Myths of Babylonia and Assyria 5

Myths of Babylonia and Assyria 5

As "Shar Apsi", Ea was the "King of the Watery Deep". The reference,

however, according to Jastrow, "is not to the salt ocean, but the

sweet waters flowing under the earth which feed the streams, and

through streams and canals irrigate the fields".[34] As Babylonia was

fertilized by its rivers, Ea, the fish god, was a fertilizing deity.

In Egypt the "Mother of Mendes" is depicted carrying a fish upon her

head; she links with Isis and Hathor; her husband is Ba-neb-Tettu, a

form of Ptah, Osiris, and Ra, and as a god of fertility he is

symbolized by the ram. Another Egyptian fish deity was the god Rem,

whose name signifies "to weep"; he wept fertilizing tears, and corn

was sown and reaped amidst lamentations. He may be identical with

Remi, who was a phase of Sebek, the crocodile god, a developed

attribute of Nu, the vague primitive Egyptian deity who symbolized the

primordial deep. The connection between a fish god and a corn god is

not necessarily remote when we consider that in Babylonia and Egypt

the harvest was the gift of the rivers.

 

The Euphrates, indeed, was hailed as a creator of all that grew on its

banks.

 

O thou River who didst create all things,

When the great gods dug thee out,

They set prosperity upon thy banks,

Within thee Ea, the King of the Deep, created his dwelling...

Thou judgest the cause of mankind!

O River, thou art mighty! O River, thou art supreme!

O River, thou art righteous![35]

 

In serving Ea, the embodiment or the water spirit, by leading him, as

the Indian Manu led the Creator and "Preserver" in fish form, from

river to water pot, water pot to pond or canal, and then again to

river and ocean, the Babylonians became expert engineers and

experienced agriculturists, the makers of bricks, the builders of

cities, the framers of laws. Indeed, their civilization was a growth

of Ea worship. Ea was their instructor. Berosus states that, as

Oannes, he lived in the Persian Gulf, and every day came ashore to

instruct the inhabitants of Eridu how to make canals, to grow crops,

to work metals, to make pottery and bricks, and to build temples; he

was the artisan god--Nun-ura, "god of the potter"; Kuski-banda, "god

of goldsmiths", &c.--the divine patron of the arts and crafts. "Ea

knoweth everything", chanted the hymn maker. He taught the people how

to form and use alphabetic signs and instructed them in mathematics:

he gave them their code of laws. Like the Egyptian artisan god Ptah,

and the linking deity Khnumu, Ea was the "potter or moulder of gods

and man". Ptah moulded the first man on his potter's wheel: he also

moulded the sun and moon; he shaped the universe and hammered out the

copper sky. Ea built the world "as an architect builds a house".[36]

Similarly the Vedic Indra, who wielded a hammer like Ptah, fashioned

the universe after the simple manner in which the Aryans made their

wooden dwellings.[37]

 

Like Ptah, Ea also developed from an artisan god into a sublime

Creator in the highest sense, not merely as a producer of crops. His

word became the creative force; he named those things he desired to

be, and they came into existence. "Who but Ea creates things",

exclaimed a priestly poet. This change from artisan god to creator

(Nudimmud) may have been due to the tendency of early religious cults

to attach to their chief god the attributes of rivals exalted at other

centres.

 

Ea, whose name is also rendered Aa, was identified with Ya, Ya'u, or

Au, the Jah of the Hebrews. "In Ya-Daganu, 'Jah is Dagon'", writes

Professor Pinches, "we have the elements reversed, showing a wish to

identify Jah with Dagon, rather than Dagon with Jah; whilst another

interesting name, Au-Aa, shows an identification of Jah with Aa, two

names which have every appearance of being etymologically connected."

Jah's name "is one of the words for 'god' in the Assyro-Babylonian

language".[38]

 

Ea was "Enki", "lord of the world", or "lord of what is beneath";

Amma-ana-ki, "lord of heaven and earth"; Sa-kalama, "ruler of the

land", as well as Engur, "god of the abyss", Naqbu, "the deep", and

Lugal-ida, "king of the river". As rain fell from "the waters above

the firmament", the god of waters was also a sky and earth god.

