RELIGIONS
The comparative value of the religions of Babylonia and Assyria is
very high, as they represent Semitic polytheism in evolution, and in a
state of prosperity, though hardly in decay. They are, in fact, typical
of Semitic religion as a whole, and as the Semitic race initiated no
less than three of the great religious systems of the world--Judaism,
Christianity, and Mohammedanism--they are well worth careful study
on the part of those who desire to specialize in religious science.
It is, however, for a variety of reasons, inevitable that we should
compare them most frequently with the religion of Israel, the faith
that in general most resembled them, although a wide cleavage existed
between the ethics of that system and their moral outlook. That
notwithstanding, there was direct contact between the Babylonian
and Jewish religions for a prolonged period, and the influence thus
absorbed was quickened by racial relationship.
Ere we deal with these purely Semitic and racial resemblances which
are so important for the proper comprehension of Biblical history and
religious science in general, let us briefly compare the faith of
Babylonia and Assyria with some of the great religious systems of the
world. It perhaps more closely resembles the composite general Egyptian
religious idea (one cannot speak of an Egyptian religion) than any
other. But whereas in Egypt the deities had been almost universally
evolved from nome or province-patrons, totemic or otherwise, a
number often coalesced in one form, the gods of Chaldea were usually
city- or district-gods, showing much less of the nature of the
departmental deity in their construction than the divinities of Egypt.
The Egyptian god-type was more exact and explicit. We have seldom much
difficulty in discovering the nature of an Egyptian god. We have
frequently, however, immense trouble in finding out for what a
Mesopotamian deity stands. The Babylon-Assyrian idea of godhead appears
to have been principally astral, terrestrial, or aquatic--that is, most
Babylonian-Assyrian deities are connected either with the heavenly
bodies, the earth, or the waters. It is only as an afterthought that
they become gods of justice, of letters, of the underworld. This
statement must of course be taken as meaning that their connexion with
abstract qualities is much more loose than in the case of the Egyptian
gods--that their departmental character is secondary to their original
character as gods of nature. There is only one exception to this, and
that is to be found in the department of war, to which certain of them
appear to have been relegated at an early period and later to have
become identified with it very closely indeed.
In one circumstance the Babylonian-Assyrian religion closely resembled
the Egyptian, and that was the lasting effect wrought upon it by
priestly cults and theological schools. Just as the priests of Thebes
and Memphis and On moulded the varying cults of Egypt, added to their
mythology, and read into them ethical significance, so did the priests
of Nippur and Erech mould and form the faith of Babylon. We have plenty
of evidence for such a statement, and nowhere perhaps was theological
thought so rife in the ancient world as in Babylonia and Egypt.
There are also points of contact with the great mythological system
of Greece, that system which was so much a mythology that it could
scarcely be called a religion. That Greece borrowed largely from
Mesopotamia is not to be doubted, but we find the Hellenic departmental
deities very explicit indeed in their nature. Pallas, for example,
stands for wisdom, Poseidon for the sea, Ares for war, and so forth.
One god usually possesses one attribute, and although Zeus has a number
of minor attributes we do not find him combining in his one person
so many as does Merodach. As has been said, it would seem that the
departmental character of many Babylonian gods was purely accidental
or fortuitous. The formula seems to run--take a local or city god,
probably derived from totemic sources or perhaps of animistic origin,
and, having conquered much surrounding territory, exalt him to the
position of the god of a large region, which, being incorporated again
with a still larger empire, leaves him only a local status. This status
he cannot hold in a pantheon where each member must possess a specific
attribute, therefore it becomes necessary to impose upon him some
quality by which he can be specially recognized. Sometimes that quality
is suitable to his character, in fact it may be indicated by it, but
at other times it is merely arbitrary. Why, for example, should Ishtar
have been made a goddess of war by the Assyrians?
This bestowal of departmental characteristics upon the gods of
Babylonia and Assyria was contemporary with the erection of these
countries into empires. No pantheon can exist on high without a
political reflex in the world below. Like the granting of most
departmental offices in religious systems, these changes took place
at a comparatively late date in the evolution of Semitic religion.
Whenever we find the departmental deities of a religious system more
or less sharply outlined as to their duties and status we may premise
two things: first, that temporal power has been acquired by the race
which conceived them, and secondly that this power is of comparatively
recent origin.
