The Religions of Ancient Egypt and Babylonia Part 24

But the older calendar of Babylonia had been already carried to the West, and there preserved in a country to whose climatic and agricultural conditions it was really inapplicable. The ancient Canaanitish year began in the autumn in what the later calendar reckoned the seventh month. It was not, however, till after the final unification of the country under Khammurabi that a fixed and uniform calendar was imposed upon all the sanctuaries of Babylonia. At an earlier epoch the great sanctuaries had each its own calendar; the months were variously named, and the deities to whom the festivals were dedicated were not always the same.(377) At Lagas it was Bau to whom the festival of the New Year was sacred; at Babylon it was Merodach.

Besides the festivals of the spring and autumn, there was yet a third festival belonging to the agricultural year. This was the feast of the summer solstice, which fell in the month of June. It marked the drying up of the soil and the disappearance of the crops and vegetation of the spring. In some of the early States of Babylonia it was consecrated to a G.o.d Bil-'si;(378) in the calendar of a.s.syria, Tammuz took the place of the older G.o.d. Tammuz had perished by an untimely death, and it was fitting that the death of the G.o.d should be celebrated when nature also seemed to die. There was a time, however, when the festival of Tammuz had been observed, at all events in some parts of Babylonia, in October rather than in June. The same month that had witnessed the feast of the New Year witnessed also that of Tammuz risen again from the dead.

The three great feasts of the Babylonian agriculturist are found again in Canaan. But it is noticeable that the third of them-the feast of Weeks, as it was called by the Hebrews-was there the correspondent of the spring festival in Babylonia. It was, in fact, a repet.i.tion of the festival of spring. And the latter accordingly becomes a prelude and antic.i.p.ation of it. On the 16th of Nisan the Levitical Law ordered a sheaf of the first-fruits of the harvest to be presented (Lev. xxiii. 10-14), and the unleavened bread eaten at the festival itself symbolised the ingathering of the corn which was thus dedicated to G.o.d in the form of consecrated cakes.

The three great agricultural festivals were supplemented by others. Many of these occurred at fixed times of the year, and commemorated the divinities wors.h.i.+pped in one or other of the sanctuaries of Babylonia.

Some of them were observed throughout the country; others only in a particular city and district. With the deification of a new king came a new festival in his honour; and if his cult lasted, the festival continued also by the side of the established festivals of the older G.o.ds. But new festivals might further be inst.i.tuted for other reasons. The building or restoration of a sanctuary, or even the dedication of a statue, was a quite sufficient pretext. When Gudea consecrated the temple of Inguri?a at Lagas, he tells us how he had "remitted penalties and given presents.

During seven days no service was exacted. The female slave was made the equal of her mistress; the male slave was made the equal of his master; the chief and his subject have been made equal in my city. All that is evil I removed from this temple."(379)

The temporary freedom thus granted to the slave seems to have been a characteristic of the Babylonian festival. Berossos stated that in the month of Loos or July, the feast of Sakaea was celebrated at Babylon for five days, when it was "the custom that the masters should obey their domestics, one of whom is led round the house clothed in a royal garment."(380) The custom has often been compared with that which prevailed at the Roman Saturnalia, and a baseless theory has recently been put forward connecting with it the Hebrew feast of Purim.(381) But the custom was really the exaggeration in the Greek age of Babylonian history of the old doctrine which underlay the Babylonian conception of a holy day. A holy day was essentially a holiday, a day when the whole people rested from work, and when, accordingly, even the slave recovered for awhile his freedom. The summer feast of Sakaea, at least in its original form, or the festival ordained by Gudea at the consecration of the temple of e-Ninnu, was thus a parallel to the Hebrew year of Jubilee. In the year of Jubilee we have the western reflection of beliefs and usages that were familiar to the ancestors of Abraham.

The Sabbath-rest was essentially of Babylonian origin. The word Sabbath itself was borrowed from Babylonia, where it had the form Sabattu, and was derived by the native lexicographers from the Sumerian _sa_, "heart," and "_bat_, to cease," and so explained as "a day of rest for the heart."(382) The derivation is, of course, absurd, but it indicates the antiquity of the term. There was yet another name, _sulum_, or "quiet day," which was more especially used as a translation of the Sumerian _udu_ _khul-gal_, "dies nefastus," on which it was unlawful or unlucky to perform certain kinds of work.(383) Thus, in a list of what we should call the Saints'

days in the month of the Second Elul, we read that the 7th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th days of the month were all alike days of quiet and rest.

