Solomon asked Onoskelis one final question: "Under what star do you pass?"
"Under the full moon," she answered, "because the moon travels over most things."
"And what angel defeats you?"
She hesitated. Then: "The angel Joel." Solomon commanded her to spin hemp for the ropes of the Temple, and she was bound and brought to nothing — forced to labor night and day.
Then came the most dangerous demon of all.
Asmodeus was brought before the throne in chains. Solomon looked at him and asked: "Who are you?" The demon shot him a glance of pure rage. "Who are you?" he spat back.
"You dare answer me like that, bound as you are?"
Asmodeus sneered. "How should I answer you? You are a son of man. I was born of angel's seed by a human woman — half-celestial, half-mortal. My star burns bright in heaven. Men call it the Great Bear. So do not ask me too many questions, king. Your kingdom will be disrupted soon enough. Your glory is temporary. And when your tyranny over us ends, we demons will roam free again, and mankind will worship us as gods — because they will have forgotten the names of the angels who once kept us in check."
Solomon tightened the demon's bonds and ordered him flogged with ox-hide thongs. "Now tell me your name and your business. Humbly."
Asmodeus yielded. "I am called Asmodeus among mortals. My business is to destroy marriages. I plot against the newly wedded so that they never consummate their union. I ruin the beauty of women and estrange their hearts. I drive men into fits of madness and lust — they abandon their own wives and chase after others, night and day, until they fall into sin and murder."
Solomon adjured him by the name of the Lord of Hosts: "By what angel are you defeated?"
"By Raphael," Asmodeus admitted, "the archangel who stands before the throne of God. And the liver and gall of a fish, when smoked over ashes of tamarisk, put me to flight" (Tobit 3:8).
Solomon smiled. He clapped iron shackles on Asmodeus and sentenced him to tread clay for the entire construction of the Temple — the most grueling labor of all. The demon who destroyed marriages was now a beast of burden, hauling ten water-jars at a time. And Solomon hung the liver and gall of the fish on a reed and burned it near Asmodeus constantly, frustrating his unbearable malice with smoke and flame.
Then Solomon summoned Beelzeboul again and seated him on a raised throne. "Why are you alone, prince of demons?"
"Because I alone remain of the angels who descended from heaven," Beelzeboul said. "I was the first angel in the first heaven. Now I control all the spirits bound in the abyss. I have a child — he haunts the Red Sea. He comes to me when he is ready, and I support him."
"What is your employment?" Solomon asked.
"I destroy kings. I ally myself with foreign tyrants. I set my demons upon men so they worship them and are lost. Even the faithful servants of God — priests and righteous men — I lure into wicked desires and lawless deeds. I inspire envy, murder, war. I will destroy the world."
"Bring me your child from the Red Sea," Solomon commanded.
"I will not. But another demon, Ephippas, an Arabian wind demon, will fetch him from the deep."
"By what angel are you defeated?"
"By the holy and precious name of the Almighty God, blessed be He — the name known to the Hebrews." Solomon was astounded. He ordered Beelzeboul to saw marble for the Temple. And when the prince of demons began to cut stone, all the other demons howled — screaming for their king.