Title: The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria
Author: Morris Jastrow
Release date: March 7, 2007 [eBook #20758]
Most recently updated: January 1, 2021
Language: English
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[Transcriber's Note: This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr.]
H. B. J.
MY FAITHFUL COLLABORATOR
It requires no profound knowledge to reach the conclusion that the time has not yet come for an exhaustive treatise on the religion of Babylonia and Assyria. But even if our knowledge of this religion were more advanced than it is, the utility of an exhaustive treatment might still be questioned. Exhaustive treatises are apt to be exhausting to both reader and author; and however exhaustive (or exhausting) such a treatise may be, it cannot be final except in the fond imagination of the writer. For as long as activity prevails in any branch of science, all results are provisional. Increasing knowledge leads necessarily to a change of perspective and to a readjustment of views. The chief reason for writing a book is to prepare the way for the next one on the same subject.
In accordance with the general plan of this Series[1] of Handbooks, it has been my chief aim to gather together in convenient arrangement and readable form what is at present known about the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians. The investigations of scholars are scattered through a large variety of periodicals and monographs. The time has come for focusing the results reached, for sifting the certain from the uncertain, and the uncertain from the false. This work of gathering the disjecta membra of Assyriological science is essential to future progress. If I have succeeded in my chief aim, I shall feel amply repaid for the labor involved.
In order that the book may serve as a guide to students, the names of those to whose researches our present knowledge of the subject is due have frequently been introduced, and it will be found, I trust, that I have been fair to all.[2] At the same time, I have naturally not hesitated to indicate my dissent from views advanced by this or that scholar, and it will also be found, I trust, that in the course of my studies I have advanced the interpretation of the general theme or of specific facts at various points. While, therefore, the book is only in a secondary degree sent forth as an original contribution, the discussion of mooted points will enhance its value, I hope, for the specialist, as well as for the general reader and student for whom, in the first place, the volumes of this series are intended.
The disposition of the subject requires a word of explanation. After the two introductory chapters (common to all the volumes of the series) I have taken up the pantheon as the natural means to a survey of the field. The pantheon is treated, on the basis of the historical texts, in four sections: (1) the old Babylonian period, (2) the middle period, or the pantheon in the days of Hammurabi, (3) the Assyrian pantheon, and (4) the latest or neo-Babylonian period. The most difficult phase has naturally been the old Babylonian pantheon. Much is uncertain here. Not to speak of the chronology which is still to a large extent guesswork, the identification of many of the gods occurring in the oldest inscriptions, with their later equivalents, must be postponed till future discoveries shall have cleared away the many obstacles which beset the path of the scholar. The discoveries at Telloh and Nippur have occasioned a recasting of our views, but new problems have arisen as rapidly as old ones have been solved. I have been especially careful in this section not to pass beyond the range of[Pg ix] what is definitely known, or, at the most, what may be regarded as tolerably certain. Throughout the chapters on the pantheon, I have endeavored to preserve the attitude of being 'open to conviction'—an attitude on which at present too much stress can hardly be laid.
The second division of the subject is represented by the religious literature. With this literature as a guide, the views held by the Babylonians and Assyrians regarding magic and oracles, regarding the relationship to the gods, the creation of the world, and the views of life after death have been illustrated by copious translations, together with discussions of the specimens chosen. The translations, I may add, have been made direct from the original texts, and aim to be as literal as is consonant with presentation in idiomatic English.
The religious architecture, the history of the temples, and the cult form the subject of the third division. Here again there is much which is still uncertain, and this uncertainty accounts for the unequal subdivisions of the theme which will not escape the reader.
Following the general plan of the series, the last chapter of the book is devoted to a general estimate and to a consideration of the influence exerted by the religion of Babylonia and Assyria.
In the transliteration of proper names, I have followed conventional methods for well-known names (like Nebuchadnezzar), and the general usage of scholars in the case of others. In some cases I have furnished a transliteration of my own; and for the famous Assyrian king, to whom we owe so much of the material for the study of the Babylonian and Assyrian religion, Ashurbanabal, I have retained the older usage of writing it with a b, following in this respect Lehman, whose arguments[3] in favor of this pronunciation for the last element in the name I regard as on the whole acceptable.
I have reasons to regret the proportions to which the work has grown. These proportions were entirely unforeseen when I began the book, and have been occasioned mainly by the large amount of material that has been made available by numerous important publications that appeared after the actual writing of the book had begun. This constant increase of material necessitated constant revision of chapters; and such revision was inseparable from enlargement. I may conscientiously say that I have studied these recent publications thoroughly as they appeared, and have embodied at the proper place the results reached by others and which appeared to me acceptable. The work, therefore, as now given to the public may fairly be said to represent the state of present knowledge.
In a science that grows so rapidly as Assyriology, to which more than to many others the adage of dies diem docet is applicable, there is great danger of producing a piece of work that is antiquated before it leaves the press. At times a publication appeared too late to be utilized. So Delitzsch's important contribution to the origin of cuneiform writing[4] was published long after the introductory chapters had been printed. In this book he practically abandons his position on the Sumerian question (as set forth on p. 22 of this volume) and once more joins the opposite camp. As far as my own position is concerned, I do not feel called upon to make any changes from the statements found in chapter i., even after reading Weissbach's Die Sumerische Frage (Leipzig, 1898),—the latest contribution to the subject, which is valuable as a history of the controversy, but offers little that is new. Delitzsch's name must now be removed from the list of those who accept Halévy's thesis; but, on the other hand, Halévy has gained a strong ally in F. Thureau-Dangin, whose special studies in the old Babylonian inscriptions lend great weight to his utterances on the origin of the cuneiform script. Dr. Alfred Jeremias, of[Pg xi] Leipzig, is likewise to be added to the adherents of Halévy. The Sumero-Akkadian controversy is not yet settled, and meanwhile it is well to bear in mind that not every Assyriologist is qualified to pronounce an opinion on the subject. A special study is required, and but few Assyriologists have made such a study. Accepting a view or a tradition from one's teacher does not constitute a person an authority, and one may be a very good Assyriologist without having views on the controversy that are of any particular value.
Lastly, I desire to call attention to the Bibliography, on which much time has been spent, and which will, I trust, be found satisfactory. In a list of addenda at the end of the book, I have noted some errors that slipped into the book, and I have also embodied a few additions. The copious index is the work of my student, Dr. S. Koppe, and it gives me pleasure to express my deep obligations to him for the able and painstaking manner in which he has carried out the work so kindly undertaken by him. The drawing for the map was made by Mr. J. Horace Frank of Philadelphia.
To my wife more thanks are due than I can convey in words for her share in the work. She copied almost all of the manuscript, and in doing so made many valuable suggestions. Without her constant aid and encouragement I would have shrunk from a task which at times seemed too formidable to be carried to a successful issue. As I lay down my pen after several years of devotion to this book, my last thought is one of gratitude to the beloved partner of my joys and sorrows.
MORRIS JASTROW, Jr.
University of Pennsylvania,
June, 1898.
[Pg xii]
[1] Set forth in the announcement of the series at the back of the book and in the Editor's Prefatory Note to Volume I.
[2] In the Index, however, names of scholars have only been introduced where absolutely necessary to the subject.
[3] In his work, Shamassum-ukin König von Babylonien, pp. 16-21. Hence, I also write Ashurnasirbal.
[4] Die Entstehung des ältesten Schriftsystems (Leipzig, 1897).
[Transcriber's Note: These changes and additions are printed only here; the main text is as it was in the original.]
Page, Line.
22. See Preface.
35, 10. Isin or Nisin, see Lehmann's Shamash-shumukin, I. 77; Meissner's Beiträge zum altbabylonischen Privatrecht, p. 122.
61. Bau also appears as Nin-din-dug, i.e., 'the lady who restores life.' See Hilprecht, Old Babylonian Inscriptions, I. 2, Nos. 95, 106, 111.
74. On Ã, see Hommel, Journal of Transactions of Victoria Institute, XXVIII. 35-36.
99, 24. Ur-shul-pa-uddu is a ruler of Kish.
102, 13. For Ku-anna, see IIIR. 67, 32 c-d.
102, 24. For another U-mu as a title of Adad, see Delitzsch, Das Babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos, p. 125, note.
111, 2. Nisaba is mentioned in company with the great gods by Nebopolassar (Hilprecht, Old Babylonian Inscriptions, I. 1. Pl. 32, col. II. 15).
165. Note 2. On these proper names, see Delitzsch's "Assyriologische Miscellen" (Berichte der phil.-hist. Classe der kgl. sächs. Gesell. d. Wiss., 1893, pp. 183 seq.).
488. Note 1. See now Scheil's article "Recueil de Travaux," etc., XX. 55-59.
529. The form Di-ib-ba-ra has now been found. See Scheil's "Recueil de Travaux," etc., XX. 57.
589. Note 3. See now Hommel, Expository Times, VIII. 472, and Baudissin, ib. IX. 40-45.[Pg xiii]
I. Introduction
II. The Land and the People
III. General Traits of the Old Babylonian Pantheon
IV. Babylonian Gods Prior to the Days of Hammurabi
V. The Consorts of the Gods
VI. Gudea's Pantheon
VII. Summary
VIII. The Pantheon in the Days of Hammurabi
IX. The Gods in the Temple Lists and in the Legal and Commercial Documents
X. The Minor Gods in the Period of Hammurabi
XI. Survivals of Animism in the Babylonian Religion
XII. The Assyrian Pantheon
XIII. The Triad and the Combined Invocation of Deities
XIV. The Neo-babylonian Period
XV. The Religious Literature of Babylonia
XVI. The Magical Texts
XVII. The Prayers and Hymns
XVIII. Penitential Psalms
XIX. Oracles and Omens
XX. Various Classes of Omens
XXI. The Cosmology of the Babylonians
XXII. The Zodiacal System of the Babylonians
XXIII. The Gilgamesh Epic
XXIV. Myths and Legends
XXV. The Views of Life After Death
XXVI. The Temples and the Cult
XXVII. Conclusion
[Pg xiv]
(From a drawing by Mr. J. HORACE FRANK.)][Pg 1]
Until about the middle of the 19th century, our knowledge of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians was exceedingly scant. No records existed that were contemporaneous with the period covered by Babylonian-Assyrian history; no monuments of the past were preserved that might, in default of records, throw light upon the religious ideas and customs that once prevailed in Mesopotamia. The only sources at command were the incidental notices—insufficient and fragmentary in character—that occurred in the Old Testament, in Herodotus, in Eusebius, Syncellus, and Diodorus. Of these, again, only the two first-named, the Old Testament and Herodotus, can be termed direct sources; the rest simply reproduce extracts from other works, notably from Ctesias, the contemporary of Xenophon, from Berosus, a priest of the temple of Bel in Babylonia, who lived about the time of Alexander the Great, or shortly after, and from Apollodorus, Abydenus, Alexander Polyhistor, and Nicolas of Damascus, all of whom being subsequent to Berosus, either quote the latter or are dependent upon him.
Of all these sources it may be said, that what information they furnish of Babylonia and Assyria bears largely upon the political history, and only to a very small degree upon the[Pg 2] religion. In the Old Testament, the two empires appear only as they enter into relations with the Hebrews, and since Hebrew history is not traced back beyond the appearance of the clans of Terah in Palestine, there is found previous to this period, barring the account of the migrations of the Terahites in Mesopotamia, only the mention of the Tigris and Euphrates among the streams watering the legendary Garden of Eden, the incidental reference to Nimrod and his empire, which is made to include the capitol cities of the Northern and Southern Mesopotamian districts, and the story of the founding of the city of Babylon, followed by the dispersion of mankind from their central habitation in the Euphrates Valley. The followers of Abram, becoming involved in the attempts of Palestinian chieftains to throw off the yoke of Babylonian supremacy, an occasion is found for introducing Mesopotamia again, and so the family history of the Hebrew tribes superinduces at odd times a reference to the old settlements on the Euphrates, but it is not until the political struggles of the two Hebrew kingdoms against the inevitable subjection to the superior force of Assyrian arms, and upon the fall of Assyria, to the Babylonian power, that Assyria and Babylonia engage the frequent attention of the chronicler's pen and of the prophet's word. Here, too, the political situation is always the chief factor, and it is only incidentally that the religion comes into play,—as when it is said that Sennacherib, the king of Assyria, was murdered while worshipping in the temple dedicated to a deity, Nisroch; or when a prophet, to intensify the picture of the degradation to which the proud king of Babylon is to be reduced, introduces Babylonian conceptions of the nether world into his discourse.[5] Little, too, is furnished by the Book of Daniel, despite the fact that Babylon is the center of action, and what little there is[Pg 3] bearing on the religious status, such as the significance attached to dreams, and the implied contrast between the religion of Daniel and his companions, and that of Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians, loses some of its force by the late origin of the book. The same applies, only in a still stronger degree, to the Book of Judith, in which Nineveh is the center of the incidents described.
The rabbinical literature produced in Palestine and Babylonia is far richer in notices bearing on the religious practices of Mesopotamia, than is the Old Testament. The large settlements of Jews in Babylonia, which, beginning in the sixth century B.C., were constantly being increased by fresh accessions from Palestine, brought the professors of Judaism face to face with religious conditions abhorrent to their souls. In the regulations of the Rabbis to guard their followers from the influences surrounding them, there is frequent reference, open or implied, to Babylonish practices, to the festivals of the Babylonians, to the images of their gods, to their forms of incantations, and other things besides; but these notices are rendered obscure by their indirect character, and require a commentary that can only be furnished by that knowledge of the times which they take for granted. To this difficulty, there must be added the comparatively late date of the notices, which demands an exercise of care before applying them to the very early period to which the religion of the Babylonians may be traced.
Coming to Herodotus, it is a matter of great regret that the history of Assyria, which he declares it was his intention to write,[6] was either never produced, or if produced, lost. In accordance with the general usage of his times, Herodotus included under Assyria the whole of Mesopotamia, both Assyria proper in the north and Southern Mesopotamia. His history would therefore have been of extraordinary value, and since nothing escaped his observant eye and well-trained mind,[Pg 4] the religious customs of the country would have come in for their full share of attention. As it is, we have only a few notices about Babylonia and Assyria, incidental to his history of Persia.[7] Of these, the majority are purely historical, chief among which is an epitome of the country's past—a curious medley of fact and legend—and the famous account of the capture of Babylon by Cyrus. Fortunately, however, there are four notices that treat of the religion of the inhabitants: the first, a description of an eight-storied tower, surmounted by a temple sacred to the god Bel; a second furnishing a rather detailed account of another temple, also sacred to Bel, and situated in the same precinct of the city of Babylon; a third notice speaks, though with provoking brevity, of the funeral customs of the Babylonians; while in a fourth he describes the rites connected with the worship of the chief goddess of the Babylonians, which impress Herodotus, who failed to appreciate their mystic significance, as shameful. We have no reason to believe that Ctesias' account of the Assyrian monarchy, under which he, like Herodotus, included Babylonia, contained any reference to the religion at all. What he says about Babylonia and Assyria served merely as an introduction to Persian history—the real purpose of his work—and the few fragments known chiefly through Diodorus and Eusebius, deal altogether with the succession of dynasties. As is well known, the lists of Ctesias have fallen into utter discredit by the side of the ever-growing confidence in the native traditions as reported by Berosus.
The loss of the latter's history of Babylon is deplorable indeed; its value would have been greater than the history of Herodotus, because it was based, as we know, on the records and documents preserved in Babylonian temples. How much of the history dealt with the religion of the people, it is difficult to determine, but the extracts of it found in various writers show[Pg 5] that starting, like the Old Testament, with the beginning of things, Berosus gave a full account of the cosmogony of the Babylonians. Moreover, the early history of Babylonia being largely legendary, as that of every other nation, tales of the relations existing between the gods and mankind—relations that are always close in the earlier stages of a nation's history—must have abounded in the pages of Berosus, even if he did not include in his work a special section devoted to an account of the religion that still was practiced in his days. The quotations from Berosus in the works of Josephus are all of a historical character; those in Eusebius and Syncellus, on the contrary, deal with the religion and embrace the cosmogony of the Babylonians, the account of a deluge brought on by the gods, and the building of a tower. It is to be noted, moreover, that the quotations we have from Berosus are not direct, for while it is possible, though not at all certain, that Josephus was still able to consult the works of Berosus, Eusebius and Syncellus refer to Apollodorus, Abydenus, and Alexander Polyhistor as their authorities for the statements of Berosus. Passing in this way through several hands, the authoritative value of the comparatively paltry extracts preserved, is diminished, and a certain amount of inaccuracy, especially in details and in the reading of proper names,[8] becomes almost inevitable. Lastly, it is to be noted that the list of Babylonian kings found in the famous astronomical work of Claudius Ptolemaeus, valuable as it is for historical purposes, has no connection with the religion of the Babylonians.
The sum total of the information thus to be gleaned from ancient sources for an elucidation of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion is exceedingly meagre, sufficing scarcely for determining its most general traits. Moreover, what there is, requires for the most part a control through confirmatory evidence which we seek for in vain, in biblical or classical literature.
This control has now been furnished by the remarkable discoveries made beneath the soil of Mesopotamia since the year 1842. In that year the French consul at Mosul, P. E. Botta, aided by a government grant, began a series of excavations in the mounds that line the banks of the Tigris opposite Mosul. The artificial character of these mounds had for some time been recognized. Botta's first finds of a pronounced character were made at a village known as Khorsabad, which stood on one of the mounds in question. Here, at a short distance below the surface, he came across the remains of what proved to be a palace of enormous extent. The sculptures that were found in this palace—enormous bulls and lions resting on backgrounds of limestone, and guarding the approaches to the palace chambers, or long rows of carvings in high relief lining the palace walls, and depicting war scenes, building operations, and religious processions—left no doubt as to their belonging to an ancient period of history. The written characters found on these monuments substantiated the view that Botta had come across an edifice of the Assyrian empire, while subsequent researches furnished the important detail that the excavated edifice lay in a suburb of the ancient capitol of Assyria, Nineveh, the exact site of which was directly opposite Mosul. Botta's labors extended over a period of two years; by the end of which time, having laid bare the greater part of the palace, he had gathered a large mass of material including[Pg 7] many smaller objects—pottery, furniture, jewelry, and ornaments—that might serve for the study of Assyrian art and of Assyrian antiquities, while the written records accompanying the monuments placed for the first time an equally considerable quantity of original material at the disposal of scholars for the history of Assyria. All that could be transported was sent to the Louvre, and this material was subsequently published. Botta was followed by Austen Henry Layard, who, acting as the agent of the British Museum, conducted excavations during the years 1845-52, first at a mound Nimrud, some fifteen miles to the south of Khorsabad, and afterwards on the site of Nineveh proper, the mound Koyunjik, opposite Mosul, besides visiting and examining other mounds still further to the south within the district of Babylonia proper.
The scope of Layard's excavations exceeded, therefore, those of Botta; and to the one palace at Khorsabad, he added three at Nimrud and two at Koyunjik, besides finding traces of a temple and other buildings. The construction of these edifices was of the same order as the one unearthed by Botta; and as at the latter, there was a large yield of sculptures, inscriptions, and miscellaneous objects. A new feature, however, of Layard's excavations was the finding of several rooms filled with fragments of small and large clay tablets closely inscribed on both sides in the cuneiform characters. These tablets, about 30,000 of which found their way to the British Museum, proved to be the remains of a royal library. Their contents ranged over all departments of thought,—hymns, incantations, prayers, epics, history, legends, mythology, mathematics, astronomy constituting some of the chief divisions. In the corners of the palaces, the foundation records were also found, containing in each case more or less extended annals of the events that occurred during the reign of the monarch whose official residence was thus brought to light. Through Layard, the foundations were laid for the Assyrian and Babylonian collections of the British[Pg 8] Museum, the parts of which exhibited to the public now fill six large halls. Fresh sources of a direct character were thus added for the study, not only of the historical unfolding of the Assyrian empire, but through the tablets of the royal library, for the religion of ancient Mesopotamia as well.
The stimulus given by Botta and Layard to the recovery of the records and monuments of antiquity that had been hidden from view for more than two thousand years, led to a refreshing rivalry between England and France in continuing a work that gave promise of still richer returns by further efforts. Victor Place, a French architect of note, who succeeded Botta as the French consul at Mosul, devoted his term of service, from 1851 to 1855, towards completing the excavations at Khorsabad. A large aftermath rewarded his efforts. Thanks, too, to his technical knowledge and that of his assistant, Felix Thomas, M. Place was enabled more accurately to determine the architectural construction of the temples and palaces of ancient Assyria. Within this same period (1852-1854) another exploring expedition was sent out to Mesopotamia by the French government, under the leadership of Fulgence Fresnel, in whose party were the above-mentioned Thomas and the distinguished scholar Jules Oppert. The objective point this time was Southern Mesopotamia, the mounds of which had hitherto not been touched, many not even identified as covering the remains of ancient cities. Much valuable work was done by this expedition in its careful study of the site of the ancient Babylon,—in the neighborhood of the modern village Hillah, some forty miles south of Baghdad. Unfortunately, the antiquities recovered at this place, and elsewhere, were lost through the sinking of the rafts as they carried their precious burden down the Tigris. In the south again, the English followed close upon the heels of the French. J. E. Taylor, in 1854, visited many of the huge mounds that were scattered throughout Southern Mesopotamia in much larger[Pg 9] numbers than in the north, while his compatriot, William K. Loftus, a few years previous had begun excavations, though on a small scale, at Warka, the site of the ancient city of Erech. He also conducted some investigations at a mound Mugheir, which acquired special interest as the supposed site of the famous Ur,—the home of some of the Terahites before the migration to Palestine. Of still greater significance were the examinations made by Sir Henry Rawlinson, in 1854, of the only considerable ruins of ancient Babylonia that remained above the surface,—the tower of Birs Nimrud, which proved to be the famous seven-staged temple as described by Herodotus. This temple was completed, as the foundation records showed, by Nebuchadnezzar II., in the sixth century before this era; but the beginnings of the structure belong to a much earlier period. Another sanctuary erected by this same king was found near the tower. Subsequent researches by Hormuzd Rassam made it certain that Borsippa, the ancient name of the place where the tower and sanctuaries stood, was a suburb of the great city of Babylon itself, which lay directly opposite on the east side of the Euphrates. The scope of the excavations continued to grow almost from year to year, and while new mounds were being attacked in the south, those in the north, especially Koujunjik, continued to be the subject of attention.
Rassam, who has just been mentioned, was in a favorable position, through his long residence as English consul at Mosul, for extracting new finds from the mounds in this vicinity. Besides adding more than a thousand tablets from the royal library discovered by Layard, his most noteworthy discoveries were the unearthing of a magnificent temple at Nimrud, and the finding of a large bronze gate at Balawat, a few miles to the northeast of Nimrud. Rassam and Rawlinson were afterwards joined by George Smith of the British Museum, who, instituting a further search through the ruins of Koujunjik, Nimrud,[Pg 10] Kalah-Shergat, and elsewhere, made many valuable additions to the English collections, until his unfortunate death in 1876, during his third visit to the mounds, cut him off in the prime of a brilliant and most useful career. The English explorers extended their labors to the mounds in the south. Here it was, principally at Abu-Habba, that they set their forces to work. The finding of another temple dedicated to the sun-god rewarded their efforts. The foundation records showed that the edifice was one of great antiquity, which was permitted to fall into decay and was then restored by a ruler whose date can be fixed at the middle of the ninth century B.C. The ancient name of the place was shown to be Sippar, and the fame of the temple was such, that subsequent monarchs vied with one another in adding to its grandeur. It is estimated that the temple contained no less than three hundred chambers and halls for the archives and for the accommodation of the large body of priests attached to this temple. In the archives many thousands of little clay tablets were again found, not, however, of a literary, but of a legal character, containing records of commercial transactions conducted in ancient Sippar, such as sales of houses, of fields, of produce, of stuffs, money loans, receipts, contracts for work, marriage settlements, and the like. The execution of the laws being in the hands of priests in ancient Mesopotamia, the temples were the natural depositories for the official documents of the law courts. Similar collections to those of Sippar have been found in almost every mound of Southern Mesopotamia that has been opened since the days of Rassam. So at Djumdjuma, situated near the site of the ancient city of Babylon, some three thousand were unearthed that were added to the fast growing collections of the British Museum. At Borsippa, likewise, Rawlinson and Rassam recovered a large number of clay tablets, most of them legal but some of them of a literary character, which proved to be in part duplicates of those in the royal library of Ashurbanabal.[Pg 11] In this way, the latter's statement, that he sent his scribes to the large cities of the south for the purpose of collecting and copying the literature that had its rise there, met with a striking confirmation. Still further to the south, at a mound known as Telloh, a representative of the French government, Ernest de Sarzec, began a series of excavations in 1877, which, continued to the present day, have brought to light remains of temples and palaces exceeding in antiquity those hitherto discovered. Colossal statues of diorite, covered with inscriptions, the pottery, tablets and ornaments, showed that at a period as early as 3500 B.C. civilization in this region had already reached a very advanced stage. The systematic and thorough manner in which De Sarzec, with inexhaustible patience, explored the ancient city, has resulted in largely extending our knowledge of the most ancient period of Babylonian history as yet known to us. The Telloh finds were forwarded to the Louvre, which in this way secured a collection from the south that formed a worthy complement to the Khorsabad antiquities.
Lastly, it is gratifying to note the share that our own country has recently taken in the great work that has furnished the material needed for following the history of the Mesopotamian states. In 1887, an expedition was sent out under the auspices of the University of Pennsylvania, to conduct excavations at Niffer,—a mound to the southeast of Babylon, situated on a branch of the Euphrates, and which was known to be the site of one of the most famous cities in this region. The Rev. John P. Peters (now in New York), who was largely instrumental in raising the funds for the purpose, was appointed director of the expedition. Excavations were continued for two years under Dr. Peters' personal supervision, and since then by Mr. John H. Haynes, with most satisfactory success. A great temple dedicated to the god Bel was discovered, and work has hitherto been confined chiefly to laying bare the various parts of the edifice. The foundation of the building[Pg 12] goes back to an earlier period than the ruins of Telloh. It survived the varying fortunes of the city in which it stood, and each period of Babylonian history left its traces at Niffer through the records of the many rulers who sought the favor of the god by enlarging or beautifying his place of worship. The temple became a favorite spot to which pilgrims came from all sides on the great festivals, to offer homage at the sacred shrines. Votive offerings, in the shape of inscribed clay cones, and little clay images of Bel and of his female consort, were left in the temple as witnesses to the piety of the visitors. The archives were found to be well stocked with the official legal documents dating chiefly from the period of 1700 to 1200 B.C., when the city appears to have reached the climax of its glory. Other parts of the mound were opened at different depths, and various layers which followed the chronological development of the place were determined.[9] After its destruction, the sanctity of the city was in a measure continued by its becoming a burial-place. The fortunes of the place can thus be followed down to the ninth or the tenth century of our era, a period of more than four thousand years. Already more than 20,000 tablets have been received at the University of Pennsylvania, besides many specimens of pottery, bowls, jars, cones, and images, as well as gold, copper, and alabaster work.
From this survey of the work done in the last decades in exploring the long lost and almost forgotten cities of the Tigris and of the Euphrates Valley, it will be apparent that a large amount of material has been made accessible for tracing the course of civilization in this region. Restricting ourselves to that portion of it that bears on the religion of ancient Mesopotamia, it may be grouped under two heads, (1) literary, and (2) archaeological. The religious texts of Ashurbanabal's[Pg 13] library occupy the first place in the literary group. The incantations, the prayers and hymns, lists of temples, of gods and their attributes, traditions of the creation of the world, legends of the deities and of their relations to men, are sources of the most direct character; and it is fortunate that among the recovered portions of the library, such texts are largely represented. Equally direct are the dedicatory inscriptions set up by the kings in the temples erected to the honor of some god, and of great importance are the references to the various gods, their attributes, their powers, and their deeds, which are found at every turn in the historical records which the kings left behind them. Many of these records open or close with a long prayer to some deity; in others, prayers are found interspersed, according to the occasion on which they were offered up. Attributing the success of their undertakings—whether it be a military campaign, or the construction of some edifice, or a successful hunt—to the protection offered by the gods, the kings do not tire of singing the praises of the deity or deities as whose favorites they regarded themselves. The gods are constantly at the monarch's side. Now we are told of a dream sent to encourage the army on the approach of a battle, and again of some portent which bade the king be of good cheer. To the gods, the appeal is constantly made, and to them all good things are ascribed. From the legal documents, likewise, much may be gathered bearing on the religion. The protection of the gods is invoked or their curses called down; the oath is taken in their name; while the manner in which the temples are involved in the commercial life of ancient Babylonia renders these tablets, which are chiefly valuable as affording us a remarkable insight into the people's daily life, of importance also in illustrating certain phases of the religious organization of the country. Most significant for the position occupied by the priests, is the fact that the latter are invariably the scribes who draw up the documents.
The archaeological material furnished by the excavations consists of the temples of the gods, their interior arrangement, and provisions for the various religious functions; secondly, the statues of the gods, demigods, and the demons, the altars and the vessels; and thirdly, the religious scenes,—the worship of some deity, the carrying of the gods in procession, the pouring of libations, the performance of rites, or the representation of some religious symbols sculptured on the palace wall or on the foundation stone of a sacred building, or cut out on the seal cylinders, used as signatures[10] and talismans.
Large as the material is, it is far from being exhausted, and, indeed, far from sufficient for illustrating all the details of the religious life. This will not appear surprising, if it be remembered that of the more than one hundred mounds that have been identified in the region of the Tigris and Euphrates as containing remains of buried cities, only a small proportion have been explored, and of these scarcely more than a half dozen with an approach to completeness. The soil of Mesopotamia unquestionably holds still greater treasures than those which it has already yielded. The links uniting the most ancient period—at present, c. 4000 B.C.—to the final destruction of the Babylonian empire by Cyrus, in the middle of the sixth century B.C., are far from being complete. For entire centuries we are wholly in the dark, and for others only a few skeleton facts are known; and until these gaps shall have been filled, our knowledge of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians must necessarily remain incomplete. Not as incomplete, indeed, as their history, for religious rites are not subject to many changes, and the progress of religious ideas does not keep pace with the constant changes in the political kaleidoscope of a country; but, it is evident that no exhaustive treatment[Pg 15] of the religion can be given until the material shall have become adequate to the subject.
Before proceeding to the division of the subject in hand, some explanation is called for of the method by which the literary material found beneath the soil has been made intelligible.
The characters on the clay tablets and cylinders, on the limestone slabs, on statues, on altars, on stone monuments, are generally known as cuneiform, because of their wedge-shaped appearance, though it may be noted at once that in their oldest form the characters are linear rather than wedge-shaped, presenting the more or less clearly defined outlines of objects from which they appear to be derived. At the time when these cuneiform inscriptions began to be found in Mesopotamia, the language which these characters expressed was still totally unknown. Long previous to the beginning of Botta's labors, inscriptions also showing the cuneiform characters had been found at Persepolis on various monuments of the ruins and tombs still existing at that place. The first notice of these inscriptions was brought to Europe by a famous Italian traveler, Pietro della Valle, in the beginning of the seventeenth century. For a long time it was doubted whether the characters represented anything more than mere ornamentation, and it was not until the close of the 18th century, after more accurate copies of the Persepolitan characters had been furnished through Carsten Niebuhr, that scholars began to apply themselves to their decipherment. Through the efforts chiefly of Gerhard Tychsen, professor at Rostock, Frederick Münter, a Danish scholar, and the distinguished Silvestre de Sacy of Paris, the beginnings were made which finally led to the discovery of the key to the mysterious writings,[Pg 16] in 1802, by Georg Friedrich Grotefend, a teacher at a public school in Göttingen. The observation was made previous to the days of Grotefend that the inscriptions at Persepolis invariably showed three styles of writing. While in all three the characters were composed of wedges, yet the combination of wedges, as well as their shape, differed sufficiently to make it evident, even to the superficial observer, that there was as much difference between them as, say, between the English and the German script. The conclusion was drawn that the three styles represented three languages, and this conclusion was strikingly confirmed when, upon the arrival of Botta's finds in Europe, it was seen that one of the styles corresponded to the inscriptions found at Khorsabad; and so in all subsequent discoveries in Mesopotamia, this was found to be the case. One of the languages, therefore, on the monuments of Persepolis was presumably identical with the speech of ancient Mesopotamia. Grotefend's key to the reading of that style of cuneiform writing which invariably occupied the first place when the three styles were ranged one under the other, or occupied the most prominent place when a different arrangement was adopted, met with universal acceptance. He determined that the language of the style which, for the sake of convenience, we may designate as No. 1, was Old Persian,—the language spoken by the rulers, who, it was known through tradition and notices in classical writers, had erected the series of edifices at Persepolis, one of the capitols of the Old Persian or, as it is also called, the Achaemenian empire. By the year 1840 the decipherment of these Achaemenian inscriptions was practically complete, the inscriptions had been read, the alphabet was definitely settled, and the grammar, in all but minor points, known. It was possible, therefore, in approaching the Mesopotamian style of cuneiform, which, as occupying the third place, may be designated as No. 3, to use No. 1 as a guide, since it was only legitimate to conclude that Nos. 2 and 3 represented translations[Pg 17] of No. 1 into two languages, which, by the side of Old Persian, were spoken by the subjects of the Achaemenian kings. That one of these languages should have been the current speech of Mesopotamia was exactly what was to be expected, since Babylonia and Assyria formed an essential part of the Persian empire.
The beginning was made with proper names, the sound of which would necessarily be the same or very similar in both, or, for that matter, in all the three languages of the Persepolitan inscriptions.[11] In this way, by careful comparisons between the two styles, Nos. 1 and 3, it was possible to pick out the signs in No. 3 that corresponded to those in No. 1, and inasmuch as the same sign occurred in various names, it was, furthermore, possible to assign, at least tentatively, certain values to the signs in question. With the help of the signs thus determined, the attempt was made to read other words in style No. 3, in which these signs occurred, but it was some time before satisfactory results were obtained. An important advance was made when it was once determined, that the writing was a mixture of signs used both as words and as syllables, and that the language on the Assyrian monuments belonged to the group known as Semitic. The cognate languages—chiefly Hebrew and Arabic—formed a help towards determining the meaning of the words read and an explanation of the morphological features they presented. For all that, the task was one of stupendous proportions, and many were the obstacles that had to be overcome, before the principles underlying the cuneiform writing were determined, and the decipherment placed on a firm and scientific basis. This is not the place to enter upon a detailed illustration of the method adopted by ingenious scholars,—notably[Pg 18] Edward Hincks, Isidor Löwenstern, Henry Rawlinson, Jules Oppert,—to whose united efforts the solution of the great problems involved is due;[12] and it would also take too much space, since in order to make this method clear, it would be necessary to set forth the key discovered by Grotefend for reading the Old Persian inscriptions. Suffice it to say that the guarantee for the soundness of the conclusions reached by scholars is furnished by the consideration, that it was from small and most modest beginnings that the decipherment began. Step by step, the problem was advanced by dint of a painstaking labor, the degree of which cannot easily be exaggerated, until to-day the grammar of the Babylonian-Assyrian language has been clearly set forth in all its essential particulars: the substantive and verb formation is as definitely known as that of any other Semitic language, the general principles of the syntax, as well as many detailed points, have been carefully investigated, and as for the reading of the cuneiform texts, thanks to the various helps at our disposal, and the further elucidation of the various principles that the Babylonians themselves adopted as a guide, the instance is a rare one when scholars need to confess their ignorance in this particular. At most there may be a halting between two possibilities. The difficulties that still hinder the complete understanding of passages in texts, arise in part from the mutilated condition in which, unfortunately, so many of the tablets and cylinders are found, and in part from a still imperfect knowledge of the lexicography of the language. For many a word occurring[Pg 19] only once or twice, and for which neither text nor comparison with cognate languages offers a satisfactory clue, ignorance must be confessed, or at best, a conjecture hazarded, until its more frequent occurrence enables us to settle the question at issue. Such settlements of disputed questions are taking place all the time; and with the activity with which the study of the language and antiquities of Mesopotamia is being pushed by scholars in this country, in England, France, Austria, Germany, Italy, Norway, and Holland, and with the constant accession of new material through excavations and publications, there is no reason to despair of clearing up the obscurities, still remaining in the precious texts that a fortunate chance has preserved for us.
A question that still remains to be considered as to the origin of the cuneiform writing of Mesopotamia, may properly be introduced in connection with this account of the excavations and decipherment, though it is needless to enter into it in detail.
The "Persian" style of wedge-writing is a direct derivative of the Babylonian, introduced in the times of the Achaemenians, and it is nothing but a simplification in form and principle of the more cumbersome and complicated Babylonian. Instead of a combination of as many as ten and fifteen wedges to make one sign, we have in the Persian never more than five, and frequently only three; and instead of writing words by syllables, sounds alone were employed, and the syllabary of several hundred signs reduced to forty-two, while the ideographic style was practically abolished.
The second style of cuneiform, generally known as Median or Susian,[13] is again only a slight modification of the "Persian."[Pg 20] Besides these three, there is a fourth language (spoken in the northwestern district of Mesopotamia between the Euphrates and the Orontes), known as "Mitanni," the exact status of which has not been clearly ascertained, but which has been adapted to cuneiform characters. A fifth variety, found on tablets from Cappadocia, represents again a modification of the ordinary writing met with in Babylonia. In the inscriptions of Mitanni, the writing is a mixture of ideographs and syllables, just as in Mesopotamia, while the so-called "Cappadocian" tablets are written in a corrupt Babylonian, corresponding in degree to the "corrupt" forms that the signs take on. In Mesopotamia itself, quite a number of styles exist, some due to local influences, others the result of changes that took place in the course of time. In the oldest period known, that is from 4000 to 3000 B.C., the writing is linear rather than wedge-shaped. The linear writing is the modification that the original pictures underwent in being adapted for engraving on stone; the wedges are the modification natural to the use of clay, though when once the wedges became the standard method, the greater frequency with which clay as against stone came to be used, led to an imitation of the wedges by those who cut out the characters on stone. In consequence, there developed two varieties of wedge-writing: the one that may be termed lapidary, used for the stone inscriptions, the official historical records, and such legal documents as were prepared with especial care; the other cursive, occurring only on legal and commercial clay tablets, and becoming more frequent as we approach the latest period of Babylonian writing, which extends to within a few decades of our era. In Assyria, finally, a special variety of cuneiform developed that is easily distinguished from the Babylonian by its greater neatness and the more vertical position of the wedges.
The origin of all the styles and varieties of cuneiform writing is, therefore, to be sought in Mesopotamia; and within Mesopotamia,[Pg 21] in that part of it where culture begins—the extreme south; but beyond saying that the writing is a direct development from picture writing, there is little of any definite character that can be maintained. We do not know when the writing originated, we only know that in the oldest inscriptions it is already fully developed.
We do not know who originated it; nor can the question be as yet definitely answered, whether those who originated it spoke the Babylonian language, or whether they were Semites at all. Until about fifteen years ago, it was generally supposed that the cuneiform writing was without doubt the invention of a non-Semitic race inhabiting Babylonia at an early age, from whom the Semitic Babylonians adopted it, together with the culture that this non-Semitic race had produced. These inventors, called Sumerians by some and Akkadians by others, and Sumero-Akkadians by a third group of scholars, it was supposed, used the "cuneiform" as a picture or 'ideographic' script exclusively; and the language they spoke being agglutinative and largely monosyllabic in character, it was possible for them to stop short at this point of development. The Babylonians however, in order to adapt the writing to their language, did not content themselves with the 'picture' method, but using the non-Semitic equivalent for their own words, employed the former as syllables, while retaining, at the same time, the sign as an ideograph. To make this clearer by an example, the numeral '1' would represent the word 'one' in their own language, while the non-Semitic word for 'one,' which let us suppose was "ash," they used as the phonetic value of the sign, in writing a word in which this sound occurred, as e.g., ash-es. Since each sign, in Sumero-Akkadian as well as in Babylonian, represented some general idea, it could stand for an entire series of words, grouped about this idea and associated with it, 'day,' for example, being used for 'light,' 'brilliancy,' 'pure,' and so forth. The variety of syllabic and[Pg 22] ideographic values which the cuneiform characters show could thus be accounted for.
This theory, however, tempting as it is by its simplicity, cannot be accepted in this unqualified form. Advancing knowledge has made it certain that the ancient civilization, including the religion, is Semitic in character. The assumption therefore of a purely non-Semitic culture for southern Babylonia is untenable. Secondly, even in the oldest inscriptions found, there occur Semitic words and Semitic constructions which prove that the inscriptions were composed by Semites. As long, therefore, as no traces of purely non-Semitic inscription are found, we cannot go beyond the Semites in seeking for the origin of the culture in this region. In view of this, the theory first advanced by Prof. Joseph Halévy of Paris, and now supported by the most eminent of German Assyriologists, Prof. Friedrich Delitzsch, which claims that the cuneiform writing is Semitic in origin, needs to be most carefully considered. There is much that speaks in favor of this theory, much that may more easily be accounted for by it, than by the opposite one, which was originally proposed by the distinguished Nestor of cuneiform studies, Jules Oppert, and which is with some modifications still held by the majority of scholars.[14] The question is one which cannot be answered by an appeal to philology alone. This is the fundamental error of the advocates of the Sumero-Akkadian theory, who appear to overlook the fact that the testimony of archaeological and anthropological research must be confirmatory of a philological hypothesis before it can be accepted as an indisputable fact.[15] The time however has not yet come for these two sciences to pronounce their verdict definitely, though it may be added that the supposition of a variety of races once[Pg 23] inhabiting Southern Mesopotamia finds support in what we know from the pre-historic researches of anthropologists.
Again, it is not to be denied that the theory of the Semitic origin of the cuneiform writing encounters obstacles that cannot easily be set aside. While it seeks to explain the syllabic values of the signs on the general principle that they represent elements of Babylonian words, truncated in this fashion in order to answer to the growing need for phonetic writing of words for which no ideographs existed, it is difficult to imagine, as Halévy's theory demands, that the "ideographic" style, as found chiefly in religious texts, is the deliberate invention of priests in their desire to produce a method of conveying their ideas that would be regarded as a mystery by the laity, and be successfully concealed from the latter. Here again the theory borders on the domain of archaeology, and philology alone will not help us out of the difficulty. An impartial verdict of the present state of the problem might be summed up as follows:
1. It is generally admitted that all the literature of Babylonia, including the oldest and even that written in the "ideographic" style, whether we term it "Sumero-Akkadian" or "hieratic," is the work of the Semitic settlers of Mesopotamia.
2. The culture, including the religion of Babylonia, is likewise a Semitic production, and since Assyria received its culture from Babylonia, the same remark holds good for entire Mesopotamia.
3. The cuneiform syllabary is largely Semitic in character. The ideas expressed by the ideographic values of the signs give no evidence of having been produced in non-Semitic surroundings; and, whatever the origin of the system may be, it has been so shaped by the Babylonians, so thoroughly adapted to their purposes, that it is to all practical purposes Semitic.[Pg 24]
4. Approached from the theoretical side, there remains, after making full allowance for the Semitic elements in the system, a residuum that has not yet found a satisfactory explanation, either by those who favor the non-Semitic theory or by those who hold the opposite view.
5. Pending further light to be thrown upon this question, through the expected additions to our knowledge of the archaeology and of the anthropological conditions of ancient prehistoric Mesopotamia, philological research must content itself with an acknowledgment of its inability to reach a conclusion that will appeal so forcibly to all minds, as to place the solution of the problem beyond dispute.
6. There is a presumption in favor of assuming a mixture of races in Southern Mesopotamia at an early day, and a possibility, therefore, that the earliest form of picture writing in this region, from which the Babylonian cuneiform is derived, may have been used by a non-Semitic population, and that traces of this are still apparent in the developed system after the important step had been taken, marked by the advance from picture to phonetic writing.
The important consideration for our purpose is, that the religious conceptions and practices as they are reflected in the literary sources now at our command, are distinctly Babylonian. With this we may rest content, and, leaving theories aside, there will be no necessity in an exposition of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians to differentiate or to attempt to differentiate between Semitic and so-called non-Semitic elements. Local conditions and the long period covered by the development and history of the religion in question, are the factors that suffice to account for the mixed and in many respects complicated phenomena which this religion presents.
Having set forth the sources at our command for the study of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, and having indicated the[Pg 25] manner in which these sources have been made available for our purposes, we are prepared to take the next step that will fit us for an understanding of the religious practices that prevailed in Mesopotamia,—a consideration of the land and of its people, together with a general account of the history of the latter.[Pg 26]
[5] Isaiah, xlv. For the Babylonian views contained in this chapter, see Alfred Jeremias, Die Babylonisch-Assyrischen Vorstellungen vom Leben nach dem Tode, pp. 112-116.
[6] Book i. sec. 184.
[7] Book I. ("Clio"), secs. 95, 102, 178-200.
[8] An instructive instance is furnished by the mention of a mystic personage, "Homoroka," which now turns out to be—as Professor J. H. Wright has shown—a corruption of Marduk. (See Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, x. 71-74.)
[9] The excavations are still being continued, thanks to the generosity of some public-spirited citizens of Philadelphia.
[10] The parties concerned rolled their cylinders over the clay tablet recording a legal or commercial transaction.
[11] Besides those at Persepolis, a large tri-lingual inscription was found at Behistun, near the city of Kirmenshah, in Persia, which, containing some ninety proper names, enabled Sir Henry Rawlinson definitely to establish a basis for the decipherment of the Mesopotamian inscriptions.
[12] The best account is to be found in Hommel's Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, pp. 58-134. A briefer statement was furnished by Professor Fr. Delitzsch in his supplements to the German translation of George Smith's Chaldaean Genesis (Chaldäische Genesis, pp. 257-262). A tolerably satisfactory account in English is furnished by B. T. A. Evetts in his work, New Light on the Bible and the Holy Land, pp. 79-129. For a full account of the excavations and the decipherment, together with a summary of results and specimens of the various branches of the Babylonian-Assyrian literature, the reader may be referred to Kaulen's Assyrien und Babylonien nach den neuesten Entdeckungen (5th edition).
[13] The most recent investigations show it to have been a 'Turanian' language. See Weissbach, Achämeniden Inschriften sweiter Art, Leipzig, 1893.
[14] Besides Delitzsch, however, there are others, as Pognon, Jäger, Guyard, McCurdy and Brinton, who side with Halévy.
[15] See now Dr. Brinton's paper, "The Protohistoric Ethnography of Western Asia" (Proceed. Amer. Philos. Soc., 1895), especially pp. 18-22.
The Babylonians and Assyrians with whom we are concerned in this volume dwelt in the region embraced by the Euphrates and the Tigris,—the Babylonians in the south, or the Euphrates Valley, the Assyrians to the northeast, in the region extending from the Tigris into the Kurdish Mountain districts; while the northwestern part of Mesopotamia—the northern half of the Euphrates district—was the seat of various empires that were alternately the rivals and the subjects of either Babylonia or Assyria.
The entire length of Babylonia was about 300 miles; the greatest breadth about 125 miles. The entire surface area was some 23,000 square miles, or about the size of West Virginia. The area of Assyria, with a length of 350 miles and a breadth varying from 170 to 300 miles, covered 75,000 square miles, which would make it somewhat smaller than the state of Nebraska. In the strict sense, the term Mesopotamia should be limited to the territory lying between the Euphrates and the Tigris above their junction, in the neighborhood of Baghdad, and extending northwards to the confines of the Taurus range; while the district to the south of Baghdad, and reaching to the Persian Gulf, may more properly be spoken of as the Euphrates Valley; and a third division is represented by the territory to the east of the Tigris, from Baghdad, and up to the Kurdish Mountains; but while this distinction is one that may be justly maintained, in view of the different character that the southern valley presents from the northern plain,[Pg 27] it has become so customary, in popular parlance, to think of the entire territory along and between the Euphrates and Tigris as one country, that the term Mesopotamia in this broad sense may be retained, with the division suggested by George Rawlinson, into Upper and Lower Mesopotamia. The two streams, as they form the salient traits of the region, are the factors that condition the character of the inhabitants and the culture that once flourished there. The Euphrates, or, to give the more correct pronunciation, Purat, signifies the 'river' par excellence. It is a quiet stream, flowing along in majestic dignity almost from its two sources, in the Armenian mountains, not far from the town of Erzerum, until it is joined by the Tigris in the extreme south. As the Shatt-el Arab, i.e., Arabic River, the two reach the Persian Gulf. Receiving many tributaries as long as it remains in the mountains, it flows first in a westerly direction, as though making direct for the Mediterranean Sea, then, veering suddenly to the southeast, it receives but few tributaries after it once passes through the Taurus range into the plain,—on the right side, only the Sadschur, on the left the Balichus and the Khabur. From this point on for the remaining distance of 800 miles, so far from receiving fresh accessions, it loses in quantity through the marsh beds that form on both sides. When it reaches the alluvial soil of Babylonia proper, its current and also its depth are considerably diminished through the numerous canals that form an outlet for its waters. Of its entire length, 1780 miles, it is navigable only for a small distance, cataracts forming a hindrance in its northern course and sandbanks in the south. In consequence, it never became at any time an important avenue for commerce, and besides rafts, which could be floated down to a certain distance, the only means of communication ever used were wicker baskets coated within and without with bitumen, or some form of a primitive ferry for passing from one shore to another.[Pg 28]
An entirely different stream is the Tigris—a corrupted form of 'Idiklat.' It is only 1146 miles in length, and is marked, as the native name indicates, by the 'swiftness' of its flow. Starting, like the Euphrates, in the rugged regions of Armenia, it continues its course through mountain clefts for a longer period, and joined at frequent intervals by tributaries, both before it merges into the plain and after doing so, the volume of its waters is steadily increased. Even when it approaches the alluvial soil of the south, it does not lose its character until well advanced in its course to the gulf. Advancing towards the Euphrates and again receding from it, it at last joins the latter at Korna, and together they pour their waters through the Persian Gulf into the great ocean. It is navigable from Diabekr in the north, for its entire length. Large rafts may be floated down from Mosul to Baghdad and Basra, and even small steamers have ascended as far north as Nimrud. The Tigris, then, in contrast to the Euphrates, is the avenue of commerce for Mesopotamia, forming the connecting bond between it and the rest of the ancient world,—Egypt, India, and the lands of the Mediterranean. Owing, however, to the imperfect character of the means of transportation in ancient and, for that matter, in modern times, the voyage up the stream was impracticable. The rafts, resting on inflated bags of goat or sheep skin, can make no headway against the rapid stream, and so, upon reaching Baghdad or Basra, they are broken up, and the bags sent back by the shore route to the north.
The contrast presented by the two rivers is paralleled by the traits distinguishing Upper from Lower Mesopotamia. Shut off to the north and northeast by the Armenian range, to the northwest by the Taurus, Upper Mesopotamia retains, for a considerable extent, and especially on the eastern side, a rugged aspect. The Kurdish mountains run close to the Tigris' bed for some distance below Mosul, while between the Tigris and the Euphrates proper, small ranges and promontories[Pg 29] stretch as far as the end of the Taurus chain, well on towards Mosul.
Below Mosul, the region begins to change its character. The mountains cease, the plain begins, the soil becomes alluvial and through the regular overflow of the two rivers in the rainy season, develops an astounding fertility. This overflow begins, in the case of the Tigris, early in March, reaches its height in May, and ceases about the middle of June. The overflow of the Euphrates extends from the middle of March till the beginning of June, but September is reached before the river resumes its natural state. Not only does the overflow of the Euphrates thus extend over a longer period, but it oversteps its banks with greater violence than does the Tigris, so that as far north as the juncture with the Khabur, and still more so in the south, the country to both sides is flooded, until it assumes the appearance of a great sea. Through the violence of these overflows, changes constantly occur in the course that the river takes, so that places which in ancient times stood on its banks are to-day removed from the main river-bed. Another important change in Southern Babylonia is the constant accretion of soil, due to the deposits from the Persian Gulf.
This increase proceeding on an average of about one mile in fifty years has brought it about that the two rivers to-day, instead of passing separately into the Gulf, unite at Korna—some distance still from the entrance. The contrast of seasons is greater, as may be imagined, in Upper Mesopotamia than in the south. The winters are cold, with snowfalls that may last for several months, but with the beginning of the dry season, in May, a tropical heat sets in which lasts until the beginning of November, when the rain begins. Assyria proper, that is, the eastern side of Mesopotamia, is more affected by the mountain ranges than the west. In the Euphrates Valley, the heat during the dry season, from about May till November, when for weeks, and even months, no cloud is to be seen,[Pg 30] beggars description; but strange enough, the Arabs who dwell there at present, while enduring the heat without much discomfort, are severely affected by a winter temperature that for Europeans and Americans is exhilarating in its influence.
From what has been said, it will be clear that the Euphrates is, par excellence, the river of Southern Mesopotamia or Babylonia, while the Tigris may be regarded as the river of Assyria. It was the Euphrates that made possible the high degree of culture, that was reached in the south. Through the very intense heat of the dry season, the soil developed a fertility that reduced human labor to a minimum. The return for sowing of all kinds of grain, notably wheat, corn, barley, is calculated, on an average, to be fifty to a hundred-fold, while the date palm flourishes with scarcely any cultivation at all. Sustenance being thus provided for with little effort, it needed only a certain care in protecting oneself from damage through the too abundant overflow, to enable the population to find that ease of existence, which is an indispensable condition of culture. This was accomplished by the erection of dikes, and by directing the waters through channels into the fields.
Assyria, more rugged in character, did not enjoy the same advantages. Its culture, therefore, not only arose at a later period than that of Babylonia, but was a direct importation from the south. It was due to the natural extension of the civilization that continued for the greater part of the existence of the two empires to be central in the south. But when once Assyria was included in the circle of Babylonian culture, the greater effort required in forcing the natural resources of the soil, produced a greater variety in the return. Besides corn, wheat and rice, the olive, banana and fig tree, mulberry and vine were cultivated, while the vicinity of the mountain ranges furnished an abundance of building material—wood and limestone—that was lacking in the south. The fertility of Assyria proper, again, not being dependent on the overflow of the Tigris,[Pg 31] proved to be of greater endurance. With the neglect of the irrigation system, Babylonia became a mere waste, and the same river that was the cause of its prosperity became the foe that, more effectually than any human power, contributed to the ruin and the general desolation that marks the greater part of the Euphrates Valley at the present time. Assyria continued to play a part in history long after its ancient glory had departed, and to this day enjoys a far greater activity, and is of considerable more significance than the south.
In so far as natural surroundings affect the character of two peoples belonging to the same race, the Assyrians present that contrast to the Babylonians which one may expect from the differences, just set forth, between the two districts. The former were rugged, more warlike, and when they acquired power, used it in the perfection of their military strength; the latter, while not lacking in the ambition to extend their dominion, yet, on the whole, presented a more peaceful aspect that led to the cultivation of commerce and industrial arts. Both, however, have very many more traits in common than they have marks of distinction. They both belong not only to the Semitic race, but to the same branch of the race. Presenting the same physical features, the languages spoken by them are identical, barring differences that do not always rise to the degree of dialectical variations, and affect chiefly the pronunciation of certain consonants. At what time the Babylonians and Assyrians settled in the district in which we find them, whence they came, and whether the Euphrates Valley or the northern Tigris district was the first to be settled, are questions that cannot, in the present state of knowledge, be answered. As to the time of their settlement, the high degree of culture that the Euphrates Valley shows at the earliest[Pg 32] period known to us,—about 4000 B.C.,—and the indigenous character of this culture, points to very old settlement, and makes it easier to err on the side of not going back far enough, than on the side of going too far. Again, while, as has been several times intimated, the culture in the south is older than that of the north, it does not necessarily follow that the settlement of Babylonia antedates that of Assyria. The answer to this question would depend upon the answer to the question as to the original home of the Semites.[16] The probabilities, however, are in favor of assuming a movement of population, as of culture, from the south to the north. At all events, the history of Babylonia and Assyria begins with the former, and as a consequence we are justified also in beginning with that phase of the religion for which we have the earliest records—the Babylonian.
At the very outset of a brief survey of the history of the Babylonians, a problem confronts us of primary importance. Are there any traces of other settlers besides the Semitic Babylonians in the earliest period of the history of the Euphrates Valley? Those who cling to the theory of a non-Semitic origin of the cuneiform syllabary will, of course, be ready to answer in the affirmative. Sumerians and Akkadians are the names given to these non-Semitic settlers who preceded the Babylonians in the control of the Euphrates Valley. The names are derived from the terms Sumer and Akkad, which are frequently found in Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions, in connection with the titles of the kings. Unfortunately, scholars are not a unit in the exact location of the districts comprised by these names, some declaring Sumer to be in the north and[Pg 33] Akkad in the south; others favoring the reverse position. The balance of proof rests in favor of the former supposition; but however that may be, Sumer and Akkad represent, from a certain period on, a general designation to include the whole of Babylonia. Professor Hommel goes so far as to declare that in the types found on statues and monuments of the oldest period of Babylonian history—the monuments coming from the mound Telloh—we have actual representations of these Sumerians, who are thus made out to be a smooth-faced race with rather prominent cheek-bones, round faces, and shaven heads.[17] He pronounces in favor of the highlands lying to the east of Babylonia, as the home of the Sumerians, whence they made their way into the Euphrates Valley. Unfortunately, the noses on these old statues are mutilated, and with such an important feature missing, anthropologists, at least, are unwilling to pronounce definitely as to the type represented. Again, together with these supposed non-Semitic types, other figures have been found which, as Professor Hommel also admits, show the ordinary Semitic features. It would seem, therefore, that even accepting the hypothesis of a non-Semitic type existing in Babylonia at this time, the Semitic settlers are just as old as the supposed Sumerians; and since it is admitted that the language found on these statues and figures contains Semitic constructions and Semitic words, it is, to say the least, hazardous to give the Sumerians the preference over the Semites so far as the period of settlement and origin of the Euphratean culture is concerned. As a matter of fact, we are not warranted in going beyond the statement that all evidence points in favor of a population of mixed races in the Euphrates Valley from the earliest period known to us. No positive proof is forthcoming that Sumer and Akkad were ever employed or understood in any other sense than as geographical terms.
[Pg 34] This one safe conclusion, however, that the Semitic settlers of Babylonia were not the sole occupants, but by their side dwelt another race, or possibly a variety of races, possessing entirely different traits, is one of considerable importance. At various times the non-Semitic hordes of Elam and the mountain districts to the east of Babylonia swept over the valley, and succeeded, for a longer or shorter period, in securing a firm foothold. The ease with which these conquerors accommodated themselves to their surroundings, continuing the form of government which they found there, making but slight changes in the religious practices, can best be accounted for on the supposition that the mixture of different races in the valley had brought about an interchange and interlacing of traits which resulted in the approach of one type to the other. Again, it has recently been made probable that as early at least as 2000, or even 2500 B.C., Semitic invaders entering Babylonia from the side of Arabia drove the native Babylonian rulers from the throne;[18] and at a still earlier period intercourse between Babylonia and distant nations to the northeast and northwest was established, which left its traces on the political and social conditions. At every point we come across evidence of this composite character of Babylonian culture, and the question as to the origin of the latter may, after all, resolve itself into the proposition that the contact of different races gave the intellectual impetus which is the first condition of a forward movement in civilization; and while it is possible that, at one stage, the greater share in the movement falls to the non-Semitic contingent, the Semites soon obtained the intellectual ascendency, and so absorbed the non-Semitic elements as to give to the culture resulting from the combination, the homogeneous character it presents on the surface.
Our present knowledge of Babylonian history reaches back to the period of about 4000 B.C. At that time we find the Euphrates Valley divided into a series of states or principalities, parcelling North and South Babylonia between them. These states group themselves around certain cities. In fact, the Babylonian principalities arise from the extension of the city's jurisdiction, just as the later Babylonian empire is naught but the enlargement, on a greater scale, of the city of Babylon.
Of these old Babylonian cities the most noteworthy, in the south, are Eridu, Lagash,[19] Ur, Larsa, Uruk, Isin; and in the north, Agade, Sippar, Nippur, Kutha, and Babylon. The rulers of these cities call themselves either 'king' (literally 'great man') or 'governor,' according as the position is a purely independent one, or one of subjection to a more powerful chieftain. Thus the earliest rulers of the district of Lagash, of whom we have inscriptions (c. 3200 B.C.) have the title of 'king,' but a few centuries later Lagash lost its independent position and its rulers became 'patesis,' i.e., governors. They are in a position of vassalage, as it would appear, to the contemporaneous kings of Ur, though this does not hinder them from engaging in military expeditions against Elam, and in extensive building operations. The kings of Ur, in addition to their title as kings of Ur, are styled kings of Sumer and Akkad. Whether at this time, Sumer and Akkad included the whole of Babylonia, or, as seems more likely, only the southern part, in either case, Lagash would fall under the jurisdiction of these kings, if their title is to be regarded as more than an empty boast. Again, the rulers of Uruk are known simply as kings of that place, while those of Isin incorporate in their titles, kingship over Ur as well as Sumer and Akkad.
[Pg 36] For this early period, extending from about 4000 B.C. to 2300, the chronology is as yet uncertain. Beyond the titles of the rulers over Babylonian states, there are but few safe indications for determining the succession of dynasties. So much, however, is now certain,—that simultaneous with the governors of Lagash and the older kings of Ur, there was an independent state in Northern Babylonia with its seat at Agade. Indeed the history of this state can now be traced back six centuries beyond that of Lagash. Two rulers of Agade, Naram-Sin (c. 3800 B.C.) and Sargon (or to give his fuller name, Shargani-shar-ali[20]), are the earliest rulers as yet known. These kings of Agade extended their jurisdiction as far north, at least, as Nippur on the one side and Sippar on the other. The city of Babylon itself, if it existed at this period, was therefore included within the territory of these kings; and it follows that if there existed rulers of Babylon at this time, which is doubtful (since the city is not mentioned), they were in the same position of dependency upon the rulers of Agade as the 'governors' of Lagash were upon some greater power. It is not until about the middle of the third millennium before this era, that Babylon comes into prominence.
In the south, as already intimated, the rulers of Lagash and the dynasty of Ur are the earliest of which we have any record. There is every reason to believe that further excavations at Mugheir will bring to light the names of older kings, and the presumption is in favor of regarding the southern states, or at least some of them, earlier than any in the north. The climax in the power of the kings of Ur, the period when[Pg 37] they exerted, in fact as well as in name, the sovereignty over all Sumer and Akkad may be fixed approximately at 3000 B.C. How far we shall be able to go beyond that, for the beginnings of this state, must, for the present, remain doubtful, with the chances in favor of a considerably earlier date; and it may be that prior to Ur and Lagash there were dynasties established elsewhere,—at Eridu, perhaps,—the existence of which will be revealed by future discoveries. An independent state with its seat at Uruk follows upon the culminating period of the glory of Ur, and may be regarded, indeed, as an indication that the rulers of Ur had lost their control over the whole of Southern Babylonia. Isin, whose site has not yet been determined, but which lay probably to the north of Uruk, was another political center. Its rulers, so far as we know them, curiously assign the fourth place to the title 'king of Isin,' giving precedence to their control over Nippur, Eridu, and Uruk. We may conclude from this, that at the time when Isin extended its supremacy, the greater luster attaching to the old towns of Nippur and Uruk, was emphasized by the precedence given to these centers over Isin, although the Isin kings are only 'shepherds' and 'merciful lords' over Nippur and Uruk, and not kings.
At a subsequent period, the kings of Ur appear to have regained the supremacy, which was wrested from them by Isin; and the rulers of the latter acknowledge their dependence upon the kings of Ur. This so-called second dynasty of Ur includes Nippur. The kings are proud of calling themselves the guardians of the temple of Bel in Nippur, nominated to the office by the god himself, and reviving an old title of the kings of Agade, style themselves also 'king of the four regions.' Another change in the political horoscope is reflected in the subjection of Ur to a district whose center was Larsa, not far from Ur, and represented by the mound Senkereh. There are two kings, Nur-Rammân (i.e., light of Ramman) and Sin-iddina (i.e., Sin[Pg 38] judges), who call themselves guardians of Ur and kings of Larsa, showing that the center of this principality was Larsa, with Ur as a dependent district. That these rulers take up the dominion once held by the kings of Ur is further manifest in the additional title that they give to themselves, as 'kings of Sumer and Akkad,' whereas the omission of the title 'king of the four regions' indicates apparently the exclusion of Agade and Nippur; and with these, probably North Babylonia in general, from their supremacy. The power of Larsa receives a fatal check through the invasion of Babylonia by the Elamites (c. 2350 B.C.).
These variations in official titles are a reflection of the natural rivalry existing between the various Babylonian states, which led to frequent shiftings in the political situation. Beyond this, the inscriptions of these old Babylonian rulers, being ordinarily commemorative of the dedication to a deity, of some temple or other construction—notably canals—or of some votive offering, a cone or tablet, unfortunately tell us little of the events of the time. Pending the discovery of more complete annals, we must content ourselves with the general indications of the civilization that prevailed, and of the relations in which the principalities stood to one another, and with more or less doubtful reconstructions of the sequence in the dynasties. In all of this period, however, the division between North and South Babylonia was kept tolerably distinct, even though occasionally, and for a certain period, a North Babylonian city, like that of Agade and Nippur, extended its jurisdiction over a section bordering on the south and vice versa. It remained for a great conqueror, Hammurabi, the sixth king of a dynasty having its seat in the city of Babylon itself, who about the year 2300 B.C. succeeded in uniting North and South Babylonia under one rule. With him, therefore, a new epoch in the history of the Euphrates Valley begins. Henceforth the supremacy of the city of Babylon remains undisputed, and the other[Pg 39] ancient centers, losing their political importance, retain their significance only by virtue of the sanctuaries existing there, to which pilgrimages continued to be made, and through the commercial activity that, upon the union of the various Babylonian districts, set in with increased vigor.
Attention was directed a few years ago by Pognon and Sayce to the fact that the name of Hammurabi, as well as the names of four kings that preceded him, and of a number that followed, are not Babylonian. Sayce expressed the opinion that they were Arabic, and Professor Hommel has recently reënforced the position of Sayce by showing the close resemblance existing between these names and those found on the monuments of Southern Arabia.[21] While no evidence has as yet been found to warrant us in carrying back the existence of the Minean empire in Southern Arabia beyond 1500 B.C., still since at this period, this empire appears in a high state of culture, with commercial intercourse established between it and Egypt, as well as Palestine, the conclusion drawn by Hommel that Babylonia was invaded about 2500 B.C. by an Arabic-speaking people is to be seriously considered. Elam, as we have seen, was constantly threatening Babylonia from the East, and shortly before Hammurabi's appearance, succeeded in putting an end to the dynasty of Larsa. It now appears that the inhabitants of the Euphrates Valley were also threatened by an enemy lodged somewhere in the southwest. Though Hommel's hypothesis still needs confirmation, and may perhaps be somewhat modified by future researches, still so much seems certain: that the great union of the Babylonian states and the supremacy of the city of Babylon itself was achieved not by Babylonians but by foreigners who entered Babylonia from its western (or southwestern) side. The dynasty of which Hammurabi is the chief representative comes to an end c. 2100, and is followed by another[Pg 40] known as Shish-Kha,[22] whose rulers likewise appear to be foreigners; and when this dynasty finally disappears after a rule of almost four centuries, Babylonia is once more conquered by a people coming from the northern parts of Elam and who are known as the Cassites.[23] These Cassites, of whose origin, character, and language but little is known as yet, ruled over Babylonia for a period of no less than 576 years; but adapting themselves to the customs and religion of the country, their presence did not interfere with the normal progress of culture in the Euphrates Valley. We may therefore embrace the period of Hammurabi and his successors, down through the rule of the Cassite kings, under one head. It is a period marked by the steady growth of culture, manifesting itself in the erection of temples, in the construction of canals, and in the expansion of commerce. Active relationships were maintained between Babylonia and distant Egypt.
This movement did not suffer an interruption through the invasion of the Cassites. Though Nippur, rather than Babylon, appears to have been the favorite city of the dynasty, the course of civilization flows on uninterruptedly, and it is not until the growing complications between Babylonia and Assyria, due to the steady encroachment on the part of the latter, that decided changes begin to take place.
About 1500 B.C. the first traces of relationship between Babylonia and the northern Mesopotamian power, Assyria, appear. These relations were at first of a friendly character, but it is not long before the growing strength of Assyria becomes a serious menace to Babylonia. In the middle of the thirteenth century, Assyrian arms advance upon the city of Babylon. For some decades, Babylon remains in subjection to[Pg 41] Assyria, and although she regains her independence once more, and even a fair measure of her former glory, the power of the Cassites is broken. Internal dissensions add to the difficulties of the situation and lead to the overthrow of the Cassites (1151 B.C.). Native Babylonians once more occupy the throne, who, although able to check the danger still threatening from Elam, cannot resist the strong arms of Assyria. At the close of the twelfth century Tiglathpileser I. secures a firm hold upon Babylonia, which now sinks to the position of a dependency upon the Assyrian kings.
In contrast to Babylonia, which is from the start stamped as a civilizing power, Assyria, from its rise till its fall, is essentially a military empire, seeking the fulfillment of its mission in the enlargement of power and in incessant warfare. Its history may be traced back to about 1800 B.C., when its rulers, with their seat in the ancient city of Ashur, first begin to make their presence felt. The extension of their power proceeds, as in Babylonia, from the growing importance of the central city, and soon embraces all of Assyria proper. They pass on into the mountain regions to the east, and advancing to the west, they encounter the vigorous forces of Egypt, whose Asiatic campaigns begin about the same time as the rise of Assyria. The Egyptians, abetted by the Hittites—the possessors of the strongholds on the Orontes—successfully check the growth of Assyria on this side, at least for a period of several centuries. In the meanwhile, the Assyrian king gathers strength enough to make an attack upon Babylonia.
The conflict, once begun, continues, as has been indicated, with varying fortunes. Occasional breathing spells are brought about by a temporary agreement of peace between the two empires, until at the end of the twelfth century, Assyria,[Pg 42] under Tiglathpileser I., secures control over the Babylonian empire. Her kings add to their long list of titles that of 'ruler of Babylonia.' They either take the government of the south into their hands or exercise the privilege of appointing a governor of their choice to regulate the affairs of the Euphrates Valley. From this time on, the history of Babylonia and Assyria may be viewed under a single aspect. The third period of Babylonian history—the second of Assyrian history—thus begins about 1100 B.C., and continues till the fall of Assyria in the year 606 B.C. These five centuries represent the most glorious epoch of the united Mesopotamian empire. During this time, Assyria rises to the height of an all-embracing power. With far greater success than Egypt, she securely established her sovereignty over the lands bordering on the Mediterranean. After severe struggles, the Hittites are overcome, the names of their strongholds on the Orontes changed, in order to emphasize their complete possession by the Assyrians, and the principalities of Northern Syria become tributary to Assyria. Phoenicia and the kingdom of Israel are conquered, while the southern kingdom of Judah purchases a mere shadow of independence by complete submission to the conditions imposed by the great and irresistible monarchy. Far to the northeast Assyria extends her sway, while Babylonia, though occasionally aroused to a resistance of the tyrannical bonds laid upon her, only to be still further weakened, retains a distinctive existence chiefly in name. The culture of the south is the heritage bequeathed by old Babylonia to the north. Babylonian temples become the models for Assyrian architecture. The literary treasures in the archives of the sacred cities of the south are copied by the scribes of the Assyrian kings, and placed in the palaces of the latter. Meanwhile, the capital of Assyria moves towards the north. Ashur gives way under the glorious reign of Ashurnasirbal to Calah, which becomes the capitol in the year 880 B.C.;[Pg 43] and Calah, in turn, yields to Nineveh, which becomes, from the time of Tiglathpileser II., in the middle of the eighth century, the center of the great kingdom. Under Ashurbanabal, who rules from 668 to 626 B.C., the climax of Assyrian power is reached. He carries his arms to the banks of the Nile, and succeeds in realizing the dreams of his ancestors of a direct control over the affairs of Egypt. A patron of science and literature, as so many great conquerors, Ashurbanabal succeeds in making Nineveh a literary as well as a military center.
A vast collection of the cuneiform literature of Babylonia is gathered by him for the benefit of his subjects, as he is at constant pains to tell us. The city is further embellished with magnificent structures, and on every side he establishes his sovereignty with such force, that the might of Assyria appears invincible. The fatal blow, dealt with a suddenness that remains a mystery, came from an unexpected quarter. A great movement of wild northern hordes, rather vaguely known as the Cimmerians and Scythians, and advancing towards the south, set in shortly after the death of Ashurbanabal, and created great political disturbances. The vast number of these hordes, their muscular strength, and their unrestrained cruelty, made them a foe which Assyria found as hard to withstand, as Rome the approach of the Vandals and Goths. The sources for our knowledge of the last days of the Assyrian empire are not sufficient to enable us to grasp the details, but it is certain that the successful attempt of the Babylonians to throw off the Assyrian yoke almost immediately after Ashurbanabal's death, was a symptom of the ravages which the hordes made in reducing the vitality of the Assyrian empire. Her foes gained fresh courage from the success that crowned the revolt of Babylonia. The Medes, a formidable nation to the east of Assyria, and which had often crossed arms with the Assyrians, entered into combination with Babylonia, and the two making several united assaults upon Nineveh, under the[Pg 44] leadership of Kyaxares, at last succeeded in effecting an entrance. The city was captured and burned to the ground. With the fall of Assyria, a feeling of relief passed over the entire eastern world. A great danger, threatening to extinguish the independence of all of the then known nations of the globe, was averted. The Hebrew prophets living at the time of this downfall, voice the general rejoicing that ensued when they declared, that even the cedars of Lebanon leaped for joy. The province of Assyria proper, fell into the hands of the Medes, but Babylonia, with her independence established on a firm footing, was the real heir of Assyria's spirit. Her most glorious monarch, Nebuchadnezzar II. (604-561 B.C.), seems to have dreamed of gaining for Babylon the position, once held by Nineveh, of mistress of the world. Taking Ashurbanabal as his model, he carried his arms to the west, subdued the kingdom of Judah, and, passing on to Egypt, strove to secure for Babylon, the supremacy exercised there for a short time by Assyrian monarchs. In addition to his military campaigns, however, he also appears in the light of a great builder, enlarging and beautifying the temples of Babylonia, erecting new ones in the various cities of his realm, strengthening the walls of Babylon, adorning the capital with embankment works and other improvements, that gave it a permanent place in the traditions of the ancient world as one of the seven wonders of the universe.
The glory of this second Babylonian empire was of short duration. Its vaulting ambition appears to have overleaped itself. Realizing for a time the Assyrian ideal of a world monarchy, the fall was as sudden as its rise was unexpected. Internal dissensions gave the first indication of the hollowness of the state. Nebuchadnezzar's son was murdered in 560 B.C., within two years after reaching the throne, by his own brother-in-law, Neriglissar; and the latter dying after a reign of only four years, his infant child was put out of the way and Nabonnedos,[Pg 45] a high officer of the state, but without royal prerogative, mounted the throne. In the year 550 news reached Babylon that Cyrus, the king of Anzan, had dealt a fatal blow to the Median empire, capturing its king, Astyages, and joining Media to his own district. He founded what was afterwards known as the Persian empire.
The overthrow of the Medes gave Cyrus control over Assyria, and it was to be expected that his gaze should be turned in the direction of Babylonia. Nabonnedos recognized the danger, but all his efforts to strengthen the powers of resistance to the Persian arms were of no avail. Civil disturbances divided the Babylonians. The cohesion between the various districts was loosened, and within the city of Babylon itself, a party arose antagonistic to Nabonnedos, who in their short-sightedness hailed the advance of Cyrus. Under these circumstances, Babylon fell an easy prey to the Persian conqueror. In the autumn of the year 539 Cyrus entered the city in triumph, and was received with such manifestations of joy by the populace, as to make one almost forget that with his entrance, the end of a great empire had come. Politically and religiously, the history of Babylonia and Assyria terminates with the advent of Cyrus; and this despite the fact that it was his policy to leave the state of affairs, including religious observances, as far as possible, undisturbed. A new spirit had, however, come into the land with him. The official religion of the state was that practiced by Cyrus and his predecessors in their native land. The essential doctrines of the religion, commonly known as Mazdeism or Zoroastrianism, presented a sharp contrast to the beliefs that still were current in Babylonia, and it was inevitable that with the influx of new ideas, the further development of Babylonian worship was cut short. The respect paid by Cyrus to the Babylonian gods was a mere matter of policy. Still, the religious rites continued to be practiced as of old in Babylonia and Assyria for a long time, and when the religion[Pg 46] finally disappeared, under the subsequent conquests of the Greeks, Romans, and Arabs, it left its traces in the popular superstitions and in the ineradicable traditions that survived. But so far as the history of this religion is concerned, it comes to an end with the downfall of the second Babylonian empire.
The period, then, to be covered by a treatment of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians extends over the long interval between about 4000 B.C. and the middle of the sixth century. The development of this religion follows closely the course of civilization and of history in the territory under consideration. The twofold division, accordingly, into Babylonia and Assyria, is the one that suggests itself also for the religion. The beginning, as is evident from the historical sketch given, must be made with Babylonia. It will be seen that, while the rites there and in Assyria are much the same, the characters of the gods as they developed in the south were quite different from those of the north; and, again, it was inevitable that the Assyrian influence manifest in the second Babylonian empire should give to the religion of the south at this time, some aspects which were absent during the days of the old Babylonian empire. In Babylonia, again, the political changes form the basis for the transformation to be observed in the position occupied by the deities at different periods; and the same general remark applies to the deities peculiar to Assyria, who must be studied in connection with the course pursued by the Assyrian empire.
The division of the subject which thus forces itself upon us is twofold, (1) geographical, and (2) historical.
It will be necessary to treat first of the beliefs and pantheon developed during the first two periods of Babylonian history, down to the practical conquest of Babylonia by[Pg 47] Assyria. Then, turning to Assyria, the traits of the pantheon peculiar to Upper Mesopotamia will be set forth. In the third place, the history of the religion will be traced in Babylonia during the union of the Babylonian-Assyrian empire; and, lastly, the new phases of that religion which appeared in the days of the second Babylonian empire. Turning after this to other aspects of the religion, it will be found that the religious rites were only to a small degree influenced by political changes, while the literature and religious art are almost exclusively products of Babylonia. In treating of these subjects, accordingly, no geographical divisions are called for, in setting forth their chief features.
The general estimate to be given at the close of the volume will furnish an opportunity of making a comparison between the Babylonian-Assyrian religion and other religions of the ancient world, with a view to determining what foreign influences may be detected in it, as well as ascertaining the influence it exerted upon others.[Pg 48]
[16] I may be permitted to refer to a publication by Dr. Brinton and myself, The Cradle of the Semites (Philadelphia, 1889), in which the various views as to this home are set forth.
[17] It has been suggested that since the statues of Telloh are those of the priest-kings, only the priestly classes shaved their hair off.
[18] See an interesting discussion of the question by Professor Hommel, "Arabia according to the Latest Discoveries and Researches."—Sunday School Times, 1895, nos. 41 and 43.
[19] Also known as Shirpurla which Jensen (Keils Bibl. 3, 1, 5) thinks was the later name.
[20] See Hilprecht, Old Babylonian Inscriptions, i. 16-18. Naram-Sin signifies 'beloved of the god Sin' (the moon-god); Shargani-shar-ali—'the legitimate king, king of the city.' The excavations of the University of Pennsylvania have cast new light upon this most ancient period of Babylonian history. It is now known that the temple of Bel at Nippur antedates the reign of Naram-Sin, and in the further publications of the University, we may look for material which will enable us to pass beyond the period of Sargon.
[21] Sunday School Times, 1895, no. 41.
[22] For various views regarding the name and character of this dynasty see Winckler, Geschichte, pp. 67, 68, 328; Hilprecht, Assyriaca, pp. 25-28, 102, 103; Winckler, Altorientalische Forschungen, I. 275-277, and Rogers, Outlines, 32, note.
[23] See Delitzsch, Die Sprache der Kossaer.
