Pilgrimage, Book 1 · Chapter 12
CHAP. XII.
Of the Priests, Sacrifices, religious Rites, and customes of the Babylonians.
THe Chaldeans (saith aDio. Sic.l. 3. cap. 8.Diodorus) were of reputation in Babylon, as the Priests in Egypt: Chaldaean, being a name sometime applied to the whole Nation; sometime appropriated to the Priests, who spent their whole time in religious seruices, and in Astrologie. Many of them by Diuination foretold things to come, as we hauehave shewed before in the Historie of Alexander; and the booke of Daniel witnesseth this their profession. By their auguries, or diuination by birds, by sacrifices and enchantments, they were accounted to doe good or harme to mankind. They were most expert in their sacred Rites, in the knowledge whereof they were brought vp from their child-hood; and continued in that course of learning all their liues, the childe being instructed in his fathers science. They professed the interpretation of dreames, and prodigious accidents in Nature. Their opinions were, That the world is eternal, without beginning and end: the order and furniture of all was done by diuine prouidence: all heauenly things were perfected, not by chance, or of their owne accord, but by the determinate and firme decree of the Gods. By long obseruation searching the course and nature of the Starres, they foretold things to come. But the greatest Power they attributed to the fiue Planets, and especially to Saturne. They call them Mercuries, because when others are fixed, these hauehave their proper motion, and shew future things, as the Interpreters of the Gods, by their rising, setting, and colour. VnderUnder their course they giuegive the title of Gods bDij Consultores.to thirtie other Starres, the one halfe, aboue; the other, vnderunder the earth, beholding all accidents. And in ten dayes one of the higher is sent to the lower, as an angell, or messenger of the Starres, and one from them to the higher: And this course they take eternally.
They hold twelue principall Gods, each of which hath his peculiar monethmonth, and his signe in the Zodiake; by which the Sunne, and Moone, and fiue Planets, hauehave their motion. These Planets they esteeme to conferre much good or euill in the generation of men, and by their nature and aspect, things to come may be foreknowne. Many things they foretold to Alexander, Nicanor, Antigonus, Seleucus, and to priuate men, beyond the reach of men. They number foure and twentie constellations without the Zodiake, twelue towards the North, and as many towards the South. These Northernely are seene, which they attribute to the liuing: those Southernely are hidden; and present (they thinke) to the dead, whch they hold the Iudges of all. Concerning the site, motion and eclipse of the Moone, they hold as the Greekes; but of the Sunnes Eclipse they hauehave diuers opinions, and dare not vtter their opinion thereof, nor foretell the time. The earth they conceiued to be hollow like a boat. They reckoned 43000. yeares, vntill the comming of Alexander, since first they had begunne their obseruations of the Starres.
These years Xenophon de aquiuocis interpreteth of months: for so (saith he) the Chaldeans reckoned their antiquities; in other things they kept their computation according to the Sunne. But of their fabulous antiquities we hauehave heard before: where we hauehave also touched, that one beginning of Idolatry did arise of this curious & superstitious Star-gazing, especially in the countries of Egypt, where not at all vsually; and in Chaldaea, where diuers months bEight moneths together, Master Eldred. Hak. Voy. tom 2.together they hauehave neither raines nor clouds. Strabo diuideth the Chaldeans into sects, Orchent, Borsippeni, & others, diuersly opinionate of the same things. Borsippa was a Citie sacred to Diana and Apollo.
Some cPhilost…at. de vita Apol.lib. 1.do call the Babylonian Priests, Magi; but because they were by this name best knowne & most esteemed among the Persians, which in that vicinity of regions had as neere neighborhood in religions, we will speake of these Magi, in our Persian relations. And it is thought that the Persian Magi came frō these Chaldeans. Mornaeus dPh. Morn. de Verit. C.R.reckoneth among the Chaldeā opiniōs, that of Oromases, Mitris, & Ariminis, that is to say, GOD, Mind & Soule: which he applieth to the Christian doctrine of the holy Trinity. The Oracle of Apollo, pronoūced the Chaldeans & Hebrews to be only wise.
