{"collection":"scripture-revelation","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_35856/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_35856","id":"gutenberg_35856","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/35856","summary":null,"tags":["Assyro-Babylonian religion","Category: Archaeology & Anthropology","Category: History - Ancient","Category: Religion/Spirituality","Egypt -- Religion"],"text":"</pre>\n\n\n\n\n                             The Religions of\n\n                       Ancient Egypt and Babylonia\n\nThe Gifford Lectures on the Ancient Egyptian and Babylonian Conception of\n                                the Divine\n\n                          Delivered in Aberdeen\n\n                                    By\n\n                    Archibald Henry Sayce, D.D., LL.D.\n\n                     Professor of Assyriology, Oxford\n\n                                Edinburgh\n\n                     T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street\n\n                                   1903\n\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\nPreface.\nPart I. The Religion Of Ancient Egypt.\n   Lecture I. Introduction.\n   Lecture II. Egyptian Religion.\n   Lecture III. The Imperishable Part Of Man And The Other World.\n   Lecture IV. The Sun-God And The Ennead.\n   Lecture V. Animal Worship.\n   Lecture VI. The Gods Of Egypt.\n   Lecture VII. Osiris And The Osirian Faith.\n   Lecture VIII. The Sacred Books.\n   Lecture IX. The Popular Religion Of Egypt.\n   Lecture X. The Place Of Egyptian Religion In The History Of Theology.\nPart II. The Religion Of The Babylonians.\n   Lecture I. Introductory.\n   Lecture II. Primitive Animism.\n   Lecture III. The Gods Of Babylonia.\n   Lecture IV. The Sun-God And Istar.\n   Lecture V. Sumerian And Semitic Conceptions Of The Divine: Assur And\n   Monotheism.\n   Lecture VI. Cosmologies.\n   Lecture VII. The Sacred Books.\n   Lecture VIII. The Myths And Epics.\n   Lecture IX. The Ritual Of The Temple.\n   Lecture X. Astro-Theology And The Moral Element In Babylonian Religion.\nIndex.\nFootnotes\n\n\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE.\n\n\nThe subject of the following Lectures was \u201cThe Conception of the Divine\namong the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians,\u201d and in writing them I have\nkept this aspect of them constantly in view. The time has not yet come for\na systematic history of Babylonian religion, whatever may be the case as\nregards ancient Egypt, and, for reasons stated in the text, we must be\ncontent with general principles and fragmentary details.\n\nIt is on this account that so little advance has been made in grasping the\nreal nature and characteristics of Babylonian religion, and that a sort of\nnatural history description of it has been supposed to be all that is\nneeded by the student of religion. While reading over again my Hibbert\nLectures, as well as later works on the subject, I have been gratified at\nfinding how largely they have borrowed from me, even though it be without\nacknowledgment. But my Hibbert Lectures were necessarily a pioneering\nwork, and we must now attempt to build on the materials which were there\nbrought together. In the present volume, therefore, the materials are\npresupposed; they will be found for the most part either in my Hibbert\nLectures or in the cuneiform texts which have since been published.\n\nWe are better off, fortunately, as regards the religion of ancient Egypt.\nThanks more especially to Professor Maspero\u2019s unrivalled combination of\nlearning and genius, we are beginning to learn what the old Egyptian faith\nactually was, and what were the foundations on which it rested. The\ndevelopment of its dogmas can be traced, at all events to a certain\nextent, and we can even watch the progress of their decay.\n\nThere are two facts which, I am bound to add, have been forced upon me by\na study of the old religions of civilised humanity. On the one hand, they\ntestify to the continuity of religious thought. God\u2019s light lighteth every\nman that cometh into the world, and the religions of Egypt and Babylonia\nillustrate the words of the evangelist. They form, as it were, the\nbackground and preparation for Judaism and Christianity; Christianity is\nthe fulfilment, not of the Law only, but of all that was truest and best\nin the religions of the ancient world. In it the beliefs and aspirations\nof Egypt and Babylonia have found their explanation and fulfilment. But,\non the other hand, between Judaism and the coarsely polytheistic religion\nof Babylonia, as also between Christianity and the old Egyptian faith,\u2014in\nspite of its high morality and spiritual insight,\u2014there lies an impassable\ngulf. And for the existence of this gulf I can find only one explanation,\nunfashionable and antiquated though it be. In the language of a former\ngeneration, it marks the dividing-line between revelation and unrevealed\nreligion. It is like that \u201csomething,\u201d hard to define, yet impossible to\ndeny, which separates man from the ape, even though on the physiological\nside the ape may be the ancestor of the man.\n\nA. H. Sayce.\n\n_October 1902._\n\n\n\n\n\nPART I. THE RELIGION OF ANCIENT EGYPT.\n\n\n\n\nLecture I. Introduction.\n\n\nIt was with a considerable amount of diffidence that I accepted the\ninvitation to deliver a course of lectures before this University, in\naccordance with the terms of Lord Gifford\u2019s bequest. Not only is the\nsubject of them a wide and comprehensive one; it is one, moreover, which\nis full of difficulties. The materials upon which the lectures must be\nbased are almost entirely monumental: they consist of sculptures and\npaintings, of objects buried with the dead or found among the ruins of\ntemples, and, above all, of texts written in languages and characters\nwhich only a century ago were absolutely unknown. How fragmentary and\nmutilated such materials must be, I need hardly point out. The Egyptian or\nBabylonian texts we possess at present are but a tithe of those which once\nexisted, or even of those which will yet be discovered. Indeed, so far as\nthe Babylonian texts are concerned, a considerable proportion of those\nwhich have already been stored in the museums of Europe and America are\nstill undeciphered, and the work of thoroughly examining them will be the\nlabour of years. And of those which have been copied and translated, the\nimperfections are great. Not infrequently a text is broken just where it\nseemed about to throw light on some problem of religion or history, or\nwhere a few more words were needed in order to explain the sense. Or\nagain, only a single document may have survived to us out of a long\nseries, like a single chapter out of a book, leading us to form a wholly\nwrong idea of the author\u2019s meaning and the object of the work he had\nwritten or compiled. We all know how dangerous it is to explain a passage\napart from its context, and to what erroneous conclusions such a practice\nis likely to lead.\n\nAnd yet it is with such broken and precarious materials that the student\nof the religions of the past has to work. Classical antiquity can give us\nbut little help. In the literary age of Greece and Rome the ancient\nreligions of Babylonia and Egypt had passed into their dotage, and the\nconceptions on which they were founded had been transformed or forgotten.\nWhat was left of them was little more than an empty and unintelligible\nhusk, or even a mere caricature. The gods, in whose name the kings of\nAssyria had gone forth to conquer, and in whose honour Nebuchadrezzar had\nreared the temples and palaces of Babylon, had degenerated into the\npatrons of a system of magic; the priests, who had once made and unmade\nthe lords of the East, had become \u201cChald\u00e6an\u201d fortune-tellers, and the\nreligion and science of Babylonia were remembered only for their\nconnection with astrology. The old tradition had survived in Egypt with\nless apparent alteration, but even there the continuity of religious\nbelief and teaching was more apparent than real, external rather than\ninternal; and though the Ptolemies and early Roman emperors rebuilt the\ntemples on the old lines, and allowed themselves to be depicted in the\ndress of the Pharaohs, making offerings to gods whose very names they\ncould not have pronounced, it was all felt to be but a sham, a dressing\nup, as it were, in the clothes of a religion out of which all the spirit\nand life had fled.\n\nBoth in Egypt and in Babylonia, therefore, we are thrown back upon the\nmonumental texts which the excavator has recovered from the soil, and the\ndecipherer has pieced together with infinite labour and patience. At every\nstep we are brought face to face with the imperfections of the record, and\nmade aware how much we have to read into the story, how scanty is the\nevidence, how disconnected are the facts. The conclusions we form must to\na large extent be theoretical and provisional, liable to be revised and\nmodified with the acquisition of fresh material or a more skilful\ncombination of what is already known. We are compelled to interpret the\npast in the light of the present, to judge the men of old by the men of\nto-day, and to explain their beliefs in accordance with what seem to us\nthe common and natural opinions of civilised humanity.\n\nI need not point out how precarious all such attempts must necessarily be.\nThere is nothing harder than to determine the real character of the\nreligion of a people, even when the religion is still living. We may\ndescribe its outward characteristics, though even these are not\nunfrequently a matter of dispute; but the religious ideas themselves,\nwhich constitute its essence, are far more difficult to grasp and define.\nIndeed, it is not always easy for the individual himself to state with\nphilosophical or scientific precision the religious beliefs which he may\nhold. Difficult as it is to know what another man believes, it is\nsometimes quite as difficult to know exactly what one believes one\u2019s self.\nOur religious ideas and beliefs are a heritage which has come to us from\nthe past, but which has also been influenced and modified by the\nexperiences we have undergone, by the education we have received, and,\nabove all, by the knowledge and tendencies of our age. We seldom attempt\nto reduce them into a harmonious whole, to reconcile their\ninconsistencies, or to fit them into a consistent system. Beliefs which go\nback, it may be, to the ages of barbarism, exist with but little change by\nthe side of others which are derived from the latest revelations of\nphysical science; and our conceptions of a spiritual world are not\nunfrequently an ill-assorted mixture of survivals from a time when the\nuniverse was but a small tract of the earth\u2019s surface, with an\nextinguisher-like firmament above it, and of the ideas which astronomy has\ngiven us of illimitable space, with its millions of worlds.\n\nIf it is difficult to understand and describe with accuracy the religions\nwhich are living in our midst, how much more difficult must it be to\nunderstand and describe the religions that have gone before them, even\nwhen the materials for doing so are at hand! We are constantly told that\nthe past history of the particular forms of religion which we profess, has\nbeen misunderstood and misconceived; that it is only now, for example,\nthat the true history of early Christianity is being discovered and\nwritten, or that the motives and principles underlying the Reformation are\nbeing rightly understood. The earlier phases in the history of a religion\nsoon become unintelligible to a later generation. If we would understand\nthem, we must have not only the materials in which the record of them has\nbeen, as it were, embodied, but also the seeing eye and the sympathetic\nmind which will enable us to throw ourselves back into the past, to see\nthe world as our forefathers saw it, and to share for a time in their\nbeliefs. Then and then only shall we be able to realise what the religion\nof former generations actually meant, what was its inner essence as well\nas its outer form.\n\nWhen, instead of examining and describing a past phase in the history of a\nstill existing form of faith, we are called upon to examine and describe a\nform of faith which has wholly passed away, our task becomes infinitely\ngreater. We have no longer the principle of continuity and development to\nhelp us; it is a new plant that we have to study, not the same plant in an\nearlier period of its growth. The fundamental ideas which form, as it\nwere, its environment, are strange to us; the polytheism of Babylonia, or\nthe animal-worship of Egypt, transports us to a world of ideas which\nstands wholly apart from that wherein we move. It is difficult for us to\nput ourselves in the place of those who saw no underlying unity in the\nuniverse, no single principle to which it could all be referred, or who\nbelieved that the dumb animals were incarnations of the divine. And yet,\nuntil we can do so, the religions of the two great cultured nations of the\nancient world, the pioneers of the civilisation we enjoy to-day, will be\nfor us a hopeless puzzle, a labyrinth without a clue.\n\nBefore that clue can be found, we must divest ourselves of our\n_modernism_. We must go back in thought and sympathy to the old Orient,\nand forget, so far as is possible, the intervening ages of history and\ndevelopment, and the mental and moral differences between the East and the\nWest. I say so far as is possible, for the possibility is relative only.\nNo man can shake off the influences of the age and country of which he is\nthe child; we cannot undo our training and education, or root out the\ninherited instincts with which we were born. We cannot put back the hand\nof time, nor can the Ethiopian change his skin. All we can do is to\nsuppress our own prejudices, to rid ourselves of baseless assumptions and\nprepossessions, and to interpret such evidence as we have honestly and\nliterally. Above all, we must possess that power of sympathy, that\nhistorical imagination, as it is sometimes called, which will enable us to\nrealise the past, and to enter, in some degree, into its feelings and\nexperiences.\n\nThe first fact which the historian of religion has to bear in mind is,\nthat religion and morality are not necessarily connected together. The\nrecent history of religion in Western Europe, it is true, has made it\nincreasingly difficult for us to understand this fact, especially in days\nwhen systems of morality have been put forward as religions in themselves.\nBut between religion and morality there is not necessarily any close tie.\nReligion has to do with a power outside ourselves, morality with our\nconduct one to another. The civilised nations of the world have doubtless\nusually regarded the power that governs the universe as a moral power, and\nhave consequently placed morality under the sanction of religion. But the\npower may also be conceived of as non-moral, or even as immoral; the blind\nlaw of destiny, to which, according to Greek belief, the gods themselves\nwere subject, was necessarily non-moral; while certain Gnostic sects\naccounted for the existence of evil by the theory that the creator-god was\nimperfect, and therefore evil in his nature. Indeed, the cruelties\nperpetrated by what we term nature have seemed to many so contrary to the\nvery elements of moral law, as to presuppose that the power which permits\nand orders them is essentially immoral. Zoroastrianism divided the world\nbetween a god of good and a god of evil, and held that, under the present\ndispensation at all events, the god of evil was, on the whole, the\nstronger power.\n\nIt is strength rather than goodness that primitive man admires, worships,\nand fears. In the struggle for existence, at any rate in its earlier\nstages, physical strength plays the most important part. The old\ninstinctive pride of strength which enabled our first ancestors to battle\nsuccessfully against the forces of nature and the beasts of the forest,\nstill survives in the child and the boy. The baby still delights to pull\noff the wings and legs of the fly that has fallen into its power; and the\nhero of the playground is the strongest athlete, and not the best scholar\nor the most virtuous of schoolboys. A sudden outbreak of political fury\nlike that which characterised the French Revolution shows how thin is the\nvarnish of conventional morality which covers the passions of civilised\nman, and Christian Europe still makes the battlefield its court of final\nappeal. Like the lower animals, man is still governed by the law which\ndooms the weaker to extinction or decay, and gives the palm of victory to\nthe strong. In spite of all that moralists may say and preach, power and\nnot morality still governs the world.\n\nWe need not wonder, therefore, that in the earliest forms of religion we\nfind little or no traces of the moral element. What we term morality was,\nin fact, a slow growth. It was the necessary result of life in a\ncommunity. As long as men lived apart one from the other, there was little\nopportunity for its display or evolution. But with the rise of a community\ncame also the development of a moral law. In its practical details,\ndoubtless, that law differed in many respects from the moral law which we\nprofess to obey to-day. It was only by slow degrees that the sacredness of\nthe marriage tie or of family life, as we understand it, came to be\nrecognised. Among certain tribes of Esquimaux there is still promiscuous\nintercourse between the two sexes; and wherever Mohammedanism extends,\npolygamy, with its attendant degradation of the woman, is permitted. On\nthe other hand, there are still tribes and races in which polyandry is\npractised, and the child has consequently no father whom it can rightfully\ncall its own. Until the recent conversion of the Fijians to Christianity,\nit was considered a filial duty for the sons to kill and devour their\nparents when they had become too old for work; and in the royal family of\nEgypt, as among the Ptolemies who entered on its heritage, the brother was\ncompelled by law and custom to marry his sister. Family morality, in fact,\nif I may use such an expression, has been slower in its development than\ncommunal morality: it was in the community and in the social relations of\nmen to one another that the ethical sense was first developed, and it was\nfrom the community that the newly-won code of morals was transferred to\nthe family. Man recognised that he was a moral agent in his dealings with\nthe community to which he belonged, long before he recognised it as an\nindividual.\n\nReligion, however, has an inverse history. It starts from the individual,\nit is extended to the community. The individual must have a sense of a\npower outside himself, whom he is called upon to worship or propitiate,\nbefore he can rise to the idea of tribal gods. The fetish can be adored,\nthe ancestor addressed in prayer, before the family has become the tribe,\nor promiscuous intercourse has passed into polygamy.\n\nThe association of morality and religion, therefore, is not only not a\nnecessity, but it is of comparatively late origin in the history of\nmankind. Indeed, the union of the two is by no means complete even yet.\nOrthodox Christianity still maintains that correctness of belief is at\nleast as important as correctness of behaviour, and it is not so long ago\nthat men were punished and done to death, not for immoral conduct, but for\nrefusing to accept some dogma of the Church. In the eyes of the Creator,\nthe correct statement of abstruse metaphysical questions was supposed to\nbe of more importance than the fulfilment of the moral law.\n\nThe first step in the work of bringing religion and morality together was\nto place morality under the sanction of religion. The rules of conduct\nwhich the experiences of social life had rendered necessary or\nadvantageous were enforced by an appeal to the terrors of religious\nbelief. Practices which sinned against the code of social morality were\nput under the ban of the gods and their ministers, and those who ventured\nto adopt them were doomed to destruction in this world and the next. The\n_tapu_, which was originally confined to reserving certain places and\nobjects for the use of the divine powers, was invoked for the protection\nof ethical laws, or to punish violations of them, and the curse of heaven\nwas called down not only upon the enemy of the tribe, but upon the enemy\nof the moral code of the tribe as well.\n\nReligion thus became tribal as well as personal; the religious instinct in\nthe individual clothed itself with the forms of social life, and the\nreligious conceptions which had gathered round the life of the family were\nmodified and transferred to the life of the community. It was no longer\nonly a feeling of fear or reverence on the part of the individual which\nmade him bow down before the terrors of the supernatural and obey its\nbehests; to this were now added all the ties and associations connected\nwith the life of a tribe. The ethical element was joined to the religious,\nand what has been termed the religious instinct or consciousness in the\nindividual man attached itself to the rules and laws of ethical conduct.\nBut the attachment was, in the first instance, more or less accidental;\nlong ages had to pass before the place of the two elements, the ethical\nand religious, was reversed, and the religious sanction of the ethical\ncode was exchanged for an ethical sanction of religion. It needed\ncenturies of training before a Christian poet could declare: \u201cHe can\u2019t be\nwrong whose life is in the right.\u201d\n\nThere is yet another danger against which we must guard when dealing with\nthe religions of the past; it is that of confusing the thoughts and\nutterances of individuals with the common religious beliefs of the\ncommunities in which they lived. We are for the most part dependent on\nliterary materials for our knowledge of the faiths of the ancient world,\nand consequently the danger of which I speak is one to which the historian\nof religion is particularly exposed. But it must be remembered that a\nliterary writer is, by the very fact of his literary activity, different\nfrom the majority of his contemporaries, and that this difference in the\nages before the invention of printing was greater than it is to-day. He\nwas not only an educated man; he was also a man of exceptional culture. He\nwas a man whose thoughts and sayings were considered worthy of being\nremembered, who could think for himself, and whose thoughts were listened\nto by others. His abilities or genius raised him above the ordinary level;\nhis ideas, accordingly, could not be the ideas of the multitude about him,\nnor could he, from the nature of the case, express them in the same way.\nThe poets or theologians of Egypt and Babylonia were necessarily original\nthinkers, and we cannot, therefore, expect to find in their writings\nmerely a reflection of the beliefs or superstitions of those among whom\nthey lived.\n\nTo reconstruct the religion of Egypt from the literary works of which a\nfew fragments have come down to us, would be like reconstructing the\nreligion of this country in the last century from a few tattered pages of\nHume or Burns, of Dugald Stewart or Sir Walter Scott. The attempts to show\nthat ancient Egyptian religion was a sublime monotheism, or an enlightened\npantheism which disguised itself in allegories and metaphors, have their\norigin in a confusion between the aspirations of individual thinkers and\nthe actual religion of their time. There are indeed literary monuments\nrescued from the wreck of ancient Egyptian culture which embody the\nhighest and most spiritual conceptions of the Godhead, and use the\nlanguage of the purest monotheism. But such monuments represent the\nbeliefs and ideas of the cultured few rather than of the Egyptians as a\nwhole, or even of the majority of the educated classes. They set before us\nthe highest point to which the individual Egyptian could attain in his\nspiritual conceptions\u2014not the religion of the day as it was generally\nbelieved and practised. To regard them as representing the popular faith\nof Egypt, would be as misleading as to suppose that Socrates or Plato were\nfaithful exponents of Athenian religion.\n\nThat this view of the literary monuments of ancient Egypt is correct, can\nbe shown from two concrete instances. On the one side, there is the\ncurious attempt made by Amon-hotep IV., of the Eighteenth Dynasty, to\nrevolutionise Egyptian religion, and to replace the old religion of the\nState by a sort of monotheistic pantheism. The hymns addressed to the\nsolar disk\u2014the visible symbol of the new God\u2014breathe an exalted\nspirituality, and remind us of passages in the Hebrew Scriptures. \u201cO God,\u201d\nwe read in one of them. \u201cO God, who in truth art the living one, who\nstandest before our eyes; thou created that which was not, thou formest it\nall\u201d; \u201cWe also have come into being through the word of thy mouth.\u201d\n\nBut all such language was inspired by a cult which was not Egyptian, and\nwhich the Egyptians themselves regarded as an insult to their national\ndeity, and a declaration of war against the priesthood of Thebes. Hardly\nwas its royal patron consigned to his tomb when the national hatred burst\nforth against those who still adhered to the new faith; the temple and\ncity of the solar disk were levelled with the ground, and the body of the\nheretic Pharaoh himself was torn in pieces. Had the religious productions\nof the court of Amon-hotep IV. alone survived to us, we should have formed\nout of them a wholly false picture of the religion of ancient Egypt, and\nascribed to it doctrines which were held only by a few individuals at only\none short period of its history,\u2014doctrines, moreover, which were detested\nand bitterly resented by the orthodox adherents of the old creeds.\n\nMy other example is taken from a class of literature which exists wherever\nthere is a cultured society and an ancient civilisation. It is the\nliterature of scepticism, of those minds who cannot accept the popular\nnotions of divinity, who are critically contemptuous of time-honoured\ntraditions, and who find it impossible to reconcile the teaching of the\npopular cult with the daily experiences of life. It is not so much that\nthey deny or oppose the doctrines of the official creed, as that they\nignore them. Their scepticism is that of Epicurus rather than of the\nFrench encyclop\u00e6dists. Let the multitude believe in its gods and its\npriests, so long as they themselves are not forced to do the same.\n\nEgypt had its literary sceptics like Greece or Rome. Listen, for instance,\nto the so-called Song of the Harper, written as long ago as the age of the\nEleventh Dynasty, somewhere about 2500 B.C. This is how a part of it runs\nin Canon Rawnsley\u2019s metrical translation, which faithfully preserves the\nspirit and sense of the original\u2014(1)\n\n\n    \u201cWhat is fortune? say the wise.\n      Vanished are the hearths and homes;\n    What he does or thinks, who dies,\n      None to tell us comes\n\n    Eat and drink in peace to-day,\n      When you go your goods remain;\n    He who fares the last long way,\n      Comes not back again.\u201d\n\n\nThe Song of the Harper is not the only fragment of the sceptical\nliterature of Egypt which we possess. At a far later date, a treatise was\nwritten in which, under the thinly-veiled form of a fable the dogmas of\nthe national faith were controverted and overthrown. It takes the form of\na dialogue between an Ethiopian cat\u2014the representative of all that was\northodox and respectable in Egyptian society\u2014and a jackal, who is made the\nmouthpiece of heretical unbelief.(2) But it is clear that the sympathies\nof the author are with the sceptic rather than with the believer; and it\nis the cat and not the jackal who is worsted in argument. In this first\ncontroversy between authority and reason, authority thus comes off second\nbest, and just as Epicurus has a predecessor in the author of the Song of\nthe Harper, so Voltaire has a predecessor in the author of the dialogue.\n\nHere, again, it is obvious that if only these two specimens of Egyptian\ntheological literature had been preserved, we should have carried away\nwith us a very erroneous idea of ancient Egyptian belief\u2014or unbelief. Who\ncould have imagined that the Egyptians were a people who had elaborated a\nminutely-detailed description of the world beyond the grave, and who\nbelieved more intensely perhaps than any other people has done either\nbefore or since in a future life? Who could have supposed that their\nreligion inculcated a belief not only in the immortality of the soul or\nspirit, but in the resurrection of the body as well; and that they painted\nthe fields of the blessed to which they looked forward after death as a\nhappier and a sunnier Egypt, a land of light and gladness, of feasting and\njoy? We cannot judge what Egyptian religion was like merely from the\nwritings of some of its literary men, or build upon them elaborate\ntheories as to what priest and layman believed. In dealing with the\nfragments of Egyptian literature, we must ever bear in mind that they\nrepresent, not the ideas of the mass of the people, but the conceptions of\nthe cultured few.\n\nBut there is still another error into which we may fall. It is that of\nattaching too literal a meaning to the language of theology. The error is\nthe natural result of the reaction from the older methods of\ninterpretation, which found allegories in the simplest of texts, and\nmystical significations in the plainest words. The application of the\nscientific method to the records of the past brought with it a recognition\nthat an ancient writer meant what he said quite as much as a writer of\nto-day, and that to read into his language the arbitrary ideas of a modern\nhierophant might be an attractive pastime, but not a serious occupation.\nBefore we can hope to understand the literature of the past, we must try\nto discover what is its literal and natural meaning, unbiassed by\nprejudices or prepossessions, or even by the authority of great names.\nTheologians have been too fond of availing themselves of the ambiguities\nof language, and of seeing in a text more than its author either knew or\ndreamt of. Unless we have express testimony to the contrary, it is no more\npermissible to find parables and metaphorical expressions in an old\nEgyptian book than it is in the productions of the modern press.\n\nBut, on the other hand, it is possible to press this literalism too far.\nLanguage, it has been said, is a storehouse of faded metaphors; and if\nthis is true of language in general, it is still more true of theological\nlanguage. We can understand the spiritual and the abstract only through\nthe help of the material; the words by which we denote them must be drawn,\nin the first instance, from the world of the senses. Just as in the world\nof sense itself the picture that we see or the music that we hear comes to\nus through the nerves of sight and hearing, so all that we know or believe\nof the moral and spiritual world is conveyed to us through sensuous and\nmaterial channels. Thought is impossible without the brain through which\nit can act, and we cannot convey to others or even to ourselves our\nconceptions of right and wrong, of beauty and goodness, without having\nrecourse to analogies from the world of phenomena, to metaphor and\nimagery, to parable and allegory. What is \u201cconception\u201d itself but a\n\u201cgrasping with both hands,\u201d or \u201cparable\u201d but a \u201cthrowing by the side of\u201d?\nIf we would deal with the spiritual and moral, we _must_ have recourse to\nmetaphorical forms of speech. A religion is necessarily built up on a\nfoundation of metaphor.\n\nTo interpret such metaphors in their purely natural sense would therefore\nland us in gross error. Unfortunately, modern students of the religious\nhistory of the past have not always been careful to avoid doing so. Misled\nby the fact that language often enshrines old beliefs and customs which\nhave otherwise passed out of memory, they have forgotten that a metaphor\nis not necessarily a survival, or a survival a metaphor. In the\nhieroglyphic texts discovered in the Pyramids of the sixth Egyptian\ndynasty, Sahu or Orion, the huntsman of the skies, is said to eat the\ngreat gods in the morning, the lesser gods at noon and the smaller ones at\nnight, roasting their flesh in the vast ovens of the heavens; and it has\nbeen hastily concluded that this points to a time when the ancestors of\nthe historical Egyptians actually did eat human flesh. It would be just as\nreasonable to conclude from the language of the Eucharistic Office that\nthe members of the Christian Church were once addicted to cannibalism.\nEating and drinking are very obvious metaphors, and there are even\nlanguages in which the word \u201cto eat\u201d has acquired the meaning \u201cto\nexist\u201d.(3) I remember hearing of a tribe who believed that we worshipped a\nlamb because of the literal translation into their language of the phrase,\n\u201cO Lamb of God.\u201d Theology is full of instances in which the language it\nuses has been metaphorical from the outset, and the endeavour to interpret\nit with bald literality, and to see in it the fossilised ideas and\npractices of the past, would end in nothing but failure. Christianity is\nnot the only religion which has consciously employed parable for\ninculcating the truths it professes to teach. Buddhism has done the same,\nand the \u201cParables of Buddhagosha\u201d have had a wider influence than all the\nother volumes of the Buddhist Canon.\n\nSurvivals there undoubtedly are in theological language as in all other\nforms of language, and one of the hardest tasks of the student of ancient\nreligion is to determine where they really exist. Is the symbolism\nembodied in a word or an expression of primary or secondary origin? Was it\nfrom the very beginning a symbol and metaphor intended to be but the\nsensuous channel through which some perception of divine truth could be\nconveyed to us, or does it reflect the manners and thought of an earlier\nage of society, which has acquired a symbolical significance with the\nlapse of centuries? When the primitive Aryan gave the Being whom he\nworshipped the name of Dyaus, from a root which signified \u201cto be bright,\u201d\ndid he actually see in the bright firmament the divinity he adored, or was\nthe title a metaphorical one expressive only of the fact that the power\noutside himself was bright and shining like the sun? The Babylonians\npictured their gods in the image of man: did Babylonian religion\naccordingly begin with the worship of deified ancestors, or were the human\nfigures mere symbols and images denoting that the highest conception man\ncould form of his creator was that of a being like himself? The answer to\nthese questions, which it has been of late years the fashion to seek in\nmodern savagery, is inconclusive. It has first to be proved that modern\nsavagery is not due to degeneration rather than to arrested development,\nand that the forefathers of the civilised nations of the ancient world\nwere ever on the same level as the savage of to-day. In fact the savage of\nto-day is not, and cannot be, a representative of primitive man. If the\nordinary doctrine of development is right, primitive man would have known\nnothing of those essentials of human life and progress of which no savage\ncommunity has hitherto been found to be destitute. He would have known\nnothing of the art of producing fire, nothing of language, without which\nhuman society would be impossible. On the other hand, if the civilised\nraces of mankind possessed from the outset the germs of culture and the\npower to develop it, they can in no way be compared with the savages of\nthe modern world, who have lived, generation after generation, stationary\nand unprogressive, like the beasts that perish, even though at times they\nmay have been in contact with a higher civilisation. To explain the\nreligious beliefs and usages of the Greeks and Romans from the religious\nideas and customs of Australians or Hottentots, is in most cases but\nlabour in vain, and to seek the origin of Semitic religion in the habits\nand superstitions of low-caste Bed\u00e2win, is like looking to the gipsies for\nan explanation of European Christianity. Such a procedure is the abuse,\nnot the use, of the anthropological method. Folk-lore gives us a key to\nthe mind of the child, and of the childlike portion of society; it sheds\nno light on the beginnings either of religion or of civilisation, and to\nmake it do so is to mistake a will-o\u2019-the-wisp for a beacon-light. It is\nonce more to find \u201csurvivals\u201d where they exist only in the mind of the\ninquirer. So long as civilised society has lasted, it has contained the\nignorant as well as the learned, the fool as well as the wise man, and we\nare no more justified in arguing from the ignorance of the past than we\nshould be in arguing from the ignorance of the present. So far as\nfolk-tales genuinely reflect the mind of the unlearned and childlike only,\nthey are of little help to the student of the religions of the ancient\ncivilised world.\n\nWe must, then, beware of discovering allegory and symbol where they do not\nexist; we must equally beware of overlooking them where they are actually\nto be found. And we must remember that, although the metaphors and\nsymbolism of the earlier civilisations are not likely to be those which\nseem natural to the modern European, this is no reason why we should deny\nthe existence of them. In fact, without them religious language and\nbeliefs are impossible; it is only through the world of the senses that a\nway lies to a knowledge of the world beyond. The conditions into which we\nwere born necessitate our expressing and realising our mental, moral, and\nreligious conceptions through sensuous imagery and similitude. Only we\nmust never forget that the imagery is not the same for different races or\ngenerations of mankind.\n\nBefore concluding, I must say a few words in explanation of the title I\nhave given to the course of lectures I have the honour of delivering\nbefore you. It is not my intention to give a systematic description or\nanalysis of the ancient religions of Egypt and Babylonia. That would\nhardly be in keeping with the terms of Lord Gifford\u2019s bequest, nor would\nthe details be interesting, except to a small company of specialists.\nIndeed, in the case of the ancient religion of Babylonia, the details are\nstill so imperfect and disputed, that a discussion of them is fitted\nrather for the pages of a learned Society\u2019s journal than for a course of\nlectures. What the lecturer has to do is to take the facts that have been\nalready ascertained, to see to what conclusions they point, and to review\nthe theories which they countenance or condemn. The names and number of\nthe gods and goddesses worshipped by the Egyptians and Babylonians is of\nlittle moment to the scientific student of religion: what he wants to know\nis the conception of the deity which underlay these manifold forms, and\nthe relation in which man was believed to stand to the divine powers\naround him. What was it that the civilised Babylonian or Egyptian meant by\nthe term \u201cgod\u201d? What was the idea or belief that lay behind the polytheism\nof the popular cult, and in what respects is it marked off from the ideas\nand beliefs that rule the religions of our modern world? The old Egyptian,\nindeed, might not have understood what we mean by \u201cpolytheism\u201d and\n\u201cmonotheism,\u201d but would he not have already recognised the two tendencies\nof thought which have found expression among us in these words? Was St.\nPaul right when he declared that the old civilised nations had sought\nafter the God of Christianity, \u201cif haply they might feel after Him and\nfind Him,\u201d or is there an impassable gulf between the religious\nconceptions of paganism and those of Christian Europe? Such are some of\nthe questions to whose solution I trust that the facts I have to bring\nbefore you may contribute, in however humble a degree.\n\n\n\n\nLecture II. Egyptian Religion.\n\n\nIt is through its temples and tombs that ancient Egypt is mainly known to\nus. It is true that the warm and rainless climate of Upper Egypt has\npreserved many of the objects of daily life accidentally buried in the\nruins of its cities, and that even fragments of fragile papyrus have come\nfrom the mounds that mark the sites of its villages and towns; but these\ndo not constitute even a tithe of the monuments upon which our present\nknowledge of ancient Egyptian life and history has been built. It is from\nthe tombs and temples that we have learned almost all we now know about\nthe Egypt of the past. The tombs were filled with offerings to the dead\nand illustrations of the daily life of the living, while their walls were\nadorned with representations of the scenes at which their possessor had\nbeen present, with the history of his life, or with invocations to the\ngods. The temples were storehouses of religious lore, which was sculptured\nor painted on their walls and ceilings. In fact, we owe most of our\nknowledge of ancient Egypt to the gods and to the dead; and it is natural,\ntherefore, that the larger part of it should be concerned with religion\nand the life to come.\n\nWe are thus in an exceptionally good position for ascertaining, at all\nevents in outline, the religious ideas of the old Egyptians, and even for\ntracing their history through long periods of time. The civilisation of\nEgypt goes back to a remote past, and recent discoveries have carried us\nalmost to its beginnings. The veil which so long covered the origin of\nEgyptian culture is at last being drawn aside, and some of the most\npuzzling inconsistencies in the religion, which formed so integral a part\nof that culture, are being explained. We have learnt that the religion of\nthe Egypt which is best known to us was highly composite, the product of\ndifferent races and different streams of culture and thought; and the task\nof uniting them all into a homogeneous whole was never fully completed. To\nthe last, Egyptian religion remained a combination of ill-assorted\nsurvivals rather than a system, a confederation of separate cults rather\nthan a definite theology. Like the State, whatever unity it possessed was\ngiven to it by the Pharaoh, who was not only a son and representative of\nthe sun-god, but the visible manifestation of the sun-god himself. Its\nunity was thus a purely personal one: without the Pharaoh the Egyptian\nState and Egyptian religion would alike have been dissolved into their\noriginal atoms.\n\nThe Pharaonic Egyptians\u2014the Egyptians, that is to say, who embanked the\nNile, who transformed the marsh and the desert into cultivated fields, who\nbuilt the temples and tombs, and left behind them the monuments we\nassociate with Egyptian culture\u2014seem to have come from Asia; and it is\nprobable that their first home was in Babylonia. The race (or races) they\nfound in the valley of the Nile were already possessed of a certain\nmeasure of civilisation. They were in an advanced stage of neolithic\nculture; their flint tools are among the finest that have ever been made;\nand they were skilled in the manufacture of vases of the hardest stone.\nBut they were pastoral rather than agricultural, and they lived in the\ndesert rather than on the river-bank. They proved no match for the\nnewcomers, with their weapons of copper; and, little by little, the\ninvading race succeeded in making itself master of the valley of the Nile,\nthough tradition remembered the fierce battles which were needed before\nthe \u201csmiths\u201d who followed Horus could subjugate the older population in\ntheir progress from south to north.\n\nHow far the invaders themselves formed a single race is still uncertain.\nSome scholars believe that, besides the Asiatics who entered Egypt from\nthe south, crossing the Red Sea and so marching through the eastern desert\nto the Nile, there were other Asiatics who came overland from Mesopotamia,\nand made their way into the Delta across the isthmus of Suez. Of this\noverland invasion, however, I can myself see no evidence; so far as our\nmaterials at present allow us to go, the Egyptians of history were\ncomposed, at most, of three elements, the Asiatic invaders from the south,\nand two older races, which we may term aboriginal. One of them Professor\nPetrie is probably right in maintaining to be Libyan.(4)\n\nWe thus have at least three different types of religious belief and\npractice at the basis of Egyptian religion, corresponding with the three\nraces which together made up the Egyptian people. Two of the types would\nbe African; the third would be Asiatic, perhaps Babylonian. From the very\noutset, therefore, we must be prepared to find divergences of religious\nconception as well as divergences in rites and ceremonies. And such\ndivergences can be actually pointed out.(5)\n\nThe practice of embalming, for instance, is one which we have been\naccustomed to think peculiarly characteristic of ancient Egypt. It is\nreferred to in the Book of Genesis, and described by classical writers.\nThere are many people whose acquaintance with the old Egyptians is\nconfined to the fact that when they died their bodies were made into\nmummies. It is from the wrappings of the mummy that most of the small\namulets and scarabs have come which fill so large a space in collections\nof Egyptian antiquities, as well as many of the papyri which have given us\nan insight into the literature of the past. We have been taught to believe\nthat from times immemorial the Egyptians mummified their dead, and that\nthe practice was connected with an equally immemorial faith in the\nresurrection of the dead; and yet recent excavations have made it clear\nthat such a belief is erroneous. Mummification was never universal in\nEgypt, and there was a time when it was not practised at all. It was\nunknown to the prehistoric populations whom the Pharaonic Egyptians found\non their arrival in the country; and among the Pharaonic Egyptians\nthemselves it seems to have spread only slowly. Few traces of it have been\nmet with before the age of the Fourth and Fifth Dynasties, if, indeed, any\nhave been met with at all.\n\nBut, as we shall see hereafter, the practice of mummification was closely\nbound up with a belief in the resurrection of the dead. The absence of it\naccordingly implies that this belief was either non-existent, or, at all\nevents, did not as yet occupy a prominent place in the Egyptian creed.\nLike embalming, it must have been introduced by the Pharaonic Egyptians;\nit was not until the older races of the country had been absorbed by their\nconquerors that mummification became general, along with the religious\nideas that were connected with it. Before the age of the Eighteenth\nDynasty it seems to have been practically confined to the court and the\nofficial priesthood.\n\nOn the other hand, one at least of the prehistoric races appears to have\npractised secondary burial. The skeletons discovered in its graves have\nbeen mutilated in an extraordinary manner. The skull, the legs, the arms,\nthe feet, and the hands have been found dissevered from the trunk; even\nthe backbone itself is sometimes broken into separate portions; and there\nare cases in which the whole skeleton is a mere heap of dismembered bones.