of these occurred at fixed times of the year, and commemorated the
divinities worshipped 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 gods. But new
festivals might further be instituted 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 Inguriṡa 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 Lôos or July, the feast of Sakæa 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 Sakæa, at least in its original
form, or the festival ordained by Gudea at the consecration of the temple
of Ê-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 institution 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 Assyria, 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-god, lasting for one hundred days and nights. It was
a long period of public humiliation, and the god 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 relationship. 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 worship of the heavenly bodies. A passage 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 worship 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 gods 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 worshipped,(387)
and the symbols drawn on the seal-cylinders show that this worship must go
back to the oldest period of Babylonia. Even the ideograph that denotes “a
god” 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 god.
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 gods 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-god. “The _zi_ of the god”
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
gods on the summit of the Chaldæan Olympos “above the stars of El”; and
Nin-ip, the interpreter of En-lil, was at once the sun-god and the moon.
Istar, it must not be forgotten, was primarily the evening star; and Istar
was not only supreme among the goddesses 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 Aramæans, and the Hebrews
alike belonged, worshipped four supreme deities—Athtar, the evening and
morning star; the moon-god and its messenger or “Prophet”; and the goddess
of the sun. Athtar is the Babylonian Istar, who has become a male god in
her passage to the Semites; and, while the people of Hadhramaut borrowed
the name of Sin from Babylonia, those of Qatabân borrowed the name of Nebo
(Anbây). Samas, the sun, has become a goddess; the moon-god 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-god, the genderless grammar of Sumerian facilitated
the change. Â, the sun-god of Sippara, had become his wife under Semitic
influence,(389) and from Sippara the conception of a solar goddess passed
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 worship 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 worship of the moon-god.
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-god among Arabians and Hebrews is taken by
the sun. The supreme Baal is the sun-god, 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-god was supreme. The gods were resolved into solar deities, or
rather were identified with the sun. The solar element in Merodach
threatened to absorb his human kingship; it was only his likeness to man
that saved him from the fate of the Egyptian gods.
It is just this phase in the history of Babylonian theology that we find
reflected in the theology of Canaan. Baal has passed into the sun-god, and
his characteristics are those of the sun-gods 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 shores of the Mediterranean, should have had his
capital in a city which adjoined Sippara, the special seat of solar
worship. 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. Phœnician 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-god at the head of the divine hierarchy. To the Canaanite it was
carried more directly, but at a later period, when the solar worship had
become dominant in Babylonia. The influence of Nippur had waned before
that of Eridu, and out of Eridu had risen a culture-god whose son and
vicegerent was the sun.
The moon-god was addressed in Southern Arabia by different titles, 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
title of the moon-god among the Western Semites of Babylonia. As I was the
first to point out, the name of Yahveh actually occurs in a document 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-god 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 gods 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 goddess 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 worship of the
Babylonian moon-god 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
associate with the moon-god both an ape and a dwarf-like figure, called
Nu-gidda, “the dwarf,” in Sumerian, who dances in honour of the god, like
the Danga dwarf in Egypt, or the cynocephalous apes of Thoth. In Egypt,
however, the dwarf assumes 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-god 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-god, was “the
prince of the gods,” 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 gods in a way that the sun-god
could never be; they became the hosts that he marshalled in fight against
the enemies of light and order, the multitude that obeyed his voice as the
sheep follow their shepherd. The moon-god was emphatically “the lord of
hosts”!
The title was applied to other gods in later days. Nebuchadrezzar calls
Nebo “the marshaller of the hosts of heaven and earth,”(392) and
Tiglath-pileser I. makes Assur “the director of the hosts of the gods.”
The kings transferred the title to themselves, changing only “gods” 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 entitles 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
Inguriṡa cannot produce prosperity in field or canal, cannot create the
crop ... he who gives sceptre and reign to Anu and El-lil.”(394) He is
invoked, like the moon-god, 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 gods” who were his
sons were stars in the sky. His attributes, therefore, closely resemble
those of the moon-god of Ur: like the moon-god, 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-god 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-god of Babylonia in those distant days, when as
yet Abraham had not been born in Ur of Chaldees, explains his title 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 space 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 analogous to the judgment-hall of Osiris and the negative
confession of the Egyptian dead; the Babylonian gods, 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 god, or has
he committed sin against a goddess? Has he offended a god, or has he held
a goddess in light esteem? Is his sin against his own god, or is his sin
against his own goddess? 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 gods 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 assurance
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 god Ea, asserts 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 nobles, 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 gods will
establish him in counsel and knowledge of justice.
“If he smites a man of Sippara and gives a wrong decision, the sun-god,
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 sunshine and happy meadows; even the brief period of
light which the solar creed of Egypt allowed the bark of the sun-god 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.
It was on this life, therefore, that the religious thoughts of the
Babylonian were centred. And his view of his relation to the gods was a
curious mixture of spirituality and the commercial instinct. On the one
hand, it was a question of barter; if the man was generous in his gifts to
the gods, if he did what they approved and abstained from what they
condemned, above all, if the rites and ceremonies of religion were
correctly fulfilled, the gods were bound to grant him all that his heart
desired. On the other hand, if misfortune fell upon him, it was a proof
that he had sinned against them. And as the centuries passed the
consciousness of sin sank more and more deeply into the heart of the
Babylonian. At first, indeed, the sins were offences against the ritual
rather than against the moral and spiritual code. The ghosts and spirits
of the old Sumerian faith were non-moral; if some of them inflicted pain
and disease upon man, it was because it was their nature to do so, and the
only defence against them was in the charms of the sorcerer. But with the
arrival of the Semite, and the consequent transformation of the goblin
into a god and of the sorcerer into a priest, a new conception was
introduced of the divine nature. The gods became human, and the humanity
they put on was that of civilised man. They became moral agents, hating
iniquity and loving righteousness, ready to help the creatures they had
made, but chastising them for their offences as the father would his son.
