The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia Part 17

In Babylonia, however, Istar was not so completely without a rival as she was in a.s.syria. There was another city of ancient fame which, like Erech, was under the protection of a G.o.ddess rather than of a G.o.d. This was one of the two Sipparas on the banks of the Euphrates, which is distinguished in the inscriptions from the Sippara of Samas as the Sippara of Anunit.

The feminine termination of the name of Anunit indicates that here again we have a G.o.ddess who, in the form in which we know her, is essentially Semitic. But it is only in the form in which we know her that such is the case. The origin of Anunit goes back to Sumerian times. She was in the beginning merely an Anunna or "spirit" of the earth, as s.e.xless as the other spirits of Sumerian belief, and lacking all the characteristics of a Semitic divinity.(266) It was not till Sippara became the seat of a Semitic empire that the Anunna or Sumerian "spirit" was transformed into Anunit the G.o.ddess. The transformation here was accompanied by the same outward change as that which turned the Babylonian Istar into the Ashtoreth of Canaan. For a time it seemed as though Anunit rather than Istar would become the supreme G.o.ddess of Semitic cult; but the political predominance of Sippara pa.s.sed away with the fall of the empire of Sargon of Akkad, and historical conservatism alone preserved the name and influence of its G.o.ddess. As time went on, Anunit tended more and more to sink into the common herd of Babylonian G.o.ddesses, or to be identified with Istar. As long as the Sumerian element continued to be strong in the Babylonian people and their religion, Anunit retained the position which the mixture of the Semite and Sumerian had created for her; with the growing dominance of the Semitic spirit, her independence and individuality departed, and she became, like Beltis or Gula, merely the female complement of the G.o.d. Perhaps the process was hastened by the grammatical termination that had been added to her name.

Wherever, in fact, Semitic influence prevailed, the G.o.ddess, as opposed to the G.o.d, tended to disappear. It was but a step from the conception of a G.o.d with a colourless counterpart, whose very existence seemed to be due to the necessities of grammar, to that of a deity who absorbed within himself the female as well as the male principles of the universe, and who stood alone and unmated. A G.o.ddess who depended for her existence on a grammatical accident could have no profound or permanent hold on the belief of the people; she necessarily fell into the background, and the prerogatives which had belonged to her were transferred to the G.o.d. Istar herself, thanks to the masculine form of her name, became a G.o.d in Southern Arabia, and was identified with Chemosh in Moab, while even in Babylonia and a.s.syria she a.s.sumed the attributes of a male divinity, and was adored as the G.o.ddess of war as well as of love.(267) In a.s.syria, indeed, her warlike character predominated: she took the place of the war-G.o.ds of Babylonia, and armed herself with the falchion and bow.

I shall have hereafter to point out how this tendency on the part of the G.o.ddess to vanish, as it were, out of sight, leaving the G.o.d alone in possession, resulted in a.s.syria in raising its supreme G.o.d a.s.sur to something of the position occupied by Yahveh in Israel. a.s.sur is wifeless; now and again, it is true, a wife is a.s.signed to him by the pedantry of the scribes, but who it should be was never settled; and that he needed a wife at all, was never acknowledged generally. Like Chemosh in Moab, a.s.sur reigns alone; and though the immemorial influence of Babylonia kept alive the wors.h.i.+p of Istar by the side of him, it was a.s.sur and a.s.sur only who led the a.s.syrian armies to victory, and in whose name they subdued the disobedient. It was not until the kings of a.s.syria became kings also of Babylon that Istar encroached on the rights of a.s.sur, or that an a.s.syrian monarch betook himself to her rather than to the G.o.d of his fathers in the hour of his necessity. As long as the capital remained at the old city of a.s.sur, none but the G.o.d a.s.sur might direct the counsels and campaigns of its princes, or confer upon them the crown of sovereignty. When Tiglath-pileser III. acknowledged himself the son of Bel-Merodach, and received from his hands the right to rule, it was a sign that the older a.s.syrian dynasty had pa.s.sed away, that the kingdom had become a cosmopolitan empire, and that the venerable traditions of Babylon had subjugated its conquerors from the north. The mixed races of Babylonia had overcome the purer Semites of a.s.syria, Istar had prevailed against a.s.sur, and Semitic monotheism sought a home in the further West.

Lecture V. Sumerian And Semitic Conceptions Of The Divine: a.s.sur And Monotheism.

