ligions of the Sabians and Magians, of the Jews and
Christians, were disseminated from the Persian Gulf to the Red Sea. In
a remote period of antiquity, Sabianism was diffused over Asia by the
science of the Chaldaeans [55] and the arms of the Assyrians. From
the observations of two thousand years, the priests and astronomers of
Babylon [56] deduced the eternal laws of nature and providence. They
adored the seven gods or angels, who directed the course of the seven
planets, and shed their irresistible influence on the earth. The
attributes of the seven planets, with the twelve signs of the zodiac,
and the twenty-four constellations of the northern and southern
hemisphere, were represented by images and talismans; the seven days of
the week were dedicated to their respective deities; the Sabians prayed
thrice each day; and the temple of the moon at Haran was the term of
their pilgrimage. [57] But the flexible genius of their faith was always
ready either to teach or to learn: in the tradition of the creation, the
deluge, and the patriarchs, they held a singular agreement with their
Jewish captives; they appealed to the secret books of Adam, Seth, and
Enoch; and a slight infusion of the gospel has transformed the last
remnant of the Polytheists into the Christians of St. John, in the
territory of Bassora. [58] The altars of Babylon were overturned by the
Magians; but the injuries of the Sabians were revenged by the sword of
Alexander; Persia groaned above five hundred years under a foreign yoke;
and the purest disciples of Zoroaster escaped from the contagion of
idolatry, and breathed with their adversaries the freedom of the desert.
[59] Seven hundred years before the death of Mahomet, the Jews were
settled in Arabia; and a far greater multitude was expelled from the
Holy Land in the wars of Titus and Hadrian. The industrious exiles
aspired to liberty and power: they erected synagogues in the cities, and
castles in the wilderness, and their Gentile converts were confounded
with the children of Israel, whom they resembled in the outward mark
of circumcision. The Christian missionaries were still more active and
successful: the Catholics asserted their universal reign; the sects
whom they oppressed, successively retired beyond the limits of the
Roman empire; the Marcionites and Manichaeans dispersed their fantastic
opinions and apocryphal gospels; the churches of Yemen, and the princes
of Hira and Gassan, were instructed in