“Father,” in fact, is one of the commonest titles given to the god in the
new age of Babylonian religion. It was only in the conception of Hades
that the old ideas still maintained their influence, that the powers who
ruled there still continued to be the malignant or non-moral monsters of
an earlier belief, and that a common lot was believed to await in it all
mankind, whatever might have been their conduct on this side of the grave.
In this world, on the contrary, the conviction that sin brought punishment
with it became more and more pronounced. And with the conviction came an
increasing belief in the efficacy of prayer and repentance, and the
necessity for purity of heart. The words supposed to have been put into
the mouth of Merodach after his creation of man, late in date though they
may be, testify clearly to the fact. I give them in Mr. King’s
translation(400)—
“Towards thy god shalt thou be pure of heart, for that is the
glory of the godhead;
Prayer and supplication and bowing low to the earth, early in the
morning shalt thou offer unto him....
The fear of god begets mercy, offerings increase life, and prayer
absolves from sin.
He that fears the gods shall not cry aloud [in grief],
he that fears the spirits of earth shall have a long [life].
Against friend and neighbour thou shalt not speak [evil].
Speak not of things that are hidden, [practise] mercy,
When thou makest a promise (to give), give and [hold] not [back].”
Already, in the age of Khammurabi, the author of the story of the Deluge
makes it the punishment inflicted on mankind for their misdeeds, and the
Chaldæan Noah is rescued from it by Ea on account of his piety. The
penitential psalms and ritual texts are full of illustrations of the same
fact. It is true that the misdeeds are often merely involuntary violations
of the ceremonial law or offences against the ritual, but the sense of
guilt attaching to them is already profound. It required centuries before
the Babylonian was able to distinguish between moral and ceremonial
sin,—if, indeed, he ever succeeded in doing so,—but at an early period a
consciousness of the heinousness of sin already lay heavily upon him, as
well as of the need of repentance. A profound sense of his transgressions,
and of the punishment they deserved, had grown up within him long before
he had learnt to confine it to moral guilt. In this respect, again, he
differed from the Egyptian: penitence and the consciousness of sin
belonged to Babylonia; we look in vain for them in the valley of the Nile.
The light-hearted Egyptian was too contented to feel them; the gods he
worshipped were, like himself, kindly and easy-going, and the pantheism of
the upper classes offered no place to a reproachful conscience.
But the gods of Babylonia, in the days when the Sumerian and the Semite
had become one people, were stern judges. The theology of Eridu was
coloured and darkened by that of Nippur; Ea might save Xisuthros from the
waters of the Flood, but En-lil had doomed all men to destruction. And
whether it was the sun-god who was worshipped, or the moon-god of Ur, it
was still a judge who beheld and visited all the deeds of living men. In
the sun-god the judge predominated, in the moon-god the father, but that
was all. The father was also a judge, the judge was also a father, and the
same word might be used to denote both.
But it must be remembered that the judgeship of the son-god and the
fatherhood of the moon-god were confined to the present world. They were
not dead gods like Osiris, whose tribunal was in another world. There was
no postponing the evil day, therefore; a man’s sins were visited upon him
in this life, just as it was also in this life that his righteousness was
rewarded. A death-bed repentance was useless; penitence, to be effective,
must be manifested on this side of the grave.
Hence came the penitential ritual which forms so striking a feature in the
service-books of Babylonia. It was reduced to a system, like the
confessional in later days. The penitent was instructed by the priest what
to say, and the priest pronounced his absolution. For the exercise of
priestly absolution was another essential feature of Babylonian religion.
Besides the consciousness of sin and the conception of repentance, the
idea of mediation must also be traced to Babylonia. On the earliest seals
the priest is represented as acting as a mediator between the worshipper
and his god. It is only through the priest that the layman can approach
the deity and be led into the presence of the god. This idea of mediation
has a twofold origin. On the one side, it goes back to the beliefs which
saw in the magician—the predecessor of the priest—the possessor of
knowledge and powers that were hidden from the rest of mankind; on the
other side, it has grown out of the doctrine that the priest was the
vicegerent of the god. It was thus the result of the union of two
conceptions which I believe to have been respectively Sumerian and
Semitic. The deified king or pontiff necessarily took the place of the god
on earth; Gudea, for instance, at Lagas was the representative of the god
Inguriṡa, and therefore himself divine. The fact that the gods were
represented in human forms facilitated this conversion of the minister of
the deity into his adopted son and representative; the powers and
functions of the god were transferred to him, and, like the vassal-prince
in the absence of the supreme king, he acted in the god’s place.
The Semitic Baal was a lord or king of human shape and passions. He thus
stood in marked contrast to the Sumerian ghost or spirit; and, as we have
seen, the gulf between them is too deep and broad to be spanned by the
doctrine of evolution. For the Sumerian the world outside man was peopled
with spirits and demons; for the Semite it was a human world, since man
was made in the image of the gods. The triumph of the gods of light and
order over the monsters of chaos symbolised not only the birth of the
present creation, but also the theological victory of the Semite over the
Sumerian. And with the victory came a conception of the divine which was
modelled on that of the organised State. As the human head of the State
was himself a god, delegating his authority from time to time to his human
ministers, so too in the world of gods there was a supreme Baal or lord
who was surrounded by his court and ministers. Foremost among these were
the _sukkalli_ or “angels,” the messengers who conveyed the will of their
lord to the dwellers upon earth. Some of them were more than messengers;
they were the interpreters and vicegerents of the supreme deity, like Nebo
“the prophet” of Borsippa. And as vicegerents they naturally became the
sons by adoption of Bel; Asari of Eridu first takes the place of Ea, whose
double he originally was, and then in the person of Merodach becomes his
son; Nin-ip of Nippur, the messenger of En-lil, is finally transformed
into his son, and addressed, like Horus in Egypt, as “the avenger of his
father.”(401) The hierarchy of the gods is modelled upon that of
Babylonia, and the ideas of mediation and vicegerency are transferred to
heaven.
