Max Duncker

“ I am Nebuchadnezzar, king of justice, shepherd of the nations, leader of men, director of the worship of the gods Bel, Dagon, Samas, and Merodach. I am he who carries out their counsels. Merodach the great lord has raised me to the dominion over the nations. I demeaned myself with humility before the god who created me. Babylon is the shrine of the god Merodach. I have completed Imgur Bel, the great wall. I have erected great gates and covered their portals with brass. I have cut great trenches and cased their sides with bricks and bitumen. ”

“ May Anu and Bin grant me prosperity for ever, may they bless the work of my hands, may they hear my prayer and lead me to victory in war and in fight, may they subdue to my dominion all the lands which rise up against me, the rebellious nations and the princes, my rivals, may they accept my sacrificial offerings for the continuance and increase of my race; may it be the will of Asshur and the great gods to establish my race as firm as the mountains to the remotest days. ”

“ Haoma answered him: "I am the pure Haoma, who protect men from evil. Call on me, press out my juice in order to enjoy me; praise [Pg 125] me as all other fire-priests praise me." Then said Zarathrustra: "Supplication to Haoma! Haoma, the good, is well-created; duly-created is he, and gives health; he bestows kindness, is victorious, and of golden colour. Thy wisdom, O golden one, I praise; thy strength, thy victory, thy healing power, thy greatness. I praise the mountains, the high ones, where thou, Haoma, growest; I praise the earth, the wide and patient, thy mother, O pure Haoma. ”

“ That the tribes of the deserts should pay especial reverence to the deities of the stars—we have seen how systematised was the worship of stars in Babylon—cannot surprise us. With the refreshing dew of evening not Venus only or the moon, but the whole glory of the starry heaven met the eye and touched the spirit of the Arabs. High above the tents and resting flocks, above the nocturnal ride and waiting ambuscade, and all the doings of men the stars passed along on their glittering courses. ”

“ The burden descends on Hadrach, and on Damascus; on Hamath that shall border thereby; on Tyre and Sidon, though it be very wise. Tyre built herself a stronghold, and heaped up silver as the dust, and fine gold as the mire of the streets. Behold, the Lord will take her, and cast her walls into the sea, and she shall be consumed by fire. Ascalon shall see it, and fear; Gaza, and be very sorrowful, and Ekron, for her expectation shall be ashamed; and the king shall perish from Gaza, and Ascalon is uninhabited. A strange race shall dwell in Ashdod, and I will destroy the pride of the Philistines. ”

“ From the blood of the slain, from the fat of the mighty, the bow of Jonathan turned not back, and the sword of Saul returned not empty. Saul and Jonathan were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death they were not divided. They were swifter than eagles, stronger than lions. Ye daughters of Israel, weep for Saul, who clothed you delicately in purple, and put ornaments of gold on your garments. How are the mighty fallen in battle. ”

“ Mithra gives swift horses to those who do not deceive him; to the habitation in which he is satisfied he gives troops of cattle and men. The fire of Auramazda gives the straightest path to those who do not deceive Mithra. But if the lord of the house, the village, the canton, the land deceives him, then Mithra in anger destroys house and village, canton and land. Not all evil deeds, not all deception, are seen by Mithra, saith the wicked man. But Mithra sees all that is between heaven and earth. With ten thousand eyes he beholds the man who hates and deceives him. ”

“ There could hardly be a more strongly-marked contrast than between the worship of Auramazda, the creator of heaven and earth, and surrounded by the light spirits of the sky, in which no images were allowed, and the rites of the Egyptians, their worship of numerous images of the most extraordinary form in splendid temples, their adoration of the sacred animals, in which these deities appeared, and were thought to be present,—between their anxious care for the preservation of the corpse, and the eagerness of the Iranians to remove the impure remains of man. ”

“ Come up, ye horses, and rage, ye chariots; let the Ethiopians come forth that handle the shield, and the Libyans that bend the bow. But why have I seen them dismayed and turned back, and their mighty ones are beaten down, and are fled apace and look not back? Let not the swift flee away, nor the mighty man escape; they shall stumble and fall toward the north by the river Euphrates, and the sword shall devour, and it shall be made satiate, and shall be drunk with the blood of the Egyptians. Go up into Gilead, and take balm, O virgin daughter of Egypt. ”

“ Since Ammon has granted to thee that Egypt and the nation of the Cheta shall be slaves at thy feet, and Ra has granted thee the dominion over them, thou canst slay thy slaves; they are in thy power; we lie bowed to the earth, ready to obey thy command. O brave king, delight of the warriors, grant us the breath of our lives! The king summoned his generals in order to hear the message and write an answer, and toward midday he took ship. He returned in peace with his army to Egypt. The whole earth has subjected itself to his name, and the princes, lying on the ground, worship his countenance. ”

