The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Part 18

Ea, who unlocks fountains. } For the southern } gates.

Belit ilani,[329] who increases the offspring. } Ashur, who permits the king to grow old, and protects the troops.--For the inner wall.

Nin-ib, who lays the foundations of the city.--For the outer wall.

The order here is dictated by the directions of the gates. Elsewhere he sets up the group Ea, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Ramman, Nin-ib, and their consorts.

Sennacherib's fuller group consists of Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Bel (_i.e._, Marduk), Nabu, Nergal, Ishtar of Nineveh, and Ishtar of Arbela--only eight. But at the close of one of his building inscriptions[330] he invokes some twenty deities, adding to these eight, Nusku, Khani, Gaga, Sherua, Nin-gal, a G.o.d Azag-sir, and Nin-ib under three different forms; but it is evident that most of these are added to give effect and solemnity. They do not form part of the active pantheon. His successor, Esarhaddon, sets up various groups. At one time he enumerates Ashur, Sin, Shamash, Nabu, Marduk, Ishtar of Nineveh, Ishtar of Arbela; at another he prefers different combinations of these G.o.ds. Ashurbanabal is more consistent than most of the a.s.syrian rulers, and furnishes at the same time the best list. While he, too, frequently mentions only a few deities, grouping three or four together, his longer series consists, with but one or two exceptions, invariably of the following, and who always occur in the same order: Ashur, Belit, Sin, Shamash, Ramman, Bel (_i.e._, Marduk), Nabu, Ishtar of Nineveh, the queen of Kidmuru, Ishtar of Arbela, Nin-ib, Nergal, and Nusku--thirteen in all. Of these, as we have seen, only some were actively worshipped at all times in a.s.syria; as for the others, the popularity of their cult varied from age to age, now being actively carried on under the stimulus afforded by the erection or improvement of an edifice sacred to the G.o.d, and again falling into comparative insignificance; but formally, at least, all these G.o.ds were regarded at all times as forming part of the pantheon of the 'great G.o.ds.' The testimony of Ashurbanabal thus becomes valuable as a proof that to the latest days of the a.s.syrian monarchy, the attachment to these G.o.ds was still strong enough to merit the formal acknowledgments of the king to them on all occasions, and that through their combined aid the glorious achievements of the past and present were attained.

FOOTNOTES:

[328] Cylinder, ll. 67-73.

[329] Ea's consort; see above, p. 231.

[330] Meissner-Rost, _Bauinschriften Sanherib's_, p. 99.

CHAPTER XIV.

THE NEO-BABYLONIAN PERIOD.

When upon the fall of the a.s.syrian empire, in 606 B.C., Babylonia regained her full measure of independence, Marduk once more obtained undisputed sway at the head of the pantheon. True, so far as Babylonia was concerned, Marduk was always the acknowledged head, but during the period that a.s.syria held Babylonia in a more or less rigid form of subjection it was inevitable that Ashur should lower the prestige of Marduk. When the kings of a.s.syria paid their respects to Marduk, it was always as second in rank to Ashur; and, what is more, they claimed Marduk and the other G.o.ds of Babylonia as their own, and as upholders of their own sovereignty. When the kings feel impelled to invade the southern districts, they not only claim to be under the protection of the Babylonian G.o.ds, but they carry these G.o.ds with them into the land to be invaded. 'Bel and the G.o.ds of Akkad leave a.s.syria and go to Babylonia' is the official term in which a campaign against Babylonia is described.[331] In the eyes of the Babylonians such a haughty a.s.sumption on the part of the a.s.syrians must have been regarded as humiliating to Marduk, Nabu, and their a.s.sociates.