\nBut, in spite of this dismemberment, the greatest care has been taken to\npreserve the separate fragments, which are often placed side by side. An\nexplanation of the dismemberment has been sought in cannibalism, but\ncannibals do not take the trouble to collect the bones of their victims\nand bury them with all the marks of respect; moreover, the bones have not\nbeen gnawed except in one or two examples, where wild beasts rather than\nman must have been at work. It seems evident, therefore, that the race\nwhose dismembered remains have thus been found in so many of the\nprehistoric cemeteries of Egypt, allowed the bodies of the dead to remain\nunburied until the flesh had been stripped from their bones by the birds\nand beasts of prey, and that it was only when this had been done that the\nsun-bleached bones were consigned to the tomb. Similar practices still\nprevail in certain parts of the world; apart from the Parsi \u201ctowers of\nsilence,\u201d it is still the custom in New Guinea to leave the corpse among\nthe branches of a tree until the flesh is entirely destroyed.(6)\n\nBetween mummification and secondary burial no reconciliation is possible.\nThe conceptions upon which the two practices rest are contradictory one to\nthe other. In the one case every effort is made to keep the body intact\nand to preserve the flesh from decay; in the other case the body is cast\nforth to the beasts of the desert and the fowls of the air, and its very\nskeleton allowed to be broken up. A people who practised secondary burial\ncan hardly have believed in a future existence of the body itself. Their\nbelief must rather have been in the existence of that shadowy, vapour-like\nform, comparable to the human breath, in which so many races of mankind\nhave pictured to themselves the imperishable part of man. It was the misty\nghost, seen in dreams or detected at night amid the shadows of the forest,\nthat survived the death of the body; the body itself returned to the earth\nfrom whence it had sprung.\n\nThis prehistoric belief left its traces in the official religion of later\nEgypt. The _Ba_ or \u201cSoul,\u201d with the figure of a bird and the head of a\nman, is its direct descendant. As we shall see, the conception of the _Ba_\nfits but ill with that of the mummy, and the harmonistic efforts of a\nlater date were unable altogether to hide the inner contradiction that\nexisted between them. The soul, which fled on the wings of a bird to the\nworld beyond the sky, was not easily to be reconciled with the mummified\nbody which was eventually to lead a life in the other world that should be\na repetition and reflection of its life in this. How the _Ba_ and the\nmummy were to be united, the official cult never endeavoured to explain;\nthe task was probably beyond its powers. It was content to leave the two\nconceptions side by side, bidding the individual believer reconcile them\nas best he could.\n\nThe fact illustrates another which must always be kept in mind in dealing\nwith Egyptian religion. Up to the last it remained without a philosophic\nsystem. There were, it is true, certain sides of it which were reduced to\nsystems, certain parts of the official creed which became philosophies.\nBut as a whole it was a loosely-connected agglomeration of beliefs and\npractices which had come down from the past, and one after the other had\nfound a place in the religion of the State. No attempt was ever made to\nform them into a coherent and homogeneous whole, or to find a philosophic\nbasis upon which they all might rest. Such an idea, indeed, never occurred\nto the Egyptian. He was quite content to take his religion as it had been\nhanded down to him, or as it was prescribed by the State; he had none of\nthat inner retrospection which distinguishes the Hindu, none of that\ndesire to know the causes of things which characterised the Greek. The\ncontradictions which we find in the articles of his creed never troubled\nhim; he never perceived them, or if he did they were ignored. He has left\nto us the task of finding a philosophic basis for his faith, and of fixing\nthe central ideas round which it revolved; the task is a hard one, and it\nis rendered the harder by the imperfection of our materials.\n\nThe Egyptian was no philosopher, but he had an immense veneration for the\npast. The past, indeed, was ever before him; he could not escape from it.\nObjects and monuments which would have perished in other countries were\npreserved almost in their pristine freshness by the climate under which he\nlived. As to-day, so too in the age of the Pharaohs, the earliest and the\nlatest of things jostled one another, and it was often difficult to say\nwhich of the two looked the older. The past was preserved in a way that it\ncould not be elsewhere; nothing perished except by the hand of man. And\nman, brought up in such an atmosphere of continuity, became intensely\nconservative. Nature itself only increased the tendency. The Nile rose and\nfell with monotonous regularity; year after year the seasons succeeded\neach other without change; and the agriculturist was not dependent on the\nvariable alternations of rain and sunshine, or even of extreme heat and\ncold. In Egypt, accordingly, the new grew up and was adopted without\ndisplacing the old. It was a land to which the rule did not apply that\n\u201cthe old order changeth, giving place to new.\u201d The old order might,\nindeed, change, through foreign invasion or the inventions of human\ngenius, but all the same it did not give place to the new. The new simply\ntook a place by the side of the old.\n\nThe Egyptian system of writing is a striking illustration of the fact. All\nthe various stages through which writing must pass, in its development out\nof pictures into alphabetic letters, exist in it side by side. The\nhieroglyphs can be used at once ideographically, syllabically, and\nalphabetically. And what is true of Egyptian writing is true also of\nEgyptian religion. The various elements out of which it arose are all\nstill traceable in it; none of them has been discarded, however little it\nmight harmonise with the elements with which it has been combined.\nReligious ideas which belong to the lowest and to the highest forms of the\nreligious consciousness, to races of different origin and different age,\nexist in it side by side.\n\nIt is true that even in organised religions we find similar combinations\nof heterogeneous elements. Survivals from a distant past are linked in\nthem with the conceptions of a later age, and beliefs of divergent origin\nhave been incorporated by them into the same creed. But it is a definite\nand coherent creed into which they have been embodied; the attempt has\nbeen made to fuse them into a harmonious whole, and to explain away their\napparent divergencies and contradictions. Either the assertion is made\nthat the creed of the present has come down unchanged from the past, or\nelse it is maintained that the doctrines and rites of the past have\ndeveloped normally and gradually into those of the present.\n\nBut the Egyptian made no such endeavour. He never realised that there was\nany necessity for making it. It was sufficient that a thing should have\ndescended to him from his ancestors for it to be true, and he never\ntroubled himself about its consistency with other parts of his belief. He\naccepted it as he accepted the inconsistencies and inequalities of life,\nwithout any effort to work them into a harmonious theory or form them into\na philosophic system. His religion was like his temples, in which the art\nand architecture of all the past centuries of his history existed side by\nside. All that the past had bequeathed to him must be preserved, if\npossible; it might be added to, but not modified or destroyed.\n\nIt is curious that the same spirit has prevailed in modern Egypt. The\nnative never restores. If a building or the furniture within it goes to\ndecay, no attempt is made to mend or repair it; it is left to moulder on\nin the spot where it stands, while a new building or a new piece of\nfurniture is set up beside it. That the new and the old should not agree\ntogether\u2014should, in fact, be in glaring contrast\u2014is a matter of no moment.\nThis veneration for the past, which preserves without repairing or\nmodifying or even adapting to the surroundings of the present, is a\ncharacteristic which is deeply engrained in the mind of the Egyptian. It\nhad its prior origin in the physical and climatic conditions of the\ncountry in which he was born, and has long since become a leading\ncharacteristic of his race.\n\nAlong with the inability to take a general view of the beliefs he held,\nand to reduce them to a philosophic system, went an inability to form\nabstract ideas. This inability, again, may be traced to natural causes.\nThanks to the perpetual sunshine of the valley of the Nile, the Egyptian\nleads an open-air life. Except for the purpose of sleep, his house is of\nlittle use to him, and in the summer months even his sleep is usually\ntaken on the roof. He thus lives constantly in the light and warmth of a\nsouthern sun, in a land where the air is so dry and clear that the\noutlines of the most distant objects are sharp and distinct, and there is\nno melting of shadow into light, such as characterises our northern\nclimes. Everything is clear; nothing is left to the imagination; and the\nsense of sight is that which is most frequently brought into play. It is\nwhat the Egyptian sees rather than what he hears or handles that impresses\nitself upon his memory, and it is through his eyes that he recognises and\nremembers.\n\nAt the same time this open-air life is by no means one of leisure. The\npeculiar conditions of the valley of the Nile demand incessant labour on\nthe part of its population. Fruitful as the soil is when once it is\nwatered, without water it remains a barren desert or an unwholesome marsh.\nAnd the only source of water is the river Nile. The Nile has to be kept\nwithin its banks, to be diverted into canals, or distributed over the\nfields by irrigating machines, before a single blade of wheat can grow or\na single crop be gathered in. Day after day must the Egyptian labour,\nrepairing the dykes and canals, ploughing the ground, planting the seed,\nand incessantly watering it; the Nile is ready to take advantage of any\nrelaxation of vigilance and toil, to submerge or sweep away the cultivated\nland, or to deny to it the water that it needs. Of all people the Egyptian\nis the most industrious; the conditions under which he has to till the\nsoil oblige him to be so, and to spend his existence in constant\nagricultural work.\n\nBut, as I have already pointed out, this work is monotonously regular.\nThere are no unexpected breaks in it; no moments when a sudden demand is\nmade for exceptional labour. The farmer\u2019s year is all mapped out for him\nbeforehand: what his forefathers have done for unnumbered centuries before\nhim, he too has to do almost to a day. It is steady toil, day after day,\nfrom dawn to night, during the larger portion of the year.\n\nThis steady toil in the open air gives no opportunity for philosophic\nmeditation or introspective theorising. On the contrary, life for the\nEgyptian _fellah_ is a very real and practical thing: he knows beforehand\nwhat he has to do in order to gain his bread, and he has no time in which\nto theorise about it. It is, moreover, his sense of sight which is\nconstantly being exercised. The things which he knows and remembers are\nthe things which he sees, and he sees them clearly in the clear sunshine\nof his fields.\n\nWe need not wonder, therefore, that the ancient Egyptian should have shown\non the one hand an incapacity for abstract thought, and on the other hand\na love of visible symbols. The two, in fact, were but the reverse sides of\nthe same mental tendency. Symbolism, indeed, is always necessary before we\ncan apprehend the abstract: it is only through the sensuous symbol that we\ncan express the abstract thought. But the Egyptian did not care to\npenetrate beyond the expression. He was satisfied with the symbol which he\ncould see and remember, and the result was that his religious ideas were\nmaterial rather than spiritual. The material husk, as it were, sufficed\nfor him, and he did not trouble to inquire too closely about the kernel\nwithin. The soul was for him a human-headed bird, which ascended on its\nwings to the heavens above; and the future world itself was but a\nduplicate of the Egypt which his eyes gazed upon below.\n\nThe hieroglyphic writing was at once an illustration and an encouragement\nof this characteristic of his mind. All abstract ideas were expressed in\nit by symbols which he could see and understand. The act of eating was\ndenoted by the picture of a man with his hand to his mouth, the idea of\nwickedness by the picture of a sparrow. And these symbolic pictures were\nusually attached to the words they represented, even when the latter had\ncome to be syllabically and alphabetically spelt. Even in reading and\nwriting, therefore, the Egyptian was not required to concern himself\novermuch with abstract thought. The concrete symbols were ever before his\neyes, and it was their mental pictures which took the place for him of\nabstract ideas.\n\nIt must, of course, be remembered that the foregoing generalisations apply\nto the Egyptian people as a whole. There were individual exceptions; there\nwas even a class the lives of whose members were not devoted to\nagricultural or other labour, and whose religious conceptions were often\nspiritual and sublime. This was the class of priests, whose power and\ninfluence increased with the lapse of time, and who eventually moulded the\nofficial theology of Egypt. Priestly colleges arose in the great\nsanctuaries of the country, and gradually absorbed a considerable part of\nits land and revenues. At first the priests do not seem to have been a\nnumerous body, and up to the last the higher members of the hierarchy were\ncomparatively few. But in their hands the religious beliefs of the people\nunderwent modification, and even a rudimentary systematisation; the\ndifferent independent cults of the kingdom were organised and combined\ntogether, and with this organisation came philosophic speculation and\ntheorising. If Professor Maspero is right, the two chief schools of\nreligious thought and systematising in early Egypt were at Heliopolis,\nnear the apex of the Delta, and Hermopolis, the modern Eshmun\u00ean, in\nCentral Egypt. In Hermopolis the conception of creation, not by voice\nmerely, but even by the mere sound of the voice, was first formed and\nworked out while Heliopolis was the source of that arrangement of the\ndeities into groups of nine which led to the identification of the gods\none with another, and so prepared the way for monotheism.(7) If Heliopolis\nwere indeed, as seems probable, the first home of this religious theory,\nits influence upon the rest of Egypt was profound. Already in the early\npart of the historical period, in the age of the Fifth and Sixth\nDynasties, when the religious texts of the Pyramids were compiled, the\nscheme which placed the Ennead or group of nine at the head of the\nPantheon had been accepted throughout the country. It was the beginning of\nan inevitable process of thought, which ended by resolving the deities of\nthe official cult into forms or manifestations one of the other, and by\nlanding its adherents in pantheism.\n\nTo a certain extent, therefore, the general incapacity for abstract\nthought which distinguished the Egyptians did not hold good of the\npriestly colleges. But even among the priests the abstract was never\nentirely dissociated from the symbol. Symbolism still dominates the\nprofoundest thoughts and expressions of the later inscriptions; the writer\ncannot free himself from the sensuous image, except perhaps in a few\nindividual cases. At the most, Egyptian thought cannot rise further than\nthe conception of \u201cthe god who has no form\u201d\u2014a confession in itself of\ninability to conceive of what is formless. It is true that after the rise\nof the Eighteenth Dynasty the deity is addressed as _Kheper zes-ef_, \u201cthat\nwhich is self-grown,\u201d \u201cthe self-existent\u201d; but when we find the same\nepithet applied also to plants like the balsam and minerals like\nsaltpetre, it is clear that it does not possess the abstract significance\nwe should read into it to-day. It simply expresses the conviction that the\ngod to whom the prayer is offered is a god who was never born in human\nfashion, but who grew up of himself, like the mineral which effloresces\nfrom the ground, or the plant which is not grown from seed. Similarly,\nwhen it is said of him that he is \u201cexistent from the beginning,\u201d\u2014_kheper\nem \u1e25at_,\u2014or, as it is otherwise expressed, that he is \u201cthe father of the\nbeginning,\u201d the phrase is less abstract than it seems at first sight to\nbe. The very word _kheper_ or \u201cexistent\u201d denotes the visible universe,\nwhile _\u1e25at_ or \u201cbeginning\u201d is the hinder extremity. The phrase can be\npressed just as little as the epithet \u201clord of eternity,\u201d applied to\ndeities whose birth and death are nevertheless asserted in the same\nbreath. Perhaps the most abstract conception of the divine to which the\nEgyptian attained was that of \u201cthe nameless one,\u201d since the name was\nregarded as something very real and concrete, as, in fact, the essence of\nthat to which it belonged. To say, therefore, that a thing was nameless,\nwas equivalent to either denying its existence or to lifting it out of the\nworld of the concrete altogether.\n\nThere was a moment in the history of Egypt when an attempt was made to put\na real signification into the apparently abstract terms and phrases\naddressed to the gods. The Pharaoh Khu-n-Aten, towards the close of the\nEighteenth Dynasty, appears suddenly on the scene as a royal reformer,\ndetermined to give life and meaning to the language which had described\nthe supreme deity as \u201cthe sole and only god,\u201d the absolute ruler of the\nuniverse, who was from all eternity, and whose form was hidden from men.\nBut the impulse to the reform came from Asia. Khu-n-Aten\u2019s mother was a\nforeigner, and his attempt to engraft Asiatic ideas upon Egyptian\nreligion, or rather to substitute an Asiatic form of faith for that of his\nfathers, proved a failure. The worship of the one supreme deity, whose\nvisible symbol was the solar disc, though enforced by persecution and by\nall the power of the Pharaoh himself, hardly survived his death. Amon of\nThebes and his priesthood came victorious out of the struggle, and the\npantheistic monotheism of Khu-n-Aten was never revived. Symbolism\nremained, while the abstract thought, to which that symbolism should have\nbeen a stepping-stone, failed to penetrate into Egyptian religion. The\nEgyptian continued to be content with the symbol, as his father had been\nbefore him. But in the priestly colleges and among the higher circles of\nculture it became less materialistic; while the mass of the people still\nsaw nothing but the symbol itself, the priests and scribes looked as it\nwere beyond it, and saw in the symbol the picture of some divine truth,\nthe outward garment in which the deity had clothed himself. What\nconstituted, however, the peculiarity of the Egyptian point of view was,\nthat this outward garment was never separated from that which it covered;\nit was regarded as an integral part of the divine essence, which could no\nmore be dissociated from it than the surface of a statue can be\ndissociated from the stone of which it is made. The educated Egyptian came\nto see in the multitudinous gods of the public worship merely varying\nmanifestations or forms of one divine substance; but still they were\nmanifestations or forms visible to the senses, and apart from such forms\nthe divine substance had no existence. It is characteristic that the old\nbelief was never disavowed, that images were actually animated by the gods\nor human personalities whose likeness they bore, and whom they were\nexpressively said to have \u201cdevoured\u201d; indeed, the king still received the\n_Sa_ or principle of immortality from contact with the statue of the god\nhe served; and wonder-working images, which inclined the head towards\nthose who asked them questions, continued to be consulted in the\ntemples.(8) At Dendera the soul of the goddess Hathor was believed to\ndescend from heaven in the form of a hawk of lapis-lazuli in order to\nvivify her statue;(9) and the belief is a significant commentary on the\nmental attitude of her worshippers.\n\nOne result of the Egyptian\u2019s inability or disinclination for abstract\nthought was the necessity not only of representing the gods under special\nand definite forms, but even of always so thinking of them. The system of\nwriting, with its pictorial characters, favoured the habit; and we can\nwell understand how difficult the most educated scribe must have found it\nto conceive of Thoth otherwise than as an ibis, or of Hathor otherwise\nthan as a cow. Whatever may have been the origin of the Egyptian worship\nof animals, or\u2014which is something very different\u2014of the identification of\ncertain individual animals with the principal gods, its continuance was\nmaterially assisted by the sacred writing of the scribes and the pictures\nthat adorned the walls of the temples. To the ordinary Egyptian, Thoth was\nindeed an ibis, and the folk-lore of the great sanctuaries accordingly\ndescribed him as such.(10) But to the cultured Egyptian, also, the ibis\nwas his symbol; and in Egypt, as we have seen, the symbol and what is\nsymbolised were apt to be confounded together.\n\nThe beast-worship of Egypt excited the astonishment and ridicule of the\nGreeks and Romans, and the unmeasured scorn of the Christian apologists. I\nshall have to deal with it in a later lecture. For the present it is\nsufficient to point out how largely it owed its continued existence to the\nneed for symbolism which characterised Egyptian thought, in spite of the\nfact that there was another and contradictory conception which held sway\nwithin Egyptian religion. This was the conception of the divinity of man,\nwhich found its supreme expression in the doctrine that the Pharaoh was\nthe incarnation of the sun-god. It was not in the brute beast, but in man\nhimself, that the deity revealed himself on earth.\n\nThe origin of the conception must be sought in the early history of the\ncountry. Egypt was not at first the united monarchy it afterwards became.\nIt was divided into a number of small principalities, each independent of\nthe other and often hostile. It is probable that in some cases the\ninhabitants of these principalities did not belong to the same race; that\nwhile in one the older population predominated, in another the Pharaonic\nEgyptians held absolute sway. At all events the manners and customs of\ntheir inhabitants were not uniform, any more than the religious beliefs\nthey held and the rites they practised. The god who was honoured in one\nplace was abhorred in another, and a rival deity set over against him.\n\nTrue to its conservative principles, Egypt never forgot the existence of\nthese early principalities. They continued to survive in a somewhat\nchanged form. They became the nomes of Pharaonic Egypt, separate districts\nresembling to a certain degree the States of the American Republic, and\npreserving to the last their independent life and organisation. Each nome\nhad its own capital, its own central sanctuary, and its own prince; above\nall, it had its own special god or goddess, with their attendant deities,\ntheir college of priests, their ceremonies and their festivals. Up to the\nage of the Hyksos conquest the hereditary princes of the nomes were feudal\nlords, owning a qualified obedience to the Pharaoh, and furnishing him\nwith tribute and soldiers when called upon to do so. It was not till after\nthe rise of the Eighteenth Dynasty that the old feudal nobility was\nreplaced by court officials and a bureaucracy which owed its position to\nthe king; and even then the descendants of the ancient princes were ever\non the watch to take advantage of the weakness of the central authority\nand recover the power they had lost. Up to the last, too, the gods of the\nseveral nomes preserved a semblance of their independent character. It was\nonly with the rise of the new kingdom and the accession of the Eighteenth\nDynasty that that process of fusion set in to any real purpose which\nidentified the various deities one with another, and transformed them into\nkaleidoscopic forms of Amon or Ra. The loss of their separate and\nindependent character went along with the suppression of the feudal\nfamilies with whom their worship had been associated for unnumbered\ngenerations. The feudal god and the feudal prince disappeared together:\nthe one became absorbed into the supreme god of the Pharaoh and his\npriests, the other into a functionary of the court. It was only in the\nhearts and minds of the people that Thoth remained what he had always\nbeen, the lord and master of Hermopolis, and of Hermopolis alone.\n\nThe principalities of primitive Egypt gradually became unified into two or\nthree kingdoms, and eventually into two kingdoms only, those of Upper and\nLower Egypt. Recent discoveries have thrown unexpected light on this early\nperiod of history. At one time the capital of the southern kingdom was\nNekhen, called Hierakonpolis in the Greek period, the site of which is now\nrepresented by the ruins of Kom el-Ahmar, opposite El-Kab. Here, among the\nfoundations of the ancient temple, Mr. Quibell has found remains which\nprobably go back to an age before that of Menes and the rise of the united\nEgyptian monarchy. Among them are huge vases of alabaster and granite,\nwhich were dedicated by a certain king Besh in the year when he conquered\nthe people of Northern Egypt. On the other hand, on a stela now at Palermo\na list is given of kings who seem to have reigned over Northern Egypt\nwhile the Pharaohs of Nekhen were reigning in the south.(11)\n\nFor how many centuries the two kingdoms existed side by side, sometimes in\npeaceful intercourse, sometimes in hostile collision, it is impossible to\nsay. The fact that Egypt had once been divided into two kingdoms was never\nforgotten; down to the last days of the Egyptian monarchs the Pharaoh bore\nthe title of \u201clord of the two lands,\u201d and on his head was placed the\ntwofold crown of Upper and Lower Egypt. Nekhen was under the protection\nnot only of Horus, the god of the Pharaonic Egyptians, but also of Nekheb,\nthe tutelary goddess of the whole of the southern land. From the Cataract\nnorthward her dominion extended, but it was at El-Kab opposite Nekhen,\nwhere the road from the Red Sea and the mines of the desert reached the\nNile, that her special sanctuary stood. Besh calls himself on his vases\n\u201cthe son of Nekheb\u201d; and even as late as the time of the Sixth Dynasty the\neldest son of the king was entitled \u201cthe royal son of Nekheb.\u201d(12)\n\nNekheb, the vulture, was the goddess of the south, in contradistinction to\nUazit, the serpent, the goddess of the north. But in both the south and\nthe north the same dominant race held rule, the same customs prevailed,\nand the same language was spoken. The Pharaonic Egyptians, in their\nnorthern advance, had carried with them a common legacy of ideas and\nmanners. Their religious conceptions had been the same, and consequently\nthe general form assumed by the religious cult was similar. In spite of\nlocal differences and the self-centred character of the numerous\nindependent principalities, there was, nevertheless, a family likeness\nbetween them all. Ideas and customs, therefore, which grew up in one place\npassed readily to another, and the influence of a particular local\nsanctuary was easily carried beyond the limits of the district in which it\nstood.\n\nOne of the most fundamental of the beliefs which the Pharaonic Egyptians\nbrought with them was that in the divine origin of certain individuals.\nThe prince who led them was not only the son of a god or goddess, he was\nan incarnation of the god himself. The belief is one of the many facts\nwhich link the Pharaonic civilisation with the culture of primitive\nBabylonia. In Babylonia also the king was divine. One of the early kings\nof Ur calls himself the son of a goddess, just as Besh does at Nekhen; and\nthe great conquerors of primeval Asia, Sargon of Akkad and his son\nNaram-Sin, give themselves the title of \u201cgod\u201d in their inscriptions; while\nNaram-Sin is even invoked during his lifetime as \u201cthe god of the city of\nAgad\u00ea\u201d or Akkad. For many generations the Babylonian kings continued to\nreceive divine honours while they were still alive; and it was not until\nafter the conquest of Babylonia by a tribe of half-civilised foreigners\nfrom the mountains of Elam that the old tradition was broken, and the\nreigning king ceased to be a god. Like the doctrine of the divine right of\nkings in England, which could not survive the fall of the Stuarts, the\ndoctrine of the divine nature of the monarch did not survive in Babylonia\nthe fall of the native dynasties.\n\nIn Babylonia also, as in Egypt, the king continued to be invoked as a god\nafter his death. Chapels and priests were consecrated to his memory, and\nstated sacrifices and offerings made to him. It was not necessary that the\ndeified prince should be the supreme sovereign, it was sufficient if he\nwere the head of a feudal principality. Thus, while Dungi, the supreme\nsovereign of Babylonia, receives in his inscriptions the title of \u201cgod,\u201d\nhis vassal Gudea, the high priest and hereditary prince of the city of\nLagas, is likewise worshipped as a deity, whose cult lasted for many\ncenturies. Gudea was non-Semitic in race, but most of the Babylonian kings\nwho were thus deified were Semites. It is therefore possible that the\ndeification of the ruler was of Semitic origin, and only adopted from them\nby the older Sumerian population, as in the case of Gudea; it is also\npossible that it was one of the consequences of that fusion of the two\nraces, Sumerian and Semitic, which produced the later population and\nculture of Babylonia. However this may be, the apotheosis of the\nBabylonian king during his lifetime can be traced back as far as Sargon\nand Naram-Sin, 3800 B.C. Sargon incorporated Palestine, \u201cthe land of the\nAmorites,\u201d as it was then called, into his empire, while Naram-Sin\nextended his conquests to M\u00e2gan or the Sinaitic Peninsula, thus bringing\nthe arms and civilisation of Babylonia to the very doors of Egypt. The\nprecise nature of the connection which existed between the Babylonian and\nthe Egyptian belief in the divinity of the ruler must be left to future\nresearch.\n\nIn the Egyptian mind, at all events, it was a belief that was deeply\nimplanted. The Pharaoh was a god upon earth. Like the Incas of Peru, he\nbelonged to the solar race, and the blood which flowed in his veins was\nthe ichor of the gods. The existence of a similar belief in Peru shows how\neasy it was for such a belief to grow up in regard to the leader of a\nconquering people who brought with them a higher culture and the arts of\nlife. But it presupposes religious conceptions which, though\ncharacteristic of Babylonia, are directly contrary to those which seem to\nunderlie the religion of Egypt. Among the Babylonians the gods assumed\nhuman forms; man had been made in the likeness of the gods, and the gods\ntherefore were of human shape. The converse, however, was the case in\nEgypt. Here the gods, with few exceptions, were conceived of as brute\nbeasts. Horus was the hawk, Nekheb the vulture, Uazit of Buto the deadly\nur\u00e6us snake.\n\nThere is only one way of explaining the anomaly. The conception of the\ngods which made them men must have come from outside, and been imposed\nupon a people whose gods were the brute beasts. It must have been the\nPharaonic invaders from Asia to whom the leader they followed was an\nincarnate god. Hence it was just this leader and no other who was clothed\nwith divinity. Hence, too, it was that the older worship of animals was\nnever really harmonised with the worship of the Pharaoh. The inner\ncontradiction which existed between the new religious conceptions remained\nto the end, in spite of all the efforts of the priestly colleges to make\nthem agree. Religious art might represent the god with the head of a beast\nor bird and the body of a man, the sacred books might teach that the deity\nis unconfined by form, and so could pass at will from the body of a man\ninto that of a beast; but all such makeshifts could not hide the actual\nfact. Between the deity who is human and the deity who is bestial no true\nreconciliation is possible.\n\nWe must therefore trace the deification of the Pharaoh back to Asia, and\nthe Asiatic element in the Egyptian population. The Pharaonic conquerors\nof the valley of the Nile were those \u201cfollowers of Horus\u201d who worshipped\ntheir leader as a god. It was a god in human form who had led them to\nvictory, and Horus accordingly continued to be represented as a man, even\nthough the symbolism of the hieroglyphs united with the creed of the\nprehistoric races of Egypt in giving him the head of a hawk.\n\nAt first the ruler of each of the small kingdoms into which prehistoric\nEgypt was divided, was honoured as a god, like Gudea in Babylonia. When\nthe kingdoms became, first, vassal principalities under a paramount lord,\nand then nomes, the old tradition was still maintained. Divine titles were\ngiven to the nomarchs even in the later times of the united monarchy, and\nafter their death worship continued to be paid to them.(13) Christian\nwriters tell us how at Anab\u00ea particular individuals were regarded as gods,\nto whom offerings were accordingly brought; and Ptah, the tutelary deity\nof Memphis, was pictured as a man in the wrappings of a mummy, while to\nAnhur of This the human figure was assigned.\n\nWith the coalescence of the smaller principalities into two kingdoms, the\ndeification of the ruler was confined within narrower bounds. But for that\nvery reason it became more absolute and intense. The supreme sovereign,\nthe Pharaoh as we may henceforth call him, was a veritable god on earth.\nTo his subjects he was the source, not only of material benefits, but of\nspiritual blessings as well. He was \u201cthe good god,\u201d the beneficent\ndispenser of all good things.(14) The power of life and death was in his\nhand, and rebellion against him was rebellion against the gods. The blood\nthat flowed in his veins was the same as that which flowed in the veins of\nthe gods; it was even communicated to him from time to time by his divine\nbrethren; and the bas-reliefs of a later age, when the traditional belief\nhad become little more than a symbolical allegory, still depict him with\nhis back towards the statue of the god, who is transfusing the ichor of\nheaven through his veins.(15)\n\nMenes, the king of Upper Egypt, first united under one sceptre the two\nkingdoms of the Nile. The divinity which had hitherto been shared between\nthe Pharaohs of Upper and Lower Egypt now passed in all it fulness to him.\nHe became the visible god of Egypt, just as Sargon or Naram-Sin was the\nvisible god of Akkad. All the attributes of divinity belonged to him, as\nthey were conceived of by his subjects, and from him they passed to his\nsuccessors. Legitimacy of birth was reckoned through the mother, and\nthrough the mother accordingly the divine nature of the Pharaoh was handed\non. Only those who had been born of a princess of the royal family could\nbe considered to possess it in all its purity; and where this title was\nwanting, it was necessary to assume the direct intervention of a god. The\nmother of Amon-hotep III. was of Asiatic origin; we read, therefore, on\nthe walls of the temple of Luxor, that he was born of a virgin and the god\nof Thebes. Alexander, the conqueror of Egypt, was a Macedonian; it was\nneedful, accordingly, that he should be acknowledged as a son by the god\nof the oasis of Ammon.(16)\n\nBut such consequences of the old Egyptian belief in the incarnation of the\ndeity in man are leading us away into a field of investigation which will\nhave to be traversed in a future lecture. For the present, it is\nsufficient to keep two facts steadily before the mind: on the one side,\nthe old Egyptian belief in the divinity of the brute beast; on the other,\nthe equally old belief in the divinity of man. The two beliefs are not\nreally to be harmonised one with the other; they were, in fact, derived\nfrom different elements in the Egyptian population; but, with his usual\nconservative instinct and avoidance of abstract thought, the Egyptian of\nlater days co-ordinated them together, and closed his eyes to their actual\nincompatibility.\n\n\n\n\nLecture III. The Imperishable Part Of Man And The Other World.\n\n\nIt has sometimes been asserted by travellers and ethnologists, that tribes\nexist who are absolutely without any idea of God. It will usually be found\nthat such assertions mean little more than that they are without any idea\nof what we mean by God: even the Zulus, who saw in a reed the creator of\nthe world,(17) nevertheless believed that the world had been created by a\npower outside themselves. Modern research goes to show that no race of\nman, so far as is known, has been without a belief in a power of the kind,\nor in a world which is separate from the visible world around us;\nstatements to the contrary generally rest on ignorance or misconception.\nThe very fact that the savage dreams, and gives to his dreams the reality\nof his waking moments, brings with it a belief in what, for the want of a\nbetter term, I will call \u201canother world.\u201d\n\nThis other world, it must be remembered, is material, as material as the\n\u201cheavenly Jerusalem\u201d to which so many good Christians have looked forward\neven in our own day. The savage has no experience of anything else than\nmaterial existence, and he cannot, therefore, rise to the conception of\nwhat we mean by the spiritual, even if he were capable of forming so\nabstract an idea. His spiritual world is necessarily materialistic, not\nonly to be interpreted and apprehended through sensuous symbols, but\nidentical with those sensuous symbols themselves. The Latin _anima_ meant\n\u201cbreath\u201d before it meant \u201cthe soul.\u201d\n\nThis sensuous materialistic conception of the spiritual has lingered long\nin the human mind; indeed, it is questionable whether, as long as we are\nhuman, we shall ever shake ourselves wholly free from it. The greater is\nnaturally its dominance the further we recede in history. There is\n\u201canother world,\u201d but it is a world strangely like our own.\n\nClosely connected with this conception of \u201canother world\u201d is the\nconception which man forms concerning his own nature. There are few races\nof mankind among whom we do not find in one shape or another the belief in\na second self. Sometimes this second self is in all respects a reflection\nand image of the living self, like the images of those we see in our\ndreams; and it is more than probable that dreams first suggested it.\nSometimes it is a mere speck of grey vapour, which may owe its origin to\nthe breath which issues from the mouth and seems to forsake it at death,\nor to the misty forms seen after nightfall by the savage in the gloom of\nthe forest and by the edge of the morass. At times it is conceived of as a\nsort of luminous gas or a phosphorescent flash of light, such as is\nemitted by decaying vegetation in a damp soil. Or, again, it may be\nlikened to the bird that flies to heaven, to the butterfly which hovers\nfrom flower to flower, or even to insects like the grasshopper which hop\nalong the ground. But however it may be envisaged, it is at once\nimpalpable and material, something that can be perceived by the senses and\nyet eludes the grasp.\n\nThe Egyptian theory of the nature of man in the historical age of the\nnation was very complicated. Man was made up of many parts, each of which\nwas capable of living eternally. The belief in his composite character was\ndue to the composite character of the people as described in the last\nlecture, added to that conservative tendency which prevented them from\ndiscarding or even altering any part of the heritage of the past. Some at\nleast of the elements which went \u201cto the making of man\u201d were derived from\ndifferent elements in the population. They had been absorbed, or rather\nco-ordinated, in the State religion, with little regard to their mutual\ncompatibility and with little effort to reconcile them. Hence it is\nsomewhat difficult to distinguish them all one from another; indeed, it is\na task which no Egyptian theologian even attempted; and when we find the\nlist of them given in full, it is doubtless to secure that no component\npart of the individual should be omitted, the name of which had been\nhanded down from the generations of old.\n\nThere were, however, certain component parts which were clearly defined,\nand which occupied an important place in the religious ideas of Egypt.\nForemost amongst these was the _Ka_ or \u201cDouble.\u201d Underneath the conception\nof the Ka lay a crude philosophy of the universe. The Ka corresponded with\nthe shadow in the visible world. Like the shadow which cannot be detached\nfrom the object, so, too, the Ka or Double is the reflection of the object\nas it is conceived of in the mind. But the Egyptian did not realise that\nit was only a product of the mind. For him it was as real and material as\nthe shadow itself; indeed, it was much more material, for it had an\nindependent existence of its own. It could be separated from the object of\nwhich it was the facsimile and presentment, and represent it elsewhere.\nNay, more than this, it was what gave life and form to the object of which\nit was the image; it constituted, in fact, its essence and personality.\nHence it was sometimes interchanged with the \u201cName\u201d which, in the eyes of\nthe Egyptian, was the essence of the thing itself, without which the thing\ncould not exist. In a sense the Ka was the spiritual reflection of an\nobject, but it was a spiritual reflection which had a concrete form.\n\nThe \u201cideas\u201d of Plato were the last development of the Egyptian doctrine of\nthe Ka. They were the archetypes after which all things have been made,\nand they are archetypes which are at once abstract and concrete. Modern\nphilosophers have transformed them into the thoughts of God, which realise\nthemselves in concrete shape. But to the ancient Egyptian the concrete\nside of his conception was alone apparent. That the Ka was a creation of\nhis own mind never once occurred to him. It had a real and substantial\nexistence in the world of gods and men, even though it was not visible to\nthe outward senses. Everything that he knew or thought of had its double,\nand he never suspected that it was his own act of thought which brought it\ninto being.\n\nIt was symbolism again that was to blame. Once more the symbol was\nconfused with that for which it stood, and the abstract was translated\ninto the concrete. The abstract idea of personality became a substantial\nthing, to which all the attributes of substantial objects were attached.\nLike the \u201cName,\u201d which was a force with a concrete individuality of its\nown, the Ka was as much an individual entity as the angels of Christian\nbelief.\n\nBetween it and the object or person to which it belonged, there was the\nsame relation as exists between the conception and the word. The one\npresupposed the other. Until the person was born, his Ka had no existence;\nwhile, on the other hand, it was the Ka to which his existence was owed.\nBut once it had come into being the Ka was immortal, like the word which,\nonce formed, can exist independently of the thought which gave it birth.\nAs soon as it left the body, the body ceased to live, and did not recover\nlife and consciousness until it was reunited with its Ka. But while the\nbody remained thus lifeless and unconscious, the Ka led an independent\nexistence, conscious and alive.\n\nThis existence, however, was, in a sense, quite as material as that of the\nbody had been upon earth. The Ka needed to be sustained by food and drink.\nHence came the offerings which were made to the dead as well as to the\ngods, each of whom had his Ka, which, like the human Ka, was dependent on\nthe food that was supplied to it. But it was the Ka of the food and the Ka\nof the drink upon which the Ka of man or god was necessarily fed. Though\nat first, therefore, the actual food and drink were furnished by the\nfaithful, the Egyptians were eventually led by the force of logic to hold\nthat models of the food and drink in stone or terra-cotta or wood were as\nefficacious as the food and drink themselves. Such models were cheaper and\nmore easily procurable, and had, moreover, the advantage of being\npractically imperishable. Gradually, therefore, they took the place of the\nmeat and bread, the beer and wine, which had once been piled up in the\ndead man\u2019s tomb, and from the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty onwards we\nfind terra-cotta cakes, inscribed with the name and titles of the\ndeceased, substituted for the funerary bread.\n\nThe same idea as that which led to the manufacture of these sham offerings\nhad introduced statues and images into the tomb at an early date. In the\ntombs of the Third and Fourth and following Dynasties, statues have been\nfound of a very high order of art. No effort has been spared to make them\nspeaking likenesses of the men and women in whose tombs they were placed;\neven the eyes have been made lifelike with inlaid ivory and obsidian.\nUsually, too, the statues are carved out of the hardest, and therefore the\nmost enduring, of stone, so that, when the corpse of the dead was\nshrivelled beyond recognition, his counterpart in stone still represented\nhim just as he was in life. But the statue had its Ka like the man it\nrepresented, and if the likeness were exact, the Ka of the statue and the\nKa of the man would be one and the same. Hence the Ka could find a fitting\nform in which to clothe itself whenever it wished to revisit the tomb and\nthere nourish itself on the offerings made to the dead by the piety of his\ndescendants. And even if the mummy perished, the statue would remain for\nthe homeless Ka.(18)\n\nIt was probably on this account that we so often find more than one statue\nof the dead man in the same tomb. The more numerous the statues, the\ngreater chance there was that one at least of them would survive down to\nthe day when the Ka should at last be again united to its body and soul.\nAnd the priests of Heliopolis discovered yet a further reason for the\npractice. From time immemorial Ra the sun-god had been invoked there under\nthe form of his seven birdlike \u201csouls\u201d or spirits, and double this number\nof Kas was now ascribed to him, each corresponding with a quality or\nattribute which he could bestow upon his worshippers.