 

The Indian Varuna was similarly a sky as well as an ocean god before

the theorizing and systematizing Brahmanic teachers relegated him to a

permanent abode at the bottom of the sea. It may be that Ea-Oannes and

Varuna were of common origin.

 

Another Babylonian deity, named Dagan, is believed to be identical

with Ea. His worship was certainly of great antiquity. "Hammurabi",

writes Professor Pinches, "seems to speak of the Euphrates as being

'the boundary of Dagan'," whom he calls his creator. In later

inscriptions the form Daguna, which approaches nearer to the West

Semitic form (Dagon of the Philistines), is found in a few personal

names.[39]

 

It is possible that the Philistine deity Dagon was a specialized form

of ancient Ea, who was either imported from Babylonia or was a sea god

of more than one branch of the Mediterranean race. The authorities are

at variance regarding the form and attributes of Dagan. Our knowledge

regarding him is derived mainly from the Bible. He was a national

rather than a city god. There are references to a Beth-dagon[40],

"house or city of Dagon"; he had also a temple at Gaza, and Samson

destroyed it by pulling down the two middle pillars which were its

main support.[41] A third temple was situated in Ashdod. When the

captured ark of the Israelites was placed in it the image of Dagon

"fell on his face", with the result that "the head of Dagon and both

the palms of his hands were cut off upon the threshold; only the stump

of Dagon was left".[42] A further reference to "the threshold of

Dagon" suggests that the god had feet like Ea-Oannes. Those who hold

that Dagon had a fish form derive his name from the Semitic "dag = a

fish", and suggest that after the idol fell only the fishy part (dāgo)

was left. On the other hand, it was argued that Dagon was a corn god,

and that the resemblance between the words Dagan and Dagon are

accidental. Professor Sayce makes reference in this connection to a

crystal seal from Phoenicia in the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford, bearing

an inscription which he reads as Baal-dagon. Near the name is an ear

of corn, and other symbols, such as the winged solar disc, a gazelle,

and several stars, but there is no fish. It may be, of course, that

Baal-dagon represents a fusion of deities. As we have seen in the case

of Ea-Oannes and the deities of Mendes, a fish god may also be a corn

god, a land animal god and a god of ocean and the sky. The offering of

golden mice representing "your mice that mar the land",[43] made by

the Philistines, suggests that Dagon was the fertilizing harvest god,

among other things, whose usefulness had been impaired, as they

believed, by the mistake committed of placing the ark of Israel in the

temple at Ashdod. The Philistines came from Crete, and if their Dagon

was imported from that island, he may have had some connection with

Poseidon, whose worship extended throughout Greece. This god of the

sea, who is somewhat like the Roman Neptune, carried a lightning

trident and caused earthquakes. He was a brother of Zeus, the sky and

atmosphere deity, and had bull and horse forms. As a horse he pursued

Demeter, the earth and corn goddess, and, like Ea, he instructed

mankind, but especially in the art of training horses. In his train

were the Tritons, half men, half fishes, and the water fairies, the

Nereids. Bulls, boars, and rams were offered to this sea god of

fertility. Amphitrite was his spouse.

 

An obscure god Shony, the Oannes of the Scottish Hebrides, received

oblations from those who depended for their agricultural prosperity on

his gifts of fertilizing seaweed. He is referred to in Martin's

_Western Isles_, and is not yet forgotten. The Eddic sea god Njord of

Noatun was the father of Frey, the harvest god. Dagda, the Irish corn

god, had for wife Boann, the goddess of the river Boyne. Osiris and

Isis of Egypt were associated with the Nile. The connection between

agriculture and the water supply was too obvious to escape the early

symbolists, and many other proofs of this than those referred to could

be given.

