3. The Babylon in 1 Pet. v, 13, is thought by some to be Rome, but by others (in accordance with a tradi- tion of the Coptic Christians) to be the above place in Egvpt. Baroniua contradicts this last assertion by Baying there is no mention of a Bishop of Babylon till ,r,iHi years after Peter's time, under Justin the Younger (see" also Bertholdt, EM. vi, 3063; Steiger, Br. Pet. p. 21 sq.). There is no good reason for supposing any other than ancient Babylon to be here meant, since it is known that this continued to be inhabited by Jews down to the Christian era (Gesen. Jesa. i, 470. Com- pare Neander, Ch. Hist, i, 79, 80; Davidson, Introd. to K. T. iii, 366. See Peter (Epistles of).
4. In the Apocalypse (xiv, 8; xvi, 10; xvii, 5; xviii, 2) Babylon stands for Iiome, symbolizing hea- thenism : " Babylon is fallen, that great city, because she made all nations drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornication." This reference appears to have been derived from the practice of the Jews, who were accustomed to designate Rome, which they hated, by the opprobrious and not inappropriate name of Bal y- lon (Schottgen, Ear. Hebr. i, 1125). The literal Baby- lon was the beginner and supporter of tyranny and idolatry ; first by Ximrod or Ninus, and afterward by Nebuchadnezzar; and therefore, in Isa. xlvii, 12, she is accused of magical enchantments from her youth or infancy, i. e. from her very first origin as a city or na- tion. This city and its whole empire were taken by the Persians under Cyrus ; the Persians were subdued by the Macedonians, and the Macedonians by the Ro- mans ; so that Rome succeeded to (he power of Old Baby- lon. And it was her method to adopt tlie v-orship of the false deities she had conquered ; so that by her own acts she 1 lecame the heiress and successor of all the Baby- lonian idolatry, and of all that was introduced into it by the intermediate successors of Babylon, and conse- quently of all the idolatry of the earth. See Revela- tion.
Further, that Babylon is Rome is evident from the explanation given by the angel in Rev. xvii, 18, where it is expressly said to be " that great, city which rulcth over the kings of the earth ;" no other city but Rome being in the exercise of such power at the time when the vision was seen. That Constantinople is not meant by Babylon is plain also from what Mcde has stated (Works, p. 922): "The seven heads of the beast (says he) are by the angel made a double type, both of the seven hills where the woman sitteth, and of the seven snrerdrjiitks with which in a successive order the beast should reign. This is a pair of fetters to tie both beast and whore to Western Eome." Rome or Mystic Babylon (says the same author, p. 484) is call- ed the " Grc t City," not from any reference to its ex- tent, but because it was the queen of other cities. See Rome.
Babylonia (Bafiv\wvia), a name forthe southern portion of Mesopotamia, constituting the region of which Babylon was the chief city. The latter name alone is occasionally used in Scripture for the entire region; but its most usual designation is Chalikea (q. v.). The ( ihaldseans proper, or < 'hasc&m, however, were probably originally from the mountainous region farther north, now occupied by the Kiir<l< (with which name, indeed, many find an etymological connection; sec Golius, ad Alfrag. p. 17; Rodiger, in the Zdtschr. f. d. Kunded. Morgetd. iii, 8), a portion of whom un- der tin- Asbj rian sway may have migrated into Meso- potamia (see [sa. xxiii, 13), and thus eventually be- came ma tera of the rich plain of Shinar (see Vitringa, </./ Jesa. i. 412 Bq.; Gesenius, art. Chaldaer, in Ersch and Gruber's Encyd.). The original inhabitants nev- ertheless appear to have been of the Shemitic family (see Adelung, Mithridal. i, .".1 1 sq. ; Olshausen, Emend. Z'i .1. T. p. II sq.); and their language belonged to the class of tongues spoken by that race, particularly
to the Aramaic branch, and was indeed a dialect sim- ilar to that which is now called the Chaldee. See Aramaean Language; Cuneiform Inscriptions. The two words, Babylonia and Chalda^a, were, how- ever, sometimes used in another signification ; Baby- lonia, as containing in an extended sense Assyria also and Mesopotamia, nearly all the countries which As- syria in its widest meaning embraced ; while Chaldaea indicated, in a narrower signification, the south-west- ern part of Babylonia between the Euphrates and Babylon (Strabo, xvi ; Ptol.). In Hebrew, Babylonia bore the name of Shinar (q. v.), or "the land of Shinar ;" while " Babylon" (Psa. exxxvii, 1) and " the land of the Chalda:ans" (Jer. xxiv, 5; Ezek. xii, 13) seem to signify the empire of Babylon. It is in the latter sense that we shall here treat it. See Chal- d.eans.
I. Geography and general Description. — This province of Middle Asia was bordered on the north by Meso- potamia, on the east by the Tigris, on the south by the Persian Gulf, and on the west by the Arabian Desert. On the north it began at the point where the Euphrates and Tigris approach each other, and ex- tended to their common outlet in the Persian Gulf, pretty nearly comprising the country now designated Irak Arahi. The climate is temperate and salubrious. The country in ancient times was very prolific, espe- cially in corn and palms. Timber-trees it did not produce. Many parts have springs of naphtha. As rain is infrequent, even in the winter months, the country owes its fruitfulness to the annual overflow of the Euphrates and the Tigris, whose waters are con- veyed over the land by means of canals. Quintus Curtius (i, 5) declares that the country between the Euphrates and the Tigris was covered with so rich a soil that the cattle were driven from their pastures lest they should be destroyed by satiety and fatness. During the three great empires of the East, no tract of the whole appears to have been so reputed for fer- tility and riches as the district cf Babylcnia, which arose in the main from the proper management of the mighty river which flowed through it. Herodotus mentions that, when reduced to the rank of a province, it yielded a revenue to the kings of Persia which com- prised half their income. The terms in which the Scriptures describe its natural as well as its acquired supremacy when it was the imperial city, evidence the same facts. They call it "Babylon, the glory of kingdoms; the beauty of the Chaldee excellency; the lady of kingdoms, given to pleasure ; that dwelleth carelessly, and sayeth in her heart I am, and there is none else beside me." But now, in the expressive and inimitable language of the same book, may it bo said, " She sits as a widow on the ground. 'Ihere is no more a throne for thee, O daughter of the Chal- daeans !" As for the abundance of the country, it has vanished r.s clean awa}- as if "the besom of desola- tion" had swept it from north to south, the whole land, from the outskirts of Bagdad to the farthest reach of sight, lying a melancholy waste.