Myths of Babylonia and Assyria Part 25

Three of the planets may have been heralds of change. Venus, as "Dilbat", was the "Proclaimer", and both Jupiter and Mercury were called "Face voices of light", and "Heroes of the rising sun" among other names. Jupiter may have been the herald of the "Golden Age" as a morning star. This planet was also a.s.sociated with bronze, as "Kakkub Urud", "the star of bronze", while Mars was "Kakkub Aban Kha-urud,"

"the star of the bronze fish stone". Mercury, the lapis lazuli planet, may have been connected with the black Saturn, the ghost of the dead sun, the demoniac elder G.o.d; in Egypt lapis lazuli was the hair colour of Ra when he grew old, and Egyptologists translate it as black.[336]

The rare and regular appearances of Mercury may have suggested the planet's connection with a recurring Age. Venus as an evening star might be regarded as the herald of the lunar or silver age; she was propitious as a bearded deity and interchanged with Merodach as a seasonal herald.

Connecting Jupiter with the sun as a propitious planet, and with Mars as a destroying planet, Venus with the moon, and Mercury with Saturn, we have left four colour schemes which suggest the Golden, Silvern, Bronze, and Iron Ages. The Greek order of mythical ages may have had a solar significance, beginning as it does with the "golden" period. On the other hand the Indian and Irish systems begin with the Silvern or white lunar period. In India the White Age (Treta Yuga) was the age of perfect men, and in Greece the Golden Age was the age of men who lived like G.o.ds. Thus the first ages in both cases were "Perfect" Ages. The Bronze Age of Greece was the age of notorious fighters and takers of life; in Babylonia the bronze planet Mars was the symbol of the destroying Nergal, G.o.d of war and pestilence, while Jupiter was also a destroyer as Merodach, the slayer of Tiamat. In India the Black Age is the age of wickedness. The Babylonian Saturn, as we have seen, is black, and its G.o.d, Ninip, was the destroying boar, which recalls the black boar of the Egyptian demon (or elder G.o.d) Set. The Greek Cronos was a destroyer even of his own children. All the elder G.o.ds had demoniac traits like the ghosts of human beings.

As the Babylonian lunar zodiac was imported into India before solar worship and the solar zodiac were developed, so too may have been the germs of the Yuga doctrine, which appears to have a long history.

Greece, on the other hand, came under the influence of Babylon at a much later period. In Egypt Ra, the sun G.o.d, was an antediluvian king, and he was followed by Osiris. Osiris was slain by Set, who was depicted sometimes red and sometimes black. There was also a Horus Age.

The Irish system of ages suggests an early cultural drift into Europe, through Asia Minor, and along the uplands occupied by the representatives of the Alpine or Armenoid peoples who have been traced from Hindu Kush to Brittany. The culture of Gaul resembles that of India in certain particulars; both the Gauls and the post-Vedic Aryans, for instance, believed in the doctrine of Transmigration of Souls, and practised "suttee". After the Roman occupation of Gaul, Ireland appears to have been the refuge of Gaulish scholars, who imported their beliefs and traditions and laid the foundations of that brilliant culture which shed l.u.s.tre on the Green Isle in late Pagan and early Christian times.

The part played by the Mitanni people of Aryan speech in distributing Asiatic culture throughout Europe may have been considerable, but we know little or nothing regarding their movements and influence, nor has sufficient evidence been forthcoming to connect them with the cremating invaders of the Bronze Age, who penetrated as far as northern Scotland and Scandinavia. On the other hand it is certain that the Hitt.i.tes adopted the planetary system of Babylonia and pa.s.sed it on to Europeans, including the Greeks. The five planets Ninip, Merodach, Nergal, Ishtar, and Nebo were called by the Greeks after their G.o.ds Kronos, Zeus, Ares, Aphrodite, and Hermes, and by the Romans Saturnus, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, and Mercurius. It must be recognized, however, that these equations were somewhat arbitrary.