"The 7th day," we are told, "is a day dedicated to Merodach and Zarpanit.

It is a lucky day and a quiet day. The shepherd of mighty nations (_i.e._ the king) must not eat flesh cooked at the fire or in the smoke. His clothes he must not change. White garments he must not put on. He must not offer sacrifice. The king must not drive a chariot. He must not issue royal decrees. In a secret place the seer must not prophesy. Medicine for the sickness of his body he must not apply. For making a spell it is not fitting."(384) Here the Sabbath recurs, as among the Hebrews, every seven days; and Professor Jensen has pointed out that the 19th of the month, on which there was also a Sabbath, was forty-nine days or seven weeks from the beginning of the previous month. There was therefore not only a week of seven days, but a week of seven-day weeks as well. In fact, the chief difference between the Babylonian and the Hebrew inst.i.tution lay in the subordination of the Sabbath to the festival of the "new moon" among the Babylonians. There was no Sabbath on the first day of the month; its place was taken by freewill offerings to the moon.

The Sabbath, it will be noticed, was not a fast-day. Fasts, however, were not infrequent in Babylonia and a.s.syria, and in times of danger and distress might be specially ordained. When Esar-haddon was hard pressed by his northern enemies, he ordered prayers to be made and ceremonies to be performed to the sun-G.o.d, lasting for one hundred days and nights. It was a long period of public humiliation, and the G.o.d was asked to grant favourable visions to the "seers" who implored his help. In the penitential psalms, fasting is alluded to more than once. "Instead of food," says the penitent, "I eat bitter tears; instead of palm-wine, I drink the waters of misery." Or, again: "Food I have not eaten, weeping is my nourishment; water I have not drunk, tears are my drink."(385)

The fast and the feast alternated as they did in Israel. As we come to know more of the ritual of Babylonia, the resemblance it bears to that of the Hebrews becomes at once more striking and extensive. They both start from the same principles, and agree in many of their details. Between them, indeed, lies that deep gulf of difference which separates the religions of Israel and Babylonia as a whole; the one is monotheistic, the other polytheistic. But, apart from this profound distinction, the cult and ritual have more than a family relations.h.i.+p. Customs and rites which have lost their primitive meaning in the Levitical Law, find their explanation in Babylonia; even the ecclesiastical calendar of the Pentateuch looks back to the Babylonia of the age of Khammurabi. It cannot be an accident that the Khammurabi or Ammurapi of the cuneiform inscriptions is the Amraphel of Genesis, the contemporary of Abram the Hebrew, who was born in "Ur of the Chaldees." The Mosaic Law must have drawn its first inspiration from the Abrahamic age, modified and developed though it may have been in the later centuries of Israelitish history.

Lecture X. Astro-Theology And The Moral Element In Babylonian Religion.

A hundred years ago, writers on the history or philosophy of religion had much to say about what they called Sabaism. The earliest form of idolatry was supposed to have been a wors.h.i.+p of the heavenly bodies. A pa.s.sage in the Book of Job was invoked in support of the fact, and beautifully executed drawings of Babylonian seal-cylinders were made for the sake of the pictures of the sun and moon and stars that were upon them. Sir William Drummond resolved the sons of Jacob into the signs of the Zodiac;(386) Dupuis derived Christianity itself from a sort of allegorical astronomy.

"Sabaism" has long since fallen into disrepute. Anthropology has long since taught us that primitive religion is not confined to a wors.h.i.+p of the stars. The cult of the heavenly bodies was not the source of polytheism; indeed, there are systems of polytheism in which it has never existed at all. Of late the tendency has been to discount it altogether as a factor in the history of religion.

But the tendency has gone too far. There was one religion, at all events, in which it played an important part. This was the religion of ancient Babylonia and of those other countries which were influenced by Babylonian culture. But even here the decipherment of the inscriptions seemed to show that it belonged to a late age, and was an artificial product which never affected the people as a whole. When I delivered my Hibbert Lectures, I believed that I could dismiss it in a few words as merely a kind of subsidiary chapter added to the religion of the State by pedants and scholars.