The Chaldean opinion concerning iudiciall Astrologie, was not receiued of all the Chaldeans, as Strabo reporteth. And Bardesanes Syrus, the best learned of the Chaldeans (it is Euseb. testimony eEuseb. de praeyar. Eu.l. 6.c.8.) doth at large confute that opinion (which yet many Wisards, carkasses of Christians, still follow) He affirmeth that in those things which a man hath common with a beast, eating, sleepe, nourishment, age, &c. a man is ordered by Nature, as the beasts are. But Man hauing also a reasonable soule, & freedome of wil, is not subiect to that naturall seruitude; which at large he proueth by the diuers customes of men, both in diuers, & in the same coūtries, in diet, gouernmēt, and religion: as the Reader, willing to read so worthy a discourse, may find related at large in Euseb. Alexander Polyhistor fEuseb. de praeyar.lib.9. cap. 4.out of Eupolemus, telleth that in the tenth generation after the Floud, in Camyrine a citie of Babylonia, which other call Vr, Abram was borne, which excelled all in knowledge, & was the inuentor of Astrology among the Chaldeans. He by diuine precept went into Phaenicia, and taught the Phaenicians the course of the Sunne & Moone: & when the Armenians, warring vponupon the Phaenicians, had taken his brothers son prisoner, he by a band of his seruāts recouered him, & freely dismissed the captiues, which he had taken. He after liued with the Priests at Heliopolis in Egypt, & taught them Astrology; confessing that he had receiued that Art by succession from Enoch. He addeth that Belus reigned the second in Babylon, and was called Saturne, the father of a second Belus, and Canaan; which Canaan was the father of the Phaenicians, and the Aethiopians, brother of Mizraim the Author of the Egyptians: with many other things not much differing from the Diuine Historie.
Astronomy in all likelihood was knowne to Abraham, to whom the heauenly stars might be Remembrancers of that promise, so shall thy seed be: his country also, where it was practised, might therin further him, & the excellence of the Science in itselfe. But this Star-gazing destiny, Iudicial, Cōiectural, Genethliacal Astrology, Reason, & Experience, GOD and Man hauehave condemned. Vr signifieth light, which agreeth to the Fire, the Chaldean deity, hAmmian.l. 23. Plutar defacie in orbe Lunae.which the Persiās & Chaldeans fained to hauehave receiued frō heauen, & kept euer burning; as the Vestals in Rome. They held Water and Fire to be the beginning of al things. They made a chalenge of this their fiery God, to contend with any other gods of the godlesse Heathen: an Egyptian encountred & ouercame them thus: he caused his Canopus to be made ful of holes, stopped with wax, & hollow in the middle, which he filled with water: & the Chaldeans putting their fire vnderunder, the waxe melting, opened a quiuer of watry arrowes, that cooled the heat of their deuouring god, and deuoured him. They had yet a more foolish God, euen an iAlex. ab Alexand.l. 6. 26.Onyon which they worshipped. They obserued diuers wicked Sciences, of diuining, by Fire, Aire, Water, Earth, consulting with the dead, and with wicked spirits.—Chaldaea vocatis Imperat arte dijs, saith Claudian.