Ninip resembled Kronos and Saturnus as a father, but he was also at the same time a son; he was the Egyptian Horus the elder and Horus the younger in one. Merodach was similarly of complex character--a combination of Ea, Anu, Enlil, and Tammuz, who acquired, when exalted by the Amoritic Dynasty of Babylon, the attributes of the thunder G.o.d Adad-Ramman in the form of Amurru, "lord of the mountains". During the Hammurabi Age Amurru was significantly popular in personal names. It is as Amurru-Ramman that Merodach bears comparison with Zeus. He also links with Hercules. Too much must not be made, therefore, of the Greek and Roman identifications of alien deities with their own.

Mulla, the Gaulish mule G.o.d, may have resembled Mars somewhat, but it is a "far cry" from Mars-Mulla to Mars-Nergal, as it is also from the Gaulish Moccus, the boar, called "Mercury", to Nebo, the G.o.d of culture, who was the "Mercury" of the Tigro-Euphrates valley.

Similarly the differences between "Jupiter-Amon" of Egypt and "Jupiter-Merodach" of Babylon were more p.r.o.nounced than the resemblances.

The basal idea in Babylonian astrology appears to be the recognition of the astral bodies as spirits or fates, who exercised an influence over the G.o.ds, the world, and mankind. These were worshipped in groups when they were yet nameless. The group addressed, "Powerful, O sevenfold, one are ye", may have been a constellation consisting of seven stars.[337] The worship of stars and planets, which were identified and named, "seems never to have spread", says Professor Sayce, "beyond the learned cla.s.ses, and to have remained to the last an artificial system. The ma.s.s of the people worshipped the stars as a whole, but it was only as a whole and not individually."[338] The ma.s.ses perpetuated ancient animistic beliefs, like the pre-h.e.l.lenic inhabitants of Greece. "The Pelasgians, as I was informed at Dodona,"

wrote Herodotus, "formerly offered all things indiscriminately to the G.o.ds. They distinguished them by no name or surname, for they were hitherto unacquainted with either; but they called them G.o.ds, which by its etymology means disposers, from observing the orderly disposition and distribution of the various parts of the universe."[339] The oldest deities are those which bore no individual names. They were simply "Fates" or groups called "Sevenfold". The crude giant G.o.ds of Scotland are "Fomhairean" (Fomorians), and do not have individual names as in Ireland. Families and tribes were controlled by the Fates or nameless G.o.ds, which might appear as beasts or birds, or be heard knocking or screaming.

In the Babylonian astral hymns, the star spirits are a.s.sociated with the G.o.ds, and are revealers of the decrees of Fate. "Ye brilliant stars... ye bright ones... to destroy evil did Anu create you.... At thy command mankind was named (created)! Give thou the Word, and with thee let the great G.o.ds stand! Give thou my judgment, make my decision!"[340]

The Indian evidence shows that the constellations, and especially the bright stars, were identified before the planets. Indeed, in Vedic literature there is no certain reference to a single planet, although constellations are named. It seems highly probable that before the Babylonian G.o.ds were a.s.sociated with the astral bodies, the belief obtained that the stars exercised an influence over human lives. In one of the Indian "Forest Books", for instance, reference is made to a man who was "born under the Nakshatra Rohini ".[341] "Nakshatras" are stars in the _Rigveda_ and later, and "lunar mansions" in Brahmanical compositions.[342] "Rohini, 'ruddy', is the name of a conspicuously reddish star, ? Tauri or Aldebaran, and denotes the group of the Hyades."[343] This reference may be dated before 600 B.C., perhaps 800 B.C.

From Greece comes the evidence of Plutarch regarding the principles of Babylonian astrology. "Respecting the planets, which they call _the birth-ruling divinities_, the Chaldeans", he wrote, "lay down that two (Venus and Jupiter) are propitious, and two (Mars and Saturn) malign, and three (Sun, Moon, and Mercury) of a middle nature, and one common." "That is," Mr. Brown comments, "an astrologer would say, these three are propitious with the good, and may be malign with the bad."[344]

Jastrow's views in this connection seem highly controversial. He holds that Babylonian astrology dealt simply with national affairs, and had no concern with "the conditions under which the individual was born"; it did not predict "the fate in store for him". He believes that the Greeks transformed Babylonian astrology and infused it with the spirit of individualism which is a characteristic of their religion, and that they were the first to give astrology a personal significance.