Certain it is that the elaborate system of astro-theology which characterised Babylonian religion was an artificial creation. It was the result of a combination of religion with astronomy which was elaborated in the schools. Astronomy, like all other sciences, was under the control of the priests, the observatory rose by the side of the school within the precincts of the temple, and the dependence of the calendar on the observations of the astronomer gave them a religious character. Moreover, the astro-theology of Babylonia did not go back to primeval times. The identification of the official G.o.ds with the heavenly bodies belongs to an age when the official religion had already been crystallised into shape, and a map of the heavens had been made. We can almost watch its rise and trace its growth.

Nevertheless the rise and growth are of far earlier date than was formerly imagined. Astro-theology was not a mere learned scheme of allegorised science, the plaything of a school of pedants; it exercised a considerable influence upon the religion of Babylonia and upon the history of its development. It had, moreover, a background in the faith of the people.

Like the rivers and streams, the stars also were really wors.h.i.+pped,(387) and the symbols drawn on the seal-cylinders show that this wors.h.i.+p must go back to the oldest period of Babylonia. Even the ideograph that denotes "a G.o.d" represents an eight-rayed star. The fact is significant. At the time when the pictorial hieroglyphics were first being formed out of which the cuneiform characters were to grow, the star was already the symbol and representative of the divine. It was not as yet the more general and abstract "sky," it was the particular star that was adored as a G.o.d.

Babylonian religion, as far back as its written history leads us, really begins with Sabaism.

How is this fact to be reconciled with the further fact that the G.o.ds of Babylonia were once spirits and ghosts, the _zi_'s of Eridu and the _lil_'s of Nippur? To this question no answer at present is possible; at most we can only suggest that the _zi_, or spirit, was localised in the star. A spirit of the sun was as conceivable as a spirit of Ea, and the son of Ea, it must be remembered, became a sun-G.o.d. "The _zi_ of the G.o.d"

meant originally in the primitive picture-writing "the spirit of the star," and the literal rendering of the invocation in the early spells would be "the spirit of the star who is lord of Du-azagga," "the spirit of the star who is mistress of the holy hill." In the Book of Isaiah the Babylonian king is made to say that he would enthrone himself among the G.o.ds on the summit of the Chaldaean Olympos "above the stars of El"; and Nin-ip, the interpreter of En-lil, was at once the sun-G.o.d and the moon.

Istar, it must not be forgotten, was primarily the evening star; and Istar was not only supreme among the G.o.ddesses of Babylonia, she was the type and representative of them all. The signs of the Zodiac had once been the monster allies of the dragon of chaos.

With all this, it may hereafter prove that the conception of the divine as a star was introduced by a different race from that which saw in it a spirit or a ghost. At all events, it was a conception which the inscriptions of Southern Arabia have shown to have prevailed among the Western Semites. Professor Hommel has made it clear(388) that the Semitic tribes to which the Arabs of the south, the Aramaeans, and the Hebrews alike belonged, wors.h.i.+pped four supreme deities-Athtar, the evening and morning star; the moon-G.o.d and its messenger or "Prophet"; and the G.o.ddess of the sun. Athtar is the Babylonian Istar, who has become a male G.o.d in her pa.s.sage to the Semites; and, while the people of Hadhramaut borrowed the name of Sin from Babylonia, those of Qataban borrowed the name of Nebo (Anbay). Samas, the sun, has become a G.o.ddess; the moon-G.o.d has taken the foremost place in the pantheon, and the sun has accordingly been transformed into his colourless reflection. As in the case of Istar, so too in that of the sun-G.o.d, the genderless grammar of Sumerian facilitated the change. a, the sun-G.o.d of Sippara, had become his wife under Semitic influence,(389) and from Sippara the conception of a solar G.o.ddess pa.s.sed to the Semites on the western side of the Euphrates.

The supreme Baalim of the South Arabian inscriptions must thus have been of Babylonian origin. Name and character alike were derived from Sumerian Babylonia. And from this the further inference is obvious: Arabian and West Semitic "Sabaism," with its wors.h.i.+p of the heavenly bodies, was not indigenous. It must have been the result of contact with Babylonian civilisation, a contact which gave Ur and Harran a mixed population, and caused them to be the seats and centres of the wors.h.i.+p of the moon-G.o.d.

The primitive Semitic Baal-the "lord" of a specific plot of earth or tribal territory-became a moon-good or an evening star, while his wife was embodied in the sun.

