EGYPT AND BABYLON.
44
and
calls
when he
on the people to worship " his god " recognizes Daniel's
God of gods
"
in
proclamation
his
last
(ch.
ii.
47),
God" Wfyy Xrh^eldhd T T "T
God
as " a
Lord
(ch.
iii.
14),
of kings and
and most conspicuously when he acknowledges " the high
'illdyd,
ch.
iv.
2),
"the Most
34 ), "'the King of heaven" (ver. 37), Him " " doeth that " liveth for ever according (ver. 34), and to His will in the army of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth," and " whose hand none can stay, nor can any " Either he say unto Him, What doest thou ? (ver. 35.)
High
(
ver.
fluctuates between two beliefs, or else his polytheism is of that modified kind which has been called " Kathenotheism," * where the worshiper, on turning his regards to any particular deity, " forgets for the time being that there is any other, and addresses the object of his adoration in terms of as absolute devotion as if he were the sole god whom he recognized, the one and only divine being in the entire universe."! Limiting ourselves, for the present, to these four characteristics of the great Babylonian monarch his cruelty, his boastful pride, his religiousness, and the curious mixture of two elements in his religion let us inquire how far they are confirmed or illustrated by his own inscriptions, or by the accounts which profane writers have given 0*1 him. And first, with respect to his cruelty. Here, it must be confessed, there is little, if any, confirmation. The one brief historical inscription of Nebuchadnezzar's time which we possess contains no notice of any severities, nor is the point touched in the few fragments concerning him which are all that classical literature furnishes. Berosus mentions the numerous captives whom he carried off to Babylonia in bis first campaign,! but does not seem to regard their fate as exceptionally wretched. Josephus gives us in some detail the various cruelties recorded of him in Scripture, and adds others, as that he put to death a king of Egypt whom he
but Josephus is scarcely an unprejudiced witconquered Abydenus, who tells us more about him than any other classical writer except Berosus, is bent on glorifying him, and would not be likely to mention what was to his discredit. If, however, we have no confirmation, we have abundant illustrations of Nebuchadnezzar's cruelties in the " * Max Muller, Chips from a German Workshop," vol. i., p. 28. ;
ness.
t </..
See the author's " Koli^ions of the Ancient World," American A p. Joseph. ,Ant. Jut., x. 11, 1. ins. \>. :
AI>.
Joseph.. Ant. ./>/.,
x.
5),
7.