Asmodaeus

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Depiction of Asmodis in Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal .

Asmodäus , also Asmodis , Greek Asmodaios , Latin Asmodaeus , Hebrew : Ashmedai , is the name of a demon from Jewish mythology . Other spellings are Asmodeus, Aschmodai, Ashmodai, Asmodi, Asmodai, Asmoday, Asmodee, Asmadeo .

etymology

As Aeshma-Devi , the name Asmodis could be borrowed from Avestan , where Aeshma embodies the demon of anger , greed and lust . The daevas , to which Aeshma belongs, are in the younger Awesta as well as in the Zoroastrian tradition a class of supernatural beings who embody evil. The Zoroastrian hero Saoschjant can kill the demon. In the younger Awesta, Aeshma is armed with a "bloody mace".

The folk etymological derivations of the rabbinical forms אשׁמדיי or אשׁמדאי to the Hebrew root שׁמד (hif. "Annihilate, destroy") are considered unsecured.

Christian-Islamic reception

In the Christian tradition, Asmodaeus is mentioned in the deuterocanonical book of Tobit , where he repeatedly prevents Sarah from getting married. It says: “She was married to seven men; but the evil demon Ashmodai had killed them all before they slept with her. ” Tob 3,8  EU . Tobias received advice from the archangel Raphael that he should burn the heart and liver of a fish to banish the demon. The ban took effect and Ashmodai was driven to Egypt, where he was picked up by angels and tied up.

According to extra-biblical traditions, he remained there until King Solomon succeeded in binding Ashmodai to him with the help of a magic ring that the Archangel Michael gave him and submitting him to his will. According to this story, he forced Ashmodai (or through him his service spirits) to build the temple of Jerusalem and later also to guard it. Ashmodai is said to have succeeded in obtaining this ring, breaking the spell by sinking the ring in the sea and stealing a woman from Solomon. However, the ring was brought back to Solomon by a fish.

According to other legends, Sodom and Gomorrah as well as seven other cities were destroyed by the vices of Ashmodai , which is why it is sometimes called "Bringer of Judgment". He is sometimes equated with the Abaddon of the Revelation of John and in medieval astrology also as the hour angel or demon . It stands for the vices of frenzy, lust, wastefulness and anger.

In Islam under the name Sahr known, it was considered the Wissendste among the jinn and was enslaved by Salomon with the help of the magic ring, but broke free later and was thus, together with Iblis , to rival Solomon and stole him temporarily of his kingdom. To banish him, Solomon locked him in a rock, locked it with iron chains and stamped the name of God on the rock with his recovered ring to seal it, and then sank the rock in the sea.

Aggada and Kabbalah

In the Aggada , the literary figure of Ashmedai appears repeatedly as a good-natured and humorous companion who, however, develops a desire for the women of Solomon and his mother Bathsheba . Another legend tells how King Solomon uses a trick to force Ashmodai to build the Jerusalem temple. Another legend tells how Ashmodai hurled King Solomon 400 leagues away from the capital, Jerusalem, by thrusting one wing onto the earth and stretching the other into the sky. He then took Solomon's throne for a few years. After King Solomon returns, Ashmodai flees from his anger. Another passage tells of how he marries Lilith , who becomes his queen.

In Kabbalah , Ashmodai are also said to have good qualities. He is characterized as philanthropic and receptive to incantations. The Book of True Practice [...] by the Jew Abraham von Worms (also known as the Book of Abramelin ) mentions Asmodeus as one of the eight first-order sub-princes, one of the superiors of the evil spirits.

Further interpretations

Asmodeus is mentioned in various roles in the grimoires of the early modern period and the Renaissance . He is the 32nd spirit recorded in the Goetia and is said to rule over 72 legions of subservient spirits. According to Goetia, Asmodis appears with three heads: that of a bull, that of a human and that of a ram. He is said to have the tail of a snake and webbed feet like geese . He could teach the conjurer arithmetic , astronomy , geometry, and all trades; it should give true and complete answers to all questions and make them invincible, guarding treasures and also helping with the treasure hunt.

He was mostly depicted as a limping devil on statues. In the Hexenhammer , which was written by Heinrich Kramer , it is written: “The real demon of fornication and the prince of every filth is called Asmodeus”.

John Milton mentions him in the fourth book of the epic poem Paradise Lost as "Asmodeus" and in the sixth as "Asmadai", who is defeated by Raphael. According to Milton's poetry, the demons rose up to fight because their “pride / striving to be less than gods; / They learned to think more modestly while fleeing, / Notched by wounds under the mail shirt ”.

