Lix Tetrax is a disputed editorial name in scholarship on the Testament of Solomon. In his 2011 study, Tommaso Braccini reproduces the seventh chapter of Chester Charlton McCown’s edition and identifies the name as McCown’s conjecture. Braccini criticizes that reconstruction.
The scene in Conybeare’s translation
F. C. Conybeare’s English translation, sections 32–34, calls the dust-raising, fire-associated spirit Tephras, the spirit of the ashes. In that account, the spirit names the archangel Azael as its opponent. Solomon summons Azael, places a seal on the demon and compels it to haul stones for the Temple.
The textual question concerns how the spirit’s name is read in different presentations of this passage.
Sources
- Tommaso Braccini, “Demoni e tempeste: su un passo del Testamento di Salomone,” Medioevo greco 11 (2011), pp. 23–33, especially pp. 25–29.
- F. C. Conybeare, The Testament of Solomon, sections 32–34.