THE MINOR GODS IN THE PERIOD OF HAMMURABI.
Coming back now to the historical texts and placing the minor deities
together that occur in the inscriptions of Hammurabi and his successors
down through the restoration of native rulers on the throne of
Babylonia, we obtain the following list: Zakar, Lugal-mit-tu (?),
Nin-dim-su, Ba-kad, Pap-u, Belit-ekalli, Shumalia, Shukamuna, Gula,
Shir, Shubu, Belit of Akkad, Malik, Bunene, Nin-igi-nangar-bu,
Gushgin-banda, Nin-kurra, Nin-zadim. In view of the limited amount of
historical material at our disposal for the second period of Babylonian
history, the list of course does not permit us to form a definite notion
of the total number of minor gods that were still occasionally invoked
by the side of the great gods. By comparison, however, with the pantheon
so far as ascertained of the first period, the conclusion is justified
that with the systematization of cults and beliefs characteristic of the
Hammurabi, a marked tendency appears towards a reduction of the
pantheon, a weeding out of the numerous local cults, their absorption by
the larger ones, and the relegation of the minor gods of only local
significance to a place among the spirits and demons of the Babylonian
religion. Brief statements of these minor gods will suffice to indicate
their general character. Of most of the gods in this list there is but
little we know as yet beyond the name. Some of them will occur again in
the Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian historical texts, others in the hymns
and incantations; some are only found in the period we are considering,
though with the material constantly increasing we must beware of drawing
any conclusions from the fact of a single mention. 'Zakar,' signifying,
probably, 'heroic,' appears to have been worshipped in Nippur, where a
wall known as the 'wall of Zakar' was built by Samsu-iluna. From the
fact that this wall was sacred to Nin-khar-sag or Belit, we may,
perhaps, be permitted to conclude that 'Zakar' stood in close
relationship to Bel and Belit of Nippur,--possibly a son,--or, at all
events, belonged to the inner circle of deities worshipped in the old
city sacred to the great Bel.
Another wall in Nippur was dedicated by this Samsu-iluna to a god whose
name is provisionally read by Winckler, Lugal-mit-tu.[196] Lugal,
signifying 'king,' is an element that enters as an ideograph in the
composition of the names of several deities. Thus we have Lugal-edinna,
'king of the field,' which is the equivalent of Nergal, and again for
the same god, the combination Lugal-gira, which is, as Jensen[197] has
shown, 'raging king,' and a title of Nergal in his character as the god
of pestilence and war. Nin-dim-su, Ba-kad, Pap-u, Belit-ekalli,
Shumalia, and Shukamuna occur at the close of the inscription of
Melishikhu, among the gods asked to curse the transgressors of the royal
decree.[198] That some of these are Cassite deities imported into
Babylonia, and whose position in the pantheon was therefore of a
temporary character, there seems little reason to question. Ba-kad may,
and Shumalia quite certainly does, belong to this class. As for
Shukamuna, the fact that Agumkakrimi, who places his title, 'king of
Cassite land,' before that of Akkad and Babylon, opens his inscription
with the declaration that he is the glorious offspring of Shukamuna,
fixes the character of this god beyond all doubt; and Delitzsch has
shown[199] that this god was regarded by the Babylonian schoolmen as the
equivalent of their own Nergal. Shukamuna, accordingly, was the Cassite
god of war, who, like Nergal, symbolized the mid-day sun,--that is, the
raging and destructive power. Shumalia is the consort of Shukamuna[200],
and is invoked as the 'lady of the shining mountains.' Nin-dim-su is a
title of Ea, as the patron of arts. Belit-ekalli--_i.e._, Belit of the
palace--appears as the consort of Ninib, the epithet 'ekalli' being
added to specify what Belit is meant, and to avoid confusion with the
consort of Bel. At the same time it must be confessed that the precise
force of the qualification of 'Belit of the palace' (or temple) escapes
us. Ninib's consort, as we know from other sources, was Gula.[201] This
name is in some way connected with an Assyrian stem signifying 'great,'
and it is at least worthy of note that the word for palace is written by
a species of punning etymology with two signs, e=house and gallu=large.
The question suggests itself whether the title 'Belit-ekalli' may not
have its rise in a further desire to play upon the goddess's name, just
as her title Kallat-Eshara (bride of Eshara, or earth) rests upon such a
play. Such plays on names are characteristic of the Semites, and indeed
in a measure are common to all ancient nations, to whom the name always
meant much more than to us. Every _nomen_, as constituting the essence
of an object, was always and above all an _omen_. It is, therefore,
plausible to suppose that titles of the gods should have been chosen in
part under the influence of this idea.[202] A further suggestion that I
would like to offer is that 'ekallu,' as temple or palace (lit., large
house), may be one of the numerous names of the nether world. A parallel
would be furnished by Ekur, which signifies both 'temple' and
'earth,'[203] and is also one of the names of the gathering-place of the
dead. Gula, being the goddess of the nether world who restores the dead
to life, would be appropriately called 'the lady of the nether world.'
One should like to know more of Pap-u (the phonetic reading unknown),
who is called the offspring of Eshara, and 'the lord of the boundary.'
