Lesser-Key-Of-Solomon

XVI
INTRODUCTION
spirits with those found in SepherHa-Razim)8 According to Thomdike.i? the
"The Pauline art," was purported to have been discoveredby the Apostle Paul
after he had been snatched up to the third heaven, and delivered by him at
Corinth. Robert Turner mentions a 16th-century manuscript in the Bibliotheque
Nationale.20 Although this text is based on earlier versions, repeated mention
of the year 1641 and guns, shows a late redaction. The "table ofpractice" has
similaritieswith Dee's "holy table."Inthe former, the seven sealshave the characters
of the seven planets, which also occur in the Magical Calendar (published
in 1620, but with possible connections with Trithernius).21
The descriptions of the seals for each sign of the Zodiac are evidently
abstracted from Parace1sus, The Second Treatise of Celestial Medicines,
(Archidoxes ofMagic) translated by Robert Turner in 1656 (pp. 136 ff.)
ArsAlmadel
In 1608, Trithernius mentioned a long list ofbooks on magic, including the
book Almadel attributed to King Solomon. 22 Ars Almadel is also found in the
Hebrew manuscripts ofthe Key ofSolomon (ed. Gollancz), Sepher Maphteah
Shelomoh (1914, fo1. 20b), and in Oriental MS 6360, a Hebrew manuscript
recently acquired by the British Library.2 3 Johann Weyer seems to associate
the art with an Arab magician of the same name.24 Robert Turner mentions
a 15th-century manuscript in Florence.25
18 See SepherHa-Razim, translated by Michael A. Morgan (Chico, California: Scholars
Press, 1983). I have also compared the lists of names with those found in the Book
oftbe Angel Raziel, from Sloane MS 3846.
19 Lynn Thorndike, Magic and Experimental Science (New York: Columbia University
Press, 1923), chapter xlix, pp. 279 ff.
20 Bibliotheque Natioriale MS 7170A. See Robert Turner, Elizabethan Magic
(Shaftesbury: Element, 1989), pp. 140-141.
21 For a modern edition, see The Magical Calendar, a syntbesis ofmagical symbolismfrom
the Seventeenth-Century Renaissance of Medieval occultism, translation and commentary
by Adam McLean (Edinburgh: Magnum Opus Hermetic Sourceworks, 1979);
revised edition Grand Rapids: Phanes Press, 1994).
22 See 1.P. Couliano, Eros andMagic in the Renaissance (Chicago: University of Chicago
Press, 1987), p. 167.
23 Described by Claudia Rohrbacher-Sticker, "Mafteah Shelomoh: A New Acquisition
of the British Library," Jewish Studies Quarterly, i (1993/4, pp. 263-270), and "A
Hebrew Manuscript of Clavicula Salomonls, Part II," Tbe British LibraryJournal, vol.
21 (1995, pp. 127-136).
24 Weyer includes Almadel as one of the "Arab Throng" of "magicians of ill repute,"
along with Alchindus and Hipocus; see Weyer, Witches, Devils, and Doctors in the
Renaissance, p. 101.
25 Florence lI-iii-24; see Turner, Elizabethan Magic, p. 140.