Semitic Conservatism
When we speak of departmental deities of a country like Babylonia or
Egypt we must bear in mind that these lands knew so many dynasties and
had such an extended history that their religious systems must from
first to last have experienced the most profound changes. In Egypt,
for example, religious phenomena altered slowly and by imperceptible
degrees. The changes experienced in the course of fifty centuries
of religious evolution must have made the cults of Egypt exhibit
very different conditions at the close of their development from,
let us say, those seen midway in their evolutionary course. We have
seen how the Babylonian and Assyrian faiths altered in the course of
generations, but withal there appears to have been something more
strongly conservative in the nature of Semitic religion than in any
other. Probably in no other land did the same ritual and the same
religious practices obtain over so long a period as in Babylonia, where
the national life was much stronger and much more centralized than in
Egypt, and where, if rival cults did exist, they were all subservient
to one, as was by no means the case in the land of the Nile.
Teutonic and Celtic Comparisons
Compared with the great Germanic religion the Babylonian offers few
points of resemblance. In the faith of the Teutons departmental
deities were the rule rather than the exception; in fact in no mythic
system are the gods so associated with departments as in the Teutonic,
and this despite the fact that no definite empire was ruled by Teutonic
tribes. (Was the Teutonic system the remains of a religious aristocracy
which had hived off from some centre of political power?) Nor do the
Semitic religions have much in common with the Celtic so far as their
basis of polity is concerned, although numerous valiant attempts have
been made by antiquarian gentlemen, of the type so common half a
century ago and not yet defunct, to prove Babylonian influence upon
Celtic faith and story. Thus we have been told that the Celtic Bilé
was as certainly allied to the Semitic Bel as the Roman Mars was to
the Greek Ares, and this of course through Phœnician influence, the
people of Tyre and Sidon having been traced to Ireland as colonists.
These 'theories' are, of course, not worth the paper they are printed
upon, any more than is the supposition that the Scottish-Celtic
festival of Beltane has any connexion with the Babylonian Bel. It was,
in fact, presided over by the god Bilé, a Celtic deity who has on other
counts been confounded with the Babylonian god.
Babylonian Religion Typically Animistic
We learn, then, from the comparison of the Babylonian religion with
that of other ancient races one circumstance of outstanding importance,
that is, if the Babylonian gods were so perfunctorily attached to
departments expressive of their functions and were so closely bound to
the elements that they must have had an elemental origin, that they
were indeed originally spirits of the earth, the air, and the water.
This, of course, is no new conclusion, only the circumstance that the
Babylonian gods were not strictly departmental, that they have only a
slight hold upon their offices, assists in proving the correctness of
the theory of their elemental origin. It is also of interest to the
student of comparative religion as indicating to him a mythological
system in which the majority of the gods are certainly of elemental
origin as opposed to totemic or fetishistic origin. Of the spiritistic
nature of the Babylonian pantheon small doubt remains. To the Semite,
in whom imagination and matter-of-fact are so strongly combined,
animistic influences would be sure to appeal most strongly. It stands
to primitive reason that if man is gifted with life so is everything
else, and this conviction gives imagination full play. We do not
discover these animistic influences so strongly entrenched in ancient
Egypt. The Osirian cult is certainly animistic to a degree, but the
various totemic cults which rivalled it and which it at last embraced
held their own for many a day.
[Illustration: A Royal Hunt (See p. 310)--Photo W. A. Mansell and Co.]
A Mother-Goddess Theory
One outstanding feature of Babylonian religion is the worship of the
great earth-mother. This is a universal religious phase, but in few
systems do we find it so prominent as in Babylonia and indeed in the
whole Mesopotamian tract. Efforts have been made to show that in
Mesopotamia there encountered one another two streams of people of
opposing worship, one worshipping a male, and the other a female deity.
With those who worshipped the man-god--hunters and warriors with whom
women were considered more as beasts of burden than anything else--man
was the superior being. The other people who worshipped the woman-god
were not necessarily more civilized; the origin of their adoration may
have been a scarcity of women in the tribe. Where these two streams
fused the worship of an _androgyne_, or man-woman god, is said to
have resulted. But were there peoples who specifically and separately
worshipped male and female deities? If certainty can be approached in
debating such matters, these deities would assuredly be animistic,
and a people who worship animistic gods do not worship one god or
one sex, but scores of spirit-gods of both sexes. Wherever we find a
mother-earth, too, we are almost certain to discover a father-sky.
The cult of the great mother-goddess was of rather later origin. All
localities and all regions in the Semitic world possessed such a
deity and it was the fusion of these in one that produced Ishtar or
Astarte, who was probably also the 'Diana of the Ephesians.' Perhaps
the best parallel to this Semitic worship of the earth-mother is to
be found in the mythology of the ancient Mexican races, where each
pueblo, or city-state, possessed its earth-mother, several of whom were
finally merged, after the conquest of their worshippers, in the great
earth-mother of Mexico.