Eshara, as Jensen has shown,[204] is a poetical name for earth. The god
Ninib, in his capacity as a god of agriculture, is called the 'product
of Eshara.'[205] Pap-u, therefore, must be a god somewhat of the same
character--a conclusion which is borne out by the description given of
him as the protector of the boundary. He is probably one of the numerous
forms of boundary gods that are met with among all nations. That we do
not encounter more in Babylonia is due to the decided tendency that has
been noted towards a centralization of power in a limited number of
deities. Instead of gods of boundaries, we have numerous demons and
spirits in the case of the developed Babylonian religion, into whose
hands the care of preserving the rights of owners to their lands is
entrusted. Symbols of these spirits--serpents, unicorns, scorpions, and
the like--are added on the monuments which were placed at the
boundaries, and on which the terms were specified that justified the
land tenure. To this class of monuments the name of 'Kudurru,' or
'boundary' stones, was given by the Babylonians themselves. The
inscription on which the name of Pap-u occurs belongs to this class; and
he is invoked, as already said, along with many other gods--in fact,
with the whole or a goodly portion of the pantheon. It would seem,
therefore, that we have in Pap-u a special boundary god who has survived
in that role from a more primitive period of Babylonian culture. He
occupies a place usually assigned to the powerful demons who are
regarded as the real owners of the soil.[206]
Perhaps the most interesting of the minor deities during this second
period is
Gula.
As has just been stated, she is the consort of Ninib. She is not
mentioned in any of the inscriptions of this period till we come to the
days of Nebuchadnezzar I., who invokes her as the bride of
Eshara,--_i.e._, of the earth.[207] We also meet with her name in that
of several individuals, Balatsu-Gula[208] and Arad-Gula,[209] and we
have seen that she is also known as _Damu_ and _Mamu_, or _Meme_. We
have a proof, therefore, of her cult being firmly established at an
early period of Babylonian history. Her role is that of a 'life-giver,'
in the widest sense of the word. She is called the 'great physician,'
who both preserves the body in health and who removes sickness and
disease by the 'touch of her hand.' Gula is the one who leads the dead
to a new life. She shares this power, however, with her husband Ninib.
Her power can be exerted for evil as well as for good. She is appealed
to, to strike the enemy with blindness; she can bring on the very
diseases that she is able to heal, and such is the stress laid upon
these qualities that she is even addressed as the 'creator of mankind.'
But although it is the 'second' birth of mankind over which she
presides, she does not belong to the class of deities whose concern is
with the dead rather than the living. The Babylonians, as we shall have
occasion to point out, early engaged in speculations regarding the life
after death, and, as a result, there was developed a special pantheon
for the nether world. Gula occupies a rather unique place intermediate,
as it were, between the gods of the living and the gods of the dead.
Of the other deities occurring in the inscription of this same
Nebuchadnezzar I. it is sufficient to note that two, Shir and Shubu, are
enumerated among the gods of Bit-Khabban. They were, therefore, local
deities of some towns that never rose to sufficient importance to insure
their patrons a permanent place in the Babylonian pantheon. 'Belit of
Akkad,' whom Nebuchadnezzar invokes, is none other than the great Belit,
the consort of Bel. 'Akkad' is here used for Babylonia, and the
qualification is added to distinguish her from other 'ladies,' as,
_e.g._, 'Belit-ekalli,' who, we have seen, was Gula.
Malik and Bunene.
Upon reaching so late a period as the days of Nabubaliddin (_c._ 850
B.C.), it becomes doubtful whether we are justified in including the
additional deities occurring in his inscription among the Babylonian
pantheon of the second period. The occurrence of some of these gods in
the religious literature is a presumption in favor of regarding them as
ancient creations, rather than due to later influences. Certainly this
appears to be the case with Malik and Bunene, who, with Shamash, form a
triad that constitutes the chief object of worship in the great temple
E-babbara at Sippar, to whose restored cult Nabubaliddin devotes
himself. Both names, moreover, occur as parts of proper names in the age
of Hammurabi. Malik--_i.e._, ruler--is one of the names frequently
assigned to Shamash, just as the god's consort was known as Malkatu, but
for all that Malik is not the same as Shamash. Accompanying the
inscription of Nabubaliddin is a design[210] representing the sun-god
seated in his shrine. Before him on a table rests a wheel, and attached
to the wheel are cords held by two figures, who are evidently directing
the course of the wheel. These two figures are Malik and Bunene, a
species of attendants, therefore, on the sun-god, who drive the fiery
chariot that symbolized the great orb. Bunene, through association with
Malik, becomes the latter's consort, and it is interesting to observe
the extent to which the tendency of the Babylonian religion to conceive
the gods in pairs goes. Bunene is not the only instance of an originally
male deity becoming through various circumstances the female consort to
another. Originally, Malik may have been a name under which the sun-god
was worshipped at some place, for the conception that makes him the
chariot-driver to Shamash appears to be late. The absorption by the
greater sun-cults (at Sippar and Larsa more particularly) of the lesser
ones leads to the complete transfer of the names of minor sun-deities to
the great Shamash, but in some instances the minor deities continue to
lead a shadowy existence in some role of service to the greater ones.
