Listen to this study
Authorship, date, and setting
The narrative speaks in the first person as though Solomon described the building of the Temple, but its attribution to the king is literary. The Greek work gathers traditions about demons, angels, and power ascribed to the divine name. Its date of compilation is disputed: Conybeare argued for an early Jewish core with Christian additions; McCown proposed an early third-century CE compilation using earlier Jewish material. Neither proposal makes the work a document written by the biblical Solomon.
Structure of the text in this edition
This collection presents the Testament in one chapter with 130 passages, following the sequence of Conybeare's translation. First, Ornias afflicts a worker and Solomon receives a ring. Next, successive interrogations identify spirits and subject them to tasks connected with the Temple. The story closes with the king's loss of power through idolatry and a warning to readers.
Themes and key passages
The ring granted after prayer introduces Solomon's authority over Ornias. His questions to spirits seek their names, the harms attributed to them, and the angels able to restrain them; these are claims made by the ancient narrative, not medical descriptions. In this story the Temple's construction depends on forced demonic labor. The ending shifts attention from power to its loss: the ruler who controlled spirits is portrayed as vulnerable to his own desire.
Summary by parts
At the start of the single chapter, a young worker loses food and strength because of Ornias. Solomon prays, receives a ring from Michael, and uses it to compel the spirit to appear. He then summons Beelzebub and many others, questioning them about their actions and assigning them work. The long series of encounters includes spirits associated with illnesses, stars, and various places. Near the end, the Temple is completed, but Solomon accepts a demand to worship other gods in order to obtain a woman. Glory and authority depart from him; he therefore writes his testament as a warning.
Reception and manuscripts
The work belongs to pseudepigraphic literature, outside the usual Jewish and Christian biblical canons. Crawford Howell Toy recorded Fleck's nineteenth-century publication of the Greek text and noted signs of scribal alteration. The form read here should not be confused with canonical books ascribed to Solomon; its historical value lies in documenting later traditions about the king and spirits.
Sources
- F. C. Conybeare, The Testament of Solomon (1898).
- Crawford Howell Toy, Solomon, Testament of (1906).
- James H. Charlesworth, The Pseudepigrapha and Modern Research, excerto em Early Jewish Writings (s.d.).