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[Middle English, from Late Latin mammon, from Greek mamōnās, from Aramaic māmonā, riches, probably from Mishnaic Hebrew māmôn.]
"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).
A New Testament expression for material wealth, which some people worship as a god. Figuratively, it simply means money.
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
Mammon is used in the New Testament to describe material wealth or greed.
Webster (1977) defines 'mammon' as: 1) the false god of riches and avarice. 2) riches regarded as an object of worship and greedy pursuit; wealth as an evil, more or less personified. Winston (1954) defines: 1) wealth, worldly gain; 2) greed for riches; cupidity. Oxford (1992) defines: god of wealth, regarded as evil or immoral; 'those who worship mammon' = greedy people who value money too highly.
The word is used in contemporary language with the same meaning in at least Finnish (mammona), Danish (mammon), Hebrew (mamon), Norwegian (mammon[1]) , Polish (mamona), Czech (mamon), Slovak (mamona), Swedish (mammon), and German (Mammon).
Mammon is a term that was used to describe riches, avarice, and worldly gain in Biblical literature. It was personified as a false god in the New Testament. The term is often used to refer to excessive materialism or greed as a negative influence. Adjectival forms are mammonish and mammonistic per Winston 1954, Webster's 1977.
Etymologically, the word is assumed to derive from Late Latin 'mammon', from Greek 'μαμμωνάς', Syrian 'mámóna' (riches), Aramaic 'mamon' (riches), probably from Mishnaic Hebrew 'ממון (mmôn)'. (See refs: Winston 1954, Webster's 1977.)
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.[citation needed]
The term Mammon, personifed as a god of allegiance to avarice, draws from the words Amon, Ammonite(Jordan) and even Amon-Ra (Amen-Ra, Egypt).[citation needed]
"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't serve both God and Mammon" Matthew 6:24
In the Bible, Mammon is personified in Luke 16:13, and Matthew 6:24, the latter verse repeating Luke 16:13. In some translations, Luke 16:9 and Luke 16:11 also personify 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" (Spanish for "money").
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. 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".
In all Mozilla-based browsers, the Book of Mozilla uses Mammon to refer to Microsoft.
Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary: Oxford University Press, 1992.
Webster's Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged: Publishers International Press, New York, 1977.
Winston Dictionary: John C Winston Company, Philadelphia, 1954.
This entry is from Wikipedia, the leading user-contributed encyclopedia. It may not have been reviewed by professional editors (see full disclaimer)
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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 | Dictionary. The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition Copyright © 2007, 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2007. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved. Read more |
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| 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 © 2003, Columbia University Press. Licensed from Columbia University Press. All rights reserved. www.cc.columbia.edu/cu/cup/ Read more |
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| Bible Dictionary. 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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| Wikipedia. This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation 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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