Lecture I. Introductory.
Lecture II. Primitive Animism.
Lecture III. The Gods Of Babylonia.
Lecture IV. The Sun-God And Istar.
Lecture V. Sumerian And Semitic Conceptions Of The Divine: Assur And
Monotheism.
Lecture VI. Cosmologies.
Lecture VII. The Sacred Books.
Lecture VIII. The Myths And Epics.
Lecture IX. The Ritual Of The Temple.
Lecture X. Astro-Theology And The Moral Element In Babylonian Religion.
Index.
Footnotes
PREFACE.
The subject of the following Lectures was “The Conception of the Divine
among the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians,” and in writing them I have
kept this aspect of them constantly in view. The time has not yet come for
a systematic history of Babylonian religion, whatever may be the case as
regards ancient Egypt, and, for reasons stated in the text, we must be
content with general principles and fragmentary details.
It is on this account that so little advance has been made in grasping the
real nature and characteristics of Babylonian religion, and that a sort of
natural history description of it has been supposed to be all that is
needed by the student of religion. While reading over again my Hibbert
Lectures, as well as later works on the subject, I have been gratified at
finding how largely they have borrowed from me, even though it be without
acknowledgment. But my Hibbert Lectures were necessarily a pioneering
work, and we must now attempt to build on the materials which were there
brought together. In the present volume, therefore, the materials are
presupposed; they will be found for the most part either in my Hibbert
Lectures or in the cuneiform texts which have since been published.
We are better off, fortunately, as regards the religion of ancient Egypt.
Thanks more especially to Professor Maspero’s unrivalled combination of
learning and genius, we are beginning to learn what the old Egyptian faith
actually was, and what were the foundations on which it rested. The
development of its dogmas can be traced, at all events to a certain
extent, and we can even watch the progress of their decay.
There are two facts which, I am bound to add, have been forced upon me by
a study of the old religions of civilised humanity. On the one hand, they
testify to the continuity of religious thought. God’s light lighteth every
man that cometh into the world, and the religions of Egypt and Babylonia
illustrate the words of the evangelist. They form, as it were, the
background and preparation for Judaism and Christianity; Christianity is
the fulfilment, not of the Law only, but of all that was truest and best
in the religions of the ancient world. In it the beliefs and aspirations
of Egypt and Babylonia have found their explanation and fulfilment. But,
on the other hand, between Judaism and the coarsely polytheistic religion
of Babylonia, as also between Christianity and the old Egyptian faith,—in
spite of its high morality and spiritual insight,—there lies an impassable
gulf. And for the existence of this gulf I can find only one explanation,
unfashionable and antiquated though it be. In the language of a former
generation, it marks the dividing-line between revelation and unrevealed
religion. It is like that “something,” hard to define, yet impossible to
deny, which separates man from the ape, even though on the physiological
side the ape may be the ancestor of the man.
A. H. Sayce.
_October 1902._