After St. Augustine had thus in a great degreenew moulded the science of theology, and had combined with it as an essential part of divine truth, that the fate of mankind was determined by the divine decree independently of their own efforts and conduct, and that they were thus divided into the elect and reprobate, it became necessary, in order to preserve consistency, to introduce into his system a limitation with respect to baptism, and to prevent the opinions concerning it from interfering with those which flowed from the doctrine of predestination. He accordingly taught, that baptism brings with it the forgiveness of sins; that it is so essential, that the omission of it will expose us to condemnation; and that it is attended with regeneration. He also affirmed that the virtue of baptism is not in the water; that the ministers of Christ perform the external ceremony, but that Christ accompanies it with invisible grace; that baptism is common to all, whilst, grace is not so; and that the same external rite may be death to some, and life to others. By this distinction he rids himself of the difficulty which would have pressed upon his scheme of theology, had pardon, regeneration, and salvation beennecessarilyconnected with the outward ordinance of baptism; and limits its proper efficacy to those who are comprehended, as the heirs of eternal life, in the decree of the Almighty. Many, however, of those who strictly adhere to him in other parts of his doctrinal system, desert him at this point. Bishop Bedell speaks thus in disparagement of his baptismal views, in a letter to Dr. Ward: “This I do yield to my Lord of Sarum most willingly, that the justification, sanctification, and adoption which children have in baptism, is notunivocè[univocally] the same with that whichadulti[adults] have. I think the emphatical speeches of Augustine against the Pelagians, and of Prosper, are not so much to be regarded (who say the like of the eucharist also) touching the necessity and efficacy in the case of infants; and they are very like the speeches of Lanfranc and Guitmund of Christ’s presence in the sacrament, opposingveracitér, [truly] andveré[truly] tosacramentalitér; [sacramentally;] which is a false and absurd contraposition. The opinion of the Franciscans out of Scotus and Bernard, mentioned in the council of Trent, seems to be the true opinion; for they make the sacraments to be effectual, ‘because God gives themeffectus regularitér concomitantes,’ [regularly accompanying effects,] and to contain grace no otherwise than as an effectual sign; and that grace is received by them as an investiture by a ring or staff, which isobsignando, [by signation.] Consider that if you will aver, that baptism washes away otherwise than sacramentally, that is, obsignatorily, original sin; yet you must allow that manner of washing for future actual sins; and you must make two sorts of justification, one for children, another foradulti; [adults;] and (which passes all the rest) you must find some promise in God’s covenant wherein he binds himself to wash away sin without faith or repentance. By this doctrine, you must also maintain that children do spiritually eat the flesh of Christ and drink his blood, if they receive the eucharist, as for ages they did, and by the analogy of the passover they may; and sith [if] the use of this sacramenttoties quoties[as often as it is used] must needs confer grace, it seems it were necessary to let them communicate, and the oftener the better, to the intent they might be stronger in grace: which opinion, though St. Austin and many more of the ancients do maintain, I believe you will not easily condescend unto, or that children dying without baptism are damned.” These remarks are important, as proceeding from the pen of the personal friend of Father Paul, who wrote the History of the council of Trent.
In the various discussions which have arisen concerning predestination and the doctrines with which it is connected, some modern divines have quoted the arguments of St.AugustineAugustineagainst the Manichees, and others those which he employed against the Pelagians, according to the discordant views which the combatants severally entertain on these controverted points. One of them has thus expressed himself, in his endeavour to reconcile St Augustine with himself:--“The heresy of Pelagius being suppressed, the catholic doctrine in that point became more settled and confirmed by the opposition; such freedom being left to the will of man, as was subservient unto grace, coöperating in some measure with those heavenly influences. And so much is confessed by St. Augustine himself, where he asks this question, ‘Doth any man affirm that free will is perished utterly from man by the fall of Adam?’ And thereunto he makes this answer: ‘Freedom is perished by sin; but it is that freedom only which we had in paradise, of having perfect righteousness with immortality.’ For, otherwise, it appears to be his opinion, that man was not merely passive in all the acts of grace which conduced to glory, according to the memorable saying of his, so common in the mouths of all men, ‘He who first made us without our help will not vouchsafe to save us at last without our concurrence.’ If any harsher expressions have escaped his pen, (as commonly it happeneth in the heats of a disputation,) they are to be qualified by this last rule, and by that before, in which it was affirmed, that ‘God could not with justice judge and condemn the world, if all men’s sins proceeded not from their own free will, but from some overruling providence which inforced them to it.‘” Another admirer of this father offers the following as an attempt at reconciliation: “St. Augustine denied that the coöperation of man is at all exerted to produce the renewal of our nature; but, when the renewal had been produced, he admitted that there was an exercise of the will combined with the workings of grace. In the tenth chapter of his work against the Manichæans, the bishop of Hippo thus expresses himself: ‘Who is it that will not exclaim,How foolish it is to deliver precepts to that man who is not at liberty to perform what is commanded! And how unjust it is to condemn him who had not power to fulfil the commands!Yet these unhappy persons [the Manichees] do not perceive that they are ascribing such injustice and want of equity to God. But what greater truth is there than this, that God has delivered precepts, and that human spirits have freedom of will?‘ Elsewhere he says, ‘Nothing is more within our power than our own will. The will is that by which we commit sin, and by which we live righteously.’ Nothing can be plainer than that the writer of these passages admitted the liberty of the human will, and the necessity of our own exertions in conjunction with divine grace. How this is to be reconciled with his general doctrine, is perhaps indicated in the following passage from his bookDe Gratiâ et lib. Arbitrio, c. 17. Speaking of grace he says, ‘That we maywillGodworkswithout us; but when wewill, and sowillas todo, heco-workswith us; yet unless he eitherworksthat we may will, orco-workswhen we do will, we are utterly incapable of doing any thing in the good works of piety.’” These are but very slight specimens of the mode in which learned and ingenious men have tried to give a kind of symmetrical proportion to this father’s doctrinal system. Several large treatises have been published with the same praiseworthy intention; the pious authors of them either entirely forgetting, or having never read, the rather latitudinarian indulgence of opinion which St. Augustine claims for himself in his “Retractations,” in which he has qualified the harshness of his previous assertions on many subjects. If, however, an estimate may be formed of what this father intended in his various pacifacatory doctrinal explanations from what he has actually admitted and expressed, it may be safely affirmed that no systematic writer of theology seems so completely to have entered into the last and best views of the bishop of Hippo, or so nearly reconciled the apparent discordances in them, as Arminius has done; and few other authors have rendered more ample justice to his sentiments, talents, and character, than the famous Dutch Professor.
Many were the theological labours to which he was invited by the most eminent of his contemporaries; and hastily as some of his lucubrations were executed, it is not surprising that among two hundred and seventy-two treatises on different subjects, some are of inferior value and unworthy of the fame which he had acquired in the church. After a life of various changes, and of a mixed character, he died A. D. 430, in the seventy-sixth year of his age; having been harassed at the close of life by seeing his country invaded by the Vandals, and the city of which he was the bishop besieged. Though those barbarians took Hippo and burned it, they saved his library, which contained his voluminous writings.
