Beelzebub

See Baalzebub.

Mat 10:25. See BAALZEBUB.

"the prince of the devils," Mat 12:24 . This name is derived from Baal-zebub, an idol deity among the Ekronites, signifying lord of flies, fly-baal, fly-god, whose office was to protect his worshippers from the torment of the gnats and flies with which that region was infested, 2Ki 1:2,3,16 . It is also sometimes written Beel- sebul, which signifies probably the dung-god. The Jews seem to have applied this appellation to Satan, as being the author of all the pollutions and abominations of idol-worship.\par

Be-el’zebub. See Beelzebul.

(See BAALZEBUB.)

(Βεελζεβούλ, BEELZEBUL) is the name assigned (Mat 10:25; Mat 12:24; Mar 3:24; Luk 11:15 sq.) to the prince of the daemons. It is remarkable that, amid all the daemonology of the Talmud and rabbinical writers, this name should be exclusively confined to the New Testament. There is no doubt that the reading Beelzebul is the one which has the support of almost every critical authority; and the Beelzebub of the Peshito (if indeed it is not a corruption, as Michaelis thinks, Suppl. p. 205), and of the Vulgate, and of some modern versions, has probably been accommodated to the name of the Philistine god BAAL-ZEBUB SEE BAAL-ZEBUB (q.v.). Some of those who consider the latter to have been a reverential title for that god believe that Beelzebul is a wilful corruption of it, in order to make it contemptible. It is a fact that the Jews are very fond of turning words into ridicule by such changes of letters as will convert them into words of contemptible signification (e.g. Sychar, Beth-aven). Of this usage Lightfoot gives many instances (Hor. Hebr. ad Mat 12:24).

Beelzebul, then, is considered to mean בִּעִל זֶבֶל, i. q. dung-god. Some connect the term with זְבוּל, habitation, thus making Beelzebul = οἰκοδεσπότης (Mat 10:25), the lord of the dwelling, whether as the “prince of the power of the air” (Eph 2:2), or as the prince of the lower world (Paulus quoted by Olshausen, Comment. in Mat 10:25), or as inhabiting human bodies (Schleusner, Lex. s.v.), or as occupying a mansion in the seventh heaven, like Saturn in Oriental mythology (Movers, Phoniz. 1, 260). Hug supposes that the fly, under which Baalzebub was represented, was the Scarabaeus pillularius, or dunghill beetle, in which case Baalzebub and Beelzebul might be used indifferently. SEE BAALIM; SEE FLY.

Beelzebub (2)

“A few months since a peasant man found near Ekron, five miles southwest of Ramleh, on the great maritime plain of Philistia, a stone seal about one inch square on the face, bearing a peculiar device,and which I purchased for a trifle; not considering it of any great value. Since then many antiquarians, to whom impressions were sent, have pronounced the device an image of Beelzebub, the great Fly-god, and the only one ever discovered. He is represented as a man of the Assyrian type, with short beard and four wings. In his hands he holds two apes or monkeys, denoting, perhaps, his office as ‘prince of devils”’ (De Hass, Travels in Bible Lands, p. 424).

Beelzebub (be-ĕl’ze-bŭb), lord of filth, or of flies. A name of contempt applied to Satan, the prince of the evil angels. Beelzebub, in the original Greek, is, in every instance, "Beelzebul." See margin of Revised Version. This name is not so much a contemptuous corruption of Baalzebub, the god of Ekron, as it is a designation of idols; hence Beelzebul = the idol of idols, i.e., the chief abomination, was used as an appellation of the prince of devils. Mat 10:25; Mat 12:24; Mat 12:27; Mar 3:22; Luk 11:15-27.