The Babylonian religion in the oldest form known to us may best be described as a mixture of local and nature cults. Starting with that phase of religious beliefs known as Animism, which has been ascertained to be practically universal in primitive society, the Babylonians, from ascribing life to the phenomena of nature, to trees, stones, and plants, as well as to such natural events, as storm, rain, and wind, and as a matter of course to the great luminaries and to the stars—would, on the one hand, be led to invoke an infinite number of spirits who were supposed to be, in some way, the embodiment of the life that manifested itself in such diverse manners; and yet, on the other hand, this tendency would be restricted by the experience which would point to certain spirits, as exercising a more decisive influence upon the affairs of man than others. The result of this would be to give a preponderance to the worship of the sun and moon and the water, and of such natural phenomena as rain, wind, and storms, with their accompaniment of thunder and lightning, as against the countless sprites believed to be lurking everywhere. The latter, however, would not for this reason be ignored altogether. Since everything was endowed with life, there was not only a spirit of the tree which produced the fruit, but there were spirits in every field. To them the ground belonged, and upon their mercy depended the success or failure of the produce. To secure the favor of the rain and the sun was not sufficient to the agriculturist; he was obliged to obtain the protection of the guardian spirits of the soil, in order to be sure of reaping the fruit of his[Pg 49] labors. Again, when through association, the group of arable plots grew into a hamlet, and then through continued growth into a town, the latter, regarded as a unit by virtue of its political organization under a chief ruler, would necessarily be supposed to have some special power presiding over its destinies, protecting it from danger, and ready to defend the rights and privileges of those who stood immediately under its jurisdiction. Each Babylonian city, large or small, would in this way obtain a deity devoted to its welfare, and as the city grew in extent, absorbing perhaps others lying about, and advancing in this way to the dignity of a district, the city's god would correspondingly increase his jurisdiction. As it encroached upon the domain of other local deities, it would by conquest annihilate the latter, or reduce them to a subservient position. The new regime would be expressed by making the conquered deity, the servant of the victorious, or the two might be viewed in the relation of father to son; and again, in the event of a peaceful amalgamation of two cities or districts, the protecting deities might join hands in a compact, mirroring the partnership represented by the conjugal tie. In this way, there arose in Babylon a selection, as it were, out of an infinite variety of personified forces, manifest or concealed, that at one time may have been objects of worship. The uniformity of the spirit world, which is the characteristic trait of primitive Animism, gave way to a differentiation regulated by the political development and the social growth of Babylonia. The more important natural forces became gods, and the inferior ones were, as a general thing, relegated to the secondary position of mere sprites, like the jinns, in Arabic beliefs. Only in the case of the guardian spirit of an entire city or district, would there result—and even this not invariably—an elevation to the grade of deity, in the proper sense of the word. In many cases, however, this guardian deity might be a heavenly body, as the moon or sun or stars, all of which were supposed to regulate[Pg 50] the fate of mankind or some force of nature, as the rain or the storm; and even if this were not originally the case, the protecting deity might, in the course of time, become identified with one of the forces of nature; and, if for no other reason, simply because of the prominence which the worship of the force in question acquired in the place. As a consequence, the mixture of local and nature cults is so complete that it is often impossible to distinguish the one from the other. It is hard in many cases to determine whether the deity which is identified with a certain city was originally a mere local spirit watching over a certain restricted territory, or a personification of a natural force associated in some way with a certain section of Babylonia.[Pg 51]
With these preliminary remarks, we may turn, as the first part of our subject, to a consideration of the oldest of the Babylonian gods. Our main sources are the inscriptions of the old Babylonian rulers, above referred to. These are, in most cases, of a dedicatory character, being inscribed on statues, cylinders, or tablets, placed in the temples or on objects—cones, knobs, stones—presented as votive offerings to some god. Besides the inscriptions of the rulers, we have those of officials and others. Many of these are likewise connected directly or indirectly with religious worship.
The advantage of the historical texts over the purely religious ones consists in their being dated, either accurately or approximately. For this reason, the former must be made the basis for a rational theory of the development of the Babylonian pantheon through the various periods above instanced. The data furnished by the religious texts can be introduced only, as they accord with the facts revealed by the historical inscriptions in each period.
Taking up the group of inscriptions prior to the union of the Babylonian States under Hammurabi, i.e., prior to 2300 B.C., we find these gods mentioned: Bel, Belit, Nin-khar-sag, Nin-girsu, also appearing as Shul-gur, Bau, Ga-tum-dug, Ea, Nin-a-gal, Nergal, Shamash, under various forms Â, who is the consort of Shamash, Nannar or Sin, Nanâ, Anunit, Ishtar, Innanna or Ninni, Ninâ, Nin-mar, Dun-shagga, Gal-alim, Anu, Nin-gish-zida, Nin-si-a, Nin-shakh, Dumu-zi, Lugal-banda and his consort Nin-gul, Dumuzi-zu-aba, Nisaba, Ku(?)anna, Lugal-erima(?), Dagan, Ishum, Umu, Pa-sag, Nin-e-gal, Nin-gal, Shul(or Dun)-pa-uddu, and Nin-akha-kuddu.[Pg 52]
Regarding these names, it may be said at once that the reading, in many cases, is to be looked upon as merely provisional. Written, as they usually are, in the ideographic "style," the phonetic reading can only be determined when the deity in question can be identified with one, whose name is written at some place phonetically, or when the ideographs employed are so grouped as to place the phonetic reading beyond doubt. The plan to be followed in this book will be to give the ideographic reading[24] as provisional wherever the real pronunciation is unknown or uncertain. The ideographic designation of a deity is of great value, inasmuch as the ideographs themselves frequently reveal the character of the god, though of course the additional advantage is obvious when the name appears in both the ideographic and the phonetic writing. It will, therefore, form part of a delineation of the Babylonian pantheon to interpret the picture, as it were, under which each deity is viewed.
Taking up the gods in the order named, the first one, Bel, is also the one who appears on the oldest monuments as yet unearthed—the inscriptions of Nippur. His name is, at this time, written invariably as En-lil. In the Babylonian theology, he is 'the lord of the lower world.' He represents, as it were, the unification of the various forces whose seat and sphere of action is among the inhabited parts of the globe, both on the surface and beneath, for the term 'lower world' is here used in contrast to the upper or heavenly world. Such a conception manifestly belongs to the domain of abstract thought, and it may be concluded, therefore, that either the deity belongs to an advanced stage of Babylonian culture, or that the original view of the deity was different from the one just mentioned.[Pg 53] The latter is the case. Primarily, the ideograph Lil is used to designate a 'demon' in general, and En-lil is therefore the 'chief demon.' Primitive as such a conception is, it points to some system of thought that transcends primitive Animism, which is characterized rather by the equality accorded to all spirits. The antiquity of the association of En-lil with Nippur justifies the conclusion that we have before us a local deity who, originally the protecting spirit merely, of a restricted territory, acquires the position of 'chief demon' as the town of Nippur grows to be the capitol of a large and powerful district. The fame and sanctity of Nippur survives political vicissitudes; and, indeed, in proportion as Nippur loses political prestige, the great deity of the place is released from the limitations due to his local origin and rises to the still higher dignity of a great power whose domain is the entire habitable universe. As the 'lord of the lower world,' En-lil is contrasted to a god Anu, who presides over the heavenly bodies. The age of Sargon (3800 B.C.), in whose inscriptions En-lil already occurs, is one of considerable culture, as is sufficiently evidenced by the flourishing condition of art, and there can therefore be no objection against the assumption that even at this early period, a theological system should have been evolved which gave rise to beliefs in great powers whose dominion embraces the 'upper' and 'lower' worlds. It was because of this wide scope of his power that he became known as Bel, i.e., the lord par excellence; and it is equally natural to find his worship spread over the whole of Babylonia. In the south, the patron deity of Lagash is designated by Gudea as "the mighty warrior of Bel," showing the supremacy accorded to the latter. A temple to En-lil at Lagash, and known as E-adda, 'house of the father,' by virtue of the relationship existing between the god of Nippur and Nin-girsu, is mentioned by Uru-kagina. The temple is described as a lofty structure 'rising up to heaven.' In the north, Nippur remains the place where his worship[Pg 54] acquired the greatest importance, so that Nippur was known as the "land of Bel." The temple sacred to him at that place was a great edifice, famous throughout Babylonian history as E-Kur, i.e., mountain house, in the construction of which, a long line of Babylonian rulers took part. From Naram-Sin, ruler of Agade, on through the period of Cassite rule, the kings of Nippur proudly include in their titles that of 'builder of the Temple of Bel at Nippur,' measuring their attachment to the deity by the additions and repairs made to his sacred edifice.[25] Besides the kings of Agade, the rulers of other places pay their devotions to Bel of Nippur. So, a king of Kish, whose name is read Alu-usharshid by Professor Hilprecht,[26] brings costly vases of marble and limestone from Elam and offers them to Bel as a token of victory; and this at a period even earlier than Sargon. Even when En-lil is obliged to yield a modicum of his authority to the growing supremacy of the patron deity of the city of Babylon, the highest tribute that can be paid to the latter, is to combine with his real name, Marduk, the title of "Bel," which of right belongs to En-lil. We shall see how this combination of En-lil, or Bel, with Marduk reflects political changes that took place in the Euphrates Valley; and it is a direct consequence of this later association of the old Bel of Nippur with the chief god of Babylon, that the original traits of the former become obscured in the historical and religious texts. Dimmed popular traditions, which will be set forth in their proper place, point to his having been at one time regarded as a powerful chieftain armed with mighty weapons, but engaged in conflicts for the ultimate benefit of mankind. On the whole, he is a beneficent deity, though ready to inflict[Pg 55] severe punishment for disobedience to his commands. We must distinguish, then, in the case of En-lil, at least four phases:
1. His original rôle as a local deity;
2. The extension of his power to the grade of a great 'lord' over a large district;
3. Dissociation from local origins to become the supreme lord of the lower world; and
4. The transfer of his name and powers as god of Nippur to Marduk, the god of Babylon.
The last two phases can best be set forth when we come to the period, marked by the political supremacy of the city of Babylon. It is sufficient, at this point, to have made clear his position as god of Nippur.
The consort of En-lil is Nin-Lil, the 'mistress of the lower world.' She is known also as Belit, the feminine form to Bel, i.e., the lady par excellence. She, too, had her temple at Nippur, the age of which goes back, at least, to the first dynasty of Ur. But the glory of the goddess pales by the side of her powerful lord. She is naught but a weak reflection of Bel, as in general the consorts of the gods are. Another title by which this same goddess was known is
which means the 'lady of the high or great mountain.' The title may have some reference to the great mountain where the gods were supposed to dwell, and which was known to Babylonians[Pg 56] as the 'mountain of the lands.' Bel, as the chief of the gods, is more particularly associated with this mountain. Hence his temple is called the 'mountain house.' From being regarded as the inhabitant of the mountain, he comes to be identified with the mountain itself. Accordingly, he is sometimes addressed as the "great mountain,"[28] and his consort would therefore be appropriately termed 'the lady of the great mountain.' Besides the temple at Nippur, Belit, as Nin-khar-sag, had a sanctuary at Girsu, one of the quarters at Lagash (see under Nin-girsu), the earliest mention of which occurs on an inscription of Ur-Bau. The latter calls the goddess 'the mother of the gods,' which further establishes her identity with the consort of Bel. Entemena, another governor of Lagash, places his domain under the protection of Nin-khar-sag. The worship at Nippur, however, remained most prominent. The continued popularity of her cult is attested by the fortress Dur-zakar, which a later king, Samsu-iluna (c. 2200), erected in her honor.
In the inscriptions of Gudea and of his time, the god most prominently mentioned is the "Lord of Girsu." Girsu itself, as the inscriptions show, is one of the four sections into which the capitol city of Lagash was divided. It was there that the temple stood which was sacred to the patron deity, and we may conclude from this that Girsu is the oldest part of the city. Afterwards, Lagash became the general name for the capitol through being the quarter where the great palace of the king was erected. That Girsu was once quite distinct from Lagash is also evident from the title of "king of Girsu," with which a certain Uru-kagina, who is to be placed somewhat before Gudea, contents himself. The other three quarters, all of[Pg 57] which were originally independent cities, are Uru-azagga, Ninâ, and apparently Gish-galla.[29]
Nin-girsu is frequently termed the warrior of Bel,—the one who in the service of the 'lord of the lower world,' appears in the thick of the fight, to aid the subjects of Bel. In this rôle, he is identical with a solar deity who enjoys especial prominence among the warlike Assyrians, whose name is provisionally read Nin-ib, but whose real name may turn out to be Adar.[30] The rulers of Lagash declare themselves to have been chosen for the high office by Nin-girsu, and as if to compensate themselves for the degradation implied in being merely patesis, or governors, serving under some powerful chief, they call themselves the patesis of Nin-girsu, implying that the god was the master to whom they owed allegiance. The temple sacred to him at Girsu was called E-ninnu, and also by a longer name that described the god as the one 'who changes darkness into light,'—the reference being to the solar character of the god Nin-ib with whom Nin-girsu is identified. In this temple, Gudea and other rulers place colossal statues of themselves, but temper the vanity implied, by inscribing on the front and back of these statues, an expression of their devotion to their god. To Nin-girsu, most of the objects found at Tell-loh are dedicated; conspicuous among which are the many clay cones, that became the conventional objects for votive offerings. There was another side, however, to his nature, besides the belligerent one. As the patron of Lagash, he also presided[Pg 58] over the agricultural prosperity of the district. In this rôle he is addressed as Shul-gur or Shul-gur-an, i.e., the "god of the corn heaps"; Entemena and his son Enanna-tuma in erecting a kind of storehouse which they place under the protection of Nin-girsu, declare that their god is Shul-gur;[31] and an old hymn[32] identifies him with Tammuz, the personification of agricultural activity. Such a combination of apparently opposing attributes is a natural consequence of the transformation of what may originally have been the personification of natural forces, into local deities. Each field had its protecting spirit, but for the city as a whole, a local deity, whose rule mirrored the control of the human chief over his subjects, alone was available. To him who watched over all things pertaining to the welfare of the territory coming under his jurisdiction, various attributes, as occasion required, were ascribed, and quite apart from his original character, the god could thus be regarded, as the warrior and the peaceful husbandman at the same time.
Perhaps the most prominent of the goddesses in the ancient Babylonian period was Bau. One of the rulers of Lagash has embodied the name of the goddess in his name, calling himself Ur-Bau. It is natural, therefore, to find him more especially devoted to the worship of this deity. He does not tire of singing her praises, and of speaking of the temple he erected in her honor. Still, Ur-Bau does not stand alone in his devotion; Uru-kagina, Gudea, and others refer to Bau frequently,[Pg 59] while in the incantation texts, she is invoked as the great mother, who gives birth to mankind and restores the body to health. In the old Babylonian inscriptions she is called the chief daughter of Anu, the god of heaven. Among her titles, the one most frequently given is that of 'good lady.' She is the 'mother' who fixes the destinies of men and provides 'abundance' for the tillers of the soil. Gudea calls her his mistress, and declares that it is she who "fills him with speech,"—a phrase whose meaning seems to be that to Bau he owes the power he wields. Locally, she is identified with Uru-azagga (meaning 'brilliant town'), a quarter of Lagash; and it was there that her temple stood. As a consequence, we find her in close association with Nin-girsu, the god of Girsu. We may indeed go further and assume that Girsu and Uru-azagga are the two oldest quarters of the city, the combination of the two representing the first natural steps in the development of the principality, afterwards known as Lagash, through the addition of other quarters[33]. She is indeed explicitly called the consort of Nin-girsu; and this relation is implied also, in the interesting phrase used by Gudea, who presents gifts to Bau in the name of Nin-girsu, and calls them 'marriage gifts'.[34] It is interesting to find, at this early period, the evidence for the custom that still prevails in the Orient, which makes the gifts of the bridegroom to his chosen one, an indispensable formality.[35] These gifts were offered on the New Year's Day, known as Zag-muk, and the importance of the worship of Bau is evidenced by the designation of this day, as the festival of Bau.
The offerings, themselves, consist of lambs, sheep, birds, fish, cream, besides dates and various other fruits. When[Pg 60] Uru-azagga becomes a part of Lagash, Bau's dignity is heightened to that of 'mother of Lagash.' As the consort of Ningirsu, she is identified with the goddess Gula, the name more commonly applied to the 'princely mistress' of Nin-ib, whose worship continues down to the days of the neo-Babylonian monarchy.
It is quite certain, however, that Bau is originally an independent goddess, and that the association of Uru-azagga and Girsu[36] lead to her identification with Gula. Regarding her original nature, a certain index is her character as "daughter of Anu." Anu being the god of heaven, Bau must be sought in the upper realm of personified forces, rather than elsewhere; but exactly which one she is, it is difficult to say. Hommel, indeed,[37] is of opinion that she is the personified watery depth, the primitive chaos which has only the heavens above it; but in giving this explanation, he is influenced by the desire to connect the name of Bau with the famous term for chaos in Genesis, Tohu-wa-bohu. There is, however, no proof whatsoever that Bau and Bohu have anything to do with one another. A goddess who can hardly be distinguished from Bau is
Indeed, from the fact that she is also the 'mother of Lagash,' it might seem that this is but another name for Bau. However, elsewhere, in two lists of deities invoked by Gudea (Inscr. B, col. ii. 17), Ga-tum-dug is given a separate place by the side of Bau, once placed before and once after the latter; and it is clear therefore that she was originally distinct from Bau. For Gudea, Ga-tum-dug is the mother who produced him. He is[Pg 61] her servant and she is his mistress. Lagash is her beloved city, and there he prepares for her a dwelling-place, which later rulers, like Entena, embellish. She is called the 'brilliant' (Azag), but as this title is merely a play upon the element found in the city, Uru-azagga, sacred to Bau, not much stress is to be laid upon this designation. Unfortunately, too, the elements composing her name are not clear,[39] and it must be borne in mind that the reading is purely provisional. So much, at least, seems certain: that Bau and Ga-tum-dug are two forms under which one and the same natural element was personified. Bau is called in the incantation texts, the mother of Ea. The latter being distinctly a water god, we may conclude that in some way, Bau is to be connected with water as a natural element. The conjecture may be hazarded that she personifies originally the waters of the upper realm—the clouds. Since Ea, who is her son, represents the waters of the lower realm, the relation of mother and son reflects perhaps a primitive conception of the origin of the deep, through the descent of the upper waters. When we come to the cosmogony of the Babylonians, it will be seen that this conception of a distinction between the two realms of waters is a fundamental one. This character as a spirit of the watery elements is shared by others of the goddesses appearing in the old Babylonian inscriptions.[40]
This god, who, as we shall see, becomes most prominent in the developed form of Babylonian theology, does not occupy the place one should expect in the early Babylonian inscriptions. Ur-Bau erects a sanctuary to Ea, at Girsu. Another of the governors of Lagash calls himself, priest of Ea, describing the[Pg 62] god as the "supreme councillor." From him, the king receives "wisdom."[41] A ruler, Rim-Sin, of the dynasty of Larsa, associates Ea with Bel, declaring that these "great gods" entrusted Uruk into his hands with the injunction to rebuild the city that had fallen in ruins. The ideograms, with which his name is written, En-ki, designate him as god of that 'which is below,'—the earth in the first place; but with a more precise differentiation of the functions of the great gods, Ea becomes the god of the waters of the deep. When this stage of belief is reached, Ea is frequently associated with Bel, who, it will be recalled, is the 'god of the lower region,' but who becomes the god of earth par excellence. When, therefore, Bel and Ea are invoked, it is equivalent, in modern parlance, to calling upon earth and water; and just as Bel is used to personify, as it were, the unification of the earthly forces, so Ea becomes, in a comprehensive sense, the watery deep. Ea and Bel assume therefore conspicuous proportions in the developed Babylonian cosmogony and theology. In the cosmogony, Bel is the creator and champion of mankind, and Ea is the subterranean deep which surrounds the earth, the source of wisdom and culture; in the theology, Ea and Bel are pictured in the relation of father and son, who, in concert, are appealed to, when misfortune or disease overtakes the sons of man; Ea, the father, being the personification of knowledge, and Bel, the practical activity that 'emanates from wisdom,' as Professor Sayce,[42] adopting the language of Gnosticism, aptly puts it; only that, as already suggested, Marduk assumes the rôle of the older Bel.
Confining ourselves here to the earlier phases of Ea, it seems probable that he was originally regarded as the god of Eridu,—one of the most ancient of the holy cities of Southern Babylonia, now represented by Abu-Shahrein, and which once stood on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Ur-Bau expressly calls the[Pg 63] god the 'king of Eridu.' The sacredness of the place is attested by Gudea, who boasts of having made the temple of Nin-girsu as sacred as Eridu.[43] It is over this city that Ea watches. The importance of the Persian Gulf to the growth of the city, would make it natural to place the seat of the god in the waters themselves. The cult of water-deities arises, naturally, at places which are situated on large sheets of water; and in the attributes of wisdom which an older age ascribed to Ea, there may be seen the embodiment of the tradition that the course of civilization proceeds from the south. The superiority of the Persian Gulf over the other waters of Babylon—over the two great rivers with their tributary streams and canals—would be another factor that would lead to the god of the Persian Gulf being regarded as the personification of the watery element in general. For the Babylonians, the Persian Gulf, stretching out indefinitely, and to all appearances one with the great ocean whose ulterior shores could not be reached, was the great 'Okeanos,' that flowed around the earth and on which the earth rested. Ea, accordingly (somewhat like En-lil), was delocalized, as it were, and his worship was maintained long after the recollection of his connection with Eridu had all but disappeared. At the same time, for the very reason that he was cut loose from local associations, no place could lay claim to being the seat of the deity. Ur-Bau, when erecting a sanctuary to Ea at Girsu, significantly calls the god 'the king of Eridu.' The sanctuary is not, in this case, the dwelling-place of the god.
We are justified, therefore, in going back many centuries, before reaching the period when Ea was, merely, the local god of Eridu. Whether Ea is to be regarded as the real name of the god, or is also an ideograph like En-ki, is again open to doubt. If Ea is the real pronunciation, then the writing of the name is a play upon the character of the deity, for it is composed[Pg 64] of two elements that signify 'house' and 'water,'—the name thus suggesting the character and real seat of the deity. A point in favor of regarding Ea as the real name, albeit not decisive, is the frequent use of the unmistakable ideographic description of the god as En-ki. The consort of Ea who is Dam-kina also occurs in the historical texts of the first period.
The origin of Babylonian civilization at the Persian Gulf, together with the dependence of Babylonia for her fertility upon the streams and canals, account for the numerous water-deities to be found in the ancient Babylonian pantheon, some of which have already been discussed. We will meet with others further on. Every stream, large or small, having its special protecting deity, the number of water-deities naturally increases as the land becomes more and more dissected by the canal system that conditioned the prosperity of the country.
Ea, as we shall see, appears under an unusually large number of names.[44] One of these is
which, signifying 'god of great strength,' is given to him as the patron of the smith's art.[45] A god of this name is mentioned by Ur-Bau,[46] who speaks of a sanctuary erected in honor of this deity. But since the king refers to Ea (as En-ki) a few lines previous, it would appear that at this period Nin-agal is still an independent deity. The later identification with Ea appears to be due to the idea of 'strength' involved in the name of Nin-agal. In the same way, many of the names of Ea were originally descriptive of independent gods who, because of the similarity of their functions to those of the great Ea,[Pg 65] were absorbed by the latter. Their names transferred to Ea, are frequently the only trace left of their original independent existence.
Nergal, the local deity of Cuthah (or Kutu), represented by the mound Tell-Ibrahim, some distance to the east of Babylon, was of an entirely different character from Ea, but his history in the development of the Babylonian religion is hardly less interesting. The first mention of his famous temple at Cuthah is found in an inscription of Dungi (to be read Ba'u-ukin, according to Winckler[47]) who belongs to the second dynasty of Ur (c. 2700 B.C.). Its origin, however, belongs to a still earlier period. Such was the fame of the temple known as E-shid-lam, and the closeness of the connection between the deity and his favorite seat, that Nergal himself became known as shid-lam-ta-ud-du-a, i.e., the god that rises up from E-shid-lam. It is by this epithet that the same Dungi describes him in one of his inscriptions.[48] Down to the latest period of Assyro-Babylonian history, Nergal remains identified with Kutu, being known at all times as the god of Kutu.[49] When Sargon, the king of Assyria, upon his conquest of the kingdom of Israel (c. 722 B.C.), brought people from Babylon, Cuthah, Ava, and so forth, across to the lands of the Jordan to take the place of the deported Israelites, the Hebrew narrator (II Kings, xvii. 24-35) tells us in an interesting manner of the obnoxious foreign worship which these people brought to the land, each division bringing the gods of their place with them. The men of Cuthah, he adds (v. 30), made a[Pg 66] statue of Nergal. Singamil, of the dynasty, having its capital at Uruk (c. 2750 B.C.), likewise testifies to his devotion to Nergal by busying himself with improvements and additions to his temple at Cuthah. His worship, therefore, was not confined to those who happened to reside at Cuthah; and closely as he is identified with the place, the character of the god is a general and not a special one. The full form of his name appears to have been Ner-unu-gal, of which Nergal, furnished by the Old Testament passage referred to, would then be a contraction or a somewhat corrupt form. The three elements composing his name signify "the mighty one of the great dwelling-place," but it is, again, an open question whether this is a mere play upon the character of the god, as in the name of Ea (according to one of the interpretations above suggested), or whether it is an ideographic form of the name. The Old Testament shows, conclusively, that the name had some such pronunciation as Nergal. Jensen, from other evidences, inclines to the opinion that the writing Ner-unu-gal is the result of a species of etymology, brought about by the prominence given to Nergal as the god of the region of the dead. It is in this capacity that he already appears in the inscription of Singamil, who calls him 'king of the nether world.' The "great dwelling-place," therefore, is clearly the dominion over which Nergal rules, and when we come to the cosmogony of the Babylonians,[50] it will be found that this epithet for the nether world—the great dwelling-place—accords with their conception of the life after death. But while Nergal, with a host of lesser demons about him, appears as the Babylonian Pluto, particularly in the religious texts, his functions are not limited to the control of the dead. He is the personification of some of the evils that bring death to mankind, particularly pestilence and war. The death that follows in his path is a violent one, and his destructive force is one that acts upon large masses rather than[Pg 67] upon the individual. Hence, one of the most common ideographs used to express his name is that which signifies 'sword.'
War and pestilence are intimately associated in the mind of the Babylonians. Among other nations, the sword is, similarly, the symbol of the deity, as the plague-bringer as well as the warrior.
To this day, a pestilence is the general accompaniment of war in the East, or follows in its wake. Different from Nin-ib, who is also a god of war, Nergal symbolizes more particularly the destruction which accompanies war, and not the strong champion who aids his subjects in the fight. Nergal is essentially a destroyer, and the various epithets applied to him in the religious texts, show that he was viewed in this light. He is at times the 'god of fire,' again 'the raging king,' 'the violent one' 'the one who burns'; and finally identified with the glowing heat of flame. Often, he is described by these attributes, instead of being called by his real name.[51] Dr. Jensen has recently shown in a satisfactory manner, that this phase of his character must be the starting-point in tracing the order of his development. As the 'glowing flame,' Nergal is evidently a phase of the sun, and Jensen proves that the functions and aspects of the sun at different periods being differentiated among the Babylonians, Nergal is more especially the hot sun of midsummer or midday, the destructive force of which was the chief feature that distinguished it. The hot sun of Babylonia, that burns with fierce intensity, brings pestilence and death, and carries on a severe contest against man. From being the cause of death, it is but a step, and a natural one, to make Nergal preside over the region, prepared for those whom he has destroyed. The course taken by Babylonian theology is responsible for the prominence given to the latter rôle of Nergal, which finally overshadows his other phases to the extent of suggesting the fanciful interpretation of his name as[Pg 68] the 'ruler of the great dwelling place for the dead.' In the light of the facts set forth, another explanation for his name must be looked for that would connect the god with solar functions. The name may in fact be divided into two elements, the first having the force of chief or ruler, the second 'great.' The combination would be an appropriate designation for the sun, in the rôle of a destructive power. But Nergal, after all, represents only one phase of the sun-god. The god who was worshipped as the personification of the sun par excellence and the sun as a whole, was
Written with an ideograph that describes him as the 'god of the day,' there is no deity whose worship enjoys an equally continued popularity in Babylonia and Assyria. Beginning at the earliest period of Babylonian history, and reaching to the latest, his worship suffers no interruption. Shamash, moreover, maintains his original character with scarcely any modification throughout this long period. For all that, he bears a name which signifies 'attendant' or 'servitor,' and which sufficiently shows the subsidiary position that he occupied in the Babylonian pantheon. One of the rulers belonging to the dynasty of Isin calls the sun-god, the offspring of Nannar,—one of the names of the moon-god,—and the last king of Babylonia, Nabonnedos, does the same. In combination with the moon-god, the latter takes precedence of Shamash,[52] and in the enumeration of the complete pantheon, in the inscriptions of both Assyrian and Babylonian kings, the same order is preserved. Other evidence that points to the superior rank accorded to Sin, the moon-god over the sun deity in Babylonia, is the reckoning of time by the moon phases. The day begins with the evening, and not with sunrise. The moon, as[Pg 69] the chief of the starry firmament, and controlling the fate of mankind, was the main factor in giving to the orb of night, this peculiar prominence. The 'service,' accordingly implied in the name of Shamash appears to have been such as was demanded by his subsidiary position to the moon-god. Beyond the general recognition, however, of this relationship between the two, it does not appear that the worship paid to Shamash, was at all affected by the secondary place, that he continued to hold in the theoretically constructed pantheon. Less than is the case with the other gods, is he identified with any particular city, and we therefore find in the most ancient period, two centers of Southern Babylonia claiming Shamash as their patron saint,—Larsa, represented by the mound of Senkereh, and Sippar, occupying the site of the modern Abu-Habba. It is difficult to say which of the two was the older; the latter, in the course of time, overshadowed the fame of the former, and its history can be traced back considerably beyond the sun-worship at Larsa, the first mention of which occurs in the inscriptions of rulers of the second dynasty of Ur (c. 2900 B.C.). Since Ur, as we shall see, was sacred to the moon-god, it is hardly likely that the Shamash cult was introduced at Larsa by the rulers of Ur. The kings of Ur would not have forfeited the protection of Sin, by any manifestation of preference for Shamash. When Ur-Gur, therefore, tells us that he 'built' a temple to Shamash at Larsa, he must mean, as Sin-iddina of the dynasty of Larsa does, in using the same phrase, that he enlarged or improved the edifice. What makes it all the more likely that Ur-Gur found sun-worship at Larsa in existence is, that in the various places over which this ruler spread his building activity, he is careful in each case to preserve the status of the presiding deity. So at Nippur, he engages in work at the temples of En-lil and of Nin-lil; while at Uruk he devotes himself to the temple of Nanâ. In thus connecting their names with the various sacred edifices of Babylonia, the[Pg 70] rulers emphasized, on the one hand, their control of the territory in which the building lay, and on the other, their allegiance to the deity of the place, whose protection and favor they sought to gain.
The mention of a temple to Shamash at Sippar reverts to a still earlier period than that of its rival. Nabonnedos tells us that it was founded by Naram-Sin. Sargon has put his name on some object[53] that he dedicates to the sun-god at Sippar. That there was an historical connection between the two temples may be concluded from the fact that the name of the sacred edifices was the same in both,—E-babbara, signifying the 'house of lustre.' Such a similarity points to a dependence of one upon the other, and the transfer or extension of the worship directly from one place to the other; but, as intimated, we have no certain means of determining which of the two is the older. In view of the general observation to be made in what pertains to the religion of the Babylonians, that fame and age go hand in hand, the balance is in favor of Sippar, which became by far the more famous of the two, received a greater share of popular affection, and retained its prominence to the closing days of the neo-Babylonian monarchy. We shall have occasion in a succeeding chapter to trace the history of the sun-temple at Sippar so far as known. It is interesting to note that Nabonnedos, feeling the end of his power to be near, undertakes, as one of the last resorts, the restoration of this edifice, in the hope that by thus turning once more to the powerful Shamash, he might secure his protection, in addition to that of Marduk, the head of the later Babylonian pantheon.
In Ur itself, Shamash was also worshipped in early days by the side of the moon-god. Eannatum, of the dynasty of Isin (c. 2800 B.C.), tells of two temples erected to him at that place; and still a third edifice, sacred to both Nannar (the moon god) and Shamash at Ur, is referred to by a king of the[Pg 71] Larsa dynasty, Rim-Sin (c. 2300 B.C.). The titles given to Shamash by the early rulers are sufficiently definite to show in what relation he stood to his worshippers, and what the conceptions were that were formed of him. He is, alternately, the king and the shepherd. Since the kings also called themselves shepherds, no especial endearment is conveyed by this designation. In the incantations, Shamash is frequently appealed to, either alone, or when an entire group of spirits and deities are enumerated. He is called upon to give life to the sick man. To him the body of the one who is smitten with disease is confided. As the god of light, he is appropriately called upon to banish 'darkness' from the house, darkness being synonymous with misfortune; and the appeal is made to him more particularly as the 'king of judgment.' From this, it is evident that the beneficent action of the sun, was the phase associated with Shamash. He was hailed as the god that gives light and life to all things, upon whose favor the prosperity of the fields and the well-being of man depend. He creates the light and secures its blessings for mankind. His favor produces order and stability; his wrath brings discomfiture and ruin to the state and the individual. But his power was, perhaps, best expressed by the title of "judge"—the favorite one in the numerous hymns that were composed in his honor. He was represented as seated on a throne in the chamber of judgment, receiving the supplications of men, and according as he manifested his favor or withdrew it, enacting the part of the decider of fates. He loosens the bonds of the imprisoned, grants health to the sick, and even revivifies the dead. On the other hand, he puts an end to wickedness and destroys enemies. He makes the weak strong, and prevents the strong from crushing the weak. From being the judge, and, moreover, the supreme judge of the world, it was but natural that the conception of justice was bound up with him. His light became symbolical of righteousness, and the absence of it, or darkness,[Pg 72] was viewed as wickedness. Men and gods look expectantly for his light. He is the guide of the gods, as well as the ruler of men.
While there are no direct indications in the historical texts known at present, that this conception of the sun-god existed in all its details before the days of Hammurabi, there is every reason to believe that this was the case; the more so, in that it does not at all transcend the range of religious ideas that we have met with in the case of the other gods of this period. Nor does this conception in any way betray itself, as being due to the changed political conditions that set in, with the union of the states under Hammurabi. Still, the age of the religious texts not being fixed, it is thus necessary to exercise some caution before using them without the basis of an allusion in the historical texts.
It but remains, before passing on, to note that the same deity appears under various names. Among these are Utu[54] and apparently also Babbar[55] in the old Babylonian inscriptions. For the latter, a Semitic etymology is forthcoming, and we may therefore regard it as representing a real pronunciation, and not an ideographic writing. Babbar, a contracted form from Barbar, is the reduplication of the same stem bar[56] that we have already met with, in the name of the temple sacred to Shamash. Like E-babbara, therefore, Babbar is the "brilliantly shining one,"—a most appropriate name for the sun, and one frequently applied to him in the religious texts. As to Utu, there is some doubt whether it represents a real pronunciation or not. My own opinion is that it does, and that the underlying stem is[Pg 73] atû, which in Babylonian has almost the same meaning as bar or barû, viz., 'to see.' 'Utu' would thus again designate the sun as 'that which shines forth.'
It will be recalled, that other instances have been noted of the same god appearing under different names. The most natural explanation for this phenomenon is, that the variation corresponds to the different localities where the god was worshipped. The identification would not be made until the union of the various Babylonian states had been achieved. Such a union would be a potent factor in systematizing the pantheon. When once it was recognized that the various names represented, in reality, one and the same deity, it would not be long before the name, peculiar to the place where the worship was most prominent, would set the others aside or reduce them to mere epithets.
It may well be that Shamash was the name given to the god at Sippar, whereas at Ur he may have been known as Utu. Ur-Bau (of the first Ur dynasty) calls him Utu also, when speaking of the temple at Larsa, but it would be natural for the kings of Ur to call the sun-god of Larsa by the same name that he had in Ur. That Hammurabi, however, calls the sun-god of Larsa, Utu, may be taken as an indication that, as such he was known at that place, for since we have no record of a sun-temple at Babylon in these days, there would be no motive that might induce him to transfer a name, otherwise known to him, to another place. The testimony of Hammurabi is therefore as direct as that of Sargon, who calls the sun-god of Sippar, Shamash. It is not always possible to determine, with as much show of probability, as in the case of the sun-god, the distribution of the various names, but the general conclusion, for all that, is warranted in every instance, that a variety of names refers, originally, to an equal variety of places over which the worship was spread,—only that care must be exercised to distinguish between distinctive names and mere epithets.[Pg 74]
A consort of the sun-deity, appearing frequently at his side in the incantation texts, is Â. It is more particularly with the Shamash of Sippar, that  is associated. She is simply the 'beloved one' of the sun-deity, with no special character of her own. In the historical texts, her rôle is quite insignificant, and for the period with which we are at present concerned she is only mentioned once by a North Babylonian ruler, Ma-an-ish-tu-su,[57] who dedicates an object to her. The reading of the ideogram Â, or Nin- (i.e., Lady Â), is doubtful. Malkatu ("mistress" or "queen") is offered as a plausible conjecture.[58] Lehman (Keils Bibl. iii. I, 202) suggests A-Ja, but on insufficient grounds. In any case  has the force of mistress, and Nin- simply designates the goddess as the lady, mistress, or queen. It is likely that  was originally an independent deity, and one of the names of the sun-god in a particular locality. It occurs in proper names as a title of Shamash. Instead, however, of becoming identified with Shamash,  degenerated into a pale reflection of Shamash, pictured under the relationship of consort to him. This may have been due to the union of Shamash with the place where  was worshipped. If, as seems likely, that near Sippar, there was another city on the other side of the Euphrates, forming a suburb to it (as Borsippa did to Babylon), the conclusion is perhaps warranted that  was originally the sun-god worshipped at the place which afterwards became incorporated with Sippar.[59] Such an amalgamation of two originally male deities into a combination of[Pg 75] male and female, strange as it may seem to us, is in keeping with the lack of sharp distinction between male and female in the oldest forms of Semitic religions. In the old cuneiform writing the same sign is used to indicate "lord" or "lady" when attached to deities. Ishtar appears among Semites both as a male[60] and as a female deity. Sex was primarily a question of strength. The stronger god was viewed as masculine; the weaker as feminine.
Nannar, a reduplicated form like Babbar, with the assimilation of the first r to n (nar-nar = nannar), has very much the same meaning as Babbar. The latter, as we have seen, is the "lustrous one," the former, the "one that furnishes light." The similarity in meaning is in keeping with the similarity of function of the two deities, thus named: Babbar being the sun and Nannar, the moon. It was under the name of Nannar that the moon-god was worshipped at Ur, the most famous and probably the oldest of the cities over which the moon-god presided. The association of Nannar with Ur is parallel to that of Shamash with Sippar,—not that the moon-god's jurisdiction or worship was confined to that place, but that the worship of the deity of that place eclipsed others, and the fame and importance at Ur led to the overshadowing of the moon-worship there, over the obeisance to him paid elsewhere.
What further motives led to the choice of the moon-god as the patron of Ur, lies beyond the scope of our knowledge. Due allowance must be made for that natural selection, which takes place in the realm of thought as much as in the domain of nature. Attention has already been called to the predominance given by the Babylonians to the moon over the sun.[Pg 76] The latter is expressly called the "offspring of the lord of brilliant beginning," that is, the moon-god (Delitzsch, Assyr. Hdw., p. 234 a). It is needless, therefore, to do more, at this place, than to emphasize the fact anew. The moon serving much more as a guide to man, through the regular character of its constant changes, than the sun, was connected in the religious system with both the heavenly and the terrestrial forces. In view of Nannar's position in the heavens, he was called the "heifer of Anu." Anu, it will be recalled, was the god of heaven (and heaven itself), while the "heifer"[61] is here used metaphorically for offspring, the picture being suggested probably by the "horn" that the moon presents at a certain phase. This 'horn' constitutes his crown, and he is frequently represented on seal cylinders with a crescent over his head, and with a long flowing beard, that is described as having the color of lapislazuli. A frequent title is the 'lord of the crown.' On the other hand, by virtue of its influence on the earth, regulating, as the ancients observed, the tides, the moon was connected by the Babylonians with the reckoning of time. Because of this connection with the 'lower world,' it seems, he was also regarded as the first-born of Bel. His sacred edifice at Ur was one to which all rulers of the place devoted themselves. Ur-Gur, Nur-Rammân, Sin-iddina, and Kudur-mabuk tell of their embellishment of the temple, each one appropriating to himself the title of 'builder,' in which they gloried. So close, again, was the identification of the city with the deity, that the latter was frequently known simply as the god of Ur, and the former, as the city of Nannar.
Another name of the moon-god was Sin,—the meaning of which escapes us. At the side of Ur, Harran is the place most celebrated by reason of its moon-worship, and there is every reason to believe that the name Sin was originally attached to[Pg 77] Harran. The migrations of the ancient Hebrews were connected as we now know with political movements in Babylonia. They proceed from Ur—or Ur-Kasdim, i.e., Chaldean Ur—northward to Harran, which, by virtue of its position, became a town of much importance. This association of Ur with Harran furnishes an indication for historical relations of some sort, existing between the two places. It is therefore not accidental, that the patron deity of both places was the same. As yet, no excavations have been made at Harran, and we are, therefore, dependent upon incidental notices for our knowledge of its history. These sufficiently show that the place continued through a long period to preserve its sacred character. The old temple there, was one of the many that stirred up the religious zeal of Nabonnedos; and previous to this, we find several Assyrian kings occupied in embellishing and restoring the structure. An interesting reference to Harran, bearing witness to its ancient dignity, is found in an inscription of Sargon II. of Assyria (722-706 B.C.), who enumerates among his claims to the favor of the gods, that he restored the "laws and customs of Harran," by which he evidently means that he was instrumental in giving the place, the dignity it once enjoyed. A curious feature connected with Sin, is the occurrence of the name in Mount Sinai, in the wilderness of Sin, as well as in an inscription of Southern Arabia. May not this be a further testimony to the association of Harran with Sin, since it is from Harran that the departure of the Hebrews for the west took place? What more natural than that in the migrations which carried the Hebrews to the west, the worship of Sin should have been transferred to Arabia?[62] Important as Ur and Harran are as sacred towns, politically they do not retain their prominence after the days of Hammurabi. The amalgamation of Nannar[Pg 78] with Sin, and the almost exclusive occurrence of the latter name in later times, does not of necessity point to a preponderating influence of Harran over Ur, but may be due to the greater fame which the former place acquired as the goal of religious pilgrimages. The situation of Harran—the name itself signifies 'road'—as the highway leading to the west, must have been an important factor, in bringing this about. However this may be, Sin and Nannar are as thoroughly identical in the period following Hammurabi, as Babbar and Shamash. The attributes of the one are transferred to the other so completely, that a separation of the two is no longer possible.
The ideographs with which the name of Sin is written show him to have been regarded as the god of wisdom, but while wisdom and light may be connected, it is Nannar's character as the "illuminator" that becomes the chief trait of the god. No doubt the preëminence of Ea in this respect, who is the personification of wisdom, par excellence, made it superfluous to have another deity possessing the same trait. It is, accordingly, as the god of light, that Sin continues to be adored in the Babylonian religion; and when he is referred to, in the historical texts and hymns, this side of his nature is the one dwelt upon. Through his light, the traps laid by the evil spirits, who are active at night, are revealed. In later times, apparently through Assyrian influence, the reckoning of time was altered to the extent of making the day begin with sunrise, instead of with the approach of night; and this, together with the accommodation of the lunar cycle to the movements of the sun, brought about a partial change of the former conditions, and gave somewhat greater prominence to Shamash. As a consequence, the rôle of Sin is not as prominent in the hymns that belong to a later period as in those of earlier days.
The oracles of the Assyrian kings are addressed to Shamash, and not to Sin. Moreover, the personal factor in the case of Sin, if one may express oneself thus, is not as strong as in[Pg 79] that of some other gods. His traits are of a more general kind. He is supreme; there is none like him, and the spirits are subservient to his will. But terms of endearment are few, while on the mythological side, comparatively little is made of him. He is strong and he is holy. He is called upon to clothe the evil-doer with leprosy, as with a dress. In a robe, befitting his dignity, he stalks about. Without him, no city is founded, no district restored to former glory. Sin is called the father of the gods, but in a metaphorical rather than in a real sense. The only one of his children who takes an important part in the later phases of Babylonian-Assyrian worship is his daughter Ishtar. She seems to have taken to herself some of the traits of right belonging to Sin, and the prominence of her worship may be regarded as an additional factor in accounting for the comparative obscurity to which Sin gradually is assigned. At all events, Sin is a feature of the earlier period of the Babylonian religion rather than of the later periods.
The secondary position held by the female deities in the Babylonian pantheon has been repeatedly referred to. This trait of the religion finds an illustration not only in the 'shadowy' character of the consorts of the gods, but also in the manner in which goddesses, originally distinct from one another and enjoying an existence independent of any male consort, lose their individuality, as it were, and become merely so many forms of one and the same deity. Indeed, as we approach the moment when the gods of the Babylonian pantheon are ranged into a system, the tendency becomes pronounced to recognize only one goddess, representative of the principle of generation—one 'great mother,' endowed with a variety of traits according to the political and social conditions prevailing at different times in Babylonia and Assyria.[Pg 80] In the earliest period which we are now considering, we can still distinguish a number of goddesses who afterwards became merged into this one great goddess. These are Ninni (or Innanna), Nanâ, and Anunit.
Ninni and Innanna are names that appear to have a common origin.[63] Both embody the notion of 'ladyship.' The worship of this goddess centers in the district of Lagash. Ur-Bau (c. 3000 B.C.), who addresses her as 'glorious and supreme,' builds a temple in her honor at Gishgalla, and Gudea refers to a temple known as E-anna, i.e., heavenly house in Girsu.[64] For Gudea, Ninni is the "mistress of the world." Another ruler of Lagash whose name is doubtfully read as E-dingir-ra-na-gin,[65] but who is even earlier than Ur-Bau, declares that he has been 'called' by Innanna to the throne. She is mentioned by the side of Nin-khar-sag. We are still in the period where local associations formed a controlling factor in ensuring the popularity of a deity, and while the goddesses attached to the gods of the important centers are still differentiated, the tendency already exists to designate the female consorts simply as the 'goddess,'—to apply to all, the traits that may once have been peculiar to one. As we pass from one age to the other, there is an increasing difficulty in keeping the various local 'goddesses' apart. Even the names become interchangeable; and since these goddesses all represented essentially the same principle of generation and fertility, it was natural that with the union of the Babylonian states they should become merged into one great mother-goddess. A 'local' goddess who retains rather more of her individuality than others, is
Her name is again playfully interpreted by the Babylonians—through association with Nin—as 'the lady' par excellence. She was the chief goddess of the city of Uruk. Her temple at Uruk is first mentioned by Ur-Gur, of the second dynasty of Ur. It is restored and enlarged by Dungi, the successor of Ur-Bau, and so thoroughly is she identified with her edifice known as E-anna (again a play upon her name), that she becomes known as the Lady of E-anna.[66] She appears to have had a temple also at Ur, and it is to this edifice that later rulers of Larsa—Kudur-Mabuk and Rim-Sin, as well as the kings of the Isin dynasty, Gamil-Ninib, Libit-Ishtar, and Ishme-Dagan—refer in their inscriptions.
The members of the Isin dynasty pride themselves upon their control over Uruk, and naturally appear as special devotees to Nanâ, whose chosen "consort" they declare themselves to be, wielding the sceptre, as it were, in union with her. Already at this period, Nanâ is brought into connection with the moon-god, being called by Kudur-Mabuk the daughter of Sin. The relationship in this case indicates, primarily, the supremacy exercised by Ur, and also a similarity in the traits of the two deities. In the fully developed cosmology, Nanâ is the planet Venus, whose various aspects, as morning and evening star, suggested an analogy with the phases of the moon.
Venus, like the moon, served as a guide to man, while her inferiority in size and importance to the former, would naturally come to be expressed under the picture of father and daughter. In a certain sense, all the planets appearing at the same time and in the same region with the moon were the children of the latter. Sin, therefore, is appropriately called[Pg 82] the father of gods, just as Anu, the personification of the heaven itself, is the supreme father of Sin and Shamash, and of all the heavenly bodies. The metaphorical application of 'father' as 'source,' throughout Oriental parlance, must be kept in mind in interpreting the relationship between the gods. Still another name of the goddess is Anunit, which appears to have been peculiar to the North Babylonian city Agade, and emphasizes her descent from "Anu," the god of heaven. Her temple at Agade, known as E-ul-mash, is the object of Sargon's devotion, which makes her, with Bel and Shamash, the oldest triad of gods mentioned in the Babylonian inscriptions. But the name which finally displaces all others, is
Where the name originated has not yet been ascertained, as little as its etymology,[67] but it seems to belong to Northern Babylonia rather than to the south.
In time, all the names that we have been considering—Innanna, Nanâ, and Anunit—became merely so many designations of Ishtar. She absorbs the titles and qualities of all, and the tendency which we have pointed out finds its final outcome in the recognition of Ishtar as the one and only goddess endowed with powers and an existence independent of association with any male deity, though even this independence does not hinder her from being named at times as the associate of the chief god of Assyria—the all-powerful Ashur. The attempt has been made by Sayce and others to divide the various names of Ishtar among the aspects of Venus as morning and evening star, but there is no evidence to show that the[Pg 83] Babylonians distinguished the one from the other so sharply as to make two goddesses of one and the same planet.
It is more in accord with what, as we have seen, has been the general character of the Babylonian pantheon, to account for the identification of Ninni, Nanâ, and Anunit with Ishtar on the supposition that the different names belonged originally to different localities. Ishtar was appropriately denominated the brilliant goddess. She is addressed as the mother of gods, which signals her supreme position among the female deities. 'The mistress of countries' alternating with 'the mistress of mountains,'[68] is one of her common titles; and as the growing uniqueness of her position is one of the features of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, it is natural that she should become simply the goddess. This was especially the case with the Assyrians, to whom Ishtar became a goddess of war and battle, the consort, at times, of the chief god of the Assyrian pantheon. At the same time it is important to note that the warlike character of the goddess goes back to the time of Hammurabi (Keils Bibl. 3, 1, 113), and is dwelt upon by other Babylonian kings (e.g., Nebuchadnezzar I., c. 1130 B.C.) prior to the rise of the Assyrian power. How Ishtar came to take on so violent a character is not altogether clear. There are no indications of this rôle in the incantation texts, where she is simply the kind mother who is appealed to, to release the sufferer from the power of the disease-bringing spirits. In the prayers, as will be shown in the proper place, she becomes the vehicle for the expression of the highest religious and ethical thought attained by the Babylonians. On the other hand, in the great Babylonian epic,[69] dealing with the adventures of a famous hero, Gilgamesh, Ishtar, who[Pg 84] makes her appearance at the summer solstice, is a raging goddess who smites those who disobey her commands with wasting disease. Starting with this phase of the goddess' character, one can at least understand the process of her further development into a fierce deity presiding over the fortunes of war. The epic just referred to belongs to the old Babylonian period. It embodies ancient traditions of rivalry between the Babylonian principalities, though there are traces of several recastings which the epic received. The violent Ishtar, therefore, is a type going back to the same period as the other side of her character that is emphasized elsewhere. Since, moreover, the Ishtar in the Gilgamesh epic is none other than the chief goddess of Uruk, all further doubt as to the union of such diverging traits in one and the same personage falls to the ground. In this same epic, Ishtar appears as sympathizing with the sufferings of mankind, and bewailing the destruction that was at one time decreed by the gods. It is noteworthy that the violent Ishtar appears in that portion of the epic which, on the assumption of a zodiacal interpretation for the composition, corresponds to the summer solstice, whereas, the destruction which arouses her sympathy takes place in the eleventh month. It is quite possible, therefore, that the two aspects of Venus, as evening and morning stars, corresponding, as they do, to the summer and winter seasons, are reflected in this double character of the goddess. We are not justified, however, in going further and assuming that her double rôle as daughter of Sin and daughter of Anu is to be accounted for in the same manner. In the Gilgamesh epic, she is found in association with Anu, and to the latter she appeals for protection as her father, and yet it is as the daughter of Sin that she enters the world of the dead to seek for the waters that may heal her bridegroom, Tammuz.[70] Evidently, the distinction between[Pg 85] Ishtar as the daughter of Anu and as the daughter of Sin is not an important one, the term daughter in both cases being a metaphor to express a relationship both of physical nature and of a political character. Of the various forms under which the goddess appears, that of Anunit—a feminine form indicating descent from and appertaining to Anu—attaches itself most clearly to the god of heaven, and it may be that it was not until the assimilation of Anunit and Nanâ with Ishtar that the goddess is viewed as at once the daughter of Anu and of Sin. If this be so, there is surely nothing strange in the fact that a planet like Venus should be regarded in one place as the daughter of heaven and in another brought into relationship with the moon. She actually belongs to both.
Just as in Babylonia, so in Assyria, there were various Ishtars, or rather various places where the goddess was worshipped as the guardian spirit, but her rôle in the north is so peculiar that all further consideration of it must be postponed until we come to consider, in due time, the Assyrian pantheon. There will be occasion, too, when treating of the Gilgamesh epic, to dwell still further on some of her traits. All that need be said here is to emphasize the fact that the popularity of the Babylonian Ishtar in Assyria, as manifested by Esarhaddon's zeal in restoring her temple at Uruk, and Ashurbanabal's restoration of Nanâ's statue (c. 635 B.C.) which had been captured by the Elamites 1635 years before Ashurbanabal's reign, is largely due to the effected identity with the goddess who, for the Assyrians, was regarded chiefly as the goddess of war and strife. In worshipping the southern Ishtars, the Assyrian kings felt themselves to be showing their allegiance to the same deity to whom, next to Ashur, most of their supplications were addressed, and of whom as warriors they stood in dread.[Pg 86]
A goddess who, while sharing the fate of her sister goddesses in being overshadowed by Ishtar, yet merits a special treatment, is one whose name is plausibly conjectured to be read Ninâ. The compound ideogram expressing the deity signifies 'house of the fish.' The word 'house' in Semitic parlance is figuratively extended to convey the idea of 'possessing or harboring.' Applied to a settlement, the ideogram would be the equivalent of our 'Fishtown.' It is with this same ideogram that the famous capitol of Assyria, Nineveh, is written in the cuneiform texts, and since the phonetic reading for the city, Ni-na-a, also occurs, it is only legitimate to conclude that the latter is the correct reading for the deity as well. As a matter of course, if the goddess bears a name identical with that of a city, it cannot be the Assyrian city which is meant in the old Babylonian inscriptions, but some other place bearing the same name. Such a place actually occurs in the inscriptions of Gudea. It is, in fact, one of the three towns that combined with Shirpurla to create the great capitol bearing the latter name; and Jensen[71] has called attention to a passage in one of Gudea's inscriptions in which the goddess is brought into direct association with the town, so that it would appear that Ninâ is the patron of Ninâ, in the same way that Nin-girsu is the protector of Girsu. In keeping with this we find the mention of the goddess limited to the rulers of Lagash. Several of them—En-anna-tuma, Entemena, and Gudea—declare themselves to have been chosen by her. She is said to regard Gudea with special favor. She determines destinies. Another king, Ur-Ninâ, embodies the name of the goddess in his own, and devotes himself to the enlargement of her[Pg 87] temple. From the manner in which she is associated with Nin-girsu, aiding the latter in guarding his temple E-ninnu, and uniting with the god in granting the sceptre to Gudea, one is tempted to conclude that the two towns, Girsu and Ninâ, were amalgamated before their absorption into Lagash, so that the god and goddess acquired the relationship to one another of husband and consort. As for the connection between this Babylonian Ninâ and the late Assyrian capital, it is quite possible that the origin of the latter is to be traced to a settlement made by inhabitants of the former, although it should be added that there is no positive evidence that can be adduced in support of this proposition. It accords, however, with the northward movement of culture and civilization in Mesopotamia. If this connection between the two Ninevehs be accepted, the question suggests itself whether, in time, Ninâ did not become merely another form of Ishtar. The Assyrian capital is frequently spoken of as the 'beloved city' of Ishtar, and unless it be supposed that this epithet simply reflects the comparatively late popularity of the distinctively Assyrian Ishtar, the most natural explanation would be to propose the equation Ninâ = Ishtar.
In the incantation texts, Ninâ is frequently appealed to as the daughter of Ea,—the god of the deep. This relationship, as well as the interpretation of the ideogram above set forth, points to the original character of the goddess as a water-deity. This goddess, therefore, would be of an entirely different form from the ones discussed in the previous paragraphs. Instead of being a member of the heavenly pantheon, her place is with the kingdom over which Ea presides, and whose dwelling-place is the watery deep. In any case, Ninâ is originally distinct from Ishtar, Nanâ, and Anunit; and she retains an independent existence to a later period than most of the other great goddesses that have been discussed. In an inscription of the days of Belnâdinaplu (c. 1100 B.C.), published by Hilprecht,[Pg 88][72] Ninâ appears as the patron deity of Dêr,—a city of Southern Babylonia. There too she is called the 'daughter of Ea,' the creator of everything. She is 'the mistress of goddesses.' Attached to her temple there are lands that having been wrongfully wrested from the priests are returned upon royal command, under solemn invocation of the goddess. How her worship came to be transferred to Dêr we do not know. She appears in the inscription in question by the side of a goddess who—following Hommel—is none other than Bau. Dêr is called the city of the god Anu, and we can only suppose that it must at one time have risen to sufficient importance to harbor in its midst a number of deities. It is presumably[73] the place whence Nebuchadnezzar I. sets out in the twelfth century to drive the Cassites off the throne of Babylonia. May it be that, during the days of the foreign rule, priests attached to the service of various of the old gods and goddesses transferred the worship of these deities to places more secure from interference?
Be this as it may, if our Ninâ has any connection with the goddess of Nineveh, it is certain that Ishtar has retained none of Ninâ's traits. The fusion in this case has been so complete that naught but the faintest tradition of an original and independent Ninâ has survived in the North.
This god, who, from a theoretical point of view (as will be shown in a subsequent chapter), was regarded as standing at the head of the organized Babylonian pantheon, figures only incidentally in the inscriptions prior to the days of Hammurabi. Ur-Gur of the second dynasty of Ur, in invoking Nannar, calls[Pg 89] the latter 'the powerful bull of Anu.' The reference is interesting, for it shows that already in these early days the position of Anu, as the god of the heavenly expanse, was fixed. The moon appearing in the heavens, and the resemblance of its crescent to a bull's horn,[74] are the two factors that account for the expressive epithet used by Ur-Bau. That the worship of the god of heaven par excellence should not have enjoyed great popularity in the early days of the Babylonian religion might seem strange at first sight. A little reflection, however, will make this clear. A god of the heavens is an abstract conception, and while it is possible that even in an early age, such a conception may have arisen in some minds, it is not of a character calculated to take a popular hold. As we proceed in our attempt to trace the development of the Babylonian religion, we will find the line of demarcation separating the theological system, as evolved by the schoolmen, from the popular phases of the religion, becoming more marked. In the inscriptions of the old Babylonian rulers, comparatively little of the influence of the Babylonian theologians is to be detected. Even the description of the moon as the bull of heaven falls within the domain of popular fancy. It is different in the days after Hammurabi, when political concentration leads to the focussing of intellectual life in the Euphrates Valley, with all the consequences that the establishment of a central priesthood, with growing powers over ever-increasing territory, involves. It is to be noted, moreover, that the manner in which in the old Babylonian inscriptions Anu is written,[75] indicates that the abstraction involved in the conception of a god of heaven had not yet been reached, though some measure of personification was of course inevitable at a time when animistic[Pg 90] notions still held sway. A direct indication of this personification of heaven without the deification appears in the epithet 'child of Anu,' bestowed upon the goddess Bau. The reference to the heavens in this connection is an allusion to Bau's position as the patroness of that quarter of Lagash known as the 'brilliant town,'[76] and where Bau's temple stood. The transference of the quality of 'brilliancy' from the town to the goddess would be expressed by calling the latter the offspring of that part of visible nature which is associated in the mind with 'brilliancy.' Somewhat mysterious, and still awaiting a satisfactory explanation, is the title 'sacrificer,' or 'priest of Anu,' which one of the rulers of Lagash, Ur-Nin-girsu, assumes. It is scarcely possible that the god of heaven can be meant; and, on the other hand, if we are to assume merely a personification of heaven, we encounter fresh difficulties. It seems to me that the use of Anu[77] here is purely metaphorical for 'high' or 'lofty,' and that the king merely wishes to emphasize the dignity of his station by declaring himself to be the heavenly priest, somewhat as we should say 'priest by divine grace,' or 'supreme priest.'
Ur-Bau and Gudea alone of the ancient rulers refer to this god. The former erects a temple in honor of the god in some quarter of his capitol city, while the latter emphasizes the strength that the god has given him. These references, however, show that the god must have been of considerable importance, and in this case, his disappearance from the later pantheon is probably due to the absorption of his rôle by the[Pg 91] greater god of Lagash,—Nin-girsu. Like Nin-girsu, Nin-si-a was a god of war, and his worship, imported perhaps from some ancient site to Lagash, falls into desuetude, as the attribute accorded to him becomes the distinguishing trait of the chief deity of the place.
Among the various deities to whom Gudea gives praise for the position and glory which he attains is Gal-alim.[79] From him he has received great rule and a lofty sceptre. The phrase is of a very general nature and reveals nothing as to the special character of the god in question. An earlier king, Uru-kagina, refers to the temple of the god at Lagash. Gal-alim may have been again a merely local deity belonging to one of the towns that fell under Gudea's rule, and whose attributes again were so little marked that this god too disappeared under the overshadowing importance of Nin-girsu. He and another god, Dun-shagga, are viewed as the sons of Nin-girsu.
Coming to some of the deities that we may designate as minor, it is to be noted that in the case of certain ones, at least, it will be found that they may be identified with others more prominent, and that what seem to be distinct names are in reality descriptive epithets of gods already met with. This remark applies more particularly to such names as begin with the element Nin, signifying either 'lord' or 'lady,' and which, when followed by the name of a place, always points to its being a title, and, when followed by an ideographic compound, only diminishes that probability to a slight degree. We have already come across several instances; thus Nin-girsu, the[Pg 92] lord of Girsu, has been shown to be a form of Ninib, itself an ideogram, the reading of which, it will be recalled, is still uncertain; and again, Nin-khar-sag has been referred to, as one of the titles of the great goddess Belit. Similarly, Nin-gish-zida, whose name signifies 'the lord of the right-hand (or propitious) sceptre,' becomes a title and not a name, and when Gudea speaks of this god as the one who leads him to battle, and calls him 'king,' he is simply describing the same god who is elsewhere spoken of as Nin-girsu. By the side of Nin-girsu and Nin-gish-zida appears Nin-shakh, who, as Oppert[80] has shown, is like Nin-girsu the prototype of the well-known god of war, Ninib. However, Nin-shakh occupies, in contradistinction to Nin-gish-zida and others, a position in the old Babylonian pantheon of an independent character, so that it is hardly justifiable, in such a case, to identify him completely with Ninib, and place the name on a par with the epithets just referred to. The dividing line between the mere title and an independent god thus becomes at times very faint, and yet it is well to maintain it whenever called for. In the following enumeration of the minor gods of the old Babylonian pantheon, the attempt will be made to bring out this distinction in each instance.
Beginning with
the element Nin, as has several times been mentioned, points to an ideographic form. The second element signifies 'wild boar,' and from other sources we know that this animal was a sacred one in Babylonia, as among other Semitic nations.[81] Its flesh, on certain days of the Babylonian calendar, was[Pg 93] forbidden to be eaten, from which we are permitted to conclude that these days were dedicated to the animal, and the prohibition represents perhaps the traces of some old religious festival. May Nin-shakh therefore have been a 'swine deity,' just as Nergal is symbolized by the 'lion'? In both cases the animal would be a symbol of the violent and destructive character of the god.
The ferocious character of the 'swine' would naturally result in assigning to Nin-shakh warlike attributes; and as a matter of fact he is identified at times with Ninib. His subordinate position, however, is indicated by his being called the 'servant,' generally of En-lil, occasionally also of Anu, and as such he bears the name of Pap-sukal,[82] i.e., 'divine messenger.' Rim-Sin builds a temple to Nin-shakh at Uruk, and from its designation as his 'favorite dwelling place' we may conclude that Rim-Sin only restores or enlarges an ancient temple of the deity. In the light of this, the relationship above set forth between Nin-girsu, Nin-gish-zida, and Nin-shakh becomes somewhat clearer. The former, the local deity of Girsu, would naturally be called by the kings 'the lord of the true sceptre,' while the subordination of Girsu as a quarter of Lagash finds its reflection in the relationship of master and servant pictured as existing between En-lil and Nin-girsu. Again, the warlike character of the patron deity of Girsu would lead to an identification with Nin-shakh of Uruk, possessing the same traits; and the incorporation of Uruk as a part of the same empire which included Lagash and its quarters, would be the last link bringing about the full equation between the three. With Ninib—the solar deity—coming into prominence as the god of war, all three names, Nin-girsu, Nin-gish-zida, and Nin-shakh,[Pg 94] would be regarded by a later age as merely descriptive of one and the same god.
Gudea makes mention in one of his inscriptions, by the side of Nin-gish-zida, of a god Dun-shagga,[83] whose name signifies the 'chief hero,' but the phonetic reading of which it is impossible to determine.[84] Like Nin-gish-zida, he is a warlike god, and from that one might suppose that he too is only another form of Nin-girsu-Ninib. At all events, he did not differ materially from the latter. It is from him, that Gudea again declares his power to be derived, just as elsewhere he accords to Nin-girsu this distinction. The element 'Dun,' which is very much the same as 'Nin,' speaks in favor of regarding Dun-shagga as a title; but, in default of positive evidence, it will not be out of place to give him an independent position, and to regard his identification with Nin-girsu as a later phase due to the extension of Nin-girsu's jurisdiction and his corresponding absorption of a varying number of minor gods. This tendency on the part of the greater gods to absorb the minor ones is as distinctive a trait in the development of the Babylonian religion, as is the subordination of one god to the other, whether expressed by making the subordinate god the consort, the chief, or the servant of a superior one. We have seen that such terms of relationship correspond to certain degrees of political conditions existing between the conquering and the conquered districts. Amalgamation of two cities or districts is portrayed in the relation of the two patron deities as husband and wife, the stronger of the two being the former, the[Pg 95] more subservient pictured as the latter. The more pronounced superiority of the one place over the other finds expression in the relation of father to child, while that of master and servant emphasizes the complete control exercised by the one over the other. Lastly, the absorption of one deity into another, is correlative either with the most perfect form of conquest, or the complete disappearance of the seat of his worship in consequence of the growing favor of one possessing sufficiently similar qualities to warrant identification with the other.
Sin-gashid of the dynasty of Uruk makes mention of this deity at the beginning of one of his inscriptions. To him and to his consort, Nin-gul, a temple as 'the seat of their joy' at that place is devoted. This association of the god with the town points again to a local deity, but possessing a character which leads to the absorption of the god in the solar god, Nergal, whom we have already encountered, and who will occupy us a good deal when we come to the period after Hammurabi. The identification of the two is already foreshadowed in an inscription of another member of the same dynasty, Sin-gamil, who places the name of Nergal exactly where his predecessor mentions Lugal-banda. The first element in his name signifies 'king,' the second apparently 'strong,' so that in this respect, too, the god comes close to Nergal, whose name likewise indicates 'great lord.' The consort of Lugal-banda is
Her name signifies 'the destructive lady,'—an appropriate epithet for the consort of a solar deity. It is Sin-gashid again who associates Ningul with Lugal-banda, and emphasizes his affection for the goddess by calling her his mother. In one[Pg 96] inscription, moreover, Sin-gashid addresses himself exclusively to the goddess, who had an equal share in the temple at Uruk.
Among the deities appealed to by Ur-Bau appears one whose name is to be interpreted as the 'unchangeable child of the watery deep.' The great god of the deep we have seen is Ea. Dumuzi-zu-aba therefore belongs to the water-deities, and one who, through his subordinate rank to Ea, sinks to the level of a water-spirit. Ur-Bau declares himself to be the darling of this deity, and in the town of Girsu he erects a temple to him. Girsu, however, was not the patron city of the god, for Ur-Bau gives Dumuzi-zu-aba, the appellation of 'the lord of Kinunira,'[85] a place the actual situation of which is unknown. Dumuzi-zu-aba, accordingly, is to be regarded as a local deity of a place which, situated probably on an arm of the Euphrates, was the reason for the watery attributes assigned to the god. The comparative insignificance of the place is one of the factors that accounts for the minor importance of the god, and the second factor is the popularity enjoyed by another child of the great Ea, his child par excellence, Marduk, who is best known as the patron god of the city of Babylon. By the side of Marduk, the other children of Ea, the minor water-deities, disappear, so that to a later generation Dumuzi-zu-aba appears merely as a form of Marduk. With Dumuzi-zu-aba, we must be careful not to confuse
who in the old Babylonian inscriptions is mentioned once by Sin-iddina,[86] in connection with the sun-god. Dumu-zi, signifying 'child of life,' has a double aspect—an agricultural deity[Pg 97] and at the same time a god of the lower world. He plays an important part in the eschatological literature of the Babylonians, but hardly none at all in the historical and incantation texts. A fuller treatment may therefore be reserved for a future chapter.
A purely local deity, if the reading and interpretation offered by Jensen, 'King of the city Erim,' is correct. The mention of the deity in an inscription of Ur-Bau, who calls himself the 'beloved servant' of this god, would be due to the circumstance that the district within which the city in question lay was controlled by the rulers of Lagash. To invoke as large a number of deities as possible was not only a means of securing protection from many sides, but was already in the early days of Babylonian history indulged in by rulers, as a means of emphasizing the extent and manifold character of their jurisdiction.
A temple was erected to Nin-e-gal by the wife of Rim-Sin, of the dynasty ruling in Larsa. Her name as interpreted in the tablet dedicated to her, signifies again, as in several cases already noted, 'great lady.' She was probably therefore only the consort of some patron deity; and Nannar being the most prominent god invoked by Rim-Sin, it would seem that the goddess to whom the queen pays her respects is again one of the consorts of the moon-god.[87] This conclusion is supported by the direct association of Nannar of Ur and Ningal in an inscription emanating from an earlier member of the same dynasty to which Rim-Sin belongs. Nur-Rammân speaks of building temples to these deities in the city of Ur. Hence the goddess is also represented as interceding with[Pg 98] Sin on behalf of those who appeal to her. The form Nin-e-gal is but a variant of Nin-gal, so that the identification of the two lies beyond doubt, and it may very well be that the temple erected by the consort of Rim-Sin is the same as the one referred to by Nur-Rammân. In a land where polygamy was a prevailing custom, the gods too might be represented as having a number of consorts. There would of course be, just as in human relations, one chief consort, but there might be others ranged at the side of the latter.[88] Some of these may have been consorts of other minor deities, worshipped in the same district, and who were given to the more important divinity as he gradually overshadowed the others. In this way, we may account for the large variety of 'ladies' and 'great ladies' met with in the Babylonian pantheon, and who, being merely 'reflections' of male deities, with no sharply marked traits of their own, would naturally come to be confused with one another, and finally be regarded as various forms of one and the same goddess. A member of the dynasty ruling in Isin, En-anna-tuma, earlier even than Nur-Rammân, invokes Nin-gal in an inscription found in the ancient capital, Ur. Here, too, the goddess appears in association with Nannar; but, curiously enough, she is designated as the mother of Shamash. It will be borne in mind that in the city of Ur, the sun-god occupied a secondary place at the side of the moon-god. This relationship is probably indicated by the epithet 'offspring of Nin-gal,' accorded to Shamash in the inscription referred to. The moon being superior to the sun, the consort of the moon-god becomes the mother of the sun-god.
Reference has several times been made to[Pg 99]
who, originally a distinct solar deity, becomes scarcely distinguishable from Nin-girsu, and is eventually identified with the great Nin-ib.[89] It is noticeable that these four deities, Nin-girsu, Nin-shakh, Nin-gish-zida, and Nin-ib, who are thus associated together, all contain the element Nin in their names,—a factor that may turn out to be of some importance when more abundant material shall be forthcoming for tracing their development in detail. One of Gudea's inscriptions[90] begins with the significant statement, 'Nin-gish-zida is the god of Gudea'; and elsewhere when speaking of him, he is 'my god,' or 'his god.' None of the ancient Babylonian rulers make mention of him except Gudea, though in the incantation texts he is introduced and significantly termed 'the throne-bearer' of the earth. The purely local character of the deity is, furthermore, emphasized by the reference to his temple in Girsu, on a brick and on a cone containing dedicatory inscriptions, inscribed by Gudea in honor of the god.[91]
The wife of the famous Gudea, Gin-Shul-pa-uddu, bears a name in which one of the elements is a deity, the phonetic reading of whose name is still uncertain.[92] The elements comprising it, namely, 'lord' (?), 'sceptre,' and 'radiant,' leave little doubt as to the solar character of the god. Besides Gudea's wife, a ruler, Ur-Shul-pa-uddu,[93] belonging apparently to a somewhat earlier period, embodies this deity in his name. The worship of the deity, therefore, belongs to a very early epoch, and[Pg 100] appears at one time to have enjoyed considerable popularity within a certain district of Babylonia. To what region of Babylonia he belongs has not yet been ascertained. Judging from analogous instances, he represented some phase of the sun worshipped in a particular locality, whose cult, with the disappearance of the place from the surface of political affairs, yielded to the tendency to concentrate sun-worship in two or three deities,—Shamash and Ninib more especially. In the astronomy of the Babylonians the name survived as a designation of Marduk-Jupiter.[94]
A local deity, designated as the lady of Mar, is invoked by Ur-Bau, from whom we learn that she was the daughter of Ninâ. Mar, with the determinative for country, Ki, appears to have been the name of a district extending to the Persian Gulf.[95] The capital of the district is represented by the mound Tel-Id, not far from Warka. Her subsidiary position is indicated in these words, and we may conclude that Nin-Mar at an early period fell under the jurisdiction of the district in which Ninâ was supreme. For all that, Nin-Mar, or the city in which her cult was centralized, must have enjoyed considerable favor. Ur-Bau calls her the 'gracious lady,' and erects a temple, the name of which, Ish-gu-tur,[96] i.e., according to Jensen's plausible interpretation, 'the house that serves as a court for all persons,' points to Mar as a place of pilgrimage to which people came from all sides. Gudea, accordingly, does not omit to include 'the lady of Mar' in his list of the chief deities to whom he pays his devotions; and on the assumption of the general favor in which the city of Mar stood as a sacred town, we may account for the fact that a much later ruler, Dungi, of the dynasty of Ur,[97] erects a temple to her honor.
A deity, the phonetic reading of whose name is unknown, or at all events uncertain,[98] is mentioned once by Gudea in the long list of deities that has been several times referred to. The ideographs with which his name is written designate him as a chief of some kind, and in accord with this, Gudea calls him 'the leader of the land.' Pa-sag is mentioned immediately after the sun-god Utu, and in view of the fact that another solar deity, I-shum, whom we shall come across in a future chapter, is designated by the same title[99] as Pa-sag, it seems safe to conclude that the latter is likewise a solar deity, and in all probability, the prototype of I-shum, if not indeed identical with him.
In a dream which the gods send to Gudea, he sees among other things, a goddess, whose name may be read Nisaba or Nidaba.[100] Ninâ, who interprets the dream to the ruler of Shirpurla, declares that Nisaba is her sister. In a text belonging to a still earlier age, the deity is mentioned as the begetter of a king whose name is read Lugal-zaggisi.[101] From the manner in which the name of the goddess is written, as well as from other sources, we know that Nisaba is an agricultural deity. In historical texts she plays scarcely any rôle at all, but in incantations she is often referred to; and from the fact that Nisaba is appealed to, to break the power of the demons in conjunction with Ea, it would appear that the position once occupied by her was no insignificant one. Nin-girsu, it will[Pg 102] be recalled, has also traits which connect him with agricultural life, and Ninâ being the daughter of Nin-si-a, one of the forms under which Ningirsu-Ninib appears, we may connect Nisaba directly with the cults of which Lagash formed the center. Nisaba must have been the consort of one of the agricultural gods, whose jurisdiction falls within Gudea's empire. Lugal-zaggisi, as the king of Uruk, assigns to the goddess a first place. Her origin must, therefore, be sought in this region. In later days the name of the goddess is used to describe the fertility of the soil in general. So Ashurbanabal, describing the prosperity existing in his days, says that grain was abundant through the 'increase of Nisaba.'[102]
A goddess of this name—reading of the first sign doubtful—is mentioned by Ur-Bau, who builds a temple to her in Girsu. If Amiaud is correct in his reading of the first sign, the goddess was identified at one time by the Babylonians with the consort of Ramman—the storm-god. This would accord with the description that Ur-Bau gives of the goddess. She is the one who deluges the land with water—belonging therefore to the same order as Bau.
In a list of deities enumerated by a ruler of Erech, Lugal-zaggisi,[103] are found (1) a local goddess,
designated as the 'priestess of Uruk,'[104] and occupying an inferior rank to (2) a goddess,
who is called 'the mistress of Uruk.' The importance of Erech in the early history of Babylonia is emphasized by the inscriptions from Nippur, recently published by Dr. Hilprecht. It is natural, therefore, to find several deities of a purely local type commemorated by kings who belong to this region. The goddess Umu is not heard of again. The great goddess of Uruk, Nanâ, absorbs the smaller ones, and hence Nin-akha-kuddu survives chiefly in incantation texts as 'the lady of shining waters,' of 'purification,' and of 'incantations.'[106]
Lastly, a passing reference may be made to several deities to whom sanctuaries are erected by Uru-Kagina in the great temple of Bau at Uru-azaga, and whom Amiaud regards as sons of Bau.
Uru-Kagina enumerates three, Za-za-uru, Im-pa-ud-du, and Gim-nun-ta-ud-du-a.[107] The element ud-du in the last two names signifies 'radiant' or 'rising up'; while pa-ud-du (like in Shul-pa-ud-du, p. 99) means 'radiant sceptre.' If to this, we add that Im is 'storm,' it will appear plausible to see in the second name a form of a raging solar deity and perhaps also in the third; gim nun in the latter name may mean 'creating lord.' To these Amiaud[108] adds from other sources, Khi-gir-nunna, Khi-shaga, Gurmu, and Zarmu. He takes these seven deities as sons of Bau, but he offers no conclusive evidence for his theory. Some of these deities may turn out to be synonymous with such as have already been met with.
[24] Indicated by separating the syllables composing the name.
[25] At the period when the kings of Ur extend their rule over Nippur, they, too, do not omit to refer to the distinction of having been called to the service of the great god at his temple.
[26] The name signifies, 'He has founded the city,' the subject of the verb being some deity whose name is omitted.
[27] Jensen, Keils Bibl. 3, 1, p. 23, proposes to read Nin-Ur-sag, but without sufficient reason, it seems to me. The writing being a purely ideographic form, an epitheton ornans, the question of how the ideographs are to be read is not of great moment.
[28] We may compare the poetic application 'rock' to Yahweh in the Old Testament, e.g., Job 1. 12, and frequently in Psalms,—lxii. 3, 7; xcii. 16, 18, etc.
[29] Reading doubtful. Jensen suggests Erim. Hommel (Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xv. 37 seq.) endeavored to identify the place with Babylon, but his views are untenable. If Gish-galla was not a part of Lagash, it could not have been far removed from it. It was Amiaud who first suggested that Shir-pur-la (or Lagash) was the general name for a city that arose from an amalgamation of four originally distinct quarters. ("Sirpurla" in Revue Archéologique, 1888.) The suggestion has been generally, though not universally accepted.
[30] That Ninib is only an ideographic form is sufficiently clear from the element NIN-, lord. The proof, however, that Ninib is Adar, is still wanting. See Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 457, 458.
[31] From the context (De Sarzec, Découvertes, pl. 6, no. 4, ll. 13-21, and pl. 31, no. 3, col iii. ll. 2-6), there can be no doubt that Shul-gur (or Shul-gur-ana) is an epithet of Nin-girsu. The ideographs descriptive of the edifice suggest a corn magazine of some kind. One is reminded of the storehouses for grain in Egypt. See Jensen's Notes, Keils Bibl. 3, 1, pp. 15, 18, 73. A comparison of the two texts in question makes it probable that Ab-gi and E-bi-gar are synonymous.
[32] Rawlinson, iv. 27, no. 6; 11, 45-46.
[33] It is noticeable that there is no mention made of a special god of Lagash, which points to the later origin of the name.
[34] Inscr. D, col. li. 13; G, col. ii. ll. 1-8; iii. 4 seq.
[35] See Gen. xxiv. 53. Burkhardt, Notes on the Bedouins, i. 109, gives an example of the custom.
[36] The two names are used by Gudea (Inscr. G, col. iii. 12) in a way to indicate that they embrace the whole district of Lagash.
[37] Semit. Völker, p. 382.
[38] See Jensen, Keils Bibl. 3, 1, 28, note 2.
[39] The first signifies 'to make,' the third means "good, favorable," but the second, upon which so much depends, is not clear. Amiaud reads tum instead of sig.
[40] E.g., Ninâ (see below).
[41] De Sarzec, pl. 7, col. i. 12.
[42] Hibbert Lectures, p. 104.
[43] Inscr. D, col. iv. ll. 7, 8.
