Then Enlil went up into the
ship;
Ziusudu, the king, He took me by the hand and led
me forth.
Before Anu and Enlil bows himself He brought out my wife and
down. caused her to bow down at my
side;
He touched our brows, standing
between us and blessing us:
Life like (that of) a god he "Formerly was Ut-napishtim of
gives to him. mankind,
An eternal soul like (that of) a But now let Ut-napishtim be
god he creates for him. like the gods, even us!
And let Ut-napishtim dwell afar
off at the mouth of the
rivers!"
In a . . . land, the land of(1) Then they took me and afar off,
Dilmun(?), they caused him to at the mouth of the rivers,
dwell. they caused me to dwell.
(1) Or, "On a mountain, the mountain of", &c.
The Sumerian Version thus apparently concludes with the familiar ending
of the legend which we find in the Gilgamesh Epic and in Berossus,
though it here occurs in an abbreviated form and with some variations in
detail. In all three versions the prostration of the Deluge hero before
the god is followed by the bestowal of immortality upon him, a fate
which, according to Berossus, he shared with his wife, his daughter, and
the steersman. The Gilgamesh Epic perhaps implies that Ut-napishtim's
wife shared in his immortality, but the Sumerian Version mentions
Ziusudu alone. In the Gilgamesh Epic Ut-napishtim is settled by the gods
at the mouth of the rivers, that is to say at the head of the Persian
Gulf, while according to a possible rendering of the Sumerian Version he
is made to dwell on Dilmun, an island in the Gulf itself. The fact that
Gilgamesh in the Epic has to cross the sea to reach Ut-napishtim may be
cited in favour of the reading "Dilmun"; and the description of the sea
as "the Waters of Death", if it implies more than the great danger
of their passage, was probably a later development associated with
Ut-napishtim's immortality. It may be added that in neither Hebrew
version do we find any parallel to the concluding details of the
original story, the Hebrew narratives being brought to an end with the
blessing of Noah and the divine promise to, or covenant with, mankind.
Such then are the contents of our Sumerian document, and from the
details which have been given it will have been seen that its story, so
far as concerns the Deluge, is in essentials the same as that we already
find in the Gilgamesh Epic. It is true that this earlier version has
reached us in a magical setting, and to some extent in an abbreviated
form. In the next lecture I shall have occasion to refer to another
early mythological text from Nippur, which was thought by its first
interpreter to include a second Sumerian Version of the Deluge legend.
That suggestion has not been substantiated, though we shall see that
the contents of the document are of a very interesting character. But
in view of the discussion that has taken place in the United States
over the interpretation of the second text, and of the doubts that have
subsequently been expressed in some quarters as to the recent discovery
of any new form of the Deluge legend, it may be well to formulate
briefly the proof that in the inscription published by Dr. Poebel an
early Sumerian Version of the Deluge story has actually been recovered.
Any one who has followed the detailed analysis of the new text which
has been attempted in the preceding paragraphs will, I venture to think,
agree that the following conclusions may be drawn:
(i) The points of general resemblance presented by the narrative to that
in the Gilgamesh Epic are sufficiently close in themselves to show
that we are dealing with a Sumerian Version of that story. And this
conclusion is further supported (a) by the occurrence throughout the
text of the attested Sumerian equivalent of the Semitic word, employed
in the Babylonian Versions, for the "Flood" or "Deluge", and (b) by the
use of precisely the same term for the hero's "great boat", which is
already familiar to us from an early Babylonian Version.
(ii) The close correspondence in language between portions of the
Sumerian legend and the Gilgamesh Epic suggest that the one version was
ultimately derived from the other. And this conclusion in its turn is
confirmed (a) by the identity in meaning of the Sumerian and Babylonian
names for the Deluge hero, which are actually found equated in a
late explanatory text, and (b) by small points of difference in the
Babylonian form of the story which correspond to later political and
religious developments and suggest the work of Semitic redactors.
The cumulative effect of such general and detailed evidence is
overwhelming, and we may dismiss all doubts as to the validity of Dr.
Poebel's claim. We have indeed recovered a very early, and in some of
its features a very primitive, form of the Deluge narrative which till
now has reached us only in Semitic and Greek renderings; and the stream
of tradition has been tapped at a point far above any at which we have
hitherto approached it. What evidence, we may ask, does this early
Sumerian Version offer with regard to the origin and literary history of
the Hebrew Versions?
The general dependence of the biblical Versions upon the Babylonian
legend as a whole has long been recognized, and needs no further
demonstration; and it has already been observed that the parallelisms
with the version in the Gilgamesh Epic are on the whole more detailed
and striking in the earlier than in the later Hebrew Version.(1) In the
course of our analysis of the Sumerian text its more striking points of
agreement or divergence, in relation to the Hebrew Versions, were noted
under the different sections of its narrative. It was also obvious that,
in many features in which the Hebrew Versions differ from the Gilgamesh
Epic, the latter finds Sumerian support. These facts confirm the
conclusion, which we should naturally base on grounds of historical
probability, that while the Semitic-Babylonian Versions were derived
from Sumer, the Hebrew accounts were equally clearly derived from
Babylon. But there are one or two pieces of evidence which are
apparently at variance with this conclusion, and these call for some
explanation.
(1) For details see especially Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 177
ff.
Not too much significance should be attached to the apparent omission of
the episode of the birds from the Sumerian narrative, in which it would
agree with the later as against the earlier Hebrew Version; for, apart
from its epitomized character, there is so much missing from the text
that the absence of this episode cannot be regarded as established with
certainty. And in any case it could be balanced by the Sumerian order
of Creation of men before animals, which agrees with the earlier Hebrew
Version against the later. But there is one very striking point in which
our new Sumerian text agrees with both the Hebrew Versions as against
the Gilgamesh Epic and Berossus; and that is in the character of
Ziusudu, which presents so close a parallel to the piety of Noah. As we
have already seen, the latter is due to no Hebrew idealization of the
story, but represents a genuine strand of the original tradition, which
is completely absent from the Babylonian Versions. But the Babylonian
Versions are the media through which it has generally been assumed that
the tradition of the Deluge reached the Hebrews. What explanation have
we of this fact?
This grouping of Sumerian and Hebrew authorities, against the extant
sources from Babylon, is emphasized by the general framework of the
Sumerian story. For the literary connexion which we have in Genesis
between the Creation and the Deluge narratives has hitherto found no
parallel in the cuneiform texts. In Babylon and Assyria the myth of
Creation and the Deluge legend have been divorced. From the one
a complete epic has been evolved in accordance with the tenets of
Babylonian theology, the Creation myth being combined in the process
with other myths of a somewhat analogous character. The Deluge legend
has survived as an isolated story in more than one setting, the
principal Semitic Version being recounted to the national hero
Gilgamesh, towards the close of the composite epic of his adventures
which grew up around the nucleus of his name. It is one of the chief
surprises of the newly discovered Sumerian Version that the Hebrew
connexion of the narratives is seen to be on the lines of very primitive
tradition. Noah's reputation for piety does not stand alone. His line of
descent from Adam, and the thread of narrative connecting the creation
of the world with its partial destruction by the Deluge, already appear
in Sumerian form at a time when the city of Babylon itself had
not secured its later power. How then are we to account for this
correspondence of Sumerian and Hebrew traditions, on points completely
wanting in our intermediate authorities, from which, however, other
evidence suggests that the Hebrew narratives were derived?
