Chaldea

“ The king of men, the monarch, rob'd with might,
Trembles before a shadow!—say not so!
The child of dust, with guilt's prophetic sight,
Shrinks from the Dread Unknown, th' avenging Infinite.
But haste ye!—bring Chaldea's gifted seers,
The men of prescience!—haply to their eyes,
Which track the future through the rolling spheres,
Yon mystic sign may speak in prophecies.
They come,—the readers of the midnight skies,
They that give voice to visions!—but in vain! ”

“ Of one thing there can be no doubt: that our earliest glimpse of the political condition of Chaldea shows us the country divided into numerous small states, each headed by a great city, made famous and powerful by the sanctuary or temple of some particular deity, and ruled by a patesi, a title which is now thought to mean priest-king, i.e., priest and king in one. There can be little doubt that the beginning of the city was everywhere the temple, with its college of ministering priests, and that the surrounding settlement was gradually formed by pilgrims and worshippers. ”

“ Let those who dare set at naught the will of the king be taken and thrown into the burning fiery furnace. What thinkest Belrazi of this?"
"O king, live forever! Thy goodness is unbounded. Thy design is dictated by that wisdom that cometh from the gods. The measure shall be hailed throughout the empire with shouts of rejoicing, and the day of its dedication will be a day of days in the future history of Chaldea." ”

“ Among these theories, of especial interest to us are those which controlled theological thought in Chaldea. The Assyrian inscriptions which have been recently recovered and given to the English-speaking peoples by such scholars as Layard, George Smith, Oppert, Sayce, and others, show that in the ancient religions of Chaldea and Babylonia there was elaborated a narrative of the creation which, in its most important features, must have been the source of that in our own sacred books. ”

“ FOR some years after that wonderful display of Divine power, as exhibited before vast thousands on the plains of Dura, Chaldea was comparatively free from wars.
The king contented himself with adding to the already magnificent grandeur of the seat of his empire. Thousands were continually employed in carrying out the schemes developed by his inventive mind, and no sooner was one mighty enterprise completed, than another project was brought forward. But the monarch's vast ambition was not to be satisfied by the erection of massive walls and costly edifices. ”

“ TURANIAN CHALDEA.—SHUMIR AND ACCAD.—THE BEGINNINGS OF RELIGION.
1. It is not Berosus alone who speaks of the "multitudes of men of foreign race" who colonized Chaldea "in the beginning." It was a universally admitted fact throughout antiquity that the population of the country had always been a mixed one, but a fact known vaguely, without particulars. On this subject, as on so many others, the discoveries made in the royal library of Nineveh shed an unexpected and most welcome light. ”

“ It is in their name that were built the temples of Chaldea and Egypt and the religious edifices of the Middle Ages, and that a vast upheaval shook the whole of Europe a century ago, and there is not one of our political, artistic, or social conceptions that is free from their powerful impress. ”

“ As we go back to that shadowy and evanescent period when history and culture of ancient Chaldea unroll before us, with the overpowering greatness of Assyria followed by the swift rise and fall of Babylon, let us try and extract some truths in regard to the growth of Civilization. ”

“ The Chaldeans were devout believers in astrology, a form of superstition into which an astronomical religion like Sabeism is very apt to degenerate. For once it is taken for granted that the stars are divine beings, possessed of intelligence, and will, and power, what more natural than to imagine that they can rule and shape the destinies of men by a mysterious influence? ”

“ The literature of Chaldea—especially its religious literature—teems with references to magic, and in its spells and incantations we see the prototypes of those employed by the magicians of mediæval Europe. Indeed so closely do some of the Assyrian incantations and magical practices resemble those of the European sorcerers of the Middle Ages and of primitive peoples of the present day that it is difficult to convince oneself that they are of independent origin. ”

“ The like was mentioned in the Octateuch of Ostanes; and moreover, in Persia and in other parts of the East they erected temples to the serpent tribe, and held festivals to their honour, esteeming them the supreme of all Gods, and the superintendents of the whole world. The worship began among the people of Chaldea. They built the city Opis upon the Tigris, and were greatly addicted to divination and to the worship of the serpent. From Chaldea the worship passed into Egypt, where the serpent deity was called Canoph, Caneph, and C’neph. ”

“ We have just seen that the hymns and prayers which compose the third part of the great Magic Collection really mark a later and higher stage in the religious conceptions of the Turanian settlers of Chaldea, the people of Shumir and Accad. This improvement was not entirely due to a process of natural development, but in a great measure to the influence of that other and nobler race, who came from the East. ”

“ In the years that are lost in the past, long before our fathers came into the land of Babylon, there were wise men in Chaldea, from whom the first of the Magi learned the secret of the heavens. And of these Balaam the son of Beor was one of the mightiest. ”

“ Now all the race of Canaan followed religions very similar to that of Chaldea, only grosser still in their details and forms of worship. Therefore, that the old idolatrous habits might not return strongly upon them under the influence of a heathen household, the patriarchs forbade marriage with the women of the countries through which they passed and repassed with their tents and flocks, and themselves abstained from it. ”

“ If Chaldea was in after times a battle-ground of nations, it was in the beginning a very nursery and hive of peoples. The various races in their migrations must necessarily have been attracted and arrested by the exceeding fertility of its soil, which it is said, in the times of its highest prosperity and under proper conditions of irrigation, yielded two hundredfold return for the grain it received. Settlement must have followed settlement in rapid succession. ”

“ It appears probable that the philosophers of Chaldea were the priests of the Babylonian nation, who instructed the people in the principles of religion, interpreted its laws, and conducted its ceremonies. Their character was similar to that of the Persian Magi, and they are often confounded by the Greek historians. Like the priests in most other nations, they employed religion in subserviency to the ruling powers, and made use of imposture to serve the purposes of civil policy. ”