This conclusion is confirmed by a study of the religion of Canaan. Here the place occupied by the moon-G.o.d among Arabians and Hebrews is taken by the sun. The supreme Baal is the sun-G.o.d, and the female Ashtoreth is identified with the moon. As I endeavoured to show in an earlier lecture, there was a period in the history of Babylonian religion when here also the sun-G.o.d was supreme. The G.o.ds were resolved into solar deities, or rather were identified with the sun. The solar element in Merodach threatened to absorb his human kings.h.i.+p; it was only his likeness to man that saved him from the fate of the Egyptian G.o.ds.

It is just this phase in the history of Babylonian theology that we find reflected in the theology of Canaan. Baal has pa.s.sed into the sun-G.o.d, and his characteristics are those of the sun-G.o.ds of Babylonia. The historical monuments have told us how long and deep was the influence of Babylonia upon the culture of Canaan, and it was exercised just at the time when the solar faith had triumphed in the Babylonian plain. It is not without significance that Sargon of Akkad, who first brought the civilisation and arts of Babylonia to the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean, should have had his capital in a city which adjoined Sippara, the special seat of solar wors.h.i.+p. While Arabia drew its inspiration from Ur, the religion of Canaan was modified by contact with a culture and theology that were more purely Babylonian. Phnician tradition stoutly maintained that the ancestors of the Canaanitish people had come from the Persian Gulf.

"Sabaism," therefore, to use the old term, must really have been an early form of Babylonian belief. It was communicated to the Semites west of the Euphrates at different times and in different ways. To the Western Semites of Arabia and Mesopotamia it came through Ur, and consequently set the moon-G.o.d at the head of the divine hierarchy. To the Canaanite it was carried more directly, but at a later period, when the solar wors.h.i.+p had become dominant in Babylonia. The influence of Nippur had waned before that of Eridu, and out of Eridu had risen a culture-G.o.d whose son and vicegerent was the sun.

The moon-G.o.d was addressed in Southern Arabia by different t.i.tles, one of which was that 'Ammi or 'Ammu which forms part of the name of Khammurabi.

Professor Hommel hints that even the Hebrew Yahveh may once have been a t.i.tle of the moon-G.o.d among the Western Semites of Babylonia. As I was the first to point out, the name of Yahveh actually occurs in a doc.u.ment of the age of Abraham, where it enters into the composition of the name Yahum-ilu, the Joel of the Old Testament. Professor Hommel has since found other examples of it in tablets of the same period, thus overthrowing the modern theory which derives it from the Kenites.(390) It was already known to "Abram the Hebrew" in Ur of the Chaldees.

The hymn to the moon-G.o.d of Ur, to which I have referred in an earlier lecture,(391) is almost monotheistic in tone. To the writer he "alone is supreme in heaven and earth." He is the creator of the universe; he is also the universal "Father," "long-suffering and full of forgiveness, whose hand upholds the life of all mankind." More than that, he is "the omnipotent one, whose heart is immensity, and there is none that may fathom it." Among the other G.o.ds he has no rival; he causes the herb to grow, and the cattle and flock to bring forth; and he established law and justice among mankind. The angels of heaven and the spirits of the earth alike do homage to him; there is no G.o.ddess even who appears at his side.

The hymn formed part of the ritual of the great temple at Ur before the birth of Abraham, and the Hebrew patriarch may well have listened to its teaching.

From Ur and its mixed population we can trace the wors.h.i.+p of the Babylonian moon-G.o.d along the coasts of Southern Arabia as far as Egypt.

In Hadhramaut, as I have already said, the very name of Sin was retained, and even in North-western Arabia the name of the sacred mountain of Sinai bears witness to the cult of the Babylonian deity. Early seal-cylinders a.s.sociate with the moon-G.o.d both an ape and a dwarf-like figure, called Nu-gidda, "the dwarf," in Sumerian, who dances in honour of the G.o.d, like the Danga dwarf in Egypt, or the cynocephalous apes of Thoth. In Egypt, however, the dwarf a.s.sumes the shape of Bes, who is often represented with an ape on either side; and Bes with his crown of feathers, along with the apes (or monkeys) that accompany him, came from the south of Arabia to the valley of the Nile.

The monotheistic tendency of the hymn to the moon-G.o.d stands in marked contrast to the polytheism of the solar hymns. The solar ritual, in fact, was essentially polytheistic. But Nannar or Sin, the moon-G.o.d, was "the prince of the G.o.ds," the ruler of the starry hosts of heaven. By the side of him the stars were but as the sheep of a flock in the presence of their shepherd, or as the people of a State in the presence of their deified king. Hence he was lord over his brother G.o.ds in a way that the sun-G.o.d could never be; they became the hosts that he marshalled in fight against the enemies of light and order, the mult.i.tude that obeyed his voice as the sheep follow their shepherd. The moon-G.o.d was emphatically "the lord of hosts"!