Repentance, the consciousness of sin, and mediation are thus conceptions
all of which may be traced back to Babylonia. And each of them leads
naturally, if not inevitably, to other and cognate conceptions. Mediation,
as I have pointed out, is partly dependent on a belief in a doctrine of
vicegerency, which, in combination with a profound sense of sin, leads in
turn to the doctrine of absolution. And mediation itself is given a wide
meaning. The priest mediates between the layman and his deity; the lesser
gods between mankind and the supreme Baalim. M. Martin aptly compares the
intercession of Abraham for the doomed cities of the plain, and the
doctrine of the intercession of the Saints in the Christian Church.(402)
The consciousness of sin, again, is similarly far-reaching. It extends to
sins of ignorance and omission as well as to sins of commission. Time
after time the penitential psalms ask forgiveness for sins the very nature
of which was unknown to the penitent. “The sin that I have done I know
not,” he is made to say, “The transgression that I have committed I know
not.”
“An offence I have committed unwillingly against my god.
A sin against my goddess unwillingly have I wrought:
O lord, my transgressions are many, manifold are my sins!”
The disease or misfortune that had overtaken him was a proof of the sin,
even though it had been committed involuntarily or in ignorance that it
was wrong. “When I was little I sinned,” says another psalm, “yea, I
transgressed the commandments of my god.”(403)
Repentance has its corollary confession, whether public or private. And
the ritual texts show that both public and private confession was
practised in Babylonia. Indeed, private confession seems to have been the
older and more usual method. The penitential psalms are in the first
person singular, like the Hebrew psalms; in public confession the
Babylonian probably believed that a man was more likely to think about the
sins of others than about his own.
Penitence implies a need of absolution. It also implies a belief in the
sinfulness of human nature and the purity of the divine. The purity, it is
true, may be ceremonial rather than moral, and in the early days of
Babylonian religion the ceremonial element almost obscured the moral. But
as time went on the moral element grew ever stronger, and the ritual texts
began to be superseded by prayers of a more spiritual character. The
prayers addressed by Nebuchadrezzar to Merodach rise almost to the height
of a passionate faith in the absolute goodness and mercy of the god.
Speaking generally, then, we may say that the religion of Babylonia was
essentially anthropomorphic, with all the faults and virtues of an
anthropomorphic conception of the divine. But it was grafted on a primeval
stock of Sumerian shamanism from the influences of which it never wholly
shook itself free. It thus differed from Hebrew anthropomorphism, with
which in other respects it had so much in common. Behind the lineaments of
Hebrew anthropomorphism ghost or goblin are not to be found.
And yet between the religion of Babylonia and that of Israel there was
much that was alike. It was natural, indeed, that it should be so. The
Babylonians of history were Semitic, and Abraham the Hebrew had sprung
from a Babylonian city. In the last lecture I drew attention to the
similarity that existed between the temples of Babylonia and that of
Jerusalem, a similarity that extended even to details. There was the same
similarity between the Babylonian rituals and the Mosaic Law; the
priesthood, moreover, was established on the same lines, and the prophets
and seers of Israel have their analogues in those of Chaldæa. The
religious law and ritual of the Hebrews looks back like their calendar to
the banks of the Euphrates.
The same lesson is taught by the literary traditions of the Hebrew people.
The cosmology of Genesis has its roots in the cosmology of Eridu, and the
first home of mankind is placed by the Old Testament in Eden, “the plain”
of Babylonia, which was watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. The
Babylonian story of the Deluge is the parent of that which is recounted in
the Hebrew Scriptures, while it was at Babylon that the dispersal of
mankind took place. The background of Hebrew history is as purely
Babylonian as the background of Hebrew ritual.
And, as Gunkel has shown,(404) the old Babylonian traditions embodied in
the Book of Genesis must have made their way to the West at the very
beginning of Hebrew history. They enter into the web of the earliest
Hebrew thought, and are presupposed by Hebrew literature. The cosmology
which saw the primordial element in the watery deep, and told of the
victory that had been won over Tiamât, the dragon of chaos, must have been
already known in Canaan when the language and script of Babylonia were
taught in its schools, and Babylonian literature studied in its libraries.
Long before the Mosaic age, the literary culture of Babylonia had
profoundly affected the peoples of Syria, and had penetrated even to the
banks of the Nile. Need we be surprised, then, if we find a “sea” in the
temple of Solomon, the symbol of beliefs which had their origin on the
shores of the Persian Gulf, or priestly ordinances which recall those of
ancient Chaldæa?
The ordinances and temples were but the outward symbols of the ideas that
had created them. The anthropomorphism of Semitic Babylonia is reflected
in the anthropomorphism of the Israelites. The sense of sin and of the
overwhelming power of the deity, the efficacy of penitence and the
necessity of a mediator, are common to both Babylonia and Israel. Hence it
is that the penitential psalms of the Babylonian ritual bear so striking a
resemblance to the psalms of the Old Testament; hence, too, the individual
element and deep spirituality that characterise them. Israel was indebted
to Babylonia for something more than the seeds of a merely material
civilisation.
It is true that there is a gulf, wide and impassable, between the
Babylonian religion as we decipher it in the cuneiform tablets, and the
religion of Israel as it is presented to us in the Old Testament. On the
one side, we have a gross and grotesque polytheism; on the other, an
uncompromising monotheism. Babylonian religion made terms with magic and
sorcery, and admitted them in a certain degree to its privileges; they
were not incompatible with polytheism; but between them and the worship of
the one God there could be no reconciliation. It was the same with the
sensualities that masqueraded at Erech in the garb of a religious cult;
they belonged to a system in which the sun-god was Baal, and a goddess
claimed the divided adoration of man. To Israel they were forbidden, like
the necromancy and witchcraft with which they were allied.
