Belphegor (or Baal Peor, Hebrew: בַּעַל-פְּעוֹר baʿal-pəʿōr – “Lord of the Gap”) is, in the Abrahamic religions, a demon associated with one of the seven deadly sins. According to religious tradition, he helps people make discoveries. He seduces people by proposing incredible inventions that will make them rich. According to some demonologists from the 17th century, his powers are strongest in April. The German bishop and witch hunter, Peter Binsfeld (ca. 1540–ca.1600) wrote that Belphegor tempts through laziness. According to Binsfeld's Classification of Demons, Belphegor is the main demon of the deadly sin known as sloth in the Christian tradition. The anonymous author of the Lollard tract The Lanterne of Light, however, believed Belphegor to embody the sin of gluttony rather than sloth. Belphegor derives from the Assyrian Baal-Peor, a Baal worshipped at Mount Peor, to whom the Israelites were associated in Shittim (Numbers 25:3) and who was associated with intemperance and orgies. It was worshiped in the form of a phallus. As a demon, he is described in Kabbalistic writings as "the one who quarrels", an enemy of the sixth Sefirot "beauty". In stories where he was invoked, he bestows wealth, power to make discoveries and make fantastic inventions. His role as a demon was to sow dispute between people, and to lead them to evil through the distribution of wealth. The palindrome prime number 1000000000000066600000000000001 is known as Belphegor's prime, due to the superstitious significance of the numbers it contains. Belphegor's prime number consists of the number 666, surrounded on both sides by thirteen zeros and finally one one. According to De Plancy's Dictionnaire Infernal, Belfegor was Hell's ambassador to France. As a result, his enemy is St Mary Magdalene, one of the patron saints of France.

Literature

The novella Belfagor arcidiavolo by Italian diplomat Niccolò Machiavelli was first published in 1549, and regales how the demon comes to earth to find a mate. Belphegor figures in Paradise Lost by John Milton, 1667. According to the 1818 Dictionnaire Infernal by Collin de Plancy, Belphegor was Hell's ambassador to France. The same claim was repeated by Victor Hugo in Toilers of the Sea (1866). In the grimoire Key of Solomon (translated into English by S.L. Mathers in 1889), Belphegor is listed near the end of the book as an Assyrian idol, now destroyed. The novella by Machiavelli became the basis for the opera Belfagor by Ottorino Respighi, which premiered at La Scala in Milan in 1923.

In popular culture