The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism [1911] - Get a Free Blog

122 THE ORIENTAL RELIGIONS.
also had an undeniable influence. Phoenicia and Leba
non remained moral tributaries of Egypt long after
they had liberated themselves from the suzerainty of
the Pharaohs. The theogony of Philo of Byblos took
gods and myths from that country, and at Heliopolis
Hadad was honored "according to Egyptian rather
than Syrian rite."** The rigorous monotheism of the
Jews, who were dispersed over the entire country,
must also have acted as an active ferment of trans
formation. s But it was Babylon that retained the
intellectual supremacy, even after its political ruin. The
powerful sacerdotal caste ruling it did not fall with the
independence of the country,
and it survived the con
quests of Alexander as it had previously lived through
the Persian domination. The researches of Assyriol-
ogists have shown that its ancient worship persisted
under the Seleucides, and at the time of Strabo the
"Chaldeans" still discussed cosmology and first prin
ciples in the rival schools of Borsippa and Orchoe. 51
The ascendancy of that erudite clergy affected all sur
rounding regions ; it was felt by Persia in the east,
Cappadocia in the north, but more than anywhere else
by the Syrians, who were connected with the Oriental
Semites by bonds of language and blood. Even after
the Parthians had wrested the valley of the Euphrates
from the Seleucides, relations with the great temples
of that region remained uninterrupted. The plains of
Mesopotamia, inhabited by races of like origin, ex
tended on both sides of an artificial border line ; great
commercial roads followed the course of the two rivers
flowing into the Persian Gulf or cut across the desert,
and the pilgrims came to Babylon, as Lucian tells us,
to perform their devotions to the Lady of Bambyce. 52