The Chaldeans
Chaldean philosophy and science: astronomy, astrology, and their underlying cosmological and theological assumptions.
Chaldean (Babylonian) civilisation produced significant achievements in mathematics, astronomy, and calendrical science, transmitted to the Greek world through contacts in the 6th and 5th centuries BC. Chaldean astronomical observations were motivated by an underlying astral religion in which the movements of the heavenly bodies expressed the will of divine powers and predicted human destinies — making astronomy simultaneously a science and a religious-divinatory practice. The Chaldean concept of the divine was essentially impersonal and cosmological: the gods were identified with celestial forces rather than with personal beings transcending the cosmos. Their philosophical legacy to the Western tradition is primarily the transmission of mathematical and astronomical knowledge, which influenced Pythagoras and the scientific cosmology of the pre-Socratics.
Article 2. The Chaldeans The ancient Chaldean people lived in the lower Tigris and Euphrates valley. In course of time this people was divided into branches more or less distinct, and of these the most notable were the Babylonians and the Assyrians. These two tribes formed great and strong empires. Holy Scripture often speaks of the Chaldeans, referring chiefly to the Babylonians and Assyrians, and testifies that they were well advanced in learning, that they cultivated the mathematical sciences and dealt in magical and astrological arts. The chief cities of the Chaldeans were Babylon of the Babylonians, and Nineveh of the Assyrians. Up to the middle of the 19 century only secondary sources were available to the student of Chaldean philosophy. Of these the most valuable was a fragmentary relic of an historical work written by Berosus, a Babylonian priest of the 3 century B. c. This work was quoted by Eusebius and Tatian, and a few portions of it are still extant. The Chaldeans left a great many inscriptions impressed in wedge-shaped characters upon bricks (cuneiform writings), and the key to these was discovered in the last century. From the cuneiform writings we gather much valuable information about the life, religion, and philosophy of the ancient Chaldean peoples.
a) Of God and the Origin of Things.—The primitive religion of the Chaldeans was certainly monotheistic. One divinity, called El, was regarded as supreme. But this pure belief soon deteriorated, for we know from the Book of Josué that belief in a plurality of gods (polytheism) was common in the Tigris and Euphrates valley before Abraham. The cuneiform writings also tell us that there was a well-developed and complex Chaldean mythology thirty centuries before Christ. The gods of this mythology were, for the most part, personifications of the heavenly bodies and of the natural elements, air, earth, water, and fire. Among the Babylonians the chief divinity was Marduk; and Assur held the highest place among the divinities of the Assyrians. There are varying Chaldean accounts of the origin of the world, but that most commonly accepted teaches that the universe emerged from an eternal primordial chaos of waters. Perhaps some god was co-eternal with this chaos, but all else came from it.
b) Of Man and Moral Duties.—Man was created by Marduk either to help him in a war which he was waging with another divinity called Tiamat, or simply to supply worshippers for the gods. In either case man stands in close relationship with the divinities. Man must, therefore, worship and serve the gods ; and the gods in turn must help good men and punish those that do evil. In addition to the duty of worship man has the obligation of obeying constituted authority; he must be at peace with his neighbor ; he must shun hatred, envy, discord, lies, murder ; he must practise marital fidelity, not coveting the spouse of another. For the rest, ancient Chaldean ethics prescribes rules of mere external conduct.
Remark: Like the Hebrew philosophy that of the Chaldeans is religious in character. El, the unique divinity of the primitive Chaldeans, was neither a local deity nor a collective personification of many gods ; He was the one God, supreme and peerless. In the cuneiform writings El is consistently described as transcending all, superior to all. Monotheism, therefore, came first with this ancient people; the lapse into polytheism was a later event.