Babylonian Influence on Jewish Religion
But Babylonian-Assyrian religion is chiefly of interest to the student
of comparative religion in that it casts a flood of light upon that
wonderful Jewish faith with which the history of our own is so closely
identified.
Professor Sayce[1] writes:
"There was one nation at all events which has exercised, and still
exercises, a considerable influence upon our own thought and life,
and which had been brought into close contact with the religion and
culture of Babylonia at a critical epoch in its history. The influence
of Jewish religion upon Christianity, and consequently upon the races
that have been moulded by Christianity, has been lasting and profound.
Now Jewish religion was intimately bound up with Jewish history, more
intimately perhaps than has been the case with any other great religion
of the world. It took its colouring from the events that marked the
political life of the Hebrew people; it developed in unison with their
struggles and successes, their trials and disappointments. Its great
devotional utterance, the Book of Psalms, is national, not individual;
the individual in it has merged his own aspirations and sufferings into
those of the whole community. The course of Jewish prophecy is equally
stamped with the impress of the national fortunes. It grows clearer and
more catholic as the intercourse of the Jewish people with those around
them becomes wider; and the lesson is taught at last that the God of
the Jews is the God also of the whole world. Now the chosen instruments
for enforcing this lesson, as we are expressly told, were the Assyrian
and Babylonian. The Assyrian was the rod of God's anger, while the
Babylonish exile was the bitter punishment meted out to Judah for its
sins. The captives who returned again to their own land came back with
changed hearts and purified minds; from henceforth Jerusalem was to be
the unrivalled dwelling-place of 'the righteous nation which keepeth
the truth.'
"Apart, therefore, from any influence which the old religious beliefs
of Babylonia may have had upon the Greeks, and which, as we shall see,
was not so wholly wanting as was formerly imagined, their contact with
the religious conceptions of the Jewish exiles must, to say the least,
have produced an effect which it is well worth our while to study.
Hitherto the traditional view has been that this effect exhibited
itself wholly on the antagonistic side; the Jews carried nothing away
from the land of their captivity except an intense hatred of idolatry,
more especially Babylonian, as well as of the beliefs and practices
associated therewith."
Professor Ignatius Goldziher, of Budapest, has enlightened us, in a
passage in his _Mythology among the Hebrews_, as to the great influence
wielded by Babylonian upon Jewish religion. He says: "The receptive
tendency of the Hebrew manifested itself again prominently during the
Babylonian Captivity. Here first they gained an opportunity of forming
for themselves a complete and harmonious conception of the world. The
influence of Canaanitish civilization could not then be particularly
powerful on the Hebrews; for that civilization, the highest point of
which was attained by the Phœnicians, was quite dwarfed by the
mental activity exhibited in the monuments of the Babylonian and
Assyrian Empire, which we are now able to admire in all their grandeur.
There the Hebrews found more to receive than some few civil, political,
and religious institutions. The extensive and manifold literature
which they found there could not but act on a receptive mind as a
powerful stimulus; for it is not to be imagined that the nation then
dragged into captivity lived so long in the Babylonian-Assyrian Empire
without gaining any knowledge of its intellectual treasures. Schrader's
latest publications on Assyrian poetry have enabled us to establish a
striking similarity between both the course of ideas and the poetical
form of a considerable portion of the Old Testament, especially of the
Psalms, and those of this newly-discovered Assyrian poetry. It would
be a great mistake to account for this similarity by reference to a
common Semitic origin in primeval times; for we can only resort to
that in cases which do not go beyond the most primitive elements of
intellectual life and ideas of the world, or designations of things of
the external world. Conceptions of a higher and more complicated kind,
as well as æsthetic points, can certainly not be carried off into the
mists of a prehistoric age. It is much better to keep to more real and
tangible ground, and to suppose those points of contact between Hebrew
and Assyrian poetry which are revealed by Schrader's, Lenormant's, and
George Smith's publications, to form part of the contributions made by
the highly civilized Babylonians and Assyrians to the Hebrews in the
course of the important period of the Captivity.
"We see from this that the intellect of Babylon and Assyria exerted a
more than passing influence on that of the Hebrews, not merely touching
it, but entering deep into it and leaving its own impress upon it.
The Assyrian poetry of the kind just mentioned stands in the same
relation to that of the Hebrews as does the plain narrative texts of
the Hebrews, and as does the sacrificial Tablet of Marseilles to the
Hebrews' beginnings of a sacerdotal constitution. The Babylonian and
Assyrian influence is of course much more extensive, pregnant, and
noteworthy."