The state of affairs changed when Nebopola.s.sar at the end of the seventh century once more claimed independent control over Babylonia. Marduk triumphs over Ashur. He is once more the great G.o.d, lord of G.o.ds, supreme king of the Igigi, the father of the Anunnaki--all t.i.tles that the a.s.syrians were fond of heaping upon Ashur. One feels the anxiety of Nebopola.s.sar to emphasize the new order of things by attributing once more to Marduk what was formerly claimed for Ashur. The successor of Nebopola.s.sar, the great Nebuchadnezzar, continues the policy of his father. He neglects no opportunity for exalting Marduk as the king, the creator, the leader of the G.o.ds, the lord of everything, the merciful one, the light of the G.o.ds, the all-wise. Nabu shares the honors with Marduk. Nebopola.s.sar, indeed, accords to Nabu an equal share, and he does not hesitate at times to place the name Nabu before that of Marduk.[332] He does not speak of Nabu as the son of Marduk, and seems to be at particular pains to emphasize the equality of Nabu with Marduk.

In this respect Nebopola.s.sar presents a contrast to Hammurabi, who, it will be recalled, made an attempt to suppress the Nabu cult.[333]

Nebopola.s.sar, however, does not go to the extent of endeavoring to make Nabu supersede Marduk. He contents himself with manifesting his partiality for the former, and it is probably no accident that both his official name and that of his son contain the G.o.d Nabu as one of their elements, and not Marduk. One is inclined to suspect that this popularity of the Nabu cult is a trace of a.s.syrian influence. But whatever may have been Nebopola.s.sar's intention in exalting Nabu at the cost of Marduk, Nebuchadnezzar restores the old relationship between the two. For him Nabu is again merely the son of Marduk, and he honors Nabu in this capacity. Like the a.s.syrian Nabu, the G.o.d places the sceptre in the king's hands, but he is, after all, only the supreme messenger of Marduk. In the closing days of the Babylonian monarchy a more serious attempt, it would appear, was made to displace Marduk. Nabonnedos formed the design of replacing both Marduk and Nabu by the cult of Shamash. He incurs the ill-will of the priests by paying much more attention to the restoration of the various Shamash temples in Babylonia than would appear to be consistent with devotion to Marduk. Cyrus, therefore, in his conquest of Babylonia, sets up the claim of being the savior of Marduk's honor.[334]

The Neo-Babylonian period may properly be designated as a religious age.

The rulers, anxious to manifest their grat.i.tude to the G.o.ds, and prompted in part, no doubt, by the desire to emulate the glorious architectural achievements of the a.s.syrian monarchs, devote themselves a.s.siduously to the improvement of the great temples of the city of Babylon, and to the restoration or enlargement of those scattered throughout the country. Nebopola.s.sar sets the example in this respect, which is considerably improved upon by Nebuchadnezzar. Over forty temples and shrines are mentioned in the latter's inscriptions as having been improved, enlarged, or restored by him; and the last king of Babylonia, Nabonnedos, endeavors to continue this royal policy of temple-building. In this respect the Neo-Babylonian rulers present a contrast to the a.s.syrian rulers, who were much more concerned in rearing grand edifices for themselves. While the G.o.ds were not neglected in a.s.syria, one hears much more of the magnificent palaces erected by the kings than of temples and shrines. In fact, as compared with Babylonia, a.s.syria was poor in the number of her temples. The chief sanctuaries to which the Neo-Babylonian kings devoted themselves were, in the first instance, E-sagila of Babylon and E-zida of Borsippa. Nebopola.s.sar and his successors are fond of giving themselves the t.i.tle of 'beautifier of E-Sagila and E-zida.' In these great temples sacred to Marduk and Nebo, there were shrines to Sarpanitum, Tashmitum, Nusku, Ea and others, which also engaged the energies of the rulers.

After Babylon came the old sanctuaries in the ancient religious centers of the south,--the temples to Shamash and his consort at Sippar and Larsa, the temples to Sin at Ur and Harran, to the old Ishtar or Anunit at Agade, to Nana in Erech. Thirdly, the cities of Babylon and Borsippa, to which the kings, especially Nebuchadnezzar, are deeply attached, were enriched with many sanctuaries more or less imposing, sacred to a variety of deities. So Shamash, Sin, Nin-makh,--_i.e._, the great lady, or Ishtar,--Nin-khar-s.h.a.g, Gula, also appearing as Nin-Karrak,[335] have their temples in Babylon, while Ramman has one in Borsippa, and Gula no less than three sanctuaries--perhaps only small chapels--in Borsippa.

