Angel Of The Day

Note:The angel postings for this section will be coming from the book A Dictionary Of Angels Including The Fallen Angels by Gustav Davidson.

Angel Name:Abaddon (Abbadon, the "destroyer").

--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 of the "torrents of Belial [that] bust 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, 624) Milton like-wise 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, Abaddon 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 a name for God that Moses invoked to bring down 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 as 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. [R.f De Plancy, Dictionaire 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."
An angel in the service of the barchangel Michael. [RF.M. Gaster, Wisdom Of The Chaldeans.]