Mammon - Ill gotten money, or POWER defended with death

Mammon is used in the New Testament to describe material wealth or avarice.
Etymology
Mammon is 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 (during the discourse on ostentation) and in the parable of the Unjust Steward (Luke 16:9-13). The Authorized Version keeps the Syriac word. John Wycliffe uses “richessis”. Other scholars derive Mammon from Phoenician “mommon”, benefit.
The word is used in contemporary language with the same meaning in at least Finnish (mammona), Danish (mammon), and Polish (mamona). This is extremely likely to be a result of biblical influence.
Personifications

Mammon from Collin de Plancy’s Dictionnaire Infernal
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”.
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”.
Notable appearances in popular culture
• On the television show The Simpsons, plutocrat Montgomery Burns lives on Mammon Lane.
• In the Mozilla Firefox and Netscape Navigator browsers, when a user views the page “about:mozilla”: 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. Book of Mozilla, 7:15. In this case, Mammon is believed to be a reference to Microsoft, the creator of the Internet Explorer web browser.

admin @ May 20, 2007