The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia Part 21

May the G.o.d and the G.o.ddess I know and I know not be pacified!

May the G.o.d (who has smitten me be pacified)!

May the G.o.ddess (who has smitten me be pacified)!

The sin that (I sinned) I knew not; the sin (that I committed I knew not).

The word of blessing (may my G.o.d p.r.o.nounce upon me); a name of blessing (may the G.o.d I know and I know not) record for me!

The word of blessing (may the G.o.ddess p.r.o.nounce upon me)!

Food I have not eaten, pure water I have not drunk.

An offence against my G.o.d unknowingly have I committed; an offence against my G.o.ddess unknowingly I have wrought.

O lord, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!

O my G.o.d, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!

O my G.o.ddess, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!

O G.o.d whom I know and whom I know not, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!

O G.o.ddess whom I know and whom I know not, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!

The sin that I sinned I knew not, the transgression I committed I knew not.

The offence I committed I knew not, the offence that I wrought I knew not.

The lord in the wrath of his heart has regarded me; G.o.d has visited me in the anger of his heart; the G.o.ddess has been violent against me, and has put me to grief.

The G.o.d whom I know and whom I know not has oppressed me, the G.o.ddess whom I know and whom I know not has brought sorrow upon me.

I sought for help, and none took my hand; I wept, and none stood at my side; I cried aloud, and there was none that heard me.

I am in trouble and hiding, and dare not look up.

To my G.o.d, the merciful one, I turn myself, I utter my prayer, the feet of my G.o.ddess I kiss and water with tears.

To the G.o.d whom I know and whom I know not I utter my prayer.

O lord, look upon (me; receive my prayer)!

O G.o.ddess, look upon (me; receive my prayer)!

O G.o.ddess whom I know (and whom I know not, receive my prayer)!

How long, O G.o.d, (must I suffer)?

How long, O G.o.ddess, (shall thy face be turned from me)?

How long, O G.o.d whom I know and whom I know not, shall the anger (of thy heart continue)?

How long, O G.o.ddess whom I know and whom I know not, shall the wrath of thy heart be unappeased?

Mankind is made to wander, and there is none that knoweth.

Mankind, as many as have a name, what do they know?

Whether he shall have good or ill, there is none that knoweth.

O lord, cast not away thy servant!

Overflowing with tears, take him by the hand!

The sins I have sinned, turn to a blessing; the transgressions I have committed may the wind carry away!

Strip off my manifold transgressions as a garment.

O my G.o.d, seven times seven are my transgressions; forgive my sins!

O my G.o.ddess, seven times seven are my transgressions; forgive my sins!

O G.o.d whom I know and whom I know not, seven times seven are my transgressions; forgive my sins!

O G.o.ddess whom I know and whom I know not, seven times seven are my transgressions; forgive my sins!

Forgive my sins, and let me humble myself before thee.

May thy heart be appeased as the heart of a mother who has borne children!

May it be appeased as that of a mother who has borne children, as that of a father who has begotten them!"

Lecture VIII. The Myths And Epics.

A lecture on the myths of Babylonia may perhaps seem out of place in a course, the subject of which is Babylonian religion. But religion has its mythology as well as its theology, and sometimes the mythology has had a good deal to do with moulding or even creating its theology. Moreover, the myths of Babylonia were intimately connected with its wors.h.i.+p of the G.o.ds.

They all related, so far as we know, to the G.o.ds and spirits, or else, to what Greek theology would have called heroes and demi-G.o.ds. They embody religious beliefs and practices; they contain allusions to local cults; above all, they not unfrequently reflect the popular conception of the divine.

Only we must beware of basing theological conclusions on their unsupported evidence. They have come to us in a literary form, and students of folk-lore know how little trustworthy, even for the purposes of the folk-lorist, a tale is which has undergone literary remodelling. It is difficult to distinguish in it what is peculiar to the individual author or the literary circle in which he moves, and what is really the belief of the people or the traditional heritage of the past. In fact, all mythology, whether literary or otherwise, suffers from the mixture within it of old and modern ideas. The old ideas may be preserved in it like the fossils in a geological formation, or they may have been coloured and explained away in accordance with the conceptions of a later age; but in either case they are mingled with the beliefs and notions of after generations, which our ignorance necessarily prevents us from separating with the requisite care. In dealing with the history of religion, therefore, we ought to treat the language of a literary myth with extreme caution, and refrain from drawing any far-reaching inferences from the statements we find in it.