St. Augustine was a diligent man in the sacred calling; and that the office of a bishop even in that age of the church was no sinecure, is evident from several notices in his letters. At the close of one addressed to Marcellinus he gives the subjoined account: “If I were able to give you a narrative of the manner in which I spend my time, you would be both surprised and distressed on account of the great number of affairs which oppress me without my being able to suspend them. For when some little leisure is allowed me by those who daily attend upon me about business, and who are so urgent with me that I can neither shun them nor ought to despise them, I have always some other writings to compose, which indeed ought to be preferred, [to those which Marcellinus requested,] because the present juncture will not permit them to be postponed. For the rule of charity is, not to consider the greatness of the friendship, but the necessity of the affair. Thus I have continually something or other to compose which diverts me from writing what would be more agreeable to my inclinations, daring the little intervals in that multiplicity of business with which I am burdened either through the wants or the passions of others.” He frequently complains of this oppressive weight of occupation in which his love of his flock had engaged him, by obeying the Apostolical precept, which forbids Christians from going to law before Pagan tribunals. In reference to this employment his biographer, Posidonius, says: “At the desire of Christians, or of men belonging to any sect whatever, he would hear causes with patience and attention, sometimes till the usual hour of eating, and sometimes the whole day without eating at all, observing the dispositions of the parties, and how much they advanced or decreased in faith and good works; and when he had opportunity he instructed them in the law of God, and gave them suitable advice, requiring nothing of them except Christian obedience. He sometimes wrote letters, when desired, on temporal subjects; but looked upon all this as unprofitable occupation, which drew him aside from that which was better and more agreeable to himself.”
The character of this eminent father has been much misrepresented both as a man and as a writer. Whoever looks into his writings for accurate and enlarged views of Christian doctrine, looks for that which could not be expected in the very infancy of Biblical criticism. He was a rhetorician by profession, and the degenerate taste of that age must be blamed, rather than the individual who wrote in the style which then prevailed. The learning of St. Augustine, and particularly his knowledge of Greek, have been disputed; and hence the importance of his Biblical criticisms has been depreciated. In the account of the early part of his life he confesses his great aversion to the study of that language; and as he tells us, in his maturer age, that he read the Platonists in a Latin version, it has perhaps been too hastily concluded that he never made any great proficiency in it. But though it be allowed that his comments on Scripture consist chiefly of popular reflections, spiritual and moral, or allegorical and mystical perversions of the literal meaning; yet the works of this father are not wholly destitute of remarks and critical interpretations, that are pertinent and judicious: to such, after a series of extracts from hiswritings, Dr. Lardner has referred his readers. With regard to his knowledge of Greek, this impartial and candid author is of opinion, that he understood that language better than some have supposed; and he has cited several passages from which it may be perceived, that St. Augustine frequently compared his copies of the Latin version with those of the Greek original. Le Clerc himself allows that he sometimes explains Greek words and phrases in a very felicitous manner. Indeed, the commencement of his correspondence with St. Jerom proves him to have been no contemptible critic. In this he besought him, in the name of all the African churches, to apply himself to the translation into Latin of the Greek interpreters of Scripture, rather than to enter upon a new translation from the original Hebrew; and to point out those passages in which the Hebrew differed from the Septuagint, as he had previously done in the book of Job. Voltaire and other profane wits have, in the exercise of their buffoonery, impeached his moral conduct; but their charges, when impartially examined, will be seen to be founded in ignorance or in malice. They resemble those which the same parties prefer against Prophets, Apostles, and against Christ himself. Mosheim observes that Augustine’s high reputation filled the Christian world; and “not without reason, as a variety of great and shining qualities were united in the character of that illustrious man. A sublime genius, an uninterrupted and zealous pursuit of truth, an indefatigable application, an invincible patience, a sincere piety, and a subtle and lively wit, conspired to establish his fame upon the most lasting foundations.” Such a testimony as this far outweighs the vituperative remarks and petty sneers of a thousand infidels. SeePelagiansandSynods.
AUGUSTUS, emperor of Rome, and successor of Julius Cæsar. The battle of Actium, which he fought with Mark Antony, and which made him master of the empire, happened fifteen years before the birth of Christ. This is the emperor who appointed the enrolment mentioned Luke ii, 1, which obliged Joseph and the Virgin Mary to go to Bethlehem, the place where Jesus Christ was born. Augustus procured the crown of Judea for Herod, from the Roman senate. After the defeat of Mark Antony, Herod adhered to Augustus, and was always faithful to him; so that Augustus loaded him with honours and riches.
AVEN, a city of Egypt, afterward called Heliopolis, and On, Ezek. xxx, 17. Herodotus informs us that in this city there was an annual assembly in honour of the sun, and a temple dedicated to him. It appears, however, highly probable, by the behaviour of Pharaoh to Joseph and Jacob, and especially by Joseph’s care to preserve the land to the priests, Gen. xlvii, 22, 26, that the true religion prevailed in Egypt in his time; and it is incredible that Joseph should have married the daughter of the priest of On, had that name among the Egyptians denoted only the material light; which, however, no doubt they, like all the rest of the world, idolized in after times, and to which we find a temple dedicated among the Canaanites, under this name, Joshua vii, 2.
AVENGER OF BLOOD. He who prosecuted the man-slayer under the law was called the avenger of blood, and had a right to slay the person, if he found him without a city of refuge. SeeGoel.
AVIMS, a people descended from Hevus, the son of Canaan. They dwelt at first in the country which was afterward possessed by the Caphtorims, or Philistines. The Scripture says expressly, that the Caphtorims drove out the Avims, who dwelt in Hazerim, even unto Azzah, Deut. ii, 23. There were also Avims, or Hivites, at Shechem, or Gibeon, Joshua xi, 19; for the inhabitants of Shechem were Hivites. Lastly, there were some of them beyond Jordan, at the foot of Mount Hermon. Bochart thinks, that Cadmus, who conducted a colony of the Phœnicians into Greece, was a Hivite. His name, Cadmus, comes from the HebrewKedem, “the east,” because he came from the eastern parts of the land of Canaan. The name of his wife Hermione was taken from Mount Hermon, at the foot whereof the Hivites dwelt. The metamorphoses of the companions of Cadmus into serpents is founded upon the signification of the name of Hivites, which, in the Phœnician language, signifiesserpents.
AZARIAH, or UZZIAH, king of Judah, son of Amaziah. He began to reign at the age of sixteen years, and reigned fifty-two years in Jerusalem; his mother’s name being Jecholiah, 2 Kings xv. Azariah did that which was right in the sight of the Lord; nevertheless he did not destroy the high places; and, against the express prohibition of God, the people continued to sacrifice there. Having taken upon him to offer incense in the temple, which office belonged entirely to the priests, he was struck with a leprosy, and continued without the city, separated from other men until the day of his death, 2 Chron. xxvi. Josephus says, that upon this occasion a great earthquake happened; and that the temple opening at the top, a ray of light darted upon the king’s forehead, the very moment he took the censer into his hand, and he instantly became a leper; nay, that the earthquake was so very violent, that it tore in sunder a mountain west of Jerusalem, and rolled one half of it over and over to the distance of four furlongs, till at length it was stopped by another mountain which stood over against it; but choked up the highway, and covered the king’s gardens with dust. This is what Josephus adds to the history related in the Chronicles; but the truth of it may be justly suspected. We know, indeed, that there was a very great earthquake in the reign of Uzziah; for Amos, chap. i, 1, and Zechariah, chap. xiv, 5, make mention of it: however, it is not certain that it happened at the very time that Uzziah took upon him to offer incense.
During the time that Uzziah was a leper, his son Jotham, as his father’s viceroy, took the public administration upon himself, and succeeded him after his death, which happened in the fifty-second year of his reign, A. M. 3246.He was not buried in the royal sepulchre; but in the same field, at some distance, on account of his leprosy.
The first part of Uzziah’s reign was very successful: he obtained great advantages over the Philistines, Ammonites, and Arabians. He made additions to the fortifications at Jerusalem, and always kept an army on foot of three hundred and seven thousand men, and upwards, 2 Chron. xxvi; and he had great magazines, well stored with all sorts of arms, as well offensive as defensive; and he was a great lover of agriculture.
