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Who was Solomon? How a King of Israel became the Master of Demons — Transcript · YTtoTranscript

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Who was Solomon? How a King of Israel became the Master of Demons

ESOTERICA · 4,977 words · 25 min read · EN

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Below is the complete, readable transcript of Who was Solomon? How a King of Israel became the Master of Demons by ESOTERICA on YouTube. Read the full text, copy any part you need, or generate a transcript for any video with our free tool.

The imagery is at first sight rather shocking. Solomon, the third king of Israel, surrounded by misshapen demons in his bid to build nothing less than the temple for the Israelite God. This legend of Solomon and his esoteric powers over demons has inspired art, religion, and the occult practice for centuries, millennia even. But how did

Solomon come to be associated with the arcane? How did Solomon become the occult king? From his origins in the narrative of the Hebrew Bible to the early modern grimmooire, such as the lesser key of Solomon, this is the first of a couple of episodes in a series exploring these more arcane dimensions of that great third Israelite king

Solomon. Make sure to subscribe here for weekly explorations of topics and the history of esotericism. And if you'd like to support the work of providing evidencebacked, free and accessible content like this, I hope you consider checking out my Patreon and some of the cool merch that we have on the channel. If you're new to the study of

esotericism and you want to get the lay of the land, I'd recommend checking out my study guide, which will orient you to this topic with reliable sources. And if you're interested in actual historical books on topics of the occult and the mystical, check out my bookstore over at esoterica rare books. You can find all

those links down in the description and in the pinned comment. But now, let's turn to the esoteric history of King Solomon. I'm Dr. Justin Sledge and welcome to Esoterica, where we explore the arcane and history, philosophy, and religion. [Music] Byakabus Dearamo's consolatio Ptorum also simply known as the book of Belio was as Popular as it was controversial,

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even forbidden at times, it describes a lawsuit launched by Satan against Jesus Christ for his illegal trespass into hell itself. Representing the forces of the devil is Beiel and presiding over the trial is of course none less than Solomon. First printed in 1473, the text went into numerous additions and translations and was made infamous for

its lurid woodcut depictions of various demons testifying before Solomon. Of course, by the first generation of printing, Solomon was already very well known as both a judge, but also someone with a profound familiarity, maybe someone with a bit too much familiarity with demons and diabolical magic. Handbooks of black magic had circulated in his name for centuries,

and the widespread of texts like the consolatio Ptorum only cemented Solomon as the arcane king. of the esoteric. Solomon first appears in myth history as the third king of the ancient kingdom of Israel. Following a relatively games of throneszy succession narrative, the second child of King David rises to the throne, solidifies his political

situation by marrying a daughter of the Egyptian pharaoh and makes his first direct contact with the Israelite God. At Gibian, Solomon makes sacrifices and underos a process of ritual incubation. That is to say, sleeping in a holy area such as a shrine or a temple in order to contact the divine through a dream. And

in that very dream, Solomon admits that he actually lacks the knowledge of going out and coming in. This is perhaps uh his admission of his lack of knowledge around political or military accumment. And he requests of his God Yahweh a listening heart able to distinguish good from evil such that he can justly rule

over Israel. For such a request Yahweh grants Solomon just that, a wise and discerning mind along with promises of both riches and glory and a long life if and only if he walks in the ways of Yahweh. Thus, very early in the narrative, we find Solomon being granted his famous wisdom through apparently

supernatural means in this dream vision with Yahweh. That wisdom, of course, is immediately put on display with the dispute over the two women and the baby, such that we learn that Solomon possesses Elohim, divine wisdom. Now the nature of that Elohim would prove to be the foundation of the Solomon legends more generally. From there the text puts