This is more especially true of the literary epics of ancient Babylonia.

They seem to have been numerous; at all events fragments of a good many have been saved for us out of the wreckage of the past. But they belong for the most part to the same period, the age of national revival which began with the reign of Khammurabi, and continued for several centuries after his death. It is possible that Sin-liqi-unnini, the author of the great Epic of Gilgames, was a contemporary of Abraham; the story of Adapa, the first man, was already in existence, and had become a standard cla.s.sic, when the Tel el-Amarna letters were written in the fifteenth century B.C. Behind all these poems lay a long-preceding period in which the myths and legends they embody had taken shape and formed the subject of numberless literary works. The Epic of Gilgames is, for instance, but the final stage in the literary development of the tales and myths of which it is composed; older poems, or parts of poems, have been incorporated into it, and the elements of which it consists are multiform and of various origin. The story of the Deluge, which const.i.tutes the eleventh book, has been foisted into it by an almost violent artifice, and represents a combination of more than one of its many versions which were in circulation in Babylonia. When the early libraries of the country have been explored, we shall know better than we do now how far the story in the form we have of it in the Epic is original, and how far the author has freely borrowed from his predecessors, using their language or combining their work.

As a rule, the subject of a Babylonian poem is either some single G.o.d or some single hero. When the G.o.d or hero is merely a central figure around whose adventures those of other G.o.ds or heroes are made to revolve, the poem becomes an Epic. It still retains its mythological shape, and the world in which it moves is a world of supernatural powers, a divine fairyland in which the G.o.ds play the part of men. But there is none of the dull and cra.s.s euhemerism which distinguishes the Egyptian tales of the G.o.ds. The G.o.ds do not become mere men with enlarged human powers; they remain divine, even though their actions are human and the stage on which they move is human also. It was the pantheism of the Egyptian, in conjunction with the deification of the Pharaoh, that made him rationalise the stories of his G.o.ds; in Babylonia there was no such temptation; each deity retained his individual character, and from the outset he had worn the likeness of a man. But it was a likeness only, behind which the divinity revealed itself, though the likeness necessarily caused the revelation to be made through individual features, clearly cut and sharply defined. Bel was no human king possessed of magical powers, who had once sat on the throne of Babylon; he remained the G.o.d who could, it is true, display himself at times to his faithful wors.h.i.+ppers, but whose habitation was in the far-off heavens, from which he surveyed and regulated the actions of mankind. The G.o.ds of Babylonian mythology still belonged to heaven and not to earth, and its heroes are men and not humanised G.o.ds.

I have already referred to the story of the first man, Adapa, and his refusal of the gift of immortality. The story, as we have it, has received a theological colouring; like the narrative of the Fall in the Book of Genesis, it serves to explain why death has entered the world. Man was made in the likeness of the G.o.ds, and the question therefore naturally arose why, like them, he should not be immortal. The answer was given, at any rate by the priests of Eridu, in the legend of Adapa and his journey to the sky.

There was yet another story which ill.u.s.trated the punishment of human presumption,-the attempt of man to be as a G.o.d,-and is thus a parallel to the story of the tower of Babel. It is the legend of Etana and the eagle, who tempts the hero to ascend with him to the highest heavens and there visit the abodes of the G.o.ds. Borne accordingly on the breast of the bird, Etana mounts upwards. At the end of two hours the earth looks to them like a mere mountain, the sea like a pool. Another four hours and "the sea has become like a gardener's ditch." At last they reach "the heaven of Anu"; but even there they refuse to stay. Higher still they ascend to the heaven of Istar, so that the sea appears to them "like a small bread-basket." But before they can reach their destination the destined penalty overtakes the presumptuous pair. The eagle's wings fail him, and he falls through s.p.a.ce, and both he and his burden are dashed to the ground.