The Abbé Loisy in a French work, _Les myths babyloniens, et les
premiers chapitres de la Genèse_ (Paris, 1901), says a few things upon
Jewish and Babylonian mythical relations worth translating:
"We can no longer take the first eleven or twelve chapters of Genesis
as a whole and treat them as a monotheistic redaction of the Babylonian
myths.... The Biblical accounts are not mere transcriptions ... and the
gaps between them presuppose much assimilation and transformation, much
time, and probably many intermediaries to boot.... If the relationship
of the Biblical narratives to the Chaldean legends is in many respects
less intimate than was thought, it now appears to be more general.
The Creation, and the Flood in particular, are still the most obvious
points of resemblance; but the story of Adam and Eve, the earthly
paradise, the food of life, the explanation of death,--all of which
have sometimes been sought where they were not to be found,--are now
found where there was no thought of seeking them.... The Biblical texts
have no literary dependence upon the Babylonian texts; they do not even
stand to them in a relation of direct dependence in the case of the
special traditions they exhibit: but they rest on a similar--we might
say a common--foundation, of Chaldean origin, whose antiquity cannot be
even approximately estimated.... On the other hand, it appears certain
that the period of Assyrian dominance, and the Captivity, quickened
the recollection of the old traditions and supplemented them by fresh
materials easy to graft on the ancient stem.... We may well believe
that the metamorphosis was complete in the oral tradition of the people
before the legend was embodied in the Biblical narrative."
Babylonian Influence upon the other Semites
The influence of the Babylonian religion upon other Semitic cults is
worthy of notice, although its effect upon the Jewish faith was more
marked than on any other Semitic form of belief. Yet still through
conquest and other causes it undoubtedly exercised a strong influence
upon the surrounding peoples, especially those of related stock. We
must regard the whole of Asia Minor, or at least its most civilized
portion, as peopled by races of diverse origin who yet possessed a
general culture in common. Some of those races, if we be permitted to
employ rather time-worn ethnological labels, were 'Semitic,' like the
Assyrians and Hebrews, others were of the 'Ural-Altaic' or 'Armenoid'
type, like the Hittites, whilst still others, like the Philistines,
appear to have been of 'Aryan' race, resembling the Greeks and Goths.
But all these different races had embraced a common culture, their
architecture, pottery, weapons, crafts, and laws seem to have come from
a common source, and lastly their religious systems were markedly alike.
The Canaanites
We find a people called the Canaanites as the first historic dwellers
in the countries now known as Syria and Palestine. We do not know
whether the name Canaan originated with the land or the race, but
the name 'Canaanites' is now used as a general designation of the
pre-Israelite inhabitants of Palestine. These people were probably
neolithic in origin and appeared to have been Semitic. In any case they
spoke a language very much akin to Hebrew. They exercised a strong
influence upon Egypt about 1400 B.C., and thousands of them settled
in that country as slaves or officials. They invaded Babylonia at
an early date under the name of Amorites, and many of the personal
names of Babylonian kings during the Hammurabi dynasty seem to be
Amorite in origin. From the Egyptian records it seems pretty clear that
as early as 2500 B.C. they had invaded Palestine, had exterminated
the inhabitants, and that this invasion synchronized with that of
Babylonia. Their religion seems to have been markedly Semitic in type
but of the earlier variety, that is, animism was just beginning to
emerge into polytheism. The gods were not called by their personal
names, but rather by their attributes. The general name for 'god' was
'_el_,' which was used also by the Hebrews, and which we find in such
names as Jezebel, Elkanah, and perhaps in the modern Arabic 'Allah.'
But this word was not employed by the Canaanites in a monotheistic
sense, it was generic and denoted the particular divinity who dwelt
in a certain place. It was indeed the word 'god'--a god, any god, but
not _the_ God. But such a god having a sanctuary or presiding over a
community was known as '_Ba'al_.' This might apply to any supernatural
being from fetish to full-fledged deity, and only meant that the spirit
or divinity had established a relation with a particular holy place.
We also find amongst the Canaanitish deities Shamash, the sun-god so
widely worshipped in Babylonia, Sin the moon-god, Hadad or Rimmon,
and Uru, god of light, whose name is found in Uru-Salim or Jerusalem.
Dagon, too, is held by some authorities to have been purely an Amorite
divinity. The worship of animals was also general, and bulls, horses,
and serpents were represented as deities. There were also an immense
number of nameless gods or spirits presiding over all sorts of
physical objects, and these were known as _ba'alim_. They were the
resultants of animistic ideas. The early inhabitants of Canaan were
also ancestor-worshippers like many other primitive people, and they
seem to have shown a marked preference for the cult of the dead.
