GENERAL TRAITS OF THE OLD BABYLONIAN PANTHEON.
The Babylonian religion in the oldest form known to us may best be
described as a mixture of local and nature cults. Starting with that
phase of religious beliefs known as Animism, which has been ascertained
to be practically universal in primitive society, the Babylonians, from
ascribing life to the phenomena of nature, to trees, stones, and plants,
as well as to such natural events, as storm, rain, and wind, and as a
matter of course to the great luminaries and to the stars--would, on the
one hand, be led to invoke an infinite number of spirits who were
supposed to be, in some way, the embodiment of the life that manifested
itself in such diverse manners; and yet, on the other hand, this
tendency would be restricted by the experience which would point to
certain spirits, as exercising a more decisive influence upon the
affairs of man than others. The result of this would be to give a
preponderance to the worship of the sun and moon and the water, and of
such natural phenomena as rain, wind, and storms, with their
accompaniment of thunder and lightning, as against the countless sprites
believed to be lurking everywhere. The latter, however, would not for
this reason be ignored altogether. Since everything was endowed with
life, there was not only a spirit of the tree which produced the fruit,
but there were spirits in every field. To them the ground belonged, and
upon their mercy depended the success or failure of the produce. To
secure the favor of the rain and the sun was not sufficient to the
agriculturist; he was obliged to obtain the protection of the guardian
spirits of the soil, in order to be sure of reaping the fruit of his
labors. Again, when through association, the group of arable plots grew
into a hamlet, and then through continued growth into a town, the
latter, regarded as a unit by virtue of its political organization under
a chief ruler, would necessarily be supposed to have some special power
presiding over its destinies, protecting it from danger, and ready to
defend the rights and privileges of those who stood immediately under
its jurisdiction. Each Babylonian city, large or small, would in this
way obtain a deity devoted to its welfare, and as the city grew in
extent, absorbing perhaps others lying about, and advancing in this way
to the dignity of a district, the city's god would correspondingly
increase his jurisdiction. As it encroached upon the domain of other
local deities, it would by conquest annihilate the latter, or reduce
them to a subservient position. The new regime would be expressed by
making the conquered deity, the servant of the victorious, or the two
might be viewed in the relation of father to son; and again, in the
event of a peaceful amalgamation of two cities or districts, the
protecting deities might join hands in a compact, mirroring the
partnership represented by the conjugal tie. In this way, there arose in
Babylon a selection, as it were, out of an infinite variety of
personified forces, manifest or concealed, that at one time may have
been objects of worship. The uniformity of the spirit world, which is
the characteristic trait of primitive Animism, gave way to a
differentiation regulated by the political development and the social
growth of Babylonia. The more important natural forces became gods, and
the inferior ones were, as a general thing, relegated to the secondary
position of mere sprites, like the _jinns_, in Arabic beliefs. Only in
the case of the guardian spirit of an entire city or district, would
there result--and even this not invariably--an elevation to the grade of
deity, in the proper sense of the word. In many cases, however, this
guardian deity might be a heavenly body, as the moon or sun or stars,
all of which were supposed to regulate the fate of mankind or some force
of nature, as the rain or the storm; and even if this were not
originally the case, the protecting deity might, in the course of time,
become identified with one of the forces of nature; and, if for no other
reason, simply because of the prominence which the worship of the force
in question acquired in the place. As a consequence, the mixture of
local and nature cults is so complete that it is often impossible to
distinguish the one from the other. It is hard in many cases to
determine whether the deity which is identified with a certain city was
originally a mere local spirit watching over a certain restricted
territory, or a personification of a natural force associated in some
way with a certain section of Babylonia.