BAAL, BEL, or BELUS, denotinglord, a divinity among several ancient nations; as the Canaanites, Phœnicians, Sidonians, Carthaginians, Babylonians, Chaldeans, and Assyrians. The termBaal, which is itself an appellative, served at first to denote the true God, among those who adhered to the true religion. Accordingly, the Phœnicians, being originally Canaanites, having once had, as well as the rest of their kindred, the knowledge of the true God, probably called himBaal, orlord. But they, as well as other nations, gradually degenerating into idolatry, applied this appellation to their respective idols; and thus were introduced a variety of divinities, calledBaalim, orBaal, with some epithet annexed to it, asBaal Berith,Baal Gad,Baal Moloch,Baal Peor,Baal Zebub, &c. Some have supposed that the descendants of Ham first worshipped the sun under the title of Baal, 2 Kings xxiii, 5, 11; and that they afterward ascribed it to the patriarch who was the head of their line; making the sun only an emblem of his influence or power. It is certain, however, that when the custom prevailed of deifying and worshipping those who were in any respect distinguished among mankind, the appellation of Baal was not restricted to the sun, but extended to those eminent persons who were deified, and who became objects of worship in different nations. The Phœnicians had several divinities of this kind, who were not intended to represent the sun. It is probable that Baal, Belus, or Bel, the great god of the Carthaginians, and also of the Sidonians, Babylonians, and Assyrians, who, from the testimony of Scripture, appears to have been delighted with human sacrifices, was the Moloch of the Ammonites; the Chronus of the Greeks, who was the chief object of adoration in Italy, Crete, Cyprus, and Rhodes, and all other countries where divine honours were paid him; and the Saturn of the Latins. In process of time, many other deities, beside the principal ones just mentioned, were distinguished by the title of Baal among the Phœnicians, particularly those of Tyre, and of course among the Carthaginians, and other nations. Such were Jupiter, Mars, Bacchus, and Apollo, or the sun.
The temples and altars of Baal were generally placed on eminences: they were places inclosed by walls, within which was maintained a perpetual fire; and some of them bad statues or images, called in Scripture “Chamanim.” Maundrell, in his journey from Aleppo to Jerusalem,observed,observed,some remains of these enclosures in Syria. Baal had his prophets and his priests in great numbers; accordingly, we read of four hundred and fifty of them that were fed at the table of Jezebel only; and they conducted the worship of this deity, by offering sacrifices, by dancing round his altar with violent gesticulations and exclamations, by cutting their bodies with knives and lancets, and by raving and pretending to prophesy, as if they were possessed by some invisible power.
It is remarkable that we do not find the name Baal so much in popular use east of Babylonia; but it was general west of Babylonia, and to the very extremity of western Europe, including the British isles. The worship of Bel, Belus, Belenus, or Belinus, was general throughout the British islands; and certain of its rites and observances are still maintained among us, notwithstanding the establishment of Christianity during so many ages. A town in Perthshire, on the borders of the Highlands, is calledTilliebeltaneorTulliebeltane; that is, theeminence, orrising ground, of the fire of Baal. In the neighbourhood is a Druidical temple of eight upright stones, where it is supposed the fire was kindled. At some distance from this is another temple of the same kind, but smaller; and near it a well still held in great veneration. On Beltane morning, superstitious people go to this well, and drink of it; then they make a procession round it nine times. After this they in like manner go round the temple. So deep-rooted is this Heathenish superstition in the minds of many who reckon themselves good Protestants, that they will not neglect these rites, even when Beltane falls on the Sabbath.
In Ireland, Bel-tein is celebrated on the twenty-first of June, at the time of the solstice. There, as they make fires on the tops of hills, every member of the family is made to pass through the fire; as they reckon this ceremony necessary to ensure good fortune through the succeeding year. This resembles the rites used by the Romans in the Palilia. Bel-tein is also observed in Lancashire.
In Wales, this annual fire is kindled in autumn, on the first day of November; which being neither at the solstice nor equinox, deserves attention. It may be accounted for by supposing that the lapse of ages has removed it from its ancient station, and that the observance is kept on the same day, nominally, though that be now removed some weeks backward from its true station. However that may be, in North Wales especially, this fire is attended by many ceremonies; such as running through the fire and smoke, each participator casting a stone into the fire.
The Hebrews often imitated the idolatry of the Canaanites in adoring Baal. They offered human sacrifices to him in groves, upon high places, and upon the terraces of houses. Baal had priests and prophets consecrated to his service. All sorts of infamous and immodest actions were committed in the festivals of Baal and Astarte. See Jer. xxxii, 35; 2 Kings xvii,16; xxiii, 4, 5, 12; 1 Kings xviii, 22; 2 Kings x, 19; 1 Kings xiv, 24; xv, 12; 2 Kings xxiii, 7; Hosea iv, 14. This false deity is frequently mentioned in Scripture in the plural number,Baalim, which may intimate that the nameBaalwas given to several different deities.
There were many cities in Palestine, whose names were compounded ofBaaland some other word: whether it was that the god Baal was adored in them, or that these places were looked upon as the capital cities,--lordsof their respective provinces,--is uncertain.
BAAL BERITH, the god of the Shechemites, Judges viii, 33; ix, 4, 46.
BAAL PEOR. Peor is supposed to have been a part of Mount Abarim; and Baal was the great idol or chief god of the Phœnicians, and was known and worshipped under a similar name, with tumultuous and obscene rites, all over Asia. He is the same as the Bel of the Babylonians. Baal, by itself, signifieslord, and was a name of the solar or principal god. But it was also variously compounded, in allusion to the different characters and attributes of the particular or local deities who were known by it, as Baal Peor, Baal Zebub, Baal Zephon, &c. Baal Peor, then, was probably the temple of an idol belonging to the Moabites, on Mount Abarim, which the Israelites worshipped when encamped at Shittim; this brought a plague upon them, of which twenty-four thousand died, Num. xxxv. Chemosh, the abomination of Moab, to whom Solomon erected an altar, 1 Kings xi, 7, is supposed to have been the same deity. Baal Peor has been farther supposed by some to have been Priapus; by others, Saturn; by others, Pluto; and by others again, Adonis. Mr. Faber agrees with Calmet in making Baal Peor the same with Adonis; a part of whose worship consisted in bewailing him with funeral rites, as one lost or dead, and afterward welcoming, with extravagant joy, his fictitious return to life. He was in an eminent degree the god of impurity. Hosea, speaking of the worship of this idol, emphatically calls it “that shame,” Hos. ix, 10. Yet in the rites of this deity the Moabite and Midianite women seduced the Israelites to join.
BAAL ZEBUB, BEELZEBUB, or BEL-ZEBUB, signifies thegod of flies, and was an idol of the Ekronites. It is not easy to discover how this false deity obtained its name. Some commentators think that he was called Baal Samin, or the lord of heaven; but that the Jews, from contempt, gave him the name of Baal-zebub. Others with greater reason believe that he was denominated “the god of flies” by his votaries, because he defended them from flies, which are extremely troublesome in hot countries; in the same manner as the Eleans worshipped Hercules under the appellation of Ἀπόμυιος,the fly chaser. Pliny is of opinion, that the name of Achor, the god invoked at Cyrene against flies, is derived from Accaron, or Ekron, where Baal-zebub was worshipped, and where he had a famous temple and oracle. Winkelman has given the figures of two heads, “both of them images of Jupiter, called by the Greeks Ἀπόμυιος, and by the RomansMuscarius; that is to say,fly driver; for to this Jupiter was attributed the function of driving away flies.”
It is evident that Beelzebub was considered as the patron deity of medicine; for this is plainly implied in the conduct of Ahaziah, 2 Kings i. The Greek mythology considered Apollo as the god of medicine, and attributed also to him those possessions by a pythonic spirit which occasionally perplexed spectators, and of which we have an instance in Acts xvi, 19. Apollo, too, was the sun. Hence we probably see the reason why Ahaziah sent to Beelzebub to inquire the issue of his accident; since Beelzebub was Apollo, and Apollo was the god of physic. The Jews, who changedBeelzebubintoBeelzebul, “god of a dunghill,” perhaps had a reference to the Greek ofpytho, which signifiesputrefied. In Scripture Beelzebub is called “the prince of devils,” Matt. xii, 24; Luke xi, 15; merely, it would seem, through the application of the name of the chief idol of the Heathen world to the prince of evil spirits. This was natural, since the Jews were taught in their own Scriptures to consider all the idols of the Heathens “devils.” Those commentators who think that the idol of Ekron himself is intended, have indulged in an improbable fancy. SeeHornet.