In the preceding lectures I have a.s.sumed that the conception of the deity which we find in the later historical monuments of Babylonia and a.s.syria was of Semitic origin, differing radically from that formed of the G.o.dhead by the earlier Sumerian population. But it will doubtless be asked what basis there is for such an a.s.sumption; why may we not suppose that the later conception has developed naturally and without any violent break from older beliefs which were equally Semitic? Why, in short, must we regard the animism which underlay the religion of Babylonia as Sumerian, and not rather as the earliest form of Semitic faith?

The first and most obvious answer to the question would be, the fact that the older names of the superhuman beings who became the G.o.ds of the later creed are not Semitic, but Sumerian. En-lil of Nippur is the Sumerian En-lila, "lord of the ghost(s)"; when he becomes a Semitic G.o.d he receives the Semitic t.i.tle of Bilu, Baal, "the lord." And the further fact that in many cases the Sumerian name continued to be used in Semitic times, sometimes slightly changed, sometimes adapted to the needs of Semitic grammar, proves not only that the Sumerian preceded the Semitic, but also that the Sumerian cult on its literary and philological side was a.s.similated by the Semitic settlers in Babylonia. The G.o.ds and G.o.ddesses of Babylonia were Sumerian before they were Semitic; though they wear a Semitic dress, we have to seek their ancestry outside the Semitic world of ideas.

As we know them, they are clothed in human form. The deities whose figures are found on the seal-cylinders of Babylonia or engraved on the walls of the a.s.syrian palaces are all alike in "the likeness of man." Bel-Merodach is as much a man as the king whom he adopted as his son; the sun-G.o.d who rises between the twin mountains of the dawn steps forth as a human giant to run his course; and Istar is a woman in mind and thought as well as in outward form. There are no animal G.o.ds in Babylonia, no monstrous combinations of man and beast such as meet us in the theology of Egypt.

Not but that such combinations were known to the Babylonians. But they belonged to the primeval world of chaos; they were the brood of Tiamat, the dragon of lawlessness and night, the demons who had been banished into outer darkness beyond the world of light and of G.o.d-fearing men. Like the devils of medieval belief, they were the divine beings of an alien faith which the G.o.ds of the new-comers had exiled to the limbo of a dead past.

Even the subterranean Hades of Semitic Babylonia recognised them not. The G.o.ds wors.h.i.+pped by the Semite were Baalim or "Lords," like the men whom they protected, and whose creators they were believed to be.

Wherever the pure Semite is found, this belief in the anthropomorphic character of the deity is found also. Perhaps it is connected with that distinguis.h.i.+ng characteristic of his grammar which divides the world into the masculine and the feminine, the male and the female. At any rate the Semite made his G.o.d in the likeness of men, and taught, conversely, that men had been made in the likeness of the G.o.ds. The two beliefs are but the counter sides of the same s.h.i.+eld; the theomorphic man implies an anthropomorphic G.o.d. The G.o.d, in fact, was but an amplified man with amplified human powers; his shape was human, so too were his pa.s.sions and his thoughts. Even the life that was in man was itself the breath of the G.o.d. That man was not immortal like the G.o.ds, was but an accident; he had failed to eat of the food of immortality or to drink of the waters of life, and death therefore reigned in this lower world. The G.o.ds themselves might die; Tammuz, the spouse of Istar, had been slain by the boar's tusk of angry summer, and carried into the realm of Hades,(268) and the temple of Merodach at Babylon was also known as his tomb. As the G.o.ds were born, so could they die; they could marry also and beget children, and they needed meat and drink like the sons of men. Indeed, the world of the G.o.ds was a duplicate and counterpart of the world of mankind. On "the mountain of the world," the Babylonian Olympos, the supreme G.o.d held his court; around him were ranged his subjects and servants, for there were servants in heaven as there were on earth; celestial armies went forth at his bidding, and there were wars among the G.o.ds as among men. Even theft was not unknown among them; a legend tells us, for instance, how the G.o.d Zu stole the tablets of destiny which were hung like the Urim and Thummim on the breast of "father Bel," and therewith acquired for awhile the right and power to control the fate of the universe. As far back as we can trace the history of Semitic religion, whether in Babylonia, in Canaan, or in Arabia, its fundamental conception is always the same; the G.o.ds are human, and men are divine.

