fubjects, as too glorious to be beheld by vulgar eyes. These proud potentates however adminiftered their government by officers of feveral forts civil and military. We find them divided into three claffes, and fuppofed to be chofen from among the graveft and moft noble perfonages in all the empire*. The firft had the charge of virgins, and of their difpofal in marriage, and were to judge in matters of adultery, and the like. The fecond took cognizance of thefts, and the third of all other crimes. The fubordinate powers under this mighty emperor were divided into princes, governors, captains, judges, treafurers and counfellors; fo that it was plain, nothing was wantting to keep peace and good order in the empire, and that the' civil and military economy was under fevere regulations. This great king of kings had a houfhold equal to the fublimity of his ftation. His chief officers feem to have been the captain of his guard, the prince of his eunuchs, and the prime minifter, in the nature of the Turkish vizier. The first of these had the execution of the arbitrary and fanguinary commands; the fecond had charge of the education and fubfiftence of the youth of the palace; and the latter fat in the king's gate, as it was called, to hear complaints, and to pass judgments. Befides thefe, there feems to have been a mafter of the magicians always at hand, to fatisfy the king upon any thing he might want to know with regard to futurity and prognoftication. All those who served him were remarkable for beauty of perfon and excellence of parts, and his wives and concu bines, which were doubtless the most beautiful of their fex, feem to have been very numerous †. Notwithstanding the affected state and reclufeness of these monarchs, they fometimes, we find, condefcended to banquet and revel with their lords and chief men of their dominions, of whom we read that 1000 were at one time entertained by Belshazzar. Though the laws of this empire, as we obferved, muft have Laws. been vague and uncertain; yet there was one which seems to have been irrevocably fixed, being calculated to increase the number of the inhabitants, and to oblige all, especially the poorer fort of people, to marry, left they fhould choose rather to live fingle than be burthened with a wife and family. By this law no man had it in his power to bestow his own daughters in marriage; but they were at the difpofal of the king or his officers t. As the laws were vague and changeable, the punishments Punishfeem alfo to have been unfixed, arbitrary, and rigorous in pro- ments. portion to the tyrant's prefent rage and fury; fuch as beheading, cutting to pieces, turning the criminals houfe into a dunghill, and burning in a fiery furnace. Their re ligion. Among the Babylonians the Chaldees, properly fo called, were not only their priests, but also their learned men, so that their religion and boafted learning are fo blended together as to be hardly feparable into diftinct heads. Thefe Chaldeans were perhaps more diftinguifhed from the people than the clergy are from the laity with us; and were as much revered in their country as the Egyptian priests were in theirs, and are faid to have enjoyed the fame privileges. They were wholly devoted to the bufinefs of their fuperftitious religion, and pretended to infpiration, and to the gift of prediction, by the rules of augury, the flight of birds, and the infpection of victims. They explained dreams and all the extraordinary phænomena of nature, as portending good or evil to men or nations; and were thought, by their inchantments and invocations, to affect mankind, either with happinefs or mifery. Though they were early addicted to celeftial obfervations, yet inftead of being thereby led into juft notions of the omnipotence of the creator and mover of the heavenly bodies, they abfurdly fell into the impious error of esteeming those bodies as Gods, and the immediate governors of the world, in fubordination however to the Deity who was invifible, but by his works and the effects of his power. Perfuaded of this they began to build temples to the stars, to facrifice to them, to praise them, and to bow down before them, that through their means they might obtain the favour and good will of God, efteeming them as mediators between God and them; for it is obferved, that the neceffity of a mediatory office between God and man was a notion that generally obtained among mankind from the very beginning t. Thefe Chaldees pretending to divine infpiration, at length impudently gave out that God ordered this ftar, or that, or all of them, to be worshiped in this or that manner, and reprefented under this or that form. The people upon thefe declarations began to furnish the facella or temples with images, and to erect the fame under trees and upon the tops of hills or mountains, and from thenceforward affembled themfelves together, to reverence and worship them; and their priests, fenfible of the fweets of the trade, foon after invented forms of duty to be observed by the credulous and deluded multitude; fo that, in a few ages, the name of God became obliterated among them, and the moft ftupid idolatry possessed the place of true religion t. Such was the first rife and progrefs of idolatry, and fuch were the original Sabian doctrines, which taking root first among the Chaldeans, were afterwards propagated among all the eastern nations. The Sabians in their tranfition from planet-worship to image-worship, did not pretend to pay ado Piod. Sic. 1. 