EueryEvery day the King kCoelius l. 8.c. 1.offered a Horse, furnished, vntounto the Sunne; as did also the Persians. Philostrat. saith, that it was a white Horse of the Nisaean race, sumptuously trapped, lib. 1. cap. 20. They obserued a feast in Babylon (Athenoeus lAthen.lib. 14. cap.17.citeth it out of Berosus) on the sixteenth Calends of September, which continued fiue daies; in which the Masters were subiect to their seruants, and one of them, royally attired, was carried out of the house, whom they called Zoganes. Baruch cap.6. in the Epistle of Ieremte (Apocrypha) rippeth vp their idolatrous Rites, Idols, Processions, bearing Idols on mens shoulders, the people before and behind worshipping: their Priests collusiens to make gaines of the Idol-offerings, together with their Priests shauen heads and beards, their rent cloaths, their roaring before the Idoll: their Temples wherein they stood with scepters, axes, or other weapons in their hands, hauing candles lighted before them, with other such rites; that, in the reading, one would thinke he were telling the discourse of the mysteries of mystical Babylon in the West; so euenly they accord. The Chaldeans innocate their Belus, to do: miracles also saith he, innocating a dumble I doll, to giuegive speech to another, which himselfe wanteth. But aboue all, one beastly rite was in vse among them. The women, saith he, mBar. 6.42.sit in the waies girded with cords of rushes, and burne straw: and if one of them be drawne away, and he with any, such as come by, she casteth her neighbour in the teeth, because shee was not so worthily reputed, nor her cord broken. Thus was their glorie their shame. nHero. Clio. Strabo. lib 16. mentioneth the same.Herodotus will yeeld vsus a Commentary on this place. The Babylonians hauehave an abominable law (saith he) that all their women once in their life do sit at the Temple of Venus to hauehave familiaritie with strangers: the richer sort comming in chariots, richly furnished and attended to this vngodly purpose. Their manner of sitting is, crowned on their temples with garlands, their retiring places distinguished with cords, by which the stranger may hauehave accesse to which of them he liketh best. And thus do these Votaries of Venus sit, holding it religion to be irreligious, none of them euer returning home, til some guest hauehave cast money into her lap, whom it is not lawfull for her to refuse, but to accept of him and his price, whatsoeuer he be, and follow him aside from the Temple, where he defileth her. At the giuing of the mony he vseth these words, Tantitibi deam Mylitt am imploro: that is, at this price, or for so much, I implore vntounto thee the Goddesse Mylitta (so the Assyrians call Venus) and this money is consecrated to a sacred vse. After this, with the Goddesse good leaue, she may returne home, although for no great price againe (saith our Author) to be hired. By this means the fairest are quickly dispatched, the rest endure a restles & irkesome penāce, sometime a yeare, two, or three, before they can be discharged of their honesty & the law together. And hence might arise that former ambitious vpbraiding in Baruch.
Among their many Idols, Bel bare the bell, not here alone, but in al the countries of Assyria, & adioyning thereto; as appeareth in the History of the Bible: where Bel or Baal is so often mentioned, as the Idol of so many nations, & the sin of the apostatical synagogue. They oIer. 19.5. Icrem. 32. 1. Reg. 18. & 16. 2. Reg. 23. & 10. Ose. 2.Es. 46.built vntounto him high places: or els in stead therofvsed the roofes of their houses to his worship: they built him houses, they made him Images, erected Altars, planted groues, bended to him the knee, & kissed him in token of subiection, vsed perfume & intense, obserued to him holy daies, cut & lanced themselues in his seruice, with other extaticall furies, & religious frenzies, with ornaments of gold and iewels, inuocations and immolations, yea of their owne children: he had also his peculiar Prophets & Priests. These and such like doth the Scripture mention of this Babylonian Idol, whose contagion infected the East with a Catholike Idolatry that could plead Antiquitie, Vniuersalitie, and Consent, by euidence of Scripture-historie (which later Babylon cannot do) and yet was but Catholike and generall errour.