It is not surprising, therefore, that as soon as the Semitic element becomes paramount in Babylonia, the king becomes a G.o.d. At Babylon he was made the adopted son of Bel-Merodach by taking the hand of the deity, and thereby became himself a Bel, a ruler of "the people of Bel" over whom he was henceforth to exercise undisputed lords.h.i.+p. In earlier days, Sargon of Akkad, the founder of the first Semitic empire in Western Asia, and his son Naram-Sin, were explicitly deified. Naram-Sin is even addressed as "the G.o.d of Akkad";(269) and a seal-cylinder found by Gen. di Cesnola in Cyprus describes its owner as "the servant of the G.o.d Naram-Sin."(270) The t.i.tle of "G.o.d" is a.s.sumed by the Semitic successors of Sargon, to whatever city or dynasty they belonged; even the Sumerian princes in Southern Babylonia followed the example of their Semitic suzerains, and Gudea, the high priest of Lagas, built temples to his own G.o.dhead, where for long centuries his cult continued to be observed, and sacrifices and offerings to be made to him.(271) The occupation of Babylonia by the Arab or Canaanite dynasty to which Amraphel belonged, made no difference in the divine honours paid to the king; he still a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of "G.o.d," and his subjects adored him by the side of Bel. But a change came with the conquest of Babylonia by Ka.s.site hordes from the mountains of Elam; the foreign kings ceased to be divine, and the t.i.tle of "G.o.d" is given to them no more. As the doctrine of the divine right of kings pa.s.sed away in England with the Stuarts, so too the belief in the divinity of the king disappeared in Babylonia with the fall of the Semitic dynasties. Nothing could show more plainly its essentially Semitic origin, and the little hold it possessed upon the non-Semitic part of the population. The king was a G.o.d only so long as he was a Semite, or subject to Semitic influence and supremacy.

The apotheosis of the king is thus coeval with the rise of Semitic domination in Babylonia. In the older Sumerian epoch we look in vain for any traces of it. Man was not yet divine, for the G.o.ds were not yet human.

There was as yet no Semitic Bel, and En-lil of Nippur was but a "lord of ghost(s)."

But we have better testimony to the fact than the ghosts of Nippur. Behind the human figures of the Semitic G.o.ds the primitively pictorial character of the cuneiform signs enables us to discern the lineaments of figures that belong to a wholly different sphere of religious thought. They are the figures not of men, but of brute beasts. The name of En-lil was denoted by a composite sign which represented the word _elim_, "a ram";(272) that of Ea by the ideograph which stood for _dara_, "the antelope."(273) En-lil, accordingly, was once a ram; Ea, an antelope.

There are other deities which reveal their first shapes in similar fas.h.i.+on. The wife of Hadad, for example, was Azaga-?uga, "the milch-goat"

of En-lil, from whom the primitive Sumerian shepherd derived his milk.(274) Merodach himself, or rather his Sumerian prototype at Eridu, was once Asari-elim, "the princely ram";(275) a striking t.i.tle when we remember that Osiris, too, was addressed in Egypt as Ati, "the prince,"

and identified with the ram of Mendes. Even Zu, the divine thief who stole the tablets of destiny, was the storm-bird, the forefather alike of the roc of the _Arabian Nights_ and of the Chinese storm-bird, "which, in flying, obscures the sun, and of whose quills the water-tuns are made."

In many cases, however, the original forms of the Babylonian divinities survived only in the animals upon whose backs they were depicted as standing, or with whom the gem-cutter a.s.sociated them on seals.(276) Now and again an attempt was made to combine them with the human figure. Thus Ea is at times represented as clothed in the skin of a fish, a fitting symbol of the relation between the newer and older religions of Babylonia and the antagonistic views of the G.o.dhead entertained by the races that dwelt there. At other times the animal form is relegated to that great company of demons and inferior spirits amongst whom room was found for the mult.i.tudinous ghosts of Sumerian belief. Where it is not altogether excluded from the world of G.o.ds and men, it exists only as the humble retainer of one of the human G.o.ds. As Merodach was accompanied by his four divine dogs, so Ea was attended by sacred bulls. They guarded the approach to the "field" and "house of Eden," like the colossal figures, with bull-like bodies and the heads of men, that guarded the gates of the palace or temple. They were, in fact, the cherubim who forbade approach to the tree of life (or knowledge),-that sacred palm which an old Babylonian hymn tells us was planted beside the pathway of Ea in Eridu, where the G.o.d had his house in the centre of the earth, pouring from his hands the waters of fertility that flowed down in the twofold streams of the Tigris and Euphrates.(277) In later art, however, the bull-like form disappeared, and the guardians of the sacred tree were represented in human shape, but with the heads of eagles. The change of form was due to the same striving to humanise the superhuman beings of Sumerian belief as that which had given a man's head to the colossal bulls; where the divine being had become a G.o.d in the Semitic sense of the word, all traces of his b.e.s.t.i.a.l origin were swept away; where he remained as it were only on the margin of the divine world, the b.e.s.t.i.a.l element was thrust as far as possible out of sight, and combined with the features of a man. The cherub was allowed to retain his bull's body or his eagle's head, but it was on condition that he never rose to the rank of a G.o.d, and that human members were combined with his animal form.