But deep and impassable as may be the gulf which separated the Mosaic Law
from the official religion of Babylonia, different as may have been the
development of prophecy in Babylonia and Israel, the primordial ideas from
which they started were strangely alike. The same relation that is borne
by the religion of ancient Egypt to Christianity is borne by the religion
of Babylonia to Judaism. The Babylonian conception of the divine,
imperfect though it was, underlay the faith of the Hebrew, and tinctured
it up to the end. The Jew never wholly freed himself from the dominion of
beliefs which had their first starting-point in the “plain” of Babylonia;
his religious horizon remained bounded by death, and the God of Abraham,
Isaac, and Jacob continued to be the God of the living and not of the
dead. It was in this world that the righteous were rewarded and the wicked
punished; the world to come was the dreary shadow-land of Babylonian
teaching, a land of darkness where all things are forgotten, but also a
land where “the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.”
INDEX.
Â, 318, 338, 482.
Abraham, 497, 498.
absolution, Babylonian doctrine of, 497.
Abusir. _See_ Busiris.
Abydos, 104, 119, 159, 166.
Adam, 384, 417.
Adapa the first man, 383, 423, 424, 439, 445.
Adonis, 447.
Æons, Gnostic, 397.
Akhem, 161. _See_ Horus of Nekhen.
Akkad, 264, 270.
Alexander, 45, 447.
Allat, 288.
Alu, fields of, 37, 156, 161, 168, 184, 191, 200.
Am Duat. _See_ Book of.
Amherst, Lord, of Hackney, 255.
’Ammi, 484.
Amon, 89, 90, 94, 148 sq., 249.
Amon-hotep III., born of a virgin, 45, 249.
Amon-hotep IV. (Khu-n-Aten), 11, 35, 92, 195.
Amon-t, 231.
Amorites, 265, 271, 320.
Amraphel. _See_ Khammurabi.
amulets, 226, 227.
Anak, 136.
Anat, 310.
ancestor-worship, 122.
angel, 315, 361, 456, 496.
Anhur, 44, 87, 89, 160, 163.
animal gods of Babylonia, 406.
animal worship, 100 sq., 242.
Ansar, 367, 390, 404.
anthropomorphism, 107, 349, 498.
Anu, 308 sq., 342, 384, 435, 456.
" identified with other gods, 336.
Anubis, 90, 103, 104, 158.
Anunit, 344.
Anunna, 344, 356.
Anunna-ki, 309, 335, 376.
Anuqet, 135.
_ânz_, 156.
apes of Thoth, 132.
Apis, 110, 115, 206.
Apophis, 162, 187, 199, 212, 225.
Arabia, 261, 315, 317, 321, 481, 483, 485.
Arad-Ea, 437.
Arallu, 451, 452, 486.
Ararat, 441.
ark, 369, 460.
Arum, 305, 383, 432, 433, 440.
Aṡari, 131, 147, 164 sq., 272, 288, 300, 313, 325, 401, 406, 457, 496.
Ashel, 144.
Asherah, 321, 338, 367.
Ashtoreth, 338, 339, 342, 483.
Assur, 85, 346, 366 sq., 486.
Assur-bani-pal, 289, 292, 416, 464, 470.
Assurit, 371.
astronomy, Babylonian, 236, 411, 480.
astro-theology, 234, 438.
Atarpi, 438, 446.
Aten-Ra, 94.
" hymn to, 96.
" universal father, 98.
Athtar (Istar), 147, 321, 482.
Atmu. _See_ Tum.
At-Nebes, 225.
axe, double-headed, 128.
Azaga-suga, 353.
_ba._ _See_ Soul.
Baal, 98, 287, 310, 314, 315, 317, 328, 330, 349, 364, 370, 395, 467, 482.
Babylon, colony of Eridu, 261, 327, 335, 367, 394.
Babylonia and Egypt, 234.
" divided into States, 264.
Babylonian theology artificial, 273.
Babylonians, mixed race, 270.
Bâkhu, 146.
Bakis, 111.
Balawât, 461.
Ball, Mr., 164.
“banner-name,” 53.
Bast, 144, 231.
Bau, 304 sq., 407, 460, 473.
beast-worship, 37.
Bel, 118, 267, 301, 312, 348.
Bel-Merodach, 256. _See_ Merodach.
Belshazzar, 469.
Beltis (Bilat), 310.
_bennu._ _See_ phœnix.
Berenikê, city of, 223.
Berossos, 264, 269, 299, 307, 377, 411, 436, 453, 475.
Bes, 139, 485.
Bilu. _See_ Bel.
Book Am Duat, 195 sq.
Book of Respirations, 194.
Book of the Dead, 173, 182 sq.
Borsippa, 255, 453.
Brahmanism, 103.
Breasted, Professor, 96.
Bubastis, 112, 144, 145.
bulls, winged, 118, 224, 354.
Busiris, 156, 160.
Buto, 154, 162.
Cain, 307, 308.
calendar, Babylonian and Hebrew, 472.
Canaan, 259, 261, 287, 310, 483.
cannibalism, 16, 234.
cats, 144, 208.
Chabas, 232.
Champollion, 187, 249.
chaos, 375, 376, 388, 389.
Chemosh, 85, 345, 346.
cherubim, 118, 354, 471.
Christian theology, 230.
Christianity and Osirian creed, 248.
Clement, St., 100, 120, 181.
confession in Babylonia, 418, 488 sq., 497.
confession, the negative, 174, 489.
cow of Istar, 148.
creation, epic of, 238, 387 sq.
" of heavenly bodies, 393.
" of man, 304.
" Sumerian story of, 380.
creator-potter, 375.
_dad_, 227.
Daddu, 156, 157.
Damascius, 367, 387.
Dam-kina, 300 sq.
dances, sacred, 134.