Solomon's accumin for political administration on display at length followed by the power of his divine wisdom said to outmatch other nations namely the Egyptians known in antiquity for their esoteric knowledge along with several named wise men whose nature are now obscure to us. Specifically, however, we're told of his profuse generation of proverbs and songs along

with knowledge of trees from the cedars of Lebanon to the hissup that grows out of the wall. Basically, all of trees and also how he discourse on beasts and birds and creeping things rendered reptiles and the Greek and of course fishes. The focus on various creatures at this point seems to be symbolic of

his knowledge of all of nature. Elements of plants along with the creatures of the air, sea, and those beneath the earth or even the elements of the cosmos, air, fire, water, and earth. Indeed, his knowledge and kingship are said to be worldrenowned, thus making him into a kind of world king. The power

of his kingship would reach its zenith with the construction of the house of Yahweh in Jerusalem. Though while the construction of the temple with demonic aid becomes a hugely important popular legend much later on, there's actually no such tale to be found in the Hebrew Bible itself. Though like the construction of the house of Yahweh,

almost every other element of Solomon's life and rule have just become gristed for the mill of legends upon legends. I mean, they're just a cottage industry in history of Solomon fanfic. From the trying questions of the Queen of Sheba to Solomon's partnership with Hyram of the King of Ty to his magnificent tiered

throne, Solomon has more than any other Israelite king truly become the subject of massive amounts of wonderful legend and lore. But just as Solomon's reign began with a dream vision of Yahweh, it would in a significant sense come to an end with just such a vision. With the construction of the house of Yahweh

completed, Solomon would again meet his God in a dream vision. And here the Deuteronomist editor has clearly inserted their very own covenantal theology. Thus, Solomon's wealth and power mean basically nothing given that his foreign wives and concubines have led him to worship foreign gods other than Yahweh. and thus his downfall and the division of the Israelite monarchy

ought to be laid at the feet of his own apostasy and idolatry. The chronicler, for what it's worth, is much more interested in dividic propaganda, focusing much more on Solomon the builder than his purported wisdom and even attributing some of that building to David in a sense. Though the whitewashing campaign of the chronicler

applies as much as it does to Solomon as to David whose less savory elements, you know, that time he got that guy killed. Those are all conspicuously absent in the chronicler. Hence, we can perhaps detect at least three editorial layers of the early Solomonic myth history. Perhaps an early semihistorical layer of Solomon as a wise ancient near

east ruler, very similar, by the way, to other royal accounts of the time. the theological interpretation of the Deuteronomist into the narrative and finally the revision of all of it by the chronicler. There are five other texts that are also associated with Solomon in the Hebrew Bible. There are two psalms Psalm 72 and Psalm 127 along with the

book of Mish, Proverbs, Sherim, the Song of Songs and Cohellet or Ecclesiastes. Though while these texts are absolutely fascinating, I mean my favorite book of all time, full stop is Cohellet Ecclesiastes. None of these texts really do much to add to the specifically esoteric dimensions of Solomon's legend aside from generally showcasing his

wisdom. Though Song of Songs would of course become a kind of mystical allegory in both Jewish and Christian traditions. So in that way Solomon has at least via his name or the attribution and very much given over something to the mystical tradition. Indeed it's highly unlikely that the historical Solomon could have actually even

composed Song of Songs or Cohellet. They were composed hundreds of years after his purported rule and Proverbs is more of a collection of Israelite and sometimes even Egyptian sayings. Though I will say that Psalm 72 does have some solommonic themes when compared to the book of Kings. Of course, an outstanding question is to what degree any of this

data is reliable as history. The Teldoni provides us some evidence of a house of David which likely indicates that David was an actual historical figure and the presence of the sixchambered gates at Katsur, Megiddo and Gazer may be evidence of some degree of early Israelite central planning and have been dubbed Solommonic gate complexes by some

biblical archaeologists. But this issue is by no means a settled one. To be sure, no ancient inscriptions have come to light mentioning Solomon, an especially conspicuous lack of evidence given how internationally powerful he's presented in the book of Kings. Indeed, the archaeology points to the Jerusalem of the 10th century B.C.E. only boasting of a population of several