The secondary creatures of the divine world of the Babylonians thus resembled, in outward form, the G.o.ds of Egypt. But whereas in Egypt it was the G.o.ds themselves who joined the head of the beast to the body of the man, in Babylonia it was only the semi-divine spirits and monsters of the popular creed who were thus partly b.e.s.t.i.a.l and partly human. The official theology could not banish them altogether; they became accordingly the servants and followers of the G.o.ds, or else the rabble-host of Tiamat, the impersonation of chaos and sin. Like the devils and angels of medieval belief, they were included among the three hundred spirits of heaven and the six hundred spirits of earth.(278) The spirits of heaven formed "the hosts" of which the supreme deity was lord, and whom he led into battle against his foes; Nebo was the minister and lieutenant of Merodach and "the hosts of the heaven and earth," therefore it was his duty to muster and drill.(279) The Anunna-ki or "spirits of earth" had their habitation in the subterranean world of Hades, where they sat on a throne of gold guarding the waters of life, while the Igigi or angels dwelt rather with the G.o.ds in the heaven of light and blissfulness. It was on this account that a.s.sur-n.a.z.ir-pal calls Nin-ip "the champion of the Igigi," and that elsewhere the G.o.d receives the t.i.tle of "chief of the angels." But it was only in the later ages of Babylonian religion, when the Semitic conception of divinity had become predominant, that a distinction was made between the spirits of the earth and the air. It was only for the Semites that there were spirits of the underworld and angels of heaven; the Sumerian had known no difference between them; they were all alike Anunnas or spirits, and Nin-ip had been lord, not of the Igigi alone, but of the Anunna-ki as well.(280) He had, in fact, been one of them himself; he was the minister and attendant of En-lil, and it was never forgotten that, like the Anunna-ki, he was the "offspring of e-kur," the name at once of the temple of Nippur and of the underground world of Hades. Sometimes he is said to have sprung from e-sarra, "the house of the (spirit)-hosts." He had been a ghost in Nippur before he was transformed into a Semitic G.o.d.

But he had been a ghost who was a.s.sociated with the dawn, and he thus became identified in the early Semitic age with the rising sun. His solar character raised him to the rank of a Baal, and, consequently, of a G.o.d.

His older attributes, however, still clung to him. He was a sun-G.o.d who had risen out of the earth and of the darkness of night, and in him, therefore, the darker and more violent side of the sun-G.o.d was reflected.(281) He became essentially a G.o.d of war, and as such a special favourite of the a.s.syrian kings. He it was who carried destruction over the earth at the time of the Deluge, while the Anunna-ki followed him with their blazing torches; and he is the brother of En-nugi, the G.o.d from whose hands there is no escape. With the spread of solar wors.h.i.+p, the solar features of Nin-ip naturally grew more marked. At times he was the G.o.d of the noonday as well as of the dawn, for it was at noon that the rays of the sun were fiercest and most deadly to man; at times he was a.s.similated to his fellow sun-G.o.d Merodach, and made a son of Ea. The syncretic epoch of Babylonian religion had truly arrived when Ea and En-lil were thus interchanged, and the teaching of Nippur and Eridu united in the solar cult!

But we have glimpses of a time when Nin-ip was not yet a G.o.d in human form, much less a solar Baal. His name is a t.i.tle merely, and originally denoted the s.e.xless spirit, who was indifferently "lord" and "lady of the veil."(282)

The veil was worn in sign of mourning, for the head was covered in sleep and death. Like the cloak which enfolded the shade of Samuel, it symbolised the denizen of the underworld. At first it would seem to have been merely a veil that covered the head and face, like the _keffiya_ of the modern Arab; in course of time it was extended to the cloak in which the sleeper or the dead man could be wrapped. But in either case it was a symbol of the world below, and as such became in the Semitic age the garment of the mourner. The G.o.d who was "lord of the veil" must once have dwelt beneath the earth, and been himself one of those spirits of darkness whose faces were veiled from the sight of the living.