(19) Symbols already\nexisted in the hieroglyphics for these various qualities, so that it was\neasy to regard each of them as having a separate and concrete existence,\nand so being practically a Ka.\n\nThe funerary statue and the ideas connected with it seem to have been\ncharacteristic of Memphis and the school of theology which existed there.\nAt all events, no similar statues have been discovered at Abydos in the\ntombs of the first two (Thinite) dynasties; they make their appearance\nwith the rise of Memphite influence under the Third Dynasty. And with the\ndisappearance of the old Memphite empire, they too tend to disappear. The\ndisturbed condition of Egypt after the fall of the Sixth Dynasty was not\nfavourable to art, and it was probably difficult to find artists any\nlonger who could imitate with even approximate accuracy the features of\nthe dead.\n\nBut under the Theban dynasties another kind of image becomes prominent.\nThis was the Ushebti or \u201cRespondent,\u201d hundreds of which may be seen in\nmost museums. They are usually small figures of blue or green porcelain,\nwith a mattock painted under each arm, and a basket on the back. The name\nand titles of the deceased are generally inscribed upon them, and not\nunfrequently the 6th chapter of the Egyptian funerary ritual or Book of\nthe Dead. The chapter reads as follows: \u201cO these _ushebtis_, whatever be\nthe work it is decreed the Osirified one must do in the other world, let\nall hindrances to it there be smitten down for him, even as he desires!\nBehold me when ye call! See that ye work diligently every moment there,\nsowing the fields, filling the canals with water, carrying sand from the\nWest to the East. Behold me when ye call!\u201d\n\nThe chapter explained what the _ushebti_-figures were intended for. Before\nthe dead man, justified though he had been by faith in Osiris and his own\ngood deeds, could be admitted to the full enjoyment of the fields of\nparadise, it was necessary that he should show that he was worthy of them\nby the performance of some work. He was therefore called upon to cultivate\nthat portion of them which had been allotted to him, to till the ground\nand water it from the heavenly Nile. Had he been a peasant while on earth,\nthe task would have been an easy one; had he, on the contrary, belonged to\nthe wealthier classes, or been unaccustomed to agricultural labour, it\nwould have been hard and irksome. Thanks to the doctrine of the Ka,\nhowever, means were found for lightening the obligation. The relatives of\nthe dead buried with him a number of _ushebti_-figures, each of which\nrepresented a fellah with mattock and basket, and their Kas, it was\nbelieved, would, with the help of the sacred words of the Ritual, assist\nhim in his work. Sometimes, to make assurance doubly sure, the images were\nbroken; thus, as it were, putting an end to their earthly existence, and\nsetting their Kas free.\n\nWhen once the tomb was closed and the mummy hidden away in the recesses,\nit was necessary to find a way by which the Ka could enter the abode of\nthe dead, and so eat and drink the food that had been deposited there. For\nit must be remembered that the Ka from its very nature was subject to the\nsame limitations as the person whom it represented. If there was no door\nit could not enter. Where it differed from the living person was in its\nexisting in a world in which what are shams and pictures to us were so\nmany concrete realities. Consequently all that was needed in order to\nallow the Ka free entrance into the tomb was to paint a false door on one\nof its walls; the Ka could then pass in and out through the Ka of the\ndoor, and so rejoin its mummy or its statue when so it wished.\n\nThis false door, in front of which the offerings to the dead were\noriginally laid, must go back to a primitive period in Egyptian history.\nProfessor Flinders Petrie has shown that it is presupposed by the\nso-called Banner name of the Egyptian Pharaohs.(20) Ever since the first\ndays of hieroglyphic decipherment, it has been known that besides the name\nor names given to the Pharaoh at birth, and commonly borne by him in life,\nhe had another name not enclosed in a cartouche, but in something that\nresembled a banner, and was surmounted by the hawk of the god Horus. It\nactually represented, however, not a banner, but the panel above the false\ndoor of a tomb, and the name written within it was the name of the Ka of\nthe Pharaoh rather than of the Pharaoh himself. It was accordingly the\nname by which he was known after death, the name inscribed on the objects\nburied in his tomb, and also the name under which he was worshipped\nwhether in this life or in the next. As the Horus or deified leader who\nhad subjugated the older inhabitants of Egypt and founded the Pharaonic\ndynasties, it was right and fitting that he should be known by the name of\nhis Ka. It was not so much the Pharaoh that was adored by his subjects, as\nthe Ka of the Pharaoh, and the Pharaoh was god because the blood of Horus\nflowed in his veins.\n\nThe earliest monuments of the Pharaohs yet discovered give almost\ninvariably only the Ka-name of the king. The fact is doubtless due in\ngreat measure to their general character. With few exceptions they consist\nof tombstones and other sepulchral furniture. But the objects found in the\nfoundations of the temple of Nekhen are also examples of the same fact.\nThe fusion was not yet complete, at all events in the south, between the\nPharaoh as man and the Pharaoh as god; it was his Ka that was divine,\nrather than the bodily husk in which it sojourned for a time.\n\nThe Ka accordingly occupies a prominent place in the names of the Pharaohs\nof the Old Empire, while the sacred art of the temples continued the\nancient tradition down to the latest times. Horus and the Nile-gods, for\ninstance, present the Ka of Amon-hotep III. along with the infant prince\nto the god of Thebes; and at Soleb the same Pharaoh is represented as\nmaking offerings to his own double.(21) Indeed, it is not unfrequent to\nfind the king and his Ka thus separated from one another and set side by\nside; and at times the Ka becomes a mere symbol, planted like a standard\nat the monarch\u2019s back.\n\nIt was the Ka, therefore, which in the early days of Egyptian religious\nthought was more especially associated with the divine nature of the king.\nThe association of ideas was assisted by the fact that the gods, like men,\nhad each his individual Ka. And in the older period of Egyptian history\nthe Ka of the god and not the god himself was primarily the object of\nworship. The sacred name of Memphis was \u1e24a-ka-Pta\u1e25, \u201cthe temple of the Ka\nof Pta\u1e25,\u201d which appears as _Khikuptakh_ in the Tel el-Amarna letters, and\nfrom which the Greeks derived their _Aiguptos_, \u201cEgypt.\u201d Even in the last\ncenturies of Egyptian independence the prayers addressed to the bull-god\nApis are still made for the most part to his Ka.\n\nThe Ka, in fact, was conceived of as the living principle which inspired\nboth gods and men. Its separation from the body meant what we call death,\nand life could return only when the two were reunited. That reunion could\ntake place only in the other world, after long years had passed and\nstrange experiences had been undergone by the disembodied Ka. The 105th\nchapter of the Book of the Dead contains the words with which on the day\nof resurrection the Ka was to be greeted. \u201cHail,\u201d says the dead man, \u201cto\nthee who wast my Ka during life! Behold, I come unto thee, I arise\nresplendent, I labour, I am strong, I am hale, I bring grains of incense,\nI am purified thereby, and I thereby purify that which goeth forth from\nthee.\u201d Then follow the magical words by which all evil was to be warded\noff: \u201cI am that amulet of green felspar, the necklace of the god Ra, which\nis given unto them that are on the horizon. They flourish, I flourish, my\nKa flourishes even as they, my duration of life flourishes even as they,\nmy Ka has abundance of food even as they. The scale of the balance rises,\nTruth rises high unto the nose of the god Ra on the day on which my Ka is\nwhere I am (?). My head and my arm are restored to me where I am (?). I am\nhe whose eye seeth, whose ears hear; I am not a beast of sacrifice. The\nsacrificial formul\u00e6 for the higher ones of heaven are recited where I am.\u201d\n\nAs might be expected, the Ka is often represented with the symbol of life\nin its hands. At the same time, it is important to remember that, though\nunder one aspect the Ka was identical with the principle of life, in the\nmind of the Egyptian it was separate from the latter, just as it was\nseparate from consciousness and from the divine essence. These were each\nof them independent entities which were possessed by the Ka just as they\nwere possessed by its human counterpart. Life, consciousness, and\nrelationship to the gods were all attributes of the Ka, but they were\nattributes, each of which had a concrete and independent existence of its\nown.\n\nAt the outset, doubtless, the Ka was practically identical with the vital\nprinciple. Primitive man does not distinguish as we do between the animate\nand the inanimate. He projects his own personality into the things he sees\nabout him, and ascribes to them the same motive forces as those which move\nhimself. He knows of only one source of movement and activity, and that\nsource is life. The stars which travel through the firmament, the arrow\nthat flies through the air, are either alive or else are directed and\nanimated by some living power. Movement, in fact, implies life, and the\nmoving object, whatever it may be, is a living thing.\n\nThe old belief or instinct is still strong in the child. He revenges\nhimself upon the ball or stone that has struck him as though it too were a\nliving being. In the Mosaic law it is laid down that \u201cif an ox gore a man\nor a woman that they die, then the ox shall be surely stoned\u201d; and similar\npenalties were enforced against animals which had injured man, not only in\nthe Middle Ages, but even in the eighteenth century. Thus a pig was burned\nat Fontenay-aux-Roses, in 1266, for having devoured a child; and in 1389 a\nhorse was brought to trial at Dijon for the murder of a man, and condemned\nto death. In Brazil, in 1713, an action was brought against the ants who\nhad burrowed under the foundations of a monastery, and, after counsel had\nbeen heard on both sides, they were solemnly condemned to banishment by\nthe judge; while, in 1685, the bell of the Protestant chapel at La\nRochelle was first scourged for having abetted heresy, then catechised and\nmade to recant, and finally baptized.(22)\n\nThe early Egyptians were not more enlightened than the orthodox\ntheologians of La Rochelle. For them, too, action must have implied life,\nand the distinction between object and subject had not yet been realised.\nHence the belief that objects as well as persons had each its Ka, a belief\nwhich was strengthened by the fact that they all alike cast shadows before\nthem, as well as the further belief that the nature of the Ka was in\neither case the same. Hence it was, moreover, that the _ushebti_-figures\nand other sepulchral furniture were broken in order that their Kas might\nbe released from them, and so accompany the Ka of the dead man in his\nwanderings in the other world. As life and the power of movement deserted\nthe corpse of the dead man as soon as his Ka was separated from it, so too\nthe Ka of the _ushebti_ passed out of it when its form was mutilated by\nbreakage. The life that was in it had departed, as it were, into another\nworld.\n\nIt is even possible that the very word _Ka_ had originally a connection\nwith a root signifying \u201cto live.\u201d At any rate, it was identical in\nspelling with a word which denoted \u201cfood\u201d; and that the pronunciation of\nthe two words was the same, may be gathered from the fact that the\nEgyptian bas-reliefs sometimes represent the offerings of food made to the\ndead or to the gods inside the arms of the symbol of the Ka(23). When we\nremember that _vivande_ is nothing more than the Latin _vivenda_, \u201cthe\nthings on which we live,\u201d there arises at least the possibility of an\netymological connection between the double and the principle of life which\nit once symbolised.(24)\n\nNow, in my Hibbert Lectures on the _Religion of the Ancient Babylonians_,\nI pointed out that the early Sumerian inhabitants of Babylonia held a\nbelief which is almost precisely the same as that of the Egyptians in\nregard to the Ka. In Babylonia also, everything had its Zi or \u201cdouble,\u201d\nand the nature of this Zi is in no way distinguishable from that of the\nEgyptian Ka. As in Egypt, moreover, the gods had each his Zi as well as\nmen and things, and, as in Egypt, it was the Zi of the god rather than the\ngod himself which was primarily worshipped. So marked is the resemblance\nbetween the two conceptions, that in working it out on the Babylonian\nside, I could not resist the conviction that there must have been some\nconnection between them. That was sixteen years ago. Since then\ndiscoveries have been made and facts brought to light which indicate that\na connection really did exist between the Babylonia and the Egypt of the\nso-called prehistoric age, and have led me to believe, with Hommel, de\nMorgan, and others, that Babylonia was the home and cradle of the\nPharaonic Egyptians. In Sumerian the word Zi signified \u201clife,\u201d and was\ndenoted by the picture of a flowering reed. It was the life on which was\nimprinted the form of the body that was for a time its home, and its\nseparation from the body meant the death of the latter. The Sumerians\nnever advanced to the further stage of making the vital principle itself a\nseparable quality; perhaps the original signification of the word which it\nnever lost would have prevented this. But they did go on to transform the\nZi into a spirit or demon, who, in place of being the counterpart of some\nindividual person or thing, could enter at will into any object he chose.\nEven in Egypt, traces of the same logical progress in ideas may perhaps be\nfound. If Professor Maspero is right in his interpretation of certain\npassages in the Pyramid texts and Ptolemaic papyri, \u201cThe double did not\nallow its family to forget it, but used all the means at its disposal to\nremind them of its existence. It entered their houses and their bodies,\nterrified them, waking and sleeping, by its sudden apparitions, struck\nthem down with disease or madness, and would even suck their blood like\nthe modern vampire(25).\u201d Such a conception of the Ka, however, if ever it\nexisted, must have soon passed away, leaving behind it but few vestiges of\nitself.\n\nI have dwelt thus long on the doctrine of the Ka or double on account both\nof its importance and of the difficulties it presents to the modern\nscholar. Its discovery by Professor Maspero and Sir P. Le Page Renouf\ncleared away a host of misconceptions, and introduced light into one of\nthe darkest corners of Egyptian religion(26). And however strange it may\nseem to us, it was in thorough accordance with the simple logic of\nprimitive man. Given the premisses, the conclusion followed. It was only\nwhen the Egyptian came to progress in knowledge and culture, and new ideas\nabout his own nature were adopted, that difficulties began to multiply and\nthe theory of the Ka to become complicated.\n\nAmong these new ideas was that of the Khu or \u201cluminous\u201d part of man. On\nthe recently discovered monuments of the early period, the Khu holds a\nplace which it lost after the rise of Memphite influence with the Third\nDynasty. We find it depicted on the tombstones of Abydos embraced by the\ndown-bent arms of the Ka. The Khu, therefore, was conceived of as\ncomprehended in the human Ka, as forming part of it, though at the same\ntime as a separate entity. It was, in fact, the soul of the human Ka, and\nwas accordingly symbolised by the crested ibis(27). It may be that it was\nin the beginning nothing more than the phosphorescent light emitted by\ndecaying vegetation which the belated wayfarer took for a ghost; the\n_ginn_ (_jinn_) of the modern Egyptian fellah are similar lights which\nflash up suddenly from the ground. But the earliest examples of its use on\nthe monuments are against such an ignoble origin, and suggest rather that\nit was the glorified spirit which mounted up like a bird in the arms of\nits Ka towards the brilliant vault of heaven. It is not until we come to\nthe decadent days of the Greek and Roman periods that the Khu appears in a\ndegraded form as a malignant ghost which enters the bodies of the living\nin order to torment them. No traces of such a belief are to be found in\nolder days. The Pyramid texts speak of \u201cthe four Khu of Horus,\u201d \u201cwho live\nin Heliopolis,\u201d and were at once male and female, and of the Khu who\nbrandish their arms and form a sort of bodyguard around the god of the\ndead. They are identified with the fixed stars, and more especially with\nthose of the Great Bear, and in the euhemeristic chronicles of Egyptian\nhistory they become the \u201cManes\u201d of Manetho, the semi-divine dynasty which\nintervened between the dynasties of the gods and of men.(28)\n\nThe Khu thus forms a link between men and the gods, and participates in\nthe divine nature. It is the soul regarded as a godlike essence, as coming\ndown from heaven rather than as mounting up towards it. It is not only\ndisembodied, but needs the body no longer; it belongs to the Ka, which\nstill lives and moves, and not to the mummified corpse from which the\nvital spark has fled. It waits on the god of the dead, not on the dead\nthemselves.\n\nIt seems probable, therefore, that in the part of Egypt in which the\ndoctrine of the Khu grew up, mummification was not practised; and the\nprobability is strengthened by the fact that, before the rise of the Third\nDynasty, embalming was apparently not frequent in Upper Egypt, even in the\ncase of the kings. But, however this may be, one thing is certain. The\nconception of the Khu cannot have originated in the same part of the\ncountry, or perhaps among the same element in the population, as a\nparallel but wholly inconsistent conception which eventually gained the\npredominance. According to this conception, the imperishable part of man\nwhich, like the Ka, passed after death into the other world, was the Ba or\n\u201csoul.\u201d Like the Khu, the Ba was pictured as a bird; but the bird is\nusually given a human head and sometimes human hands.(29) But, while the\nKhu was essentially divine, the Ba was essentially human. It is true that\nthe Ba, as well as the Khu, was assigned to the gods\u2014Ra of Heliopolis was\neven credited with seven; but whereas man possessed a Khu or luminous soul\nbecause he was likened to the gods, the gods possessed a Ba because they\nwere likened to men.\n\nThe relation between the two is brought out very clearly in the philosophy\nof the so-called Hermetic books, which endeavoured to translate the\ntheology of Egypt into Greek thought. There we are told that the Khu is\nthe intelligence (\u03bd\u03bf\u1fe6\u03c2), of which the Ba or soul (\u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae) is as it were the\nenvelope. As long as the soul is imprisoned in the earthly tabernacle of\nthe body, the intelligence is deprived of the robe of fire in which it\nshould be clothed, its brightness is dimmed, and its purity is sullied.\nThe death of the body releases it from its prison-house; it once more\nsoars to heaven and becomes a spirit (\u03b4\u03b1\u03af\u03bc\u03c9\u03bd), while the soul is carried\nto the hall of judgment, there to be awarded punishment or happiness in\naccordance with its deserts.(30) The Khu, in other words, is a spark of\nthat divine intelligence which pervades the world and to which it must\nreturn; the Ba is the individual soul which has to answer after death for\nthe deeds committed in the body.\n\nThe plover was the bird usually chosen to represent the Ba, but at times\nthe place of the plover is taken by the hawk, the symbol of Horus and the\nsolar gods. That the soul should have been likened to a bird is natural,\nand we meet with the same or similar symbolism among other peoples. Like\nthe bird, it flew between earth and heaven, untrammelled by the body to\nwhich it had once been joined. From time to time it visited its mummy; at\nother times it dwelt with the gods above. Now and again, so the\ninscriptions tell us, it alighted on the boughs of the garden it had made\nfor itself in life, cooling itself under the sycamores and eating their\nfruits. For the Ba was no more immaterial than the Ka; it, too, needed\nmeat and drink for its sustenance, and looked to its relatives and\ndescendants to furnish them.\n\nBut, as Professor Maspero(31) has pointed out, there was a very real and\nfundamental difference between the idea of the Ka or double, and that of\nthe Ba or soul. The Ka was originally nourished on the actual offerings\nthat were placed in the tomb of the dead man; it passed into it through\nthe false door and consumed the food that it found there. But the soul had\nascended to the gods in heaven; it lived in the light of day, not in the\ndarkness of the tomb; and it is doubtful if it was ever supposed to return\nthere. To the gods accordingly was committed the care of the Ba, and of\nseeing that it was properly provided for. By the power of prayer and\nmagical incantation, the various articles of food, or, more strictly\nspeaking, their doubles, were identified with the gods, and communicated\nby the gods to the soul. Long before the days when the Pyramid texts had\nbeen compiled, this theory of the nourishment of the soul was applied also\nto the nourishment of the Ka, and the older belief in the material eating\nand drinking of the Ka had passed away. All that remained of it was the\nhabitual offering of the food to the dead, a custom which still lingers\namong the fellahin of Egypt, both Moslem and Copt.\n\nBesides the double and the two souls, there was yet another immortal\nelement in the human frame. This was the heart, the seat both of the\nfeelings and of the mind. But it was not the material heart, but its\nimmaterial double, which passed after death into the other world. The\nmaterial heart was carefully removed from the mummy, and with the rest of\nthe intestines was usually cast into the Nile. Porphyry(32) tells us that\nin his time, when the bodies of the wealthier classes were embalmed, the\nEgyptians \u201ctake out the stomach and put it into a coffer, and, holding the\ncoffer to the sun, protest, one of the embalmers making a speech on behalf\nof the dead. This speech, which Euphantos translated from his native\nlanguage, is as follows: \u2018O Lord the Sun, and all ye gods who give life to\nman, receive me and make me a companion of the eternal gods. For the gods,\nwhom my parents made known to me, as long as I have lived in this world I\nhave continued to reverence, and those who gave birth to my body I have\never honoured. And as for other men, I have neither slain any, nor\ndefrauded any of anything entrusted to me, nor committed any other wicked\nact; but if by chance I have committed any sin in my life, by either\neating or drinking what was forbidden, not of myself did I sin, but owing\nto these members,\u2019\u2014at the same time showing the coffer in which the\nstomach was. And having said this, he throws it into the river, and\nembalms the rest of the body as being pure. Thus they thought that they\nneeded to excuse themselves to God for what they had eaten and drunken,\nand therefore so reproach the stomach.\u201d(33)\n\nNow and then, however, the heart and intestines were replaced in the\nmummy, but under the protection of wax images of the four genii of the\ndead\u2014the four Khu of the Book of the Dead. More often they were put into\nfour vases of alabaster or some other material, which were buried with the\ndead.(34) Though the latter practice was not very common, probably on\naccount of its expense, it must go back to the very beginnings of Egyptian\nhistory. The hieroglyphic symbol of the heart is just one of these vases,\nand one of the two names applied to the heart was _\u1e25ati_, \u201cthat which\nbelongs to the vase.\u201d After ages even endeavoured to draw a distinction\nbetween _ab_ \u201cthe heart\u201d proper, and _\u1e25ati_ \u201cthe heart-sack.\u201d(35)\n\nFrom the time of the Twelfth Dynasty(36) onwards, the place of the\nmaterial heart in the mummy was taken by an amulet, through the influence\nof which, it was supposed, the corpse would be secured against all the\ndangers and inconveniences attending the loss of its heart until the day\nof resurrection. The amulet was in the form of a beetle or scarab, the\nemblem of \u201cbecoming\u201d or transformation, and on the under side of it there\nwas often inscribed the 30th chapter of the Book of the Dead, to the words\nof which were ascribed a magical effect. The chapter reads as follows: \u201cO\nheart (_ab_) of my mother, O heart (_\u1e25ati_) of my transformations! Let\nthere be no stoppage to me as regards evidence (before the judges of the\ndead), no hindrance to me on the part of the Powers, no repulse of me in\nthe presence of the guardian of the scales! Thou art my Ka in my body, the\ngod Khnum who makes strong my limbs. Come thou to the good place to which\nwe are going. Let not our name be overthrown by the lords of Hades who\ncause men to stand upright! Good unto us, yea good is it to hear that the\nheart is large (and heavy) when the words (of life) are weighed!(37) Let\nno lies be uttered against me before God. How great art thou!\u201d\n\nMeanwhile the immaterial heart, the \u201cKa\u201d of it, which is addressed in the\nwords just quoted, had made its way through the region of the other world,\nuntil it finally reached the place known as \u201cthe Abode of Hearts.\u201d Here in\nthe judgment-hall of Osiris it met the dead man to whom it had formerly\nbelonged, and here, too, it accused him of all the evil words and thoughts\nhe had harboured in his lifetime, or testified to the good thoughts and\nwords of which he had been the author. For the heart, though the organ\nthrough which his thoughts and words had acted, was not the cause of them;\nin its nature it was essentially pure and divine, and it had been an\nunwilling witness of the sins it had been forced to know. Eventually it\nwas weighed in the balance against the image of Truth, and only if the\nscales turned in favour of the dead man could it rejoin its former body\nand live with it for ever in the islands of the Blest.\n\nThe scales and judgment-hall, however, belong to the religious conceptions\nwhich gathered round the name of Osiris, like the Paradise which the risen\nmummy looked forward to enjoy. It was only after the worship of Osiris had\nbecome universal throughout Egypt, and the older or local ideas of the\nfuture life had been accommodated to them, that it was possible for an\nEgyptian to speak of meeting his disembodied heart, or of the testimony it\ncould give for or against him before the judges of the dead. The fact that\nthe use of the scarab does not seem to extend further back than the age of\nthe Memphite or Theban dynasties, may imply that it was only then that the\nOsirian beliefs were officially fitted on to earlier forms of faith.\nHowever this may be, the worship of Osiris and the beliefs attaching to it\nmust be left to another lecture, and for the present we must pass on to\nthe mummy itself, the last part of man which it was hoped would be\nimmortal.\n\nThe mummy or S\u00e2\u1e25u has to be carefully distinguished from the Khat or\nnatural body. The latter was a mere dead shell, seen by the soul but not\naffording a resting-place for it. The mummy, on the other hand, contained\nwithin itself the seeds of growth and resurrection. It could be visited by\nthe soul and inspired by it for a few moments with life, and the Egyptian\nlooked forward to a time when it would once more be reunited with both its\nheart and its soul, and so rise again from the dead.\n\nIt is impossible to say how far back in the history of the Egyptian\nreligion this belief in the immortality of the mummy may go. It can hardly\nhave originated in the same circle of ideas as the doctrine of the Ka,\nthough the doctrine of the Ka could easily be reconciled with it. On the\none hand, it seems connected, as we shall see, with the cult of Osiris;\nbut, on the other hand, there are no traces of mummification in the\nprehistoric graves, and it is doubtful whether there are any in the royal\ntombs of Negada and Abydos which belong to the age of the First and Second\nDynasties. At all events, the scarab, which accompanied embalmment, first\nappears at a much later date, and perhaps had a Memphite origin. There\nare, however, indications that the process of embalming first arose among\nthe pre-Menic rulers of Nekhen, in the neighbourhood of El-Kab. The soil\nof El-Kab literally effloresces with the natron, which, it was discovered,\npreserved the bodies buried in it; and even as late as the time of the\nPyramid texts of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties, when the northern sources\nof natron were known, it was still necessary for ceremonial purposes that\nthe materials used by the embalmer should contain some of the natron of\nEl-Kab.(38)\n\nWhat was difficult to harmonise with the belief in the resurrection of the\nmummy was the belief which made the risen man an \u201cOsiris,\u201d identified,\nthat is to say, in substance with the god Osiris, and not his old material\nself. In the days, therefore, when Greek philosophy took it in hand to\nsystematise and interpret the theology of Egypt, the risen mummy drops out\nof sight. The Khu, as we have seen, becomes the divine intelligence, which\nfor a time is enshrouded in the human soul; and this again needs the\nenvelope of the spirit, which sends the breath of life through the veins\nbefore it can tabernacle in the body of man. The Hermetic books tell us\nthat while body, spirit, and soul are common to man and the beasts, the\ndivine intelligence is his alone to possess, stripped, indeed, of its\nnative covering of ethereal fire, but still the veritable spirit of God.\nEver is it seeking to raise the human soul to itself, and so purify it\nfrom the passions and desires with which it is inspired by the body. But\nthe flesh wages continual war against it, and endeavours to drag the soul\ndown to its own level. If the soul yields, after death the intelligence\nreturns to its original state, while the soul is arraigned before the\njudgment-seat of heaven, and there being accused by its conscience, the\nheart, is condemned to the punishment of the lost. First it is scourged\nfor its sins, and then handed over to the buffetings of the tempests,\nsuspended between earth and sky. At times in the form of an evil demon it\nseeks alleviation of its torments by entering the body of a man or animal,\nwhom it drives to murder and madness. But at last, after ages of\nsuffering, the end comes; it dies the second death, and is annihilated for\never.\n\nThe good soul, on the other hand, which has listened in life to the voice\nof the divine intelligence, and struggled to overcome the lusts and\npassions of the flesh, obtains after death its reward. Guided by the\nintelligence, it traverses space, learning the secrets of the universe,\nand coming to understand the things that are dark and mysterious to us\nhere. At length its education in the other world is completed, and it is\npermitted to see God face to face and to lose itself in His ineffable\nglory.\n\nI need not point out to you how deeply this Hellenised philosophy of Egypt\nhas affected the religious thought of Christian Alexandria, and through\nAlexandria of Christian Europe. It may be that traces of it may be\ndetected even in the New Testament. At any rate, much of the psychology of\nChristian theologians is clearly derived from it. We are still under the\ninfluence of ideas whose first home was in Egypt, and whose development\nhas been the work of long ages of time. True or false, they are part of\nthe heritage bequeathed to us by the past.\n\n\n\n\nLecture IV. The Sun-God And The Ennead.\n\n\nIn my last lecture, when speaking of the form under which the soul of man\nwas pictured by the Egyptians, I mentioned that it was often represented\nby a hawk, the symbol of the sun-god. Why the hawk should have thus\nsymbolised the sun is a question that has often been asked. The Egyptians\ndid not know themselves; and Porphyry, in the dying days of the old\nEgyptian faith, gravely declares that it was because the hawk was a\ncompound of blood and breath! One explanation has been that it was because\nthe hawk pounces down from the sky like the rays of the sun, which, like\nthe eagle, he can gaze at without blinking; and a passage in the _Odyssey_\nof Homer (xv. 525) has been invoked in favour of this view, where the hawk\nis called \u201cthe swift messenger of Apollo.\u201d But if there is any connection\nbetween the Homeric passage and the Egyptian symbol, it would show only\nthat the symbol had been borrowed by the Greek poet. Originally, moreover,\nit was only the sun-god of Upper Egypt who was represented even by the\nEgyptians under the form of a hawk.\n\nThis was Horus, often called in the later texts \u201cHorus the elder\u201d (Hor-ur,\nthe Greek Aro\u00earis), in order to distinguish him from a wholly different\ngod, Horus the younger, the son of Isis. His symbol, the hawk, is found on\nthe early Pharaonic monuments which recent excavations have brought to\nlight. Sometimes the hawk stands on the so-called standard, which is\nreally a perch, sometimes on the crenelated circle, which denoted a city\nin those primitive days. The standard is borne before the Pharaoh,\nrepresenting at once his own title and the nome or principality over which\nhe held rule; and its resemblance to the stone birds perched on similar\nsupports, which Mr. Bent found in the ruins of Zimbabwe, suggests a\nconnection between the prehistoric gold miners of Central Africa and the\nearly inhabitants of Southern Egypt. On one of the early Egyptian\nmonuments discovered at Abydos, two hawks stand above the wall of a city\nwhich seems to bear the name of \u201cthe city of the kings,\u201d(39) and a slate\nplaque found by Mr. Quibell at Kom el-A\u1e25mar shows us on one side the\nPharaoh of Nekhen inspecting the decapitated bodies of his enemies with\ntwo hawks on standards carried before him, while, on the other side, a\nhawk leads the bridled \u201cNorth\u201d to him under the guise of a prisoner,\nthrough whose lips a ring has been passed.(40) In the first case, the\nhawks may represent the districts of which the god they symbolised was the\nprotecting deity;(41) in the second case, the god and the king must be\nidentified together. It was as Horus, the hawk, that the Pharaoh had\nconquered the Egyptians of the north, and it was Horus, therefore, who had\ngiven them into his hand.\n\nIf Dr. Naville is right, Horus the hawk-god is again represented on the\nsame plaque, with the symbol of \u201cfollower,\u201d above a boat which is engraved\nover the bodies of the decapitated slain.(42) Countenance is given to this\nview by a drawing on the rocks near El-Kab, in which the cartouches of two\nkings of the Fourth Dynasty, Sharu and Khufu, are carried in boats on the\nprows of which a hawk is perched, while above each name are two other\nhawks, standing on the hieroglyph of \u201cgold,\u201d and with the crowns of Upper\nand Lower Egypt on their heads. The title \u201cfollower of Horus\u201d would take\nus back to the earliest traditions of Egyptian history. The \u201cfollowers of\nHorus,\u201d according to the later texts, were the predecessors of Menes and\nthe First Dynasty of united Egypt, the Pharaohs and princes of the\nsouthern kingdom whose very names were forgotten in after days.\nNevertheless, it was remembered that they had founded the great\nsanctuaries of the country; thus an inscription at Dendera declares that\nin the reign of king Pepi of the Sixth Dynasty there was found in the wall\nof the palace a parchment on which was a plan of the temple drawn upon it\nin the time of \u201cthe followers of Horus.\u201d The legends of Edfu told how\nthese followers of Horus had been smiths, armed with weapons of iron, and\nhow they had driven the enemies of their leader before them until they had\npossessed themselves of the whole of Egypt.(43) But many hard-fought\nbattles were needed before this could be accomplished. Again and again had\nthe foe been crushed\u2014at Zadmit near Thebes, at Neter-Khadu near Dendera,\nat Minia, at Behnesa and Ahnas on the frontier of the Fayy\u00fbm, and finally\nat Zaru on the Asiatic borders of the Delta. Even here, however, the\nstruggle was not over. Horus and his followers had to take ship and pursue\nthe enemy down the Red Sea, inflicting a final blow upon them near\nBerenic\u00ea, from whence he returned across the desert in triumph to Edfu.\n\nIn this legend, which in its present form is not older than the Ptolemaic\nperiod, echoes of the gradual conquest of Egypt by the first followers of\nthe Pharaohs have probably been preserved, though they have been combined\nwith a wholly different cycle of myths relating to the eternal struggle\nbetween Horus the son of Isis and his twin brother Set. But the confusion\nbetween the two Horuses must have arisen at an early time. Already a king\nof the Third Dynasty, whose remains have been found in the ruins of\nNekhen, and who bore the title of him \u201cwho is glorified with the two\nsceptres, in whom the two Horus gods are united,\u201d has above his name the\ncrowned emblems of Horus and Set.(44) The titles of the queens of the\nMemphite dynasties make it clear that by the two Horuses are meant the two\nkingdoms of Upper and Lower Egypt, and we must therefore see in Horus and\nSet the symbols of the South and North.(45)\n\nIn the rock drawing, south of El-Kab, to which I have alluded a few\nminutes ago, the two Horus hawks stand on the symbol of \u201cgold,\u201d the one\nwearing the crown of Southern Egypt, the other that of the North. The\n\u201cGolden Horus\u201d was, in fact, one of the titles assumed by the Pharaoh at\nan early date. Whether the epithet applied to the god represented\noriginally the golden colour of the wings of the sparrow-hawk, or whether,\nas is more probable, it denoted the Horus-hawk of gold who watched over\nthe destinies of the kings of Upper Egypt in their ancient capital of\nNekhen, it is now impossible to say.(46) Later ages explained it as\nreferring to the golden rays of the morning sun.\n\nIn the time of the Fourth Dynasty the title was attached indifferently to\nthe Ka or death name given to the Pharaoh after his death, and to the\nliving name given to him at his birth into this world. The Horus-hawk,\nwithout the symbol of \u201cgold,\u201d surmounted, so far as we know, only the Ka\nname. It was the double of the Pharaoh, rather than the Pharaoh himself,\nin whom the god had been incarnated. Horus brings the captive northerner\nto the king, and presides over his kingdom; but it is only over the royal\nKa that he actually watches.\n\nAt Nekhen, the Horus-hawk, to whom the city was dedicated, was represented\nunder the form of a mummy. It was here, perhaps, that the natron of El-Kab\nwas first employed to preserve the dead body from decay, and that Horus\nwas supposed to be entombed, like Osiris at Abydos. At any rate, there is\nclearly a connection between the dead and mummified Horus and the Horus\nwho stands above the name of the Pharaoh\u2019s double. It is probable,\ntherefore, that the identification of Horus with the kings of Upper Egypt\noriginated at Nekhen. The Horus-hawk was the token under which they fought\nand ruled; it was Horus who had led them to victory, and in whose name the\nPharaonic Egyptians, with their weapons of metal, overcame the neolithic\npopulation of the Nile.\n\nThat Horus, accordingly, in one shape or another, should have become the\npatron god of so many principalities in Southern Egypt, is in no way\nastonishing.(47) He represented the Pharaonic Egyptians; and as they moved\nnorthward, subduing the older inhabitants of the country, they carried his\nworship with them. At Heliopolis he was adored as Hor-em-Khuti or\nHarmakhis, \u201cHorus issuing from the two horizons,\u201d and identified with Ra,\nthe sun-god, the patron of the city. His image may still be seen in the\nsphinx of Giza, with its human head and lion\u2019s body. At Edfu, where the\nPharaonic invaders appear to have first established themselves, he was\nworshipped as Hor-be\u1e25udet under the form of a winged solar disc, a\ncombination of the orb of the sun with the wings of the hawk.(48) A legend\ninscribed on the walls of the temple, which is a curious mixture of\nfolklore and false etymologising, worked up after the fashion of Lempri\u00e8re\nby the priests of the Ptolemaic period, knows exactly when it was that\nthis emblem of the god came into existence. It was in the three hundred\nand sixty-third year of the reign of Ra-Harmakhis on earth, when he fled\nfrom the rebels who had risen against him in Nubia and had landed at Edfu.\nHere Hor-be\u1e25udet, the local deity, paid homage to his suzerain and\nundertook to destroy his enemies. But first, he flew up to the sun \u201cas a\ngreat winged disc,\u201d in order that he might discover where they were. Then\nin his new form he returned to the boat of Harmakhis, and there Thoth\naddressed Ra, saying: \u201cO lord of the gods, the god of Edfu (_Be\u1e25udet_)\ncame in the shape of a great winged disc: from henceforth he shall be\ncalled Hor-be\u1e25udet.\u201d It was after this that Horus of Edfu and his\nfollowers, \u201cthe smiths,\u201d smote the foe from the southern to the northern\nborder of Egypt.\n\nThe legend, or rather the prosaic fiction in which it has been embodied,\nhas been composed when the original character of Horus had long been\nforgotten, and when the sun-god of Heliopolis had become the dominant god\nof Egypt. It belongs to the age of theological syncretism, when the gods\nof Egypt were resolved one into the other like the colours in a\nkaleidoscope, and made intangible and ever-shifting forms of Ra. But it\nbears witness to one fact,\u2014the antiquity of the worship of Horus of Edfu\nand of the emblem which was associated with him. The winged solar disc\nforms part of his earliest history.\n\nThe fact is difficult to reconcile with the view of Professor Maspero,\nthat Horus was originally the sky, and is in favour of the general belief\nof Egyptologists, that he was from the outset the sun-god. Such, at all\nevents, was the opinion of the Egyptians themselves in the later period of\ntheir history. In the Pyramid texts Horus already appears as a solar\ndeity, and it is only as the sun-god that his identification with the\nPharaohs can be explained. It was not the sky but the sun who watched over\nthe names of their doubles. It is true that the two eyes of Horus were\nsaid to be the sun and the moon, and that a punning etymology, which\nconnected his name with the word _her_ or \u201cface,\u201d caused him to be\ndepicted as the face of the sky, the four locks of hair of which were the\nfour cardinal points. But the etymology is late, and there is no more\ndifficulty in understanding how the solar and lunar discs can be called\nthe eyes of the sun-god, than there is in understanding how the winged\ndisc was distinguished from him, or how even in modern phrase the \u201ceye\u201d\nmay be used as a synonym of the whole man. When we speak of \u201cthe eye of\nGod,\u201d we mean God Himself.(49)\n\nThere is, however, one newly-discovered monument which may be claimed in\nsupport of Professor Maspero\u2019s theory. Above the Horus-hawk which\nsurmounts the name of the Third Dynasty king found at Nekhen, is the\nhieroglyph of the sky. But the explanation of this is not difficult to\nfind. On the one hand, the hieroglyph embraces the hawk as the sky does\nthe sun; on the other hand, it gives the pronunciation of the name of\nHorus, the sky in Egyptian being _her_ or _hor_, \u201cthe high\u201d and uplifted.\nAnd the name of Hor-em-Khuti or Harmakhis, \u201cthe Horus who issues from the\ntwo horizons,\u201d must be quite as old as the monument of Nekhen. What the\ntwo horizons were is shown us by the hieroglyph which depicts them. They\nwere the twin mountains between which the sun came forth at dawn, and\nbetween which he again passes at sunset.\n\nThe hieroglyph belongs to the very beginning of Pharaonic Egyptian\nhistory. It may have been brought by the Pharaonic immigrants from their\nold home in the East. It is at least noticeable that in the Sumerian\nlanguage of primitive Babylonia the horizon was called _kharra_ or\n_khurra_, a word which corresponds letter for letter with the name of\nHorus. The fact may, of course, be accidental, and the name of the\nEgyptian god may really be derived from the same root as that from which\nthe word for \u201cheaven\u201d has come, and which means \u201cto be high.\u201d But the\nconception of the twin-mountains between which the sun-god comes forth\nevery morning, and between which he passes again at nightfall, is of\nBabylonian origin. On early Babylonian seal-cylinders we see him stepping\nthrough the door, the two leaves of which have been flung back by its\nwarders on either side of the mountains, while rays of glory shoot upward\nfrom his shoulders. The mountains were called Mas, \u201cthe twins,\u201d in\nSumerian; and the great Epic of Chald\u00e6a narrated how the hero Gilgames\nmade his way to them across the desert, to a land of darkness, where\nscorpion-men, whose heads rise to heaven while their breasts descend to\nhell, watched over the rising and the setting of the sun. It is difficult\nto believe that such a conception of the horizon could ever have arisen in\nEgypt. There the Delta is a flat plain with no hills even in sight, while\nin the valley of Upper Egypt there are neither high mountains nor twin\npeaks.\n\nHorus himself is, I believe, to be found in the Babylonian inscriptions.\nMention is occasionally made in them of a god Khar or Khur, and in\ncontracts of the time of Khammurabi (B.C. 2200) we find the name of\nAbi-Khar, \u201cmy father is Khar.\u201d But the age of Khammurabi was one of\nintercourse between Babylonia and Egypt, and the god Khar or Horus is\ntherefore probably borrowed from Egypt, just as a seal-cylinder informs us\nwas the case with Anupu or Anubis.(50)\n\nBut though the name of Khar or Khur is and must remain Egyptian, Horus has\nmuch in common with the Babylonian sun-god Nin-ip. They are both\nwarrior-gods; and just as the followers of Horus were workers in iron, so\nNin-ip also was the god of iron. One of his titles, moreover, is that of\n\u201cthe southern sun\u201d; and on a boundary-stone the eagle standing on a perch\nis stated to be \u201cthe symbol of the southern sun.