Danga dwarf, 133, 139, 485.
death, origin of, 384, 425.
decans, 237.
deep, the, 239, 375, 389.
deification of Babylonian kings, 290, 351.
deluge, Babylonian story of, 437 sq., 443 sq., 493.
deluge in Genesis, 443, 444.
de Morgan, M., 59, 105.
Dendera, 87, 145.
Dep. _See_ Buto.
de Sarzec, M., 254.
Deukalion, 445.
development, 248.
_dimmer_, 405.
Diodorus, 237.
disc, solar, 76, 89, 94 sq., 224, 369.
" legend of, 226.
dismemberment of corpse, 25.
double. _See_ Ka and Zi.
Du-azagga, 327, 374, 456.
Dungi, 41.
Ea, 86, 131, 137, 164, 239, 262, 269, 279, 287, 299, 304, 307, 326, 353,
354, 374, 386, 401, 439.
Ea, code of, 489.
Ea-bani, 283, 433 sq.
Eden or Edin, 260, 263, 281, 385.
Edfu, 221.
Egypt, earliest races of, 23.
" early kingdoms of, 37 sq., 43.
" origin of name, 55, 58.
" Pharaonic conquest of, 224.
Egyptian conception of God, 34.
Egyptians, conservative, 30, 36.
" disinclined for the abstract, 30, 36.
Egyptians, origin of, 22.
_ekimmu_, 284, 285, 287.
E-kur(a), 306, 356, 374, 376, 449, 451, 457.
Elamites, 266, 270, 434.
El-Kab (Nekheb), 39, 135, 168.
El-lil. _See_ En-lil.
Elohim, 286.
emanation, doctrine of, 91, 250.
embalming, 23, 68.
_ên_, 413.
Endor, witch of, 286.
En-lil, 261, 262, 269, 282, 285, 297, 309, 315, 348, 352, 353, 376, 379,
405, 406, 439, 452.
En-me-sarra, 408, 486.
Ennead, the, 33, 82, 314.
Enos, 308.
_ênu_, 404, 410, 415.
Erech, 308, 311, 312, 340, 341, 432, 433, 453, 461.
Ereskigal, 428.
Eridu, 138, 164, 260, 262, 268, 301, 304, 327, 367, 373, 381, 386, 407.
Erman, Professor, 125.
Erment, 86, 111.
Ê-Saggil, 324, 328, 374, 382, 413, 454.
Ê-Sarra, 356.
Esau, 272.
Etana, story of, 425.
euhemerism, 123.
Evans, Dr. A. J., 128.
fasting, 418, 477.
Feast of Weeks, 474.
feather cap, 136.
festivals, 472 sq.
fetishism in primitive Egypt, 103, 205, 227.
folk-lore, limitations of, 18.
frog, the, 136.
Genesis, Book of, 340.
" cosmology of, 388, 395.
" deluge in, 443, 444.
genii of the dead, 65.
ghost of unburied dead, 284.
Gilgames, 79, 191, 283, 284, 383, 423, 426, 430 sq.
Gnostics, 91, 202, 250, 397.
God, Egyptian conception of, 34, 244 sq., 396.
God, Sumerian conception of, 405.
goddess, Babylonian, 332.
gods, Babylonian, identified with each other, 330.
gods, Babylonian, human, 349.
Goshen, 225, 236.
Great Bear, the, 236.
Grébaut, M., 164.
green paint, 155.
Gudea, 41, 43, 124, 254, 274, 290, 352, 473, 475.
Gunkel, 445, 499.
Hadad, 319 sq., 329, 440.
Hades, Babylonian, 286, 288, 294, 349, 426, 427, 443, 491.
Hâpi. _See_ Nile.
Harmakhis, 76, 78, 89, 220.
Harper, song of the, 13, 125.
Harran, 314, 315, 335, 482.
Hathor, 36, 143, 145 sq., 228.
Hathor-headed column, 119.
Haupt, Prof., 433, 455, 464, 465, 471.
hawk of Horus, 71, 103, 104.
heart, 66.
Heliopolis. _See_ On.
" school of, 33, 131.
hell, Egyptian, 179, 197.
Hêraklês, 432, 436, 443, 446.
Herkhuf, 133.
Hermetic books, 68, 101, 181.
Hermopolis, school of, 33, 114, 130, 132.
Herodotos, 110, 112, 139, 144, 454, 457.
Hesperides, 446.
Heuzey, M., 119.
Hezekiah, 334, 471.
Hierakonpolis. _See_ Nekhen.
hieroglyphics, 32.
high priest, 267, 367, 461, 462. _See_ patesi.
Holy of Holies, 456, 457, 459, 464.
Hommel, Professor, 59, 130, 238, 256, 267, 287, 315, 317, 321, 437, 482,
484, 491.
Hor-Behudet, 220.
Hor-pes, 207.
Horus, the elder, 71.
Horus, the younger, son of Isis, 89, 154, 161, 163, 232, 496.
Horus, 39, 42, 54, 61, 162, 165, 238.
" followers of, 23, 43, 73, 81, 128.
Horus, the golden, 74.
" the mummified, of Nekhen (_see_ Akhem), 68, 75, 78, 163, 236.
Horus, two eyes of, 78.
hosts, divine, 355.
" lord of, 487.
hymns, Babylonian, 411 sq.
Igigi (angels), 309, 355.
Imhotep, 140, 231.
Incantations, book of, 402.
incarnation, doctrine of, 242.
inspiration, verbal, 414.
Isaiah, 452, 457, 477, 481.
Isis, 84, 135, 146.
" as witch, 219.
Iskhara, 374.
Israelitish religion, 498.
Istar, 144, 146, 292, 311, 332, 337 sq., 349, 431, 434, 440, 464.
Istar, descent of, to Hades, 426 sq.
Isum, 429.
Jachin (Yakin), 350, 459.