“ As the god of light and the soul Mithra slays in the cave, that is in the world of gloom and matter, the bull which is the symbol of matter, as opposed to light, in its creative power, and conveys the soul, the side of man akin to light, out of the gloom of matter through the heaven of the fixed stars, and then through the heaven of the planets, to the light. ”

“ Other military princes of the East have achieved greater conquests in a shorter space of time than Cyrus, but none understood how to preserve the empire he had won, and make it permanent, as Cyrus did. He possessed not only the keen eye of the general, but an unerring political insight, and an unusual power of penetrating into the interests, the motives, the manners and actions of the communities and nations which victory placed in his power. Among the rulers of the East no one is like him, and one alone approaches him, the second successor on the throne which he founded. ”

“ Persians and Libyans and Lydians serve in thee; they are thy warriors; they hang shield and helmet on thy walls: thy own warriors stand round on the walls, and brave men are on all thy towers. Syria is thy merchant, because of the number of the wares of thy skill; they make thy fairs with emeralds, purple, and broidered work, and fine linen, and coral, and agate. Damascus is thy merchant in the multitude of the wares of thy making, in the wine of Helbon, and white wool. Judah and the land of Israel were thy merchants ”

“ The protection of Pharaoh shall be your shame, and the trust in Egypt your confusion. They will carry their riches on the backs of asses, and their treasures upon the bunches of camels to a people that shall not profit them. Egypt's help is vain and void. I call Egypt a tempest, which sits still. Woe to them that go down to Egypt for help, and stay on horses and on chariots because they are many, but look not unto Jehovah! The Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses are flesh, and not spirit. The protector stumbles, and the protected falls to earth. ”

“ I regarded thee as the most excellent, O Mazda, whom thy people have to worship in spirit, as the father of the pious, since I saw thee with my eye, as the eternal law-giver of the world, living in his works. Since thou of old, O Mazda, didst create all beings and spirits according to thy will, and gave them reason and a material body, all men, the wise and the unwise, cause their voices to sound, each according to his heart and mind; he who strives after wisdom proves in his spirit on which side is error. ”

“ Babylon said in her heart, I will climb up to heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, and dwell on the hill of assembly in the uttermost north. I will climb to the heights of the clouds, and make myself equal to the Highest. But against them Jehovah arouses the Medes, who regard not silver and have no pleasure in gold. [62] Call aloud to them, wave the hand, that they may enter into the gates of the tyrants. Their bows will destroy her young men, and she laments not for her children. And thus Babylon, the delight of the kingdoms, shall be as Sodom and Gomorrah. ”

“ The efforts of the Egyptians to preserve themselves and their actions, and to cause their names to live in the mouths of the generations after them, have not been without a result. What the Greeks and Romans knew of their history were traditions attached to the great monuments. Before our researches the Egyptian nation has literally risen from the tomb; the pyramids tell us the history of the old monarchy, and the temples at Thebes the history of the new. Without these monuments the kings of Manetho would have remained an empty and unintelligible echo. ”

“ Beside the sculptures which symbolically represent the dignity, business, or deeds of the officers of the empire, the remaining reliefs of Persepolis give no chronicle of the reign of Darius and Xerxes; we find neither battles nor sieges; they merely glorify the splendour and greatness of the monarchy; they exhibit the throne of the king which the subject nations carry, surrounded by the princes of the kingdom, and protected by the body-guard. ”

“ The only service of the holy God is a holy and righteous life. Sacrifice is not required, but recognition of God, simplicity, chastity, and moderation.
If from this point of view, to which their own conception had laboriously risen—they had learned to know the ancient God of Israel in his true nature—and following the lead of the sacred Scriptures, the prophets cast a glance on the fortunes and achievements of their nation,—had not Jehovah already announced himself to their forefathers? Had he not by Moses commanded and established the true worship? ”

“ It is not the first obelisk erected in Egypt, for the inscriptions of Chufu mention an obelisk erected by that king, but it is the oldest which has come down to our time. The inscription, repeated on all four sides, runs thus:—"Horus, the life of that which is born, the child of the sun, Sesurtesen, who is beloved by the spirits of Heliopolis, who will live for ever, the golden hawk, the life of that which is born, this gracious god has erected this obelisk at the beginning of the great festival. He has erected it who assures us of life for ever." ”

“ Who is in the wind and the storms that they move so swiftly? Who created the beneficent lights and the darkness? For whom didst thou create the imperishable cow Ranyoçkereti (the Earth) ? Who formed the earth with its great blessings? Who are the Daevas, which fight against the good creation? Who slew the hostile demons? Who is the truthful one, who is the liar? How are we to chase away the lies, how shall I put the lies into the hand of Asha (Truthfulness) ? How can I come to your dwelling (the dwelling of the gods) , and to your song? ”