BAAL ZEPHON, orthe god of the watch tower, was probably the temple of some idol, which served at the same time for a place of observation for the neighbouring sea and country, and a beacon to the travellers by either. It was situated on a cape or promontory on the eastern side of the western or Heroopolitan branch of the Red Sea, near its northern extremity, over against Pihahiroth, or the opening in the mountains which led from the desert, on the side of Egypt, to the Red Sea.
BAASHA, the son of Ahijah, commander-in-chief of the armies belonging to Nadab, the son of Jeroboam, king of Israel. Baasha killed his master treacherously at the siege of Gibbethon, a city of the Philistines, A. M. 3051, and usurped the crown, which he possessed twenty-four years, 1 Kings xv, 27, &c. And, to secure himself in his usurpation, he massacred all the relatives of his predecessor; which barbarous action proved the accomplishment of the prophecy denounced against the house of Jeroboam by Ahijah, the prophet, 1 Kings xiv, 1, &c.
BABEL, the tower and city founded by the descendants of Noah in the plain of Shinar. The different tribes descended from Noah were here collected, and from this point were dispersed, through the confusion of their language. The time when this tower was built is differently stated in the Hebrew and Samaritan chronologies. The former fixes it in the year 101 after the flood, which Mr. Faber thinks encumbered with insuperable difficulties. This writer then goes on to show, that the chronology of the Samaritan Pentateuch reconciles every date, and surmounts every difficulty. It represents Shem as dying nearly a century and a half before the death of Peleg, instead of more than that number of years afterward, andalmost four centuries and a half before the death of Abraham; whom, in accordance with the history, it makes to survive his father Terah precisely a hundred years. It removes the difficulties with which the Hebrew chronology invests the whole history, by giving time, while it allows the dispersion to have taken place in the latter part of Peleg’s life, for the thirteen sons of his younger brother Joktan to have become heads of families; for Noah and his sons to have died, as it is proved they must have done, prior to the emigration from Armenia; for Nimrod, instead of being a boy, to have been of an age suitable to his exploits, and to have acquired the sovereign command, not, in the face of all probability, while the four great patriarchs were living, but after their decease; and for the families of mankind to have multiplied sufficiently to undertake the stupendous work of the tower. It explains also the silence respecting Shem in the history of Abraham, by making the former die in Armenia four hundred and forty years before the latter was born, instead of surviving him thirty-five years; and, lastly, it makes sacred history accord with profane; the Babylonic history of Berosus, and the old records consulted by Epiphanius, both placing the death of Noah and his sons before the emigration from Armenia.
The sum of the whole is as follows: All the descendants of Noah remained in Armenia in peaceable subjection to the patriarchal religion and government during the lifetime of the four royal patriarchs, or till about the beginning of the sixth century after the flood; when, gradually falling off from the pure worship of God, and from their allegiance to the respective heads of families, and seduced by the schemes of the ambitious Nimrod, and farther actuated by a restless disposition, or a desire for a more fertile country, they migrated in a body southwards, till they reached the plains of Shinar, probably about sixty years after the death of Shem. Here, under the command of their new leader, and his dominant military and sacerdotal Cuthites, by whom the original scheme of idolatry, the groundwork of which was probably laid in Armenia, was now perfected; and, with the express view to counteract the designs of the Almighty in their dispersion into different countries, they began to build the city and tower, and set up a banner which should serve as a mark of national union, and concentrate them in one unbroken empire; when they were defeated and dispersed by the miraculous confusion of tongues. All this probably occupied the farther space of twenty or twenty-one years; making eighty-one from the death of Shem, and five hundred and eighty-three after the flood. All of which also will come within the life of Peleg, who, according to the Samaritan Pentateuch, died in the year 640. The tower of Belus in Babylon, mentioned by Herodotus, was probably either the original tower of Babel repaired, or it was constructed upon its massive foundations. The remains of this tower are still to be seen, and are thus described by Captain Mignan, in his Travels in Chaldea:--
“At day light I departed for the ruins, with a mind absorbed by the objects which I had seen yesterday. An hour’s walk, indulged in intense reflection, brought me to the grandest and most gigantic northern mass, on the eastern bank of the Euphrates, and distant about four miles and a half from the eastern suburb of Hillah. It is called by the natives,El Mujellibah, ‘the overturned;’ alsoHarootandMaroot, from a tradition handed down, with little deviation, from time immemorial, that near the foot of the ruin there is a well, invisible to mortals, in which those rebellious angels were condemned by God to be hung with their heels upward, until the day of judgment, as a punishment for their wickedness. This solid mound, which I consider, from its situation and magnitude, to be the remains of the Tower of Babel, (an opinion likewise adopted by that venerable and highly distinguished geographer, Major Rennell,) is a vast oblong square, composed of kiln-burnt and sun-dried bricks, rising irregularly to the height of one hundred and thirty-nine feet, at the south-west; whence it slopes toward the north-east to a depth of one hundred and ten feet. Its sides face the four cardinal points. I measured them carefully, and the following is the full extent of each face: that to the north, along the visible face, is two hundred and seventy-four yards; to the south, two hundred and fifty-six yards; to the east, two hundred and twenty-six yards; and to the west, two hundred and forty yards. The summit is an uneven flat, strewed with broken and unbroken bricks, the perfect ones measuring thirteen inches square, by three thick. Many exhibited the arrow-headed character, which appeared remarkably fresh. Pottery, bitumen, vitrified and petrified brick, shells, and glass, were all equally abundant. The principal materials composing this ruin are, doubtless, mud bricks baked in the sun, and mixed up with straw. It is not difficult to trace brick work along each front, particularly at the south-west angle, which is faced by a wall, composed partly of kiln-burnt brick, that in shape exactly resembles a watch tower or small turret. On its summit there are still considerable traces of erect building; at the western end is a circular mass of sold brick work, sloping toward the top, and rising from a confused heap of rubbish. The chief material forming this fabric appeared similar to that composing the ruin called Akercouff, a mixture of chopped straw, with slime used as cement; and regular layers of unbroken reeds between the horizontal courses of the bricks. The base is greatly injured by time and the elements; particularly to the south-east, where it is cloven into a deep furrow from top to bottom. The sides of the ruin exhibit hollows worn partly by the weather, but more generally formed by the Arabs, who are incessantly digging for bricks, and hunting for antiquities.”