Nin-igi-nangar-bu, Gushgin-banda, Nin-kurra, and Nin-zadim.
We have seen that Ea, among other powers assigned to him, was regarded
as the god of fine arts,--in the first instance as the god of the
smithy, because of the antiquity and importance of the smith's art, and
then of art in general, including especially the production of great
statues. In accordance with this conception, Nabubaliddin declares that
it was through the wisdom of Ea that he succeeded in manufacturing the
great image of Shamash that was set up by him in the temple at Sippar.
But in the days of Nabubaliddin the arts had been differentiated into
various branches, and this differentiation was expressed by assigning to
each branch some patron god who presided over that section. In this way,
the old belief that art comes to men from the gods survived, while at
the same time it entered upon new phases.[211] Accordingly, Nabubaliddin
assigns several deities who act the part of assistants to Ea. The names
of these deities point to their functions. Nin-igi-nangar-bu is the
'lord who presides over metal-workers'; Gushgin-banda, 'brilliant
chief,' is evidently the patron of those skilled in the working of the
bright metals; Nin-kurra, 'lord of mountain,' the patron of those that
quarried the stones; while Nin-zadim is the patron of sculpture. Ea
stands above these as a general overseer, but the four classes of
laborers symbolized by gods indicate the manner of artistic construction
in the advanced state of Babylonian art, and of the various distinct
professions to which this art gave birth. In a certain sense, of course,
these four gods associated with Ea belong to the Babylonian pantheon,
but not in the same sense in which Ea, for example, or the other gods
discussed in this chapter, belong to it. They cannot even be said to be
gods of a minor order--they are hardly anything more than
personifications of certain phenomena that have their source in the
human intellect. In giving to these personified powers the determinative
indicative of deity, the Babylonian schoolmen were not conscious of
expressing anything more than their belief in the divine origin of the
power and skill exercised by man. To represent such power as a god was
the only way in which the personification could at all be effected under
the conditions presented by Babylonian beliefs. When, therefore, we meet
with such gods as Nin-zadim, 'lord of sculpture,' it is much the same as
when in the Old Testament we are told that Tubal-cain was the 'father'
of those that work in metals, and where similarly other arts are traced
back to a single source. 'Father' in Oriental hyperbole signifies
'source, originator, possessor, or patron,' and, indeed, includes all
these ideas. The Hebrew writer, rising to a higher level of belief,
conceives the arts to have originated through some single personage
endowed with divine powers;[212] the Babylonian, incapable as yet of
making this distinction, ascribes both the origin and execution of the
art directly to a god. In this way, new deities were apparently created
even at an advanced stage of the Babylonian religion, but deities that
differed totally from those that are characteristic of the earlier
periods. The differentiation of the arts, and the assignment of a patron
to each branch, reflect the thoughts and the aspirations of a later age.
These views must have arisen under an impulse to artistic creation that
was called forth by unusual circumstances, and I venture to think that
this impulse is to be traced to the influence of the Assyrian rulers,
whose greatest ambition, next to military glory, was to leave behind
them artistic monuments of themselves that might unfold to later ages a
tale of greatness and of power. Sculpture and works in metal were two
arts that flourished in a special degree in the days when Assyria was
approaching the zenith of her glory. Nabubaliddin's reign falls within
this period; and we must, therefore, look from this time on for traces
of Assyrian influence in the culture, the art, and also to some extent
in the religious beliefs of the southern district of Mesopotamia.
FOOTNOTES:
[196] The text is defective at the point where the god's name
is mentioned. See _Keils Bibl._ 3, 1, p. 133. King reads,
Lugal-diri-tu-gab.
[197] _Kosmologie_, pp. 481 _seq._
[198] Belser, _Beitraege zur Assyr._ ii. 203, col. vi.
[199] _Kossaer_, pp. 25-27.
[200] Delitzsch, _Kossaer_, p. 33.
[201] See above, p. 105.
[202] Examples of punning etymologies on names of gods are frequent. See
Jensen's discussion of Nergal for examples of various plays upon the
name of the god. _Kosmologie_, pp. 185 _seq._
[203] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, pp. 185 _seq._ and p. 218.
[204] _Kosmologie_, p. 195.
[205] Rawlinson, i. 29, 16.
[206] This notion that the ground belongs to the gods, and that man is
only a tenant, survives to a late period in Semitic religions. The
belief underlies the Pentateuchal enactments regarding the holding of
the soil, which is only to be temporary. See W. R. Smith, _Religion of
the Semites_, pp. 91 _seq._
[207] In Babylonian, _Kallat Eshara_, with another play upon her name.
See above, p. 173.
[208] _I.e._, (Protect) his life, O Gula.
[209] Servant of Gula.
[210] See V.R. pl. 60.
[211] To this day in the Orient, fine productions of man's skill are
attributed to the influence of hidden spirits, good or bad, as the case
may be.
[212] This position does not, of course, exclude the fact that in the
original form of the tradition, Tubal-cain, Naamah, and other personages
in the fourth chapter of Genesis were deities.