hundred to maybe a thousand residents, thus making the kingdom of David and Solomon much more like the garrison of a local warlord. And if you've ever read the stories of Saul and David, local warlords, they were. Thus, while many scholars think that Solomon was a historical personage, his depiction in kings is much more exaggerated as myth

than much in the way of solid historical data, to be sure. But a total lack of historical data won't get in the way of just making up some wild stories about demons. In fact, it might even help. To be sure, the Hebrew Bible presents us with a complicated image of Solomon. On the one hand, he is the archetypal,

just, and wise king chosen by Yahweh in a dream vision to construct the central divine shrine in Jerusalem. But on the other hand, he is seen as a man led astray to foreign worship and worldws

and desires of the flesh. The king that in the end having betrayed the god that empowered him's rise dies surrounded by his enemies his kingdom rent aunder by his sins. Thus in a sense he's kind of an Israelite fast or kasanova combined. And it's probably precisely that combination of his access to supernatural wisdom combined with his

moral ambiguity, to put it easy, that prime Solomon as a kind of occult king. His wisdom, power, and desire push him into theological transgression, damning him, and thus providing a virtually inexhaustible literary theme upon which to build further and further mythology. This dual image of Solomon would be further and dramatically transformed during the process of Hellenization.

Starting in the 3rd century B.C.E., the Hebrew Bible along with adjacent Jewish literature were both being translated and composed in Greek. Judeans making up a sizable part of the population of the new city of Alexandria over in Egypt. Of course, translation, especially from languages as different from each other as Hebrew and Greek, is always going to

include a heavy amount of interpretation. And the translation of the narratives about Solomon will prove to slightly transform our picture of Solomon as a king. Specifically, Solomon's kingship is translated from that of an ancient near east king marked by riches, wisdom, and glory to a more helenized king marked by practical reason and the classical Greek virtues

of prudence, justice, temperance, and courage. This is especially clear in the translation of that Hebrew phrase kmat Elohim or divine wisdom as either Sophia or fronicis in the septuagent or as episteimon in other texts as these terms have a significant linguistic veilance. Sophia can refer to a wide range of literary and poetic skills knowledge of

nature and divine matters to specific philosophical wisdom. Finesis on the other hand most often has the sense of practical knowledge in politics and otherwise while epistem often has a more technical or sometimes even theoretical sense depending on how it's coming from people like Aristotle. Further, the sections of first kings 5 when rendered

into Greek expand upon the sense of proverbs and songs in the Hebrew to a different semantic range in Greek parabolas and odai which also carry astrological and magical veillances in Greek that don't really occur in the original Hebrew and while the translation of the wisdom of ben and the history of Jewish kings bayupolamus

primarily transferred the kingly character from the Israelite to hellenistic millu with little interpolation, it would really be the Jewish Roman historian, Josephus, that would most popularize the important esoteric element of King Solomon to the world more generally, his power over demons. In that process of helanization, Solomon would be given the kind of

numinous power provided to rulers of that period. That is to say, emperors and kings and pharaohs, etc., were all understood to have powers above and beyond those of mere mortal political rulership. They were considered to be either godlike, have godlike powers, or just in some sense to be gods. Thus, when hellenistic writers like Josephus

were describing their own historical kings to a Greco Roman audiences, they followed fashion, giving Solomon and Israelite other kings similar kinds of powers. Further, Jewish apocalypticism was in full flourish during this time period as both a literary and religious movement. This apocalyptic mode of Judaism, unlike previous Israelite beliefs, greatly focused on the roles of

angelic and demonic entities in world affairs and in just common life more generally. In further possession by demons and treatment by exorcism, long part of the medical theories of the ancient near east world more broadly, also became a staple feature of Judeian religious life. This is most clearly evidenced in several Hebrew and Aramaic

exorcistic texts recovered from the Dead Sea Scrolls. Now, I've done a whole episode on just exorcistic literature from the Dead Sea Scrolls. If you want to check that out for a deeper dive, you find links below. But in summary, David becomes a kind of protottypical exorcist given his ability to treat King Saul's

bounce of madness via song. Solomon as the son of David, the bin Davided would inherit this ability and that phrase bin Davided, son of David would eventually develop both exorcistic and messianic veances in Hebrew. This combination is on very strong display in texts like the gospels where the character of Jesus embodies both veillances. However, our

earliest literary evidence for Solomon as an exorcist is as I mentioned from the Dead Sea Scrolls with a text like 11 Q apocryphal psalms being a great example. This relatively rare and sadly fragmentaryary scroll is composed of four psalms, one of which is a canonical psalm, Psalm 91, which were all used apparently in the process of exorcism.

