Difference between revisions of "Asmoday"

The Asmodeus of the Book of Tobit is hostile to Sarah, Raguel's daughter, (Tobit 6:13); and slays seven successive husbands on their wedding nights, impeding the sexual consummation of the marriages. In the New Jerusalem Bible translation, he is described as "the worst of demons" (Tobit 3:8). When the young Tobias is about to marry her, Asmodeus proposes the same fate for him, but Tobias is enabled, through the counsels of his attendant angel Raphael, to render him innocuous. By placing a fish's heart and gall on red-hot cinders, Tobias produces a smoky vapour that causes the demon to flee to Egypt, where Raphael binds him (Tobit 8:2–3). According to some translations, Asmodeus is strangled.

Another legend depicts Asmodai throwing [[King Solomon]] over 400 leagues away from the capital by putting one wing on the ground and the other stretched skyward. He then changed places for some years with King Solomon. When King Solomon returned, Asmodai fled from his wrath. Similar legends can be found in Islamic folklore. There Asmodeus is called Sakhr (Arabic: صخر‎ the Rock or the Stony One), because in Islamic lore, Solomon banished him into a rock, after he takes his kingdom back from him. There he counts as the king of the jinn.

Another passage describes him as marrying Lilith, who became his queen.

In the ''[[Testament of Solomon]]'', a 1st–3rd century text, the king invokes Asmodeus to aid in the construction of the Temple. The demon appears and predicts Solomon's kingdom will one day be divided (Testament of Solomon, verse 21–25). When Solomon interrogates Asmodeus further, the king learns that Asmodeus is thwarted by the angel Raphael, as well as by sheatfish found in the rivers of Assyria. He also admits to hating water and birds because both remind him of God. Asmodeus claims that he was born of a human mother and an angel father.

In the ''[[Malleus Maleficarum]]'', Asmodeus was considered the demon of lust. Sebastien Michaelis said that his adversary is St. John. Some demonologists of the 16th century assigned a month to a [[demon]] and considered November to be the month in which Asmodai's power was strongest. Other demonologists asserted that his zodiacal sign was Aquarius but only between the dates of January 30 and February 8.

He has 72 legions of demons under his command. He is one of the Kings of Hell under Lucifer the emperor. He incites gambling, and is the overseer of all the gambling houses in the court of Hell. Some Catholic theologians compared him with [[Abaddon]]. Yet other authors considered Asmodeus a prince of revenge.

[[File:32-Asmoday seal.png|350px|thumb|Seal of Asmoday from the ''[[Ars Goetia]]'']]

He "is strong, powerful and appears with three heads; the first is like a bull, the second like a man, and the third like a ram; the tail of a serpent, and from his mouth issue flames of fire." Also, he sits upon an infernal dragon, holds a lance with a banner and, amongst the Legions of Amaymon, Asmoday governs seventy-two legions of inferior spirits.

Asmodeus' reputation as the personification of lust continued into later writings, as he was known as the "Prince of Lechery" in the 16th-century romance Friar Rush. The French Benedictine Augustin Calmet equated his name with a fine dress. The 16th-century Dutch demonologist [[Johann Weyer]] described him as the banker at the baccarat table in hell, and overseer of earthly gambling houses.

The story of Asmodeus and Solomon has a reappearance in Islamic lore. Asmodeus is commonly named Sakhr (rock) probably a reference to his fate in common Islam-related belief, there, after Solomon defeated him, Asmodeus was imprisoned inside a box of rock, chained with iron, and thrown it into the sea. In his work Annals of al-Tabari, the famous Persian Quran exegete (224–310 AH; 839–923 AD) Tabari, referred to Asmodeus in Surah 38:34. Accordingly, the puppet is actually Asmodeus who took on the shape of Solomon for forty days, before Solomon defeated him.

Sakhr (Asmodeus) is consulted by Buluqiya, a young Jewish prince, who tried to find the final prophet, Muhammad, in The Nights. During their conversation, he asked about hell, thereupon Asmodeus describes the different layers (ṭabaqāt) of [[hell]].