[44] In Rawlinson, ii. 58, no. 6, there is a list of some seventy names.
[45] Rawlinson, ii. 58, no. 6, 58.
[46] De Sarzec, pl. 8, col v. ll. 4-6.
[47] Keils Bibl. 3, 1, 80, note 3.
[48] Rawlinson, iv. 35, no. 2, 1.
[49] See a syllabary giving lists of gods, Rawlinson, ii. 60, 12. Dungi, indeed, calls Nergal once the king of lawful control over Lagash (Rawlinson, iv. 35, no. 2, ll. 2, 3). The exact force of the title is not clear, but in no case are we permitted to conclude as Amiaud does (Rec. of the Past, N.S., i. 59) that Shid-lam-ta-udda is identical with Nin-girsu.
[50] See Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 476-87.
[51] See Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 476-87.
[52] So in the inscription of Rim-Sin (Keils Bibl. 3, 1, p. 97).
[53] Perhaps the knob of a sceptre. Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. viii. 68.
[54] E.g., Hammurabi (Revue d'Assyriologie, ii. col. i. 21); but also Gudea and a still earlier king.
[55] So Amlaud; and there seems some reason to believe that the name was used by the side of Utu, though perhaps only as an epithet.
[56] Compare birbiru, 'sheen,' and the stem barû, 'to see,' etc.
[57] See Keils Bibl. 3, I, 100. Reading of name uncertain.
[58] Suggested by Rawlinson, ii. 57, 10. See Schrader, Zeits. f. Assyr. iii. 33 seq.
[59] On Sippar, see Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, etc., 168-169, who finds in the Old Testament form "Sepharvayim" a trace of this double Sippar. Dr. Ward's suggestion, however, in regard to Anbar, as representing this 'second' Sippar, is erroneous.
[60] E.g., in Southern Arabia. See W. Robertson Smith, The Religion of the Semites, I. 59.
[61] In Rabbinical literature, the moon is compared to a 'heifer' (Talmud Babli Rosh-hashana 22 b).
[62] That the name of Sin should have been introduced into Mesopotamia through the 'Arabic' dynasty (see above, p. 39) is less probable, though not impossible in the light of recent discoveries.
[63] Innanna may be separated into In = lord or lady, and nanna; in and nanna would then be elements added to "lady," conveying perhaps the idea of greatness. See Jensen's remarks, Keils Bibl. 3, I, 20, note 4.
[64] Rec. of the Past, N.S., ii. p. 104.
[65] Keils Bibl. 3, I, 16. See Jensen's note on the reading of the name.
[66] The fame of this temple outlasts the political importance of the place, and as late as the days of the Assyrian monarchy is an object of fostering care on the part of the kings.
[67] That the name is Semitic is no longer seriously questioned by any scholar. The underlying stem suggests etymological relationship with the god Ashur. If this be so, Ishtar may mean 'the goddess that brings blessing' to mankind, but all this is tentative, as are the numerous other etymologies suggested.
[68] The ideographs for 'country' and 'mountain' are identical Assyrian. The alternation in the title of Ishtar must not be taken to point to a mountainous origin of the goddess.
[69] A full account of this epic will be given at its proper place.
[70] Again, in the incantation texts she appears only as the daughter of Anu, coördinate with Sin and Shamash.
[71] Keils Bibl. 3, 1, 72, note. Some scholars, as Hommel (Gesch. d. alt. Morgenlandes, p. 68), propose to identify this place with the Assyrian Nineveh, but the conjecture lacks proof and is altogether improbable.
[72] Old Babylonian Inscriptions, I. pls. 30, 31. (See now Peiser, Keils Bibl. 4, pp. 64-66.)
[73] Questioned by Peiser, ib.
[74] Among many nations the moon is pictured as a horned animal. See Robert Brown's interesting monograph on The Unicorn, pp. 27 seq. et passim; also above, p. 76.
[75] Simply the sign AN (= god, heaven) and the phonetic complement na.
[77] Written An-na, without the determinative for deity. De Sarzec, Découvertes en Chaldée, pl. 37, no. 8.
[78] The second element may also be read dar. See Jensen, Keils Bibl. 3, 1, p. 24, note 1.
[79] Inscription B, col. ii. 19.
[80] See Hommel, Semitische Kulturen, p. 389.
[81] For the sacred character of the swine among the Semites, see W. Robertson Smith's The Religion of the Semites, pp. 201, 272, 332, 457. Rawlinson, iii. 68, 22, occurs a deity, 'swine of the right hand,' i.e., propitious.
[82] Rawlinson, ii. 59, 23. The second element in Pap-sukal is the common Babylonian word for 'servant,' or 'messenger;' other deities therefore standing in a subsidiary position are also called Pap-sukal. So e.g., Nebo and Nusku. See further on and compare Hommel, Semiten, pp. 479, 480.
[83] Inscription B, col iii. 2.
[84] Uru-kagina, earlier than Gudea (de Sarzec, pl. 32), appears to have built a temple to Dun-shagga, but the passage is not altogether clear. The element also appears in the name of the ruler of Ur, Dungi, i.e., 'the legitimate hero,' as Sargon is the 'legitimate king.'
[85] Signifying, according to Jensen, Keils Bibl. 3, 1, p. 25, 'fighting-place'.
[86] Published by Delitzsch, Beiträge zur Assyr. I. 301-311.
[87] So also Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 14, note 3.
[88] So Anu appears to have concubines.
[90] Inscription C.
[91] De Sarzec, pl. 37, no. 5; Trans. Soc. Bibl. Arch. vi. 279.
[92] Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 127, proposes to read Umun-pauddu.
[93] Hilprecht, Old Babylonian Inscriptions, i. 2, no. 93. The name also appears in syllabaries as Shul-pa-ud-du-a. For the element pa-udda, see p. 103. In Nergal's name Shid-lam-ta-uddu-a (p. 65), the same final elements are found which appear to be characteristic epithets of solar deities. The first element in the name has also the value Dun (as in Dun-gi).
[94] Jensen, Kosmologie, pp. 125, 126.
[95] See Journal Asiatique, September-October, 1895, p. 393.
[96] De Sarzec, pl. 8, col. v. ll. 8-12.
[97] IR. pl. 2, no. 4.
[98] Jensen regards Pa-sag as a possible phonetic form, but his view is hardly tenable.
[99] See Zimmern, Busspsalmen, pp. 60, 61.
[100] Cylinder A, cols. iv. and v. Amiaud read the name Nirba.
[102] VR. col. i. 48.
[103] See at close of chapter vi.
[104] Hilprecht, ib. no. 87, col i. 30.
[105] Ib. i. 32. Hilprecht reads Nin-a-gid-kha-du, but this can hardly be correct.
[106] The two ideas, 'water' and 'incantation,' are correlated. The 'waters' meant are those used for purification purposes in connection with the magic formulas.
[107] De Sarzec, pl. 32, col. ii. 9-11.
[108] Records of the Past, N.S., i. 59. Amiaud reads the second name Im-ghud-êna and the third Gim (or Ur)-nun-ta-êna. The publication in De Sarzec favors my readings.
Attention has already been directed to the comparatively small number of female deities that appear in the inscriptions of the first period of Babylonian history. We must, however, not conclude from this, that such deities did not exist in larger numbers. On the contrary, we may feel certain that every god had his consort, and in some cases more than one. Several instances of such consorts have been furnished in this chapter; but if the consorts of the larger number of these gods are unknown, it is because of the insignificant rôle that these consorts played. The goddesses of Babylonia, with few exceptions, become mere shadowy reflections of the gods, with but little independent power, and in some cases none at all. They owe what popularity they enjoyed to their association with their male companions. In consequence of this inferior rôle played by the female deities, the tendency becomes more pronounced, as we pass from the first to the second period of Babylonian history, to reduce by assimilation the small number that have independent attributes, until we reach a condition in which we have practically only one goddess, appearing under many forms. It is only in the religious texts, and in some phases of the popular beliefs, that goddesses retain a certain degree of prominence. So, a goddess Allat, as we shall see, plays an important part as the chief goddess of the subterranean cave that houses the dead. Allat appears to have been originally a consort of the famous Bel of Nippur, but through association with Nergal, who becomes the chief god of the lower world, almost all traces of the original character of the goddess disappear. Again,[Pg 105] Gula, the consort of Nin-ib, while occasionally mentioned in the historical texts of the second and third period, and under the form Ma-ma, as an element in a proper name belonging to the oldest period,[109] is more frequently invoked in incantations as the healer of disease. The same is the case with other goddesses; so that we may conclude that from the earliest times, the Babylonian religion shared the trait so marked in all Semitic cults, of a combination of the male and female principle in the personification of the powers that controlled the fate of man. In part, no doubt, the minor importance of women, so far as the outward aspects of social and political life were concerned, is a factor in the altogether secondary importance attaching to the consorts of the gods; but we may feel certain that there was no god, however restricted in his jurisdiction, or however limited in the number of his worshippers, who had not associated with him a female companion, who follows him as the shadow follows the substance.
[109] According to Hilprecht, ib. p. 48, note 6. For Ma-ma and Me-me, as names of Gula, see chapter viii.
Gudea manifests a fondness for giving to his pantheon as large a compass as possible. In this respect, he follows earlier examples, and also sets an example which is followed by many of the rulers of Babylonia and Assyria, who felt that the larger the number of gods invoked by them, the more impressive would their own position appear in the eyes of their subjects. Moreover, by incorporating in their pantheon the gods associated with districts that they controlled, they would not only secure the protection of these deities, but would emphasize their own claim to an extended sovereignty. The beginning and the close of dedicatory and commemorative inscriptions were the favorite opportunities, seized upon by the kings, for parading the list of the powers under whose patronage they wished to appear. These lists are both interesting and valuable, as furnishing in a convenient form a summary of the chief gods included in the Babylonian pantheon at the various historical periods. At the close of one of his inscriptions,[110] Gudea furnishes a list of no less than eighteen deities. In rapid succession he enumerates Anu, En-lil (Bel), Nin-khar-sag, En-ki (Ea), En-zu (Sin), Nin-girsu, Ninâ, Nin-si-a, Ga-tum-dug, Bau, Ninni, Utu (Shamash), Pa-sag, Gal-alim, Dun-shagga, Nin-Mar, Dumuzi-zuaba, Nin-gish-zida. These deities may be taken as indicative of the territorial extent of Gudea's jurisdiction. They are called upon to punish him who attempts to alter the decrees of the ruler, or to efface the memory of his deeds. Again, at the beginning of one of his inscriptions, he appeals to Nin-girsu, En-lil, Ninâ,[Pg 107] Bau, Ga-tum-dug, Gal-alim, and Dun-shagga. He recounts what he has done to promote the cults of these deities, and upon his conduct he grounds his hope that they will aid him in his undertakings. The lists, as will be observed, vary in the number and in the order of the gods enumerated. In the second list, the position of Nin-girsu at the head is due to the fact that the inscription commemorates the dedication of a sanctuary to that god. But Nin-girsu, despite his rank as the chief god of Lagash, belongs to a second class of deities. Standing far above him is the triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea, the gods that personify, as we have seen, the great divisions of the universe,—heaven, earth, and water. These gods, accordingly, take precedence of Nin-girsu in the first list. In a succeeding chapter, the significance of this triad for the Babylonian religion will be fully set forth. For the present, it is sufficient to note that the systematization of popular beliefs, involved in the distinctions thus emphasized in the groupings of deities into classes, begins at so early a period. This systematization, however, has not yet assumed final shape. True, the moon-god has already been given the place, immediately following upon the triad, that he will hold in the developed form of Babylonian theology; but while, as we have seen, Sin properly takes precedence of the sun-god, the latter should follow in the wake of his associate. Not only, however, does Nin-girsu precede, but two other deities who are closely related in general character to the 'warrior deity' of Gudea's dominion. Then, the two great goddesses, Bau and Ninni, are introduced, and it is not until they are disposed of that the sun-god, together again with Pa-sag as a kind of lieutenant,[111] is invoked. In the arrangement of the five remaining deities, no special principle can be recognized. They, evidently, occupy a minor rank. It is possible, then, to distinguish no less than four classes in the old Babylonian pantheon: (1) the great triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea;[Pg 108] (2) a second group, as yet incomplete, but which will eventually include Sin, Shamash, and Ramman, representing the great powers of nature—moon, sun, and storm; (3) the great gods, the patron deities of the more important political centers of the country; and (4) the minor ones, representing the local cults of less important places. Naturally, the dividing line between the two last-named classes is not sharply marked, and in accordance with the ever-varying political kaleidoscope, local deities will rise from the rank of minor gods to a higher place in the pantheon; while such as once enjoyed high esteem will, through decline in the political fortunes of their worshippers, be brought down from the higher to an inferior rank.[112] It is this constant interaction between the political situation and the relationship of the gods to one another, that constitutes one of the most striking features of the religion of Babylonia and Assyria. In the course of time, as an organized pantheon leads to greater stability in the domain of theological speculation, the influence of the politics of the country on the religion becomes less marked, without, however, disappearing altogether. The various classes into which the gods are divided, are definitely fixed by the schools of theology that, as we shall see, take their rise in the Euphrates Valley. The rivalry, on the one hand, between the Babylonian empire united under one head, and the Assyrian empire on the other, alone remains to bring about an occasional exchange of places between the two gods who stand at the head of the great gods of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon respectively. The attempt has been made by Amiaud[113] to arrange the pantheon of this oldest period in a genealogical order. In Gudea's long list of deities, he detects three generations,—the three chief gods and one goddess, as the progenitors of Sin, Shamash, Nin-girsu, Bau, and others.[Pg 109] The gods of this second division give rise to a third class, viewed again as the offspring of the second. Professor Davis, taking up this idea of Amiaud, has quite recently maintained[114] that the family idea must form our starting-point for an understanding of the pantheon of Lagash. The theory, however, does not admit of consistent application. There are gods, as Amiaud recognized, who cannot be brought under his scheme, so far at least as present testimony is concerned; and others can only by an arbitrary assumption be forced into accord with the theory. Moreover, we should expect to find traces of this family idea in the later phases of the Assyro-Babylonian pantheon. Such, however, is not the case. A more reasonable and natural explanation of the relationship existing between many—not all—of the gods of Gudea's pantheon has already been suggested. In part, we must look to the development of a theological system of thought in the Euphrates Valley to account for the superior position accorded to certain gods, and in part, political conditions and political changes afford an explanation for the union of certain deities into a family group. So far, indeed, Amiaud is correct, that the relationship existing between the various deities, was as a rule expressed in terms applicable to human society. The secondary position occupied, e.g., by Sin when compared with a god whose domain is the entire 'lower regions,' would be aptly expressed by calling the moon-god the eldest son of En-lil or Bel; and, similarly, a goddess like Bau would be called the daughter of Anu. It is a mistake, however, to interpret the use of 'daughter' and 'son' literally. Such terms are employed in all Semitic languages in a figurative sense, to indicate a dependent position of some sort. Again, we have seen that the union of a number of cities or states under one head would be followed by a union of the deities proper to these cities or states. That union would[Pg 110] be expressed, according to circumstances, either by placing the deities on a footing of equality—in which case they would be consorts, or brothers and sisters, offsprings therefore of one and the same god—or, the superior rank of one patron god would be indicated by assigning to the god of a conquered or subordinate territory the rank of offspring or attendant.
In studying such a list as that presented by Gudea, we must, therefore, make due allowance for what may be called local peculiarities and local conditions. It is only by comparing his list with others that we can differentiate between the general features of Babylonian cults and the special features due to political and local associations. We are in a position now to institute this comparison for a period which is certainly some centuries earlier than Gudea. The date of the reign of Lugal-zaggisi, king of Uruk, who has been several times referred to in a previous chapter, is fixed by Hilprecht at c. 4500 B.C., but it is doubtful whether so high an age will be accepted by scholars. The chronology for the period beyond Gudea is still in a very uncertain condition. Lugal-zaggisi, in a long list of deities at the beginning of an important inscription, enumerates in succession Anu, the goddess Nisaba, the gods En-lil (or Bel), En-ki (=Ea), En-zu (Sin), Utu (the sun-god), the goddess Ninni (or Nanâ(?)), Nin-khar-sag, Umu, and Nin-akha-kuddu. As for Anu, the king introduces the name, as Ur-Ningirsu of Lagash does (see above, p. 90), in calling himself 'priest of Anu,' and which, according to the explanation suggested, means simply 'divine priest.'
Bel, Ea, Sin, and Shamash (or Utu) are common to Gudea and Lugal-zaggisi. These constitute, then, the great gods whose worship is no longer limited to any particular district. They have become common property, in part through the sanctity attached to the places where the gods were worshipped, in part through the antiquity of these places, and in part, no doubt, as the result of a political development lying behind[Pg 111] the period under consideration. The prominence given by Lugal-zaggisi to Nisaba is rather surprising. He calls himself and also his father, 'hero' of Nisaba. If, however, it be borne in mind that of the goddesses at least two, Umu and Nin-akha-kuddu, are of a local character, the conclusion appears justified that Nisaba was a goddess associated more particularly with the district in which Uruk lay. The goddess Ninni (written simply as 'the goddess') is no doubt identical with the great Nanâ of Uruk, and Nin-khar-sag is introduced as the consort of En-lil.
As a result of this comparison, we may note the tendency towards a general recognition of certain great gods, which is more fully developed in the period of Hammurabi. At the same time, the loyalty of the rulers to the gods, peculiar to their own district, is manifested by the prominent place assigned in the several cases to gods who otherwise play an insignificant rôle, and who eventually are absorbed by others; and lastly, as between Lugal-zaggisi and Gudea, the observation may be made of the disposition to emphasize local gods, less for their own sake, than because of the éclat furnished by the enumeration of a large pantheon, which shall be coequal in extent and dignity to the district claimed by the rulers and to the rank assumed by them.[Pg 112]
[110] Inscr. B, cols. viii. ix.
[112] See Winckler's excellent remarks on the relationship between the city and the god in ancient Babylonia (Altorientalische Forschungen, III. 232-235).
[113] Records of the Past, N.S., i. 57-59.
[114] In a paper on "The Gods of Shirpurla," read before the American Oriental Society in April, 1895. (Proceedings, ccxiii-ccxviii.)
We have thus passed in review the old Babylonian pantheon, so far as the discovered texts have revealed their names and epithets. The list does not claim to be exhaustive. That future texts will add to its length, by revealing the existence at this early period of many known to us at present only from later texts or from the religious literature,[115] is more than likely. The nature of the old Babylonian religion entails, as a necessary consequence, an array of gods that might be termed endless. Local cults would ever tend to increase with the rise of new towns, and while the deities thus worshipped would not rise to any or much importance, still their names would become known in larger circles, and a ruler might, for the sake of increasing his own lustre, make mention of one or more of them, honoring them at the same time by an epithet which might or might not accurately define their character. As long as the various districts of Babylonia were not formally united under one head, various local cults might rise to equally large proportions, while the gods worshipped as the special patrons of the great centers, as Lagash, Ur, Uruk, Nippur, and the like, would retain their prominence, even though the political status of the cities sacred to them[Pg 113] suffered a decline. The ruler of the district that claimed a supremacy over one that formerly occupied an independent position, would hasten to emphasize this control by proudly claiming the patron deity as part of his pantheon. The popularity of Sin at Ur suffered no diminution because the supremacy of Ur yielded to that of Uruk. On the contrary, the god gained new friends who strove to rival the old ones in manifestations of reverence; and when, as happened in several instances, the patron deities were personifications of natural phenomena, whose worship through various circumstances became associated with particular localities, there was an additional reason for the survival, and, indeed, growing importance of such local cults, quite independent of the political fortunes that befell the cities in which the gods were supposed to dwell.
As a consequence, there are a considerable number of deities who are met with both at the beginning and at the end of the first period of Babylonian history—a period, be it remembered, that, so far as known, already covers a distance of 2,000 years. These are of two classes, (a) deities of purely local origin, surviving through the historical significance of the places where they were worshipped, and (b) deities, at once local in so far as they are associated with a fixed spot, but at the same time having a far more general character by virtue of being personifications of the powers of nature. The jurisdiction of both classes of deities might, through political vicissitudes, be extended over a larger district than the one to which they were originally confined, and in so far their local character would tend to be obscured. It would depend, however, upon other factors, besides the merely political ones, whether these cults would take a sufficiently deep hold upon the people to lead to the evolution of deities, entirely dissociated from fixed seats, who might be worshipped anywhere, and whose attributes would tend to become more and more abstract in character. Such a process, however, could not be completed by the[Pg 114] silent working of what, for want of a better name, we call the genius of the people. It requires the assistance, conscious and in a measure pedantic, of the thinkers and spiritual guides of a people. In other words, the advance in religious conceptions from the point at which we find them when the union of the Babylonian states takes place, is conditioned upon the infusion of the theological spirit into the mass of beliefs that constituted the ancient heritage of the people.
On the other hand, various circumstances have already been suggested that coöperated, already prior to the days of Hammurabi, in weeding out the superfluity of deities, at least so far as recognition of them in the official inscriptions of the rulers were concerned. Deities, attached to places of small and ever-diminishing importance would, after being at first adopted into the pantheon by some ruler desirous of emphasizing his control over the town in question, end in being entirely absorbed by some more powerful god, whose attributes were similar to those of his minor companion. Especially would this be the case with deities conceived as granting assistance in warfare. The glory of the smaller warrior gods would fade through the success achieved by a Nin-girsu. The names and epithets would be transferred to the more powerful god, and, beyond an occasional mention, the weaker would entirely pass out of consideration. Again, the worship of the moon or of the sun, or of certain aspects of the sun,—the morning sun, the noonday sun, and the like,—at localities of minor importance, would yield to the growing popularity of similar worship in important centers. As a consequence, names that formerly designated distinct deities or different phases of one and the same deity, would, by being transferred to a single one, come to be mere epithets of this one. The various names would be used interchangeably, without much regard to their original force.
All the essential elements of the Babylonian religion are already to be found in the conditions prevailing during the[Pg 115] period that we have been considering. Some new deities are met with in the periods that followed, but there is no reason to believe that any profound changes in the manner of worship, or in the conceptions regarding the gods, were introduced. The relations, however, which the gods bear to one another are considerably modified, their attributes become more sharply defined, the duties and privileges pertaining to each are regulated. Hand in hand with this systematization, the organization of the cult becomes more perfect, the ritual enters upon further phases of development, speculations regarding the unknown have their outcome in the establishment of dogmas. Finally the past, with its traditions and legends, is viewed under the aspect of later religious thought. The products of popular fancy are reshaped, given a literary turn that was originally foreign to them, and so combined and imbued with a meaning as to reflect the thoughts and aspirations of a comparatively advanced age. What may be called the flowering of the theological epoch in the history of the Babylonian religion, viewed as a unit, is so directly dependent upon the political union of the Babylonian states, brought about by Hammurabi (c. 2300 B.C.), that it may be said to date from this event.[Pg 116]
[115] Quite recently there have been found at Telloh some thirty thousand clay tablets, chiefly lists of sacrifices, temple inventories, and legal documents. These tablets will probably furnish additional names of deities, and perhaps throw further light on those known. Further excavations at Nippur will likewise add to the material. But after all, for our main purpose in this chapter, which is the illustration of the chief traits of the Babylonian pantheon in early days, these expected additions to the pantheon will not be of paramount significance.
The immediate result of Hammurabi's master-stroke in bringing the various states of the Euphrates Valley under a single control, was the supremacy secured for his capital, of the city of Babylon over all other Babylonian cities, and with this supremacy, the superior position henceforth assumed by the patron deity of the capital, Marduk.[116] It is needless for our purposes to enter upon the question as to the age of the city of Babylon,[117] nor as to its political fortunes prior to the rise of the dynasty of which Hammurabi was the sixth member. That its beginnings were modest, and that its importance, if not its origin, was of recent date in comparison with such places as Eridu, Nippur, Lagash, Ur, and the like, is proved by the absence of the god Marduk in any of the inscriptions that we have been considering up to this point. The first mention of the god occurs in the inscriptions of Hammurabi, where he appears distinctly as the god of the city of Babylon. No doubt the immediate predecessors of Hammurabi regarded Marduk in[Pg 117] the same light as the great conqueror, so that we are justified in applying the data, furnished by the inscriptions of Hammurabi to such of his predecessors, of whom records are still lacking. It is to Marduk, that Hammurabi ascribes his success. The king regards himself as the beloved of Marduk. The god rejoices his heart and gives him power and plenty. Even when paying his homage at the shrines of other deities, he does not forget to couple the name of Marduk with that of the deity whose protection he invokes. So at Sippar, sacred to Shamash, and where the king deposits a cylinder recording the improvements that he instigated in the city, he associates the sun-god with Marduk, whereas in contradistinction to the rulers of the old Babylonian cities or states, when addressing Marduk, he does not find it necessary to make mention at the same time of an entire pantheon. Marduk's protection suffices for all purposes. This, of course, does not exclude the worship of other gods. A reference has already been made to the king's care for the city of Shamash. In this respect, he was but following the example of his predecessors, who, while regarding Babylon as their capital, were zealous in doing honor to ancient centers of worship. So one of these predecessors, Zabu, restores the temple of Shamash at Sippar, and that of Anunit at Agade. Hammurabi, besides his work at Sippar, builds a temple to Innanna at Hallabi.[118] Babylon, however, is the beloved city of Marduk, and upon its beautification and improvement Hammurabi expends his chief energy. Such are the endearing terms in which he speaks of his god, as to give one the impression that, when thinking of Marduk, the king for the moment loses sight of the existence of other gods. The most striking tribute, however, that is paid to Marduk in the period of Hammurabi is his gradual assumption of the rôle played by the old En-lil or Bel of Nippur, once the head of the Babylonian pantheon. This identification is[Pg 118] already foreshadowed in the title bêlu rabu, i.e., 'great lord,' which Hammurabi is fond of bestowing upon Marduk. It is more clearly indicated in an inscription of his son, Samsu-iluna, who represents Bel, 'the king of heaven and earth,' as transferring to Marduk, the 'first-born son of Ea,' rulership over 'the four regions,'—a phrase that at this time had already assumed a much wider meaning than its original portent. In the religious literature of this age, which reflects the same tendency, Bel expressly transfers his title 'lord of the lands'[119] to Marduk, while Ea likewise pays homage to his son, declaring that the latter's 'name' shall also be Ea. The transference of the name, according to Babylonian notions, is equivalent to a transference of power. As a consequence, Bel and Marduk are blended into one personage, Marduk becoming known as Bel-Marduk, and finally, the first part of the compound sinking to the level of a mere adjective, the god is addressed as 'lord Marduk,' or 'Marduk, the lord.' The old Bel is entirely forgotten, or survives at best in conventional association with Anu and Ea, as a member of the ancient triad.
It has been satisfactorily shown[120] that Marduk was originally a solar deity. His association with Babylon, therefore, must be viewed in the same light as the association of Sin, the moon-god, with the city of Ur, and the association of Shamash, the sun-god, with Larsa and Sippar. Just as in the latter places, other cults besides that of the patron deity prevailed, so in Babylon it was merely the prominence which, for some reason, the worship of the sun-god acquired, that led to the closer identification of this particular deity with the city, until he became viewed as the god par excellence of the city, and the city itself as his favorite residence. As long as Larsa and Sippar retained a prominence overshadowing that of Babylon,[Pg 119] the sun cult at the latter place could attract but little attention. Only as Babylon began to rival, and finally to supersede, other centers of sun-worship, could Marduk be brought into the front rank of prevailing cults. It may appear strange, in view of this original character of Marduk, that neither in the inscriptions of Hammurabi, nor in those of his successors, is there any direct reference to his qualities as a solar deity. However, in the ideographs composing his name, which are to be interpreted as 'child of the day,'[121] and in the zodiacal system, as perfected by the Babylonian scholars, there lurk traces of the god's solar origin, and beyond this, perhaps, in certain set phrases, surviving in prayers addressed to him. The explanation for this absence of solar traits is to be sought in the peculiar political conditions that resulted in bringing Marduk into such prominence. Hammurabi was preëminently a conquering king. He waged war on all sides, and carried on his campaigns for many years. When he finally succeeded in bringing both North and South Babylonia under his sway, it still required constant watching to keep his empire together. His patron god, therefore, the protector of the city, whose jurisdiction was thus spread over a larger extent of territory than that of any other deity, must have appeared to Hammurabi and his followers, as well as to those vanquished by him, essentially as a warrior. It is he who hands over to kings the land and its inhabitants. The fact that he was a solar deity would become obscured by the side of the more potent fact that, as god of the city of Babylon, his sway was supreme. He therefore became Marduk, the 'great lord.' The epithets bestowed upon him naturally emphasized the manner in which he manifested himself, and these epithets, therefore, referred to his power, to his supremacy over other gods, to his favor shown to his worshippers[Pg 120] by granting them unprecedented glory; and since the political supremacy remained undisputed for many centuries, no opportunity was afforded for ever reverting to the attributes of the god as a solar deity. He remained—if one may so express it—a political deity. The political significance of Babylon permitted only one phase of his nature to be brought forward.
In the religious texts, however, preserving as they do the more primitive conceptions by the side of the most advanced ones, some traces of other attributes besides prowess in war are found. By virtue of his character as a solar deity, Marduk, like the orb personified through him, is essentially a life-giving god. Whereas Shamash is viewed as the 'judge of mankind,' Marduk becomes the god who restores the dead to life, though he shares this power with Shamash, Gula, Nebo, and Nergal. But after all, even in the religious texts, his more prominent rôle is that of a ruler,—a magnified king. He protects the weak, releases the imprisoned, and makes great the small. He controls by his powerful hand the mountains and rivers and fountains. He is the counsellor who guides the decrees, even of the great gods, Anu and Bel. On his head rests a crown with high horns, as the symbol of rulership. As the supreme ruler, life and death are in his hands. Blessings flow from him; and of awe-inspiring appearance, his wrath inflicts severe punishment on the evil-doer.
It is a noteworthy circumstance, and characteristic of the phase of the Babylonian religion which we are considering, that the extension of Marduk's political sway did not lead to the establishment of Marduk cults outside of Babylon. One reason for this was that, in accordance with the political conceptions, dwelt upon in the introductory chapter, the empire of Babylonia was regarded simply as an extension of the city of Babylon. Babylonia, therefore, being identified in theory with the city of Babylon, there was no need of emphasizing the[Pg 121] power of Marduk by establishing his cult elsewhere. Within the limits of Babylon, however, there might be more than one shrine to Marduk, and accordingly, when the city was extended so as to include the place known as Borsippa, a temple to Marduk was also erected there. The temple on the east side of the Euphrates, known as E-Sagila, 'the lofty house,' was the older, and dates probably from the beginnings of Babylon itself; that in Borsippa, known as E-Zida, 'the true house,' seems to have been founded by Hammurabi.[122] While it was not in accord with the dignity attaching to Marduk that his cult should be established outside of the precincts of the city of Babylon, it would only add to his glory to have the worship of other deities grouped around his own sanctuary. Such a course would emphasize the central position of Marduk among the gods, and accordingly, we find that the chief gods of Babylonia are represented by shrines within the sacred precincts of his great temples at Babylon and Borsippa. First among these shrines is that of Marduk's consort,
Neither Hammurabi nor his immediate successor make mention of Sarpanitum, and at no time does she appear independently of Marduk. The glory of Marduk did not permit of any rival, and so his consort becomes merely his shadow,—less significant than most of the consorts of the male deities. Her name, signifying the 'silvery bright one,' evidently stands in some connection with the solar character of her consort. Popular etymology, by a play upon the name, made of Sarpanitum (as though Zer-banit) the 'offspring-producing' goddess. She had her shrine within the precincts of the great temple E-Sagila, but we are not told of any special honors being paid her, nor do we find her invoked to any extent in incantations or in votive inscriptions. Agumkakrimi, or Agum (as he is also called),[Pg 122] who rules about five centuries after Hammurabi, speaks of having recovered the image of Sarpanitum, and that of Marduk, out of the hands of a mountainous people living to the northwest of Babylonia, in the district between the Bay of Iskenderun and the Euphrates. The capture of the statues of the patron gods points to a great humiliation which Babylon must have encountered. Upon receiving a favorable omen from the sun-god, Agum undertakes the task of bringing Marduk and Sarpanitum back to their seats. Their temples, too, at Babylon appear to have suffered damage during the invasion of the city, and accordingly the statues are placed in the temple of Shamash pending the restoration of E-Sagila. Agum dwells at length upon the handsome garments and head-dress, studded with precious stones, that he prepared for the god and his consort. In all this description, one feels that it is Marduk for whom the honors are intended, and that Sarpanitum is of less than secondary importance,—shining merely by the reflected glory of her great liege, whose presence in Babylon was essential to a restoration of Babylon's position.
There are reasons for believing, however, that Sarpanitum once enjoyed considerable importance of her own, that prior to the rise of Marduk to his supreme position, a goddess was worshipped in Babylon, one of whose special functions it was to protect the progeny while still in the mother's womb. A late king of Babylon, the great Nebuchadnezzar, appeals to this attribute of the goddess. To her was also attributed the possession of knowledge concealed from men. Exactly to what class of deities she belonged, we are no longer able to say, but it is certain that at some time, probably about the time of Hammurabi, an amalgamation took place between her and another goddess known as Erua,[123]—a name that etymologically suggests the idea[Pg 123] of 'begetting.'[124] She is represented as dwelling in the temple of E-Zida at Borsippa, and was originally the consort of Nabu, the chief god of this place.[125] A late ruler of Babylon—Shamash-shumukin—calls her the queen of the gods, and declares himself to have been nominated by her to lord it over men.
A factor in this amalgamation of Erua and Sarpanitum was the close association brought about in Babylon between Marduk and a god whose seat was originally at the Persian Gulf—Ea. The cult of this god, as we shall see, survived in Babylonia through all political vicissitudes, and so did that of some other minor water-deities that belong to this region. Among these was Erua, whose worship centered in one of the islands in or near the gulf. Wisdom and the life-giving principle were two ideas associated in the Babylonian mind with water. As inferior in power to Ea, Erua appears to have been regarded as the daughter of Ea, and such was the sway exercised by Ea over men's minds, that even the Babylonian schoolmen did not venture to place Marduk over Ea, but pictured him as Ea's son. Erua, however, was not prominent enough to become Marduk's mother, and so she was regarded as his consort. In this capacity she was associated with Sarpanitum, and the two were merged into one personality. It rarely happens that all the links in such a process are preserved, but in this case, the epithets borne by Sarpanitum-Erua, such as 'lady of the deep,' 'mistress of the place where the fish dwell,' 'voice of the deep,' point the way towards the solution of the problem involved in the amalgamation of Erua and Sarpanitum.[126]
The god Nabu (or Nebo) enjoys a great popularity in the Babylonian cult, but he owes his prestige to the accident that, as god of Borsippa, he was associated with Marduk. Indeed, his case is a clear instance of the manner in which Marduk overshadows all his fellows. Only as they are brought into some manner of relationship with him do they secure a position in the pantheon during this second period of Babylonian history. Since Nabu's position in the pantheon, once established, incurs but little change, it will be proper, in treating of him, to include the testimony furnished by the historical records of the Assyrian kings. The most prominent attribute of Nabu, at least in the later phases of the Babylonian religion, is that of wisdom. He is the wise, the all-knowing. He embodies in his person all the wisdom of the gods. To him the Assyrian kings are particularly fond of ascribing, not merely the understanding that they possess, but the thought of preserving the wisdom of the past for future ages; and in doing this the Assyrians were but guided by examples furnished by the south. Wisdom being associated, in the minds of the Babylonians, with the watery deep, one is tempted to seek an aqueous origin for Nabu. Such a supposition, although it cannot be positively established, has much in its favor. It is not necessary, in order to maintain this proposition, to remove Nabu from Borsippa. The alluvial deposits made by the Euphrates yearly have already demonstrated that Babylon lay much nearer at one time to the Persian Gulf than it does at present. The original seat of Ea, whose worship continued through all times to enjoy great popularity at Babylon, was at Eridu, which, we know, once lay on the Persian Gulf, but does so no longer. The similarity of the epithets bestowed in various texts upon Ea and Nabu point most decidedly to a similar starting-point for both; and since in a syllabary[127] we find the god actually identified[Pg 125] with a deity of Dilmun,—probably one of the islands near Bahrein,—there are grounds for assuming that a tradition survived among the schoolmen, which brought Nabu into some connection with the Persian Gulf. Sayce[128] has already suggested that Borsippa may have originally stood on an inlet of the Persian Gulf. Nabu is inferior to Ea, and were it not for the priority of Marduk, he would have become in Babylonian theology, the son of Ea. Since this distinction[129] is given to Marduk, no direct indication of an original relationship to Ea has survived.
But besides being the god of wisdom and intelligence, Nabu is a patron of agriculture, who causes the grain to sprout forth. In religious and historical texts, he is lauded as the deity who opens up the subterranean sources in order to irrigate the fields. He heaps up the grain in the storehouses, and on the other hand, the withdrawal of his favor is followed by famine and distress. Jensen[130] would conclude from this that he was originally (like Marduk, therefore) a solar deity. This, however, is hardly justified, since it is just as reasonable to deduce his rôle as the producer of fertility from his powers as lord of some body of water. However this may be, in the case of Nabu, there are no grounds for supposing that he represents the combination of two originally distinct deities. A later—chiefly theoretical—amalgamation of Nabu with a god Nusku will be discussed in a subsequent chapter.[131] Hammurabi and his immediate successors, it is noteworthy, do not make mention of Nabu. A sufficient number of inscriptions of this period exists to make it probable that this omission is not accidental. This dynasty was chiefly concerned in firmly establishing the position of Marduk. Other deities could, indeed, be tolerated at his side, provided they were subservient to him; but Nabu, the god of a place so near Babylon, might prove a dangerous rival because[Pg 126] of this proximity. The city on the west bank of the Euphrates was probably as old as that on the east, if not, indeed, older. It did not seem consistent with this devotion to Marduk that Hammurabi and his successors should also recognize Nabu. Policy dictated that Nabu should be ignored, that the attempt must be made to replace his worship, even in Borsippa, by that of Marduk. Viewed in this light, Hammurabi's establishment of the Marduk cult in Borsippa assumes a peculiar significance. It meant that Borsippa was to be incorporated as part of Babylon, and that Marduk was henceforth to take the place occupied by Nabu. In order to emphasize this, Hammurabi actually transfers the name of Nabu's temple in Borsippa, E-Zida, to the one erected by him at that place to Marduk. Did he perhaps entirely suppress the worship of Nabu at Borsippa? It would almost appear so from Agum's utter omission of Nabu. Only the statues of Marduk and Sarpanitum seem to have been robbed by the Hani. Not a word is said as to Nabu. Either there was no statue at the time at Borsippa, or the cult was of such insignificance that the capture of the god was not considered of sufficient moment to occupy the thoughts of the enemy, as little as it did that of the rulers of Babylon at the time. In the inscription in which Hammurabi recounts the building of E-Zida in Borsippa, there are certain expressions which go to substantiate the proposition that Nabu is intentionally ignored.[132] He calls Marduk the lord of E-Sagila and of E-Zida; he speaks of Borsippa as the beloved city of Marduk, just as though it were Babylon. Taking unto himself the functions of Nabu, he even appears to play upon the name, which signifies 'proclaimer,'[Pg 127] and styles himself the nabiu Anu, 'the proclaimer of Anu.' However this may be, the attempt to suppress Nabu did not succeed,—a proof that in early times he had gained popular favor. He had to be readmitted into the Babylonian pantheon, though in a subordinate position to Marduk. He took his place in the theological system as the son of Marduk, and on the great festival—the New Year's day—celebrated in honor of the great god of Babylon, the son shared some of the honors accorded to the father. In time, his sanctuary at Borsippa was again recognized. The former rivalry gave way to a cordial entente. Nabu was even granted a chapel in E-Sagila at Babylon, to which likewise the name of E-Zida was given. Every New Year's day the son paid a visit to his father, on which occasion the statue of Nabu was carried in solemn procession from Borsippa across the river, and along the main street of Babylon leading to the temple of Marduk; and in return the father deity accompanied his son part way on the trip back to E-Zida. In this way, due homage was accorded to Marduk, and at the same time the close and cordial bonds of union between Babylon and Borsippa found satisfactory illustration. E-Sagila and E-Zida become, and remain throughout the duration of the Babylonian religion, the central sanctuaries of the land around which the most precious recollections cluster, as dear to the Assyrians as to the Babylonians. The kings of the northern empire vie with their southern cousins in beautifying and enlarging the structures sacred to Marduk and Nabu.
In view of the explanation offered for the silence maintained by Hammurabi and his successors regarding Nabu, we are justified in including Nabu in the Babylonian pantheon of those days. In later times, among the Assyrians, the Nabu cult, as already intimated, grows in popularity. The northern monarchs, in fact, seem to give Nabu the preference over Marduk. They do not tire of proclaiming him as the source[Pg 128] of wisdom. The staff is his symbol, which is interpreted in a double sense, as the writer's stylus and as the ruler's sceptre. He becomes, also, the bestower of royal power upon his favorites. Without his aid, order cannot be maintained in the land. Disobedience to him is punished by the introduction of foreign rule. Political policy may have had a share in this preference shown for the minor god of Babylon. The Assyrian kings were always anxious to do homage to the gods of Babylon, in order to indicate their control over the southern districts. They were particularly proud of their title 'governor of Bel.'[133] On the other hand, they were careful not to give offence to the chief of the Assyrian pantheon,—the god Ashur,—by paying too much honor to Marduk, who was in a measure Ashur's rival. In consequence, as Hammurabi and his successors endeavored to ignore Nabu, the Assyrian rulers now turned the tables by manifesting a preference for Nabu; and obliged as they were to acknowledge that the intellectual impulses came from the south, they could accept a southern god of wisdom without encroaching upon the province of Ashur, whose claims to homage lay in the prowess he showed in war. Marduk was too much like Ashur to find a place at his side. Nabu was a totally different deity, and in worshipping him who was the son of Marduk, the Assyrian kings felt that they were paying due regard to the feelings of their Babylonian subjects. The cult of Nabu thus became widely extended in Assyria. Statues of the god were erected and deposited in shrines built for the purpose, although the fact was not lost sight of that the real dwelling-place of the god was in Borsippa. At the end of the ninth century B.C. this cult seems to have reached its height. We learn of a temple at Calah, and of no less than eight statues of the god being erected in the days of Ramman-nirari III., and the terms in which the god is addressed might lead one to believe that an attempt was made to concentrate the[Pg 129] cult in Assyria on him.[134] This, however, was an impossibility. As long as Assyria continued to play the rôle of the subduer of nations, Ashur—the god of war par excellence—necessarily retained his position at the head of the Assyrian pantheon. The popularity of Nabu, which continued to the end of the Assyrian empire, and gained a fresh impetus in the days of Ashurbanabal, who, as a patron of literature, invokes Nabu on thousands of the tablets of his library as 'the opener of ears to understanding,' reacted on his position in the Babylonian cult. In the new Babylonian empire, which continued to so large a degree the traditions of Assyria, it is no accident that three of the kings—Nabupolassar, Nebuchadnezzar, and Nabonnedos—bear names containing the deity as one of the elements. While paying superior devotion to Marduk, who once more became the real and not merely the nominal head of the pantheon, they must have held Nabu in no small esteem; and indeed the last-named king was suspected of trying actually to divert the homage of the people away from Marduk to other gods, though he did not, as a matter of course, go so far as to endeavor to usurp for the son, the position held by the father. It is probably due to Assyrian influence that even in Babylonia, from the eighth century on, Nabu is occasionally mentioned before Marduk. So Marduk-baladan II. (721-710) calls himself the "worshipper of Nabu and Marduk," and similarly others. In official letters likewise, and in astronomical reports, Nabu is given precedence to Marduk, but this may be due to Nabu's functions, as the god of writing and the patron of science.
The Neo-Babylonian kings are not sparing in the epithets they bestow on Nabu, though they emphasize more his qualities as holder of the 'sceptre' than as lord of the 'stylus.' So Nebuchadnezzar declares that it is he 'who gives the sceptre of sovereignty to kings to rule over all lands.' In this capacity[Pg 130] he is 'the upholder of the world,' 'the general overseer,' and his temple is called 'the house of the sceptre of the world.'
His name signifies simply the 'proclaimer,' or herald, but we are left in doubt as to what he proclaims,—whether wisdom or sovereignty. Sometimes he appears as the 'herald' of the gods. In this rôle he receives the name of Papsukal (i.e., supreme or sacred messenger), and it may be that this function was a very old one. But, again, as god of fertility he could also be appropriately termed the 'proclaimer.' The question must, accordingly, be left open as to the precise force of the attribute contained in his name. Finally, an interesting feature connected with Nabu, that may be mentioned here, is that in the name borne by a famous mountain in Moab, Nebo, where Moses—himself a 'proclaimer'[135]—died, there survives a testimony that the worship of this popular deity extended beyond the Euphrates and the Tigris, to Semites living considerably to the west. To Nabu, as to Marduk, a consort was given. Her name was
The name Tashmitum appears for the first time in the days of Hammurabi. Attention has already been called to the king's ignoring of the god of Borsippa. While his attempt to suppress the cult of Nabu was not successful, he did succeed in causing the old consort of Nabu to disappear. This consort appears to have been no other than Erua. It will be recalled that up to very late times the tradition survived that her dwelling-place was Borsippa.[136] This is never said of Sarpanitum. Despite, therefore, the amalgamation of Sarpanitum and Erua, the association of the latter with Nabu's dwelling-place remains[Pg 131] impressed upon the memory of the Babylonian scholars, at least. Nabu's consort having thus been transferred to Marduk, a new mate had to be found for the former, when once his rivalry was no longer to be dreaded, and his cult again rose to prominence. 'Tashmitum' is an abstract noun in Assyrian, signifying 'revelation.' As such, it is bestowed in historical texts upon Nabu himself, who is called itu tashimêti, 'god of revelation.' Nabu is, above all, a 'revealing' god,—revealing knowledge, the art of writing, and the method of ruling. The appellation is therefore a most appropriate one, and there seems little reason to question that Tashmitum was originally nothing but one of the terms by which Nabu was designated, just as he was called Papsukal in his rôle as 'messenger' of the gods,—the messenger of his father Marduk and of his grandfather Ea, in particular. But Tashmitum, being feminine in gender, as an abstract noun, seemed appropriate as the designation of a goddess. It would appear, then, that 'Revelation,' from being so constantly associated with Nabu, was personified, dissociated from him, as it were, through the conception of a distinct goddess bearing the name of 'Tashmitum.' This process of thought, in giving rise to a new goddess, may have been, in part, a popular one. The translation of a metaphor into reality is a phenomenon that may be observed in almost all religions of antiquity. But the process, whatever its course in detail may have been, was not uninfluenced by the theological dogma whereby a god was supposed to have a 'reflection' who was pictured as his consort. Through this conception, as we have already seen, many a goddess once ruling in her own right, and enjoying an independent existence, degenerated into a mere shadow of some male deity, though, on the other hand, it must be borne in mind that these female deities would have disappeared altogether but for the opportunity thus afforded them of becoming 'attachées' to some male deity. This theory of the quasi-artificial character and origin of Tashmit finds[Pg 132] support in the manner in which the mention of her name is entwined with that of Nabu. Sarpanitum, bound up as the goddess is with Marduk, has at least a shrine of her own, and occasionally she is spoken of in the texts without her husband Marduk.[137] The mention of Tashmitum, however, invariably follows that of Nabu. It is always 'Nabu and Tashmitum,' and it is never Tashmitum without Nabu. While the creation of Tashmitum may be a product of Babylonian religious thought, it is in Assyrian texts that her name is chiefly found. The great Ashurbanabal, in the conventional subscript attached to his tablet, is particularly fond of coupling Tashmitum with Nabu, as the two deities who opened his ears to understanding and prompted him to gather in his palace the literary treasures produced by the culture that flourished in the south. Tashmit has no shrine or temple, so far as known, either in Borsippa or in any of the places whither the Nabu cult spread. She has no attributes other than those that belong to Nabu, and, what is very remarkable, the later Babylonian kings, such as Nebuchadnezzar II., when they deem it proper to attach a consort to Nabu call her Nanâ,[138] i.e., simply the lady, and not Tashmitum, a proof, how little hold the name had taken upon the Babylonian populace. If to this it be added, that in by far the greater number of instances, no reference whatsoever to a consort is made when Nabu is spoken of, an additional reason is found for the unreal, the shadowy character of this goddess.
In treating of the position occupied by Ea in the oldest period of Babylonian history (see above, pp. 61-64), it has already been mentioned that he grows to much larger proportions under the influence of a more fully developed theological system. Indeed, there is no god who shows such profound[Pg 133] traces of having been submitted to a theological treatment, and indirectly, therefore, furnishes so distinct a proof of the existence of theological schools in the ancient centers of Babylonian culture, as Ea. The question may with propriety be here discussed, to what period we are to attribute the completion of the process, which, to summarize his position, made Ea the special god of humanity, the father of Marduk, the third in a great triad, of which the other two members were Anu, the god of heaven, and Bel, the god of earth. Already, in the days preceding the union of the Babylonian states under one head, we have had occasion to see traces of an attempt to systematize the relations existing between the gods. A high degree of culture, such as the existence of a perfected form of writing, an advanced form of architecture, and commercial enterprise reflect, cannot be dissociated from a high degree of activity in the domain of philosophic or religious thought. Accordingly, we are in no danger of attributing too great an antiquity to the beginnings of theological speculation in Babylonia. Be it remembered that from the earliest to the latest days, the priests were the scribes and that in their capacity as writers of the texts, they would be enjoying the advantages of an intellectual impulse. But they were also the composers of the texts, as well as the writers, and the prominence given to the gods in texts of whatever description, would inevitably lead their thoughts to speculations regarding the attributes of the gods. The attempt would at an early period be made to find some unifying principles in the tangled mass of gods. By the time that Hammurabi appears on the scene, we have every reason to believe that some of the ancient libraries of the south, whither Ashurbanabal sent his scribes, were already well stocked, and that a goodly portion of the Babylonian literature known to us already existed. What these portions were, we will have occasion to point out when we come to discuss the literature of Babylonia. On the other hand, this literature would[Pg 134] not only necessarily increase as long as any degree of intellectual activity existed in the country, but this activity would also manifest itself in transforming this literature, so as to adapt it to the thoughts and aspirations of a later age. Especially would this be the case in the purely religious divisions of literature. The ancient traditions, legends, and myths, once committed to writing, would serve as a point of departure for further speculations. The existence of a text to which any measure of value is attached, is bound to give rise to various attempts at interpretation, and if this value be connected with the religion of a people, the result is, invariably, that the ancient words are invested with a meaning conformable to a later age. Each generation among a people characterized by intellectual activity has a signature of its own, and it will seek to give to the religious thoughts of the time its own particular impress. Since, however, the material upon which any age works is not of its own making, but is furnished by a preceding one, it follows that much of the intellectual activity of an age manifests itself in a transformation of its literary or speculative heritage. This process was constantly going on in Babylonia, and had we more material—and older material—at our disposal, we would be able to trace more clearly than we can at present, the various stages that led to the system of theology, as embodied in the best productions of the ancient Babylonian schoolmen.
The days of Hammurabi, as they were politically of great importance, also appear to have ushered in a new era in the religious life of the people. Stirring political events are always apt to bring in their wake intellectual movements, and in a country like Babylonia, where politics react so forcibly on religious conditions, the permanent establishment of the supremacy of the city of Babylon would be fraught with important consequences for the cult. The main change brought about by this new epoch of Babylonian history was, as we have seen, the superior position henceforth accorded in the pantheon to Marduk[Pg 135] as the patron deity of Babylon; but this change entailed so many others, that it almost merits being termed a revolution. In order to ensure Marduk's place, the relations of the other deities to him had to be regulated, the legends and traditions of the past reshaped, so as to be brought into consistent accord with the new order of things, and the cult likewise to be, at least in part, remodelled, so as to emphasize the supremacy of Marduk. This work, which was an inevitable one, was primarily of an intellectual order. We are justified, then, in looking for traces of this activity in the remains that have been recovered of ancient Babylonian literature. We know from direct evidence that the commercial life of Babylonia had already, in the period preceding Hammurabi, led to regulated legal forms and practices for the purpose of carrying out obligations and of settling commercial and legal difficulties. The proof has been furnished by Dr. Meissner[139] that syllabaries prepared for the better understanding of the formulas and words employed in preparing the legal and commercial tablets, date, in part, from the period which we may roughly designate as that of Hammurabi,—covering, say, the three centuries 2300 to 2000 B.C. With this evidence for the existence of pedagogues devoted to the training of novices in the art of reading and writing, in order to fit them for their future tasks as official scribes, we are safe in assuming that these same schoolmen were no less active in other fields of literature. If, in addition to this, we find that much of the religious literature, in the shape that we have it, reflects the religious conditions such as they must have shaped themselves in consequence of the promotion of Marduk to the head of the pantheon, the conclusion is forced upon us that such literary productions date from this same epoch of Hammurabi. This influence of the schoolmen while centering, as repeatedly pointed out, around the position of Marduk, manifests itself in a pronounced[Pg 136] fashion, also, in the changed position henceforth accorded to the god Ea. It will be recalled that in the earliest period of Babylonian history, Ea does not figure prominently. At the same time we must beware of laying too much stress upon the negative testimony of the historical texts. Besides the still limited material of this character at our disposal, the non-mention of a deity may be due to a variety of circumstances, that may properly be designated as accidental. The gods to whom the kings of the ancient Babylonian states would be apt to appeal would be, in the first instance, the local deities, patrons of the city that happened to be the capital of the state; in the second instance, the gods of the vanquished towns; and thirdly, some of the great deities worshipped at the sacred centers of the Euphrates valley, and who constituted, as it were, the common heritage of the past. Ea, as the god of the Persian gulf, the region which forms the starting-point of Babylonian culture, and around which some of the oldest and most precious recollections center, would come within the radius of the third instance, since, in the period we have in mind, Eridu no longer enjoyed any political importance. We may be sure, then, despite the silence of the texts, that Ea was always held in great esteem, and that even the absence of temples in his honor, did not affect the reverence and awe that he inspired. As for the epoch of Hammurabi, the historical spirit that is never absent in a truly intellectual age would be certain to restore Ea to his proper prestige, assuming that a previous age had permitted him to fall into neglect. Next to Marduk, there is no deity who is given such distinction in Babylonia, after the union of the Babylonian states, as Ea. In the religious literature, moreover, as reshaped by the schoolmen of the time, his rôle is even more prominent than that of Marduk. As a water-god, and more particularly as the god to whom the largest body of water known to the Babylonians was sacred, Ea was regarded as the source and giver of wisdom.[Pg 137] Fountains everywhere were sacred to him; and so he becomes also the giver of fertility and plenty. Berosus tells us of a mystic being, half man, half fish, who spent his nights in the waters of the gulf, but who would come out of the waters during the day to give instruction to the people, until that time steeped in ignorance and barbarism. This 'Oannes,' as Berosus is said[140] to have called him, was none other than Ea. As the great benefactor of mankind, it is natural that Ea should have come to be viewed as the god whose special function it is to protect the human race, to advance it in all its good undertakings, to protect it against the evil designs of gods or demons. In this rôle, he appears in the religious literature—in the epics, the cosmogony, and the ritual—of Babylonia. There is no god conceived in so universal a manner as Ea. All local connection with Eridu disappears. He belongs to no particular district. His worship is not limited to any particular spot. All of Babylonia lays claim to him. The ethical import of such a conception is manifestly great, and traces of it are to be found in the religious productions. It impressed upon the Babylonians the common bond uniting all mankind. The cult of Ea must have engendered humane feelings, softening the rivalry existing among the ancient centers of Babylonian power, and leading the people a considerable distance, on the road to the conception of a common humanity. When the gods decide to destroy mankind, it is Ea who intercedes on behalf of humanity; when the demon of disease has entered a human body, it is to Ea that, in the last resort, the appeal is made to free the sufferer from his pain. Ea is the god of the physicians. Nay, more, it is Ea who presided at the birth of humanity, so that[Pg 138] his protection reaches far back, beyond even the beginnings of civilization, almost to the beginning of things. Lastly, as the god of civilization, it is to him that the great works of art are ascribed. He is the god of the smithy, the patron of the gold and silversmiths, of workers in lapis-lazuli, and all kinds of precious stones. He is the god of sculpture. The great bulls and lions that guarded the approaches to the temple and palace chambers, as well as the statues of the gods and kings, were the work of his hands. Furthermore, he is the patron of weavers, as of other arts. This conception may have been perfected in a general way, and in all probability was perfected before the days of Hammurabi, though perhaps not prominently brought forward; but important modifications were introduced into it, through the compromise that had to be arranged between the position of Ea and that of Marduk. Of course, neither the rulers nor the priests of Babylon could have permitted the reverence for Ea to have gone to the length of throwing Marduk into the shade. Many of the functions assigned to Ea seemed to belong of right to Marduk, who, as the patron of Babylon, presided over the destinies of what to the Babylonians was the essential part of mankind,—namely, themselves. Moreover, Babylon being the seat of culture as well as of power, in the period following upon Hammurabi, Marduk was necessarily conceived as possessing the same wisdom that distinguishes Ea. As a consequence, the attributes of Ea were transferred in a body to Marduk. An amalgamation of the two, however, such as took place in the case of other deities, was neither possible, nor, indeed, desirable. It was not possible, because of the antiquity of the Ea cult and the peculiar position that he, as a common heirloom of all Babylonia, occupied; nor was it desirable, for to do so would be to cut off completely the bond uniting Babylon to its own past and to the rest of Babylonia. The solution of the problem was found in making Ea, the father of Marduk—the[Pg 139] loving and proud father who willingly transfers all his powers and qualities to his son, who rejoices in the triumph of his offspring, and who suffers no pangs of jealousy when beholding the superior honors shown to Marduk, both by the gods and by men.
The combination of the two gods is particularly frequent in the so-called incantation texts. Marduk becomes the mediator between Ea and mankind. The man smitten with disease, or otherwise in trouble, appeals to Marduk for help, who promptly brings the petition to his father Ea. The latter, after modestly declaring that there is nothing that he knows which his son Marduk does not know, gives Marduk the necessary instructions, which in turn are conveyed to the one crying for divine succor. It is clear that these texts have been reshaped with the intention of adding to the glory of Marduk. They must, therefore, have been remodelled at a time when the Marduk cult was in the ascendancy. This was after the days of Hammurabi, and before the subjugation of Babylonia to Assyrian rule. The limits thus assigned are, to be sure, broad, but from what has above been said as to the intellectual activity reigning in the days of Hammurabi, we need not descend far below the death of the great conqueror to find the starting-point for the remodelling of the texts in question. Not all of them, of course, were so reshaped. There are quite a number in which Ea is alone and directly appealed to, and these form a welcome confirmation of the supposition that those in which Ea is joined to Marduk have been reshaped with a desire to make them conform to the position of Marduk in the Babylonian pantheon. Again, there are incantations in which the name of Marduk appears without Ea. Such are either productions of a later period, of the time when Marduk had already assumed his superior position, or what is also[Pg 140] possible, though less probable, old compositions in which the name of Ea has been simply replaced by that of Marduk. An especially interesting example of the manner in which ancient productions have been worked over by the Babylonian theologians, with a view to bringing their favorite Marduk into greater prominence, appears in one of the episodes of the Babylonian cosmogony. Prior to the creation of man a great monster known as Tiâmat had to be subdued. The gods all shrink in terror before her. Only one succeeds in conquering her. In the form of the story, as we have it, this hero is Marduk, but it is quite evident[141] that the honor originally belonged to an entirely different god, one who is much older, and who stands much higher than the god of Babylon. This was Bel,—the old god of Nippur who was conceived as the god of earth par excellence, and to whom therefore the task of preparing the earth for the habitation of mankind properly belonged. How do the Babylonian theologians, who stand under the influence of the political conditions prevailing in Babylonia after the union of the Babylonian states, reconcile this older and true form of the episode with the form in which they have recast it? The gods who are called the progenitors of Marduk are represented as rejoicing upon seeing Marduk equipped for the fray. In chorus they greet and bless him, "Marduk be king." They present him with additional weapons, and encourage him for the contest. Upon hearing of his success the gods vie with one another in conferring honors upon Marduk. They bestow all manner of glorious epithets upon him; and, to cap the climax, the old Bel, known as 'father Bel,' steps forward and transfers to him his name, bêl matâti,[142] 'lord of lands.' To bestow the name was equivalent to transferring Bel's powers to Marduk; and so Marduk is henceforth[Pg 141] known as Bel. But Ea must be introduced into the episode. It is not sufficient that Bel, the original subduer of Tiâmat, should pay homage to Marduk; Ea also greets his son, and bestows his name upon him,[143]—that is, transfers his powers to his son. There is a special reason for this. The overthrow of Tiâmat is followed by the creation of man. This function properly belongs to Bel, both as the god of earth and as the subduer of Tiâmat. According to one—and probably the oldest—version of this part of the Babylonian cosmogony which was embodied in the work of Berosus[144], it is Bel who creates mankind. The substitution of Marduk for Bel necessitated the transference of the rôle of creator to Marduk likewise, and yet the latter could not take this upon himself without the consent of his father Ea, who had become the god of humanity par excellence. Ea could interpose no objection against Bel being replaced by Marduk in vanquishing the monster, but when it came to drawing the conclusion and replacing Bel by Marduk also in the creation of man, the case was different. If Bel was to be replaced, Ea had a prior claim. Marduk could only take the new functions upon himself after receiving the powers of Ea. That is the force of Ea's saying that Marduk's name also shall be Ea just as his. This transference of the name of Ea to Marduk is in itself an indication that there must have existed a second version in Babylonia—probably of later origin than the other—of the creation of man, according to which Ea, and not Bel, was the creator. We shall have occasion to see, in a future chapter, that there were at least two different versions current in Babylonia of the creation of the gods and of the universe. The opening chapters in Genesis form an interesting parallel to show the manner in which two different versions of one and the same subject may be combined. There is, therefore,[Pg 142] nothing improbable in the supposition that a later version, reflecting a period when Bel had sunk into comparative insignificance, made Ea the creator of mankind instead of Bel, and that still later a solution of the apparent inconsistency involved in transferring only part of Bel's powers to Marduk was found by securing Ea's consent to the acknowledgment of Marduk not merely as creator of mankind but of the heavenly vault as well. Jensen[145] has brought other evidence to show that Ea was once regarded as the creator of mankind. One of his titles is that of 'potter,' and mankind, according to Babylonian theories, was formed of 'clay.' Moreover, in a Babylonian myth that will be set forth in its proper place, Ea expressly figures in the rôle of creating a mysterious being, Uddushu-na-mir, whose name signifies 'his light shines.' Such a proper name, too, as "Ea-bani," i.e., 'Ea creates,' points in the same direction.
In other literary productions of Babylonia, such as, e.g., the so-called Izdubar epic, Ea again appears without Marduk, showing that this story has not been remodeled, or that the later version, in which the traces of a recasting may have been seen, has not been discovered. In the deluge story, which forms part of the Izdubar epic, Ea alone is the hero. It is he who saves humanity from complete annihilation, and who pacifies the angered Bel. Marduk's name does not appear in the entire epic. We have found it necessary to dwell thus at length upon these evidences of the recasting of the literary products of ancient Babylonia under the influence of changed conceptions of the gods and of their relations to one another, for upon the understanding of these changes, our appreciation of the development of religious beliefs in Babylonia, and all connected with these beliefs, hinges. The epoch of Hammurabi was a crucial one for Babylonia from a religious as well as from a political point of view.[Pg 143]
The consort of Ea figures occasionally in the historical texts of Hammurabi's successors. Agumkakrimi invokes Ea and Damkina, asking these gods, who 'dwell in the great ocean' surrounding the earth, to grant him long life. In addition to this, the antiquity of the literary productions in which her name appears justifies us in reckoning her among the gods of Babylonia of Hammurabi's time. Her name signifies 'lady of the earth,' and there is evidently a theoretical substratum to this association of Ea, the water-god, with an earth-goddess. The one forms the complement to the other; and Marduk, as the son of water and earth, takes his place in the theory as the creator of the world. In this form the 'natural philosophy' of Babylonia survived to a late period. Nicolas of Damascus still knows (probably through Berosus) that Ea and Damkina[146] had a son Bel (i.e., Marduk). The survival of the name is a proof that, despite the silence of the historical texts, she was a prominent personage in Babylonian mythology, even though she did not figure largely in the cult. She appears in the magical texts quite frequently at the side of Ea. In a hymn[147] where a description occurs of the boat containing Ea, Damkina his wife, and Marduk their son, together with the ferryman and some other personages sailing across the ocean, we may see traces of the process of symbolization to which the old figures of mythology were subjected.
Passing on, we find Hammurabi as strongly attached to the worship of the old sun-god as any of his predecessors. Next to Babylon, he was much concerned with making improvements in Sippar. The Temple of Shamash at Larsa also was[Pg 144] improved and enlarged by him. Hammurabi's example is followed by his successors. Agumkakrimi invokes Shamash as 'warrior of heaven and earth'; and it is likely that the precedent furnished by these two kings, who considered it consistent with devotion to Marduk to single out the places sacred to Shamash for special consideration, had much to do in maintaining the popularity of sun-worship in Babylonia and Assyria. Kara-indash, of the Cassite dynasty (c. 1450 B.C.), restores the temple of Shamash at Larsa, and Mili-shikhu, two centuries later, assigns to Shamash the second place in his pantheon, naming him before Marduk. Foreign rulers were naturally not so deeply attached to Marduk as were the natives of Babylon. In the Assyrian pantheon Shamash occupies the third place, following immediately upon the two special deities of Assyria. One of the greatest of the northern kings erects a temple in honor of the god, and the later Babylonian kings vie with one another in doing honor to the two oldest sanctuaries of Shamash, at Sippar and Larsa. Perhaps the pristine affinity between Marduk, who, as we saw, was originally a sun-deity, and Shamash, also had a share in Hammurabi's fondness for coupling these two gods. When describing his operations at Sippar he speaks of himself as 'doing good to the flesh of Shamash and Marduk.' Hammurabi felt himself to be honoring Marduk, through paying homage to a deity having affinity with the patron protector of Babylon.
We have already come across a deity of this name in a previous chapter.[148] Hammurabi tells us, in one of his inscriptions, that he has restored the temple in honor of Innanna at Hallabi—a town near Sippar.[149] Innanna, or Ninni, signifying[Pg 145] merely 'lady,' or 'great lady,' appears to have become a very general name for a goddess, hence the addition 'of Hallabi,' which Hammurabi is careful to make. At the same time the designation 'lady of Hallabi' points to her being a consort of a male deity who was the patron of the place. May this have been the moon-god again, as in the case of the other Innanna? Our knowledge of this goddess is confined to what the king tells us about her. For him she is the mistress whose glory fills heaven and earth, but when he adds that she has placed in his hands the reins of government, this only means that the goddess recognizes his right to supreme authority over the Babylonian states—not that he owes his power to her. It is after he has succeeded in making Babylon the capital of a great kingdom that he proceeds to improve the temple of Innanna.
Among the literary remains of Hammurabi's days we have a hymn in which the chief gods worshipped by the king are enumerated in succession. The list begins with Bel, and then mentions Sin, Ninib, Ishtar, Shamash, and Ramman. We should expect to find at the head of the list Marduk. The hymn may be older than Hammurabi, who, perhaps, is quoting or copying it, and since the Bel who is here at the head of the pantheon is the god of Nippur, the hymn may originally have belonged to the ritual of that place. For Hammurabi the highest 'Bel,' or lord, is Marduk, and there is hardly room for doubt that in using this hymn as a means of passing on to singing his own praises, with which the inscription in question ends, Hammurabi has in mind the patron god of Babylon when speaking of Bel.[150] It is this amalgamation of the old Bel with Marduk that marks, as we have seen, the transition to the use of Bel's name as a mere title of Marduk. Elsewhere, however,[Pg 146] Hammurabi uses Bel to designate the old god. So when he calls himself the proclaimer of Anu and Bel[151] the association with Anu makes it impossible that Marduk should be meant. At times he appears to refer in the same inscription, now to the old Bel and again to Bel-Marduk, under the same designation. When Kurigalzu, a member of the Cassite dynasty (c. 1400 B.C.), speaks of 'Bel, the lord of lands,' to whom he erects a temple in the new city, Dur-Kurigalzu—some forty miles to the northeast of Babylon—it is the old Bel who is again meant. While acknowledging Marduk as one of the chief gods, these foreign rulers in Babylonia—the Cassites—did not feel the same attachment to him as Hammurabi did. They gave the preference to the old god of Nippur, and, indeed, succeeded in their attempt to give to the old city of Nippur some of its pristine glory. They devoted themselves assiduously to the care of the great temple at Nippur. There are some indications of an attempt made by them to make Nippur the capital of their empire. In the case of Hammurabi's immediate successor, as has been pointed out, the equation Bel-Marduk is distinctly set down, but, for all that, the double employment of the name continues even through the period of the Assyrian supremacy over Babylonia. The northern rulers now use Bel to designate the more ancient god, and, again, merely as a designation of Marduk. Tiglathpileser I. (see note 1, below) expressly adds 'the older' when speaking of Bel. When Sargon refers to Bel, 'the lord of lands, who dwells on the sacred mountain of the gods,' or when Tiglathpileser I. calls Bel 'the father of the gods,' 'the king of the group of spirits' known as the Anunaki, it is[Pg 147] of course only the old Bel, the lord of the lower region, or of the earth, who can be meant; but when, as is much more frequently the case, the kings of Assyria, down to the fall of the empire, associate Bel with Nabu, speak of Bel and the gods of Akkad (i.e., Babylonia), and use Bel, moreover, to designate Babylonia,[152] it is equally clear that Marduk is meant. In the Neo-Babylonian empire Marduk alone is used.
The continued existence of a god Bel in the Babylonian pantheon, despite the amalgamation of Bel with Marduk, is a phenomenon that calls for some comment. The explanation is to be found in the influence of the theological system that must have been developed in part, at least, even before the union of the Babylonian states.[153] Bel, as the god of earth, was associated with Anu, as the god of heaven, and Ea, as the god of the deep, to form a triad that embraced the entire universe. When, therefore, Anu, Bel, and Ea were invoked, it was equivalent to naming all the powers that influenced the fate of man. They embraced, as it were, the three kingdoms of the gods, within which all the other gods could be comprised. The systematization involved in the assumption of a triad of gods controlling the entire pantheon can hardly be supposed to have been a popular process. It betokens an amount of thought and speculation, a comprehensive view of the powers of nature, that could only have arisen in minds superior to the average intelligence. In other words, the conception of the triad Anu, Bel, and Ea is again an evidence of the existence of schoolmen and of schools of religious thought in the days of the ancient empire. So far, however, as Hammurabi is concerned, he only refers to a duality—Anu and Bel—which, for him, comprises all the other gods. He is the 'proclaimer of Anu and Bel.' It is Anu and Bel who give him sovereignty over the land. In[Pg 148] the texts of the second period the triad does not occur until we come to the reign of a king, Mili-shikhu, who lives at least eight centuries after Hammurabi. Ea, in fact, does not occur at all in those inscriptions of the king that have as yet been discovered. If any conclusion is to be drawn from this omission, it is certainly this,—that there are several stages in the development of the ancient theological system of Babylonia. At first a duality of kingdoms—the kingdom of what is above and below—was conceived as comprising all the personified powers of nature, but this duality was replaced by a triad through the addition of the god who stands at the head of all water-deities. Of course the assumption of a duality instead of a triad may have been due to a difference among existing schools of thought. At all events, there seems to be no political reason for the addition of Ea, and it is difficult to say, therefore, how soon the conception of a triad standing at the head of the pantheon arose. We have found it in Gudea's days, and it must, therefore, have existed in the days of Hammurabi, without, perhaps, being regarded as an essential dogma as yet. A direct and natural consequence of Bel's position in the triad was that, by the side of Bel-Marduk, the older Bel continued to be invoked in historical inscriptions. Since Anu and Ea were appealed to by themselves, the former occasionally, the latter more frequently, there was no reason why a ruler should not at times be prompted to introduce an invocation to Bel, without the direct association with Anu and Ea. The confusion that thus ensues between the two Bels was not of serious moment, since from the context one could without difficulty determine which of the two was meant; and what we, with our limited knowledge of ancient Babylonia, are able to do, must have been an easy task for the Babylonians themselves.[Pg 149][154] It is tempting to suppose that the first command of the Decalogue (Exodus, xx) contains an implied reference to the Babylonian triad.
The theory of the triad succeeds in maintaining its hold upon Babylonian minds from a certain period on, through all political and intellectual vicissitudes. To invoke Anu, Bel, and Ea becomes a standing formula that the rulers of Babylonia as well as of Assyria are fond of employing. These three are the great gods par excellence. They occupy a place of their own. The kings do not feel as close to them as to Marduk, or to Ashur, or even to the sun-god, or to the moon-god. The invocation of the triad partakes more of a formal character, as though in giving to these three gods the first place, the writers felt that they were following an ancient precedent that had more of a theoretical than a practical value for their days. So among Assyrian rulers, Ashur-rish-ishi (c. 1150 B.C.) derives his right to the throne from the authority with which he is invested by the triad. Again, in the formal curses which the kings called down upon the destroyers of the inscriptions or statues that they set up, the appeal to Anu, Bel, and Ea is made. Ashurnasirbal calls upon the triad not to listen to the prayers of such as deface his monuments. Sargon has an interesting statement in one of his inscriptions, according to which the names of the months were fixed by Anu, Bel, and Ea. This 'archaeological' theory illustrates very well the extraneous position occupied by the triad. The months, as we shall see, are sacred, each to a different god. The gods thus distinguished are the ones that are directly concerned in the fortunes of the state,—Sin, Ashur, Ishtar, and the like. Anu, Bel, and Ea are not in the list, and the tradition, or rather the dogma according to which they assign the names is evidently an attempt to make good[Pg 150] this omission by placing them, as it were, beyond the reach of the calendar. In short, so far as the historical texts are concerned which reflect the popular beliefs, the triad represents a theological doctrine rather than a living force. In combination, Anu, Bel, and Ea did not mean as much, nor the same thing, to a Babylonian or an Assyrian, as when he said Marduk, or Nabu, or Ashur, or Sin, as the case might be. It was different when addressing these gods individually, as was occasionally done. The Assyrians were rather fond of introducing Anu by himself in their prayers, and the Babylonians were prompted to a frequent mention of Ea by virtue of his relationship to Marduk, but when this was done Anu and Ea meant something different than when mentioned in one breath along with Bel.
One might have supposed that when Bel became Marduk, the consort of Bel would also become Marduk's consort. Such, however, does not appear to be the case, at least so far as the epoch of Hammurabi is concerned. When he calls himself 'the beloved shepherd of Belit,' it is the wife of the old Bel that is meant, and so when Agumkakrimi mentions Bel and Belit together, as the gods that decree his fate on earth, there is no doubt as to what Belit is meant. In later days, however, and in Assyria more particularly, there seems to be a tendency towards generalizing the name (much as that of Bel) to the extent of applying it in the sense of 'mistress' to the consort of the chief god of the pantheon; and that happening to be Ashur in Assyria accounts for the fact, which might otherwise appear strange, that Tiglathpileser I. (c. 1140 B.C.) calls Belit the 'lofty consort and beloved of Ashur.' Ashurbanabal (668-626 B.C.) does the same, and even goes further and declares himself to be the offspring of Ashur and Belit. On the other hand, in the interval between these two[Pg 151] kings we find Shalmaneser II. (860-825 B.C.) calling Belit 'the mother of the great gods' and 'the wife of Bel,' making it evident that the old Belit of the south is meant, and since Ashurbanabal on one occasion also calls the goddess 'the beloved of Bel,'[155] it follows that in his days two Belits were still recognized, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say two uses of the term,—one specifically for the consort of the Babylonian Bel, the god of the earth, with his ancient seat at Nippur; the other of a more general character, though still limited as 'lady' to the consort of the chief gods, just as 'Bel,' while acquiring the general sense of 'lord,' was restricted in actual usage to the greatest 'lords' only. An indication of this distinction, somewhat parallel to the addition of Dagan to Bel, to indicate that the old Bel was meant,[156] appears in the sobriquet 'of Babylonia,'[157] which Ashurbanabal gives to the goddess in one place where the old Belit is meant. Under the influence of this Assyrian extension of the term, Nabopolassar, in the Neo-Babylonian period, applies the title to the consort of Shamash at Sippar, but he is careful to specify 'Belit of Sippar,' in order to avoid misunderstanding. Besides being applied to the consorts of Ashur and of Shamash, 'Belit,' in the general sense of 'mistress,' is applied only to another goddess, the great Ishtar of the Assyrian pantheon—generally, however, as a title, not as a name of the goddess. The important position she occupied in the Assyrian pantheon seemed to justify this further modification and extension in the use of the term. Occasionally, Ishtar is directly and expressly called 'Belit.' So, Ashurbanabal speaks of a temple that he has founded in Calah to 'Belit mâti,'[158] 'the Belit (or lady) of the land,' where the context speaks in favor of identifying Belit with the great goddess Ishtar. Again[Pg 152] Ashurbanabal, in a dedicatory inscription giving an account of improvements made in the temple of Ishtar, addresses the goddess as Belit 'lady of lands, dwelling in E-mash-mash.'[159]
In the second period of Babylonian history the worship of the supreme god of heaven becomes even more closely bound up with Anu's position as the first member of the inseparable triad than was the case in the first period. For Hammurabi, as has been noted, Anu is only a half-real figure who in association with Bel is represented as giving his endorsement to the king's authority.[160] The manner in which Agumkakrimi introduces Anu is no less characteristic for the age of Hammurabi and his successors. At the beginning of his long inscription,[161] he enumerates the chief gods under whose protection he places himself. As a Cassitic ruler, he assigns the first place to the chief Cassite deity, Shukamuna, a god of war whom the Babylonian scholars identified with their own Nergal.[162] Shukamuna is followed by the triad Anu, Bel, and Ea. Marduk occupies a fifth place, after which comes a second triad, Sin, Shamash "the mighty hero," and Ishtar[163] "the strong one among the gods." The inscription is devoted to the king's successful capture of the statues of Marduk and Sarpanitum out of the hands of the Khani, and the restoration[Pg 153] of the shrines of these deities at Babylon. At the close, the king Agumkakrimi appeals to Anu and his consort Anatum,[164] who are asked to bless the king in heaven, to Bel and Belit who are asked to fix his fate on earth, and to Ea and Damkina, inhabiting the deep,[165] who are to grant him long life. As in the beginning of the inscription, the thought of the triad—Anu, Bel, Ea—evidently underlies this interesting invocation, but at the same time the association of a consort with Anu brings the god into closer relationship with his fellows. He takes on—if the contradiction in terms be permitted—a more human shape. His consort bears a name that is simply the feminine form to Anu, just as Belit is the feminine to Bel. 'Anu,' signifying 'the one on high,'—a feminine to it was formed, manifestly under the influence of the notion that every god must have a consort of some kind. After Agumkakrimi no further mention of Anatum occurs, neither in the inscriptions of Babylonian nor of Assyrian rulers. We are permitted to conclude, therefore, that Anatum was a product of the schools, and one that never took a strong hold on the popular mind. Among the Assyrian kings who in other respects also show less dependence upon the doctrines evolved in the Babylonian schools, and whose inscriptions reflect to a greater degree the purely popular phases of the faith, we find Anu mentioned with tolerable frequency, and in a manner that betrays less emphasis upon the position of the god as a member of the triad. Still, it is rather curious that he does not appear even in the inscriptions of the Assyrian kings by himself, but in association with another god. Thus Tiglathpileser I. (c. 1130 B.C.) gives an elaborate account of an old temple to Anu and[Pg 154] Ramman in the city of Ashur that he restores to more than its former grandeur.[166] This dedication of a temple to two deities is unusual. Ramman is the god of thunder and storms, whose seat of course is in the heavens. He stands close, therefore, to Anu, the supreme god of heaven. In the religious productions, this relationship is expressed by making Ramman the son of Anu. From a passage descriptive of this temple it would appear that the old temple founded by King Samsi-Ramman, who lived several centuries before Tiglathpileser, was dedicated to Ramman. It looks, therefore, as though the association of Anu with Ramman was the work of the later king. What his motive was in thus combining Anu with Ramman it is difficult to say, but in his account of the restoration of the sanctuary, he so consistently mentions Anu and Ramman together,[167] designating them unitedly as 'the great gods my lords,' that one gains the impression that the two were inseparable in his mind, Ramman being perhaps regarded simply as a manifestation of Anu. The supposition finds some support in the closing words of the inscription, where, in hurling the usual curses upon those who should attempt to destroy his monuments, he invokes Ramman alone, whom he asks to punish the offender by his darts, by hunger, by distress of every kind, and by death.