But many of their departmental deities were either identical with or
strongly resembled the gods of the Babylonians. Ashtart was of course
Ishtar. In the mounds of Palestine large numbers of terra-cotta plaques
bearing her effigy are found. She is often depicted on these with a
tall head-dress, necklace, anklets, and girdle quite in the Babylonian
style. But other representations of her reveal Egyptian, Cypriote,
and Hittite influences, and this goes to show that in all probability
the great mother-goddess of Babylon and Asia Minor was compounded of
various early types fused into one. To confine ourselves to those
deities who are more closely connected with the Babylonian religion, we
find the name of Ninib translated by the Canaanites as En-Mashti, and
it has been thought that Ninib was a god of the West who had migrated
to Babylonia. The name of Nebo, the Babylonian patron of Borsippa, who
also acted as scribe to the gods, appears in that of the town of Nebo
in Moab in Judea, and that Canaanites were conversant with the name
of Nergal, the war-god, is proved by a sealed cylinder of Canaanitish
workmanship which bears the inscription, "Atanaheli, son of Habsi
servant of Nergal." Resheph also appears to have been known to the
Canaanites.
[Illustration: Elijah prevailing over the Priests of Baal.--Evelyn Paul.]
The Gods of the Phœnicians
The Phœnicians who were the lineal descendants of the Canaanites
adopted many of the deities of Babylonia. Like the early deities of
that great empire, the Phœnician gods were associated either with
the earth, the waters, or the air. Some of these in later times held
sway over more than one element. Thus the god Melkarth of Tyre had both
a celestial and a marine aspect, and Baal and Ashtart assumed celestial
attributes in addition to their earthly one. The Phœnicians
described their gods in general as _alônim_, much as the Israelites
in early times must have described theirs, for we find in the first
chapters of Genesis the word _elohim_ employed. Both then went back
to the singular form _el_, the common Semitic name for 'god,' adding
to it the Semitic plural ending _im_. The god of a locality or shrine
was known as its '_ba'al_,' and, as in early times, this did not apply
to any particular deity. Although their gods all had names, yet still
they were merely the _ba-alim_ of Tyre, the chief of whom was Melkarth,
whose name signifies merely 'king' or patron of the city. Perhaps one
of their most venerated gods was Ba'al-Hamman, who was also worshipped
in Carthage, a Phœnician colony. One of the most strongly marked
characteristics of the Phœnician religion was the unvarying addition
of a female to every male god. Ashtart or Ishtar was quite as popular
in modern Phœnicia as she has been in ancient Canaan. It must be
borne in mind that Tyre and Sidon were closely in touch with Assyria,
and that their ships probably carried Assyrian commerce far and wide
throughout the Mediterranean, exchanging Syrian goods for Egyptian,
Cyprian, and Hellenic. Ashtart or Ishtar had temples at Sidon and
Askelon, and Phœnician mariners seem to have carried her worship as
far as Cyprus and even Sicily. Indeed it was probably through their
agency that she was introduced into the Greek world, but there were
Greek colonies on the shores of Asia Minor at an early date, and these
may have transferred her cult to the people of their own race in the
Greek motherland. Another goddess specially honoured at Carthage was
Tanith, who was also called the 'Countenance of Ba'al.' Eshmun, the god
of vital force and healing, seems to have been worshipped especially
at Sidon but also at Carthage. Melkarth, the patron deity of Tyre, the
Greeks equated with their Heracles; Reshef, the lightning god, was
of Syrian origin, and was identified by the Greeks with Apollo. The
Phœnicians were also prone to fuse their gods one with another, so
that we have such combinations as Eshmun-Melkarth, Melkarth-Reshef,
and so forth. Phœnician religion was also strongly influenced by
Egyptian ideas, and Plutarch has put it on record that when Isis
journeyed to Byblus she was called Astarte. Certain Phœnician
settlers at Piræus, the port of Athens, worshipped the Assyrian god
Nergal, and many of their proper names are compounded of the names of
Babylon deities. The worship of Moloch was also popular in Phœnicia,
where he was called Melk ('King'), and to him, as to the Moloch of
the other Semitic peoples, infants were offered up in sacrifice. The
Phœnicians likewise adopted the custom of burning the chief god
of the city in effigy or in the person of a human representative at
Tyre and Carthage. (See remarks on Hamman, pages 142-144; and on
Sardanapalus, pages 31-34.)
We know very little concerning Phœnician myth. We cannot credit
what is written by Philo of Byblus concerning it, as he professed that
he had used as his authority the writings of one Sanchuniathon, an
ancient Phœnician sage, who, he says, derived his information from
inscribed stones in Phœnician temples. All of Philo that remains
(and thus all of Sanchuniathon) is preserved in the works of Eusebius.
It would seem, however, to be unfair to regard Eusebius as the inventor
of Sanchuniathon. As we have already remarked in the paragraphs dealing
with the legend of Oannes or Ea, several of the myths he quotes as
coming from the Phœnician sage are manifestly of Babylonian origin.