\u201d(51)\n\nThe goddess with whom Horus of Nekhen was associated was Nekheb with the\nvulture\u2019s head. Her temple stood opposite Nekhen at El-Kab on the eastern\nbank of the Nile, and at the end of the long road which led across the\ndesert from the Red Sea. It was at once a sanctuary and a fortress\ndefending Nekhen on the east. But Nekheb was the goddess not only of\nNekhen, but of all Southern Egypt. We find her in the earliest\ninscriptions on the sacred island of Seh\u00eal in the Cataract, where she is\nidentified with the local goddess Sati. We find her again at Thebes under\nthe name of Mut, \u201cthe mother.\u201d Her supremacy, in fact, went back to the\ndays when Nekhen was the capital of the south, and its goddess accordingly\nshared with it the privileges of domination. When Nekhen fell back into\nthe position of a small provincial town, Nekheb also participated in its\ndecline. Under the Theban dynasties, it is true, the name of Mut of Karnak\nbecame honoured throughout Egypt, but her origin by that time had been\nforgotten. The Egyptian who brought his offering to Mut never realised\nthat behind the mask of Mut lay the features of Nekheb of Nekhen.\n\nMut, however, continued to wear the vulture form, and the titles assumed\nby the king still preserved a recollection of the time when Nekheb was the\npresiding goddess of the kingdom of the south. From the days of Menes\nonward, in the title of \u201cking of Upper and Lower Egypt,\u201d while the serpent\nof Uazit symbolised the north, the vulture of Nekheb symbolised the south.\nAt times, indeed, the ur\u00e6us of Uazit is transferred to Nekheb; but that\nwas at an epoch when it had come to signify \u201cgoddess,\u201d as the Horus-hawk\nsignified \u201cgod.\u201d From the earliest ages, however, the plant which denoted\nthe south, and formed part of the royal title, was used in writing her\nname. She was emphatically \u201cthe southerner,\u201d the mistress of the south,\njust as her consort, the mummified Horus, was its lord.\n\nThe euhemerising legends of Edfu made Horus the faithful vassal of his\nliege lord Ra Harmakhis of Heliopolis. But from a historical point of view\nthe relations between the two gods ought to have been reversed, and the\nlegends themselves contained a reminiscence that such was the case. In\ndescribing the victorious march of Horus and his followers towards the\nnorth, they tell us how he made his way past Heliopolis into the Delta,\nand even established one of his \u201cforges\u201d on its easternmost borders. The\nHorus kings of Upper Egypt made themselves masters of the northern\nkingdom, introducing into it the divine hawk they worshipped and the Horus\ntitle over their names.\n\nThe sun-god of Heliopolis was represented, like the gods of Babylonia, as\na man and not as a hawk. He was known as Tum or Atmu, who, in the later\ndays of religious syncretism, was distinguished from the other forms of\nthe sun-god as representing the setting sun. But Tum was the personal name\nof the sun-god; the sun itself was called Ra. As time went on, the\nattributes of the god were transferred to the sun; Ra, too, became divine,\nand, after being first a synonym of Tum, ended by becoming an independent\ndeity. While Tum was peculiarly the setting sun, Ra denoted the sun-god in\nall his forms and under all his manifestations. He was thus fitted to be\nthe common god of all Egypt, with whom the various local sun-gods could be\nidentified, and lose in him their individuality. Ra was a word which meant\n\u201cthe sun\u201d in all the dialects of the country, and its very want of\ntheological associations made it the starting-point of a new phase of\nreligious thought.\n\nIt was not until the rise of the Twelfth Dynasty that a special temple was\nbuilt to Ra in Heliopolis.(52) Up to that time Ra had been content to\nshare with Tum the ancient temple of the city, or rather had absorbed Tum\ninto himself and thus become its virtual possessor. But his religious\nimportance goes back to prehistoric times. The temple of Heliopolis became\nthe centre of a theological school which exercised a great influence on\nthe official religion of Egypt. It was here that the sun-worship was\norganised, and the doctrine of creation by generation or emanation first\ndeveloped; it was here, too, that the chief gods of the State religion\nwere formed into groups of nine.(53)\n\nThe doctrine of these Enneads or groups of nine was destined to play an\nimportant part in the official creed. From Heliopolis it spread to other\nparts of Egypt, and eventually each of the great sanctuaries had its own\nEnnead, formed on the model of that of Heliopolis. At Heliopolis the cycle\nof the nine supreme gods contained Shu and Tefnut, Seb and Mut, Osiris and\nIsis, Set and Nebh\u00e2t, the four pairs who had descended by successive acts\nof generation from Tum, the original god of the nome. We owe the\nexplanation and analysis of the Ennead to Professor Maspero, who has for\nthe first time made the origin of it clear.(54)\n\nTum, who is always represented in human form, was the ancient sun-god and\ntutelary deity of Heliopolis. To him was ascribed the creation of the\nworld, just as it was ascribed by each of the other nomes to their chief\ngod. But whereas at the Cataract the creator was a potter who had made\nthings from clay, or at Memphis an artist who had carved them out of\nstone, so it was as a father and generator that Tum had called the\nuniverse into being. In the Book of the Dead it is said of him that he is\n\u201cthe creator of the heavens, the maker of (all) existences, who has\nbegotten all that there is, who gave birth to the gods, who created\nhimself, the lord of life who bestows upon the gods the strength of\nyouth.\u201d An origin, however, was found for him in Nu, the primeval abyss of\nwaters, though it is possible that Professor Maspero may be right in\nthinking that Nu really owes his existence to the goddess Nut, and that he\nwas introduced into the cosmogony of Heliopolis under the influence of\nAsiatic ideas. However this may be, Shu and Tefnut, who immediately\nemanated from him, apparently represented the air. Later art pictured them\nin Asiatic style as twin lions sitting back to back and supporting between\nthem the rising or setting sun.(55) But an old legend described Shu as\nhaving raised the heavens above the earth, where he still keeps them\nsuspended above him like the Greek Atlas. A text at Esna, which identifies\nhim with Khnum, describes him as sustaining \u201cthe floor of the sky upon its\nfour supports\u201d or cardinal points; \u201che raised Nut, and put himself under\nher like a great column of air.\u201d Tefnut, his twin sister, was the north\nwind, which gives freshness and vigour to the world.\n\nThe next pair in the Ennead of Heliopolis were Seb and Nut, the earth and\nthe firmament, who issued from Shu and Tefnut. Then came Osiris and Isis,\nthe children of the earth and sky, and lastly Set and Nebh\u00e2t, the one the\nrepresentative of the desert land in which the Asiatic nomads pitched\ntheir tents, the other of the civilised Egyptian family at whose head\nstood _Neb-h\u00e2t_, \u201cthe lady of the house.\u201d Upon the model of this Ennead\ntwo other minor Enneads were afterwards formed.\n\nBut it was only its first father and generator who was the god of the nome\nin which the temple of Heliopolis stood. The deities who were derived from\nhim in the priestly cosmogony were fetched from elsewhere. They were\neither elementary deities like Shu and Seb, or else deities whose worship\nhad already extended all over Egypt, like Osiris and Isis. The goddess\nNebh\u00e2t seems to have been invented for the purpose of providing Set with a\nsister and a consort; perhaps Tefnut, too, had originally come into\nexistence for the same reason.\n\nThe Ennead, once created, was readily adopted by the other nomes of Egypt.\nIt provided an easy answer to that first question of primitive humanity:\nwhat is the origin of the world into which we are born? The answer was\nderived from the experience of man himself; as he had been born into the\nworld, so, too, it was natural to suppose that the world itself had been\nborn. The creator must have been a father, and, in a land where the woman\nheld a high place in the family, a mother as well. Though Tum continued to\nbe pictured as a man, no wife was assigned him; father and mother in him\nwere one.\n\nIt is impossible not to be reminded of similar supreme gods in the Semitic\nkingdoms of Asia. Asshur of Assyria was wifeless;(56) so also was Chemosh\nof Moab. Nor does the analogy end here. Creation by generation was a\npeculiarly Semitic or rather Babylonian doctrine. The Babylonian Epic of\nthe Creation begins by describing the generation of the world out of Mummu\nor Chaos. And the generation is by pairs as in the Ennead of Heliopolis.\nFirst, Mummu, the one primeval source of all things; then Lakhmu and\nLakhamu, who correspond with Shu and Tefnut; next, Ansar and Kisar, the\nfirmament and the earth; and lastly, the three great gods who rule the\npresent world. Of one of these, Ea, the ruler of the deep, Bel-Merodach\nthe sun-god was born.\n\nBetween the Babylonian and the Egyptian schemes the differences are\nslight. In the Ennead of Heliopolis, Tum, the offspring of Nu, takes the\nplace of Mummu, the watery chaos; but this was because he was the god of\nthe State, and had therefore to be made the creator and placed at the head\nof the gods. It merely interposes another link in the chain of generation,\nseparating Nu from the two elemental deities which in the Babylonian\nscheme proceeded immediately from it. For Nu was the exact equivalent of\nthe Babylonian Mummu. Both denote that watery chaos out of which, it was\nbelieved, all things have come. And what makes the fact the more\nremarkable is, that though the conception of a primeval watery chaos was\nnatural in Babylonia, it was not so in Egypt. Babylonia was washed by the\nwaters of the Persian Gulf, out of which Ea, the god of the deep, had\narisen, bringing with him the elements of culture, and the waves of which\nat times raged angrily and submerged the shore. But the Egyptians of\nhistory lived on the banks of a river and not by the sea; it was a river,\ntoo, whose movements were regular and calculable, and which bestowed on\nthem all the blessings they enjoyed. So far from being an emblem of chaos\nand confusion, the Nile was to them the author of all good. I do not see\nhow we can avoid the conclusion that between the Ennead of Heliopolis with\nits theory of cosmology, and the cosmological doctrines of Babylonia, a\nconnection of some sort must have existed.(57)\n\nIndeed, the native name of Heliopolis is suggestive of Asiatic relations.\nIt is the On of the Old Testament, and was called On of the north to\ndistinguish it from another On, the modern Erment, in the south. It was\nsymbolised by a fluted and painted column of wood,(58) in which some have\nseen an emblem of the sun-god, like the sun-pillars of Semitic faith. But\nthe name of On was not confined to Egypt. There was another Heliopolis in\nSyria, called On of the Beka\u2019a by Amos (i. 5), where the sun-god was\nworshipped under the form of a stone. And in Palestine itself Beth-el,\n\u201cthe house of God,\u201d was known in earlier ages as Beth-On. It is true that\nthe name of On may have been carried into Asia in the days when the Hyksos\ndynasties ruled over Egypt, but it is more probable that both Beth-On and\nthe On near Damascus go back to an older date. In any case they testify to\nsome kind of contact between the sun-worship of Heliopolis in Egypt and\nthat of Syria and Palestine.(59)\n\nBetween Tum, the sun-god of Northern Egypt, and Horus, the sun-god of the\nSouth, there was one notable difference. While Horus was a hawk, Tum was a\nman. In this respect, again, he resembled the gods of Babylonia, who are\nalways depicted in human form. It is difficult to find any other Egyptian\ndeity who was similarly fortunate. Osiris, indeed, was originally a man,\nbut at an early date he became confounded with his symbol, the ram, in his\ntitle of \u201clord of Daddu.\u201d Professor Maspero thinks that Khnum at the\nCataract may also have been originally a man; but if so, he too became a\nram before the beginning of history. Pta\u1e25 of Memphis and Anher of This are\nthe only other gods who appear consistently in human shape, and Pta\u1e25 is a\nmummy, while Anher, like Tum, was the sun.(60)\n\nWith the adoption of the Ennead and the cosmological ideas it embodied, a\nnew element entered into the theology of the Egyptian temples. This was\nthe identification of one god with another, or, to speak more exactly, the\nloss of their individuality on the part of the gods. The process was begun\nwhen the priests of Heliopolis took such of the divinities as were\nrecognised throughout Egypt, and transmuted them into successive phases in\nthe creative action of their local god. It was completed when other\nreligious centres followed the example of Heliopolis, and formed Enneads\nof their own. In each case the local god stood of necessity at the head of\nthe Ennead, and in each case also he was assimilated to Tum. Whatever may\nhave previously been his attributes, he thus became a form of the sun-god.\nA dual personality was created, which soon melted into one.\n\nBut it was not as Tum that the sun-god of Heliopolis thus made his way\nvictoriously through the land of Egypt. It was under the more general and\nundefined name of Ra that he was accepted in the Egyptian sanctuaries. Tum\nremained the local god of Heliopolis, or else formed part of a solar\ntrinity in which he represented the setting sun. But Ra became a divine\nPharaoh, in whom the world of the gods was unified.\n\nThe kings of the Fifth Dynasty called themselves his sons. Hitherto the\nPharaohs had been incarnations of the sun-god, like the earlier monarchs\nof Babylonia; henceforward the title of Horus was restricted to their\ndoubles in the other world, while that of \u201cSon of the Sun\u201d was prefixed to\nthe birth-name which they bore on earth. The same change took place also\nin Babylonia. There it was due to the invasion of foreign barbarians, and\nthe establishment of a foreign dynasty at Babylon, where the priests\nrefused to acknowledge the legitimacy of a king who had not been adopted\nas son by the sun-god Bel-Merodach. Perhaps a similar cause was at work in\nEgypt. The Fifth Dynasty came from Elephantin\u00ea, an island which was not\nonly on the extreme frontier of Egypt, but was inhabited then as now by a\nnon-Egyptian race; it may be that the price of their acknowledgment by the\npriests and princes of Memphis was their acceptance of the title of \u201cSon\nof Ra.\u201d It narrowed their pretensions to divinity, and at the same time\nimplied their submission to the god of the great sanctuary which stood in\nsuch close relations with Memphis. As we have seen, the first monument on\nwhich the winged solar disc is found is that of a king of the Fifth\nDynasty; it there overshadows his figure and his two names; but though the\nhawk of Horus stands above the name of his double, his birth-name is\nwithout the title of \u201cSon of Ra.\u201d\n\nWhen once the principle had been adopted that the leading gods of Egypt\nwere but varying forms of the sun-god, it was easy to construct Enneads,\nwhatever might be the number of the deities it was wished to bring into\nthem. Thus at Heliopolis itself Horus the son of Isis was introduced, his\nconfusion with the sun-god Horus facilitating the process. At This, Anher\nwas identified with Shu; at Thebes, Amon was made one with Tum and Ra,\nwith Mentu and Mut. Where a goddess was at the head of the local Pantheon\nthe process was the same; she interchanged with the other goddesses of the\ncountry, and even with Tum himself. At all events, Horapollo (i. 12)\nstates that Nit of Sais was at once male and female.\n\nOne result of all this kaleidoscopic interchange was the growth of\ntrinities in which the same god appears under three separate forms. At\nHeliopolis, for example, Harmakhis became identified with Tum, and the\ntrinity of Tum, Ra, and Harmakhis grew up, in which Harmakhis was the sun\nof the morning and Tum of the evening, while Ra embodied them both. From\none point of view, in fact, Harmakhis and Tum were but different aspects\nunder which Ra could be envisaged; from another point, Ra, Tum, and\nHarmakhis were three persons in one god.\n\nI believe that Professor Maspero is right in holding that the Egyptian\ntrinity is of comparatively late origin and of artificial character.(61)\nHe points out that it presupposes the Ennead, and in some cases, at least,\ncan be shown to have been formed by the union of foreign elements. Thus at\nMemphis the triad was created by borrowing Nefer-Tum from Heliopolis and\nSekhet from Latopolis, and making the one the son of the local god Pta\u1e25,\nand the other his wife. The famous trinity of Osiris, Isis, and Horus,\nwhich became a pattern for the rest of Egypt, was formed by transferring\nNebh\u00e2t and Anubis, the allies of Osiris, to his enemy Set, and so throwing\nthe whole of the Osirian legend into confusion. The trinity of Thebes is\nconfessedly modern; it owed its origin to the rise of the Theban\ndynasties, when Thebes became the capital of Egypt, and its god Amon\nnecessarily followed the fortunes of the local prince. Mut, \u201cthe mother,\u201d\na mere title of the goddess of Southern Egypt, was associated with him,\nand the triad was completed by embodying in it Pta\u1e25 of Memphis, who had\nbeen the chief god of Egypt when Thebes was still a small provincial town.\nAt a subsequent date, Khonsu, the moon-god, took the place of Pta\u1e25.(62)\n\nWe can thus trace the growth of the Egyptian trinity and the ideas and\ntendencies which lay behind it. It was the culminating stage in the\nevolution of the religious system which took its first start among the\npriests of Heliopolis. First creation by means of generation, then the\nEnnead, and lastly the triad and the trinity\u2014such were the stages in the\ngradual process of development. And the doctrine of the trinity itself\nreached its highest point of perfection in that worship of Osiris of which\nI shall speak in a future lecture.\n\nBut the Ennead had other results besides the Egyptian doctrine of the\ntrinity. Generation in the case of a god could not be the same as in the\ncase of a man. The very fact that Tum was wifeless proved this. It was\ninevitable, therefore, that it should come to be conceived of as\nsymbolical like the generation of thought, all the more since the deities\nwho had proceeded from Tum were all of them symbols representing the\nphenomena of the visible world. Hence the idea of generation passed\nnaturally into that of emanation, one divine being emanating from another\nas thought emanates from thought. And to the Egyptian, with his love of\nsymbolism and disinclination for abstract thought, the expression of an\nidea meant a concrete form. Seb and Nut were the divine ideas which\nunderlay the earth and the firmament and kept them in existence, but they\nwere at the same time the earth and the firmament themselves. They\nrepresented thought in a concrete form, if we may borrow a phrase from the\nHegelian philosophy.\n\nThe principle of emanation was eagerly seized upon by Greek thinkers in\nthe days when Alexandria was the meeting-place of the old world and the\nnew. It afforded an explanation not only of creation, but also of the\norigin of evil, and had, moreover, behind it the venerable shadow of\nEgyptian antiquity. It became the basis and sheet-anchor of most of the\nGnostic systems, and through them made its way into Christian thought.\nFrom another point of view it may be regarded as an anticipation of the\ndoctrine of evolution.\n\nThe work of the priestly college of Heliopolis was accomplished long\nbefore the Pyramid texts were written under the kings of the Fifth and\nSixth Dynasties. The Ennead appears in them as a long established\ndoctrine, with all its consequences. The solar faith had laid firm hold of\nEgyptian religion, and gained a position from which it was never to be\ndislodged. Henceforward Egyptian religion was permeated by the ideas and\nbeliefs which flowed from it, and the gods and goddesses of the land\nassumed a solar dress. Under the Nineteenth Dynasty, if not before, a new\nview of the future life obtained official sanction, which substituted the\nsun-god for Osiris and the solar bark for the Osirian paradise. But I must\nleave an account of it to another occasion, and confine myself at present\nto the last and most noteworthy development of solar worship in Egypt.\n\nIt is perhaps hardly correct to apply to it the term development. It was\nrather a break in the religious tradition of Egypt, an interruption in the\nnormal evolution of the Egyptian creed, which accordingly made but little\npermanent impression on the religious history of the nation. But in the\nreligious history of mankind it is one of the most interesting of\nepisodes. Like Mosaism in Israel, it preached the doctrine of monotheism\nin Egypt; but unlike Mosaism, its success was only temporary. Unlike\nMosaism, moreover, it was a pantheistic monotheism, and it failed\naccordingly in its struggle with the nebulous polytheism of Egypt.\n\nOne of the last Pharaohs of the Eighteenth Dynasty was Amon-hotep IV.\nSince the conquest of Syria by his ancestor Thothmes III., and the\nestablishment of an empire which extended to the banks of the Euphrates,\nAsiatic manners and customs had poured into Egypt in an ever-increasing\nflood, and with them the ideas and religious beliefs of the Semitic East.\nAmon-hotep III., the father of Amon-hotep IV., had maintained the older\ntraditions of the Egyptian court, so far at least as religion was\nconcerned, though his mother and wife had alike been foreigners. But his\nson appears to have been young at the time of his father\u2019s death. He was\naccordingly brought up under the eye and influence of his mother Teie, and\nhis temperament seems to have seconded the teaching he received from her.\nHis features are those of a philosophic visionary rather than of a man of\naction, of a religious reformer rather than of a king. He flung himself\neagerly into a religious movement of which he was the mainspring and\ncentre, and for the first time in history there was persecution for\nreligion\u2019s sake.\n\nFor numberless centuries the Egyptian had applied the title of \u201cthe one\ngod\u201d to the divinity he was adoring at the moment, or who presided over\nthe fortunes of his city or nome. But he did not mean to exclude by it the\nexistence of other deities. The \u201cone god\u201d was unique only to the\nworshipper, and to the worshipper only in so far as his worship for the\nmoment was addressed to this \u201cone god\u201d alone. When with the growth of the\nsolar theory the deities of Egypt began to be resolved into one another,\nthe title came to signify that attribute of divinity which unified all the\nrest. But to the Egyptian, it must be remembered, the attribute was a\nconcrete thing; and though in one sense Amon and Khnum and Horus denoted\nthe attributes of Ra, in another sense they were distinct personalities\nwith a distinct history behind them. The result was what I have called a\nnebulous polytheism, in which the individual deities of the Egyptian\nPantheon had melted like clouds into one another; they had lost their\nseveral individualities, but had not gained a new individuality in return.\nThe conservative spirit, which forbade the Egyptian to break with the\ntraditions of the past and throw aside any part of his heritage, prevented\nhim from taking the final step, and passing out of polytheism into\nmonotheism.\n\nIt was just this step, however, that was taken by Amon-hotep IV. and his\nfollowers, and which at once stamps the non-Egyptian character of his\nreligious reformation. Henceforward there was to be but one God in Egypt,\na God who was omnipresent and omniscient, existing everywhere and in\neverything, and who would brook no rival at his side. He was not, indeed,\na new god, for he had already revealed himself to the generations of the\npast under the form of Ra, and his visible symbol was the solar disc. But\nRa had been ignorantly worshipped; unworthy language had been used of him,\nand he had been confounded with gods who were no gods at all. The new and\npurified conception of the supreme divinity needed a new name under which\nit could be expressed, and this was found in Aten, \u201cthe solar disc,\u201d or\nAten-Ra, \u201cthe disc of the sun.\u201d\n\nIt was not probable that Amon of Thebes and his worshippers would bow\ntheir heads to the new faith without a struggle. It was Amon who had led\nthe fathers of Amon-hotep IV. to victory, who had given them their empire\nover the world, and upon whose city of Thebes the spoils of Asia had been\nlavished. A fierce contest broke out between the Theban priesthood and the\nheretical king. The worship of Amon was proscribed, his very name was\nerased from the monuments on which it was engraved, and a shrine of the\nrival deity was erected at the very gates of his ancient temple. The\nPharaoh changed his own name to that of Khu-n-Aten, \u201cthe glory of the\nsolar disc,\u201d and thereby publicly proclaimed his renunciation of the\nreligion of which he was the official head.\n\nBut in the end the priests of Amon prevailed. Khu-n-Aten was forced to\nleave the capital of his fathers, and, carrying with him the State\narchives and the adherents of the new faith, he built a new city for\nhimself midway between Minia and Si\u00fbt, where the mounds of Tel el-Amarna\nnow mark its site. Here, surrounded by a court which was more than half\nAsiatic in blood and belief, he raised a temple to the new God of Egypt,\nand hard by it a palace for himself. The new creed was accompanied by a\nnew style of art; the old traditions of Egyptian art were thrown aside,\nand a naturalistic realism, sometimes of an exaggerated character, took\ntheir place. The palace and temple were alike made glorious with brilliant\npainting and carved stone, with frescoed floors and walls, with columns\nand friezes inlaid with gold and precious stones, with panels of pictured\nporcelain, and with statuary which reminds us of that of later Greece.(63)\nGardens were planted by the edge of the Nile, and carriage roads\nconstructed in the desert, along which the king and his court took their\nmorning drives. Then, returning to his palace, the Pharaoh would preach or\nlecture on the principles and doctrines of the new faith.\n\nIt was officially called \u201cthe doctrine,\u201d which, as Professor Erman\nremarks, shows that it possessed a dogmatically-formulated creed. Its\nteachings are embodied in the hymns inscribed on the walls of the tombs of\nTel el-Amarna. The God, whose visible symbol is the solar disc, is He, as\nwe learn from them, who has created all things, \u201cthe far-off heavens,\nmankind, the animals and the birds; our eyes are strengthened by his\nbeams, and when he reveals himself all flowers grow and live; at his\nrising the pastures bring forth, they are intoxicated before his face; all\nthe cattle skip on their feet, and the birds in the marshes flutter with\njoy.\u201d It is he \u201cwho brings in the years, creates the months, makes the\ndays, reckons the hours; he is lord of time, according to whom men\nreckon.\u201d(64) Beside Him, \u201cthere is no other\u201d God.\n\n\u201cBeautiful is thy setting,\u201d begins another hymn, \u201cO living Aten, thou lord\nof lords and king of the two worlds! When thou unitest thyself with the\nheaven at thy setting, mortals rejoice before thy countenance, and give\nhonour to him who has created them, and pray to him who has formed them in\nthe presence of Khu-n-Aten, thy son, whom thou lovest, the king of Egypt\nwho liveth in truth. All Egypt and all lands within the circle that thou\ntreadest in thy glory, praise thee at thy rising and at thy setting. O\nGod, who in truth art the living one, who standest before our eyes, thou\ncreatest that which was not, thou formest it all; we also have come into\nbeing through the word of thy mouth.\u201d(65)\n\nThe solar disc was thus, as it were, the mask through which the supreme\nCreator revealed himself. And this Creator was the one true living God,\nliving eternally, brooking the worship of no other god at his side, and,\nin fact, the only God who existed in truth. All other gods were false, and\nthe followers of Aten-Ra were accordingly called upon to overthrow their\nworship and convert their worshippers. At the same time, Aten was the\nfather of all things; he had called all things into existence by the word\nof his mouth, men equally with the beasts and birds, the flowers and the\nfar-off heaven itself. If, therefore, men refused to worship him, it was\nbecause they had been led astray by falsehood and ignorance, or else were\nwilfully blind.\n\nWhatever measure of success the reforms of Khu-n-Aten attained among the\nnatives of Egypt, they must have possessed in so far as they represented a\nreformation, and not the introduction of a new and foreign cult. There\nmust have been a section of the people, more especially among the educated\nclasses, whose religious ideas were already tending in that direction, and\nwho were therefore prepared to accept the new \u201cdoctrine.\u201d The language\noften used of the gods, if strictly interpreted, implied a more or less\nmodified form of monotheism; the Egyptian deities, as we have seen, had\ncome to be resolved into manifestations of the sun-god, and the symbol of\nthe new faith enabled it to be connected with the ancient worship of Ra.\nThe old sun-worship of Heliopolis formed a bridge which spanned the gulf\nbetween Amon and Aten. Indeed, the worship of the solar disc itself was\nnot absolutely strange. An Egyptian, for instance, who was buried at Kom\nel-A\u1e25mar, opposite El-Kab, in the reign of Thothmes III., speaks of being\n\u201cbeloved by the beams of the solar disc\u201d (_Aten-Ra_); and though no\ndeterminative of divinity is attached to the words, it was but a step\nforward to make the disc the equivalent of the sun-god.\n\nNevertheless, between the \u201cdoctrine\u201d of Khu-n-Aten and the older Egyptian\nideas of the sun-god there was a vast, if not impassable, distance. The\n\u201cdoctrine\u201d was no result of a normal religious evolution. That is proved\nnot only by the opposition with which it met and the violent measures that\nwere taken to enforce it, but still more by its rapid and utter\ndisappearance or extermination after the death of its royal patron. It\ncame from Asia, and, like the Asiatic officials, was banished from Egypt\nin the national reaction which ended in the rise of the Nineteenth\nDynasty.\n\nThe god of Khu-n-Aten, in fact, has much in common with the Semitic Baal.\nLike Baal, he is the \u201clord of lords,\u201d whose visible symbol is the solar\norb. Like Baal, too, he is a jealous god, and the father of mankind. It is\ntrue that Baal was accompanied by the shadowy Baalat; but Baalat, after\nall, was but his pale reflection, necessitated by the genders of Semitic\ngrammar; and in some parts of the Semitic world even this pale reflection\nwas wanting. Chemosh of Moab, for instance, and Asshur of Assyria were\nalike wifeless.\n\nOn the other hand, between Aten and the Semitic Baal there was a wide and\nessential difference. The monotheism of Khu-n-Aten was pantheistic, and as\na result of this the god he worshipped was the god of the whole universe.\nThe character and attributes of the Semitic Baal were clearly and sharply\ndefined. He stood outside the creatures he had made or the children of\nwhom he was the father. His kingdom was strictly limited, his power itself\nwas circumscribed. He was the \u201clord of heaven,\u201d separate from the world\nand from the matter of which it was composed.\n\nBut Aten was in the things which he had created; he was the living one in\nwhom all life is contained, and at whose command they spring into\nexistence. There was no chaos of matter outside and before him; he had\ncreated \u201cthat which was not,\u201d and had formed it all. He was not,\ntherefore, a national or tribal god, whose power and protection did not\nextend beyond the locality in which he was acknowleged and the territory\non which his high places stood; on the contrary, he was the God of the\nwhole universe; not only Egypt, but \u201call lands\u201d and all peoples are called\nupon to adore him, and even the birds and the flowers grow and live\nthrough him. For the first time in history, so far as we know, the\ndoctrine was proclaimed that the Supreme Being was the God of all mankind.\n\nThe fact is remarkable from whatever point of view it may be regarded. The\ndate of Khu-n-Aten is about 1400 B.C., a century before the Exodus and the\nrise of Mosaism. More than once it has been suggested that between Mosaism\nand the \u201cdoctrine\u201d of Aten there may have been a connection. But in\nMosaism we look in vain for any traces of pantheism. The Yahveh of the\nCommandments stands as much outside His creation as the man whom He had\nmade in His own image; His outlines are sharply defined, and He is the God\nof the Hebrews rather than of the rest of the world. The first Commandment\nbears the fact on its forefront: other nations have their gods whose\nexistence is admitted, but Yahveh is the God of Israel, and therefore Him\nonly may Israel serve.\n\n\n\n\nLecture V. Animal Worship.\n\n\nSt. Clement of Alexandria thus describes the religion of his Egyptian\nneighbours (_P\u00e6dag._ iii. 2): \u201cAmong (the Egyptians) the temples are\nsurrounded with groves and consecrated pastures; they are provided with\npropyl\u00e6a, and their courts are encircled with an infinite number of\ncolumns; their walls glitter with foreign marbles and paintings of the\nhighest art; the sanctuary is resplendent with gold and silver and\nelectrum, and many-coloured stones from India and Ethiopia; the shrine\nwithin it is veiled by a curtain wrought with gold. But if you pass beyond\ninto the remotest part of the enclosure in the expectation of beholding\nsomething yet more excellent, and look for the image which dwells in the\ntemple, a _pastophorus_ or some other minister, singing a p\u00e6an in the\nEgyptian language with a pompous air, draws aside a small portion of the\ncurtain, as if about to show us the god; and makes us burst into a loud\nlaugh. For no god is found therein, but a cat, or a crocodile, or a\nserpent sprung from the soil, or some such brute animal ... and the\nEgyptian deity is revealed as a beast that rolls itself on a purple\ncoverlet.\u201d\n\nSt. Clement was a Christian philosopher and apologist, but the animal\nworship of the Egyptians was quite as much an object of ridicule to the\npagan writers of Greece and Rome. \u201cWho has not heard,\u201d says Juvenal\n(_Sat._ xv.),\u2014\u201cwho has not heard, where Egypt\u2019s realms are named\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cWhat monster gods her frantic sons have framed?\n    Here Ibis gorged with well-grown serpents, there\n    The crocodile commands religious fear;...\n    And should you leeks or onions eat, no time\n    Would expiate the sacrilegious crime;\n    Religious nations sure, and blest abodes,\n    Where every orchard is o\u2019errun with gods!\u201d\n\n\nA Roman soldier who had accidentally killed a cat was torn to pieces by\nthe mob before the eyes of Diodorus, although the Romans were at the time\nmasters of the country, and the reigning Ptolemy did his utmost to save\nthe offender.(66) For the majority of the people the cat was an incarnate\ngod.\n\nThis worship of animals was a grievous puzzle to the philosophers of the\nclassical age. The venerable antiquity of Egypt, the high level of its\nmoral code, and, above all, the spiritual and exalted character of so much\nof its religion, had deeply impressed the thinking world of the Roman\nEmpire. That world had found, in a blending of Egyptian religious ideas\nwith Greek metaphysics, a key to the mysteries of life and death; in the\nso-called Hermetic books the old beliefs and religious conceptions of\nEgypt were reduced to a system and interpreted from a Greek point of view,\nwhile the Neo-Platonic philosophy was an avowed attempt to combine the\nsymbolism of Egypt with the subtleties of Greek thought. But the animal\nworship was hard to reconcile with philosophy; even symbolism failed to\nexplain it away, or to satisfy the mind of the inquirer. Plutarch had\nboldly denied that the worship of an animal was in any way more absurd\nthan that of an image; the deity, if so he chose, could manifest himself\nin either equally well. Porphyry had recourse to the doctrine of the\ntransmigration of souls. If the soul migrated after death into the body of\nsome lower animal, he urged, it would communicate to the latter a portion\nof the divine essence. But after all this was no explanation of the\nworship paid to the animal; the soul had not been worshipped while it was\nstill in the body of its original possessor, and there was therefore no\nreason why it should be worshipped when it was embodied in another form.\nMoreover, metempsychosis in the Greek sense was never an Egyptian\ndoctrine. All the Egyptian held was that the soul, after it had been\njustified and admitted to a state of blessedness, could enter for a time\nwhatever material form it chose; could fly to heaven, for instance, in the\nbody of a swallow, or return to the mummified body in which it had once\ndwelt. But such embodiments were merely temporary, and matters of free\nchoice; they were like a garment, which the soul could put on and take off\nat will.\n\nModern writers have found it as difficult to explain the animal worship of\nancient Egypt as the philosophers and theologians of Greece and Rome.\nCreuzer declared that it was the result of a poverty of imagination, and\nthat the beasts were worshipped because they embodied certain natural\nphenomena. Lenormant argued, on the other hand, that it was due to a high\nspiritual conception of religion, which prevented the Egyptians from\nadoring lifeless rocks and stones like the other nations of antiquity. Of\nlate the tendency has been to see in it a sort of totemism which prevailed\namong the aboriginal population of the country, and was tolerated by the\nhigher religion of the Pharaonic immigrants. In this case it would\nrepresent the religion of the prehistoric race or races, and its\nadmittance into the official religion would be paralleled by the history\nof Bra\u1e25manism, which has similarly tolerated the cults and superstitions\nof the aboriginal tribes of India. Indeed, it is possible to discover an\nanalogous procedure in the history of Christianity itself. The lower\nbeliefs and forms of worship can be explained away wherever needful with\nthe help of symbolism and allegory, while the mass of the people are left\nin the undisturbed enjoyment of the religious ideas and rites of their\nforefathers.\n\nRecent discoveries, however, have cast a new light on the matter. The\nearly monuments of Egyptian history, found in the neolithic graves and\namong the remains of the first dynasties, have shown that the animal\nworship of Egypt was only part of a larger system. Slate plaques, on which\nare represented the actions of Pharaohs who preceded Menes or were his\nimmediate successors, prove that the prevailing system of religion must\nhave been one closely akin to African fetishism. The gods appear\nfrequently, but they always appear under the form of what in later times\nwere regarded as their symbols. Sometimes the symbol is an animal or bird,\nbut sometimes also it is a lifeless object. The human forms, to which we\nare accustomed in later Egyptian art, are absent;(67) there is nothing to\ntell us that the religion of the time was in any way distinguished from\nthe fetishism of Dahomey or the Congo.\n\nThus on a slate plaque from Kom el-A\u1e25mar (opposite El-Kab(68)) we see the\nPharaoh entering the hall in which lie the bodies of his decapitated foes,\nwhile four standards are borne before him. On the first two are the hawks\nof Horus, on the third the jackal of Anubis, on the last an object which\nmay be intended for a lock of hair.(69) On the reverse of the plaque the\ngod is bringing before him the prisoners of the north. But the god is a\nhawk, whose human hand grasps the rope by which the conquered enemy is\ndragged along. On a plaque of equally early date, found at Abydos, five\nstandards are depicted, the foot of each of which is shaped like a hand\nholding a rope. Above the first two standards are the jackals of Anubis,\non the next the ibis of Thoth, then the hawk of Horus, and, finally, the\ncurious object which is the emblem of Min. On a still older plaque from\nthe same locality the names of the cities ruled (or conquered) by the\nPharaoh are inscribed, each within its battlemented wall, while above is\nthe animal god by which it is said to be \u201cbeloved\u201d or perhaps \u201cdestroyed.\u201d\nThe last of the cities is \u201cthe royal\u201d capital, above which stand the two\nhawks of Horus, who are perched on the standards of the king; behind it\nare the names of the other towns under the protection of the scorpion of\nSelk, the lion of Sekhet, and the hawk of Horus.(70)\n\nBut we can trace the standards and the symbols upon them still farther\nback. M. de Morgan has pointed out that the rude and primitive boats\npainted on the pottery of the prehistoric graves have their prows\nornamented with standards which are precisely the same in shape as the\nstandards that were borne before the Pharaoh. On the top of one is perched\na hippopotamus, on another a fish; on another is a flowering branch, on\nanother the sail of a ship.(71) We may conclude, therefore, that both\nstandards and symbols were characteristic of the older population of the\ncountry whom the Pharaonic Egyptians found when they entered it. But the\nsymbols had no connection with any kind of writing; we look in vain,\neither on the pottery or on any other object of prehistoric art, for\nhieroglyphic signs. The standard may have been adopted by the invading\nrace from their conquered subjects, and so introduced into their system of\nwriting; originally it was nothing but a primeval flagstaff at the prow of\na boat. And, like the flagstaff, the symbol that served as a flag must\nhave been of aboriginal invention.\n\nSuch, then, is the conclusion to which we are led by the newly-found\nmonuments of early Egypt. On the Pharaonic monuments of that remote age\nthe gods are not yet human; they are still represented by animals and\nother fetishes. And these fetishes have been borrowed from the older\npopulation of the valley of the Nile, along with the so-called standard on\nthe top of which they were placed.\n\nThe standard with the emblem upon it denoted a nome in the historical days\nof Egypt. The emblem represented the god of the nome, or rather of the\nchief sanctuary in the nome. Where the god of the nome was Horus, the hawk\nappeared upon the standard; where two Horus-gods were worshipped, there\nwere two hawks. As the prehistoric boat had been placed under the\nprotection of the deity whose fetish or symbol was planted at its prow, so\nthe nome was under the protection of the god whose emblem was erected on\nits standard. The standards borne before the Pharaoh on the plaque of Kom\nel-A\u1e25mar were the standards of the nomes over which he claimed rule.\n\nIt would seem, then, that the god of a nome was in most instances the god\nof the aboriginal tribe which originally inhabited it, and that the\nsymbols by which these gods were known were primitively the gods\nthemselves. On the plaque of Abydos it is not Selk or Sekhet who is the\nprotecting deity of the city, but the scorpion and the lion. And by the\nside of animals and birds, as we have seen, we find also inanimate objects\nwhich are on exactly the same footing as the animals and birds. The\nprimitive religion of Egypt must have been a form of fetishism.\n\nBut in passing from the older population to the Asiatic immigrants it\nunderwent a change. The same slate plaques which portray Horus as a hawk\nand Anubis as a jackal, represent the king under the likeness of a bull.\nIt is a literal pictorial rendering of the phrase so often met with in the\ninscriptions, in which the Pharaoh is described as a bull trampling on his\nenemies. The animal has ceased to represent the actual reality, and has\nbecome a symbol.\n\nAnd this symbolism, it will be noticed, accompanies the introduction of\nsymbolic writing. The figure of the bull which denotes the Pharaoh, is as\nmuch a symbol as the fish which forms part of his name. It is therefore\nfair to conclude that the hawk which brings the captured enemy to the king\nis also a symbol. The fetish has become symbolic; the hawk is no longer a\ngod in and for itself, but because it is the embodiment of the divine\nHorus.\n\nIt was but a step further to unite the symbol with the human form. The\nprocess involved the disuse of inanimate objects; only the living could be\nfitly joined together. Horus could be depicted as a man with a hawk\u2019s\nhead; it was less easy to combine the symbol of Min with a man\u2019s limbs.\nSuch anthropomorphising followed necessarily from the deification of the\nPharaoh. The race which turned its human leader into a god was bound to\nrepresent its gods under human form. In Egypt, however, the older element\nin the population, with its religious ideas, was too strong to be wholly\ndisregarded by the ruling caste. The compromise, which had transformed the\nfetish into a symbol, ended by retaining the animal forms of the gods, but\nin subordination to the form of man. Henceforth, for the State religion,\nHorus wore merely the mask of a hawk.(72)\n\nThat the official figures of the gods were thus a compromise between two\nantagonistic currents of religious thought, appears very clearly when we\ncompare Egypt with Babylonia. In Babylonia, also, there were symbols\nattached to the gods, some of them representing animals and birds, others\ninanimate objects. In Babylonia, moreover, the king was a god, both in his\nlifetime and after his death. But in Babylonia the figures of the gods of\nthe State religion were all human; it was only the demons of the popular\ncult who were allowed to retain the bodies of beasts and birds. The gods\nthemselves were all depicted in human form. The reason of this is simple:\nin Babylonia the Semitic conception of the deity was predominant; there\nwas no fetishism to be conciliated, no animal worship to be reconciled\nwith a higher faith. The emblems of the gods remained emblems, and the\ngods of heaven clothed themselves with the same form as the human god on\nearth.\n\nIn the retention of the primitive animal worship, therefore, we must see\nan evidence not only of the strength of that portion of the population to\nwhom it originally belonged, but also of the conservative spirit which\ncharacterised the Egyptians. In this case, however, the conservative\nspirit was the result of the influence of the conquered race; art\ncontinued to represent Horus with the head of a hawk, just because those\nwho believed him to be a bird continued to form an important part of the\npopulation. The popular cult and the popular superstitions were too widely\nspread to be disregarded.