Jastrow also perpetuates the idea that astronomy began with the Greeks. "Several centuries before the days of Alexander the Great," he says, "the Greeks had begun to cultivate the study of the heavens, not for purposes of divination, but prompted by a scientific spirit as an intellectual discipline that might help them to solve the mysteries of the universe." It is possible, however, to overrate the "scientific spirit" of the Greeks, who, like the j.a.panese in our own day, were accomplished borrowers from other civilizations. That astronomy had humble beginnings in Greece as elsewhere is highly probable. The late Mr. Andrew Lang wrote in this connection: "The very oddest example of the survival of the notion that the stars are men and women is found in the _Pax_ of Aristophanes. Trygaeus in that comedy has just made an expedition to heaven. A slave meets him, and asks him: 'Is not the story true, then, that we become stars when we die?' The answer is, 'Certainly'; and Trygaeus points out the star into which Ion of Chios has just been metamorphosed." Mr. Lang added: "Aristophanes is making fun of some popular Greek superst.i.tion". The Eskimos, Persians, Aryo-Indians, Germans, New Zealanders, and others had a similar superst.i.tion.[345]

Jastrow goes on to say that the Greeks "imparted their scientific view of the Universe to the East. They became the teachers of the East in astronomy as in medicine and other sciences, and the credit of having discovered the law of the precession of the equinoxes belongs to Hipparchus, the Greek astronomer, who announced this important theory about the year 130 B.C."[346] Undoubtedly the Greeks contributed to the advancement of the science of astronomy, with which, as other authorities believe, they became acquainted after it had become well developed as a science by the a.s.syrians and Babylonians.

"In return for improved methods of astronomical calculation which,"

Jastrow says, "_it may be a.s.sumed_ (the italics are ours), contact with Greek science gave to the Babylonian astronomers, the Greeks accepted from the Babylonians the names of the constellations of the ecliptic."[347] This is a grudging admission; they evidently accepted more than the mere names.

Jastrow's hypothesis is certainly interesting, especially as he is an Oriental linguist of high repute. But it is not generally accepted.

The sudden advance made by the Tigro-Euphratean astronomers when a.s.syria was at the height of its glory, may have been due to the discoveries made by great native scientists, the Newtons and the Herschels of past ages, who had studied the data acc.u.mulated by generations of astrologers, the earliest recorders of the movements of the heavenly bodies. It is hard to believe that the Greeks made much progress as scientists before they had identified the planets, and become familiar with the Babylonian constellations through the medium of the Hitt.i.tes or the Phoenicians. What is known for certain is that long centuries before the Greek science was heard of, there were scientists in Babylonia. During the Sumerian period "the forms and relations of geometry", says Professor Goodspeed, "were employed for purposes of augury. The heavens were mapped out, and the courses of the heavenly bodies traced to determine the bearing of their movements upon human destinies."[348]

Several centuries before Hipparchus was born, the a.s.syrian kings had in their palaces official astronomers who were able to foretell, with varying degrees of accuracy, when eclipses would take place.

Instructions were sent to various observatories, in the king's name, to send in reports of forthcoming eclipses. A translation of one of these official doc.u.ments sent from the observatory of Babylon to Nineveh, has been published by Professor Harper. The following are extracts from it: "As for the eclipse of the moon about which the king my lord has written to me, a watch was kept for it in the cities of Akkad, Borsippa, and Nippur. We observed it ourselves in the city of Akkad.... And whereas the king my lord ordered me to observe also the eclipse of the sun, I watched to see whether it took place or not, and what pa.s.sed before my eyes I now report to the king my lord. It was an eclipse of the moon that took place.... It was total over Syria, and the shadow fell on the land of the Amorites, the land of the Hitt.i.tes, and in part on the land of the Chaldees." Professor Sayce comments: "We gather from this letter that there were no less than three observatories in Northern Babylonia: one at Akkad, near Sippara; one at Nippur, now Niffer; and one at Borsippa, within sight of Babylon.