Jacob’s ladder, 393.
Jastrow, Professor, 440, 464, 469.
Jensen, Professor, 457, 477.
Jokha, 254.
Jubilee, year of, 476.
judgment, future, 173 sq., 191, 295.
Juvenal, 101.
Ka, 48 sq., 185, 192, 198, 227, 228, 276, 280, 286, 293.
Ka-name. _See_ banner-name.
Khammurabi (Amraphel), 79, 256, 266, 352, 362, 365, 410, 423, 438, 473.
Khar, 79.
Khent-Amentit, 161.
Khepera, 218, 231.
kher-heb, 140, 405.
Khonsu, 130, 151.
_khu_, 59, 60 sq., 120, 199.
Khumbaba, 433.
Khu-n-Aten. _See_ Amon-hotep IV.
_kigal_, 449, 455.
Kingu, 282, 428.
Kisar, 390.
Kutha (Cuthah), 378.
Lagas. _See_ Tello.
Larsa, 266, 318.
law, Egyptian conception of, 247.
Law, Mosaic, 52, 57, 99, 471, 474, 498.
Lehmann, Dr., 457.
Lenormant, Fr., 300, 399, 400.
lil, 261, 278, 280 sq., 285, 287, 301, 306, 379, 481.
Lilith, 261, 281, 306.
Lindl, Dr., 256.
Logos, 132.
Lucas, Paul, 213.
Lugal-zaggisi, 308, 311.
Magan (Sinaitic Peninsula), 265.
magic in Israel, 292, 401.
" in Babylonia, 466, 500.
magical texts, 291.
" " Babylonian, 399 sq.
Malik, 321.
Mami, 446.
man, deification of, in Egypt, 37, 41, 42.
man, deification of, in Babylonia, 41.
Manes, 61.
Manetho, 61.
maqlû, collection, 410.
Mas, 79, 436.
Maspero, Professor, 33, 51, 59, 60, 63, 72, 77, 83, 87, 107, 132, 156,
161, 179, 183, 186, 189, 198, 207, 210, 244.
Mât, 174, 247.
materialism, 242.
mediation, Babylonian idea of, 495 sq.
Memphis, 51, 55, 58, 90, 139.
" origin of name of, 138.
Ménant, M., 468.
Mendes, 113, 115, 157, 206.
Meneptah, 141.
Menes, 44, 60, 103, 121, 160, 162.
Mentiu, the, 149.
Mentu, 89, 111, 149, 151.
mercy-seat, 456.
Mermer, 321.
Merodach (Asari), 256, 267, 269, 288, 302, 307, 323 sq., 351, 353, 354,
365, 382, 391, 428, 483.
Merodach identified with other gods, 336.
Merodach, etymology of name of, 272, 273.
Mert-seger, 210.
_mesen_, 222.
Messiah, the Egyptian, 248.
metaphors, 15.
metempsychosis, 102, 108.
Min, 104.
_mitra_, 357.
Mnevis, 111, 115, 206.
monotheism in Babylonia, 336, 484.
moon, 130.
" eclipse of, 430.
Moon-god, 261.
" Babylonian, 314, 322, 340, 353, 482, 484.
moral test of righteousness, 173, 178, 247.
morality not religion, 6.
mountain of the world, 376, 452.
Mummu (chaos), 85, 130.
mummy, 26, 63, 67, 154, 198.
Mut, 80, 81, 89, 135, 144, 151.
Nabonidos, 334, 365, 411, 448.
name, identical with thing, 331.
" virtue of, 219.
Namtar, 282.
Nannar. _See_ Moon-god.
Naram-Sin, 41, 45, 125, 265, 318, 351.
Naville, Dr., 72, 145, 192, 250.
Nebhât, 84, 90, 157, 162.
Nebo, 166, 255, 322, 355, 362 sq., 374, 390, 456, 482, 485, 496.
Nebuchadrezzar, 323, 457, 485, 498.
" palace of, 256.
Nefer-Tum, 90, 140.
Nekheb. _See_ El-Kab.
" goddess, 39, 40, 42, 68, 80, 135.
Nekhen (Hierakonpolis), 39, 72, 75, 119, 135, 166, 168.
Nergal, 288, 378, 428, 470.
_neter_, 127.
New year, 473.
Nile, 140 sq.
" sources of, 137.
Nimrod, 446.
Ninâ, 366.
Nin-gis-zida, 350, 384, 460.
Nin-ip, 80, 356 sq., 439, 474, 496.
Nin-lil, 405.
Nippur, 254, 260, 268, 269, 297, 328, 356, 373, 407.
Nit, 89, 143, 321.
Nizir, 441, 451.
nomes, origin of, 38.
" standards of, 105.
Norden, 214.
Nu, 83, 129.
Nu-gidda, 139, 353, 485.
Nusku, 363, 439, 456.
Nut, 83, 84, 129.
Nu-Urru, 191.
Oannes, 264, 299.
offerings, Babylonian, 466, 470.
On (Heliopolis), 40, 51, 61, 82, 86, 91, 114, 120, 161, 190, 231.
Opis, 366.
Oppert, Professor, 464.
Orion, 234, 238.
Osiris, 84, 87, 90, 123, 131, 139, 147, 153 sq., 199, 200, 232, 247, 325,
353, 494.
Osiris, judgment-hall of, 66.
" the, 169.
Palestine, 42.
_paradise_, etymology of, 272.
Patæki, 139.
_patesi_. _See_ high priest.
Pe, 162.
penitence, Babylonian idea of, 493 sq.
Pepi, 73, 145, 146, 238.
Pestilence-god, 429.
Peters, Dr., 261.
Petrie, Professor, 53, 64, 144, 184.
Pharaoh as god, 42, 44, 107.
" son of the Sun, 88.
Pharaonic Egyptians, 22, 40, 43, 73, 74, 76.
Philæ, 135.