\n\nEgyptian orthodoxy found a ready way in which to explain the animal forms\nof its gods. The soul, once freed from its earthly body, could assume\nwhatever shape it chose, or rather, could inhabit as long as it would\nwhatever body it chose to enter. And what was true of the human soul was\nequally true of the gods. They too were like men, differing indeed from\nmen only in so far as they were already in the other world, and thus freed\nfrom the trammels and limitations of our present existence. The soul of\nRa, which was practically Ra himself, could appear under the form of a\nbird, if so he willed. Transmigration from one body to another, indeed,\nnever presented any difficulty to the Egyptian mind. It could be effected\nby the magician by means of his spells; and there were stories, like the\nfolk-tales of modern Europe, which told how the life and individuality of\na man could pass into the bodies of animals, and even into seeds and\ntrees. The belief is common to most primitive peoples, and is doubtless\ndue to the dreams in which the sleeper imagines himself possessed of some\nbodily form that is not his own.\n\nWe must then regard the animal worship of Egypt as the survival of an\nearly fetishism. But it is a survival which has had to accommodate itself\nto the antagonistic conceptions of an anthropomorphic faith. By the side\nof the deified king the deified animal was allowed to remain, and man and\nbeast were mixed together in religious art. It was parallel to the\njuxtaposition of pictorial ideographs and phonetically-spelt words in the\nwriting of a later day. And just as it was only the cultivated classes to\nwhom the written characters were symbols with a meaning other than that\nwhich they bore to the eye, so too it was only these same cultivated\nclasses to whom the sacred animals were symbols and embodiments of the\ndeity, rather than the deity itself. The masses continued to be\nfetish-worshippers like the earlier inhabitants of the country from whom\nmost of them drew their descent.\n\nTo this fact we must ascribe the extraordinary hold which the worship of\nanimals had upon the Egyptian people as a whole up to the period of their\nconversion to Christianity. While the walls of the temple were covered\nwith pictures in which the gods were represented in human or semi-human\nform, the inner shrine which they served to surround and protect contained\nmerely the beast or bird in which the deity was believed to be incarnated\nfor the time. When the god revealed himself to his worshipper, it was as a\nhawk or a crocodile. The fact would be inexplicable if the priests alone\nwere privileged to see him, as has often been maintained. Such, however,\nwas not the case. Every Egyptian, whatever might be his rank and station,\ncould follow the processions in the temple, could enter its inner\nchambers, and gaze upon the incarnated deity, provided only that he had\nconformed to the preliminary requirements of the ritual and were not\nunclean.(73) The temple was not the exclusive property of a privileged\ncaste; it was only the foreigner and the unbeliever who was forbidden to\ntread its courts. It was open to the Egyptian populace, and to the\npopulace the sacred animals were the gods themselves.\n\nWe do not know whether the hawk which represented Horus, and in which the\nsoul of the god tabernacled for a time, was distinguished from other hawks\nby special marks. We know, however, that this was the case with some of\nthe sacred animals. According to Herodotus (iii. 28), the bull Apis of\nMemphis was required to be black, with a white triangle on his forehead,\nan eagle on his back, double hairs in his tail, and a beetle on his\ntongue; and though the extant figures of the god do not support the\nprecise description given by the Greek writer, they show that certain\ncharacteristic marks were really required. In this way the incarnation of\nthe god was separated from other animals of the same species, upon whom,\nhowever, some part of his divinity was reflected. Since any bull might\nhave become the habitation of the deity, it was necessary to treat the\nwhole species with respect.\n\nThe bull Apis was an incarnation of Pta\u1e25, \u201cthe new life of Pta\u1e25,\u201d as he is\noften called on the votive tablets. We must see in him accordingly the\nlocal fetish of the pre-dynastic Egyptians who lived in the district where\nMemphis afterwards arose. In fact the bull was sacred throughout the whole\nof this region. In the neighbouring city of Heliopolis the place of Apis\nwas taken by another bull, Ur-mer, or Mnevis, as the Greeks miscalled him.\nMnevis was the incarnation of the sun-god, and, like Apis, it was needful\nthat he should be black. Nor was the worship of the bull confined to the\nnorth. At Erment also, near Thebes, Mentu, the god of the nome, was\nincarnated in the bull Bakis.(74) The sanctity of the bull is not\ndifficult to understand among an agricultural people in an early stage of\ndevelopment. In India the bull is still sacred; and Sir Samuel Baker tells\nus that the tribes of the Upper Nile still abstain from eating the flesh\nof the ox. In Phrygia the slaughter of an ox was punishable with\ndeath;(75) the first king of the country was supposed to have been a\npeasant, and his ox-drawn cart was preserved in the temple of Kybel\u00ea.\nAmong the Egyptians themselves, as we have seen, the Pharaoh was\nsymbolised under the form of a bull at the very beginning of history.\n\nThe bull, then, must have been worshipped in the neighbourhood of Memphis\nand Heliopolis before it became the incarnation of Pta\u1e25 or Ra. It follows,\nmoreover, that as yet it was no one particular bull to whom divine honours\nwere paid; there was no one particular bull into whom the soul of one of\nthe gods of the Pharaonic Egyptians had as yet entered, thus setting it\napart from all others. The bull was still a fetish pure and simple; it was\nthe whole species that was sacred, and not a single member of it.\n\nThat this was indeed the case, is proved by a custom which lasted down to\nthe latest times. Not only was the sacred bull or the sacred hawk\nmummified after death, but other bulls and hawks also. There were\ncemeteries of mummified animals, just as there were cemeteries of\nmummified men. Vast cemeteries of cats have been found at Bubastis, at\nBeni-Hassan, and other places; so too there were cemeteries of hawks and\ncrocodiles, of jackals and bulls. We are still ignorant of the exact\nconditions under which these creatures were embalmed and buried. It is\nimpossible to suppose that a solemn burial was provided for all the\nindividual members of a species which was accounted sacred in a particular\nnome, much less for all its individual members throughout Egypt, as seems\nto have been imagined by Herodotus (ii. 41); there must have been certain\nlimitations within which such a burial was permitted or ordained. And\nsometimes there was no burial at all; the mummy of the sacred animal of\nSet, for instance, has never been found.\n\nStill the fact remains that not only were the bodies of the Apis or the\nMnevis mummified and consigned to a special burying-place, but the bodies\nof other bulls as well. Doubtless the Egyptian of the Pharaonic period had\nan excellent reason to give for the practice. Just as the servants of the\nprince were buried around their master, or as the _ushebti_-figures were\nplaced in the tomb of the dead, so the ordinary bull was interred like the\ndivine incarnations of Pta\u1e25 and Ra, in the hope that its double might\naccompany the spirit of the god in the other world. The scenes of country\nlife painted on the walls of the tombs contain pictures of sheep and\ncattle whose _kas_ were, in some way or other, believed to exist in the\nEgyptian paradise, and a mummified bull had as much right to the hope of a\nfuture existence as a mummified man. The very act of embalming implied the\npossibility of its union with Osiris.\n\nEgyptian logic soon converted the possibility into a fact. With the growth\nof the Osirian cult the dead Apis became, like the pious Egyptian, one\nwith Osiris, the lord of the other world. His identity with Pta\u1e25 paled and\ndisappeared before his newer identity with Osiris. At first he was\nOsiris-Apis, \u201cthe Osirified bull-god,\u201d as guardian only of the necropolis\nof Memphis; then as god also of both Memphis and Egypt in life as well as\nin death. Under the Ptolemies, Greek ideas gathered round the person of a\ndeity who thus united in himself the earlier and later forms of Egyptian\nbelief, and out of the combination rose the Serapis of the classical age,\nwhose worship exercised so great an influence on the Roman world. In the\nfeatures of the human Serapis, with his majestic face and flowing beard,\nit is difficult to recognise the bull-god of primitive Egypt.\n\nThe history of Serapis is on a large scale what that of the other sacred\nanimals of Egypt is on a smaller scale. Mnevis was a lesser Apis; as\nHeliopolis waned before Memphis, so did its divine bull before the rival\ndeity of the capital. They had both started on an equal footing, and had\nfollowed the fortunes of the cities where they were adored. At Mendes it\nwas not a bull, but a ram, that was the object of worship, and in which\nthe priests beheld an incarnation of Ra,(76) though the accidental fact\nthat the word _ba_ meant alike \u201cram\u201d and \u201csoul\u201d caused later generations\nto identify it with the \u201csoul\u201d of Osiris. In the Fayy\u00fbm it was the\ncrocodile which naturally became the god Sebek or Sukhos, and at a later\ntime Pete-sukhos, \u201cthe gift of Sukhos.\u201d In the latter name we read the\nsigns of a growing disinclination to see in the animal the god himself or\neven his soul or double; the Sukhos becomes \u201cthe gift of Sukhos,\u201d separate\nfrom the god, and bestowed by him upon man.\n\nThere were other nomes besides the Fayy\u00fbm in which the crocodile was\nworshipped. It was the sacred animal of Onuphis in the Delta, and of Ombos\nin the far south of Egypt. But we must not expect to find a Sebek and a\nsacred crocodile always accompanying one another. There could be cases in\nwhich the crocodile was identified with other gods than Sebek,\u2014with Set,\nfor example, as at Nubti, near Dendera. The sacred animal existed before\nthe god whose incarnation he afterwards became. The neolithic races were\nin the valley of the Nile before the Pharaonic Egyptians, and the deities\nthey adored were consequently also there before the gods of the intruding\nrace. Pta\u1e25, with his human figure, would not have been transformed into\nthe bull Apis if the bull had not been already in possession.\n\nThe name of the god Thoth is itself a proof of this. Thoth was the god of\nHermopolis, the modern Eshmun\u00ean, and his patronage of writing and books\nshows that he must have been the deity of the Pharaonic race. The god to\nwhom the invention of the hieroglyphs was ascribed, could not have been\nthe god of an illiterate population.\n\nNow the Egyptian form of the name Thoth is De\u1e25uti (or Ze\u1e25uti), \u201che who\nbelongs to the ibis.\u201d(77) Thoth, therefore, was not originally the ibis,\nand, in spite of his bird\u2019s head, the human body which he retained was a\ntraditional evidence of the fact. He was merely \u201cattached to the\nibis,\u201d\u2014attached, that is to say, to the place where the ibis was the\nfetish of the aborigines.\n\nAccording to Manetho, it was not until the reign of the second king of the\nSecond Dynasty that Apis, Mnevis, and Mendes \u201cwere adjudged to be gods.\u201d\nThis must mean that it was then that the State religion admitted for the\nfirst time that the official gods of Memphis, Heliopolis, and Mendes were\nincarnated in the sacred animals of the local cults. That the statement is\nhistorically correct, may be gathered from the fact that the temples of\nMemphis and Heliopolis were dedicated to Pta\u1e25 and Tum, and not to Apis and\nMnevis. When they were built the divinity of the bull had not yet been\nofficially recognised. The gods in whose honour they were founded were\ngods of human form, and gods of human form they continued to be. Down to\nthe last days of Egyptian paganism the sun-god of Heliopolis was not a\nbull, but a man; and though the mummified Apis watched over the cemeteries\nof Memphis, the god of its great temple remained a mummified man and not a\nmummified bull.\n\nOne of the legends elaborately concocted in the temples out of old\nfolk-tales and etymological puns explained the animal forms of the gods as\nthe result of the murder of Osiris by Typhon or Set. The fear of sharing\nhis fate made them hide themselves, it was related, in the bodies of the\nbeasts.(78) But the explanation must belong to an age when the\nintroduction of foreign ideas had thrown discredit on the old worship of\nanimals. In earlier times no explanation was needed. The belief in the\npower possessed by the soul of migrating from one body into another, and\nthe symbolism of which the hieroglyphic writing was at once the expression\nand the cause, formed an easy bridge by which the fetishism of neolithic\nEgypt and the anthropomorphism of historical Egypt could be joined\ntogether. Horus is a hawk and the Pharaoh is a bull on the earliest\nmonuments we possess, and such visible symbols necessarily reacted on a\npeople, one half at least of whom already acknowledged the hawk and the\nbull as their gods. The official recognition of Apis and Mnevis and Mendes\nwas the last step in the process of incorporating the aboriginal\nsuperstitions and practices into the State religion, and giving them\nofficial sanction. The parallelism with Bra\u1e25manism in India is complete.\n\nBut we have still to ask why it was that the bull was worshipped in one\ndistrict of prehistoric Egypt, the hawk in another? Why was it that a\nparticular fetish was the protecting deity of a particular sanctuary or\nnome? To this there can be but one answer. A modified form of totemism\nmust once have been known in the valley of the Nile. The sacred animal\nmust have been the last representative of the totem of the tribe or clan.\nThe emblems borne on the flagstaffs of the prehistoric boats, like the\nemblems on the standards of the several nomes, must have been the animals\nor objects in which the clans saw the divine powers which held them\ntogether, and from which, it may be, they were derived. The subsequent\nhistory of animal worship in Egypt is a continuous drifting away from this\nprimitive totemism. The inanimate objects first fall into the background;\nthen, under the influence of a higher form of religion, the animals become\nsymbols, and assume semi-human shapes, and finally one only out of a\nspecies is selected to become the incarnation of a god. But the god of\nwhom he is the incarnation is a very different god from the divinity that\nwas believed to reside in the original fetish. It is a god in the Asiatic\nand not in the African sense, a god whose nature is spiritual and free\nfrom the limitations of our earthly existence, so that he can enter at any\nmoment into whatsoever form he desires. The old fetishes survived, indeed,\nbut it was as amulets and charms; and to these the multitude transferred\nits faith as the State religion became more and more unintelligible to it.\nThe magic lock of hair and image of a serpent preserved at Saft el-Henna,\nand said by the priests to have belonged to the sun-god, had doubtless\ncome down from the days of fetishism.\n\nIt has often been asserted that besides the bull or the ram or the\ncrocodile, there were other creatures of a composite or fabulous character\nwhich were also accounted sacred by the Egyptians. It is true that the\nsacred animal and symbol of Set seems to be of this nature. His forked\ntail and ass-like ears make it difficult to believe that any existing\nbeast ever served for his portrait. But the sphinx, in whom the men of the\nEighteenth Dynasty saw the image of Harmakhis, the rising sun, or the\nph\u0153nix in whom the sun-god of Heliopolis was incarnated, belongs to a\ndifferent category. They are not sacred animals in the sense in which Apis\nand Mnevis were so.\n\nThe sphinx, like the symbol of Set, is one of those composite creatures\nwhich meet us from time to time in Egyptian art. It has been said that\nsuch composite creatures were as real to the Egyptian as the cattle and\nsheep he tended in the fields; that he was quite as much prepared to meet\nwith them in the desert, as the ancient Greek would have been to meet with\na satyr in the woods or a Highlander with a kelpie by the waterside. Very\npossibly that was the case; it will not, however, explain their origin, or\nthe forms that were assigned to them. Why, for instance, should the sphinx\nof Giza be in the form of a lion with a human head?\n\nOnce more we must look to Asia for an explanation. The sphinx of Giza was\nthe guardian of the tombs of the dead; it protected them from the\nspiritual foes whose home was in the desert. \u201cI protect thy sepulchral\nchapel,\u201d it is made to say in an inscription, \u201cI watch over thy sepulchral\nchamber, I keep away the stranger who would enter, I overthrow the foe\nwith their weapons, I drive the wicked from thy tomb, I annihilate thy\nopponents ... so that they return no more.\u201d(79) The sphinx, in fact,\nperformed precisely the same office as the winged bulls that guarded the\nentrance to an Assyrian palace, or the cherubim who stood at the gates of\nthe garden of Eden.\n\nThe winged bulls and the cherubim were composite creatures, and came\noriginally from Babylonia. Babylonia was the primal home, indeed, of all\nsuch animal combinations. They were painted on the walls of the temple of\nBel at Babylon, and their existence formed an essential part of the\nBabylonian cosmogony. That cosmogony rested on the doctrine of a contest\nbetween the powers of light and darkness, of order and chaos, and on the\nfinal victory of the gods of light. There was a world of chaos as well as\na world of order; and before the present creation could be evolved with\nits settled laws and definite boundaries, there had been of necessity\nanother creation in which all things were confused and chaotic. The brood\nof Tiamat, the dragon of chaos, corresponded with the creatures of the\nactual world which the gods of light had called into existence; they were\nabortive attempts at creation, composed of limbs which matched not\ntogether, \u201cmen with the body of birds, or the faces of ravens.\u201d\n\nThis brood of chaos were the demons who were the enemies of Bel-Merodach\nand his followers. In order to oppose them successfully, it was needful\nthat there should be similarly composite creatures, who, instead of being\non the side of evil, were under the orders of the gods. By the side of the\nevil demon, therefore, there was the \u201cgood cherub,\u201d who protected the\npious Babylonian, and barred the way to the spirits of wickedness. The\nwinged bull with his human head defended the approach to a temple or\nhouse; men with the bodies of scorpions guarded the gateways of the sun.\n\nThis curious similarity in the functions assigned to the images of\ncomposite animals both in Egypt and Babylonia, raises the presumption that\nthe composite forms themselves were ultimately derived from a Babylonian\nsource. That such was the case we now have proof.\n\nOn the slate plaques and mace-heads of Nekhen and Abydos we find composite\nforms similar to those of Babylonia. What afterwards became the\nHathor-headed column appears as a human face with a cow\u2019s ears and horns.\nBelow are two monsters with a dog\u2019s body and a lion\u2019s head, whose\nintertwined necks are snakes. What makes the latter representation the\nmore interesting is, that M. Heuzey has pointed out exactly the same\nfigures on an early Babylonian seal now in the Louvre.(80) Like the\nseal-cylinder, therefore, which distinguishes the early period of Egyptian\nhistory, the composite monsters of which the sphinx and the symbol of Set\nwere surviving examples indicate direct communication with Chald\u00e6a.\n\nAnd, it must be remembered, it is only in Chald\u00e6a that they find their\nexplanation. Here they originated in the religious and cosmological ideas\nassociated with the physical features of the country. The sphinx of Giza\nstill guards the desert of Giza, because ages ago the flooding waves of\nthe Persian Gulf made the Babylonians believe that the world had arisen\nout of a watery chaos peopled by unformed creatures of monstrous shape.\n\nThe case of the ph\u0153nix or _bennu_ is somewhat different. Here we have to\ndo not with a fabulous monster, but with an existing bird of which a\nfabulous story was told. The bird was not an eagle, as Herodotos supposed,\nbut a heron, which at an early date seems to have been confounded with the\ncrested ibis, the symbol of the _khu_ or luminous soul. It was, in fact,\nthe spirit of the sun-god, and later legends declared that it stood and\nsang on the top of a tree at Heliopolis, while a flame burst forth beside\nit, and the sun rose from the morning sky. With sunset it became an\nOsiris, whose mummy was interred at Heliopolis, to awake again to life\nwith the first rays of the rising sun. It was thus for Christian writers\nan emblem of the resurrection, and as such its story is told by St.\nClement of Rome:(81) \u201cThere is a certain bird which is called the ph\u0153nix.\nThis is the only one of its kind, and it lives five hundred years. When\nthe time of its dissolution draws near that it must die, it builds itself\na nest of frankincense and myrrh and other spices, into which, when the\ntime is fulfilled, it enters and dies. But as the flesh decays a certain\nkind of worm is produced, which, being nourished by the juices of the dead\nbird, brings forth feathers. Then, when it has acquired strength, it takes\nup the nest in which are the bones of its parent, and, bearing these, it\npasses from the land of Arabia into Egypt, to the city called Heliopolis.\nAnd, flying in open day in the sight of all men, it places them on the\naltar of the sun, and, having done this, it hastens back to its former\nabode. The priests then inspect the chronological registers, and find that\nit has returned exactly when the five hundredth year is completed.\u201d(82)\n\nThe legend of the ph\u0153nix has grown up round the belief that the\ndisembodied soul could enter at will into the body of a bird. The ph\u0153nix\nwas allied to the hawk of Horus, and probably was originally identical\nwith that primitive symbol of the soul (_khu_), the name of which means\nliterally \u201cthe luminous.\u201d It will be remembered that the Pyramid texts\nspeak of the \u201cfour _khu_\u201d or \u201cluminous souls of Horus\u201d \u201cwho live in\nHeliopolis,\u201d and the sun-god of that city was usually invoked by his _bau_\nor \u201csouls,\u201d figured as three birds which appear as three ostriches on\nobjects found in the tomb of Menes.(83) On an early seal-cylinder of\nBabylonian type the _bennu_ or _khu_ is termed \u201cthe double of Horus.\u201d(84)\n\nThe story of the ph\u0153nix illustrates the influence exercised by the\npictorial character of Egyptian writing upon the course of religious\nthought. The soul was first symbolised by a bird. It passed out of the\ncorpse and into the air like a bird; it was free to enter whatever body it\nchose, and the body of a bird was that which it would naturally choose.\nEven to-day the belief is not extinct in Europe that the spirits of the\ndead pass into the forms of swallows or doves. But at first it was\nimmaterial what bird was selected to express pictorially the idea of a\nsoul. It was the ostrich when the latter still existed in Southern Egypt;\nthen it became the plover, in consequence, probably, of a similarity in\nsound between the name of the plover and that of the soul. At other times\nthe favourite symbol was the crested ibis, whose name was identical with a\nword that signified \u201clight.\u201d Around the conception of the soul there\naccordingly gathered associations with the light, and more especially with\nthe light of the sun. The sun-god, too, had a double and a soul; what\ncould be more fitting, therefore, than that they should be represented by\nthe crested ibis? It was but a step farther to see in the bird an\nincarnation of the sun-god himself.\n\nThe subsequent development of the myth was due to the fact that the god of\nHeliopolis continued to be depicted as a man. His human form was too\nstereotyped in religious art to be changed, and the ph\u0153nix consequently\nwas never actually identified with him. It was his soul, but it was not Ra\nhimself. The combination of the man and the beast could be tolerated only\nwhen both were co-ordinate survivals from a distant past. The inner\ncontradiction between the human and the bestial god was then obscured or\nignored.\n\nWith the human god was closely connected the ancestor worship, which was\nquite as much a characteristic of Egypt as the worship of animals. It was\ndue in the first instance, perhaps, to the belief that the _Ka_ of the\ndead man needed food and nourishment, and that if he did not receive them\nthe hungry double would revenge himself on the living. To this day the\nEgyptian fellahin, both Moslem and Copt, visit the tombs of their\nforefathers at certain times in the year, and, after eating and drinking\nbeside them, place a few grains of wheat or some similar offering on a\nshelf in front of a window-like opening into the tomb. But the belief in\nthe material needs of the _Ka_ would not of itself have sufficed to\nsupport the long lines of priests who were attached to the cult of the\ndead, or the prayers that were addressed to them. It was the deification\nof the Pharaoh which caused \u201cprophets\u201d of Khufu and Khafra to be still\nconsecrated in the days of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty,(85) and prevented the\nforms of the sacred animals from being pictured on the temple walls. As\nlong as there was a human god on earth, there could also be a human god in\nheaven; and in the Pyramid texts of the Sixth Dynasty the dead Pepi or\nTeta is as much a god as any deity in the pantheon.\n\nWhen the Osirian faith had spread throughout Egypt, and the pious Egyptian\nlooked forward after death to becoming himself an \u201cOsiris,\u201d there was\nstill greater reason for the divine honours that were paid to the\nancestor. In paying them to him the worshipper was paying them to the god\nof the dead. And the god of the dead was himself one of the ancestors of\nthe Egyptian people. He was a human god who had once ruled on earth, and\nhe still governed as a Pharaoh in the world beyond the grave. As the\nPharaoh was a theomorphic man, so Osiris was an anthropomorphic god. In\nhim the cult of the ancestor reached its fullest development.\n\nIt was natural that Pharaonic Egypt should have been, so far as we know,\nthe birthplace of euhemerism. Where the gods had human forms, and the men\nwere gods, it was inevitable that it should arise. The deification of the\nPharaoh prevented any line being drawn between the living man and the\ndeity he worshipped. As the man could be a god, so too could the god be a\nman. The gods of Egypt were accordingly transformed into Pharaohs, who\nlived and conquered and died like the Pharaohs of history. They differed\nfrom the men of to-day only in having lived long ago, and on that account\nbeing possessed of powers which are now lost. That they should have died\ndid not make them less divine and immortal. The Pharaoh also died like the\nancestors who were worshipped at the tombs, but death meant nothing more\nthan passing into another form of existence. It was merely a re-birth\nunder new conditions. The _Ka_ continued as before; there was no change in\noutward shape or in the moral and intellectual powers.\n\nIn fact, the death of the god was a necessary accompaniment of an\nanthropomorphic form of religion. In Babylonia the temples of the gods\nwere also their tombs, and even among the Greeks the sepulchre of Zeus was\npointed out in Krete. The same cult was paid to the dead Naram-Sin or the\ndead Gudea in Chald\u00e6a that was paid to the dead Khufu in Egypt. We have no\nneed to seek in any peculiarly Egyptian beliefs an explanation of the\nancestor worship which, along with the deification of the king, it shared\nwith Babylonia.\n\nThe euhemerism of the Egyptian priesthood sounded the knell of the old\nfaith. As the centuries passed, purer and higher ideas of the Godhead had\ngrown up, and between the \u201cformless\u201d and eternal Creator of the world and\nthe man who had become a god, the distance was too great to be spanned. On\nthe one side, the gods of the national creed had been resolved one into\nanother, till no distinctive shape or character was left to any one of\nthem; on the other side, they had been transformed into mere human kings\nwho had ruled over Egypt long ago. The pantheistic Creator and the deified\nEgyptians of vulgar and prosaic history could not be harmonised together.\nThe multitude might be content with its sacred animals and its amulets,\nbut the thinking portion of the nation turned to Greek metaphysics or a\ndespairing scepticism. Already, in the time of the Eleventh Dynasty, the\npoet who composed the dirge of king Antef gives pathetic expression to his\ndoubts(86)\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cWhat is fortune? say the wise.\n      Vanished are the hearths and homes,\n    What he does or thinks, who dies,\n      None to tell us comes.\n\n    \u201cHave thy heart\u2019s desire, be glad,\n      Use the ointment while you live;\n    Be in gold and linen clad,\n      Take what gods may give.\n\n    \u201cFor the day shall come to each\n      When earth\u2019s voices sound no more;\n    Dead men hear no mourners\u2019 speech,\n      Tears can not restore.\n\n    \u201cEat and drink in peace to-day,\n      When you go, your goods remain;\n    He who fares the last long way\n      Comes not back again.\u201d\n\n\nStill more hopeless are the words put into the mouth of the wife of the\nhigh priest of Memphis at the close of the first century before our era\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cO my brother, my spouse, and my friend,\n      High priest of Memphis!\n    Cease not to drink and to eat,\n      To fill thyself with wine, and to make sweet love;\n    Enjoy each festive day and follow thy desire,\n      Let not care enter thy heart\n    All the years that on earth thou remainest.\n      The underworld is a land of thick darkness,\n    A sorrowful place for the dead.\n      They sleep, after their guise, never to awaken\n    And behold their comrades.\n      Their father and their mother they know not,\n    No yearning for their wives and their children do they feel.\u201d(87)\n\n\n\n\nLecture VI. The Gods Of Egypt.\n\n\nIn the language of ancient Egypt the word _neter_ signified \u201ca god.\u201d Sir\nP. le Page Renouf endeavoured to show that the word originally meant\n\u201cstrong,\u201d and that the first Egyptians accordingly pictured their gods as\nembodiments of strength.(88) But it has been pointed out(89) that where\n_neter_ is used in the sense of \u201cstrong,\u201d it is rather the lustiness of\nyouth that is meant, and that a better rendering would be \u201cfresh and\nvigorous.\u201d The verb _neter_ signifies \u201cto flourish\u201d and \u201cgrow up.\u201d\nMoreover, it is a question whether between this verb and the word for\n\u201cgod\u201d there is any connection at all. It is difficult to understand how\nthe gods could be described as \u201cgrowths\u201d unless they were conceived of as\nplants; and of this there is no evidence in ancient Egypt. We must be\ncontent with the fact that as far back as we can trace the history of the\nword _neter_, it meant \u201cgod\u201d and \u201cgod\u201d only.\n\nBut we must also beware of supposing that the Egyptians attached the same\nideas to it that we do, or that it had the same connotation at all periods\nof their history or among all classes of the people. The pantheistic deity\nof Khu-n-Aten was a very different being from the sun-god of whom the\nPharaohs of the Fifth Dynasty had called themselves the sons, and between\nthe divinity which the multitude saw in the bull Apis and the formless and\never-living Creator of the priesthood there was a gulf which could hardly\nbe bridged. But even the conception of the Creator formed by the\npriesthood is difficult for us to realise. Eighteen centuries of\nChristianity have left their impress upon us, and we start from a\ndifferent background of ideas from that of the Egyptian, to whatever class\nhe may have belonged. It is impossible that we can enter exactly into what\nthe Egyptian meant by such expressions as \u201cliving for ever\u201d or \u201chaving no\nform\u201d; even the words \u201clife\u201d and \u201cform\u201d would not have had the same\nconnotation for him that they have for us. All that we can do is to\napproximate to the meaning that he gave to them, remembering that our\ntranslation of them into the language of to-day can be approximative only.\n\nThe hieroglyphic writing which preserved memories of a time that the\nEgyptians themselves had forgotten, represents the idea of a \u201cgod\u201d by the\npicture of an axe. The axe seems originally to have consisted of a\nsharpened flint or blade of metal hafted in a wooden handle, which was\noccasionally wrapped in strips of red, white, and black cloth.(90) It\ntakes us back to an age of fetishism, when inanimate objects were looked\nupon as divine, and perhaps reflects the impression made upon the natives\nof the country by the Pharaonic Egyptians with their weapons of metal.\nHorus of Edfu, it will be remembered, was served by smiths, and the\nshrines he founded to commemorate his conquest of Egypt were known as \u201cthe\nsmithies.\u201d The double-headed axe was a divine symbol in Asia Minor,(91)\nand both in the old world and in the new the fetish was wrapped in cloths.\nEven at Delphi a sacred stone was enveloped in wool on days of festival.\n\nIn the sacred axe, therefore, which denoted a god, we may see a parallel\nto the standards on the prow of the prehistoric boat or to the symbols of\nthe nomes. It would have represented the gods of those invaders of the\nvalley of the Nile who brought with them weapons of copper, and have been\nthe symbol of the conquering race and the deities it worshipped. As the\nPharaonic Egyptians appropriated the fetishes of the older population in\ntheir sculptures and their picture-writing, so too would they have\nappropriated what had become to the neolithic people the sign and emblem\nof superior power.\n\nWe have already dealt with an important class of gods, those which had a\nsolar origin. There were other gods of an elemental character, whose\nworship does not seem to have been originally confined to one particular\nlocality. Such were Seb, the earth, Nut, the sky, and Nu, the primeval\ndeep. But they played only a small part in the religion of the country.\nSeb was known in later days chiefly as the father of Osiris; at an earlier\nepoch he had been the _rp\u00e2_, or \u201chereditary prince, of the gods,\u201d a title\nwhich takes us back to the feudal period of Egypt, when as yet there was\nno Pharaoh who ruled over the whole of the land. The animal sacred to him\nwas the goose, perhaps on account of some similarity in its name; but he\nwas never identified with it, and continued to the last to be depicted in\nhuman form. His symbol, however, gave rise to a cosmological myth. The\ngoose became the mother of the egg out of which the universe was born.\n\nNut was the wife of Seb, wedded to him as the sky is wedded to the earth.\nIt seems reasonable to see in her the feminine form of Nu, the primeval\nchaos of waters; and so the Egyptians of the historical period believed,\nsince they identified her with the wife of the Nile, and represented her\nas sitting in the sycamore and pouring the water of life on the hands of a\nsoul at the foot of the tree. It has been suggested, however, that Nu was\nof later origin than Nut, who became a Nile goddess with the head of a\nsnake only when Nu himself had been changed into the Nile.(92) But the\nidea of a watery chaos is not one which would have grown up on Egyptian\nsoil. There it was rather the desert which represented the unformed\nbeginning of things; the Nile spread itself over the already existing land\nat regular intervals, and was no dreary waste of waters, out of which the\nearth emerged for the first time. The geographical home of the idea was in\nBabylonia, on the shores of the ever-retreating Persian Gulf. And from\nBabylonia we find that the belief in a primeval deep spread itself over\nWestern Asia. The Egyptian Nu is the counterpart of the Babylonian Mummu,\nthe mother of gods, as Nu was their father. Professor Hommel may even be\nright in identifying the name with the Babylonian Nun or Nunu, the lord of\nthe deep.\n\nBut Nu survived only in the theological schools, more especially in that\nof Hermopolis, the modern Eshmun\u00ean. The god of Hermopolis was Thoth, the\nEgyptian De\u1e25uti. Thoth seems to have been at the outset the moon, which\nwas thus, as in Babylonia, of the male sex. A legend, repeated by\nPlutarch,(93) relates how he gained the five intercalatory days of the\nEgyptian year by playing at dice with the moon; and he was at times\nidentified with the moon-gods Aah and Khonsu. The first month of the year\nwas his, and he was the measurer of time, who had invented arithmetic and\ngeometry, music and astronomy, architecture and letters. He knew the magic\nformul\u00e6 which could bind the gods themselves, and as minister of the\nPharaoh Thamos had introduced writing and literature into Egypt.\nHenceforward he remained the patron of books and education, on which the\nculture of Egypt so largely rested. He was, in fact, the culture-god of\nthe Egyptians to whom the elements of civilisation were due.\n\nIt is curious that we do not know his true name, for De\u1e25uti means merely\nthe god \u201cwho is attached to the ibis.\u201d Was it really Nu? and is Thoth\nreally a compound of a moon-god and a sun-god? At all events the\nculture-god of Babylonia who corresponded to Thoth was Ea, the deep, and\none of the earliest names of Ea was \u201cthe god Nun.\u201d Moreover, the son of Ea\nwas Asari, the Osiris of Egypt; and just as Asari instructed mankind in\nthe wisdom and laws of Ea, so Thoth acted as the minister of Osiris and\nadjudged his cause against Seb. Like Ea, too, Thoth wrote the first books\nfrom which men derived their laws.(94)\n\nHowever this may be, Thoth was the creator of the world through the word\nof his mouth. In the cosmogony of Hermopolis the universe and the gods\nthat direct it are the creation of his word, which later ages refined into\nthe sound of his voice. From Hermopolis the doctrine passed to other parts\nof Egypt, and under the Theban dynasties tended to displace or absorb the\nolder Heliopolitan doctrine of creation by generation. But the doctrine\nwas known also in Babylonia, where the god whose word is creative was\nAsari, the Merodach of the Semites. In the Babylonian Epic of the Creation\nthe \u201cword\u201d of Merodach creates and destroys, like the \u201cword\u201d of Yahweh in\nthe Old Testament. I must leave to another lecture the consideration as to\nhow far the Logos of Alexandrine philosophy has been influenced by the\ntheology of Hermopolis.\n\nWhether Thoth were originally Nu or not, Nu at all events forms the second\nmember of the Hermopolitan Ennead. Professor Maspero has shown that it was\nmodelled on the Ennead of Heliopolis.(95) But in accordance with the more\nabstract character of the cosmogony of which it was a part, the divinities\nof which it is composed are abstractions that look strangely out of place\nin the Egyptian Pantheon.\n\nNu is provided with the feminine Nut, who is not to be confounded with the\nold goddess of the sky, and from them are derived the successive pairs\n\u1e24e\u1e25ui and \u1e24e\u1e25et, Kek and Keket, Nini and Ninit, \u201ceternity,\u201d \u201cdarkness,\u201d\nand \u201cinertia.\u201d(96) The whole scheme is Asiatic rather than Egyptian, but\nthe gods composing it are already mentioned in the Pyramid texts.\n\nThe four pairs of abstract deities constituted \u201cthe eight\u201d gods after whom\nHermopolis received one of its names (Khmunu, now Ashmun\u00ean), and who were\noften addressed as \u201cthe god eight,\u201d like \u201cthe god seven\u201d in Babylonia.\nProfessor Maspero sees in them a philosophical development of the four\ncynocephalous apes who accompanied Thoth and saluted the first streak of\ndawn. But the development is difficult to follow, and the apes who are the\ncompanions of the god probably had another origin. They certainly must\nhave come from the Sud\u00e2n; no apes were indigenous in Egypt in historical\ntimes. Moreover, it was only the Thoth of Hermopolis in Upper Egypt in\nwhose train they were found; the Thoth of Hermopolis Parva in the Delta,\nproperly speaking, knew them not. But from an early epoch \u201cthe five\ngods\u201d\u2014Thoth and his four ape-followers, whose likeness he sometimes\nadopted\u2014had been worshipped at Eshmun\u00ean. Its temple was called \u201cthe Abode\nof the Five,\u201d and its high priest \u201cthe great one of the House of the\nFive.\u201d(97)\n\nHow the half-human apes of Central Africa came to be associated with Thoth\nwe do not know. Between the baboons who sing hymns to the rising and\nsetting sun and the moon, or the culture-god, there is little or no\nconnection. But a curious biography found in a tomb at Assuan throws light\nupon it. Herkhuf, the subject of the biography, was sent by Hor-em-saf of\nthe Sixth Dynasty on an exploring expedition into the Libyan desert south\nof the First Cataract, and he brought back with him a Danga dwarf \u201cwho\ndanced the dances of the god,\u201d like another Danga dwarf brought from Punt\nin the neighbourhood of Su\u00e2kim or Massawa in the time of the Fifth\nDynasty. The dwarf was evidently regarded by Herkhuf as a species of\nbaboon, if we may judge from the account he gives of the way in which he\nwas treated; even to-day the ape in the zoological gardens of Giza is\ncalled by the lower classes at Cairo \u201cthe savage man.\u201d Travellers have\ndescribed the dancing and screaming of troops of apes at daybreak when the\nsun first lights up the earth, and it was natural for primitive man to\nsuppose that the dancing was in honour of the return of the god of day.\nDances in honour of the gods have been common all over the world; indeed,\namong barbarous and savage peoples the dance is essentially of a religious\ncharacter. Even David danced before the ark, and boys still dance before\nthe high altar in the cathedral of Seville. That dances are represented on\nthe prehistoric pottery of Egypt, has been pointed out by M. de\nMorgan;(98) and since the Danga dwarf came from the half-mythical country\nin the south which was known to the Egyptians as \u201cthe land of the gods,\u201d\nand where, too, the apes of Thoth had their home, it was reasonable to\nbelieve that he knew the dance that would be pleasing to the gods.(99)\n\nI believe, therefore, that the apes of Thoth were at the outset the\ndwarf-like apes or ape-like dwarfs who danced in his honour in the temple\nof Hermopolis. Gradually they were taken hold of by that symbolism which\nwas inseparable from a religion so intimately bound up with a pictorial\nsystem of writing; from dancers they became the followers of the god, who\nsang to the rising and setting sun the hymns which Thoth had composed. But\nthis would have been when the worship of the sun-god of Heliopolis had\nalready spread to Hermopolis, and the cult of Thoth was mingling with that\nof Ra. The mutual influence of the theories of creation taught by the\npriests of the two cities shows at what a comparatively early date this\nwould have happened.\n\nIt is possible that there was actually a connection between the four\nbaboons and the four elemental gods of Hermopolitan theology. But it was\nnot in the way of development. It was rather that as the gods were four in\nnumber, the dancers in their temple were four also. To each god, as it\nwere, an ape was assigned.\n\nThe influence of Hermopolis belongs to the pre-Menic age of Egypt; we can\nhardly any longer call it prehistoric. So, too, does the influence of\nNekhen, once the capital of the kingdom of Upper Egypt. In a former\nlecture I have already spoken of its vulture-headed goddess Nekheb, the\nconsort of the hawk Horus, whose temple at El-Kab guarded the outlet of\nthe road from the Red Sea, and who was known as Mut, \u201cthe mother,\u201d at\nThebes. She was, in fact, the goddess of all Upper Egypt, whose worship\nhad spread over it in the days when Nekhen was its ruling city. The gods\nof the Pharaoh followed the extension of his power.\n\nIn the early inscriptions of the First Cataract the vulture-headed goddess\nsitting on her basket is identified with the local divinity Sati (more\ncorrectly Suti), \u201cthe Asiatic.\u201d From her the island of Seh\u00eal received its\nname, and there her sanctuary stood before Isis of Phil\u00e6 ousted her from\nher supremacy. She was symbolised by the arrow, the name of which was the\nsame as that of the goddess, and which was, moreover, a fitting emblem of\nthe hostile tribes of the desert. It already appears on the prehistoric\npottery as a sacred fetish on the \u201cflagstaff\u201d or standard at the prow of\nthe boat.\n\nThe name of Sati, or rather Suti, is remarkable. It was not only the name\nof the goddess of the First Cataract, it was also the name given by the\nEgyptians to the nomadic tribes of Asia. But it was not the Egyptians only\nwho used it in this sense. From time immemorial the name Sut\u00ea had\nprecisely the same meaning among the Babylonians. The fact cannot be\naccidental; and as Sut\u00ea is of Babylonian origin, we have in it a fresh\nproof of the relations of the Pharaonic Egyptians with primeval Babylonia.\n\nBut the goddess Sati does not stand alone. There was also a god Set (or\nSut), the twin-brother and enemy of Osiris, and, like Esau in Hebrew\nhistory, a representative of the desert; while at the Cataract another\ngoddess, \u00c2nuqet by name, is her companion. Now \u00c2nuqet is the feminine of\n\u00c2nuq, the \u00c2naq of the Old Testament. The foreign nature of \u00c2nuqet has long\nbeen recognised, for she wears on her head the non-Egyptian head-dress of\na cap fringed with feathers. It is the same head-dress as that worn by the\ngod Bes, whom the Egyptians derived from the land of Punt on the shores of\nthe Red Sea. A similar cap is worn by the Zakkal on the coast of\nPalestine, in the near neighbourhood of \u201cthe sons of \u00c2naq,\u201d as well as by\nthe Babylonian king Merodach-nadin-akhi, on a monument now in the British\nMuseum.(100) Everything, therefore, points to its having been an Asiatic\ncharacteristic; perhaps it was made of the ostrich feathers which are\nstill collected in Arabia and even on the eastern side of the Jordan.\n\nThe Greeks identified \u00c2nuqet with Hestia, and Sati with H\u00eara. This was\nprobably because Sati was the wife of Khnum (or Kneph), the god of the\nCataract. As such Sati was also known as Heket, \u201cthe frog,\u201d which was\nsupposed to be born from the mud left by the inundation of the Nile. It\nthus became a symbol of the resurrection, and was consequently adopted by\nthe Christians of Egypt. Hence the frequency with which it is represented\non lamps of the late Roman period.