f which they constituted themselves the guardians and expounders in the
new country. We are hardly qualified to take part in the controversy. It is
certain, on the one hand, that the influence of these quasi-clergy began to
make itself felt at a remote period in the national history, and, on the
other, that they had become, like the population that bowed before them,
Semitic both in race and language at a very early date. The idiom employed
by the Chaldaeans belongs to the same family of languages as Arabic, Hebrew,
and Aramaean; their gods are to be found, with slight modifications of name
and attributes, from Yemen in the south to the north of Syria and as far
west as the table-land of Cappadocia.

It is, no doubt, upon the authority of Ctesias, his favourite guide in
matters of oriental history, that Diodorus talks of the _Chaldaeans_.
Ctesias may have seen them at Babylon, in the exercise of their functions,
in the time of Artaxerxes Mnemon. "The Chaldaeans," writes the historian,
"are the most ancient Babylonians ... (and) hold the same station and
dignity in the commonwealth as the Egyptian priests do in Egypt; for, being
deputed to divine offices, they spend all their time in the study of
philosophy, and are especially famous for the art of astrology. They are
mightily given to divination, and foretell future events, and employ
themselves either by purifications, sacrifices, or other enchantments to
avert evils, or procure good fortune and success. They are skilful,
likewise, in the art of divination by the flying of birds, and interpreting
of dreams and prodigies; and are reputed as the oracles (in declaring what
will come to pass) by their exact and diligent viewing of the entrails of
the sacrifices. But they attain not to this knowledge in the same manner as
the Greeks; for the Chaldaeans learn it by tradition from their ancestors,
the son from the father, who are all in the meantime free from all other
public offices and attendances; and because their parents are their tutors,
they both learn everything without envy, and rely with more confidence
upon the truth of what is taught them; and being trained up in this
learning from their very childhood, they become most famous philosophers,
being at the age most capable of learning."[117]

Centuries were required for the growth of such a corporation and for the
firm establishment of its power upon a well-knit system of rites and
doctrines. The institutions describe