Like all Semites the Phœnicians closely identified themselves with
their gods, in whom, if inscriptions can be believed, they seemed to
find a great deal of comfort. They were assiduous devotees of their
several cults, and as prone to sacrifice as were their cousins of
Babylonia. Probably, too, their voyages and mercantile ventures made
them firm believers in the efficacy of divination, and it cannot be
doubted that the trade of the seer in ancient Tyre or Sidon must have
been a flourishing one indeed.
The Carthaginian Religion
Very little is known concerning the religion of the Semites of
Carthage, those colonists from Phœnicia who settled on the
north-western shores of Africa at an early date, and this is probably
owing to the circumstance that the jealousy of their Roman conquerors
ordained that all records pertaining to them should so far as possible
be blotted out. In Virgil's _Æneid_ we find Queen Dido of Carthage
worshipping and sacrificing to the gods of Rome, but whether this error
is due to Roman lack of imagination or otherwise it would be difficult
to say. Carthaginian religion was strongly influenced by Assyrian
belief. The chief gods worshipped in Carthage were Baal-ammon or
Moloch, Tanit, goddess of the heavens and the moon, Ashtart or Ishtar,
and Eshmun, the patron deity of the city. The cult of Tammuz-Adonis was
also greatly in vogue, as was that of the god Patechus, a repulsive
monster who may have been of Egyptian origin. The Tyrian Melkarth, too,
was widely worshipped. We also encounter in inscriptions the names of
deities concerning whom we know nothing, such as Rabbat Umma, 'the
Great Mother,' Illat, Sakon, and Tsaphon.
About the beginning of the third century B.C. the intimate relations
between the Carthaginians and the Greeks of Sicily favoured the
introduction of a Hellenic element into the Punic religion, and there
was reciprocal borrowing on the part of the Greeks. In the forum of
Carthage was a temple to Apollo containing a colossal statue which was
later removed to Rome, and on one occasion the Carthaginian worshippers
of Apollo actually sent offerings to Delphi. We also find their goddess
Tanit compared with the Greek Demeter. Her symbol is a crescent moon,
and in her temple at Carthage was preserved a famous veil which was
regarded as the palladium or 'mascot' of the city, its luck-bringer.
Inscriptions to Tanit and Baal-ammon abound, and as these are usually
found in conjunction it is only reasonable to suppose that these
two deities are worshipped together. Tanit was, in fact, frequently
alluded to as 'The Countenance of Baal,' whose name we find in those
of the Carthaginian heroes, Hannibal and Hasdrubal. The Carthaginian
Baal-ammon is represented as an old man with ram's horns on his
forehead, and that animal was frequently portrayed along with him. He
also holds a scythe. At Carthage children were sacrificed to him, and
their bodies were placed in the arms of a colossal bronze statue which
represented him. When they grew tired they slipped through the embrace
of the god into a furnace below amid the excited cries of the fanatical
worshippers. Even Roman severity could not put an end to these horrors,
which persisted in secret until a relatively late date.
It is strange to think that after the fall of Carthage the goddess
Tanit became identified with Dido by the new Roman colonists of the
city. Virgil had celebrated her misfortunes, and a public Dido cult
grew up, the colonists even claiming to have discovered the very house
from which she had watched the departure of Æneas.
It is not unlikely that through the agency of the Phœnicians some
fragments of the Babylonian religion may have penetrated even to
our own shores. We know that they traded for tin with the ancient
inhabitants of Cornwall and the Scilly Isles, and some writers believe
they have philology on their side when they try to show that several
Cornish names are of Phœnician origin. For example, the name
Marazion appears to mean in Semitic 'Hill by the Sea,' and Polgarth,
say some, owes its second syllable to the Phœnician word for 'city.'
But it will not do to be dogmatic regarding these names, which may
after all be explicable from Cornish or other sources.
We see then that the Semitic religion travelled over a considerably
wide area, that beginning in all probability in Arabia it spread
itself through Mesopotamia northward as far as Lake Van, and southward
through the Sinaitic peninsula into Egypt and the north of Africa. It
is strange to observe that the later Semitic religion of Mohammed
followed almost precisely the same course, and that its early progress
westward halted almost on the very site of ancient Carthage; that
when it overflowed into Spain its disciples were acting precisely as
Carthaginian Hannibal had done long before, and that it was beaten back
by European effort in almost exactly the same way.
Robertson Smith in his valuable work, _The Religion of the Semites_,
mentions that in his view Semitic religion does not differ so
fundamentally from the other types of world religion as many writers
on the subject appear to think. But the longer one considers it the
greater do the barriers between Semitic and other religions appear
and the more clearly marked their lines of demarcation. The prolonged
isolation to which the Semitic peoples seem to have been subjected
appears to have greatly affected their manner of religious thought.