\n\nKhnum, like the god of Thebes, was a ram, and is accordingly usually\ndepicted with a ram\u2019s head. But he could not originally have been so. Once\nmore the old fetish of the district, the sacred animal of the nome, must\nhave been fused with the god whom the Pharaonic invaders brought with\nthem. For Khnum was a potter, as his name signifies, and at Phil\u00e6 it is\nsaid of him that he was \u201cthe moulder (_khnum_) of men, the modeller of the\ngods.\u201d(101) Hence he is called \u201cthe creator of all this, the fashioner of\nthat which exists, the father of fathers, the mother of mothers,\u201d \u201cthe\ncreator of the heaven and the earth, the lower world, the water and the\nmountains,\u201d \u201cwho has formed the male and female of fowl and fish, wild\nbeasts, cattle, and creeping things.\u201d\n\nIn Babylonia, Ea, the culture-god and creator, was also termed the\n\u201cpotter,\u201d and it was thus that he moulded the gods as well as men.(102) At\nthe same time, like Khnum, he was a god of the waters. While the Cataract\nof the Nile was the home of Khnum, the Persian Gulf was the dwelling-place\nof Ea. The connection between the water and the modeller in clay is\nobvious. It is only where the water inundates the soil and leaves the\nmoist clay behind it that the art of the potter can flourish.(103)\n\nBut was there also a connection between the Babylonian god who was\nworshipped in the ancient seaport of Chald\u00e6a and the god of the Egyptian\nCataract? We have seen that the wife of Khnum was entitled \u201cthe Asiatic,\u201d\nthe very form of the name being Babylonian. We have further seen that her\ncompanion \u00c2nuqet was also from Asia, and that her traditional head-dress\npreserved a memory of the fact. There is a road from the Red Sea to Assuan\nas well as to El-Kab; it may be that it goes back to those prehistoric\ntimes when the Pharaonic Egyptians made their way across the desert into\nthe valley of the Nile, as their Semitic kinsfolk did in later days into\nthe tablelands of Abyssinia.\n\nThe creator who was worshipped at Memphis, at the other end of the Nile\nvalley, was a potter also.(104) This was Pta\u1e25, whose name is derived from\na root which means to \u201copen.\u201d According to Porphyry, he had sprung from an\negg which had come from the mouth of Kneph. But the reference in the name\nis probably to the ceremony of \u201copening the mouth\u201d of a mummy, or the\nstatue of the dead man with a chisel, a finger, or some red pebbles, in\norder to confer upon it the capability of receiving the breath of life,\nand of harbouring the double or the soul.(105) Pta\u1e25 was represented as a\nmummy; he was, in fact, one of the gods of the underworld, who, like\nOsiris or the mummified Horus of Nekhen, had their tombs as well as their\ntemples. He must have been the creative potter, however, before he became\na mummy. Perhaps his transformation dates from the period of his fusion\nwith Sokaris, who seems to have been the god of the cemetery of\nMemphis.(106) At any rate, Pta\u1e25 and Khnum are alike forms of the same\nprimitive deity, and the names they bear are epithets merely. At Phil\u00e6,\nPta\u1e25 is pictured as about to model man out of a lump of clay, and the\nKhnumu, or \u201ccreators\u201d who helped him to fashion the world, were his\nchildren.(107)\n\nThe Khnumu are the Pat\u00e6ki of Herodotos (iii. 37), whose figures, the Greek\nwriter tells us, were carved by the Ph\u0153nicians on the prows of their\nvessels, probably to ward off the evil eye. They were dwarfs, like the\nDanga dwarf of Herkhuf or the god Bes, with thick heads, bowed legs, long\narms, and bushy beards; and their terra-cotta figures have often been met\nwith in the tombs. From the name Pat\u00e6ki we might infer that they had been\nborrowed by the Ph\u0153nicians from Egypt. But it is also possible that both\nEgypt and Ph\u0153nicia derived them from the same source. Dr. Scheil has\npointed out that a similar figure occurs on early Babylonian\nseal-cylinders, where its Sumerian name is given as \u201cthe god Nugidda\u201d or\n\u201cthe Dwarf,\u201d and it is sometimes represented as dancing before the goddess\nIstar.(108) Thus far, however, no text has been discovered which\nassociates the god Nugidda with the creator of the world.\n\nWhen Memphis became the capital of Egypt and the seat of the Pharaoh, its\ngod also became supreme in the Egyptian pantheon. But he was no longer\nPta\u1e25 the creator simply. He was already amalgamated with Sokaris, and\nprobably with Osiris as well. It was not difficult to identify two\nmummified gods whose domain was among the dead. With the spread of the\nsun-worship of Heliopolis and the spirit of pantheistic syncretism which\naccompanied it, the individuality of the old god of Memphis became still\nfurther lost. He was merged into Tanen or Tatunen, a local god of the\nearth, as well as into Ra. He had already been made into the chief of an\nEnnead, and now the Ennead was resolved into a trinity. Nofer-Tum,\n\u201cbeautified by Tum,\u201d was brought from Heliopolis, and was made into a son\nof Pta\u1e25, afterwards to be superseded, however, by another abstraction,\nIm-hotep, \u201che who comes in peace.\u201d(109) Im-hotep was reputed the first\n_kher-heb_ or hierophant; he it was who recited and interpreted the\nliturgy of the dead and the magic formul\u00e6 which restored health to the\nsick and raised the dead to life. The Greeks consequently identified him\nwith Askl\u00eapios.(110) Both Im-hotep and Nofer-Tum were the sons of Sekhet,\nthe lion-headed goddess of Letopolis, from whence she must have been\nborrowed by the Memphite priests when the ancient potter god had become a\ngenerator, and a wife was needed for him.\n\nWith the decline of the Memphite dynasties and the fall of the Old Empire,\nthe commanding part played by Pta\u1e25 in the Egyptian pantheon was at an end.\nThe god of the imperial city had been identified with the gods of the\nprovincial nomes; his temple at Memphis had taken precedence of all\nothers, and the local priesthoods were content that their deities should\nhave found a shelter in it as forms of Pta\u1e25. He was even identified with\n\u1e24\u00e2pi, the Nile, though perhaps the similarity in sound between the sacred\nname of the river and that of the bull Apis (\u1e24api) may have assisted in\nthe identification.(111)\n\nThat the Nile should have been worshipped throughout the land of Egypt is\nnatural. The very land itself was his gift, the crops that grew upon it\nand the population it supported all depended upon his bounty. When the\nNile failed, the people starved; when the Nile was full, Egypt was a land\nof contentment and plenty. It is only wonderful that the cult of the Nile\nshould not have been more prominent than it was. The temples built in its\nhonour were neither numerous nor important, nor were its priests endowed\nas the priests of other gods. But the cause of this is explained by\nhistory. The neolithic population of the country lived in the desert; the\nNile was for them little more than the creator of pestilential swamps and\ndangerous jungles, where wild beasts and venomous serpents lurked for the\nintruder. The Pharaonic Egyptians brought their own gods with them, and\nthese naturally became the divinities of the nomes. When the river had\nbeen embanked and its waters been made a blessing instead of a curse, the\nsacred animals and the gods of the nomes were too firmly established to be\ndisplaced.(112)\n\nBut the backwardness of the State religion was made up for by the piety of\nindividuals. Hymns to the Nile, like those which were engraved on the\nrocks of Silsilis by Meneptah and Ramses III., breathe a spirit of\ngratitude and devotion which can hardly be exceeded\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cHail to thee, O Nile!\n    who manifestest thyself over this land,\n    and comest to give life to Egypt!\n    Mysterious is thy issuing forth from darkness,\n    on this day whereon it is celebrated!\n    Watering the orchards created by Ra\n    to cause all cattle to drink,\n    thou givest the earth to drink, inexhaustible one!...\n    Lord of the fish, during the inundation,\n    no bird alights on the crops.\n    Thou createst the wheat, thou bringest forth the barley,\n    assuring perpetuity to the temples.\n    If thou ceasest thy toil and thy work,\n    then all that exists is in anguish.\n    If the gods suffer in heaven,\n    then the faces of men waste away....\n    No dwelling (is there) which may contain thee!\n    None penetrates within thy heart!\n    Thy young men, thy children, applaud thee\n    and render unto thee royal homage.\n    Stable are thy decrees for Egypt\n    before thy servants of the north.\n    He dries the tears from all eyes,\n    and guards the increase of his good things....\n    Establisher of justice, mankind desires thee,\n    supplicating thee to answer their prayers;\n    thou answerest them by the inundation!\n    Men offer thee the first-fruits of corn;\n    all the gods adore thee!...\n    A festal song is raised for thee on the harp,\n    with the accompaniment of the hand.\n    Thy young men and thy children acclaim thee,\n    and prepare their exercises.\n    Thou art the august ornament of the earth,\n    letting thy bark advance before men,\n    lifting up the heart of women in labour,\n    and loving the multitude of the flocks.\n    When thou shinest in the royal city,\n    the rich man is sated with good things,\n    even the poor man disdains the lotus;\n    all that is produced is of the choicest;\n    all plants exist for thy children.\n    If thou refusest nourishment,\n    the dwelling is silent, devoid of all that is good,\n    the country falls exhausted ...\n    O Nile, come (and) prosper!\n    O thou that makest men to live through his flocks,\n    and his flocks through his orchards!\u201d(113)\n\n\nThe supremacy of Memphis was replaced by that of Thebes, and under the\nTheban dynasties, accordingly, Amon, the god of Thebes, became paramount\nin the State religion of Egypt. But before we trace the history of his\nrise to supremacy, it is necessary to say a few words regarding the\nEgyptian goddesses. The woman occupied an important position in the\nEgyptian household; purity of blood was traced through her, and she even\nsat on the throne of the Pharaohs. The divine family naturally\ncorresponded to the family on earth. The Egyptian goddess was not always a\npale reflection of the god, like the Semitic consort of Baal; on the\ncontrary, there were goddesses of nomes as well as gods of nomes, and the\nnome-goddess was on precisely the same footing as the nome-god. Nit of\nSais or Hathor of Dendera differed in no way, so far as their divine\npowers were concerned, from Pta\u1e25 of Memphis or Khnum of the Cataract. Like\nthe gods, too, they became the heads of Enneads, or were embodied in\nTrinities, when first the doctrine of the Ennead, and then that of the\nTrinity, made its way through the theological schools. They are each even\ncalled \u201cthe father of fathers\u201d as well as \u201cthe mother of mothers,\u201d and\ntake the place of Tum as the creators of heaven and earth.(114)\n\nNit rose to eminence with the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. Her city of Sais had\npreviously played no part in history, but both its goddess and its\nsanctuary were of old date.(115) Of the nature of the goddess, however, we\nknow little. She is represented as a woman with a shuttle as her emblem,\nand in her hands she carries a bow and arrow, like Istar of Assyria or\nArtemis of Greece. But the twin arrow was also a symbol of the nome, which\nwas a border district, exposed to the attacks of the Libyan tribes. The\nGreeks identified her with their Ath\u00eana on account of a slight similarity\nin the names.\n\nSekhet, or Bast of Bubastis, is better known. Sometimes she has the head\nof a lion, sometimes of a cat. At Phil\u00e6 it is said of her that \u201cshe is\nsavage as Sekhet and mild as Bast.\u201d(116) But the lion must have preceded\nthe cat. The earlier inhabitants of the valley of the Nile were acquainted\nwith the lion; the cat seems to have been introduced from Nubia in the age\nof the Eleventh Dynasty. In the time of the Old Empire there was no\ncat-headed deity, for there were no cats. But the cat, when once\nintroduced, was from the outset a sacred animal.(117) The lion of Sekhet\nwas transformed into a cat; and as the centuries passed, the petted and\ndomesticated animal was the object of a worship that became fanatical.\nHerodotos maintains that when a house took fire the Egyptians of his time\nthought only of preserving the cats; and to this day the cat is honoured\nabove all other animals on the banks of the Nile. The chief sanctuary of\nBast was at Bubastis, where, however, the excavations of Dr. Naville have\nshown that she did not become the chief divinity before the rise of the\nTwenty-second Dynasty.(118)\n\nThe goddesses passed one into the other even more readily than the gods.\nSekhet developed by turns into Uazit and Mut, Selk the scorpion, and\nHathor of Dendera. Pepi I., even at Bubastis, still calls himself the son\nof Hathor.\n\nHathor played much the same part among the goddesses that Ra played among\nthe gods. She gradually absorbed the other female divinities of Egypt.\nThey were resolved into forms of her, as the gods were resolved into forms\nof Ra. The kings of the Sixth Dynasty called themselves her sons, just as\nthey also called themselves sons of the sun-god. She presided over the\nunderworld; she presided also over love and pleasure. The seven goddesses,\nwho, like fairy godmothers, bestowed all good things on the newborn child,\nwere called by her name, and she was even identified with Mut, the starry\nsky. Her chief sanctuary was at Dendera, founded in the first days of the\nPharaonic conquest of Egypt. Here she was supreme; even Horus the elder\nand the younger,(119) when compelled to form with her a trinity, remained\nlay figures and nothing more.\n\nShe was pictured sometimes as a cow, sometimes as a woman with the head of\na cow bearing the solar disc between her horns: for from the earliest days\nshe was associated with the sun. Sometimes she is addressed as the\ndaughter of Ra;(120) sometimes the sun-god is her son. At Dendera the\nsolar orb is represented as rising from her lap, while its rays encircle\nher head, which rests upon B\u00e2khu, the mountain of the sun. In another\nchamber of the same temple we see her united with her son Horus as a hawk\nwith a woman\u2019s head in the very middle of the solar disc, which slowly\nrises from the eastern hills. When Isis is figured as a cow, it is because\nshe is regarded as a form of Hathor.(121)\n\nThe original character of Hathor has been a matter of dispute. Some\nscholars have made her originally the sky or space generally, others have\ncalled her the goddess of light, while she has even been identified with\nthe moon. In the legend of the destruction of mankind by Ra, she appears\nas the eye of the sun-god who plies her work at night; and a text at\nDendera speaks of her as \u201cresting on her throne in the place for beholding\nthe sun\u2019s disc, when the bright one unites with the bright one.\u201d In any\ncase she is closely connected with the rising sun, whose first rays\nsurround her head.\n\nEgyptian tradition maintained that she had come from the land of Punt,\nfrom those shores of Arabia and the opposite African coast from which the\nPharaonic immigrants had made their way to the valley of the Nile. She\nwas, moreover, the goddess of the Semitic nomads of the Sinaitic\nPeninsula; in other words, she was here identified with the Ashtoreth or\nIstar of the Semitic world.(122) Now the name of Hathor does not seem to\nbe Egyptian. It is written with the help of a sort of rebus, so common in\nideographic forms of writing. The pronunciation of the name is given by\nmeans of ideographs, the significations of which have nothing in common\nwith it, though the sounds of the words they express approximate to its\npronunciation. The name of Hathor, accordingly, is denoted by writing the\nhawk of Horus inside the picture of a \u201chouse,\u201d the name of which was H\u00e2t.\nA similar method of representing names is frequent in the ideographic\nscript of ancient Babylonia; thus the name of Asari, the Egyptian Osiris,\nis expressed by placing the picture of an eye (_shi_) inside that of a\nplace (_eri_).\n\nThe name of Hathor, therefore, had primitively nothing to do with either\nHorus or the house of Horus, whatever may have been the speculations which\nthe priests of a later day founded upon the written form of the name. It\nwas only an attempt, similar to those common in the early script of\nBabylonia, to represent the pronunciation of a name which had no meaning\nin the Egyptian language. But it is a name which we meet with in the\nancient inscriptions of Southern Arabia. There it appears as the name of\nthe god Atthar. But Atthar itself was borrowed from Babylonia. It is the\nname of the Babylonian goddess Istar, originally the morning and evening\nstars, who, an astronomical text tells us, was at once male and female. As\na male god she was adored in South Arabia and Moab; as the goddess of love\nand war she was the chief goddess of Babylonia, the patron of the Assyrian\nkings, and the Ashtoreth of Canaan. When, with the progress of\nastronomical knowledge, the morning and evening stars were distinguished\nfrom one another, in one part of Western Asia she remained identified with\nthe one, in another part with the other.\n\nHathor is then, I believe, the Istar of the Babylonians. She agrees with\nIstar both in name and in attributes. The form of the name can be traced\nback to that of Istar through the Atthar of South Arabia, that very land\nof Punt from which Hathor was said to have come. In Egypt as in Babylonia\nshe was the goddess of love and joy, and her relation to the sun can be\nexplained naturally if she were at the outset the morning star.(123) Even\nher animal form connects her with Chald\u00e6a. Dr. Scheil has published a\nBabylonian seal of the age of Abraham, on which the cow, giving milk to a\ncalf, appears as the symbol of Istar, and a hymn of the time of\nAssur-bani-pal identifies the goddess with a cow.(124)\n\nI have left myself but little time in which to speak of the gods who\ninterpenetrated and transfigured Egyptian theology in the period of which\nwe know most. These are the gods of Thebes. For centuries Thebes was the\ndominant centre of a powerful and united Egypt, and its chief god Amon\nfollowed the fortunes of his city.\n\nAs the word _amon_ meant \u201cto conceal,\u201d the priests discovered in the god\nan embodiment of a mysterious and hidden force which pervades and controls\nthe universe, and of which the sun is as it were the material organ. But\nsuch discoveries were the product of a later day, when the true meaning of\nthe name had been long since forgotten, and Theban theology had become\npantheistic. What Amon really signified the priests did not know, nor are\nwe any wiser.\n\nAmon was, however, the local god of Thebes, or rather of Karnak, and he\nseems from the first to have been a sun-god. But he had a rival in the\nwarrior deity Mentu of Hermonthis, who also probably represented the sun.\nAt any rate, Mentu had the head of a hawk, and therefore must have been a\nlocal form of Horus\u2014of that Horus, namely, of whom the Pharaonic Egyptians\nwere the followers.(125) Like Horus, too, he was a fighting god, and was\naccordingly identified in the texts of the Nineteenth Dynasty with the\nCanaanitish Baal, \u201cthe Lord of hosts.\u201d But he was also incarnated in the\nsacred bull which was worshipped at Erment, and of which I have spoken in\nan earlier lecture. He thus differed from Amon, who was identified with\nthe ram, the sacred animal of the aboriginal population, not at Karnak\nonly, but in the whole of the surrounding district.(126)\n\nBut Amon was usually of human form, with two lofty feathers rising above\nhis crown. Under the Theban dynasties he became the supreme god, first of\nEgypt, then of the Egyptian empire. All other gods had to give way before\nhim, and to lose their individuality in his. His supremacy began with the\nrise of the Eleventh and Twelfth Dynasties; it was checked for a moment by\nthe Hyksos conquest of Egypt, but in the end the check proved only a fresh\nimpulse. It was the princes of Thebes, the servants of Amon, who raised\nthe standard of revolt against the Asiatic intruder, and finally drove him\nback to Asia. Amon had been their helper in the war of independence, and\nit was he who afterwards gained their victories for them in Syria and\nEthiopia. The glory and wealth of Egypt were all due to him, and upon his\ntemple and city accordingly the spoils of Asia were lavished, and trains\nof captives worked under the lash. The Hyksos invasion, moreover, and the\nlong war of independence which followed, destroyed the power of the old\nfeudal princes, while it strengthened and developed that of the Pharaoh.\nThe influence of the provincial gods passed away with the feudal princes\nwhose patrons they had been; the supremacy of the Pharaoh implied also the\nsupremacy of the Pharaoh\u2019s god. There was none left in Egypt to dispute\nthe proud boast of the Theban, that Amon was \u201cthe one god.\u201d\n\nBut he became the one god not by destroying, but by absorbing the other\ngods of the country. The doctrines of the Ennead and the Trinity had\nprepared the way. They had taught how easily the gods of the State\nreligion could be merged one into the other; that their attributes were\nconvertible, and yet, at the same time, were all that gave them a distinct\npersonality. The attributes were to the Egyptian little more than the\nconcrete symbols by which they were expressed in the picture writing; the\npersonality was little more than a name. And both symbols and name could\nbe changed or interchanged at will.\n\nThe process of fusion was aided by the identification of Amon with Ra. The\nspread of the solar cult of Heliopolis had introduced the name and worship\nof Ra into all the temples of Egypt; the local gods had, as it were, been\nincorporated into him, and even the goddesses forced to become his wives\nor his daughters. The Pharaoh, even the Theban Pharaoh, was still \u201cthe son\nof the sun-god\u201d; as Amon was also his \u201cfather,\u201d it was a necessary\nconclusion that Amon and Ra were one and the same.\n\nIn the Theban period, accordingly, Amon is no longer a simple god. He is\nAmon-Ra, to whom all the attributes of Ra have been transferred. The solar\nelement is predominant in his character; and, since the other gods of the\ncountry are but subordinate forms of Amon, in their characters also. Most\nof the religious literature of Egypt which we possess belongs to the\nTheban period or is derived from it; it is not astonishing, therefore, if\nEgyptologists have been inclined to see the sun-god everywhere in Egyptian\ntheology.\n\nThe Theban trinity was modelled on the orthodox lines. Mut, \u201cthe mother,\u201d\na local epithet of the goddess of Southern Egypt, was made the wife of\nAmon, while Khonsu, a local moon-god, became his son. But in acquiring\nthis relationship Khonsu lost his original nature.(127) Since the divine\nson was one with his divine father, he too became a sun-god, with the\nsolar disc and the hawk\u2019s head. As the designer of architectural plans,\nhowever, he still preserved a reminiscence of his primal character. But he\nwas eventually superseded by Mentu, a result of the decadence of Thebes\nand the rise of Erment to the headship of the nome. It is needless to say\nthat Mentu had long before become Mentu-Ra.\n\nWe can trace the evolution of Amon, thanks to the multiplicity of the\ntexts which belong to the period when his city was supreme. We can watch\nhim as he rises slowly from the position of an obscure provincial deity to\nthat of the supreme god of all Egypt, and can follow the causes which\nbrought it about. We can see him uniting himself with the sun-god, and\nthen absorbing the rest of the Egyptian gods into himself. The theological\nthought, of which he was the subject and centre, gradually but inexorably\npasses from a narrow form of polytheism into a materialistic pantheism.\nThere, however, it ends. It never advances further into a monotheism in\nwhich the creator is separate from his creation. With all its\nspirituality, the Egyptian conception of the divine remained concrete; the\ntheologians of Egypt never escaped the influence of the symbol or\nrecognised the god behind and apart from matter. It was through matter\nthat they came to know God, and to the last it was by matter that their\nconception of the Godhead was bounded.\n\n\n\n\nLecture VII. Osiris And The Osirian Faith.\n\n\nThe legend of Osiris as it existed at the end of the first century is\nrecorded by Plutarch. It has been pieced together from the myths and\nfolk-tales of various ages and various localities that were current about\nthe god. The Egyptian priests had considerable difficulty in fitting them\ninto a consistent story; had they been Greek or Roman historiographers,\nthey would have solved the problem by declaring that there had been more\nthan one Osiris; as it was, they were contented with setting the different\naccounts of his death and fortunes side by side, and harmonising them\nafterwards as best they might.\n\nAs to the general outlines of the legend, there was no dispute. Osiris had\nbeen an Egyptian Pharaoh who had devoted his life to doing good, to\nintroducing the elements of art and culture among his subjects, and\ntransforming them from savages into civilised men. He was the son of the\nsun-god, born on the first of the intercalatory days, the brother and\nhusband of Isis, and the brother also of Set or Sut, whom the Greeks\ncalled Typhon. Typhon had as wife his sister Nephthys or Nebh\u00e2t, but her\nson Anubis, the jackal, claimed Osiris as his father.\n\nOsiris set forth from his Egyptian kingdom to subdue the world by the arts\nof peace, leaving Isis to govern in his absence. On his return, Set and\nhis seventy-two fellow conspirators imprisoned him by craft in a chest,\nwhich was thrown into the Nile. In the days when Canaan had become a\nprovince of the Egyptian empire, and there were close relations between\nthe Ph\u0153nician cities and the Delta, it was said that the chest had floated\nacross the sea to Gebal, where it became embedded in the core of a tree,\nwhich was afterwards cut down and shaped into one of the columns of the\nroyal palace. Isis wandered from place to place seeking her lost husband,\nand mourning for him; at last she arrived at Gebal, and succeeded in\nextracting the chest from its hiding-place, and in carrying it back to\nEgypt. But the older version of the legend knew nothing of the voyage to\nGebal. The chest was indeed found by Isis, but it was near the mouths of\nthe Nile. Here it was buried for awhile; but Set, while hunting by night,\ndiscovered it, and, tearing open its lid, cut the body inside into\nfourteen pieces, which he scattered to the winds. Then Isis took boat and\nsearched for the pieces, until she had recovered them all save one.\nWherever a piece was found, a tomb of Osiris arose in later days.\nCarefully were the pieces put together by Isis and Nephthys, and Anubis\nthen embalmed the whole body. It was the first mummy that was made in the\nworld.\n\nMeanwhile Horus the younger had been born to Isis, and brought up secretly\nat Buto, in the marshes of the Delta, out of reach of Set. As soon as he\nwas grown to man\u2019s estate he gathered his followers around him, and\nprepared himself to avenge his father\u2019s death. Long and fierce was the\nstruggle. Once Set was taken prisoner, but released by Isis; whereupon\nHorus, in a fit of anger, struck off his mother\u2019s head, which was replaced\nby Thoth with the head of a cow. According to one account, the contest\nended with the victory of Horus. The enemy were driven from one nome to\nanother, and Horus sat on the throne of his father. But there were others\nwho said that the struggle went on with alternating success, until at last\nThoth was appointed arbiter, and divided Egypt between the two foes.\nSouthern Egypt was given to Horus, Northern Egypt to Set.\n\nIt is somewhat difficult to disentangle the threads out of which this\nstory has been woven. Elements of various sorts are mixed up in it\ntogether. Horus the younger, the posthumous son of Osiris, has been\nidentified with Horus the elder, the ancient sun-god of Upper Egypt, and\nthe legends connected with the latter have been transferred to the son of\nIsis. The everlasting war between good and evil has been inextricably\nconfounded with the war between the Pharaonic Egyptians and the older\npopulation. The solar theology has invaded the myth of Osiris, making him\nthe son of Ra, and investing him with solar attributes. Anubis the jackal,\nwho watched over the cemeteries of Upper Egypt, has been foisted into it,\nand has become the servant and minister of the god of the dead who\nsuperseded him. The doctrine of the Trinity has been applied to it, and\nAnubis and Nephthys, who originally were the allies of Osiris, have been\nforced to combine with Set. Here and there old forgotten customs or\nfragments of folk-lore have been embodied in the legend: the dismemberment\nof Osiris, for example, points to the time when the neolithic inhabitants\nof Egypt dismembered their dead; and the preservation of the body of\nOsiris in the heart of a tree has its echo in the Tale of the Two\nBrothers, in which the individuality of the hero was similarly preserved.\nThe green face with which Osiris was represented was in the same way a\ntraditional reminiscence of the custom of painting the face of the dead\nwith green paint, which was practised by the neolithic population of\nEgypt.\n\nThere are three main facts in the personality of Osiris which stand out\nclearly amid the myths and theological inventions which gathered round his\nname. He was a human god; he was the first mummy; and he became the god of\nthe dead. And the paradise over which he ruled, and to which the faithful\nsouls who believed in him were admitted, was the field of Alu, a land of\nlight and happiness.\n\n_Sekhet Alu_, \u201cthe field of Alu,\u201d seems to have been the cemetery of\nBusiris among the marshes of the Delta.(128) The name meant \u201cthe field of\nmarsh-mallows,\u201d\u2014the \u201casphodel meadows\u201d of the _Odyssey_,\u2014and was applied\nto one of the islands which were so numerous in the north-eastern part of\nthe Delta. Here, then, in the nome of which Osiris was the feudal god, the\nparadise of his followers originally lay, though a time came when it was\ntranslated from the earth to the sky. But when Osiris first became lord of\nthe dead, the land to which they followed him was still within the\nconfines of Egypt.\n\nIt would seem, therefore, that Professor Maspero is right in holding that\nOsiris was primarily the god of Busiris in the Delta. It is the only nome\nof which he was formally the presiding deity, under the title of \u00c2nz, \u201cthe\nking,\u201d and it bordered on Hermopolis, which was dedicated to the ibis-god\nThoth, who is so closely connected with the story of Osiris.(129) To the\nnorth stood the temple of Isis-Rennet,(130) to the south-west was\nPharb\u00e6thos (Horb\u00eat), which worshipped Set, while Horus was the god of many\nof the neighbouring nomes. The whole cycle of Osirian deities is thus to\nbe found within the confines of a small tract of the Delta.\n\nThe name Busiris means simply \u201cthe place of Osiris.\u201d Primitively it had\nbeen called Daddu, \u201cthe two colonnades,\u201d(131) and Osiris became known as\nits lord. It was under this title that he was incarnated in the ram of the\nneighbouring town of Mendes on the eastern boundary of Hermopolis. The ram\nbecame his soul; all the more easily since the Egyptian words for \u201cram\u201d\nand \u201csoul\u201d had the same or a similar pronunciation. At Dendera it is said\nthat in the ram of Mendes Osiris grew young again; and in the later days\nof solar syncretism the four souls of Ra and Osiris, of Shu and Khepera,\nwere united in its body. How far back this identification of the god and\nthe sacred animal may reach we do not know. But it is significant that it\nwas not at Daddu itself, but at a neighbouring city, that the animal was\nworshipped, though a seal-cylinder which belongs to the oldest period of\nEgyptian history already declares that Daddu was \u201cthe city of the\nram.\u201d(132)\n\nNebh\u00e2t and Anubis had originally nothing to do with the god of Busiris.\nNebh\u00e2t, in fact, is merely a title which has been fossilised into the name\nof a deity. It is merely the ordinary title of the Egyptian lady as \u201cthe\nmistress of the house,\u201d who thus stands on the same footing as \u201cthe lord\nof the house,\u201d her husband. The title could have been given to any goddess\nwho was conceived of in human form, and was doubtless applied to Isis the\nwife of Osiris. He was \u201cthe lord\u201d of the city; she, \u201cthe lady of the\nhouse.\u201d It reminds us of the way in which the deities of Babylonia were\naddressed. There, too, the god was \u201cthe lord,\u201d the goddess \u201cthe lady.\u201d The\nold titles of Osiris and Isis which have thus survived in the Osirian myth\nare essentially Babylonian.\n\nNebh\u00e2t or Nephthys was individualised in order to complete the trinity of\nSet, of which Set was the central figure. We can tell, accordingly, when\nshe thus developed into a separate goddess. It was when the doctrine of\nthe Trinity first became dominant in the Egyptian schools of theology, and\nall the chief deities of the country were forced to conform to it. Anubis,\nthe second person in the trinity of Set, must have already been attached\nto the cult of Osiris. How this came about is not difficult to discover.\nAnubis the jackal was the god of the underworld. Like his symbol, the\njackal, he watched over the tombs, more especially in \u201cthe mountain\u201d far\naway from the cultivated land. His sacred animal already appears mounted\non its standard on the early slate plaques of Nekhen and Abydos by the\nside of the Horus-hawk. He was, in fact, worshipped in many of the nomes,\nabove all at Si\u00fbt, where he was adored as \u201cthe opener of the paths\u201d to the\nworld below. He was the inventor of the art of embalming; he must\ntherefore have been the god of the dead when the Pharaonic Egyptians first\nsettled themselves in Upper Egypt. In one sense, indeed, he was younger\nthan Horus, since \u201cthe followers of Horus\u201d had not brought the art with\nthem from their earlier home; but he was already god of the dead, and the\ndiscovery of the art was accordingly ascribed to him.\n\nThe acceptance of Osiris as the god of the underworld meant the\ndisplacement of Anubis. He had to make way for \u201cthe lord of Daddu.\u201d The\nfact is a striking illustration of the influence which the Osirian\nteaching must have possessed. Osiris was the feudal god only of a nome in\nthe north of the Delta; Anubis had been adored from time immemorial\nthroughout the valley of the Nile. The cities which recognised him as\ntheir chief deity were numerous and powerful. Nevertheless he had to yield\nto the rival god and take a subordinate place beside him. He remained,\nindeed, in the pantheon, for the Egyptians never broke with their past;\nbut the part he had played in it was taken by another, and he was content\nto become merely the minister of Osiris and the guardian of the cemeteries\nof the dead.\n\nMeanwhile Osiris, like the Greek Dionysos, had pursued his victorious\nmarch. Wherever his worship extended his temple rose by the side of his\ntomb like the temples attached to the Pyramids. Like Pta\u1e25 of Memphis or\nthe mummified Horus of Nekhen, he was a dead god, and it was to a dead god\nconsequently that the offering was made and the priest dedicated. It was\nat Abydos in Upper Egypt, however, that his fame was greatest. Abydos was\nthe sepulchral temple of Osiris attached to the city of This, and This was\nnot only the seat of a powerful kingdom, which probably succeeded that of\nNekhen, but the birthplace of Menes, the founder of the united monarchy.\nAround the tomb of the Osiris of Abydos, accordingly, the kings and\nprinces of the Thinite dynasties were buried, and where the Pharaoh was\nburied his subjects wished to be buried too. From all parts of Egypt the\nbodies of the dead were brought to the sacred ground, that they might be\ninterred as near as possible to the tomb of the god, and so their mummies\nmight repose beside him on earth as they hoped their souls would do in the\nparadise of the Blest. Even the rise of the Memphite dynasties did not\ndeprive Abydos of its claim to veneration. Its sanctity was too firmly\nestablished; hundreds of Egyptians still continued to be buried there,\nrather than in the spacious necropolis of the Memphite Pharaohs.(133)\nAbydos, with its royal memories, threw the older city of Osiris into the\nshade. He still, it is true, retained his ancient title of \u201clord of\nDaddu,\u201d but it was an archaism rather than a reality, and it was as \u201clord\nof Abydos\u201d that he was now with preference addressed.\n\nBut other sanctuaries disputed with Abydos its claim to possess the tomb\nof the god of the dead. Wherever a temple was erected in his honour, his\ntomb also was necessarily to be found. An attempt was made to harmonise\ntheir conflicting claims by falling back on the old tradition of the\ncustom of dismembering the dead: the head of the god was at Abydos, his\nheart at Athribis, his neck at Letopolis. But even so the difficulty\nremained: the separate limbs would not suffice for the number of the\ntombs, and the same member was sometimes claimed by more than one\nlocality. At Memphis, for example, where Osiris was united with Apis into\nthe compound Serapis, his head was said to have been interred as well as\nat Abydos.\n\nAbydos, at the outset, was the cemetery, or rather one of the cemeteries,\nof This. And the god of This was the sun-god Anher, who was depicted in\nhuman form. In the age which produced the doctrine of the Ennead, Anher\nwas identified with Shu, the atmosphere, or, more strictly speaking, the\ngod of the space between sky and earth was merged into the god of the sun.\nBut it was not only at This that Anher was worshipped. He was also the god\nof Sebennytos, which adjoined the Busirite nome, and where, therefore, the\nhuman sun-god was in immediate contact with the human god of the dead.\nWhat the mummy was to the living man, that Osiris was to Anher.(134)\n\nThe double relation between Osiris and Anher in both Lower and Upper Egypt\ncannot be an accident. Osiris became the god of Abydos, because Abydos was\nthe cemetery of This, whose feudal god was Anher. The relation that\nexisted in the Delta, between Anher the sun-god of Sebennytos, and Osiris\nthe god of the dead at Busiris, was transferred also to Southern Egypt.\n\nWhom or what did Osiris originally represent? To this many answers have\nbeen given. Of late Egyptologists have seen in him sometimes a\npersonification of mankind, sometimes the river Nile, sometimes the\ncultivated ground. After the rise of the solar school of theology the\nEgyptians themselves identified him with the sun when it sinks below the\nhorizon to traverse the dark regions of the underworld. Horus the sun-god\nof morning thus became his son, born as it were of the sun-god of night,\nand differing from his father only in his form of manifestation.(135)\n\nWe have, however, one or two facts to guide us in determining the\nprimitive character of the god. He was a mummified man like Pta\u1e25 of\nMemphis, and he was the brother and enemy of Set. Set or Sut became for\nthe later Egyptians the impersonation of evil. He was identified with\nApophis, the serpent of wickedness, against whom the sun-god wages\nperpetual war; and his name was erased from the monuments on which it was\nengraved. But all this was because Set was the god and the representative\nof the Asiatic invaders who had conquered Egypt, and aroused in the\nEgyptian mind a feeling of bitter animosity towards themselves. As late as\nthe time of the Nineteenth Dynasty, the Pharaohs who restored Tanis, the\nHyksos capital, to something of its former glory, called themselves after\nthe name of the Hyksos deity. Thothmes III. of the Eighteenth Dynasty\nbuilt a temple in honour of Set of Ombos, who was worshipped near Dendera;\nand if we go back to the oldest records of the united monarchy, we find\nSet symbolising the north while Horus symbolises the south. Before the\ndays of Menes, Set was the god of Northern Egypt, Horus of Southern Egypt.\nIn the prehistoric wars of the two kingdoms the two gods would be hostile\nto one another, and yet brethren.\n\nIt was the armies of Set that were driven by Horus and his metal-bearing\nfollowers from one end of Egypt to the other, and finally overcome.(136)\nSet therefore represents in the legend the older population of the valley\nof the Nile. The reason of this is not far to seek. Set or Sut, like Sati,\ndenotes the Semitic or African nomad of the desert, the Babylonian Sutu.\nHe is the equivalent of the Bed\u00e2wi of to-day, who still hovers on the\nEgyptian borders, and between whom and the fellah there is perpetual feud.\nThe same cause which made Horus the brother and yet the enemy of Set must\nhave been at work to place Osiris in the same relation to him. Osiris too\nmust have typified the Pharaonic Egyptian, and like Horus have been the\nfirst of the Pharaohs. Hence his human body, and hence also the confusion\nbetween himself and Horus, which ended in making Horus his son and in\ngenerating a new Horus\u2014Horus the younger\u2014by the side of the older Horus of\nthe Egyptian faith.(137)\n\nThe position of Osiris in respect to Anher is now clear. He is the sun-god\nafter his setting in the west, when he has passed to the region of the\ndead in the underworld. He stands, therefore, in exactly the same relation\nto Anher that the mummified hawk stands to the Horus-hawk. The one belongs\nto the city of the living, the other to the city of the dead. But they are\nboth the same deity under different forms, one of which presides over the\ncity, the other over its burying-ground. Like Horus, Osiris must have been\na sun-god of the Pharaonic Egyptians, but a sun-god who was connected for\nsome special reason with the dead.(138)\n\nNow Mr. Ball has drawn attention to the fact that there was a Sumerian god\nwho had precisely the same name as Osiris, and that this name is expressed\nin both cases by precisely the same ideographs.(139) The etymology of the\nname has been sought in vain in Egyptian. But the cuneiform texts make it\nclear. Osiris (As-ar) is the Asari of ancient Babylonia, who was called\nMerodach by the Semites, and whose ordinary title is \u201cthe god who does\ngood to man.\u201d The name of Asari is written with two ideographs, one of\nwhich denotes \u201ca place\u201d and the other \u201can eye,\u201d and the forms of the two\nideographs, as well as their meanings, are identical with those of the\nhieroglyphic characters which represent Osiris. Such a threefold agreement\ncannot be accidental: both the name and the mode of writing it must have\ncome from Babylonia. And what makes the agreement the stronger is the fact\nthat the ideographs have nothing to do with the signification of the name\nitself; they express simply its pronunciation. In the Sumerian of early\nBabylonia the name signified \u201cthe mighty one.\u201d(140)\n\nAsari was the sun-god of Eridu, the ancient seaport of Babylonia on the\nPersian Gulf. He was the son of Ea, the chief god of the city, of whose\nwill and wisdom he was the interpreter. It was he who communicated to men\nthe lessons in culture and the art of healing, which Ea was willing they\nshould learn. Just as Osiris spent his life in doing good, according to\nthe Egyptian legend, so Asari was he \u201cwho does good to man.\u201d He was ever\non the watch to help his worshippers, to convey to them the magic formulas\nwhich could ward off sickness or evil, and, as it is often expressed, to\n\u201craise the dead to life.\u201d\n\nIn this last expression we have the key to the part played by Osiris.\nOsiris died, and was buried, like Asari or Merodach, whose temple at\nBabylon was also his tomb; but it was that he might rise again in the\nmorning with renewed strength and brilliancy. And through the spells he\nhad received from his father all those who trusted in him, and shared in\nhis death and entombment, were also \u201craised to life.\u201d Both in Egypt and in\nBabylonia he was the god of the resurrection, whether that took place in\nthis visible world or in the heavenly paradise, which was a purified\nreflection of the earth.\n\nIn Babylonia, Asari or Merodach was the champion of light and order, who\nconquered the dragon of chaos and her anarchic forces, and put the demons\nof darkness to flight. In Egypt that part was taken by Horus. But both\nAnher and Osiris were merely local forms\u2014local names, if the phrase should\nbe preferred\u2014of Horus and the mummified hawk. Anher is sometimes\nrepresented, like Horus, with the spear in his hand, overthrowing the\nwicked; but his figure was eclipsed by that of Osiris, who had come to be\nregarded as the benefactor of mankind, and to whom men prayed in sickness\nand death. A god of the dead, however, could not be a conqueror; it was\nhe, and not his foe, who had died, and consequently the victories gained\nby Horus could not be ascribed to him. But the difficulty was not\ninsoluble; Horus became his son, who was at the same time his father, and\nthe old struggle between Horus and Set was transferred to the Osirian\ncult.\n\nIt is significant, however, that in the recently-recovered monuments of\nthe Thinite dynasties Set is still the twin-brother of Horus. He still\nrepresents the north, until lately the antagonist of the south; and a king\nwhose remains have been found at Nekhen and Abydos, and who calls himself\n\u201cthe uniter of the two sceptres\u201d of Egypt, still sets the Horus-hawk and\nthe animal of Set above his name.\n\nSet, as I have already said, is the Sutu or Bed\u00e2wi. He was adored\nelsewhere than in Egypt; the Moabites called themselves his children (Num.\nxxiv. 17), and in the cuneiform texts Sutu-sar (\u201cSutu the king\u201d) and\nNabu-rab\u00ea (\u201cNebo the great\u201d) are described as twins.(141) But in Egypt he\nrepresented the population which had been conquered by the Pharaonic\nEgyptians or continued to live on the desert frontiers of the country, and\nwhich was stronger in the Delta than in the south. The old struggle,\ntherefore, between light and darkness, order and confusion, which formed\nthe background of Babylonian mythology, became the struggle which was\nwaged for such long centuries, first between the Pharaonic Egyptians and\nthe neolithic races, then between the kingdoms of the south and north, and\nfinally between the united monarchy and the Bed\u00e2win of the desert or\nassailants from Asia. Where the foreign element prevailed, Set was an\nhonoured god; where the ruling Egyptian was dominant, his place was taken\nby his brother and his antagonist.\n\nIt has been thought that the struggle between Horus and Set typified the\nstruggle that is ever going on between the desert and the cultivated land.