Book of Ceremonial Magic: Chapter III: Composite Rituals: Section 1: The Key of Solomon the King

CHAPTER III

Composite Rituals

§ 1. The Key of Solomon the King.

BY far the most important class of Magical Rituals is that which incorporates elements both of Black and White procedure-so called. For convenience of treatment these are here termed composite. At the head of all, and, within certain limits, the inspiration and the source of all, stands the Key of Solomon, with its complement, in many respects more important than itself, the Lemegeton, or Lesser Key, sometimes attributed to Solomon Rabbi; the Rabbi and the monarch are, however, one and the same-at least in respect of their office, which is the pseudonymous production of impostures. The other Rituals which will be treated in this class are the so-called Fourth Book of Cornelius Agrippa and the Magical Elements ascribed to Peter of Abano. The occult student--who is commonly led by fools, when not by impostors--has been taught to regard these works as dealing exclusively with White Magic, and it is part of the present design to indicate for the first time the mixed character of their proceedings, even on the surface thereof. The innumerable Rituals of Magic which remain in MS. and are never likely to be printed, belong also, with few exceptions, to the composite class, but, setting the Lemegeton aside, to which every prominence should be given, they have had little influence, and being, therefore, of no moment to the

1 which is still in print, though the work of an uncritical hand, must be held to remove the necessity for entering into a detailed account of the Contents of that curious work. So far as it has been incorporated by the later makers of Grimoires, it will be found, with its Goëtic variations, in the Second Part. We have here only to consider the question of its antiquity and to establish its true character.

The Key of Solomon proper is familiar to scholars in Latin, French, Italian and one or two German MSS. The oldest codex used by the English editor is in contracted Latin, and belongs to the sixteenth century. It is preserved in the British Museum. It is possible that older MSS. may exist in Continental libraries, but those of the Bibliothèque Nationale and of the Arsénal at Paris are of later date. 2 The majority of known MSS. are in the French language. It is, however, claimed that the work was written originally in Hebrew. In this claim there is nothing essentially improbable, but it has the disadvantage of being championed by the last class of persons who hold titles for the expression of an opinion. Assuming that it is well founded, it is not unlikely that the original may

1

1 If it were first written in Latin, it is, at any rate, permeated with late Jewish ideas, and the corrupt state of the Hebrew in the conjurations and talismans--which is much the same, and that as bad as it can be, in all existing copies--could scarcely have been attained in less than two centuries of careless and ignorant transcription. We may therefore fix the date of its manufacture, or otherwise of its translation, about the period which has been mentioned.

The attribution of the work to Solomon is obvious enough; it could not fail to have suggested itself to a compiler with Kabalistic leanings and with a knowledge of Jewish tradition from the days of the Talmud onward. Further, it is quite

Footnotes

59:1 "The Key of Solomon the King (Clavicula Salomonis), now first translated. and edited from ancient MSS. in the British Museum." By S. Liddell Macgregor Mathers. With plates. George Redway. 1889. It has been reprinted of recent years.

59:2 As regards the Arsénal, they are all of the eighteenth century. Les Clavicules de Rabbi Salomon, 2346 (72 S.A.F.), claims to be literally translated from the Hebrew text into French. 2348 (75 S.A.F.) is entitled Livre de la Clavicule de Salomon, Roy des Hébreux; it is said to have been translated from the Hebrew into Italian by Abraham Colorno, and thence into French. 2349 (77 S.A.F.) reads, Les Vraies Clavicules du Roy Salomon, traduitte (sic) de l'Hébreux par Armadel. 2350 (78 S.A.F.) is entitled Le Secret des Secrets, autrement La Clavicule de Salomon, ou le véritable Grimoire. Finally, there is the Livre Second de la Clavicule de Salomon, 2791 (76 S.A.F.).

60:1 Christian's reference is, however, a mere travesty of some information found in the Nouveaux Mémoires d'Histoire, do Critique, et de Littérature, par M. l'Abbé d'Artigny, 7 vols., Paris, 1749-1756. The fourth article in the first volume is entitled, "Concerning some pretended Books of Magic, with an Extract from the Clavicles of Solomon." It enumerates three works which, under this title, were current at the time in the French language, and a fourth in Latin, Clavicula Salomonis ad Filium Roboam. A Liber Pentaculorum is also mentioned in a way which leaves it to he inferred that it is the Key of Solomon under another title, but it Liber Pentaculorum) is the same as the treatise De Necromantia ad Filium Roboam, which Father Gretser, a learned German Jesuit, had seen written in Greek in the library of the Duke of Bavaria." The collected works of Gretser are in seventeen folio Volumes, and there are limits to research. It may be affirmed, however, that the Catalogus Codicum Manuscriptorum Bibliothecæ Regiæ Bavariæ, auctore Ignatio Hardt, ejusdem bibliothecæ supræfecto, 5 vols., Monarchii, 1806, does not mention such a work. The reference to the printed edition of the Clavicle occurs at pp. 36, 37 of D'Artigny's article, and describes it as consisting of 125 pp. in quarto, without name of place or printer. The frontispiece (? title) reads "Clavicle of Solomon," with a cross within a circle beneath, and below this symbol is the date 1655. The whole work is divided into twelve paragraphs, of which D'Artigny transcribes part of No. 9, an Exorcism of the Spirits of the Air, which most certainly does not occur in any known edition of the Grand Clavicle, and is apparently adapted from the Lemegeton.

61:1 A bibliography of Papus appended to his Methodical Summary of the Kabalah enumerates forty-seven separate Kabalistic treatises which appeared in Hebrew between the middle of the thirteenth and the close of the sixteenth century. These are only the most noted, and extra Kabalistic literature was far larger. I mention this source of reference for the benefit of the occult student, as it may be ready to his hand. The Magna Bibliotheca Rabbinica of Bartolocci, forming--with its supplement by another hand--five volumes in folio, is the great and monumental catalogue of literature in Jewry.