Nin-ip, then, must have been one of the Anunna-ki, a spirit of the earth and the land of Hades, before he a.s.sumed the form of a Semitic Baal, and clothed himself with the attributes of the sun-G.o.d. And the shape in which he appeared to his wors.h.i.+ppers was that of a swine. We are told that Nin-ip was one with Nin-sakh, "the lord of the swine"(283) and the servant of El-lil, who was adored at Lagas in Sumerian days, and to whom a temple was erected even at Erech. That the swine should be connected with the underground world of the dead, is not surprising. We find the same connection in Keltic mythology. There, too, the swine are the cattle of Hades, and it was from the subterranean fields of Hades that they were transported by Pryderi to the earth above.(284) The swine turns up the ground in his search for food; even to-day he is used to hunt for truffles, and primitive man saw in his action an attempt to communicate with the spirits of the underworld.(285)

From the earth-spirit with the veiled face, who incarnated himself in the swine, the distance is great to the solar hero and warrior G.o.d of the Semitic age. In fact, the distance is too great to be spanned by any natural process of evolution. It is a distance in kind and not in degree.

It presupposes fundamentally different conceptions of religion, animism on the one side and anthropomorphic G.o.ds on the other. If we are to listen to fas.h.i.+onable theories of the origin of religion, we start in the one case with the fetish, in the other case with the wors.h.i.+p of ancestors. The difference is racial: wherever we find the Semite, in all periods of his history, his G.o.ds are human and not made in the form of the beast.

But the Semite, though he moulded the later religion of Babylonia, could not transform it altogether. The Sumerian element in the population was never extirpated, and it is probable that if we knew more of the religion of the people as opposed to the official theology, we should find that it remained comparatively little affected by Semitic influence. The witchcraft and necromancy that flourished is a proof of this; even the State religion was compelled to recognise it, and, like Brahmanism in the presence of the native cults of India, to lend it its sanction and control. It is instructive to observe what a contrast there was in this respect between the official religion of Babylonia and that of the more purely Semitic Israelites. Witchcraft and necromancy were practised also in Israel, but there they were forbidden by the law and suppressed by the head of the State. In Babylonia, however, the local deities were for the most part of Sumerian origin, and in spite of their Semitic colouring and dress not unfrequently retained their old Sumerian names. Babylonian religion could not wholly repudiate its origin and parentage; the superstructure might be Semitic, but its basis was Sumerian. Like the Sumerian words which had been adopted into the language, the names of the G.o.ds remained to testify to the fact that the people and their religion were alike mixed. And with the names went early beliefs and legends, fragments of folk-lore and ritual which had descended from a non-Semitic past. The official creed found a niche for each of them as best it could, but the a.s.similation was never more than partial, and from time to time we meet with practices and conceptions which are alien to the official faith.

There were many expedients for getting rid of the mult.i.tudinous spirits of the ancient creed who had not been trans.m.u.ted into Semitic deities. They might, as we have seen, be herded together in the indistinguishable crowd of spirits of heaven and earth that formed the angel-hosts of the G.o.ds of light, or else be transformed into demons in the train of Tiamat, the impersonation of chaos. Some of them might be set apart as the special servants and messengers of the G.o.ds, and occupy the place of archangels in the celestial hierarchy. But it was also possible to call in the aid of cosmology, and turn them into elemental powers representing successive stages in the history of creation. They thus continued to belong to that inchoate period of Babylonian religion when as yet the Semitic G.o.ds had not come into existence, and at the same time they could be identified with those G.o.ds in the exercise of their creative power. In the language of later metaphysic, they thus became the successive thoughts of the creator realising themselves in the successive acts of the creation, like the aeons of Gnosticism which emanate one from the other as the realised thoughts of G.o.d. The idea is doubtless a late one, and belongs to an age of philosophy; but it represents an attempt to grapple with the difficulties presented by the opposing Sumerian and Semitic elements in Babylonian religion, and to reconcile them together. It presupposes that identification of one G.o.d with another which the solar cult and the Semitic conception of the G.o.ddess had made possible, and so takes us one step further in the direction of monotheism. The divine or superhuman beings of the Sumerian creed are not merely identified with a particular G.o.d, but are even transformed into the male and female principles which his government of the world or the act of creation compels him to exhibit in concrete form.(286)

Before Babylonian theosophy could arrive thus far, two things were necessary. The G.o.ds had to be arranged in a divine hierarchy, and the identification of one with the other had to become possible. The hierarchical arrangement followed from the Semitic conception of divinity.

If Baal were a counterpart of the human father, there would be a divine family and a divine court modelled on the pattern of those of his wors.h.i.+ppers. The G.o.d would have not only his wife and children, but his slaves and ministers as well. The deities of heaven would thus fall into orderly groups of higher and lower rank; the higher G.o.ds would tend to separate themselves more and more from those of subordinate degree, and the latter to sink into the position of second-rate intelligences, who stood midway between the G.o.ds and men, and depended on "the great G.o.ds"

for their offices and existence.

