MAMMON , a word of Aramaic origin meaning " riches"; or with the Hebrew "matmon, treasure". Occurs in the Sermon on the Mount "Ye can not serve God and mammon"(Matt . Vi . 24) and "the parable of the Unjust Steward" (Luke xvi . 9-13) . The Authorized Version keeps the Syriac word . Wycliffe uses " richessis." The New English Dictionary quotes Piers Plowman as containing the earliest personification of the name . Nicholaus de Lyra (commenting on the passage in Luke) says that Mammon "est nomen daemonis" . There is no trace, however, of any Syriac god of such a name, and the common identification of the name with a god of covetousness or avarice is chiefly due to Milton (Paradise Lost, i .678) . Milton's personification of the name—"Mammon, the least erected spirit that fell from heaven" ("Paradise Lost," i. 679)