Fourthly, there are sanctuaries of minor importance in other quarters of Babylonia. Among these we find mention of the improvement of sanctuaries to the local deity of Marad, whom Nebuchadnezzar simply calls Lugal-Marada, _i.e._, king of Marad, to Bel-sarbi, or Shar-sarbi, in Baz,--perhaps a t.i.tle of Nergal,--to Nin-ib in Dilbat, to Ramman in k.u.mari(?).

Most of these sanctuaries are referred to in the inscriptions of Nebuchadnezzar--a circ.u.mstance which, in connection with the many other G.o.ds whom he invokes on various occasions, points to a great revival of ancient cults in his days. Some of these cults had never reached any degree of importance prior to his time. Hence it happens that we come across deities in his inscriptions of whom no mention is found elsewhere. It is probable that such G.o.ds were purely local deities, some of them, if not many, being at the same time personifications of the powers or phenomena of nature, while others may be familiar G.o.ds, masquerading under strange attributes. Unfortunately most of these G.o.ds are written in ideographic fashion, so that we cannot be certain of the reading of their names. Among these are Nin-lil-anna, a G.o.ddess called by Nebuchadnezzar 'the lady who loves me,'[336] and Tur-lil-en,[337] a G.o.d who is described as 'breaking the weapons of enemies.' As for Bel-sarbi, or Shar-sarbi, the G.o.d of Baz,[338] they appear to be t.i.tles rather than names. Dibbarra, Nergal and his consort Laz, and Zamama are also included in the pantheon of Nebuchadnezzar.

In regard to none of these deities do we find any conceptions different from those developed in the period of Hammurabi, any more than in the conceptions of those G.o.ds who occupy a more prominent place in the pantheon. Shamash is the judge, Sin is the wise one, Ramman the thunderer, and so on throughout the list. It was not a period favorable to the production of new religious thought, but only to the more or less artificial revival of old cults.

With the conquest of Babylonia by Cyrus in 539 B.C., we reach the close of the period to be embraced in a history of the Babylonian-a.s.syrian religion. True, the Marduk and Nabu cults were upheld by the Persian rulers, and the policy of the latter in not disturbing the religious status was continued by the Greeks when they in turn succeeded the Persians in their control of Babylonia, but the presence of strange civilizations with totally different religious trains of thought was bound to affect the character of the old faith, and in time to threaten its existence. At all events, it ceases to have any interest for us.

There are no further lines of development upon which it enters. The period of decay, of slow but sure decay, has set in. The cuneiform writing continues to be used till almost the beginning of our era, and so the religious cults draw out their existence to a late period; but as the writing and the civilization yield before new forces that entirely alter the character of Oriental culture, so also the religion, after sinking ever lower into the bogs of superst.i.tion, disappears, much as the ca.n.a.ls and little streams of the Euphrates valley, through the neglect which settled over the country, become lost in the death-breeding swamps and marshes.

FOOTNOTES:

[331] Babylonian Chronicle B, col. iv. ll. 34, 35.

[332] _Zeitschrift fur a.s.syriologie_, II. 72, col. i. ll. 2, 3.

[333] See above, p. 127.

[334] See a paper by Tiele, on "Cyrus and the Babylonian Religion," in the _Proceedings of the Amsterdam Academy_, 1896.

[335] For the ident.i.ty of Nin-Karrak and Gula, see the 'Shurpu'

Incantation Series, iv. l. 86 (ed. Zimmern), where the former is called the 'great physician,'--the epithet peculiar to Gula.

[336] East India House Inscription, col. iv. l. 44.

