Editing Mammon (section)

== Personifications ==
[[Gregory of Nyssa]] also asserted that Mammon was another name for [[Beelzebub]].<ref>{{cite book|last=Graef| first=Hilda |title=The Lord's Prayer: The Beatitudes |year=1954|publisher=Paulist Press|pages=83| isbn=9780809102556 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=txtYdIXpoJYC&pg=PA83}}</ref>

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.<ref name="Rosner2007">{{cite book|author=Brian S. Rosner|title=Greed as Idolatry: The Origin and Meaning of a Pauline Metaphor|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Un6q9ZcMj4cC&pg=PA23|date=28 August 2007|publisher=Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing|isbn=978-0-8028-3374-7|pages=23–}}</ref>

During the [[Middle Ages]], Mammon was commonly personified as the demon of wealth and greed. 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 of Lyra|Nicholas de Lyra]], commenting on the passage in Luke, says: "''Mammon est nomen daemonis''" (Mammon is the name of a demon).

[[Albert Barnes (theologian)|Albert Barnes]] in his ''Notes on the New Testament'' states that Mammon was a Syriac word for an [[cult image|idol]] worshipped as the god of riches, similar to [[Plutus]] among the Greeks, but he cited no authority for the statement.<ref>{{cite web|url=http://biblecommenter.com/matthew/6-24.htm |title=Matthew 6:24 Commentaries: "No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and wealth |publisher=Biblecommenter.com |access-date=2014-03-20}}</ref>

No trace, however, of any Syriac god of such a name exists,<ref name="france"/> and the common literary identification of the name with a god of covetousness or avarice likely stems from [[Edmund Spenser|Spenser]]'s ''[[The Faerie Queene]]'', where Mammon oversees a cave of worldly wealth. [[John Milton|Milton]]'s ''[[Paradise Lost]]'' describes a fallen angel who values earthly treasure over all other things.<ref>{{cite CE1913|wstitle= Mammon |volume= 9 |last=  Pope  |first= Hugh |author-link= Hugh Pope |short=1}}</ref><ref name="lessons">''Select Notes on the International Sabbath School Lessons'', F. N. Peloubet, W. A. Wilde and Company, Boston, 1880.</ref>  Later [[occult]]ist writings such as [[Jacques Collin de Plancy]]'s ''[[Dictionnaire Infernal]]'' describe Mammon as Hell's ambassador to England.<ref>{{cite book|last=de Plancy| first=J. Collin|title=Infernal Dictionary Deluxe Edition|year=2015|publisher=Abracax House|pages=764|isbn=978-0997074512|url=https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/29607971-infernal-dictionary-deluxe-edition}}</ref> For [[Thomas Carlyle]] in ''[[Past and Present (book)|Past and Present]]'' (1843), the "Gospel of Mammonism" became simply a metaphoric personification for the [[materialist]] spirit of the 19th 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 having been 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".

Under the influence of the Social Gospel movement, American populists, progressives and "muck-rakers" during the generation of 1880–1925 used "Mammon" with specific reference to the consolidated wealth and power of the banking and corporate institutions headquartered on Wall Street and their predatory activities nationwide.