of instructions for doing magic. That distinction shapes everything else about how they read, how they were used, and what they mean.
Where Did Each Text Come From?
The Testament of Solomon emerged from a world where Jewish angelology met Greek magic. Its earliest layers may date to the 1st century CE, though scholars like Peter T. Stuckenbruck and Todd Klutz place the final composition later, around the 3rd to 5th centuries. The text shows clear Christian editing: the demons frequently mention Christ, and the angel Michael appears to give Solomon the famous ring.
The ring itself is the centerpiece. It is a seal ring inscribed with a pentagram, given by Michael, capable of forcing any demon to speak truth. This is the same ring that appears in later Islamic and Jewish folklore, where Solomon uses it to control the jinn. The Testament is the earliest surviving source for that legend.
The Lesser Key of Solomon has a different genealogy. Its earliest known manuscript dates to the 17th century, with the most famous copy, Harley MS 6483, held at the British Library. The text draws heavily on earlier works: the Ars Goetia borrows from Johann Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum (1563), which itself summarized material from earlier grimoires. The Ars Almadel and Ars Paulina have roots in medieval angel magic, including the works of Honorius of Thebes.
The two texts were not written in conversation with each other. The Testament is a product of Late Antiquity, shaped by the religious anxieties of its time. The Lesser Key is a product of the Renaissance and early modern period, shaped by the era’s obsession with classification and system. One is theology with a plot. The other is a catalog with a procedure.
How Does Each Text Treat Demons?
The Testament treats demons as individual personalities with specific weaknesses. Each demon Solomon summons has a name, a physical description, a domain of mischief, and an angel who can defeat it. The demon Ornias, for example, appears as a boy who steals wages and sucks blood from thumbs. The demon Asmodeus, who appears later, is violent and lustful, and admits that the angel Raphael defeats him.
The demons in the Testament are not abstract forces. They are characters with histories, appetites, and grudges. The text reads like a series of interviews, each demon compelled to confess its methods and its counter-spell. This is why the Testament has been called a “demonological catechism”: it teaches the reader how demons operate and how to defend against them.
The Lesser Key treats demons as resources. Each of the 72 spirits in the Ars Goetia has a rank (king, duke, earl, marquis, president), a number of legions under its command, a seal to be drawn, and a specific power: finding treasure, causing love, revealing the past, teaching arts and sciences. The demon Bael, the first king, appears as a cat, a toad, or a man, and commands 66 legions. The demon Paimon, the ninth spirit, appears with a crown and a camel, and answers questions about hidden things.
The difference is in the relationship. The Testament’s Solomon binds demons to prevent harm. The Lesser Key’s operator summons demons to obtain results. The first is defensive magic, the second is transactional magic. The first treats demons as enemies to be interrogated, the second treats them as employees to be managed.
What Role Does the Operator Play?
In the Testament, Solomon is the only operator. He does not perform rituals or draw circles. He wears the ring given by Michael, and the ring does the work. The text never explains how to make such a ring, because it is not a manual. It is a demonstration of divine favor: Solomon has been chosen, and the ring is the proof.
In the Lesser Key, the operator is anyone with the patience to follow instructions. The grimoire specifies the materials, the timing, the gestures, and the words. The operator must draw a circle, inscribe the names of God, burn specific incense, and recite specific prayers. The demon is summoned into a triangle outside the circle, and the operator must remain within the protective boundary. The text even warns against showing fear, because a frightened operator invites attack.
This is the practical difference between the two books. The Testament is read. The Lesser Key is used. One is a text to be studied for its theology and its stories. The other is a text to be opened at midnight, with a candle and a compass.
How Were These Texts Actually Used?
The Testament circulated among early Christian communities as an edifying story. It warned against the dangers of idolatry and sexual temptation, using Solomon’s own fall as the moral: the text ends with Solomon marrying foreign women and sacrificing to their gods, which leads him to lose the ring and his power. The demons scatter, and Solomon is left to write the Testament as a warning.
The Lesser Key circulated among practitioners of ceremonial magic. It was copied by hand, passed between collectors, and eventually printed in the 19th century. The most influential edition was published by Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers in 1904, under the title The Goetia: The Lesser Key of Solomon the King. Mathers, a founder of the Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn, edited the text and added the famous “Preliminary Invocation” attributed to Aleister Crowley.