Elsewhere Anu appears in association with Dagan, of whom we shall have occasion to speak in the chapter on the Assyrian pantheon. Suffice it to say here that Dagan in this connection is an equivalent of Bel. When, therefore, Ashurbanabal and Sargon call themselves 'the favorite of Anu and Dagan,' it is the same as though they spoke of Anu and Bel. Apart from this, Anu only appears when a part or the whole of the Assyrian pantheon is enumerated. Thus we come across Anu, Ramman, and Ishtar as the chief gods of the city of Ashur,[168] and again[Pg 155] Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar.[169] Finally, Sargon who names the eight gates of his palace after the chief gods of the land does not omit Anu, whom he describes as the 'one who blesses his handiwork.' Otherwise we have Anu only when the triad Anu, Bel, and Ea is invoked. Once Ramman-nirari I. (c. 1325 B.C.) adds Ishtar to the triad. After Sargon we no longer find Anu's name at all among the deities worshipped in Assyria. On the whole, then, Anu's claim to reverence rests in Assyria as well as in Babylonia upon his position in the triad, and while Assyria is less influenced by the ancient system devised in Babylonia whereby Anu, Bel, and Ea come to be the representatives of the three kingdoms among which the gods are distributed, still Anu as a specific deity, ruling in his own right, remains a rather shadowy figure. The only temple in his honor is the one which he shares with Ramman, and which, as noted, appears to have been originally devoted to the service of the latter. One other factor that must be taken into account to explain the disappearance of Anu is the gradual enforcement of Ashur's claim to the absolute headship of the Assyrian pantheon. Either Anu or Ashur had to be assigned to this place, and when circumstances decided the issue in favor of Ashur, there was no place worthy of Anu as a specific deity. Ashur usurps in a measure the rôle of Anu. So far as Babylonia was concerned, there was still in the twelfth century B.C. a city 'Der' which is called the 'city of Anu.' The city is probably of very ancient foundation, and its continued association with Anu forms an interesting survival of a local conception that appears to have been once current of the god.
In the religious literature, especially in that part of it which furnishes us with the scholastic recastings of the popular traditions, Anu is a much more prominent figure than in the historical texts. From being merely the personification of the heavens, he is raised to the still higher dignity of symbolizing,[Pg 156] as Jensen puts it,[170] the abstract principle of which both the heavens and earth are emanations. All the earliest gods conceived of by popular tradition as existing from the beginning of things are viewed as manifestations of Anu, or of Anu and Anatum in combination. He gives ear to prayers, but he is not approached directly. The gods are his messengers, who come and give him report of what is going on.[171] He is a god for the gods rather than for men. When his daughter Ishtar is insulted she appeals to her father Anu; and when the gods are terrified they take refuge with Anu. Armed with a mighty weapon whose assault nothing can withstand, Anu is surrounded by a host of gods and powerful spirits who are ready to follow his lead and to do his service.
With Ramman we reach a deity whose introduction into the Babylonian pantheon and whose position therein appears to be entirely independent of Marduk.
The reading of the name as Ramman (or Rammanu) is provisional. The ideograph Im with which the name is written designates the god as the power presiding over storms; and while it is certain that, in Assyria at least, the god was known as Ramman, which means 'the thunderer,' it is possible that this was an epithet given to the god, and not his real or his oldest name. It is significant that in the El-Amarna tablets (c. 1500 B.C.), where the god Im appears as an element in proper names, the reading Addu is vouched for, and this form has been justly brought into connection with a very famous solar deity of Syria,—Hadad. The worship of Hadad, we know, was widely spread in Palestine and Syria, and there is conclusive evidence that Hadad (or Adad), as a name for the god Im, was known in Babylonia. Professor Oppert is of the opinion[Pg 157] that Adad represents the oldest name of the god. Quite recently the proposition has been made that the real name of the deity was Immeru.[172] The ideograph in this case would arise through the curtailment of the name (as is frequently the case in the cuneiform syllabary), and the association of Im with 'storm' and 'wind' would be directly dependent upon the nature of the deity in question. The material at hand is not sufficient for deciding the question. Besides Immeru, Adad, and Ramman, the deity was also known as Mer—connected apparently with Immeru.[173] So much is certain, that Ramman appears to have been the name currently used in Assyria for this god. Adad may have been employed occasionally in Babylonia, as was Mer in proper names, but that it was not the common designation is proved by a list of gods (published by Bezold[174]) in which the foreign equivalent for Im is set down as Adad. We may for the present, therefore, retain Ramman, while bearing in mind that we have only proof of its being an epithet applied to the god, not necessarily his real name and in all probabilities not the oldest name.
We meet with the god for the first time in the hymn to which reference has already been made,[175] and where the god is mentioned together with Shamash. If the suggestion above thrown out is correct, that the hymn is older than the days of Hammurabi, Ramman too would be older than his first mention in historical texts. However, it is worthy of note that in this hymn each of the other gods mentioned receives a line for himself, and that Ramman is the only one who is tacked on to another deity. It is not strange that in making copies of older[Pg 158] texts, especially those of a religious character, the scribes should have introduced certain modifications. At all events, the god does not acquire any degree of prominence until the days of Hammurabi; so that whatever his age and origin, he belongs in a peculiar sense to the pantheon of Hammurabi rather than to that of the old Babylonian period. The successor of Hammurabi, Samsu-iluna, dedicates a fort, known as Dur-padda, to Ramman whom he addresses as his 'helper', along with several other gods. Despite this fact, his worship does not appear to have been very firmly established in Babylonia, for Agumkakrimi, who follows upon Samsu-iluna, does not make mention of Ramman. During the reign of the Cassite dynasty, however, the worship of Ramman appears to have gained a stronger foothold. Several kings of this dynasty have incorporated the name of this deity into their own names, and in an inscription dealing with events that transpired in the reign of one of these kings, Ramman occupies a prominent place. Immediately after the great triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea, there is enumerated a second, Sin, Shamash, and Ramman, and only then there follows Marduk.[176] More than this, Ramman is introduced for a second time in conjunction with Shamash, as in the hymn of Hammurabi. The two are appealed to as 'the divine lords of justice.' The conqueror of the Cassites, Nebuchadnezzar I., also holds Ramman in high esteem. For him, Ramman is the god of battle who in companionship with Ishtar abets the king in his great undertakings. He addresses Ramman as the great lord of heaven, the lord of subterranean waters and of rain, whose curse is invoked against the one who sets aside the decrees of Nebuchadnezzar or who defaces the monument the king sets up. While acknowledging the supremacy of Marduk, upon whose appeal he proceeds to Babylonia to rid the country of its oppressors, Nebuchadnezzar nevertheless[Pg 159] shows remarkable partiality for Ramman, perhaps as a matter of policy to offset the supposed preference shown by Ramman towards the previous dynasty. Ramman with Nergal and Nanâ are also enumerated as the special gods of Namar—a Babylonian district which caused the king considerable annoyance, and which may have been one of the strongholds whence the Cassitic kings continued their attacks upon Nebuchadnezzar.
In order to determine more precisely the nature of this deity, it is necessary to turn to Assyria, where his worship dates from the very earliest times, and where he appears consistently in a single rôle,—that of the god of storms, more particularly of thunder and lightning. The oldest Assyrian ruler known to us is Samsi-Ramman (c. 1850 B.C.), whose name, containing the god as one of its elements, points to the antiquity of the cult of Ramman in the north. Another king who has frequently been mentioned, Ramman-nirari (i.e., Ramman is my helper), bears evidence to the same effect, and Tiglathpileser I. speaks of a temple to Ramman whose foundation carries us back several centuries beyond the period of these two kings—almost to the days of Hammurabi. The theory has accordingly been advanced that the worship of Ramman came to Babylonia from the north, and since the cult of this same god is found in Damascus and extended as far south as the plain of Jezreel, the further conclusion has been drawn that the god is of Aramaic origin and was brought to Assyria through Aramaic tribes who had settled in parts of Assyria. The great antiquity of the Ramman cult in Assyria argues against a foreign origin. It seems more plausible to regard the Ramman cult as indigenous to Assyria; but reverting to a time when the population of the north was still in the nomadic state of civilization, the cult may have been carried to the west by some of the wandering tribes who afterwards established themselves around Damascus. Up to a late period Aramaic hordes appear from time to time in western Assyria; and in a higher stage of culture,[Pg 160] contact between Aramaeans and Assyrians was maintained by commercial intercourse and by warfare. Since the earliest mention of Ramman's cult is in the city of Ashur, it may be that he was originally connected with that place. As already intimated, he was essentially a storm-god, whose manifestation was seen in the thunder and lightning, and the god was known not merely as 'the thunderer,' but also as Barku, i.e., lightning. Perhaps it was because of this that he was also brought into association with the great light of heaven,—the sun-god. In many mythologies, the sun and lightning are regarded as correlated forces. At all events, the frequent association of Shamash and Ramman cannot have been accidental. This double nature of Ramman—as a solar deity representing some particular phase of the sun that escapes us and as a storm-god—still peers through the inscription above noted from the Cassite period where Ramman is called 'the lord of justice,'—an attribute peculiar to the sun-god; but in Assyria his rôle as the thunder-and storm-god overshadows any other attributes that he may have had.
There are two aspects to rainstorms in Babylonia. The flooding of the fields while committing much havoc is essential to the fertility of the soil. Ramman is therefore the carrier of blessings to the cities, the one who supplies wells and fields with water; but the destructive character of the rain and thunder and lightning are much more strongly emphasized than their beneficent aspects. Even though the fields be flooded, Ramman can cause thorns to grow instead of herbs. The same ideograph Im that signifies Ramman also means distress. When the failure of the crops brings in its wake hunger and desolation, it is the 'god of the clouds,' the 'god of rain,' the 'god of the overflow,' whose wrath has thus manifested itself. It is he who (as a hymn puts it) 'has eaten the land.' No wonder that the 'roar' of the god is described as 'powerful,' and that he is asked to stand at the right side[Pg 161] of the petitioner and grant protection. When Ramman lets his voice resound, misfortune is at hand. It was natural that he who thus presided over the battle of the elements should come to be conceived essentially as a god of war to a people whose chief occupation grew to be conquest. As such he appears constantly in the inscriptions of Assyrian kings, and to such a degree as to be a formidable rival, at times, to the head of the Assyrian pantheon. The final victory of the Assyrian arms is generally attributed to Ashur alone, but just before the battle and in the midst of the fray, Ramman's presence is felt almost as forcibly as that of Ashur. He shares with the latter the honor of invocations and sacrifices at such critical moments. In this capacity Ramman is so essentially an Assyrian god that it will be proper to dwell upon him again in the following chapter, when the specially Assyrian phases of the religion we are investigating will be taken up. The consort of Ramman also, the goddess Shala, will best be treated of in connection with the Assyrian phases of the Ramman cult.
Of the other gods whose names occur in the inscriptions of Hammurabi, but little of a special character is to be noted. The attributes that he gives them do not differ from those that we come across in the texts of his predecessors. It is sufficient, therefore, to enumerate them. The longest list is furnished by the hymn which has already been referred to. The text is unfortunately fragmentary, and so we cannot be sure that the names embrace the entire pantheon worshipped by him. The list opens with Bel (who, as we have seen, is the old Bel of Nippur); then follow Sin, Ninib, Ishtar, Shamash, Ramman. Here the break in the tablet begins and, when the text again becomes intelligible, a deity is praised in such extravagant terms that one is tempted to conclude that Hammurabi has added to an old hymn a paean to his favorite Marduk[177]. To Bel is given[Pg 162] the honor of having granted royal dignity to the king. Sin has given the king his princely glory; from Ninib, the king has received a powerful weapon; Ishtar fixes the battle array, while Shamash and Ramman hold themselves at the service of the king. With this list, however, we are far from having exhausted the pantheon as it had developed in the days of Hammurabi. From the inscriptions of his successors we are permitted to add the following: Nin-khar-sag, Nergal, and Lugal-mit-tu, furnished by Samsu-iluna; Shukamuna, by Agumkakrimi; and passing down to the period of the Cassite dynasty, we have in addition Nin-dim-su, Ba-kad, Pap-u, Belit-ekalli, Shumalia.[178]
During the Cassitic rule, Marduk does not play the prominent part that he did under the native rulers, but he is restored to his position by Nebuchadnezzar I., who, it will be recalled, succeeds in driving the Cassites out of power. But besides Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar invokes a large number of other deities. For purposes of comparison with the pantheon of Hammurabi, and of his immediate successors, I give the complete list and in the order mentioned by him in the only inscription that we have of this king. They are Ninib, Gula, Ramman, Shumalia, Nergal, Shir, Shubu, Sin, Belit of Akkad. Moreover, Anu is referred to as the especial god of Der, and a goddess Eria[179] is worshipped in Elam. Passing still further down, we obtain as additional names, Malik and Bunene, from the inscription of Nabubaliddin (c. 883-852 B.C.).[180]
We may divide this long period from Hammurabi down to the time that the governors of Babylonia became mere puppets of the Assyrian rulers into three sections: (1) Hammurabi and his successors, (2) the Cassite dynasty, (3) the restoration of native rulers to the throne. A comparison of the names furnished by the inscriptions from these three sections shows that[Pg 163] the gods common to all are Marduk, Bel, Shamash, Ramman. But, in addition, our investigations have shown that we are justified in adding the following as forming part of the Babylonian pantheon during this entire period: Sarpanitum, Belit, Tashmitum, Sin, Ninib, Ishtar, Nergal, Nin-khar-sag, and the two other members of the triad, Anu and Ea, with their consorts, Anatum and Damkina. All these gods and goddesses are found in the texts from the first and third section of the period, and the absence of some of them from texts of the second section is simply due to the smaller amount of material that we have for the history of the Cassite dynasty in Babylonia. Some of the deities in this list, which is far from being exhaustive,[181] are foreign, so e.g., Shukamuna and Shumalia, who belong to the Cassitic pantheon; others are of purely local significance, as Shir and Shubu.[182] As for Sin, Ninib, and Ishtar, the worship of none of these deities assumes any great degree of prominence during this period. No doubt the local cult was continued at the old centers much as before, but except for an occasional invocation, especially in the closing paragraphs of an inscription, where the writers were fond of grouping a large array of deities so as to render more impressive the curses upon enemies and vilifiers, with which the inscriptions usually terminated, they do not figure in the official writings of the time. Of Sin, it is of some importance to note that under the Cassite dynasty he stands already at the head of a second class of triads which consists of Sin, Shamash, and Ramman, or Ishtar (see note 3 on page 152), and that through the inscription of Nebuchadnezzar I., we learn of an additional district of Babylonia,—that of Bit-Khabban, where in association with Belit of Akkad, the consort of the older Bel, he was worshipped as the patron deity. Nebuchadnezzar himself does not enumerate[Pg 164] Sin among the chief gods. Ninib appears in the familiar rôle as a god of war. After Hammurabi he is only mentioned once in inscriptions of the Cassitic period and then again in the days of Nebuchadnezzar I., who assigns a prominent place to him. It is Ninib who, with the title 'king of heaven and earth,' leads off in the long list of gods whose curses are invoked upon the king's opponents. Similarly, the belligerent character of Ishtar is the only phase of the goddess dwelt upon during this period. While for Agumkakrimi, she still occupies a comparatively inferior rank, coming seventh in his list, Nebuchadnezzar places her immediately after Anu and before Ramman and Marduk. This advance foreshadows the superior rôle that she is destined to play in the pantheon during the period of Assyrian supremacy. The cult of Nergal does not figure prominently during this period. In fact, so far as the historical texts go, he disappears from the scene till the time of Nebuchadnezzar I., when he is incidentally invoked in a group with Ramman and Nanâ as the gods of a district in Babylonia known as Namar. Exactly where Namar lay has not yet been ascertained. Since Nergal, as was shown in the previous chapter, was the local patron of Cuthah, it may be that the latter city was included in the Namar district. At all events, we may conclude from the silence of the texts as to Nergal, that Cuthah played no conspicuous part in the empire formed of the Babylonian states, and that the cult of Nergal, apart from the association of the deity in religious texts with the lower world, did not during this entire period extend beyond local proportions. Lastly, it is interesting to note that Samsu-iluna, the son of Hammurabi, refers to Belit of Nippur as Nin-khar-sag, which we have seen was one of her oldest titles.
[116] The name is also written Ma-ru-duk, which points to its having been regarded (for which there is other evidence) as a compound of maru, 'son,' and an element, duk(u), which in religious and other texts designates the 'glorious chamber' in which the god determines the fate of humanity. Such an 'etymology' is, however, merely a play upon the name, similar to the plays upon proper names found in the Old Testament. The real etymology is unknown. The form Marduk is Semitic, and points to an underlying stem, rdk. Marduk appears under a variety of names which will be taken up at their proper place. See Schrader's Assyrisch-Babyl. Keilschriften, p. 129; and the same author's Cuneiform Inscrip. and the O. T. (p. 422) for other etymologies.
[117] Hommel's view that Gish-galla, in Gudea's inscriptions, is Babylon lacks convincing evidence, but the city may be as old as Gudea's days for all that.
[118] Near Sippar.
[119] Bêl matâti.
[120] Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, pp. 98 seq.; Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, p. 88.
[121] So Delitzsch, Beiträge sur Assyriologie, ii. 623. The first part of the name is also used to designate the 'young bullock,' and it is possible, therefore, that the god was pictured in this way, as both Anu and Sin are occasionally called 'bulls.'
[122] Louvre Inscription II, col ii. ll. 12-17.
[123] There is also a goddess Eria worshipped in Elam, who may be identical with Erua. The scribes in the days of Nebuchadnezzar (c. 1140 B.C.), at least, appear to have thought so, for they associate her with Bel, just as Sarpanitum is associated with Del-Marduk. (See the Inscription VR. 57, col. ii. ll. 11, 12.)
[124] Whether, however, this was the real meaning of the name is doubtful, for the name of the goddess is also written Aru and Arua, which points to a different verbal stem.
[125] See below under Tashmitum.
[126] There are indications also of an arrested amalgamation of Erua-Sarpanitum with Tashmitum, the wife of Nabu. (See Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 112.)
[127] Rawlinson, ii. 60, 30.
[128] Hibbert Lectures, p. 117.
[129] See further on, sub Ea.
[130] Kosmologie, p. 239.
[131] Sub Nusku, chapter xiii.
[132] Tiele, Geschichte d. Religion i. Alterthum, i. 171 and 188, is of the opinion that Nabu is a late deity whose worship dates from a period considerably subsequent to Hammurabi. This conclusion from the non-occurrence of the god in early inscriptions is not justified. There is no reason why Nabu should have been added as a deity in later times, and in general we must be on our guard against assuming new deities subsequent to Hammurabi. It is much more plausible to assume the restored popularity of very old ones.
[133] Bel being Marduk, the title was equivalent to that of 'governor of Babylonia.'
[134] So, Tiele, Geschichte d. Religion i. Alterthum, i. 191.
[135] The Hebrew word for prophet, nabi, is of the same stem as the Assyrian Nabu, and the popular tradition is placing the last scene in the life of Moses on Mt. Nebo is apparently influenced by the fact that Moses was a nabi.
[137] So in the cylinder of Shamash-shum-ukin (Lehmann's publication, pls. viii. seq.).
[138] E.g., in the so-called Grotefend Cylinder, col. ii. 34.
[139] Wiener Zeitschrift für die Kunde d. Morgenlandes, iv. 301-307.
[140] We only know the name through Eusebius' extract from Alexander Polyhistor's digest of Berosus. The form, therefore, cannot be vouched for. The various modern attempts to explain the name have failed (see e.g., Lenormant's Magic und Wahrsagekunst der Chaldaer, 2d German edition, pp. 376-379). There may be some ultimate connection between Oannes and Jonah (see Trumbull in Journal of Bibl. Liter. xl. 58, note).
[142] This, it will be remembered (see above, p. 118), is one of the titles of Marduk in one of Hammurabi's inscriptions,—an important point for the date of the episode in its present form.
[143] Literally, 'Ea shall be his name, his as mine.'
[144] According to Syncellus. In cuneiform texts the old Bel is at times invoked as the creator of mankind.
[145] Kosmologie, pp. 293, 294.
[146] Aos and Dauke.
[147] Rawlinson, iv. 25.
[149] See Jensen, Keils Bibl.. 3, 1, p. 108, note 5. Tiele, Gesch. p. 126, apparently identifies Innanna of Hallabi with Tashmit, but, so far as I can see, without sufficient reason.
[150] Here written En-lil, as the Bel of Nippur.
[151] Attached to the name here (Rawlinson, i. 4, no. xv-9), which is written ideographically En-Lil, is the designation da-gan-ni, which has occasioned considerable discussion. See Jensen, Kosmologie, pp. 449-456. It seems to me that the addition which emphasizes this identity of Bel with another god, Dagan, is to indicate that the Bel of the triad, and not Bel-Marduk, is here meant. Somewhat in the same way Tiglathpileser I. (Rawlinson, i. 14, vi. 87) distinguishes the older Bel by calling him 'Bel latura,' i.e., 'Bel the older.'
[152] 'Governor of Bel' for governor of Babylonia, and 'subjects of Bel' for subjects of Babylonia.
[153] See p. 89 and chapter vii.
[154] Occasionally a king (so e.g. Nabubaliddin, c. 883 B.C.) associates Anu with Ea, and omits Bel (Rawlinson, v. 60, ii. 21), as though with the intent of avoiding confusion.
[155] Rassam, Cylinder ix. 75.
[156] See chapter xii., "The Assyrian Pantheon," p. 208.
[157] Rassam, Cylinder viii. 98, 99. 'Belit of Babylonia, honored among the great gods.'
[158] Annals, iii. 135.
[159] The name of the temple. See IIR. 66, ll. 1 and 10. The title 'belit matâti,' 'lady of the lands' is evidently introduced in imitation of 'bel matâti,' 'lord of lands,' belonging to Bel and then to Marduk.
[160] Sayce's view (Hibbert Lectures, p. 186), according to which Anu was originally the local god of Erech, is erroneous.
[161] VR. pl. 33.
[162] Delitzsch, Die Kossaer, pp. 25, 27.
[163] The omission of Ramman here, though invoked at the close of the inscription, is noticeable. Ishtar takes the place that in the more developed system belongs to the god of storms, who with the moon-god and sun-god constitutes a second triad. See p. 163.
[164] Written with the sign An, and the feminine ending tum, but probably pronounced Anatum. The form Anat (without the ending) is used by many scholars, as Sarpanit and Tashmit are used instead of Sarpanitum and Tashmitum. I prefer the fuller forms of these names. Anum similarly is better than Anu, but the latter has become so common that it might as well be retained.
[165] VR. 33, vii. 34-44.
[166] IR. pl. 15, col. vii. 71-pl. 16, col. viii. 88.
[167] No less than nine times.
[168] Tiglathpileser I.
[169] Ramman-nirari I.
[170] Kosmologie, p. 274.
[171] See the list IIIR. 68, 26 seq.
[172] Thureau-Dangin, Journal Asiatique, 1895, pp. 385-393. The name of this deity has been the subject of much discussion. For a full discussion of the subject with an account of the recent literature, see an article by the writer in The American Journal of Semitic Languages and Literatures, xii. 159-162.
[173] Arising perhaps after Im came into use as the ideographic form.
[174] Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch., xi. 173-174 and pl. 1, col. i. 7.
[176] Belser in Haupt and Delitzsch, Beiträge sur Assyriologie, ii. 187 seq., col. vi. i. 3 seq.
[177] The character of this part of the hymn is quite different from that which precedes.
[180] One might include in the list also Nin-igi-nangar-bu, Gushgin-banda, Nin-kurra, Nin-zadim (from Nabubaliddin's Inscription), but these are only so many epithets of Ea or various forms under which the god came to be worshipped. See p. 177.
[181] We may now look forward to finding many more gods in the rich material for this period unearthed by the University of Pennsylvania Expedition to Niffer.
Besides the historical texts in the proper sense, there is another source for the study of the Babylonian pantheon.
Both for the first and for the second periods we now have a large number of lists of offerings made to the temples of Babylonia and of thousands of miscellaneous legal documents. De Sarzec found a number of such documents at Telloh some years ago, and quite recently some thirty thousand tablets of the temple archives have come to light.[183] At Tell-Sifr, Abu-Habba, and elsewhere, many thousands also have been found, belonging chiefly to the second period. A feature of these documents is the invocation of the gods, introduced for various purposes, at times in connection with oaths, at times as a guarantee against the renewal of claims. Again, certain gods are appealed to as witnesses to an act, and in the lists of temple offerings, gods are constantly introduced. Since many of the commercial transactions recorded in these documents, moreover, concern the temples of Babylonia, further occasions were found for the mention of a god or gods. The proper names occurring in these documents, compounded as these names in most cases are with some deity,[184] furnish some[Pg 166] additions to the pantheon of Babylonia. Naturally, a distinction is to be made between deities introduced in temple lists and in the course of legal proceedings, and such as are merely known through forming an element in proper names. The former constitute a part of what might be called the 'active' pantheon of the time. Deities that are actually invoked by contracting parties for whatever purpose are such as are endowed with real significance; and if any of these are not mentioned in the historical texts proper, the omission is due to the lack of material. The testimony of the legal documents in this respect is fully as valid as is that of the historical texts. In proper names the case is different. Custom being a prominent, if not a controlling, factor in the giving of names, it may happen that the deity appearing as an element in a name is one who, for various reasons, is no longer worshipped, or whose worship has diminished in significance at the time we meet with the name. Again, deities of very restricted local fame, deities that occupy the inferior rank of mere spirits or demons in the theological system of the Babylonians, may still be incorporated in proper names. Lastly, in view of the descriptive epithets by which some deities are often known, as much as by their real names, it frequently happens in the case of proper names that a deity otherwise known is designated by one of his attributes. Thus we find in legal documents of the second period a goddess, Da-mu-gal, who is none other than the well-known Gula, the great healing deity; Ud-zal, who is identical with Ninib, and so written as the god of 'the rising sun';[185] and Mar-tu (lit., 'the west god'), which is a designation of Ramman.[186][Pg 167] Bearing in mind all these considerations, we find in the tablets of the first period, so far as published,[187] the same deities that are met with in the historical inscriptions: En-lil, Bau, En-zu (or Sin), Nin-girsu, Nin-gish-zida, Nin-mar, Nanâ, Ninâ, Shul-pa-uddu, and others. No doubt a complete publication of the Telloh archives will furnish some—not many—new deities not occurring in the historical texts of this period. A rather curious feature, illustrated by these temple archives, and one upon which we shall have occasion to dwell, is the divine honors that appear to have been paid towards the end of the first period of Babylonian history to some of the earlier rulers, notably Gudea and Dungi.[188] Alongside of wine, oil, wheat, sheep, etc., offered to Bau, Nin-gish-zida, and Shul-pa-uddu, the great kings and patesis of the past are honored. More than this, sanctuaries sacred to these rulers are erected, and in other respects they are placed on a footing of equality with the great gods of the period. Passing on to the lists and the legal documents of the second period,[189] we may note that the gods in whose name the oath is taken are chiefly Marduk, Shamash,[190] Â, Ramman, and Sin. Generally two or three are mentioned, and often the name of the reigning king is added to lend further solemnity to the oath. Other gods directly introduced are Nanâ, Ishtar, Nebo, Tashmitum, and Sarpanitum, after whom the years are at times designated, probably in consequence of some special honors accorded to the gods. The standing phrase is 'the year of the throne,' or simply 'the year' of such and such a deity. Nin-mar[Pg 168] appears in the days of Hammurabi as the daughter of Marduk. Among gods appearing for the first time are Khusha[191], Nun-gal, and Zamama. Mentioned in connection with the gates of the temple where the judges held court, the association of Khusha with Marduk, Shamash, Sin, and Nin-mar points to a considerable degree of prominence enjoyed by this deity. Of his nature and origin, however, we know nothing. Nun-gal signifies the 'great chief.' His temple stood in Sippar,[192] and from this we may conclude that he was one of the minor gods of the place whose original significance becomes obscured by the side of the all-powerful patron of Sippar—the sun-god. A syllabary describes the god as a 'raging' deity, a description that suggests solar functions. Nun-gal appears, therefore, to be the ideograph proper to a deity that symbolized, like Nergal, Ninib, and Â, some phase of the sun. The disappearance of the god would thus be naturally accounted for, in view of the tendency that we have found characteristic of the religion, whereby powerful gods absorb the functions of weaker ones whose attributes resemble their own. But while the god disappears, the name survives. Nun-gal with the plural sign attached becomes a collective designation for a group of powerful demons.[193] In this survival and use of the name we have an interesting example of the manner in which, by a species of differentiation, local gods, unable to maintain themselves by the side of more powerful rivals, sink to the lower grade of demons, either beneficent or noxious. In this grade, too, distinctions are made, as will be pointed out at the proper place. There is a 'pantheon' of demons as well as of gods in the Babylonian theology. Nun-gal accordingly recovers some of his lost dignity by becoming an exceptionally powerful demon—so powerful as to confer his name upon an entire class. The god Zamama appears in connection with a date attached to a legal document[Pg 169] of the days of Hammurabi. The building of a sanctuary in honor of this deity and his consort was of sufficient importance to make the year known by this event. Zamama is occasionally mentioned in the religious hymns. He belongs to the deities that form a kind of court around Marduk. From syllabaries, we learn that he was a form of the sun-god, worshipped in the city of Kish in northern Babylonia, and it also appears that he was identified at one period with Ninib. The temple to Zamama—perhaps only a shrine—stood in the city of Kish, which was remodeled by Hammurabi. The shrine, or temple, bore the significant name 'house of the warrior's glory.' The warrior is of course the god, and the name accordingly shows clearly the character of the god in whose honor the sanctuary was built. Elsewhere, he is explicitly called a 'god of battle.' Associated with Zamama of Kish was his consort, who, however, is merely termed again in a general way, 'Ninni,' i.e., 'the lady.' In the case of such a deity as Zamama, it is evident that the absence of the name in historical texts is accidental, and that we may expect to come across it with the increase of historical material. In the proper names, all of the prominent deities discussed in this and the previous chapters are found, though with some notable exceptions. Anu, e.g., is not met with as an element in proper names, but among those occurring may be mentioned Shamash, Â, Ishtar, Ramman (also under the forms Im-me-ru and Mar-tu), Marduk, sometimes called Sag-ila after his temple in Babylon, Nabu, Ishum, Shala, Bau, Nin-ib, Nin-girsu, Sin, Bunene, Annuit, and Ea. Among gods appearing for the first time in connection with the names, it is sufficient to record a goddess Shubula, who from other sources[194] we know was the local patron of the city Shumdula, a goddess Bashtum,[195] a goddess Mamu (a form of Gula), Am-na-na, Lugal-ki-mu-na,[Pg 170] E-la-li (perhaps an epithet for the fire-god Gibil), Ul-mash-shi-tum, and a serpent god Sir. Most of these may be safely put down as of purely local origin and jurisdiction, and it is hardly likely that any of them embody an idea not already covered by those which we have discussed. From the lists of gods prepared by the Babylonian scholars, it is clear that the number of local deities whose names at least survived to a late period was exceedingly large, ranging in the thousands; and since, as seems likely, these lists were prepared (as so much of the lexicographical literature) on the basis of the temple lists and of the commercial and legal documents, we may conclude that all, or at any rate most, of these deities were in use as elements in proper names, without, however, having much importance beyond this incorporation.
[183] The museums of Europe and America have secured a large proportion of these through purchase.
[184] The longer names consist of three elements: subject, verb, and object. The deity is generally the subject; e.g., Sinacherib=Sin-akhe-irba, i.e., may the god Sin increase the brothers. But there are many variations. So the imperative of the verb is often used, and in that case, the deity is in the vocative case. Instead of three elements, there are frequently only two, a deity and a participle or an adjective; e.g., Sin-magir, i.e., Sin is favorable, or a person is called 'the son' or 'the servant' of a god. The name of the deity alone may also constitute a proper name; and many names of course do not contain the mention of a deity at all, though such names are often abbreviations from longer ones in which some god was introduced.
[185] Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 458.
[186] Arnold, Ancient Babylonian Temple Records, p. 5, is of the opinion that Id-nik-mar-tu is also a designation of Ramman. His view is plausible, but it still remains to be proved.
[187] Scheil, "Le Culte de Gudea sous le IIe Dynastie d'Ur" (Recueil des Travaux, etc. xviii. 64-74). W. R. Arnold, Ancient Babylonian Temple Records (New York, 1896). The Telloh tablets appear to be largely lists of offerings made to the temples at Lagash, and temple accounts. (See now Reisner, Tempelurkunden aus Telloh (Berlin, 1901).)
[188] See besides Scheil's article (above), Lehmann's note, Zeits. für Assyr. x. 381.
[189] Our knowledge of the documents of this period is due chiefly to Strassmaier and Meissner.
[190] At times under rather curious forms, e.g., Shush-sha; Strassmaier, Warka, no. 30, l. 21. The form Sha-ash-sha also occurs in nos. 43 and 105 (cf. Meissner's note, Beiträge zum Altbabylonischen Privatrecht, p. 156).
[191] Meissner, no. 42. Also in a proper name, Khusha-ilu, i.e., 'Khusha is god.'
[192] Meissner, nos. 40 and 118.
[193] See chapter xi.
[194] IIR. 60, 18a. Pinches (Journal Victoria Institute, xxviii. 36 reads Shu-gid-la; Hommel, ib. 36, Shu-sil-la).
[195] For this deity, see a paper by the writer, "The Element Bosheth in Hebrew Proper Names," in the Journal of Bibl. Liter. xiii. 20-30.
Coming back now to the historical texts and placing the minor deities together that occur in the inscriptions of Hammurabi and his successors down through the restoration of native rulers on the throne of Babylonia, we obtain the following list: Zakar, Lugal-mit-tu (?), Nin-dim-su, Ba-kad, Pap-u, Belit-ekalli, Shumalia, Shukamuna, Gula, Shir, Shubu, Belit of Akkad, Malik, Bunene, Nin-igi-nangar-bu, Gushgin-banda, Nin-kurra, Nin-zadim. In view of the limited amount of historical material at our disposal for the second period of Babylonian history, the list of course does not permit us to form a definite notion of the total number of minor gods that were still occasionally invoked by the side of the great gods. By comparison, however, with the pantheon so far as ascertained of the first period, the conclusion is justified that with the systematization of cults and beliefs characteristic of the Hammurabi, a marked tendency appears towards a reduction of the pantheon, a weeding out of the numerous local cults, their absorption by the larger ones, and the relegation of the minor gods of only local significance to a place among the spirits and demons of the Babylonian religion. Brief statements of these minor gods will suffice to indicate their general character. Of most of the gods in this list there is but little we know as yet beyond the name. Some of them will occur again in the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian historical texts, others in the hymns and incantations; some are only found in the period we are considering, though with the material constantly increasing we must beware of drawing any conclusions from the fact of a[Pg 172] single mention. 'Zakar,' signifying, probably, 'heroic,' appears to have been worshipped in Nippur, where a wall known as the 'wall of Zakar' was built by Samsu-iluna. From the fact that this wall was sacred to Nin-khar-sag or Belit, we may, perhaps, be permitted to conclude that 'Zakar' stood in close relationship to Bel and Belit of Nippur,—possibly a son,—or, at all events, belonged to the inner circle of deities worshipped in the old city sacred to the great Bel.
Another wall in Nippur was dedicated by this Samsu-iluna to a god whose name is provisionally read by Winckler, Lugal-mit-tu.[196] Lugal, signifying 'king,' is an element that enters as an ideograph in the composition of the names of several deities. Thus we have Lugal-edinna, 'king of the field,' which is the equivalent of Nergal, and again for the same god, the combination Lugal-gira, which is, as Jensen[197] has shown, 'raging king,' and a title of Nergal in his character as the god of pestilence and war. Nin-dim-su, Ba-kad, Pap-u, Belit-ekalli, Shumalia, and Shukamuna occur at the close of the inscription of Melishikhu, among the gods asked to curse the transgressors of the royal decree.[198] That some of these are Cassite deities imported into Babylonia, and whose position in the pantheon was therefore of a temporary character, there seems little reason to question. Ba-kad may, and Shumalia quite certainly does, belong to this class. As for Shukamuna, the fact that Agumkakrimi, who places his title, 'king of Cassite land,' before that of Akkad and Babylon, opens his inscription with the declaration that he is the glorious offspring of Shukamuna, fixes the character of this god beyond all doubt; and Delitzsch has shown[199] that this god was regarded by the Babylonian schoolmen as the equivalent of their own Nergal. Shukamuna, accordingly, was the Cassite god of[Pg 173] war, who, like Nergal, symbolized the mid-day sun,—that is, the raging and destructive power. Shumalia is the consort of Shukamuna[200], and is invoked as the 'lady of the shining mountains.' Nin-dim-su is a title of Ea, as the patron of arts. Belit-ekalli—i.e., Belit of the palace—appears as the consort of Ninib, the epithet 'ekalli' being added to specify what Belit is meant, and to avoid confusion with the consort of Bel. At the same time it must be confessed that the precise force of the qualification of 'Belit of the palace' (or temple) escapes us. Ninib's consort, as we know from other sources, was Gula.[201] This name is in some way connected with an Assyrian stem signifying 'great,' and it is at least worthy of note that the word for palace is written by a species of punning etymology with two signs, e=house and gallu=large. The question suggests itself whether the title 'Belit-ekalli' may not have its rise in a further desire to play upon the goddess's name, just as her title Kallat-Eshara (bride of Eshara, or earth) rests upon such a play. Such plays on names are characteristic of the Semites, and indeed in a measure are common to all ancient nations, to whom the name always meant much more than to us. Every nomen, as constituting the essence of an object, was always and above all an omen. It is, therefore, plausible to suppose that titles of the gods should have been chosen in part under the influence of this idea.[202] A further suggestion that I would like to offer is that 'ekallu,' as temple or palace (lit., large house), may be one of the numerous names of the nether world. A parallel would be furnished by Ekur, which signifies both 'temple' and 'earth,'[203] and is also one of the names of the gathering-place of the dead. Gula, being the goddess of the[Pg 174] nether world who restores the dead to life, would be appropriately called 'the lady of the nether world.' One should like to know more of Pap-u (the phonetic reading unknown), who is called the offspring of Eshara, and 'the lord of the boundary.' Eshara, as Jensen has shown,[204] is a poetical name for earth. The god Ninib, in his capacity as a god of agriculture, is called the 'product of Eshara.'[205] Pap-u, therefore, must be a god somewhat of the same character—a conclusion which is borne out by the description given of him as the protector of the boundary. He is probably one of the numerous forms of boundary gods that are met with among all nations. That we do not encounter more in Babylonia is due to the decided tendency that has been noted towards a centralization of power in a limited number of deities. Instead of gods of boundaries, we have numerous demons and spirits in the case of the developed Babylonian religion, into whose hands the care of preserving the rights of owners to their lands is entrusted. Symbols of these spirits—serpents, unicorns, scorpions, and the like—are added on the monuments which were placed at the boundaries, and on which the terms were specified that justified the land tenure. To this class of monuments the name of 'Kudurru,' or 'boundary' stones, was given by the Babylonians themselves. The inscription on which the name of Pap-u occurs belongs to this class; and he is invoked, as already said, along with many other gods—in fact, with the whole or a goodly portion of the pantheon. It would seem, therefore, that we have in Pap-u a special boundary god who has survived in that rôle from a more primitive period of Babylonian culture. He occupies a place usually assigned to the powerful demons who are regarded as the real owners of the soil.[206]
[Pg 175]Perhaps the most interesting of the minor deities during this second period is
As has just been stated, she is the consort of Ninib. She is not mentioned in any of the inscriptions of this period till we come to the days of Nebuchadnezzar I., who invokes her as the bride of Eshara,—i.e., of the earth.[207] We also meet with her name in that of several individuals, Balatsu-Gula[208] and Arad-Gula,[209] and we have seen that she is also known as Damu and Mamu, or Meme. We have a proof, therefore, of her cult being firmly established at an early period of Babylonian history. Her rôle is that of a 'life-giver,' in the widest sense of the word. She is called the 'great physician,' who both preserves the body in health and who removes sickness and disease by the 'touch of her hand.' Gula is the one who leads the dead to a new life. She shares this power, however, with her husband Ninib. Her power can be exerted for evil as well as for good. She is appealed to, to strike the enemy with blindness; she can bring on the very diseases that she is able to heal, and such is the stress laid upon these qualities that she is even addressed as the 'creator of mankind.' But although it is the 'second' birth of mankind over which she presides, she does not belong to the class of deities whose concern is with the dead rather than the living. The Babylonians, as we shall have occasion to point out, early engaged in speculations regarding the life after death, and, as a result, there was developed a special pantheon for the nether world. Gula occupies a rather unique place intermediate, as it were, between the gods of the living and the gods of the dead.
[Pg 176]Of the other deities occurring in the inscription of this same Nebuchadnezzar I. it is sufficient to note that two, Shir and Shubu, are enumerated among the gods of Bit-Khabban. They were, therefore, local deities of some towns that never rose to sufficient importance to insure their patrons a permanent place in the Babylonian pantheon. 'Belit of Akkad,' whom Nebuchadnezzar invokes, is none other than the great Belit, the consort of Bel. 'Akkad' is here used for Babylonia, and the qualification is added to distinguish her from other 'ladies,' as, e.g., 'Belit-ekalli,' who, we have seen, was Gula.
Upon reaching so late a period as the days of Nabubaliddin (c. 850 B.C.), it becomes doubtful whether we are justified in including the additional deities occurring in his inscription among the Babylonian pantheon of the second period. The occurrence of some of these gods in the religious literature is a presumption in favor of regarding them as ancient creations, rather than due to later influences. Certainly this appears to be the case with Malik and Bunene, who, with Shamash, form a triad that constitutes the chief object of worship in the great temple E-babbara at Sippar, to whose restored cult Nabubaliddin devotes himself. Both names, moreover, occur as parts of proper names in the age of Hammurabi. Malik—i.e., ruler—is one of the names frequently assigned to Shamash, just as the god's consort was known as Malkatu, but for all that Malik is not the same as Shamash. Accompanying the inscription of Nabubaliddin is a design[210] representing the sun-god seated in his shrine. Before him on a table rests a wheel, and attached to the wheel are cords held by two figures, who are evidently directing the course of the wheel. These two figures are Malik[Pg 177] and Bunene, a species of attendants, therefore, on the sun-god, who drive the fiery chariot that symbolized the great orb. Bunene, through association with Malik, becomes the latter's consort, and it is interesting to observe the extent to which the tendency of the Babylonian religion to conceive the gods in pairs goes. Bunene is not the only instance of an originally male deity becoming through various circumstances the female consort to another. Originally, Malik may have been a name under which the sun-god was worshipped at some place, for the conception that makes him the chariot-driver to Shamash appears to be late. The absorption by the greater sun-cults (at Sippar and Larsa more particularly) of the lesser ones leads to the complete transfer of the names of minor sun-deities to the great Shamash, but in some instances the minor deities continue to lead a shadowy existence in some rôle of service to the greater ones.
We have seen that Ea, among other powers assigned to him, was regarded as the god of fine arts,—in the first instance as the god of the smithy, because of the antiquity and importance of the smith's art, and then of art in general, including especially the production of great statues. In accordance with this conception, Nabubaliddin declares that it was through the wisdom of Ea that he succeeded in manufacturing the great image of Shamash that was set up by him in the temple at Sippar. But in the days of Nabubaliddin the arts had been differentiated into various branches, and this differentiation was expressed by assigning to each branch some patron god who presided over that section. In this way, the old belief that art comes to men from the gods survived, while at the[Pg 178] same time it entered upon new phases.[211] Accordingly, Nabubaliddin assigns several deities who act the part of assistants to Ea. The names of these deities point to their functions. Nin-igi-nangar-bu is the 'lord who presides over metal-workers'; Gushgin-banda, 'brilliant chief,' is evidently the patron of those skilled in the working of the bright metals; Nin-kurra, 'lord of mountain,' the patron of those that quarried the stones; while Nin-zadim is the patron of sculpture. Ea stands above these as a general overseer, but the four classes of laborers symbolized by gods indicate the manner of artistic construction in the advanced state of Babylonian art, and of the various distinct professions to which this art gave birth. In a certain sense, of course, these four gods associated with Ea belong to the Babylonian pantheon, but not in the same sense in which Ea, for example, or the other gods discussed in this chapter, belong to it. They cannot even be said to be gods of a minor order—they are hardly anything more than personifications of certain phenomena that have their source in the human intellect. In giving to these personified powers the determinative indicative of deity, the Babylonian schoolmen were not conscious of expressing anything more than their belief in the divine origin of the power and skill exercised by man. To represent such power as a god was the only way in which the personification could at all be effected under the conditions presented by Babylonian beliefs. When, therefore, we meet with such gods as Nin-zadim, 'lord of sculpture,' it is much the same as when in the Old Testament we are told that Tubal-cain was the 'father' of those that work in metals, and where similarly other arts are traced back to a single source. 'Father' in Oriental hyperbole signifies 'source, originator, possessor, or patron,' and, indeed, includes all these ideas. The Hebrew writer, rising to a higher level of belief, conceives the arts to[Pg 179] have originated through some single personage endowed with divine powers;[212] the Babylonian, incapable as yet of making this distinction, ascribes both the origin and execution of the art directly to a god. In this way, new deities were apparently created even at an advanced stage of the Babylonian religion, but deities that differed totally from those that are characteristic of the earlier periods. The differentiation of the arts, and the assignment of a patron to each branch, reflect the thoughts and the aspirations of a later age. These views must have arisen under an impulse to artistic creation that was called forth by unusual circumstances, and I venture to think that this impulse is to be traced to the influence of the Assyrian rulers, whose greatest ambition, next to military glory, was to leave behind them artistic monuments of themselves that might unfold to later ages a tale of greatness and of power. Sculpture and works in metal were two arts that flourished in a special degree in the days when Assyria was approaching the zenith of her glory. Nabubaliddin's reign falls within this period; and we must, therefore, look from this time on for traces of Assyrian influence in the culture, the art, and also to some extent in the religious beliefs of the southern district of Mesopotamia.
[196] The text is defective at the point where the god's name is mentioned. See Keils Bibl. 3, 1, p. 133. King reads, Lugal-diri-tu-gab.
[197] Kosmologie, pp. 481 seq.
[198] Belser, Beiträge zur Assyr. ii. 203, col. vi.
[199] Kossaer, pp. 25-27.
[200] Delitzsch, Kossaer, p. 33.
[202] Examples of punning etymologies on names of gods are frequent. See Jensen's discussion of Nergal for examples of various plays upon the name of the god. Kosmologie, pp. 185 seq.
[203] Jensen, Kosmologie, pp. 185 seq. and p. 218.
[204] Kosmologie, p. 195.
[205] Rawlinson, i. 29, 16.
[206] This notion that the ground belongs to the gods, and that man is only a tenant, survives to a late period in Semitic religions. The belief underlies the Pentateuchal enactments regarding the holding of the soil, which is only to be temporary. See W. R. Smith, Religion of the Semites, pp. 91 seq.
[208] I.e., (Protect) his life, O Gula.
[209] Servant of Gula.
[210] See V.R. pl. 60.
[211] To this day in the Orient, fine productions of man's skill are attributed to the influence of hidden spirits, good or bad, as the case may be.
[212] This position does not, of course, exclude the fact that in the original form of the tradition, Tubal-cain, Naamah, and other personages in the fourth chapter of Genesis were deities.
The Assyrian influence however was only one factor, and a minor factor at that, in maintaining the belief in countless spirits that occupied a place of more or less importance by the side of the great and lesser gods. That conservatism which is a distinguishing trait of the popular forms of religion everywhere, served to keep alive the view that all the acts of man, his moods, the accidents that befell him, were under the control of visible or invisible powers. The development of a pantheon, graded and more or less regulated under the guidance of the Babylonian schoolmen, did not drive the old animistic views out of existence. In the religious literature, and more especially in those parts of it which reflect the popular forms of thought, the unorganized mass of spirits maintain an undisputed sway. In the incantation texts, which will be discussed at length in a subsequent chapter, as well as in other sections of Babylonian literature embodying both the primitive and the advanced views of the Babylonians regarding the origin of the universe, its subdivisions, and its order of development, and, thirdly, in the legends and epics, hundreds of spirits are introduced, to which some definite function or functions were assigned. In many, indeed in the majority of cases, the precise character of these functions still escapes us. The material at our disposal is as yet inadequate for any satisfactory treatment of this phase of Babylonian belief, and we must content ourselves for the present with some generalizations, or at the most with some broad classifications. Besides the texts themselves, we have proper names containing a spirit as an element, and also lists of those spirits prepared by the schoolmen[Pg 181] on the basis of the texts. When, as sometimes happens, these lists contain explanatory comments on the spirits enumerated, we are able to take some steps forward in our knowledge of the subject.
In the first place, then, it is important to bear in mind that the numerous spirits, when introduced into the religious and other texts, are almost invariably preceded by a sign—technically known as a determinative—which stamps them as divine. This sign being the same as the one placed before the names of the gods, it is not always possible to distinguish between deities and spirits. The use of a common sign is significant as pointing to the common origin of the two classes of superior powers that thus continue to exist side by side. A god is naught but a spirit writ large. As already intimated in a previous chapter, a large part of the development of the Babylonian religion consists in the differentiation between the gods and the spirits,—a process that, beginning before the period of written records, steadily went on, and in a certain sense was never completed. In the historical texts, the gods alone, with certain exceptions, find official recognition, and it is largely through these texts that we are enabled to distinguish between the two classes of powers, the gods and the spirits; but as a survival of a primitive animism, the demons, good, bad, and indifferent, retain their place in the popular forms of religion. Several hundred spirits occur in the incantation texts, and almost as many more in other religious texts. We may distinguish several classes. In the first place, there are the demons that cause disease and all manner of physical annoyances. The chief of these will be considered when we come to the analysis of the incantation texts. Against these demons the sufferer seeks protection by means of formulas, the utterance of which is invested with peculiar power, and again by means of certain rites of an expiatory or purificatory character. Next, we have the demons supposed to inhabit the fields, and to whom[Pg 182] the ground is supposed to belong. These were imaged under various animal forms, serpents and scorpions being the favorite ones. When possession was taken of the field, the spirits inhabiting it had to be propitiated. The owner placed himself under their protection, and endeavored to insure his rights against wrongful encroachment by calling upon the demons to range themselves on his side. It was customary, especially in the case of territory acquired by special grant of the monarch, or under extraordinary circumstances, to set up a so-called boundary stone,[213] on which the owner of the field detailed his right to possession, through purchase or gift, as the case may be. This inscription closed with an appeal to various gods to strike with their curses any intruder upon the owner's rights. In addition to this, the stones are embellished with serpents, scorpions, unicorns, and various realistic or fantastic representations of animal forms. These, it would seem, symbolize the spirits, the sight of which, it was hoped, might act as a further and effectual warning against interference with the owner's rights.[214]
A special class of demons is formed by those which were supposed to infest the resting-places of the dead, though they stand in a certain relationship to the demons that plague the living. A remarkable monument found a number of years ago,[Pg 183] and which will be fully described in a subsequent chapter, affords us a picture of some of these demons whose sphere of action is more particularly in the subterranean cave that forms the gathering-place of the dead. They are represented as half human, half animal, with large grotesque and terror-inspiring features.[215] Their power, however, is limited. They are subject to the orders of the gods whose dominion is the lower world, more particularly to Nergal and his consort Allatu. In the advanced eschatology of the Babylonians the demons play a minor part. It is with the gods that the dead man must make his peace. Their protection assured, he has little to fear; but the demons of the lower world frequently ascend to the upper regions to afflict the living. Against them precautions must be taken similar to the means employed for ridding one's self of the baneful influence of the disease-and pain-bringing spirits. Reference has already been made to the spirits that belong to the higher phases of Mesopotamian culture,—those that have a share in the production of works of skill and art. We have seen that in accounting for these we are justified in assuming a higher phase of religious belief. The dividing line between god and spirit becomes faint, and the numerous protecting patrons of the handicrafts that flourished in Babylonia and Assyria can hardly be placed in the same category with those we have so far been considering. Still, to the popular mind the achievements of the human mind were regarded as due to the workings of hidden forces. Strange as it may seem, there was an indisposition to ascribe everything to the power of the gods. Ea and Nabu, although the general gods of wisdom, did not concern themselves with details. These were left to the secondary powers,—the spirits. Hence it happens that by the side of the great gods, we have a large number of minor powers who preside over the various branches of human handiwork and control the products of the human mind.
[Pg 184]Reserving further details regarding the several classes of demons and spirits enumerated, it will suffice to say a few words about one particular group of spirits whose rôle was peculiarly prominent in both historical, liturgical, and general religious texts. The tendency to systematize the beliefs in spirits manifests itself in Babylonia, equally with the grouping of the gods into certain classes. In consequence of this general tendency, the conception arose of a group of spirits that comprised the associated secondary powers of earth and heaven, somewhat as Anu, Bel, and Ea summed up the quintessence of the higher powers or gods. This group was known as the
Regarding these names it may be said that the former has not yet been satisfactorily interpreted. On the assumption that the union of the syllables A-nun-na-ki[216] represents a compound ideograph, the middle syllable nun signifies 'strength,' whereas the first is the ordinary ideograph for 'water.' Hommel[217] proposed to interpret the name therefore as 'gods of the watery habitation.' The artificiality of this manner of writing points, as in several instances noted, to a mere 'play' upon the real name. Anunna reminds one forcibly of the god Anu and of the goddess Anunit, and the element ak is quite a common afformative in Babylonian substantives, conveying a certain emphatic meaning to the word. If therefore we may compare Anun with the name of the god of heaven, the name Anunnak embodying, as it does in this case, the idea of power, would be an appropriate designation for the spirits, or a group of spirits collectively. Be it understood that this explanation is offered merely as a conjecture, which, however, finds support in the meaning attached to the term 'Igigi.' This, as[Pg 185] Halévy and Guyard have recognized, is a formation of a well-known stem occurring in Babylonian, as well as in other Semitic languages, that has the meaning 'strong.' The ideographic form of writing the name likewise designates the spirits as 'the great chiefs.' The 'Igigi,' therefore, are 'the strong ones,' and strength being the attribute most commonly assigned to the Semitic deities,[218] there is a presumption, at least, in favor of interpreting Anunnak, or Anunnaki,[219] in the same way. The 'Igigi' are at times designated as the seven gods, but this number is simply an indication of their constituting a large group. Seven is a round number which marked a large quantity. At an earlier period five represented a numerical magnitude, and hence the Anunnaki are at times regarded as a group of five.[220] The Anunnaki and Igigi appear for the first time in an historical text in the inscription of the Assyrian king Ramman-nirari I., who includes them in his appeal to the great gods. He designates the Igigi as belonging to heaven, the Anunnaki as belonging to the earth. The manner in which he uses the names shows conclusively that, at this early period, the two groups comprehended the entire domain over which spirits, and for that matter also the gods, exercised their power. Indeed, it would appear that at one time the two names were used to include the gods as well as the spirits. At least this appears to be the case in Assyria, and the conclusion may be drawn, from the somewhat vague use of the terms, that the names belong to a very early period of the religion, when the distinction between gods and spirits was not yet[Pg 186] clearly marked. However that may be, in Babylonian hymns and incantations the Igigi and Anunnaki play a very prominent part. Anu is represented as the father of both groups. But they are also at the service of other gods, notably of Bel, who is spoken of as their 'lord,' of Ninib, of Marduk, of Ishtar, and of Nergal. They prostrate themselves before these superior masters, and the latter at times manifest their anger against the Igigi. They are sent out by the gods to do service. Their character is, on the whole, severe and cruel. They are not favorable to man, but rather hostile to him. Their brilliancy consumes the land. Their power is feared, and Assyrian kings more particularly are fond of adding the Igigi and Anunnaki to the higher powers—the gods proper—when they wish to inspire a fear of their own majesty. At times the Igigi alone are mentioned, but generally the Igigi and Anunnaki appear in combination. To the latest period of Babylonian history these two groups continue to receive official recognition. Nebuchadnezzar II.[221] dedicates an altar, which he erects at the wall of the city of Babylon, to the Igigi and Anunnaki. The altar is called a structure of 'joy and rejoicing,' and on the festival of Marduk, who is the 'lord of the Anunnaki and Igigi,' sacrifices were offered at this altar. In the great temple of Marduk there was a fountain in which the gods and the Anunnaki, according to a Babylonian hymn, 'bathe their countenance'; and when to this notice it be added that another hymn praises them as the 'shining chiefs' of the ancient city of Eridu, it will be apparent that the conceptions attached to this group span the entire period of Babylonian-Assyrian history.
Besides the Igigi and Anunnaki there is still a third group of seven spirits, generally designated as the 'evil demons,' who represent the embodiment of all physical suffering to which man is subject. They appear, however, only in the incantation texts, and we may, therefore, postpone their consideration[Pg 187] until that subject is reached. The point to be borne in mind, and which I have attempted to emphasize in this place, is the close relationship existing in the popular forms of the Babylonian religion between the gods and the spirits. The latter belong to the pantheon as much as the former. Primitive animism continues to enchain the minds of the people, despite the differentiation established between the higher and the secondary powers, and despite the high point of development reached by the schoolmen in their attempts to systematize and, in a measure, to purify the ancient beliefs.[Pg 188]
[213] The technical name for this class of monuments was Kudurru, i.e., mark, and then used like the German word Mark both for boundary and for the territory included within the bounds. A notable contribution to the interpretation of the Kudurru monuments was made by Belser, in the Beiträge zur Assyriologie, ii. 111-203.
[214] The question has been raised (see Belser, ib. p. 111) by Pinches whether these representations are not the symbols of the zodiac, but, as Belser justly remarks, the attempt to interpret the pictures in this way has not been successful. It still seems most plausible to regard the pictures as symbols of spirits or demons. Such an interpretation is in accord with the Babylonian and general Semitic view of land ownership. At the same time it must be confessed that we are still in the dark as to the motives underlying the choice of the animals portrayed. There may be some ultimate connection with some of the signs of the zodiac,—so Hommel believes,—but such connection would have to be judged from the earlier forms that animism takes on, and not in the light of an advanced theology such as appears in the zodiacal system of the Babylonians.
[215] See Perrot and Chiplez, History of Art in Chaldaea and Assyria, I. 351.
[216] The element ki is sometimes omitted. The force of na is not clear, unless it be a phonetic complement merely.
[217] Semitische Völker, p. 369.
[218] Very many of the names of the Semitic gods and heroes signify strong, e.g., El, Adon, Baal, Etana, Kemosh, etc.
[219] The final vowel i would, on the basis of the explanation offered, be paralleled by the i of Igigi—an indication of the plural. See Delitzsch, Assyr. Gram. § 67, 1.
[220] The Igigi are designated ideographically as v plus ii, and Hommel (Semitische Völker, p. 491) properly suggests that this peculiar writing points to an earlier use of five as constituting the group. Hommel, however, does not see that neither five nor seven are to be interpreted literally, but that both represent a large round number, and, therefore, also a holy one.
[221] IR. 55, col. iv. ll. 7-13.
We have now reached a point where it will be proper to set forth the phases that the Babylonian religion assumed during the days of Assyrian supremacy.
An enumeration of the gods occurring in the inscriptions of the rulers of Assyria from the earliest days to the close of the empire, so far as published, will show better than any argument the points of similarity between the Babylonian and the Assyrian pantheon. These gods are in alphabetical order:[222] Anu, Ashur, Bel, Belit, Gaga, Gibil, Gamlat, Gula, Dibbarra, Dagan, Damkina, Ea, Ishtar, Kadi, Khani, Marduk, Nabu, Nanâ, Nin-gal, Nergal, Ninib, Nusku, Ramman, Sin, Shala, Shalman, Shamash, Shanitka(?), Tashmitum. Of these quite a number are only mentioned incidentally, and in a manner that indicates that they do not belong to the pantheon in the strict sense. Others, like Khani[223] and Gamlat,—i.e., 'the merciful one,'[224]—may turn out to be mere epithets of deities otherwise known; and it would hardly be legitimate to extend the list by including deities that have not yet been identified,[225] and which may similarly be only variant forms, descriptive of such as are already included. But however much this list may be extended and modified by further publications and researches, the historical material at hand for the Assyrian period of the religion is sufficient to warrant us in setting up two classes of the pantheon,—one class constituting the active pantheon,[Pg 189] the other, deities introduced by the kings merely for purposes of self-glorification, or to give greater solemnity to the invocations and warnings that formed a feature of all commemorative and dedicatory inscriptions, as well as of the annals proper. The future additions to the list, it is safe to assert, will increase the second class and only slightly modify, if at all, the first class. Bearing in mind this distinction we may put down as active forces in Assyria the following: Anu, Ashur, Bel, Belit, Gula, Dagan, Ea, Khani, Ishtar, Marduk, Nabu, Nergal, Ninib, Nusku, Ramman, Sin, Shala, Shamash, Tashmitum.
Comparing both the fuller and the restricted list with the Babylonian pantheon during the two periods treated of in the preceding chapters, we are struck by three facts: (1) the smaller compass of the Assyrian pantheon; (2) the more restricted introduction of what, for want of a better term, we may call minor deities; and (3) the small number of new deities met with. To take up the latter point, the only gods in the above list that are not found in Babylonian inscriptions are Ashur, Gibil, Gamlat, Dibbarra, Kadi, Nusku, Shala, Shanitka. Of these it is purely accidental that Gibil, Dibbarra, Nusku, and Shala are not mentioned, for, except those that are foreign importations, they belong to Babylonia as much as to Assyria and fall within the periods of the Babylonian religion that have been treated of. Kadi is a foreign deity.[226] Shanitka(?) may only be a title of some goddess, and Shalman (or Shalmannu) occurs only in proper names, and may likewise be only a title of some god.[227] There remains, as the only god peculiar to Assyria, the god Ashur. But for this god, the Babylonian and the Assyrian pantheon are identical.[Pg 190] When we come, however, to the position held by the gods in the pantheon, their relationship to one another, and the traits which secured for them popular and royal favor, the differences between the Babylonian and the Assyrian phases of the religion will be found to be more accentuated.
As for the smaller compass of the Assyrian pantheon, we may recognize in this a further advance of the tendency already noted in the second period of the Babylonian religion. There, too, we found the minor local cults yielding to the growing influence and favor of certain gods associated with the great centers of Babylonian life, or possessing attributes that accorded more with the new political order and the general advance of culture. One of the chief factors in this tendency towards centralization was, as we saw, the supremacy accorded to Marduk in the new empire as the patron god of the capital, and that not only led to his absorbing the rôle of other deities,[228] but resulted also in strengthening the belief that there were only a limited number of deities upon whose power and willingness to aid dependence could be placed. This tendency was in a measure offset by the pride that the rulers of the second Babylonian period still took in parading at times, as large a number as possible of deities under whose protection they claimed to stand. As we pass from one age to the other, the number of minor deities thus invoked also tends to diminish, and the occasions likewise when they are invoked become limited to the more solemn invocations at the beginning and the close of inscriptions. Now, in Assyria we have[Pg 191] much the same political conditions as in Babylonia, only intensified. Here, too, we have one god towering above the others, only to a still greater degree even than Marduk in Babylonia. Marduk, while absorbing the rôle of the old Bel, is still bound to acknowledge the fathership of Ea. For a time he has to fear the rivalry of Nabu, and we have seen that during the Cassitic rule, the glory of Marduk is somewhat dimmed. The god who comes to stand at the head of the Assyrian pantheon—Ashur—suffers from none of these restrictions. He is independent of other gods and is under no obligations to any of his fellows, and his rule once acknowledged remains supreme, with, perhaps, one short period excepted,[229] throughout all the vicissitudes that the empire undergoes. As a consequence of this unique position, Ashur is so completely identified with Assyria, that with the fall of the empire he, too, disappears,—whereas the Marduk cult survives the loss of Babylonian independence, and is undisturbed even by the final absorption of Babylonia into the empire of Cyrus. The tendency towards centralization of the cult is even more pronounced, therefore, in Assyria than in Babylonia. Marduk is a leader who has many gods as followers, but all of whom have their distinct functions. Ashur is a host in himself. He needs no attendants. His aid suffices for all things, and such is the attachment of his subjects to him that it would almost appear like an insult to his dignity to attach a long array of minor gods to him. For the Assyrian kings the same motives did not exist as for the Babylonians to emphasize their control over all parts of their empire by adding the chief gods of these districts to the pantheon. Assyria was never split up into independent states like Babylonia before the days of Hammurabi. The capital, it is true, changed with considerable frequency, but there was always only one great center of political power. So far as Assyrian[Pg 192] control over Babylonia was concerned, it was sufficient for the purposes of the Assyrian rulers to claim Marduk as their patron and protector, and, as we shall see, they always made a point of emphasizing this claim. Hence we have only 'great gods,'[230] and no minor deities, in the train of Ashur. These 'great gods' could not be expunged from the pantheon without a complete severance of the ties that bound the Assyrians to their past. Kings of great empires seldom favor religious revolutions. But by the side of Ashur these great gods pale, and in the course of time the tendency becomes more marked to regard them merely as formal members of a little court with few functions of their own, beyond that of adding by their presence to the majesty and glory of Ashur. One receives the impression that in Assyria only a few of the gods invoked by the kings at the side of Ashur exert any real influence on the lives of the people; and such as do, gain favor through possessing in some measure the chief attribute that distinguished Ashur,—prowess in war. They are little Ashurs, as it were, by the side of the great one. The position of Ashur in the Assyrian pantheon accounts for the general tendencies manifested by the religion of the northern empire, and upon a clear conception of the character of Ashur depends our understanding of the special points that distinguish the other gods from what we have learned of their character and traits in the southern states. The beginning, therefore, of an account of the Assyrian pantheon is properly to be made with Ashur.
The starting-point of the career of Ashur is the city of Ashur, situated on the west bank of the Tigris, not far from the point where the lower Zab flows into the Tigris. Ashur is[Pg 193] therefore distinctly a local deity, and so far as the testimony of the texts goes, he was never regarded in early days in any other light than as the local patron of the city to which he has given his name. He was never worshipped, so far as can be ascertained, as a manifestation of any of the great powers of nature,—the sun or the moon; though, if anything, he was originally a solar deity[231]. Nor was he a symbol of any of the elements,—fire or water. In this respect he differs from Sin, Shamash, Nusku,[232] and Ea, whose worship was localized, without affecting the quasi-universal character that these deities possessed. As a local deity his worship must have been limited to the city over which he spread his protecting arm; and if we find the god afterwards holding jurisdiction over a much larger territory than the city of Ashur, it is because in the north, as in the south, a distinct state or empire was simply regarded as the extension of a city. Ashur became the god of Assyria as the rulers of the city of Ashur grew in power,—in the same way that Marduk, upon the union of the Babylonian states under the supremacy of the city of Babylon, became the god of all Babylonia. But a difference between the north and the south is to be noted. Whereas Marduk, although the god of Babylonia, was worshipped only in the city of Babylon where he was supposed to have his seat, temples to Ashur existed in various parts of the Assyrian empire. The god accompanied the kings in their wars, and wherever the rulers settled, there the god was worshipped. So in the various changes of official residences that took place in the course of Assyrian history from Ashur to Calah, and from Calah to Nineveh, and from Nineveh to Khorsabad, the god took part, and his central seat of worship depended upon the place that the kings chose for their official residence. At the same time, while the cult in the various temples that in the course of time were erected in his honor probably continued[Pg 194] without interruption, there was always one place—the official residence—which formed the central spot of worship. There the god was supposed to dwell for the time being. One factor, perhaps, that ought to be taken into consideration in accounting for this movable disposition of the god was that he was not symbolized exclusively by a statue, as Marduk and the other great gods were. His chief symbol was a standard that could be carried from place to place, and indeed was so made that it could be carried into the thick of the fray, in order to assure the army of the god's presence. The standard consisted of a pole surrounded by a disc enclosed within two wings, while above the disc stood the figure of a warrior in the act of shooting an arrow.[233] The statues of the gods were deposited in shrines, and after being carried about, as was done on festive days or other occasions, they would be replaced in their shrines. The military standard, however, followed the camp everywhere, and when the kings chose to fix upon a new place for their military encampment—and such the official residences of the Assyrian warrior-kings in large measure were—the standard would repose in the place selected. How this standard came to be chosen, and when, is another question, and one more difficult to answer. It may be that the representation of the god by a standard was a consequence of the fondness that the rulers of Ashur manifested for perpetual warfare; or, in other words, that the god Ashur was represented by a standard so that he might be carried into the battle and be moved from place to place. At all events, the two things—the standard and the warlike character of the subjects of Ashur—stood in close relationship to one another, and the further conclusion is justified that when a military standard came to be chosen as the symbol of Ashur, the god was recognized[Pg 195] distinctly as a god of war. The symbols accompanying the standard are of importance as enabling us to determine something more regarding the character of Ashur. In the first place, the fact that it contained a figure may be taken as an indication that the god was at one time represented by a statue,—as indeed we know from other evidence,[234]—and that the change of his symbol from a statue to a standard is a result of the military activity of the Assyrians. The winged disc is so general a symbol of the sun in the religious system of various ancient nations[235] that one cannot escape the conclusion that the symbol must be similarly interpreted in the case before us. Is it possible, therefore, that in a period lying beyond that revealed by the oldest inscriptions at our disposal, Ashur was worshipped as a solar deity? One is bound to confess that the evidence does not warrant us in regarding Ashur as anything but the patron of the city of Ashur. Nowhere do we find any allusion from which we are justified in concluding that he originally represented some elemental power or phenomenon. Tiele[236] is of the decided opinion that Ashur was at his origin a nature god of some kind, and he goes so far as to suggest, though with due reserve, the possible identification of Ashur with Sin. No doubt Tiele is prompted to this view by the example of the great god of the south, Marduk, who is originally a solar deity, and by all the other great gods who represent, or represented, some power of nature. Analogy, however, is not a sufficiently reliable guide to settle a question for the solution of which historical material is lacking. So much, however, may be said, that if we are to assume that Ashur personified originally some natural power, the symbol of the winged disc lends a strong presumption in favor of supposing[Pg 196] him to have been some phase of the sun. So much, then, for the general character of Ashur. Before passing on to a specification of his rôle and his traits, as revealed by the historical texts, a word remains to be said as to the etymology and form of the name. Ashur is the only instance that we have of a god expressly giving his name to a city, for the name of the city can only be derived from that of the god, and not vice versa. The identification of the god with his favorite town must have been so complete that the town, which probably had some specific name of its own, became known simply as the 'city of the god Ashur.' From such a designation it is but a small step to call the city simply, Ashur. The difference between the god and the city would be indicated by the determinative for deity, which was only attached to the former, while the latter was written with the determinative attached to towns. When this city of Ashur extended its bounds until it became coequal with the domain of Assyria, the name of the god was transferred to the entire northern district of Mesopotamia, which, as the country of the god Ashur, was written with the determinative for country.[237] The ideographs which the Assyrian scribes employed in writing the name of the god reveal the meaning they attached to it. He is described ideographically as the 'good god.' This interpretation accords admirably with the general force of the verbal stem underlying the name. In both Hebrew and Assyrian a-sh-r signifies 'to be gracious, to grant blessing, to cause to prosper.' Ashur, therefore, is the god that blesses his subjects, and to the latter he would accordingly appear as the 'good god' par excellence. If the tempting etymology of our own word 'god,' which connects it with 'good,' be correct, 'god' would be almost the perfect equivalent of Ashur. It is not necessary to conclude, as Tiele does,[Pg 197][238] that Ashur, as the 'good one,' is an ethical abstraction, but certainly a designation of a god as 'a good one' sounds more like a descriptive epithet than like a name. The supposition that Ashur was not, therefore, the original name of the god receives a certain measure of force from this consideration. Moreover, there are indications that there actually existed another form of his name, namely, Anshar.[239] This form Anshar would, according to the phonetic laws prevailing in Assyria, tend to become Ash-shar.[240] Ashur—the 'good one'—would thus turn out to be an epithet of the god, chosen as a 'play' suggested by Ash-shar, just as we found Gula called the lady of Ekalli, and again Kallat (bride).[241] The etymology of Anshar is as obscure as that of most of the ancient gods of Babylonia,—as of Sin, Marduk, Ishtar, and many more. But before leaving the subject, it will be proper to call attention to the rôle that a god Anshar plays in the Babylonian-Assyrian cosmological system. Anshar and Kishar are the second pair of deities to be created, the first pair being Lakhmu and Lakhamu. In the great fight of the gods against the monster Tiâmat, it would appear that, according to one version at least, Anshar sends Anu, Ea, and finally Bel-Marduk, in turn to destroy the monster. He appears, therefore, to have exercised a kind of supremacy over the gods. Assuming the correctness of the deductions, according to which Ashur is an epithet arising by a play upon Ash-shar (from an original Anshar), it is hardly open to doubt that this Anshar is the same as the one who appears in the cosmology. On the other hand, it is difficult to suppose that Anshar should have played so significant a part in Babylonian traditions and yet find no mention in the text of the rulers of Babylonia. Bearing in mind what has been said as to the manner in which ancient[Pg 198] traditions and myths were remodeled by the schoolmen to conform to later ideas,—we have seen how in this process the popularity of Marduk led to his assuming the rôle originally played by Bel,—may not the recognition given to Anshar be a concession, made at the time that Assyria had begun her glorious career (c. 1400 B.C.), to the chief god of the northern empire?
That such tendencies to glorify Ashur may justly be sought for in part of the religious literature is proved by a version of one of the series of tablets giving an account of the creation, and which assigns to Anshar the work of building Esharra,—i.e., the earth,—that, according to another version, belongs to Marduk.[242] Evidently, then, just as the Babylonian theologians sought to glorify Marduk at the expense of Bel, so Assyrian theologians, or such as stood under Assyrian influences, did not hesitate to replace Marduk by their own favorite, Anshar. In the chapter on the 'Cosmology' we will have occasion to come back to this point. For present purposes it is sufficient to have shown that the position of Anshar in the remodeled traditions is an argument in favor of regarding Anshar as the real name of the god who stands at the head of the Assyrian pantheon.
In the oldest Assyrian inscription known to us, the god Ashur is mentioned. Samsi-Ramman, who does not yet assume the title of king, but only patesi,—i.e., 'religious chief,'[243]—prides himself upon being 'the builder of the temple of Ashur.' The phrase does not mean that he founded the temple, but only that he undertook building operations in connection with it. The date of this ruler may be fixed roughly at 1850 B.C., and since the two inscribed bricks that we have of Samsi-Ramman were found in the ruins of Kalah-Shergat,—the site of the ancient city of Ashur,—there[Pg 199] can, of course, be no doubt that the temple at that place is referred to.
The rulers of Assyria, even after they assumed the title of 'king' (c. 1500 B.C.), were still fond of calling themselves the 'priest' of the god Ashur, and frequently gave this title the preference over others. In the fourteenth century the temple of Ashur seems to have suffered at the hands of the Cassites, who attempted to extend their power to the north. This plan was, however, frustrated by Ramman-nirari I., who forces the Cassites to retreat, successfully opposes other enemies of Assyria, and restores the injured parts of Ashur's temple. From this time on, and for a period of several centuries, Assyria assumes an aggressive attitude, and as a consequence the dependency upon the god is more keenly felt than before. The enemies against whom the kings proceed are called 'the enemies of Ashur,' the troops of the king are the troops of Ashur, and the weapons with which they fight are the weapons of Ashur. It is he who causes the arms of Tiglathpileser I. to strike down his foes. The nations cannot endure the awful sight of the god. His brilliancy—the reference being no doubt to the shining standard as it was carried into the fray—inspires on every side a terror that casts all enemies to the ground. All warfare is carried on in the name of Ashur. The statement may be taken literally, for an oracle was sought at critical moments to determine the course that was to be pursued. The fight itself takes place with the help of the god,—again to be taken literally, for the god, represented by his symbol, is present on the battlefield. The victory, accordingly, belongs to the god in the first instance, and only in a secondary degree to the king. The nations are vanquished by Ashur, the conquered cities become subject to Ashur, and when the tribute is brought by the conquered foe, it is to Ashur that it is offered by the kings. Proud and haughty as the latter were, and filled with greed for glory and power, they never[Pg 200] hesitated to humble themselves before their god. They freely acknowledged that everything they possessed was due to Ashur's favor. It was he who called them to the throne, who gave them the sceptre and crown, and who firmly established their sovereignty. Through Ashur, who gives the king his invincible weapon,—the mighty bow,—the kingdom is enlarged, until the kings feel justified in saying of themselves that, by the nomination of Ashur, they govern the four quarters of the world. Nay, the rulers go further and declare themselves to be the offspring of Ashur. It is not likely that they ever desired such an assertion also to be interpreted literally. The phrase is rather to be taken as the strongest possible indication of the attachment they felt for their chief god. Everything that they possessed coming directly from their god, how could this be better expressed than by making the god the source of their being? The phrase, at all events, is interesting as showing that the element of love was not absent in the emotions that the thought of Ashur aroused in the breasts of his subjects. The kings cannot find sufficient terms of glorification to bestow upon Ashur. Tiglathpileser I. calls him 'the great lord ruling the assembly of gods,' and in similar style, Ashurnasirbal invokes him as 'the great god of all the gods.' For Ramman-nirari III., he is the king of the Igigi—the heavenly host of spirits. Sargon lovingly addresses him as the father of the gods. Sennacherib calls him the great mountain or rock,—a phrase that recalls a Biblical metaphor applied to the deity,—and Esarhaddon speaks of him as the 'king of gods.' Frequently Ashur is invoked together with other gods. He is 'the guide of the gods.' There is only one instance in which he does not occupy the first place. Ramman-nirari I., to whom reference has above been made, gives Anu the preference over Ashur in a list of gods,[244] to whom conjointly he ascribes his victories. We have already had occasion (see[Pg 201] pp. 153-155) to note the antiquity of Anu worship in Assyria, the foundation of whose temple takes us beyond the period of Samsi-Ramman. Ashur's importance begins only with the moment that the rulers of his city enter upon their career of conquest. Before that, his power and fame were limited to the city over which he presided. Those gods who in the south occupied a superior rank were also acknowledged in the north. The religion of the Assyrians does not acquire traits that distinguish it from that of Babylonia till the rise of a distinct Assyrian empire. Here, as in Babylonia, the religious conceptions, and in a measure the art, are shaped by the course of political events. Anu, accordingly, takes precedence to Ashur previous to the supremacy of the city of Ashur. This superior rank belongs to him as the supreme god of heaven. Ramman-nirari's reign marks a turning-point in the history of Assyria. The enemies of Ashur, who had succeeded for a time in obscuring the god's glory through the humiliation which his land endured, were driven back, but neither the people nor the rulers had as yet become conscious of the fact that it was solely to Ashur that the victory was due. Hence, other gods are associated with Ashur by Ramman-nirari, and the old god Anu is accorded his proper rank. After the days of Ramman-nirari, however, Ashur's precedence over all other gods is established. Whether associated with Bel or with Ramman, or with Shamash and Ramman, or with a larger representation of the pantheon, Ashur is invariably mentioned first.
From what has been said of the chief trait of Assyrian history, it follows, as a matter of course, that the popularity of Ashur is due to the military successes of the Assyrian armies; and it follows, with equal necessity, that Ashur, whatever he may originally have been, becomes purely a god of war, from the moment that Assyria enters upon what appeared to be her special mission. All the titles given to Ashur by the kings may[Pg 202] be said to follow from his rôle as the god who presides over the fortunes of the wars. If he is the 'ruler of all the gods,' and their father, he is so simply by virtue of that same superior strength which makes him the 'law-giver' for mankind, and not because of any ancient traditions, nor as an expression of some nature-myth. He lords it over gods and spirits, but he lords it solely because of his warlike qualities. Ashur is the giver of crown and sceptre, and the kings of Assyria are the patesis of the god, his lieutenants. He is the god that embodies the spirit of Assyrian history, and as such he is the most characteristic personage of the Assyrian pantheon—in a certain sense the only characteristic personage. So profound is his influence that almost all the other gods of the pantheon take on some of his character. Whenever and wherever possible, those phases of the god's nature are emphasized which point to the possession of power over enemies. The gods of the Assyrian pantheon impress one as diminutive Ashurs by the side of the big one, and in proportion as they approach nearer to the character of Ashur himself, is their hold upon the royal favor strengthened.