2. + Prid. Connect. part. 1. and the authors ted there. + Idem, ibid. ration ration to uninformed wood, ftone, or metal; but alleged, that the virtues of the planet were infufed into the image that was meant to represent it. This they pretended to effect, by forms of confecration, and by various incantations, whereby to draw down from the stars their several intelligencies into their refpective idols. Hence proceeded all the foolish fuperftition of te lefms or talifmans, and upon these pretended principles of communicative operation, all the branches of magic and forcery must have had their foundation. This was the ftate of the old Babylonian religion, till they came to deify mortal men as well as the celestial bodies. In this the Syrians, whofe empire was confeffedly older than either the Affyrian or Babylonian, feem to have given them the precedent, by deifying their great kings Benhadad II. and Hazael. According to this we are told, That by the vain glory of men, idols entered into the world-That in procefs of time an ungodly custom grown ftrong was kept as a law, and graven images were worshiped by the commandment of kings, or tyrants, as it is in the margin. That whom men could not honour in prefence, because they dwelt far off, they took the counterfeit of his vijage from far, and made an exprefs image of a king, whom they bonoured, to the end that by their forwardness they might flatter bim that was abfent as if he was prefent. Two other reafons are affigned for this practice by the fame author, firft, the grief of a parent for his child untimely fnatched away; and, fecondly, the skill of the workman, who, ambitious to flatter some great man, might have exerted all his power to reprefent him beyond what he truly was, and fo by the beauty of his work, have captivated and deluded the unwary multitude. Ninus is fuppofed to be the first who set up images to be worfhiped, and particularly one to his father Belust. Whether this was the Ninus of Ciefias, or Tiglath Pilefer the son of Pul, by fome fuppofed to be Belus, we think cannot be determined. This Belus had a temple erected to him in the city of Babylon, The temor rather the magnificent tower formerly spoken of, was, in ple of after-ages, converted into an idol temple. The building, as Belus. we obferved before, confifted of eight towers raised upon one another, and in the uppermoft was a bed, magnificently fet forth, and a golden table near it, but no image, nor was any mortal permitted to remain there by night, except only a woman chofen by the god out of the whole nation, the Chaldeans affirming, though not credited by Herodotus, that the god came by night and repofed in the bed. It would feem that they confidered him as the fupreme God, who either could not be reprefented, or would punish their prefumption if they attempted to represent him. In the lower part of the temple was a chapel, in which was a gigantic image of Jupiter Belus, all of gold, fitting on a throne, and a table before him, both of the fame metal, the whole weighing 800 talents. Another golden ftatue Wifd. of Sol. c. xiv: C 4 Ambr. in Epift ad Rom. twelve Venus worship ed by them un der the name of Mylitta and Succoth Benoth. 1 twelve cubits high, that ftood in this temple, was carried off by Xerxes, the Perfian emperor. As there were two gods in this temple and tower, there belonged to it alfo two altars. They ftood without, a fmall one of gold, and another of a much larger fize. Upon the golden altar none but fucking victims might be facrificed, and on the great one none that were not full grown. On this laft alfo the Chaldeans confumed annually the weight of 1000 talents in incenfe, when they celebrated the feftival of the god. Such was the god Belus among the Babylonians, and fuch his temple, and the rank he held in it. The Babylonians, it would feem, by Bel or Baal, understood either the fun, according to the old Sabian religion of the Chaldees, or their founder Pul; but whether or no they transformed their deceased monarch into the fun, or whether they kept the worship of their planet and their hero fo diftinct as never to confound them with each other, feems impoffible to be determined. The deity next in order to Belus feems