The conception of a divine messenger or angel who carried the orders of the higher G.o.d from heaven to earth and interpreted his will to men, goes back to an early period in the history of Babylonian religion. We can trace it to the time when the Sumerian first began to be affected by Semitic influence. The _sukkal_ or "angel"-minister plays a prominent part in primitive Babylonian theology, but it is noticeable that he is usually a son of the G.o.d whose messages he conveys to G.o.ds and men. Asari or Merodach is at once the son and the minister of Ea; Nin-ip, of En-lil. The fact points to an age when Sumerian animism had already been succeeded by Semitic Baalism; the spirit or ghost had become a G.o.d in human shape, who begat children and required an envoy.

When Merodach became the G.o.d of Babylon, and with the rise of his city to political power entered the circle of the supreme G.o.ds, he in his turn needed a messenger. The latter was found in the G.o.d of the neighbouring city of Borsippa. The growth of Babylon was accompanied by the decay of Borsippa, which in time was reduced to a mere suburb of the rival town.

The G.o.d of the suburb was necessarily annexed by the G.o.d of the city which had absorbed it, and as necessarily became his follower and servant.

Khammurabi, to whom Babylon owed its position and influence, even transferred the ancient temple of the G.o.d of Borsippa to the G.o.d of Babylon, and included him among the inferior deities to whom chapels were erected in the great sanctuary of Merodach.(287) But the G.o.d of Borsippa had once been as independent and supreme in his own city as Merodach was at Babylon. He had been addressed as "the maker" of the universe and the irrigator of the fields, and the origin of the cuneiform system of writing was ascribed to him. The Semites called him the Nabium or "Prophet," and it was under this t.i.tle of Nabium or Nebo that he became the minister of Merodach. The name was appropriate in his twofold character of interpreter of the will of Bel and patron of literature, and was carried by Babylonian conquest into the distant West. There Moses died in Moab on the summit of Mount Nebo, and cities bearing the name stood within the borders of Reuben and Judah.

It was doubtless the a.s.sociation of Nebo with Merodach that caused him, like Thoth in Egypt, to become the patron of literature and the G.o.d of the scribes. The culture-G.o.d was as it were divided into two; while Merodach retained the functions peculiar to a Semitic Baal, Nebo watched over the library and school, and encouraged the study of the script which had been invented by him. The older claims of Ea fell into the background and were forgotten; it was no longer the G.o.d of Eridu, but Nebo, who had written the first book, and instructed mankind in the elements of culture. The marshal's staff, which Nebo had wielded as organiser of "the hosts of heaven and earth," now became the rod of the scribe, and a consort was created for him in the person of Tasmit or "Hearing." In a.s.syria, where the wors.h.i.+p of a.s.sur prevented any development of that of his rival Merodach, Nebo became a special favourite of the literary cla.s.s, who derived their knowledge and inspiration from Babylon. a.s.sur-bani-pal never wearies of telling us how Nebo and Tasmit had "made broad his ears and enlightened his eyes," so that he had collected and republished the books and tablets of the kings who had gone before him.

As minister of Merodach, Nebo pa.s.sed into the solar circle. In Egypt he would have been absorbed by the more influential G.o.d, but in Babylonia the Semitic conception of Merodach as a Baal who required his minister and envoy like an earthly king, stood in the way of any such identification.

He consequently retained his personality, and it was another G.o.d who was identified with him. This was Nusku, once the fire which blazed up into flame and purified the sacrifice. With the spread of the solar cult Nusku became a local sun-G.o.d, and was regarded as the G.o.d of the burning sun of noon. In Sumerian days, however, while he was still the spirit of the fire, he had been necessarily the servant and a.s.sociate of En-lil; and when En-lil became the Semitic Bel of Nippur, Nusku followed his fortunes and was made his messenger. After this his identification with Nebo was easy. Nebo, too, was the messenger and interpreter of Bel, though it was the younger Bel of Babylon who had supplanted the older Bel of Nippur. As Bel-Merodach took the place of En-lil, so too did Nebo take the place of Nusku. The priests of Babylon knew of one Bel only, and the minister of Bel must be one and the same whether his name were Nusku or Nebo. That Nusku had originally been an independent deity was, however, never forgotten. The past history and religion of the country could not be ignored, and the priesthood were forced to erect a separate shrine to Nusku within the precincts of the temple of Nebo itself. Only thus could they be certain that the G.o.d would not avenge himself for being defrauded of his dues.