Second in rank to Ashur during the most glorious part of Assyrian history stands the great goddess Ishtar. That the Assyrian Ishtar is identical with the great goddess of the Babylonian pantheon is beyond reasonable doubt. She approaches closest to Nanâ,—the Ishtar of Erech; but just as we found the Babylonian Ishtar appearing under various names and forms, so there are no less than three Ishtars in Assyria, distinguished in the texts as Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela, and Ishtar who presides over the temple known as Kidmuru and who for that reason is generally called 'the queen of Kidmuru.' The seat of the latter was in Nineveh, as was of course also the seat[Pg 203] of Ishtar of Nineveh. The third Ishtar had her cult at Arbela,[245] a town lying to the east of Calah about midway between the upper and lower Zab. It is not easy to determine which of these three Ishtars is the oldest. The Assyrians themselves seem to have been aware of the Babylonian origin of Ishtar, for Tiglathpileser I. is at pains to emphasize that the temple he builds to Ishtar in his capital is dedicated to the 'Assyrian Ishtar.'[246] This being the oldest mention of Ishtar in Assyrian texts, we are perhaps warranted in concluding that the cult of the goddess was transferred with the seat of government to Nineveh. This would not necessarily make Ishtar of Nineveh the oldest of the three, but accounts for the higher rank that was accorded to her, as against the other two. Ishtar of Arbela and the queen of Kidmuru do not make their appearance so far as the historical texts are concerned till the time of Esarhaddon (681, B.C.)—a comparatively late date. Tiele[247] suggests that Arbela became the seat of a school of prophets in the service of Ishtar. The curious name of the place, the 'four-god' city, certainly speaks in favor of supposing Arbela to have been a great religious center, but until excavations shall have been conducted on the modern site of the town, the problems connected with the worship of Ishtar of Arbela cannot be solved. It is quite possible, if not probable, that the three Ishtars are each of independent origin. The 'queen of Kidmuru,' indeed, I venture to think, is the indigenous Ishtar of Nineveh, who is obliged to yield her place to the so-called 'Assyrian Ishtar' upon the transfer of the capitol of Assyria to Nineveh, and henceforth is known by one of her epithets to distinguish her from her formidable rival. The cult of Ishtar at Arbela is probably, too, of ancient date; but special circumstances that escape us appear[Pg 204] to have led to a revival of interest in their cults during the period when Assyria reached the zenith of her power. The important point for us to bear in mind is that no essential distinctions between these three Ishtars were made by the Assyrians. Their traits and epithets are similar, and for all practical purposes we have only one Ishtar in the northern empire. Next to Ashur, or rather by the side of Ashur, Ishtar was invoked as the great goddess of battle and war. This trait, however, was not given to her by the Assyrians. Hammurabi views the goddess in this light,[248] and in the Izdubar or Gilgamesh epic, as already pointed out, she appears at times in the rôle of a violent destroyer. The warlike phase of the goddess's nature is largely accentuated in the Assyrian pantheon and dwelt upon to the exclusion of that softer and milder side which we have seen characterized her as 'the mother of mankind.' Her rôle as the goddess of war grows in prominence as the Assyrian rulers proceed in their triumphal careers. Ashurrishishi (c. 1150 B.C.) invokes her simply as the superior goddess, but for Tiglathpileser I. and from his days on, she is primarily the lady of war, who arranges the order of battle and encourages her favorites to fight. She appears in dreams at critical moments, and whispers words of cheer to King Ashurbanabal. When danger threatens, it is to her that the great king spreads his hands in prayer. She is not merely the goddess of the kings, but of the people as well. The latter are instructed to honor her. No deity approaches her in splendor. As Ashur rules the Igigi, so Ishtar is declared to be 'mighty over the Anunnaki.' Her commands are not to be opposed. Her appearance is that of a being clothed with fiery flames, and streams of fire are sent down by her upon the enemies of Ashurbanabal—a description that expresses admirably the conception formed by the Assyrians of a genuine goddess of war. Like Ashur, she is given a supreme rank among the[Pg 205] gods. Shalmaneser II. calls her the first-born of heaven and earth, and for Tiglathpileser I., she is the first among the gods. Her milder attributes as the gracious mother of creation, the giver of plenty, and the hearer of the supplications of the sinner, so prominent in the religious literature,[249] are not dwelt upon in the historical texts. Still, an element of love also enters into the relationship with her subjects. Ashurnasirbal (885-860 B.C.) speaks of her as the lady who 'loves him and his priesthood.' Sennacherib similarly associates Ishtar with Ashur as the lover of his priesthood. As a goddess of war she is of course 'perfect in courage,' as Shalmaneser II. declares. Temples are erected to her in the city of Ashur, in Nineveh and Arbela. Ashurbanabal distinguishes carefully between the two Ishtars,—the one of Nineveh and the one of Arbela; and, strange enough, while terming Nineveh the favorite city of Ishtar, he seems to give the preference to Ishtar of Arbela. It is to the latter[250] that when hard pressed by the Elamites he addresses his prayer, calling her 'the lady of Arbela'; and it is this Ishtar who appears to the royal troops in a dream. The month of Ab—the fifth month of the Babylonian calendar—is sacred to Ishtar. Ashurbanabal proceeds to Arbela for the purpose of worshipping her during this sacred period. Something must have occurred during his reign, to bring the goddess of Arbela into such remarkable prominence, but even Ashurbanabal does not go so far as to place Ishtar of Arbela before Ishtar of Nineveh, when enumerating the gods of the pantheon. One point still remains to be mentioned before passing on. Ashurbanabal calls Ishtar—he is speaking of Ishtar of Nineveh—the wife of Bel.[251] Now Ishtar never appears in this capacity in the Babylonian[Pg 206] inscriptions. If there is one goddess with whom she has nothing in common, it is Belit of Nippur. To account for this curious statement on the part of the Assyrian scribes, it is only necessary to bear in mind that the name Belit signifies 'lady,' and Ishtar is constantly spoken of as the Belit or lady of battle. Much the same train of thought that led to regarding Bel in the sense of 'lord,' merely as a title of Marduk, gave rise to the use of 'Belit,' as the title of the great 'lady' of the Assyrian pantheon.[252] From this it is but a small—but of course erroneous—step, to speak of Belit-Ishtar as the consort of Bel. Whether the error is due only to the scribe, or whether it actually made its way into the Assyrian system of theology, it is difficult to say. Probably the former; for the distinguishing feature of both the Babylonian and the Assyrian Ishtar is her independent position. Though at times brought into close association with Ashur, she is not regarded as the mere consort of any god—no mere reflection of a male deity, but ruling in her own right on a perfect par with the great gods of the pantheon. She is coequal in rank and dignity with Ashur. Her name becomes synonymous with goddess, as Marduk becomes the synonym for god. The female deities both native and foreign come to be regarded as so many forms of Ishtar. In a certain sense Ishtar is the only real goddess of the later Assyrian pantheon, the only one taking an active part in the religious and political life of the people. At the same time it is to be noted that by the side of the Assyrian Ishtar, the Babylonian Ishtar, especially the one associated with Erech (or Warka) is also worshipped by the monarchs of the north. Esarhaddon devotes himself to the improvement of the old temple at Erech, and Ashurbanabal prides himself upon having rescued out of the hands of the Elamites a statue of Ishtar or Nanâ of Erech that had been captured 1635 years previous.[253]
Reference has already been made to the antiquity of the Anu cult in Assyria, and that prior to the time that the city of Ashur assumes the rôle of mistress of the northern district, Anu stood at the head of the pantheon, just as theoretically he continued to occupy this place in the pantheon of the south. What is especially important, he had a temple in the very city of Ashur, whose patron god succeeded in usurping the place of the old 'god of heaven.' The character of Anu in the north differs in no way from the traits assigned to him in the south. He is the king of the Igigi and Anunnaki, that is, of all the heavenly and earthly spirits, and he is this by virtue of being the supreme god of heaven. His cult, however, appears to have suffered through the overshadowing supremacy of Ashur. Even in his old temple at Ashur, which Tiglathpileser I. on the occasion of his rebuilding it, tells us was founded 641 years before this restoration,[254] he is no longer accorded sole homage. Ramman, the god of thunder and of storms, because correlated to Anu, is placed by the side of the latter and permitted to share the honors with Anu.[255] Anu survives in the Assyrian as in the Babylonian pantheon by virtue of being a member of the theological triad, composed as we have seen of Anu, Bel, and Ea. Tiglathpileser I. still invokes Anu as a deity of practical importance. He associates him with Ramman and Ishtar as the great gods of the city of Ashur or with Ramman alone, but beyond an incidental mention by Ashurnasirbal, who in a long list of gods at the beginning of his annals emphasizes the fact of his being the favorite of Anu, he appears only in combination with Bel and Ea. The same degree of reverence, however, was shown to the old triad in Assyria as in Babylonia. The three gods are asked not to listen to the prayers of the one who destroys[Pg 208] the monuments set up by the kings. Sargon tells us that it is Anu, Bel, and Ea who fix the names of the months,[256] and this same king when he comes to assign names to the eight gates of his great palace, does not forget to include Anu in the list of deities,[257] describing him as the god who blesses his handiwork.
Coequal in antiquity with the cult of Anu in Assyria is that of Dagan. Although occurring in Babylonia as early as the days of Hammurabi, and indeed earlier,[258] it would appear that his worship was imported from the north into the south.[259] At all events, it is in the north that the cult of Dagan rises to prominence. The name of the god appears as an element in the name of Ishme-Dagan (the father of Samsi-Ramman II.),[260] whose date may be fixed at the close of the nineteenth century B.C. The form Dagan is interesting as being almost identical with the name of the chief god of the Philistines, Dagon,[261] who is mentioned in the Book of Judges. The resemblance can hardly be entirely accidental. From other sources we know that Dagan was worshipped in Palestine as early as the fourteenth or fifteenth century, and the form Dagan, if derived from Dag, contains an afformative element which stamps the word as non-Assyrian. The proposition has much in its favor which regards Dagan as a god whose worship was introduced into Assyria at a very early period through the influence of Aramaean hordes, who continue throughout Assyrian history to skirt the eastern shores of the Tigris. Once introduced, however, into Assyria, Dagan assumes a different form from[Pg 209] the one that he receives among the Philistines. To the latter he is the god of agriculture, while in Assyria he rises to the rank of second in the pantheon, and becomes the associate of Anu. The latter's dominion being the heavens, Dagan is conceived as the god of earth. Hence, there results the fusion with the Babylonian Bel, which has already been noted,[262] and it is due to this fusion that Dagan disappears almost entirely from the Assyrian pantheon. Ashurnasirbal invokes Dagan with Anu. Two centuries later, Sargon, whose scribes, as Jensen has noticed, manifest an 'archaeological' fondness for the earlier deities, repeats the phrase of Ashurnasirbal, and also calls his subjects 'troops of Anu and Dagan'; but it is important to observe that he does not include Dagan among the deities in whose honor he assigns names to the gates of his palace. We may, therefore, fix upon the ninth century as the terminus for the Dagan cult in Assyria. Proper names compounded with Dagan do not occur after the days of Ashurnasirbal.[263]
Besides the testimony furnished by the name of the king, Samsi-Ramman, we have a proof for the antiquity of the Shamash cult in Assyria in the express statement of Pudilu (c. 1350 B.C.) that he built a temple to the sun-god in the city of Ashur. He calls Shamash the 'protecting deity,' but the protection vouchsafed by Shamash is to be understood in a peculiar sense. Shamash does not work by caprice. He is, as we have seen, preëminently a god of justice, whose favors are bestowed in accordance with unchangeable principles. So far as Assyria is concerned, the conceptions regarding Shamash reach a higher ethical level than those connected with any other deity. Ashur and Ishtar are partial to Assyria, and uphold[Pg 210] her rulers at any cost, but the favors of Shamash are bestowed upon the kings because of their righteousness, or, what is the same thing, because of their claim to being righteous. For Tiglathpileser I., great and ruthless warrior as he is, Shamash is the judge of heaven and earth, who sees the wickedness of the king's enemies, and shatters them because of their guilt. When the king mercifully sets certain captives free, it is in the presence of Shamash that he performs this act. It is, therefore, as the advocate of the righteous cause that Tiglathpileser claims to have received the glorious sceptre at the hands of Shamash; and so also for the successors of Tiglathpileser, down to the days of Sargon, Shamash is above all and first of all the judge, both of men and of the gods. There is, of course, nothing new in this view of Shamash, which is precisely the one developed in Babylonia; but in Assyria, perhaps for the reason that in Shamash is concentrated almost all of the ethical instinct of the northern people, the judicial traits of Shamash appear to be even more strongly emphasized. Especially in the days of Ashurnasirbal and Shalmaneser II.—the ninth century—does the sun-cult receive great prominence. These kings call themselves the sun of the world. The phrase,[264] indeed, has so distinctly an Egyptian flavor, that, in connection with other considerations, it seems quite plausible to assume that the influence of Egyptian reverence for Ra had much to do with the popularity of the sun-cult about this time. Shalmaneser bestows numerous epithets upon Shamash. He is the guide of everything, the messenger of the gods, the hero, the judge of the world who guides mankind aright, and, what is most significant, the lord of law. The word used for law, têrtu, is identical with the Hebrew term torâ that is used to designate the Pentateuchal legislation. No better testimony could be desired to show the nature of the conceptions that[Pg 211] must have been current of Shamash. Sargon, again, who is fond of emphasizing the just principles that inspire his acts, goes to the length of building a sanctuary[265] for Shamash far beyond the northern limits of Assyria. But the kings, in thus placing themselves under the protection of the great judge, were not oblivious to the fact that this protection was particularly desired on the battlefield. War being uppermost in their thoughts, the other side of Shamash's nature—his power and violence—was not overlooked. Tiglathpileser invokes him also as the warrior,—a title that is often given to Shamash in the religious literature. There can be little doubt that a nation of warriors whose chief deities were gods of war, was attracted to Shamash not merely because he was the judge of all things, but also, and in a large degree, because he possessed some of the traits that distinguished Ashur and Ishtar.
The association of Ramman with Shamash in the name of the old ruler of Assyria, Samsi-Ramman, is not accidental or due to mere caprice. Only such deities are combined in proper names that are, or may be, correlated to one another. Ramman, as the god of storms, is naturally viewed as a power complementary to the great orb of light.[266] The two in combination, viewed as the beneficent and the destructive power, constitute the most powerful elements of nature, whose good will it was most important, especially for a nation of warriors, to secure. Some such thought surely underlies this association of Shamash with Ramman. The Assyrian Ramman differs in no way from the Ramman of Babylonia, but he is much more popular in the north than in the south. The popularity of the god is but a reflection of the delight that the Assyrians took[Pg 212] in military pursuits. Ramman is hardly anything more than another Ashur. Tiglathpileser I., who once calls the god Mar-tu, i.e., "the West god,"[267] has left us an admirable description of him. He is the hero who floods the lands and houses of the country's enemies. The approach of the Assyrian troops is compared to an onslaught of Ramman. His curses are the most dreadful that can befall a nation or an individual, for his instruments of destruction are lightning, hunger, and death. Reference has several times been made to the manner in which Tiglathpileser honors Ramman by making him a partner of Anu in the great temple of the latter at Ashur. But the successors of Tiglathpileser are no less zealous in their reverence for Ramman. It is to Ramman that the kings offer sacrifices during the campaign, and when they wish to depict in the strongest terms the destruction that follows in the wake of an onslaught of the Assyrian troops, they declare that they swept over everything like Ramman. It is natural, in view of this, that Ramman should have been to the Assyrians also the 'mightiest of the gods.'[268] Through the Assyrian inscriptions we learn something of the consort of Ramman.
Sennacherib tells us that in the course of his campaign against Babylonia he removes out of the city of Babylon, and replaces in Ekallâte[269] the statues of Ramman and Shala. This, he says, he did 418 years after the time that they had been carried captive from Ekallâte to Babylon by Marduknadinakhi.[270] We know nothing more of this Ekallâte except that it lay in Assyria,—probably in the southern half,—and that Ramman[Pg 213] and Shala are called the gods of the city. The name 'Shala' appears to signify 'woman.' It reminds us, therefore, of 'lady' (Ninni, Nanâ, etc.), which we have found to be the designation for several distinct goddesses. It is possible that Shala, likewise, being a name of so indefinite a character, was applied to other goddesses. A 'Shala of the mountains,' who is stated to be the wife of Marduk, is mentioned in a list of gods.[271] The wife of Bel, too, is once called Shala, though in this case the confusion between Marduk and Bel may have led to transferring the name from the consort of one to the consort of the other. Too much importance must not be attached to the data furnished by these lists of gods. They represent in many cases purely arbitrary attempts to systematize the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon, and in other cases are valuable only as reflecting the views of the theologians, or rather of certain schools of theological thought, in Babylonia. In the religious hymns, too, the consort of Ramman finds mention, and by a play upon her name is described as the 'merciful one.' The attribute given to her there is the 'lady of the field,' which puts her in contrast to Ramman, rather than in partnership with him. Since we hear little of her worship in Assyria, beyond the notices of Sennacherib, we may conclude that, like so many goddesses, Shala dwindled to the insignificant proportions of a mere pale reflection of the male deity.
Another god, who by virtue of his violent traits enjoys the favor of the Assyrian rulers, is the old Babylonian deity whose name is provisionally read Nin-ib. In the very first mention of him, in the inscription of Ashurrishishi (c. 1150 B.C.), he is called the 'mighty one of the gods.' Through the protection of Nin-ib, Ashurrishishi secures victory over his enemies on[Pg 214] all sides. Similarly, other of the Assyrian rulers emphasize the strength of Nin-ib. Tiglathpileser I. calls him the courageous one, whose special function is the destruction of the king's enemies. In doing so he becomes the god 'who fulfills the heart's desire.' The unmistakable character of the god as a god of war is also shown by his association with Ashur.[272] If Ashur is the king of Igigi and Anunnaki, Nin-ib is the hero of the heavenly and earthly spirits. To him the rulers fly for help. Of all the kings, Ashurnasirbal seems to have been especially devoted to the service of Nin-ib. The annals of this king, instead of beginning, as is customary, with an invocation of all or many of the gods, starts out with an address to Nin-ib, in which the king fairly exhausts the vocabulary of the language in his desire to secure the favor of this powerful deity. Almost all the attributes he assigns to him have reference to the god's powers in war. Dwelling in the capital Calah, he is 'the strong, the mighty, the supreme one,' the perfect hero, who is invincible in battle, the 'destroyer of all opposition, who holds the lock of heaven and earth, who opens the deep; the strong one, endowed with youthful vigor, whose decree is unchangeable, without whom no decision is made in heaven or on earth, whose attack is like a flood, who sweeps away the land of his enemies,' and so forth, through a bewildering array of epithets. The inscriptions of the Assyrian kings, especially in the introductions, manifest little originality. One king, or rather his scribe, frequently copies from earlier productions, or imitates them. Hence, it happens that the grandson of Ashurnasirbal, Shamshi-Ramman (c. 825-812 B.C.), furnishes us with an almost equally long array of epithets, exalting the strength and terror of Nin-ib. Like Ashurnasirbal, he declared himself to have been chosen by this god to occupy the throne. A comparison of the two lists makes it evident that the later one is modeled upon the earlier production.[Pg 215] The conclusion is justified that in the century covered by the reigns of Ashurnasirbal[273] and Shamshi-Ramman, the cult of Nin-ib must have acquired great popularity, though suffering, perhaps, an interruption during the reign of Shalmaneser II.,—midway between these two kings,—whose favorite we have seen was Shamash. The great temple of Nin-ib stood in Calah, which Ashurnasirbal chose as his official residence, and it was in this temple that the king deposited a long inscription commemorating his deeds. In the temple, he also places a colossal statue of the god. Upon the completion of the edifice, he dedicates it with prayer and sacrifices. The special festivals of the god are fixed for the months of Shabat and Ulul,—the eleventh and sixth months,—and provision is made for the regular maintenance of the cult. It must, of course, not be supposed that, because Nin-ib appears to be a favorite of the king, the latter concentrates his attentions upon this god. He appears to have been specially fond of temple building, and, besides the one to Nin-ib, he tells us of sanctuaries to 'Belit of the land,' i.e., Ishtar,[274] Sin, Gula, Ea, and Ramman,—that he erects or improves. One might be led to regard it as strange that a god like Nin-ib, or Shamash, should claim so large a share of the attention of the Assyrian rulers, to the apparent neglect of Ashur, but it must be borne in mind that the position of Ashur was so assured as to be beyond the reach of rivalry. The fact also that Ashur's popular symbol was the movable standard was no doubt a reason why so few temples were erected to him. He did not stand in need of temples. For the very reason that Ashur was the universally acknowledged master of everything, the kings felt called upon to choose, by the side of Ashur, some additional deity,—a patron under whose special protection they placed themselves. The natural desire for novelty—together with[Pg 216] other circumstances that escape us—led one to choose Ramman, another Nin-ib, a third Shamash, and a fourth, as we shall see, Nabu. In doing so they were not conscious of any lack of respect towards Ashur, of whose good will they always felt certain.
Besides the service rendered by Nin-ib in war, his aid was also invoked by the kings in their recreations, which partook of the same violent character as their vocation. Their favorite sport was hunting, especially of lions, wild horses, elephants, stags, boars, and bulls. They either proceeded to districts where these animals were to be found, or they had large parks laid out near their residences, which were then stocked with material for the chase. Ashurnasirbal does not shun a long journey to distant mountainous regions to seek for sport, and it is Nin-ib whom he invokes, together with Nergal. These two, he declares, who, like Ashur and Ishtar, "love his priesthood," are the ones that convey into his hands the hunting spoils. Tiglathpileser I. was especially fond of lion and elephant hunting. He declares that on one occasion he killed 10 elephants and 920 lions in various parts of northwestern Mesopotamia; and he ascribes his success to Nin-ib, who loves him, and who, again, in association with Nergal, and Ashur, has placed in the king's hands the mighty weapons and the glorious bow. After the days of Shamshi-Ramman we hear of Nin-ib chiefly in the formal lists of gods which the later kings of Assyria, from Sargon[275] on, are fond of placing at the beginning and end of their inscriptions. These lists, again, copied the one from the other, are of value only as indicating the chief gods of the pantheon, but warrant no conclusions as to the activity reigning in the cults of the gods there mentioned. Before leaving Nin-ib a few words need be said as to his relations to the other gods. In the chapter on the pantheon before Hammurabi,[276] the identity of Nin-ib with the chief god[Pg 217] of Gudea's district, Nin-girsu, has been pointed out. The solar character of the latter being clear, it follows that Nin-ib, too, is originally a personification of the sun, like Nin-gish-zida and Nin-shakh, whose rôles are absorbed by Nin-ib.[277] This has long been recognized, but it is the merit of Jensen[278] to have demonstrated that it is the east sun and the morning sun which is more especially represented by Nin-ib. On this supposition, some of the titles given to him in the inscriptions of Ashurnasirbal and Shamshi-Ramman become perfectly clear. Like Marduk, who, it will be remembered, is also originally a phase of the solar deity, Nin-ib is called the first-born of Ea; and as the rising sun he is appropriately called the offspring of Ekur,—i.e., the earth,—in allusion to his apparent ascent from a place below the earth. Ekur and Eshara being employed as synonyms, Shamshi-Ramman replaces Ekur by Eshara, and since Bel is the lord of Ekur-Eshara, Nin-ib also becomes the first-born son of Bel. Other epithets, such as 'the light of heaven and earth,' 'the one who pursues his path over the wide world,'[279] are all in keeping with the solar character of the deity, and date, therefore, from a period when the more purely 'nature' phases of the god were dwelt upon. But just as in the case of Shamash and Nergal (also, as we have seen, a solar deity), so in that of Nin-ib, the violent, fiery, and destructive character that the sun has in a climate like that of Babylonia brought it about that Nin-ib was viewed as a destructive force, whose assistance was of great value in military strife. He becomes the god of the cloud storm, before whom, as he passes along, heaven and earth tremble. By his strong weapon he humiliates the disobedient, destroys the enemies of the kings, and grants all manner of protection to his favorites. Only in the religious literature are other qualities[Pg 218] dwelt upon, such as his 'holiness.'[280] For Hammurabi, it will be recalled, Nin-ib is already the god of war, and it is natural that in a country like Assyria this side of the god's nature should become accentuated to the point of obscuring all others, until nothing more is left of his solar character than is indicated by stray bits of mythological phrases, perhaps only half understood, and introduced to add to the imposing array of epithets that belong to the terrible god of war. As the consort of Nin-ib, the Assyrians recognized
She is only occasionally invoked by the Assyrian rulers. A sanctuary to Gula, as the consort of Nin-ib, is erected by Ashurnasirbal, and a festival in honor of the goddess is referred to by Ashurbanabal.
Nergal not only shares with Nin-ib, as already mentioned, the honor of being the god under whose auspices the royal chase is carried on, but he is also, like Nin-ib, invoked in that other sport of which the Assyrian rulers were so fond,—war. He is scarcely differentiated from Nin-ib. Like the latter he is the perfect king of battle, who marches before the monarch together with Ashur, and he is pictured as carrying the mighty weapons which Ashur has presented to the king. In an inscription of Shalmaneser II.[281] there is an interesting reference to the city sacred to Nergal—Cuthah. The king, who in the course of his campaign against Babylonia reaches Cuthah, brings sacrifices to Nergal, whom he speaks of as 'the hero of the gods, the supreme raging sun.' A later king, Sargon, also honors the god by giving a fortress in the distant land of Nairi, to the northeast of Assyria, the name of Kar[282]-Nergal.[Pg 219] It would seem as though, through the influence of Sargon, a revival of the Nergal cult took place. His successor, Sennacherib, erects a temple in honor of the god at Tarbisu, a suburb to the north of Nineveh proper, and Ashurbanabal, who dwells at Tarbisu for a while, is engaged in adding to the beauty of the edifice,—an indication of the honor in which the god continued to be held. Nergal's consort is Laz, but she is not referred to by the Assyrian rulers.
The old Babylonian moon-god plays a comparatively insignificant rôle in Assyria. Ashurnasirbal speaks of a temple that he founded in Calah—perhaps only a chapel—in honor of Sin. It could not have been of much importance, for we learn nothing further about it. Sargon, too, who manifests a great fondness for reviving ancient cults, erects sanctuaries to Sin along with a quantity of other gods in his official residence at Khorsabad and beyond the northeastern confines of Assyria at Magganubba. But when invoked by the kings, Sin shows traces of the influence which the conceptions current about Ashur exerted upon his fellow deities. He takes on, as other of the gods, the attributes of the war-god. Instead of being merely the lord of the crescent, as in Babylonia, and one of the sources of wisdom because of the connection of astrology with lunar observations, he is pictured as capable of inspiring terror. At the same time he is also the lord of plenty, and in his capacity as the wise god he is regarded as the lord of decisions. But by the side of new epithets that are attached to him in the Assyrian inscriptions, there is one which, just as in the case of Nin-ib, connects the Assyrian Sin cult with the oldest phase of moon-worship in the south. It is one of the last kings of Assyria, Ashurbanabal, who calls Sin 'the firstborn son of Bel.' He appears in this relationship to Bel in the[Pg 220] religious texts of Babylonia. The Bel here meant can only be the great god of Nippur, and the title 'son of Bel' accordingly shows that the moon-worship of Assyria is ultimately derived from that which had its seat in the south. Sin's secondary position is indicated by making him a son of Bel. The rise of the science of astronomy in connection with astrology, was, as already suggested, an important factor in spreading and maintaining the Sin cult in the south, while the lack of intellectual originality in Assyria would equally account for the comparatively subordinate position occupied by Sin in the Assyrian pantheon.
That Nusku is a Babylonian god, meriting a place in the pantheon of Hammurabi, if not of the days prior to the union of the Babylonian states, is shown by the fact (1) that he had a shrine in the great temple of Marduk at Babylon, along with Nebo, Tashmiyum, and Ea;[283] and (2) that he appears in the religious texts. In view of this it might appear strange that we find no reference to the god in historical texts till we reach the Assyrian period. The reason, or at least one reason, is that Nusku is on the one hand amalgamated with Gibil, the fire-god, and on the other identified with Nabu. The compound ideogram with which his name is written includes the same sign—the stylus or sceptre—that is used to designate Nabu, the second part of the ideogram adding the idea of 'force and strength.' Whether this graphical assimilation is to be regarded as a factor in bringing about the identification of Nusku and Nabu, or is due to an original similarity in the traits of the two gods, it is difficult to say. Hardly the latter, for Nusku is a solar deity, whereas, as we have tried to show, Nabu is originally a water-deity.[284] But however we may choose to account for it,[Pg 221] the prominence of Nusku is obscured by Nabu. As a solar deity, it is easy to see how he should have been regarded as a phase of the fire-god, and if the various other solar deities were not so regarded, it is because in the course of their development they were clothed with other attributes that, while obscuring their origin, saved them from the loss of their identity. Apart from the formal lists of gods drawn up by Sargon and his successors, Shalmaneser II. and Ashurbanabal are the only kings who make special mention of Nusku. The former calls him the bearer of the brilliant sceptre, just as Nabu is so called; and again, just as Nabu, he is termed the wise god. The two phases of the ideogram used in his name—the sceptre and the stylus—are thus united in the personage of Nusku precisely as in Nabu. On the other hand, the manner in which Ashurbanabal speaks of him reflects the mythological aspect of Nusku. In the religious literature Nusku is the messenger of Bel-Marduk, who conveys the message of the latter to Ea. From being the messenger of Bel, he comes to be viewed as the messenger of the gods in general, and accordingly Ashurbanabal addresses him as 'the highly honored messenger of the gods,' but, combining with the mythological the more realistic aspect of Nusku, refers to him also as the one who glorifies sovereignty and who, at the command of Ashur and Belit, stands at the king's side to aid in bringing the enemies to fall. As for the fire-god Gibil, with whom Nusku is identified, we have merely a reference to a month of the year sacred to the servant of Gibil in a passage of the inscriptions of Sargon.[285]
From the time that the Assyrian rulers claimed a greater or small measure of control over the affairs of Babylonia, that is, therefore, from about the twelfth century, they were anxious to[Pg 222] make good their claim by including in their pantheon the chief god of Babylonia. The Assyrian inscriptions prove that, as early as the twelfth century, the theoretical absorption on the part of Marduk, of the rôle taken by the old god Bel of Nippur, which was enlarged upon in a preceding chapter,[286] had already taken place. Marduk is not only frequently known as Bel, but what is more, Babylonia is the country of Bel, or simply Bel, and the Babylonians are referred to as 'the subjects of Bel,' or the 'humanity of Bel.' There can be no doubt that in all these cases Bel-Marduk is meant and not the older Bel. In the days of Ashurrishishi we already come across the title 'governor of Bel,' that to the latest days remains the official designation for political control over the southern empire. So general is this use of Bel for Marduk that the latter name does not occur until we reach Shalmaneser II., i.e., the ninth century. There seems to be no reason to question, therefore, that even when Tiglathpileser I. applies to Bel titles that certainly belong to the older Bel, such as 'father of the gods,' 'king of all the Anunnaki,' 'who fixes the decrees of heaven and earth,' he means Marduk, a proof for which may be seen in the epithet bêl matâti, 'lord of lands,' which follows upon these designations and which, as we saw, is a factor in the evolution of Marduk into Bel-Marduk.[287] The importance that Tiglathpileser I., and therefore also his successors, attached to their control over the old southern district, is shown by his according to Bel the second place in the pantheon, invoking him at the beginning of his inscriptions immediately after Ashur. The control over Babylonia was an achievement that stirred the pride of the Assyrian rulers to the highest degree. Its age and its past inspired respect. Besides being the source of the culture that Assyria possessed, Babylonia had sacred associations for the Assyrians, as the original[Pg 223] dwelling-places of most of the gods worshipped by them. The old sacred centers like Ur, Nippur, Uruk, Sippar, with their great temples, their elaborate cults, their great storehouses of religious literature, and their great body of influential priests and theologians and astrologers were as dear to the people of the north as to those of the south; and in proportion as these old cities lost their political importance, their rank as sacred centers to which pilgrimages were made on the occasion of the festivals of the gods was correspondingly raised. Hence the value that the Assyrian rulers attached to the possession of Babylonia. They do not like to be reminded that they rule the south by force of arms. They prefer, as Tiglathpileser I. declares, to consider themselves 'nominated by the gods to rule over the land of Bel.' They want to be regarded as the favorites of Bel, and they ascribe to him the greatness of their rule. It is he who fulfills the wishes of the kings; and when the kings enter upon a campaign against Babylonia, as they frequently did to quell the uprisings that were constantly occurring in the one or the other of the southern districts, they emphasize, as Shalmaneser II. does, that he enters upon this course at the command of Marduk. They set themselves up as Marduk's defenders, and it must be said for the Assyrian rulers that they were mild and sparing in their treatment of their southern subjects. They do not practise those cruelties—burning of cities, pillage, and promiscuous slaughter—that form the main feature in their campaigns against the nations to the northeast and northwest, and against Elam. They accord to the Babylonians as much of the old independence as was consistent with an imperial policy. The internal affairs continue for a long time to be regulated by rulers who are natives of Babylonia, and it is not until a comparatively late day—the time of Sennacherib—that in consequence of the endless trouble that these native rulers gave the Assyrians through their constant attempt to make themselves independent, it became customary for the[Pg 224] Assyrian kings to appoint a member of the royal house—a son or brother—to the lieutenancy over Babylonia. As for the cult, the Assyrian kings were at great pains to leave it undisturbed, or where it had been interrupted to restore it, and thus secure the favor of the southern gods. So Shalmaneser II. upon the completion of his campaign enters Marduk's great temple at Babylon, E-sagila, and offers prayers and sacrifices to Bel and Belit, i.e., Marduk and Sarpanitum. From E-sagila he crosses over to Borsippa, and pays homage to Nabu and to Nabu's consort, whom he calls Nanâ.[288] The kings are fond, especially when speaking of the Babylonian campaigns, of slipping in the name of Marduk after that of Ashur. With the help of Ashur and Marduk their troops are victorious. Marduk shares Ashur's terrible majesty. At times Shamash, or Shamash and Ramman, are added to form a little pantheon whose assistance is invoked in the Babylonian wars. From being used in restricted application to Babylonian affairs, Ashur and Marduk came to be invoked in a general way. Esarhaddon expressly sets up the claim of being the savior of Marduk's honor, as a kind of apology for proceeding against Babylonia with his armies. Sargon, to emphasize his legitimate control over Babylonia as well as Assyria, says that he has been called to the throne by Ashur and Marduk, but Ashurbanabal goes further even than his predecessors. He proceeds to Babylon on the occasion of the formal installation of his brother Shamash-shumukin as viceroy of the district, enters the temple of Marduk, whom he does not hesitate to call 'the lord of lords,' performs the customary rites, and closes the ceremonies by a fervent prayer to Marduk for his continued good will and blessing.[289] The great gods Nergal, Nabu, and Shamash come from their respective shrines to do homage to Marduk. Ashurbanabal's[Pg 225] brother Shamash-shumukin, when he attempts as governor of Babylon to make himself independent of his brother, endeavors by means of sacrifices and other devices to secure the favor of Marduk, well aware that in this way he will also gain the support of the Babylonians. On another occasion, incidental to a northern campaign, Ashurbanabal mentions that the day on which he broke up camp at Damascus was the festival of Marduk,—an indication that the Babylonian god was in his thoughts, even when he himself was far away from Babylonia. Esarhaddon and Ashurbanabal, when approaching the sun-god to obtain an oracle, make mention of Marduk by the side of Shamash. There are, however, a number of passages in the Assyrian inscriptions in which when Bel is spoken of, not Marduk but the old god Bel is meant.
Tiglathpileser I. tells us that he rebuilt a temple to Bel in the city of Ashur, and he qualifies the name of the god by adding the word 'old' to it. In this way he evidently distinguished the god of Nippur from Bel-Marduk, similarly as Hammurabi in one place adds Dagan to Bel,[290] to make it perfectly clear what god he meant. Again, it is Sargon who in consistent accord with his fondness for displaying his archaeological tastes, introduces Bel, the 'great mountain,' 'the lord of countries,' who dwells in E-khar-sag-kurkura, i.e., the sacred mountain on which the gods are born, as participating in the festival that takes place upon the dedication of the king's palace in Khorsabad. The titles used by the king are applicable only to the old Bel, but whether he or his scribes were fully conscious of a differentiation between Bel and Bel-Marduk, it is difficult to say. Bel is introduced in the inscription in question[291] immediately after Ashur, and one is therefore inclined to suspect[Pg 226] that Sargon's archaeological knowledge fails him at this point in speaking of the old Bel, whereas he really meant to invoke the protection of Bel-Marduk as the chief god of his most important possession next to Assyria.[292] Besides this, the old Bel is of course meant, when associated with Anu, as the powers that, together with Belit, grant victory,[293] or as a member of the old triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea, whose mention we have seen is as characteristic of the Assyrian inscriptions as of the Babylonian. Lastly, Sargon calls one of the gates of his palace after Bel, whom he designates as the one who lays the foundation of all things. In this case, too, the old Bel is meant.
In the case of Belit a curious species of confusion confronts us in the Assyrian inscriptions. At times Belit appears as the wife of Bel, again as the consort of Ashur, again as the consort of Ea, and again simply as a designation of Ishtar.[294] To account for this we must bear in mind, as has already been pointed out, that just as Bel in the sense of lord came to be applied merely as a title of the chief god of Babylonia, so Belit as 'lady' was used in Assyria to designate the chief goddess. This was, as the case may be, either Ishtar or the pale 'reflection' associated with Ashur as his consort. Now this Belit, as the wife of Ashur, absorbs the qualities that distinguish Belit, the wife of Bel-Marduk. The temple in the city of Ashur, which Tiglathpileser I.[295] enriches with presents consisting of the images of the deities vanquished by the king, may in reality have been sacred to the Belit of Babylonia, but Tiglathpileser, for whom Bel becomes merely a designation of Marduk, does not feel called upon to pay his devotions to the Babylonian Sarpanitum,[Pg 227] and so converts the old Belit into 'the lofty wife, beloved of Ashur.' Sargon, on the other hand, who calls one of the gates of his palace Belit ilâni 'mistress of the gods,' seems to mean by this, the consort of Ea.[296] Similarly, Ashurbanabal regards Belit as the wife of Ashur, and himself as the offspring of Ashur and Belit. At the same time he gives to this Belit the title of 'mother of great gods,' which of right belongs to the consort of the Babylonian Bel. In the full pantheon as enumerated by him, Belit occupies a place immediately behind her consort Ashur. Ashurbanabal, however, goes still further, and, influenced by the title of 'Belit' as applied to Ishtar, makes the latter the consort of Ashur. This at least is the case in an inscription from the temple of Belit at Nineveh,[297] known as E-mash-mash, and in which Ashurbanabal alternately addresses the goddess as Belit and as Ishtar, while elsewhere[298] this same Belit, whose seat is in E-mash-mash, is termed the consort of Ashur. How Ashurbanabal or his scribes came to this confusing identification we need not stop to inquire. In part, no doubt, it was due to the general sense of 'goddess,' which Ishtar began to acquire in his days.[299] At all events, Ashurbanabal's conception marks a contrast to the procedure of Shalmaneser II., who correctly identifies the mother of the great gods with the wife of Bel.[300] On the other hand, the confusion that took place in Ashurbanabal's days is foreshadowed by the title of 'Bêlit mâti,' i.e., 'mistress of the land,' by which Ashurbanabal appears to designate some other than Ishtar.[301] Lastly, it is interesting to note that Ashurbanabal recognizes by the side of Belit-Ishtar, the wife of Ashur, the older Belit, the wife of the Bel of Nippur, to whom, in association[Pg 228] with Anu and Bel, he attributes his victory over the Arabs.[302]
The consort of Marduk is only incidentally referred to: once by Sargon,[303] who groups Bel with Sarpanitum and Nabu and Tashmitum, at the head of the gods of Babylonia; and similarly by Tiglathpileser III., on the occasion of his enumerating the chief gods of the Babylonian pantheon.
The intimate association of Nabu with Marduk in the city of Babylon leads as a natural consequence to a similar association in Assyria, when once the Marduk cult had for political reasons become established in the north. The kings invoke the favor of Bel (meaning Marduk) and Nabu, especially when dealing with the affairs of Babylonia,[304] as they invoke Ashur and Ishtar. Just as we have certain kings devoted to Nin-ib and Shamash by the side of Ashur, so there are others whose special favorite is Nabu. In the days of Ramman-nirari III. (812-783 B.C.) the Nabu cult reached its highest point of popularity in Assyria. From the manner in which the king speaks of the god, one might draw the conclusion that he attempted to concentrate the whole Assyrian cult upon that god alone. He erects a temple to the god at Calah, and overwhelms the deity with a great array of titles. The dedicatory inscription which the king places on a statue of Nebo closes with the significant words, 'O Posterity! trust in Nabu. Trust in no other god.'[305] Still we must not press such phrases too hard. Ramman-nirari III. had no intention of suppressing Ashur worship, for he[Pg 229] mentions the god elsewhere, and assigns to him the same rank as the other kings do, but so much we are justified in concluding, that next to Ashur and Ishtar he feels most strongly attached to Nabu. That the Babylonian Nabu is meant, is clear from such designations as 'the offspring of E-sagila, the favorite of Bel,' 'he who dwells at E-zida,' which appear among the epithets bestowed upon the god; and the temple in Calah, which one of the last kings of Assyria, Ashuretililani,[306] is engaged in improving, bears the same name E-zida, as Nabu's great temple at Borsippa. We have already set forth the reasons[307] for the popularity of the Nabu cult in Assyria. Suffice it to recall that the peculiar character of the god as the patron of wisdom placed him beyond the reach of any jealousy on the part of the other members of the pantheon. So Ramman-nirari III. extols Nabu as the protector of the arts, the all-wise who guides the stylus of the scribe, and the possessor of wisdom in general. He is not merely the originator of writing, but the source of all wisdom, and for this reason he is spoken of as the son of Ea. Attributes of mere brutal force are rarely assigned to Nabu, but as befits a god of wisdom, mercy, nobility, and majesty constitute his chief attractions. By virtue of his wisdom, Sargon calls him 'the clear seer who guides all the gods,' and when the last king of Assyria—Saracus, as the Greek writers called him—invokes Nabu as the 'leader of forces,' he appears to have in mind the heavenly troops rather than earthly armies. Such patrons of learning as Sargon and Ashurbanabal were naturally fond of parading their devotion to Nabu. The former significantly calls him the 'writer of everything,' and as for Ashurbanabal, almost every tablet in the great literary collection that he made at Nineveh closes with a solemn invocation to Nabu and his consort Tashmitum, to whom he offers thanks for having opened his ears to receive wisdom, and who persuaded him[Pg 230] to make the vast literary treasures of the past accessible to his subjects.
The consort of Nabu was permitted to share the honors in the temple of Nabu at Calah, but beyond this and Ashurbanabal's constant association of Tashmitum with Nabu in the subscript to his tablets, she appears only when the kings of Assyria coming to Babylonia as they were wont to do,[308] in order to perform sacrifices, enumerate the chief gods of the Babylonian pantheon.
Ea takes his place in the Assyrian pantheon in the double capacity of god of wisdom and as a member of the old triad. Ashurnasirbal makes mention of a sanctuary erected to the honor of Ea in Ashur. A recollection of the rôle that Ea plays in Babylonian mythology survives in the titles of 'creator' and 'king of the ocean,' which Shalmaneser gives him,[309] and of the 'one who opens the fountains' as Ashurbanabal declares.[310] He is also, as in Babylonia, the one who determines the fates of mankind. As the one who has a care for the arts, he is the wise god, just as Nabu, and under various titles, as Nu-gim-mud,[311] Nin-igi-azag, and Igi-dug-gu,[312] all emphasizing his skill, he is the artificer who aids the kings in their building operations. The similarity of the rôles of Nabu and Ea, as gods of wisdom and the arts, might easily have led to a confusion.[Pg 231] Fortunately, the grandiloquent and all-embracing titles accorded to the former did not alter his character as essentially the god who presides over the art of writing, while Ea retains the control over the architectural achievements,—the great colossi, in the first instance, that guarded the approach of palaces, the images of the gods in the second, and the temples and palaces in general as his third function.
Of the consort of Ea, it is sufficient to note that she is occasionally referred to in the historical texts of the Assyrian period. In the inscriptions of Sargon she appears under the rather strange title of 'Belit ilâni,' i.e., the mistress of the gods.[313] This 'mistress' cannot be, as might at first blush appear, Ishtar or the old Belit, for elsewhere[314] Ishtar, Belit, and Belit ilâni occur side by side. Sargon declares that he owes his wisdom to Ea and Belit ilâni. In naming the gates of his palace, he again associates Ea with 'the mistress of the gods,' from which it is clear that the epithet is used of Ea's consort.
A sanctuary to the old Babylonian goddess Nin-gal is included by Sargon among the holy edifices erected by him in his official residence.[315]
We have pointed out in a previous chapter how faint the dividing line sometimes becomes between gods and spirits. Among the minor deities, ranking hardly above demons, is the[Pg 232] plague-god, whose name may provisionally be read Dibbarra.[316] The god plays a rôle in some of the ancient legends of Babylonia. Remains have been found of a kind of epic in which Dibbarra is the chief personage.[317] In the historical texts he is once incidentally mentioned by Ashurbanabal, who in the course of his campaign against Babylonia[318] describes how the corpses of those killed by Dibbarra, i.e., through hunger and want, filled the streets of the cities. Evidently Dibbarra here is a mere personification of the dreadful demon of want that so often follows in the wake of a military destruction. Still there can be no doubt that at one time he was regarded as a real deity, and not merely a spirit or demon. Dibbarra is identified in the theological system of Babylonia with Nergal.
In an interesting passage recounting the restoration of the city Magganubba, Sargon[319] says that he prayed to Damku, i.e., 'grace,' Sharru-ilu, i.e., 'king-god,' and Sha-nit(?)-ka. The two former he calls the judges of mankind. That Damku and Sharru-ilu are titles and not names is evident from the meaning of the words, but at present it is impossible to say what gods are meant.[320] Perhaps that these are the translations of names of the old deities of Magganubba. We have at least one other example of a foreign deity introduced into the Assyrian pantheon. At Dur-ilu, a town lying near the Elamitic frontier, there flourished the cult of Ka-di,[321] evidently a god imported into the Assyrian pantheon from Elam or some other eastern district. Sargon's scribes are fond of translating foreign names[Pg 233] and words, and they may have done so in this case, and thus added two new deities to the glorious pantheon protecting their royal chief. As for Sha-nit(?)-ka,[322] were it not that she is called the mistress of Nineveh, one would also put her down as a foreign goddess. In view of this, however, it may be that Sha-nit(?)-ka is an ideographic designation of Ishtar.
Before leaving the subject, a word needs to be said regarding the relation between the active Assyrian pantheon and the long lists of deities prepared by the schoolmen of Babylonia and Assyria. Reference has already been made to these lists.[323] They vary in character. Some of them furnish an index of the various names under which a god was known,[324] or the titles assigned to him. These names and titles are frequently indications that some great god has absorbed the attributes of smaller ones, whose independence was in this way destroyed. Other lists[325] are simple enumerations of local deities, and when to these names some indications are added, as to the locality to which the gods belong,[326] their importance is correspondingly increased. There can be no doubt that most of these lists were prepared on the basis of the occurrence of these gods in texts, and it seems most plausible to conclude that the texts in question were of a religious character. References to local cults are numerous in the incantations which form a considerable proportion of the religious literature, while in hymns and prayers, gods are often referred to by their titles instead of their names. In some respects, however, these lists of gods are still obscure. It is often difficult to determine whether we are dealing with gods or spirits, and the origin and meaning of many of the names and epithets assigned to gods are similarly involved[Pg 234] in doubt. Use has been made of these lists in determining the character of the gods included in this survey of the Babylonian and Assyrian pantheon, but it would be manifestly precarious to make additions to this pantheon on the basis of the lists alone. Despite the tendency towards centralization of divine power in a limited number of gods, local cults, no doubt, continued to enjoy some importance in Assyria as well as Babylonia; but, in the present stage of our knowledge, we have no means of determining either the number or the character of these local cults. While, therefore, a complete treatment of the pantheon of Babylonia and Assyria would include all the minor local cults, we may feel quite certain that these local cults furnish few, if any, additions to the concepts connected with these gods which we have discussed. I have therefore contented myself with some illustrations, in each of the three divisions under which the pantheon has been surveyed, of some of the minor deities chosen, such as actually occur in historical, commercial, or religious texts. For the Assyrian pantheon, we may place Nin-gal and most of the consorts of the gods among the minor gods, and also such deities as Ka-di, Khani, Gaga, Dibbarra, Sherua, and Azag-sir, who are merely incidentally referred to.[327] These illustrations suffice for placing clearly before us the distinction to be made in the pantheon between gods whose worship was actively carried on, and those who occupy more of a theoretical position in the system perfected by the schoolmen, standing under the political and social influences of their days. With this distinction clearly impressed upon us, we will be prepared for such modifications of our views of the Babylonian-Assyrian pantheon as further researches and discoveries may render necessary.
[222] Semitic alphabet.
[223] A form of Nebo, according to Meissner-Rost, Bauinschriften Sanherib's, p. 105.
[224] See Meissner-Rost, ib. p. 108.
[225] As e.g., En-e-in-pal (Meissner-Rost, ib. p. 76). Sherua and Arag-sir (ib. p. 101). For further lists of deities, see pp. 234, 238.
[226] The Assyrian kings are fond of mentioning foreign deities, and of adding them to their pantheon. In his annals (VR. col. vi. ll. 30-43) Ashurbanabal gives a list of twenty Elamitic deities captured by him.
[227] Tiele (Babyl.-Assyr. Geschichte, p. 519) suggests Ea.
[228] An interesting example of this tendency is furnished by a tablet published by T. G. Pinches (Journal of the Victoria Institute, xxviii. 8-10), in which the name Marduk is treated almost as a generic term for deity. Nergal is called 'the Marduk of warfare'; Nebo, 'the Marduk of earthly possessions'; Ninib, 'the Marduk of strength'; En-lil, 'the Marduk of sovereignty'; and so on, in a long enumeration, the gods are regarded as so many forms of Marduk. Pinches' conclusion that the list points to monotheistic beliefs is, however, unwarranted. The list only illustrates a tendency towards a centralization of divine powers in Marduk, that accompanies the political centralization of the period.
[230] So the gods of the Assyrian pantheon are generally termed in the inscriptions of the kings.
[233] A description of this symbol occurs in a text of Sennacherib (Meissner-Rost, Bauinschriften Sanherib's, p. 94). The symbol itself is found on sculptured slabs and on seal cylinders.
[234] So Sennacherib still speaks of Images of Ashur, and of the great gods erected by him (Meissner-Rost, Bauinschriften Sanherib's, p. 94).
[235] See Stevenson, "The Feather and the Wing in Mythology," Oriental Studies of the Phila. Oriental Club, pp. 236-239.
[236] Babyl.-Assyr. Geschichte, p. 533.
[237] For the sake of convenience it is customary to distinguish between Ashur the god, and the country by writing the latter with a double sh—Ashshur.
[238] Geschichte, p. 533.
[239] See Jensen Zeits. für Assyr. i. 1 seq. and Delitzsch, Das Babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos, p. 94.
[240] By the assimilation of the n to the following consonant.
[242] Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 275.
[243] The combination of religious supremacy with political power, which characterizes the social state of ancient Babylonia and Assyria, gives to the title patesi a double significance. In Babylonia, moreover, it acquires the force of vassal-king.
[244] The full list is Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar.
[245] More precisely Arba-ilu, signifying 'city of the fourfold divinity' or 'four-god' city. Cf. the Palestinian form Kiryath-Arba, "four city,"—originally perhaps, likewise, a city of four gods, rather than four roads or four quarters, as commonly explained.
[246] IR. 14, l. 86.
[247] Babyl.-Assyr. Geschichte, p. 85.
[250] Cylinder B, col. v. ll. 30 seq.; elsewhere (Rassam Cylinder, col. ii. ll. 115 seq.) he prays to Ashur and Ishtar.
[251] Rassam Cylinder, col. viii. l. 92. Elsewhere, Cylinder B, col. v. 17, Ishtar is called the daughter of Bel. This, however, must be an error; either Sin must be read for Bel, or khirat (consort) for marat (daughter).
[253] See Barton, "The Semitic Ishtar Cult" (Hebraica, x. 9-12).
[254] I.e., c. 1800 B.C.
[258] A king of Nippur (c. 2500 B.C.) bears the name Ishme-Dagan.
[260] See Hommel, Geschichte, p. 490. How much earlier Samsi-Ramman I. reigned is not known—perhaps only 40 or 50 years.
[261] The d of Dagon would be represented by d in cuneiform writing.
[263] An eponym in his days bears the name Daganbelusur.
[264] In the El-Amarna tablets (c. 1400 B.C.) the governors of the Palestinian states generally address their Egyptian lord as 'my sun'.
[265] Exactly of what nature we do not know. The Assyrian word used, Cylinder, l. 43, is obscure.
[268] Ashurnasirbal calls him so in his annals, e.g., col. iii. 1. 130.
[269] Bavian Inscription, ll. 48-50. See also Meissner-Rost, Bauinschriften Sanherib's, p. 102. The reading of the name of the city is not certain. It signifies 'city of palaces.'
[270] c. 1120 B.C.
[271] II Rawlinson, 57, 33.
[272] So Tiglathpileser associates Ashur and Nin-ib, as those 'who fulfill his desire.'
[273] Ashurnasirbal's father bears the name Tukulti-Ninib.
[275] One of the gates of Sargon's palace is called after Nin-ib.
[278] Kosmologie, pp. 457-475.
[279] He is also called the offspring of a goddess, Ku-tu-shar, but this reference is not clear. See Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 468, note 5.
[280] In a religious text he is addressed as 'holy, holy, holy.'
[281] Balawat, col. v. ll. 4, 5.
[282] Kar = fortress.
[283] See Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 438, and Jensen's important note, Kosmologie, pp. 492-494.
[285] Cylinder, l. 61.
[287] We may therefore expect, some day, to come across the name Marduk in Assyrian texts earlier than the ninth century.
[289] So also Shalmaneser II., Obelisk, l. 179, unless Marduk here is an error for Ramman, cf. l. 175.
[291] The so-called Prunkinschrift, ll. 174 seq.
[292] Note the frequent use of Ashur and Bel for Assyria and Babylonia.
[293] Ashurbanabal, Rassam Cylinder, col ix. ll. 76, 77.
[295] IR. II. col. iv. ll. 34, 35.
[297] Rawlinson, ii. 66.
[298] Rassam Cylinder, col. x. ll. 25-27.
[299] See Tiele, Babyl. Assyr. Geschichte, p. 127.
[300] Obelisk, l. 52.
[301] Annals, col. ii. l. 135.
[302] Rassam Cylinder, col. x. l. 75.
[303] Prunkinschrift, l. 143.
[304] Esarhaddon, IR. 46, col. ii. l. 48; Rawlinson, iii. 16, col. iii. l. 24.
[305] IR. 35, no. 2, l. 12.
[306] IR. 8, no. 3, ll. 5 seq.
[308] E.g., Tiglathpileser III., Nimrud inscription (Layard, pl. 17, l. 12).
[309] Obelisk, l. 5.
[310] Rassam Cylinder, col. i. l. 45.
[311] Delitzsch (Das Babylonische Weltschöpfungsepos, p. 99) questions whether Nu-gim-mud (or Nu-dim-mud) was originally a designation of Ea. Nu-dim-mud being an epithet might, of course, be applied to other gods, but there can be no doubt that it was used to designate more particularly Ea as the artificer. See my remarks, pp. 138, 177 seq.
[312] Meissner-Rost, Bauinscriften Sanherib's, p. 105.
[313] Cylinder, l. 48, ideographically as Nin-men-an-na, 'lady of the heavenly crown.' In the parallel passage, however, as Lyon (Sargontexte, p. 71) points out, Belit ilâni is used.
[314] Cylinder, l. 70.
[315] Cylinder, l. 68.
[316] Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 445, reads the name Gira. See pp. 527-28.
[317] See the author's work on A Fragment of the Dibbarra Epic. (Ginn & Co., Boston, 1891).
[318] Rassam Cylinder, col. lv. ll. 79 seq.
[319] Cylinder, ll. 44-53.
[320] Delitzsch's supposition (see Lyon, Sargontexte, p. 71) that Sharru-ilu is Izdubar is untenable.
[321] Babyl. Chronicle, col. iii. l. 44.
[322] May also be read Sha-ush-ka.
[324] E.g., IIR. 58, no. 5, titles of Ea; IIR. 60, no. 2, titles of Nabu.
[325] E.g., IIR. 60, no. 1.
[326] E.g., IIIR. 66, lists of gods worshipped in various temples of Assyria and also of Babylonia.
The Assyrian kings, in imitation of the example set by their Babylonian predecessors, are fond of introducing into their inscriptions, a series of gods under whose protection they place themselves. They do not do this as the earlier Babylonian rulers did, to emphasize the extent of their jurisdiction by adding to their pantheon the deities of towns or districts vanquished by them. The day of independent states being over, the importance of merely local deities had ceased. The theological system evolved in Babylonia in combination with the popular instinct had led to a selection out of the mass of deities of a limited number, each with tolerably definite attributes, and who together embraced all the forces under whose power mankind stood. Of these deities again, as we have seen, some acquired greater favor in Assyria than others, but for all that, the kings especially of the later period of Assyrian history were fond of including in an enumeration of the pantheon, even those who had no special significance. Policy and the meaningless imitation of earlier examples played an equal part in thus giving to the lists an aspect of formality that deprives them of the impression that they might otherwise make.
The combined invocations are found usually at the beginning and at the end of the inscriptions—at the beginning for invoking the aid of the gods, at the close for invoking their curses upon those who would attempt to destroy the ambitious monuments set up by the kings. Often, however, the narrative is interrupted for the purpose of making acknowledgment to a larger or smaller series of gods for victory, granted or hoped for.[Pg 236] In these combined references a separate place belongs to the triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea. While not occupying the prominent position they have in Babylonian inscriptions, still the kings often mention Anu, Bel, and Ea separately, or Anu and Bel alone, ascribing victory to them, putting them down as the originators of the calendar system, and declaring themselves to have been nominated by them to rule over Assyria. Sargon, with his antiquarian zeal, appears to have made an effort to reinstate the triad as a special group in the pantheon. In general, however, they take their place with other gods. So Ramman-nirari I. invokes the curse of Ashur, Anu, Bel, Ea, and Ishtar, together with the Igigi and Anunnaki; but, what is more important, already at an early period the triad disappears altogether from the pantheon, except for the artificial attempts of Sargon to revive interest in them. In both the longer and shorter lists of gods enumerated by the kings from the time of Tiglathpileser, the triad is conspicuous for its absence.
As for the other gods, it is to some extent a matter of caprice which ones happen to be invoked, though just as frequently we see the motive for selecting certain ones of the pantheon. Thus, when proceeding to Babylonia for war or sacrifices, the gods of Babylonia are invoked, either Marduk and Nabu alone, as the chief gods, or Bel (i.e., Marduk), Sarpanitum, Nabu, Tashmitum, Nanâ, Nergal, with Ashur, or Ashur and Marduk, or Marduk and Nabu in combination with Ashur. At other times it depends upon the gods to whom certain kings may be especially attached, or with whom they may have special dealings in their inscriptions. Thus Tiglathpileser I., when speaking of the temple of Anu and Ramman, contents himself with invoking these two gods alone at the close of his great inscription. Elsewhere, when referring to the special gods of his city, he combines Anu and Ramman with Ishtar; but again, for no special reason, his prayer is addressed to Ashur, Shamash, and Ramman. The pantheon of Ramman-nirari I.[Pg 237] consists either of the longer one above enumerated, or of Anu, Ashur, Shamash, Ramman, and Ishtar. As we proceed down the centuries, the formal lists at the beginning of inscriptions have a tendency to grow larger. Ashurnasirbal's pantheon consists of Bel and Nin-ib, Anu and Dagan, Sin, Anu, Ramman, and, of course, Ashur, though on special occasions, as when speaking of his achievements in the chase, he contents himself with a mention of Nin-ib and Nergal. He loves, too, to vary the style of his inscriptions by naming various groups of deities in pairs: now Ashur and Shamash, again Ashur and Nin-ib, or Ashur and Bel; then Shamash and Ramman, or a group of three deities, Ashur, Shamash, and Ramman, or Sin, Anu, and Ramman. His successors imitate this example, though each one chooses his own combinations. Shalmaneser II.'s pantheon embraces Ashur, Anu, Bel, Ea, Sin, Shamash, Nin-ib, Nergal, Nusku, Belit, and Ishtar—eleven in all. Sargon's practice varies. The best list is furnished by his account of the eight gates of his palace and of two walls, which he names after the gods in the following order:[328]
Shamash, who grants victory. } As the names for the
Ramman, who brings superabundance. } eastern gates.
Bel, who lays foundations. } For the northern gates.
Belit, who brings fertility. }
Anu, who blesses handiwork. } For the western
Ishtar, who causes the inhabitants to flourish. } gates.
Ea, who unlocks fountains. } For the southern gates.
Belit ilâni,[329] who increases the offspring. }
Ashur, who permits the king to grow old, and protects the troops.—For the inner wall.
Nin-ib, who lays the foundations of the city.—For the outer wall.
The order here is dictated by the directions of the gates. Elsewhere he sets up the group Ea, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Ramman, Nin-ib, and their consorts.[Pg 238]
Sennacherib's fuller group consists of Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Bel (i.e., Marduk), Nabu, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela—only eight. But at the close of one of his building inscriptions[330] he invokes some twenty deities, adding to these eight, Nusku, Khani, Gaga, Sherua, Nin-gal, a god Azag-sir, and Nin-ib under three different forms; but it is evident that most of these are added to give effect and solemnity. They do not form part of the active pantheon. His successor, Esarhaddon, sets up various groups. At one time he enumerates Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela; at another he prefers different combinations of these gods. Ashurbanabal is more consistent than most of the Assyrian rulers, and furnishes at the same time the best list. While he, too, frequently mentions only a few deities, grouping three or four together, his longer series consists, with but one or two exceptions, invariably of the following, and who always occur in the same order: Ashur, Belit, Sin, Shamash, Ramman, Bel (i.e., Marduk), Nabu, Ishtar of Nineveh, the queen of Kidmuru, Ishtar of Arbela, Nin-ib, Nergal, and Nusku—thirteen in all. Of these, as we have seen, only some were actively worshipped at all times in Assyria; as for the others, the popularity of their cult varied from age to age, now being actively carried on under the stimulus afforded by the erection or improvement of an edifice sacred to the god, and again falling into comparative insignificance; but formally, at least, all these gods were regarded at all times as forming part of the pantheon of the 'great gods.' The testimony of Ashurbanabal thus becomes valuable as a proof that to the latest days of the Assyrian monarchy, the attachment to these gods was still strong enough to merit the formal acknowledgments of the king to them on all occasions, and that through their combined aid the glorious achievements of the past and present were attained.
[328] Cylinder, ll. 67-73.
[330] Meissner-Rost, Bauinschriften Sanherib's, p. 99.
When upon the fall of the Assyrian empire, in 606 B.C., Babylonia regained her full measure of independence, Marduk once more obtained undisputed sway at the head of the pantheon. True, so far as Babylonia was concerned, Marduk was always the acknowledged head, but during the period that Assyria held Babylonia in a more or less rigid form of subjection it was inevitable that Ashur should lower the prestige of Marduk. When the kings of Assyria paid their respects to Marduk, it was always as second in rank to Ashur; and, what is more, they claimed Marduk and the other gods of Babylonia as their own, and as upholders of their own sovereignty. When the kings feel impelled to invade the southern districts, they not only claim to be under the protection of the Babylonian gods, but they carry these gods with them into the land to be invaded. 'Bel and the gods of Akkad leave Assyria and go to Babylonia' is the official term in which a campaign against Babylonia is described.[331] In the eyes of the Babylonians such a haughty assumption on the part of the Assyrians must have been regarded as humiliating to Marduk, Nabu, and their associates.
The state of affairs changed when Nebopolassar at the end of the seventh century once more claimed independent control over Babylonia. Marduk triumphs over Ashur. He is once more the great god, lord of gods, supreme king of the Igigi, the father of the Anunnaki—all titles that the Assyrians were fond of heaping upon Ashur. One feels the anxiety of Nebopolassar[Pg 240] to emphasize the new order of things by attributing once more to Marduk what was formerly claimed for Ashur. The successor of Nebopolassar, the great Nebuchadnezzar, continues the policy of his father. He neglects no opportunity for exalting Marduk as the king, the creator, the leader of the gods, the lord of everything, the merciful one, the light of the gods, the all-wise. Nabu shares the honors with Marduk. Nebopolassar, indeed, accords to Nabu an equal share, and he does not hesitate at times to place the name Nabu before that of Marduk.[332] He does not speak of Nabu as the son of Marduk, and seems to be at particular pains to emphasize the equality of Nabu with Marduk. In this respect Nebopolassar presents a contrast to Hammurabi, who, it will be recalled, made an attempt to suppress the Nabu cult.[333] Nebopolassar, however, does not go to the extent of endeavoring to make Nabu supersede Marduk. He contents himself with manifesting his partiality for the former, and it is probably no accident that both his official name and that of his son contain the god Nabu as one of their elements, and not Marduk. One is inclined to suspect that this popularity of the Nabu cult is a trace of Assyrian influence. But whatever may have been Nebopolassar's intention in exalting Nabu at the cost of Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar restores the old relationship between the two. For him Nabu is again merely the son of Marduk, and he honors Nabu in this capacity. Like the Assyrian Nabu, the god places the sceptre in the king's hands, but he is, after all, only the supreme messenger of Marduk. In the closing days of the Babylonian monarchy a more serious attempt, it would appear, was made to displace Marduk. Nabonnedos formed the design of replacing both Marduk and Nabu by the cult of Shamash. He incurs the ill-will of the priests by paying much more attention to the restoration of the various Shamash temples in Babylonia than[Pg 241] would appear to be consistent with devotion to Marduk. Cyrus, therefore, in his conquest of Babylonia, sets up the claim of being the savior of Marduk's honor.[334]
The Neo-Babylonian period may properly be designated as a religious age. The rulers, anxious to manifest their gratitude to the gods, and prompted in part, no doubt, by the desire to emulate the glorious architectural achievements of the Assyrian monarchs, devote themselves assiduously to the improvement of the great temples of the city of Babylon, and to the restoration or enlargement of those scattered throughout the country. Nebopolassar sets the example in this respect, which is considerably improved upon by Nebuchadnezzar. Over forty temples and shrines are mentioned in the latter's inscriptions as having been improved, enlarged, or restored by him; and the last king of Babylonia, Nabonnedos, endeavors to continue this royal policy of temple-building. In this respect the Neo-Babylonian rulers present a contrast to the Assyrian rulers, who were much more concerned in rearing grand edifices for themselves. While the gods were not neglected in Assyria, one hears much more of the magnificent palaces erected by the kings than of temples and shrines. In fact, as compared with Babylonia, Assyria was poor in the number of her temples. The chief sanctuaries to which the Neo-Babylonian kings devoted themselves were, in the first instance, E-sagila of Babylon and E-zida of Borsippa. Nebopolassar and his successors are fond of giving themselves the title of 'beautifier of E-Sagila and E-zida.' In these great temples sacred to Marduk and Nebo, there were shrines to Sarpanitum, Tashmitum, Nusku, Ea and others, which also engaged the energies of the rulers.
After Babylon came the old sanctuaries in the ancient religious centers of the south,—the temples to Shamash and his consort at Sippar and Larsa, the temples to Sin at Ur and Harran,[Pg 242] to the old Ishtar or Anunit at Agade, to Nanâ in Erech. Thirdly, the cities of Babylon and Borsippa, to which the kings, especially Nebuchadnezzar, are deeply attached, were enriched with many sanctuaries more or less imposing, sacred to a variety of deities. So Shamash, Sin, Nin-makh,—i.e., the great lady, or Ishtar,—Nin-khar-shag, Gula, also appearing as Nin-Karrak,[335] have their temples in Babylon, while Ramman has one in Borsippa, and Gula no less than three sanctuaries—perhaps only small chapels—in Borsippa. Fourthly, there are sanctuaries of minor importance in other quarters of Babylonia. Among these we find mention of the improvement of sanctuaries to the local deity of Marad, whom Nebuchadnezzar simply calls Lugal-Marada, i.e., king of Marad, to Bel-sarbi, or Shar-sarbi, in Baz,—perhaps a title of Nergal,—to Nin-ib in Dilbat, to Ramman in Kumari(?).
Most of these sanctuaries are referred to in the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar—a circumstance which, in connection with the many other gods whom he invokes on various occasions, points to a great revival of ancient cults in his days. Some of these cults had never reached any degree of importance prior to his time. Hence it happens that we come across deities in his inscriptions of whom no mention is found elsewhere. It is probable that such gods were purely local deities, some of them, if not many, being at the same time personifications of the powers or phenomena of nature, while others may be familiar gods, masquerading under strange attributes. Unfortunately most of these gods are written in ideographic fashion, so that we cannot be certain of the reading of their names. Among these are Nin-lil-anna, a goddess called by Nebuchadnezzar 'the lady who loves me,'[336] and Tur-lil-en,[337] a god who is described as[Pg 243] 'breaking the weapons of enemies.' As for Bel-sarbi, or Shar-sarbi, the god of Baz,[338] they appear to be titles rather than names. Dibbarra, Nergal and his consort Laz, and Zamama are also included in the pantheon of Nebuchadnezzar.
In regard to none of these deities do we find any conceptions different from those developed in the period of Hammurabi, any more than in the conceptions of those gods who occupy a more prominent place in the pantheon. Shamash is the judge, Sin is the wise one, Ramman the thunderer, and so on throughout the list. It was not a period favorable to the production of new religious thought, but only to the more or less artificial revival of old cults.
With the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus in 539 B.C., we reach the close of the period to be embraced in a history of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion. True, the Marduk and Nabu cults were upheld by the Persian rulers, and the policy of the latter in not disturbing the religious status was continued by the Greeks when they in turn succeeded the Persians in their control of Babylonia, but the presence of strange civilizations with totally different religious trains of thought was bound to affect the character of the old faith, and in time to threaten its existence. At all events, it ceases to have any interest for us. There are no further lines of development upon which it enters. The period of decay, of slow but sure decay, has set in. The cuneiform writing continues to be used till almost the beginning of our era, and so the religious cults draw out their existence to a late period; but as the writing and the civilization yield before new forces that entirely alter the character of Oriental culture, so also the religion, after sinking ever[Pg 244] lower into the bogs of superstition, disappears, much as the canals and little streams of the Euphrates valley, through the neglect which settled over the country, become lost in the death-breeding swamps and marshes.[Pg 245]
[331] Babylonian Chronicle B, col. iv. ll. 34, 35.
[332] Zeitschrift für Assyriologie, II. 72, col. i. ll. 2, 3.
[334] See a paper by Tiele, on "Cyrus and the Babylonian Religion," in the Proceedings of the Amsterdam Academy, 1896.
[335] For the identity of Nin-Karrak and Gula, see the 'Shurpu' Incantation Series, iv. l. 86 (ed. Zimmern), where the former is called the 'great physician,'—the epithet peculiar to Gula.
[336] East India House Inscription, col. iv. l. 44.
[337] VR. 34, col. ii. l. 26, or simply Tur-lil (East India House Inscription, col. iv. l. 49, not Tur-e, as Winckler, Keils Bibl. 3, 2, 18, reads).
[338] I.e., king or lord of Sarbi. Pognon (Les Inscriptions Babyloniennes de Wadl Brissa), p. 46, is of the opinion that sarbi is the palm, but he fails to bring sufficient proof, and his theory is improbable. The stem sarabu means to burn, and the "fiery lord" is certainly an epithet belonging to some solar deity.
The pantheon of a religion presents us with the external phases of the religion in question. In order to penetrate further towards the core of the religion, and to see it at its best, the religious thought as manifested in the national literature constitutes our most valuable guide. The beginnings of Babylonian literature are enveloped in obscurity. We have seen that we are justified in passing beyond the period of Hammurabi[339] for these beginnings, but exactly when and precisely how the literary spirit first manifested itself in Babylonia will probably remain for a long time, if not for always, a matter of conjecture. The great political and religious centers of Babylonia, such as Ur, Sippar, Agade, Eridu, Nippur, Uruk, perhaps also Lagash, and later on Babylon, formed the foci of literary activity, as they were the starting-points of commercial enterprise. This intimate connection of religion with literature left its impress upon all branches into which the Babylonian literature was in the course of time differentiated. In a certain sense all the literature of Babylonia is religious. Even the legal formulas, as embodied in the so-called contract tablets, have a religious tinge. The priests being the scribes, a contract of any kind between two or more parties was a religious compact. The oath which accompanied the compact involved an invocation of the gods. The decree of the judges in a disputed suit was confirmed by an appeal to the gods. The terms in which the parties bound themselves consisted largely of religious phrases, and finally the dating of the tablet often contained a reference to some religious festival or to some event[Pg 246] of religious import—such as the building of a sanctuary. Science, so far as it existed in Babylonia, never loosened the leading-strings that bound it to the prevailing religious thought. The observation of the stars was carried on under the belief of the supposed influence exerted by the heavenly bodies upon the fate of man; and surprising as we find the development of astronomical calculations and forecasts to be, mathematics does not pass beyond the limits of astrology. Medicine was likewise the concern of the priests. Disease was a divine infliction supposed to be due to the direct presence in the body, or to the hidden influence, of some pernicious spirit. The cure was effected by the exorcising of the troublesome spirit through prescribed formulas of supposed power, accompanied by symbolical acts. There is indeed no branch of human knowledge which so persistently retains its connection with religious beliefs among all peoples of antiquity as the one which to-day is regarded as resting solely upon a materialistic basis. As a consequence the Babylonians, although they made some progress in medicinal methods, and more especially in medical diagnosis, never dissociated medicinal remedies from the appeal to the gods. The recital of formulas was supposed to secure by their magic force the effectiveness of the medical potions that were offered to the sufferer.
As for the historical texts, the preceding chapters have illustrated how full they are of religious allusions, how at every turn we meet with the influence exerted by the priests as the composers of these texts. Almost all occurrences are given a religious coloring. That these texts furnish us with such valuable material, and such a quantity of it, is indeed to be traced directly to the fact that the historical literature is also the direct production of the religious leaders and guides of the people, acting at the command of rulers, who were desirous of emphasizing their dependence upon the gods of the country, and who made this dependence the basis of the authority they exerted.[Pg 247]
Such being the general aspect of Babylonian literature, it is not always possible to draw a sharp line separating religious productions from such as may properly be termed secular. For example, the zodiacal system of the Babylonians, which we shall have occasion to discuss, although presenting a scientific aspect, is in reality an outcome of the religious thought; and so at other points it is necessary to pass over into the region of secular thought for illustrations of the religious beliefs. Bearing this in mind, we may set up a fivefold division of the religious literature of the Babylonians in the stricter sense: (1) the magical texts, (2) the hymns and prayers, (3) omens and forecasts, (4) the cosmology, (5) epics and legends. It will be apparent that the first three divisions represent a practical part of the literature, while the two latter are of a more purely literary character. The magical texts, as well as the hymns and prayers and omens, we can well imagine were produced as circumstances called them forth, and one can also understand how they should, at an early age, have been committed to writing. The incantations serving the practical purpose already referred to of securing a control over the spirit, it will be readily seen that such as had demonstrated their effectiveness would become popular. The desire would arise to preserve them for future generations. With that natural tendency of loose custom to become fixed law, these incantations would come to be permanently associated with certain temples. Rituals would thus arise. The incantation would be committed to writing so that one generation of priests might be certain of furnishing orthodox instruction to the other; and, once written, they would form part of the temple archives, finding a place in these archives by the side of the contract tablets, for which the sacred edifices of the country also served as depositories. The large quantity of incantation texts that have been found in Ashurbanabal's library,[340] as well as the variations and contrasts they present[Pg 248] when compared with one another, are probably due to the various sources whence the scribes of the king, who were sent to the libraries of the south, collected their material. It is only reasonable to suppose that each great temple acquired in the course of time a ritual of its own, which, while perhaps not differing in any essential points from that introduced in another place, yet deviated from it sufficiently to impart to it a character of its own. In the case of some of the texts that have been preserved, it is still possible to determine through certain traits that they exhibit in what religious center they were produced. With considerable more guarantee of accuracy can this be done in the case of the hymns and prayers. Addressed as the latter were to certain deities, it stands to reason that they were written for use in the temples sacred to those deities, or, if not to be used, at least composed in honor of certain sanctuaries that contained the images of the deities thus exalted. Again, in the historical inscriptions of the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, prayers are introduced, and we are as a general thing expressly told on what occasion they were composed and in what sanctuary they were uttered. We may therefore conclude that those which have been preserved independently also served a practical purpose, and were written, not merely for certain occasions, but for certain places. The practical purpose served by texts containing omens and forecasts derived from the observation of the planets and stars, from monstrosities—human and animal—from strange occurrences, accidents, and the like, is too obvious to require demonstration. But while duly emphasizing the practical purpose that gave rise to the incantation texts, the hymns, the prayers and omens, we must be careful not to press this point too far. The rituals of the various temples once being fixed, the impulse to literary composition would still go on in an age marked by intellectual activity. The practical purpose would be followed by the pure love of composition. The attachment to certain[Pg 249] sanctuaries or certain deities would inspire earnest and gifted priests to further efforts. Accordingly, while we cannot be certain that among the actual remains of magical texts and hymns we may not have specimens that belong to this class, there is no reason to question that such must have been produced. The guarantee for this hypothesis is furnished by the compositions that reflect the cosmological beliefs, the epics and legends that form the second half of the religious productions of Babylonia.
Speculation regarding the origin of the universe belongs to an early period in the development of culture. There are few people, however primitive their culture, who are not attracted by the spirit of curiosity to seek for some solution of the mysteries which they daily witness; but the systematization of these speculations does not take place until a body of men arises among a people capable of giving to the popular fancies a logical sequence, or the approach at least to a rational interpretation. This process, which resulted in producing in Babylonia compositions that unfold a system of creation, is one of long duration. It proceeds under the influence of the intellectual movements that manifest themselves from time to time with the attendant result that, as the conceptions become more definite and more elaborate, they reflect more accurately the aspirations of the various generations engaged in bringing these conceptions to their final form. When finally these beliefs and speculations are committed to writing, it is done in part for the purpose of assuring them a greater degree of permanence, and in part to establish more definitely the doctrines developed in the schools—to define, as it were, the norm of theological and philosophical thought.
In examining, therefore, the cosmological speculations of the Babylonians as they appear in the literary productions, we must carefully distinguish between those portions which are the productions of popular fancy, and therefore old, and those parts[Pg 250] which give evidence of having been worked out in the schools. In a general way, also, we must distinguish between the contents and the form given to the speculations in question. We shall see in due time that a certain amount of historical tradition, however dimmed, has entered into the views evolved in Babylonia regarding the origin of things, inasmuch as the science of origins included for the Babylonians the beginning, not merely of gods, men, animals, and plants, but also of cities and of civilization in general. Still more pronounced is the historical spirit in the case of the epics and legends that here, as everywhere else, grew to even larger proportions, and were modified even after they were finally committed to writing. The great heroes of the past do not perish from the memory of a people, nor does the recollection of great events entirely pass away. In proportion as the traditions of the past become dimmed, the more easily do they lend themselves to a blending with popular myths regarding the phenomena of nature. To this material popularly produced, a literary shape would be given through the same medium that remodeled the popular cosmological speculations. The task would have a more purely literary aspect than that of systematizing the current views regarding the origin and order of things, since it would be free from any doctrinal tendency. The chief motive that would prompt the literati to thus collect the stories of favorite heroes and the traditions and the legends of the past would be—in addition, perhaps, to the pure pleasure of composition—the desire to preserve the stories for future generations, while a minor factor that may have entered into consideration would be the pedagogical one of adding to the material for study that might engage the attention and thoughts of the young aspirants to sacred and secular lore. While the ultimate aim of learning in Babylonia remained for all times a practical one, namely, the ability to act as a scribe or to serve in the cult, to render judicial decisions or to observe the movements of the stars, to[Pg 251] interpret the signs of nature and the like, it was inevitable that through the intellectual activity thus evoked there would arise a spirit of a love of learning for learning's sake, and at all events a fondness for literary pursuits independent of any purely practical purposes served by such pursuits.
