Demonology is the study of demons or beliefs about demons. They may be human, or nonhuman, separable souls, or discarnate spirits which have never inhabited a body.
Mammon in the New Testament of the Bible is commonly thought to mean money, materialwealth, or any entity that promises wealth, and is associated with the greedy pursuit of gain. The Gospel of Matthew and the Gospel of Luke both quote Jesus using the word in a phrase often rendered in English as "You cannot serve both God and mammon."
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In the Middle Ages it was often personified and sometimes included in the seven princes ofHell. Mammon in Hebrew (ממון) means "money". The word was adopted to modern Hebrew to mean wealth.
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.
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 de Lyra, commenting on the passage in Luke, says: "Mammon est nomen daemonis" (Mammon is the name of a demon).
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.
Currently the word "mamona" is used figuratively and derogatorily in Polish as a synonym of money. In Slovak the word mamonár is sometimes used to refer to a greedy person.
The word "mammona" is quite often used in the Finnish and Estonian languages as a synonym of material wealth.
In German, the word "Mammon" is a colloquial and contemptuous term for "money". Usually as a phrase in combination with the adjective "schnöde" ("der schnöde Mammon" = the contemptible mammon).
