Mammon
From Free net encyclopedia
←Older revision | Newer revision→
Mammon is used in the New Testament to describe material wealth or avarice.
Etymology
Mammon is 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 (during the discourse on ostentation) and in the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:9-13). The Authorised Version keeps the Syriac word. John Wycliffe uses "richessis". Other scholars derive Mammon from Phoenician "mommon", benefit.
The word is used in contemporary language with the same meaning in at least Finnish (mammona), Danish (mammon), and Polish (mamona). This is extremely likely to be a result of biblical influence.
Personifications
In the Bible, mammon is personified in Template:Bibleref, and Template:Bibleref, the latter verse repeating Luke 16:13. In some translations, Template:Bibleref and Template:Bibleref also personifies mammon; but in others, it is translated as 'dishonest wealth' or equivalent. In some spanish versions, it is said as "Mamón", but in others, as "Dinero".
Early mentions of mammon appear to stem from the personification in the Gospels, e.g. Didascalia, "Do solo Mammona cogitant, quorum Deus est sacculus"; and Saint Augustine, "Lucrum Punice Mammon dicitur" (Serm. on Mt., ii). Gregory of Nyssa also asserted that Mammon was another name for Beelzebub.
During the Middle Ages, Mammon was commonly personified as the demon of avarice, richness and injustice. Thus Peter Lombard (II, dist. 6) says, "Riches are called by the name of a devil, namely Mammon, for Mammon is the name of a devil, by which name riches are called according to the Syrian tongue." Piers Plowman also regards Mammon as a deity. Nicholas 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 literary identification of the name with a god of covetousness or avarice likely stems from Spenser's The Faerie Queene, where Mammon oversees a cave of worldly wealth. Milton's Paradise Lost describes a fallen angel who values earthly treasure over all other things. Later occultist writings such as De Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal describe Mammon as Hell's ambassador to England.
Mammon is somewhat similar to the Greek god Plutus, and the Roman Dis Pater, in his description, and it is likely that he was at some point based on them; especially since Plutus appears in The Divine Comedy as a wolf-like demon of wealth, wolves being associated with greed in the Middle Ages. Thomas Aquinas metaphorically described the sin of Avarice as "Mammon being carried up from Hell by a wolf, coming to inflame the human heart with Greed".
Appearances in popular culture
- On the television show The Simpsons, plutocrat Montgomery Burns lives on Mammon Lane.
- In the Mozilla Firefox browser, when a user views the page "about:mozilla": 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. Book of Mozilla, 7:15. In this case, Mammon is believed to be a reference to Microsoft, the creator of the Internet Explorer web browser.
- In the SNES game Chrono Trigger, the Mammon machine channels the energy of Lavos to give Queen Zeal access to unbelievable power.
- In Secret of Mana, it is the name of the king of an island completely plated in gold.
- In the 2005 Warner Bros. motion picture Constantine (based on the main character from the DC Vertigo graphic novels Hellblazer), Mammon is the name of the Antichrist, the son of Satan. Mammon's goal was to cross over to the mortal plane using the Spear of Destiny in order to bring a worse dominion to the world than that of his father in Hell.
- Mammon is a villain character in the comics Spawn, who manipulates Simmons to become a pawn for his own purposes.
- In Past and Present (1843), Thomas Carlyle entitled chapter III,2 of his essay : "Gospel of Mammonism", establishing a parallel between Mammonism and Diettantism and associating Mammonism with the moral law which defines "Not succeeding" as the new Hell.
- In the Frederick Forsyth novel The Phantom of Manhattan, Mammon is worshipped by Erik and Darius as "the god of gold who permits no mercy, no charity, no compassion and no scruple".
- In the game Dungeons and Dragons, Viscount Mammon is an archdevil and the Lord of the Third Hell, Minauros.
- Mammon also appears as the final boss in the game Holy Magic Century which is the U.K. title of Quest 64 for the Nintendo 64.
- Mammon is a thematic element in Cormac McCarthy's novel "No Country for Old Men", 2005, in which greed and acumulation of wealth in the hands of the wrong people are leading the degradation of society.
- In the MMORPG Ragnarok Online, Mammon is depicted in a skill called "Mammonite", which belongs to the Merchant classes and uses a certain amount of zeny, the currency in that game, to deal damage on the enemy.
- Many readers believe the unnamed god of wealth in Las Vegas in Neil Gaiman's American Gods to be Mammon, though Gaiman himself refuses to disclose the identity of the deity.
- Mammom is used as the name of a merchant in the MMORPG Lineage 2. He is very hard to find due to the fact that he teleports from one dungeon to another.
- Mammon is the name of a demon in the online multiplayer rpg LambdaMOO, who must be passed in order to gain a powerful item.
Mammon is the name of a god invoked by a young coven of teenage girls in the 1996 movie "The Craft".de:Mammon fr:Mammon nl:Mammon ja:マンモン sv:Mammon