RELIGION
The religions of Babylonia and Assyria.--The religion of Assyria was
borrowed from that of Babylonia. The deities worshipped in the two
countries were the same, as also were the ritual and the religious
beliefs of the people. Almost the only difference observable in the
religion of the two kingdoms was that whereas Bel-Merodach was the
supreme god of Babylon, Assur, the impersonation of the old capital,
was the supreme god of Assyria.
Differences between Babylonian and Assyrian religion.--But the
different characters of the two populations were reflected in their
religious conceptions. The Assyrians were a nation of warriors, the
Babylonians of traders, agriculturists, and scribes. Assur is
accordingly 'a man of war'; it was in reliance upon him that the
Assyrian armies marched into foreign lands, and compelled their
inhabitants to acknowledge him. Not to believe in Assur was a crime,
since Assur represented Assyria. Assur, too, admitted no rival at his
side: wifeless and childless he stood alone. Once or twice, indeed, an
Assyrian scribe ascribes to him a wife or a child, but this is in
imitation of Babylonian usage and the belief never took root in
Assyria.
Bel-Merodach, on the contrary, was a god of mercy. He is 'the merciful
one' who hearkens to those that call upon him and who 'raises the dead
to life' through trust in his power. Belat, or Beltis, 'the lady,'
stood at his side, a reflection of himself, and the gods were his
children who recognized him as their father and creator.
Sumerian religion Shamanistic.--Babylonian religion was a compound of
Sumerian and Semitic elements. Sumerian religion had originally been
'Shamanistic' in character. That is to say it had no conception of
deities or priests in the usual sense of the words. Each object or
force of nature was believed to have its _zi_ or 'life' like men and
beasts; the _zi_ was a sort of vital principle which caused the arrow
to fly, the knife to wound, or the stars to move through the heaven. A
personality was given to it, and it thus became what we may term a
spirit. With these spirits, accordingly, the sky and earth were
peopled; they were in fact as multitudinous as the objects and forces
of nature to which they owed their birth. Necessarily the greater
number of them were harmful, if not always at any rate at certain
times and in certain places. Magical charms alone could protect man
from their malevolence or bring down their blessing upon him, and
these magical charms and ceremonies were known only to a particular
class of persons. To such sorcerer-priests the name of 'shamans' has
been assigned, the form of religion represented by them being termed
'Shamanistic.'
Two centres of Babylonian religion.--In prehistoric times two great
religious centres existed in Babylonia, from which two divergent
streams of religious influence flowed over the country. One of these
was Nipur in the north, the other Eridu in the south. Nipur was the
seat of Shamanism, and its patron deity in later days still retained
the title of Mul-lil or El-lil, 'the lord of the ghost-world.' Eridu,
on the other hand, was brought by its trade and situation into contact
with foreign culture. It thus became the source of a higher and more
spiritual form of faith. The spirit of the water, who had been its
special object of adoration, became the culture-god Ea, the lord of the
abyss, who is called Oannes in the Greek history of Berossos and was
believed to have been the author of Babylonian culture. To him its
laws, its arts, and its sciences were alike traced back. Through his
wisdom his son Asari-mulu-dugga, 'Asari who benefits mankind,' was
enabled to cure the diseases and troubles of men, and teach them how to
avoid evil. His teachings were embodied in writing, and so a sacred
book grew up, half Bible, half Ritual, which contained hymns to the
gods as well as rubrics for the performance of the ceremonies
accompanying their recitation.
Under the influence of Eridu the religion of Babylonia ceased to be so
purely Shamanistic as it once had been. Certain of the spirits tended
to take rank above their fellows and thus to pass into gods. How long
this process of development lasted we do not know.
Semitic Influence.--But a time came when the Semites entered the
country and were brought into close contact, hostile or peaceable, with
its Sumerian inhabitants. The result was a fusion of Sumerian and
Semitic religious ideas. An official religion came into existence which
consisted of a Semitic form of faith grafted upon a Sumerian root.
The religion of the Semite was essentially different from that of the
Sumerian. The primary object of his worship was the Baal, Bel, or
'Lord,' who revealed himself in the sun. Each tribe and each locality
had its own Baal; when the tribes coalesced or when the same tribe
occupied more than one locality the various Baals were regarded as so
many forms of the supreme God.
Each Baal was the father of a family. At his side stood his wife, a
colourless reflection of himself, as the wife was of the husband in the
Semitic family on earth. Like the father of the family on earth, Baal
too in heaven had his children.