The t.i.tle was applied to other G.o.ds in later days. Nebuchadrezzar calls Nebo "the marshaller of the hosts of heaven and earth,"(392) and Tiglath-pileser I. makes a.s.sur "the director of the hosts of the G.o.ds."

The kings transferred the t.i.tle to themselves, changing only "G.o.ds" into "men," and so becoming "kings of the hosts of mankind." But the first signification of the term was "the host of heaven," the stars of El above whom the king of Babylon sought to erect his throne. One of the primeval divinities of the pantheon-a divinity, indeed, who scarcely emerged from his primitive condition of a primordial spirit-was En-me-sarra,(393) "the enchanter of the (heavenly and earthly) hosts," to whom in some of the old Babylonian cities a feast of mourning was celebrated at the time of the winter solstice in the month Tebet. A hymn ent.i.tles him "the lord of the earth, the prince of Arallu, lord of the place and the land whence none return, even the mountain of the spirits of earth ... without whom Inguri?a cannot produce prosperity in field or ca.n.a.l, cannot create the crop ... he who gives sceptre and reign to Anu and El-lil."(394) He is invoked, like the moon-G.o.d, to establish firmly the foundation-stone that it may last for ever. But it is not only over the spirits of the underground world that he holds sway; he reigns also in heaven, in the close vicinity of the ecliptic, and "the seven great G.o.ds" who were his sons were stars in the sky. His attributes, therefore, closely resemble those of the moon-G.o.d of Ur: like the moon-G.o.d, he is at once lord of the sky and of the underworld, a father of the stars of night who makes the green herb grow in the earth below. In En-me-sarra, "the enchanter of the (spirit)-hosts," the realm of the moon-G.o.d was united with that of En-lil; as lord of the night he ruled in Hades, and was supreme even in that "mountain" of the ghost-world from which En-lil derived one of his names.(395)

But I must leave to others the task of further pursuing the path of exploration which I have thus sketched in outline. That Yahveh was once identified with the moon-G.o.d of Babylonia in those distant days, when as yet Abraham had not been born in Ur of Chaldees, explains his t.i.tle of "Lord of hosts" better than the far-fetched theories which have been invented to account for it. The explanation has at least the merit of being supported by the ancient texts of Babylonia. Adventurous spirits may even be inclined to see in Sinai, the mountain of Sin, a fitting place for the promulgation of the Law of the Lord of hosts; but such speculations lie beyond the reach of the present lecturer, and the lectures he has undertaken to give.

The name of En-me-sarra, "the enchanter of the (spirit)-hosts," brings us back to that dark background of magic and sorcery which distinguished and disfigured the religion of Babylonia up to the last. The Sumerian element continued to survive in the Babylonian people, and the magic which was its primitive religion survived also. It was never eliminated; behind the priest lurked the sorcerer; the spell and the incantation were but partially hidden beneath the prayer and the penitential psalm. One result of this was the exaggerated importance attached to rites and ceremonies, and the small s.p.a.ce occupied by the moral element in the official Babylonian faith. There was doubtless a certain amount of spirituality, more especially of an individualistic sort; the sinner bewails his transgressions, and appeals for help to his deity, but of morality as an integral part of religion there is little evidence. We look in vain for anything a.n.a.logous to the judgment-hall of Osiris and the negative confession of the Egyptian dead; the Babylonian G.o.ds, it is true, preferred that a man should walk uprightly, but his future salvation did not depend on his conduct in this life. He was punished in this world for his sins and shortcomings, but the sins were not confined to sins against morality; they equally included ceremonial transgressions.

At the same time, a sort of catechism which forms part of the ritual of the seers shows that a recognition of the moral element in religion was not altogether wanting. The following is Professor Zimmern's translation of it: "Has he estranged the father from his son? Has he estranged the son from his father? Has he estranged the mother from her daughter? Has he estranged the daughter from her mother? Has he estranged the mother-in-law from her daughter-in-law? Has he estranged the brother from his brother?

