Eusebius says that Ninus and Semiramis reigned in the time of Abraham. That beautiful but abandoned queen of Babylon was not only herself a paragon of unbridled lust and licentiousness, but in the Mysteries which she had a chief hand in forming, she was worshipped as Rhea, the great "MOTHER" of the gods, with such atrocious rites as identified her with Venus, the MOTHER of all impurity, and raised the very city where she had reigned to a bad eminence among the nations, as the grand seat at once of idolatry and consecrated prostitution. *
* A correspondent has pointed out a reference by Pliny to the cup of Semiramis, which fell into the hands of the victorious Cyrus. Its gigantic proportions must have made it famous among the Babylonians and the nations with whom they had intercourse. It weighed fifteen talents, or 1200 pounds. PLINII, Hist. Nat. Thus was this Chaldean queen a fit and remarkable prototype of the "Woman" in the Apocalypse, with the golden cup in her hand, and the name on her forehead, "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the MOTHER of harlots and abominations of the earth." The Apocalyptic emblem of the Harlot woman with the cup in her hand was even embodied in the symbols of idolatry, derived from ancient Babylon, as they were exhibited in Greece; for thus was the Greek Venus originally represented, (see note below) and it is singular that in our own day, and so far as appears for the first time, the Roman Church has actually taken this very symbol as her own chosen emblem. In 1825, on occasion of the jubilee, Pope Leo XII struck a medal, bearing on the one side his own image, and on the other, that of the Church of Rome symbolised as a "Woman," holding in her left hand a cross, and in her right a CUP, with the legend around her, "Sedet super universum," "The whole world is her seat." Now the period when Semiramis lived,--a period when the patriarchal faith was still fresh in the minds of men, when Shem was still alive, * to rouse the minds of the faithful to rally around the banner for the truth and cause of God, made it hazardous all at once and publicly to set up such a system as was inaugurated by the Babylonian queen. * For the age of Shem see Genesis 11:10, 11. According to this, Shem lived 502 years after the flood, that is, according to the Hebrew chronology, till BC 1846. The age of Ninus, the husband of Semiramis, as stated in a former note, according to Eusebius, synchronised with that of Abraham, who was born BC 1996.