With this story of Etana there has been coupled a legend, or rather fable, of the eagle itself, which the mutilated state of our copies of it renders extremely obscure. The eagle had devoured the young of the serpent, who accordingly appealed to the sun-G.o.d, the judge of all things, for justice.

By the sun-G.o.d's advice the serpent creeps into the carcase of a dead ox, and there, when the eagle comes to feed upon the putrifying flesh, seizes his enemy, strips him of his feathers, and leaves him to die of hunger and thirst. This must have happened after the fall of the eagle from heaven; and we may therefore conjecture that, while his human companion was killed, like Icarus, by the fall, the punishment of the eagle was deferred. But it came finally; not even the most powerful of the winged creation could venture with impunity into the heaven of the G.o.ds.

While the celestial seat of Istar was beyond the reach of man, Istar herself sought Tammuz, the bridegroom of her youth, in the underground realm of Hades, in the hope that she might give him to drink of the waters of life which gushed up under the throne of the spirits of the earth, and so bring him back once more to life and light. The poem which told of her descent into Hades was sung at the yearly festival of Tammuz by the women, who wept for his untimely death. Like Baldyr, the youngest and most beautiful of the G.o.ds, he was cut off in the flower of his youth, and taken from the earth to another world. But while the myth embodied in the poem, and ill.u.s.trated by numberless engraved seals, makes him descend into Hades, the older belief of Eridu, where he had once been a water-spirit,-"the son of the spirit of the deep,"-transferred him to the heaven above, where, along with Nin-gis-zida, "the lord of the upright post," he served as warder of the celestial gate. In my Hibbert Lectures I have dealt so fully with the story of Tammuz in the various forms it a.s.sumed, as well as with the myth of Istar's pursuit of him in the world below, that I need not dwell upon it now. All I need do is to insist upon the caution with which we should build upon it theories about the Babylonian's conception of the other world, and the existence he expected to lead after death.

The description of Hades with which the poem begins was borrowed from some older work. We meet with it again almost word for word in what is probably one of the books of the Epic of Gilgames. The fact ill.u.s.trates the way in which the poets and epic-writers of Babylonia freely borrowed from older sources, and how the cla.s.sical works of Chaldaea were built up out of earlier materials. Perhaps if reproached with plagiarism, their authors would have made the same answer as Vergil, that they had but picked out the pearls from the dunghill of their predecessors. At all events the description of Hades is striking, though it must be remembered that it represents only one of the many ideas that were entertained of it in Babylonia-

"To the land from which there is no return, the home of [darkness], Istar, the daughter of Sin, [turned] her mind, yea, the daughter of Sin set her mind [to go]; to the house of gloom, the dwelling of Irkalla, to the house from which those who enter depart not, the road from whose path there is no return; to the house where they who enter are deprived of light; a place where dust is their nourishment, clay their food; the light they behold not, in thick darkness they dwell; they are clad like bats in a garb of wings; on door and bolt the dust is laid."

Through the seven gates of the infernal regions did Istar descend, leaving at each some one of her adornments, until at last, stripped and helpless, she stood before the G.o.ddess of the underworld. There no mercy was shown her; the plague-demon was bidden to smite her with manifold diseases, and she was kept imprisoned in Hades like the ordinary dead. But while the G.o.ddess of love thus lay bound and buried, things in this upper world fell into confusion. Neither men nor cattle produced offspring, and the G.o.ds in heaven took counsel what should be done. Ea accordingly created an androgyne, to whom the name was given "Bright is his light." Before him the gates of Hades opened, and the darkness within them was lighted up.

The infernal G.o.ddess was forced to obey the orders of heaven; and though she cursed the messenger with deadly imprecations, the spirits of the earth were seated on their golden throne while Istar was sprinkled with the water of life, and she then returned once more to the world of light.