At the risk of anticipating some of the conclusions to be drawn in the
next lecture, it may be well to define an answer now. It is possible
that those who still accept the traditional authorship of the Pentateuch
may be inclined to see in this correspondence of Hebrew and Sumerian
ideas a confirmation of their own hypothesis. But it should be pointed
out at once that this is not an inevitable deduction from the evidence.
Indeed, it is directly contradicted by the rest of the evidence we have
summarized, while it would leave completely unexplained some significant
features of the problem. It is true that certain important details of
the Sumerian tradition, while not affecting Babylon and Assyria,
have left their stamp upon the Hebrew narratives; but that is not an
exhaustive statement of the case. For we have also seen that a more
complete survival of Sumerian tradition has taken place in the
history of Berossus. There we traced the same general framework of the
narratives, with a far closer correspondence in detail. The kingly rank
of Ziusudu is in complete harmony with the Berossian conception of
a series of supreme Antediluvian rulers, and the names of two of the
Antediluvian cites are among those of their newly recovered Sumerian
prototypes. There can thus be no suggestion that the Greek reproductions
of the Sumerian tradition were in their turn due to Hebrew influence. On
the contrary we have in them a parallel case of survival in a far more
complete form.
The inference we may obviously draw is that the Sumerian narrative
continued in existence, in a literary form that closely resembled the
original version, into the later historical periods. In this there would
be nothing to surprise us, when we recall the careful preservation
and study of ancient Sumerian religious texts by the later Semitic
priesthood of the country. Each ancient cult-centre in Babylonia
continued to cling to its own local traditions, and the Sumerian desire
for their preservation, which was inherited by their Semitic guardians,
was in great measure unaffected by political occurrences elsewhere.
Hence it was that Ashur-bani-pal, when forming his library at Nineveh,
was able to draw upon so rich a store of the more ancient literary texts
of Babylonia. The Sumerian Version of the Deluge and of Antediluvian
history may well have survived in a less epitomized form than that
in which we have recovered it; and, like other ancient texts, it was
probably provided with a Semitic translation. Indeed its literary study
and reproduction may have continued without interruption in Babylon
itself. But even if Sumerian tradition died out in the capital under
the influence of the Babylonian priesthood, its re-introduction may
well have taken place in Neo-Babylonian times. Perhaps the antiquarian
researches of Nabonidus were characteristic of his period; and in any
case the collection of his country's gods into the capital must have
been accompanied by a renewed interest in the more ancient versions
of the past with which their cults were peculiarly associated. In
the extant summary from Berossus we may possibly see evidence of a
subsequent attempt to combine with these more ancient traditions the
continued religious dominance of Marduk and of Babylon.
Our conclusion, that the Sumerian form of the tradition did not die out,
leaves the question as to the periods during which Babylonian influence
may have acted upon Hebrew tradition in great measure unaffected; and
we may therefore postpone its further consideration to the next lecture.
To-day the only question that remains to be considered concerns the
effect of our new evidence upon the wider problem of Deluge stories as
a whole. What light does it throw on the general character of Deluge
stories and their suggested Egyptian origin?
One thing that strikes me forcibly in reading this early text is the
complete absence of any trace or indication of astrological _motif_.
It is true that Ziusudu sacrifices to the Sun-god; but the episode
is inherent in the story, the appearance of the Sun after the storm
following the natural sequence of events and furnishing assurance to the
king of his eventual survival. To identify the worshipper with his
god and to transfer Ziusudu's material craft to the heavens is surely
without justification from the simple narrative. We have here no
prototype of Ra sailing the heavenly ocean. And the destructive flood
itself is not only of an equally material and mundane character, but is
in complete harmony with its Babylonian setting.
In the matter of floods the Tigris and Euphrates present a striking
contrast to the Nile. It is true that the life-blood of each country is
its river-water, but the conditions of its use are very different, and
in Mesopotamia it becomes a curse when out of control. In both countries
the river-water must be used for maturing the crops. But while the rains
of Abyssinia cause the Nile to rise between August and October, thus
securing both summer and winter crops, the melting snows of Armenia and
the Taurus flood the Mesopotamian rivers between March and May. In Egypt
the Nile flood is gentle; it is never abrupt, and the river gives ample
warning of its rise and fall. It contains just enough sediment to enrich
the land without choking the canals; and the water, after filling its
historic basins, may when necessary be discharged into the falling river
in November. Thus Egypt receives a full and regular supply of water, and
there is no difficulty in disposing of any surplus. The growth in such a
country of a legend of world-wide destruction by flood is inconceivable.
In Mesopotamia, on the other hand, the floods, which come too late for
the winter crops, are followed by the rainless summer months; and not
only must the flood-water be controlled, but some portion of it must be
detained artificially, if it is to be of use during the burning months
of July, August, and September, when the rivers are at their lowest.
Moreover, heavy rain in April and a warm south wind melting the snow in
the hills may bring down such floods that the channels cannot contain
them; the dams are then breached and the country is laid waste. Here
there is first too much water and then too little.
The great danger from flood in Babylonia, both in its range of action
and in its destructive effect, is due to the strangely flat character
of the Tigris and Euphrates delta.(1) Hence after a severe breach in
the Tigris or Euphrates, the river after inundating the country may
make itself a new channel miles away from the old one. To mitigate the
danger, the floods may be dealt with in two ways--by a multiplication
of canals to spread the water, and by providing escapes for it into
depressions in the surrounding desert, which in their turn become
centres of fertility. Both methods were employed in antiquity; and it
may be added that in any scheme for the future prosperity of the country
they must be employed again, of course with the increased efficiency of
modern apparatus.(2) But while the Babylonians succeeded in controlling
the Euphrates, the Tigris was never really tamed,(3) and whenever it
burst its right bank the southern plains were devastated. We could not
have more suitable soil for the growth of a Deluge story.
(1) Baghdad, though 300 miles by crow-fly from the sea and
500 by river, is only 120 ft. above sea-level.
(2) The Babylonians controlled the Euphrates, and at the
same time provided against its time of "low supply", by
escapes into two depressions in the western desert to the
NW. of Babylon, known to-day as the Habbânîyah and Abu Dîs
depressions, which lie S. of the modern town of Ramâdi and
N. of Kerbela. That these depressions were actually used as
reservoirs in antiquity is proved by the presence along
their edges of thick beds of Euphrates shells. In addition
to canals and escapes, the Babylonian system included well-
constructed dikes protected by brushwood. By cutting an
eight-mile channel through a low hill between the Habbânîyah
and Abu Dîs depressions and by building a short dam 50 ft.
high across the latter's narrow outlet, Sir William
Willcocks estimates that a reservoir could be obtained
holding eighteen milliards of tons of water. See his work
_The Irrigations of Mesopotamia_ (E. and F. N. Spon, 1911),
_Geographical Journal_, Vol. XL, No. 2 (Aug., 1912), pp. 129
ff., and the articles in _The Near East_ cited on p. 97, n.
