The other day I was in Babylon. The approach to the ruins is through a fine arch made of the same dun-colored brick from which was built the old city of sin. Stacked up against the walls of the little museum set back behind the arch were tiers upon tiers of the same bricks stamped with the famous lion. The government of Iraq is rebuilding the city and when finished Babylon will be as she was. An unobservant visitor could not tell the difference between brick taken from the original site and that from the new arch. They build now as they did then, four thousand years ago.
Emotionally Babylon was a failure, or, to put the matter more justly, I failed in my efforts to find the spirit, the genie, the soul of the place. I walked down the stretch of street that leads to the Temple of Ishtar, goddess of fertility, and I experienced nothing at all. And it was only after I had left and was on the road back to Babylon that I remembered Daniel and the Lions’ Den.
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