Nabopolassar fought with an Assyrian-style army and took the throne of Babylon. Thirteen years later, Nineveh fell despite Egyptian help. Babylon took over much of the Assyrian empire. Later he defeated the last Assyrian king at Harran. His success was seen as Marduk’s revenge. Captured wealth from Assyrian royal cities allowed major building work at Babylon, which was continued by Nabopolassar’s son Nebuchadnezzar II. Neither king left statues of themselves, and cylinder seals represent gods by their symbols. Major subsidence in the citadel required frequent rebuilding on the Southern Palace. The names of temples and gates were compiled on to a clay tablet as a literary work. Colour-glazed bricks adorned the Processional Way leading to the temple of the New Year festival outside the citadel walls. That festival is described. Some of his creations Nebuchadnezzar described as a Wonder, but he made no mention of the Hanging Garden. In a separate part of the citadel, Nebuchadnezzar built a Summer Palace. His conquests included Tyre and Ashkelon but not Egypt or Lydia. He sacked the Temple in Jerusalem and deported its royal family to Babylon. Other captives settled on land nearby. Business archives of long duration continue into the Achaemenid period.

Chapter 4 discusses Thomas’s account of original guilt. Infants are guilty only in an analogical sense. A human being with the use of reason is guilty in the proper sense when she commits a sinful act of her own volition; an infant is guilty in an analogical sense when she fails to receive original justice by Adam’s volition. The infant is in a moral middle ground, between the state of mortal sin and sanctifying grace (Scriptum II, d. 35, q. 2, a. 2, ad 2). She has not turned away from God, yet she needs grace nonetheless. Thomas’s explanation of infant guilt developed. He initially compared the guilt of original sin to an inherited disease (Scriptum II, d. 30, q. 1, a. 2). He later abandons this analogy and compares the infant to a homicidal hand. I defend Thomas’s view that the infant’s will is positioned between mortal sin and sanctifying grace. But I criticize his view of analogical guilt, arguing that receiving the effect of another’s sinful act cannot increase one’s own guilt.