Where the religions of the Semite and the Sumerian met and combined,
the Sumerian spirits who had emerged above the rest like Ea of Eridu or
El-lil of Nipur, were assimilated to the Semitic Baalim. El-lil, in
fact, was known throughout the Semitic period as Bel of Nipur. Wherever
it was possible a solar character was given to them; in other cases the
general characteristics of the Semitic deity were attached to the old
Sumerian divinity. The great body of the spirits which had fallen into
the background was grouped together as the 300 spirits of heaven
(_Igigi_) and the 600 spirits of earth (_Anunnaki_).
The goddess Istar.--In one instance, however, it was the Semite rather
than the Sumerian who was affected by the contact between the two forms
of faith. The spirit of the evening star became the goddess Istar, who
retained her independent position by the side of the male deities.
While the other goddesses were absorbed in the persons of their divine
consorts like the wife in the Semitic family, Istar, having no consort,
remained like the wife in the Sumerian family on a footing of equality
with the man. When the name and worship of Istar were passed on to the
Semitic peoples of the West, the anomaly led to more than one change in
her character. In southern Arabia and Moab she was identified with a
male deity; in Canaan her name received the feminine suffix _-th_
(Ashtoreth), and she thus became in large measure an ordinary Semitic
goddess.
Bel-Merodach.--After the rise of Babylon as the capital of the kingdom,
its patron-god Merodach became the supreme Baal or Bel of Babylonia. He
had already been identified with Asari-mulu-dugga, the son of Ea, and
the attributes of the latter were accordingly transferred to the new
Bel. It was to him that the great temple of E-Saggil was erected in
Babylon, while the interpreter of his will to men, Nebo, the divine
'prophet,' had his temple E-Zida in the neighbouring suburb of
Borsippa. At Nipur a god whose name has been variously read Uras,
Nin-ip, Bar and Adar, but the true pronunciation of which is still
unknown, stood in much the same relation to El-lil that Nebo did to
Merodach. He was, however, regarded as a solar warrior instead of as a
prophet.
Other deities.--Nergal was worshipped in Kutha and its cemeteries;
Samas, 'the Sun,' at Sippara; Sin, 'the Moon,' at Ur and Harran; Anu,
'the Sky,' at Erech, where he was associated with Istar. Along with Ea
and Bel of Nipur, Anu formed a triad which represented in the official
religion the three elementary deities of the sea, the earth, and the
heavens. The sea, however, was rather the primordial 'deep' out of
which all things arose than the sea of the actual world, while 'the
heaven of Anu' was beyond the visible sky, and Bel was the prince of
the air and the underworld.
[Illustration: WINGED BULL OR HOUSE-GUARDIAN.]
Sacred books and ritual.--Along with the growth of the official
religion went the growth and completion of the Chaldaean Bible and
Prayer-book. The festivals of the gods were numerous; the ceremonies to
be performed by the priests were more numerous still. The ceremonies
were usually accompanied by the recitation of one or more hymns; these
hymns were written in Sumerian, which had now become the sacred
language of Chaldaea just as Latin is the sacred language of the Roman
Church, and since Sumerian was no longer understood by the majority of
the people they were provided with interlinear translations into
Semitic Babylonian. From time to time the pronunciation of the old
Sumerian words was indicated, for just as it was needful that the
inspired words should be handed down without the slightest alteration,
so also was it needful that they should be pronounced aright. An error
even in pronunciation was supposed to invalidate the ceremony. Among
the hymns is a collection of penitential psalms of which the following
lines will give some idea:--
'O lord, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!
O my god, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!
O my goddess, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!
The lord in the wrath of his heart has regarded me;
God in the fierceness of his heart has revealed himself to me.
The goddess has been violent against me, and has put me to grief.
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.
To my god, the merciful one, I turn myself, I utter my prayer.
O my god, seven times seven are my transgressions: forgive my sins!'
The Priests.--The existence of a hierarchy of gods, of a Bible, and
of a Prayer-book implies the existence of a priesthood. The sorcerer
of prehistoric times became the priest of later Babylonia. The
priests were distinguished into several classes. At the head came the
High-priest who was often the monarch; in Assyria indeed this was
commonly the case. Subordinate to him were other high-priests, and
under them again the 'anointers' (who cleansed the sacred vessels of
the sanctuary), the priests of Istar and the 'elders.' By the side of
them stood the 'prophets' (_asipi_) under a 'chief.' The prophets
could predict the future and were consulted on matters of state. We
hear of armies being accompanied by them into the field, and when
Assur-bani-pal suppressed the revolt of the Babylonians 'by the
command of the prophets,' he says, 'I purified their shrines and
cleansed their chief places of prayer. The angry gods and wrathful
goddesses I soothed with supplications and penitential psalms. I
restored and established in peace their daily sacrifices which they
had discontinued.'