As Borsippa possessed a university, it was natural that one of the three observatories should be established there."[349]

It is evident that before the astronomers at Nineveh could foretell eclipses, they had achieved considerable progress as scientists. The data at their disposal probably covered nearly two thousand years. Mr.

Brown, junior, calculates that the signs of the Zodiac were fixed in the year 2084 B.C.[350] These star groups do not now occupy the positions in which they were observed by the early astronomers, because the revolving earth is rocking like a top, with the result that the pole does not always keep pointing at the same spot in the heavens. Each year the meeting-place of the imaginary lines of the ecliptic and equator is moving westward at the rate of about fifty seconds. In time--ages hence--the pole will circle round to the point it spun at when the constellations were named by the Babylonians. It is by calculating the period occupied by this world-curve that the date 2084 B.C. has been arrived at.

As a result of the world-rocking process, the present-day "signs of the Zodiac" do not correspond with the constellations. In March, for instance, when the sun crosses the equator it enters the sign of the Ram (Aries), but does not reach the constellation till the 20th, as the comparative table shows on p. 308.

When "the ecliptic was marked off into the twelve regions" and the signs of the Zodiac were designated, "the year of three hundred sixty-five and one-fourth days was known", says Goodspeed, "though the common year was reckoned according to twelve months of thirty days each[351], and equated with the solar year by intercalating a month at the proper times.... The month was divided into weeks of seven days.... The clepsydra and the sundial were Babylonian inventions for measuring time."[352]

The sundial of Ahaz was probably of Babylonian design. When the shadow went "ten degrees backward" (_2 Kings_, xx, II) amba.s.sadors were sent from Babylon "to enquire of the wonder that was done in the land" (_2 Chron._ x.x.xii, 31). It was believed that the king's illness was connected with the incident. According to astronomical calculation there was a partial eclipse of the sun which was visible at Jerusalem on 11th January, 689 B.C, about 11.30 a.m. When the upper part of the solar disc was obscured, the shadow on the dial was strangely affected.

The Babylonian astrologers in their official doc.u.ments were more concerned regarding international omens than those which affected individuals. They made observations not only of the stars, but also the moon, which, as has been shown, was one of their planets, and took note of the clouds and the wind likewise.

As portions of the heavens were a.s.signed to various countries, so was the moon divided into four quarters for the same purpose--the upper part for the north, Gutium, the lower for the south, Akkad or Babylonia, the eastern part for Elam, and the western for Amurru. The crescent was also divided in like manner; looking southward the astrologers a.s.signed the right horn to the west and the left to the east. In addition, certain days and certain months were connected with the different regions. Lunar astrology was therefore of complicated character. When the moon was dim at the particular phase which was connected with Amurru, it was believed that the fortunes of that region were in decline, and if it happened to shine brightly in the Babylonian phase the time was considered auspicious to wage war in the west. Great importance was attached to eclipses, which were fortunately recorded, with the result that the ancient astronomers were ultimately enabled to forecast them.

The destinies of the various states in the four quarters were similarly influenced by the planets. When Venus, for instance, rose brightly in the field of Anu, it was a "prosperor" for Elam; if it were dim it foretold misfortune. Much importance was also attached to the positions occupied by the constellations when the planets were propitious or otherwise; no king would venture forth on an expedition under a "yoke of inauspicious stars".

Biblical references to the stars make mention of well-known Babylonian constellations:

Canst thou bind the sweet influences of Pleiades, or loose the bands of Orion? Canst thou bring forth Mazzaroth (? the Zodiac) in his season? or canst thou guide Arcturus with his sons? Knowest thou the ordinances of heaven? canst thou set the dominion thereof in the earth? _Job_, x.x.xviii, 31-33. Which maketh Arcturus, Orion, and Pleiades, and the chambers of the south. _Job_, ix, 9. Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion, and turneth the shadow of death into the morning, and maketh the day dark with night.