“ He could not have existed in Ancient Chaldea, and would probably have been burnt at the stake even under Charles II.; but in this wise twentieth century he dallies in Regent Street with a prominent society beauty and laughs in the face of a man whom he has attempted to destroy! ”

“ Centuries must, however, still elapse before we find record of any noteworthy attempts to arrive at precise definitions of the nature and origin of literary property, or to analyze the proper relations of the literary producer as well to the generation for [5] which he originally worked, as to such later generations as derived benefit from his creations.
Chaldea.—The earliest literature of which the archæologists have thus far found trustworthy evidence appears to be that of the Chaldeans. ”

“ Then, in these beautiful times, smuggling by night was exquisite; a trade of solitude and of meditation when the mind of the naive and very pardonable defrauders was elevated unconsciously in the contemplation of the sky and of the darkness animated by stars—as it happens to the mind of the sea folk watching, on the nocturnal march of vessels, and as it happened formerly to the mind of the shepherds in antique Chaldea. ”

“ In antiquity everything is symbol or emblem. In Chaldea it starts by putting a ram, two kids, a bull in the sky, to mark the productions of the earth in the spring. Fire is the symbol of the Deity in Persia; the celestial dog warns the Egyptians of the Nile floods; the serpent which hides its tail in its head, becomes the image of eternity. The whole of nature is represented and disguised. ”

“ Off I gallop!
"I have hoofs of ivory, teeth of steel, a head coloured purple, a body like snow, and the horn on my forehead has the varied hues of the rainbow.
"I travel from Chaldea to the Tartar desert, on the banks of the Ganges, and into Mesopotamia. I outstrip the ostriches. I run so rapidly that I draw the wind along with me. I rub my back against the palm-trees; I roll myself in the bamboos. With one bound I jump across the rivers. Doves fly above my head. Only a virgin can bridle me.
"Off I gallop! Off I gallop!"
Antony watches him flying away. ”

“ As concerning the rest of the Beasts, they had their dominion taken away: yet their lives were prolonged for a season and a time. And therefore all the four Beasts are still alive, tho the dominion of the three first be taken away. The nations of Chaldea and Assyria are still the first Beast. ”

“ The life in which they played a part has passed into history; the once proud and mighty cities lie prostrate, and upon their ruins other cities have risen, only to fall as they fell. The terra-cotta to which they committed their records is all that is left, and the tablets that were fashioned and inscribed so long ago give to us the best histories of Chaldea, Babylonia, and Assyria. ”

“ Below these gods are the Sun, the Moon, and the five planets, for in the transparent atmosphere of Chaldea the stars shine with a brilliancy which is strange to us; they gleam like deities. To these the Chaldeans raised temples, veritable observatories in which men who adored them could follow all their motions.
Astrology.—The priests believed that these stars, being powerful deities, had determining influence on the lives of men. Every man comes into the world under the influence of a planet and this moment decides his [Pg 45] destiny ”

“ CHALDEAN PHILOSOPHY claims attention on account of its very high antiquity. The most ancient people, next to the Hebrews, among the eastern nations, who appear to have been acquainted with philosophy, in its more general sense, were the Chaldeans; for though the Egyptians have pretended that the Chaldeans were an Egyptian colony, and that they derived their learning from Egypt, there is reason to believe that the kingdom of Babylon, of which Chaldea was a part, flourished before the Egyptian monarchy ”

“ As that worship had first its being in Chaldea, so had the art of statuary its origin in that country; it was improved, perhaps, in Egypt, and perfected in Greece, from the time of Pericles to that of Alexander, commonly called the Great.
DRAWING.
THE HUMAN FIGURE. From what has been said in the previous article, it would appear that drawing of the human figure was nearly coeval with the art of statuary, or perhaps prior to it in Greece. ”

“ It possessed a powerful priesthood devoted to the service of Anu, the Sky God, the local god of Erech, who, for these reasons, was placed first in the trinity of gods, before the more ancient and sacred divinities of Turanian Chaldea.
Nippur, the second capital of Chaldea, was also at this time a wealthy and populous city. Here was located a temple to Belus, the older Bel, identical with Mul-lil, the Lord of the lower world, and as the local god of Nippur, Bel became the second god in the trinity. ”

“ Can it be, as you say, that your people learn wisdom from them? or is it as his reverence the Cadi declares, that they are to go to the palace of your Queen, who, with the rest of the unbelievers, worships these idols? ”

“ For what could the elect, the people of God, or even those other nations who went astray, who were repeatedly chastised, but whose family bond with the righteous race was never entirely severed—what could they have in common with the banished, the castaway, the irretrievably accursed? ”

“ Among the few vague forms whose blurred outlines loom out of the twilight of those dim and doubtful ages, he is the second with any flesh-and-blood reality about him, probably the first conqueror of whom the world has any authentic record. ”

“ This is the origin of the horoscope. What occurs in heaven is indicative of what will come to pass on earth; a comet, for example, announces a revolution. By observing the heavens the Chaldean priests believed they could predict events. This is the origin of Astrology.
Sorcery.—The Chaldeans had also magical words; these were uttered to banish spirits or to cause their appearance. This custom, a relic of the Turanian religion, is the origin of sorcery. From Chaldea astrology and sorcery were diffused over the Roman empire, and later over all Europe. ”

“ If the great and distant Heaven appeared to them as the universal ruler and lord, the source of all things—the Father of the Gods, as they put it—surely the beautiful Earth, kind nurse, nourisher and preserver of all things that have life, could be called the universal Mother. If the fierce summer and noonday sun could be looked on as the resistless conqueror, the dread King of the world, holding death and disease in his hand, was not the quiet, lovely moon, of mild and soothing light, bringing the rest of coolness and healing dews, its gentle Queen? ”