THE CONSORTS OF THE GODS.
Attention has already been directed to the comparatively small number of
female deities that appear in the inscriptions of the first period of
Babylonian history. We must, however, not conclude from this, that such
deities did not exist in larger numbers. On the contrary, we may feel
certain that every god had his consort, and in some cases more than one.
Several instances of such consorts have been furnished in this chapter;
but if the consorts of the larger number of these gods are unknown, it
is because of the insignificant role that these consorts played. The
goddesses of Babylonia, with few exceptions, become mere shadowy
reflections of the gods, with but little independent power, and in some
cases none at all. They owe what popularity they enjoyed to their
association with their male companions. In consequence of this inferior
role played by the female deities, the tendency becomes more pronounced,
as we pass from the first to the second period of Babylonian history, to
reduce by assimilation the small number that have independent
attributes, until we reach a condition in which we have practically only
one goddess, appearing under many forms. It is only in the religious
texts, and in some phases of the popular beliefs, that goddesses retain
a certain degree of prominence. So, a goddess Allat, as we shall see,
plays an important part as the chief goddess of the subterranean cave
that houses the dead. Allat appears to have been originally a consort of
the famous Bel of Nippur, but through association with Nergal, who
becomes the chief god of the lower world, almost all traces of the
original character of the goddess disappear. Again, Gula, the consort of
Nin-ib, while occasionally mentioned in the historical texts of the
second and third period, and under the form Ma-ma, as an element in a
proper name belonging to the oldest period,[109] is more frequently
invoked in incantations as the healer of disease. The same is the case
with other goddesses; so that we may conclude that from the earliest
times, the Babylonian religion shared the trait so marked in all Semitic
cults, of a combination of the male and female principle in the
personification of the powers that controlled the fate of man. In part,
no doubt, the minor importance of women, so far as the outward aspects
of social and political life were concerned, is a factor in the
altogether secondary importance attaching to the consorts of the gods;
but we may feel certain that there was no god, however restricted in his
jurisdiction, or however limited in the number of his worshippers, who
had not associated with him a female companion, who follows him as the
shadow follows the substance.
FOOTNOTES:
[109] According to Hilprecht, _ib._ p. 48, note 6. For _Ma-ma_ and
_Me-me_, as names of Gula, see chapter viii.