Philo, 230.
phœnix, 117, 121, 207, 238.
Phrygia, 111.
Piehl, Professor, 184.
Pierret, M., 193.
Pinches, Dr., 263, 336, 365, 385.
planets, 235.
Plato, 233.
Platonic ideas, 49, 242.
Plutarch, 101.
polytheism, 289.
Porphyry, 64, 71, 102.
postal service in Babylonia, 266.
priestly colleges, 32.
priests, 461 sq.
prophetess, 455, 466.
prophets, Babylonian college of, 416, 463 sq.
psalms, penitential, 416 sq., 500.
" Assyrian, 419.
Ptah, 44, 55, 87, 90, 110, 138, 151, 167, 190.
Ptiris, 111.
Punt, 146.
Purim, feast of, 476.
Pyramid texts, 15, 37, 59, 61, 64, 77, 86, 92, 144, 157, 161, 178, 183,
184, 191, 234, 244, 258.
Quibell, Mr., 39, 175.
Ra, 51, 182, 231.
" followers of, 196.
" legend of, 216.
Rahab, 309.
ram, 149, 157, 353, 406.
Rassam, Hormuzd, 461.
Rawlinson, Sir H. C., 336, 431.
Rawnsley, Canon, 125.
Reisner, Dr., 188.
relics, 226.
religion, ancient, difficult to realise, 46.
religion, earliest forms of, 7.
" individual in origin, 8.
Renouf, Sir P. L., 51, 60, 127.
resurrection, 24, 167, 170.
ritual, Babylonian, 400, 412.
_rpâ_, 129.
Saba, 437.
Sabaism, 479, 481, 482, 483.
Sabbath, Babylonian, 476.
" etymology of, 272.
sacrifice, Babylonian, 466, 470, 472.
" daily, 470.
" of firstborn, 467.
" of lamb, 472.
Sahu. _See_ Orion.
_sahu._ _See_ mummy.
Sahu-Ra, 104, 223.
Sakæa, 475.
Samas. _See_ Sun-god.
Samuel, 366.
Sargon of Akkad, 41, 265, 290, 351, 465, 483.
Sati, 80.
Sati or Sutu, 135, 163, 166.
savage man, 17.
scape-goat, 467.
scarabs, 65, 66, 188, 227.
scepticism, Egyptian, 13, 202.
Scheil, Dr., 139, 148, 378, 438.
Schweinfurth, Dr., 215.
scorpion-man, 436.
“sea,” artificial, 458, 459.
Seb, 84, 129.
" legend of, 225.
Sebek, 114, 226.
Sebennytos, 160.
seer, Babylonian, 464 sq.
Sehêl, 135.
Sekhet, 90, 106, 140, 144, 145, 231.
Selk, 104, 106.
Semitic supremacy, 270.
Serapis, 113.
serpent, bronze, 471.
" guardian, 212.
" with seven heads, 240.
" worship, 208 sq.
Set, 74, 90, 104, 112, 114, 117, 135, 153, 162, 165, 223, 224, 238.
Seth, 307.
Shamanism, 298.
Sharu, 73.
Shêkh Herîdî, 213.
Shem, 328.
Sheol, 295, 491.
shewbread, 455.
ships of the gods, 239.
Shu, 83, 89, 160, 225.
Sin. _See_ Moon-god.
sin, Babylonian conception of, 417, 492 sq.
Sinai, 485.
Sinaitic Peninsula, 146.
Sin-liqi-unnini, 423, 438.
Sippara, 318, 344, 414, 482.
Sirius (Sopd), 148, 235, 238.
Smith, George, 387, 436, 437, 454.
smiths, 73, 128.
Sokaris, 138, 198, 199.
solar cult, 185.
Sopd. _See_ Sirius.
sorcerer, 298.
soul, Egyptian doctrine of, 26, 62 sq., 108.
sphinx, 76, 117.
spirits, seven evil, 408, 430.
stars, 367, 480.
statues, wonder-working, 228.
" Memphite, 51.
" why made, 50.
Sumer, 264.
Sumerian, 254.
Sumerians, 269.
Sun-god, 88, 293.
" Babylonian, 317 sq., 321, 338, 340, 370, 414.
Surippak, 264, 440.
_surpu_, the collection, 410.
Susa, 265, 270.
Sutu, 166.
Sutu-sar, 166.
swine, 358, 467.
sycamore worshipped, 206.
" of Matarîya, 207.
symbolism in Egypt, 35, 49, 242.
Tabernacle of Congregation, 472.
Tables of the Law, 461.
tablets of destiny, 282, 333, 392, 428.
Tammuz, 340, 350, 384, 386, 426, 434, 460, 474.
Tanen, 140.
Tasmit, 363, 456.
Tefnut, 83.
Tel el-Amarna, 95, 428, 445.
Tello (Lagas), 254, 265, 274.
temple of Solomon, 459, 470.
temples, open in Egypt, 110.
" Babylonian, 449, 454 sq.
This, 160.
Thoth, 36, 37, 104, 114, 130, 154, 191.
Tiamât, 118, 349, 355, 377, 392.
tithes, 469.
totemism, 116.
transformation, 243.
tree of life, 240, 384.
" knowledge, 354, 386.
trees, sacred, 215.
triad, 231.
" Babylonian, 313, 314, 321, 322, 341, 382, 390.
trinity, Egyptian, 90, 143, 230 sq.
" Theban, 151, 231.
Tum (Atmu), 81, 83, 85, 87, 225, 231.
Typhon, 153, 179.
Uazit, 40, 42, 81, 144.
Un-nefer, 168, 247, 325.
Ur, 261, 266, 267, 274, 295, 314, 482, 484.
Urim and Thummim, 282, 351, 392, 428.
Ur-nes, 196.
ushebti, 52, 58, 112, 171.
utukku, 283, 285, 287.
vampire, 282, 283.