1, and p. 98, n. 2. Sir William Willcocks's volume and
subsequent papers form the best introduction to the study of
Babylonian Deluge tradition on its material side.
(3) Their works carried out on the Tigris were effective for
irrigation; but the Babylonians never succeeded in
controlling its floods as they did those of the Euphrates. A
massive earthen dam, the remains of which are still known as
"Nimrod's Dam", was thrown across the Tigris above the point
where it entered its delta; this served to turn the river
over hard conglomerate rock and kept it at a high level so
that it could irrigate the country on both banks. Above the
dam were the heads of the later Nahrwân Canal, a great
stream 400 ft. wide and 17 ft. deep, which supplied the
country east of the river. The Nâr Sharri or "King's Canal",
the Nahar Malkha of the Greeks and the Nahr el-Malik of the
Arabs, protected the right bank of the Tigris by its own
high artificial banks, which can still be traced for
hundreds of miles; but it took its supply from the Euphrates
at Sippar, where the ground is some 25 ft. higher than on
the Tigris. The Tigris usually flooded its left bank; it was
the right bank which was protected, and a breach here meant
disaster. Cf. Willcocks, op. cit., and _The Near East_,
Sept. 29, 1916 (Vol. XI, No. 282), p. 522.
It was only by constant and unremitting attention that disaster from
flood could be averted; and the difficulties of the problem were and are
increased by the fact that the flood-water of the Mesopotamian rivers
contains five times as much sediment as the Nile. In fact, one of
the most pressing of the problems the Sumerian and early Babylonian
engineers had to solve was the keeping of the canals free from silt.(1)
What the floods, if left unchecked, may do in Mesopotamia, is well
illustrated by the decay of the ancient canal-system, which has been
the immediate cause of the country's present state of sordid desolation.
That the decay was gradual was not the fault of the rivers, but was
due to the sound principles on which the old system of control had been
evolved through many centuries of labour. At the time of the Moslem
conquest the system had already begun to fail. In the fifth century
there had been bad floods; but worse came in A.D. 629, when both rivers
burst their banks and played havoc with the dikes and embankments. It
is related that the Sassanian king Parwiz, the contemporary of Mohammed,
crucified in one day forty canal-workers at a certain breach, and yet
was unable to master the flood.(2) All repairs were suspended during the
anarchy of the Moslem invasion. As a consequence the Tigris left its
old bed for the Shatt el-Hai at Kût, and pouring its own and its
tributaries' waters into the Euphrates formed the Great Euphrates Swamp,
two hundred miles long and fifty broad. But even then what was left of
the old system was sufficient to support the splendour of the Eastern
Caliphate.
(1) Cf. _Letters of Hammurabi_, Vol. III, pp. xxxvi ff.; it
was the duty of every village or town upon the banks of the
main canals in Babylonia to keep its own section clear of
silt, and of course it was also responsible for its own
smaller irrigation-channels. While the invention of the
system of basin-irrigation was practically forced on Egypt,
the extraordinary fertility of Babylonia was won in the
teeth of nature by the system of perennial irrigation, or
irrigation all the year round. In Babylonia the water was
led into small fields of two or three acres, while the Nile
valley was irrigated in great basins each containing some
thirty to forty thousand acres. The Babylonian method gives
far more profitable results, and Sir William Willcocks
points out that Egypt to-day is gradually abandoning its own
system and adopting that of its ancient rival; see _The Near
East_, Sept. 29, 1916, p. 521.
(2) See Le Strange, _The Lands of the Eastern Caliphate_, p.
27.
The second great blow to the system followed the Mongol conquest, when
the Nahrwân Canal, to the east of the Tigris, had its head swept away
by flood and the area it had irrigated became desert. Then, in about
the fifteenth century, the Tigris returned to its old course; the Shatt
el-Hai shrank, and much of the Great Swamp dried up into the desert
it is to-day.(1) Things became worse during the centuries of Turkish
misrule. But the silting up of the Hillah, or main, branch of the
Euphrates about 1865, and the transference of a great part of its stream
into the Hindîyah Canal, caused even the Turks to take action. They
constructed the old Hindîyah Barrage in 1890, but it gave way in 1903
and the state of things was even worse than before; for the Hillah
branch then dried entirely.(2)
(1) This illustrates the damage the Tigris itself is capable
of inflicting on the country. It may be added that Sir
William Willcocks proposes to control the Tigris floods by
an escape into the Tharthâr depression, a great salt pan at
the tail of Wadi Tharthâr, which lies 14 ft. below sea level
and is 200 ft. lower than the flood-level of the Tigris some
thirty-two miles away. The escape would leave the Tigris to
the S. of Sâmarra, the proposed Beled Barrage being built
below it and up-stream of "Nimrod's Dam". The Tharthâr
escape would drain into the Euphrates, and the latter's
Habbânîyah escape would receive any surplus water from the
Tigris, a second barrage being thrown across the Euphrates
up-stream of Fallûjah, where there is an outcrop of
limestone near the head of the Sakhlawîyah Canal. The
Tharthâr depression, besides disposing of the Tigris flood-
water, would thus probably feed the Euphrates; and a second
barrage on the Tigris, to be built at Kût, would supply
water to the Shatt el-Hai. When the country is freed from
danger of flood, the Baghdad Railway could be run through
the cultivated land instead of through the eastern desert;
see Willcocks, _The Near East_, Oct. 6, 1916 (Vol. XI, No.
283), p. 545 f.
(2) It was then that Sir William Willcocks designed the new
Hindîyah Barrage, which was completed in 1913. The Hindîyah
branch, to-day the main stream of the Euphrates, is the old
low-lying Pallacopas Canal, which branched westward above
Babylon and discharged its waters into the western marshes.
In antiquity the head of this branch had to be opened in
high floods and then closed again immediately after the
flood to keep the main stream full past Babylon, which
entailed the employment of an enormous number of men.
Alexander the Great's first work in Babylonia was cutting a
new head for the Pallacopas in solid ground, for hitherto it
had been in sandy soil; and it was while reclaiming the
marshes farther down-stream that he contracted the fever
that killed him.
From this brief sketch of progressive disaster during the later
historical period, the inevitable effect of neglected silt and flood, it
will be gathered that the two great rivers of Mesopotamia present a very
strong contrast to the Nile. For during the same period of misgovernment
and neglect in Egypt the Nile did not turn its valley and delta into
a desert. On the Tigris and Euphrates, during ages when the earliest
dwellers on their banks were struggling to make effective their first
efforts at control, the waters must often have regained the upper hand.
Under such conditions the story of a great flood in the past would not
be likely to die out in the future; the tradition would tend to gather
illustrative detail suggested by later experience. Our new text
reveals the Deluge tradition in Mesopotamia at an early stage of
its development, and incidentally shows us that there is no need to
postulate for its origin any convulsion of nature or even a series of
seismic shocks accompanied by cyclone in the Persian Gulf.
