The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

M >> Morris Jastrow >> The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

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FOOTNOTES:

[183] The museums of Europe and America have secured a large proportion
of these through purchase.

[184] The longer names consist of three elements: subject,
verb, and object. The deity is generally the subject; _e.g._,
Sinacherib=Sin-akhe-irba, _i.e._, may the god Sin increase the brothers.
But there are many variations. So the imperative of the verb is often
used, and in that case, the deity is in the vocative case. Instead of
three elements, there are frequently only two, a deity and a participle
or an adjective; _e.g._, Sin-magir, _i.e._, Sin is favorable, or a
person is called 'the son' or 'the servant' of a god. The name of the
deity alone may also constitute a proper name; and many names of course
do not contain the mention of a deity at all, though such names are
often abbreviations from longer ones in which some god was introduced.

[185] Jensen, _Kosmologie_, p. 458.

[186] Arnold, _Ancient Babylonian Temple Records_, p. 5, is of the
opinion that Id-nik-mar-tu is also a designation of Ramman. His view is
plausible, but it still remains to be proved.

[187] Scheil, "Le Culte de Gudea sous le II^e Dynastie d'Ur" (_Recueil
des Travaux, etc._ xviii. 64-74). W. R. Arnold, _Ancient Babylonian
Temple Records_ (New York, 1896). The Telloh tablets appear to be
largely lists of offerings made to the temples at Lagash, and temple
accounts. (See now Reisner, Tempelurkunden aus Telloh (Berlin, 1901).)

[188] See besides Scheil's article (above), Lehmann's note, _Zeits. fuer
Assyr._ x. 381.

[189] Our knowledge of the documents of this period is due chiefly to
Strassmaier and Meissner.

[190] At times under rather curious forms, _e.g._, Shush-sha;
Strassmaier, Warka, no. 30, l. 21. The form Sha-ash-sha also occurs in
nos. 43 and 105 (_cf._ Meissner's note, _Beitraege zum Altbabylonischen
Privatrecht_, p. 156).

[191] Meissner, no. 42. Also in a proper name, Khusha-ilu, _i.e._,
'Khusha is god.'

[192] Meissner, nos. 40 and 118.

[193] See chapter xi.

[194] IIR. 60, 18a. Pinches (_Journal Victoria Institute_, xxviii. 36
reads Shu-gid-la; Hommel, _ib._ 36, Shu-sil-la).

[195] For this deity, see a paper by the writer, "The Element _Bosheth_
in Hebrew Proper Names," in the _Journal of Bibl. Liter._ xiii. 20-30.

CHAPTER X.

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.

CHAPTER XI.

SURVIVALS OF ANIMISM IN THE BABYLONIAN RELIGION.

The Assyrian influence however was only one factor, and a minor factor
at that, in maintaining the belief in countless spirits that occupied a
place of more or less importance by the side of the great and lesser
gods. That conservatism which is a distinguishing trait of the popular
forms of religion everywhere, served to keep alive the view that all the
acts of man, his moods, the accidents that befell him, were under the
control of visible or invisible powers. The development of a pantheon,
graded and more or less regulated under the guidance of the Babylonian
schoolmen, did not drive the old animistic views out of existence. In
the religious literature, and more especially in those parts of it which
reflect the popular forms of thought, the unorganized mass of spirits
maintain an undisputed sway. In the incantation texts, which will be
discussed at length in a subsequent chapter, as well as in other
sections of Babylonian literature embodying both the primitive and the
advanced views of the Babylonians regarding the origin of the universe,
its subdivisions, and its order of development, and, thirdly, in the
legends and epics, hundreds of spirits are introduced, to which some
definite function or functions were assigned. In many, indeed in the
majority of cases, the precise character of these functions still
escapes us. The material at our disposal is as yet inadequate for any
satisfactory treatment of this phase of Babylonian belief, and we must
content ourselves for the present with some generalizations, or at the
most with some broad classifications. Besides the texts themselves, we
have proper names containing a spirit as an element, and also lists of
those spirits prepared by the schoolmen on the basis of the texts. When,
as sometimes happens, these lists contain explanatory comments on the
spirits enumerated, we are able to take some steps forward in our
knowledge of the subject.

