Men As Gods: Part 4

                                                                                         

The theme of "men as gods" is a fascinating study into the transmission of ideas across cultures. When the Babylonian Empire fell to the Persians in 539 B.C.E., the new rulers were at first tolerant of Babylonian religion and its Chaldean priesthood. But eventually the priests frustrated the Persians, when in an attempt to retain their behind-the-scenes political power, they installed as ruler of Babylon one of their own, a priest posing as the king`s brother Smerdis.

The imposter was discovered and killed by the Persians. Following a subsequent revolt when the priests again set up their own Babylonian ruler, the Persian king Xerxes came and destroyed Babylon in 487, tearing down the temples and removing the statue of Marduk.

At this point, around 480, the Babylonian priests are thought to have left the city and reestablished their base elsewhere. According to one source, "the defeated Chaldeans fled to Asia Minor, and fixed their central college at Pergamos, and took the palladium of Babylon, the cubic stone, with them.

Here, independent of state control, they carried on the rites of their religion" (William B. Barker, Lares and Penates: or, Cilicia and Its Governors, Ingram, Cooke and Co., London, 1853). Once established in Pergamos, the Babylonians quite naturally set up their religion again.

In an article on the god Bel, also known as Marduk, the Anchor Bible Dictionary notes: "It is true that Bel-Marduk must have suffered the degradation of being defeated by the foe, but it is also true that the Persian conqueror dealt kindly with religious concerns so that Bel, though shamed by his impotence in the Babylonian debacle, survived and passed his legacy on to the Hellenistic and Roman world." And so, ancient ways became part of other cultures.

About the author:
David Hulme holds a doctorate in International Relations from the University of Southern California with an emphasis on the Middle East. He`s the author of "Identity, Ideology and the Jerusalem Question" and the blog, Causes of Conflict. He is president of Vision Media Productions and chairman of Vision.org Foundation. Please email at dhulme@vision.org.


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