Beelzebub

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Depiction of the Beelzebub from the Dictionnaire Infernal (1863)

Beelzebub (also Belzebub, Beelzebul, Beelzebock or Belsebub ) is a demon or a local deity of the Philistines in mythology . In a figurative sense, Beelzebub is also used as another name for the devil .

etymology

Named Beelzebub ( Heb. בעל זבוב, Ba'al Zəvûv ;. Arab بعل الزباب, Ba'al az-Zubab ; literally "Lord of the Flies";. Altgriech Βεελζεβούλ, Belzeboúl ; lat. Beelzebub) is in the Tanakh the city god of Ekron in Land of the Philistines. The etymological origin is probably derived from the Hebrew Zebul , "excrement", "fertilizer".

Baal Zebub is translated as "Lord of the Flies" and is probably a corruption of the actual name בעל זבול Baal Zebul ('exalted lord') in order to devalue the pagan god to a demon or to mock his followers. All forms of the name are epithets of the title Ba'al . The actual name was only obtained from text comparisons with Ugaritic . In early Jewish times the Canaanite weather god Baal became the epitome of the idol . King Ahaziah of Israel asked him for an oracle (2nd Kings 1 EU ).

In rabbinical Hebrew, Beelzebul means “master of the dungheap”, derived from the Hebrew word zabal (“fertilize”), which the rabbis used to describe idolatry. That earned him the nickname “bastard”.

Zoroastrian demonology

As a fly demon , Beelzebub has an older template in the old Iranian, Zoroastrian demonology : There it is the female demon Nasu, who was depicted as a fly living in corpses and who embodied and symbolized putrefaction, impurity and decay. The Nasu, who fed on corpses, could be chased away by scavenging dogs and birds, which appeared as helpful beings of the lightbringer Ormuzd .

In the traditional Sag-did rite, which was a cleansing rite, certain ablutions for certain parts of the body are described, with which the demon-believing people could protect themselves from the harm caused by the flying demons.

New Testament

In the New Testament in Markus ( Mk 3.22  EU ) the name Beelzebul is found first . In ancient Bible translations, such as the Latin Vulgate , is Beelzebub in Beelzebub changed:

“The scribes who came down from Jerusalem said: He is possessed by Beelzebul; with the help of the leader of the demons he drives out the demons. "

The name was changed to Beelzebub and its meaning was based on 2 Kings 1  EU , where a Baal-Sebub is mentioned as a city ​​deity in the Palestinian Ekron, whose name is transferred with "Lord of the Flies". The combination of these two forms of Beelzebub's name was easily possible due to their almost identical meaning.

With Markus ( Mk 3,23,26  EU ) it says further:

“Then he called them to him and taught them in parables: How can Satan cast out Satan? [...] And if Satan rises up against himself and is in conflict with himself, he cannot endure, but it has happened to him. "

With Matthew ( Mt 10.25  EU Mt 12.24.27  EU ) and Luke ( Lk 11.15  18-19 ) Beelzebub is the "leader of the demons".

middle Ages

The medieval theologians and demonologists also knew the Beelzebub as a flying demon and he was believed to be the prince of the realm of darkness. Looking at the Beelzebub should have created other fly demons, such as the large fly that stung the Longobard King Kunibert when he was consulting with his favorites on how to get rid of two of his opposed nobles.

Beelzebub in literature

In later magical literature the name Beelzebub is often encountered as the patron of magic . In John Milton's epic Paradise Lost (1667), Beelzebub is the second highest prince of Hell after Satan .

At the time of the witch hunt at the end of the Middle Ages and the early modern period, from the 14th to the 17th century, the term Beelzebock was used in various sources , a reinterpretation that is undoubtedly related to the goat figure of the devil. This goat figure, in turn, is documented for the first time in a report of a magic trial from 1335 in Toulouse .

As a literary adaptation, characters named Beelzebub appeared in various works. These characters are mostly characterized as opponents of the protagonists.

Vernacular

B (e) elzebub is the common name of the servant Ruprecht in some regions . In the vernacular "cast out the devil by Beelzebub" common phrase (according to Mt 12.24 to 27  EU ), on an incident in the Gospel of Luke (11.15 EU back), means mutatis mutandis evil with an equally bad or worse to fight .

literature

Web links

Wiktionary: Beelzebub  - explanations of meanings, word origins, synonyms, translations
Commons : Beelzebub  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Older variants are e.g. E.g .: Belzebud, Beezelbub, Beazlebub, Belzaboul, Beelzeboul, Baalsebul, Baalzebubg, Belzebuc, Besebuci, Belzebuth, Beelzebuth and Beelzebus .
  2. ↑ Karl RH Frick : Das Reich Satans. Lucifer / Satan / Devil and the moon and love goddesses in their light and dark aspects. A representation of their original beings in myth and religion . Akademische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt, Graz 1982, p. 145.
  3. ↑ Marc Roberts Team: Lexicon of Satanism and the witchcraft. VF Collector Verlag, Graz 2004, ISBN 3-85365-205-0 , pp. 37-38.
  4. ↑ Kurt Seligmann: The world empire of magic. 5000 years of secret art. Bechtermünz Verlag Augsburg 1993.