Two beautiful angels sit in a chariot of fire and speak with a comely voice. Belial grants offices, favour and familiars, but gifts alone cannot keep this king truthful; the notice requires continuing divine constraint. [1]
The Goetia says Belial was created next after Lucifer. He appears as two beautiful angels in a fiery chariot and speaks with a comely voice, declaring that he fell first from the worthier sort who stood before Michael and other heavenly angels. [1]
Offices, gifts and unstable truth
Belial distributes presentations and senatorships, obtains favour from friends and foes, and gives excellent familiars. Presentation has an ecclesiastical sense of naming a cleric to a benefice; senatorship means a senator’s office. [1][4][5]
Offerings, sacrifices and gifts must be presented or he will not give true answers. Even after that, he does not remain an hour in truth unless constrained by divine power. [1]
Eighty and the editorial totals
The main text gives Belial eighty legions. The translator suggests thirty as a possible correction; Crowley says the actual number was fifty, at least in 1898. Scot’s main text also gives eighty, but his chariot carries one beautiful angel rather than two. [1][2]
The image in Babylon
Scot places the brass-vessel narrative within Beliall’s long entry and names Bileth, Beliall and Asmoday as its chiefs. The Goetia moves the story after the catalogue and names Belial, Bileth, Asmoday and Gaap. When the Babylonians break the vessel hoping for treasure, the released spirits return to their former places except Belial, who enters an image and answers those who offer sacrifices and worship it. [3][2]
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translated; Aleister Crowley, edited, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first-edition facsimile supplied by Keep Silence. Shemhamphorash, entry 68 and legion notes; printed pp. 29–30, PDF pp. 26–27
Reginald Scot (1584); Brinsley Nicholson’s reprint of the first edition (1886), Project Gutenberg transcription. Book XV, chapter II, Beliall; 1886 reprint pp. 318–319.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translated; Aleister Crowley, edited, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first-edition facsimile supplied by Keep Silence. Paragraph immediately following entry 72; facsimile PDF page 28, printed page 31