_Amos_, v, 8.

The so-called science of astrology, which had origin in ancient Babylonia and spread eastward and west, is not yet extinct, and has its believers even in our own country at the present day, although they are not nearly so numerous as when Shakespeare made Malvolio read:

In my stars I am above thee; but be not afraid of greatness: some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon 'em. Thy Fates open their hands....[353]

or when Byron wrote:

Ye stars! which are the poetry of heaven!

If in your bright leaves we would read the fate Of men and empires--'t is to be forgiven That in our aspirations to be great, Our destinies o'erleap their mortal state And claim a kindred with you....[354]

Our grave astronomers are no longer astrologers, but they still call certain constellations by the names given them in Babylonia. Every time we look at our watches we are reminded of the ancient mathematicians who counted on their fingers and multiplied 10 by 6, to give us minutes and seconds, and divided the day and the night into twelve hours by multiplying six by the two leaden feet of Time. The past lives in the present.

CHAPTER XIV.

ASHUR THE NATIONAL G.o.d OF a.s.sYRIA

Derivation of Ashur--Ashur as Anshar and Anu--Animal forms of Sky G.o.d--Anshar as Star G.o.d on the Celestial Mount--Isaiah's Parable--Symbols of World G.o.d and World Hill--Dance of the Constellations and Dance of Satyrs--Goat G.o.ds and Bull G.o.ds--Symbols of G.o.ds as "High Heads"--The Winged Disc--Human Figure as Soul of the Sun--Ashur as Hercules and Gilgamesh--G.o.ds differentiated by Cults--Fertility G.o.ds as War G.o.ds--Ashur's Tree and Animal forms--Ashur as Nisroch--Lightning Symbol in Disc--Ezekiel's Reference to Life Wheel--Indian Wheel and Discus--Wheels of Shamash and Ahura-Mazda--Hitt.i.te Winged Disc--Solar Wheel causes Seasonal Changes--Bonfires to stimulate Solar Deity--Burning of G.o.ds and Kings--Magical Ring and other Symbols of Scotland--Ashur's Wheel of Life and Eagle Wings--King and Ashur--Ashur a.s.sociated with Lunar, Fire, and Star G.o.ds--The Osirian Clue--Hitt.i.te and Persian Influences.

The rise of a.s.syria brings into prominence the national G.o.d Ashur, who had been the city G.o.d of a.s.shur, the ancient capital. When first met with, he is found to be a complex and mystical deity, and the problem of his origin is consequently rendered exceedingly difficult.

Philologists are not agreed as to the derivation of his name, and present as varied views as they do when dealing with the name of Osiris. Some give Ashur a geographical significance, urging that its original form was Aushar, "water field"; others prefer the renderings "Holy", "the Beneficent One", or "the Merciful One"; while not a few regard Ashur as simply a dialectic form of the name of Anshar, the G.o.d who, in the a.s.syrian version, or copy, of the Babylonian Creation myth, is chief of the "host of heaven", and the father of Anu, Ea, and Enlil.

If Ashur is to be regarded as an abstract solar deity, who was developed from a descriptive place name, it follows that he had a history, like Anu or Ea, rooted in Naturalism or Animism. We cannot a.s.sume that his strictly local character was produced by modes of thought which did not obtain elsewhere. The colonists who settled at a.s.shur no doubt imported beliefs from some cultural area; they must have either given recognition to a G.o.d, or group of G.o.ds, or regarded the trees, hills, rivers, sun, moon, and stars, and the animals as manifestations of the "self power" of the Universe, before they undertook the work of draining and cultivating the "water field" and erecting permanent homes. Those who settled at Nineveh, for instance, believed that they were protected by the G.o.ddess Nina, the patron deity of the Sumerian city of Nina. As this G.o.ddess was also worshipped at Lagash, and was one of the many forms of the Great Mother, it would appear that in ancient times deities had a tribal rather than a geographical significance.