The history of Nebo is an instructive ill.u.s.tration of the successive changes that pa.s.sed over the religion of Babylonia. We first have the ghost of Sumerian times, who becomes the G.o.d of a special city in the days when Semitic influence began to make itself felt. Then the G.o.d is transformed into a Semitic Baal, and with the political rise of the neighbouring city of Babylon is degraded into an attendant and retainer of the mightier G.o.d. As interpreter of the will of the culture-G.o.d he deprives Ea of his ancient prerogatives, and his t.i.tle of "Prophet"

becomes his name. Henceforth he is a purely Semitic divinity, and a wife is found for him in the shadowy abstraction "Hearing." Under the influences of the solar cult, he is identified with the ancient Sumerian fire-spirit who had himself become a sun-G.o.d, and eventually he is adopted in a.s.syria as the patron of the learned cla.s.s, and the divine representative of Babylonian learning.

But the history of Nebo also ill.u.s.trates one of the directions in which the striving after a monotheistic faith displayed itself. Not only was a separate G.o.d, Nusku, amalgamated with Nebo, Nebo himself, while still keeping his independent personality, sank into a subordinate position which may be compared with that of an archangel in Christian belief.

Babylonian religion came to distinguish between a limited number of "great G.o.ds" and the inferior deities who formed their court. Indeed, it went even further than this. From the days of Khammurabi onward there was a tendency to exalt Bel-Merodach at the expense of all his brother G.o.ds. The development of Babylonian religion, in fact, went hand in hand with that of the Babylonian State. The foundation of an empire had made the Babylonian familiar with the conception of a supreme sovereign, under whom there were va.s.sal kings, and under them again a dependent n.o.bility. The same conception was extended to the celestial hierarchy. Here, too, Bel-Merodach sat supreme, while the other G.o.ds "bowed reverently before him," retaining, indeed, their ancestral rights and power within the limits of their respective sanctuaries, but acknowledging the supremacy of the one sovereign Bel. It was no longer in honour of En-lil that the inhabitants of Babylonia were called "the people of Bel," but because they were all alike the children and adorers of Bel of Babylon.

But Babylonian religion never advanced further. It is true that the tablet published by Dr. Pinches, to which I have already alluded in the last lecture, identifies the chief G.o.ds of the pantheon with Merodach in his various phases and functions; it is also true that Nabonidos, the last Babylonian king, shocked the consciences and violated the rights of the local priesthoods by bringing the images of their G.o.ds into the central sanctuary; but such speculations and efforts remained isolated and without effect. It was otherwise, however, in a.s.syria. There the deities for the most part, like the culture and language, had been imported from the south; there were no time-honoured temples and venerable traditions to contend against; and, above all, there was a national G.o.d who represented the State rather than a Semitic Baal, and was therefore a symbol of the unity which bound the State together.

The supreme G.o.d of a.s.syria was a.s.sur; the other G.o.ds were of Babylonian origin. And in the name of a.s.sur we have the name of the country itself and its primitive capital. a.s.sur, in short, was the deified city of a.s.sur, the divine State which from the days of its successful revolt from Babylonia was predominantly military, with all the union and discipline of a military organisation. Such at least was the view taken of the G.o.d in the historical age of a.s.syria, though some modern scholars have doubted whether, like Nineveh, which derived its name from the G.o.ddess Nina, it was not originally rather the city that took its name from the G.o.d than the G.o.d from the city.

Such doubts, however, are set at rest by an examination of the proper names found in the Babylonian contracts of the early Semitic period, more especially in those of the age of Khammurabi. Many of them are compounded with the names of cities which are treated as deities, and are preceded by the prefix of divinity. Thus we have Sumu-Upi (Bu. 91-5-9. 2182. 16), like ?umu-Rakh or Sumu-Ra and Samuel, as well as Upi-rabi (Bu. 91-5-9. 377.

25), where the deified Upi or Opis plays exactly the same part as the deified rivers Euphrates and Tigris in other similarly compounded names.

Between the deified city and the deified river no distinction was drawn.

Both alike were impersonations of the G.o.d. So too in the second tablet of the _Surpu_ series (_WAI._ iv. 59. 35, 38), Eridu and Babylon are invoked to deliver the sick man by the side of Ea and Merodach and various other G.o.ds, as well as certain of the stars. Between the ordinary G.o.ds of Babylonia and the deified city no distinction is made.(288)

Had the city taken its name from the G.o.d, it would be difficult to find a satisfactory etymology for it. The spelling of the name is against our connecting it with the word _asiru_, "he who blesses" or "consecrates,"

from which the a.s.syrian _asirtu_, "sanctuary," is derived, like the name of the Canaanitish G.o.ddess Asherah.(289) On the other hand, the native a.s.syrian etymology is as inadmissible as the endeavours of our eighteenth century lexicographers to find Greek or Latin derivations for Anglo-Saxon words. The a.s.syrian scribes saw in a.s.sur merely the old elemental deity Ansar, "the firmament," who was himself nothing more than the Sumerian spirit of the "heavenly host." It is wisest not to imitate them, but, as in the case of Merodach and Istar, to leave the origin of the name a.s.sur unexplained.