If this had been the only version of the story that had come down to us,
we should hardly have regarded it as a record of world-wide catastrophe.
It is true the gods' intention is to destroy mankind, but the scene
throughout is laid in Southern Babylonia. After seven days' storm,
the Sun comes out, and the vessel with the pious priest-king and his
domestic animals on board grounds, apparently still in Babylonia, and
not on any distant mountain, such as Mt. Nisir or the great mass of
Ararat in Armenia. These are obviously details which tellers of the
story have added as it passed down to later generations. When it
was carried still farther afield, into the area of the Eastern
Mediterranean, it was again adapted to local conditions. Thus
Apollodorus makes Deucalion land upon Parnassus,(1) and the
pseudo-Lucian relates how he founded the temple of Derketo at Hierapolis
in Syria beside the hole in the earth which swallowed up the Flood.(2)
To the Sumerians who first told the story, the great Flood appeared to
have destroyed mankind, for Southern Babylonia was for them the
world. Later peoples who heard it have fitted the story to their own
geographical horizon, and in all good faith and by a purely logical
process the mountain-tops are represented as submerged, and the ship,
or ark, or chest, is made to come to ground on the highest peak known to
the story-teller and his hearers. But in its early Sumerian form it is
just a simple tradition of some great inundation, which overwhelmed
the plain of Southern Babylonia and was peculiarly disastrous in its
effects. And so its memory survived in the picture of Ziusudu's solitary
coracle upon the face of the waters, which, seen through the mists of
the Deluge tradition, has given us the Noah's ark of our nursery days.
(1) Hesiod is our earliest authority for the Deucalion Flood
story. For its probable Babylonian origin, cf. Farnell,
_Greece and Babylon_ (1911), p. 184.
(2) _De Syria dea_, 12 f.
Thus the Babylonian, Hebrew, and Greek Deluge stories resolve
themselves, not into a nature myth, but into an early legend, which has
the basis of historical fact in the Euphrates Valley. And it is probable
that we may explain after a similar fashion the occurrence of tales of
a like character at least in some other parts of the world. Among races
dwelling in low-lying or well-watered districts it would be surprising
if we did not find independent stories of past floods from which few
inhabitants of the land escaped. It is only in hilly countries such
as Palestine, where for the great part of the year water is scarce and
precious, that we are forced to deduce borrowing; and there is no doubt
that both the Babylonian and the biblical stories have been responsible
for some at any rate of the scattered tales. But there is no need
to adopt the theory of a single source for all of them, whether in
Babylonia or, still less, in Egypt.(1)
(1) This argument is taken from an article I published in
Professor Headlam's _Church Quarterly Review_, Jan., 1916,
pp. 280 ff., containing an account of Dr. Poebel's
discovery.
I should like to add, with regard to this reading of our new evidence,
that I am very glad to know Sir James Frazer holds a very similar
opinion. For, as you are doubtless all aware, Sir James is at present
collecting Flood stories from all over the world, and is supplementing
from a wider range the collections already made by Lenormant, Andree,
Winternitz, and Gerland. When his work is complete it will be possible
to conjecture with far greater confidence how particular traditions or
groups of tradition arose, and to what extent transmission has taken
place. Meanwhile, in his recent Huxley Memorial Lecture,(1) he has
suggested a third possibility as to the way Deluge stories may have
arisen.
(1) Sir J. G. Frazer, _Ancient Stories of a Great Flood_
(the Huxley Memorial Lecture, 1916), Roy. Anthrop. Inst.,
1916.
Stated briefly, it is that a Deluge story may arise as a popular
explanation of some striking natural feature in a country, although to
the scientific eye the feature in question is due to causes other than
catastrophic flood. And he worked out the suggestion in the case of
the Greek traditions of a great deluge, associated with the names of
Deucalion and Dardanus. Deucalion's deluge, in its later forms at
any rate, is obviously coloured by Semitic tradition; but both Greek
stories, in their origin, Sir James Frazer would trace to local
conditions--the one suggested by the Gorge of Tempe in Thessaly, the
other explaining the existence of the Bosphorus and Dardanelles. As
he pointed out, they would be instances, not of genuine historical
traditions, but of what Sir James Tyler calls "observation myths".
A third story of a great flood, regarded in Greek tradition as the
earliest of the three, he would explain by an extraordinary inundation
of the Copaic Lake in Boeotia, which to this day is liable to great
fluctuations of level. His new theory applies only to the other two
traditions. For in them no historical kernel is presupposed, though
gradual erosion by water is not excluded as a cause of the surface
features which may have suggested the myths.
This valuable theory thus opens up a third possibility for our analysis.
It may also, of course, be used in combination, if in any particular
instance we have reason to believe that transmission, in some vague
form, may already have taken place. And it would with all deference
suggest the possibility that, in view of other evidence, this may have
occurred in the case of the Greek traditions. With regard to the theory
itself we may confidently expect that further examples will be found in
its illustration and support. Meanwhile in the new Sumerian Version I
think we may conclude that we have recovered beyond any doubt the
origin of the Babylonian and Hebrew traditions and of the large group of
stories to which they in their turn have given rise.
LECTURE III -- CREATION AND THE DRAGON MYTH; AND THE PROBLEM OF
BABYLONIAN PARALLELS IN HEBREW TRADITION
In our discussion of the new Sumerian version of the Deluge story we
came to the conclusion that it gave no support to any theory which
would trace all such tales to a single origin, whether in Egypt or in
Babylonia. In spite of strong astrological elements in both the Egyptian
and Babylonian religious systems, we saw grounds for regarding the
astrological tinge of much ancient mythology as a later embellishment
and not as primitive material. And so far as our new version of the
Deluge story was concerned, it resolved itself into a legend, which had
a basis of historical fact in the Euphrates Valley. It will be obvious
that the same class of explanation cannot be applied to narratives of
the Creation of the World. For there we are dealing, not with legends,
but with myths, that is, stories exclusively about the gods. But where
an examination of their earlier forms is possible, it would seem to
show that many of these tales also, in their origin, are not to be
interpreted as nature myths, and that none arose as mere reflections of
the solar system. In their more primitive and simpler aspects they
seem in many cases to have been suggested by very human and terrestrial
experience. To-day we will examine the Egyptian, Sumerian, and
Babylonian myths of Creation, and, after we have noted the more striking
features of our new material, we will consider the problem of foreign
influences upon Hebrew traditions concerning the origin and early
history of the world.
In Egypt, as until recently in Babylonia, we have to depend for our
knowledge of Creation myths on documents of a comparatively late period.
Moreover, Egyptian religious literature as a whole is textually corrupt,
and in consequence it is often difficult to determine the original
significance of its allusions. Thanks to the funerary inscriptions and
that great body of magical formulae and ritual known as "The Chapters
of Coming forth by Day", we are very fully informed on the Egyptian
doctrines as to the future state of the dead. The Egyptian's intense
interest in his own remote future, amounting almost to an obsession, may
perhaps in part account for the comparatively meagre space in the extant
literature which is occupied by myths relating solely to the past. And
it is significant that the one cycle of myth, of which we are fully
informed in its latest stage of development, should be that which gave
its sanction to the hope of a future existence for man. The fact that
Herodotus, though he claims a knowledge of the sufferings or "Mysteries"
of Osiris, should deliberately refrain from describing them or from
even uttering the name,(1) suggests that in his time at any rate some
sections of the mythology had begun to acquire an esoteric character.
