Chaldean

“ Hanno knew enough of Chaldean to remember that the word "belesys" in that language signified "terrible," and muttered that it was a formidable name for a man to have.
[Pg 316]
Taking the Queen of Sheba's letters, and followed by eight sailors carrying her presents to the King, and escorted by my own officers, I went on shore. The Chaldean was tall and stout; he had a wide face, with a strong jaw and great deep-set eyes; his beard was thick and frizzled like the rest of his company, and his manners were extremely coarse and insolent. ”

“ This might be the man," added this forgotten writer, "about whom Moses, the legislator of the Jews, wrote." The works of the Chaldean, Berosus, have long since been lost, all save a few extracts preserved by the Patristic writers. One of these, however, which embodies the Chaldean tradition of the Flood, is very remarkable. Like the Scandinavian legend, it represents the antediluvians as giants, all of whom, save one, became exceedingly impious and depraved. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Behind the ponderous pillars adorned with heads of animals, Olbasanus, the Chaldean enchanter and conjuror of evil spirits, the declared favorite of the Roman ladies, practised his mysterious arts,—and thus the exterior of the spacious structure harmonized with the strange events that occurred within. ”

“ We shall now see that there is scarcely any considerable race of men among whom there does not exist, in some form, the tradition of a great deluge, which destroyed all the human race, except their own progenitors.
The first of these which we shall notice, and the one with which the Hebrew agrees most closely, having been copied from it, [22:1] is the Chaldean, as given by Berosus, the Chaldean historian. [22:2] It is as follows:
"After the death of Ardates (the ninth king of the Chaldeans) , his son Xisuthrus reigned eighteen sari. ”

“ But only in Chaldean myth, and subsequently in Hebrew legend, was the flood ascribed to sin.
Gilgames' quest, meanwhile, could not have been wholly vain. In an archaic inscription it is stated that the city of Erech was built in olden times by the deified Gilgames. [19]
[19] Proc. S. B. A. xvi. 13-15.
How old the olden times may have been is conjectural. Modern science has put the advent of man sixty million years ago. Chaldean chronology is less spacious. But its traditions stretched back a hundred thousand years. The traditions were probably imaginary. ”

“ Without hands signifies that which is spiritual. So [69] , a house not made with hands means a spiritual building.
Explanation
The Chaldean empire, called the Assyrian in its commencement, the Chaldean from the country, the Babylonish from its chief city.
I. Head of Gold. This was the first monarchy, begun by Nimrod, A.M. 1771, b.c. 2233, and ending with the death of Belshazzar, A.M. 3466, b.c. 538, after having lasted nearly seventeen hundred years. In the time of Nebuchadnezzar it extended over Chaldea, Assyria, Arabia, Syria, and Palestine. He, Nebuchadnezzar, was the head or gold. ”

“ It is probable that after the death of Izdubar the empire he had founded fell to pieces, and was only partially restored when Urukh, king of Ur, extended his power over the country and founded the Chaldean or Southern Sumerian dynasty.
Every nation has its hero, and it was only natural on the revival of his empire that the Babylonians should consecrate the memory of the king, who had first aimed to give them that unity without which they were powerless as a nation. ”

“ They live together in groups, mostly in religious houses or colleges, or in apartments, which several club together to take at moderate rates. Thus the Chaldean patriarch, a venerable, white-bearded prelate, near eighty years of age, with the other bishops of his rite, and their attendant priests, all live together in one monastery, not far from St. Peter's. Whatever the weather, they go on foot in their oriental dress to the council, and when the meeting is over, return on foot. ”

“ From time to time, the silence is interrupted [126] by some remark in a full, sedate voice, and intensely guttural words of Chaldee or Arabic, whether on the last debate of the council or on some new phase of the Eastern question, it is probable the visitor will never learn. But he has caught a glimpse of quiet Chaldean life. Fourteen or fifteen of the Armenian prelates, with their patriarch, live in a not very dissimilar manner. But the Armenians are much more akin to Europeans in their education and character of thought. ”

“ As Caius Bononius also wished to see and hear, he, too, was obliged to grasp the edge of the altar with his right hand.
“Be silent and vanish, ye spirits and demons,” the Chaldean now began in a mysterious tone. “Be silent and vanish, for Hecate, the Inscrutable, will herself speak to this creature of the dust through the symbol of her omnipotence, the skull on the floor of her sanctuary. The fleshless, brainless skeleton, once the seat of thought, [55] the extinct lamp of a long-forgotten human life, will serve the Invisible One for an abode when she rises from the depths of the nether-world. ”

“ But the rest, on the grounds that the prophet shows some experience of the Chaldean methods of warfare, and that the account of the internal disorder in Judah does not suit Josiah’s reign, bring the passage down to the reign of Jehoiakim, 608—598, or of Jehoiachin, 597. Kleinert and Von [Pg 118] Orelli date it before the battle of Carchemish, 506, in which the Chaldean Nebuchadrezzar wrested from Egypt the Empire of the Western Asia, on the ground that after that Habakkuk could not have called a Chaldean invasion of Judah incredible (i. 5) . ”

“ So, the Chaldeans shall leave no substance behind them; their faces, their bare appearance, is the proof that nothing good shall be left.
Shall gather the captivity as the sand - They shall carry off innumerable captives.
Verse 10
They shall scoff at the kings - No power shall be able to stand before them. It will be only as pastime to them to take the strongest places. They will have no need to build formidable ramparts: by sweeping the dust together they shall make mounts sufficient to pass over the walls and take the city. ”

“ Their dialect is a remnant of the later Babylonian, and resembles closely the idiom of the Palestinian Talmud, and their liturgy is a compound of fragments of the ancient Chaldean cosmogony with gnostic mysticism influenced by later superstitions. They are a quiet and inoffensive people noted, oddly enough, for the quality of their dairy produce in the villages, and for their skill as metal workers and goldsmiths in the towns where they reside. ”