 

Ea's "faithful spouse" was the goddess Damkina, who was also called

Nin-ki, "lady of the earth". "May Ea make thee glad", chanted the

priests. "May Damkina, queen of the deep, illumine thee with her

countenance; may Merodach (Marduk), the mighty overseer of the Igigi

(heavenly spirits), exalt thy head." Merodach was their son: in time

he became the Bel, or "Lord", of the Babylonian pantheon.

 

Like the Indian Varuna, the sea god, Ea-Oannes had control over the

spirits and demons of the deep. The "ferryman" who kept watch over the

river of death was called Arad-Ea, "servant of Ea". There are also

references to sea maidens, the Babylonian mermaids, or Nereids. We

have a glimpse of sea giants, which resemble the Indian Danavas and

Daityas of ocean, in the chant:

 

Seven are they, seven are they,

In the ocean deep seven are they,

Battening in heaven seven are they,

Bred in the depths of ocean....

Of these seven the first is the south wind,

The second a dragon with mouth agape....[44]

 

A suggestion of the Vedic Vritra and his horde of monsters.

 

These seven demons were also "the messengers of Anu", who, although

specialized as a sky god in more than one pantheon, appears to have

been closely associated with Ea in the earliest Sumerian period. His

name, signifying "the high one", is derived from "ana", "heaven"; he

was the city god of Erech (Uruk). It is possible that he was developed

as an atmospheric god with solar and lunar attributes. The seven

demons, who were his messengers, recall the stormy Maruts, the

followers of Indra. They are referred to as

 

Forcing their way with baneful windstorms,

Mighty destroyers, the deluge of the storm god,

Stalking at the right hand of the storm god.[45]

 

When we deal with a deity in his most archaic form it is difficult to

distinguish him from a demon. Even the beneficent Ea is associated

with monsters and furies. "Evil spirits", according to a Babylonian

chant, were "the bitter venom of the gods". Those attached to a deity

as "attendants" appear to represent the original animistic group from

which he evolved. In each district the character of the deity was

shaped to accord with local conditions.

 

At Nippur, which was situated on the vague and shifting boundary line

between Sumer and Akkad, the chief god was Enlil, whose name is

translated "lord of mist", "lord of might", and "lord of demons" by

various authorities. He was a storm god and a war god, and "lord of

heaven and earth ", like Ea and Anu. An atmospheric deity, he shares

the attributes of the Indian Indra, the thunder and rain god, and

Vayu, the wind god; he also resembles the Semitic Adad or Rimman, who

links with the Hittite Tarku. All these are deities of tempest and the

mountains--Wild Huntsmen in the Raging Host. The name of Enlil's

temple at Nippur has been translated as "mountain house", or "like a

mountain", and the theory obtained for a time that the god must

therefore have been imported by a people from the hills. But as the

ideogram for "mountain" and "land" was used in the earliest times, as

King shows, with reference to foreign countries,[46] it is more

probable that Enlil was exalted as a world god who had dominion over

not only Sumer and Akkad, but also the territories occupied by the

rivals and enemies of the early Babylonians.

 

Enlil is known as the "older Bel" (lord), to distinguish him from Bel

Merodach of Babylon. He was the chief figure in a triad in which he

figured as earth god, with Anu as god of the sky and Ea as god of the

deep. This classification suggests that Nippur had either risen in

political importance and dominated the cities of Erech and Eridu, or

that its priests were influential at the court of a ruler who was the

overlord of several city states.

 

Associated with Bel Enlil was Beltis, later known as "Beltu--the

lady". She appears to be identical with the other great goddesses,

Ishtar, Nana, Zerpanituᵐ, &c., a "Great Mother", or consort of an

early god with whom she was equal in power and dignity.

