Biblical Names of the Devil

This "Great Duke of Hell", who is part of an "evil trinity" with Lucifer and Beelzebul, first appeared in the 17th century grimoire "The Book of Abramelin".

Revelation 12,9 (NIV): "The great dragon was hurled down—that ancient serpent called the devil, or Satan, who leads the whole world astray."

Also called Asmodai or Asmodee (among other names), this prince of demons appears in the deuterocanonical Book of Tobit and is sometimes equated with the devil; however, this interpretation is not mainstream and he does not appear in any of the canonical books.

This demon originated in German folklore and is probably best known throught the Faust legend, where he appears as an agent of the devil but not as the devil himself.

Meaning "lord" in ancient semitic languages, this title is used in the Bible to refer to various deities, possibly including the God of Israel (as indicated by 1 Chronicles 12:5, where the name Bealiah is mentioned, meaning "Yahweh is Ba'al", i.e. "Yahweh is Lord"). Only one specific deity, Baʿal Zebub (Beelzebul), is sometimes identified as the devil.

Nowhere in the bible does it say that the devil has horns.

This is the title of the devil in Manichaeanism, but not in the Bible. The term was adopted and popularised by John Milton's Paradise Lost. It also appears in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, which originated around the 4th century A.D. and is not considered canonical by any christian denomination.

Jesus famously said in Matthew 6,24 and Luke 16,13 that "You cannot serve both God and Mammon." This term was and still is usually interpreted as "worldly wealth", not as an entity. In the Middle Ages, Mammon was commonly personified as the demon of wealth and greed, but not as the devil himself.

Luke 11,18 (NIV): "If Satan is divided against himself, how can his kingdom stand? I say this because you claim that I drive out demons by Beelzebul." A corrupted form of this name, Beelzebub, meaning "Lord of Flies", is also often used synonymously.

Used commonly throughout the Bible, e.g. Job 1,6-12 or Matthew 4,10, this word is derived from the Hebrew for "accuser" or "adversary". The entities referred to by this name have been identified as the devil by most denominations of christianity, although the Old Testament is not explicit in this regard.

This ancient Semitic deity is mentioned in 2 Kings 17,31 where people "burned their children in the fire as sacrifices to Adramelech". He also appears as a demon John Milton's Paradise Lost, but is not considered to be the devil himself in either source.

John 8,44 (NIV): "You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies."

This "great beast" is mentioned only once in the Bible, in Hiob 40,15-24. It is not associated with the devil in the bible.

This name first appeared in the middle ages and is probably a corruption of the name Muhammad. It does not appear in the Bible.

The English translation of the Hebrew Ba'al-zebub (beelzebub), identified with the devil e.g. in Luke 11,18

This one might prove controversial. The word Lucifer appears in Latin Bibles as a translation of the Hebrew for "the shining one" in Isaiah 14:12, where it refers to the morning star (Venus) which in turn is used as a metaphor for the king of Babylon. This king is referred to as the shining one (i.e. morning star) that has been "cast down to the earth". In a completely different passage of the Bible (Luke 10,18), Jesus says "I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven." These two passages have been linked by some interpretations of the Bible, giving rise to the idea of Lucifer being the devil falling from heaven, but the word Lucifer or shining one does not appear in the second passage, and it does not refer to the devil in the first passage.

While somewhat obvious, the word devil derives from the Greek diabolos meaning slanderer, which appears frequently in the New Testament.

This name (Abaddon in Hebrew, Appolyon in Greek) appears many times in the Bible and usually refers to the underworld as a place. Only in Revelation 9,11 does it refer to an entity, the "angel of the Abyss". Some people equate this figure with the devil, but this interpretation is not mainstream, and the Bible is not explicit in this regard. The devil is mentioned explicitly in Revelation 20,1-3 where he is thrown "into the Abyss" by an angel "having the key to the Abyss". It is unclear if this second angel is identical with or unrelated to the "angel of the Abyss."

The antichrist appears four times in the Bible, in the First and Second Epistle of John. While a few christians have equated the Antichrist with the devil, the more mainstream views are closer to that of Saint Jerome, who noted: "Let us not follow the opinion of some commentators and suppose him to be either the Devil or some demon, but rather, one of the human race, in whom Satan will wholly take up his residence in bodily form."

Matthew 4,1-3 (NIV): "Then Jesus was led by the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. After fasting for forty days and forty nights, he was hungry. The tempter came to him and said, ‘If you are the Son of God, tell these stones to become bread.’"