In the first place, then, it is important to bear in mind that the
numerous spirits, when introduced into the religious and other texts,
are almost invariably preceded by a sign--technically known as a
determinative--which stamps them as divine. This sign being the same as
the one placed before the names of the gods, it is not always possible
to distinguish between deities and spirits. The use of a common sign is
significant as pointing to the common origin of the two classes of
superior powers that thus continue to exist side by side. A god is
naught but a spirit writ large. As already intimated in a previous
chapter, a large part of the development of the Babylonian religion
consists in the differentiation between the gods and the spirits,--a
process that, beginning before the period of written records, steadily
went on, and in a certain sense was never completed. In the historical
texts, the gods alone, with certain exceptions, find official
recognition, and it is largely through these texts that we are enabled
to distinguish between the two classes of powers, the gods and the
spirits; but as a survival of a primitive animism, the demons, good,
bad, and indifferent, retain their place in the popular forms of
religion. Several hundred spirits occur in the incantation texts, and
almost as many more in other religious texts. We may distinguish several
classes. In the first place, there are the demons that cause disease and
all manner of physical annoyances. The chief of these will be considered
when we come to the analysis of the incantation texts. Against these
demons the sufferer seeks protection by means of formulas, the utterance
of which is invested with peculiar power, and again by means of certain
rites of an expiatory or purificatory character. Next, we have the
demons supposed to inhabit the fields, and to whom the ground is
supposed to belong. These were imaged under various animal forms,
serpents and scorpions being the favorite ones. When possession was
taken of the field, the spirits inhabiting it had to be propitiated. The
owner placed himself under their protection, and endeavored to insure
his rights against wrongful encroachment by calling upon the demons to
range themselves on his side. It was customary, especially in the case
of territory acquired by special grant of the monarch, or under
extraordinary circumstances, to set up a so-called boundary stone,[213]
on which the owner of the field detailed his right to possession,
through purchase or gift, as the case may be. This inscription closed
with an appeal to various gods to strike with their curses any intruder
upon the owner's rights. In addition to this, the stones are embellished
with serpents, scorpions, unicorns, and various realistic or fantastic
representations of animal forms. These, it would seem, symbolize the
spirits, the sight of which, it was hoped, might act as a further and
effectual warning against interference with the owner's rights.[214]

A special class of demons is formed by those which were supposed to
infest the resting-places of the dead, though they stand in a certain
relationship to the demons that plague the living. A remarkable monument
found a number of years ago, and which will be fully described in a
subsequent chapter, affords us a picture of some of these demons whose
sphere of action is more particularly in the subterranean cave that
forms the gathering-place of the dead. They are represented as half
human, half animal, with large grotesque and terror-inspiring
features.[215] Their power, however, is limited. They are subject to the
orders of the gods whose dominion is the lower world, more particularly
to Nergal and his consort Allatu. In the advanced eschatology of the
Babylonians the demons play a minor part. It is with the gods that the
dead man must make his peace. Their protection assured, he has little to
fear; but the demons of the lower world frequently ascend to the upper
regions to afflict the living. Against them precautions must be taken
similar to the means employed for ridding one's self of the baneful
influence of the disease-and pain-bringing spirits. Reference has
already been made to the spirits that belong to the higher phases of
Mesopotamian culture,--those that have a share in the production of
works of skill and art. We have seen that in accounting for these we are
justified in assuming a higher phase of religious belief. The dividing
line between god and spirit becomes faint, and the numerous protecting
patrons of the handicrafts that flourished in Babylonia and Assyria can
hardly be placed in the same category with those we have so far been
considering. Still, to the popular mind the achievements of the human
mind were regarded as due to the workings of hidden forces. Strange as
it may seem, there was an indisposition to ascribe everything to the
power of the gods. Ea and Nabu, although the general gods of wisdom, did
not concern themselves with details. These were left to the secondary
powers,--the spirits. Hence it happens that by the side of the great
gods, we have a large number of minor powers who preside over the
various branches of human handiwork and control the products of the
human mind.