BABYLON, 2 Kings xxiv, 1. The capital of Chaldea, built by Nimrod, Gen. x, 10. Itwas under Nebuchadnezzar that Babylon, then become the seat of universal empire, is supposed to have acquired that extent and magnificence, and that those stupendous works were completed which rendered it the wonder of the world and of posterity: and accordingly, this prince, then the most potent on the earth, arrogated to himself the whole glory of its erection; and in the pride of his heart exclaimed, “Is not this great Babylon that I have built?” The city at this period stood on both sides of the river, which intersected it in the middle. It was, according to the least computation, that of Diodorus Siculus, 45 miles in circumference; and according to Herodotus, the older author of the two, 60 miles. Its shape was that of a square, traversed each way by 25 principal streets; which of course intersected each other, dividing the city into 626 squares. These streets were terminated at each end by gates of brass, of prodigious size and strength, with a smaller one opening toward the river. The walls, from the most moderate accounts, were 75 feet in height and 32 in breadth; while Herodotus makes them 300 in height and 75 in breadth: which last measurement, incredible as it may seem, is worthy of credit, as Herodotus is much the oldest author who describes them, and who gives their original height; whereas, those who follow him in their accounts of these stupendous walls, describe them as they were after they had been taken down to the less elevation by Darius Hystaspes. They were built of brick, cemented with bitumen instead of mortar; and were encompassed by a broad and deep ditch, lined with the same materials, as were also the banks of the river in its course through the city: the inhabitants descending to the water by steps through the smaller brazen gates before mentioned. The houses were three or four stories high, separated from each other by small courts or gardens, with open spaces and even fields interspersed over the immense area enclosed within the walls. Over the river was a bridge, connecting the two halves of the city, which stood, the one on its eastern, and the other on its western, bank; the river running nearly north and south. The bridge was 5 furlongs in length, and 30 feet in breadth, and had a palace at each end, with, it is said, a subterraneous passage beneath the river, from one to the other: the work of Semiramis. Within the city was the temple of Belus, or Jupiter, which Herodotus describes as a square of two stadia, or a quarter of a mile: in the midst of which arose the celebrated tower, to which both the same writer, and Strabo, give an elevation of one stadium, or 660 feet; and the same measure at its base; the whole being divided into eight separate towers, one above another, of decreasing dimensions to the summit; where stood a chapel, containing a couch, table, and other things of gold. Here the principal devotions were performed; and over this, on the highest platform of all, was the observatory, by the help of which the Babylonians arrived to such perfection in astronomy, that Calisthenes the philosopher, who accompanied Alexander to Babylon, found astronomical observations for 1903 years backwards from that time; which reach as high as the 115th year after the flood. On either side of the river, according to Diodorus, adjoining to the bridge, was a palace; that on the western bank being by much the larger. This palace was eight miles in circumference, and strongly fortified with three walls one within another. Within it were the celebrated pensile or hanging gardens, enclosed in a square of 400 feet. These gardens were raised on terraces, supported by arches, or rather by piers, laid over with broad flat stones; the arch appearing to be unknown to the Babylonians: which courses of piers rose above one another, till they reached the level of the top of the city walls. On each terrace or platform, a deep layer of mould was laid, in which flowers, shrubs and trees were planted; some of which are said to have reached the height of 50 feet. On the highest level was a reservoir, with an engine to draw water up from the river by which the whole was watered. This novel and astonishing structure, the work of a monarch who knew not how to create food for his own pampered fancy, or labour for his debased subjects or unhappy captives, was undertaken to please his wife Amyitis; that she might see an imitation of the hills and woods of her native country, Media.
Yet, while in the plenitude of its power, and, according to the most accurate chronologers, 160 years before the foot of an enemy had entered it, the voice of an enemy had entered it, the voice of prophecy pronounced the doom of the mighty and unconquered Babylon. A succession of ages brought it gradually to the dust; and the gradation of its fall is marked till it sinks at last into utter desolation. At a time when nothing but magnificence was around this city, emphatically called the great, fallen Babylon was delineated by the pencil of inspiration exactly as every traveller now describes its ruins.
The immense fertility of Chaldea, which retained also the name of Babylonia till after the Christian æra, corresponded with the greatness of Babylon. It was the most fertile region of the whole east. Babylonia was one vast plain, adorned and enriched by the Euphrates and the Tigris, from which, and from the numerous canals that intersected the country from the one river to the other, water was distributed over the fields by manual labour and by hydraulic machines, giving rise, in that warm climate and rich exhaustless soil, to an exuberance of produce without a known parallel, over so extensive a region, either in ancient or modern times. Herodotus states, that he knew not how to speak of its wonderful fertility, which none but eye witnesses would credit; and, though writing in the language of Greece, itself a fertile country, he expresses his own consciousness that his description of what he actually saw would appear to be improbable, and to exceed belief. Such was the “Chaldees’ excellency,” that it departed not on the first conquest, nor on the final extinction of itscapital, but one metropolis of Assyria arose after another in the land of Chaldea, when Babylon had ceased to be “the glory of kingdoms.”
2. Manifold are the prophecies respecting Babylon and the land of the Chaldeans; and the long lapse of ages has served to confirm their fulfilment in every particular, and to render it at last complete. The judgments of Heaven are not casual, but sure; they are not arbitrary, but righteous. And they were denounced against the Babylonians, and the inhabitants of Chaldea, expressly because of their idolatry, tyranny, oppression, pride, covetousness, drunkenness, falsehood, and other wickedness. The burden of Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amos did see: “The noise of a multitude in the mountains, like as of a great people: a tumultuous noise of the kingdoms of nations gathered together: the Lord of Hosts mustereth the host of the battle. They come from a far country, from the end of heaven, even the Lord and the weapons of his indignation, to destroy the whole land. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel both with wrath and fierce anger, to lay the land desolate: and he shall destroy the sinners thereof out of it. Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldees’ excellency, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah. It shall never be inhabited, neither shall it be dwelt in from generation to generation: neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there: neither shall the shepherds make their fold there. But wild beasts of the desert shall lie there: and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs shall dance there. And the wild beasts of the islands shall cry in their desolate houses, and dragons in their pleasant palaces.” “Thou shalt take up this proverb against the king of Babylon, and say, How hath the oppressor ceased! the golden city ceased! Thy pomp is brought down to the grave, and the noise of thy viols: the worm is spread under thee, and the worms cover thee. Thou shalt be brought down to hell, to the sides of the pit. Thou art cast out of the grave like an abominable branch.--I will cut off from Babylon the name, and remnant, the son, and nephew, saith the Lord. I will also make it a possession for the bittern, and pools of water: and I will sweep it with the besom of destruction, saith the Lord of Hosts.” “Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods he hath broken unto the ground.” “Thus saith the Lord, that saith unto the deep, Be dry; and I will dry up thy rivers: that saith of Cyrus, He is my shepherd, and shall perform all my pleasure,--and I will loose the loins of kings, to open before him the two-leaved gates; and the gates shall not be shut.” “Bel boweth down,” &c. “Come down, and sit in the dust, O virgin daughter of Babylon: sit on the ground, there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans. Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness, O daughter of the Chaldeans; for thou shalt no more be called the lady of kingdoms.”
Many other prophecies against Babylon, and the whole land of Chaldea, are found in the Old Testament; and though the limits of this article will only allow a reference to be made to the exact fulfilment of a few, there is not one of the great number of predictions on record, the accomplishment of which has not been remarked by numerous writers, and more especially by those who have visited the spot. For, though for many centuries the site of Babylon was unknown, or the ruins of other Chaldean cities mistaken for its remains, its true situation and present condition have been, within a few years, satisfactorily ascertained, and accurately described, by several most intelligent and enterprising travellers.