There is no doubt that at all periods myth played an important part in
the ritual of feast-days. But mythological references in the earlier
texts are often obscure; and the late form in which a few of the stories
have come to us is obviously artificial. The tradition, for example,
which relates how mankind came from the tears which issued from Ra's eye
undoubtedly arose from a play upon words.
(1) Herodotus, II, 171.
On the other hand, traces of myth, scattered in the religious literature
of Egypt, may perhaps in some measure betray their relative age by the
conceptions of the universe which underlie them. The Egyptian idea that
the sky was a heavenly ocean, which is not unlike conceptions current
among the Semitic Babylonians and Hebrews, presupposes some thought and
reflection. In Egypt it may well have been evolved from the probably
earlier but analogous idea of the river in heaven, which the Sun
traversed daily in his boats. Such a river was clearly suggested by the
Nile; and its world-embracing character is reminiscent of a time when
through communication was regularly established, at least as far south
as Elephantine. Possibly in an earlier period the long narrow valley, or
even a section of it, may have suggested the figure of a man lying prone
upon his back. Such was Keb, the Earth-god, whose counterpart in the
sky was the goddess Nut, her feet and hands resting at the limits of
the world and her curved body forming the vault of heaven. Perhaps still
more primitive, and dating from a pastoral age, may be the notion that
the sky was a great cow, her body, speckled with stars, alone visible
from the earth beneath. Reference has already been made to the dominant
influence of the Sun in Egyptian religion, and it is not surprising
that he should so often appear as the first of created beings. His orb
itself, or later the god in youthful human form, might be pictured as
emerging from a lotus on the primaeval waters, or from a marsh-bird's
egg, a conception which influenced the later Phoenician cosmogeny. The
Scarabaeus, or great dung-feeding beetle of Egypt, rolling the ball
before it in which it lays its eggs, is an obvious theme for the early
myth-maker. And it was natural that the Beetle of Khepera should
have been identified with the Sun at his rising, as the Hawk of Ra
represented his noonday flight, and the aged form of Attun his setting
in the west. But in all these varied conceptions and explanations of the
universe it is difficult to determine how far the poetical imagery of
later periods has transformed the original myths which may lie behind
them.
As the Egyptian Creator the claims of Ra, the Sun-god of Heliopolis,
early superseded those of other deities. On the other hand, Ptah of
Memphis, who for long ages had been merely the god of architects and
craftsmen, became under the Empire the architect of the universe and is
pictured as a potter moulding the world-egg. A short poem by a priest of
Ptah, which has come down to us from that period, exhibits an attempt to
develop this idea on philosophical lines.(1) Its author represents
all gods and living creatures as proceeding directly from the mind and
thought of Ptah. But this movement, which was more notably reflected in
Akhenaton's religious revolution, died out in political disaster, and
the original materialistic interpretation of the myths was restored with
the cult of Amen. How materialistic this could be is well illustrated
by two earlier members of the XVIIIth Dynasty, who have left us vivid
representations of the potter's wheel employed in the process of man's
creation. When the famous Hatshepsut, after the return of her expedition
to Punt in the ninth year of her young consort Thothmes III, decided to
build her temple at Deir el-Bahari in the necropolis of Western Thebes,
she sought to emphasize her claim to the throne of Egypt by recording
her own divine origin upon its walls. We have already noted the
Egyptians' belief in the solar parentage of their legitimate rulers,
a myth that goes back at least to the Old Kingdom and may have had its
origin in prehistoric times. With the rise of Thebes, Amen inherited the
prerogatives of Ra; and so Hatshepsut seeks to show, on the north side
of the retaining wall of her temple's Upper Platform, that she was the
daughter of Amen himself, "the great God, Lord of the sky, Lord of
the Thrones of the Two Lands, who resides at Thebes". The myth was no
invention of her own, for obviously it must have followed traditional
lines, and though it is only employed to exhibit the divine creation of
a single personage, it as obviously reflects the procedure and methods
of a general Creation myth.
(1) See Breasted, _Zeitschrift fur Aegyptische Sprache_,
XXXIX, pp. 39 ff., and _History of Egypt_, pp. 356 ff.
This series of sculptures shared the deliberate mutilation that all
her records suffered at the hands of Thothmes III after her death, but
enough of the scenes and their accompanying text has survived to render
the detailed interpretation of the myth quite certain.(1) Here, as in a
general Creation myth, Amen's first act is to summon the great gods
in council, in order to announce to them the future birth of the great
princess. Of the twelve gods who attend, the first is Menthu, a form of
the Sun-god and closely associated with Amen.(2) But the second deity
is Atum, the great god of Heliopolis, and he is followed by his cycle of
deities--Shu, "the son of Ra"; Tefnut, "the Lady of the sky"; Keb,
"the Father of the Gods"; Nut, "the Mother of the Gods"; Osiris, Isis,
Nephthys, Set, Horus, and Hathor. We are here in the presence of cosmic
deities, as befits a projected act of creation. The subsequent scenes
exhibit the Egyptian's literal interpretation of the myth, which
necessitates the god's bodily presence and personal participation.
Thoth mentions to Amen the name of queen Aahmes as the future mother of
Hatshepsut, and we later see Amen himself, in the form of her husband,
Aa-kheperka-Ra (Thothmes I), sitting with Aahmes and giving her the
Ankh, or sign of Life, which she receives in her hand and inhales
through her nostrils.(3) God and queen are seated on thrones above a
couch, and are supported by two goddesses. After leaving the queen, Amen
calls on Khnum or Khnemu, the flat-horned ram-god, who in texts of
all periods is referred to as the "builder" of gods and men;(4) and he
instructs him to create the body of his future daughter and that of her
_Ka_, or "double", which would be united to her from birth.
(1) See Naville, _Deir el-Bahari_, Pt. II, pp. 12 ff.,
plates xlvi ff.
(2) See Budge, _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. II, pp. 23 ff.
His chief cult-centre was Hermonthis, but here as elsewhere
he is given his usual title "Lord of Thebes".
(3) Pl. xlvii. Similar scenes are presented in the "birth-
temples" at Denderah, Edfu, Philae, Esneh, and Luxor; see
Naville, op. cit., p. 14.
(4) Cf. Budge, op. cit., Vol. II, p. 50.