In this way we may account for the rise of the several divisions of the religious literature of Babylonia. Before turning to a detailed exposition of each of these divisions, it only remains to emphasize the minor part taken in all these literary labors by the Assyrians. The traditions embodied in the cosmological productions, the epics and legends of Babylonia, are no doubt as much the property of the Assyrians as of their southern cousins, just as the conceptions underlying the incantation texts and the hymns and prayers and omens, though produced in the south, are on the whole identical with those current in the north. Whatever differences we have discovered between the phases of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, as manifested in the north and in the south, are not of a character to affect the questions and views involved in the religious literature. The stamp given to the literary products in this field, taken as a whole, is distinctly Babylonian. It is the spirit of the south that breathes through almost all the religious texts that have as yet been discovered. Only in some of the prayers and oracles and omens that are inserted in the historical inscriptions of Assyrian kings, or have been transmitted independently, do we recognize the work of Assyrian literati, imbued with a spirit peculiar to Assyria. Perhaps, too, in the final shape given to the tales connected with the creation of the gods and of men we may detect an Assyrian influence on Babylonian thought, some concession made at a period of Assyrian supremacy to certain religious conceptions peculiar to the north. But such influences are of an indirect character, and we may accept the statement of Ashurbanabal as literally true that the literature collected by him is a copy of what was found in the great literary archives[Pg 252] of the south—and not only found, but produced there. In imitation of the example set by the south, schools were of a certainty established in Nineveh, Arbela, and elsewhere for the education of priests, scribes, and judges; but we have no evidence to show that they ever developed to the point of becoming intellectually independent of Babylonian models, except perhaps in minor particulars that need not enter into our calculations. This relationship between the intellectual life of Babylonia and Assyria finds its illustration and proof, not merely in the religious literature, but in the religious art and cult which, as we shall see, like the literature, bear the distinct impress of their southern origin, though modified in passing from the south to the north.[Pg 253]
Turning to the first subdivision of Babylonian religious literature, we find remains sufficient to justify us in concluding that there must have been produced a vast number of texts containing formulas and directions for securing a control over the spirits which were supposed at all times to be able to exercise a certain amount of power over men. By virtue of the aim served by these productions we may group them under the head of magical texts, or incantations. We have already indicated the manner in which these incantations grew into more or less rigid temple rituals. This growth accounts for the fact that the incantations generally framed in by ceremonial directions, prayers, and reflections, were combined into a continuous series (or volume, as we would say) of varying length, covering nine, ten, a dozen, twenty tablets or more. It has been generally assumed that these incantation texts constitute the oldest division of the religious literature of the Babylonians. The assertion in an unqualified form is hardly accurate, for the incantation texts, such as they lie before us, give evidence of having been submitted to the influences of an age much later than the one in which their substance was produced. Conceptions have been carried into them that were originally absent, and a form given to them that obliges us to distinguish between the underlying concepts, and the manner in which these concepts have been combined with views that reflect a later and, in many respects, a more advanced period. The incantation texts are certainly no older than texts furnishing omens. Some of the incantation texts indeed may not be any older than portions of the creation epic, and in the latter, as in other parts of[Pg 254] the religious literature, there are elements as ancient and as primitive as anything to be found in the omens or incantations. So much, however, is true, that the incantations represent the earliest ritual proper to the Babylonian cult, and that the conceptions underlying this ritual are the emanation of popular thought, or, if you choose, of popular fancy of a most primitive character. It is also true that, on the whole, the incantation texts retain more traces of primitive popular thought than other divisions of the religious literature with the exception of the omens. The remodeling to which they were subjected did not destroy their original character to the extent that might have been expected—a circumstance due in the first instance to the persistency of the beliefs that called these texts forth.
Many of the texts containing incantations were found by the modern explorers in so mutilated a condition, that one can hardly hazard any generalizations as to the system followed in putting the incantations together. From the fact, however, that in so many instances the incantations form a series of longer or shorter extent, we may, for the present at least, conclude that the serial form was the method generally followed; and at all events, if not the general method, certainly a favorite one. Deviating from the ordinary custom of calling the series according to the opening line of the first tablet, the incantation texts were given a distinct title, which was either descriptive or chosen with reference to their general contents. So one series which covered at least sixteen tablets was known by the very natural name of the 'evil demon'; the incantations that it contained being intended as a protection against various classes of demons. Another is known as the series of 'head sickness,' and which deals, though not exclusively, with various forms of derangements having their seat in the brain. It covered no less than nine tablets. Two others bear names that are almost synonymous,—"Shurpu" and "Maklu," both signifying 'burning,' and so called from the chief topic dealt[Pg 255] with in them, the burning of images of the sorcerers, and the incantations to be recited in connection with this symbolical act. The "Maklu" series embraced eight tablets and contained, according to Tallqvist's calculations,[341] originally about 1,550 lines, or upwards of 9,000 words. The "Shurpu" series, although embracing nine tablets, appears to have been somewhat shorter. In view of the extensive character of these series we are justified in speaking of incantation 'rituals.' The texts were evidently prepared with a practical purpose in view. The efficacy of certain formulas having been demonstrated, it was obviously of importance that their exact form should be preserved for future reference. But a given formula was effective only for a given case, or at most for certain correlated cases, and accordingly it became necessary to collect as many formulas as possible to cover all emergencies. The priests, acting as exorcisers, would be the ones interested in making such collections, and we may assume, as already suggested, that each temple would develop a collection of its own,—an incantation code that served as a guide for its priests. The natural tendency would be for these codes to increase from generation to generation, perhaps not rapidly, but steadily. New cases not as yet provided for would arise, and new formulas with new instructions would be produced; or the exorcisers at a certain temple would learn of remedies tried elsewhere, and would embody them in their own special code. In short, the growth of these incantation 'rituals' was probably similar to the manner in which, on the basis of actual practice, religious codes grew up around the sanctuaries of ancient Israel,—a process that terminated in the production of the various codes and rituals constituting the legal documents embodied in the Pentateuch.
The prominence given to Ea and to his favorite seat, the city of Eridu, in the incantations suggests the theory that many[Pg 256] of our texts are to be ultimately traced to the temple of Ea, that once stood at Eridu. In that case an additional proof would be furnished of the great antiquity of the use of incantations in Babylonia. We must sharply distinguish however, as already emphasized, between the origin and the present form of the rituals. Again, those parts of a ritual in which Gibil, or Nusku, appears prominently would most naturally be produced by priests connected with a temple sacred to the one or the other of these gods. The practice of incantation, however, being common to all parts of Babylonia, we can hardly suppose that any temple should have existed which did not have its exorcising formulas. In the combination of these formulas into a ritual, due consideration would naturally be had to the special gods invoked, the obvious result of which would be to produce the long lists of deities that are often embodied in a single incantation. The details of this process can of course no longer be discerned, but the inevitable tendency would be towards increasing complications. The effort would be made to collect everything, and from all known quarters. Hence the heterogeneous elements to be detected in the texts, and which, while adding to their interest, also increase the difficulty of their interpretation. In consequence of the presence of such heterogeneous elements, it is difficult to determine within an incantation series any guiding principles that prompted the collectors. Still we can often distinguish large groups in a series that belong together. So we have whole series of addresses to the fire-god ending with incantations, and again a series of descriptions of the group of seven spirits serving a similar purpose as introductions to incantations, but we cannot see on what grounds the transition from one subject to the other takes place. Indeed the transitions are generally marked by their abruptness.
The only legitimate inference is that the main purpose of the collectors of incantation texts was to exhaust the subject so far[Pg 257] as lay in their power. They included in their codes as much as possible. The exorciser would have no difficulty in threading his way through the complicated mass. He would select the division appropriate to the case before him without much concern of what preceded or followed in the text. Moreover, these divisions in the texts were clearly marked by dividing lines, still to be seen on the clay tablets. These divisions correspond so completely to divisions in the subject-matter that the purely practical purpose they served can hardly be called into question, while at the same time they furnish additional proof for the compiled character of the texts.
As for the date of the composition of the texts, the union of the Babylonian states under Hammurabi, with its necessary result, the supremacy of Marduk, that finds its reflection in the texts, furnishes us with a terminus a quo beyond which we need not proceed for final editing. On the other hand, there are indications in the language which warrant us in not passing below 2000 B.C. as the period when many of the incantation texts received their present form, and the editions were completed from which many centuries afterwards the Assyrian scribes prepared their copies for their royal masters.
There is, of course, no reason for assuming that all our texts should be of one age, or that the copying and, in part, the editing should not have gone on continually. Necessity for further copies would arise with the steady growth of the temples. Priests would be engaged in making copies for themselves, either for their edification as a pious work, or for real use; and accordingly, in fixing upon any date for the texts, one can hardly do more than assign certain broad limits within which the texts, so far as their present contents are concerned, may have been completed. The copies themselves may of course belong to a much later period without, for that reason, being more recent productions.
Attention must also be directed to the so-called 'bilingual' form, in which many of the incantation texts are edited; each[Pg 258] line being first written in the ideographic style, and then followed by a transliteration into the phonetic style.[342] The use of the ideographic style is a survival of the ancient period when all texts were written in this manner, and the conservatism attaching to all things religious accounts for the continuation of the ideographic style in the religious rituals down to the latest period, beyond the time when even according to those who see in the ideographic style a language distinct from Babylonian, this supposed non-Semitic tongue was no longer spoken by the people, and merely artificially maintained, like the Latin of the Middle Ages. The frequent lack of correspondence in minor points between the ideographic style and the phonetic transliteration shows that the latter was intended merely as a version, as a guide and aid to the understanding of the 'conservative' method of writing. It was not necessary for a transliteration to be accurate, whereas, in the case of a translation, the greatest care would naturally be taken to preserve the original sacred text with all nicety and accuracy, since upon accuracy and nicety the whole efficacy of the formulas rested. The redaction of the incantation texts in the double style must not be regarded as a necessary indication of high antiquity, but only as a proof that the oldest incantation texts were written in the ideographic style, and that for this reason the custom was continued down to the latest period. On the other hand, the addition of the transliteration points to a period when the old style could no longer be read by the priests with facility without some guide, and incidentally proves again that the texts have gone through an editing process. But in the course of time, additions to the ritual were made, written in the phonetic style; and then it would happen, as a concession to religious conservatism, that the text would be translated back into the ideographic form. We would then have a "bilingual" text,[Pg 259] consisting of Babylonian and an artificial "Sumero-Akkadian." That incantations were also composed in pure Babylonian without reference to any "Sumero-Akkadian" original is conclusively shown by the metrical traits frequently introduced. Many of the sections—by no means all—can be divided into regular stanzas of four, six, or eight lines, and frequently to the stanza is added a line which forms what Professor D. H. Müller[343] calls the "response." The same metrical traits being found in other parts of the Babylonian literature,—so, e.g., in the creation epic,—their occurrence in the incantation texts is of course not accidental. When, therefore, we come across a ritual as the "Maklu" series, written exclusively in the phonetic style, and giving evidence of being in part a metrical composition, we are justified in assuming this to have been the original form. Again, in the case of another series,—the "Shurpu," in part Babylonian, in part bilingual,[344]—since the Babylonian section shows the metrical form, it is likely that the ideographic style represents a transliteration of a phonetic, or pure Babylonian, original.
The chief value of the incantation texts lies, naturally, in the insight they afford into the popular beliefs. As among other nations, so among the Babylonians, the use of certain formulas to secure release from ills, pains, and evils of any kind, either actual or portending, rests upon the theory that the accidents and misfortunes to which man is heir are due largely to the influence of more or less powerful spirits or demons, acting independently or at the command of higher powers,—the gods.
Through the incantation rituals we are enabled to specify the traits popularly ascribed to these demons and the means employed to rid oneself of their baneful grasp.[Pg 260]
The demons were of various kinds and of various grades of power. The names of many of them, as utukku, shedu, alu, gallu, point to 'strength' and 'greatness' as their main attribute; other names, as lilu, 'night-spirit,' and the feminine form lilitu, are indicative of the moment chosen by them for their work; while again, names like ekimmu, the 'seizer,' akhkhazu, the 'capturer,' rabisu, 'the one that lies in wait,' labartu, 'the oppressor,' and labasu, 'the overthrower,' show the aim that the demons have in view. Putting these names together, we may form a general idea of the conceptions connected with the demons. They lurk in hidden or remote places, in graves, in the shadow of ruins, on the tops of mountains, in the wilderness. Their favorite time of activity is at dead of night. They glide noiselessly like serpents, entering houses through holes and crevices. They are powerful, but their power is directed solely towards evil. They take firm hold of their victims and torture them mercilessly.
To these demons all manner of evil is ascribed. Their presence was felt in the destructive winds that swept the land. The pestilent fevers that rise out of the marshes of the Euphrates valley and the diseases bred by the humid heat of summer were alike traced to demons lurking in the soil. Some of these diseases, moreover, were personified, as Namtar, the demon of 'plague,' and Ashakku, the demon of 'wasting disease.' But the petty annoyances that disturb the peace of man—a sudden fall, an unlucky word, a headache, petty quarrels, and the like—were also due to the instigation of the demons; while insanity and the stirring up of the passions—love, hatred, and jealousy—were in a special sense indicative of the presence and power of the demons. Men and women stood in constant danger of them. Even the animals were not safe from their attacks. They drive the birds out of their nests, strike down[Pg 261] lambs and bulls. It was impossible to forestall their attacks. They enter a man's dwelling, they wander through the streets, they make their way into food and drink. There is no place, however small, which they cannot invade, and none, however large, that they cannot fill. In a text which furnishes the sacred formulas by means of which one can get rid of the demoniac influence, a description is given of the demons which may serve as an illustration of what has just been said. The incantation is directed against a variety of the demons:[345]
The utukku[346] of the field and the utukku of the mountain,
The utukku of the sea and the one that lurks in graves,
The evil shedu, the shining alu.
The evil wind, the terrible wind,
That sets one's hair on end.
Against these the spirits of heaven and earth are invoked. The text proceeds:
The utukku that seizes hold of a man,
The ekimmu that seizes hold of a man,
The ekimmu that works evil,
The utukku that works evil.
And after invoking against these demons, likewise, the spirits of heaven and earth, the text passes on to an enumeration of a long list of physical ills: sickness of the entrails, of the heart, of the head, of the stomach, of the kidneys, of the limbs and muscles, of the skin, and of the senses, which are all ascribed to the influence of the demons.
Apart from the demons that are naught but the personification of certain diseases, it does not appear that the demons were limited in their power to one specific kind of action. In other words, sharp distinctions between the demons do not appear to have been drawn. As appears from the extracts above[Pg 262] translated, the utukku, shedu, alu, and ekimmu were grouped together, and hardly regarded as anything more than descriptive epithets of a general class of demons. At the same time it appears likely that at one time they were differentiated with a greater degree of preciseness. So the ekimmu appears to be the shadowy demon that hovers around graves, a species of ghost or vampire that attacks people in the dead of night and lays them prostrate. Lilu and lilitu are the spirits that flit by in the night. Of a specific character likewise are the conceptions connected with a demon known as ardat lili, 'maid of the night,' a strange female 'will-o'-the-wisp,' who approaches men, arouses their passions, but does not permit a satisfaction of them. Great importance being attached by the Babylonians to dreams, the belief in a 'maid of the night' was probably due to the unchecked play of the imagination during the hours of sleep. Bad dreams came at the instigation of the demons, and such a demon as the rabisu or the labartu appears to have been especially associated with the horrible sensations aroused by a 'nightmare.'[347] Again the utukku is represented at times as attacking the neck of man; the gallu attacks the hand, the ekimmu the loins, the alu the breast. But these distinctions count for little in the texts. Utukku becomes a general name for demon, and gallu, alu, and shedu are either used synonymously with utukku or thrown together with the latter in a manner that clearly shows the general identity of the conceptions ultimately connected with them. The same is the case with the rabisu and gallu, with the labartu, akhkhazu, and ekimmu.
The demons were always given some shape, animal or human, for it was a necessary corollary of the stage of religious thought to which the belief in demons belongs, that the demon must not only be somewhere, though invisible to mankind, but[Pg 263] also in something that manifests life. Among animals, those calculated to inspire terror by their mysterious movements were chosen, as serpents appearing and disappearing with startling suddenness, or ugly scorpions, against whom it was difficult to protect oneself, or the fabulous monsters with which graves and pestiferous spots were peopled. Regions difficult of access—the desert, the deep waters, the high mountains—were the favorite haunts of the demons. Some of these demons were frequently pictured in the boundary stones between fields, in order to emphasize the curses hurled upon the head of him who should trespass on the lawful rights of the owner of the land.[348] It is to such demons embodied in living form that epithets such as the 'seizer,' the 'one that lurks,' and the like apply with peculiar aptness. In a tablet belonging to a long series of incantations,[349] we find references to various animals—the serpent, the scorpion, monsters—that are regarded as the embodiment of demons.
In the distinctively religious art, the evil spirits are often pictured as ugly monsters that were to inspire terror by their very aspect. Depicted on the monuments, singly or in groups,[350] the shape of wild animals was given to the head, while the remainder of the body was suggestive of a human form. With gaping mouths and armed with some weapon, they stand ready to make an attack. The Assyrian kings, up to the latest period, acknowledged the power of the demons by making huge representations of them, which they placed at the approaches, entrances, and divisions of their temples and palaces, in the hope of thus securing their protection. The great bulls and lions with human heads—so familiar to every one—are but another form of the same idea. These colossal statues were actually known by the name shedu, which we have seen is[Pg 264] one of the general terms for 'demon.' But as a general thing, this personal phase of the demon's existence is lost sight of. Even though embodied in animal form, the demons could make themselves invisible to man; and since most of their actions were performed in secret, so that people were totally at their mercy, the differentiation of the demons became a factor of minor importance. With so large a quantity of demons at command, it was difficult to hit upon the one who was manifesting himself by some evil at any given moment. Accordingly, instead of a single mention, a number or a group were enumerated, and the magic formulas pronounced against them in concert. We have one such group of seven to whom quite a number of references are found in the incantation texts. A section in one of these texts gives a vivid description of them:[351]
Seven are they, they are seven,
In the subterranean deep, they are seven,
Perched (?) in the sky, they are seven,
In a section of the subterranean deep they were reared,
They are neither male nor are they female,
They are destructive whirlwinds,
They have no wife, nor do they beget offspring.
Compassion and mercy they do not know,
Prayer and supplication they do not hear,
Horses bred on the mountains, are they
Hostile to Ea[352] are they,
Powerful ones among the gods are they.
To work mischief in the street they settle themselves in the highway.
Evil are they, they are evil,
Seven are they, they are seven, seven, and again seven[353] are they.
These seven spirits, who are elsewhere compared to various animals, have power even to bewitch the gods. The eclipse of the moon was attributed to their baneful influence. The number[Pg 265] seven is probably not to be taken literally. As among so many nations,[354] seven had a sacred significance for the Babylonians; but largely, if not solely, for the reason, as I venture to think, because seven was a large number. In the Old Testament seven is similarly used to designate a large number. A group of seven spirits, accordingly, meant no more than a miscellaneous mass of spirits, and we may therefore regard this 'song of the seven' as a general characterization of the demons who, according to this view, appear to move together in groups rather than singly. Elsewhere[355] we are told of this same group of spirits 'that they were begotten in the mountain of sunset,' i.e., in the west, 'and were reared in the mountain of sunrise,' i.e., the east; 'that they dwell in the hollow of the earth, and that they are proclaimed on the mountain tops.' Evidently a description of this kind is intended to emphasize the universal presence of the spirits. There is no place where they are not found; and when we are furthermore told (apparently in contradiction to what has just been said) 'that neither in heaven nor earth is their name pronounced (i.e., are they known to be), that among the gods of the earth (i.e., the pantheon) they are not recognized, that neither in heaven nor earth do they exist,' this is but the reverse of the picture intended to illustrate the capability of the spirits to disappear without leaving any trace of their presence. They are everywhere and yet invisible. They come and they go, and no one knows their place. Nothing is proof against their approach. Of all the demons it is true, as of this group, that they slip through bolts and doorposts and sockets, gliding, as we are told, 'like snakes.' Such are the demons against whom man must seek to protect himself.
The relationship of the demons or spirits to the gods of the pantheon has been touched upon in a previous chapter.[356] It is[Pg 266] sufficient here to emphasize the fact that the dividing line between the two becomes at times exceedingly faint. A deity, we have seen, is a spirit writ large; but often the demon assumes dimensions and is clothed with power that makes him 'little short of divine.' Strength is the attribute of the demons as it is the chief feature of the gods. Both classes of powers influence man's career. The names of the demons are preceded by the same determinative that is used for the gods. As a matter of fact, many of the spirits were originally worshipped as local deities in some restricted territory, which, losing its importance, bequeaths the name of its protective genius to posterity. In the realm of religious belief, as in the domain of nature, absolute loss of something that once had existence does not take place. Something remains. Hundreds of old local gods of Babylonia thus survived in the literature as spirits or demons. The tendency towards making a selection out of the great mass of gods goes hand in hand with the multiplication of spirits that might, as occasion presented itself, be invoked. In general, the larger affairs of life were consigned into the hands of the gods; the petty annoyances—accidents, pains, ill luck, and the like—were put down to the account of the spirits. The gods were, on the whole, favorably disposed towards man. They were angry at times, they sent punishments, but they could be appeased. The spirits were, on the whole, hostile; and although the Babylonians also invoked favorable and kind spirits, when a spirit was hostile there was only one method of ridding oneself of the pernicious influence,—to drive it out by means of formulas, and with the help of a priest acting as exorciser.
A widespread and apparently very ancient belief among the Babylonians and Assyrians was that certain human beings possessed demoniac power, and could exercise it for evil purposes over whomsoever they pleased. This belief may have originated[Pg 267] in the abnormal appearance presented by certain individuals in consequence of physical deformities or peculiarities. The uncanny impression made by dwarfs, persons with misshapen limbs, with a strange look in their eyes, and, above all, the insane would give rise to the view that some people, for the very reason of their variation from the normal type, possessed peculiar powers. But by the side of such as were distinguished by bodily defects, those who outranked their fellows by virtue of their prowess or of natural gifts, by keenness of intellect or cunning, would also be supposed to have received their power through some demoniac source. With the giant and the artificer there would thus be associated ideas of sorcery and witchcraft, as with dwarfs, the deformed, and insane. The sorcerers might be either male or female, but, for reasons which are hard to fathom, the preference was given to females. Accordingly, it happens that among the Babylonians, as in the Middle Ages, the witch appears more frequently than the male sorcerer. The witches have all the powers of the demons, and in the incantation texts the two are often thrown together. Just as the demons, so the witches take away the breath of man, defile his food and drink, or close up his mouth. They are able to penetrate into the body of men, and thus produce similar physical and mental disturbances as the animalic demons. In view of this close relationship between witches and demons, we are justified in regarding the two as varying aspects of one and the same belief. The witch appears to be merely the person through whom the hitherto 'invisible' demon has chosen to manifest itself. From being identical in character with the demons, the witches reached a stage which made them superior to the former. They could not only do everything that the demons did, but they could also control the latter, whereas the demons had no power over witches. Witches could invoke the demons at their will and bring such persons as they chose within the demons' power.[Pg 268] Various means were at their disposal for bringing this about. The glance of a witch's 'evil eye' was supposed to have great power.[357] Terrible were the sufferings of the one on whom a witch threw the glance that kept the person under her spell. The 'evil word,' as it was called, and by which the use of certain magic formulas was meant, was another effective means at her command for inflicting all manner of evil. Magical potions, too, compounded of poisonous weeds, appear to have been prepared by them, and which, entering the body of those whom they desired to punish, had a disastrous effect. Such means might be denominated as direct. There were others indirect which were even more effective, and which rested upon the principle commonly known as 'sympathetic magic.'[358] Under the notion that the symbolical acts of the sorcerers would have their effect upon the one to be bewitched, the male sorcerer or the witch, as the case might be, would tie knots in a rope. Repeating certain formulas with each fresh knot, the witch would in this way symbolically strangle the victim, seal his mouth, wrack his limbs, tear his entrails, and the like.
Still more popular was the making of an image of the desired victim of clay or pitch, honey, fat, or other soft material,[359] and either by burning it inflict physical tortures upon the person represented, or by undertaking various symbolical acts with it, such as burying it among the dead, placing it in a coffin, casting it into a pit or into a fountain, hiding it in an inaccessible place, placing it in spots that had a peculiar significance, as the doorposts, the threshold, under the arch of gates, would prognosticate in this way a fate corresponding to one of these acts for the unfortunate victim.
As a protection against the demons and witches, small images of some of the protecting deities were placed at the entrances to houses, and amulets of various kinds were carried about the person. Tablets, too, were hung up in the house,—probably at the entrance,—on which extracts from the religious texts were inscribed. These texts by virtue of their sacred character assured protection against the entrance of demons.[360] But when once a person had come under the baneful power of the demons, recourse was had to a professional class of exorcisers, who acted as mediators between the victims and the gods to whom the ultimate appeal for help was made. These exorcisers were of course priests, and at an early period of Babylonian culture it must have been one of the main functions of priests to combat the influence of evil spirits. It was for this purpose chiefly that the people came to the temples, and in so far we are justified in regarding incantation formulas as belonging to the oldest portion of the Babylonian temple rituals. In the course of time, as the temples in the great religious centers developed into large establishments, the priests were divided into classes, each with special functions assigned to them. Some were concerned with the sacrifices, others presided over the oracles, others were set aside for the night and day watches which were observed in the temple, and it is likely that the scribes formed a class by themselves. To this age of differentiation in priestly functions belongs the special class who may be regarded as the forerunners of the eastern magi or magicians, and who by powers and methods peculiar to them could ward off the dangerous attacks[Pg 270] of the demons and witches. The means employed by them may in general be described as forming the complement to those used by the witches,—the reverse side of the picture,—only that they were supposed to be effective against sorcerers, witches, and demons alike. Against the incantation formulas of the witches, incantations of superior force were prescribed that might serve to overcome the baneful influence of the former. The symbolical tying of knots was offset by symbolical loosening, accompanied by formulas that might effect the gradual release of the victim from the meshes of both the witches and the demons; or the hoped-for release was symbolized by the peeling of the several skins of an onion. Corresponding to the images made by the witches, the exorcising priests advised the making of counter images of the witches, and by a symbolical burning, accompanied by certain ceremonies and conciliatory gifts to the gods, hoped to destroy the witches themselves. Since, moreover, the favorite time chosen by the demons and witches for their manifestations was the night, the three divisions of the nights—evening, midnight, and dawn—that correspond to the temple watches were frequently selected as the time for the incantations and the symbolical acts. The address was often made to the gods of night. A series of incantation formulas begins:
I call upon you, gods of the night,
With you I call upon the night, the veiled bride,[361]
I call at evening, midnight, and at dawn.
The formulas themselves, as we shall see, are characterized by their large number rather than by any elements that they have in common. At times they constitute a direct appeal to[Pg 271] some god or gods, to some particular spirit, or to the associated spirits of heaven and earth, together with a direct indication of what is desired. An incantation addressed to Nusku, the god of fire, closes:
Fire-god, mighty and lofty one of the gods,
Who dost overpower the wicked and the hostile,
Overpower them (the witches) so that I be not destroyed.
Let me thy servant live, let me
unharmed stand before thee,
Thou art my god, thou art my lord,
Thou art my judge, thou art my helper,
Thou art my avenger.
Preceding the direct appeal, there is usually a recital more or less detailed of the woes with which one is afflicted. The victim tells of the pains which torture him. Says one bewitched:
I stand upright, and cannot lie down,
neither night nor day. The witches have filled my
mouth with their knots.
With the aid of upuntu weed,[362]
they have stuffed up my mouth.
The water that I drink have they diminished,
My joy is changed to pain, my pleasure to sorrow.
This recital, which is often wearisome by its length, may or may not end in a direct appeal to some god or gods. The narrative of woes, however, is merely introductory to the incantation itself. To prescribe the formula to be used to the one appealing for help, is the special function of the priest acting as exorciser. He recites the formula, which is then repeated by the communicant.
Instead of an appeal to the gods for help, the incantation often embodies threats hurled in the name of the gods at the demons or witches in case they do not release their victim.[Pg 272] Such incantations appear to derive their power chiefly through the personage of the exorciser, who believes himself to be able to control the evil spirits. So in one case, after the sufferer has poured out his troubles, the exorciser replies, threatening the witches with the same evils that they have inflicted:[363]
They have used all kinds of charms
to entwine me as with ropes,
to catch me as in a cage,
to tie me as with cords,
to overpower me as in a net,
to twist me as with a sling,
to tear me as a fabric,
to fill me with dirty water as that which runs down a wall (?)
to throw me down as a wall.
At this point the exorciser takes up the thread and declares:
But I by command of Marduk, the lord of charms,
by Marduk, the master of bewitchment,
Both the male and female witch
as with ropes I will entwine,
as in a cage I will catch,
as with cords I will tie,
as in a net I will overpower,
as in a sling I will twist,
as a fabric I will tear,
with dirty water as from a wall I will fill,
as a wall throw them down.
Accompanying these threats, the actions indicated were symbolically performed by the exorciser on effigies of the witches made, in this case, of bitumen covered with pitch.
Corresponding again to the potions prepared by the witches, the priests prepared draughts compounded of various weeds and herbs that were given to the victim, or concoctions that were poured over his body. This constituted the medicinal phase of the priest's labors, and marks the connection between[Pg 273] magic and medicine. Naturally such herbs and weeds were chosen as through experience had proved effective.
A feature of the incantation texts is the appeal to the gods, which is seldom, if ever, wanting. Just as the kings sought, by the enumeration of a large pantheon, to secure the protection of as large a number of powers as possible, so the priests endeavored to strengthen their magic formulas by including the mention of all the chief and a varying number of the minor deities. This invocation of groups of deities, as the invocation of groups of spirits, became more or less conventional, so much so that, instead of mentioning the gods individually, the scribe would content himself with an indication, at the proper point, of the number of gods to be appealed to,—six, ten, fifteen, as the case may be, to as many as fifty.[364] Precisely what gods he had in mind we are no longer in a position to know, but no doubt the chief members of the pantheon were included in the first place. Lists of these deities are often added. The superior triad, Anu, Bel, and Ea, head the list, at times accompanied by their consorts, at times standing alone. The second class of triads, Sin, Shamash, and Ramman, follow, and then the other great gods, Nin-ib, Marduk, Nergal, Nusku, and Gibil; and finally the chief goddesses are added, notably Ishtar, Nin-karrak, or Gula, and Bau.
But besides the chief deities, an exceedingly large number of minor ones are found interspersed through the incantation texts. Some are well known, as Nin-girsu, Zamama, and Papsukal. Many of them are found in other branches of the religious literature or in invocations attached to historical texts, commemorative of some work undertaken and completed[Pg 274] by the kings; but a large proportion of these powers, not often distinguishable from mere spirits, only appear once in the literary remains of Babylonia. It is manifestly impossible, under such circumstances, to specify their traits. In most cases, indeed, the phonetic reading is unknown or uncertain. While a considerable proportion may be put down as local gods, enjoying an independent, albeit obscure, existence, at least an equal number will turn out to be mere epithets of gods already known. In all cases where the god's name actually appears as an epithet, we may be certain that such is the case. So when a god is called simply Dainu, i.e., Judge, there can be little doubt that Shamash, the sun-god, is meant; a god, 'great mountain,' is none other than Bel; and similarly, such names as 'merciful,' 'hearer of prayer,' 'conqueror of enemy' are manifestly titles belonging to certain well-known deities, and used much as among the Greeks the gods were often referred to by the traits, physical or moral, that distinguished them. As for the residue, who are independent deities, while of course our knowledge of the Babylonian religion would be increased did we know more of them than their names, it is not likely that the worship of these gods, nor the conceptions connected with them, involved any new principle. A mere enumeration would of course be of little use. Moreover, such an enumeration would not be exhaustive, for new deities are found in almost every additional text that is published. Already this list counts considerably over two hundred. At most, such an enumeration would merely illustrate what we already know,—the exceedingly large number of local cults that once existed in Babylonia and Assyria, and disappeared without leaving any trace but the more or less accidental preservation of the name of the deity, who was once regarded as the patron of the place. Lastly it is to be noted that, besides gods, stars are invoked, as well as rivers, temples, and even towns,—in short, anything that has sacred associations.[Pg 275]
On a different level from the gods enumerated in groups stand those deities who are introduced into the incantation texts at essential points individually and for a special reason. Such deities are comparatively few,—hardly more than half a dozen. These gods may be called the gods of the incantation texts par excellence. Their help is essential to ensure the effectiveness of the exorciser's task. They stand in close and direct connection with the troubles from which relief is prayed for. For physical ills, they act as healers. If the evil for which the individual or the country suffers is due to some natural phenomena,—an eclipse of the moon, of which people stood in great terror, or a deluge or a famine,—the moon-god, the storm-god, some phase of the sun-deity, or an agricultural god would naturally be implored; while in a general way the heads of the pantheon, Marduk in Babylonia and Ashur in Assyria, come in for a large share of attention.
As already intimated in a previous chapter,[365] the god who plays perhaps the most prominent rôle in the incantation texts is Ea. He occupies this rank primarily by virtue of his being the god of humanity; but another factor which enters into consideration, though in an indirect fashion, is his character as a water-god. Water, being one of the means of purification frequently referred to in the texts, acquires a symbolical significance among the Babylonians, as among so many other nations. Ea, therefore, as the water-god of the ancient sacred town, Eridu, acquires additional popularity through this circumstance. The titles that he receives in the texts emphasize his power to heal and protect. He is the great physician who knows all secret sources whence healing can be obtained for the maladies and ills caused by the demons and sorcerers. He is therefore in a peculiar sense 'the lord of the fates' of mankind, the chief exorciser, the all-wise magician of the gods, at whose command and under whose protection, the priest performs his symbolical[Pg 276] acts. Not only does humanity turn to Ea: the gods, too, appeal to him in their distress. The eclipse of the moon was regarded by the popular faith as a sort of bewitchment of the great orb through the seven evil spirits. All the heavenly bodies are affected by such an event. Anu is powerless. It is only through Ea that Sin is released, just as though he were a human individual. But Ea is rarely approached directly. At his side stands his son Marduk, who acts as a mediator. Marduk listens to the petition addressed to him by the exorcising priest on behalf of the victim, and carries the word to Father Ea. The latter, after first declaring Marduk to be his equal in knowledge, proceeds to dictate the cure. Marduk, accordingly, is given the same titles as his father, Ea. He, too, is the lord of life, the master of the exorcising art, the chief magician among the gods.
The importance thus given to Marduk is an indication of a later period, and must be taken in connection with the supremacy accorded to the god after the union of the Babylonian states. Originally, Ea is the god to whom the direct appeal was made. Marduk is an afterthought that points to the remodeling of the ancient texts after the period of Hammurabi. Damkina, the consort of Ea, is occasionally invoked, but it is significant that Sarpanitum, the consort of Marduk, is rarely mentioned.
The burning of images and witches, or of other objects, being so frequently resorted to as a means of destroying baneful influences, the god of fire occupies a rank hardly secondary to Ea. Here, too, the mystical element involved in the use of fire adds to the effectiveness of the method. Water and fire are the two great sources of symbolical purification that we meet with in both primitive and advanced rituals of the past.[Pg 277][366] The fire-god appears in the texts under the double form of Gibil and Nusku. The former occurs with greater frequency than the latter, but the two are used so interchangeably as to be in every respect identical. The amalgamation of the two may indeed be due to the growth of the incantation rituals of Babylon. In some districts Gibil was worshipped as the special god of fire, in others Nusku, much as we found the sun-god worshipped under the names of Shamas and Utu, and similarly in the case of other deities. On the supposition that the incantation rituals are the result of a complicated literary process, involving the collection of all known formulas, and the bringing of them into some kind of connection with one another, this existence of a twofold fire-god finds a ready explanation. At Babylon we know Nusku was worshipped as the fire-god. Gibil belongs therefore to another section, perhaps to one farther south. He is in all probability the older god of the two, and the preponderating occurrence of his name in the texts may be taken as a proof of the ancient origin of those parts in which it occurs. There being no special motive why he should be supplanted by Nusku, his preëminence was not interfered with through the remodeling to which the texts were subjected. While bearing in mind that Gibil and Nusku are two distinct deities, we may, for the sake of convenience, treat them together under the double designation of Gibil-Nusku.
Gibil and Nusku are called 'sons of Anu'; Gibil, indeed, is spoken of as the first-born of heaven, and the image of his father. The conception is probably mythological, resting upon the belief in the heavenly origin of fire held by all nations. Gibil-Nusku is exalted as the 'lofty one' among the gods, whose command is supreme. He is at once the great messenger of the gods and their chief counsellor. Clothed in splendor, his light is unquenchable. A large variety of other attributes are assigned to him, all emphasizing his strength, his majesty, his brilliancy, and the terror that he is able to inspire. The[Pg 278] importance of fire to mankind made Gibil-Nusku the founder of cities, and in general the god of civilization. As the fire-god, Gibil-Nusku is more especially invoked at the symbolical burning of the images of the witches. With a raised torch in one hand, the bewitched person repeats the incantation recited by the exorciser. Frequently the instruction is added that the incantation is to be recited in a whisper, corresponding to the soft tones in which the demons, witches, and ghosts are supposed to convey their messages. The incantations in which the fire-god is exalted in grandiloquent terms belong to the finest productions of this branch of the religious literature. The addresses to Gibil-Nusku are veritable hymns that are worthy of better associations. One of these addresses begins:
Nusku, great god, counsellor of the great gods,[367]
Guarding the sacrificial gifts[368] of all the heavenly spirits,
Founder of cities, renewer of the sanctuaries,
Glorious day, whose command is supreme,
Messenger of Anu, carrying out the decrees of Bel,
Obedient to Bel, counsellor, mountain[369] of the earthly spirits,
Mighty in battle, whose attack is powerful,
Without thee no table is spread in the temple.
Without thee, Shamash, the judge executes no judgment.
I, thy servant so and so, the son of so and so,[370]
Whose god is so and so, and whose goddess so and so,[371]
I turn to thee, I seek thee, I raise my hands to thee,
I prostrate myself before thee.
Burn the sorcerer and sorceress,
May the life of my sorcerer and sorceress be destroyed.
Let me live that I may exalt thee and proudly pay homage to thee.
This incantation, we are told, is to be recited in a whisper, in the presence of an image of wax. The image is burnt as[Pg 279] the words are spoken, and as it is consumed the power of the witch is supposed to wane. The reference to the indispensable presence of the fire-god in the temple is rather interesting. Sacrifice always entailed the use of fire. To whatever deity the offering was made, Gibil-Nusku could not in any case be overlooked. The fire constituted the medium, as it were, between the worshipper and the deity addressed. The fire-god is in truth the messenger who carries the sacrifice into the presence of the god worshipped. Even Shamash, though himself personifying fire, is forced to acknowledge the power of Gibil-Nusku, who, we are told elsewhere, is invoked, even when sacrifices are made to the sun-god.
Besides being the son of Anu, Gibil-Nusku is brought into association with the two other members of the triad, Bel and Ea. He is the messenger of Bel and the son of Ea. The former conception is again mythical. Fire is also the instrument of the gods, and Nusku is particularly called the messenger of Bel because Bel is one of the highest gods. In reality he is the messenger of all the gods, and is frequently so designated. His connection with Ea, on the other hand, seems to be the result of the systematizing efforts of the schoolmen. Ea occupying the chief rank in the incantations, the subsidiary rôle of Gibil-Nusku is indicated by making him, just as Marduk, the son of Ea. In this way, too, the two great means of purification—water and fire—are combined under a single aspect. The combination was all the more appropriate since the fire-god, as the promoter of culture, shared with Ea the protection of humanity. Accordingly, all the titles of Ea are bestowed in one place or the other upon Gibil-Nusku. But, after all, Gibil-Nusku is merely a phase of the solar deity,[372] and hence by the side of this fire-god, Shamash and the other solar deities, though in a measure subsidiary to Gibil-Nusku, are frequently invoked. Shamash, as the great judge, was a personage especially[Pg 280] appropriate for occasions which involved a decision in favor of the bewitched and against the witches or demons. Gibil-Nusku, like Shamash, is exalted as the great judge who comes to the aid of the oppressed. Similarly, the fire-god receives the attributes belonging to Ninib, Nergal, and the various phases of the latter, such as Lugal-edinna, Lugal-gira, and Alamu. These gods, then, and their consorts, because of their relationship to the fire-god, are introduced into the incantations, and what is more to the point, the various phases of Nergal and Ninib are introduced without any trace of the distinctions that originally differentiated them from one another.[373] Besides the great solar deities, minor ones, as Nin-gish-zida[374] and I-shum, are frequently added in long lists of protecting spirits to whom the appeal for help is directed. The attempt is also made to illustrate their relationship to the great fire-god. So I-shum becomes the messenger of Nusku, while Nin-gish-zida (though in the days of Gudea a male deity[375]) appears to be regarded, as Tallqvist has suggested, as the consort of Nusku.
Night being a favorite time for the recital of the incantations, it was natural that the orb of night, the god Sin, should be added to the pantheon of the exorciser. Though playing a minor rôle, the moon-god is never omitted when a long series of protecting spirits is invoked. But there are occasions when Sin becomes the chief deity invoked. Reference has already been made to the general terror that moon eclipses inspired. The disappearance of the moon was looked upon as a sign of the god's displeasure or as a defeat of the moon in a conflict with other planets. Disaster of some kind—war, pestilence, internal disturbances—was sure to follow upon an eclipse, unless the anger of the god could be appeased or his weakness[Pg 281] overcome. In the case of such general troubles affecting the whole country, it is the kings themselves who seek out the priests. Rituals were prepared to meet the various contingencies. The king begins the ceremony by a prayer addressed to Sin. One of these prayers begins:[376]
O Sin, O Nannar! mighty one ...
O Sin, thou who alone givest light,
Extending light to mankind,
Showing favor to the black-headed ones,[377]
Thy light shines in heaven ...
Thy torch is brilliant as fire;
Thy light fills the broad earth.
Thy light is glorious as the Sun ...
Before thee the great gods lie prostrate;
The fate of the world rests with thee.
An eclipse has taken place, portending evil to the country, and libations have been poured out on days carefully selected as favorable ones. The king continues:
With the prayer to Sin, appeals to other gods and also goddesses are frequently combined,—to Marduk, Ishtar, Tashmitum, Nabu, Ramman, and the like. The incantations themselves, consisting of fervent appeals to remove the evil, actual or portending, are preceded by certain ceremonies,—the burning of incense, the pouring out of some drink, or by symbolical acts, as the binding of cords; and the god is appealed to once more to answer the prayer.
[Pg 282] Again, just as Gibil-Nusku entails the invocation of a large variety of solar deities, so Ea, as the water-god, leads to the introduction of various water-gods and spirits. Perhaps the most prominent of these is the god Nâru, whose name, signifying 'river,'[380] is clearly the personification of the watery element, though of the minor bodies of water. Next in order comes the goddess Nin-akha-kuddu.[381] She is invoked as 'goddess of purification.' From her association in several passages with the great deep, and with the city of Eridu—metaphorically used for the great deep—one may be permitted to conclude that she, too, was conceived of as a water-god or a water-spirit. She is 'the lady of spells,' who is asked to take possession of the body of the sufferer, and thus free him from the control of demons or witches. By the side of this goddess, Gula, 'the great physician,' is often appealed to. Again, the demons being in some cases the ghosts of the departed, or such as hover around graves, Nin-kigal, or Allatu, the mistress of the lower world, is an important ally, whose aid is desired in the struggle against the evil spirits. Lastly, it is interesting to note that Izdubar, or Gilgamesh, the famous hero of the great Babylonian epic, occurs also in incantations[382]—a welcome indication of the antiquity of the myth, and the proof, at the same time, that the epic is built on a foundation of myth. From the mythological side, Gilgamesh appears to be a solar deity. The connection of a solar god with fire would account for his appearance in the magical texts. However obscure some of the points connected with the gods of the incantation texts may be, so much is certain, that the two factors of water and fire, and the part played by these elements in the ceremonies, control and explain the choice of most of the gods and goddesses[Pg 283] introduced, though—be it expressly noted—not of all occurring in the magical texts.
Coming to the incantations themselves, they can best be characterized as appeals interspersed with words of a more or less mystic character. The force and efficacy of the incantation lie not so much in the meaning of the words uttered, as in the simple fact that they are to be uttered. These incantations were combined into a ritual, and indications were given of the occasions on which the incantations were to be used. An analysis of one of these rituals will serve to illustrate this branch of the religious literature of the Babylonians. I choose for this purpose the series known as Maklu, i.e., Burning,[383] the interpretation of which has been so considerably advanced by Dr. Tallqvist's admirable work. The first tablet of the series opens with an invocation to the gods of night. After complaining of his sad condition, the bewitched individual continues as follows:
Arise ye great gods, hear my complaint;
Grant me justice, take cognizance of my condition.
I have made an image of my sorcerer and sorceress;
I have humbled myself before you and bring to you my cause
Because of the evil they (i.e., the witches) have done,
Of the impure things which they have handled,[384]
May she[385] die! Let me live!
May her charm, her witchcraft, her sorcery (?) be broken.
May the plucked sprig (?) of the binu tree purify me.
May it release me; may the evil odor[386] of my mouth be scattered to the winds.
May the mashtakal herb[387] which fills the earth cleanse me.
[Pg 284]Before you let me shine like the kankal herb.
Let me be as brilliant and pure as the lardu herb.
The charm of the sorceress is evil;
May her words return to her mouth,[388] her tongue be cut off.
Because of her witchcraft, may the gods of night smite her,
The three watches of the night[389] break her evil charm.
May her mouth be wax[390] (?), her tongue honey.
May the word causing my misfortune that she has spoken dissolve like wax (?).
May the charm that she has wound up melt like honey,
So that her magic knot be cut in twain, her work destroyed,
All her words scattered across the plains
By the order that the gods have given.
The section closes with the ordinary request of the exorciser to the victim: "Recite this incantation." It will be seen how closely the principle of sympathetic magic is followed. The individual having been bewitched by means of certain herbs concocted probably into potions, other herbs are prepared by the exorciser as an antidote. The emphasis laid upon purification, too, is noteworthy. There are numerous synonyms employed for which it is difficult to find the adequate equivalent in English. The terms reach out beyond the literal to the symbolical purification. The victim wishes to become pure, cleansed of all impurities, so that he may be resplendent as the gods are pure, brilliant, and glorious, pure as the water, brilliant and glorious as the fire.
The length of the formulas varies. Often they consist only of a few lines. So the one immediately following appeals to Gilgamesh in these words:
Earth, Earth, Earth,
Gilgamesh is the master of your witchcraft.
What you have done, I know;
What I do, you know not.
All the mischief wrought by my sorceresses is destroyed, dissolved—is gone.
[Pg 285] At times the conditions under which the witches are pictured as acting are very elaborate. They are represented as dwelling in places with which mythological conceptions are connected; they are ferried across the river separating their city from human habitations; they are protected against attacks by the walls which surround their habitations. To effect a release, the exorcisers, it would appear, made representations by means of drawings on clay of these habitations of the witches. They thereupon symbolically cut off the approaches and laid siege to the towns. This, at least, appears to be the meaning of an incantation beginning:
The victim imitates the conduct of the witch, goes about as she does, with a pot in which the potions are made, performs the symbolical act which should purify him of the evil that is in him, and hopes, in this way, to obtain his own release. The description continues:
I have kept back the ferry, have shut off the wall,[393]
Have thus checked the enchantment from all quarters.
Anu and Anatum have commissioned me.
Whom shall I send to Belit of the field?[394]
Into the mouth of the sorcerer and sorceress cast the lock.[395]
Recite the incantation of the chief of gods, Marduk.[396]
[Pg 286]'Let them[397] call to thee but answer them not,
Let them address thee, but hearken not to them.
Let me call to thee, and do thou answer me,
Let me address thee, and do thou hearken unto me.'
By the command of Anu, Anatum, and Belit, recite the incantation.
The hymns to the fire-god, Nusku (or Girru), of which the 'Maklu' series naturally furnishes many specimens,[398] are all pretty much alike. I choose one which illustrates in greater detail the symbolical burning of the image of the witch:[399]
Nusku, great offspring of Anu,
The likeness of his father, the first-born of Bel,
The product of the deep, sprung from Ea,[400]
I raise the torch to illumine thee, yea, thee.
The sorcerer who has bewitched me,
Through the witchcraft by means of which he has bewitched me, do thou bewitch him.
The sorceress who has bewitched me,
Through the witchcraft by means of which she has bewitched me, bewitch thou her.
The charmer who has charmed me,
Through the charm with which he has charmed me, charm thou him.
The witch who has charmed me,
Through the charm with which she has charmed me, charm thou her.
Those who have made images of me, reproducing my features,
Who have taken away my breath, torn my hairs,
Who have rent my clothes, have hindered my feet from treading the dust,
May the fire-god, the strong one, break their charm.
Just as the witches were burnt in effigy, so also the demons were supposed to be similarly dispelled. Immediately following the incantation comes one directed against the demons:[Pg 287]
I raise the torch, their images I burn,
Of the utukku, the shedu, the rabisu, the ekimmu,
The labartu, the labasi, the akhkhasu,
Of lilu and lilitu and ardat lili,
And every evil that seizes hold of men.
Tremble, melt away, and disappear!
May your smoke rise to heaven,
May Shamash destroy your limbs,
May the son of Ea [i.e., may the fire-god],
The great magician, restrain your strength (?).
The witch who has caused the evil may be unknown. For such a case one of the incantations runs:[401]
Who art thou, sorceress, who bears her evil word within her heart,
Through whose tongue my misfortune is produced,
Through whose lips I have been poisoned,
In whose footsteps death follows?
Sorceress, I seize thy mouth, seize thy tongue,
I seize thy searching eyes,
I seize thy ever-moving feet,
I seize thy knees ever active,
I seize thy hands ever stretched out,
I tie thy hands behind thee.
May Sin ... destroy thy body,
May he cast thee into an abyss of fire and water.
Sorceress, as the circle of this seal-ring,[402]
May thy face grow pale and wan.
Of the same character as this, are a variety of other incantations, all applicable to cases in which the sorceress is unknown. As the last specimen of the 'Maklu' series, I choose an incantation addressed to the demons, which is interesting because of the direct character of the commands it contains:
Away, away, far away, far away,
For shame, for shame, fly away, fly away,
Round about face, go away, far away,
[Pg 288]Out of my body, away,
Out of my body, far away,
Out of my body, away for shame,
Out of my body, fly away,
Out of my body, round about face,
Out of my body, go away,
Into my body, come not back,
Towards my body, do not approach,
Towards my body, draw not nigh,
My body torture not.
By Shamash the mighty, be ye foresworn.
By Ea, the lord of everything, be ye foresworn.
By Marduk, the chief magician of the gods, be ye foresworn.
By the fire-god, be ye foresworn.
From my body be ye restrained!
Repetition and variation in the use of certain phrases make up, as will be seen from the specimens given, a large part of the incantation. A curious illustration of the importance attributed to such repetition is furnished by the eighth and last tablet of the 'Maklu' series. It consists of seven divisions, each beginning with a repetition of the headlines of the various sections of the preceding seven tablets; and only after the headlines of each of the tablets have been exhausted, does the real incantation begin. This eighth tablet contains therefore a kind of summary of all the others, the purpose of which is to gather together all the power and influence of the seven others.
The 'Maklu' ritual deals so largely with the fire-god that a specimen from another series, to illustrate the position of Ea and Marduk in the incantations, seems called for. The 'Shurpu' series introduces Ea and Marduk more particularly. The fifth tablet of this series begins:[403]
The evil curse rests like a gallu upon the man,
The pain-giving voice[404] has settled upon him,
The voice that is not good has settled upon him,
The evil curse, the charm that produces insanity,
[Pg 289]The evil curse has killed that man as a sheep,
His god has departed from his body,[405]
His goddess has ... taken her place outside,[406]
The pain-giving voice covers him as a garment and confuses him.
Marduk sees him,
And proceeds to the house of his father Ea and speaks:
"My father, the evil curse as a demon has settled on the man."
He says it for a second time.
"What that man should do, I do not know; by what can he be cured?"
Ea answers his son Marduk:
"My son, can I add aught that thou dost not know?
Marduk, what can I tell thee that thou dost not know?
What I know, also thou knowest.
My son Marduk, take him to the overseer of the house of perfect purification,
Dissolve his spell, release him from the charm, and from the troublesome bodily disease.
Whether it be the curse of his father,
Or the curse of his mother,
Or the curse of his brother,
Or the curse of an unknown,[407]
May the bewitchment through the charm of Ea be peeled off like an onion.
May it be cut off like a date.
May it be removed like a husk.
O power of the spirit of heaven, be thou invoked!
O spirit of earth, be thou invoked!"
The purification by water, which is here only incidentally referred to, is more fully touched upon in other incantations, where Ea tells Marduk that the victim must take
Glittering water, pure water,
Holy water, resplendent water,
The water twice seven times may he bring,
May he make pure, may he make resplendent.
May the evil rabisu depart,
[Pg 290]May he betake himself outside,
May the protecting shedu, the protecting lamassu,
Settle upon his body.
Spirit of heaven, be thou invoked!
Spirit of earth, be thou invoked![408]
Still other methods of magical cure besides the use of water and of potions were in vogue. In a tablet of the same ritual to which the last extract belongs, and which is especially concerned with certain classes of diseases produced by the demons, the sick man is told to take
White wool, which has been spun into thread,
To attach it to his couch[409] in front and at the top,
Black wool which has been spun into thread
To bind at his left side.
Then follows the incantation which he is to recite:
The evil ulukku, alu, ekimmu,
The evil gallu, the evil god, rabisu,
Labartu, labasu, akhkhazu,
Lilu and lilit and ardat lili,
Sorcery, charm, bewitchment,
The sickness, the cruel artifice,
Their head against his head,
Their hand against his hand,
Their foot against his foot,
May they not place,
May they never draw nigh.
Spirit of heaven, be thou foresworn!
Spirit of earth, be thou foresworn!
It is interesting to note the introduction of ethical ideas into these texts, despite the primitive character of the beliefs upon which the incantations repose. The possibility was considered that the attack of the demons was a punishment sent in some way for committed sins. The incantation series 'Shurpu' furnishes us with a long list of wrongs for which a person may[Pg 291] be held enthralled in the power of the demons or sorcerers. The exorciser in petitioning that the ban may be relieved, enumerates at length the various causes for which the evil may have been sent:[410]
Has he sinned against a god,
Is his guilt against a goddess,
Is it a wrongful deed against his master,
Hatred towards his elder brother,
Has he despised father or mother,
Insulted his elder sister,
Has he given too little,[411]
Has he withheld too much,
For "no" said "yes,"
For "yes" said "no"?[412]
Has he used false weights?
Has he taken an incorrect amount,
Not taken the correct sum,
Has he fixed a false boundary,
Not fixed a just boundary,
Has he removed a boundary, a limit, or a territory,
Has he possessed himself of his neighbor's house,
Has he approached his neighbor's wife,
Has he shed the blood of his neighbor,
Robbed his neighbor's dress?
Was he frank in speaking,
But false in heart,
Was it "yes" with his mouth,
But "no" in his heart?[413]
In this way the exorciser proceeds to enumerate an exceedingly long list of sins—no less than one hundred—most of which are ethical misdemeanors, while others are merely ceremonial transgressions. In the third tablet of this series[414] there[Pg 292] is even a longer list of causes for the ban which Marduk, the "chief exorciser" among the gods, is called upon to loosen. Here again we find an equal proportion of moral transgressions placed on a par with errors in performing religious rites or unwillful offences in neglecting conventional methods of doing things.
The ethical features of the texts can, without much question, be put down as the work of the later editors. They belong to a period when already an advanced conception not only of right and wrong, but also of sin had arisen among the religious leaders of the people, and perhaps had made its way already among the masses, without, however, disturbing the confidence in the traditional superstitions. The strange combination of primitive and advanced religious beliefs is characteristic, as we shall have occasion to see, of various divisions of the Babylonian religious literature. The lapse from the ethical strain to the incantation refrain is as sudden as it is common. The priest having exhausted the category of possible sins or mishaps that have caused the suffering of the petitioner, proceeds to invoke the gods, goddesses, and the powerful spirits to loosen the ban. There is no question of retribution for actual acts of injustice or violence, any more than there is a question of genuine contrition. The enumeration of the causes for the suffering constitutes in fact a part of the incantation. The mention of the real cause in the long list—and the list aims to be exhaustive, so that the exorciser may strike the real cause—goes a long way towards ensuring the departure of the evil spirit. And if, besides striking the real cause, the exorciser is fortunate enough in his enumeration of the various gods, goddesses, and spirits to call by name upon the right god or spirit, the one who has the power over the demon in question, his object is achieved. Speaking the right words and pronouncing the right name, constitute, together with the performance of the correct ceremony and the bringing of the right sacrifice, the conditions[Pg 293] upon which depends the success of the priest in the incantation ritual. Hence the striking features of these texts, the enumeration of long lists of causes for misfortune, long lists of powers invoked, and a variety of ceremonies prescribed, in the hope that the priest will "hit it" at one time or the other.
The incantations naturally shade off into prayers. Frequently they are prayers pure and simple. Powerful as the sacred formulas were supposed to be, the ultimate appeal of the sufferer is to the gods. Upon their favor it ultimately depends whether the mystic power contained in the sacred words uttered shall manifest itself to the benefit of the supplicant or not. While it is proper, therefore, to distinguish incantations from prayers, the combination of the two could scarcely be avoided by the priests, who, rising in a measure superior to the popular beliefs, felt it to be inconsistent with a proper regard for the gods not to give them a superior place in the magical texts. The addition, to the sacred formulas, of prayers directly addressed to certain gods may be put down as due to the adaptation of ancient texts to the needs of a later age; and, on the other hand, the addition of incantations to what appear to have been originally prayers, pure and simple, is a concession made to the persistent belief in the efficacy of certain formulas when properly uttered. Such combinations of prayers and incantations constituted, as would appear, a special class of religious texts; and, in the course of further editing,[415] a number of prayers addressed to various deities were combined and interspersed with incantation and ceremonial directions which were to accompany the prayers.
The incantations accordingly lead us to the next division in the religious literature of the Babylonians,—the prayers and hymns.[Pg 294]
[341] Die Assyrische Beschwörungsserie, Maqlû, p. 14.
[342] There are some preserved solely in the ideographic style, and others of which we have only the phonetic transliteration.
[343] Die Propheten in ihrer ursprünglichen Form, pp. 1, 6. This work is a valuable investigation of the oldest form of the poetic compositions of the Semites.
[344] The fifth and sixth tablets of the series. It is probable that several editions were prepared,—some wholly Babylonian, others bilingual.
[345] Haupt, Akkadische und Sumerische Keilschrifttexte, p. 83. col. I. ll. 1-10.
[346] Wherever feasible, the Babylonian name of the demon will be used in the translations.
[347] Our word 'nightmare' still embodies the same ancient view of the cause of bad dreams as that found among the Babylonians.
[349] IV R. pl. 5.
[350] See Perrot and Chiplez, History of Art in Chaldaea and Assyria, i. 61, 62; ii. 81 for illustrations.
[351] IV R. 2, col. v. ll. 30-60.
[352] The god of humanity. The phrase is equivalent to saying that the spirits are hostile to mankind.
[353] Literally, 'to their second time,' i.e., repeat 'seven are they.'
[354] See Hopkins, The Holy Numbers in the Rig-Veda (Oriental Studies), pp. 144-147.
[355] IV R. 15, col. ll. 21 seq.
[356] See chapter xi.
[357] For the general views connected with the evil eye among all nations, see Elworthy's recent volume, The Evil Eye. (London, 1896.)
[358] For illustrations taken from various nations, see Fraser, The Golden Bough, ii. 9-12; ii. 85-89.
[359] See for illustrations of similar practices among Egyptians and Greeks, Budge, Life and Exploits of Alexander the Great (London, 1896), pp. xii-xvii.
[360] Mr. L. W. King describes (Zeits. für Assyr. xl. 50-62) interesting fragments of the Dibbarra (or 'plague-god') legend found on tablets which were evidently intended to be hung up. Mr. King suggests that such tablets were hung up in the houses of the Babylonians whenever a plague broke out. One is reminded of the mezuzoth, the metallic or wooden cases, attached to the doorposts of their houses by the Jews, and which originally served a similar purpose.
[361] Tallqvist, Assyr. Beschwörungsserie Maklu, p. 115, suggests that the 'veiled bride' may be a name of some goddess of the night. This is improbable. It sounds more like a direct personification of the night, for which an epithet as 'veiled bride' seems appropriate. The name may have arisen in consequence of mythological conceptions affecting the relationship between day and night.
[362] A magic potion compounded of this plant. 'Maklu' series, i. ll. 8-12.
[363] 'Maklu' series, ii. ll. 148-168.
[364] See Relsner, Sumerisch-Babylonische Hymnen (Berlin, 1896), p. 15.
[366] Robertson Smith, Religion of the Semites, p. 352. Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, i. 508-596. Tylor, Primitive Culture, ii. 383 seq. See also the article "Hestia" in Roscher's Ausführliches Lexikon der Griechischen und Römischen Mythologie.
[367] 'Maklu' series, ii. ll. 1-17.
[368] A reference to the sacred action of the fire in the burnt offerings.
[369] A favorite title of several gods, Bel, Sin, etc., that emphasizes their strength.
[370] Here the seeker for help inserts his name.
[371] Here the names of special deities are to be inserted.
[374] A form of Nusku, according to Tallqvist, Assyr. Beschwör. p. 146. It would be more accurate to say a form of Ninib. See p. 92.
[376] King, Babylonian Magic, p. 3.
[377] Humanity.
[378] The reference is to the formal lamentations on the occasion of the death of any one. The moon-god, having disappeared, is bewailed as though dead.
[379] I.e., under all conditions and at all times.
[380] The reading Nâru is not altogether certain, but probable. See Tallqvist, Assyr. Beschwör. pp. 131, 132, whose suggestion, however, that Nâru may be a female deity, is not acceptable. Elitti is probably a scribal error.
[382] Tallqvist, I. l. 38.
[384] To bewitch me.
[385] The witch.
[386] From which he suffers through the witches.
[387] The identification of the many herbs mentioned in the texts is as yet impossible. The subject awaits investigation at the hands of one versed in botanical lore.
[388] I.e., be ineffective.
[389] I.e., the gods presiding over the watches.
[390] Her words dissolve like wax and honey.
[391] Supposed to be situated at the northern point of the heavens.
[392] The vault of heaven was pictured as having two gates.
[393] So that the witch cannot leave her habitation.
[394] With the order 'to cast the lock,' etc.
[395] To prevent her from uttering her charms.
[396] The following four lines constitute the incantation.
[397] I.e., the witches.
[399] Maklu, I. 122-143.
[400] The fiery element belongs to all three divisions of the universe,—to heaven, earth, and water.
[401] Maklu, III. ll. 89-103.
[402] Many of the seals used by the Babylonians were of white stone or bone.
[403] Zimmern's edition, pp. 25-29.
[404] I.e., the evil word.
[405] His protecting deity has deserted him.
[406] Of his body.
[407] I.e., whoever may have invoked the evil demon to settle upon him.
[408] The translation of these lines follows in all but some minor passages the correct one given by Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 446.
[409] Of the sick man.
[410] Zimmern, Die Beschwörungstafeln Shurpu, pp. 5, 6.
[411] In mercantile transactions.
[412] I.e., lied.
[413] I.e., did he say one thing, but mean the contrary?
[414] Zimmern, ib. pp. 13-20.
[415] For details as to the manner in which this editing was done, see King's admirable remarks in the Introduction to his Babylonian Magic and Sorcery, pp. xx-xxiv.
From what has just been said, it follows that the step from magical formulas to prayers and hymns is but a small one, and does not, indeed, carry with it the implication of changed or higher religious conceptions. While the incantation texts in their entirety may be regarded as the oldest fixed ritual of the Babylonian-Assyrian religion, there were occasions even in the oldest period of Babylonian history when the gods were approached in prayer without the accompaniment of magic formulas. Such occasions were the celebration of festivals in honor of the gods, the dedication of temples or of sacred statues, and the completion of such purely secular undertakings as the building of a canal. Gudea, we are told, upon completing a statue to his god Nin-girsu, prayed: 'O King, whose great strength the land cannot endure (?); Nin-girsu! grant to Gudea, who has built this house, a good fate.'[416] As in the earliest, so in the latest, period, the Babylonian kings approach the gods in prayer upon completing their great sacred edifices. The prayers of Nebuchadnezzar are particularly fine—remarkable, indeed, for their diction and elevation of thought. Upon completing the restoration of a temple to Nin-karrak or Gula in Sippar, he prays:[417]
Nin-karrak, lofty goddess, look with favor upon the work of my hands,
Mercy towards me be the command of thy lips,
Long life, abundance of strength,
[Pg 295]Health, and joy, grant to me as a gift.
In the presence of Shamash and Marduk cause my deeds to be regarded with favor,
Command grace for me.
A prayer of the same king addressed to Shamash, upon restoring the great temple at Sippar, E-babbara, runs:[418]
O Shamash, great lord, upon entering joyfully into thy glorious temple E-babbara,
Look with favor upon my precious handiwork,
Mercy towards me be thy command;
Through thy righteous order, may I have abundance of strength.
Long life, and a firm throne, grant to me.
May my rule last forever!
With a righteous sceptre of blissful rulership,
With a legitimate staff, bringing salvation to mankind, adorn my sovereignty forever.
With strong weapons for the fray, protect my soldiers;
Then, O Shamash, by oracle and dream, answer me correctly!
By thy supreme command, which is unchangeable,
May my weapons advance, and strike and overthrow the weapons of the enemies.
Nebuchadnezzar's inscriptions are characterized by the prayer with which they almost invariably close. Whether erecting a sanctuary or building a canal or improving the walls of Babylon, he does not fail to add to the description of his achievements a prayer to some deity, in which he asks for divine grace and the blessings of long life and prosperity.
There were other occasions, too, in which, both in ancient times and in more modern periods, prayers were sent up to the gods. Kudur-mabuk, of the second dynasty of Ur, informs us that he built a temple, E-nun-makh, to Sin in gratitude to the god for having hearkened to his prayer.
The Assyrian kings pray to Ashur or Ishtar before the battle, and offer thanks after the victory has been gained. "O goddess of Arbela!" says Ashurbanabal,[419] "I am Ashurbanabal, the king of Assyria, the product of thy hands, created by thee in[Pg 296] the house of my father. To renew the sanctuaries of Assyria, and to enlarge the cities of Babylonia, ... have I devoted myself to thy dwelling-places, and have steadfastly worshipped thy sovereignty.... Hearken unto me! O thou mistress of mistresses, supreme in battle, mistress of the fray, queen of the gods, ... who speakest good things in the presence of Ashur, the father, that produced thee. Teumman, king of Elam, has arrayed his army and fixed upon battle, brandishes his weapons to proceed against Assyria. Do thou now, O warrior, like ... drive him into the midst of the fray, pursue him with a storm, with an evil wind." Ishtar, the narrative tells us, hearkened to the fervent words of the king. "Be not afraid," says the goddess to her royal subject. Elsewhere the same king prays more briefly to Ashur and Ishtar. "May his corpse [viz., of a certain enemy] be cast before his enemy [i.e., before Ashurbanabal], and his remains be carried off."[420]
Upon ascending the throne, we find Nebuchadnezzar addressing a fervent prayer to the great god Marduk:
O Eternal Ruler! Lord of the Universe!
Grant that the name[421] of the king whom thou lovest,
Whose name thou hast mentioned,[422] may flourish as seems good to thee.
Guide him on the right path.
I am the ruler who obeys thee, the creation of thy hand.
It is thou who hast created me,
And thou hast entrusted to me sovereignty over mankind.
According to thy mercy, O lord, which thou bestowest upon all,
Cause me to love thy supreme rule.
Implant the fear of thy divinity in my heart,
Grant to me whatsoever may seem good before thee,
Since it is thou that dost control my life.
The curses also with which so many of the historical texts of Babylonia and Assyria close may be regarded as prayers. We are also justified in assuming that the offering of sacrifices,[Pg 297] which formed at all times an essential feature of the cult, both in Babylonia and Assyria, was always accompanied by some form of prayer addressed to some deity or to a group of deities. In view of all this, no sharp chronological line, any more than a logical one, can be drawn marking off the incantation formulas from the hymns and prayers pure and simple. The conceptions formed of the gods in the incantation texts are precisely those which we have found to be characteristic of them in the period when this phase of the religion reached its highest development. Ea is the protector of humanity, Shamash the lord of justice; and, if certain ideas that in the prayers are attached to the gods—as wisdom to Sin—are absent from the incantations, it may be regarded rather as an accident than as an indication of any difference of conception. The pantheon too, barring the omission of certain gods, is the same that we find it to be in the historical texts, and the order in which the gods are enumerated corresponds quite closely with the rank accorded to them in the inscriptions of the kings. What variations there are are not sufficiently pronounced to warrant any conclusions. All this points, as has been emphasized several times, to the subsequent remodeling of the texts in question. It is true that we find more traces of earlier and purely mythological notions in the incantations than in the hymns and prayers, but such notions are by no means foreign to the latter. Even in those religious productions of Babylonia which represent the flower of religious thought, we meet with views that reflect a most primitive mode of thought. The proper view, therefore, to take of the prayers and hymns is to regard them as twin productions to the magical texts, due to the same conceptions of the power of the gods, an emanation of the same religious spirit, and produced at the same time that the incantation rituals enjoyed popular favor and esteem, and without in any way interfering with the practice of the rites that these rituals involved.[Pg 298]
This position does not of course preclude that among the prayers and hymns that have been preserved there are some betraying a loftier spirit, a higher level of religious thought, and more pronounced ethical tendencies than others. Indeed, the one important result of the dissociation of the address to the gods from the purely practical magic rites was to produce the conditions favorable to a development of higher religious thought. An offering of praise to the gods, whether it was for victory granted or for a favor shown, called forth the best and purest sentiments of which the individual was capable. Freed from all lower associations, such an act proved an incentive to view the deity addressed from his most favorable side, to emphasize those phases which illustrated his affection for his worshippers, his concern for their needs, his discrimination, and not merely his power and strength. In short, the softer and the more humane aspects of the religion would thus be brought out. The individual would address his god in terms betraying his affection, and would couple with him attributes that would reflect the worshipper's rather than the god's view of the purpose and aim of existence. Whatever powers of idealization there lay in the worshipper's nature would be brought into the foreground by the intellectual effort involved in giving expression to his best thoughts, when aiming to come into close communion with a power upon which he felt himself dependent. For an understanding, therefore, of the ethical tendencies of the Babylonian religion, an appreciation of the prayers and hymns is of prime importance; and we shall presently see that, as a matter of fact, the highest level of ethical and religious thought is reached in some of these hymns.
The prayers of Nebuchadnezzar represent, perhaps, the best that has been attained in this branch of religious literature. Returning, for a moment, to the dedication prayer to Marduk, addressed by the king on the occasion of his mounting the[Pg 299] throne,[423] one cannot fail to be struck by the high sense of the importance of his station with which the king is inspired. Sovereignty is not a right that he can claim—it is a trust granted to him by Marduk. He holds his great office not for purposes of self-glorification, but for the benefit of his subjects. In profound humility he confesses that what he has he owes entirely to Marduk. He asks to be guided so that he may follow the path of righteousness. Neither riches nor power constitute his ambition, but to have the fear of his lord in his heart. Such a plane of thought is never reached in the incantation texts. For all that, the original dependence of the prayers and hymns upon incantation formulas, tinges even the best productions. Some of the finest hymns, in which elevated thoughts are elaborated with considerable skill, reveal their origin by having incantations attached to them. Again, others which are entirely independent productions are full of allusions to sickness, demons, and sorcerers, that show the outgrowth of the hymns from the incantations; and none are entirely free from traces of the conceptions that are characteristic of the incantation texts. The essential difference between these two classes of closely related texts may be summed up in the proposition that the religious thought which produced them both is carried to a higher point of elaboration in the hymns. The prayers and hymns represent the attempt of the Babylonian mind to free itself from a superstitious view of the relationship of man to the powers around him; an attempt, but—it must be added—an unsuccessful one.
It is rather unfortunate that many of the hymns found in the library of Ashurbanabal are in so fragmentary a condition. As a consequence we are frequently unable to determine more than their general contents. The colophons generally are missing,—at least in those hymns hitherto published,[424]—so[Pg 300] that we are left in the dark as to the special occasion for which the hymn was composed. Without this knowledge it is quite impossible to assign to it any definite date except upon internal evidence. In the course of time, the hymnal literature of the great temples of Babylonia must have grown to large proportions, and, in collecting them, some system was certainly followed by the priests engaged in this work. There is evidence of a collection having been made at some time of hymns addressed to Shamash. Some of these were intended as a salute upon the sun's rising, others celebrated his setting. These hymns convey the impression of having been composed for the worship of the god in one of his great temples—perhaps in E-babbara, at Sippar. We have several hymns also addressed to Marduk, and one can well suppose that at the great temple E-sagila, in Babylon, a collection of Marduk hymns must have been prepared, and so for others of the great gods. But, again, many of the hymns convey the impression of being merely sporadic productions—composed for certain occasions, and without any reference to a possible position in a ritual.
Of the hymns so far published, those to Shamash are probably the finest. The conception of the sun-god as the judge of mankind lent itself readily to an ethical elaboration. Accordingly, we find in these hymns justice and righteousness as the two prominent themes. A striking passage in one of these hymns reads:[425]
The law of mankind dost thou direct,
Eternally just in the heavens art thou,
[Pg 301]Of faithful judgment towards all the world art thou.
Thou knowest what is right, thou knowest what is wrong.
O Shamash! Righteousness has lifted up its neck(?);
O Shamash! Wrong like a —— has been cut(?);
O Shamash! The support of Anu and Bel art thou;
O Shamash! Supreme judge of heaven and earth art thou.
After a break in the tablet, the hymn continues:
O Shamash! Supreme judge, great lord of all the world art thou;
Lord of creation, merciful one of the world art thou.
The following lines now reveal the purpose of the hymn. It is a prayer for the life of the king:
O Shamash! on this day purify and cleanse the king, the son of his god.
Whatever is evil within him, let it be taken out.
The next few lines are a distinct echo of the incantation formulas, and show how readily prayer passes from a higher to a lower stage of thought:
The same incantation occurs at the close of another hymn to Shamash, addressed to the sun upon his rising.[428] The colophon furnishes the opening line of the next tablet, which also begins with an address to Shamash. We have here a clear indication of a kind of Shamash ritual extending, perhaps, over a number of tablets, and to which, in all probability, the hymn just quoted also belongs.
The opening lines of the second hymn read:
O Shamash! out of the horizon of heaven thou issuest forth,
The bolt of the bright heavens thou openest,
The door of heaven thou dost open.
O Shamash! over the world dost thou raise thy head.
O Shamash! with the glory of heaven thou coverest the world.
[Pg 302] It would be difficult to believe, but for the express testimony furnished by the hymn itself, that a production giving evidence of such a lofty view of the sun-god should, after all, be no more than an incantation. The same is the case, however, with all the Shamash hymns so far published. They either expressly or by implication form part of an incantation ritual. Evidently, then, such addresses to Shamash are to be viewed in no other light than the exaltation of Nusku in the 'Maklu' series,[429] and which we have found were in many cases elaborate, beautiful in diction, and elevated in thought. So—to give one more example—a hymn addressed to the sun-god at the setting, and which is especially interesting because of the metaphors chosen to describe the sun's course, is proved by the colophon to be again an incantation. It belongs to a series—perhaps, indeed, to the same as the specimens furnished:[430]
O sun-god in the midst[431] of heaven at thy setting,
May the enclosure of the pure heaven greet thee,[432]
May the gate of heaven approach thee,
May the directing god, the messenger who loves thee, direct thy way.
In E-babbara, the seat of thy sovereignty, thy supremacy rises like the dawn.
May Â, the wife whom thou lovest, come before thee with joy;
May thy heart be at rest,[433]
May the glory of thy divinity be established for thee.
O Shamash! warrior hero, mayest thou be exalted;
O lord of E-babbara, as thou marchest, may thy course be directed,
Direct thy path, march along the path fixed for thy course (?).
O Shamash! judge of the world, director of its laws art thou.
In the previous chapter, the hymns addressed to the moon-god in connection with eclipses have been referred to and short[Pg 303] specimens given. A more elaborate hymn to Sin will further illustrate the conceptions current about this deity:[434]
O lord, chief of the gods, who on earth and in heaven alone is exalted.
Father Nannar,[435] lord of increase, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, heavenly lord,
Father Nannar, moon-god, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, lord of Ur, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, lord of E-gish-shir-gal,[436] chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, lord of the brilliant crescent, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, whose sovereignty is brought to perfection, chief of the gods,
Father Nannar, who passes along in great majesty,
O strong Bull,[437] great of horns, perfect in form, with long flowing beard[438] of the color of lapus-lazuli.
Powerful one, self-created, a product (?) beautiful to look upon, whose fullness has not been brought forth,[439]
Merciful one, begetter of everything, who among living things occupies a lofty seat,
Father, merciful one and restorer, whose weapon (?) maintains the life of the whole world.
Lord, thy divinity, like the distant heaven and the wide ocean, is full (?) of fear.
Ruler of the land, protector of sanctuaries, proclaimer of their name.
Father, begetter of the gods and of men, establishing dwellings and granting gifts,
Calling to sovereignty, giving the sceptre, who decreest destinies for distant days.
Strong chief, whose wide heart embraces in mercy all that exists,
... beautiful, whose knees do not grow weary, who opens the road (?) for the gods, his brothers,
... who, from the foundation of heaven till the zenith,
Passes along in brilliancy (?), opening the door of heaven,
[Pg 304]Preparing the fate (?) of humanity.
Father, begetter of everything, ...
Lord, proclaiming the decisions of heaven and earth,
Whose command is not set aside,
... and granting water[440] for all that has life.
No god reaches to thy fullness.
In heaven who is exalted? Thou alone art exalted.
On earth who is exalted? Thou alone art exalted.
Thy strong command is proclaimed in heaven, and the Igigi prostrate themselves.
Thy strong command is proclaimed on earth, and the Anunnaki kiss the ground.
Thy strong command on high, like a storm in the darkness, passes along, and nourishment streams forth.
When thy strong command is established on the earth, vegetation sprouts forth.
Thy strong command stretches over meadows and heights, and life is increased.
Thy strong command produces right and proclaims justice to mankind.
Thy strong command, through the distant heavens and the wide earth, extends to whatever there is.
Thy strong command, who can grasp it? Who can rival it?
Lord, in heaven is [thy] sovereignty, on earth is thy sovereignty. Among the gods, thy brothers, there is none like thee.
O King of Kings, who has no judge superior to him, whose divinity is not surpassed by any other![441]
A more perfect idealization of the mythological notions connected with the moon-god can hardly be imagined. The old metaphors are retained, but interpreted in a manner that reflects higher spiritual tendencies. The moon is still figured as a bull, but it is the idea of strength that is extracted from the picture and dwelt upon. The writer still thinks of the moon as an old man with flowing beard, but he uses the figure to convey the impression of the brilliancy of the great orb. The influence of the moon upon the change of seasons, upon vegetation,—a belief which the Babylonians shared with other[Pg 305] nations,—leads the writer to extol the benign feelings of the god towards mankind. The sun-god, through the glowing heat that he develops, becomes, as we have seen, the warrior and even the destroyer, the consuming force. The moon-god is the benefactor of mankind who restores the energies of man weakened from the heat of the day. Nannar-Sin becomes the giver of life, whose mercies are extended to all. The gods and the spirits follow the example of mankind in prostrating themselves before the great orb of night. The independence of the course that he pursues in the heavens places him beyond the control of the great judge of the world, the mighty Shamash. There is no one superior to Sin, no one to whose command he must bend. With all this, there is a total absence of any allusion to his power of removing the influence of demons and witches. We have here a hymn purified from all association with the incantation texts, and there is every reason to believe that it was composed for use in the great temple at Ur, which is mentioned in the opening lines.
In the alternating question and answer we have also a valuable indication of the manner in which the hymn was to be recited or sung. The whole production appears to be arranged in a dialogue form, the lines to be alternately read by the reciting priest and the chorus of priests or worshippers. The same method is followed in other productions, while in some, as we shall see, the dialogue does not proceed in alternate lines, but is distributed among a varying number of sections. We may see in this style of composition one of the natural outcomes of the method pursued in the incantation texts, where, as will be remembered, the priest first recites the formulas, and then calls upon the individual before him to repeat it once, twice, or oftener, as the case may be. Such a custom leads to recital and responses in the hymns.
Not many of the hymns rise to such a height as the one just quoted. There were certain gods only, and after all not many,[Pg 306] whose nature was such as to make an ethical development of the conceptions formed of them possible. Besides Shamash and Sin, Ea as the god of humanity and Nebo as the god of wisdom belong to this class. Of Ea, however, no hymns have as yet been found. This may of course be accidental, and still, if one bears in mind that in the later periods of Babylonian history Ea enjoyed a theoretical popularity rather than a practical one, the absence of Ea hymns might be explained as due to the lack of a fixed ritual in the Ea temples outside of the incantation texts.[442] Ea's position, like that of Nusku, was too marked in the magical texts to encourage a conception of them entirely independent of their power to release victims from the grasp of the demons.
A hymn to Nebo, which unfortunately is preserved only in part, illustrates the extent to which polytheistic conceptions may be spiritualized:[443]
... Lord of Borsippa,
... son of E-sagila.[444]
O Lord! To thy power there is no rival power,
O Nebo! To thy power, there is no rival,
To thy house, E-zida, there is no rival,
To thy city, Borsippa, there is no rival,
To thy district, Babylon, there is no rival.
