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It would seem, therefore, that even accepting the hypothesis of a non-Semitic type existing in Babylonia at this time, the Semitic settlers are just as old as the supposed Sumerians; and since it is admitted that the language found on these statues and figures contains Semitic constructions and Semitic words, it is, to say the least, hazardous to give the Sumerians the preference over the Semites so far as the period of settlement and origin of the Euphratean culture is concerned.
The Euphratean city Babylon the proud metropolis of the Chaldean monarchy, combined in itself the corruptions and wickedness of the world and then filled up the measure of its sins by destroying the temple in Jerusalem and leading into captivity the chosen people of God. When John wrote, however, this ancient city was no more.
So far as the pantheon is concerned, the limitations in the development of doctrines connected with it were reached when the union of the several Euphratean states was permanently effected under Hammurabi. Marduk, a solar deity, takes his place as the head of the pantheon by virtue of the preëminent place occupied by his patron city, Babylon.
Neither did he make it his capital, nor would any other lord of the East so favour it. If Alexander perhaps intended to revive its imperial position, his successor, Seleucus, so soon as he was assured of his inheritance, abandoned the Euphratean city for the banks of the Tigris and Orontes, leaving it to crumble to the heap which it is to-day.
Women do not seem to have been honoured in the Euphratean regions as in Egypt, where the wives of the sovereign were invested with that semi-sacred character that led the women to be associated with the devotions of the man, and made them indispensable auxiliaries in all religious ceremonies.
No doubt other factors are involved, such as association of ideas; but it is evident from a careful study of the omen literature that conclusions drawn from what appears to us as the accidental relation of past occurrences to the phenomena presented by the planets and stars constituted fully three-fourths of the wisdom of the Euphratean augurs.
The first wo is thought to have begun about the year 612, and continuing by the Saracenic conquests about 150 years, to have terminated in 762. The second woe-trumpet, it is alleged, sounded about 1281, and continuing for 391 years, the period of the ravages by the Euphratean horsemen, ended about 1672.
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