Belial
Christian demon
Belial (Hebrew: בְּלִיַּעַל, Bəlīyyaʿal) is a term occurring in the Old Testament which later became personified as the devil in Christian texts of the New Testament. Alternate spellings include Baalial, Balial, Belhor, Beliall, Beliar, Berial, Bylyl, Beliya'al, and Belias. He is sometimes confused with the Semitic god Baal.
Quotes
edit- And he led them down from the Mount of Olives and looked wrathfully upon the angels that keep hell (Tartarus), and beckoned unto Michael to sound the trumpet in the height of the heavens. And Michael sounded, and the earth shook, and Beliar came up, being held by 660 angels and bound with fiery chains.And the length of him was 1,600 cubits and his breadth 40 cubits, and his face was like a lightning of fire and his eyes full of darkness. And out of his nostrils came a stinking smoke; and his mouth was as the gulf of a precipice, and the one of his wings was four-score cubits.
- Questions of Bartholomew 12–13
660 angels] 560 Gr., 6,064 Lat. 1, 6,060 Lat. 2
breadth 40] Lat. 1, 300, Slav. 17
Lat. 2, his length 1,900 cubits, his breadth 700, one wing of him 80
darkness] like sparks, Slav.
M. R. James, The Apocryphal New Testament (1924)
- Questions of Bartholomew 12–13
- Belial came last, then whom a Spirit more lewd
Fell not from Heaven, or more gross to love
Vice for it self: To him no Temple stood
Or Altar smoak’d; yet who more oft then hee
In Temples and at Altars, when the Priest
Turns Atheist, as did Ely’s Sons, who fill’d
With lust and violence the house of God.
In Courts and Palaces he also Reigns
And in luxurious Cities, where the noyse
Of riot ascends above thir loftiest Towrs,
And injury and outrage: And when Night
Darkens the Streets, then wander forth the Sons
Of Belial, flown with insolence and wine.
Witness the Streets of Sodom, and that night
In Gibeah, when hospitable Dores
Yielded thir Matrons to prevent worse rape.- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I
In Gibeah, ...] In Gibeah, when the hospitable door / Exposed a matron, to avoid worse rape.
- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book I
- [...] On th' other side up rose
Belial, in act more graceful and humane;
A fairer person lost not Heav'n; he seemd
For dignity compos'd and high exploit:
But all was false and hollow; though his Tongue
Dropt Manna, and could make the worse appear
The better reason, to perplex and dash
Maturest Counsels: for his thoughts were low;
To vice industrious, but to Nobler deeds
Timorous and slothful: yet he pleas'd the eare, [...]- John Milton, Paradise Lost, Book II
- Or, my scrofulous French novel
On gray paper with blunt type!
Simply glance at it, you grovel
Hand and foot in Belial's gripe:
If I double down its pages
At the woeful sixteenth print,
When he gathers his greengages,
Ope a sieve and slip it in't?- Robert Browning, "Soliloquy of the Spanish Cloister" (1839)
- Lemegeton Clavicula Salomonis
- Aleister Crowley, The Book of the Goetia of Solomon the King. Boleskine, Foyers, Inverness: Society for the Propagation of Religious Truth, 1904
- The Sixty-eighth Spirit is Belial. He is a Powerful King, and was created next after Lucifer. He appeareth in the Form of Two beautiful Angels sitting in a Chariot of Fire. He speaketh with a Comely Voice, and declareth that he fell first from among the worthier sort, that were before Michael, and other Heavenly Angels. His Office is to distribute Presentations and Senatorships, etc., and to cause favour of Friends and of Foes. He giveth excellent Familiars, and governeth 80 Legions of Spirits. Note well that this King Belial must have Offerings, Sacrifices and Gifts presented unto him by the Exorcist, or else he will not give True Answers unto his Demands. But then he tarrieth not one hour in the Truth, unless he be constrained by Divine Power. And his Seal is this, which is to be worn as aforesaid, etc.
- No. 68