BABYLON of the CHALDEANS. — The patriarch of the Chaldeans (converted from Nestorianism) bears the title of B. The patriarchate was established in 1834 after the suppression of the Catholic patriarchate of Diarbekir, the last incumbent of which had died in 1827 (the patriarchs of Diarbekir had already borne the title of patriarchs of B. since Joseph II in 1696). The patriarch’s diocese is that of Baghdad-Mossul. He resides in Mossul or Baghdad.
Guglielmo de Vries
BABYLON of EGYPT. — City of ancient Lower Egypt, located in the region from which the canal leading from the Nile to the Red Sea originated.
Despite the legends reported by ancient historians (Ctesias, Fragm., ed. Dindorf, Paris, II, 13; Diodorus Siculus, I, 56; Flavius Josephus, Ant. Jud., I, 15, 1), who attribute its foundation to Assyrian-Babylonian prisoners, it was in fact a purely Egyptian city, anterior to the 18th Dynasty. It is identified with Herba, already mentioned on the Palermo Stone (Hr-’h’), which lies to the south of present-day Old Cairo. Here the Romans built a fortress, called Babylon, which still exists today under the name Qasr as-Sām. The Arabs of ‘Amr ibn al-‘Āṣ, after conquering it in 641, expanded it into a city called al-Fustāq (from the Latin ‘fustatum’), the present-day "Old Cairo" (over 50,000 inhabitants). The ancient name survived: Bābīlūn, now Deir-Bābīlūn, is part of the ancient fortress. In the Middle Ages, the ruler of Egypt was called the "Sultan of Babylon." B. appears in the 5th century as the seat of a Catholic bishopric under the name of Babylon.
The Fathers, with rare exceptions, state that St. Peter wrote his first letter (cf. 1 Pt. 5, 13).