Ribera affirmeth pRib. in Hos.2.that diuers later Authors, & before them *Inler 32.Theodcret, do esteeme the name Bel or Baal to be a generall name, agreeing to all the Gods of the Gentiles, according to the signification of the word, to wit, a Lord. *Nic. Strar. in Iudic.It was a name generall to their Idols, whē it was put alone, but particular with some addition, as Bel-zebub, Baal-zephon. And Seruius *On those words of Virgil. …, nicro pateram, quam Belus & omnes à Beln sol…, &c. Aeneid.1.is author, that Belus the father of Dido descended of that ancient Belus the first King of the Assyrians, which people worshipped Saturne & Iuno, which were after worshipped in Africa, whereupon the Punikes called God, Bal, (from whence came those names Hannibal, Adherbal, and such like) whom the Assyrians in some respect call Bel, and Saturne, and the Sunne. This opinion that in Bel they worshipped the Sunne, is followed by Tremellius and Iunius in their notes on Esaias, chap.46.1. because the Assyrians, Persians, and Babylonians, accounted the Sunne the greatest God, and worshipped the Fire as a particle thereof: To him the Iewes, with this borrowed forren Idolatrie, dedicated horses and chariots, which Iosias q…. King.23.11abolished, together with the Altars on the roose of Ahaz his house, and the high places, where their God might see their deuotions. Hierome, on that place of Esay, saith, that Bel was Saturne, which Suidas confirmeth. Augustine rAug.tom.4.quaest.lib.7.16.relateth the vsuall opinion (on those words, Iud.2. They serued Baal and Astaroth) that Baal in those parts was the name of Iupiter, and Astarte of Iuno, and produceth the Punike language, in which Baalsamen signifieth the LORD of Heauen; and for Astaroth (which he readeth Astartibus) he saith it is in the plurall number, in regard of the multitude of Iuno's Images, each bearing the name of Iuno. This also is exemplified in the blessed Virgin by Ribera, sometime called our Lady of Loretto, sometime our Ladie of Monteferato, &c. according to the diuersitie of places, wherein they worship, not Mary the Virgin, but their owne Idols; the daughters of their whorish mother Babylon. For the Tyrians, Sydonians, Philistims, and other Syrian, and Assyrian nations, the Scripture brandeth them with this Bel or Baal-Idolatry: in hatred of which name, the Iewes called the Prince of Diuels, as the Acaronites did their principall Idols, by the name of Beelzebub.
Thus the Greekes and Latines hauehave confounded the Assyrian and Tyrian Bel, which by Iosephus fScalig. Can.Isagog. lib 3. pag 314.Scaliger (who not vnworthily is called tOd. Drayton. Polyolb.the Dictator of knowledge and great Prince of learnings state) are distinguished and made two: the one (saith he) is written foreign and the later foreign and reproueth Hierome for making Belus, the father of Ninus, and the Virgilian Belus to be one: In Photius (559. 3.) is mentioned, that the Phaeuicians and Syrians called Saturne ΗΛ, and Βὴλ, EL, and Bel, and Bolathes. Doctor Willet in his Comment vponupon Dan. cap. 1.q.16.hath these words: The Chaldeans had fiue Idols, three Gods, and two Goddesses. Their first God was Bel, a name contracted of Behel, which commeth of Bahal, which signifieth a Lord: to whom was built that Temple before mentioned. The second was the Sunne, which they called Rach, that is, a King; because he is chiefe among the Planets: and the Persians call him Muhra, as Iustinus Martyr saith, Dialog. in Triphon. the Priests of this Idoll were called Racrophantoe Obseruers of the Sunne. Their third God was Nego, the Fire; so called of the brightnes, which was carried about among them. Their first Goddesse was Shacha, which was the Earth, worshipped also of the Romans vnderunder the names of Tellus and Opis: of the Syrians called Dorcetha. In the honor of this Goddesse they vsed to keepe a feast fiue dayes together in Babylon; during which time the Masters were vnderunder the dominion of their seruants. This festiuall time was called Shache, whereof Babylon was called Sheshach, of keeping this feast, I erem. 25. 27. and 51.41. Their other Goddesse was Mulitta, which was Venus, whose Priests were called Natitae, or Natophantae Polan. But the chiefest of their Idols was Bel.
He also interpreteth *Quaest. 16.those words Dan. 1.4. Whom they might teach the learning and tongue of the Chaldeans, of Schooles wherein youth were brought vp in goodletters, to be after employed in the State. So among the Egyptians they had the like vse, where Moses was taught the learning of the Aegyptians. Among the Israelites eight and forty Cities were appointed for the Leuites, which were as the common Schools and Vniuersities for the whole kingdome. Samuel and Elizeus had their Schooles and Colledges of Prophets: yea the rude Indians had their Gymnosophistes; and the Romans had their Colledges of Augures. Thus farre Doctor Willet of their Idols and Schooles.