The core of the ritual was interrogating the demonically possessed person with the phrase miata, who are you speaking in this case to the demon to gain power and control over said demon so as to cast them out or subject them to further punishment. This was accomplished by both using the divine name Yode Fe in a

ritually powerful way and/or basically threatening the demon with all manner of punishments unless they reveal their true name and basically relinquish power over the possessed person. This structure of using the divine name, the miata who are you formulation along with various supernatural feats becomes the core of not only western exorcism but also of solommonic magical practice more

generally. Indeed, the bridge to that practice is the Testament of Solomon, the earliest known text in which Solomon is described as using a kind of magical ring to bind and control demons, specifically in the service of the construction of the Jerusalem temple. Of course, the ability to control demons is a logical extension of exorcism. If one

can obtain control over demons so as to force them to depart from a possessed person, then why not just use them for something useful? you know, like building a temple. Again, I've done a whole episode on the Testament of Solomon. Find those links below if you want to get really into that text. It's

one of the best in history when it comes to, I don't know, Solomonic literature, but just demonological literature more generally. But this firsterson text told as if by Solomon details how he came to gain control over demons in the construction of the temple via a powerful ring. And that wraps us all the

way back to the historian Josephus where we learned that quote God also enabled Solomon to learn that skill which expels demons which is a science useful and sanitative to men. He composed such incantations like the ones we've seen in the Dead Sea Scrolls also by which distempers are alleviated. And he left behind him the manner of using exorcisms

by which they drive away demons so that they never return. And we're even told that a certain exorcist, Eleazar, even performed an exorcism in the presence of Vespatian and his sons and his captains and a whole multitude of soldiers by the use of a magical ring and solommonic incantations. So, Josephus also locates

Solomon in this whole world of exorcism/incantation literature. Further, the miata, who are you, what is your name formula is also just found in the gospels, especially in the case of the demon lame legion, but also in the binding mechanism in the testament of Solomon. Indeed, the core structural unit of the testament of

Solomon is the miata, who are you, what is your name? though here in Greek and not in Hebrew. Although followed by the name of the demon, their description and astrological information, their respective thwarting angel, that is to say, the angel that corresponds to kicking them out and making them doing things, them being bound over to the

power of Solomon or the magus more generally, and their specific service, often very menial, and the construction of the temple. And while most of the testament is merely descriptive, the sea retention of the text begins to move quite more solidly in the direction of using the text for magical practice. A specifically Christian text on the other

hand, the questions of Bartholomew in which the titular character asks Jesus to see Satan or Belio or Beliar. In this point, Jesus then gets a retinue of angels to drag the enchained satanic figure from hell. the sight of which actually kills all the gathered apostles from fright. But of course, Jesus uses his Jesus powers to bring them all back

from the dead. After which he guides Bartholomew to trod upon the neck of Belilar, questioning him saying, "Tell me how you are and what is your name?" After which he does further interrogate the prince of the demons with Jesus noting that such spirits were first subjugated to Solomon. So even here in early Christian literature, the the text

of Bartholomew was incredibly popular. We already have it that Solomon was first able to have power over demons. The notion that Solomon employed a magical ring with a specific seal or sign of power on it also appears during this period in earnest. Of course, magical rings are well attested in antiquity. Perhaps the most famous being

the ring of gaises in Plato's Republic, which had the ability to make its wear invisible and also gave them the ability to do evils that they wouldn't normally do and probably became one of the models, one of the inspirations for Tolken's ring of power. But at least three such magical rings are known to be

found in the Greek magical papyrie. And some early Christian amulets also invoke the power of Solomon's rings as a guard against various demons and fevers as if there's much difference between the two. And this brings us to an interesting tension in the Solomonic tradition, especially visavv Christianity. As I mentioned earlier, the phrase bin

