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.

In the Bible (Revised Standard Edition) as part of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, as a master of men who would cause them to oppose God: Matthew 6:24, "No one can serve two masters; 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."

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. In Secret of Mana, it is the name of the king of an island completely plated in gold.

In the Keanu Reeves film Constantine, Mammon is the name of the anti-christ, the son of Satan. Mammon's goal was to cross over to the mortal plane in order to bring a worse dominion to the realm than that of his father in hell.