[337] VR. 34, col. ii. l. 26, or simply Tur-lil (East India House Inscription, col. iv. l. 49, not Tur-e, as Winckler, _Keils Bibl._ 3, 2, 18, reads).

[338] _I.e._, king or lord of Sarbi. Pognon (_Les Inscriptions Babyloniennes de Wadl Brissa_), p. 46, is of the opinion that _sarbi_ is the palm, but he fails to bring sufficient proof, and his theory is improbable. The stem _sarabu_ means to burn, and the "fiery lord" is certainly an epithet belonging to some solar deity.

CHAPTER XV.

THE RELIGIOUS LITERATURE OF BABYLONIA.

The pantheon of a religion presents us with the external phases of the religion in question. In order to penetrate further towards the core of the religion, and to see it at its best, the religious thought as manifested in the national literature const.i.tutes our most valuable guide. The beginnings of Babylonian literature are enveloped in obscurity. We have seen that we are justified in pa.s.sing beyond the period of Hammurabi[339] for these beginnings, but exactly when and precisely how the literary spirit first manifested itself in Babylonia will probably remain for a long time, if not for always, a matter of conjecture. The great political and religious centers of Babylonia, such as Ur, Sippar, Agade, Eridu, Nippur, Uruk, perhaps also Lagash, and later on Babylon, formed the foci of literary activity, as they were the starting-points of commercial enterprise. This intimate connection of religion with literature left its impress upon all branches into which the Babylonian literature was in the course of time differentiated. In a certain sense all the literature of Babylonia is religious. Even the legal formulas, as embodied in the so-called contract tablets, have a religious tinge. The priests being the scribes, a contract of any kind between two or more parties was a religious compact. The oath which accompanied the compact involved an invocation of the G.o.ds. The decree of the judges in a disputed suit was confirmed by an appeal to the G.o.ds.

The terms in which the parties bound themselves consisted largely of religious phrases, and finally the dating of the tablet often contained a reference to some religious festival or to some event of religious import--such as the building of a sanctuary. Science, so far as it existed in Babylonia, never loosened the leading-strings that bound it to the prevailing religious thought. The observation of the stars was carried on under the belief of the supposed influence exerted by the heavenly bodies upon the fate of man; and surprising as we find the development of astronomical calculations and forecasts to be, mathematics does not pa.s.s beyond the limits of astrology. Medicine was likewise the concern of the priests. Disease was a divine infliction supposed to be due to the direct presence in the body, or to the hidden influence, of some pernicious spirit. The cure was effected by the exorcising of the troublesome spirit through prescribed formulas of supposed power, accompanied by symbolical acts. There is indeed no branch of human knowledge which so persistently retains its connection with religious beliefs among all peoples of antiquity as the one which to-day is regarded as resting solely upon a materialistic basis. As a consequence the Babylonians, although they made some progress in medicinal methods, and more especially in medical diagnosis, never dissociated medicinal remedies from the appeal to the G.o.ds. The recital of formulas was supposed to secure by their magic force the effectiveness of the medical potions that were offered to the sufferer.

As for the historical texts, the preceding chapters have ill.u.s.trated how full they are of religious allusions, how at every turn we meet with the influence exerted by the priests as the composers of these texts. Almost all occurrences are given a religious coloring. That these texts furnish us with such valuable material, and such a quant.i.ty of it, is indeed to be traced directly to the fact that the historical literature is also the direct production of the religious leaders and guides of the people, acting at the command of rulers, who were desirous of emphasizing their dependence upon the G.o.ds of the country, and who made this dependence the basis of the authority they exerted.