\nBut such an idea is far too abstract to have formed the basis of an\nEgyptian religious myth. It might have been elaborated subsequently by\nsome theological school out of the contrast between the Sutu of the desert\nand the god of the agriculturists; but it could never have been there\noriginally. The interpretation is as little justifiable as that which sees\nin Osiris the seed that is buried in the ground.\n\nIt is indeed true that the Egyptians of a later period, when the Osirian\ndoctrine of the Resurrection was fully developed, found an analogy to it\nin the seed that is sown in order to grow again. The tomb of Ma-her-pa-Ra,\nthe fan-bearer of Amon-hotep II. of the Eighteenth Dynasty, discovered by\nM. Loret in the valley of the Tombs of the Kings at Thebes, contains a\nproof of this. In it was a rudely-constructed bed with a mattress, on\nwhich the figure of Osiris had been drawn. On this earth was placed, and\nin the earth grains of corn had been sown. The corn had sprouted and grown\nto the height of a few inches before it had withered away. But such\nsymbolism is, like the similar symbolism of Christianity, the result of\nthe doctrine of the resurrection and not the origin of it. It is not till\nmen believe that the human body can rise again from the sleep of\ncorruption, that the growth of the seed which has been buried in the\nground is invoked to explain and confirm their creed.\n\nHow came this doctrine of the resurrection to be attached to the cult of\nOsiris and to become an integral part of Egyptian belief? There is only\none answer that can be given to this: the doctrine of the resurrection was\na necessary accompaniment of the practice of mummification, and Osiris was\na mummified god.\n\nWe have already seen that old Babylonian hymns describe Asari or Merodach\nas the god \u201cwho raises the dead to life.\u201d We have also seen that Osiris\nwas not the only mummified god known in Egypt. Pta\u1e25 of Memphis was also a\nmummy; so too was the mummified Horus of Nekhen, who was worshipped even\nin the Delta in the \u201cArabian\u201d nome of Goshen on the borders of Asia.\nWhether or not the practice of embalming first originated at Nekhen, where\nit was discovered that bodies buried in the nitrogenous soil of El-Kab\nwere preserved undecayed, it is certain that, like the art of writing, it\ncharacterised the Pharaonic Egyptians from the earliest times. In no other\nway can we explain the existence among them of their mummified gods. But\nits adoption by the older races who still formed the bulk of the people\nwas but gradual. It did not become universal before the age of the\nEighteenth Dynasty.\n\nIt was not, however, the bulk of the people, but the ruling classes, who\nworshipped Osiris, and among whom his cult spread and grew. He became for\nthem Un-nefer, \u201cthe good being,\u201d ready to heal for them even the pains of\ndeath, and to receive them in his realm beyond the grave, where life and\naction would be restored to them. The sun shone there as it did here, for\nwas not Osiris himself a sun-god? the fields of the blessed were like\nthose of Egypt, except that no sickness or death came near them, that no\nblight ever fell on fruit or corn, that the Nile never failed, and that\nthe heat was always tempered by the northern breeze.\n\nThe \u201cfield of Alu,\u201d the Elysion of the Greeks, was at first in the marshes\nof the Delta near the mouths of the Nile, like the paradise of early\nBabylonia, which too was \u201cat the mouth of the rivers.\u201d But it soon\nmigrated to the north-eastern portion of the sky, and the Milky Way became\nthe heavenly Nile. Here the dead lived in perpetual happiness under the\nrule of Osiris, working, feasting, reading, even fighting, as they would\nbelow, only without pain and eternally.(142)\n\nBut, in order to share in this state of bliss, it was necessary for the\nbeliever in Osiris to become like the god himself. He must himself be an\nOsiris, according to the Egyptian expression. His individuality remained\nintact; as he had been on earth, so would he be in heaven. The Osiris, in\nfact, was a spiritualised body in which the immortal parts of man were all\nunited together. Soul and spirit, heart and double, all met together in it\nas they had done when the individual was on earth.\n\nIt is clear that the doctrine of the Osiris in its developed form is\ninconsistent with the idea of the _ka_. But it is also clear that without\nthe idea of the _ka_ it would never have been formed. Both presuppose an\nindividuality separate from the person to which it belongs, and yet at the\nsame time material, an individuality which continues after death and\nmanifests itself under the same shape as that which characterised the\nperson in life. The popular conception of the ghost, which reproduces not\nonly the features but even the dress of the dead, is analogous.\nFundamentally the Osiris is a _ka_, but it is a _ka_ which represents not\nonly the outward shape, but the inner essence as well. The whole man is\nthere, spiritually, morally, intellectually, as well as corporeally. The\ndoctrine of the Osiris thus absorbs, as it were, the old idea of the _ka_,\nand spiritualises it, at the same time confining it to the life after\ndeath.\n\nBut if the conception of a double, unsubstantial and yet materialised,\nunderlay the belief in the Osiris, the practice of embalming was equally\nresponsible for it. The continued existence of the double was dependent on\nthe continued existence of the body, for the one presupposed the other,\nand it was only the mummified body which could continue to exist. As long\nas the double was believed to haunt the tomb, and there receive the food\nand other offerings which were provided for it, the connection between it\nand the mummy presented no difficulties. But when the Egyptian came to\nlook forward to the heaven of Osiris, first on this nether earth and then\nin the skies, the case was wholly altered. The mummy lay in the tomb, the\nimmortal counterpart of the man himself was in another and a spiritual\nworld. The result was inevitable: the follower of Osiris soon assured\nhimself that one day the mummified body also would have life and action\nagain breathed into it and rejoin its Osiris in the fields of paradise.\nHad not the god carried thither his divine body as well as its\ncounterpart? and what the god had done those who had become even as he was\ncould also do.\n\nIn this way the doctrine of the resurrection of the body became an\nintegral part of the Osirian faith. The future happiness to which its\ndisciples looked forward was not in absorption into the divinity, or\ncontemplation of the divine attributes, or a monotonous existence of\npassive idleness. They were to live as they had done in this life, only\nwithout sorrow and suffering, without sin, and eternally. But all their\nbodily powers and interests were to remain and be gratified as they could\nnot be in this lower world. The realm over which Osiris ruled was the\nidealised reproduction of that Egypt which the Egyptian loved so well,\nwith its sunshine and light, its broad and life-bearing river, its fertile\nfields, and its busy towns. Those who dwelt in it could indeed feast and\nplay, could lounge in canoes and fish or hunt, could read tales and poems\nor write treatises on morality, could transform themselves into birds that\nalighted among the thick foliage of the trees; but they must also work as\nthey had done here, must cultivate the soil before it would produce its\nears of wheat two cubits high, must submit to the corv\u00e9e and embank the\ncanals. The Osirian heaven had no place for the idle and inactive.\n\nNo sooner, indeed, had the dead man been pronounced worthy of admittance\nto it, than he was called upon to work. At the very outset of his new\nexistence, before any of its pleasures might be tasted, he was required to\ntill the ground and guide the plough. This was no hardship to the poor\nfellah who had spent his life in agricultural labour. But it was otherwise\nwith the rich man whose lands had been cultivated by others, while he\nhimself had merely enjoyed their produce. In the early days of Egyptian\nhistory, accordingly, it was the fashion for the feudal landowner to\nsurround his tomb with the graves of his servants and retainers, whose\nbodies were mummified and buried at his expense. What they had performed\nfor him in this world, it was believed they would perform for him in the\nworld to come. There, too, the Osiris of the fellah would work for the\nOsiris of the wealthy, whose necessary task would thus be performed\nvicariously.\n\nBut as time went on a feeling grew up that in the sight of Osiris all\nthose who were assimilated to him were equal one to the other. Between one\nOsiris and another the distinctions of rank and station which prevail here\nwere no longer possible. The old conception of the ka came to the help of\nthe believer. The place of the human servant was taken by the _ushebti_,\nthat little figure of clay or wood which represented a peasant, and whose\ndouble, accordingly, was sent to assist the dead in his tasks above. The\nhuman Osiris, whatever his lot in this life had been, was henceforth free\nfrom the toils which had once awaited him in the fields of Alu; he could\nlook on while the _ka_ of the _ushebti_ performed his work. The\n_ushebti_-figures become especially numerous after the expulsion of the\nHyksos. The domination of the foreigner and the long war of independence\nwhich put an end to it, had destroyed the feudal nobility, and therewith\nthe feudal ideas which regarded mankind as divided, now and hereafter,\ninto two classes. From thenceforth the Egyptians became the democratic\npeople that they still are. As the Pharaoh on earth ruled a people who\nbefore him were all equal, so between the subjects of Osiris, the Pharaoh\nin heaven, no distinctions of rank were known except such as were\nconferred by himself.\n\nThe same belief which had substituted the _ushebti_ for the human peasant\nhad filled the tombs with the objects which, it was thought, would best\nplease the dead man. Besides the meat and drink which had been provided\nfor the _ka_ from time immemorial, there was now placed beside the mummy\neverything which it was imagined he would need or desire in the other\nworld. Even the books which the dead man had delighted in during his\nearthly existence were not forgotten. It was not necessary, however, that\nthe actual objects should be there. It was the _ka_ only of the object\nthat was wanted, and that could be furnished by a representation of the\nobject as well as by the object itself. And so, besides the actual clothes\nor tools or weapons that are buried in the tombs, we find imitation\nclothes and tools, like the \u201cghost-money\u201d of the Greeks, or even paintings\non the wall, which, so long as the object was correctly depicted in them,\nwere considered quite sufficient. One of the most touching results of this\nthorough-going realism has been noticed by Professor Wiedemann.(143) \u201cThe\nsoles of the feet (of the mummy) which had trodden the mire of earth were\nremoved, in order that the Osiris might tread the Hall of Judgment with\npure feet; and the gods were prayed to grant milk to the Osiris that he\nmight bathe his feet in it and so assuage the pain which the removal of\nthe soles must needs have caused him. And, finally, the soles\u201d were then\nplaced within the mummy, that he might find them at hand on the day of\nresurrection, and meantime make use of their _ka_.\n\nThe doctrine of the resurrection of the body involved also a doctrine of a\njudgment of the deeds committed by the body. Those only were admitted into\nthe kingdom of Osiris who, like their leader, had done good to men. A\nknowledge of the Ritual with its divine lore and incantations was not\nsufficient to unlock its gates. The Osiris who entered it had to be\nmorally as well as ceremonially pure. Osiris was not only a king; he was a\njudge also, and those who appeared before him had to prove that their\nconduct in this life had been in conformity with one of the highest of the\nmoral codes of antiquity.\n\nThis moral test of righteousness is the most remarkable fact connected\nwith the Osirian system of doctrine. The Egyptian who accepted it was\ncalled on to acknowledge that orthodoxy in belief and practice was not\nsufficient to ensure his future salvation; it was needful that he should\nhave avoided sin and been actively benevolent as well. Unlike most ancient\nforms of faith, morality\u2014and that too of a high order\u2014was made an integral\npart of religion, and even set above it. It was not so much what a man\nbelieved as what he had done that enabled him to pass the awful tribunal\nof heaven and be admitted to everlasting bliss.\n\nThe Book of the Dead was the guide of the dead man on his journey to the\nother world. Its chapters were inscribed on the rolls buried with the\nmummy, or were painted on the coffin and the walls of the tomb. It was the\nRitual which prescribed the prayers and incantations to be repeated in the\ncourse of the journey, and described the enemies to be met with on the\nother side of the grave. Thanks to its instructions, the dead passed\nsafely through the limbo which divides this earth from the kingdom of\nOsiris, and arrived at last at the Judgment Hall, the hall of the Twofold\nTruth, where M\u00e2t, the goddess of truth and law, received him. Here on his\njudgment throne sat Osiris, surrounded by the forty-two assessors of\ndivine justice from the forty-two nomes of Egypt, while Thoth and the\nother deities of the Osirian cycle stood near at hand. Then the dead man\nwas called upon to show reason why he should be admitted to the fields of\nAlu, and to prove that during his lifetime he had practised mercy and\njustice and had abstained from evil-doing. The negative confession put\ninto his mouth is one of the most noteworthy relics of ancient literature.\n\u201cPraise be to thee (O Osiris),\u201d he was made to say, \u201clord of the Twofold\nTruth! Praise to thee, great god, lord of the Twofold Truth! I come to\nthee, my lord, I draw near to see thine excellencies.(144)...\n\nI have not acted with deceit or done evil to men.\n\nI have not oppressed the poor.\n\nI have not judged unjustly.\n\nI have not known ought of wicked things.\n\nI have not committed sin.\n\nI have not exacted more work from the labourer than was just.\n\nI have not been anxious. I have not been feeble of purpose.\n\nI have not defaulted. I have not been niggardly.\n\nI have not done what the gods abhor.\n\nI have not caused the slave to be ill-treated by his master.\n\nI have made none to hunger.\n\nI have made none to weep.\n\nI have not committed murder.\n\nI have not caused any man to be treacherously murdered.\n\nI have not dealt treacherously with any one.\n\nI have not diminished the offerings of bread in the temples.\n\nI have not spoiled the shewbread of the gods.\n\nI have not robbed the dead of their loaves and cerecloths.\n\nI have not been unchaste.\n\nI have not defiled myself in the sanctuary of the god of my city.\n\nI have not stinted and been niggardly of offerings.\n\nI have not defrauded in weighing the scales.\n\nI have not given false weight.\n\nI have not taken the milk from the mouth of the child.\n\nI have not hunted the cattle in their meadows.\n\nI have not netted the birds of the gods.\n\nI have not fished in their preserves.\n\nI have not kept the water (from my neighbour) in the time of inundation.\n\nI have not cut off a water channel.\n\nI have not extinguished the flame at a wrong time.\n\nI have not defrauded the Ennead of the gods of the choice parts of the\nvictims.\n\nI have not driven away the oxen of the temple.\n\nI have not driven back a god when he has left the temple.\n\nI am pure! I am pure! I am pure!\u201d(145)\n\nThe negative confession ended, the dead man turned to the forty-two\nassessors and pleaded that he was innocent of the particular sin which\nthey had been severally appointed to judge. Then he once more addressed\nOsiris with a final plea for justification: \u201cHail to you, ye gods who are\nin the great hall of the Twofold Truth, who have no falsehood in your\nbosoms, but who live on truth in On, and feed your hearts upon it before\nthe lord god who dwelleth in his solar disc. Deliver me from the Typhon\nwho feedeth on entrails, O chiefs! in this hour of supreme judgment; grant\nthat the deceased may come unto you, he who hath not sinned, who hath\nneither lied, nor done evil, nor committed any crime, who hath not borne\nfalse witness, who hath done nought against himself, but who liveth on\ntruth, who feedeth on truth. He hath spread joy on all sides; men speak of\nthat which he hath done, and the gods rejoice in it. He hath reconciled\nthe god to him by his love; he hath given bread to the hungry, water to\nthe thirsty, clothing to the naked; he hath given a boat to the\nshipwrecked; he hath offered sacrifices to the gods, sepulchral meals to\nthe dead. Deliver him from himself, speak not against him before the lord\nof the dead, for his mouth is pure and his hands are pure!\u201d(146)\n\nMeanwhile the heart of the dead man\u2014his conscience, as we should call it\nin our modern phraseology\u2014was being weighed in the balance against the\nimage of truth. Something more convincing was needed than his own\nprotestation that he had acted uprightly and done no wrong. The heart was\nplaced in the scale by Thoth, who, knowing the weakness of human nature,\ninclined the balance a little in its favour. Anubis superintended the\nweighing, while Thoth recorded the result. If the verdict were favourable,\nhe addressed Osiris in the following words: \u201cBehold the deceased in this\nHall of the Twofold Truth, his heart hath been weighed in the balance, in\nthe presence of the great genii, the lords of Hades, and been found true.\nNo trace of earthly impurity hath been found in his heart. Now that he\nleaveth the tribunal true of voice (justified), his heart is restored to\nhim, as well as his eyes and the material cover of his heart, to be put\nback in their places, each in its own time, his soul in heaven, his heart\nin the other world, as is the custom of the followers of Horus. Henceforth\nlet his body lie in the hands of Anubis, who presideth over the tombs; let\nhim receive offerings at the cemetery in the presence of (Osiris) Un-nefer\n(the Good Being); let him be as one of those favourites who follow thee;\nlet his soul abide where it will in the necropolis of his city, he whose\nvoice is true before the great Ennead.\u201d(147)\n\nIn the judgment-hall of Osiris we find the first expression of the\ndoctrine which was echoed so many ages later by the Hebrew prophets, that\nwhat the gods require is mercy and righteousness rather than orthodoxy of\nbelief. And the righteousness and mercy are far-reaching. The faith that\nis to save the follower of Osiris is a faith that has led him to feed the\nhungry, to give drink to the thirsty, to clothe the naked, to abstain from\ninjuring his neighbour in word or thought, much less in deed, and to be\ntruthful in both act and speech. Even the slave is not forgotten; to have\ndone anything which has caused him to be ill-treated by his master, is\nsufficient to exclude the offender from the delights of paradise. Man\u2019s\nduty towards his fellow-man is put on a higher footing even than his duty\ntowards the gods, for it comes first in the list of righteous actions\nrequired from him. It is not until the dead man has proved that he has\nacted with justice and mercy towards his fellows, that he is allowed to\npass on to prove that he has performed his duty towards the gods.\n\nAnd the Osirian confession of faith was not a mere conventional formulary,\nwithout influence on the life and conduct of those who professed it. There\nare already allusions to it in the Pyramid texts, and in the tombs of a\nlater period the deceased rests his claim to be remembered upon the good\ndeeds he had done while on earth. To feed the hungry, to clothe the naked,\nand to deal justly, are duties which are constantly recognised in them. \u201cI\nloved my father,\u201d says Baba at El-Kab, \u201cI honoured my mother.... When a\nfamine arose, lasting many years, I distributed corn to the needy.\u201d The\nEgyptian sepulchres contain few records of war and battles; of deeds of\nkindness and righteous dealing there is frequent mention.(148)\n\nOf the fate of the wicked, of those whose hearts were overweighed in the\nbalance and who failed to pass the tribunal of Osiris, we know but little.\nTyphon, in the form of a hideous hippopotamus, stood behind Thoth in a\ncorner of the hall, ready to devour their entrails. In the Book of the\nOther World, of which I shall have to speak in another lecture, the\ntortures of the lost are depicted quite in medieval style. We see them\nplunged in water or burned in the fire, enclosed in vaulted chambers\nfilled with burning charcoal, with their heads struck from their necks or\ntheir bodies devoured by serpents. But the Book of the Other World is the\nritual of a religious system which was originally distinct from the\nOsirian, and it is probable that most Egyptians expected the final\nannihilation of the wicked rather than their continued existence in an\neternal hell. The divine elements in man, which could not die, were\nequally incapable of committing sin, and consequently would return to the\nGod who gave them, when the human individuality to which they had been\njoined was punished for its offences in the flesh. The soul could remain\nunited only to that individuality which had been purified from all its\nearthly stains, and had become as the god Osiris himself. The\nindividuality which was condemned in the judgment of Osiris perished\neternally, and in the mind of the Egyptian the individuality and the\nindividual were one and the same.\n\n\n\n\nLecture VIII. The Sacred Books.\n\n\nLike all other organised religions, that of ancient Egypt had its sacred\nbooks. According to St. Clement of Alexandria, the whole body of sacred\nliterature was contained in a collection of forty-two books, the origin of\nwhich was ascribed to the god Thoth. The first ten of these \u201cHermetic\u201d\nvolumes were entitled \u201cthe Prophet,\u201d and dealt with theology in the\nstrictest sense of the term. Then followed the ten books of \u201cthe Stolist,\u201d\nin which were to be found all directions as to the festivals and\nprocessions, as well as hymns and prayers. Next came the fourteen books of\n\u201cthe Sacred Scribe,\u201d containing all that was known about the hieroglyphic\nsystem of writing, and the sciences of geometry and geography, astronomy,\nastrology, and the like. These were followed by two books on music and\nhymnology; and, finally, six books on the science and practice of\nmedicine.(149)\n\nThe Hermetic books were written in Greek, and were a compilation of the\nGreek age. Such a systematic epitome of the learning of ancient Egypt\nbelonged to the period when Egyptian religion had ceased to be creative,\nor even progressive, and the antiquarian spirit of Greek Alexandria had\nlaid hold of the traditions and institutions of the past. But they were\nderived from genuine sources, and represented with more or less exactitude\nthe beliefs and practices of earlier generations. They were, it is true, a\ncompilation adapted to Greek ideas and intended to satisfy the demands of\nGreek curiosity, but it is no less true that the materials out of which\nthey were compiled went back to the remotest antiquity. The temple\nlibraries were filled with rolls of papyri relating not only to the\nminutest details of the temple service, but also to all the various\nbranches of sacred lore. Among these were the books which have been called\nthe Bibles of the ancient Egyptians.\n\nForemost amongst the latter is the Ritual to which Lepsius gave the name\nof the Book of the Dead. It was first discovered by Champollion in the\nearly days of Egyptian decipherment, and a comparative edition of the text\ncurrent during the Theban period has been made by Dr. Naville. Papyri\ncontaining the whole or portions of it are numberless; the chapters into\nwhich it is divided are inscribed on the coffins, and even on the\nwrappings of the dead, as well as on the scarabs and the _ushebtis_ that\nwere buried with the mummy. It was, in fact, a sort of passport and\nguide-book combined in one, which would carry the dead man in safety\nthrough the dangers that confronted him in the other world, and bring him\nat last to the judgment-hall of Osiris and the paradise of Alu. It\ndescribed minutely all that awaited him after death; it detailed the words\nand prayers that would deliver him from his spiritual enemies; and it put\ninto his mouth the confession he would have to make before the tribunal of\nthe dead. Without it he would have been lost in the strange world to which\nhe journeyed, and hence the need of inscribing at least some portions of\nit on his tomb or sepulchral furniture, where their ghostly doubles could\nbe read by his ka and soul.\n\nThe Book of the Dead was the Bible or Prayer-book of the Osirian creed.\nIts universal use marks the triumph of the worship of Osiris and of the\nbeliefs that accompanied it. It was for the follower of Osiris that it was\noriginally compiled; the judgment with which it threatened him was that of\nOsiris, the heaven to which it led him was the field of Alu. The Pyramid\ntexts of the Fifth and Sixth Dynasties imply that it already existed in\nsome shape or other; the Osirian creed is known to them in all its\ndetails, and the \u201cother world\u201d depicted in them is that of the Book of the\nDead.(150)\n\nBut the Book of the Dead is a composite work. Not only are the religious\nconceptions embodied in it composite and sometimes self-contradictory, on\nthe literary side it is composite also. It was, moreover, a work of slow\ngrowth; glosses have been added to it to explain passages which had become\nobscure through the lapse of time; the glosses have then made their way\ninto the text, and themselves become the subject of fresh commentary and\nexplanation. Chapters have been inserted, paragraphs interpolated, and the\nlater commentary combined with the original text. The Book of the Dead as\nit appears in the age of the Theban dynasties had already passed through\nlong centuries of growth and modification.(151)\n\nThe Pyramid texts show the same combination of the doctrines of the\nOsirian creed with those of the solar cult as the Book of the Dead.(152)\nBut the combination is that of two mutually exclusive systems of theology\nwhich have been brought forcibly side by side without any attempt being\nmade to fuse them into a harmonious whole. They display the usual tendency\nof the Egyptian mind to accept the new without discarding the old, and\nwithout troubling to consider how the new and old can be fitted together.\nIt was enough to place them side by side; those who did not think the\nOsirian creed sufficient to ensure salvation, had the choice of the solar\ncreed offered them with its prayers and incantations to the sun-god. But\nit was not an alternative choice; the heaven of the solar bark in its\npassage through the world of the night was attached to the heaven of Alu\nwith its fields lighted by the sun of day.\n\nIt is evident that the chapters which introduce the doctrines of the solar\ncult are a later addition to the original Book of the Dead. That was the\ntext-book of the Osirian soul, with whose beliefs the doctrines of the\nsolar cult were absolutely incompatible. While the one taught that the\ndead, without distinction, passed to the judgment-hall of Osiris, where,\nafter being acquitted, as much on moral as on religious grounds, they were\nadmitted to a paradise of light and happiness, the other maintained that\nonly a chosen few, who were rich and learned enough to be provided with\nthe necessary theological formul\u00e6, were received in the solar bark as it\nglided along the twelve hours of the night, thus becoming companions of\nthe sun-god in his passage through a realm of darkness that was peopled by\ndemoniac forms. The Osirian and solar creeds issued from two wholly\ndifferent religious systems, and the introduction of conceptions derived\nfrom the latter into the Book of the Dead, however subordinate may be the\nplace which they occupy, indicates a revision of the original work. It was\nnot until the book had gained a predominant position in Egyptian religious\nthought that it would have been needful to incorporate into it the ideas\nof a rival theology. But the incorporation had taken place long before the\nPyramid texts were compiled, perhaps before the day when Menes united the\ntwo kingdoms of Egypt into one.\n\nThere are yet other evidences of a composite theology in the Book of the\nDead. In one chapter we have the old doctrine of the Ka confined to the\ndark and dismal tomb in which its body lies; in another we see the soul\nflying whithersoever it will on the wings of a bird, sitting on the\nbranches of a tree under the shade of the foliage, or perched on the\nmargin of flowing water. But such theological inconsistencies probably go\nback to the age when the book was first composed. The conceptions of the\nKa and of the soul, however inconsistent they may be, belong to so early a\nperiod, that they lay together at the foundation of Egyptian religious\nthought long before the days when an official form of religion had come\ninto existence, or the Book of the Dead had been compiled.\n\nIn some instances it is possible to fix approximately the period to which\nparticular portions of the book belong. Professor Maspero has shown that\nthe 64th chapter, once considered one of the oldest, is in reality one of\nthe latest in date. It sums up the different formul\u00e6 which enabled the\nsoul of the dead man to quit his body in safety; and accordingly its\ntitle, which, however, varies in different recensions, is a repetition of\nthat prefixed to the earlier part of the work, and declares that it makes\n\u201cknown in a single chapter the chapters relating to _going forth from\nday_.\u201d According to certain papyri, it was \u201cdiscovered\u201d either in the\nreign of Usaphaes of the First Dynasty or in that of Men-kau-Ra of the\nFourth Dynasty, under the feet of Thoth in the temple of Eshmun\u00ean, written\nin letters of lapis-lazuli on a tablet of alabaster. The details of the\n\u201cdiscovery\u201d are not sufficiently uniform to allow us to put much\nconfidence in them; the tradition proves, however, that the Egyptians\nconsidered the chapter to be at least as old as the Fourth Dynasty; and\nthe belief is supported by the fact that on the monuments of the Eleventh\nDynasty it is already an integral part of the book. If, then, a chapter\nwhich is relatively modern was nevertheless embodied in the book in the\nage of the earlier dynasties, we can gain some idea of the antiquity to\nwhich the book itself must reach back, even in its composite form.(153)\n\nThe first fifteen chapters, as Champollion perceived, form a complete\nwhole in themselves. In the Theban texts they are called the \u201cChapter of\ngoing before the divine tribunal of Osiris.\u201d In the Saite period this is\nreplaced by the more general title of \u201cBeginning of the Chapter of _going\nforth from day_.\u201d(154) They describe how the soul can leave its mummy, can\nescape forced labour in the other world through the help of the _ushebti_,\ncan pass in safety \u201cover the back of the serpent Apophis, the wicked,\u201d and\ncan acquire that \u201ccorrectness of voice\u201d which will enable it to repeat\ncorrectly the words of the ritual, and so enter or leave at will the world\nbeyond the grave. The 15th chapter is a hymn to the Sun.\n\nThe 17th chapter begins a new section. It sums up in a condensed form all\nthat the soul was required to know about the gods and the world to come.\nBut it has been glossed and reglossed until its first form has become\nalmost unrecognisable. The commentary attached to the original passages\nbecame in time itself so obscure as to need explanation, and the chapter\nnow consists of three strata of religious thought and exposition piled one\non the top of the other. As it now stands it unites in a common goal the\naspirations of the followers of Osiris and of those of the solar cult; the\ndead man is identified with the gods, and so wends his way to the divine\nland in which they dwell, whether that be the fields of Alu or the bark of\nthe Sun.\n\nThe chapters which follow are intended to restore voice, memory, and name\nto the dead man. With the restoration of his name comes the restoration of\nhis individuality, for that which has no name has no individuality. Then\nfollows (in chapters xxvi.-xxx.) the restoration of his heart, which is\nregarded first as a mere organ of the body, and then in the Osirian sense\nas the equivalent of the conscience. As an organ, the figure of a heart\nplaced in the tomb was sufficient to ensure its return; as the living\nconscience and principle of life, something of a more mysterious and\nsymbolic nature was needed. This was found in the scarab or beetle, whose\nname _kheper_ happened to coincide in sound with the word that signified\n\u201cto become.\u201d(155)\n\nIn a series of chapters the soul is now protected against the poisonous\nserpents, including \u201cthe great python who devours the ass,\u201d which it will\nmeet with in its passage through the limbo of the other world. As\nProfessor Maspero remarks, the large place occupied by these serpents\namong the dangers which await the soul on its first exit from the body,\nmake it plain that in the days when the Book of the Dead was first being\ncompiled, venomous snakes were far more plentiful than they ever have been\nin the Egypt of historical times. Indeed, the python, whose huge folds are\nstill painted on the walls of the royal tombs of Thebes, had retired\nsouthward long before the age of the Fourth Dynasty. To an equally early\nperiod we may refer the forty-second chapter, in which the soul is taught\nhow to escape the slaughter of the enemies of Horus, which took place at\nHerakleopolis during the Osirian wars,\u2014a chapter, however, in which, it\nmay be observed, the elder Horus is already confounded with the son of\nOsiris.(156)\n\nChapters xliv. to liii. are occupied in describing how the dead man is\nthus preserved from \u201cthe second death.\u201d Illustrations are drawn both from\nthe punishments undergone by the enemies of the sun-god in the story of\nhis passage through the world of night, and from the old beliefs connected\nwith the lot of the Ka. He was neither to be beheaded, nor cast head\ndownwards into the abyss, nor was he to feed on filth like the Ka for\nwhich no offerings of food had been provided. The dangers from which he is\nthus preserved are next contrasted with the joys that await him in the\nparadise of the Blest (chs. liv.-lxiii.).\n\nThe 64th chapter, which sums up the preceding part of the book, and\nconstitutes a break between it and what follows, has already been\nconsidered. The ten chapters which succeed it are all similarly concerned\nwith \u201ccoming forth from the day.\u201d They thus traverse the same ground as\nthe first fifteen chapters of the book, but they deal with the subject in\na different way and from a different point of view. They are a fresh proof\nof the composite character of the work, and of the desire of its authors\nto incorporate in it all that had been written on the future life of the\nsoul up to the time of its composition. Professor Maspero believes that\nthey embody the various formul\u00e6 relating to the severance of soul and body\nwhich were current in the priestly schools.(157)\n\nEqually separate in tone and spirit are the next six chapters (lxxv.-xc.),\nwhich have emanated from the school of Heliopolis. They deal with the\ndestiny of the Ba or \u201csoul\u201d rather than with that of the Osirian, and\ndescribe the transformations which it can undergo if fortified with the\nwords of the ritual. It may at will transform itself into a hawk of gold,\na lotus flower, the moon-god or Pta\u1e25, even into a viper, a crocodile, or a\ngoose. But first it must fly to Heliopolis and the solar deities who\nreside there, and it is in Heliopolis that its transformation into the god\nPta\u1e25 is to take place.\n\nThe next chapter, the 91st, transports us into a different atmosphere of\nreligious thought. It deals with the reunion of the soul and the body. But\nthe two which follow forbid the Egyptian to believe that this meant a\nsojourn of the soul in the tomb. On the contrary, the soul, it is said, is\nnot to be \u201cimprisoned\u201d; while the 93rd chapter \u201copens the gates of the\nsepulchre to the soul and the shadow (_khaib_), that they may go forth and\nemploy their limbs.\u201d And the land to which they were to go was a land of\nsunlight.\n\nFrom this point onwards the Book of the Dead is purely Osirian in\ncharacter. But beliefs derived from the solar cult have been allowed to\nmingle with the Osirian elements; thus the bark of the sun-god has been\nidentified with the bark which carried the Osirian dead to the fields of\nAlu, and Osiris is even permitted to assign a place to his faithful\nservants in the boat of Ra instead of in the paradise over which he\nhimself rules. And the Osirian elements themselves belong to two different\nperiods or two different schools of thought. In the earlier chapters the\nparadise of Osiris is gained like the paradise of Ra, by the magical power\nof the words of the ritual and the offerings made by the friends of the\ndead; from the 125th chapter onwards the test of righteousness is a moral\none; the dead man has to be acquitted by his conscience and the tribunal\nof Osiris before he can enter into everlasting bliss.\n\nThe bark which carried the followers of Osiris has been explained by the\nPyramid texts. When the dead man had ascended to heaven, either by the\nladder which rose from the earth at Hermopolis or in some other way, he\nfound his path barred by a deep lake or canal. According to one myth, he\nwas carried across it on the wings of the ibis Thoth, but the more general\nbelief provided for him the boat of the ferryman Nu-Urru,(158) the\nprototype of the Greek Charon. The fusion of the Osirian creed with the\nsolar cult, however, caused the boat of Nu-Urru and the bark of the\nsun-god to be confounded together, and accordingly three chapters\n(c.-cii.) have been added to that in which the boat of the Egyptian Charon\nis referred to, \u201cin order to teach the luminous spirit (_khu_) how to\nenter the bark among the servants of Ra.\u201d In the next chapter, Hathor,\n\u201cthe lady of the west,\u201d is the object of prayer.\n\nTwo chapters (cv. and cvi.) are now interpolated from the ritual of Pta\u1e25.\nThey take us back to the age when offerings were made to the _ka_ of the\ndead and not to the gods, and declare that abundant food should be given\nit \u201ceach day in Memphis.\u201d They have little to do with the destinies of the\nOsirian in the paradise of Alu. These are once more resumed in the 107th\nchapter: the fields of Alu are described, and the life led by those who\nenjoy them.\n\nWith the 125th chapter we enter the \u201cHall of the Two Truths,\u201d where Osiris\nsits on his throne of judgment, and the soul is justified or condemned for\nthe deeds it had done in the flesh. It is no longer ceremonial, but moral\npurity that is required: the follower of Osiris is to be saved not by the\nwords and prayers of the ritual, however correctly they may be pronounced,\nbut by his acts and conduct in this lower world. We are transported into a\nnew atmosphere, in which religion and morality for the first time are\nunited in one: the teaching of the prophet has taken the place of the\nteaching of the priest.\n\nAll the blessings promised to the disciples of other creeds than the\nOsirian are now granted to the soul who has passed unscathed through the\nhall of judgment. Not only the fields of Alu are his, but the solar bark\nas well, to which the school of Heliopolis looked forward; even the old\nbelief which confined the Ka to the narrow precincts of the tomb was not\nforgotten, and the 132nd chapter instructs the Osirian how to \u201cwander at\nwill to see his house.\u201d Like Osiris himself, he can take part in the\nfestival of the dead, and share in the offerings that are presented at it.\nFree access is allowed him to all parts of the other world: whatever\nheaven or hell had been imagined in the local sanctuaries of Egypt was\nopen to him to visit as he would.\n\nThe later chapters of the Book of the Dead take us back to the earth. They\nare concerned with the mummy and its resting-place, with the charms and\namulets which preserved the body from decay, or enabled the soul to\ninspire it once more with life. They form a sort of appendix, dealing\nrather with the beliefs and superstitions of the people, than with the\nideas of the theologians, about the gods and the future life.(159)\n\nThe order in which I have referred to the chapters of the book are those\nof the Theban texts as edited by Dr. Naville. But it must not be supposed\nthat it constitutes an integral part of the original work. As a matter of\nfact there are very few copies of the book, even among those which belong\nto the Theban period, in which anything like all the chapters is to be\nfound. Indeed, it is difficult to say how many chapters a complete edition\nof it ought to contain. Pierret made them one hundred and sixty-five; the\nlatest editors raise them to over two hundred. The reason of this is easy\nto explain. The separate chapters are for the most part intended for\nspecial purposes or special occasions, and each, therefore, has had a\nseparate origin. They have been collected from all sides, and thrown\ntogether with very little attempt at arrangement or order. They belong to\ndifferent periods of composition and different schools of religious\nthought: some of them mount back to the remotest antiquity, others are\nprobably even later than the foundation of the united monarchy. Hence, as\na rule, only a selection of them was inscribed on the rolls of papyrus\nthat were buried with the dead, or on the coffin and sepulchral objects\ndeposited in the tomb; it was only the most important of them that the\nOsirian was likely to need in the other world. Indeed, in some cases only\nthe semblance of a text seems to have been thought necessary. The copies\nmade for the dead usually abound with errors, and some have actually been\nfound in which the text is represented by a number of unmeaning signs. The\nBook of the Dead, moreover, was continually growing. The oldest texts are\nthe shortest and most simple, the latest are the longest and most crowded\nwith chapters. As fresh prayers and formul\u00e6 for protecting the dead in the\nother world, or directing them on their journey, were discovered in the\nlocal sanctuaries, they were added in the form of chapters; no precaution,\nit was felt, should be omitted which might secure the safety of those who\nhad passed beyond the grave.\n\nThe Book of the Dead was thus a growth, and a growth it remained. It never\nunderwent the systematic revision which has been the lot of most other\nsacred books. We look in it in vain for traces of an individual editor.\nAnd on this account its form and even its language were never fixed. The\nprayers and formul\u00e6 it contained were, it is true, stereotyped, for their\nsuccess depended on their correct recitation; but beyond this the utmost\nlatitude was allowed in the way of addition or change. A Masoretic\ncounting of words and syllables would have been inconceivable to the\nEgyptian.\n\nIn later days, more especially in the Greek period, the Book of the Dead\nserved as a basis for other religious compositions which claimed divine\nauthorship, and the authority due to such an origin. Of these the most\npopular was the Book of Respirations (_Sh\u00e2-n-Sensenu_), which derives its\ninspiration from chapters liv. to lxiii. of the Book of the Dead, and is\nascribed to the god Thoth. In anticipation of the apocalyptic literature\nof the Jews, the writer describes the condition of the soul in the next\nworld, following closely the indications of the old ritual, and declaring\nhow the \u201cRespirations\u201d it contains were first \u201cmade by Isis for her\nbrother Osiris to give life to his soul, to give life to his body, to\nrejuvenate all his members anew.\u201d The soul of the Osirian is said to\n\u201clive\u201d by means of the book that is thus provided for him, for he \u201chas\nreceived the Book of Respirations, that he may breathe with his soul ...\nthat he may make any transformation at his will ... that his soul may go\nwherever it desireth.\u201d(160) We are reminded in these words of the last\nchapter of the Book of Revelation (xxii. 7, 18, 19).\n\nThe Book of the Dead was the oldest of the sacred books of Egypt. It was\nalso in universal use. Whatever other articles of belief he may have held,\nthe Egyptian of the historical age was before all things else a follower\nof Osiris. It was as an Osirian that he hoped to traverse the regions that\nlay beyond the tomb, and whose geography and inhabitants were revealed to\nhim in the Osirian ritual. From this point of view, accordingly, the Book\nof the Dead may be termed the Bible of the Egyptians. But it was not\nwithout rivals. We have seen that even in the Book of the Dead the heaven\nof Osiris is not the only heaven to which the dead may look forward.\nOsiris has a rival in the sun-god, and a place in the solar bark seems\nalmost as much coveted as a place in the fields of Alu. The solar cult of\nHeliopolis had indeed to yield to the more popular cult of Osiris, but it\nwas on condition that the cult of Osiris recognised and admitted it. To be\na follower of Osiris did not prevent the believing Egyptian from being\nalso a follower of the god Ra.\n\nIn the latter part of the Theban period the solar cult received a fresh\nimpulse and developed a new life. The attempt of Khu-n-Aten to establish a\nnew faith, the outward symbol of which was the solar disc, was but an\nindication of the general trend of religious thought, and the Asiatic\nconquests of the Eighteenth Dynasty introduced into Egypt the worship and\ncreed of the sun-god Baal. One by one the gods were identified with Ra;\nAmon himself became Amon-Ra, and the local deity of Thebes passed into a\npantheistic sun-god. It was under these conditions that a new ritual was\ncompiled for the educated classes of Egypt, or at all events was adopted\nby the religion of the State. This was the Book _Am Duat_, the Book of the\nOther World.\n\nCopies of it are written on the walls of the dark chambers in the rock-cut\nlabyrinths wherein the kings of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties\nwere laid to rest. In the tomb of Seti I. we find two versions, one in\nwhich the text is given in full, another in which the usual plan is\nfollowed of giving only the last five sections completely, while extracts\nalone are taken from the first seven. The text is profusely illustrated by\npictures, in order that the dead might have no difficulty in understanding\nthe words of the ritual, or in recognising the friends and enemies he\nwould meet in the other world.