When in the plenitude of its greatness, splendour and strength, Babylon first yielded to the arms of Cyrus, whose name, and the manœuvre by which the city was taken, were mentioned by Isaiah nearly two hundred years before the event; which was also predicted by Jeremiah: “Go up, O Elam, (or Persia,) besiege, O Media. The Lord hath raised up the spirit of the kings of the Medes, for his device is against Babylon, to destroy it.” The kings of Persia and Media, prompted by a common interest, freely entered into a league against Babylon, and with one accord entrusted the command of their united armies to Cyrus, the relative and eventually the successor of them both.--But the taking of Babylon was not reserved for these kingdoms alone: other nations had to be “prepared against her.” “Set up a standard in the land; blow the trumpet among the nations, prepare the nations against her, call together against her the kingdoms of Ararat, Minni, and Aschenaz: Lo, I will raise and cause to come up against Babylon an assembly of great nations from the north country,” &c. Cyrus subdued the Armenians, who had revolted against Media, spared their king, bound them over anew to their allegiance, by kindness rather than by force, and incorporated their army with his own.--“The mighty men of Babylon have foreborne to fight. They have remained in their holds; their might hath failed, they became as women.” So dispirited became its people, that Babylon, which had made the world to tremble, was long besieged, without making any effort to drive off the enemy. But, possessed of provisions for twenty years, which in their timid caution they had plentifully stored, they derided Cyrus from their impregnable walls, within which they remained. Their profligacy, their wickedness and false confidence were unabated; they continued to live carelessly in pleasures: and Babylon the great, unlike to many a small fortress and unwalled town, made not one struggle to regain its freedom or to be rid of the foe.--Much time having been lost, and no progress being made in the siege, the anxiety of Cyrus was strongly excited, and he was reduced to great perplexity, when at last it was suggested and immediately determined to divert the course of the Euphrates. And while the unconscious and reckless citizens were engaged in dancing and merriment, the river was suddenly turned into the lake, the trench, and the canals; and the Persians, both foot and horse, so soon as the subsidingof the water permitted, entered by its channel, and were followed by the allies in array, along the dry part of the river. “I will dry up thy sea, and make thy springs dry. That saith to the deep, Be dry, I will dry up thy rivers.”--One detachment was placed where the river first enters the city, and another where it leaves it. And “one post did run to meet another, and one messenger to meet another, to show the king of Babylon that his city is taken at the end, and that the passages are shut.” “They were taken,” says Herodotus, “bysurprise; and such is the extent of the city, that, as the inhabitants themselves affirm, they who lived in the extremities were made prisoners before any alarm was communicated to the centre of the place,” where the palace stood. Thus a “snare was laid for Babylon, it was taken, and it was not aware; it was found and also caught; for it had sinned against the Lord. How is the praise of the whole earth surprised!”--“In their heat I will make their feasts, and I will make them drunken, that they may rejoice and sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake, saith the Lord. I will bring them down like lambs to the slaughter,” &c. “I will make drunken her princes and her wise men, her captains and her rulers, and her mighty men, and they shall sleep a perpetual sleep,” &c. Cyrus, as the night drew on, stimulated his assembled troops to enter the city, because in that night of general revel within the walls, many of them were asleep, many drunk, and confusion universally prevailed. On passing, without obstruction or hinderance, into the city, the Persians, slaying some, putting others to flight, and joining with the revellers, as if slaughter had been merriment, hastened by the shortest way to the palace, and reached it ere yet a messenger had told the king that his city was taken. The gates of the palace, which was strongly fortified, were shut. The guards stationed before them, weredrinkingbeside a blazing light, when the Persians rushed impetuously upon them. A louder and altered clamour, no longer joyous, caught the ear of the inmates of the palace, and the bright light showed them the work of destruction, without revealing its cause. And not aware of the presence of an enemy in the midst of Babylon, the king himself, (who had been roused from his revelry by the hand writing on the wall,) excited by the warlike tumult at the gates, commanded those within to examine from whence it arose; and according to the same word, by which “the gates” (leading from the river to the city) “were not shut, the loins of kings were loosed to open before Cyrus the two-leaved gates” of the palace. The eager Persians sprang in. “The king of Babylon heard the report of them; anguish took hold of him;” he and all who were about him perished; God had “numbered” his kingdom and finished it; it was “divided,” and given to the Medes and Persians; the lives of the Babylonian princes, and lords, and rulers, and captains, closed with that night’s festival; the drunken slept “a perpetual sleep, and did not wake.”--“I will fill thee with men as with caterpillars.” Not only did the Persian army enter with ease as caterpillars, together with all the nations that had come up against Babylon, but they seemed also as numerous. Cyrus, after the capture of the city, made a great display of his cavalry in the presence of the Babylonians, and in the midst of Babylon. Four thousand guards stood before the palace gates, and two thousand on each side. These advanced as Cyrus approached; two thousand spearmen followed them. These were succeeded by four square masses of Persian cavalry, each consisting of ten thousand men: and to these again were added, in their order, the Median, Armenian, Hyrcanian, Caducian, and Sacian horsemen,--all, as before, “riding upon horses, every man in array,”--with lines of chariots, four abreast, concluding the train of the numerous hosts. Cyrus afterward reviewed, at Babylon, the whole of his army, consisting of one hundred and twenty thousand horse, two thousand chariots, and six hundred thousand foot. Babylon, which was taken when not aware, and within whose walls no enemy, except a captive, had been ever seen, was thus “filled with men as with caterpillars,” as if there had not been a wall around it. The Scriptures do not relate the manner in which Babylon was taken, nor do they ever allude to the exact fulfilment of the prophecies. But there is, in every particular, a strict coincidence between the predictions of the prophets and the historical narratives, both of Herodotus and Xenophon.
3. Every step in the progress of the decline of Babylon was the accomplishment of a prophecy. Conquered, for the first time, by Cyrus, it was afterward reduced from an imperial to a tributary city. “Come down and sit in the dust, O daughter of Babylon: sit on the ground, there is no throne, O daughter of the Chaldeans.” After the Babylonians rebelled against Darius, the walls were reduced in height, and all the gates destroyed. “The wall of Babylon shall fall, her walls are thrown down.”--Xerxes, after his ignominious retreat from Greece, rifled the temples of Babylon, the golden images alone of which were estimated at 20,000,000l, beside treasures of vast amount. “I will punish Bel in Babylon, and I will bring forth out of his mouth that which he has swallowed up; I will do judgment upon the graven images of Babylon.”--Alexander the Great attempted to restore it to its former glory, and designed to make it the metropolis of a universal empire. But while the building of the temple of Belus, and the reparation of the embankments of the Euphrates, were actually carrying on, the conqueror of the world died, at the commencement of this his last undertaking, in the height of his power, and in the flower of his age. “Take balm for her pain, if so be that she may be healed. We would have healed Babylon, but she is not healed.” The building of the neighbouring city of Seleucia was the chief cause of the decline of Babylon, and drained it of a great part of its population. And at a later period, or about 130 years before the birth of Christ, Humerus, aParthian governor, who was noted as excelling all tyrants in cruelty, exercised great severities on the Babylonians; and having burned the forum and some of the temples, and destroyed the fairest parts of the city, reduced many of the inhabitants to slavery on the slightest pretexts, and caused them, together with all their households, to be sent into Media. “They shall remove, they shall depart, both man and beast.” The “golden city” thus gradually verged, for centuries, toward poverty and desolation. Notwithstanding that Cyrus resided chiefly at Babylon, and sought to reform the government, and remodel the manners of the Babylonians, the succeeding kings of Persia preferred, as the seat of empire, Susa, Persepolis, or Ecbatana, situated in their own country: and in like manner the successors of Alexander did not attempt to complete his purpose of restoring Babylon to its preeminence and glory; but, after the subdivision of his mighty empire, the very kings of Assyria, during their temporary residence even in Chaldea, deserted Babylon, and dwelt in Seleucia. And thus the foreign inhabitants, first Persians and afterward Greeks, imitating their sovereigns by deserting Babylon, acted as if they verily had said, “Forsake her, and let us go every man unto his own country; for her judgment is reached unto heaven, and is lifted up even to the skies.”