In the seuenteenth chapter of the second booke of Kings is mentioned Sucoth Benoth and Idoll of the Babylonians. Beda interpreteth it the Tabernacles of Benoth: and so the word Sucoth vsed, Amos 5.25.is by Saint Stephen, Act.7.43.interpreted. And so doth the uRa.in Glossordin.Glosse on that place of the Kings interprete; where Lyra xLyra.in 4. Reg.17.according to the signification of the words (a Tabernacle of wings) relateth out of Rab.Sal. that this Idoll was made like to a Hen brooding her chickens: which Idols the Babylonians framed in worship of that Constellation, called by the vulgar, the Hen and chickens, and of the learned, Pleiades; as others did to the Sunne, others to the Moone. Some yWolph.in a. Reg.17.apply it to the mysterie of their Idoll, (which CHRIST the Truth, truely saith of himselfe) protecting his worshippers, as a hen her chickens.
In the fourteenth chapter of Daniel, as the Latines reade, is a large historie both of Bel, a dead statue, and of a liuing Dragon, which the Babylonians worshipped. The Priests of Bel were seuentie, besides their wiues and children, whose fraud and cousenage Daniel detected, making it manifest by their foot-steps in the ashes, which he had strewed in the Temple, that they were the deuourers of that huge portion of fortie sheepe, twelue measures of meale, and six great pots of wine, daily consecrated for Bels break-fast. He after slew the Dragon also; for which the Babylonians forced the King to lodge him six dayes among the Lions. But howsoeuer generally more authoritie is to be ascribed to the Apocriphall bookes, then to any humane historie, or other Ecclesiasticall Authors, as Zanchius in his Confession religiously holdeth; yet for this fragment of Daniel, it is accounted zWhitak. de Scrip. quaest.1.cap.9.the worke of Thedotion a bad man, who foisted it into his translation. And not only the Reformed Churches account it as it is, but Driedo a learned Papist, Erasmus a Semi-christian (so Bellarmine calleth him) Iulius Africanus of old, and the Iewes generally, reiect it out of the Canon, as the Cardinall himselfe *Bel. de verbe Dci lib. I. cap. 9.hath obserued: and he is faine to tell vsus of another Daniel of the Tribe of Leui, to maintaine the credit hereof. But Hicrome in the Preface of his Commentaries stileth them, Belis Draconis que fabulas, quas veru anteposito eo que . iugulante, subiec…t, ne videretur apud imperitos magnam partem voluminū detruneasse: and alleageth Eusebius, Origen, Apollinarius, and other Ecclesiasticall Doctors, which were of his mind, and thought that they needed not to answere Porphyrie, who had hence raked some obiections against the Christians, for these things which had not authoritie of Scripture.
As for Pyramus, and Thysbe, with Cyparissus and such like, I leaue them to aMetamorph. 4. & 10.Ouid and the Poets. It seemeth worthie relation that fell out at Aslus, a Babylonian Citie, where a Dolphin so loued a Boy, that following too farre after their wonted sportings, he stucke fast in the sands: bSolinus c.18.which Alexander interpreting to be ominous, preferred the Boy to the Priesthood of Neptune.
For the present Saracenicall Religion, now obserued in these parts, our third book shall largely relate thereof. Concerning other Babylonian customes: Herodotus, l.2. telleth of three families in Babylon which liued on fish. It may be the Carthusians of our Westerne Babylon are of their of-sping: for whose sparing, their fellowes may eate the more flesh, with which those of old, and these later, may not (forsooth) pollute themselues. cDuint.Curt.lib.5.Curtius telleth generally that, for fleshly vices, the Babylonians were most corrupt. They prostituted their wiues and daughters to their guests for rewards. They were addicted to excessiue banketting, and drunkennesse. In the beginning of their feasts, their women were modestly attired; by degrees they stripped themselues of their cloathes, beginning with the vpper-most, till nothing was left to couer their shame, or forbid their shamelessenesse. And not their Curtizans alone, but their Matrons, (yea, in token of ciuilitie) did thus prostitute themselues to those flames of lusts which hauehave come from hell, and carrie thither. Heere was Alexanders manly and victorious armie made effeminate, vnfit after to hauehave encountred with a strong enemie. dCoe'ius Rhod. lib.8. cap.11.Some ascribe the loose liues of the Babylonians, to a law of Xerxes, who to chastise them for a rebellion, enacted that they should no longer weare armes, but addict themselues to Musicke, riot, and such like.