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The Brass VesselThe Book of Solomon
Solomon’s name travelled with books, languages and figures. Later manuscripts and printed editions preserved different accounts of his teaching, while translators and editors worked through uncertain names, words and drawings. [2][4][7]
Greater and Lesser Keys · attribution, variants and editorial transmission
The Greater Key’s Preliminary Discourse sends the teaching from Hebrew into Latin through Rabbi Abognazar, who carries it to Arles in Provence. It then places the translation in the hands of the archbishop of Arles, who renders it into the vernacular. Mathers prints that account and suggests in a footnote that Abognazar may be a corruption of Aben Ezra. [3]
The Lemegeton introduction gives another route: books found in Chaldee and Hebrew at Jerusalem, translated by a Jewish rabbi into Greek and then into Latin. It also identifies a work called the Book Helisol with the final art of prayers and notes. These are the transmission stories printed with the respective works, each naming its own languages and intermediaries. [7]
For his 1889 Greater Key, Mathers collated seven manuscripts in Latin, French and Italian. He describes Additional MS 10862 as concise and difficult to read, with badly drawn pentacles; the French manuscripts have fuller conjurations, and several use coloured inks. Lansdowne MS 1203 presents its material in one book without the chapter divisions of his English edition. [5]
Mathers corrected Hebrew names and magical characters by comparing those manuscripts. He credits Wynn Westcott with help reconstructing the pentacles’ Hebrew and states that his Psalm references use English numbering. The printed Key brings these editorial decisions into its diagrams and explanatory notes. [5]
The 1904 Goetia also records choices between readings. Focalor’s body text gives thirty legions, while its note reports three in several manuscripts and prefers thirty. Foras’s notice gives invisibility, but the translator records invincibility in one or two copies. A single printed page can therefore preserve both the chosen reading and alternatives that the editor did not adopt. [6]
Reginald Scot’s The Discoverie of Witchcraft, published in 1584, already includes many of the spirits in an inventory challenging the claims of conjurors. The first chapter of Book XV calls their art counterfeit; the next records their names, shapes, offices and legions. Scot places the vessel episode within his longer Beliall notice. [8]
That notice names Bileth, Beliall and Asmoday and describes more than a thousand thousand legions confined with seventy-two kings. It rejects a report that Solomon worshipped Beliall’s image, preferring pride and arrogance as the reason for imprisonment. The Babylonians then open the vessel hoping for treasure, the spirits fly out, and Beliall answers from an image. The 1904 conclusion names Gaap as a fourth chief and gives pride directly as the reason for the binding. [8][1]
Scot places the vessel story in a book that challenges the authority of conjurors. The 1904 Goetia places it after the seventy-two notices, then continues with observations, classified ranks and illustrated apparatus. The same release from captivity survives in both works, surrounded by different forms of argument and instruction. [8][1][6]
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translated; Aleister Crowley, edited, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first-edition facsimile. Paragraph immediately following entry 72; printed page 31, facsimile PDF page 28. Pride, four chiefs, Babylon, release and Belial’s image.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, The Key of Solomon the King (1889), manuscript introductions attributed to British Library Additional MS 10862 and Lansdowne MS 1203. Printed pages 2–4; facsimile PDF pages 9–11. Revelation, address to Roboam, burial and rediscovery of the ivory casket.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, The Key of Solomon the King (1889), manuscript introductions attributed to British Library Additional MS 10862 and Lansdowne MS 1203. Printed page 1; facsimile PDF page 8. Angelic teaching, testament for Roboam, bark and copper plates, attributed translation and Arles transmission narrative.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, The Key of Solomon the King (1889), manuscript introductions attributed to British Library Additional MS 10862 and Lansdowne MS 1203. Printed pages 5–6; facsimile PDF pages 12–13. Star and thunder revelation, celestial and terrestrial creatures, testament and ethical conditions.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, The Key of Solomon the King (1889). Preface: manuscripts, variant names, Hebrew corrections, selection of readings and drawings. Facsimile PDF pages 5–7.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translated; Aleister Crowley, edited, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first-edition facsimile. Foras notice 31, printed p. 20/PDF 17, and Focalor 41, p. 23/PDF 20, including translator’s notes; catalogue conclusion, Observations/list and apparatus pp. 31–37/PDF 28–34.
S. L. MacGregor Mathers, translated; Aleister Crowley, edited, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King (1904), first-edition facsimile. Brief Introductory Description in parallel manuscript versions; facsimile PDF pages 5–8. Four/five-part outlines and Michael’s notes at the Temple.
Reginald Scot (1584); Brinsley Nicholson’s reprint of the first edition (1886), Project Gutenberg transcription. Book XV, chapters I–II; Nicholson’s 1886 reprint, pp. 313–314 and 318–319; original 1584 pagination, pp. 376–377 and 382–383. Chapter I’s account of conjurors and the complete Beliall vessel passage.