 

In the later systematized theology of the Babylonians we seem to trace

the fragments of a primitive mythology which was vague in outline, for

the deities were not sharply defined, and existed in groups. Enneads

were formed in Egypt by placing a local god at the head of a group of

eight elder deities. The sun god Ra was the chief figure of the

earliest pantheon of this character at Heliopolis, while at Hermopolis

the leader was the lunar god Thoth. Professor Budge is of opinion that

"both the Sumerians and the early Egyptians derived their primeval

gods from some common but exceedingly ancient source", for he finds in

the Babylonian and Nile valleys that there is a resemblance between

two early groups which "seems to be too close to be accidental".[47]

 

The Egyptian group comprises four pairs of vague gods and

goddesses--Nu and his consort Nut, Hehu and his consort Hehut, Kekui

and his consort Kekuit, and Kerh and his consort Kerhet. "Man always

has fashioned", he says, "and probably always will fashion, his god or

gods in his own image, and he has always, having reached a certain

stage in development, given to his gods wives and offspring; but the

nature of the position taken by the wives of the gods depends upon the

nature of the position of women in the households of those who write

the legends and the traditions of the gods. The gods of the oldest

company in Egypt were, the writer believes, invented by people in

whose households women held a high position, and among whom they

possessed more power than is usually the case with Oriental

peoples."[48]

 

We cannot say definitely what these various deities represent. Nu was

the spirit of the primordial deep, and Nut of the waters above the

heavens, the mother of moon and sun and the stars. The others were

phases of light and darkness and the forces of nature in activity and

repose.

 

Nu is represented in Babylonian mythology by Apsu-Rishtu, and Nut by

Mummu-Tiamat or Tiawath; the next pair is Lachmu and Lachamu, and the

third, Anshar and Kishar. The fourth pair is missing, but the names of

Anu and Ea (as Nudimmud) are mentioned in the first tablet of the

Creation series, and the name of a third is lost. Professor Budge

thinks that the Assyrian editors substituted the ancient triad of Anu,

Ea, and Enlil for the pair which would correspond to those found in

Egypt. Originally the wives of Anu and Ea may have made up the group

of eight primitive deities.

 

There can be little doubt but that Ea, as he survives to us, is of

later characterization than the first pair of primitive deities who

symbolized the deep. The attributes of this beneficent god reflect the

progress, and the social and moral ideals of a people well advanced in

civilization. He rewarded mankind for the services they rendered to

him; he was their leader and instructor; he achieved for them the

victories over the destructive forces of nature. In brief, he was the

dragon slayer, a distinction, by the way, which was attached in later

times to his son Merodach, the Babylonian god, although Ea was still

credited with the victory over the dragon's husband.

 

When Ea was one of the pre-Babylonian group--the triad of Bel-Enlil,

Anu, and Ea--he resembled the Indian Vishnu, the Preserver, while

Bel-Enlil resembled Shiva, the Destroyer, and Anu, the father, supreme

Brahma, the Creator and Father of All, the difference in exact

adjustment being due, perhaps, to Sumerian political conditions.

 

Ea, as we have seen, symbolized the beneficence of the waters; their

destructive force was represented by Tiamat or Tiawath, the dragon,

and Apsu, her husband, the arch-enemy of the gods. We shall find these

elder demons figuring in the Babylonian Creation myth, which receives

treatment in a later chapter.

 

The ancient Sumerian city of Eridu, which means "on the seashore", was

invested with great sanctity from the earliest times, and Ea, the

"great magician of the gods", was invoked by workers of spells, the

priestly magicians of historic Babylonia. Excavations have shown that

Eridu was protected by a retaining wall of sandstone, of which

material many of its houses were made. In its temple tower, built of

brick, was a marble stairway, and evidences have been forthcoming that

in the later Sumerian period the structure was lavishly adorned. It is

referred to in the fragments of early literature which have survived

as "the splendid house, shady as the forest", that "none may enter".

The mythological spell exercised by Eridu in later times suggests that

the civilization of Sumeria owed much to the worshippers of Ea. At the

sacred city the first man was created: there the souls of the dead

passed towards the great Deep. Its proximity to the sea--Ea was

Nin-bubu, "god of the sailor"--may have brought it into contact with

other peoples and other early civilizations. Like the early Egyptians,

the early Sumerians may have been in touch with Punt (Somaliland),

which some regard as the cradle of the Mediterranean race. The

Egyptians obtained from that sacred land incense-bearing trees which

had magical potency. In a fragmentary Babylonian charm there is a

reference to a sacred tree or bush at Eridu. Professor Sayce has

suggested that it is the Biblical "Tree of Life" in the Garden of

Eden. His translations of certain vital words, however, is sharply

questioned by Mr. R. Campbell Thompson of the British Museum, who does

not accept the theory.[49] It may be that Ea's sacred bush or tree is

a survival of tree and water worship.

