The Watchtower Society and John and Morton Edgar - A2Z.org

Sltlvertk informs us that all who sought initiation intothese systems were compelled to drink peculiar intoxicatingbeverages. This is undoubtedly the origin ofJeremiah's allusion to the golden cup which made aJlnations drunken; for every nation received, its idolatmusreligion from Babylon.In all essentials the "Mysteries" of the differentnations were the same, each being fashioned after thepattern oaf the " hiother " nation Babylon. Regardingthis Layard says: "Of the great antiquity 01 thisprimative worship there is abundanlt evidence, andthat it originated among the inhabitants of the Assyrianplains, we have the united testimony of sacred andprofane history. It obtained the epithet of perfect, andwas believed to be the most ancient religious system,having preceded that of the Egyptians. The identityof many of the Asyrian doctrines with those 03Egypt is alluded to by Porphyry and Clemens." Birch,also, says : "The Zodiacal signs . . show unequivocallythat the Greeks derived their notions andarrangements of the Zodi-a [and consequently theirMythology, which was intertwined with it] from theChaldeans. The identity of Nimrod with the constellationOrion is not to be rejected" (Layard, Nincvellund its Remains, V01. ii, pp. 439, 440).\\7e see, th.erefore, that ancient Babylon was 2fitting type of that wondepul "Mystery of Iniquityof the Gospel Age, called Babylon the Great. Justa that great system had its small beginning in thedays olf the Apostles, being alluded to by Paul in 2Thess. 2 : 7-" The mystery of iniquity doth alreadywork," and afterwards attained so great dimensionsthat it has deceived the whole world, so the typicalMystery in literal Babylon also began in a small way.then grew and extended, and latterly became so uni-