Thy weapon is U-sum-gallu,[445] from whose mouth the breath does not issue, blood does not flow.[446]
Thy command is unchangeable like the heavens.
In heaven thou art supreme.
There are still plenty of mythological allusions in this hymn that take us back to a primitive period of thought, but it is a hymn prompted by the love and reverence that Nebo inspired. Its direct connection with the Nebo cult is shown again by the[Pg 307] complementary character of each two lines. The whole hymn was probably adapted in this way to public worship.
Marduk, by virtue of his relationship to Ea, and by his independent position as the supreme god of Babylon, occupies a middle ground between Shamash, Ea, and Nusku on the one side, and such gods as Sin and Nebo on the other. Some of the hymns addressed to him end in incantations; others form part of the cult arranged for solemn occasions, when the praises of the god were sung in connection with sacrificial offerings.
In confirmation of the theory as to the relationship between magical texts and hymns above advanced, we find scarcely any difference in the grade of religious thought between these two classes of Marduk hymns. Both are equally distinguished by their fine diction. A hymn which celebrates Marduk as the restorer of the dead to life, and yet forms part of an incantation text, reads:[447]
O merciful one among the gods!
O merciful one who loveth to give life to the dead!
Marduk, king of heaven and earth,
King of Babylon, lord of E-sagila,
King of E-zida, lord of E-makh-tila,
Heaven and earth are thine.
The whole of heaven and earth are thine,
The spell affording life is thine,
The breath of life is thine,
The pure incantation of the ocean[448] is thine,
Mankind, the black-headed race,[449]
The living creatures, as many as there are, and exist on earth,
As many as there are in the four quarters,
The Igigi of the legions of heaven and earth,
As many as there are,
To thee do they incline (?).
Thou art the shedu, thou art the lamassu.
Thou restorest the dead to life, thou bringest things to completeness (?).
O merciful one among the gods!
[Pg 308] One scarcely detects any difference between such a hymn and those to Sin and Nebo. The lines are adapted, like the other specimens, for recitation by two parties. The last line forms a solemn close to a section of this hymn. In the section that follows, the same character is maintained till we approach the close, when the exorciser steps in and asks Marduk to
Expel the disease of the sick man,
The plague, the wasting disease ...
and the various classes of demons, utukku, alu, etc., are introduced.
Compare this now with some passages in a prayer addressed to Marduk:[450]
A resting-place for the lord (of E-sagila) is thy house.
A resting-place for the lord of E-makh-tila is thy house.
E-sagila, the house of thy sovereignty, is thy house.
May the city speak 'rest'[451] to thee—thy house.
May Babylon speak peace to thee[452]—thy house.
May the great Anu, the father of the gods, tell thee when there will be rest.
May the great mountain, the father of the gods,[453] tell thee when there will be rest.
Look favorably upon thy house,
Look favorably upon the city, O lord of rest!
May he restore to his place the bolt Babylon, the enclosure E-sagila, the edifice E-zida,[454]
May the gods of heaven and earth speak to thee, O lord of rest.
Here we have specific references to Marduk. Everything about the city of Babylon is associated with the god. The great gods pay homage to Marduk. The whole hymn, conceived as a royal prayer to the god, clearly formed part of the ritual prepared for the great Marduk temple at Babylon. The[Pg 309] hymn closes, as so many others, with a prayer on behalf of the king. The god is asked
To establish firmly the foundation of the throne of his sovereignty,
So that he may nourish (?) mankind to distant days.
'Rest,' in the liturgical language, implied cessation of anger. Marduk, as the 'lord of rest,' was the pacified deity; and since it was a necessary condition in obtaining an answer to petitions that the god should be free from anger, the city, the temple, and the gods are represented as unitedly speaking to him—appealing to him to be at 'rest.' The production might, therefore, be called a 'pacification hymn.' The god has shown his anger by bringing on misfortune of some shape. His divine associates are no less anxious than his human subjects to pacify the mighty god.
Passing on to another god, a hymn to the storm-god, Ramman, enables us to specify the great terror that the god, as the general source of disturbances in the heavenly phenomena, inspired. The god is addressed[455] as
The lord who in his anger holds the heavens in his control,
Ramman in his wrath the earth has shaken.
The mighty mountain—thou dost overturn it.
At his anger, at his wrath,
The gods of heaven mount up to heaven,[456]
The gods of earth enter the earth.
Into the foundation of heaven Shamash[457] enters.
The illustrations adduced will suffice to show the manner in which the Babylonians conceived the relationship between mankind and the gods. The element of fear alternated with that of love, and no matter how near the gods were felt to be, one was never certain of their good will.
Another feature of some of these hymns which calls for special mention is the introduction of the deity as himself or[Pg 310] herself taking part in the dialogue. A hymn addressed to Ishtar, as the morning and evening star,[458] belongs to this class.[459] It begins with a glorification of the goddess as the source of light, of being, and of earthly blessings. The worshipper speaks:
O light of heaven who arises like fire over the earth, who art fixed in the earth,
Thou art exalted in strength like the earth.
As for thee, a just path be graciously granted to thee
When thou enterest the house of man.
A hyena on the hunt for a young lamb art thou,
A restless lion art thou.
A destructive handmaid, the beauty of heaven,
A handmaid is Ishtar, the beauty of heaven,
Who causest all being to emanate, O beauty of heaven,
Associate (?) of the sun, O beauty of heaven!
At this point the goddess speaks, through the officiating priest, who acts as the mediator:
For determining oracles[460] I have been established, in perfection have I been established.
For determining oracles of my father Sin, I have been established, in perfection have I been established.
For determining oracles of my brother Shamash, I have been established, in perfection have I been established.
Me has my father Sin fixed, to determine oracles I have been established,
Shining anew in heaven, for determining oracles I have been established, in perfection have I been established.
From the regular repetition of the refrain at the end of each line, one is tempted to conclude that these utterances of the goddess were to be recited by an officiating priest with the assistance of a chorus of priests, to whom the refrain was assigned, or it may be that the lines were alternately recited by[Pg 311] the priest and the chorus. In the section that follows, this alternative character of the lines is more clearly indicated:
Full of delight is my majesty, full of delight is my supremacy,
Full of delight do I as a goddess walk supreme.
Ishtar, the goddess of morning am I,
Ishtar, the goddess of evening am I,
(I am) Ishtar,—to open the lock of heaven belongs to my supremacy.
Heaven I destroy, earth I devastate,[461]—such is my supremacy.
The destroyer of heaven, the devastator of the earth,—such is my majesty.
To rise up out of the foundation of heaven,
Whose fame shines among the habitation of men,—such is my supremacy.
Queen of heaven that on high and below is invoked,—such is my supremacy.
The mountain I sweep away altogether,—such is my supremacy.
The destroyer of the mountain walls am I, their great foundation am I,—such is my supremacy.
The hymn closes with a prayer that the anger of the god be appeased:
May thy heart be at rest, thy liver[462] be pacified.
By the great lord Anu, may thy heart be at rest.
By the lord, the great mountain Bel, may thy liver be pacified.
O goddess, mistress of heaven, may thy heart be at rest.
O supreme mistress of heaven, may thy liver be pacified.
O supreme mistress of the E-anna,[463] may thy heart be at rest.
O supreme mistress of the land of Erech, may thy liver be pacified.
O supreme mistress of the shining Erech, may thy heart be at rest.
O supreme mistress of the mountain of the universe, may thy liver be pacified.
O supreme mistress, queen of E-tur-kalama,[464] may thy heart be at rest.
O supreme mistress, queen of Babylon, may thy liver be pacified.
O supreme mistress, whose name is Nanâ, may thy heart be at rest.
O mistress of the house, lady of the gods, may thy liver be pacified.
[416] Inscription D, col. v. ll. 2-7.
[417] Abel-Winckler, Keilschrifttexte, p. 33, col. iii. ll. 52-58.
[418] Ball, Proc. Soc. Bibl. Arch. xi. 124 seq.
[419] Annals, Cylinder B, col. v. ll. 30-46.
[420] Without proper burial,—the greatest misfortune that could happen to the dead.
[421] I.e., life.
[422] I.e., called to the throne.
[424] The prayers and hymns of the Babylonians are only beginning to receive the attention they deserve at the hands of scholars. Sayce, e.g., in the specimens attached to his Hibbert Lectures, pp. 479-520, does not even distinguish properly between pure hymns and mere incantations. Now that Dr. Bezold's great catalogue of the Koujunjik collection of the British Museum is completed, the opportunity is favorable for some one to study the numerous unpublished fragments of hymns in the British Museum, and produce in connection with those that have been published a comprehensive work on the subject. Knudtzon's Assyrische Gebete an den Sonnengott may serve as a model for such a work.
[425] IVR. 28, no. 1.
[426] Some specification of the kind of vessel meant.
[427] Inscriptions were written on various metals,—gold, silver, antimony, lead, copper, etc.
[428] IVR. 20, no. 2.
[430] Published by Bertin in the Revue d'Assyriologie, no. 4, and translated by Sayce, Hibbert Lectures, p. 573. I adopt Sayce's translation, Bertin's publication being inaccessible to me.
[431] Probably 'horizon.'
[432] Lit., speak to thee of peace.
[433] I.e., may thy anger depart.
[434] IVR. 9.
[436] The name of Sin's temple at Ur.
[437] A metaphor descriptive of the moon, because of the resemblance of the crescent to a horn.
[439] I.e., unlike other products, the moon's fullness is self-created.
[440] A reference perhaps to the supposed influence of the moon on the tides.
[441] The rest of the hymn—some dozen lines—is too fragmentary to warrant translation.
[442] We have, however, a list (IIR. 58, no. 5) giving many titles and names of Ea that must have been prepared on the basis of Ea hymns.
[443] IVR. 20, no. 3.
[444] I.e., of Marduk.
[445] This weapon plays a part in some of the Babylonian myths.
[446] The weapon is miraculous—It kills instantly, but without causing blood to flow. The reference is to the lightning stroke.
[447] IVR. 29, no. 1.
[448] Perhaps a reference to Ea.
[450] IVR. 18, no. 2. Badly preserved.
[451] I.e., call upon thee to be pacified.
[452] I.e., salute thee.
[453] Bel.
[454] The strongly fortified city of Babylon is compared to a bolt and the temple to an enclosure.
[455] IVR. 28, no. 2.
[456] I.e., fly to a safe place.
[457] I.e., the sun is obscured.
[459] Delitzsch, Assyrische Lesestücke (3d edition), pp. 134-136.
[460] The portents taken through observation of the position of Ishtar or Venus in the heavens were of especial value.
[461] Phrases introduced to illustrate the power, not the function, of Ishtar.
[462] The liver as the seat of the emotions.
[463] I.e., house of heaven. Name of Ishtar's temple at Erech.
[464] I.e., court of the universe. Name of one of Ishtar's temples.
It will be recalled that both in the Ishtar hymn and in the one to Marduk above quoted, great stress is laid upon pacifying the deity addressed. Starting from the primitive conception that misfortunes were a manifestation of divine anger, the Babylonians never abandoned the belief that transgressions could be atoned for only by appeasing the anger of the deity. But within this limitation, an ethical spirit was developed among the Babylonians that surprises us by its loftiness and comparative purity. Instead of having recourse merely to incantation formulas, the person smitten with disease or pursued by ill fortune would turn in prayer to some god at whose instigation the evil has come and appeal for the pacification of the divine wrath. But while the origin of the so-called penitential psalms is thus closely bound up with the same order of thought that gave rise to the incantation texts, no less significant is the divorce between the two classes of compositions that begins already at an early stage of the literary period. The incantations, it is true, may be combined with compositions that belong to a higher order of religious thought. We have seen that they have been so combined, and yet the dividing line between the two is also sharply marked. Zimmern, to whom, more than to any one else, the interpretation of these penitential psalms is due, has suggested[465] that national misfortunes rather than private grievances may have given an impetus to this class of literary productions. It is true that historical references are found in some of the hymns, and it is also significant[Pg 313] that not only do these psalms occasionally embody a prayer for the king,—thus giving to them a national rather than a personal character,—but the kings are called upon in times of distress to accompany their libations to the gods with the recitation of a 'lament to quiet the heart,'[466] as the Babylonians called this class of hymns.
One can easily see how such events as defeat in war would be ascribed to divine wrath, and not to the workings of evil spirits or witches; and while the personal tone that pervades most of the penitential psalms makes them applicable to conditions affecting the individual as well as the nation, the peculiar fitness of such psalms for occasions of national importance was a powerful factor in bringing about their sharp separation from the incantation formulas.
Just as in the hymns we found that the mere contemplation of the attributes of the gods, apart from the manifestation of these attributes in any particular instance, led to a loftier interpretation of the relationship existing between the gods and mankind, so the thought that evil was due in the last instance to the anger of some god led to greater emphasis being laid upon this relationship. The anger of the god prompted both the individual and the nation to greater zeal in securing the deity's love. To an even greater extent than in the hymns is the element of love introduced into the penitential psalms, and when not directly expressed, is so clearly implied as to form the necessary complement to the conception of the divine wrath. These psalms indeed show the religious and ethical thought of Babylonia at its best. Their ethical phase manifests itself more particularly in the conception of sin which is unfolded in them. The misfortunes of life, more especially those which could not so readily be ascribed to the presence of evil spirits, filled the individual with his sense of guilt. In some way, known or unknown to him, he must have[Pg 314] offended the deity. The thought whether the deity was justified in exercising his wrath did not trouble him any more than the investigation of the question whether the punishment was meted out in accordance with the extent of the wrong committed. It was not necessary for the deity to be just; it was sufficient that some god felt himself to be offended, whether through the omission of certain rights or through an error in the performance of rites or what not. The two facts which presented themselves with overpowering force to the penitent were the anger of the deity and the necessity of appeasing that anger. Beyond this conclusion the Babylonians and Assyrians did not go, but this reasoning also sufficed to bring the conviction home to him that his misfortunes were the result of some offence. The man afflicted was a sinner, and the corollary to this position was that misfortunes come in consequence of sin. Through the evils alone which overtook one, it became clear to an individual that he had sinned against the deity. Within this circle of ideas the penitential psalms of Babylonia move. They do not pass wholly outside of the general Semitic view that sin is a 'missing of the mark,'—a failure, whether voluntary or involuntary, to comply with what was demanded by the deity under whose protection one stood. But one became conscious of having 'missed the mark' only when evil in some form—disease, ill luck, deluge, drought, defeat, destruction, storms, pecuniary losses, family discords, the death of dear ones—came to remind the individual or the nation of the necessity of securing the favor of the deity again. Still within this sphere there were great possibilities of ethical progress, and some of the Babylonian psalms breathe a spirit and are couched in a diction that have prompted a comparison with the Biblical psalms.[467] Thrown, as the sinner felt himself to be, upon the mercy of the angry deity, it mattered little what had[Pg 315] called forth this wrath or whether the deity was conceived as acting in accordance with just ideas. The thought that would engage the entire attention of the penitent would be the appeasement of his god. To effect this, he would not stop short at exaggerating his own guilt. He would manifest a contrition of spirit that would not be the less sincere for being, perhaps, out of proportion to the character of his sin when judged by our standards.
Corresponding to the humiliation of mind to which he would be brought, his longing to be reconciled to the offended deity would be intensified. He would address this deity in terms of strong endearment, magnify his or her powers, as the case may be, and belittle himself and his own worth. The result of such a mental discipline could not but react healthfully on the mind of the penitent. The penitent would arise from his prayer with a more spiritual conception of the relationship existing between himself and his god. Not appealing for any material benefits for the time being, but concerned only with appeasing the divine wrath, the single burden of his prayer "that the heart of the offended god might be 'at rest'" would be marked by an intensity all the stronger for being at least comparatively pure of grosser associations.
All these features combined serve to make the penitential psalms the flower of the religious literature of Babylonia. The productions not only represent the highest stage which religious thought reached in the Euphrates Valley, but, in a certain sense, constitute the only productions in cuneiform literature that have a permanent literary value.
We find these compositions marked by a third feature which, however, as we have already seen, is not peculiar to them,—the dialogue form. In order to bring about a reconciliation with an angered god, three personages were necessary in the drama,—the god, the penitent, and, thirdly, the priest, acting as mediator between the sinner and his deity. The deity, according[Pg 316] to Babylonian notions, could not be approached directly, but only through his chosen messengers,—the priests. This idea of mediation, as against the immediate approach, was so pronounced as to lead, as we have seen, to the frequent association with a god of a second divine personage,—his son or his servant,—through whom the petitions of mankind were brought to the throne of grace.[468] The priest was similarly conceived as the messenger of the god, and, by virtue of this office, endowed with a certain measure, at least, of divine power. He was, in the full sense, the god's vicar on earth,—his representative, who could, as we saw in the Ishtar hymn, speak in the first person on behalf of the god.[469] The more manifest mission of the priest, however, was to intercede on behalf of the mass of mankind. Accepting the sacrifices offered by the laity, it was he that secured their gracious acceptance on the part of the deity. It was the priest, as we have seen, who instructed the individual to pronounce the magic formulas that would be appropriate to his case; and just as in the incantation texts the priest accompanied the recitation of the formulas with an appeal of his own, so in the penitential psalms, he stood at the penitent's side, instructing him what to say, and emphasizing the confessions of the penitent by an assurance to the deity of the sincerity of the penitent, coupled with a fervent request that the prayer for 'appeasement,' which involved all that we mean by forgiveness, be graciously answered.
It is unfortunate that the text of none of the penitential psalms is perfectly preserved. We must, therefore, content ourselves in our illustrations with more or less imperfect extracts. It is to be noted, too, that often the exact meaning[Pg 317] of the lines escapes us, owing to the obscurity of terms employed or to the gaps in the texts themselves. With few exceptions the psalms appear in the double style characteristic of so large a section of the religious literature of the Babylonians, the 'ideographic' composition being accompanied by a phonetic transliteration. The fact, however, that we have at least one text (IVR. 59, no. 2) in the phonetic style alone, is sufficient to show that no special weight is to be attached to the supposed 'bilingual' character of the others. This double style is not a feature that need be taken into account in determining the age of this class of compositions. The historical references in some of them have prompted Zimmern to give his partial assent to the opinion which would assign them, or some of them, to the age of Hammurabi. Beyond such references, which are not as clear as they might be, we have no data through which their age can be determined; but so far as the ideas which they convey and the religious spirit manifested in them are concerned, there is no reason why they should not be assigned to as early a period as some of the incantation texts. It is characteristic of the Babylonian, as, in a measure, of all religions, that the old and the new go hand in hand; that more advanced conceptions, so far from setting aside primitive ones, can live and thrive in the same atmosphere with the latter. We may, therefore, assume that penitential psalms existed as early as 2000 B.C. Whether any of these that have been preserved go back to that period is another question. One gains the impression from a careful study of them that most of these, if not all, belong to a somewhat later period, nearer to the first millennium than to the second millennium before our era. The Assyrians adopted these psalms, as they did the other features of the religious literature of the Babylonians, and enriched the collection by productions of their own which, however, follow closely the Babylonian models.[Pg 318]
A particularly beautiful psalm, judging from the portion preserved, represents the penitent addressing his goddess—probably Ishtar—as follows:[470]
I, thy servant, full of sighs, call upon thee;
The fervent prayer of him who has sinned do thou accept.
If thou lookest upon a man, that man lives.
O all-powerful mistress of mankind,
Merciful one, to whom it is good to turn, who hears[471] sighs!
At this point the priest takes up the thread to emphasize the appeal of the penitent by adding to it his own. He prays to the goddess:
His god and goddess being angry with him, he calls upon thee,
Turn towards him thy countenance, take hold of his hand.
The penitent continues:
Besides thee, there is no guiding deity.
I implore thee to look upon me and hear my sighs.
Proclaim pacification,[472] and may thy soul be appeased.
How long, O my mistress, till thy countenance be turned towards me.
Like doves, I lament, I satiate myself with sighs.
The priest once more sums up the penitent's prayer:
With pain and ache, his soul is full of sighs;
Tears he weeps, he pours forth lament (?).
A trait which appears in many of these psalms is the anonymity beneath which the offended deity is veiled. His or her name is often not mentioned, the deity being simply referred to as god or goddess, and at times it is left doubtful whether the sinner has 'sinned' against the demands of a god or a goddess, or against several deities. This feature is not without significance.[Pg 319] In some cases, no doubt, the name of the specific deity was to be added by the penitent,[473] but in others this does not appear to be indicated. The anonymity is the natural result of the conception of sin involved in these productions. The sinner, becoming conscious of his guilt only as a conclusion drawn from the fact of his suffering from some misfortune, could only surmise, but never be entirely certain, wherein his offence consisted or what deity he had offended. In the case of the recital of incantation formulas, the question as to the offended deity was a minor one, and may indeed, at an earlier stage of thought, not have entered into consideration at all. This anonymity, therefore, which characterized the penitential psalms was not due to any advance in thought, but one can easily see how it led to such an advance. What may be called the personal aspects of the gods were less accentuated. The very fact that no particular god could in many cases be specified entailed, as a consequence, that the views held of the gods gained in abstractness. The general thought of one's dependence upon these supernatural powers, without further specification, superinduced a grouping of the gods under a common aspect, as the directors of man's fate. In short, the notion of deity, not indeed as a unit, but as a collective idea, begins to dawn in Babylonia. At the same time we must beware of exaggerating the force that this notion acquired. There is not the slightest trace of any approach to real monotheism in Babylonia, nor can it even be said that the penitential psalms constitute a bridge leading to such an approach. The strong hold that astrology at all times, and up to the latest periods, had upon both the popular and the educated mind was in itself sufficient to prevent the Babylonians from passing, to any considerable degree, beyond the stage in which the powers of nature were personified and imbued with real life. The penitential[Pg 320] psalms presuppose this belief as much as any other branch of the religious literature; they merely illustrate this belief in the purest form of which, in the course of its development, it was capable.
A psalm in which this anonymity of the offended god is more strongly brought out begins as follows.[474] The penitent prays:
O that the wrath of my lord's heart return to its former condition,[475]
O that the god who is unknown be pacified,
O that the goddess unknown be pacified,
O that the god known or unknown[476] be pacified,
O that the goddess known or unknown be pacified,
O that the heart of my god be pacified,
O that the god or goddess known or unknown be pacified!
The penitent, it will be seen, does not know whether it is a god or a goddess whom he has offended. He therefore appeals to both. He goes on to say that he is not even aware of the sin that he has committed:
The sin that I have committed I know not.
And yet he must have sinned or he would not suffer as he does. In addition to his confession, he imposes the hardship of fasting upon himself by way of penance:
Food I have not eaten;
Clear water I have not drunk.
The reference to fasting occurs so frequently in these psalms that one is tempted to conclude that such a bodily castigation was demanded by the ritual of the Babylonians:[Pg 321][477]
An offence have I unwittingly committed against my god,
A sin against my goddess unwillingly been guilty of,
O lord, my sins are many, great are my transgressions,
O my god, my sins are many, great are my transgressions,
O my goddess, my sins are many, great are my transgressions,
Known or unknown god, my sins are many, great are my transgressions.
Again the sinner protests his innocence of the wrong he has done. He only knows that
The lord has looked upon me in the rage of his heart,
A god has visited me in his wrath,
A goddess has become angry with me and brought me into pain,
A known or unknown god has oppressed me,
A known or unknown goddess has brought sorrow upon me.
I seek for help, but no one takes my hand.
I weep, but no one approaches me.
I call aloud, but no one hears me.
Full of woe, I grovel in the dust without looking up.
To my merciful god I turn, speaking with sighs.
The feet of my goddess I kiss imploringly (?).
To the known or unknown god do I speak with sighs,
To the known or unknown goddess do I speak with sighs.
O lord, look upon me, accept my lament,
O goddess, look upon me, accept my lament,
O known or unknown goddess, look upon me, accept my lament!
In this strain he proceeds for some time, until he is interrupted by the priest, who briefly adds:
O lord, do not cast aside thy servant,
Overflowing with tears,[478] take him by the hand!
The penitent closes the prayer by another and still more earnest appeal:
The sin I have committed change to mercy,
The wrong I have done, may the wind carry off.
Tear asunder my many transgressions as a garment.
[Pg 322]My god, my sins are seven times seven,[479] forgive me my sins.
My goddess, my sins are seven times seven, forgive me my sins,
Known or unknown god, my sins are seven times seven, forgive me my sins.
Known or unknown goddess, my sins are seven times seven, forgive me my sins.
Forgive me my sins and I will humble myself before thee.
May thy heart be glad[480] as the heart of the mother that has given birth,
May thy heart be glad as that of a mother who has given birth, as that of a father who has begotten a child.
The proportions between the parts taken by the priest and penitent vary considerably. In the one quoted, the priest is only incidentally introduced; in others,[481] it is the penitent who plays the minor part. The penitential ritual varied accordingly; but since we cannot discover here, as we could in the case of the incantation texts, the special occasions for the variations, except for those that contain historical references, one must suppose that they could be used indifferently at the choice of the penitent or the priest. It is probable that at one time a large collection of such psalms was made in Babylonia, and that those we have represent compositions made from the rituals of various temples. In one psalm we have a distinct statement from which we may conclude that it belonged to the E-sagila temple at Babylon. Only a portion of it is preserved.[482] It is interesting, also, because of a reference to a dream that it contains, and which the god of Babylon is called upon to convert into a favorable sign for the petitioner. Zimmern is of the opinion that the hymn may have been an evening prayer, but it seems more satisfactory to place it merely in the general category of penitential psalms, with a request for a sign that the deity has been appeased. The sinner, after describing his woeful state,—
proceeds to a fervent appeal:
O my god who art angry with me, accept my prayer,
O my goddess who art wroth with me, accept my appeal,
Accept my appeal, may thy liver be at rest!
My lord in mercy and compassion [look upon me?]
Who guides the span of life against the encroachments (?) of death, accept my prayer!
O my goddess, look upon me, accept my appeal;
May my sins be forgiven,[484] my transgressions be wiped out.
May the ban be loosened, the chain broken,
May the seven winds carry off my sighs.
Let me tear away my iniquity, let the birds carry it to heaven,
Let the fish take off my misfortune, the stream carry it off.
May the beasts of the field take it away from me,
The flowing waters of the stream wash me clean.
Let me be pure like the sheen of gold.
As a ring (?) of precious stone, may I be precious before thee.
Remove my iniquity, save my soul.
Thy [temple] court I will watch, thy image (?) I will set up.[485]
Grant to me that I may see a favorable dream,
The dream that I see, let it be favorable,
The dream that I see, let it be unfailing,
The dream that I see, turn it to a favorable [issue].
The god Makhir (?), the god of dreams stand at my head.
Let me enter into E-sagila, the temple of the gods, the house of life.
Commend me to Marduk, the merciful one, for favor,
I will be subservient to thy greatness, I will exalt thy divinity.
There follows a line from which one may further conclude that the psalm is one composed for the royal chief of[Pg 324] Babylonia. It is evidently only a ruler who can assure the deity that
The inhabitants of my city,[486] may they glorify thy power.
We know from the historical texts that previous to a military engagement the kings were particularly desirous of some sign from the deity that might serve to encourage the soldiery. Such a sign was ordinarily a dream. The circumstances, therefore, seem to point to our psalm being a royal prayer for forgiveness of transgressions, uttered before some impending national crisis, in the hope of securing, with the divine pardon, the protection of the deity who, up to this point in the campaign, must have manifested his displeasure rather than his favor. More distinct references to national events are found in another royal penitential psalm:[487]
How long, O my mistress, will the mighty foe oppress thy land,
In thy great city Erech famine has settled,
In E-ulbar, the house of thy oracle, blood is poured out like water,
Throughout thy districts he has kindled conflagrations, and poured [fire] over them in columns (?).[488]
O my mistress, I am abundantly yoked to misfortune,
O my mistress, thou hast encompassed me, thou hast brought me into pain,
The mighty foe has trodden me down as a reed,
I have no judgment, I have no wisdom,
Like a 'dry field' I am desolate night and day,
I thy servant beseech thee,
May thy heart be at rest, thy liver be pacified.
At times specific requests are inserted into these hymns, such as release from physical ills. Sickness being, as any other evil, due to divine anger, the sick man combines with his prayer for forgiveness of the sin of which he is guilty, the hope that his disease, viewed as the result of his sin, may be removed.[Pg 325] A hymn addressed to Ishtar of Nineveh by Ashurnasirbal, a king of Assyria,[489] is of this character. It begins by an adoration of the goddess, who is addressed as
The producer, the queen of heaven, the glorious lady,
To the one who dwells in E-babbara ... who hath spread my fame,
To the queen of the gods to whom has been entrusted the commands of the great gods,
To the lady of Nineveh ...
To the daughter of Sin, the twin-sister of Shamash, ruling over all kingdoms,
Who issues decrees, the goddess of the universe,
To the lady of heaven and earth, who receives prayer, who hearkens to the petition, who accepts beseeching,
To the merciful goddess who loves righteousness.
The king calls upon Ishtar to listen to his prayers:
Look upon me, O lady, so that through thy turning towards me the heart of thy servant may become strong.
Ashurnasirbal appeals to the goddess on the ground of what he has done to promote the glory of the goddess in his land. He has devoted himself to the service of the goddess. He has observed the festivals in her honor. He has repaired her shrines. No less than fourteen images of the goddess were set up by the king. Nay, more, he claims that before his days Ishtar was not properly worshipped.
I was without understanding, and did not pray to thy ladyship,
The people of Assyria also lacked judgment, and did not approach thy divinity;
But thou, O Ishtar, mighty weapon of the great gods,
By thy grace[490] thou didst instruct me, and didst desire me to rule.
The statement that the Ishtar cult was introduced or even reinstated by Ashurnasirbal can hardly be taken literally; but[Pg 326] it distinctly points to a movement in the days of the dynasty to which the king belonged, that brought the worship of the goddess into great prominence.
In return for all that he has done to the house of Ishtar, the king pleads:
I, Ashurnasirbal, full of affliction, thy worshipper,
Who takes hold of thy divine staff,
Who prays to thy sovereignty,
Look upon me and let me appeal to thy power!
May thy liver be appeased for that which has aroused thy anger;
Let thy whole heart be strong towards me.
Make my disease come forth and remove my sin,
Let thy mouth, O lady, proclaim forgiveness.
The priestly vassal who worships thee without change,
Grant him mercy and cut off his affliction.
The historical references found in the penitential psalms are valuable indications, not only for determining the age of these compositions, but for ascertaining the occasions on which they were employed. Neither the Babylonian nor the Assyrian rulers ever reveal to us in their official annals or dispatches any check that they may have encountered in their careers or any misfortune that may have occurred to them or to the state. These psalms tell their own story. They point to seasons of distress, when recourse had to be taken to appeals to the gods, accompanied by the confession of wrongs committed. As against the incantations which are the outcome of the purely popular spirit, and which are the natural expression of popular beliefs, the penitential psalms seem to represent a more official method of appealing to the gods. The advance in religious thought which these productions signal may, therefore, be due, in part at least, to a growing importance attached to the relationship existing between the gods and the kingdom as a whole, as against the purely private pact between a god and his worshippers. The use of these psalms by Assyrian rulers, among[Pg 327] whom the idea of the kingdom assumes a greater significance than among the Babylonians, points in this direction. It is significant, at all events, that such psalms were also produced in Assyria; and while they are entirely modeled upon the earlier Babylonian specimens, the contribution to the religious literature thus made in the north must be regarded, not as the outcome of the extension of the literary spirit prevailing in Babylonia, but as prompted by a special significance attached to the penitential ritual in removing the obstacles to the advancement of the affairs of state.
Despite, therefore, the elevated thought and diction found in these psalms, there is a close bond existing between them and the next branch of the religious literature to be taken up,—the oracles and omens, which similarly stand in close contact with affairs of state, and to which, likewise, additions, and indeed, considerable additions, to the stock received from Babylonia were made by the Assyrian literati.[Pg 328]
[465] Babylonische Busspsalmen, pp. 1, 2.
[466] I.e., of the deity.
[467] See an article by Francis Brown, "The Religious Poetry of Babylonia," Presbyterian Review, 1888.
[468] Compare the relationship existing between Ea and Marduk, noted above, p. 276. Similarly, Nusku was the messenger to Bel. See p. 279.
[469] On the wider aspects of this conception of the priest among ancient nations, see Frazer, The Golden Bough, passim.
[470] Zimmern, no. 1; IVR. 29, no. 5.
[471] Lit., 'accepts.'
[472] In the original appears a phrase which signifies literally 'when at last,'—an abbreviation for 'when will there be rest,' and which has become a kind of technical phrase to indicate, again, the hoped-for pacification of the deity.
[473] The colophon to one of them (IVR. 10, Reverse 52) declares that the production in question is a "penitential psalm for any god whatsoever."
[474] IVR. 10. Zimmern, no. 4.
[475] I.e., be pacified.
[476] I.e., 'whoever he may be,' as we would say.
[477] Among many nations fasting is resorted to as a means of atonement. It must have been common among the Hebrews during the period of the Babylonian exile—perhaps through Babylonian influence. See Isaiah, lviii. 3.
[478] Lit., rushing water.
[479] I.e., very numerous.
[480] Be pacified.
[481] E.g., IVR. 61.
[482] Ib. 59, no. 2.
[483] Delitzsch, Assyr. Wörterbuch, p. 378. In another psalm the penitent says similarly, "Food I have not eaten, weeping is my nourishment, water I have not drunk, tears are my drink."
[484] Lit., 'released.' The underlying metaphor represents the individual held fast by sin, just as the demons seize hold of a man.
[485] A somewhat puzzling line, but which appears to convey the promise on the part of the penitent that if forgiven he will observe the rites demanded by the deity.
[486] Babylon.
[487] IVR 19, no. 3; Zimmern, no. 5.
[488] Like a column. The metaphor is the same as in the Biblical phrase, "column of smoke."
[489] Published by Brünnow, Zeits. f. Assyr. v. 66 seq. The king mentions his father, Shamshi-Ramman, in the hymn. If this is Shamshi-Ramman III., the date of the hymn would be c. 1100 B.C.
[490] Lit., 'lifting up of thy eyes.'
A strong element of magic, we have seen, was always present in the hymns and prayers of the Babylonians, and even in such as contained religious sentiments of an elevated and pure character. The finest prayer has almost invariably tacked on to it an incantation, or constitutes in itself an incantation. Accompanying the prayer were offerings to the deity addressed, or certain symbolical rites, or both, and the efficacy of the prayer was supposed to reside partly in the accompanying acts and partly in the mystic power of the words of the prayer as such. In large measure this indissoluble association of prayer and incantation is due to the circumstance that both Babylonians and Assyrians addressed their deities only when something was desired of the latter,—the warding off of some evil or the expectation of some favor. Even in the penitential psalms, that merit the term 'sublime,' the penitent pours out his soul at the shrine of grace in order to be released from some misfortune that has come over him or that is impending. Mere praise of the gods without any ulterior motive finds no place in the Babylonian or Assyrian ritual. The closest approach to this religious attitude may perhaps be seen in the prayers attached by the kings to their commemorative or dedicatory inscriptions. One feels that the rulers are impelled to do this from a certain sense of love and devotion to their protecting deities. Nebuchadnezzar's prayers form a conspicuous example of the strength which pure love and attachment to the gods acquired in Babylonia; but even in these specimens, a request of some kind—usually for long life and prosperity—is made. The spiritualization[Pg 329] of the Babylonian religion has in this way most definite limitations imposed upon it. There is a point beyond which it could not go without giving rise to a totally changed conception of the gods and their relationship to men. Prayer in its higher form, as the result of an irresistible prompting of the emotions, without any other purpose than the longing to come into closer communion with a superior Power, involves such a change in religious conceptions, and hence is conspicuous in the Babylonian ritual by its absence.
A request of some kind being thus the motive that lies behind the Babylonian prayers, it follows that the means taken to ascertain the will or intention of the gods with regard to that request formed an essential feature of the ritual. Indeed, to ascertain the will of a deity constituted one of the most important functions of the priest—perhaps the most important function. The prayer was of no use unless it was answered, and the priest alone could tell whether the answer was afforded. The efforts of the priest were accordingly directed towards this end—the prognostication of the future. What was the intention of the deity? Would the hoped-for deliverance from evil be realized? Would the demon of disease leave the body? Would the symbolical acts, burning of effigies, loosening of knots, and the like, have the desired effect? Upon the success of the priest in performing this function of prognostication everything depended, both for himself and for the petitioner.
The natural and indeed necessary complement to the priest as exorciser is the priest as the forecaster of the future. Since no one, not even the king, could approach a deity directly, the mediation of the priest was needed on every occasion of a religious import. The ordinary means at the disposal of the priest for ascertaining the divine will or caprice were twofold,—directly through oracles or indirectly by means of omens derived from an examination of the sacrifices offered. A complete Babylonian ritual therefore required, besides the appeal[Pg 330] made by the petitioner through the priests or with their assistance, an incantation introduced in some form, an offering, certain symbolical acts and omens. The offerings and the symbolical acts, as a matter of fact, appear to have preceded[491] the prayer and the incantation, but in the prayers they are referred to again, and generally just before the interpretation of the omens. The omens constituted the ulterior end in view. Because of the looked-for omens the offering was brought, the symbolical acts performed, the incantations recited. All these rites formed the preparation for the grand finale. The worshipper waited anxiously for the decision of the priest. Attached, therefore, to the prayers we frequently find directions intended for the priests as to the signs to which his attention should be directed, certain peculiarities exhibited in parts of the animal sacrificed from which certain conclusions may be drawn. The observation of these signs grows to the dimensions of a science equal in extent to the observation of the heavenly bodies whose movements, as indeed the whole of the natural world, were supposed to exert an influence over the fate of mankind.
It does not of course follow that in the case of every prayer an elaborate ritual was observed. Many of the prayers to the gods in their present form do not embody omens, as indeed many contain no reference to offerings or symbolical acts. While no conclusion can be drawn from this circumstance, since the omission may be due to the point of view from which in a given case a collection of prayers was made by the priest, still we may well believe that for the exorcising of evil spirits the utterance of sacred formulas was often considered quite sufficient. In the earlier stages of the Babylonian religion the priest's function may have ended when he had exorcised the demons by means of magic words. The demons were forced to yield. If they nevertheless held out, so much the worse for them or—for the priest, who, it was concluded, must have lost[Pg 331] his power over the spirits through some error committed by him. The resort to omens has wider aspects, as will presently be shown, than the connection with prayers and offerings, and a most reasonable view is that omens were first introduced into prayers on occasions when a worshipper wished to ascertain the will of a deity for a certain purpose, and to regulate his own conduct accordingly. In petitioning the deity a sacrifice was naturally offered. Through the sacrifice, which was rendered acceptable to the deity by the mediation of the priest, the desired answer to a question was obtained. From being resorted to in such instances, omens would naturally come to form part of the ritual for almost any occasion when a deity was appealed to, both in connection with incantations and symbolical acts when the omens would form a supplement to the magic element in the ritual, as well as in cases where no specific incantations are introduced. In both cases the omens would constitute the means resorted to for ascertaining whether the petitioner might look for a favorable reply to a request proffered or, in a more general way, find out anything that it may be important for him to know. The occasions for consulting the deity would be of a public or private character. How far it became customary for the general public to secure the mediation of a priest for securing aid from the gods in matters appertaining to personal welfare we have no means of definitely determining. We find, for example, a son consulting an oracle on behalf of his father in order to ascertain what day would be favorable for undertaking some building operation,[492] and he receives the answer that the fourth of the month will be propitious; and so there are other occasions on which private individuals consult the priests, but in general it was only on occasions of real distress that an individual would come to the sanctuary,—to seek relief from bodily ills, to ward off blows of adversity, to pacify a deity who has manifested his[Pg 332] or her displeasure. The expense involved—for the worshipper was not to appear empty-handed—would of itself act as a deterrent against too frequent visits to a sanctuary.
The public welfare occupied a much larger share in the Babylonian worship. In order to ensure the safety of the state, occasions constantly arose when the deities had to be consulted. It is no accident that so many of the prayers—the hymns and psalms—contain references to kings and to events that transpired during their reigns. In these references the occasions for the prayers are to be sought. Remarkable as is the expression which the consciousness of individual guilt finds in the religious literature of Babylonia, the anger of the deity against his land is much more prominently dwelt upon than the manifestation of his wrath towards an individual. It could not be otherwise, since the welfare of the state conditioned to so large an extent the happiness of the individual. The startling phenomena of nature, such as an eclipse, a flood, a storm, while affecting individuals were not aimed directly at them, but at the country viewed as the domain of a certain god or of certain gods. Blighted crops, famine, and pestilence had likewise a public as well as a private aspect. On all such occasions the rulers would proceed to the sanctuaries in order, with the assistance of the priests, to pacify the angered god. It was not sufficient at such times to pronounce sacred formulas, to make fervent appeals, but some assurances had to be given that the words and the symbolical acts would have the desired effect. Omens were sought for from the animals offered. There were other occasions besides those stated, when for the sake of the public welfare oracles were sought at the sanctuaries. If a public improvement was to be undertaken, such as the building of a palace, or of a temple, of a canal, or a dam, it was of the utmost importance to know whether the enterprise was acceptable to the deity. A day had to be carefully chosen for laying the foundations, when the god would be favorably[Pg 333] disposed towards his subjects,—the kings under whose auspices such work was carried on. Similar precautions had to be taken to select a favorable day for the dedication. This again was determined by means of omens either derived from offerings or in some other way. The Babylonians and Assyrians believed, as did the Jews upon their return from the Babylonian exile, that 'unless the lord assists, the builders work in vain.' When we come to military campaigns where the individual disappears altogether in the presence of the majestic figure of the state, the will and disposition of the gods had to be consulted at every step,—regarding the plans of the enemy, at the enemy's approach, before the battle, in the midst of the fray, and at its termination.
The frequency with which the gods were approached in the interests of the state and the public weal, plied with questions upon which the fate of the land depended, is shown by the stereotyped form which such official solicitations in the course of time acquired. Dating from the reigns of Esarhaddon and Ashurbanabal we have an elaborate series of prayers addressed to the sun-god, all dealing with questions of a political import. These prayers, so admirably edited and analyzed by Knudtzon,[493] are all arranged according to a single pattern. Each one opens with a question or series of questions which Shamash, the sun-god, is asked to answer. The god is then implored not to be angry, but to lend his aid against any errors unwittingly committed in the sacrificial rites. For a second time the same question is put in a somewhat varying form. Another appeal is made, and the various omens derived from the inspection of animals are interpreted as a guide to the priests. According to the application of these omens to the sacrifice before the priest, a decision is rendered. It will be sufficient for our purposes to present a single specimen of such a fixed ritual.[494]
[Pg 334] Esarhaddon, being hard pressed by a group of nations to the northeast of Assyria, led by a certain Kashtariti, and among whose followers the Gimirrites, the Medes, and Manneans are the most prominent, asks for an oracle from Shamash as to the outcome of the situation. The priest, acting as mediator, addresses[495] the god:
O Shamash! great lord! As I ask thee, do thou in true mercy answer me.
From this day, the 3d day of this month of Iyar[496] to the 11th day of the month of Ab[497] of this year, a period of one hundred days and one hundred nights is the proscribed term for the priestly activity.[498]
Will within this period, Kashtariti, together with his soldiery, will the army of the Gimirrites, the army of the Medes, will the army of the Manneans, or will any enemy whatsoever succeed in carrying out their plan, whether by strategy (?) or by main force, whether by the force of weapons of war and fight or by the ax, whether by a breach made with machines of war and battering rams[499] or by hunger, whether by the power residing in the name of a god or goddess,[500] whether in a friendly way or by friendly grace,[501] or by any strategic device, will these aforementioned, as many as are required to take a city, actually capture the city Kishassu, penetrate into the interior of that same city Kishassu, will their hands lay hold of that same city Kishassu, so that it falls into their power? Thy great divine power knows it.[502]
The capture of that same city, Kishassu, through any enemy whatsoever, within the specified period, is it definitely ordained by thy great and divine will, O Shamash! Will it actually come to pass?[503]
[Pg 335] It will be observed that, much as in a legal document, all contingencies are enumerated. In other prayers, still more are mentioned. A definite answer is required, and care is taken not to leave any loophole open by means of which the deity may escape from the obligation imposed upon him to manifest his intention. Shamash might answer that the city will not be captured, with the mental reservation that it will surrender, or he might throw Esarhaddon off his guard by announcing that "not by might nor by strength" will the city be taken, and the king may be surprised some morning to learn that the catastrophe has been brought about through the power residing in the 'word.' These precautions were taken, not so much because it was supposed that the gods and priests were tricky, but because all conditions had to be carefully fulfilled in order to ensure an answer, and, if at all possible, of course a favorable answer. To the same end, great care had to be taken that in the preparation of the offering which accompanied the prayer no mistake should be made. The sacrificial animal—in the case before us a lamb—had to be guarded against all imperfections, impurities, and contaminations. The priest had to be careful to put on the proper dress, to speak the proper words, and to be himself free from any ritualistic impurity. Before proceeding to the inspection of the animal, in order to forecast the future, the priest had to take care that nothing might happen to interfere with the proper observation of the rites. This section of the prayer is characterized by the word "ezib" repeated at the beginning of every line, and which conveys the appeal that what follows may be precluded from happening.[504] The priest first prays to Shamash:
[Pg 336]Preclude that after the specified period [the catastrophe may not come to pass],
Preclude whatever they [i.e., the enemies] may plan may not be carried out (?),
Preclude them from making a slaughter and from plundering....
Whether the decision of this day be good or bad, ward off a stormy day with pouring rain.
This last phrase, which is somewhat obscure, seems to be a request made in the contingency of an unfavorable omen being received. The sun-god is asked, at all events, not to hide his countenance under clouds and rain on the decisive day of battle. Coming after these preliminary requests to the sacrifice, the priest continues:
Prevent anything unclean from defiling the place of inspection,[505]
Prevent the lamb of thy divinity, which is to be inspected, from being imperfect and unfit.
Guard him who takes hold of the body of the lamb, who is clothed in the proper sacrificial dress, from having eaten, drunk, or handled anything unclean.
Make his hand firm (?), guard the seer, thy servant, from speaking a word hastily.[506]
The priest thereupon repeats his question to the sun-god:
I ask thee, O Shamash! great lord! whether from the 3d day of this month of Iyar, up to the 11th day of the month of Ab of this year, Kashtariti, with his soldiers, whether the Gimirrites, the Manneans, the Medes, or whether any enemy whatsoever will take the said city, Kishassu, enter that said city, Kishassu, seize said city, Kishassu, with their hands, obtain it in their power.
The various terms used in describing the taking of a city are once more specified, so as to fulfill all the demands of definiteness in the question.[Pg 337]
The priest is now ready to proceed with an examination of the animal before him. A varying list of omens are introduced into the prayers under consideration. That they are so introduced is a proof of the official character of these texts. The omens were not, of course, intended to be recited. They are enumerated as a guide to the priests. The various signs that may be looked for are noted, and according to what the priest finds he renders his decision. Knudtzon has made the observation[507] that in the prayers published by him, the signs found on the animal are noted but not interpreted. This rather curious omission is again naturally accounted for on the assumption that these prayers in their present form are part of a ritual compiled solely for the benefit of priests attached to a Shamash sanctuary. Full directions were not required. All that the priest needed was to know what to look for. For the rest, he depended upon tradition or his own knowledge or judgment. The omens themselves, or rather the signs, refer to the condition in which certain parts of the animal are found or to peculiarities in the composition of the animal.
The priest is instructed to observe whether 'at the nape on the left side' there is a slit; whether 'at the bottom on the left side of the bladder' some peculiarity[508] is found or whether it is normal; whether 'the nape to the right side' is sunk and split or whether the viscera are sound. The proportions, too, in the size of the various parts of the body appear to have been of moment; and in this way, a large number of points are given to which the priest is to direct his attention. From a combination of all peculiarities and signs in a given instance, he divines the disposition of the god addressed, whether it is favorable or not. The whole ceremony is brought to a close by another appeal to the god to send an answer to the question put to him. The priest prays:[Pg 338]
By virtue of this sacrificial lamb, arise and grant true mercy, favorable conditions of the parts of the animal, a declaration favorable and beneficial be ordained by thy great divinity. Grant that this may come to pass. To thy great divinity, O Shamash! great lord! may it[509] be pleasing,[510] and may an oracle be sent in answer!
In some of the prayers a second series of omen indications are given. What the oracle announced we are, of course, not told. The ritual is not concerned with results.
From the analysis just given it will be seen that the consultation of a deity was often entailed with much ceremony. No doubt the priests did all in their power to add to the solemnity of such an occasion. The kings on their side showed their lavishness in furnishing victims for the sacrifice. Again and again does Esarhaddon solicit Shamash to reveal the outcome of the military campaigns in which the king was engaged. The same individual, Kashtariti, and the Gimirrites, Medes, etc., are mentioned in many other prayers prepared in the course of the campaign; and elsewhere other campaigns are introduced. What Esarhaddon did, no doubt his successors also did, as he himself followed the example set by his predecessors. We are justified, then, in concluding that a regular 'oracle and omen ritual' was developed in Babylonia and Assyria—how early it is of course impossible to say. There is every reason to believe that in some form such a ritual existed in Babylonia before the rise of Assyria, but it is also evident that in a military empire like Assyria, there would be more frequent occasion for securing oracles than in Babylonia. The ritual may therefore have been carried to a greater degree of perfection in the north. The Assyrian conquerors, if we may judge from examples, were fond of asking for an oracle at every turn in the political situation. The king intends to send an official to a foreign land, but he is uncertain as to the wisdom of his decision. Accordingly, he[Pg 339] puts the case before the god. If this decision is taken, he asks, Will the envoy carry out the orders of the king?
Thy great divinity knows it.
Is it commanded and ordained by thy great divinity,
O Shamash? Is it to come to pass?[511]
In a similar way, questions are asked with reference to the course of a campaign. Will the Assyrian king encounter the king of Ethiopia, and will the latter give battle? Will the king return alive from the campaign? is a question frequently asked. Even for their quasi-private affairs, the kings sought for an oracle. Before giving his daughter in marriage to a foreign potentate, Esarhaddon desires to know whether the one seeking this favor, Bartatua, the king of Ishkuza,[512]
is to be trusted, will he fulfill his promises, will he observe the decrees of Esarhaddon, the king of Assyria, and execute them in good faith?
Again, when the king is about to associate his son with himself in the government, he first inquires whether this is agreeable to the deity.[513] The king fears lest his son may cause trouble, may provoke dissensions. Past experience prompts him to be careful before following his inclination.
Is the entrance of Siniddinabal, the son of Esarhaddon, the king of Assyria, whose name is written on this tablet, into the government in accord with the command of thy great divinity? Is it to come to pass?
The reference to the writing of the name is interesting. It would appear that the question is actually written by the priest and placed before the deity. The Greeks similarly put their questions to the Delphian oracle in writing. May it be that among the Babylonians the answer of the god was at times also[Pg 340] handed down on a tablet, as the Greek and Roman oracles were communicated in writing on the leaves of a tree?
If sickness entered the royal house, an oracle was likewise sought. The king is sick. Is it ordained that he will recover? We are told in one case that[514]
Nikâ, the mother of Esarhaddon, the king of Assyria, is sick. She sees the hand of the goddess Nanâ of Uruk laid heavily upon her.... Is it ordained that this hand will be lifted off from the sufferer?
The occasions, it is evident, were exceedingly numerous when the Assyrian rulers appealed to the priests for oracles. Naturally, this appeal was not in all cases made with the elaborate formality illustrated by Esarhaddon's petitions to Shamash. At times the monarch, as the individual, would content himself with sending to the priest for an answer to a question, and the priest would reply in an equally simple and direct manner. Quite a number of such messages, sent by priests to their master, are included in the valuable publication of 'Assyrian Letters,' begun by Professor R. F. Harper.[515] The king's son wishes to set out on a journey. The father sends to the astrologers Balasi and Nabu-akheirba, and receives the reply:[516]
As for Ashur-mukinpalea, about whom the king, our lord, has sent to us, may Ashur, Bel, Nabu, Sin, Shamash, and Ramman bless him. May the king, our lord, witness his welfare (?). Conditions are favorable for the journey. The second day is favorable, the fourth day very favorable.
Similarly, the astrologers send reports regarding the appearance and position of the moon and the stars, and of various phenomena that had to be taken into account in moments where decisive action had to be taken.[Pg 341]
Before leaving the subject, it may be of interest to point out that among the literary remains of the Assyrian period there are "blank formulas" for oracles, the names in each instance to be filled out by the officiating priest. Such formulas were prepared, no doubt, for cases of common occurrence. Thus Esarhaddon, before appointing a person to a responsible position, took the precaution of ascertaining from some deity whether the appointment was a wise one. The name of the individual being written down, the priest asks the deity in a general way:[517]
Will the man whose name appears on this tablet, and whom he [the king] is about to appoint to such and such a position, keep good faith, or will he manifest hostility towards the king, inciting to rebellion?
Esarhaddon may have had a special reason for using precautions against his officials, and even his sons. He came to the throne during a rebellion which involved the assassination of his father. Esarhaddon's own brothers were the murderers. We may well suppose that he trembled at every step he took, but his position is after all characteristic of the Assyrian rulers in general, many of whom came to the throne by violence and maintained themselves through force.
Other texts enable us to study the form of the oracles themselves. As yet, no oracle texts have been found belonging to the older Babylonian period, but we have again every reason to believe that what holds good for the days of Assyrian power applies to a much earlier period, though at the same time the greater frequency with which Assyrian rulers were wont to ply their gods with questions would increase the number of those whose special business it was to pronounce the oracles. The manifold duties of the priesthood would tend towards a differentiation of the priests into various classes. The priest, as exorciser, would become distinct from the priest as the inspector[Pg 342] of omens; and the latter different again from the pronouncer of oracles. From the fact that Marduk was regarded as the special god of oracles by the Assyrians as well as the Babylonians,[518] we may conclude that this differentiation of the priestly classes took place already in the south, or at all events that oracle-giving as a distinct priestly function was recognized in Babylonia and carried over to the northern empire. If we may draw a general conclusion from the state of affairs in Esarhaddon's days, this function was largely in the hands of women. We know from other evidence that women were attached to the temple service from ancient times.[519] As sorceresses, too, they occupied a quasi-priestly position, since their help could be invoked in driving evil spirits into the person of one's enemy. The oracle-giver and the sorcerer or sorceress are correlated personages in religion. For various reasons—in part, perhaps, because of her physical differences from man—woman was invested with a certain mystery by ancient nations.[520] Hence the fact that among so many nations witchcraft is associated with woman, and similarly among many nations women perform the functions of the oracle. In a series of eight oracles addressed to Esarhaddon,[521] six are given forth by women. These oracles, it so happens, all issue from the goddess Ishtar of Arbela. The cult of this goddess at Arbela stood in high favor in the eighth century B.C. An influential body of priests congregated there, and the eight oracles in question appear to be a part of a more extensive collection made by the theologians of Arbela, of whose intellectual activity there are other traces. Arbela appears to have developed a special school of theology, marked by the attempt to accord a superior position to the great goddess Ishtar.
[Pg 343] The one who pronounces the oracle speaks on behalf of Ishtar, and therefore employs the first person. The oracles all have reference to political events. They cannot, of course, be the answers to the questions asked in the prayers analyzed above, since these were addressed to the sun-god; but we may feel certain that the oracles of the Shamash priests or priestesses were much of the same order, varying only in minor particulars. The goddess invariably encourages the king. The priest, it would appear, hears the voice of the deity in the wind.
Fear not! The wind which speaks to thee—
Comes with speech from me, withholding nothing.[522]
Thine enemies, like the ... of Siwan,[523]
At thy feet will be poured out.
The great mistress am I.
I am Ishtar of Arbela, who forces thine enemies to submission.
Is there any utterance of mine that I addressed to thee upon which thou couldst not rely?
I am Ishtar of Arbela.
Thine enemies, the Ukkites (?), I give to thee, even I, Ishtar of Arbela.
In front and behind thee I march.
Fear not!
This oracle, we are told in the subscript, was pronounced by a certain Ishtar-la-tashiat, a son [i.e., a native] of Arbela. The dignity of the diction is very marked. The very frequent assurance 'fear not' and the solemn repetition of 'I am Ishtar' lend impressiveness to the message. The oracle, it will be seen, deals in general phrases. This indefiniteness characterizes most of them; and the more impressive the diction, the greater vagueness in the statements made. So an oracle, coming from Ishtar and Nabu and uttered by a woman Baya, a native of Arbela, announces:[Pg 344]
Fear not, Esarhaddon,
I, the lord, to thee do I speak.
The beams of thy heart I strengthen as thy mother,[524]
Who gave thee life.
Sixty great gods are with me[525]
Drawn up to protect thee.
The god Sin is on thy right, Shamash on thy left.
Sixty great gods are round about thee
Drawn up in battle array in the center of the citadel.
On men do not rely.
Lift up thine eyes to me. Look up to me!
I am Ishtar of Arbela.
Ashur is gracious to thee.
Thy weakness I will change to strength (?).
Fear not! glorify me!
Is not the enemy subdued
Who has been handed over to thee?
I proclaim it aloud,
What has been will be.[526]
I am Nabu, the lord of the willing tablet,
Glorify me.
A message of this kind could hardly have been satisfactory except as a general encouragement.
The popularity of the Nabu cult in Assyria, it will be recalled, is an offset against the supremacy of Marduk in the south. The Assyrian kings found it to their interest to incorporate as much of the Babylonian cult as was possible into their own religious ritual. To Shamash they assigned the rôle played by Marduk. There was no danger in paying homage to Nabu, the son of Marduk. Ishtar they regarded as their own goddess quite as much as Ashur. These four deities, therefore, Ishtar, Shamash, Nabu, and Ashur, are the special gods of oracles recognized by the Assyrian rulers. Marduk, who is the chief source of oracles[Pg 345] in the south, is more rarely appealed to in the north, though of course recognized as powerful. He could not be expected to regard with favor an empire that so seriously threatened his supremacy in the pantheon.
The occasion when an oracle was announced was often one of great solemnity. Just as the prayers in which the questions of the kings were embodied were carefully written out, so that the priest in reciting them might not commit any mistakes, so the answer to the prayers were transmitted to the king in writing. Among the oracles of the days of Esarhaddon, there is one coming from Ashur in which the ceremonies accompanying the deliverance are instanced.[527] The oracle deals with the Gimirrites, the same people in regard to whom Esarhaddon so often consults the sun-god. It is marked by the more definite character of its announcements when compared with others. The text is in the form of a communication made to the king, and, like other official documents, it begins with a salutation. The gods give Esarhaddon greeting.[528]
The god Ashur himself now addresses the king:
As for those enemies that plot against thee, that force thee to march out,
Thou didst open thy mouth [saying], "Verily I implore Ashur."
I have heard thy cry.
Out of the great gate of heaven I proclaim aloud,
'Surely I will hasten to let fire devour them.
[Pg 346]Thou shall stand among them.
In front of thee I shall rise up.[531]
Up onto the mountain I bring them.
There to rain down upon them destructive stones.
Thine enemies I hew down,
With their blood I fill the river.
Let them behold and glorify me,
For Ashur, the lord of gods, am I.'
This important and striking message, coming direct from Ashur we are told, is to be formally presented and read in the presence of the king. Instructions are added to the priests to pour out a libation of precious oil. Sacrifices of animals and waving of incense are to accompany the presentation.
The oracle, as the god's answer to the king's questions, thus gave rise to a ritual as elaborate as the rites connected with the preparations for the answer. The oracles were not always trustworthy, as we can well believe, and often they were not definite enough. If we may judge from an expression in one of the divine messages to Esarhaddon, the king appears to have entered a complaint against a former oracle, which was not to his liking. Ishtar accordingly sends the following message:[532]
The former word which I spoke to thee,
On it thou didst not rely.
Now, then, in the later one you may have confidence.
Glorify me!
Clearly, the Assyrian kings believed that the oracles existed to announce what they wanted to hear. They probably did not hesitate to follow their own judgment whenever they considered it superior to the advice given to them by the gods. There would, of course, be no difficulty in accounting for failures brought about through obedience to the oracles. The priests, hemmed in on every side by minute ceremonial observances, forfeited their power as mediators by the slightest failure in[Pg 347] the observance of these rites. An error or a mishap would entail most serious consequences. A misleading oracle, therefore, and to a certain extent, unfavorable omens, would be the fault of the priests. The deity would send 'a lying message'[533] or bring about unfavorable omens as a sign of his or her displeasure. On the other hand, the priests in turn would not hesitate—speaking of course in the name of the gods—to accuse the kings of neglecting Ishtar or Nabu or Shamash, as the case may be. In an oracle addressed to Esarhaddon,[534] Ishtar of Arbela is represented as complaining that the king has done nothing for her, although she has done so much for him. Such a state of affairs cannot go on.
Since they do nothing for me,
I will not give anything to thee.
The king promptly responds by copious offerings, and the goddess appears to be pacified.
There is another feature connected with the oracles that must be touched upon before passing on. The oracles stand obviously in close relationship to the penitential psalms. It was, naturally, in times of political distress that the kings would be particularly zealous in maintaining themselves on good terms with the powerful gods. Without their aid success could not be expected to crown any efforts. Guiding their steps by frequent consultations of the priests, the appeals of the kings would increase in earnestness and fervor as the campaign progressed and assumed more serious aspects. When disaster stared them in the face, they would be forced to conclude that the gods were angered, and there was only one way left of averting the divine wrath—a free confession of sins, accompanied, of course, by offerings and magic rites. The Assyrian kings do not tell us in their annals of discomfitures that they[Pg 348] encountered. The penitential psalms supply this omission. We have such a psalm written in the days of Ashurbanabal,[535] in which that proud monarch humbles himself before the great god Nabu, and has the satisfaction in return of receiving a reassuring oracle. He prays:
The god reassures the king:
I will grant thee life, O Ashurbanabal, even I,
Nabu, to the end of days
Thy feet shall not grow weary, nor thy hands weak (?),
These lips of thine shall not cease to approach me,
Thy tongue shall not be removed from thy lips,
For I give thee a favorable message.
I will raise thy head, I will increase thy glory in the temple of E-babbara.[538]
The reference to the temple of Shamash at Sippar reveals the situation. Babylonia was the cause of much trouble to Ashurbanabal, owing chiefly to the intrigues of his treacherous brother Shamash-shumukin.[539] Ashurbanabal at one time was not merely in danger of losing control over the south, but of losing his life in the rebellion organized by his 'faithless brother.' A successful rebellion is a clear sign of a god's displeasure. Marduk, as we have seen, was not often appealed to by the Assyrian kings, but Nabu seemed always ready to help them. Hence the king confesses his sins and makes an[Pg 349] appeal to the great Babylonian god and not to Ashur. He is encouraged by the promise that his life will be spared, and that his supremacy will be recognized in Babylonia. The great sanctuary of Sippar is here employed figuratively for the temples of Babylonia in general. To be glorified in that famous temple was equivalent to a recognition of royal authority.
That these oracles served a practical purpose is definitely proved by the manner in which they are introduced by the kings in their annals. Ashurbanabal tells us that in the course of one of his campaigns against Elam, he addressed a fervent prayer to Ishtar of Arbela, and in reply the message comes, as in the texts we have been considering, "Fear not"; and she adds, "Thy hands raised towards me, and thy eyes filled with tears, I look upon with favor."[540]
It is, of course, not necessary to assume that the oracles of the gods were always delivered in the same formal manner, accompanied by elaborate ceremonies. The gods at times reveal themselves in a more direct manner to their favorites. In visions of the night they appear to encourage the Assyrian army by an oracle. On one occasion, when the army of Ashurbanabal approached a rushing stream which they were afraid to cross, Ishtar makes her appearance at night, and declares, "I walk in front of Ashurbanabal, the king who is the creation of my hands."[541] The army, thus reassured, crosses the river in safety. On another occasion, Ashurbanabal, when threatened by the king of Elam, receives a message from Ishtar revealed to a seer in a dream at night. The seer—no doubt a priest—reports to the king:[542] 'Ishtar, dwelling in Arbela, came with[Pg 350] quivers hung on her right and left side, with a bow in her hand, and girded (?) with a pointed, unsheathed sword. Before thee [i.e., the king] she stood, and like the mother that bore thee.[543] Ishtar, supreme among the gods, addressed thee, commanding: "Be encouraged[544] for the fray. Wherever thou art, I am."'
In connection with the importance that the Babylonians and Assyrians, in common with all ancient nations, attached to dreams, divine messages thus revealed had a special significance fully on a par with the oracles that were formally delivered with an accompaniment of elaborate rites. A god appearing to one in a dream was a manifestation, the force of which could not be disputed. It mattered little to whom the dream was sent. Ashur, on one occasion, chose to reveal himself to an enemy of Ashurbanabal with a message. He appears in a dream before Gyges, the king of Lydia, and tells him,[545] "Pay homage to Ashurbanabal, the king of Assyria, and by the power of his name conquer thine enemies." Gyges obeys and sends a messenger to the Assyrian monarch to inform him of the dream. Occasionally in this way a deity might appear to a king, but in general it was to the professional 'dreamer' rather than to the laity to whom oracles were thus sent. The message was not necessarily delivered in person by the deity. Sin, the moon-god, on one occasion writes his message on the moon's disc:
Against all who have evil designs
And hostile sentiments towards
Ashurbanabal, the king of Assyria,
Will I send a miserable death.[546]
Every dream was of course sent by some god, but the dreams of others than those who acted as mediators between the gods and men were of a different character. They were omens. The gods would reveal themselves indirectly by means of pictures or symbols, and it would require the services of a priest[Pg 351] again to interpret such symbols or omens. The gods were asked to send such dreams as might receive a favorable interpretation,[547] and when a dream came unsolicited, the gods were implored to convert the dream into a favorable omen.
In the case of dreams, it will be apparent, the dividing line between oracles proper and omens becomes exceedingly faint and it is very doubtful whether the Babylonians or Assyrians recognized any essential difference between the two. The suggestion has already been thrown out that there is a wider aspect to omens in the Babylonian religion than their employment in connection with sacrificial offerings. We have reached a point when it will be proper to take up this wider aspect.[Pg 352]
[491] See King, Babylonian Magic, p. xxx.
[492] Harper's Assyrian Letters, no. 219.
[493] Assyrische Gebete an den Sonnengott für Staat und Königliches Haus (Leipzig, 1893, 2 vols.).
[494] Knudtzon, no. 1.
[495] That the priest recites the prayer and not the king is shown by the frequent introduction of the king's name in the 3d person. See, e.g., Knudtzon, nos. 40-47.
[496] 2d month.
[497] 5th month.
[498] I.e., the priest is only asked for an oracle regarding the events of the next one hundred days.
[499] Various machines are mentioned. The precise meaning of the technical terms employed is not known.
[500] By invoking the assistance of the gods.
[501] Peacefully, by mutual agreement and the promise of favors.
[502] One is reminded of the Arabic phrase "Allah alone knows it," so frequently introduced in Mohammedan writings.
[503] Lit., 'Seen will it be seen, heard will it be heard?' The emphatic construction is identical with the one frequently employed in Biblical Hebrew.
[504] Knudtzon (p. 25) did not grasp the negative force of ezib. The word is a request that something might not happen.
[505] Where the animal is to be inspected, probably the altar itself.
[506] In the Jewish ritual and many others, stress is laid upon pronouncing the words of a prayer clearly and deliberately, especially such words as have a particularly sacred value.
[507] Assyrische Gebete, p. 50.
[508] Exactly of what nature cannot be ascertained. The text (Knudtzon, no. 29, rev. 15) is defective at this point.
[509] The prayer or the lamb.
[510] Lit., 'proceed.'
[511] Knudtzon, no. 66. Other examples are furnished in George Smith's History of Ashurbanabal, pp. 184, 185.
[512] A district to the northeast of Assyria; Knudtzon, no. 29.
[513] Ib. no. 107.
[514] Ib. no. 101.
[515] Four volumes comprising several hundred letters have already appeared under the title, Assyrian Letters of the K. Collection (London, 1896). For a good summary of the character of the Assyrian epistolary literature, see Johnston's article in the Journal of the American Oriental Society, xviii. 1, pp. 125-134.
[516] Harper, no. 77.
[517] E.g., Knudtzon, no. 124.
[518] Zimmern, Busspsalmen, p. 32. The popularity of the sun-cult in Assyria in connection with omens and oracles is probably due also in part to the influence of Marduk, who was, as we have seen, a solar deity.
[519] Lehman, Samassumukin, p. 42.
[521] IVR. pl. 61.
[522] I.e., Ishtar sends the wind with a clear message.
[523] 3d month.
[524] Perhaps a proverbial phrase, having the force of 'I nurture thee as thy own mother did.'
[525] Constituting the host of Ishtar, which is elsewhere referred to, e.g., IVR. 2d Ed. pt. 61, col. i. 27.
[526] Lit., 'the future or later things like the former.'
[527] Published by S. A. Strong, Beiträge zur Assyriologie, ii. 627-33.
[528] The opening lines, containing a reference to the Gimirrites, are imperfectly preserved.
[529] I.e., he is the greatest scion of the reigning dynasty.
[530] 'Lord of the court'—a title of Ashur.
[531] As a protection, just as Jahwe appears in a pillar of cloud to protect his people.
[532] IVR. 2d Ed. 61, col. vi. 47-52.
[533] See I Kings, xxii. 23.
[534] Strong, Beiträge zur Assyriologie, ii. 628, 629.
[535] Published and translated by S. A. Strong, Transactions of the Ninth International Oriental Congress (1893), ii. 199-208.
[536] Supplied from the context, through comparison with similar compositions.
[537] Lit., 'my soul cannot overcome.'
[538] The composition continues in this strain, Ashurbanabal and Nabu speaking alternately.
[539] See Tiele, Babyl.-Assyr. Geschichte, pp. 371 seq.
[540] George Smith, Annals of Ashurbanabal, p. 121.
[541] Rassam Cylinder, VR. col. v. ll. 95-103.
[542] George Smith, Annals of Ashurbanabal, pp. 119-121.
[543] With maternal kindness.
[544] Lit., 'look up.'
[545] Rassam Cylinder, col ii. ll. 98 seq.
[546] Ib. col. iii. ll. 122-124.
[547] E.g., IVR. 59, no. 2, 21b.
There is a close connection between the various branches of the religious literature of Babylonia and Assyria that we have hitherto been considering. The magic incantations are, as we have seen, a form of prayer. On the other hand, prayers, whether hymns or confessions of sin with an appeal for relief from suffering or distress, or embodying the petition for a divine response to some question or questions, are never entirely dissociated from incantations, and are invariably based upon the same beliefs that give to the element of magic such a prominent place in the religion. The omens form part of this same order of beliefs. The connecting link between incantations and omens is the sense of mystery impressed upon man by two orders of phenomena—the phenomena of his own life and the phenomena of the things about him. In his own life, nothing was more mysterious to him than the power of speech. It is doubtful whether he recognized that the animals communicated with one another by means of the sounds that they emitted; but even if he did, the great gap separating such means of communication from the power residing in the combination of sounds, of which he could avail himself, must have been all the more impressive. In view of this, it is not difficult to understand that a magic force was attributed to words as such. Of course, a somewhat advanced degree of culture must have been reached before such a belief would be given a definite form of expression; but even in the simplest form of social organization the notion of authority necessarily exists, and authority is inseparable[Pg 353] from words. The chief commands, and the conclusion is naturally drawn that the words he utters are imbued with the power to force obedience. These two factors—the mystery of speech and the practical demonstration of the power residing in words—are sufficient to account for the part played by incantations among all nations at a certain stage of their religious development; and once introduced, the conservatism attaching to religious rites would ensure their continuance even after the popular religious beliefs had passed far beyond the stage in question. The modifications introduced into the incantations would be nigh endless. There would develop a tendency to greater complications in the combination of words. At the same time their literary form would be improved. Prayers and hymns reflecting advanced religious sentiments would be produced, but the magic element connected with the words as such would not for that reason be lost sight of. The efficacy of such prayers would still depend upon their being uttered in the right manner and—what is equally to the point—by the right person. Corresponding to the chief in secular affairs—who alone can pronounce words that give evidence of their power by the results produced—is the priest in religious affairs to whom, as the mediator between the gods and men, the secret is entrusted of uttering the right words in the right way, so as to produce the desired results, to force, as it were, obedience from the gods, as a chief forces obedience from his subjects. In a more advanced stage of religious culture, the position of the priest is no less powerful and important. When incantations yield to prayers in the proper sense, or are combined with prayers, it is only the priests who can make the prayers effective by their interceding in some way with the gods, whether by adding their appeal to that of the supplicant, or by the performance of the rites accompanying prayer, or by their aid in leading the worshipper into the presence of the deity and standing with him before the throne of grace.[Pg 354]
When man turns from a contemplation of self to the things around him, there is added to the sense of the mysterious which is aroused in him, the feeling of his own weakness which is borne in upon him with overpowering force. He cannot fail to realize how dependent he is upon the sun, the moon, the rain, and the storm. At every step he takes dangers beset his path. The animal world is at times hostile, at times friendly; but whether the one or the other, it is essential for him to carefully note all that is going on around him. Every happening or sight of an unusual character arouses now his sense of fear, and again his hope. He learns to attach special importance to deviations from the normal course of things. There must be a reason for the exception from the rule. It betokens something, and, concerned as man primarily is for his own welfare, he naturally comes to connect both the regular phenomena of nature as well as the deviations, the normal traits and habits of the animal world as well as peculiar features occasionally occurring, with his own fate. To forestall the future was his only safeguard against the dangers in store for him. It was of the utmost importance to him to know what was coming or, at all events, to be on the lookout for something, in order to be in a proper frame to receive either the benefits or to meet the difficulties of the situation.
His powers of observation—upon which man in a primitive state depended almost entirely for his sustenance—were thus further strengthened by the necessity of protecting himself, so far as possible, against the uncertainties of the future. Nothing would escape him. The movement of the stars and planets, their position at different seasons and periods, the appearance of the clouds, an eclipse, the conditions of the streams, an earthquake, the direction of the winds, storms, the flight of birds, the barking of dogs, the movements of snakes and serpents, peculiar marks on the bodies of children, of adults and animals, monstrosities among mankind or the brute creation,[Pg 355] the meeting with certain persons or animals, the rustling of leaves, the change of seasons, the lustre of precious stones, all attracted man's attention. Whatever he saw might portend something to him, in fact did portend something; hence the one great aim and ideal of his life was to see everything. Seeing meant foreseeing, and the man who could see everything—the seer par excellence, who could also understand what he saw—held in his hands the key that would unlock the secrets of the future. He possessed the means of forecasting events.
Apart, then, from the interpretation of omens in connection with sacrifices and incantations, the individual had to be on the outlook at all times for signs and portents. To neglect them would entail serious consequences.
This wider aspect of omens accounts for the extensive omen literature that arose in Babylonia and Assyria. Fully one-fourth of the portion of Ashurbanabal's library that has been discovered consists of omens,[548] tablets of various size in which explanations are afforded of all physical peculiarities to be observed in animals and men, of natural phenomena, of the position and movements of the planets and stars, of the incidents and accidents of public and private life,—in short, of all possible occurrences and situations.
As yet but a small proportion of this literature has been published, and a thorough understanding of it is impossible until systematic publications shall have been issued. Meanwhile it is safe to assert that, as in the case of incantations and prayers, the omens were generally combined into series by the Babylonian and Assyrian scribes.[Pg 356]
Ihering observes[549] that the stars were observed by the Babylonians in the interest of navigation. While this is true, yet the chief motive in the development of astronomy in the Euphrates Valley was the belief that the movements of the heavenly bodies portended something that was important for man to know. That the stars served as guides to the mariner was only an additional reason for attaching great importance to the heavenly phenomena. Scientific observations were but means to an end; and the end was invariably the derivation of omens from the movements and position of the planets and stars. When, therefore, we find the astronomers sending reports to their royal masters apparently of a purely scientific character, we may be certain that although no omens are mentioned, both parties had omens in mind. The astronomical reports, of which quite a number have already been published,[550] may therefore be reckoned as part of the omen literature. The vernal equinox was a period of much significance. The astronomer royal accordingly reports:[551]
On the sixth day of Nisan,[552]
Day and night were balanced.
There were six double hours of day,
Six double hours of night.
May Nabu and Marduk
Be gracious to the king, my lord.
On another occasion the equinox took place on the 15th of Nisan,[553] and accordingly this is reported. Again, the appearance of the new moon was anxiously looked for each month, and the king is informed whether or not it was seen on the 29th or 30th day of the month.[Pg 357][554]
A watch we kept
On the twenty-ninth day,
The moon we saw.
May Nabu and Marduk
Be gracious to the king, my lord.
From Nabuâ of the city of Ashur.
An extraordinary event, such as an eclipse, is made the subject of a more elaborate report. The Babylonian astronomers had developed their scientific attainments to the point of calculating the time when an eclipse of the sun or the moon would take place. As this period approached, they watched for the eclipse. We have an interesting specimen of a report in which the astronomer announces that an expected eclipse for which a watch was kept for three days did not appear.[555] Another addressed to an official reads:[556]
To the Agriculturist,[557] my lord,
Thy servant Nabushumiddin,
An officer of Nineveh,
May Nabu and Marduk be gracious
To the Agriculturist, my lord.
The fourteenth day we kept a watch for the moon.
The moon suffered an eclipse.
The reports pass over into indications of omens with an ease which shows that the observations of the astronomers were made with this ulterior motive in view. A report which forms a supplement to one above translated furnishes the interpretation given to the vernal equinox:[558]
The moon and sun are balanced,
The subjects will be faithful,[559]
The king of the land will reign for a long time.
[Pg 358] The complement, then, to the purely scientific observations is furnished by these official communications to the kings and others, setting forth in response, no doubt, to commands or inquiries, the meaning of any particular phenomenon, or of the position of the planets, or of any of the stars at any time, or of their movements. Of such communications we have a large number. They illustrate the great attention that was paid to details in the observation of the heavenly bodies. The moon as the basis of the calendrical system occupies the first place in these reports. Its movements were more varied than those of the sun. Through its phases, its appearance and disappearance at stated intervals, a safe point of departure was obtained for time calculations. While the sun through its daily course regulated the divisions of the day, the moon by its phases fixed the division of weeks and months. The moon never appeared quite the same on two successive nights nor in the same part of the heavens. The more variety, the more significance—was a principle of general application in the interpretation of omens. Whether the Babylonians also recognized an influence of the moon on the tides, we have no certain means of determining, but it is eminently likely that trained as their astronomers were in careful observation, this was the case. But apart from this, there were many events in public and private affairs that appeared to them to stand in close connection with the movements of the orb of night. Nothing that occurred being regarded as accidental, the conclusion was forced upon the Babylonians that the time when something was undertaken was of significance. The fact that certain undertakings succeeded, while others failed, was most easily explained upon the theory that there were periods favorable for the action involved and periods unfavorable. The gathering of past experience thus becomes a guiding principle in the interpretation of the movements of the moon; and what applies to the moon applies, of course, to the other planets and to the stars.[Pg 359] No doubt other factors are involved, such as association of ideas; but it is evident from a careful study of the omen literature that conclusions drawn from what appears to us as the accidental relation of past occurrences to the phenomena presented by the planets and stars constituted fully three-fourths of the wisdom of the Euphratean augurs. The same report, of which a portion has already been quoted,[560] continues after interpreting the meaning of the equinox with a diagnosis of other concurrent conditions:[561]
Sun and moon are seen apart,[562]
The king of the country will manifest wisdom.[563]
On the fourteenth day sun and moon are seen together,
There will be loyalty in the land,
The gods of Babylonia are favorably inclined,
The soldiery will be in accord with the king's desire,
The cattle of Babylonia will pasture in safety.[564]
From Ishtar-shumeresh.
The same conditions appearing on another day may portend precisely the reverse. So another report informs the king:[565]
On the fifteenth day the sun and moon are seen together,
A powerful enemy raises his weapons against the land,
The enemy will smash the great gate of the city,
The star Anu appears bright,
The enemy will devastate.
It is quite evident that such reports must have been sent in response to royal orders asking for the meaning of existing conditions or of conditions that may be observed on certain days. At times the prognostications assume a remarkable degree of definiteness which forms a striking contrast to the general[Pg 360] vagueness of the oracles. An official, Balasi, reports[566] on one occasion regarding the significance of the moon appearing unexpectedly:
The moon is seen out of season,
Crops will be small.
On the twelfth day the moon is seen together with the sun.[567]
Contrary to the calculated time,
The moon and sun appear together,
A strong enemy will devastate the land.
The king of Babylonia will be forced to submit to his enemy.
On the twelfth day, the moon with the sun is seen,
On the twelfth day is seen.