In Faust II, verse 5378, Goethe lets the mega-era say: “Man is unequal, the hours are unequal. / And nobody has what is desired firmly in his arms, / Who did not foolishly longed for what is more desired / Of the highest happiness, to which he has become accustomed ; / The sun he flees, wants to warm the frost. / With all of this I know how to give birth, / And bring Asmodi, the faithful, / To scatter unhappy things at the right time, / So destroy the people in pairs. "Asmodis is here as the special marriage devil is quoted as which he was perceived in the Middle Ages.

According to Collin De Plancy (1863) he is a demon of destruction; Johann Weyer knows him as a player who is devoted to luxury and lust.

Asmodeus is now a synonym for the devil . The Mexican exorcist César Ignacio Truqui LC , claimed in the spring of 2015 in the Italian weekly newspaper Tempi that the demon "Asmodeo" had surfaced repeatedly lately and tried to attack the family, including by adopting certain congenial ideologies and lifestyles such as the Individualism or divorce are spreading and weakening the affected families. In one case he threatened to kill a girl who wanted to marry her boyfriend in order to prevent the wedding; however, that turned out to be an empty threat.

In the church of Rennes-le-Château (Aude department, southern France), the Abbé Berenger Saunière had a statue of Asmodis installed directly at the entrance. This carries the holy water font.

In popular culture

Asmodis with holy water font in the church of Rennes-le-Château

The figure appears in the novels Ghostbusters John Sinclair and Professor Zamorra , in the Manga Angel Sanctuary , in an episode of the Three Question Marks and in Michael Ende's novel The satanarchaeo-liar wishing punch . In the Forgotten Reiche - campaign world of the fantasy role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons and in Diablo 3 , he appears as the boss opponent Azmodan , who can also be chosen as a playable character in Heroes of the Storm . In the Nintendo console game Terranigma , Asmodeo is a man-made virus that wiped out 90% of the world's population in a bygone era. In the Shadowhunters series , Asmodeus is King of Edom and father of Magnus Bane. A demon in a special of the Babylon 5 series is called that, but is equated with Satan here . In The Enterprise , Asmodi appears as a Jewish prince and demon who can see into the future and is portrayed as the accuser against humanity. In the 13th season of the US series Supernatural , Asmodeus appears as the fourth and last Prince of Hell. The name Asmodai is also mentioned in the Warhammer 40k universe. There it is linked to a space marine of the Dark Angels Legion.

literature

Remarks

  1. ↑ Erik Stave "SHEDIM" Singer, Isidore; Adler, Cyrus 2002 Funk & Wagnalls New York ÆSHMA (ASMODEUS, ASHMEDAI) Jewish Encyclopedia on September 28, 2017
  2. ^ Esther Brünenberg:  Aschmodai. In: Michaela Bauks, Klaus Koenen, Stefan Alkier (Eds.): The Scientific Biblical Lexicon on the Internet (WiBiLex), Stuttgart 2006 ff.
  3. ↑ Cf. the treatise Gittin fol. 68 in the Babylonian Talmud and the Midrash Numbers Rabba 11.3.
  4. ↑ Heribert Busse Islamic Tales of Prophets and Men of God: Qiṣaṣ al-Anbiyāʼ or ʻArāʼis al-maǧālis Otto Harrassowitz Verlag 2006, ISBN 978-3-447-05266-5 , page 390
  5. ↑ Tobias Nünlist: Belief in demons in Islam . Walter de Gruyter, 2015, ISBN 978-3-11-033154-7 , p. 497
  6. ^ Raphael Patai: Encyclopedia of Jewish Folklore and Traditions. Routledge 2015, ISBN 978-1-317-47170-7 , p. 39
  7. ↑ Talmud: Gittin , p. 68b.
  8. ^ Howard Schwartz Lilith's cave: Jewish tales of the supernatural. Harper & Row, San Francisco, ISBN 978-0-06-250779-2 , p. 8
  9. ↑ John Milton : Johann Milton's Paradise Lost . Newly translated by Samuel Gottlieb Bürde . First part. With Johann Friedrich Korn, the elder, Breslau1822, p. 234.
  10. ↑ Exorcist: 'There is a demon who deliberately attacks families' . Message from Kath.net dated June 8, 2016 (accessed on the same day). Original interview (in Italian) in the weekly newspaper Tempi on May 11, 2015 (accessed June 8, 2016).