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American Heritage Dictionary:
Mam·mon |
[Middle English, from Late Latin mammon, from Greek mamōnās, from Aramaic māmonā, riches, probably from Mishnaic Hebrew māmôn.]
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Mammon |
"No servant can serve two masters," Jesus told his disciples. "For either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon."
These words are from the Sermon on the Mount, as recorded in Matthew 6:24. Of course, Jesus didn't say them in English. He spoke Aramaic, a Semitic language in the Afro-Asiatic language family. But thanks to what Jesus said and did, one of the words in this modern English translation is the same as in the original. A speaker of ancient Aramaic would recognize mammon.
The word was delivered unchanged from Aramaic to the Greek of the New Testament, from Greek to Latin, and eventually to English. Apparently there was nothing else in Greek, Latin, or English that would exactly translate mammon, which means "wealth as an object of desire and false worship." Its earliest English appearance is as wealth personified in William Langland's allegorical Piers Plowman of 1362. The character named Dobet (that is, "Do Better") does what Jesus urged: "with Mammon's money he has made himself friends, has turned to religion, has translated the Bible, and preaches to the people St. Paul's words."
Aramaic is both younger and older than its close relative Hebrew. In Jesus' time it was a modern language, compared to Hebrew, but unlike Hebrew it has not been revived after it died out more than a thousand years ago with the spread of Arabic-speaking Islam. Although no one speaks Aramaic nowadays, one descendant, Assyrian Neo-Aramaic, is spoken by 30,000 people in Syria, another 30,000 in Iraq, and fully 80,000 in the United States, and another descendant, Chaldean Neo-Aramaic, is spoken by more than 100,000 in Iraq and 70,000 in the United States.
A few other biblical and religious words in English also come from ancient Aramaic, including abbot (880) from abba meaning "father" and Pharisee (897), as well as the Jewish kaddish and tefillin (both 1613).
Columbia Encyclopedia:
mammon |
Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Bible:
mammon |
A New Testament expression for material wealth, which some people worship as a god. Figuratively, it simply means money.
Devil's Dictionary:
mammon |
n.
The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.
He swore that all other religions were gammon,
And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.
Jared Oopf
Random House Word Menu:
categories related to 'mammon' |
Wikipedia on Answers.com:
Mammon |
Mammon is a term, derived from the Christian Bible, used to describe material wealth or greed, most often personified as a deity, and sometimes included in the seven princes of Hell.
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Etymologically, the word is assumed to derive from Late Latin 'mammon', from Greek 'μαμμωνάς', Syriac 'mámóna' (riches),[1] and was an Aramaic loan word in Hebrew meaning wealth[2] or possessions,[3] although it may also have meant 'that in which one trusts'.[4]
The Greek word for "Mammon", μαμμωνάς, 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".
The Christians began to use the name of Mammon as a pejorative, a term that was used to describe greed, avarice, and unjust worldly gain in Biblical literature. It was personified as a false god in the New Testament.{Mt.6.24; Lk.16.13} The term is often used to refer to excessive materialism or greed as a negative influence.
Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon earth, where moth and rust doth corrupt, and where thieves break through and steal: But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust doth corrupt, and where thieves do not break through nor steal: For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also. No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other; or else he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You can not serve both God and Mammon.—Matthew 6:19-21,24
In the Bible, Mammon is personified in Luke 16:13, and Matthew 6:24, the latter verse repeating Luke 16:13. In the Greek, Luke 16:9 and Luke 16:11 also personify Mammon.
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,[3] 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.[5][6] Later occultist writings such as De Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal describe Mammon as Hell's ambassador to England. For Thomas Carlyle in Past and Present, the 'Gospel of Mammonism' became simply a metaphoric personification for the materialist spirit of the nineteenth century.
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".
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Translations:
Mammon |
Dansk (Danish)
n. - bibelsk udtryk, [sl.] penge
Français (French)
n. - le veau d'or
Deutsch (German)
n. - Mammon, Wohlstand
Ελληνική (Greek)
n. - Μαμονάς (θεός του πλούτου), χρήμα, πλούτος, απληστία
Italiano (Italian)
Mammone (mitol.), la ricchezza
Português (Portuguese)
n. - riqueza (f)
Русский (Russian)
мамона, богатство
Español (Spanish)
n. - Mammón, riqueza, avaricia
Svenska (Swedish)
n. - mammon, Mammon (bibl.)
中文（简体）(Chinese (Simplified))
财富, 财神
中文（繁體）(Chinese (Traditional))
n. - 財富, 財神
한국어 (Korean)
n. - 부, 재물, 마몬의 신
עברית (Hebrew)
n. - רדיפת בצע, עושר, ממון
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Copyrights:
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 | American Heritage Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Houghton Mifflin's International Word Origins. The World in So Many Words, by Allan A. Metcalf. Copyright © 1999 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Columbia Encyclopedia. The Columbia Electronic Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition Copyright © 2012, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/. Read more |
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| Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Bible. The New Dictionary of Cultural Literacy, Third Edition Edited by E.D. Hirsch, Jr., Joseph F. Kett, and James Trefil. Copyright © 2002 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Published by Houghton Mifflin. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Devil's Dictionary. Devil's Dictionary by Ambrose Bierce, 1911 Read more |
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| Random House Word Menu. © 2010 Write Brothers Inc. Word Menu is a registered trademark of the Estate of Stephen Glazier. Write Brothers Inc. All rights reserved. Read more |
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Rhymes. Oxford University Press. © 2006, 2007 All rights reserved. Read more | |
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| Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary. Collins Bradford's Crossword Solver's Dictionary © Anne Bradford, 1986, 1993, 1997, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2008 HarperCollins Publishers All rights reserved. Read more |
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| Wikipedia on Answers.com. This article is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Mammon. Read more |
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| Translations. Copyright © 2007, WizCom Technologies Ltd. All rights reserved. Read more |
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