Abaddon

Abaddon

Other Names / Variants:

Abbadon, Abadon, Exterminans.

Also known as Apollyon

Meaning of Name:

"the destroyer"

Abaddon -the Hebrew name for the Greek Apollyon, "angel of the bottomless pit," as in Revelation 9:10; and the angel (or star) that binds Satan for 1,000 years, as in Revelation 20. The Thanksgiving Hymns (a copy of which turned up among the recently discovered Dead Sea Scrolls) speaks of "the Sheol of Abaddon" and the "Torrents of Belial [that] burst into Abaddon." The 1st-century apocryphon The Biblical Antiquities of Philo speaks of Abaddon as a place (sheol, hell), not as a spirit or demon or angel. In Paradise Regained (IV, 264) Milton likewise employs Abaddon as the name of a place, i.e., the pit. As far as is known, it was St. John who first personified the term to stand for an angel. In the 3rd-century Acts of Thomas, Abbadon is the name of a demon, or of the devil himself - which is how Bunyan regards him in Pilgrim's Progress. According to Mathers, The Greater Key of Solomon, Abaddon is the name for God that Moses invoked to bring the blighting rain over Egypt. The cabalist Joseph ben Abraham Gikatilla denominates Abaddon as the 6th lodge of the 7 lodges of Hell (arka), under the presidency of the angel Pasiel (q.v.). Klopstock in The Messiah calls Abaddon "death's dark angel." A reference to Abaddon's "hooked wings" occurs in Francis Thompson's poem "To the English Martyrs" [See Apollyon.] Abaddon has also been identified with the angel of death and destruction, demon of the abyss, and chief of demons of the underworld hierarchy, where he is equated with Samael or Satan. [Rf De Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernal; Grillot, A Pictorial Anthology of Witchcraft, Magic and Alchemy, p.128] In the latter work, Abaddon is the "Destroying Angel of the Apocalypse." In Barrett, The Magus, Abaddon is pictured, in color, as one of the "evil demons." (a)

Abadon - a term for the nether world (see Abaddon). The spelling here (with one 'd') is from The Zohar (Deuteronomy 286a). (a)

Exterminans - The Latin name for Abaddon (q.v.). [Rf. Confraternity (Catholic) New Testament in its version of Revelation 9:11.] (a)

Abbadon: Chief of the demons of the seventh hierarchy. Abaddon is the name given by St. John in the Apocalypse to the king of the grasshoppers. He is sometimes regarded as the destroying angel. (b)

Abbadon (Appollyon is another common spelling) bore the nickname The Destroyer, from his days as one of the destroying angels of the Apocalypse. In the Book of Revelation, he is identified as the chief of the demon locusts, which are themselves described as having the bodies of winged warhorses, the faces of humans, and the poisonous, curved tails of scorpions. His other appellation was Soverign of the Bottomless Pit. (c)

Abbadon (uh-bad'-dun): "place of destruction," a Hebrew word for the realm of the dead (job 26.6; Prov 15.11; Ps 88.10-12; also mentioned in Rev 9.11) (d)

Abbadon: Abbadon, the Hebrew word for "destruction," is the biblical dwelling place of the dead found in both the Old and New Testaments. It is used interchangeably with SHEOL. Abbadon is the "bottomless pit" in which the damned suffer for all of eternity. Over time, Abbadon also become synonymous with death and the grave.

REVELATION refers to Abbadon as the place for those who "neither repented of their murders, nor their DEVIL worship, nor their fornication, nor their thefts." Abbadon is described as a foul, smoky abyss out of which locusts, demons, and monsters emerge to destroy the earth. The ruler of Abbadon is APOLLYON, the dark angel of the underworld.

Abbadon has also been described as a DEMON in THE PILGRIM'S PROGRESS and Paradise Found, the sequel to Milton's PARADISE LOST. In these, and numerous other classic stories, the name refers to the personification of evil. (o)

Abaddon

A.J. MAAS

A Hebrew word signifying:

ruin, destruction (Job 31:12);
place of destruction; the Abyss, realm of the dead (Job 26:6; Proverbs 15:11);
it occurs personified (Apocalypse 9:11) as Abaddon and is rendered in Greek by Apollyon, denoting the angel-prince of hell, the minister of death and author of havoc on earth. The Vulgate renders the Greek Apollyon by the Latin Exterminans (that is, "Destroyer"). The identity of Abaddon with Asmodeus, the demon of impurity, has been asserted, but not proved.
In Job 26:6, and Proverbs 15:11, the word occurs in conjunction with Sheol. (v)

ABADDON, a Hebrew word meaning " destruction." In poetry it comes to mean "place of destruction," and so the underworld or Sheol (cf. Job xxvi. 6 ; Prov. xv. n). In Rev. ix. n Abaddon ('A&aoS&v) is used of hell personified, the prince of the underworld. The term is here explained as Apollyon (q.v.), the " destroyer." W. Baudissin (Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklo-pddie) notes that Hades and Abaddon in Rabbinic writings are employed as personal names, just as shemayya in Dan. iv. 23, shamayim ("heaven"), and makom (" place ") among the Rabbins, are used of God. (y)