Evil is in store for Babylonia.
It is a favorable sign for Elam and the west land,
But surely unfavorable for Babylonia.
The reports were not always concerned with political affairs. Frequently there is a reference to lions and hyenas that might be expected to make their appearance because of certain natural phenomena. Often crops are referred to, and according as the conditions are favorable or not, fertility or famine is predicted in the official reports. On other occasions the astrologers venture the very safe prognostication that male children will be born or that there will be miscarriages, though it seems likely that in such cases the forecast is intended for the affairs of the palace alone.
We have seen[568] what great importance was attached by the Babylonians to eclipses. It will be appropriate, therefore, to give a specimen of an astrologer's report in reference to such a phenomenon:[569]
The moon disappeared,[570] evil will settle in the land.
[Pg 361]The moon, contrary to calculation, disappeared.
An eclipse has taken place.
On the twenty-ninth day the moon disappeared
And the sun on the day of the eclipse entered the circle.[571]
It is an eclipse of Elam.[572]
If in the month of Kislev,[573] an eclipse is observed
That encircles (?) the sun and the moon disappears,
Upon the observation of the eclipse,
Then may the king be exalted.
May the heart of the king, my lord, rejoice.
From Khushi-ilu, the servant of the king, the eponym.
Another report reads:[574]
To the king, my lord,
Thy servant Ishtar-iddinabal,
The chief of the astronomers of Arbela.
May Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Arbela
Be gracious to the king, my lord,
On the twenty-ninth day a watch we kept.
At the observatory clouds,
The moon we did not see.
This report was sent on the second day of the month of Shebat.[575] From these specimens and others, it is evident that reports regarding the appearance or non-appearance of the new moon were regularly sent. But in addition to this, the kings sent to the observatory on numerous other occasions for information with reference to the significance of certain phenomena.
As in the case of the moon, so also for the sun and the stars, reports were transmitted that served as guides in directing the kings in their affairs. So on one occasion Nabu-mushesi forecasts that[576]
The official character of these reports is one of their significant features. Their great variety is an indication of the frequent occasions on which the kings consulted the astrologers. No important enterprise was undertaken without first ascertaining what phenomena might be looked for on the day fixed for any action, and what these phenomena portended. In the case of the Assyrian reports, it is natural to find many allusions to foreign nations, since war occupied so much of the time and energies of the Assyrian rulers. But we have seen that for private affairs the astrologers were also consulted, as well as for the internal affairs of the country. The reports illustrate the practical application of what became known in the ancient world as "Chaldaean wisdom." If, however, we would know the source whence the astrologers derived the knowledge which they furnished in their reports, we must turn to the long lists prepared by the priests, in which all possible phenomena connected with the planets and stars were noted and their meaning indicated. These compilations constitute the 'Priestly Codes' of the Babylonians, and, as already intimated, they were combined just as the incantations and prayers, into series. Many such series must have existed at one time in Babylonia. A great temple was incomplete without its observatory, and we are warranted in concluding that every great religious center of the Euphrates Valley had its collection of omen tablets. The natural ambition of the priests was to make such a series as complete as possible. The larger the number of observations it contained, the greater the possibility of finding an answer to the question put to them. To these lists additions would constantly be made, and, if we may judge from the manner of literary composition that prevailed among the ancient Hebrews and later among the Arabs, the work of the compilers[Pg 363] of omen series consisted essentially in combining whatever material they could obtain, and adding such observations as they themselves had made. While, therefore, the omen code of one place might differ in details from that of another, not only would the underlying principles be the same in all, but each series would represent an aggregation of experiences and observations drawn from various quarters.
A large omen series of which as yet only fragments have been published[578] bears the title 'Illumination of Bel.' It is estimated that this astrological code embraced more than one hundred tablets. From the fragments published, the general method employed in the preparation of the series can be gathered. To the moon and to the sun, to each of the planets, and to the important stars a separate section was assigned. In this section the peculiarities, regular and irregular, connected with each of the bodies were noted, their appearance and disappearance, the conditions prevailing at rising and at setting, the relationship of the moon to the sun or to a star, of the stars to one another and to the ecliptic, were set forth. Since, however, the time when a phenomenon connected with a planet or star was as important as the phenomenon itself, observations were entered for the various months of the year and for various days in each month. The days were not arbitrarily chosen, but, as there is every reason to believe, selected on the basis of past experience. Similarly the interpretations of the phenomena were founded on the actual occurrence of certain events at certain times when the conditions indicated actually existed. A single occurrence might suffice for predicating a connection between the event and the phenomenon. The coincidence would constitute an observation, but the omen would naturally gain additional force if it was based on a repeated observation of the same phenomenon on the same day[Pg 364] of the same month. But such a case would be rare, and the effort of the astrologers would be directed simply towards gathering as many observations of phenomena as possible. They would rest content when they had found a single connection between the phenomenon and the event. Their success in giving an answer to a question put to them as to what might happen on a certain day, fixed for battle or for laying the foundations of an edifice, or for dedicating a temple, for setting out on an expedition, or for any undertaking whatsoever, would depend on the completeness of their lists, and correspondingly the interpretation of a phenomenon occurring on any day would entail no difficulties if in their consultation lists the phenomenon would be recorded.
The 22d tablet of the series 'Illumination of Bel' deals with the important subject of eclipses. It contains 88 lines, and furnishes us with a good specimen of the class of omens under consideration. It begins[579] with eclipses that may take place during the first month, and runs along through the twelve months of the year. The 14th, 15th, 16th, 20th, and 21st days of the month are those set down when eclipses have been observed. The official character of the omens is indicated by their repeated references to the nations with which Babylonia—and later Assyria—came into contact, and to the fate in store for the rulers of the country. For the third month, the tablet notes:
In the month of Sivan, an eclipse happening on the 14th day, proceeding from east to west, beginning with the middle watch,[580] and ending with the morning watch, the shadow being seen in the east—the side of obscuration—furnishes an omen[581] for the king of Dilmun.[582] The king of Dilmun is slain.[Pg 365]
An eclipse happening on the 15th day, the king of Dilmun is slain, and some one seizes the throne.
An eclipse happening on the 16th day, the king is deposed and slain, and a worthless person seizes the throne.
An eclipse happening on the 20th day, rains descend from heaven, and the canals are flooded.
An eclipse happening on the 21st day, sorrow and despair in the land. The land is full of corpses.
The eclipses for the fourth month furnish omens for the king of Guti—another district with which Babylonia and Assyria had frequent dealings.
An eclipse happening in the month of Tammuz on the 14th day, proceeding from the west to the south, beginning with the first watch and ending with the middle watch, the shadow being seen in the west—the side of obscuration—furnishes an omen for the king of Guti. Overthrow of Guti by force, followed by complete submission.
An eclipse happening on the 15th day[583], rains descend from heaven, floods come upon the land, famine in the land.
An eclipse happening on the 16th day, women have miscarriages.
An eclipse happening on the 20th day, storms set in and famine; afterwards for a year storms destroy property[584].
An eclipse happening on the 21st day, the armies of the king revolt and deliver him into the hands of enemies.
The eclipses of the following month deal with several countries.
An eclipse in the month of Ab[585] on the 14th day, proceeding from the south to the east, beginning with the first watch, or with the morning watch, and ending at sunrise, the shadow being seen in the south—the side of obscuration—furnishes an omen for the king of Umliash. The soldiery are engaged in severe conflicts for a year, and are slain by force of arms.
An eclipse happening on the 15th day[586], the king dies, and rains descend from heaven, and floods fill the canals.[Pg 366]
An eclipse happening on the 16th day, the king of Babylonia dies. Pestilence[587] feeds upon the country.
An eclipse happening on the 20th day, the king of the Hittites[588] in person (?) seizes the throne.
An eclipse happening on the 21st day, a deity strikes (?) the king, and fire consumes king and land.
From these specimens, the general principle of the section is apparent. Since eclipses portend public and political disasters of some kind, the compiler has carefully gathered oracles given on previous occasions to some ruler, or observations of the events that occurred at the time of the recorded eclipses. The apparently restricted application of the omens was no hindrance to their practical use. In the event of an astrologer being consulted with regard to the significance of an eclipse on a certain day, his list would furnish a safe basis for further prognostications, suitable to the political conditions that prevailed. But in order to meet all contingencies, other lists furnishing further omens for eclipses were added. The 22d tablet of the 'Illumination of Bel' series is followed by one[589] which, while dealing with the same subject, approaches it somewhat differently, and is based on a different principle. It begins again with the first month, and in twelve paragraphs takes up in succession the months of the year. Choosing for comparison the same three months, the third, fourth, and fifth, which we selected in the case of the 22d tablet, it will be seen that, while the references are again to public affairs, the prognostications are of a more general character and of wider applicability.
If in the 3d month an eclipse takes place on the 14th day, rains will descend and flood the canals. Storms will cause inundations. The soldiery of Babylonia will destroy the country. An eclipse on the 15th day indicates that king against king will send troops[590]. The king of legions dies. An[Pg 367] eclipse on the 16th day signifies that the king will be slain, and that some one will seize the throne.[591] An eclipse on the 20th day means that the king will hand his throne to his son. An eclipse happening on the 21st day portends rain,[592] and an invasion of the enemy's land.
For the 4th month an eclipse on the 14th day portends that rains will descend and the canals will be flooded. Rains will cause inundations. There will be famine. A large country will be reduced to a small one. An eclipse on the 15th day portends that rains will descend, canals will be flooded, and there will be famine in the land. An eclipse on the 16th day portends famine for a year. An eclipse on the 20th day portends destruction of the king and his army. An eclipse happening on the 21st day indicates that there will be a strong wind that will destroy the riches of the sea.[593]
For the 5th month an eclipse on the 14th day portends rains and flooding of canals. The crops will be good and king will send peace to king.[594] An eclipse on the 15th day portends destructive war. The land will be filled with corpses. An eclipse on the 16th day indicates that pregnant women will be happily delivered of their offspring. An eclipse on the 20th day portends that lions will cause terror and that reptiles will appear; an eclipse on the 21st day that destruction (?) will overtake the riches of the sea.[593]
The vagueness of many of the prognostications is in all probabilities intentional, just as we found to be the case in most of the oracles announced to the kings. To predict rains during the rainy months was comparatively safe. The storms which visited Babylonia annually brought with them destruction of cattle. They conditioned the fertility of the country, but pestilence was often caused by the evaporation of the waters. Again, military expeditions were usually undertaken in the spring of the year before the great heat set in, and in a country like Assyria, it was safe to hazard a vague prediction that hostilities would ensue, and that some district would be diminished.
What may be called the 'eclectic' character of the omen series under consideration thus becomes apparent. The lists[Pg 368] consisted, on the one hand, of omens obtained on certain occasions and with reference to some specific circumstance, such as a campaign against some country, and, on the other hand, of prognostications of a more general character, based on the general climatic conditions of the country, and referring to events of frequent occurrence. All that the scribes in preparing the series were concerned with, was to collect as many omens as they could, and to arrange them in some convenient order. Just as they prepared lists referring to military events, so they put together others in which some other theme was treated. The reports and omen tablets thus complement one another. The latter are based on the former, and the former were obtained by the interpretation of phenomena, furnished by the tablets and applied to the particular case submitted to the priests. We need not, of course, suppose that all prognostications found in the series, especially in those parts of it which are of a more general character, were based upon reports actually made, any more than that the official reports to the kings even in later days were always based upon a consultation of some series of tablets. Individual judgment, both in compiling a series and in interpreting phenomena, must at all times have played some part. The reports and the series also embody to some extent the results of experience not previously put to writing; but these considerations do not alter the general proposition set forth in this chapter as to the practical purpose served by the omen series as well as by the reports, and the pragmatic origin of both.
The importance of eclipses gave to omens connected with such events a special significance. Eclipses, however, were after all rare events, and while because of their rarity they always portended something of great moment, still the ordinary phenomena were the ones that had to be studied by the astrologers with great care in order to obtain a rational view of the relationship between the phenomena of nature and the fate of the individual[Pg 369] or of the state. Again, eclipses, as a general thing, pointed to a public disaster of some kind, and this recognized belief lightened the task of the priest considerably in this instance. In the case of ordinary phenomena it was much more difficult to find the connection between cause and effect; and in the vast majority of instances when kings and individuals sought the temples for omens, the heavens must have presented a normal and not an abnormal appearance.
What answers were the priests to give to the questions put to them? Was it a favorable period for undertaking a military campaign? On what day should the king set out? Was the day fixed on by the council of war favorable for a battle? On what day should the foundation for the temple or palace be laid? Will the sick person recover? Should one set out on a proposed journey? Is the day fixed for a marriage auspicious?
Recognizing by experience that the same thing undertaken at different times turned out differently, in the one case being brought to a successful issue, in the other followed by misfortune, the conclusion was forced upon the popular mind (as already set forth above) that the day on which something was done or was to be done was of great moment.
But how did one day differ from the other? That was the question for the priests to determine. During the hours that the sun was in control, the clouds produced constant changes in the appearance of the heavens, but because of their irregular character, these changes impressed the Babylonians less forcibly than the striking changes that the nights showed. The planets and stars never appeared alike on two successive nights. There was always some change in the position of some of the heavenly bodies. To these changes, then, the priests directed their attention. In the variations presented by the heavens at night they saw a potent reason for the varying results produced by the same act undertaken at different times.[Pg 370]
If it made a difference at what moment something was done, that difference could only be determined by observing the variations that one night presented from the other. The astrologers observed that many of the stars were, or seemed to be, fixed in their orbits; others rose and set like the sun and moon, and appeared in different parts of the heavens at different seasons of the year. The regularity of these changes made it possible to study the course of these stars, and as knowledge progressed, to determine also in advance where a particular body would be seen at a certain time.
The planets accordingly were the bodies to which the astrologers especially directed their attention. It has been conjectured with some show of probability that one of the purposes served by the lofty seven staged towers,[595] which were attached to many of the great temples, was for the better observation of the movements of the planets. The official standing of the astrologers is indicated by the references in texts to the 'court astrologer.'
However this may be, there is no doubt that at all the large temples and at many of the smaller ones, observations of the planets were recorded.
The collection of these observations formed the manuals for the priests in answering many of the questions put to them. Each of the great planets was identified (by a process of thought that we will have occasion to describe) with some deity, though this was not done until the attempt was also made to gather the astrological knowledge of the day into some kind of consistent system. Our own names of the planets, as handed down to us through the Greeks and Romans, are but the classical equivalents of the Babylonian deities.[596]
Jupiter is Marduk, the head of the Babylonian pantheon. Venus is the Babylonian Ishtar. Mars is Nergal, the god of[Pg 371] war and pestilence. Mercury is Nabu, the god of wisdom and the messenger of the gods, and Saturn is Ninib.
Among the astrological texts preserved, Ishtar-Venus figures more prominently than the other planets. The appearance of Ishtar during each month and for various days of the month was noted, and then interpreted, partly on the basis of past experience, but also by other factors that for the most part escape us. A tablet, furnishing omens derived from the position of the planet Venus and which may belong to the series 'Illumination of Bel,' deals with the periods of the disappearance of Venus as evening star, and her reappearance as morning star, and vice versa[597].
In the month of Tammuz (4th month) Venus disappeared on the 25th day at sunset, for seven days was hidden[598], and on the 2d day of Ab (5th month) was seen at sunrise. Rains in the land. Destruction of[599] ...
In the month of Adar (12th month) Venus disappeared on the 25th day at sunrise. For a year (?) weapons are wielded[600] (?), gold[599] ...
In the month of Marcheshwan (8th month), 10th day, Venus disappeared at sunrise, for two months and six days was hidden, and reappeared on the 16th day of Tebet (10th month). There will be abundant crops.
In the month of Elul (6th month), 26th day, Venus disappeared at sunset, for eleven days was hidden, and in the second[601] Elul, on the 7th day, reappeared at sunset. The heart of the land is good.[602]
In the month of Nisan (1st month), on the 9th day, Venus disappeared at sunsets[602] (?), and for five months and sixteen days was hidden, and reappeared in the month of Elul (6th month), on the 25th day, at sunset. The heart of the land is good.
In the month of Ab (5th month), 10th day, Venus disappeared at sunset[603] (?), and for two[604] months and sixteen days was hidden, and reappeared on the 26th day of Marcheshwan (8th month). Rains in the land.
In the month of Nisan, 2d day, Venus appeared at sunrise. There will be distress in the land.[Pg 372]
If Venus is stationary to the 6th day of Kislev (9th month) at sunrise, and then disappears on the 7th day of Kislev, and is hidden for three months to reappear on the 8th day of Adar (12th month) at sunset, it indicates that king against king will send hostility.
In the month of Kislev (9th month), 10th day, Venus appeared at sunrise. Lack of corn and hay in the land. If she remains in position up to the 14th day of Ab (5th month) at sunrise, and then on the 15th day disappears, and for three months is hidden, and on the 15th day of Marcheshwan (8th month) rises at sunset, the crops of the land will be good.
A colophon informs us that the tablet in question embodies a series of observations of the movements of Venus recorded by Babylonian scholars. It was evidently the purpose of the compilers to commit to writing as many variations in the appearance and disappearance of the planet as possible. The omens must either have been furnished at one time or they embody actual occurrences that were observed in connection with the observation recorded. In either case the omens served as guides for the priests in their replies to inquiries. An omen once furnished or an event once observed as having taken place under given conditions of a planet served for all times.
The omen lists for the other planets were arranged on the same principle as the Venus list. The motions of the planets were carefully observed. It was noted whether they rose brilliantly or with a pale color. Their position towards other stars was determined, and much more the like. Besides the planets, various stars that were distinguished by their brilliancy, as Sirius, Antares, Regulus, and also comets, were included in the sphere of astronomical calculations, and furnished omens to the priests.
These omens, so far as we may judge from the texts at present published, all hinge around the same series of events that are referred to in the illustrations given,—rain, crops, war, distress, the country's prosperity, the king's welfare or misfortune.
Another piece of evidence is thus furnished for the hypothesis that these lists are based upon reports made to royal masters, and that the reports again are obtained from the lists prepared[Pg 373] for public and political needs. We must not, however, conclude from this fact that the observation of heavenly phenomena was of no significance at all for the private individual, but only that the position of the king and the general welfare of the country were regarded of larger moment.
Just as the gods were held responsible chiefly for the larger affairs of this world, the trifles being relegated to the spirits and demons,[605] so the planets and stars, as symbols of the gods, were regarded as auguries for the chief of the country rather than for the miscellaneous population, and more for the general welfare than for individual prosperity. The individual shared in the omen furnished, in so far as his well-being was dependent upon such important contingencies as whether there was to be war or peace, good crops or bad. A population so largely engaged in agriculture as the Babylonians were, would be satisfied if they could be reassured as to the outcome of their work in the fields. Ihering has properly emphasized the strong hold that the conception of communal interests obtained in Babylonia.[606] This conception is reflected in the prominence given to public and political affairs in the omen lists and 'omen' reports. Agriculture was the primal factor in producing this conception in the south; war which united the population, even though military service was forced upon the people, was the second factor; and in Assyria, where military expeditions occupied a much larger share of public attention than in Babylonia, war became the chief factor in keeping alive the thought of national solidarity.
There was still another reason why the king and with him public affairs, received such prominence in the omen texts. As[Pg 374] the nation's ruler he was not only an important personage by virtue of his power over his subjects, but also by virtue of his close relationship to the gods. The theory of the 'divine right of kings' was rigidly adhered to in Babylonia and Assyria. When the monarchs speak of themselves as nominated by this or that god to be the ruler of the country, this was not a mere phrase. The king was the vicar of the deity on earth, his representative who enjoyed divine favor and who was admitted into the confidence of the gods. In earlier days priestly functions were indissolubly associated with kingship. The oldest kings of Assyria call themselves 'the priests of Ashur,' and it is only as with the growth of political power a differentiation of functions takes place that the priest, as the mediator between the deity and his subjects, becomes distinct from the secular ruler.
The further development of this process led to the curious but perfectly natural anomaly that the king, from being originally identical with the priest, becomes in large measure dependent upon the latter in his relations to the gods. In the more advanced stages of the religious cult, the king requires the service of a priest to act as mediator between himself and the gods, precisely as all of his subjects need this mediatorship. The king cannot obtain an oracle directly. He must send to the temple and inquire of the priests. The priest must intercede for the king when he throws himself upon the mercy of an angered god or goddess. The royal sacrifice is not acceptable unless the priest stands by the side of the king.
Still there are traces left of the old direct relationship existing between the king and his gods. A god sometimes reveals himself directly to a ruler. Ishtar appears in a dream and gives him directions. Another and more significant trace of this older relationship is to be found in the importance assigned to the religious conduct of the king. If an individual offends a deity, the individual alone suffers, or at the most his family is involved in the punishment inflicted; but if the king[Pg 375] sins, the whole country suffers, and correspondingly the king's atonement and reconciliation with the gods is essential for dispelling some national calamity. Frazer has shown by his admirable investigations[607] that this view of kingship is common to many nations of antiquity. While it did not lead among the Babylonians and Assyrians to that extreme which is best illustrated by Japan, where the Mikado, by virtue of his divine right, is hedged in with prescribed formalities that make him almost a prisoner, so closely is he watched by his attendants lest any mistake be made by him which is certain to entail serious consequences for the country, still the priests had to see to it that the rulers performed their duties towards the gods in the prescribed manner and with all possible accuracy.
The conduct of the king was of special significance at periods when for some reason or other, the gods were not favorably disposed. Partly on the basis of actual observation that eclipses (which were especially feared) had occurred on certain days of the month, partly as a consequence of the belief that the change in the moon's phase augured something good or evil for humanity, and in part perhaps through the coincidence that on a certain day of the month, mishaps of some kind had occurred several times, certain months and certain days of each month were regarded as favorable, while others were unfavorable. Some months and some days were suitable for dedicating a building, others were not. On some days an oracle might be sought, on others not. Some days were days of rejoicing, on others again mourning was appropriate. Advantage had to be taken of the favorable days to keep the deity in good humor, and it was equally important on the unfavorable ones to exercise great care not to do aught which might arouse the anger of a god, ready to be incensed. It is the king who can best accomplish the one thing and avoid the other. To him, as standing nearer the deity than any private individual, the country looked for[Pg 376] safety and protection. Calendars were prepared for each month of the year, in which the peculiar character of each day was noted and instructions added what was to be done on each day. These instructions all have reference to the king and to the king alone. A complete calendar for the intercalated month of Elul has been preserved.[608] It may serve as an example of the branch of the omen literature to which it belongs.
The thirty days of each month are taken up in succession. The deity to which each day is sacred is indicated, and various sacrifices or precautions prescribed.
A curious feature of this calendar was that, since it was the hope to make every day 'favorable,' each day was called so, even when it is evident that it was not.
For the 1st day of Elul the second,[609] sacred to Anu and Bel, a favorable day. When the moon makes its appearance in this month, the king of many peoples brings his gift, a gazelle together with fruit, ... his gift to Shamash, lord of the countries, and to Sin, the great god, he gives. Sacrifices he offers, and his prayer to his god[610] is acceptable.
On the 2d day sacred to goddesses, a favorable day. The king brings his gift to Shamash, the lord[611] of countries. To Sin, the great god, he offers sacrifices. His prayer to the god is acceptable.
On the 3d day, a day of supplication to Marduk and Sarpanitum, a favorable day. At night, in the presence of Marduk and Ishtar,[612] the king brings his gift. Sacrifices he is to offer so that his prayer may be acceptable.
On the 6th day, sacred to Ramman and Belit,[613] a favorable day. The king, with prayer and supplication (?), at night in the presence of Ramman, offers his gift. Sacrifices he is to bring so that his prayer may be acceptable.
On the 7th day, supplication to Marduk and Sarpanitum, a favorable day[Pg 377] (sc. may it be). An evil day. The shepherd of many nations is not to eat meat roasted by the fire, or any food prepared by the fire. The clothes of his body he is not to change, fine dress (?) he is not to put on. Sacrifices he is not to bring, nor is the king to ride in his chariot. He is not to hold court nor is the priest to seek an oracle for him in the holy of holies.[614] The physician is not to be brought to the sick room.[615] The day is not suitable for invoking curses.[616] At night, in the presence of Marduk and Ishtar, the king is to bring his gift. Then he is to offer sacrifices so that his prayer may be acceptable.
This 7th day, it will be observed, is expressly called an evil day. It is evident, therefore, that the phrase 'favorable day' in the first line expresses a hope and not a fact, or is added to indicate the manner in which the day can be converted into a favorable one. Just as the 7th day, so the 14th, 21st, and 28th are called evil days, and the same ceremonies are prescribed for the king on these days. These days were evidently chosen as corresponding to the phases of the moon. But besides these four days, a fifth, namely, the 19th, is singled out in the same fashion. The comparison with the Biblical Sabbath naturally suggests itself. The choice of the 7th day and of the corresponding ones rests, of course, in both instances upon the lunar calendar, and there is also this similarity between the Sabbath of the Hebrews and the 'evil day' of the Babylonians, that the precautions prescribed in the Pentateuchal codes—against kindling fires, against leaving one's home, against any productive labor—point to the Hebrew Sabbath as having been at its origin an 'inauspicious day,' on which it was dangerous to show oneself or to call the deity's attention to one's existence. Despite the attempts made to change this day to one of 'joy,' as Isaiah would have it,[617] the Hebrew Sabbath continued to retain for a long time as a trace of its origin, a rather severe and sombre aspect.
[Pg 378] A striking difference, however, between the Babylonian and the Hebrew rites is the absence in the latter of the theory that the atonement of a single individual suffices for the community. The precautions prescribed for the Sabbath are binding upon every one. Emphasis is laid in the Pentateuch upon the fact that the whole people is holy, whereas among the Babylonians the king alone is holy. He alone is to abstain from his ordinary acts, to conduct himself on the evil day with becoming humility, to put on no fineries, not to indulge in dainty food,[618] not to appear in royal state, neither to appeal to the gods (for they will not hear them), nor even to interfere with their workings by calling in human aid against the demon of disease, who may have been sent as the messenger of one of the gods. It is only at the close of the day that he can bring a sacrifice which will be acceptable. The king, by observing these precautions, insures the welfare of his people. The gods cared little for individual piety, but they kept a jealous eye on their earthly representative. His appeals were heard if properly presented and if presented at the right time, but woe to the people whose king has aroused the divine anger. Just as his acts of penitence have a representative character, so the gifts and sacrifices and supplications mentioned in the calendar are offered by the king on behalf of the whole people.
For the remaining days of Elul, the ordinances have much the same character as those instanced. The variation consists chiefly in the god or gods to whom the days are sacred. Now it is Nabu and his consort Tashmitum—on the 4th, 8th, and 17th days—to whom gifts and prayers are brought; again Ninib and his consort Gula, on the 9th,[619]—or Gula alone, on the 19th. To Marduk and Sarpanitum the 16th day is assigned, besides the 3d and 7th days as above set forth; to Ramman and his consort the 6th, to the old Bel and Belit the 5th, the 12th, the[Pg 379] 25th, and to Nergal and Bau the 27th. At times two male deities are in association. So Anu and Bel for the 1st and the 30th day, Ea and Nergal for the 28th, Sin and Shamash for the 18th, 20th, 21st, and 22d, or two goddesses, as Tashmitum and Sarpanitum, or a god alone, as Ea for the 26th, or Sin alone for the 13th, and once—the 29th day—Sin and Shamash are combined with the miscellaneous group of Igigi and Anunnaki. All the great gods are thus represented in the calendar. The basis on which the days are assigned still escapes us. It is hard to believe that any strict uniformity existed in this respect in the cults attached to the various Babylonian temples. Preference would be shown in each center to the chief god worshipped there, while to others would be assigned a position corresponding to some theological system devised by the priests. Uniformity and consistency are two elements that must not be looked for in the omen literature of any people. The very fact that omens have some rational basis, namely, observation and experience, is the very reason why the omen lists and omen calendars of one place should differ from those of another, and precisely to the same degree that observation and experience differ.
The intercalated months, by virtue of their extraordinary character, had perhaps a special significance, but every day of the year had an importance of some kind. This is shown by a Babylonian calendar, fortunately preserved in great part,[620] in which every day of the year is included, and either its character noted or some precautions prescribed. The indications in this calendar are marked by their brevity, and impress one as memoranda, intended as a guide to the priests.
The calendar consists of twelve columns. At the head of each column stands the name of one of the months. One or, at the most, two lines are devoted to each day of the month, the days being ranged in succession from one to thirty. For a series of days in the 2d month the indications are:[Pg 380]
21st day, hostility.
22d day, judgment favorable, invoking of curses.
23d day, heart not good.
24th day, gladness of heart.
25th day, wife not to be approached, heart not good.
26th day, secret.
Such indications it is evident are intelligible only to the initiated. With the help of the more complete calendars, such as the one above explained, we can in most cases determine what is meant by these memoranda. A note like 'hostility' is an omen that the gods are unfavorably inclined on that day. The 'judgment' referred to on the 22d day is the oracle. The day in question is suitable for obtaining a response to a question put to the deity, and a favorable occasion for invoking curses upon the enemy. It will be recalled that the 7th day of the second intercalated Elul is put down as one when it is not advisable to secure the ill will of the god against the enemy. An expression like 'heart not good' is explained by the contrast 'heart glad.' The 23d day of the month is a day of sorrow, the 24th one on which one may be cheerful without arousing the jealousy of the gods or demons. The 25th is again an unfavorable day in which, as a precaution, sexual intercourse is prohibited. Lastly, the word rendered 'secret'[621] is the same one that we came across in the precautions prescribed for the 7th day of the second Elul, where we are told that the priest is not to enter the 'secret' place. This term appears to describe the 'holy of holies' in the Babylonian temples where the oracles were obtained. The single word 'secret' was a sufficient indication for the priest that on the day in question he might enter the mysterious chamber of the temple without trepidation.
Many of the days of the year are simply set down as 'favorable' or 'unfavorable,' while others were noted as days[Pg 381] portending 'distress,' 'trouble,' 'tears,' 'injury,' 'everything favorable,' 'darkness,' 'moon obscured,' and the like. Of special interest are the prohibitions regarding food on certain days. On the 9th day of the 2d month "fish is not to be eaten or sickness will ensue." Swine's meat is forbidden on the 30th day of the 5th month, and in this case the particular kind of sickness—disease of the joints—is specified that will ensue in case of disobedience. On another day, the 25th of the 7th month, beef as well as pork is forbidden, while on the 10th day of the 8th month and the 27th day of the 6th month, dates are forbidden as a precaution against eye disease. One is not to cross a stream[622] on the 20th day of the 5th month; on certain days one is not to sell grain; other days are again noted as specially favorable for military movements.
Some of the precautions prescribed in this calendar may have been meant for the populace in general, such as the order not to cross a stream or to strike a bargain. The belief in lucky and unlucky days has a distinct popular flavor, but it is doubtful whether the ordinary public consulted the priests, as a general thing, in order to find out what days were lucky and what not. It is more plausible to assume that the priests embodied in their official calendars some of the notions that arose among the people, and gave to them an official sanction.
There are a considerable number of references to the king in the complete calendar under consideration, and we are permitted to assume, therefore, that the calendar served as a further guide for the priests in their instructions to the king. The allusion to oracles, curses, and weapons points in this same direction, and when, as in a number of instances, a day is described as one on which Shamash or some other god is 'angry,' it is in all probabilities against the ruler rather than against private individuals that the god's displeasure has been manifested. A similar official and public character is borne by[Pg 382] another calendar, where months alone are indicated and their significance interpreted.[623] The twelve months are arranged in as many columns. Under each column the indications 'favorable' or 'not' are entered, while at the right end of the tablet the specifications are added for what undertakings the month is, or is not, favorable. One of these specifications is "the soldiery to make an attack upon a hostile city," and upon referring to the list of months, we learn that the 2d, 6th, 7th, 8th, and 12th months are favorable for such an undertaking, but the others are 'not.' Again, the 1st, 3d, 4th, 6th, 8th, 9th, 10th, and 11th are 'favorable' for "the entrance of any army upon foreign soil," but the remainder 'not.' The other specifications refer likewise to the movements of the armies. Such a calendar was evidently drawn up on the basis of omens, for a specific purpose, and, we may add, for some specific expedition to serve as a guide to the military commander. In the same way, calendars were drawn up devoted to indications regarding crops and for other purposes of public interest. To a more limited extent, private affairs are also touched upon.
To enter upon a further discussion of details is unnecessary at this point, and would carry us too far from the main purpose of this chapter, which is to point out the diverse ways in which the belief in omens is illustrated by the religious literature of the Babylonians.
It is sufficient to have made clear that the oracles and dreams, the lists of omens derived from eclipses, the works on the planets and stars and the calendars, all have the same origin due to observation of coincidences, to past experience, and to a variety of combinations, some logical and some fanciful, of supposed relationships between cause and effect; and not only the same origin, but the lists and calendars served also the same main purpose of guides for the priests in replying to the questions put to them by their royal masters and in forwarding[Pg 383] instructions to the ruler for the regulation of his own conduct so that he and his people might enjoy the protection and good will of the gods. But the observation of the phenomena of the heavens, while playing perhaps the most prominent part in the derivation of omens, was not the only resource at the command of the priests for prognosticating the future. Almost daily, strange signs might be observed among men and animals, and whatever was strange was of necessity fraught with some meaning. It was the business of the priest to discover that meaning.
Monstrosities, human and animal, and all species of malformations aroused attention. The rarer their occurrence, the greater the significance attached to them. In addition to this, the movements of animals, the flight of birds, the appearance of snakes at certain places, of locusts, lions, the actions of dogs, the direction of the winds, the state of rivers, and all possible accidents and experiences that men may encounter in their house, in the street, in crossing streams, and in sleep were observed. Everything in any way unusual was important, and even common occurrences were of some significance. The extensive omen literature that was produced in Babylonia is an indication of the extent to which men's lives were hedged in by the belief in portents. Several thousand tablets in the portion of Ashurbanabal's library that has been rescued from oblivion through modern excavations, deal with omens of this general class. Several distinct series, some embracing over one hundred tablets, have already been distinguished. One of these series deals with all kinds of peculiarities that occur in human infants and in the young of animals; another with the things that may happen to a man; a third with the movements of various animals, and more the like. As yet but a small portion of these[Pg 384] tablets have been published,[624] but thanks to the indications given by Dr. Bezold in his great catalogue of the Kouyunjik Collection, a fair idea of the general character of the Babylonian omen literature may be formed. On what principle the omens were derived, it is again difficult to determine in detail, but that some logical principles controlled the interpretations cannot be doubted.
Jevons has shown[625] that in "sympathetic magic,"—of which the interpretation of omens is an offshoot,—the same logical methods are followed as in modern science. The famous 'Chaldean wisdom,' which is to be looked for in this widespread omen literature, would not have created so deep an impression on the ancient world, if the theologians of the Euphrates Valley, in incorporating primitive magic in the official religion, had not been successful in giving to their interpretations of occurrences in nature and in the animal world, the appearance, at least, of a consistent science.
Taking up as our first illustration the series devoted to birth portents, it is interesting to observe the system followed in presenting the various phases of the general subject. A broad distinction is drawn between significant phenomena in the case of human infants and in the case of the young of animals.
About a dozen tablets are taken up with an enumeration of omens connected with new-born children, and one gains the impression from the vast number of portents included in the lists that originally every birth portended something. The fact that births were of daily occurrence did not remove the sense of mystery aroused by this sudden appearance of a new life. Every part of the body was embraced in the omens: the ears, eyes, mouth, nose, lips, arms, hands, feet, fingers, toes, breast, generatory organs. Attention was directed to the shapes of[Pg 385] these various members and organs. The ears of a child might suggest the ears of a dog or of a lion or of a swine, and similarly the nose, mouth, lips, hands, or feet might present a peculiar appearance. A single member or the features in general might be small or abnormally large. All these peculiarities meant something; and since few if any children are born without presenting some peculiarities in some part of the body, it would seem as though the intention of the compilers of the series was to provide a complete handbook for the interpretation of signs connected with the birth of children. Naturally the total absence of some member of the body in case of the new-born or any malformation was a sign of especial significance. Hence we are told what was portended by a child born without hands or feet or ears or lips, or with only one of these members, or with only one eye, or with no mouth or no tongue, or with six fingers on one or on both hands, or six toes on one or on both feet, or without generatory organs.[626]
The rarer the phenomenon, the greater the significance is, as we have seen, a general principle in the science of augury. The birth of twins accordingly plays an important rôle in the series. In fact, the opening tablet is devoted in part to this phase of the subject. We are told, for example, that[627]
If a woman gives birth to twins, one male and one female, it is an unfavorable omen. The land is in favor[628], but that house (wherein the child was born) will be reduced.
And again,
If a woman gives birth to twins, and both are brought out alive(?),[629] but the right hand of one is lacking, the ruler (?) will be killed by force, the land will be diminished....[Pg 386]
If a woman gives birth to twins, and both are brought out alive (?), but neither of them have right hands, the produce of the country will be consumed by the enemy.
If a woman gives birth to twins, and both are brought out alive (?), but the right foot of one is missing, an enemy will for one year disturb the fixed order of the country.[630]
It will be observed that these omens bear on public as well as private affairs. The part played by public matters in them varies, but that the king and the country are so frequently introduced is an indication again of the official character given to these omen tablets. Only priests whose chief concern was with the court and the general welfare would have been impelled to mingle in this curious way the fate of the individual with that of the country at large. The birth of twins in itself is an omen for the house where the event occurs; but twins that are monstrosities, with a foot or a hand lacking, portend something of import to the general welfare.
The tablet proceeds, after finishing one phase of the subject, with omens to be derived from infants whose features resemble those of certain animals. In this case again we will see that the mind of the compiler is now directed towards the fate of the individual and again toward the ruler or the country. In the 2d tablet of the series we read that
If a woman gives birth to a child with a lion's head,[631] a strong king will rule in the land.
If a woman gives birth to a child with a dog's head, the city in his district[632] will be in distress, and evil will be in the country.
If a woman gives birth to a child with a swine's head, offspring and possession (?) will increase in that house.
If a woman gives birth to a child with a bird's head, that land will be destroyed.[Pg 387]
If a woman gives birth to a child with a serpent's head, for thirty days (?) Nin-Gishzida[633] will bring a famine in the land, and Gilgamesh[634] will rule as king in the land.
In the same tablet[635] such monstrosities are taken up as children born with two heads, with a double pair of eyes, or with the eyes misplaced, with two mouths or more than two lips. The two heads, strange enough, generally portend good fortune, though not invariably. Thus an infant with two heads is an omen of strength for the country; and again
If a woman gives birth to a child with two heads, two mouths, but the regular number of eyes, hands, and feet[636], it is an omen of vigorous life [for the country, but the son] will seize the king his father and kill him.
But
If a woman gives birth to a child with two heads and two mouths, and the two hands and two feet are between them[637], disease will settle upon that city (where the monstrosity was born).
If the deformity consists in the misplacement of certain organs, the omen is invariably bad.
If a woman gives birth to a child with two eyes on the left side, it is a sign that the gods are angry against the land, and the land will be destroyed.
And again,
If a woman gives birth to a child with three eyes on the left side and one on the right, the gods will fill the land with corpses.
The third tablet proceeds with other parts of the body. It begins with a list of peculiarities observed in regard to the ears. The resemblance of certain features in children to the corresponding[Pg 388] features of animals is an observation made by many nations. In modern times Lavater, it will be recalled, based his study of human physiognomy in part upon the resemblance of the nose, eyes, mouth, and ears, and general shape of the head to the features of such animals as the lion, jackass, dog, and swine. We may well believe, therefore, that when the Babylonians refer to a child with a lion's or a dog's ear, they had in mind merely a resemblance, but did not mean that the child actually had the ear of a lion or dog or the like.
At times the connection between the omen and its interpretation is quite obvious. In a portion of this same series we are told that[638]
If a woman gives birth to a child with a lion-like ear, a mighty king will arise in the land.
It will be recalled that a 'lion head' portends the same, and it is evident that in both cases the lion suggests strength. We are in the presence of the same order of ideas that controls the belief in 'sympathetic magic.' The corollary to 'like produces like' is 'like means like.' In other cases, the logic underlying the interpretation of the omen must be sought for in views connected with some accompanying feature.
If a woman gives birth to a child with the right ear missing, the days of the ruler will be long.
If a woman gives birth to a child with the left ear missing, distress will enter the land and weaken it.
While in general the absence of any part of the body is a sign of distress for the country and individual by a perfectly natural association of ideas, yet this general principle is modified by the further consideration that 'right' is a good omen and 'left' a bad one. But this consideration which makes the[Pg 389] absence of the 'right' ear a good omen may again be offset by the entrance of a third factor. So we are told that
If a woman gives birth to a child with a small[639] right ear, the house of the man[640] will be destroyed.
The omen of misfortune in this case is the deformity in the organ, and the fact that the more important right ear is deformed, so far from mitigating the force of the omen, accentuates its consequences.
If a deformed right ear is disastrous, we are prepared to learn that
If a woman gives birth to a child with both ears short, the house of the man will be utterly rooted out.
No less than eleven varieties of deformed ears are enumerated. It must not be supposed, however, that the factors involved in this omen science are always or even generally so simple. In most cases the connection between the sign and the conclusion drawn, is not clear to us because of the multiplicity of factors involved. Further publication and study of omen texts will no doubt make some points clear which are now obscure, but we cannot expect ever to find out all the factors that were taken into account by the populace and the schoolmen, in proposing and accepting certain interpretations of certain omens, any more than we can fathom the reasons for the similar superstition found among other nations[641] of antiquity and modern times. Recognizing certain principles in some of the omens, we are justified in concluding that whatever else determined the interpretation of omens, caprice did not enter into consideration, but rather an association of ideas that escapes[Pg 390] us, simply because our logic differs from the logic of primitive peoples in certain important particulars.
The list of peculiarities occurring in the case of babes continues as follows:
If a woman gives birth to a child whose mouth is shaped like a bird's, the country will be stirred up.
If a woman gives birth to a child without any mouth, the mistress of the house will die.
If a woman gives birth to a child with the right nostril lacking, misfortune is portending.
If a woman gives birth to a child with both nostrils lacking, the land will witness distress, and disease will destroy the house of the man.
If a woman gives birth to a child whose jaw is lacking, the days of the ruler will be long, but the house of the man will be destroyed.
If a woman gives birth to a child whose lower jaw is lacking, the ground will not bear fruit during the year.
It will be observed that, while most of the portents are evil, the ruler of the land is here generally vouchsafed immunity. The priests had to be somewhat on their guard lest by the very terror that they aroused, the hold of the rulers over the people might be loosened. Moreover, the rulers were sufficiently hedged in by their positions, as we have seen, and were in no danger of regarding themselves as safe from the anger of the gods.
Still quite frequently even the king is involved in the evil prophecy. The portion of the series dealing with portents derived from deformed hands and feet contains instances of this kind.
If a woman gives birth to a child with the right hand lacking, the land advances to destruction.
If a woman gives birth to a child with both hands lacking, the city will witness no more births, and the land will be utterly destroyed.
If a woman gives birth to a child with the fingers of the right hand lacking, the ruler will be captured by his enemy.
If a woman gives birth to a child with six toes on the right foot, through distress (?), the house of the man will perish.[Pg 391]
If a woman gives birth to a child with six very small toes on the left foot, distress (?) will come to pass.
If a woman gives birth to a child with six toes on the right foot, some disaster is portending.
Altogether no less than ninety kinds of human deformities in the various parts of the body are enumerated and interpreted.
The significance of the portents is naturally increased if the woman who gives birth to a monstrosity happens to belong to the royal house. In such a case, the omen has direct bearings on national affairs. The good or evil sign affects the country exclusively. From a tablet of this nature,[642] belonging to a different series than the one we have been considering, we learn that six toes on the right foot or six on the left foot mean defeat, whereas six toes on both feet mean victory. Royal twins were a good omen, and so also a royal child born with teeth or with hair on its face or with unusually developed features.
The same desire to find some meaning in deviations from normal types led to the careful observation of deformities or peculiarities in the case of the young of domestic animals. In the fifth tablet of the series that we have chosen as an illustration, the compiler passes from babes to the offspring of domestic animals. From the opening line, which is all that has been published as yet,[643] and which reads:
If in the flock[644] a dog is born, weapons will destroy life and the king will not be triumphant
it would appear that the first subject taken up was the anomalous unions among animals, which naturally aroused attention when they occurred.
A number of tablets—at least seven—follow in which monstrosities occurring among the young of sheep are noted.[Pg 392]
The series passes on to signs to be observed among colts. From this point on, the series is too defective (so far as published) to warrant any further deductions; but it is safe to suppose that, as the young of ewes and mares were considered in special sections, so the young of swine and of cows were taken up in succession. The whole series would thus aim to cover that section of the animal kingdom that concerned man most,—his own offspring, and the young of those animals by which he was surrounded.
In these omens derived from the young of domestic animals, we are again overwhelmed at the mass of contingencies included by the priests in their compilations. Just as in the case of omens derived from infants, so here the parts of the body are taken up one after the other. All possible, and one is inclined to add various impossible, variations from the normal types are noted. The omen varies as the female throws off one, two, three, or whatever number of young ones up to ten. For example:[645]
If among the sheep, five young ones are born, it is a sign of devastation in the land. The owner of the sheep dies, and his house is destroyed.
This is the omen in the case that the litter consists of five young ones, all normal. But if anomalies occur, as, e.g.,
If five young ones are born, one with a bull's head, one with a lion's head, one with a dog's head, and one with a sheep's head, there will be a series of devastations in the land.
Again,
If seven young are thrown off, three male and four female, that man[646] will perish.
And so if eight are born, it is a bad sign for the king who, we are told, "will be driven out of the country through sedition."[Pg 393] The variations are nigh endless.
If in the flock, young ones are thrown off with five legs, it is a sign of distress in the land. The house of the man will perish and his stalls will be swept away.
If the young ones have six legs, the population will decrease and devastation will settle over the country.
Having finished with litters, the series proceeds to peculiar marks found on single specimens; lambs that have a head and tail shaped like a lion or that have a lion's head and a mane like that of an ass, or a head like a bird's, or like a swine, and so through a long and rather tiresome list.
Malformations in the shape or position of members of the animal, particularly the mouth, ears, tongue, tail, and eyes, or the absence of any one or of several of these parts were fraught with an importance corresponding to these symptoms among new-born babes.
If a young one has its ears on one side, and its head is twisted (?), and it has no mouth, the ruler will cut off the supply of water from his enemy.
In this instance the 'twisting' and the absence of the mouth appear to suggest the act of turning a canal into a different direction, so as to isolate a besieged city. When the text goes on to declare that
If the young one has its ears at its neck,[647] the ruler will be without judgment,
it is the association of ideas between 'ears' and 'judgment,'[648] that supplies the link. A misplaced ear is equivalent to misdirected judgment.
Consistent with this interpretation, the next line informs us that
If the young one has its ears below the neck,[649] the union of the country is weakened.
[Pg 394] Such glimpses into the peculiar thought controlling these omens are perhaps all that we will be able to obtain at least for a long time to come. For the rest, comparative studies with the omens of the other nations will alone serve to determine the multitudinous factors involved in the interpretations of the signs.
Before leaving the subject, however, a few more illustrations may be offered. Another portion of the same tablet—the eleventh—continues the omens derived from peculiarities in the ears of lambkins:
If the young one has no right ear, the rule of the king will come to an end, his palace will be uprooted, and the population of the city will be swept away, the king will lose judgment, ... the produce of the country will be small, the enemy will cut off the supply of water.
If the left ear of the young one is missing, the deity will hear the prayer of the king, the king will capture his enemy's land, and the palace of the enemy will be destroyed, the enemy will lack judgment, the produce of the enemy's land will be taken away and everything will be plundered (?).
If the right ear of the young one falls off, the stall[650] will be destroyed.
If the left ear of the young one falls off, the stall will be increased, the stall[651] of the enemy will be destroyed.
If the right ear of the young one is split (?), that stall will be destroyed, the enemy (?) will advance against the city.
If the left ear of the young one is split (?), that stall will be increased, the king[652] will advance against the enemy's land.
In all these cases it will be observed that a defect in the right ear or an accident happening to it is an evil omen, whereas the same thing occurring in the case of the left is a favorable indication. The greater importance of the right side of anything evidently suggests in this case the interpretation offered, and yet this principle, as we have seen, is far from being of universal application. It depends upon what happens to the right ear. Above, we have seen that an unusually large[Pg 395] ear betokens some good fortune, and in the tablet under consideration, illustrations are afforded of accidents to the right ear which furnish a good omen, while the same accident in the case of the left ear is regarded as a bad omen.
Our text continues:
If the right ear of the young one is shrunk (?), the house of the owner will prosper.
If the left ear is shrunk, the house of the owner will perish.
If the right ear is torn off, the house of the owner will prosper.
If the left ear is torn off, the house of the owner will perish.
But immediately following this we have again an evil omen for the right ear and a favorable one for the left. Three more tablets are taken up with omens associated with all manner of peculiarities in the formation of the ears, head, lips, mouth, and feet of lambkins, and it is not until the fifteenth tablet of the series is reached that another subject, the young of mares, is introduced.
The prognostications in the case of colts have about the same character as those in the case of lambkins. The same signs are singled out for mention, and the omens are not only, just as in the illustrations adduced, evenly divided between the fate of the country and its ruler, and of the owner of the colt or mare, but we can also observe a consistent application of the same principles, so far as these principles may be detected. A few illustrations will make this clear:[653]
If a colt has no right legs, the house[654] will be destroyed.
If a colt has no left legs, the days of the ruler will be long.
If a colt has no legs, the country will be destroyed.
If a colt has the right leg shortened,[655] ... his stall[656] will be destroyed.
If a colt has the left leg shortened, the stall[656] will be destroyed
If a colt has no hoof on the right foreleg, the wife will cause trouble to her husband.[Pg 396]
If a colt has no hoofs at all, there will be dissensions (?) within the country, and the enemy will enter the ruler's land.
In this way, twenty-one omens derived from as many varieties of strange formations in the legs of colts are enumerated. As in the case of lambkins, so for colts, the appearance of twins is endowed with a special significance.
If a mare gives birth to twins, male and female, and each has only one eye, the enemy triumphs and devastates Babylonia.
If the male or female colt has a mane like a lion, the country will be reduced.
If the male or female colt has a dog's hoof, the country will be reduced.
If the male or female colt has a lion's claw, the country will be enlarged.
If the male or female colt has a dog's head, the woman's[657] life will be bad. The country will be reduced.
If the male or female colt has a lion's head, the ruler will be strong.
If both colts, the male and female, resemble lions, the ruler over his enemies prevails (?).
If both colts, male and female, resemble dogs, the ruler over his enemy's country prevails (?).
If either a male or female colt is born resembling a lion, the king will be strong.
If either a male or female colt resembles a dog, herds of cattle will die, and there will be famine.
If a colt is born without a head, its master will be strong.
If a colt is born without eyes, the god Bel will bring about a change of dynasty.
If a colt is born without feet, the king increases his army and a slaughter will ensue.
If a colt is born without ears, for three years the gods will reduce the land.
If a colt is born without a tail, the ruler will die.
In conclusion it may be observed that, apart from the unusual character of these freaks which would suffice to attribute a special import to them, the notions current among the Babylonians, as among so many people of a period when creatures existed, the various parts of which were compounded[Pg 397] of different animals, may be regarded as an additional factor that served to add force to the class of omens we are considering. The monsters guarding the approaches to temples and palaces[658] were but one form which this popular belief assumed, and when a colt was observed to have a lion's or a dog's claw, an ocular demonstration was afforded which at once strengthened and served to maintain a belief that at bottom is naught but a crude and primitive form of a theory of evolution. In a dim way man always felt the unity of the animal world. Animals resembled one another, and man had some features in common with animals. What more natural than to conclude that at some period, the animals were composite creatures, and that even mankind and the animal world were once blended together.
The prevailing religious and semi-mythological ideas, accordingly, enter as factors in the significance that was attached to infants or to the young of animals, serving as illustrations of 'hybrid' formations.
The same order of ideas, only still further extended, may be detected in the sacredness attached to certain animals by so many nations of antiquity. It is now generally admitted that this 'sacredness' has two sides. A sacred animal may be 'taboo,' that is, so sacred that it must not be touched, much less killed or eaten; and, on the other hand, its original sanctity may lead people to regard it as "unclean," something again to be avoided, because of the power to do evil involved in the primitive conception of 'sacredness.'[659]
The swine and the dog are illustrations of this double nature of sanctity among the Semites. The former was sacred to some of the inhabitants of "Syria."[660] The Babylonians, as we have[Pg 398] seen, abstained from eating it on certain days of the year, while the Hebrews and Arabs regarded it as an absolute 'taboo.'
The dog to this day is in the Orient an "unclean" animal, and yet it is forbidden to do dogs any injury. If, then, we find the Babylonians attaching significance to the movements of this animal, it is obvious that by them, too, the dog was regarded as, in some way, sacred. It was an 'animal of omen,' sometimes good, at other times bad. A tablet informs us[661] that:
If a yellow dog enters a palace, it is a sign of a distressful fate for the palace.
If a speckled dog enters a palace, the palace[662] will give peace to the enemy.
If a dog enters a palace and some one kills him, the peace of the palace will be disturbed.
If a dog enters a palace and crouches on the couch, no one will enjoy that palace in peace.
If a dog enters a palace and crouches on the throne, that palace will suffer a distressful fate.
If a dog enters a palace and lies on a large bowl, the palace will secure peace from the enemy.
There follow omens in case dogs enter a sacred edifice:
If a dog enters a temple, the gods will not enlarge the land.
If a white dog enters a temple, the foundation of that temple will be firm.
If a black dog enters a temple, the foundation of that temple will not be firm.
If a brown[663] dog enters a temple, that temple will witness justice.
If a yellow dog enters a temple, that temple will[664] witness justice.
If a speckled dog enters a temple, the gods will show favor to that temple.
If dogs gather together and enter a temple, the city's peace will be disturbed.
[Pg 399] The juxtaposition of palace and temple is an indication that a large measure of sanctity was attached to the former as the dwelling-place of one who stood near to the gods. The omens, accordingly, in the case of both palace and temple are again concerned with public affairs. But from the same tablet we learn that an equal degree of significance was attached to the actions of dogs when they entered private dwellings. Precautions must have been taken against the presence of dogs in that part of the house which was reserved for a man's family, for we are told:[665]
A dog entering a man's house was an omen that the ultimate fate of that house would be destruction by fire.
Care had to be taken lest dogs defiled a person or any part of the house. The omens varied again according to the color of the dog.
If a white dog defiles[666] a man, destruction will seize him.
If a black dog defiles a man, sickness will seize him.
If a brown dog defiles a man, that man will perish.
If a dog defiles a man's couch, a severe sickness will seize that man.
If a dog defiles a man's chair, the man will not survive the year.
If a dog defiles a man's bowl,[667] a deity will show anger towards the man.
On the other hand, dogs were not to be driven out of the streets. Their presence in the roads was essential to the welfare of the place. Hence an omen reads:
If dogs do not enter the highway,[668] destruction from an enemy will visit the city.
Through Diodorus, Jamblichus, and other ancient writers we know that the Babylonians and Assyrians attached importance to the movements of other animals, notably serpents, birds, and certain insects. The symbols on the boundary stones which[Pg 400] have been referred to[669] are based on this belief. The serpent figures prominently among these symbols. In the Babylonian deluge story, the dove, raven, and swallow are introduced. Of these, the swallow appears to be the bird whose flight was most carefully observed. The sign which represents this bird in the cuneiform syllabary also signifies 'fate.'[670] The mischief wrought by swarms of insects, as grasshoppers and locusts, the danger lurking in the bites of scorpions sufficiently explain the importance attached to the actions of these animals. The mysterious appearance and disappearance of serpents and their strange twistings added an element in their case that increased the awe they inspired, while if Ihering be correct,[671] the omens derived from the flight of birds are a survival of the migratory period in the history of a nation, when birds served as a natural guide in choosing the easiest course to pass from one place to another. A large number of tablets in Ashurbanabal's library treat of the significance attached to the action of these various animals, and it is likely that these tablets form part of a large series, of which the illustrations above adduced regarding the movements of dogs form a part. In this series, the application of the omens to individuals is more strongly emphasized than in the series of birth portents. Naturally so, for it was the individual as a general thing who encountered the signs. In the case of the appearance of a serpent or snake, for example, the omen consisted in the fact that a certain person beheld it, and that person was involved in the consequences. Fine distinctions are again introduced that illustrate the intricacies of the system of interpretation perfected in Babylonia. If a snake passes from the right to the left side of a man, it means one thing; if from the left to the right, another; if the man who[Pg 401] sees a snake does not tread upon it, the omen is different than in the case when he attempts to crush it. Again the omen varies according to the occupation of the man who encountered a snake. If he be a gardener, the appearance of the snake means something different than in the case of his being a sailor.
The place where the animal appears is also of import, whether in the street, the house, or the temple, and again, the time of its appearance, in what month or on what day. In the same way, an endless variety of omens are derived from the appearance of certain birds, the direction of their flight, their fluttering around the head of a man or entering a man's house. So, e.g.,
If a raven[672] enters a man's house, that man will secure whatever he desires.
And again:
If a bird throws a bit of meat or anything into a man's house, that man will secure a large fortune.
The omens from the appearance of flocks of birds in a town bore, as appears natural, upon public affairs rather than upon the fate of individuals, and similarly the appearance of birds in a temple was an omen for the whole country.
The public or private character of the omens was thus dependent in large measure upon the question whether the phenomena appeared to an individual directly or to the population of a place in general. Meeting a snake or scorpion in the course of a walk through the fields was an individual omen, and similarly the actions of sheep in a man's stall, whereas, a mad bull rushing through the city was a general omen. So we are told that
If sheep in the stalls do not bleat (?), that stall will be destroyed.
A bull crouching at the gate of a city is an omen that the enemy will capture that gate.
A bull goring an ox in the city is an unfavorable omen for the city, but if the bull enters the precincts of an individual, it is favorable for the individual.
A series of omens derived from the appearance of locusts again illustrates this principle. When the insects enter private precincts, the individual and his immediate surroundings are affected.[674]
If black and speckled locusts appear in a man's house, the master of the house will die.
If black and yellow locusts appear in a man's house, the supports of that house will fall.
If large white locusts appear in a man's house, that house will be destroyed and the owner will be in distress.
If white and brown locusts appear in a man's house, that house will be destroyed.
If small white and brown locusts appear in a man's house, the house will be destroyed and the owner will be in distress.
If yellow locusts appear in a man's house, the supports of that house will fall and the owner of the house will be unlucky.
If yellow-winged locusts appear in a man's house, the master of the house will die and that house will be overthrown.
It made little difference whether one encountered something while awake or saw it in one's dream. In fact, what one saw while asleep had as a general thing more importance. A special god of dreams, Makhir, is often referred to in the religious texts, and this is but another way of expressing the belief that the dreams were sent to a man as omens. An unusually wide scope was afforded to the compilers of omen[Pg 403] series in their interpretations of dreams, for what might not a man see in visions of the night? If a lion[675] appears to a man, it means that the man will carry out his purpose; if a jackal, it signifies that he will secure favor in the eyes of the gods; a dog portends sorrow; a mountain goat, that the man's son will die of some disease; a stag, that his daughter will die; and so through a long list.
Again we are told[676] that
If (in a dream) a date appears on a man's head,[677] it means that that man will be in distress.
If a fish appears on a man's head, that man will be powerful.
If a mountain appears on a man's head, that man will be without a rival.
If salt appears on a man's head, his house will be well protected (?).
Similarly, interpretations are offered for the apparition of the dead or of demons, in dreams. The book of Daniel affords an illustration of the importance attached to dreams in Babylonia, and of the science developed out of the interpretations. The sarcastic touch introduced by the compiler of the book,[678] who represents Nebuchadnezzar as demanding of his priests not merely to interpret his dream, but to tell him what he dreamed, is intended to illustrate the limitations of the far-famed 'Chaldean wisdom.' It is also interesting to note in connection with the illustrations adduced, that the dreams of Nebuchadnezzar and Belshazzar[679] in the book of Daniel are so largely concerned with apparitions of animals.
The omens taken from dreams, together with the accidents that occurred to an individual, or the phenomena occurring in a man's house, afford us an insight into the purely popular phases of the science of augury. While eclipses and the movements of planets bear chiefly and almost exclusively on public affairs, and even birth portents frequently portend something to the ruler[Pg 404] or to the country, it was through such omens as partook of a purely personal character that the intentions of the gods towards the individual were made manifest. By means of omens, the bond between the individual and the gods was not, indeed, established, but in large measure maintained. Here was a phase of the religion that touched each individual closely. What a person saw, what he dreamed, what happened to him, what appeared in his house or among the members of his household was of significance to him. To know what every phenomenon portended was essential to his welfare; and we may feel certain that the relations of the individual to the priests, so far as these existed, consisted largely in obtaining from the latter the interpretation of the omens that he encountered. On the other hand, the power of the priests over the populace was due to the popular belief in portents, and the attention given by the theologians to the collection of exhaustive omen series is a proof that the priests knew how to use their power.
These "Dream Books" must have been very numerous. The success of the priests here depended even more than in other branches of the omen literature upon exhausting, so far as possible, all contingencies. No doubt they were guided here also by two factors: association of ideas, and past experience through making of a single coincidence between a dream and some occurrence, a principle of general application. Some of the omens from dreams, however, appear to have themselves formed part of a larger series dealing in general with
If one may judge from the specimens furnished by Dr. Bezold in his catalogue, this series was unusually extensive, embracing a large number of subjects connected with human activity,—a man's work in the field, his actions in commercial affairs, incidents of travel on sea or land, his relations to his kindred—the[Pg 405] dead as well as the living—disease and death, down to such apparent trifles as the conditions of the walls of his house. Cracks in the wall were an omen; meeting a snake in the highway was an omen. A fall was an omen; dropping an instrument was an omen; in short, it is difficult to say what was not an omen. The character of the omens in this series does not differ in any essential particulars from those of other series. The important feature of the series is that it affords another and perhaps the most striking illustration of that phase of the omen literature which concerns the individual directly, and, it seems safe to add, exclusively.
Take, for example, omens connected with symptoms occurring in certain diseases. We are told that
If the right breast is brown, it is a fatal (?) sign.
If both breasts are brown, there will be no recovery.
If the left breast is green, the sickness will be severe.
The symptoms affect the individual alone. Through this series we are thus enabled to determine more definitely the boundary line between omens involving the affairs of the country and king, and those involving the individual. A phenomenon affecting an individual, or appearing to him alone, or brought about through some action of his of a purely private character, carries in its train an omen of significance for himself or his immediate surroundings; but the moment that these rather narrow limits are transcended, the fate of the individual becomes more or less closely bound up with the fortunes of the population and of the ruler of the country in general. The series also illustrates, perhaps better than any other, the control exercised by popular beliefs over the acts of the individual. For we may conclude, that if work on certain days or traveling at certain periods or the appearance of certain animals indicated something unfavorable to a man, he would studiously avoid bringing misfortune upon himself and[Pg 406] observe the precautions involved in the interpretation of the vast mass of the accidents and incidents of existence. The task was a difficult one, indeed, impossible of being carried out to perfection, but this would not hinder him from making the attempt. He was satisfied if he warded off at least a fair number of unfavorable omens. Correspondingly, he would endeavor to so regulate his course as to encounter as large a number as possible of omens that were favorable to him. In this way his life would be spent with a constant thought of the gods and spirits, who controlled all things in this world. The popular belief in omens made it incumbent upon the individual not to lose sight at any time of his dependence upon powers over which he had but a limited control.
A certain phase of his religion thus entered largely into his life. That phase would occupy him by day and by night. It was a part of his religion which literally engaged him "upon lying down at night, and upon rising up, while sitting in the house, and while walking on the way." If, despite all his efforts, misfortune came,—and misfortunes, of course, came constantly,—there was no other recourse but to throw himself upon the mercy of some god or gods. The gods, especially Marduk, Ishtar, Shamash, and Ramman, by putting 'grace' into the omens, could at any time change them into favorable indications.[Pg 407]
[548] Illustrated by the four volumes of Bezold's Catalogue of the Koujunjik, Collection of the British Museum (London, 1889-96).
[549] Vorgeschichte der Indo-Europaer, pp. 221 seq.
[550] E.g., IIIR. 51.
[551] Ib. no. 1.
[552] The 1st month of the year.
[553] IIIR. 51. no. 2.
[554] Ib. no. 3.
[555] IIIR. 51, no. 9.
[556] Ib. no. 7.
[557] What the station of this official was we are not told.
[558] IIIR. 58, no. 7.
[559] Lit., 'true speech in the mouth of the people,' i.e., there will be no sedition.
[560] IIIR. 58, no. 7.
[561] Ib. no. 6.
[562] Are not seen at the same time.
[563] His decision will be wise.
[564] Safe from attacks.
[565] IIIR. 58, no. 13.
[566] Ib. no. 12.
[567] This appears to be the unusual occurrence involved.
[569] IIIR. 58, no. 14.
[570] I.e., contrary to calculation.
[571] The shadow.
[572] Favorable to Elam (so Oppert translates).
[573] 9th month.
[574] IIIR. 51, no. 5.
[575] 11th month.
[576] IIIR. 59, no. 13.
[577] Some palace official is mentioned.
[578] E.g., IIIR. 52, no. 2; 60 and 61. Professor Craig of the University of Michigan is now preparing for publication all the fragments of this series. (See his Assyrian and Babylonian Religious Texts, ii. 7.)
[579] IIIR. 60. The first eleven lines are broken off.
[580] I.e., of the night. The night, it will be recalled, was divided into three watches of four hours each.
[581] Lit., a 'divine decision (or oracle) is given.'
[582] An island near the head of the Persian Gulf, often referred to in the historical texts. See Tiele, Babyl.-Assyr. Gesch. p. 88, etc.
[583] Under the same circumstances.
[584] Lit., 'cattle'; but cattle appears to be used for 'property' in general, just as our English word 'chattel.'
[585] 5th month.
[586] Under the same circumstances.
[587] Lit., Nergal—the personification of pestilence and death.
[588] Repeated in the text by an error of the scribe.
[589] III R. 60, col. ii. 90 to col. iii. 24.
[590] I.e., there will be war. One is reminded of the modern superstition which associates war with the 'northern light' in the heavens.
[591] I.e., there will be sedition.
[592] So a variant text.
[593] I.e., will play havoc with the Inhabitants of the deep.
[594] I.e., there will be peace.
[595] See the chapter on "The Temples of Babylonia and Assyria."
[596] See Jensen, Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp. 134-139.
[597] IIIR. 63.
[598] Lit., "delayed in the heavens."
[599] Tablet defective.
[600] I.e., there is war.
[601] Intercalated month.
[602] I.e., it is a good sign.
[603] Tablet defective.
[604] Text erroneously 'one month.'
[606] See Ihering, Vorgeschichte der Indo-Europaer, pp. 182 seq.
[607] See The Golden Bough, passim.
[608] IV Rawlinson, pls. 32, 33.
[609] I.e., the Intercalated Elul. After the 6th month (Elul) and after the 12th (Adar), a month was intercalated at certain intervals in order to bring the solar and lunar years into conjunction.
[610] Lit., 'raising of his hand to a god'—the attitude in prayer.
[611] Text erroneously 'mistress.'
[612] Here and elsewhere Ishtar is used in a generic sense for 'chief goddess'; in the present case Sarpanitum. See above, pp. 82, 151, 206.
[613] 'Belit,' as 'mistress' in general.
[614] Lit., 'place of secrecy,' the reference being to that portion of the temple where the god sat enthroned.
[615] I.e., of the palace.
[616] I.e., upon one's enemies.
[617] Isaiah, lviii. 13.
[618] Meat, just as wine, was considered at all times a symbol of joy in the Orient.
[619] Perhaps also the 24th.
[620] V Rawlinson, pls. 48, 49.
[621] The plural is used, but in a collective sense.
[622] The Euphrates or Tigris is no doubt meant.
[623] IIIR. 52, no. 3, reverse.
[624] The most extensive publication of omens is Boissier's Documents Assyriens Relatifs aux Présages, of which two volumes have appeared. Boissier's method of publication is not altogether satisfactory.
[625] Introduction to the History of Religions, pp. 28-35.
[626] A particularly bad omen. See IIIR. 65, 22, obverse.
[627] Boissler, Documents Assyriens Relatifs aux Présages, pp. 110 seq. Boissier has published portions of some twenty tablets of the series, ib. pp. 110-181.
[628] I.e., will not suffer.
[629] The phrase used is obscure. My translation is offered as a conjecture.
[630] I.e., an enemy will keep the land in turmoil.
[631] I.e., like a lion. Elsewhere the preposition 'like' is used.
[632] Where the child is born.
[633] A solar deity; see above, p. 99. Reference to minor deities are frequent in these omen texts.
[634] The reference appears to be to some misfortune that will be brought about through the solar deity Gilgamesh.
[635] Boissier, Documents, etc., pp. 118-120.
[636] I.e., only two.
[637] Between the two heads, I.e., the hands and feet are misplaced.
[638] IIIR. 65, no. 1.
[639] Abnormally small.
[640] I.e., the father or master.
[641] The Egyptians carried the observation and interpretation of omens to quite as high a degree as the Babylonians and Assyrians. See, e.g., Chabas, Mélanges Égyptologiques, 3e série, tome ii.; Wiedemann's Religion of Ancient Egypt, p. 263.
[642] Lenormant, Choix des Textes Cuneiformes, no. 87.
[643] Occurring at the end of the fourth tablet, as an aid for the correct arrangement of the series. IIIR 65, no. 1, reverse, l. 28.
[644] Lit., 'stall,' which includes sheep, oxen, and swine.
[645] Boissier, Documents, etc., pp. 132, 133.
[646] I.e., the owner of the stall. A variant reads 'king' instead of 'man.'
[647] I.e., misplaced.
[648] In Babylonian, 'ear' is a synonym of 'understanding.'
[649] Still further misplaced.
[650] Where the young one was born.
[651] I.e., the flocks.
[652] Boissler's text has 'man,'—probably in error for 'king.'
[653] IIIR. 65, no. 2, obverse.
[654] Of the master.
[655] Lit., 'cut off.'
[656] Of the owner.
[657] The wife of the owner of the mare appears to be meant.
[659] See Jevons, Introduction to the History of Religion, chapters vi.-ix.
[660] Robertson Smith; Religion of the Semites, pp. 143, 273.
[661] Lenormant, Choix des Textes Cuneiformes, no. 89; Boissier, Documents, etc., p. 104.
[662] I.e., the ruler of the palace.
[663] Lit., 'dark colored.'
[664] 'Not,' perhaps omitted.
[665] Boissier, p. 103.
[666] By vomiting on him.
[667] Out of which one eats.
[668] I.e., keep away from it.
[669] See p. 182.
[670] According to Hilprecht (Old Babylonian Inscriptions, I. part 2, p. 35), 'a goose or similar water-bird' was originally pictured by the sign, though he admits that the picture was 'later' used for swallow.
[671] Vorgeschichte der Indo-Europaer, pp. 451-55.
[672] The term used is Unagga, Bezold's Catalogue of the Koujunjik Collection, p. 1841. See Jensen, Kosmologie, p. 153.
[673] Bezold, Catalogue, p. 1710.
[674] Boissier, Documents, etc., pp. 3, 4.
[675] Bezold, Catalogue, pp. 1437, 1438.
[676] Bezold, ib. p. 918.
[677] I.e., over him.
[678] Chapter ii. 4-6.
[679] Chapter ii. 31-35, and vii. 2-12.
Various traditions were current in Babylonia regarding the manner in which the universe came into existence. The labors of the theologians to systematize these traditions did not succeed in bringing about their unification. Somewhat like in the Book of Genesis, where two versions of the creation story have been combined by some editor,[680] so portions of what were clearly two independent versions have been found among the remains of Babylonian literature. But whereas in the Old Testament the two versions are presented in combination so as to form a harmonic whole, the two Babylonian versions continued to exist side by side. There is no reason to suppose that the versions were limited to two. In fact, a variant to an important episode in the creation story has been discovered which points to a third version.[681]
The suggestion has been thrown out that these various versions arose in the various religious centers of the Euphrates Valley. So far as the editing of the versions is concerned, the suggestion is worthy of consideration, for it is hardly reasonable to suppose that the theological schools of one and the same place should have developed more than one cosmological system. The traditions themselves, however, apart from the[Pg 408] literary form which they eventually assumed, need not have been limited to certain districts nor have been peculiar to the place where the systematization took place. Nothing is more common than the interchange of myths and popular traditions. They travel from one place to the other, and contradictory accounts of one and the same event may be circulated, and find credence in one and the same place.
The two distinct Babylonian versions of the creation of the world that have up to the present time been found, have come to us in a fragmentary form. Of the one, indeed, only some forty lines exist, and these are introduced incidentally in an incantation text;[682] of the other version, portions of six tablets[683] have been recovered; while of two fragments it is doubtful[684] whether they belong to this same version or represent a third version, as does certainly a fragment containing a variant account of the episode described in the fourth tablet of the larger group. The fragments of the longer version—in all 23—enable us to form a tolerably complete picture of the Babylonian cosmology, and with the help of numerous allusions in historical, religious and astronomical texts and in classical writers, we can furthermore fill out some of the gaps.
Taking up the longer version, which must for the present serve as our chief source for the cosmology of the Babylonians, it is important to note at the outset that the series constitutes, in reality, a grand hymn in honor of Marduk. The account of the beginning of things and of the order of creation is but incidental to an episode which is intended to illustrate the greatness of Marduk, the head of the Babylonian pantheon. This episode is the conquest of a great monster known as[Pg 409] Tiâmat,—a personification, as we shall see, of primaeval chaos. What follows upon this episode, likewise turns upon the overshadowing personality of Marduk. This prominence given to Marduk points of course to Babylon as the place where the early traditions received their literary form. Instead of designating the series as a 'Creation Epic' it would be quite as appropriate to call it 'The Epic of Marduk.'
The god of Babylon is the hero of the story. To him the creation of the heavenly bodies is ascribed. It is he who brings order and light into the world. He supplants the rôles originally belonging to other gods. Bel and Ea give way to him. Anu and the other great gods cheerfully acknowledge Marduk's power. The early traditions have all been colored by the endeavor to glorify Marduk; and since Marduk is one of the latest of the gods to come into prominence, we must descend some centuries below Hammurabi before reaching a period when Marduk's position was so generally recognized as to lead to a transformation of popular traditions at the hands of the theologians.
The evident purpose of the 'epic' to glorify Marduk also accounts for the imperfect manner in which the creation of the universe is recounted. Only the general points are touched upon. Many details are omitted which in a cosmological epic, composed for the specific purpose of setting forth the order of creation, would hardly have been wanting. In this respect, the Babylonian version again resembles the Biblical account of creation, which is similarly marked by its brevity, and is as significant for its omissions as for what it contains.
It but remains before passing on to an analysis of the 'epic' to note the great care bestowed upon its literary form. This is evidenced not only by the poetic diction, but by its metrical form,—a point to which Budge was the first to direct attention[Pg 410][685] and which Zimmern[686] clearly established. Each line consists of two divisions, and as a general thing four or eight lines constitute a stanza. The principle of parallelism, so characteristic of Biblical poetry, is also introduced, though not consistently carried out.
The epic was known from its opening words as the series 'when above.' Through this name we are certain of possessing a portion of the first tablet—but alas! only a portion. A fragment of fifteen lines and these imperfectly preserved is all that has as yet been found. So far as decipherable, it reads:
There was a time when above the heaven was not named.[687]
Below, the earth bore no name.
Apsu was there, the original, their begettor,[688]
Mummu [and] Tiâmat, the mother of them all.[688]
But their waters[689] were gathered together in a mass.
No field was marked off, no marsh[690] was seen.
When none of the gods was as yet produced,
No name mentioned, no fate determined,
Then were created the gods in their totality.
Lakhmu and Lakhamu, were created.
Days went by[691] ...
Anshar and Kishar were created.
Many days elapsed[691] ...
Anu [Bel and Ea were created].[692]
Anshar, Anu (?) ...
[Pg 411] At this point the fragment breaks off.
Brief as it is, it affords a clear view of the manner in which the Babylonians regarded the beginning of things. Water was the primaeval element. 'Apsu' is the personified great 'ocean'—the 'Deep' that covers everything. With Apsu there is associated Tiâmat. Tiâmat is the equivalent of the Hebrew T'hôm,[693] which occurs in the second verse of the opening chapter of Genesis, and which is, like Apsu, the personification of the 'watery deep.' Apsu and Tiâmat are, accordingly, synonymous. The combination of the two may be regarded as due to the introduction of the theological doctrine which we have seen plays so prominent a part in the systematized pantheon, namely, the association of the male and female principle in everything connected with activity or with the life of the universe. Apsu represents the male and Tiâmat the female principle of the primaeval universe. It does not follow from this that the two conceptions are wholly dissociated from popular traditions. Theological systems, it will be found, are always attached at some point to popular and often to primitive beliefs.
Tiâmat was popularly pictured as a huge monster of a forbidding aspect. Traces of a similar conception connected with T'hôm are to be met with in the poetry of the Old and New Testament.[694] The 'Rahab' and 'Leviathan' and the 'Dragon' of the apocalypse belong to the same order of ideas that produced Tiâmat. All these monsters represent a popular attempt to picture the chaotic condition that prevailed before the great gods obtained control and established the order of heavenly and terrestrial phenomena. The belief that water[Pg 412] was the original element existing in the universe and the 'source' of everything, may also have had its rise in the popular mind. It was suggested in the Euphrates Valley, in part, by the long-continued rainy season, as a result of which the entire region was annually flooded. The dry land and vegetation appeared, only after the waters had receded. The yearly phenomenon brought home to the minds of the Babylonians, a picture of primaeval chaos.
In the schools of theology that arose with the advance of culture, these two notions—water as the first element and a general conception of chaos—were worked out with the result that Apsu and Tiâmat became mythical beings whose dominion preceded that of the gods. Further than this the questionings of the schoolmen did not go. They conceived of a time when neither the upper firmament nor the dry land existed and when the gods were not yet placed in control, but they could not conceive of a time when there was 'nothing' at all. This cosmological theory which we may deduce from the fragment of the first tablet of the creation series is confirmed by the accounts that have come down to us—chiefly through Damascius—of the treatment of the subject by Berosus.[695] Damascius explicitly places the Babylonians among those nations who fail to carry back the universe to an ultimate single source. There is nothing earlier than the two beings—Apsu and Tiâmat.[696]
The massing together of the primaeval waters completes the picture of chaos in the cuneiform account. From the popular side, the commingling corresponds to the Tôhû wa Bôhû of the Book of Genesis, but for the Babylonian theologians, this embrace of Apsu and Tiâmat becomes a symbol of 'sexual'[Pg 413] union.[697] As the outcome of this union, the gods are produced. This dependence of the gods upon Apsu and Tiâmat is but vaguely indicated. Another theory appears to have existed according to which the gods were contemporaneous with primaeval chaos. The vagueness may therefore be the result of a compromise between conflicting schools of thought. However this may be, the moment that the gods appear, a conflict ensues between them and Apsu-Tiâmat. This conflict represents the evolution from chaos to order. But before taking up this phase of the epic, a few words must be said as to the names of the gods mentioned, and as to the order in which they occur.
There are three classes of deities enumerated. The first two classes consist, each, of a pair of deities while the third is the well-known triad of the old Babylonian theology. Between the creation of each class a long period elapses—a circumstance that may be regarded as an evidence of the originally independent character of each class. Now it has recently been shown[698] that Lakhamu is the feminine of Lakhmu. The first class of deities is, therefore, an illustration again of the conventional male and female principles introduced into the current theology. While there are references to Lakhmu and Lakhamu in the religious texts,[699] particularly in incantations, these two deities play no part whatsoever in the active pantheon, as revealed by the historical texts. In popular tradition,[700] Lakhmu survived as a name of a mythical monster.
Alexander Polyhistor[701] quotes Berosus as saying in his book on Babylonia that the first result of the mixture of water and[Pg 414] chaos—i.e., of Apsu and Tiâmat—was the production of monsters partly human, partly bestial. The winged bulls and lions that guarded the approaches to temples and palaces are illustrations of this old notion, and it is to this class of mythical beings that Lakhmu belongs. The schools of theology, seizing hold of this popular tradition, add again to Lakhmu a female mate and convert the tradition into a symbol of the first step in the evolution of order out of the original chaos. Lakhmu and Lakhamu are made to stand for an entire class of beings that are the offspring of Apsu and Tiâmat. This class does not differ essentially from Apsu and Tiâmat, nor from the 'Leviathan,' the 'Dragon,' the winged serpents, and the winged bulls that are all emanations of the same order of ideas. Accordingly, we find Lakhmu and Lakhamu associated with Tiâmat when the conflict with the g