[Beel’zebub]

βεελζεβούλ. The meaning of this word is much disputed, some associate it with BAAL-ZEBUB ’lord of the fly,’ in the O.T., but others believe it to be a term of contempt, signifying ’lord of dung.’ The Jews, who blasphemously charged the Lord with casting out demons by Beelzebul (as it should be spelled), call him ’the prince of the demons,’ which sufficiently explains their meaning to be that the one who was the head of those demons enabled the Lord to cast them out. Mat 10:25; Mat 12:24; Mat 12:27; Mar 3:22; Luk 11:15; Luk 11:18-19. The Lord shows the folly of supposing that the same evil one who was seeking to build up a kingdom should be at the same time the means of pulling it down. He also denounces the dreadful blasphemy of saying that the work done by the Holy Spirit was accomplished by the influence of Satan: this blasphemy against the Holy Spirit was the sin that should never be forgiven. Cf. also 2Ki 1:2.

BEELZEBUB.—See Baalzebub.

(Hebrew: baal, lord; zebub, a fly)

A divinity worshiped by the Philistines at Accaron, as the god of flies, identified with the "demon" in the Gospels. In Luke 11, he is called chief of the demons. The Greek version of the New Testament has Beelzebul (prince of filth), perhaps an intentional change of the original word.

1. Old TestamentBeelzebub, or Baalzebûb, the Philistine god of Accaron (Ekron), scarcely 25 miles west of Jerusalem, whose oracle King Ochozias (Ahaziah) attempted to consult in his last illness, IV (II) Kings, i, 2. It is only as an oracle that the god is known to us; no other mention of him occurs in the Old Testament. The name is commonly translated "the lord of the flies", and the god is supposed to be so called either because as a sun god he brings the flies, though the Ba’al was probably not a sun god, or more likely because he is invoked to drive away the flies from the sacrifice, like the Zeus Apomuios, who drove them from Olympia, or the hero Myiagros in Arcadia. Halévy and Winckler interpret the name, according to the analogy of very many names compounded with baal, as "the lord of Zebub", supposed to be a locality in Accaron; there is no proof, however, for the existence of such a locality, and besides Beelzebub is called the god of Accaron. Cheyne thinks the original form of the name is Ba’al Zebul, "the lord of the mansion," or high house, which would refer to the god’s temple or to the mountain on which the gods dwelt, or rather, in his opinion, to both. But the textual evidence, as Lagrange objects, is entirely in favour of Zebub. Cheyne, admitting this, holds that the title "lord of the high house", which would suggest to the writer of Kings a reference to Yahweh’s temple or to His heavenly dwelling place, would be considered offensive, and would induce him, in contempt, to change it to Ba’al Zebub, the lord of flies. The tradition of the true name, lingering on, accounts for its presence in the Gospels (Zeboul). This conjecture, which has a certain plausibility, leaves unexplained why the contempt should lead to the particular form, Baal Zebub, a name without parallel in Semitic religions. It seems more reasonable, then, to regard Baalzebub as the original form and to interpret it as "lord of the Flies".2. New TestamentIn the New Testament, there is question of an evil spirit, Beelzeboul. On account of the great similarity of names, he is usually identified with Baalzebub, beel being the Aramaic form of baal, and the change from the final b to l such as might easily occur. But there were numberless names for demons at that time, and this one may have been newly invented, having no relation to the other; the fact that one element of the compound is Aramaic and the other Hebrew would not disprove this. The meaning of the term is "lord of the mansion" or dwelling, and it would be supposed by the Jews of this time to refer to the nether regions, and so be an appropriate name for the prince of that realm. Beelzeboul (Beelzebub) is used, then, merely as another name for Satan (Matthew 12:24-29; Luke 11:15-22) by whom the enemies of Our Lord accused Him of being possessed and by whom they claimed He cast out demons. Their charge seems to have been that the good Our Lord did was wrought by the Evil One in order to deceive, which Jesus showed to be absurd and a wilful blindness. If the New Testament name be considered a transformation of the old, the question arises as to how the god of the little town of Accaron came to give a name to the Prince of Darkness. The mission on which Ochozias sent his followers seems to show that Beelzebub already had a wide renown in Palestine. The narrative (2 Kings 1) was a very striking one, well known to the contemporaries of Our Lord (Luke 9:54); from it might easily be derived the idea of Beelzebub as the special adversary of God, and the change in the final letter of the name which took place (ex hypothesi) would lead the Jews to regard it as designating the prince of the lower regions. With him was naturally connected the idea of demoniacal possession; and there is no need of Cheyne’s conjecture that Beelzebub’s "name naturally rose to Jewish lips when demoniacal possession was spoken of, because of the demoniacal origin assumed for heathen oracles". How can we account for the idea of Beelzebub exorcizing the demons? On the assumption that he is to be identified with the Philistine god, Lagrange thinks the idea is derived from the special prerogative of Beelzebub as fly-chaser (chasse-mouche). In the Babylonian epic of the deluge, "the gods gather over the sacrificer like flies" (see Driver, Genesis, 105). It was easy for the heathen Semites, according to Lagrange, to come to conceive of the flies troubling the sacrifice as images of spirits hovering around with no right to be there; and so Beelzebub, the god who drove away the flies, became the prince of demons in whose name the devils were exorcised from the bodies of the possessed. Others think the idea naturally arose that the lord of the demons had power to command them to leave the possessed. It seems much more reasonable, however, to regard this faculty of Beelzebub not as a tradition, but simply as a change invented by Our Lord’s enemies to throw discredit on his exorcisms. His other miracles were probably accounted for by ascribing them to Beelzebub and so these likewise. Allen (Comm. on Matt., 107, 134) has endeavored to simplify the problem by the use of higher criticism. According to him, the role of Beelzebub as arch-demon and exorcist was not a Palestinian belief; in Mark’s Gospel, Beelzebub is simply the demon said to possess Our Lord. Matthew and Luke by mistake fuse together two independent clauses of Mark, iii, 22 and identify Beelzebub and Satan, to whom the faculty of exorcism is ascribed. The fusion, however, seems to be justified by the next verse of Mark, which is more naturally interpreted in the sense of Matthew and Luke, though Allen’s interpretation may be admitted as possible. Beelzebub does not appear in the Jewish literature of the period; there we usually find Beliar (Belial) as an alternative name for Satan.-----------------------------------JOHN F. FENLON Transcribed by Janet Grayson The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume IICopyright © 1907 by Robert Appleton CompanyOnline Edition Copyright © 2003 by K. KnightImprimatur. +John M. Farley, Archbishop of New York