4. But kindred judgments, the issue of common crimes, rested on the land of Chaldea, as well as on its doomed metropolis. “They come from a far country, from the end of the earth, to destroy the whole land. Many nations and great kings shall serve themselves of thee also,” &c. The Persians, the Macedonians, the Parthians, the Romans, the Saracens, and the Turks, are the chief of the many nations who have unscrupulously and unsparingly “served themselves” of the land of the Chaldeans: and Cyrus and Darius, kings of Persia; Alexander the Great; and Seleucus, king of Assyria; Demetrius and Antiochus the Great; Tragan, Severus, Julian, and Heraclius, emperors of Rome; the victorious Omar, the successor of Mohammed; Holagou, and Tamerlane,--are “great kings” who successively subdued or desolated Chaldea, or exacted from it tribute to such an extent, as scarcely any other country ever paid to a single conqueror. And though the names of some of these nations were unknown to the Babylonians, and unheard of in the world at the time of the prophecy, most of these “many nations and great kings” need now but to be named, to show that, in local relation to Chaldea, “they came from the utmost border, from the coasts of the earth.”--“I will punish the land of the Chaldeans, and will make it perpetual desolations; cut off the sower from Babylon, and him that handleth the sickle in the time of harvest. A drought is on her waters, and they shall be dried up. Behold the hinder-most of the nations, a dry land and a desert.” The land of the Chaldeans was indeed made--perpetual, or long continued, desolation. Ravaged and spoiled for ages, the Chaldees’ excellency finally disappeared, and the land became desolate, as still it remains. Rauwolff, who passed through it in 1574, describes the country as bare, and “so dry and barren that it cannot be tilled.” And the most recent travellers all concur in describing it in similar terms. On the one side, near to the site of Opis, “the country all around,” says Mr. Buckingham, “appears to be one wide desert, of sandy and barren soil, thinly scattered over with brushwood and tufts of reedy grass.” On the other, between Bussorah and Bagdad, “immediately on either bank of the Tigris,” observes Mignan, “is theuntrodden desert. The absence of all cultivation, the sterile, arid, and wild character of the whole scene, formed a contrast to the rich and delightful accounts delineated in Scripture. The natives, in travelling over these pathless deserts, are compelled to explore their way by the stars.” “The whole country between Bagdad and Hillah is a perfectly flat and (with the exception of a few spots as you approach the latter place)uncultivated waste. That it was at some former period in a far different state, is evident from the number of canals by which it is traversed, nowdryand neglected; and the quantity of heaps of earth covered with fragments of brick and broken tiles, which are seen in every direction, the indisputable traces of former population. At present the only inhabitants of the tract are the Sobeide Arabs. Around, as far as the eye can reach is atrackless desert.”--“Her cities are desolations.” The course of the Tigris through Babylonia, instead of being adorned with cities, is marked with the sites of “ancient ruins.” Sitace, Sabata, Narisa, Fuchera, Sendia, “no longer exist.” A succession of longitudinal mounds, crossed at right angles by others, mark the supposed site of Artemita, or Destagered. Its once luxuriant gardens are covered with grass; and a higher mound distinguishes “the royal residence” from the ancient streets. “Extensive ridges and mountains, (near to Houmania,) varying in height and extent, are seen branching in every direction.” A wall, with sixteen bastions, is the only memorial of Apollonia. The once magnificent Seleucia is now a scene of desolation. There is not a single entire edifice, but the country is strewed for miles with fragments of decayed buildings. “As far,” says Major Keppel, “as the eye could reach, the horizon presented a broken line of mounds; the whole of this place was a desert flat.” On the opposite bank of the Tigris, where Ctesiphon its rival stood, beside fragments of walls and broken masses of brick work, and remains of vast structures encumbered with heaps of earth, there is one magnificent monument of antiquity “in a remarkably perfect state of preservation,” “a large and noble pile of building, the front of which presents to view a wall three hundred feet in length, adorned with four rows of arched recesses, with a central arch, in span eighty-six feet, and above a hundred feet high, supported by walls sixteen feet thick, and leading to a hall which extends to the depth of a hundred and fifty-six feet,” the width of the building. A great part of the back wall, and of the roof, is broken down; but that which remains “still appears much larger than WestminsterAbbey.” It is supposed to have been the lofty palace of Chosroes; but there desolation now reigns. “On the site of Ctesiphon,” says Mignan, “the smallest insect under heaven would not find a single blade of grass wherein to hide itself, nor one drop of water to allay its thirst.” In the rear of the palace, and attached to it, are mounds two miles in circumference, indicating the utter desolation of buildings, formed to minister to luxury.
5. But let us come to the fulfilment of these wonderful prophecies in the present condition of Babylon itself, as described by those who have most recently visited it.
“Babylon shall become heaps.” Babylon the glory of kingdoms is now the greatest of ruins. “Immense tumuli of temples, palaces, and habitations of every description,” are every where seen, and form “long and varied lines of ruins,” which, in some places, says Sir R. K. Porter, “rather resemble natural hills thanmoundswhich cover the remains of great and splendid edifices.” These buildings, which were once the labour of slaves and the pride of kings, are now misshapen heaps of rubbish. “The whole face of the country,” observes Rich, “is covered with vestiges of building, in some places consisting of brick walls surprisingly fresh, in others, merely avast succession of moundsof rubbish, of such indeterminate figures, variety, and extent, as to involve the person who should have formed any theory in inextricable confusion.”--“Let nothing of her be left.” “Vast heaps constituteall that now remainsof ancient Babylon,” says Rich. All its grandeur is departed; all its treasures have been spoiled; all its excellence has utterly vanished; the very heaps are searched for bricks, when nothing else can be found; even these arenot left, wherever they can be taken away; and Babylon has for ages been “a quarry above ground,” ready to the hand of every successive despoiler. Without the most remote allusion to this prophecy, Captain Mignan describes a mound attached to the palace, ninety yards in breadth by half that height, the whole of which is deeply furrowed, in the same manner as the generality of the mounds. “The ground is extremely soft, and tiresome to walk over, and appearscompletely exhaustedof all its building materials;nothing now is left, save one towering hill, the earth of which is mixed withfragmentsof broken brick, red varnished pottery, tile, bitumen, mortar, glass, shells, and pieces of mother of pearl,”--worthless fragments, of no value to the poorest. “From thence shall she be taken, let nothing of her be left.” While the workmen “cast her up as heaps” while excavating for bricks, that they may “take” them “from thence,” and that “nothing may be left;” they labour more than trebly in the fulfilment of prophecy: for the numerous and deep excavations form pools of water, on the over-flowing of the Euphrates, and, annually filled, they are not dried up throughout the year. “Deep cavities are also formed by the Arabs, when digging for hidden treasure.” Thus “the ground,” says Buckingham, “is sometimes covered with pools of water in the hollows.”
“Sit in the dust, sit on the ground, O daughter of the Chaldeans.” The surface of the mounds which form all that remains of Babylon, consists of decomposed buildings, reduced to dust; and over all the ancient streets and habitations, there is literally nothing but the dust of the ground on which to sit.--“Thy nakedness shall be uncovered.” “Our path,” says Captain Mignan, “lay through the great mass of ruined heaps on the site of ‘shrunken Babylon;’ and I am perfectly incapable of conveying an adequate idea of the dreary, lonely nakedness that appeared before me.”--“Sit thou silent, and get thee into darkness.” “There reigns throughout the ruins,” says Sir R. K. Porter, “a silence profound as the grave.” “Babylon is now a silent scene, a sublime solitude.”--“It shall never be inhabited, nor dwelt in from generation to generation.” From Rauwolff’s testimony it appears that, in the sixteenth century, “there was not a house to be seen.” And now “the eye wanders over a barren desert, in which the ruins are nearly the only indication that it had ever been inhabited.” “It is impossible,” adds Major Keppel, “to behold this scene and not to be reminded how exactly the predictions of Isaiah and Jeremiah have been fulfilled, even in the appearance Babylon was doomed to present, that ‘she should never be inhabited;’ that ‘the Arabian should not pitch his tent there;’ that she should ‘become heaps;’ that her cities should be ‘a desolation, a dry land, and a wilderness.’” “Babylon is spurned alike by the heel of the Ottomans, the Israelites, and the sons of Ishmael.” It is “a tenantless and desolate metropolis,” remarks Mignan. “It shall not be inhabited, but be wholly desolate. Neither shall the Arabian pitch tent there, neither shall the shepherds make their folds there.” It was prophesied of Ammon that it should be a stable for camels and a couching place for flocks; and of Philistia, that it should be cottages for shepherds, and a pasture of flocks. But Babylon was to be visited with a far greater desolation, and to become unfit or unsuited even for such a purpose; and that neither a tent would be pitched there, even by an Arab, nor a fold made by a shepherd, implies the last degree of solitude and desolation. “It is common in these parts for shepherds to make use of ruined edifices to shelter their flocks in.” But Babylon is an exception. Instead of taking the bricks from thence, the shepherd might very readily erect a defence from wild beasts, and make a fold for his flock amidst the heaps of Babylon; and the Arab who fearlessly traverses it by day, might pitch his tent by night. But neither the one nor the other could now be persuaded to remain a single night among the ruins. The superstitious dread of evil spirits, far more than the natural terror of the wild beasts, effectually prevents them. Captain Mignan was accompanied by six Arabs, completely armed; but he “could not induce them to remain toward night, from the apprehension of evil spirits. It is impossible to eradicate this idea from the minds of this people, who are very deeply imbued with superstition.”