Davided, the son of David, had taken on both exorcistic and messianic overtones just before the turn of the common era. And that by veilance is quite clear in the gospels with the bulk of Jesus's miracles actually being well exorcistic or healing and those were often combined in the ancient world both often serving

to do basically the same thing. Thus in the divorce between Christianity and Judaism Solomon becomes a bit of a complicated character as he is the literal bin Davided and recognized as the exorcist par excellence. In one sense, Jesus is often depicted as a second better Solomon, you know, without all the fun, leerous stuff. But on the

other hand, Solomon's reputation as exorcist and chief wasn't easily passed over, and it certainly wasn't going to be forgotten. And you can even see this tension in some Gnostic texts such as the second treaties of the Great Seth, where both David and Solomon are seen as kind of failed precursors to Christ. Thus, in early Christian amulets, you'll

have both language like Jesus Christ conquers, but also right alongside imagery or even incantations invoking the power of Solomon along with rings and seals associated with him. It just seems redundant to have both. If you have Christ, why need Solomon? That's the tension. And that theological tension continues well into medieval Christian history with more Orthodox

factions arguing that the name of Jesus alone is sufficient for exorcism with any of that Solommonic trapping being either just Judaizing heresy or satanic collusion or well both. Thus, Solomon will come to inhabit a kind of liinal space in the Christian imaginary always associated with not quite orthodox dealing with demonic forces. A tension already apparent in

these early Christian amulets and perhaps even already in the New Testament. Of course, Salman's going to make a few appearances in the vast collection of the Greek magical papyrie, a collection of highly syncretatistic Greco Egyptian magical literature. And these would include everything from inducing a trance state known actually as the Solomonic collapse, mysterious

references to the glances or the eyes of Solomon, various charms against scorpions, and of course an exorcism incantation found in the great Paris magical manual that is PGM4. Along with his emergent association with magic more generally, Hellenization would also see Solomon painted as a kind of hermetic sage. Yeah, Solomon as hermetic sage composed sometime around

the turn of the common era. The wisdom of Solomon's perhaps one of the most early important text of Greco Hebrew Solomonic lore. And in chapter 7 of that book, we're told of the vast nature of Solomon's wisdom, which is said to include knowledge of all existence, of all being, the structure of the

universe, the operation of the elements along with the cycles of the seasons and the years. Further, he knows the positions of the stars, the nature of all living creatures, of all spirits, and of all human beings, along with the powers of various roots and herbs. The knowledge of what is hidden and the

knowledge of what is manifest. The Greek of these sections, if you read them, should ring in the ear as having a distinctive hermetic quality and perhaps seeks to present Solomon as a kind of rival to Hermes Trismagist, the Egyptian sage, or perhaps as a rival to Egyptian wisdom more generally, something that that country was prized for in the

ancient world. Josephus for his part also extends Solomon's knowledge to include the panopoly of received philosophical spiritual and textual wisdom of his day. Solomon becomes a kind of Israelite answer to someone like Hermes Trisus. And as I mentioned earlier, Solomon is invoked in a wide range of amulets both Christian and Jewish in the first few centuries of the

common era. He appears in the famous incantation bowls of Nepor and Babylon, Aramaic incantation scrolls carved into lead and various other elements often designating him as the son of David, the bin Davided and along with his magical ring as all now becoming stable elements of the Solomonic character. Perhaps the most famous class of these Solomonic

amulets of this period are the Solomon, the horseman type amulet. Probably based on Roman coinage of the time, these hematite amulets typically depict Solomon mounted upon a horse spearing a female demon, maybe Lilith in the chest. Many of these spell out Solomon's name and include the phrase or seal of God on the reverse, though no

