For Thomas Carlyle in Past and Present, the "Gospel of Mammonism" became simply a metaphoric personification for the materialist spirit of the 19th century. Later occultist writings such as Jacques Collin de Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal describe Mammon as Hell's ambassador to England. Milton's Paradise Lost describes a fallen angel who values earthly treasure over all other things.
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. Nicholas de Lyra, commenting on the passage in Luke, says: " Mammon est nomen daemonis" (Mammon is the name of a demon).Īlbert Barnes in his Notes on the New Testament states that Mammon was a Syriac word for an idol worshipped as the god of riches, similar to Plutus among the Greeks, but he cited no authority for the statement.
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. ĭuring the Middle Ages, Mammon was commonly personified as the demon of wealth and greed. In the 4th century Cyprian and Jerome relate Mammon to greed and greed as an evil master that enslaves, and John Chrysostom even personifies Mammon as greed. Gregory of Nyssa also asserted that Mammon was another name for Beelzebub. Ĭhristians began to use "mammon" as a pejorative, a term that was used to describe gluttony, excessive materialism, greed, and unjust worldly gain.Įarly mentions of mammon allude to the Gospels, e.g., Didascalia, " De solo Mammona cogitant, quorum Deus est sacculus" and Saint Augustine, " Lucrum Punice Mammon dicitur" (Sermon on the Mount, ii). The International Children's Bible (ICB) uses the wording "You cannot serve God and money at the same time". The Revised Standard Version of the Bible explains it as "a Semitic word for money or riches". The Authorised Version uses "Mammon" for both Greek spellings John Wycliffe uses richessis. The spelling μαμμωνᾷ refers to "a Syrian deity, god of riches Hence riches, wealth" μαμωνᾶς is transliterated from Aramaic and also means "wealth". The Liddell and Scott Lexicon has a listing for each spelling, indicating that each occurs only in the New Testament, nowhere else in ancient and Hellenistic Greek literature. The 27th edition of the popular Critical Text of the New Testament has μαμωνᾶ in all four places with no indication of any textual variances, thereby ignoring the Textus Receptus reading at Matthew 6:24. Īccording to the Textus Receptus of the New Testament, the Greek word translated "Mammon" is spelt μαμμωνᾷ in the Sermon on the Mount at Matthew 6:24, and μαμωνᾶ (from μαμωνᾶς) in the Parable of the Unjust Steward at Luke 16:9,11,13. It has been suggested that the Aramaic word māmōn was a loanword from Mishnaic Hebrew ממון (mamôn) meaning money, wealth, or possessions although it may also have meant "that in which one trusts". The word may have been present throughout the Canaanite languages: the word is unknown in Old Testament Hebrew, but has been found in the Qumran documents post-biblical Hebrew attests to māmōn and, according to St Augustine of Hippo, Punic included the word mammon "profit".
However, it is not clear what the earlier history of the Aramaic form is. This was in turn borrowed from Hellenistic Greek μαμωνᾶς, which appears in the New Testament, borrowed from Aramaic מָמוֹנָא māmōnā, an emphatic form of the word māmōn "wealth, profit", perhaps specifically from the Syriac dialect.
The word Mammon comes into English from post-classical Latin mammona "wealth", used most importantly in the Vulgate Bible (along with Tertullian's mammonas and pseudo-Jerome's mammon).