|
Mammon, a word of Aramaic origin, means "riches", but has an unclear etymology; scholars have suggested connections with a word meaning "entrusted", or with the Hebrew word "matmon", meaning "treasure". It is also used in Hebrew as a word for "money" - ממון.
The Greek word for "Mammon", mamonas, occurs in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew vi 24) and in the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke xvi 9-13). The Authorised Version keeps the Syriac word. Wycliffe uses "richessis".
Other scholars derive Mammon from Phoenician "mommon", benefit.
Personifications
The New English Dictionary quotes Piers Plowman as containing the earliest personification of the name. Nicholaos de Lyra (commenting on the passage in Luke) says: "Mammon est nomen daemonis" (Mammon is the name of a demon). No trace, however, of any Syriac god of such a name exists, and the common identification of the name with a god of covetousness or avarice stems from Spenser (The Faerie Queene), Milton (Paradise Lost), and from the above-mentioned Piers Plowman.
In his Dictionnaire Infernal, De Plancy asserts that Mammon is Hell's ambassador to England, and Gregory of Nyssa asserted that Mammon was another name for Beelzebub.
During the European Middle Age and in demonology Mammon was considered the demon of avarice, richness and injustice.
Appearances in popular culture
On the television show The Simpsons, plutocrat Montgomery Burns lives on Mammon Lane.
More recently featured in the Mozilla Firefox "Book of Mozilla" 7:15 - And so at last the beast fell and the unbelievers rejoiced. But all was not lost, for from the ash rose a great bird. The bird gazed down upon the unbelievers and cast fire and thunder upon them. For the beast had been reborn with its strength renewed, and the followers of Mammon cowered in horror.
In the SNES game Chrono Trigger, the Mammon machine channels the energy of Lavos to give Queen Zeal access to unbelievable power.
This article incorporates text from the public domain 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica.
| 
