There are all of them
No one wanted to miss the occasion. It was a great opportunity, one of the greatest of all human history, one that no one wanted to miss. It was an occasion to incite people to kill the greatest man ever born of a woman. It was a unique opportunity to bring together and coordinate all destructive potential and to show their strength and effectiveness towards the same person. In this case, there were all of them and it is easy to see that simply observing the result of the actions of the protagonists of this story. The opportunity to pressure humanity to kill John the Baptist, the prophet-foreshadower of Jesus the Son of God, among those born of women there has been none greater than him (Matthew 11:11), as Jesus Himself called him, was a unique opportunity for the fiends to unite their demonic potential in the attempt to win their battle with God and man. There are seven of them, each with a clear and defined mission, and all working tirelessly with a perfectly organized, highly structured system, all devoted to instilling fear, and to distancing man from God's love to destroy him. Their names are: Lucifer, Belzebul, Asmodeus, Belial, Ispel, Astarte, Anubis, these are the Archfiends. They could not miss the opportunity to use their dark deadly potential to strike a man of God like John the Baptist. Let's see how.
King Herod heard about it, for his fame had become widespread, and people were saying, "John the Baptist has been raised from the dead; that is why mighty powers are at work in him." Others were saying, "He is Elijah"; still others, "He is a prophet like any of the prophets." But when Herod learned of it, he said, "It is John whom I beheaded. He has been raised up." Ispel works at the level of human intelligence, turning it away from all that is wisdom, truth, and knowledge of lightn order to keep unutilized intelligence in ignorance by continuously creating terrible thoughts about the past and what might have been and the future and what will never be. He builds false images of reality in the mind, turning human thinking toward perverse and useless ideologies. He is the lord of mental confusion and decisional uncertainty.
Herod was the one who had John arrested and bound in prison on account of Herodias, the wife of his brother Philip, whom he had married. Asmodeus incites division in relationships, he poisons friendships through betrayal, he works to ignite quarrels and conflicts against the family and to ruin harmony between spouses.
John had said to Herod, "It is not lawful for you to have your brother's wife." Astarte works to remove all beauty, grace, and love from man's sexual world, he labors to make man fall into every form of perversion and sexual degradation, to humiliate him and pull him down to a state that is unacceptable even to himself.
Herodias harbored a grudge against him and wanted to kill him but was unable to do so. Herod feared John, knowing him to be a righteous and holy man, and kept him in custody. When he heard him speak he was very much perplexed, yet he liked to listen to him. Belial is the lord of thinking ill of God, instilling in man the thought that God has abandoned us, that He does not love us or defend us from evil. It is he who creates doubt, the doubt in our souls, which in turn creates irrational fears, insecurity, uncertainty and distrust that destabilizes the peace and balance of the mind. It is he who insinuates feelings of guilt towards God and doubts and disbelief about His mercy. It is he who creates hatred toward God, ourselves and the others, it is he who coordinates all the conditions for violent and cruel acts.
She had an opportunity one day when Herod, on his birthday, [this is the lever of pride] gave a banquet for his courtiers, his military officers, and the leading men of Galilee. Herodias's own daughter came in and performed a dance that delighted Herod and his guests. The king said to the girl, "Ask of me whatever you wish and I will grant it to you [this is the lever of flattery]." He even swore (many things) to her, "I will grant you whatever you ask of me [this is the lever of arrogance], even to half of my kingdom [this is the lever of conceit]." Lucifer is the undisputed lord of pride and flattery, arrogance and conceit. He is the expert on everything connected to self-image, the construction of the ego-substitute, the exterior, the ephemeral, fashion, social classes, thirst for domination, human customs, success, possession.
She went out and said to her mother, "What shall I ask for?" She replied, "The head of John the Baptist." The girl hurried back to the king's presence and made her request, "I want you to give me at once on a platter the head of John the Baptist." The king was deeply distressed, but because of his oaths and the guests he did not wish to break his word to her. Belzebul is the king of envy, he organizes, coordinates, manages everything concerning slander and gossip, he uses every means to accuse, denigrate, defame, slander, dishonor, malign and ruin the dignity of a person, to push him/her to despair, leading either to murder or to suicide.
So he promptly dispatched an executioner with orders to bring back his head. He went off and beheaded him in the prison. He brought in the head on a platter and gave it to the girl. The girl in turn gave it to her mother. When his disciples heard about it, they came and took his body and laid it in a tomb. Anubis, the one who instills fear of death, must have certainly tempted John the Baptist as much as possible to trouble his heart; moreover, through the vision of such a horrible death, he must have worked in the hearts of his disciples and friends, instigating disbelief and doubts about eternal life, about the divinity of endless life that God has given to his children. All seven were at work, all seven were struggling to overcome John the Baptist, but also to reveal providentially on this page of the Gospel, their faces, characteristics, tasks and strategies. Nothing makes demons so weak as when they have to reveal themselves and show their face and their name, a name that encompasses their task. This is the gift of John the Baptist to humanity. All seven Archfiends worked togetherat the same time to destroy him, but in God's hands, this victory was turned into defeat, because all seven were forced to expose themselves and therefore to be known in order to be more easily fought and defeated with the strength of Jesus and the procedures of His Word.