“ Like the Israelites, the nation of Judah was now shattered and torn asunder. By the canals in Egypt, and by the waters of Babylon, on the Chaboras in Mesopotamia, and on the mouths of the Nile, lingered the fugitives and exiles. [671] Nothing remained to them but the remembrance of David's glory, and sorrow for the fall of Israel. But the longer duration which was allowed to the kingdom of Judah had borne good fruits. It had given the Jews time to strengthen and deepen their religious and national feeling. ”

“ From the mountains of his native land Cyrus had subjugated in thirty years three great kingdoms—Media, Lydia, and Babylonia; he had conquered Asia from the shore of the Ægean Sea to the Indus, and from the brook of Egypt to the shores of the Black and Caspian Seas and the banks of the Jaxartes. None of the conquerors before him—no Pharaoh of Egypt—none of the ancient kings of Elam or Babylon, or of the restless sovereigns of Assyria, nor even the Mede Cyaxares—had achieved results which could be distantly compared with the successes of Cyrus. ”

“ The masonry is heavy, and narrows toward the top. Here in the gloom dwelt the hidden spirit of the god. The heavy, solemn, mysterious character of the Egyptian temple naturally makes itself most strongly felt in these spaces or rooms. On the inner walls of the temple the sacrifices and worship rendered by the king are represented, on the outer walls we see his achievements in war. What still remains of the building of Amenophis—and it was subsequently enlarged—allows us only to conjecture upon the original plan. Yet about 200 pillars and shafts still rise out of the ruins. ”

“ O Haoma, lord of the house, of the village, of the land, lord of wisdom, I call on thee for greatness and victory, for favour to my body, and rich food. O thou who art of golden colour, I entreat thee for skill and power, passing through the whole body, for beauty and health, for prosperity and increase, for greatness spreading over the whole form. ”

“ There the table-land is rough and bare, the valleys are narrow and deep clefts, the soil is stony. From Libanus the eye looks out on the most various groups of wooded promontories and a smiling coast, but in Judæa the landscape exhibits none but severe and simple outlines. On the wide expanses only a few bushes of pale olives arise, or transparent groups of a few palm-trees. The grassy plains have made way for steppes or downs, and even the bed of the valleys is covered with fresh green only in the brief rainy season. The region round the Dead Sea is wholly desolate. ”

“ This lawlessness is brought to an end, not by a mighty warrior, but by a clever, ambitious village-judge, who by his decisions so gains the affections of the Medes, that they elect him to be king. When chosen he knows how to lead them by cunning, or rather to infatuate them into giving him a body-guard and building him a palace. Then he compels them to live together in one city, and, in the course of a long reign, establishes the despotic system of Asia to its full extent, with all its appliances, among the Medes. ”

“ Avenge thy death on Astyages, for dead thou art in his intention; it is through the gods and me that thou livest. Long ago thou hast learnt all that befell thee, and what I have suffered at the hands of the king because I did not slay thee, but gave thee to the cowherd. If thou wilt follow my counsel, thou shalt rule over all the land over which Astyages was ruler. Persuade the Persians to revolt, and march against Media, and if I or any other chief man among the Medes is appointed by Astyages to lead the army against thee, all will be as thou wilt. ”

“ When in his return from Sardis to Ecbatana, Cyrus received the intelligence of the rebellion of the Lydians, he confided to Crœsus, as Herodotus tells us, that it seemed to him the best plan to make all the Lydians slaves. "I have dealt with them," so Herodotus represents Cyrus as saying, "as one who spares the children when he has slain the father. I have captured you who have been more to them than a father, and left them their city, and now I wonder that they rebel." Crœsus replied: "What you say is just, but let your anger pass by; do not destroy an ancient and guiltless city. ”

“ It was natural, amid such conceptions, to believe that the whole life of nature and man depended on the luminaries of the sky, and that the earth and mankind received their laws from above, from the gleaming paths of the constellations. ”

“ She is empty, and void, and waste, and the heart melteth, and the knees smite together, and a multitude of slain, and a great number of carcases; there is no end of their corpses. They stumble on the corpses. Thy captains fly, O king of Assyria, thy mighty men slumber, thy people is scattered on the mountains, and no man gathereth them. ”

“ Keep far from us the hatred of those who hate us; tear out the hearts of those who give poison. If in this house, this place, this village, this sacrifice, there is a man who does harm, take from him the power to go, obscure his reason, break asunder his heart with the commandment. Let him not be mighty in the feet, let him not be mighty in the hands. O Haoma, I make a prayer to thee, that thou mayest go a sovereign lord through the worlds, triumphing over hatred and the evil. ”

“ Out of this fissure the Nile has created a narrow strip of fruitful soil—the valley is not more than three or four hours in breadth on an average—which is secured by the heights on the west from the moving sand and the storms of the great desert, and is separated by the mountain on the east from the rocky crags, the desolate flats, and sandy dunes which fill up the space between the valley of the river and the Red Sea. To this valley the mighty river not only gives a refreshing coolness and moisture by the mass of its waters, it fertilises and manures it from year to year by its overflow. ”