Has he estranged the friend from his friend? Has he estranged the companion from his companion? Has he refused to set a captive free, or has he refused to loose one who was bound? Has he excluded the prisoner from the light? Has he said of a captive, 'Hold him fast,' or of one who was bound, 'Strengthen his bonds'? Has he committed sin against a G.o.d, or has he committed sin against a G.o.ddess? Has he offended a G.o.d, or has he held a G.o.ddess in light esteem? Is his sin against his own G.o.d, or is his sin against his own G.o.ddess? Has he done violence to one older than himself, or has he conceived hatred against an elder brother? Has he held his father and mother in contempt, or has he insulted his elder sister? Has he been generous in small things, but avaricious in great matters? Has he said 'yea' for 'nay,' and 'nay' for 'yea'? Has he spoken of unclean things or [counselled] disobedience? Has he spoken wicked words?... Has he used false scales?... Has he accepted a wrong account, or has he refused a rightful sum? Has he disinherited a legitimate son, or has he recognised an illegitimate son? Has he set up a false landmark, or has he refused to set up a true landmark? Has he removed bound, border, or landmark? Has he broken into his neighbour's house? Has he drawn near his neighbour's wife?

Has he shed his neighbour's blood? Has he stolen his neighbour's garment?"(396)

The list of questions reminds us of the negative confession of the Osirian creed, but the end and purpose of it is different. They are the questions put to the penitent in order that the priest may discover why the wrath of the G.o.ds has fallen upon him. They relate to this life only, not to the next; conformity to the moral code they imply brings with it no a.s.surance of eternal happiness, it is a guarantee only against suffering and misfortune in the present world. The point of view of the Babylonian was that of the friends of Job.

Morality, in fact, was left in large measure to the legislator. An old code, which seems to have been ascribed to the G.o.d Ea, a.s.serts explicitly the responsibility of the ruler, and his amenability to divine punishment for unrighteous dealing.

"If the king does not give heed to justice," it begins, "his people will perish and his land be enfeebled.(397)

"If he gives no heed to the law of the land, Ea, the king of destinies, will change his destiny, and visit him with misfortune.

"If he gives no heed to his n.o.bles, his days shall [not] be long.

"If he gives no heed to the wise, his land will revolt against him.

"If he gives heed to the (law-)book, the king will behold the strengthening of his land.

"If he gives heed to the writing (_sipir_) of Ea, the great G.o.ds will establish him in counsel and knowledge of justice.

"If he smites a man of Sippara and gives a wrong decision, the sun-G.o.d, who judges heaven and earth, will appoint another judge in his land, and a just prince and a just judge instead of unjust ones.

"If the sons of Nippur come to him for judgment, and he accepts bribes and treats them harshly, Bel, the lord of the world, will bring a foreign enemy against him and destroy his army; the prince and his general will be hunted like outcasts through the streets.

"If the sons of Babylon bring silver and offer bribes, and he favours the Babylonians and turns himself to their entreaty, Merodach, the lord of heaven and earth, will set his foes over him, and give his goods and his treasure to his enemy. The sons of Nippur, or Sippar, or Babylon who act thus shall be cast into prison."(398)

The dissociation of ethics and religion in Babylonia was due to a considerable extent to the practical character of Babylonian theology and the limitation of the doctrine of rewards and punishments to this life. In contrast to the Egyptian, who may be said to have lived for the next world, the Babylonian lived for this. It was here that he was rewarded for his piety or punished for his sins. The world beyond the grave was a place of unspeakable dreariness. I have already described it in a previous lecture. It was a prison-house of darkness and unsubstantiality; a land where all things were forgotten, and those who inhabited it were themselves forgotten of men. It resembled the Hebrew Sheol; indeed, it is probable that the name of Sheol is borrowed from Babylonia,(399) and borrowed names are apt to indicate that the ideas connected with them were borrowed too. In the gloom of that underworld, where the ghosts of the dead fed on dust and refuse, the hideous monsters of chaos still moved and dimly showed themselves, while "the kings of the nations" sat on their shadowy thrones, welcoming the slaughtered king of Babylon with the words: "Art thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?" The dead man never again saw the light of the sun. There was no Osirian paradise to receive him, with its suns.h.i.+ne and happy meadows; even the brief period of light which the solar creed of Egypt allowed the bark of the sun-G.o.d to bring to the denizens of the other world, was denied to the dead Babylonian. Over the gates of the world beyond the grave the words were written: "Abandon hope, all ye that enter here." There was no return; none, even with the help of Merodach, could come back to the home he had left on earth; the sevenfold gates of Hades opened only to admit those that entered it. Death meant the extinction of light and hope, even of the capacity for feeling either pleasure or pain.