Crowley himself claimed to have performed the Goetic operations described in the text, and his account of summoning the demon Buer appears in his Confessions. Whether he actually did so is debated, but the claim shaped how the Lesser Key was received in the 20th century: as a working text, not a historical curiosity.
The Testament has no such modern lineage. It was rediscovered by scholars in the 19th century, translated into English by F.C. Conybeare in 1898, and studied as an artifact of early Jewish-Christian syncretism. It has never been a practical manual. It has never been used to summon anything. It is a text to be understood, not performed.
What Do the Two Texts Share?
Both texts assume that demons have names, and that knowing a name grants power over the demon. This is an ancient assumption, present in Egyptian and Babylonian magic, and it persists in both the Testament and the Lesser Key. The Testament’s Solomon extracts names through interrogation. The Lesser Key’s operator learns names from a list.
Both texts also assume that divine authority is necessary for demonic control. The Testament’s ring comes from Michael. The Lesser Key’s rituals invoke the names of God, the angels, and the saints. Neither text suggests that a human can command demons on human authority alone. The power always comes from above.
Both texts also share a structure of catalog and classification. The Testament lists demons with their attributes. The Lesser Key lists demons with their attributes. The difference is that the Testament’s list is embedded in a narrative, while the Lesser Key’s list is the entire point.
What Do People Get Wrong About These Texts?
The most common error is treating the Testament as a grimoire. It is not. It contains no instructions for summoning, no circles, no incantations, no timing requirements. It is a story about Solomon’s magical power, not a manual for acquiring it. Reading it for practical instruction is like reading the Book of Exodus for instructions on parting the Red Sea.
The second error is treating the Lesser Key as a single, unified text. The Lemegeton is a compilation of five distinct works, each with its own history and purpose. The Ars Goetia is the most famous, but the Ars Almadel is a system of angelic magic with no demonic content at all. The Ars Notoria is a set of prayers for acquiring knowledge, closer to Christian mysticism than to demonology. The Lesser Key is a library, not a book.
The third error is assuming that the 72 demons of the Goetia are original to the Lesser Key. They are not. Most of them appear in Weyer’s Pseudomonarchia Daemonum, published in 1563, and some can be traced to earlier sources. The Lesser Key is a compilation, not a revelation. Its authority comes from its sources, not from any claim of direct transmission from Solomon.
A fourth error is the assumption that the Testament and the Lesser Key belong to the same tradition. They do not. The Testament is a product of Jewish and Christian apocalypticism, written in Greek, concerned with the problem of evil and the power of divine names. The Lesser Key is a product of Renaissance occultism, written in Latin and English, concerned with the practical manipulation of spirits. They share a name and a legend, but not a lineage.
FAQ
Is the Testament of Solomon in the Bible? No. It is a pseudepigraphical text, meaning it claims Solomonic authorship but was never included in any biblical canon. It survives in Greek manuscripts and was likely known to early Christian writers, but it was never scripture.
Can you actually summon demons using the Lesser Key of Solomon? The text claims you can, but it is a historical document, not a guarantee. Practitioners in the 19th and 20th centuries, including Aleister Crowley, reported results, but those reports are subjective. We treat it as a text to be studied, not a procedure to be tested.
Are the 72 demons of the Goetia real? They are real in the sense that they appear in historical texts and have been invoked by practitioners for centuries. Whether they are independent beings, psychological constructs, or something else is a question of belief, not of documentation.
Which text should I read first? The Testament of Solomon is shorter, more accessible, and gives you the mythological context. The Lesser Key is longer, more technical, and assumes you already understand the framework. Start with the Testament, then move to the Lesser Key if you want the practical material.
The two Solomonic texts are often shelved together, but they answer different questions. The Testament asks what demons are. The Lesser Key asks how to use them. One is a mirror held up to the ancient world’s fears. The other is a key cut for a lock that may or may not exist.
For more on the broader tradition of Solomonic and angelic magic, see our guide to sacred texts. You may also want to explore the glossary of demonological terms to track the names and ranks that appear across both works. And if you are ready to go deeper into the practical tradition, our guide to the Ars Goetia covers the 72 spirits in detail.