They are in truth a 'peculiar people,' practical yet mystical, strongly
of the world yet finding their chief solace in those things which are
not of the world.
The materials for a complete inquiry into the history of Semitic
religion are lacking, and we must perforce fill up the gaps which are
many by comparative methods. But in this we are greatly assisted by
the numerous manifestations of Semitic faith which, including as it
does Babylonian, Assyrian, Canaanitish, Phœnician, Arabian, and
Mohammedan cults, provides us with rich comparative material.
The Religion of Zoroaster
The faith which immediately supplanted that of ancient Babylonia
and Assyria could not fail to draw considerably from it. This was
the Zoroastrian faith, the religion of the Persians introduced by
the reformer Zarathustra, the earliest form of Zoroaster's name as
given in the _Avesta_. Uncertainty hangs over the date and place of
his birth. The Greeks spoke of him as belonging to a remote age, but
modern scholars assign the period of his life to the latter half of
the seventh and early sixth century B.C. It seems certain that he was
not a Persian, but a Mede or a Bactrian, either supposition being
supported by indications of one kind or another. From the whole tenor
of the Gathas, the most ancient part of the _Avesta_, we are led, says
Dr. Haug, their translator, to feel that he was a man of extraordinary
stamp acting a grand part on the stage of his country's history.
Zarathustra speaks of himself as a messenger from God sent to bring
the people the blessing of civilization and to destroy idolatry. Many
legends grew up around his memory, of miraculous signs at his birth,
of his precocious wisdom, whereby even as a child he confounded the
Magi, of his being borne up to the highest heaven and there receiving
the word of life from Deity itself, together with the revelation of
all secrets of the future. He retired as a young man from the world
to spend long years of contemplation before he began his teaching at
thirty, and he lived to the age of seventy-seven. The religion he
taught was the national religion of the Persians from the time of the
Achæmenidæ, who dethroned Cyaxares' son, 558 B.C., to the middle of
the seventh century A.D. It declined after Alexander's conquest under
the Seleucidæ and the succeeding dynasty of the Arsacidæ, but was
revived by the Sassanian rulers and flourished for the four centuries
A.D. 226-651. Then followed the Mohammedan conquest, accompanied by
persecution, before which the faithful followers of Zarathustra fled
to India, where they are now represented by their descendants, the
Parsis of Bombay.
The religious belief taught by Zarathustra is based on the dual
conception of a good principle, Ahura Mazda, and an evil principle,
Anra Mainyu, and the leading idea of his teaching is the constant
conflict between the two, which must continue until the end of the
period ordained by Ahura Mazda for the duration of the world, when
evil will be finally overcome; until then the god's power is to
some degree limited, as evil still withstands him. Zarathustra's
doctrine was essentially practical and ethical; it was not in abstract
contemplation, or in separation from the world, that man was to
look for spiritual deliverance, but in active charity, in deeds of
usefulness, in kindness to animals, in everything that could help to
make the world a well-ordered place to live in, in courage and all
uprightness. To build a bridge or dig a canal was to help to lessen
the power of evil. As Reinach has concisely expressed it, "a life
thoroughly occupied was a perpetual exorcism."
The two figures of Ahura Mazda and Anra Mainyu, the one with his
attendant archangels and angels, and the other with his arch-demons
and demons, or Divs, compose the Zarathustrian celestial hierarchy, as
represented in the earlier sacred writings; in the later ones other
figures are introduced into the pantheon. The sacred writings that
have been preserved are of different periods, and outside the range
of Zarathustra's moral system of religion there are traces in them of
revivals of an older primitive nature worship, and of the beliefs of an
early nomadic shepherd life, as, for instance, the sacredness in which
cow and dog are held, as well as reminiscences of general Indo-Germanic
myths.
Ahura Mazda was the creator of the universe for the duration of which
he fixed a certain term. It seems uncertain whether the Persians
pictured the world as round or flat, but according to their idea it
was divided into seven zones, of which the central one was the actual
habitable earth. Between these zones and enveloping the whole was the
great abyss of waters. Between earth and heaven rose the celestial
mountain whence all the rivers upon earth had their source, and on
which was deposited the Haoma.
The central feature of Zoroastrian ritual was the worship of fire, an
old-established worship which had existed before Zoroaster's time.