to have been the Venus of later days in the weft; and that she was no other than the goddess Aftarte of the Phoenicians, may be gathered from what follows. Succoth Benoth is mentioned as an idol of the Babylonians, (2 Kings vii. 30.) This was rather the fhrine of fome idol, for the import of the words are, the tabernacles of Benoth, or the tabernacles of the daughters. These tabernacles doubtlefs refer to the infamous cuftom of the Babylonians, mentioned by Herodotus, namely, that all their women were obliged once in their life, to fit down openly in the temple of Venus, by them ftiled Mylitta, to make a facrifice of their modesty and virtue. For the conveniency of those who were not near any of her temples, the priests, it feems, carried about small tabernacles, confulting at the fame time the devotion of the people, and their own intereft. From this practice the learned Selden thinks he may well conclude the Affyrian Benoth to have been no other than Venus, nay he derives the latter name from the former, by changing the B into V, and T into S. fuch a tranfition being proved to be common by very many inftances. This opinion is in fome degree countenanced by Suidas, who feems to call the Affyrian goddess Binos. In Africa we find there was a town called Sicca Venerea, where women were obliged to purchase their marriage-money, by the proftitution of their bodies. The Venus honoured here appears, both by the name and the rite, to be the fame with the goddess of the Babylonians. Various This Benoth, from whom the whole tribe of great goddefles names of feem to be derived, is called the Celeftial Venus, and faid to the fame have been firft of all worshiped by the Affyrians +. She was goddefs. of both fexes, and is understood to have been both Mars and Venus, and accordingly fhe was worshiped by her votaries, fometimes in the attire of men, fometimes in that of women, * Val. Max. 1. 11. Paufan. in Attic. the * the men and women mutually changing dreffes with each other. As Mofes in one of his precepts is fuppofed to allude to this worship, it is hence concluded to be very antient. A Greek author calls her the moon, and fays, that both men and women facrificed to her in the habits of the oppofite sex +; and that the Urania or celeftial Venus of the Affyrians, was the moon, cannot be doubted by the rank fhe holds next to Bel or the fun. She appears also to have been the fame with the Syrian goddefs, who was called Juno, and whofe ftatue was fo contrived as to partake of Minerva, Venus, Luna, Rhea, Diana, Nemefis, and the deftinies, as if fhe included them all, and that fhe did has been fufficiently proved by great men. The Phonician Aflarte, we find, was alfo the queen of heaven, the moon, Lucifer, funo, Venus, Minerva, and Io, and married to an Affyrian. She was the goddess of pleasure and god of war, and accordingly addreffed to under both fexes. It would therefore be needlefs to allege the monftrous effeminacies of the men at Aphac, or the mercenary proftitution of the women at Byblus, to prove that the one of these goddeffes is a faithful copy of the other. The fame may alfo be faid of Atergatis or Derceto of Afcalon. She is indeed fuppofed diftinct from the great Venus, and is faid to have incurred her difpleafure, and in confequence of that to have been turned into a fifh; but fifhes we find were worlhiped at Hierapolis, and, according to Strabo, Atergatis was alfo worshiped there. Macrobius is alfo of the fame opinion, and stiles her the mother of the gods, Aftarte, or the Hierapolitan or Affyrian goddefs; fo that we fee the fame goddefs tranfported from the banks of the Euphrates, into which fhe is faid firft to have plunged herself to escape the fury of the inexorable Typhon ‡, and but juft varied fo far as to leave room for each particular country to brag of her origin. Salambo, as the is called, was alfo a goddess of the Affyrians Salambo, or Babylonians, and appears to have been Aftarte, as fhe is faid one of to have been eternally roaming up and down, and mourning their her loft Adonis §. Shach, Saca, or Shefbach, is reckoned another god or goddess of deities, and the Babylonians, and fuppofed to have been the earth, the fame Shefbach. the Romans afterwards worshiped under the name of Tellus and Ops; and if fo, fhe was partly the fame with Mylitta, or the Syrian goddefs, whom we have already feen under the title of Rhea, and the mother of the gods. Nebo or Nabo, was alfo an Affyrian or Babylonian deity, and Nebo. as the names of feveral of the Affyrian and Babylonian kings, were partly compounded of his name, he may therefore be reckoned to have once been in high account with them, and to have been one of their most antient gods. He is thought to Deuteron. xxii. 5. + Ap. Macrob. 1. iii. Hefych. ap. Seld. Etymol. magn. ad vocem. Willet upon Daniel i. 16. Manil. Aftron. iv. have 2 |