The scene in the series, which is of greatest interest in the present
connexion, is that representing Khnum at his work of creation. He is
seated before a potter's wheel which he works with his foot,(1) and on
the revolving table he is fashioning two children with his hands, the
baby princess and her "double". It was always Hatshepsut's desire to be
represented as a man, and so both the children are boys.(2) As yet they
are lifeless, but the symbol of Life will be held to their nostrils
by Heqet, the divine Potter's wife, whose frog-head typifies birth and
fertility. When Amenophis III copied Hatshepsut's sculptures for his own
series at Luxor, he assigned this duty to the greater goddess Hathor,
perhaps the most powerful of the cosmic goddesses and the mother of the
world. The subsequent scenes at Deir el-Bahari include the leading of
queen Aahmes by Khnum and Heqet to the birth-chamber; the great birth
scene where the queen is attended by the goddesses Nephthys and Isis, a
number of divine nurses and midwives holding several of the "doubles"
of the baby, and favourable genii, in human form or with the heads of
crocodiles, jackals, and hawks, representing the four cardinal points
and all bearing the gift of life; the presentation of the young child
by the goddess Hathor to Amen, who is well pleased at the sight of his
daughter; and the divine suckling of Hatshepsut and her "doubles". But
these episodes do not concern us, as of course they merely reflect the
procedure following a royal birth. But Khnum's part in the princess's
origin stands on a different plane, for it illustrates the Egyptian myth
of Creation by the divine Potter, who may take the form of either Khnum
or Ptah. Monsieur Naville points out the extraordinary resemblance in
detail which Hatshepsut's myth of divine paternity bears to the Greek
legend of Zeus and Alkmene, where the god takes the form of Amphitryon,
Alkmene's husband, exactly as Amen appears to the queen;(3) and it may
be added that the Egyptian origin of the Greek story was traditionally
recognized in the ancestry ascribed to the human couple.(4)
(1) This detail is not clearly preserved at Deir el-Bahari;
but it is quite clear in the scene on the west wall of the
"Birth-room" in the Temple at Luxor, which Amenophis III
evidently copied from that of Hatshepsut.
(2) In the similar scene at Luxor, where the future
Amenophis III is represented on the Creator's wheel, the
sculptor has distinguished the human child from its
spiritual "double" by the quaint device of putting its
finger in its mouth.
(3) See Naville, op. cit., p. 12.
(4) Cf., e.g., Herodotus, II, 43.
The only complete Egyptian Creation myth yet recovered is preserved in
a late papyrus in the British Museum, which was published some years ago
by Dr. Budge.(1) It occurs under two separate versions embedded in "The
Book of the Overthrowing of Apep, the Enemy of Ra". Here Ra, who utters
the myth under his late title of Neb-er-tcher, "Lord to the utmost
limit", is self-created as Khepera from Nu, the primaeval water; and
then follow successive generations of divine pairs, male and female,
such as we find at the beginning of the Semitic-Babylonian Creation
Series.(2) Though the papyrus was written as late as the year 311 B.C.,
the myth is undoubtedly early. For the first two divine pairs Shu and
Tefnut, Keb and Nut, and four of the latter pairs' five children, Osiris
and Isis, Set and Nephthys, form with the Sun-god himself the Greater
Ennead of Heliopolis, which exerted so wide an influence on Egyptian
religious speculation. The Ennead combined the older solar elements with
the cult of Osiris, and this is indicated in the myth by a break in the
successive generations, Nut bringing forth at a single birth the five
chief gods of the Osiris cycle, Osiris himself and his son Horus, with
Set, Isis, and Nephthys. Thus we may see in the myth an early example of
that religious syncretism which is so characteristic of later Egyptian
belief.
(1) See _Archaeologia_, Vol. LII (1891). Dr. Budge published
a new edition of the whole papyrus in _Egyptian Hieratic
Papyri in the British Museum_ (1910), and the two versions
of the Creation myth are given together in his _Gods of the
Egyptians_, Vol. I (1904), Chap. VIII, pp. 308 ff., and more
recently in his _Egyptian Literature_, Vol. I, "Legends of
the Gods" (1912), pp. 2 ff. An account of the papyrus is
included in the Introduction to "Legends of the Gods", pp.
xiii ff.
(2) In _Gods of the Egyptians_, Vol. I, Chap. VII, pp. 288
ff., Dr. Budge gives a detailed comparison of the Egyptian
pairs of primaeval deities with the very similar couples of
the Babylonian myth.
The only parallel this Egyptian myth of Creation presents to the Hebrew
cosmogony is in its picture of the primaeval water, corresponding to
the watery chaos of Genesis i. But the resemblance is of a very general
character, and includes no etymological equivalence such as we find
when we compare the Hebrew account with the principal Semitic-Babylonian
Creation narrative.(1) The application of the Ankh, the Egyptian sign
for Life, to the nostrils of a newly-created being is no true parallel
to the breathing into man's nostrils of the breath of life in the
earlier Hebrew Version,(2) except in the sense that each process was
suggested by our common human anatomy. We should naturally expect to
find some Hebrew parallel to the Egyptian idea of Creation as the work
of a potter with his clay, for that figure appears in most ancient
mythologies. The Hebrews indeed used the conception as a metaphor
or parable,(3) and it also underlies their earlier picture of man's
creation. I have not touched on the grosser Egyptian conceptions
concerning the origin of the universe, which we may probably connect
with African ideas; but those I have referred to will serve to
demonstrate the complete absence of any feature that presents a detailed
resemblance of the Hebrew tradition.
(1) For the wide diffusion, in the myths of remote peoples,
of a vague theory that would trace all created things to a
watery origin, see Farnell, _Greece and Babylon_, p. 180.
(2) Gen. ii. 7 (J).
(3) Cf., e.g., Isaiah xxix. 16, xlv. 9; and Jeremiah xviii.
2f.
When we turn to Babylonia, we find there also evidence of conflicting
ideas, the product of different and to some extent competing religious
centres. But in contrast to the rather confused condition of Egyptian
mythology, the Semitic Creation myth of the city of Babylon, thanks
to the latter's continued political ascendancy, succeeded in winning a
dominant place in the national literature. This is the version in which
so many points of resemblance to the first chapter of Genesis have long
been recognized, especially in the succession of creative acts and their
relative order. In the Semitic-Babylonian Version the creation of the
world is represented as the result of conflict, the emergence of order
out of chaos, a result that is only attained by the personal triumph
of the Creator. But this underlying dualism does not appear in the more
primitive Sumerian Version we have now recovered. It will be remembered
that in the second lecture I gave some account of the myth, which occurs
in an epitomized form as an introduction to the Sumerian Version of
the Deluge, the two narratives being recorded in the same document and
connected with one another by a description of the Antediluvian cities.
We there saw that Creation is ascribed to the three greatest gods of
the Sumerian pantheon, Anu, Enlil, and Enki, assisted by the goddess
Ninkharsagga.
It is significant that in the Sumerian version no less than four deities
are represented as taking part in the Creation. For in this we may see
some indication of the period to which its composition must be assigned.
Their association in the text suggests that the claims of local gods
had already begun to compete with one another as a result of political
combination between the cities of their cults. To the same general
period we must also assign the compilation of the Sumerian Dynastic
record, for that presupposes the existence of a supreme ruler among
the Sumerian city-states. This form of political constitution must
undoubtedly have been the result of a long process of development,
and the fact that its existence should be regarded as dating from the
Creation of the world indicates a comparatively developed stage of the
tradition. But behind the combination of cities and their gods we may
conjecturally trace anterior stages of development, when each local
deity and his human representative seemed to their own adherents the
sole objects for worship and allegiance. And even after the demands of
other centres had been conceded, no deity ever quite gave up his local
claims.
