Amraphel

“ Amraphel's lip curled. Nevertheless he helped the old man to sit down with his back to the wall. Then, when Nabonidus had blinked a little and grown steadier as to his head, the high-priest stood over him and spoke:
"Thou, O weak one, hast been king of the Great City. King of her shalt thou be nevermore. Here thou art, alone, unheard, unseen, in my power and the power of the captive Jew. Death hangs over thy head; yet by one means thou mayst save thyself. Wilt thou hear?" ”

“ Gobryas had returned to the governorship of Sippar. Amraphel, unable to find any loop-hole for escape, remained shut up in his palace, miserably afraid, not even venturing to sacrifice in the temple for dread of the curse that hung over the city. Every place of worship, indeed, was deserted. In the middle of the temple of Bel-Marduk the hideous pile of dead still lay behind their barricade, just as they had fallen on the night of the massacre. Men not cowards at other times fled that building and the square and all the neighborhood, as a place of the damned. ”

“ So, then, Daniel himself did not know the secret of Istar's existence. It was well enough to call her an incarnation of evil. That, according to Amraphel's way of thinking, did not at all lessen her power. It was a rather discouraging silence that fell between the two; a silence that Daniel finally broke.
"Why, O Amraphel, dost thou question me about the woman of Babylon? What would you with her?"
The high-priest hesitated for a bare second. Then he answered, openly: "I would have her driven from Babylon! Driven hence, because—because she menaces the state. Because she takes our power from us. ”

“ Being ungagged, he cried mightily, and screamed aloud to the gods and demons, uttering curses on Amraphel the priest of Bel, and upon Belshazzar my lord, and upon the king Nabu-Nahid. Thus is Nergal-Yukin dead."
"It is well that all dogs should die. Listen, then, [Pg 340] Âpla, and do my bidding. Let forty of my runners, attired in their liveries, go forth into the city with trumpets and cymbals, and let them cry aloud through all Babylon the story of the rab-mag's treachery and his end. The name of Amraphel must not be spoken ”

“ The priestess started. "Nay—nay! Let my lord remain here below. The goddess is alone with her brothers. She commands that none shall ascend to her to-day."
"Begone, woman!" shouted Amraphel, suddenly breaking out into a very well-arranged burst of anger. "Begone, thou deceived and deceiving servant of a false goddess! Hear ye, ye people!" And he turned to the astonished multitude. "Hear ye who, for many months—nay, years—have worshipped at an altar of evil! Istar of Babylon, whom, unknowing, ye have called Belit, spouse of the great Bel, is no goddess. ”

“ Babylon must keep her goddess."
Amraphel shifted his weight and gave the faintest shrug of the shoulders. The sheep-like complaint must run its course. After it, a victory would be a simple matter. But Belshazzar's expression was not that of his father. Amraphel regarded it uneasily. The high-priest's one desire was to get Istar, goddess or demon, whichever she might be, out of Babylon, where her hold on the credulous and superstitious masses was something against which the priesthood could not contend. And this desirable end might easily have been arranged with Nabonidus alone. ”

“ Thus here, in the silent interior of Amraphel's vast palace, sat the two traitors, inwardly communing, outwardly silent, throughout the long night of the first of July, while Babylon raged within, and Belshazzar dreamed feverishly in the house of his dead father.
[Pg 424]
Morning—the morning of the second of Ab—dawned over the city. On the lips of every man was the name of Tammuz. In the heart of every man were the mingled emotions of excitement, of dread, of vague desire. ”

“ Where didst thou learn that name?"
"It is to be heard through all the east—and west—and north. No man but knows of the living goddess of Babylon. Yet within the walls of her city I found her not, nor any that could tell me where she dwelt. Is there such an one, Amraphel?"
"Now is it seven days since I sent asking that she be brought to me, or that I may have permission to go before her," observed Cyrus, thoughtfully. "Yet hath she not come, nor have I had any word from her."
"There was indeed an Istar of Babylon, who was wedded to Belshazzar, the dead tyrant. ”