“ Many texts, both in the old Accadian and the Assyrian languages, abundantly prove that the Chaldean religion preserved a distinct and reverent conception of such a mountain, and placed it [Pg 276] in the far north or north-east, calling it the "Father of Countries," plainly an allusion to the original abode of man—the "Mountain of Countries," (i.e., "Chief Mountain of the World") and also Arallu, because there, where the gods dwelt, they also imagined the entrance to the Arali to be the Land of the Dead. There, too, the heroes and great men were to dwell forever after their death. ”

“ Moses of Chorene expressly records that such was the case; but the real strength of the supposition we rest upon general grounds, which it is needless here to enter upon. This Chaldean tribe, then, which ultimately became the predominant one in the valley of the Upper Tigris, were not the actual founders of the Assyrian cities; but under their ascendancy these cities were strengthened, extended, and embellished so much, as to become as it were the creations of their hands.
The architecture of a nation is ever dependent to a great extent upon the building materials at its command. ”

“ It is in part to this disgusting custom that the great mortality in the caravans is to be attributed, one fifth of which leave their bones in the desert in healthy seasons. However that may be, the gigantic proportions of the Chaldean burying-grounds struck even the ancient Greek travellers with astonishment, and some of them positively asserted that the Assyrian kings used to be buried in Chaldea. If the kings, why not the nobler and wealthier of their subjects? ”

“ A few years after the events narrated by Mutran Hanna, one Gawrièl, a native of Mardeen, who had acquired some wealth in mercantile speculations, retired from business at Baghdad, and undertook to instruct several Chaldean youths gratuitously in the Arabic language, in grammar, logic, and rhetoric, of which he was considered perfect master. His talents and zeal were so much appreciated, that on his arrival at Mosul, the Chaldeans offered him the convent of Rabban Hormuzd, then deserted and partly in ruins, as a seminary, and invited him to take up his abode there. ”

“ But there is one thing which seems strange: the Chaldean belief in the immortality of the soul found no echo in the literature of the Jews. Did they refuse to incorporate it into the Hebrew world-conception because they disbelieved it ”

“ And now, my dear Watson, I think we may dismiss the matter from our mind and go back with a clear conscience to the study of those Chaldean roots which are surely to be traced in the Cornish branch of the great Celtic speech.” ”

“ The Chaldeans had a lively sense of human frailty, and of the risks entailed upon the sinner by disobedience to the gods. The dread of sinning haunted them during their whole life; they continually subjected the motives of their actions to a strict scrutiny, and once self-examination had revealed to them the shadow of an evil intent, they were accustomed to implore pardon for it in a humble manner. ”

“ The Chaldeans are a sect in politics, like to that of the Egyptian priests; for being ordained for the service of the Gods, they spend the whole time of their life in philosophy; being of exceeding great reputation in astrology, and pretending much also to prophecy, foretelling things to come by purifications and sacrifices, and to find out by certain incantations the preventing of harm, and the bringing to pass of good. ”

“ It comes upon one with new force in the pauses of the night that the Chaldeans were a desert-bred people. It is hard to escape the sense of mastery as the stars move in the wide clear heavens to risings and settings unobscured. They look large and near and palpitant; as if they moved on some stately service not needful to declare. Wheeling to their stations in the sky, they make the poor world-fret of no account. Of no account you who lie out there watching, nor the lean coyote that stands off in the scrub from you and howls and howls. ”

“ Since then, however, the revenue of the convent has been increased by the plunder of the property belonging to the old patriarchal family, as will be related hereafter, and the Chaldeans themselves now say that none enjoy the good things of this world as much as the monks of Rabban Hormuzd. The only other Chaldean convent now in existence is that of Mar Gheorghees, two miles north of Mosul, on the eastern bank of the river, which was rebuilt by the late Patriarch Mar Zeyya, who intended to establish a school there ”

“ The Chaldeans were more celebrated for their skill in Astrology than Magic; of the former, they were beyond doubt the inventors: so famous did they become in divining from aspects, positions, and influences of the stars, that all Astrologers were termed Chaldeans, particularly by the Jews and Romans.
Of all species of idolatry, the worship of the heavenly bodies appears to have been among the most ancient. The Babylonians soon perceived that these bodies continually changed their places, and that some of them moved in regular orbits ”

“ It is not possible to foresee what the future has in store for us in this respect; but we can even now make a valuation of the entire material which we possess.... The number of the tablets from the Nineveh Library alone passes ten thousand.... If we compare these texts with those left us by other nations, we can easily become convinced that the history of the Assyro-Chaldean civilization will soon be one of the best known of antiquity. It has a powerful attraction for us, for we know that the life of the Jewish people is mixed up with the history of Nineveh and Babylon.... ”

“ When the proprietor of the Ark finally freed the animals he erected an altar and offered sacrifice, to which the Gods gathered "like masses of flies." This story contributes but one section of the great Chaldean epic in which are recounted the exploits of a hero corresponding with the Nimrod of the Hebrew Bible, dating from the twenty-third century B. C., and reminding one forcibly of the Herculean and many other myths recounted in other ancient languages. ”

“ Far better for our beloved Chaldea if the superstitious brood had been left in their own country. May the gods grant that every Hebrew office-holder may so cling to his imaginary god as to walk straight from office into sure destruction. My motto is 'Chaldeans for Chaldea!' Personally, I have no hostility toward these young men. Nay! But, O my country! my country! it is for thee my heart bleeds! Sons! ye shall do well to be on your guard, and see to it that they escape not your vigilance. If they die, their offices will be vacant, and must soon be supplied by some persons of ability. ”