The Temples.--The temples were provided with towers which served for
the observation of the stars, and stood within large courts. In the
shrine was a 'mercy-seat' whereon the god 'seated himself' on certain
occasions. At Balawat near Nineveh the mercy-seat had the form of a
coffer or ark, in which two written tables of stone were placed. In
front of it stood the altar approached by steps. In the court was a
'sea' or large basin of water, which like that of Solomon was, in one
case at all events, supported on bulls of bronze. The images of the
gods were almost invariably of human form.
Astro-theology.--The prominence given to the study of astronomy had
much to do with giving Babylonian religion an astral character. The
stars were worshipped; Istar herself was originally the evening star,
and most of the principal deities were identified with the planets and
chief fixed stars. The importance of the stars for the regulation of
the calendar, moreover, kept them constantly before the eyes of the
priests. But whether Babylonian astrotheology was not really primitive
or whether it went back to the pre-Semitic period we do not yet know.
Sacrifices and offerings.--Sacrifices were offered to the stars, as to
the other divinities. Besides the sacrifices, offerings were also made
of meal, dates, oil, and wine. The sacrifices and offerings must have
been numerous since in the larger temples there was not only 'the
daily sacrifice' but also constant services both by day and night. On
the great festivals, moreover, there were services of a special
character, as also when days of thanksgiving or humiliation were
ordained. The sacrifices and offerings were provided partly by
endowments, partly by voluntary gifts (sometimes called _kurbanni_,
the Hebrew _korban_), partly by obligatory contributions, the most
important of which were the 'tithes.'
The Sabbath.--Besides the festivals of the gods there was a _sabattu_
or 'Sabbath,' observed on the 9th, 14th, 19th, 21st, and 28th day of
the month, on which various kinds of work were forbidden to be done.
Food even was not allowed to be cooked, or medicine to be taken. The
_sabattu_ is described as 'a day of rest for the heart,' and a
'free-will offering' had to be made in the night of it.
Monotheistic tendency.--Among the educated classes religious feeling
seems to have been fervent, and at times the language used approaches
that of monotheism. Thus in an early hymn to the Moon-god which was
composed in the city of Ur, we read:--
'Father, long-suffering and full of forgiveness, whose hand upholds
the life of all mankind!...
First-born, omnipotent, whose heart is immensity, and there is none
who may fathom it!...
In heaven, who is supreme? Thou alone, thou art supreme!
On earth, who is supreme? Thou alone, thou art supreme!'
So, again, Nebuchadrezzar prays as follows to Bel-Merodach:--
'O prince, thou art from everlasting, lord of all that exists, for
the king whom thou lovest, whom thou callest by name, as it seems
good to thee, thou guidest his name aright, thou watchest over him
in the path of righteousness. I, the prince who obeys thee, am the
work of thy hands; thou hast created me and hast entrusted to me
the sovereignty over multitudes of men, according to thy goodness,
O lord, which thou hast made to pass over them all. Let me love thy
supreme lordship, let the fear of thy divinity exist in my heart,
and give what seemeth good to thee, since thou maintainest my
life.'
The future life.--The mass of the people, however, were sunk in the
grossest superstition, and the future to which they looked forward was
sufficiently dreary. Hades lay beneath the earth, where the spirits of
the dead flitted about like bats in darkness with dust only for their
food. A happier lot was reserved for the few, and a prayer is made for
an Assyrian king that after death he should ascend to 'the land of the
silver sky.'
Cosmology.--In early Sumerian days the heaven was believed to rest on
the peak of 'the mountain of the world,' in the far north-east, where
the gods had their habitations (cf. Isa. xiv. 13), while an ocean or
'deep' encircled the earth which rested upon its surface. With the
progress of knowledge truer ideas of geography came to prevail. The
later cosmogony is represented in the first tablet of the Creation
story where the old gods are resolved into cosmical elements. The
'deep' is said to have been 'the generator' of the heavens and the
earth, 'Mummu-Tiamat' (the chaos of the sea) being 'the mother of them
all.... At that time the gods had not appeared.... Then the [great]
gods were created, Lakhmu and Lakhamu issued forth the first.' Next
came the creation of An-sar and Ki-sar, 'the upper' and 'lower
firmament,' who in their turn gave birth to Anu, Ea, and Bel. The
struggle between Merodach, the god of light and order, with Tiamat, the
dragon of darkness, chaos, and evil, occupied a prominent place in the
Epic of the Creation. Along with Tiamat there were ranged in battle the
evil creatures of night and destruction, most of whom had composite
forms. The belief in them had been inherited from the age of Shamanism,
and they were regarded as the products of a first and imperfect
creation. Some of them came to symbolize the powers of darkness, others
were transported to the skies, certain of the allies of Tiamat being
the Zodiacal animals, while out of the skin of Tiamat Merodach
constructed the heaven itself. In the Epic Tiamat is identified with
the source of the fountains of the great deep.