Ma'at: The Abrahamic Inversion

In the Temple's reading, the bull-formed Morax of the catalogues stands for Ma'at. A name of slander cannot be a name of worship: approach Ma'at by Her own eternal name, and leave the grimoire's name to the history below.

Morax / Marax / Foraii: the Earliest Secure Attestation

Unlike a number of the spirits later absorbed into the Ars Goetia, Morax cannot presently be traced with confidence into the older Munich, Florence or French demon catalogues. Jean-Patrice Boudet's comparative list records Morax, alias Foraii only as W15, that is, the fifteenth spirit in Johann Weyer's catalogue, without an earlier matching entry in the manuscripts used for his comparison. On the presently recoverable evidence, the first secure exact-name attestation of Morax or Foraii is therefore Weyer's Pseudomonarchia daemonum of 1577.¹

Weyer, 1577: Morax alias Foraii

Weyer introduces the demon in a compact Latin entry that already contains virtually the whole later identity: double rank, bull form, astronomy, the liberal arts, learned familiars, knowledge of herbs and precious stones, and thirty-six legions.²

Morax, alias Foraii, magnus Comes & Præses: Similis tauro visitur: Et si quando humanam faciem assumit, admirabilem in Astronomia & in omnibus artibus liberalibus reddit hominem: parit etiam famulos non malos & sapientes: novit & herbarum & pretiosorum lapidum potentiam. Imperat triginta sex legionibus.

Literally, Morax or Foraii is a great count and president. He is seen in the likeness of a bull; when he assumes a human face he makes a person remarkably learned in astronomy and all the liberal arts. He also provides familiars who are "not bad" and wise, knows the powers of herbs and precious stones, and commands thirty-six legions. Weyer does not say that Morax is a Minotaur, Moloch, an Egyptian deity, or any other ancient figure. Those identifications belong to much later speculation and are not evidence for the demon's origin.²

Reginald Scot, 1584

Reginald Scot's Discoverie of Witchcraft gives the first major English transmission of Weyer's entry. Scot retains the name Morax, alias Foraii, translates magnus Comes & Præses as "a great earle and a president," and preserves the bull, astronomy, liberal sciences, wise familiars, herbs, precious stones and thirty-six legions with little alteration.³

Morax, alias Foraii, a great earle and a president, he is seene like a bull, and if he take unto him a mans face, he maketh men wonderfull cunning in astronomie, & in all the liberall sciences: he giveth good familiars and wise, knowing the power & vertue of hearbs and stones which are pretious, and ruleth thirtie six legions.

This English version is important because it shows that the familiar later profile is not a nineteenth- or twentieth-century reconstruction. It is already essentially complete by 1584 and closely dependent on Weyer.^2,3

The Ars Goetia: Morax / Marax

The seventeenth-century Ars Goetia places the same spirit at number twenty-one. Joseph H. Peterson's edition records Morax in the principal manuscript text and notes Marax as a variant. The Goetic description makes the composite form more explicit: a great bull with a man's face. Astronomy, the liberal sciences, wise familiars, and the virtues of herbs and precious stones all remain, showing direct continuity with Weyer. The principal numerical change is the legions: some manuscripts preserve Weyer's thirty-six, whereas others read thirty or have corrupt numbers; the Mathers-Crowley edition later standardizes thirty.⁴

Peterson's apparatus is especially useful here. Sloane 3825 and Weyer support thirty-six, while other Goetic witnesses give thirty. Thus the difference between "Morax with thirty-six legions" and "Marax with thirty legions" is a manuscript transmission problem rather than evidence for two demons.⁴

Dr. Rudd's Angelology: Nelchael

In the Ruddian scheme pairing the seventy-two Goetic spirits with the seventy-two angels of the Shem-ha-Mephorash, Morax/Marax is the twenty-first spirit and is opposed or constrained by the twenty-first angel, Nelchael. This correspondence is later than Weyer and should not be projected into the 1577 text; it belongs to the seventeenth-century angelological reorganization of the Goetia.⁵

Lenain: Nelchael

Lazare Lenain calls the twenty-first genius Nelchael and gives the attribute "Dieu seul et unique" "God alone and unique." He associates the divine name Bueg with the Bohemian language, places the ray from the 101st through 105th degrees of the sphere, assigns the eleventh decan and the genius Sith, and puts the influence under Mercury. The favorable invocation interval is 6:40 to 7:00 in the morning.⁶

Lenain says Nelchael serves against slanderers, enchantments and the power of evil spirits. The favorable genius rules astronomy, mathematics, geography and the abstract sciences, while the contrary genius rules ignorance, error and prejudice. This learned-science profile makes the later Nelchael-Morax pairing particularly close in subject matter, although historically the angelic description and Weyer's demon entry remain separate textual traditions.⁶

Lenain also presents a small numbering problem. He calls for the eighteenth verse of Psalm 30, but the Latin words he actually prints begin Ego autem in te speravi Domine: dixi Deus meus es tu, which are Psalm 30:15 in the Vulgate, followed by the beginning of verse 16. In modern Hebrew/English numbering these correspond to Psalm 31:14-15. The printed quotation is therefore safer evidence than Lenain's verse number.⁶

Collin de Plancy

Collin de Plancy's nineteenth-century Dictionnaire infernal remains close to Weyer. Under Morax ou Foraï he calls the spirit a captain, count and president of infernal bands, gives the form of a bull, and says that in human form he instructs in astronomy and all the liberal arts. De Plancy further calls him the prince of familiars who are gentle and wise and retains thirty-six legions. The last formulation slightly intensifies Weyer's statement that Morax simply gives familiars who are "not bad" and wise.⁷

Papus

Papus preserves Nelchael in the French cabalistic sequence shortly before the Mathers-Crowley Goetia fixed the spelling Marax for many English readers. His tables continue the Lenain-style angelic attributes of learning and the sciences. As with the Rudd material, this is evidence for the later angelic interpretation of the twenty-first Goetic spirit, not for a pre-Weyer Morax.⁸

The Name Morax

The form Morax happens to be an ordinary Latin adjective: morax, -acis, from moror, means "fond of delay" or "dilatory." This makes a Latin wordplay or learned formation possible, but the surviving demonological sources do not explain the name and do not prove that Weyer or his source deliberately coined it from that adjective. The philological fact should therefore be kept separate from an etymological claim.⁹

Mathers and Crowley: Marax

The 1904 Mathers-Crowley edition prominently prints the name as Marax, while acknowledging in a note that some codices read Morax. The spirit remains number twenty-one, a great earl and president who appears as a great bull with a man's face, teaches astronomy and the liberal sciences, gives wise familiars knowledgeable in herbs and precious stones, and governs thirty legions.¹⁰

Historically the line is therefore unusually straightforward: Weyer 1577 Morax alias Foraii is the first secure exact-name witness presently demonstrated; Scot 1584 translates the same profile into English; the seventeenth-century Ars Goetia preserves it with the variant Marax and fluctuating legion numbers; and Rudd, Lenain, de Plancy, Papus and Mathers-Crowley elaborate or reorganize the inherited material. The bull, astronomy, liberal sciences, familiars, herbs and stones are all already present at the beginning of the secure textual history.^1,2,3,4