Ereskigal, the G.o.ddess of Hades, forms the subject of yet another poem, fragments of which were found at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt, where the poem had been used as a text-book for the students of the Babylonian language and script. The poem recounts how she refused to come to a feast which the G.o.ds had prepared in heaven, and how Nergal invaded her dominions, broke through the gates that shut them in, and, seizing Ereskigal by the hair, dragged her from her throne. But she begged for mercy, and Nergal consented to be her husband, and to rule with her over the realm of the dead. The "tablet of wisdom" was transferred to him, and she became a Semitic Baalat, the mere reflection of her "lord." The Sumerian "queen of Hades" gave place to a Semitic Bel.

The "tablet of wisdom" was distinct from the "tablets of destiny," which gave their possessor a foreknowledge of the future course of events. The possession of the latter implied supreme rule over G.o.ds and men; it brought with it the right to be "Bel" in the fullest sense of the word.

Like the Urim and Thummim, they were hung upon the breast; and in the Epic of the Creation, Tiamat is described as delivering them to her demon husband Kingu, who thereby became the acknowledged ruler of the world. The victory of Merodach over the powers of darkness transferred to him the mystic tablets; from henceforth he was the Bel who had made, and who directed, the existing universe; and once each year, at the New Year's festival, he sat enthroned above the mercy-seat in his temple at Babylon, declaring the destinies of the coming year. But before the tablets were given to Bel-Merodach of Babylon, they had belonged to the older Bel of Nippur and Dur-ili; and a myth told how Zu, the storm-bird, had stolen them while Bel was "pouring forth the pure water and mounting his throne"

at the beginning of day. "I will take," he had said, "the divine tablets of destiny, even I; the laws(326) of all the G.o.ds will I decree; my throne will I establish and issue my commands, and direct all the angels (of heaven)." The thief flew with his spoil to Mount Sabu; and Anu called in vain upon his brother G.o.ds to pursue and smite him, and recover the stolen treasure. It was only at last by the help of stratagem that the nest of Zu was found, and the tablets restored to Bel.

A myth of more transparent meaning is that which told of the ravages wrought in land after land by Urra, the Pestilence. The description of the plague-G.o.d reminds us of that angel of pestilence whom David saw with his hand stretched forth over Jerusalem. No moral considerations moved him; just and unjust, the sinner and the innocent, were alike involved in a common destruction. Babylon was the first to be smitten, then Erech; and Merodach and Istar mourned vainly over the ruin of their people. Then Isum, the angel-messenger of Urra, was sent on a longer mission. The pestilence spread over the whole civilised world; Syria and a.s.syria, Elamite and Bedawin, Kurd and Akkadian equally suffered. The vineyards of Ama.n.u.s and the Lebanon were rooted up, and those who cultivated them perished from the earth. For "unnumbered years" the scourge lasted, for Urra had "planned evil because of former wickedness," and it was long before his rage was appeased, and the world returned to its normal state.

Similarly transparent is the story of the a.s.sault of the seven evil spirits upon the moon, resulting in its eclipse and threatened extinction.

En-lil in despair sends his messenger, the fire-G.o.d, to Ea for advice and help, which are accordingly given, and the moon-G.o.d is saved. The poem, however, is of a much older date than those we have hitherto been considering. It goes back to the time when magic still held a foremost place in the official religion of Babylonia; when A?ari, the son of Ea, had not as yet become Bel-Merodach of Babylon; and when the cult of Ea had not been obscured by those of younger deities. In fact, it forms part of one of the incantation texts, and is described as the sixteenth book of the series on evil spirits. But the divine triads already make their appearance in it; Ea does not stand alone, but shares his powers with En-lil and Anu, while below them is the triad of Sin, Samas, and Istar. We may look upon the story as belonging to the age which saw the transformation of Sumerian animism into the syncretic State religion of later days; the Semitic G.o.ds are there, but they still retain in part the functions which distinguished them when they were "spirits" and nothing more.

