Recently I did some research about the demon called Beelzebub. Now, to continue on that path, I decided to turn to Abaddon. Both commonly confused as Satan.

Quite A Mixed Origin

The faces of Abaddon the demon angel because no one knows what he truly is. Abaddon is one name we can see on “The Devil” ‘s coin in the Netflix series, Lucifer.

However, it is wrong to refer to the king of Hell, Satan, as Abaddon or Beelzebub, for that matter. Abaddon is an angel himself and a demon of in his own rights.

In fact, Abaddon originates from Hebrew history and translates as the word ‘Doom.’ Not very optimistic to begin with if you ask me. Often, his name goes along regarding a bottomless pit. Next to him would be the realm of the dead.

So, right ahead, we can understand why there is a grey area where we can confuse Abaddon with another name referring to Satan. However, both are different entities. Moreover, both have different provenance and history.

When we turn to the Greek mythology, his equivalent is Apollyon appearing in the Bible as a place of destruction. What is even more interesting is that Apollyon is also an angel of the abyss.

If we go further into the belief that he is part of Satan’s many faces might be because he is part of Apollo’s mythology. Apollo is the Greek God of beauty, which is something we revere in today’s society.

The Book of Revelation

In the Bible, right in the New Testament, there is a section dedicated to the Book of Revelation. It is basically the Nostradamus of Christianity, except it describes how the world ends. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t go well for any of us.

Abaddon is part of the revelation as a Locust King, translation; he brings an army of locusts and unleashes it. I rarely believe in superstition, but this one has this creepy marking, and I quote it to be even more disturbing.

“And they had a king over them, which is the Angel of the Bottomless Pit, whose name in Hebrew tongue is Abaddon, but in the Greek language hath his name Apollyon.”

The Bible, Book of Revelation, 9:11

If we decide to take Abaddon or Apollyon and convert it to Latin, the name comes out as Exterminans. I know, not a good sign. Exterminans translates in English to Destroyer.

However you wish to read the Book of Revelations or not, Abaddon is not good news and brings chaos with him and an army of locusts, but he is good looking. The faces of Abaddon the demon angel because who can unleash locusts and respond to God?

Where Religion Meet

This gets interesting because even when under one God, specific figures come back. As easy as it is to compare Greek Mythology to Roman Mythology, Norse and Pagan are similar. Many said that once under one God, Christianity made it harder to compare but not as much as one might think.

In fact, the Angel Abaddon is the Christian version of Hades. We know Christianity borrowed various characters and holidays to fashion their version of religion. Well, angels are the same. If not the other gods of multiple mythologies, I don’t know what they would be.

Abaddon comes from the Semitic root from the verb stem translated to ‘perish,’ i.e., ‘destroy.’ In the Hebrew Bible, there are a hundred and eighty-four times where it occurs.

However, one might see the Angel, he is related to the destruction of the world, civilization, and comes from the underworld. Every religion or myth has a character that can play the part of Abaddon.

When Abaddon Becomes A Place

While in the Bible, Abaddon is an angel of the abyss and responsible for bringing locusts with him in the apocalypse, in other texts, he’s a place.

This is another reason why Abaddon cannot be the king of Hell. Satan does not bring confusion between being an entity or a place. There are no vague nuances while Abaddon, because of his Appolyon translation, leads to trouble.

In the Bible, Abaddon’s mention is a hundred and eight-four times throughout Job, Psalm, and Proverbs. His reference is through word destruction. Moreover, in those same places when referring to him as Sheol, the reference is the word grave.

It’s in the Dead Sea Scrolls that the text The Sheol of Abaddon is among other stories such as, Torrents of Belial that Burst Into Abaddon.

Abaddon Of Many Worlds

One of the grey areas of the Angel Abaddon is the reference to him as a place of lost souls in the underworld through a site called Gehenna. The legend is that lost or condemned souls would find themselves laying in snow and fire.

