A Brief Description of the Whole World, Part 17
Of Chaldea.
NExt unto Assyria lye…hSituation of Chaldea. Chaldea, having on the East side Assyria; on the West, Syria, or Palestina; on the North, Armenia; on the South, the Desart of Arabia.
This Countrey is often called by the name of Mesopotamia, which name it hath, because it lieth in the middle of two great Rivers, Tygris and Euphrates. It is called also by the name of Babylonia, which word of it self properly taken, doth signifie only that part of the Countrey which standeth about Babylon.
The chief City whereof was Babylon, Babylon be chief City of Chaldea.whose ruines do remain unto this day. It was a rich and most pleasant City for all kind of Delight; and was in the latter time of that Monarchy, the Imperiall City of the Assyrians, where Nebuchadnezzar, and other their great Kings did …ye.
It was to this City that the children of Israel were carried captives, which thereof was called the Captivity of Babylon.
The Kings of Persia also did keep …heir residence here, it was built upon the River Euphrates, some part of it standing on the one side, and some part on the other, having for its foundresse, Semiramis, the wife of Ninus.
Ammianus Marcellinus reporteth one thing of this Countrey, wherein the admirable power of God doth appeare; for he writethThe admirab… power of God in prese…ving the pe…ple. that in these parts are a huge number of Lyons, which were like enough to devour both men and beasts throughout the Countrey▪ but withall he saith, that by reason of the store of water and mudd thereof, there do breed yearly an innumerable company of Gnats, whose property is to flye unto the eye of the Lyon, as being a bright and orient thing; where byting and stinging the Lyon, he …eareth so fiercely with his clawes, that he putteth out his own eyes, and by that meanes many are drowned in the Rivers, others starve for want of prey, and many the more easily killed by the Inha bitants.
It is supposed by Divines, that in this Mesopotamia, between the River Tygris and Euphrates, ParadiseNote. did stand. This was the Country wherein Abraham the Patriarch was born: unto which the Romanes could very hardly extend their Dominion: For they had much to do to get the Government of any thing beyond the River Euphrates. From this people it is thought the wise men came which brought presents to Christ, by the guiding of the Starre.
For as in India, and all the Eastern parts, so especially in this Country, their Noblemen and Priests, and very many people, do give themselves to all Arts of Divination. Here were the great Southsayers, Enchanters, and wise men, as they call them. Here wereHere were the fi…st A strologians. the first Astrologians, which are so described and derided in the Scripture: and against the Inhabitants of Babylon and Chaldea were the Lawes of the Romans made, which are against divining Mathematicians, who in Tullie de Divinatione, & Cornelius Tacitus, as also in the Lawes of the Emperors, are Ordinarily collected by the name o… Chaldeans: and indeed from these and from the Egyptians, is supposed to have sprung the first knowledge of Astronomy.
It is thought that a great reason whereof these Chaldeans were expert in the laudable knowledge of Astronomy, was partly because the Countrey is so plain, that being without hils, they might more fully and easily discover the whole face of the Heaven, and partly, because the old Fathers which lived so long not only before, but in some good part also after the flood of Noah, did dwell in, or near to these parts, and they by observation of their own, did find out and discover many things of the heavenly bodies, which they delivered as from hand to hand to their posterity: But as corruption doth staine the best things, so in proces of time, the true Astronomy was defilled with superstitious Rules of Astrology (which caused the Prophets, Isaiah and Ieremiah, so bitterly to inveigh against them.) And then, in their fabulosity they would report, that they had in their Records, Observations for five and twenty thousand yeares, which must needs be a very great untruth, unlesse we will qualifie it as some have done, expounding their yeares not of the Revolution of the Sun but of the Moon, whose course is ended in the space of a monethmonth.