Between the legend of the a.s.sault upon the moon-G.o.d and the Epic of Gilgames the distance is great. Centuries of thought and development intervene between them, and there is a difference not only in degree, but also in kind. While one reminds us of the legends of Lapps or Samoyeds, the other finds its parallel in the heroic tales of Greece. Gilgames is a hero in the Greek sense of the term; he is not a G.o.d, at least for the poet of the Epic, even though he lived like Achilles and Odysseus in days when the G.o.ds took part in visible form in the affairs of men. So far as we know, it is the masterpiece of Babylonian epical literature,-a proof that however deficient the pure-blooded Semite may have been in epical and mythological genius, the mixed race of Babylonia was in this respect the rival of the Greek. Like the story of the Trojan War, the story of Gilgames attracted to it epical and mythological elements from all sides, and became a veritable treasure-house of Babylonian mythology.

Its author divided it into twelve books. Long ago it was noticed that the arrangement has an astronomical basis, and that the adventures of the hero described in some at least of the books are made to correspond with the current names of the months of the year. Thus the love and revenge of Istar are the subject of the sixth book, answering to the name of the sixth month, that of "the mission of Istar"; while the episode of the Deluge is introduced into the eleventh book, where it fitly corresponds with the eleventh month Adar, "the month of the curse of rain." It is true that the correspondence between the subject of the book and the name of the month cannot be traced in all cases, but it must be remembered that each month had many names, especially in the age of Khammurabi, and that the poet would have more especially in his mind the religious festivals which distinguished the months of the year. As was pointed out by Sir H.

C. Rawlinson, he must have regarded Gilgames, if not as a solar hero, at all events as a representative of the sun-G.o.d. Not only is the Epic divided into twelve books, but in the seventh, when the summer solstice is pa.s.sed and the year begins to wane, the hero is smitten with a sore disease. It is not until the twelfth and last book is reached, that, after bathing in the waters of the ocean which encircles the world, he is healed of his sickness, and restored once more to health and strength.

But the solar character of Gilgames did not originally belong to him. His name, like those of most of the Babylonian heroes, had come down from Sumerian times, when as yet the G.o.ds did not exist, and the world of living things was divided between "spirits" and men.(327) And Gilgames was a man, the creation of the G.o.ddess Aruru, whose original birthplace seems to have been Marad, and of whom a tale was told which may be the prototype of that of Akrisios and Perseus.(328) He was the Herakles of Babylonia, the embodiment of human strength, who saves his country from its foes, and destroys the monstrous beasts that infest it,-a mighty prince, though not an actual king. There is no reason why he should not have been like Cyrus, a historical personage round whose name and deeds myths afterwards gathered; an early inscription recording the restoration of the wall of Erech states that it had been originally built by the deified Gilgames.(329)

The Epic begins with a description of his rule at Erech, "the seat" of his power. Between him and the inhabitants of the city there seems to have been little goodwill. He had not left, they complained, the son to his father or the wife to her husband. It may be that the legend contains a germ of historical truth, and goes back to the days when Erech was still a battleground between Sumerian and Semite.(330) At any rate the G.o.ds, we are told, heard the cry of the people, and Aruru was instructed to create a rival to Gilgames, who might overcome him in the contest of strength.

The G.o.ddess accordingly kneaded clay with her hands, and made it in the form of Ea-bani, half-man and half-beast. His body was covered with hair; "he knew neither kin nor country"; "with the gazelles he ate the gra.s.s" of the field, and "satisfied his thirst with the cattle." On the seals he is represented as a satyr with a goat's legs and human head.

Vainly "the Huntsman" endeavoured to capture him. Ea-bani broke through the nets that were laid for him; and it was only when one of the courtesans of Istar was sent to entice him that he yielded to the temptation, and left his gazelles and cattle to lie with her seven nights.

When once more he turned back to them, they fled from him in terror; he had become a man, knowing good and evil, and between him and the brute beasts there was nothing more in common. He listened accordingly to the courtesan, and went with her to Erech, "the seat of Gilgames, the giant in strength, who like a wild ox is stronger than the strongest men." There Gilgames had dreamed three dreams relating to him; and Ea-bani, on hearing the interpretation of them, gave up his design of wrestling with the hero, and became instead his fast friend and ally.