Note 174.2 — Chapter IX · Purity a Divine Attribute.

Furthermore, the ancient documents reveal the Babylonian deities as the arbiters of destiny. Marduk is named by King Neriglassar “the Leader of Destiny”;174.2 and we have frequent allusions to the gods fixing the yearly fates at an annual meeting. Nebo the scribe is the writer and the keeper of the “Doomsbook” of Heaven, and this book is called “the tablets that cannot be altered, that determine the bounds (or cycle) of Heaven and Earth.”174.3 Fate is neither personified nor magnified into a transcendent cosmic force overpowering and shaping the will of the gods.