Venus, 238.
virgin-birth, the, 249.
Wiedemann, Professor, 149, 173, 208.
Wilkinson, Sir G., 207.
witchcraft, 359.
word, the creative, 131, 391.
Xisuthros, 436 sq.
Yahum-ilu, 484.
Yahveh, 99, 131, 346, 371, 385, 484, 487.
_zaqiqu_, 262, 283.
Zenjirli, 346.
Zi, the, 58, 276 sq., 283, 287, 301, 306, 329, 379, 400, 403, 404, 481.
ziggurat, 450, 453, 456, 458.
Zi-kum, 278, 305, 386, 407.
Zimbabwe, 72.
Zimmern, Professor, 392, 394, 438, 472, 488.
Zodiac, 481.
Zu, 351, 353, 429.
FOOTNOTES
_ 1 Notes for the Nile_, pp. 188, 189.
2 Révillout in the _Revue égyptologique_, i. 4, ii. 3.
3 For the extraordinary variety of senses in which the verb _ye_, “to
eat,” has come to be used in the African language of Akra, see Pott,
_Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues von Wilhelm
von Humboldt_, ii. pp. 495-498 (1876). Thus _ye no_, “to be master,”
is literally “to eat the upper side”; _ye gbî_, “to live” or
“exist,” is literally “to eat a day”; _feî ye_, “to be cold,” is “to
eat cold.”
4 See Schweinfurth, “Ueber den Ursprung der Aegypter,” in the
_Verhandlungen der Berliner anthropologischen Gesellschaft_, June
1897.
5 See W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Religion and Conscience in Ancient
Egypt_, 1898.
6 “The custom of dismembering the body or stripping it of its flesh is
widely spread: the neolithic tombs of Italy contain skulls and bones
which have been painted red; Baron de Baye has found in the tombs of
Champagne skeletons stripped of their flesh, and the Patagonians and
Andamanners as well as the New Zealanders still practise the custom”
(De Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de l’Egypte_, ii. p. 142).
Secondary burial is met with in India among the Kullens, the
Kâthkaris, and the Agariya, as well as in Motu, Melanesia, Sarawak,
the Luchu Islands, Torres Straits, and Ashanti, while “in some of
the English long barrows the bones appear to have been flung in
pell-mell” (Crooke in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,
xxix. pp. 284-286 (1899)).
7 See Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et d’Archéologie égyptiennes_,
ii. p. 372 sqq.
8 See Maspero, _Études de Mythologie et l’Archéologie égyptiennes_, i.
p. 85 sqq.
9 Mariette, _Dendérah, Texte_, p. 156.
10 In the Pyramid texts the dead are described as being carried across
the lake which separates this world from the fields of Alu, on the
wings of Thoth.
11 See Sethe in the _Zeitschrift für Aegyptischer Sprache_, 1897, 1.
12 Similarly the “chief _Kher-heb_” of the Pharaoh, in the age of the
Old Empire, bore the title of “Chief of the city of Nekheb” (Ebers,
_Life in Ancient Egypt_, Eng. tr., p. 90). The Pyramid texts speak
of the White Crown of Southern Egypt as well as of the royal uræus
“in the city of Nekheb” (_Pepi_ 167); and the goddess of the city is
described as “the cow Samet-urt” who was crowned with the two
feathers (_Teta_ 359). Elsewhere mention is made of “the souls of
On, Nekhen, and Pe” (_Pepi_ 168, 182; see also _Teta_ 272). By the
“souls of On” Ra or rather Tum was meant; Pe and Dep constituted the
twin-city of the Delta called Buto by the Greeks, over a part of
which (Dep) Uazit the serpent-goddess of the north presided, while
the other half (Pe) acknowledged Horus as its chief deity. In _Teta_
88 “the doubles in Pe” are said to be “the double of Horus.”
13 Wiedemann, in the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical
Archæology_, iv. p. 332.
14 The title of “good god” went back to a very early date, and stands
in contrast to that of _nefer mât-kher_, “good and true of voice,”
applied to the ordinary individual on early seal-cylinders.
15 See the illustration from the temple of Amon-hotep III. at Luxor, in
Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_, p. 111.
16 The Westcar Papyrus, which was written in the time of the Middle
Empire, already describes the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty
as born of Ruddadt (the wife of a priest of the sun-god) and the god
Ra of Sakhab (Erman, “Die Märchen des Papyrus Westcar,” i. p. 55, in
the _Mittheilungen aus den orientalischen Sammlungen zu Berlin_,
1890).
17 Callaway, _Unkulunkulu; or, the Tradition of the Creation as
existing among the Amazulu and other Tribes of South Africa_, pt. i.
pp. 2, 7, 8.
18 Professor Maspero, to whom, along with Sir P. Le Page Renouf, we owe
the explanation of what the Egyptians meant by the Ka, first pointed
out the meaning of the portrait statues which were buried in the
tomb (_Recueil de Travaux_, i. pp. 152-160).
19 Renouf, _TSBA._ vi. p. 504 sqq.; Lepsius, _Denkmäler_, iii. 194. 13;
Dümichen, _Tempelinschriften_, i. pl. 29.
_ 20 A Season in Egypt_, 1887, pp. 21, 22.
21 Cf. the illustrations in Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_, p. 259;
and Lepsius, _Denkmäler_, iii. 87. In Bonomi and Arundale, _Gallery
of Antiquities_, pt. i. pi. 31, is a picture of Thothmes II. with
his Ka standing behind him.
22 Baring Could, _Curiosities of Olden Times_, 2nd ed., p. 57 sqq.
23 It is noticeable that while the Tel el-Amarna letters show that the
actual pronunciation of the word Ka was Ku, _Ha-ka-Ptah_, the sacred
name of Memphis, being written _Khi-ku-Ptakh_ (_Aiguptos_), _ku_ was
“food” in the Sumerian of primitive Babylonia.