“Wild beasts of the deserts shall lie there, and their houses shall be full of doleful creatures; and owls shall dwell there, and satyrs (goats) shall dance there,” &c. “There are many dens of wild beasts in various parts. And while the lower excavations are often pools of water, in most of the cavities are numbers of bats and owls.” The king of the forest now ranges over the site of that Babylon which Nebuchadnezzar built for his own glory. And the temple of Belus, the greatest work of man, is now like unto a natural den of lions. Two or three majestic lions were seen upon its heights by Sir Robert Ker Porter, as he was approaching it; and “the broad prints of their feet were left plain in the clayey soil.” Major Keppel saw there a similar foot-print of a lion. It is also the unmolested retreat of jackalls, hyenas, and other noxious animals. Wild beasts are numerous at the Mujelibé, as well as on Birs Nimrood. “The mound,” says Kinneir, “was full of large holes: we entered some of them, and found them strewed with the carcasses and skeletons of animals recently killed. The ordure of wild beasts was so strong, that prudence got the better of curiosity; for we had no doubt as to the savage nature of the inhabitants. Our guides, indeed, told us, that all the ruins abounded in lions, and other wild beasts: so literally has the divine prediction been fulfilled, that wild beasts of the deserts should lie there, and their houses be full of doleful creatures; that the wild beasts of the islands should cry in their desolate houses.”
“The sea is come upon Babylon. She is covered with the multitude of the waves thereof.” The traces of the western bank of the Euphrates are now no longer discernible. The river overflows unrestrained; and the very ruins, with “every appearance of the embankment,” have been swept away. “The ground there is low and marshy, and presents not the slightest vestige of former buildings, of any description whatever.” “Morasses and ponds,” says Porter, “tracked the ground in various parts. For a long time after the general subsiding of the Euphrates, great part of this plain is little better than a swamp,” &c. “The ruins of Babylon are then inundated, so as to render many parts of them inaccessible, by converting the valleys among them into morasses.” But while Babylon is thus “covered with the multitude of waves, and the waters come upon it;” yet, in striking contrast and seeming contradiction to such a feature of desolation, (like the formation of “pools of water,” from the “casting up of heaps,”) are the elevated sunburnt ruins, which the waters do not overflow, and the “dry waste” and “parched and burning plain,” on which the heaps of Babylon lie, equally prove that it is “a desert, a dry land, and a wilderness.” One part, even on the western side of the river, is “low and marshy, and another,” says Mignan, “an arid desert.”
Many other striking particulars might be collected; and we may conclude in the words of Mr. Keith, from whose work on the prophecies several of the above particulars have been extracted:--“Is it possible that there can be any attestation of the truth of prophecy, if it be not witnessed here? Is there any spot on earth which has undergone a more complete transformation? ‘The records of the human race,’ it has been said with truth, ‘do not present a contrast more striking than that between the primeval magnificence of Babylon and its long desolation.’ Its ruins have of late been carefully and scrupulously examined by different natives of Britain, of unimpeached veracity; and the result of every research is a more striking demonstration of the literal accomplishment of every prediction. How few spots are there on earth of which we have so clear and faithful a picture as prophecy gave to fallen Babylon at a time when no spot on earth resembled it less than its present desolate solitary site! or could any prophecies respecting any single place have been more precise, or wonderful, or numerous, or true, or more gradually accomplished throughout many generations? And when they look at what Babylon was, and what it is, and perceive the minute realization of them all, may not nations learn wisdom, may not tyrants tremble, and may not skeptics think?”
The reasons why prophecies so numerous and particular were recorded concerning Babylon, appear to have been, 1. That Babylon was the great oppressor of the Jews. 2. That it was the type of all the powerful persecuting enemies of the church of God, especially of Rome; and in its fate they may read their own. 3. That the accomplishment of prophecy in the destruction of so eminent an empire might give a solemn testimony to the truth of the Scriptures to the whole earth, and to all ages.
BACKSLIDING, a falling off, or defection in matters of religion; an apostasy, Acts xxi, 21; 2 Thess. ii, 3; 1 Tim. iv, 1. This may be either partial or complete: partial, when it is in the heart, as Prov. xiv, 14; complete, as that described in Heb. vi, 4, &c; x, 6, &c. On the latter passage Chrysostom observes, “When a house has a strong foundation, suppose an arch fall, some of the beams break, or a wall decline, while the foundation is good, these breaches may be repaired; so in religion, whilst a person maintains the true doctrines, and remains on the firm rock, though he fall, true repentance may restore him to the favour and image of God: but as in a house, when the foundation is bad, nothing can save the building from ruin; so when heretical doctrines are admitted for a foundation, nothing can save the professor from destruction.” It is important in interpreting these passages to keep it steadfastly in mind, that the apostasy they speak of is not onlymoralbutdoctrinal.
BADGER,תחש. This word in a plural form occurs, Exod. xxv, 5; xxvi, 14; xxxv, 7, 23; xxxvi, 19; xxxix, 34; Num. iv, 6, 8, 10–12, 14, 25; Ezek. xvi, 10; and is joined withערת, skins used for the covering of the tabernacle in the wilderness. The Jewish interpreters are agreed as to its being some animal. Jarchi says it was a beast of many colours, which no more exists. Kimchi holds the same opinion. Aben Ezra thinks it some animal of thebovine kind, of whose skins shoes are made; alluding to Ezek. xvi, 10. Most modern interpreters have taken it to be the badger, and among these our English translators; but, in the first place, the badger is not an inhabitant of Arabia; and there is nothing in its skin peculiarly proper either for covering a tabernacle or making shoes. Hasæus, Michaelis, and others, have laboured to prove that it is the mermaid, orhomo marinus, thetrichekusof Linnæus. Faber, Dathe, and Rosenmuller, think that it is the seal, or sea calf,vitulus marinus, the skin of which is both strong and pliable, and was accounted by the ancients as a most proper outer covering for tents, and was also made into shoes, as Rau has clearly shown. Niebuhr says, “A merchant of Abushahr calleddahashthat fish which the captains in English vessels call porpoise, and the Germans, sea hog. In my voyage from Maskat to Abushahr, I saw a prodigious quantity together near Ras Mussendom, that were all going the same way, and seemed to swim with great vehemence.” Bochart thinks that not ananimal, but acolour, was intended, Exodus xxv, 5; so that the covering of the tabernacle was to be azure, or sky blue.
BAG, a purse or pouch, Deut. xxv, 13; 1 Sam. xvii, 40; Luke xii, 33; Job xiv, 17. The money collected in the treasuries of eastern princes was reckoned up in certain equal sums, put into bags and sealed. These are, in some parts of the Levant, calledpurses, where they estimate great expenses by so many purses. The money collected in the temple in the time of Joash, for its reparation, seems, in like manner, to have been told up in bags of equal value; and these were probably delivered sealed to those who paid the workmen, 2 Kings xii, 10. In the east, in the present day, a bag of money passes, for some time at least, currently from hand to hand, under the authority of a banker’s seal, without any examination of its contents. See Tobit ix, 5; xi, 16.