The kings of a.s.syria were originally high priests of a.s.sur. In other parts of the Semitic world the high priest similarly preceded the king. The father-in-law of Moses was high priest of Midian, and the high priests of Saba in Southern Arabia developed into kings.(290) There were high priests also in Babylonia, who took their t.i.tles not only from the G.o.ds they served, but also from the cities over which they ruled. The peculiarity in the case of a.s.syria, however, was that there the G.o.d and the city were one and the same. When, therefore, the high priest of a.s.sur a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of king, he still retained his priestly functions under another t.i.tle. He was priest, but no longer high priest. a.s.syria was a monarchy, not a theocracy; it was founded on military force, not on priestly influence.

The king accordingly was not a representative and vicegerent of the G.o.d, like a Babylonian prince; he represented the G.o.d a.s.sur only because he represented the city of a.s.sur. It was through the city of a.s.sur that the G.o.d manifested himself as it were to men.

One of the consequences of this fact was that a.s.sur was a national as opposed to a merely local G.o.d. Wherever the power of the city extended, there the power of the G.o.d necessarily extended as well. When a.s.sur became the capital of a kingdom, the whole land which owned its authority received its name and accepted the supremacy of its G.o.d. The local cults made way for the national cults; it was not only in a.s.sur itself that the G.o.d had his temple; wherever a city called itself a.s.syrian, the wors.h.i.+p of a.s.sur held the first place. There were no old sanctuaries and cults to displace, as in Babylonia; the deities who were adored in the cities of a.s.syria were of Babylonian origin, like Nina and Istar; and when once a.s.syria had achieved its independence, and realised that it had a national life of its own, they were unable to maintain themselves against the national G.o.d.

This national G.o.d had given his people their freedom and right to rule. He it was who had led their armies to victory, and had vanquished the hostile deities of Babylonia. He was thus identified with the army to which a.s.syria owed its existence, and with the king who was its leader in war.

Wherever the army went or the king established himself, a.s.sur went also.

He lost, therefore, the last relics of his a.s.sociation with a particular locality, and became the G.o.d of the whole people. From every point of view he was national and not local.

Freed from the limitations of locality, he was consequently freed from the limitations of form. Bel-Merodach was necessarily human in form, with all the limitations of humanity; it was only where his image was that he could be present in visible shape. But a.s.sur was not confined to the human image that represented him. He could also be represented by a symbol, and where the symbol was he was too. The symbol was a standard, on which an archer was depicted rising from a winged sun. It was carried with the armies of a.s.syria from place to place, like the ark in which the Israelites of the age of Samuel saw a symbol of the presence of their national G.o.d. The winged sun refers us to Egypt; so too does the standard on which the emblem of a.s.sur was borne. The Asiatic conquests of the Eighteenth Dynasty had brought Egypt and a.s.syria into contact; the a.s.syrian king paid tribute to the Pharaoh, and doubtless depended on him for support against Babylonia. It was the period when a.s.syria was first feeling itself an independent nation; the authority of Babylonia had been shaken off, and the G.o.d of Babylon had been supplanted by a.s.sur. We need not be surprised, therefore, if a.s.sur consented to borrow from Egypt the symbol which henceforth distinguished him from the Babylonian G.o.ds, and with the symbol went the theological ideas of which it was the expression.

These theological ideas were already deeply tinctured by the theories of the solar cult. The winged solar disc is evidence that a.s.sur was a.s.similated to Amon-Ra of Egypt. But the a.s.similation stopped there. The a.s.syrians were too purely Semitic even to comprehend the nebulous pantheism of the Egyptian solar school; a.s.sur remained an anthropomorphic G.o.d, with very definite attributes and sharply-cut features. The archer who rises above the disc of the sun significantly indicates the contrast between the theology of Egypt and a.s.syria. Above the sun-G.o.d is the human warrior, the lord of hosts, the G.o.d of battles, the divine leader of the armies of a.s.sur. There was no room in the practical a.s.syrian mind for a formless divinity, with its infinite transformations and elusive shape.

The a.s.syrian needed a soldier's G.o.d, at once human and clearly defined.