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THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA
THE RELIGION OF BABYLONIA AND ASSYRIA THEOPHILUS G. PINCHES The 8-bit version of this text includes Windows font characters
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THE RELIGION OF THE
BABYLONIANS AND ASSYRIANS
CHAPTER I
FOREWORD
Position and Period.
The religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians was the polytheistic
faith professed by the peoples inhabiting the Tigris and Euphrates
valleys from what may be regarded as the dawn of history until the
Christian era began or at least until the inhabitants were brought
under the influence of Christianity. The chronological period covered
may be roughly estimated at about 5000 years. The belief of the
people at the end of that time being Babylonian heathenism leavened
with Judaism the country was probably ripe for the reception of the
new faith. Christianity however by no means replaced the earlier
polytheism as is evidenced by the fact that the worship of Nebo and
the gods associated with him continued until the fourth century of the
Christian era.
By whom followed.
It was the faith of two distinct peoples--the Sumero-Akkadians and
the Assyro-Babylonians. In what country it had its beginnings is
unknown--it comes before us even at the earliest period as a faith
already well-developed and from that fact as well as from the names
of the numerous deities it is clear that it began with the former
race--the Sumero-Akkadians--who spoke a non-Semitic language largely
affected by phonetic decay and in which the grammatical forms had in
certain cases become confused to such an extent that those who study
it ask themselves whether the people who spoke it were able to
understand each other without recourse to devices such as the "tones"
to which the Chinese resort. With few exceptions the names of the
gods which the inscriptions reveal to us are all derived from this
non-Semitic language which furnishes us with satisfactory etymologies
for such names as Merodach Nergal Sin and the divinities mentioned
in Berosus and Damascius as well as those of hundreds of deities
revealed to us by the tablets and slabs of Babylonia and Assyria.
The documents.
Outside the inscriptions of Babylonia and Assyria there is but little
bearing upon the religion of those countries the most important
fragment being the extracts from Berosus and Damascius referred to
above. Among the Babylonian and Assyrian remains however we have an
extensive and valuable mass of material dating from the fourth or
fifth millennium before Christ until the disappearance of the
Babylonian system of writing about the beginning of the Christian era.
The earlier inscriptions are mostly of the nature of records and give
information about the deities and the religion of the people in the
course of descriptions of the building and rebuilding of temples the
making of offerings the performance of ceremonies etc. Purely
religious inscriptions are found near the end of the third millennium
before Christ and occur in considerable numbers either in the
original Sumerian text or in translations or both until about the
third century before Christ. Among the more recent inscriptions--those
from the library of the Assyrian king Assur-bani-apli and the later
Babylonian temple archives--there are many lists of deities with
numerous identifications with each other and with the heavenly bodies
and explanations of their natures. It is needless to say that all this
material is of enormous value for the study of the religion of the
Babylonians and Assyrians and enables us to reconstruct at first hand
their mythological system and note the changes which took place in
the course of their long national existence. Many interesting and
entertaining legends illustrate and supplement the information given
by the bilingual lists of gods the bilingual incantations and hymns
and the references contained in the historical and other documents. A
trilingual list of gods enables us also to recognise in some cases
the dialectic forms of their names.
The importance of the subject.
Of equal antiquity with the religion of Egypt that of Babylonia and
Assyria possesses some marked differences as to its development.
Beginning among the non-Semitic Sumero-Akkadian population it
maintained for a long time its uninterrupted development affected
mainly by influences from within namely the homogeneous local cults
which acted and reacted upon each other. The religious systems of
other nations did not greatly affect the development of the early
non-Semitic religious system of Babylonia. A time at last came
however when the influence of the Semitic inhabitants of Babylonia
and Assyria was not to be gainsaid and from that moment the
development of their religion took another turn. In all probably this
augmentation of Semitic religious influence was due to the increased
numbers of the Semitic population and at the same period the Sumero-
Akkadian language began to give way to the Semitic idiom which they
spoke. When at last the Semitic Babylonian language came to be used
for official documents we find that although the non-Semitic divine
names are in the main preserved a certain number of them have been
displaced by the Semitic equivalent names such as Samas for the
sun-god with Kittu and Mesaru ("justice and righteousness") his
attendants; Nabu ("the teacher" = Nebo) with his consort Tasmetu ("the
hearer"); Addu Adad or Dadu and Rammanu Ramimu or Ragimu = Hadad
or Rimmon ("the thunderer"); Bel and Beltu (Beltis = "the lord" and
"the lady" /par excellence/) with some others of inferior rank. In
place of the chief divinity of each state at the head of each separate
pantheon the tendency was to make Merodach the god of the capital
city Babylon the head of the pantheon and he seems to have been
universally accepted in Babylonia like Assur in Assyria about 2000
B.C. or earlier.
The uniting of two pantheons.
We thus find two pantheons the Sumero-Akkadian with its many gods
and the Semitic Babylonian with its comparatively few united and
forming one apparently homogeneous whole. But the creed had taken a
fresh tendency. It was no longer a series of small and to a certain
extent antagonistic pantheons composed of the chief god his consort
attendants children and servants but a pantheon of considerable
extent containing all the elements of the primitive but smaller
pantheons with a number of great gods who had raised Merodach to be
their king.
In Assyria.
Whilst accepting the religion of Babylonia Assyria nevertheless kept
herself distinct from her southern neighbour by a very simple device
by placing at the head of the pantheon the god Assur who became for
her the chief of the gods and at the same time the emblem of her
distinct national aspirations--for Assyria had no intention whatever
of casting in her lot with her southern neighbour. Nevertheless
Assyria possessed along with the language of Babylonia all the
literature of that country--indeed it is from the libraries of her
kings that we obtain the best copies of the Babylonian religious
texts treasured and preserved by her with all the veneration of which
her religious mind was capable--and the religious fervour of the
Oriental in most cases leaves that of the European or at least of the
ordinary Briton far behind.
The later period in Assyria.
Assyria went to her downfall at the end of the seventh century before
Christ worshipping her national god Assur whose cult did not cease
with the destruction of her national independence. In fact the city
of Assur the centre of that worship continued to exist for a
considerable period; but for the history of the religion of Assyria
as preserved there we wait for the result of the excavations being
carried on by the Germans should they be fortunate enough to obtain
texts belonging to the period following the fall of Nineveh.
In Babylonia.
Babylonia on the other hand continued the even tenor of her way.
More successful at the end of her independent political career than
her northern rival had been she retained her faith and remained the
unswerving worshipper of Merodach the great god of Babylon to whom
her priests attributed yet greater powers and with whom all the other
gods were to all appearance identified. This tendency to monotheism
however never reached the culminating point--never became absolute--
except naturally in the minds of those who dissociating themselves
for philosophical reasons from the superstitious teaching of the
priests of Babylonia decided for themselves that there was but one
God and worshipped Him. That orthodox Jews at that period may have
found in consequence of this monotheistic tendency converts is not
by any means improbable--indeed the names met with during the later
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