Enlil, the second of the four Sumerian creating deities, eventually
ousted his rivals. It has indeed long been recognized that the _rôle_
played by Marduk in the Babylonian Version of Creation had been borrowed
from Enlil of Nippur; and in the Atrakhasis legend Enlil himself appears
as the ultimate ruler of the world and the other gods figure as "his
sons". Anu, who heads the list and plays with Enlil the leading part
in the Sumerian narrative, was clearly his chief rival. And though
we possess no detailed account of Anu's creative work, the persistent
ascription to him of the creation of heaven, and his familiar title,
"the Father of the Gods", suggest that he once possessed a corresponding
body of myth in Eanna, his temple at Erech. Enki, the third of the
creating gods, was naturally credited, as God of Wisdom, with
special creative activities, and fortunately in his case we have some
independent evidence of the varied forms these could assume.
According to one tradition that has come down to us,(1) after Anu had
made the heavens, Enki created Apsû or the Deep, his own dwelling-place.
Then taking from it a piece of clay(2) he proceeded to create the
Brick-god, and reeds and forests for the supply of building material.
From the same clay he continued to form other deities and materials,
including the Carpenter-god; the Smith-god; Arazu, a patron deity
of building; and mountains and seas for all that they produced; the
Goldsmith-god, the Stone-cutter-god, and kindred deities, together with
their rich products for offerings; the Grain-deities, Ashnan and Lakhar;
Siris, a Wine-god; Ningishzida and Ninsar, a Garden-god, for the sake of
the rich offerings they could make; and a deity described as "the
High priest of the great gods," to lay down necessary ordinances and
commands. Then he created "the King", for the equipment probably of a
particular temple, and finally men, that they might practise the cult in
the temple so elaborately prepared.
(1) See Weissbach, _Babylonische Miscellen_, pp. 32 ff.
(2) One of the titles of Enki was "the Potter"; cf. _Cun.
Texts_ in the Brit. Mus., Pt. XXIV, pl. 14 f., ll. 41, 43.
It will be seen from this summary of Enki's creative activities, that
the text from which it is taken is not a general Creation myth, but
in all probability the introductory paragraph of a composition which
celebrated the building or restoration of a particular temple; and the
latter's foundation is represented, on henotheistic lines, as the main
object of creation. Composed with that special purpose, its narrative
is not to be regarded as an exhaustive account of the creation of the
world. The incidents are eclective, and only such gods and materials are
mentioned as would have been required for the building and adornment of
the temple and for the provision of its offerings and cult. But even so
its mythological background is instructive. For while Anu's creation of
heaven is postulated as the necessary precedent of Enki's activities,
the latter creates the Deep, vegetation, mountains, seas, and mankind.
Moreover, in his character as God of Wisdom, he is not only the
teacher but the creator of those deities who were patrons of man's own
constructive work. From such evidence we may infer that in his temple at
Eridu, now covered by the mounds of Abu Shahrain in the extreme south of
Babylonia, and regarded in early Sumerian tradition as the first city in
the world, Enki himself was once celebrated as the sole creator of the
universe.
The combination of the three gods Anu, Enlil, and Enki, is persistent
in the tradition; for not only were they the great gods of the universe,
representing respectively heaven, earth, and the watery abyss, but
they later shared the heavenly sphere between them. It is in their
astrological character that we find them again in creative activity,
though without the co-operation of any goddess, when they appear as
creators of the great light-gods and as founders of time divisions, the
day and the month. This Sumerian myth, though it reaches us only in an
extract or summary in a Neo-Babylonian schoolboy's exercise,(1) may well
date from a comparatively early period, but probably from a time when
the "Ways" of Anu, Enlil, and Enki had already been fixed in heaven and
their later astrological characters had crystallized.
(1) See _The Seven Tablets of Creation_, Vol. I, pp. 124 ff.
The tablet gives extracts from two very similar Sumerian and
Semitic texts. In both of them Anu, Enlil, and Enki appear
as creators "through their sure counsel". In the Sumerian
extract they create the Moon and ordain its monthly course,
while in the Semitic text, after establishing heaven and
earth, they create in addition to the New Moon the bright
Day, so that "men beheld the Sun-god in the Gate of his
going forth".
The idea that a goddess should take part with a god in man's creation
is already a familiar feature of Babylonian mythology. Thus the goddess
Aruru, in co-operation with Marduk, might be credited with the creation
of the human race,(1) as she might also be pictured creating on her own
initiative an individual hero such as Enkidu of the Gilgamesh Epic. The
_rôle_ of mother of mankind was also shared, as we have seen, by the
Semitic Ishtar. And though the old Sumerian goddess, Ninkharsagga, the
"Lady of the Mountains", appears in our Sumerian text for the first time
in the character of creatress, some of the titles we know she enjoyed,
under her synonyms in the great God List of Babylonia, already reflected
her cosmic activities.(2) For she was known as
"The Builder of that which has Breath",
"The Carpenter of Mankind",
"The Carpenter of the Heart",
"The Coppersmith of the Gods",
"The Coppersmith of the Land", and
"The Lady Potter".
(1) Op. cit., p. 134 f.
(2) Cf. _Cun. Texts in the Brit. Mus._, Pt. XXIV, pl. 12,
ll. 32, 26, 27, 25, 24, 23, and Poebel, _Hist. Texts_, p.
34.
In the myth we are not told her method of creation, but from the above
titles it is clear that in her own cycle of tradition Ninkhasagga was
conceived as fashioning men not only from clay but also from wood, and
perhaps as employing metal for the manufacture of her other works of
creation. Moreover, in the great God List, where she is referred to
under her title Makh, Ninkhasagga is associated with Anu, Enlil, and
Enki; she there appears, with her dependent deities, after Enlil and
before Enki. We thus have definite proof that her association with the
three chief Sumerian gods was widely recognized in the early Sumerian
period and dictated her position in the classified pantheon of
Babylonia. Apart from this evidence, the important rank assigned her
in the historical and legal records and in votive inscriptions,(1)
especially in the early period and in Southern Babylonia, accords fully
with the part she here plays in the Sumerian Creation myth. Eannatum and
Gudea of Lagash both place her immediately after Anu and Enlil, giving
her precedence over Enki; and even in the Kassite Kudurru inscriptions
of the thirteenth and twelfth centuries, where she is referred to, she
takes rank after Enki and before the other gods. In Sumer she was known
as "the Mother of the Gods", and she was credited with the power
of transferring the kingdom and royal insignia from one king to his
successor.
(1) See especially, Poebel, op. cit., pp. 24 ff.