 

If Eridu was not the "cradle" of the Sumerian race, it was possibly

the cradle of Sumerian civilization. Here, amidst the shifting rivers

in early times, the agriculturists may have learned to control and

distribute the water supply by utilizing dried-up beds of streams to

irrigate the land. Whatever successes they achieved were credited to

Ea, their instructor and patron; he was Nadimmud, "god of everything".

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER III.

 

RIVAL PANTHEONS AND REPRESENTATIVE DEITIES

 

 

Why Different Gods were Supreme at Different Centres--Theories

regarding Origin of Life--Vital Principle in Water--Creative Tears

of Weeping Deities--Significance of widespread Spitting

Customs--Divine Water in Blood and Divine Blood in Water--Liver as

the Seat of Life--Inspiration derived by Drinking Mead, Blood,

&c.--Life Principle in Breath--Babylonian Ghosts as "Evil Wind

Gusts"--Fire Deities--Fire and Water in Magical Ceremonies--Moon

Gods of Ur and Harran--Moon Goddess and Babylonian "Jack and

Jill"--Antiquity of Sun Worship--Tammuz and Ishtar--Solar Gods of

War, Pestilence, and Death--Shamash as the "Great Judge"--His Mitra

Name--Aryan Mitra or Mithra and linking Babylonian Deities--Varuna

and Shamash Hymns compared--The Female Origin of Life--Goddesses of

Maternity--The Babylonian Thor--Deities of Good and Evil.

 

 

In dealing with the city cults of Sumer and Akkad, consideration must

be given to the problems involved by the rival mythological systems.

Pantheons not only varied in detail, but were presided over by

different supreme gods. One city's chief deity might be regarded as a

secondary deity at another centre. Although Ea, for instance, was

given first place at Eridu, and was so pronouncedly Sumerian in

character, the moon god Nannar remained supreme at Ur, while the sun

god, whose Semitic name was Shamash, presided at Larsa and Sippar.

Other deities were similarly exalted in other states.

 

As has been indicated, a mythological system must have been strongly

influenced by city politics. To hold a community in sway, it was

necessary to recognize officially the various gods worshipped by

different sections, so as to secure the constant allegiance of all

classes to their rulers. Alien deities were therefore associated with

local and tribal deities, those of the nomads with those of the

agriculturists, those of the unlettered folks with those of the

learned people. Reference has been made to the introduction of strange

deities by conquerors. But these were not always imposed upon a

community by violent means. Indications are not awanting that the

worshippers of alien gods were sometimes welcomed and encouraged to

settle in certain states. When they came as military allies to assist

a city folk against a fierce enemy, they were naturally much admired

and praised, honoured by the women and the bards, and rewarded by the

rulers.

 

In the epic of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian Hercules, we meet with

Ea-bani, a Goliath of the wilds, who is entreated to come to the aid

of the besieged city of Erech when it seemed that its deities were

unable to help the people against their enemies.

 

The gods of walled-round Erech

To flies had turned and buzzed in the streets;

The winged bulls of walled-round Erech

Were turned to mice and departed through the holes.

 

Ea-bani was attracted to Erech by the gift of a fair woman for wife.

The poet who lauded him no doubt mirrored public opinion. We can see

the slim, shaven Sumerians gazing with wonder and admiration on their

rough heroic ally.

 

All his body was covered with hair,

His locks were like a woman's,

Thick as corn grew his abundant hair.

He was a stranger to the people and in that land.

Clad in a garment like Gira, the god,

He had eaten grass with the gazelles,

He had drunk water with savage beasts.

His delight was to be among water dwellers.