In the oldest period images were forbidden, and holy rites could be
performed without temples, portable fire-altars being in use. Temples
were, however, built in quite early times, and within these was the
sanctuary from which all light was excluded, and where the sacred fire
was kept alight, which could only be approached by the priest with
covered hands and mouth. The Persians carried the fear of defilement to
an extreme, and had even more elaborate regulations than most Easterns
concerning methods of purification and avoidance of defilement, both as
regards personal contamination or that of the sacred elements of earth,
fire, and water. Even hair and nails could not be cut without special
directions as to how to deal with the separated portions. But this
perpetual and exhausting state of caution and protective effort against
contact with defiling objects and rigorous system of purification had
an ultimate concern with the great struggle going on between good and
evil. Death and everything that partook of death, or had any power of
injury, were works of the arch-enemy.
It was owing to the fear of contaminating the three elements named
above that the Persians neither buried nor cremated their dead, and
looked upon it as a criminal act to throw a corpse into the water. The
old mode of disposing of the dead was similar to that now practised
by the Parsis of Bombay, who carry the body to one of the Towers
of Silence. So the Persians exposed the corpse, till one or other
devouring agent, birds of prey or the elements, had reduced it to a
skeleton. As regards man himself he was thought to be a reasonable
being of free will with conscience, soul, and a guardian spirit or
prototype of himself who dwelt above, called a Fravashi--his own
character, indeed, put into a spiritual body, almost identical with the
_amei-malghen_ or spiritual nymphs of the Araucanian Indians of Chile.
He had the choice of good and evil, and consequently suffered the due
punishment of sin. For the first three days after death the soul of the
dead was supposed to hover about its earthly abode.
During this time friends and relatives performed their funerary rites,
their prayers and offerings becoming more earnest and abundant as the
hour drew nigh when the soul was bound to start on its journey to the
beyond. This was at the beginning of the fourth day, when Sraosha
carried it aloft, assailed on the way by demons desirous of obtaining
possession of his burden. On earth everything was being done to keep
the evil spirits in check, fires lighted as particularly effective
against the powers of darkness. And, thus assisted, Sraosha arrived
safely with his charge at the bridge that spanned the space between
earth and heaven. Here at the entrance to the 'accountants' bridge' the
soul's account was cast up by Mithra and Rashnu; the latter weighed
its good and evil deeds, and even if the good deeds turned the scale,
the soul had still to undergo immediate penance for its transgression,
so strict was the justice meted out to each. Now the bridge may be
crossed, and a further automatic kind of verdict is given, for to
those fit for heaven the bridge appears a wide and easy way; to the
unfortunate ones doomed to destruction it seems but of a hair's
breadth, and stepping on to it they straightway fall into the yawning
gulf beneath. The blessed ones are met at heaven's gate by a radiant
figure, who leads them through the ante-chambers that finally open into
the everlasting light of the celestial abode. This is the triumph of
the individual soul; but there is 'a far-off divine event' awaiting,
which will be heralded by signs and wonders. For 3000 years previous to
it there are alternate intervals of overpowering evil and conquering
peace. At last the great dragon is let loose and the evil time comes,
but Mazda sends a man to slay it. Then the saviour Saoshyant is born of
a virgin. The dead arise, the sheep and goats are divided, and there is
lamentation on the earth. The mountains dissolve and flood the earth
with molten metal, a devouring agent of destruction to the wicked,
but from which the good take no hurt. The spiritual powers have now
to battle it out. Mazda and Sraosha overcome Ahriman and the dragon,
and "then age, decay, and death are done away, and in their place are
everlasting growth and life."
Babylonian Ethics
And, lastly, what of the ethics of ancient Babylon and Assyria? On
the whole the moral standard of these countries was not by any means
so exalted as our own, although the religious outlook was not a low
one. To begin with, the character of Babylonian myth was a great deal
purer than that of Hellenic or Scandinavian myth. The gods of Babylonia
appear to be more dignified than those of the Greeks or Norsemen,
for example. They do not descend to the same puerilities, and their
record is immeasurably cleaner. This may have something to do with the
very great body of ritual connected with the Babylonian religion, for
when a people is so hedged in by religious custom as were the ancient
Chaldeans, so threatened on every side by taboo, the mere thought of
wrongdoing and the consequence thereof is sufficient to deter them from
acting otherwise than reasonably. In course of time sin becomes so ugly
and repulsive in the light of punishment that the moral code receives a
tremendous impulse.
There is no doubt that the Babylonians devoutly believed that their
gods demanded rigid adherence to the moral code. It was generally
thought that misfortune and illness were the consequences of moral
transgression. But the Babylonians did not believe that the cardinal
sins alone were heinous, for they included in transgression such
misdemeanours as maliciousness, fraud, unworthy ambitions, and
injurious teaching.
[1] _Hibbert Lectures_, pp. 38 ff. (by permission of Messrs Williams
and Norgate).