“ And now, my Baba, now hear the rest of the day's happenings. The Great City is coming into the evening of her day. That thing that was Nabu-Nahid's greatest safeguard, because it alone was feared by the priesthood, is taken from us. In the days when Istar of Babylon shone like Shamash in her temple, Amraphel himself laid his face in the dust before her. But now, for many months, yea, since that journey to Erech, her glory has departed from her. I have looked on her long and despairingly of late weeks. This is the end that from the first I have feared. She is become no more than any woman ”

“ Amraphel only admits the Patêsû, Sangû, and Enû to their councils; these, and, of course, the three Jewish leaders: Daniel and the sons of Êgibi. The men of Judea—captives, they call themselves—will be a strong force in the uprising."
"Will this come in winter?"
"I do not know. Nothing is commonly known. Yet, in the rainy season, the army of the Elamite could not move northward without great difficulty. It is whispered through the temple that there are to be two armies—one that of Kurush himself; another that of Gobryas, the governor of Gutium. ”

“ That it is altogether a fiction, however, is in the highest degree improbable. If we have in the three names which these two tablets contain the Babylonian prototypes of Tidal, Arioch, and Chedorlaomer, they must refer to the events which passed between the first and thirty-first years of the reign of Amraphel or Ḫammurabi, in which it would seem that both Durmaḫ-îlāni and Tudḫula attacked and spoiled Babylon, cutting the canals so that the town and the temple were both flooded. ”

“ Chedor-laomer the Elamite was the leader of the expedition; he too was the suzerain lord of his allies; and nevertheless the campaign is dated, not in his reign, but in that of one of the subject kings. That the narrative has been taken from the Babylonian annals there is little room for {69} doubt, and consequently it would follow from the dating that Amraphel was a Babylonian prince, perhaps that he was the ruler of the city which, from the days of Khammurabi onward, became the capital of the country. ”

“ Chapter 14 The expedition of the four kings; the victory of Abram; he is blessed by Melchisedech.
1 And it came to pass at that time, that Amraphel, king of Sennaar, and Arioch, king of Pontus, and Chodorlahomor, king of the Elamites, and Thadal, king of nations,
2 Made war against Bara, king of Sodom, and against Bersa, king of Gomorrha, and against Sennaab, king of Adama, and against Semeber, king of Seboim, and against the king of Bala, which is Segor. ”

“ Bas-relief and inscription of Hammurabi, generally regarded as the Biblical Amraphel (Gen. xiv. 1) , apparently dedicated for the saving of his life. In this he bears the title (incomplete) of “King of Amoria” (the Amorites) , lugal Mar [tu] , Semitic Babylonian sar mât Amurrî (see page 315) . [pg ii] “There is a charm in finding ourselves, our common humanity, our puzzles, our cares, our joys, in the writings of men severed from us by race, religion, speech, and half the gulf of historical time, which no other literary pleasure can equal.”—Andrew Lang. ”

“ Belshazzar hastily mounted his chariot, and, the signal for the start being immediately given, there was a mad scramble for vehicles, donkeys, and camels, and the royal procession passed through the gate of the palace.
The temple of Marduk, in which the king kept the feast of Tammuz, was the largest temple in Babylon, and the only important one on the east bank of the Euphrates. At the other end of the great bridge, Amraphel, clad in the fullest insignia of his office, joined the king at the head of the line of the royal household. ”

“ The high-priest and his seers became more than ever absolute; ruling king and slave by means of unreasoning superstition; while in the houses of the priesthood [Pg 177] the gods were regarded as an amusing myth. But now—now—for two years past, all Babylonia, from Agâdé to the gulf, had been in a state of feverish religiosity, for the reason that there was a goddess in Babylon: a goddess—a living, baffling, radiant presence, whose origin none knew. Amraphel was baffled by her at every point ”

“ He is content. (At no future time) shall one bring a claim against the other. They have invoked the spirit of Šamaš, Aa, Marduk, and Ḫammurabi.”
(Here follow the names of seven witnesses.)
“Month Iyyar, day 3rd, year of the throne of Zērpanitum” (the 12th year of Ḫammurabi or Amraphel) .
That a father should part with his daughter for [pg 186] money in order that that daughter should become the wife of a man already married, agreeing at the same time that the young woman should become the slave of the first wife, would seem to the ordinary Western mind at the present day most barbarous. ”