Her supreme position as a goddess is attested by the relative
insignificance of her husband Dunpae, whom she completely overshadows,
in which respect she presents a contrast to the goddess Ninlil, Enlil's
female counterpart. The early clay figurines found at Nippur and on
other sites, representing a goddess suckling a child and clasping one of
her breasts, may well be regarded as representing Ninkharsagga and not
Ninlil. Her sanctuaries were at Kesh and Adab, both in the south, and
this fact sufficiently explains her comparative want of influence in
Akkad, where the Semitic Ishtar took her place. She does indeed appear
in the north during the Sargonic period under her own name, though later
she survives in her synonyms of Ninmakh, "the Sublime Lady", and Nintu,
"the Lady of Child-bearing". It is under the latter title that Hammurabi
refers to her in his Code of Laws, where she is tenth in a series
of eleven deities. But as Goddess of Birth she retained only a pale
reflection of her original cosmic character, and her functions were
gradually specialized.(1)
(1) Cf. Poebel, op. cit., p. 33. It is possible that, under
one of her later synonyms, we should identify her, as Dr.
Poebel suggests, with the Mylitta of Herodotus.
From a consideration of their characters, as revealed by independent
sources of evidence, we thus obtain the reason for the co-operation of
four deities in the Sumerian Creation. In fact the new text illustrates
a well-known principle in the development of myth, the reconciliation
of the rival claims of deities, whose cults, once isolated, had been
brought from political causes into contact with each other. In this
aspect myth is the medium through which a working pantheon is evolved.
Naturally all the deities concerned cannot continue to play their
original parts in detail. In the Babylonian Epic of Creation, where
a single deity, and not a very prominent one, was to be raised to
pre-eminent rank, the problem was simple enough. He could retain his own
qualities and achievements while borrowing those of any former rival. In
the Sumerian text we have the result of a far more delicate process of
adjustment, and it is possible that the brevity of the text is here not
entirely due to compression of a longer narrative, but may in part
be regarded as evidence of early combination. As a result of the
association of several competing deities in the work of creation, a
tendency may be traced to avoid discrimination between rival claims.
Thus it is that the assembled gods, the pantheon as a whole, are
regarded as collectively responsible for the creation of the universe.
It may be added that this use of _ilâni_, "the gods", forms an
interesting linguistic parallel to the plural of the Hebrew divine title
Elohim.
It will be remembered that in the Sumerian Version the account of
Creation is not given in full, only such episodes being included as were
directly related to the Deluge story. No doubt the selection of men and
animals was suggested by their subsequent rescue from the Flood; and
emphasis was purposely laid on the creation of the _niggilma_ because of
the part it played in securing mankind's survival. Even so, we noted one
striking parallel between the Sumerian Version and that of the Semitic
Babylonians, in the reason both give for man's creation. But in the
former there is no attempt to explain how the universe itself had come
into being, and the existence of the earth is presupposed at the moment
when Anu, Enlil, Enki, and Ninkharsagga undertake the creation of man.
The Semitic-Babylonian Version, on the other hand, is mainly occupied
with events that led up to the acts of creation, and it concerns our
problem to inquire how far those episodes were of Semitic and how far of
Sumerian origin. A further question arises as to whether some strands
of the narrative may not at one time have existed in Sumerian form
independently of the Creation myth.
The statement is sometimes made that there is no reason to assume a
Sumerian original for the Semitic-Babylonian Version, as recorded on
"the Seven Tablets of Creation";(1) and this remark, though true of that
version as a whole, needs some qualification. The composite nature of
the poem has long been recognized, and an analysis of the text has shown
that no less than five principal strands have been combined for its
formation. These consist of (i) The Birth of the Gods; (ii) The Legend
of Ea and Apsû; (iii) The principal Dragon Myth; (iv) The actual account
of Creation; and (v) the Hymn to Marduk under his fifty titles.(2) The
Assyrian commentaries to the Hymn, from which considerable portions of
its text are restored, quote throughout a Sumerian original, and explain
it word for word by the phrases of the Semitic Version;(3) so that for
one out of the Seven Tablets a Semitic origin is at once disproved.
Moreover, the majority of the fifty titles, even in the forms in which
they have reached us in the Semitic text, are demonstrably Sumerian, and
since many of them celebrate details of their owner's creative work, a
Sumerian original for other parts of the version is implied. Enlil and
Ea are both represented as bestowing their own names upon Marduk,(4)
and we may assume that many of the fifty titles were originally borne by
Enlil as a Sumerian Creator.(5) Thus some portions of the actual account
of Creation were probably derived from a Sumerian original in which
"Father Enlil" figured as the hero.
(1) Cf., e.g., Jastrow, _Journ. of the Amer. Or. Soc._, Vol.
XXXVI (1916), p. 279.
(2) See _The Seven Tablets of Creation_, Vol. I, pp. lxvi
ff.; and cf. Skinner, _Genesis_, pp. 43 ff.
(3) Cf. _Sev. Tabl._, Vol. I, pp. 157 ff.
(4) Cf. Tabl. VII, ll. 116 ff.
(5) The number fifty was suggested by an ideogram employed
for Enlil's name.
For what then were the Semitic Babylonians themselves responsible?
It seems to me that, in the "Seven Tablets", we may credit them with
considerable ingenuity in the combination of existing myths, but
not with their invention. The whole poem in its present form is
a glorification of Marduk, the god of Babylon, who is to be given
pre-eminent rank among the gods to correspond with the political
position recently attained by his city. It would have been quite out of
keeping with the national thought to make a break in the tradition,
and such a course would not have served the purpose of the Babylonian
priesthood, which was to obtain recognition of their claims by the older
cult-centres in the country. Hence they chose and combined the more
important existing myths, only making such alterations as would fit
them to their new hero. Babylon herself had won her position by her own
exertions; and it would be a natural idea to give Marduk his opportunity
of becoming Creator of the world as the result of successful conflict.
A combination of the Dragon myth with the myth of Creation would have
admirably served their purpose; and this is what we find in the Semitic
poem. But even that combination may not have been their own invention;
for, though, as we shall see, the idea of conflict had no part in the
earlier forms of the Sumerian Creation myth, its combination with the
Dragon _motif_ may have characterized the local Sumerian Version
of Nippur. How mechanical was the Babylonian redactors' method of
glorifying Marduk is seen in their use of the description of Tiamat
and her monster brood, whom Marduk is made to conquer. To impress the
hearers of the poem with his prowess, this is repeated at length no less
than four times, one god carrying the news of her revolt to another.
Direct proof of the manner in which the later redactors have been
obliged to modify the original Sumerian Creation myth, in consequence of
their incorporation of other elements, may be seen in the Sixth Tablet
of the poem, where Marduk states the reason for man's creation. In the
second lecture we noted how the very words of the principal Sumerian
Creator were put into Marduk's mouth; but the rest of the Semitic god's
speech finds no equivalent in the Sumerian Version and was evidently
inserted in order to reconcile the narrative with its later ingredients.
This will best be seen by printing the two passages in parallel
columns:(1)
(1) The extract from the Sumerian Version, which occurs in
the lower part of the First Column, is here compared with
the Semitic-Babylonian Creation Series, Tablet VI, ll. 6-10
(see _Seven Tablets_, Vol. I, pp. 86 ff.). The comparison is
justified whether we regard the Sumerian speech as a direct
preliminary to man's creation, or as a reassertion of his
duty after his rescue from destruction by the Flood.