bē̇-el´zē̇-bub (in the King James Version and the Revised Version (British and American) is an error (after the Vulgate) for Beelzebul (Revised Version margin) Βεελζεβούλ, Beelzeboúl; Westcott and Hort, The New Testament in Greek, Βεεζεβούλ, Beezeboúl): In the time of Christ this was the current name for the chief or prince of demons, and was identified with SATAN (which see) and the DEVIL (which see). The Jews committed the unpardonable sin of ascribing Christ’s work of casting out demons to Beelzebul, Thus ascribing to the worst source the supreme manifestation of goodness (Mat 10:25; Mat 12:24, Mat 12:27; Mar 3:22; Luk 11:15, Luk 11:18, Luk 11:19). There can be little doubt that it is the same name as BAALZEBUB (which see). It is a well-known phenomenon in the history of religions that the gods of one nation become the devils of its neighbors and enemies. When the Aryans divided into Indians and Iranians, the Devas remained gods for the Indians, but became devils (daevas) for the Iranians, while the Ahuras remained gods for the Iranians and became devils (asuras) for the Indians. Why Baalzebub became Beelzebul, why the b changed into l, is a matter of conjecture. It may have been an accident of popular pronunciation, or a conscious perversion (Beelzebul in Syriac = “lord of dung”), or Old Testament z^ebhūbh may have been a perversion, accidental or intentional of z^ebhūl (= “house”), so that Baalzebul meant “lord of the house.” These are the chief theories offered (Cheyne in EB; Barton in Hastings, ERE).