Also 6 Belyall. [a. Heb. b’li-yasal, f. b’li not, without + yasal use, profit; hence lit. ‘worthlessness,’ and ‘destruction’; but in later use and in the N. T. treated as a proper name = ὁ πονηρός, the evil one, Satan. In the Eng. transl. it is retained untranslated in the phrase ‘sons of Belial’ and the like, as it is generally also in the Vulgate, though in 1 Kings xxi. 13 it is rendered filii diaboli, as in mediæval use.]
1. The spirit of evil personified; used from early times as a name for the Devil or one of the fiends, and by Milton as the name of one of the fallen angels. Also attrib.
c. 1225. Juliana, 38. Ich am þe deouel belial, deoflene wurest, ant mest is awariet. Ibid., 16. Ȝe beliales budeles.
1377. Langl., P. Pl., B. XVIII. 319. And with þat breth helle brake with Beliales barres.
c. 1384. Wyclif, De Eccl., Sel. Wks. III. 339. Christ comouneþ not wiþ Belial.
1572. Forrest, Theoph., 416. This Belyall bill written with his bloode.
1663. Bk. Com. Prayer, Chas. Mart. In permitting cruel men, sons of Belial, (as on this day) to imbrue their hands in the blood of thine Anointed.
1667. Milton, P. L., I. 490. Belial came last, then whom a Spirit more lewd Fell not from Heaven.
1822. Scott, Monast., xxxiv. A scoffer, a debauched person, and, in brief, a man of Belial.
1879. Farrar, St. Paul, II. 108, note. Belial is not originally a proper name … this is why there was no worship of Belial.
Hence Belialic a., Belialist.
1631. Bp. Webbe, Quietn. (1657), 145. The most unquiet Belialist in his parish.
1656. Trapp, Comm. Matt. xi. 29. Christians must not be yokeless … Belialists.
1822. Blackw. Mag., XI. 464, note. Belialic qualities I could not have expected to meet in him.