Such being the general aspect of Babylonian literature, it is not always possible to draw a sharp line separating religious productions from such as may properly be termed secular. For example, the zodiacal system of the Babylonians, which we shall have occasion to discuss, although presenting a scientific aspect, is in reality an outcome of the religious thought; and so at other points it is necessary to pa.s.s over into the region of secular thought for ill.u.s.trations of the religious beliefs. Bearing this in mind, we may set up a fivefold division of the religious literature of the Babylonians in the stricter sense: (1) the magical texts, (2) the hymns and prayers, (3) omens and forecasts, (4) the cosmology, (5) epics and legends. It will be apparent that the first three divisions represent a practical part of the literature, while the two latter are of a more purely literary character. The magical texts, as well as the hymns and prayers and omens, we can well imagine were produced as circ.u.mstances called them forth, and one can also understand how they should, at an early age, have been committed to writing. The incantations serving the practical purpose already referred to of securing a control over the spirit, it will be readily seen that such as had demonstrated their effectiveness would become popular. The desire would arise to preserve them for future generations. With that natural tendency of loose custom to become fixed law, these incantations would come to be permanently a.s.sociated with certain temples. Rituals would thus arise. The incantation would be committed to writing so that one generation of priests might be certain of furnishing orthodox instruction to the other; and, once written, they would form part of the temple archives, finding a place in these archives by the side of the contract tablets, for which the sacred edifices of the country also served as depositories. The large quant.i.ty of incantation texts that have been found in Ashurbanabal's library,[340] as well as the variations and contrasts they present when compared with one another, are probably due to the various sources whence the scribes of the king, who were sent to the libraries of the south, collected their material.

It is only reasonable to suppose that each great temple acquired in the course of time a ritual of its own, which, while perhaps not differing in any essential points from that introduced in another place, yet deviated from it sufficiently to impart to it a character of its own. In the case of some of the texts that have been preserved, it is still possible to determine through certain traits that they exhibit in what religious center they were produced. With considerable more guarantee of accuracy can this be done in the case of the hymns and prayers.

Addressed as the latter were to certain deities, it stands to reason that they were written for use in the temples sacred to those deities, or, if not to be used, at least composed in honor of certain sanctuaries that contained the images of the deities thus exalted. Again, in the historical inscriptions of the a.s.syrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, prayers are introduced, and we are as a general thing expressly told on what occasion they were composed and in what sanctuary they were uttered. We may therefore conclude that those which have been preserved independently also served a practical purpose, and were written, not merely for certain occasions, but for certain places. The practical purpose served by texts containing omens and forecasts derived from the observation of the planets and stars, from monstrosities--human and animal--from strange occurrences, accidents, and the like, is too obvious to require demonstration. But while duly emphasizing the practical purpose that gave rise to the incantation texts, the hymns, the prayers and omens, we must be careful not to press this point too far. The rituals of the various temples once being fixed, the impulse to literary composition would still go on in an age marked by intellectual activity. The practical purpose would be followed by the pure love of composition. The attachment to certain sanctuaries or certain deities would inspire earnest and gifted priests to further efforts.

Accordingly, while we cannot be certain that among the actual remains of magical texts and hymns we may not have specimens that belong to this cla.s.s, there is no reason to question that such must have been produced.

The guarantee for this hypothesis is furnished by the compositions that reflect the cosmological beliefs, the epics and legends that form the second half of the religious productions of Babylonia.

Speculation regarding the origin of the universe belongs to an early period in the development of culture. There are few people, however primitive their culture, who are not attracted by the spirit of curiosity to seek for some solution of the mysteries which they daily witness; but the systematization of these speculations does not take place until a body of men arises among a people capable of giving to the popular fancies a logical sequence, or the approach at least to a rational interpretation. This process, which resulted in producing in Babylonia compositions that unfold a system of creation, is one of long duration. It proceeds under the influence of the intellectual movements that manifest themselves from time to time with the attendant result that, as the conceptions become more definite and more elaborate, they reflect more accurately the aspirations of the various generations engaged in bringing these conceptions to their final form. When finally these beliefs and speculations are committed to writing, it is done in part for the purpose of a.s.suring them a greater degree of permanence, and in part to establish more definitely the doctrines developed in the schools--to define, as it were, the norm of theological and philosophical thought.