If the view is accepted that Ashur is Anshar, it can be urged that he was imported from Sumeria. "Out of that land (Shinar)", according to the Biblical reference, "went forth a.s.shur, and builded Nineveh."[355]

a.s.shur, or Ashur (identical, Delitzsch and Jastrow believe, with Ashir),[356] may have been an eponymous hero--a deified king like Etana, or Gilgamesh, who was regarded as an incarnation of an ancient G.o.d. As Anshar was an astral or early form of Anu, the Sumerian city of origin may have been Erech, where the worship of the mother G.o.ddess was also given prominence.

Damascius rendered Anshar's name as "a.s.soros", a fact usually cited to establish Ashur's connection with that deity. This writer stated that the Babylonians pa.s.sed over "Sige,[357] the mother, that has begotten heaven and earth", and made two--Apason (Apsu), the husband, and Tauthe (Tiawath or Tiamat), whose son was Moymis (Mummu). From these another progeny came forth--Lache and Lachos (Lachmu and Lachamu).

These were followed by the progeny Kissare and a.s.soros (Kishar and Anshar), "from which were produced Anos (Anu), Illillos (Enlil) and Aos (Ea). And of Aos and Dauke (Dawkina or Damkina) was born Belos (Bel Merodach), whom they say is the Demiurge"[358] (the world artisan who carried out the decrees of a higher being).

Lachmu and Lachamu, like the second pair of the ancient group of Egyptian deities, probably symbolized darkness as a reproducing and sustaining power. Anshar was apparently an impersonation of the night sky, as his son Anu was of the day sky. It may have been believed that the soul of Anshar was in the moon as Nannar (Sin), or in a star, or that the moon and the stars were manifestations of him, and that the soul of Anu was in the sun or the firmament, or that the sun, firmament, and the wind were forms of this "self power".

If Ashur combined the attributes of Anshar and Anu, his early mystical character may be accounted for. Like the Indian Brahma, he may have been in his highest form an impersonation, or symbol, of the "self power" or "world soul" of developed Naturalism--the "creator", "preserver", and "destroyer" in one, a G.o.d of water, earth, air, and sky, of sun, moon, and stars, fire and lightning, a G.o.d of the grove, whose essence was in the fig, or the fir cone, as it was in all animals. The Egyptian G.o.d Amon of Thebes, who was a.s.sociated with water, earth, air, sky, sun and moon, had a ram form, and was "the hidden one", was developed from one of the elder eight G.o.ds; in the Pyramid Texts he and his consort are the fourth pair. When Amon was fused with the specialized sun G.o.d Ra, he was placed at the head of the Ennead as the Creator. "We have traces", says Jastrow, "of an a.s.syrian myth of Creation in which the sphere of creator is given to Ashur."[359]

Before a single act of creation was conceived of, however, the early peoples recognized the eternity of matter, which was permeated by the "self power" of which the elder deities were vague phases. These were too vague, indeed, to be worshipped individually. The forms of the "self power" which were propitiated were trees, rivers, hills, or animals. As indicated in the previous chapter, a tribe worshipped an animal or natural object which dominated its environment. The animal might be the source of the food supply, or might have to be propitiated to ensure the food supply. Consequently they identified the self power of the Universe with the particular animal with which they were most concerned. One section identified the spirit of the heavens with the bull and another with the goat. In India Dyaus was a bull, and his spouse, the earth mother, Prithivi, was a cow. The Egyptian sky G.o.ddess Hathor was a cow, and other G.o.ddesses were identified with the hippopotamus, the serpent, the cat, or the vulture. Ra, the sun G.o.d, was identified in turn with the cat, the a.s.s, the bull, the ram, and the crocodile, the various animal forms of the local deities he had absorbed. The eagle in Babylonia and India, and the vulture, falcon, and mysterious Phoenix in Egypt, were identified with the sun, fire, wind, and lightning. The animals a.s.sociated with the G.o.d Ashur were the bull, the eagle, and the lion.

He either absorbed the attributes of other G.o.ds, or symbolized the "Self Power" of which the animals were manifestations.