Gehenna is one of the many abodes Moses visited on his journey. The faces of Abaddon the demon angel is quite a good way to describe who and what Abaddon is so far.

We all know video games often find original ways to bring in historical or legendary characters. Abaddon is actually one of them in the video game Warhammer!

In this video game, the angel response to Abaddon the Despoiler and is the Warmaster of chaos. It seems that many mythologies mix together since some believe him to be the clone-progeny of Horus, who is also a Warmaster.

Now, if we move to Alchemy, Abaddon is an entity and a Jinn of the Apocalypse nonetheless. It is in the third book of the Occult Philosophy that one can find the definition from Alchemy.

They do mention the biblical references from the first to the last to support their theory. In fact, Cornelius Agrippa placed Abaddon as a monarch in the lower shadow of Venus, the planet from our solar system.

Now here’s a brain killer for you and part of the Book of Revelation as well!

…After that, he (Abaddon) is supposed to seize Satan himself, bind him and toss him into the bottomless pit for a thousand years.

“But the teachers of the law from Jerusalem said that he “Jesus” was possessed by Beelzebub and that it was only by means of the ruler of the demons (Satan) that he cast out demons. He called them over, and using metaphors asked them, “How can Satan cast out Satan?”

The Bible, Book of Revelation, Mark 3:22, 23

What About Christianity

In Christianity, Abaddon is a person and not a place, and they were the first to place him as such. They represent him as King and Angel of the bottomless pit.

That raises the question if Abaddon ever was an angel in heaven who joined Satan in his rebellion. After all, in the Book of Revelation, he responds to the fifth trumpet for the apocalypse.

Some refer to Abaddon as one who brings a plague upon Earth. Abaddon, in fact, releases not just any locusts but ones that bring so much suffering that humans beg to die if not mark by heaven’s seal.

The locusts have a full description in the Bible as monsters of quite a few animals and human parts and torment Earth for a total of five months.

At the end of the day, there are two schools of thought when it comes to Abaddon. There are the protestants who believe him to be the Antichrist.

Meanwhile, we have Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Commentary from 1871 to Henry H. Halley from 1922 identifying the Angel as Satan himself, which personally, I am opposed to as a demonologist. There are not enough evidence, in my opinion, to support that hypothesis.

What About Some Controversy?

There is a third school of thought on the matter. Who said Abaddon didn’t deserve our attention? The Methodist or The Interpreter’s Bible, believe that Abaddon is an angel of God and not one under Satan’s ruling.

He does the work of God because he responds to the fifth trumpet in the Book of Revelation. He is God’s Destroyer, how sweet.

A stretcher and maybe quite controversial though, is that Abaddon is, in fact, Jesus’ residual-self left from the human sins before his resurrection.

It created this entity we now know as Abaddon, therefore, working for God. This thought comes loosely from the Jehovah’s Witnesses citing the Book of Revelation 20:1-3.

And Now The Good Stuff

In the Acts of Thomas, in the third century, Abaddon made his place as a demon. In two sources, we can find an essential placement for the entity. One is The Enthronement of Abbaton by Timothy of Alexandria.

Timothy brings up the possibility that Abaddon is originally the Angel Muriel. Muriel received an excellent task from God to create Adam. He became a Guardian afterward.

As part of the Last Judgement, Abaddon is the one who takes the souls to the Valley of Josaphat. In the Apocalypse of Bartholomew, he is present in Jesus’ tomb when the resurrection occurs.

In Demonology, Abaddon is an angel one of destruction. The representation might be harmful, but nobody knows if Abaddon is, in fact, evil or good as he is an angel. Does he respond to God?

Everyone does if one believes in faith. Satan does as well. The apocalypse is the ultimate battle of good versus evil, and if you ask me, we all lose above, below, and center.

Abaddon is another entity often mistaken as Satan, but here it is: he is not. The faces of Abaddon the demon angel that’s what I’m going with!

The OCD Vampire,
Alexa Wayne