In examining, therefore, the cosmological speculations of the Babylonians as they appear in the literary productions, we must carefully distinguish between those portions which are the productions of popular fancy, and therefore old, and those parts which give evidence of having been worked out in the schools. In a general way, also, we must distinguish between the contents and the form given to the speculations in question. We shall see in due time that a certain amount of historical tradition, however dimmed, has entered into the views evolved in Babylonia regarding the origin of things, inasmuch as the science of origins included for the Babylonians the beginning, not merely of G.o.ds, men, animals, and plants, but also of cities and of civilization in general. Still more p.r.o.nounced is the historical spirit in the case of the epics and legends that here, as everywhere else, grew to even larger proportions, and were modified even after they were finally committed to writing. The great heroes of the past do not perish from the memory of a people, nor does the recollection of great events entirely pa.s.s away. In proportion as the traditions of the past become dimmed, the more easily do they lend themselves to a blending with popular myths regarding the phenomena of nature. To this material popularly produced, a literary shape would be given through the same medium that remodeled the popular cosmological speculations. The task would have a more purely literary aspect than that of systematizing the current views regarding the origin and order of things, since it would be free from any doctrinal tendency. The chief motive that would prompt the _literati_ to thus collect the stories of favorite heroes and the traditions and the legends of the past would be--in addition, perhaps, to the pure pleasure of composition--the desire to preserve the stories for future generations, while a minor factor that may have entered into consideration would be the pedagogical one of adding to the material for study that might engage the attention and thoughts of the young aspirants to sacred and secular lore. While the ultimate aim of learning in Babylonia remained for all times a practical one, namely, the ability to act as a scribe or to serve in the cult, to render judicial decisions or to observe the movements of the stars, to interpret the signs of nature and the like, it was inevitable that through the intellectual activity thus evoked there would arise a spirit of a love of learning for learning's sake, and at all events a fondness for literary pursuits independent of any purely practical purposes served by such pursuits.

In this way we may account for the rise of the several divisions of the religious literature of Babylonia. Before turning to a detailed exposition of each of these divisions, it only remains to emphasize the minor part taken in all these literary labors by the a.s.syrians. The traditions embodied in the cosmological productions, the epics and legends of Babylonia, are no doubt as much the property of the a.s.syrians as of their southern cousins, just as the conceptions underlying the incantation texts and the hymns and prayers and omens, though produced in the south, are on the whole identical with those current in the north. Whatever differences we have discovered between the phases of the Babylonian-a.s.syrian religion, as manifested in the north and in the south, are not of a character to affect the questions and views involved in the religious literature. The stamp given to the literary products in this field, taken as a whole, is distinctly Babylonian. It is the spirit of the south that breathes through almost all the religious texts that have as yet been discovered. Only in some of the prayers and oracles and omens that are inserted in the historical inscriptions of a.s.syrian kings, or have been transmitted independently, do we recognize the work of a.s.syrian _literati_, imbued with a spirit peculiar to a.s.syria.

Perhaps, too, in the final shape given to the tales connected with the creation of the G.o.ds and of men we may detect an a.s.syrian influence on Babylonian thought, some concession made at a period of a.s.syrian supremacy to certain religious conceptions peculiar to the north. But such influences are of an indirect character, and we may accept the statement of Ashurbanabal as literally true that the literature collected by him is a copy of what was found in the great literary archives of the south--and not only found, but produced there. In imitation of the example set by the south, schools were of a certainty established in Nineveh, Arbela, and elsewhere for the education of priests, scribes, and judges; but we have no evidence to show that they ever developed to the point of becoming intellectually independent of Babylonian _models_, except perhaps in minor particulars that need not enter into our calculations. This relationship between the intellectual life of Babylonia and a.s.syria finds its ill.u.s.tration and proof, not merely in the religious literature, but in the religious art and cult which, as we shall see, like the literature, bear the distinct impress of their southern origin, though modified in pa.s.sing from the south to the north.

FOOTNOTES:

[339] See above, pp. 72, 114, 133 _seq._

[340] See pp. 12-14.

CHAPTER XVI.