specific Solomonic seal is depicted. That's going to be centuries later. The iconography of these Jewish amulets would eventually migrate to Christian imagery with Solomon gaining a halo and his spear eventually terminating into a cross. And versions of these amulets would also include various animals, demons, and even the evil eye being attacked and along with various

inscriptions, nominar, and magical signs or cary. These amulets survived in significant numbers and this probably again attest to their popularity. Solomon was just known all through the ancient world for his ability to deal with demons that such amulets survive in such significant numbers attests to their popularity and to the idea of Solomon as having this

power. In the Talmudic legend found in tractim 68aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa, Solomon is faced with a specific conundrum within Jewish law. The altar and by extension the temple itself must be constructed of unhuned stone. That is to say, stone that's not been shaped by iron tools. But how is it possible to construct a huge structure with unworked

stone? Well, the answer, of course, is a magical worm known as the Shamir, which is able to cut stone without the use of iron. But then, how does one get a Shamir? Well, again, this should all just be pretty obvious. You go and capture a demon. You torture them until they confess that the only person who

knows where to get the Shamir is the king of the demons, Asodius. And so you need to go get Asodius drunk, chain him with magical chains, and then drag him back to Jerusalem. There you find out that while Asodius knows the where the Shamir is, he's guarded on a distant mountain by a sacred bird known as a

Difat. There is an Aramaic pun here for those who care. uh who actually ultimately tricks it into letting the Shamir go and then subsequently kills himself in shame for breaking the oath of for protecting the Shamir. Well, the Shamir is eventually brought back to Jerusalem and Solomon and Asodius themselves jointly oversee the

construction of the temple. Eventually, Solomon is tricked by Asodius into removing his chains and then he actually eats Solomon's magical ring and knocks him several hundred miles into the air. As Modius then takes over the throne of Israel and Solomon eventually retakes the throne or maybe he doesn't. There's rebbitical disagreement about whether or

not Asmodius continues to rule or whether Solomon gets it back. There's disagreement because surprise surprise rabbis. Finally, by the 7th century, legends of Solomon's power over demons had reached Arabia with Solomon appearing in the Quran as having power over the wind, over certain animals, especially ants, and being able to compel the jin to aid him in various

construction projects. However, like Jewish and Christian sources of the time, the Quran makes it abundantly clear that Allah had provided such powers to Solomon and that he never himself practiced magic as taught by demons. Of course, such a disclaimer about Solomon also indicates that Solomon practicing magic as taught by demons was at least in some form or

fashion a belief held by enough people that the Quran had to address it. Again, when you say things aren't the case, that typically indicates that people believe that it is. Solomon himself would go on to become a major prophet in in Islam and features prominently in Islamic mythology more generally. Thus, by the late classical and early medieval

period, Solomon had become transformed from the glorious, rich, and wise third king of ancient Israel to a sage with vast supernatural powers often associated with demons. However, with a few exceptions, that wisdom of Solomon was primarily described in the lore. Just described in the lore. That is that Solomon of these early periods very

rarely acts to teach the reader his occult knowledge. But of course many reading of such vast arcane powers would want just those powers for themselves. And as people are want to do the lack of such text becomes an invitation to produce them. And it would become during this period that the first handbooks of

solommonic magic would first appear. Such that for now over 1,500 years, handbooks of solommonic magic have become the core occult tradition of the west. And it's to that literature and to Solomon as magus as magician that we'll turn to next. Claude Lutoau and Pablo Torihano have produced two of the best studies of the esoteric dimensions

of King Solomon and both of their books are well worth reading and diving into. Of course, Dr. Steven Skinner has written extensively on Solomonic magic and is rightly admired by the occult community and his works are well worth digging into. But we're going to come back to Solomon the Magus in a future

episode. Don't worry. Until then, I'm Dr. Justin Sledge and thank you for watching Esoterica, where we explore the arcane and history, philosophy, and religion. [Music]