“ The first dynasty of Babylon—The extent of its dominion—The Amorites—Life in Babylonia at this time—The religious element—The king—The royal family—The people—Their manners and customs as revealed by the contract-tablets—Their laws. Much has been learnt, but there is still much to learn, concerning the early history of Babylonia.
During the period immediately preceding that of the dynasty of Babylon—the dynasty to which Amraphel (Ḫammurabi) belonged—there is a gap in the list of the kings, which fresh excavations alone can fill up. ”

“ They are engraved on a great block of black marble, and are so numerous that they would fill pages of our Bible.
They are wise and just as far as they go. There is a great deal about buying and selling in them, and the lawful way of conducting different kinds of business; but they are wholly different from those wonderful Commandments which God gave to the Children of Israel three hundred years later.
For Shinar's laws were the heathen laws of a heathen king; in them there is no word of God; no word even of the heathen gods in which Amraphel believed. ”

“ Almost as ragged and unkempt was the army that by day marched under the standard of Brother Ambrose towards the sinless New Jerusalem. Reading the abundant signs all round with an inspired and fatalistic eye, Ambrose uncompromisingly announced that all the portents of the Millennium were now fulfilled, and that the reign of temporal power on earth was at an end. Each day his eloquence mounted to a wilder flight, each day he dreamed new dreams and saw fresh visions, and promised to his followers more definitely the spoil of victory, and parcelled out the smiling, fruitful land. ”

“ Ambrose said coolly. "We found the letter in your pocket; we have found other letters on the dead body of D'Arolles."
"The dead—dead body. Oh! I do not understand."
"D'Arolles is dead. The scheme of the juggled roses failed," said Ambrose. "Every man who emerged from Rems Cathedral had a red rose over his heart. Ah! your Grace turns pale. I will tell you presently how that was done. So sure of his position was Arnheim that he dared to lead the attack upon the Cathedral in person. ”

“ It must become multiplied, until Amabel is in all people, Jew and Gentile, Greek and barbarian. If her form be no more beheld, she shall be an universal interpreter. She is everywhere, even though unseen. Pierce through the rough outer coverings of all souls, and the divine germ of Love is there, only waiting for the light and moisture of consciousness so that it may swell and spring forth. Amabel is in the whispering of the breeze, the glow of the sunlight, the shimmer of the wave, the sighing of the forest, and the patter of the rain-drop. ”

“ Three hundred men were to be stationed at the gates and in the streets of Ophel, a part of the town situated to the south of the Temple, and along the valley of Millo as far as the house of Annas, on the top of Mount Sion, in order to be ready to send reinforcements if necessary, for, he said, all the people of the lower class of Ophel were partisans of Jesus. ”

“ Amrah grovelled sobbing in the dust.
“The ban of the Law is upon you, too; you cannot return to Jerusalem. What will become of us? Who will bring us bread? O wicked, wicked Amrah! We are all, all undone alike!”
“Mercy, mercy!” Amrah answered from the ground.
“You should have been merciful to yourself, and by so doing been most merciful to us. Now where can we fly? There is no one to help us. O false servant! The wrath of the Lord was already too heavy upon us.”
Here Tirzah, awakened by the noise, appeared at the door of the tomb. ”

“ Ambrose placed the golden apple in the prettiest part of the country and tapped its side with the rod and it became a beautiful castle of gold, in which he married his sweetheart and lived with her happily. Some time after he returned to his father's land, where an immense number of strong soldiers had grown up since Ambrose had killed the dragons. The old king distributed his realm among his three sons, giving the most beautiful empires to Ambrose, who took his father to him and kept him in great honour. His wife bore pretty children who rode out every day on the Tátos. ”

“ At his right and left sat the oldest members of the community of Ammergau, an old man with a remarkably fine face and long white beard, as Annas, and the sacristan, an impressive figure, as Nathanael. On both sides, in a wide circle, were the principal men in the parish robed as priests and Pharisees. What heads! What figures! The burgomaster, Caiaphas, rose and, with a brief address, opened the discussion. Poor Son of God, how wilt Thou fare in the presence of this mighty one of earth? ”