\n\nUnlike the Book of the Dead, the Book Am Duat is a systematic treatise,\nwhich bears the stamp of individual authorship. It is an apocalypse\nresting on an astronomical foundation, and is, in fact, a minute and\ndetailed account of the passage of the sun-god along the heavenly river\nUr-nes during the twelve hours of the night. Each hour is represented by a\nseparate locality in the world of darkness, enclosed within gates, and\nguarded by fire-breathing serpents and similar monsters. As the bark of\nthe sun-god glides along, the gates are successively opened by the magical\npower of the words he utters, and their guardians receive him in peace.\nImmediately he has passed the gates close behind him, and the region he\nhas left is once more enveloped in darkness.\n\nBut though he is thus able to illuminate for the brief space of an hour\nthe several regions of the other world, it is not as the living sun-god of\nday that he voyages along the infernal river, but as \u201cthe flesh of\nRa\u201d\u2014that is to say, as that mortal part of his nature which alone could\ndie and enter the realm of the dead. The river is a duplicate of the Nile,\nwith its strip of bank on either side, its fields and cities, even its\nnomes, wherein the god, like the Pharaoh, assigns land and duties to his\nfollowers. For the followers of Ra have a very different lot before them\nfrom that which awaited the followers of Osiris. There was no land of\neverlasting light and happiness to which they could look forward, nor was\ntheir destiny hereafter dependent on their conduct in this life. Their\nsupreme end was to accompany the sun-god in his bark as he passed each\nnight through the twelve regions of the dead, and this could be attained\nonly by a knowledge of the ritual of Am Duat and the mystic formul\u00e6 it\ncontained. Few, however, of those who started with the sun-god on his\nnocturnal voyage remained with him to the last; most of them were stopped\nin the regions through which he passed, where fields were granted them\nwhose produce they might enjoy, and where each night for a single hour\nthey formed as it were a bodyguard around the god and lived once more in\nthe light. Even the kings of Upper and Lower Egypt were condemned to dwell\nfor ever in this gloomy Hades, along with Osiris and the Kh\u00fb or luminous\nsouls of an earlier faith. Those who were happy enough by virtue of their\nknowledge and spells to emerge with Ra into the dawn of a new day,\nhenceforth had their home in the solar bark, and were absorbed into the\nperson of the god.\n\nBut it was not only the friends and followers of Ra who thus accompanied\nhim in his journey through the other world; his enemies were there also,\nand the horrible punishments they had to endure, as depicted on the walls\nof the royal tombs, were worthy of the imagination of a Dante. The banks\nof the infernal river were lined with strange and terrible monsters, some\nof them the older deities and spirits of the popular creed, others mere\ncreations of symbolism, others creatures of composite form to whose\ninvention the older mythology contributed. Fire-breathing serpents are\nprominent among them, lighting up the darkness for the friends of Ra, and\nburning his foes with their poisonous flames.(161)\n\nThe artificial character of this picture of the other world is clear at\nthe first glance. With the pedantic attention to details which\ncharacterised the Egyptian, every part of it has been carefully\nelaborated. The names and forms of the personages who stand on the banks\nof the infernal river or enter the boat of Ra, as with each successive\nhour he passes into a new region, are all given; even the exact area of\neach region is stated, though the measurements do not agree in all the\nversions of the book. But the best proof of its artificial nature is to be\nfound in a fact first pointed out by Professor Maspero. Two of the older\nconceptions of the other world and the life beyond the grave, which\ndiffered essentially from the solar doctrine, are embedded in it, but\nembedded as it were perforce. In the fourth and fifth hours or regions we\nhave a picture of the future life as it was conceived by the worshippers\nof Sokaris in the primitive days of Memphis; in the sixth and seventh, the\ntribunal and paradise of Osiris.\n\nThe kingdom of Sokaris represented that dreary conception of an\nafter-existence which was associated with the ka. Like the mummy, the ka\nwas condemned to live in the dark chamber of the tomb, whence it crept\nforth at night to consume the food that had been offered to it, and\nwithout which it was doomed to perish. Long before the age when the Book\nof Am Duat was written, this primitive belief had passed away from the\nminds of men; but the tradition of it still lingered, and had secured a\npermanent place in the theological lore of Egypt. It has accordingly been\nannexed as it were by the author of the book, and transformed into two of\nthe regions of the night through which the solar bark has to pass. But the\nterms in which the kingdom of Sokaris had been described were too\nstereotyped to be ignored or altered, and the solar bark is accordingly\nmade to pass above the primitive Hades, the voices of whose inhabitants\nare heard rising up in an indistinct murmur though their forms are\nconcealed from view. A memory is preserved even of the sandy desert of\nGiza and Saqq\u00e2ra, where the inhabitants of Memphis were buried, and over\nwhich Sokaris ruled as lord of the dead. The realm of Sokaris is pictured\nas an enclosure of sand, flanked on either side by a half-buried sphinx.\n\nThe author of the Book of Am Duat has dealt with the heaven of Osiris as\nhe has done with the Hades of Sokaris. Osiris and his paradise have been\ntransported bodily to the nocturnal path of the sun-god, and condemned to\nreceive what little light is henceforth allowed them from the nightly\npassage of the solar bark. Thoth guides the bark to the city which\ncontains the tomb of Osiris, that mysterious house wherein are the four\nhuman forms of the god. On the way the serpent Neha-hir has to be\novercome; he is but another form of the serpent Apophis, the enemy of Ra,\nwho thus takes the place of Set, the enemy of Osiris. When the sixth\nregion is passed, which is a sort of vestibule to the \u201cretreat\u201d of Osiris\nin the seventh, other enemies of Osiris\u2014of whom, however, the Osirian\ndoctrine knew but little\u2014are being put to death in true solar fashion.\nPerhaps the most noteworthy fact in this description of the kingdom of\nOsiris is, that not only all the gods of the Osirian cycle are relegated\nto it, including the hawk Horus, but also the Kh\u00fb or luminous manes and\nthe ancient kings of Upper and Lower Egypt. The fact points unmistakably\nto the great antiquity of the Osirian creed. It went back to a time when\nas yet the Egyptian monarchy was not united, and when the _kh\u00fb_ or\nluminous soul held the same place in Egyptian thought as had been held at\nan earlier time by the _ka_ and later by the soul or _ba_. So undoubted\nwas the fact that the old Pharaohs of primeval Egypt had died in the\nOsirian faith, that the author of the Book of Am Duat could not disregard\nit; he was forced to place the predecessors of a Seti or a Ramses, for\nwhom the book was copied, in one of the murky regions of the other world\ninstead of in the solar bark. They had been followers of Osiris and not of\nRa, and there was accordingly no place for them in the boat of the\nsun-god.\n\nOsiris is thus subordinated to the sun. The god of the dead is not allowed\nto rule even in his own domains. Such light and life as are graciously\npermitted to him come from the passing of the solar bark once in each\ntwenty-four hours. He has lost the bright and happy fields of Alu, he has\nhad to quit even the judgment-hall where he decided the lot of man. Osiris\nand his creed are deposed to make way for another god with another and a\nlower form of doctrine.\n\nThe fact was so patent, that a second solar apocalypse was written in\norder to smooth it away. This was the Book of the Gates or of Hades, a\ncopy of which is also inscribed in the tomb of Seti. It differs only in\ndetails from the Book Am Duat; the main outlines of the latter, with the\npassage of the solar bark through the twelve hours or regions of the\nnight, remain unaltered. But the details vary considerably. The gates\nwhich shut the hours off one from the other become fortified pylons,\nguarded by serpents breathing fire. The Hades of Sokaris is suppressed,\nand the judgment-hall of Osiris is introduced between the fifth and sixth\nhours. The object of the judgment, however, seems merely the punishment of\nthe enemies of the god, who are tied to stakes and finally burned or\notherwise put to death in the eighth hour. Among them appears Set in the\nform of a swine, who is driven out of the hall of judgment by a\ncynocephalous ape. As for the righteous, they are still allowed to\ncultivate the fields of the kingdom of Osiris; but it is a kingdom which\nis plunged in darkness except during the brief space of time when the bark\nof the sun-god floats through it. Osiris, nevertheless, is acknowledged as\nlord of the world of the dead, in contradistinction to the Book Am Duat,\nwhich assigns him only a portion of it; and when the sun-god emerges into\nthe world of light at the end of the twelfth hour, it is by passing\nthrough the hands of Nut, the sky, who stands on the body of Osiris,\n\u201cwhich encircles the other world.\u201d Nor is the serpent Apophis, the enemy\nof Ra, confounded with Set; his overthrow by Tum takes place in the first\nhour, before the tribunal of Osiris is reached.\n\nThe theology of the two books resembles the Taoism of China in its\nidentification of religion with the knowledge of magical formul\u00e6. The\nmoral element which distinguished the Osirian faith has disappeared, and\nsalvation is made to depend on the knowledge of a mystical apocalypse.\nOnly the rich and cultivated have henceforth a chance of obtaining it. And\neven for them the prospect was dreary enough. A few\u2014the innermost circle\nof disciples\u2014might look forward to absorption into the sun-god, which\npractically meant a loss of individuality; for the rest there was only a\nworld of darkness and inaction, where all that made life enjoyable to the\nEgyptian was absent. The author of the Book of the Gates gives expression\nto the fact when he tells us that as the last gate of the other world\ncloses behind the sun-god, the souls who are left in darkness groan\nheavily. To such an end had the learned theology of Egypt brought both the\npeople and their gods!\n\nWe need not wonder that under the influence of such teaching the\nintellectual classes fell more and more into a hopeless scepticism, which\nsaw in death the loss of all that we most prize here below. On the one\nside, we have sceptical treatises like the dialogue between the jackal and\nthe Ethiopian cat, where the cat, who represents the old-fashioned\northodoxy, has by far the worst of the argument;(162) on the other side,\nthe dirge on the death of the wife of the high priest of Memphis, which I\nhave quoted in an earlier lecture\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cThe underworld is a land of thick darkness,\n    A sorrowful place for the dead.\n    They sleep, after their guise, never to awaken.\u201d\n\n\nIt was better, indeed, that it should be so than that they should awaken\nonly to lead the existence which the Book of Am Duat describes.\n\nHow far the doctrines of the solar theology extended beyond the narrow\ncircle in which they originated, it is difficult to say. In the nature of\nthe case they could not become popular, as they started from an assumption\nof esoteric knowledge. We know that the majority of the Egyptians\ncontinued to hold to the Osirian creed up to the last days of paganism\u2014or\nat all events they professed to do so\u2014and as long as the Osirian creed was\nretained the moral element in religion was recognised. In one respect,\nhowever, the solar theology triumphed. The gods of Egypt, including Osiris\nhimself, were identified with the sun-god, and became forms or\nmanifestations of Ra. Egyptian religion became pantheistic; the divinity\nwas discovered everywhere, and the shadowy and impersonal forms of the\nancient deities were mingled together in hopeless confusion. It seemed\nhardly to matter which was invoked, for each was all and all were each.\n\nGnosticism was the natural daughter of the solar theology. The doctrine\nthat knowledge is salvation and that the gods of the popular cult are\nmanifestations of the sun-god, was applied to explain the origin of evil.\nEvil became the result of imperfection and ignorance, necessarily inherent\nin matter, and arising from the fact that the creation is due to the last\nof a long series of \u00e6ons or emanations from the supreme God. The \u00e6ons are\nthe legitimate descendants of the manifold deities whom the Egyptian\npriests had resolved into forms of Ra, while the identification of evil\nwith the necessary imperfection of matter deprives it of a moral element,\nand finds a remedy for it in the _gnosis_ or \u201cknowledge\u201d of the real\nnature of things. Even the strange monsters and symbolic figures which\nplay so large a part in the solar revelation are reproduced in Gnosticism.\nAbraxas and the other curiously composite creatures engraved on Gnostic\ngems have all sprung from the Books of Am Duat and the Gates, along with\nthe allegorical meanings that were read into them. However much the solar\nschool of theology may have been for the old religion of Egypt a teaching\nof death, in the Gnosticism of the first Christian centuries it was born\nanew.\n\n\n\n\nLecture IX. The Popular Religion Of Egypt.\n\n\nThus far I have dealt with the official religion of ancient Egypt, with\nthe religion of the priests and princes, the scribes and educated classes.\nThis is naturally the religion of which we know most. The monuments that\nhave come down to us are for the most part literary and architectural, and\nenshrine the ideas and beliefs of the cultivated part of the community.\nThe papyri were written for those who could read and write, the temples\nwere erected at the expense of the State, and the texts and figures with\nwhich they were adorned were engraved or painted on their walls under\npriestly direction. The sculptured and decorated tomb, the painted\nmummy-case, the costly sarcophagus, the roll of papyrus that was buried\nwith the dead, were all alike the privilege of the wealthy and the\neducated. The grave that contained the body of the poor contained little\nelse than the coarse cere-cloths in which it was wrapped. Our knowledge,\ntherefore, of the religion of the people, of the popular religion as\ndistinguished from the religion of official orthodoxy, is, and must be,\nimperfect. We have to gather it from the traces it has left in the\nreligion of the State, from stray references to it in literature, from a\nfew rare monuments which have come down to us, from its survivals in the\nmodern folk-lore and superstitions of Egypt, or from its influence on the\ndecaying faith of the classical age.\n\nThere was, however, a popular religion by the side of the official\nreligion, just as there is in all countries which possess an organised\nfaith. And if it is difficult to understand fully the religion of the\nuneducated classes in Western Europe to-day, or to realise their point of\nview, it must be much more difficult to do so in the case of ancient\nEgypt. Here our materials are scanty, and the very fact that we know as\nmuch as we do about the religion of the upper class makes it additionally\nharder to estimate them aright.\n\nA considerable portion of the fellahin were descended from the earlier\nneolithic population of Egypt, whom the Pharaonic Egyptians found already\nsettled in the country. In a former lecture I have endeavoured to show\nthat they were fetish-worshippers, and that among their fetishes animals\nwere especially prominent. They had no priests, for fetishism is\nincompatible with a priesthood in the proper sense of the term. Neither\ndid they embalm their dead; all those beliefs and ideas, therefore, which\nwere connected with a priesthood and the practice of embalming must have\ncome to them from without; the gods and sacerdotal colleges of the State\nreligion, the Osirian creed, and the belief in the resurrection, must have\nbeen for them of foreign origin. And of foreign origin they doubtless\nremained to the bulk of the nation down to the last days of paganism.\n\nAmon and Ra and Osiris were indeed familiar names, the temple festivals\nwere duly observed, and the processions in honour of the State gods duly\nattended; and after the age of the Eighteenth Dynasty, when the fusion\nbetween the different elements in the population was completed, the\npractice of mummification became general; but the names of the State gods\nwere names only, to which the peasant attached a very different meaning\nfrom that which official orthodoxy demanded. He still worshipped the tree\nwhose shady branches arose on the edge of the desert or at the corner of\nhis field, or brought his offerings to some animal, in which he saw not a\nsymbol or an incarnation of Horus and Sekhet, but an actual hawk and cat.\n\nHow deeply rooted this belief in the divinity of animals was in the minds\nof the people, is shown by the fact that the State religion had to\nrecognise it just as Mohammed had perforce to recognise the sanctity of\nthe \u201cBlack Stone\u201d of the Kaaba. As we have seen, the second king of the\nSecond Thinite Dynasty is said to have legalised the worship of the bull\nApis of Memphis, Mnevis of Heliopolis, and the ram of Mendes; and though\nthe official explanation was that these animals were but incarnations of\nPta\u1e25 and Ra to whom the worship was really addressed, it was an\nexplanation about which the people neither knew nor cared. The divine\nhonours they paid to the bulls and ram were paid to the animals\nthemselves, and not to the gods of the priestly cult.\n\nHere and there a few evidences have been preserved to us that such was the\nfact. In the tomb of Ra-zeser-ka-seneb, for instance, at Thebes, the\nartist has introduced a picture of a peasant making his morning prayer to\na sycamore which stands at the end of a corn-field, while offerings of\nfruit and bread and water are placed on the ground beside it.(163) The\nofficial religion endeavoured to legalise this old tree worship much in\nthe same way as Christianity endeavoured to legalise the old worship of\nsprings, by attaching the tree to the service of a god, and seeing in it\none of the forms in which the deity manifested himself. Thus \u201cthe sycamore\nof the south\u201d became the body of Hathor, whose head was depicted appearing\nfrom its branches, while opposite Si\u00fbt it was Hor-pes who took the\ngoddess\u2019s place.(164) Like other beliefs and practices which go back to\nthe neolithic population of Egypt, the ancient tree worship is not yet\nextinct. On either side of the Nile sacred trees are to be found, under\nwhich the offering of bread and water is still set, though the god of the\nofficial cult of Pharaonic Egypt, to whom the worship was nominally paid,\nhas been succeeded by a Mohammedan saint. By the side of the tree often\nrises the white dome of the tomb of a \u201csh\u00eakh,\u201d to whom the place is\ndedicated, reminding us of a picture copied by Wilkinson in a sepulchre at\nH\u00fb, in which a small chapel, representing the tomb of Osiris, stands by\nthe side of a tree on whose branches is perched the _bennu_ or\nph\u0153nix.(165) The most famous of these trees, however, that of Matar\u00eeya, is\nan object of veneration to the Christian rather than to the Mohammedan.\nThe Holy Family, it is said, once rested under its branches during their\nflight into Egypt; in reality it represents a sycamore in which the soul\nof Ra of Heliopolis must have been believed to dwell.\n\nProfessor Maspero has drawn attention to certain stel\u00e6 in the museum of\nTurin, which show how, even in the lower middle class, it was the animal\nitself and not the official god incarnated in it that was the object of\nworship. On one of them, which belongs to the age of the Eighteenth\nDynasty, huge figures of a swallow and a cat are painted, with a table of\nofferings standing before them, as well as two kneeling scribes, while the\naccompanying inscriptions tell us that it was to \u201cthe good\u201d swallow and\nthe \u201cgood\u201d cat, and not to any of the State gods who may have hidden\nthemselves under these animal forms, that flowers were being offered and\nprayers made. On another stela we find two pet cats, who are sitting on a\nshrine and facing one another, and whom their mistresses\u2014two of the women\nwho wailed at funerals\u2014adore in precisely the same language as that which\nwas used of Osiris or Amon.(166) In the quarries north of Qurna is a\nsimilar representation of a cow and a cobra, which stand face to face with\na table of offerings between them, while a worshipper kneels at the side,\nand a half-obliterated inscription contains the usual formul\u00e6 of\nadoration.(167) Still more curious is a stela, now in the museum of Cairo,\non which an ox is represented inside a shrine, while underneath it is a\nGreek inscription declaring that the \u201cKretan\u201d who had dedicated the\nmonument could interpret dreams, thanks to the commandment of \u201cthe god.\u201d\nThe god, it will be noticed, is not Apis, but an ordinary ox.\n\nBut of all the animals who thus continued to be the real gods of the\npeople in spite of priestly teaching and State endowments, none were so\nnumerous or were so universally feared and venerated as the snakes. The\nserpent was adored where Amon was but a name, and where Ra was looked upon\nas belonging, like fine horses and clothes, to the rich and the mighty.\nThe prominence of the serpent in Egyptian mythology and symbolism\nindicates how plentiful and dangerous it must have been in the early days\nof Egypt, and what a lasting impression it made upon the native mind. When\nthe banks of the Nile were an uninhabitable morass, and the neolithic\ntribes built their huts in the desert, the snake must indeed have been a\nformidable danger. The most deadly still frequent the desert; it is only\nin the cultivated land that they are comparatively rare. In Egypt, as\nelsewhere, the cultivation of the soil and the habits of civilised life\nhave diminished their number, and driven them into the solitudes of the\nwilderness. But when the Pharaonic Egyptians first arrived in the valley\nof the Nile, when the swamps were being drained, the jungle cleared away,\nand the land sown with the wheat of Babylonia, the serpent was still one\nof the perils of daily life. A folk-tale which has been appropriated and\nspoilt by the priestly compilers of the legend of Ra, tells how the\nsun-god was bitten by a venomous snake which lay in his path, and how the\npoison ran through his veins like fire. The symbol of royalty adopted by\nthe earliest Pharaohs was the cobra; it symbolised the irresistible might\nand deadly power of the conquering chieftain which, like the dreaded cobra\nof the desert, overcame the inhabitants of the country, and compelled them\nto regard him with the same awe and terror as the serpent itself.\n\nDown to the last the embalmers and gravediggers and others who had to\nattend to the funeral arrangements of the dead, and consequently lived in\nthe neighbourhood of the necropolis, were more exposed to the chances of\nsnake-bite than the inhabitants of the cultivated land. The necropolis was\ninvariably in the desert, and the nature of their occupation obliged them\nto excavate the sand or visit the dark chambers of the dead where the\nsnake glided unseen. It is not surprising, therefore, that the veneration\nof the snake was especially strong among the population of the cemeteries.\nThose who inhabited the necropolis of Thebes have left us prayers and\ndedications to the goddess Mert-seger, who is represented as a cobra or\nsome equally deadly serpent, though at times she is decently veiled under\nthe name of an official deity. Once her place is taken by two snakes, at\nanother time by a dozen of them. She was, in fact, the tutelary goddess of\nthe necropolis, and hence received the title of \u201cthe Western Crest\u201d\u2014that\nis to say, the crest of the western hills, where the earliest tombs of\nThebes were situated. Professor Maspero has translated an interesting\ninscription made in her honour by one of the workmen employed in the\ncemetery. \u201cAdoration to the Western Crest,\u201d it begins, \u201cprostrations\nbefore her double! I make my adoration, listen! Ever since I walked on the\nearth and was an attendant in the Place of Truth (the cemetery), a man,\nignorant and foolish, who knew not good from evil, I committed many sins\nagainst the goddess of the Crest, and she punished me. I was under her\nhand night and day; while I cowered on the bed like a woman with child, I\ncried for breath, and no breath came to me, for I was pursued by the\nWestern Crest, the mightiest of all the gods, the goddess of the place;\nand behold I will declare to all, great and small, among the workmen of\nthe necropolis: Beware of the Crest, for there is a lion in her, and she\nstrikes like a lion that bewitches, and she is on the track of all who sin\nagainst her! So I cried to my mistress, and she came to me as a soft\nbreeze, she united herself with me, causing me to feel her hand; she\nreturned to me in peace, and made me forget my troubles by giving me\nbreath. For the Western Crest is appeased when the cry is made to her;\u2014so\nsays Nefer-ab, the justified. He says: Behold, hear, all ears who live on\nearth, beware of the Western Crest!\u201d(168)\n\nIt is clear that Nefer-ab suffered from asthma, that he believed it had\nbeen inflicted upon him by the local goddess for some sin he had committed\nagainst her, and that he further believed his penitence and cry for help\nto have induced her to come to him and cure him. And this goddess was a\nsnake. Here, in the necropolis of Thebes, therefore, the snake played the\nsame part as a healer that it did in the worship of Askl\u00eapios. It will be\nremembered that the first temple raised to \u00c6sculapius at Rome was built\nafter a plague, from which the city was supposed to have been delivered by\na serpent hidden in the marshes of the Tiber. The serpent that destroys\nalso heals; by the side of Kakod\u00e6mon there is also the good snake\nAgathod\u00e6mon.\n\nMert-seger, the serpent of the necropolis, did not wholly escape the\npatronage of the State religion. Like the local cults of aboriginal India\nover which Bra\u1e25manism has thrown its mantle, the cult of Mert-seger was\nnot left wholly unnoticed by the organised religion of the State. A chapel\nwas erected to her in the orthodox form, and it is from this chapel that\nmost of the stel\u00e6 have come which have revealed the existence of the old\nworship. In some of them Mert-seger is identified with Mut, or even with\nIsis; but such an identification was never accepted or understood by her\nilliterate worshippers. For them she continued to be what she had been to\ntheir forefathers, simply a serpent and nothing more. The old faith has\nsurvived centuries of Christianity and Mohammedanism in a modified form.\nProfessor Maspero discovered that the local Mohammedan saint, whose tomb\nis not far from the ancient chapel of Mert-seger, is still believed to\nwork miracles of healing. He has taken the place of the serpent goddess;\nthat is all.(169)\n\nThe serpent, however, was not always venerated because it was feared. It\nlived underground, and was thus, in a special sense, the oldest inhabitant\nof the land, and the guardian of the soil. The Telmessians told Kr\u0153sus\nthat it was \u201ca child of the earth.\u201d(170) The harmless snakes that frequent\nthe village houses of modern Egypt are still regarded as the \u201cprotectors\u201d\nof the household. The bowl of milk is provided for them as regularly as it\nonce was in Wales for the fairies, and many tales are told of the\npunishment a neglect of the household _\u1e25arr\u00e2s_ or \u201cguardian\u201d will entail.\nFor its poison continues to exist, though held in reserve, and is\ncommunicable by other means than the fangs. At Helw\u00e2n near Cairo, for\ninstance, I was told of one of these guardian snakes which once missed its\nfemale mate and supposed it had been killed. Thereupon it crept into the\n_z\u00eer_ or jar in which water is kept, and poisoned the water in it. But the\nfemale having soon afterwards made its appearance, it was observed to\nglide into a basin of milk, then to crawl along the ground so that the\nclotted dust might adhere to its body, and again to enter the _z\u00eer_. As\nthe dust fouled the water, the people of the house knew that the latter\nmust have been poisoned, and accordingly poured it on the ground. In this\ncase the snake provided the remedy for the mischief it had the power to\ncause.(171)\n\nBut the Agathod\u00e6mon or serpent guardian of the house not only still\nsurvives among the fellahin of Egypt, serpent worship still holds\nundiminished sway in the valley of the Nile. In a crater-like hollow of\nthe mountain cliff of Sh\u00eakh Her\u00eed\u00ee there are two domed tombs, dedicated\nnot to a Christian or a Mohammedan saint, but to a snake and his female\nmate. Sh\u00eakh Her\u00eed\u00ee, in fact, is a serpent, and the place he inhabits is\nholy ground. Pilgrimages are made annually to it, and the festival of the\n\u201cSh\u00eakh,\u201d which takes place in the month that follows Ramadan, is attended\nby crowds of sailors and other devout believers, who encamp for days\ntogether in the neighbourhood of the shrine.\n\nThey have no doubt about the miraculous powers possessed by the snake. It\nis as thick as a man\u2019s thigh, and, if treated irreverently, breathes\nflames of fire into the face of the spectator, who immediately dies. If it\nis cut in pieces, the pieces reunite of their own accord, and the blood\nflowing from them marks a spot where gold is hidden in the ground.\n\nPaul Lucas, in the early part of the eighteenth century, tells us that in\nhis time it was called \u201cthe angel,\u201d and that shortly before his visit to\nthe Nile it had cured a woman of Ekhm\u00eem of paralysis, from which she had\nsuffered for eight years, by simply crawling up into her litter when she\nwas brought to its dwelling-place. Paul Lucas himself was a witness of its\nsupernatural gifts. It was brought to him by the keeper of the shrine when\nhe was visiting a Bey on the opposite side of the river. Suddenly it\ndisappeared, and was nowhere to be found; but a messenger, who was sent\npost haste to the shrine, returned with the information that \u201cthe angel\nwas already there, and had advanced more than twenty steps to meet the\ndervish who takes care of it.\u201d(172)\n\nNorden, a few years later, has a similar tale to relate. He was told that\nthe serpent-saint \u201cnever dies,\u201d and that it \u201ccures and grants favours to\nall those who implore its aid and offer sacrifices to it.\u201d The cures were\neffected by the mere presence of the snake, which came in person to those\nwho desired its help. The Christians, he adds, admit the miraculous powers\nof the Sh\u00eakh equally with the Mohammedans, only they explain them as due\nto a demon who clothes himself in a serpent\u2019s form.(173)\n\nSaint or demon, however, Sh\u00eakh Her\u00eed\u00ee is really the lineal descendant of a\nserpent which has been worshipped in its neighbourhood since the\nprehistoric days of Egypt. A bronze serpent with the head of Zeus Serapis\nhas been found in the mounds of Ben\u00e2w\u00eet, on the western side of the Nile,\nwhich face the entrance to the shrine of the Sh\u00eakh; and the nome in which\nthe shrine is situated was that of Du-Hefi, \u201cthe mountain of the snake.\u201d\nThe serpent of Sh\u00eakh Her\u00eed\u00ee, with his miraculous powers of healing, must\nthus have been already famous in the days when the nomes of Upper Egypt\nfirst received their names. The old neolithic population of the desert\nmust have already venerated the snake that dwelt in the cleft of the rock\nabove which now rises the sacred \u201ctomb\u201d of Sh\u00eakh Her\u00eed\u00ee.(174)\n\nThe faith of the people dies hard. The gods and goddesses, the theology\nand speculations of the official religion of Egypt, have passed away, but\nthe old beliefs and superstitions which were already in possession of the\nland when the Pharaonic Egyptians first entered it, have survived both\nChristianity and Mohammedanism. The theological systems of Heliopolis or\nThebes are like the sacred trees, which, according to Dr.\nSchweinfurth,(175) were brought from Southern Arabia along with the\ndeities with whose cult they were associated; when the deities themselves\nceased to be worshipped, the trees also ceased to be cultivated, and so\ndisappeared from a soil wherein they had been but exotics. But the\nreligion of the great mass of the people remained rooted as it were in the\nsoil, like the palm or the acacia. It flowed like a strong current under\nthe surface of the theology of the State, contemptuously tolerated by the\nlatter, and in its turn but little affected by it. The theology of the\nState might incorporate and adapt the beliefs of the multitude; to the\nmultitude the State theology was a \u201ctale of little meaning, though the\nwords were strong.\u201d\n\nIf we would know what the bulk of the people thought of those deities whom\nthe higher classes regarded as manifestations of a single ineffable and\nomnipotent divine power, we must turn to the folk-tales which were taken\nup and disfigured by the rationalising priests of a later period, when\nthey combined together in a connected story all that had been said about\nthe gods of the local sanctuaries. Each sanctuary came to possess its\neuhemerising legend of the chief divinity to whom it was consecrated; the\ndivinity was transformed into an earthly king, and his history was\nconcocted partly out of popular tales, associated for the most part with\nparticular relics and charms, partly from forced etymologies of proper\nnames. At how early a date these artificial legends first came into\nexistence we do not know, but we already meet with examples of them in the\ntime of the Nineteenth and Twentieth Dynasties. They belong, however, to\nthe age when the rationalistic process of resolving the gods into human\nprinces had already begun,\u2014the counter side of the process that had turned\nthe Pharaoh into a god,\u2014and their artificial character is betrayed by the\nattempt to extract history from learned but unscientific explanations of\nthe origin of local and other names.\n\nHere, for instance, is one which was compiled for the temple of the\nsun-god at Heliopolis, and is contained in a Turin papyrus of the age of\nthe Twentieth Dynasty: \u201cAccount of the god who created himself, the\ncreator of heaven, of earth, of the gods, of men, of wild beasts, of\ncattle, of reptiles, of fowls, and of fish; the king of men and gods, to\nwhom centuries are but as years; who possesses numberless names which no\nman knoweth, no, not even the gods.\n\n\u201cIsis was a woman, more knowing in her malice than millions of men, clever\namong millions of the gods, equal to millions of spirits, to whom as unto\nRa nothing was unknown either in heaven or upon earth.\n\n\u201cThe god Ra came each day to sit upon his throne; he had grown old, his\nmouth trembled, his slaver trickled down to the earth, and his saliva\ndropped upon the ground. Isis kneaded it with her hand along with the dust\nthat had adhered to it; she moulded therefrom a sacred serpent, to which\nshe gave the form of a spear-shaft. She wound it not about her face, but\nflung it on the road along which the great god walked, as often as he\nwished, in his twofold kingdom.\n\n\u201cThe venerable god went forth, the (other) gods accompanied him, he walked\nalong as on other days. Then the sacred serpent bit him. The divine god\nopened his mouth, and his cry rang to heaven. His Ennead of gods called:\n\u2018What is it?\u2019 and the gods cried, \u2018Look there!\u2019 He could make no answer,\nhis jaws chattered, his limbs shook, the venom took hold of his flesh as\nthe Nile covers its banks (with water).\n\n\u201cWhen the heart of the great god was quieted, he called to his followers:\n\u2018Come to me, ye children of my limbs, ye gods who have emanated from me!\nSomething painful hath hurt me; my heart perceiveth it, yet my eyes see it\nnot; my hand hath not wrought it, nothing that I have made knoweth what it\nis, yet have I never tasted suffering like unto it, and there is no pain\nwhich is worse.... I went forth to see what I had created, I was walking\nin the two lands which I have made, when something stung me which I knew\nnot. Was it fire, was it water? My heart is in flames, my limbs tremble,\nall my members shiver. Let there be brought unto me the children of the\ngods of beneficent words, who have understanding mouths, and whose power\nreaches unto heaven.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe children of the gods came, full of woe; Isis came with her magic;\nwith her mouth full of the breath of life, whose recipes destroy pain,\nwhose word gives life to the dead. She said: \u2018What is it, what is it, O\nfather of the gods? A serpent hath wrought this suffering in thee, one of\nthy creatures hath lifted up his head against thee. Surely he shall be\noverthrown by beneficent incantations; I will make him retreat at the\nsight of thy rays.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe holy god opened his mouth: \u2018I walked along the road, travelling\nthrough the two lands of the earth, after the desire of my heart, that I\nmight see what I had created; then was I bitten by a serpent that I saw\nnot. Is it fire, is it water? I am colder than water, I am hotter than\nfire, all my limbs sweat, I tremble, my eye is unsteady, I see not the\nsky, drops roll from my face as in the season of summer.\u2019\n\n\u201cIsis replied to Ra: \u2018O tell me thy name, father of the gods, then shall\nhe live who is released (from pain) by thy name.\u2019 But Ra answers: \u2018I have\ncreated heaven and earth, I have set the hills in order, and made all\nbeings that are thereon. I am he who created the water, and caused the\nprimeval ocean to issue forth. I created the spouse of his (divine)\nmother. I created the heavens and the secrets of the two horizons, and\nhave ordered the souls of the gods. I am he who illuminates all things at\nthe opening of his eyes; if he closes his eyes, all is dark. The water of\nthe Nile rises when he bids it; the gods know not his name. I make the\nhours and create the days, I send the year and create the inundation, I\nmake the fire that lives, I purify the house. I am Khepera in the morning,\nRa at noon, and Tum at evening.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe venom departed not, it advanced further, the great god became no\nbetter. Then Isis said to Ra: \u2018Thy name was not pronounced in the words\nthou hast repeated. Tell it to me and the poison will depart; then shall\nhe live whose name is (thus) named.\u2019\n\n\u201cThe poison glowed like fire; it was hotter than the flame of fire. The\nmajesty of Ra said: \u2018I grant thee leave that thou shouldest search within\nme, O mother Isis! and that my name pass from my bosom into thine.\u2019\n\n\u201cSo the god hid himself from the (other) gods; his everlasting bark was\nempty. When the moment arrived for extracting the heart (whereon the name\nwas written), Isis said to her son Horus: \u2018He must yield up unto thee his\ntwo eyes (the sun and moon).\u2019\n\n\u201cSo the name of the great god was taken from him, and Isis, the great\nenchantress, said: \u2018Depart, O poison, leave Ra: let the eye of Horus go\nforth from the god and shine out of his mouth. I, I have done it; I throw\non the earth the victorious poison, for the name of the great god is\nextracted from him. Let Ra live and the poison die!\u2019 So spake Isis, the\ngreat one, the regent of the gods, who knows Ra and his true name.\u201d\n\nThe writer of the papyrus adds that the recital of this legend is an\nexcellent charm against the poison of a snake, especially if it is written\nand dissolved in water, which is then drunk by the patient; or if it is\ninscribed on a piece of linen, and hung around his neck.(176)\n\nThe contrast is striking between the introduction to the legend and the\neuhemeristic spirit that elsewhere prevails in it, and can be explained,\neven in the case of such disregarders of consistency as the Egyptians,\nonly on the supposition that the Ra of folk-lore and the Ra of theology\nwere held to be the same merely in name. Not even a pretence is made of\nregarding Isis as a goddess; she is simply a common witch, who resorts to\nmagic in order to force Ra to hand over his name and therewith his powers\nto her son Horus. The virtue of the name, and the power conferred by a\nknowledge of it, are features common to the folk-lore of most countries.\nThey take us back to that primitive phase of thought which not only\nidentifies the name with the person or thing it represents, but makes it a\nseparate entity with an existence of its own.\n\nThe legend of the sun-god of Edfu is equally instructive, though in its\npresent form it is not earlier than the Ptolemaic age. This begins as\nfollows: \u201cIn the three hundred and sixty-third year of the reign of\nRa-Harmakhis, the ever-living, Ra was in Nubia with his soldiers. Enemies,\nhowever, conspired (_uu_) against him; hence the country has ever since\nborne the name of the land of Conspirators (_Uaua_). Then the god Ra went\nhis way in his bark along with his followers, and landed in the nome of\nEdfu. Here the god Hor-Be\u1e25udet (the winged disc) entered the bark of Ra\nand said to his father: \u2018O Harmakhis, I see how the enemy have conspired\nagainst their lord.\u2019 Then said the Majesty of Ra-Harmakhis to the person\nof Hor-Be\u1e25udet: \u2018O son of Ra, exalted one, who hast emanated from me,\nsmite the enemy before thee forthwith.\u2019 Hor-Be\u1e25udet flew up to the sun in\nthe form of a great winged disc; on that account he is ever since called\nthe great god, the lord of heaven. He espied the enemy from the sky, he\nfollowed them in the form of a great winged disc. Through the attack which\nhe made upon them in front, their eyes saw no longer, their ears heard no\nlonger, each slew his neighbour forthwith, there remained not one alive.\nThen Hor-Be\u1e25udet came in a many-coloured form as a great winged disc into\nthe bark of Ra-Harmakhis. And Thoth said to Ra: \u2018Lord of the gods, the god\nof Be\u1e25udet (Edfu) has come in the form of a great winged disc: from this\nday forth he shall be called Hor-Be\u1e25udet (Horus of Edfu).\u2019 And he said\n(again): \u2018From this day forth the city of Edfu shall be called the city of\nHor-Be\u1e25udet.\u2019 Then Ra embraced the form of Hor, and said to Hor-Be\u1e25udet:\n\u2018Thou makest the water of Edfu (red with blood like) grapes, and thy heart\nis rejoiced thereat.\u2019 Hence this water of Edfu is called (the water of\ngrapes).\n\n\u201cAnd Hor-Be\u1e25udet said: \u2018March on, O Ra, and behold thine enemies under thy\nfeet in this land.\u2019 When the Majesty of Ra had turned back, and the\ngoddess Astart\u00ea with him, he saw the enemy lying on the ground, each\nextended like a prisoner. Then said Ra to Hor-Be\u1e25udet: \u2018That is a suitable\nlife.\u2019 Hence the seat of Hor-Be\u1e25udet has ever since been called the place\nof the Suitable Life. And Thoth said: \u2018It was a piercing (_deb_) of my\nenemies.\u2019 So the nome of Edfu (_Deb_) has been called ever since by that\nname. And Thoth said to Hor-Be\u1e25udet: \u2018Thou art a great protection\u2019 (_m\u00e2k\n\u00e2a_). Great in Protection (_\u00e2a m\u00e2k_) accordingly has the sacred bark of\nHorus been ever since called.\n\n\u201cThen Ra spake to the gods who were with him: \u2018Let us voyage (_khen_) in\nour bark on the Nile; we are rejoiced, for our enemies lie on the ground.\u2019\nThe (canal) in which the great god was has ever since been called the\nWater of Voyaging (_Pe-khen_).\n\n\u201cThen the enemies of Ra entered the water: they changed themselves into\ncrocodiles and hippopotamuses. But Harmakhis voyaged on the water in his\nbark. When the crocodiles and hippopotamuses came up to him, they opened\ntheir jaws in order to destroy the Majesty of Harmakhis. Then came\nHor-Be\u1e25udet with his followers the blacksmiths (_mesniu_); each held an\niron lance and chain in his hand, wherewith he smote the crocodiles and\nthe hippopotamuses. Then three hundred and eighty-one of the enemy were\nbrought to the spot, who had been killed in sight of the city of Edfu.\n\n\u201cAnd Harmakhis said to Hor-Be\u1e25udet: \u2018Let my image be in Southern Egypt,\nsince there it is that the victory was gained\u2019 (_nekht \u00e2\u1e25_). So the\ndwelling-place of Hor-Be\u1e25udet (at Edfu) has ever since been called the\nVictorious (_Nekht-\u00e2\u1e25_). And Thoth said, when he had seen the enemy lying\non the ground: \u2018Glad are your hearts, O gods of heaven; glad are your\nhearts, O gods of earth! Horus the younger is come in peace; he has\nwrought wonders in his journey which he undertook in accordance with the\nBook of the Slaying of the Hippopotamus.\u2019 Ever since was there (at Edfu) a\nforge (_mesen_) of Horus.(177)\n\n\u201cHor-Be\u1e25udet changed his form into that of a winged solar disc, which\nremained there above the prow of the bark of Ea. He took with him Nekheb,\nthe goddess of the south, and Uazit, the goddess of the north, in the form\nof two serpents, in order to annihilate the enemy in their crocodile and\nhippopotamus bodies in every place to which he came, both in Southern and\nin Northern Egypt.\n\n\u201cThen the enemy fled before him, they turned their faces towards the\nsouth, their hearts sank within them from fear. But Hor-Be\u1e25udet was behind\nthem in the bark of Ra, with an iron lance and chain in his hand. With him\nwere his followers, armed with weapons and chains. Then beheld he the\nenemy towards the south-east of Thebes in a plain two sch\u0153ni in size.\u201d\n\nHere follows an account of the several battles which drove the enemies of\nHorus from place to place until eventually all Egypt passed under his\nsway. The first battle, that which took place south-east of Thebes, was at\nAa-Zadmi, so called from the \u201cwounds\u201d inflicted on the foe, which\nhenceforth bore the sacred name of H\u00e2t-Ra, \u201cthe House of Ra.\u201d The second\nwas at Neter-khadu, \u201cthe divine carnage,\u201d to the north-east of Dendera;\nthe third at Hebnu, near Minia, in the nome of the Gazelle; and others\nfollowed at Oxyrrhynchus or Be\u1e25nesa, and Herakleopolis or A\u1e25nas, where a\ntwofold Mesen or \u201cForge\u201d was established. Then the foe were driven through\nthe Delta and defeated at Zaru on its eastern frontier, whence they fled\nin ships down the Red Sea, but were finally overthrown at Shas-\u1e25er, near\nthe later Berenik\u00ea, at the end of the road that led across the desert from\nthe Nile.\n\nMeanwhile, on the 7th of Tybi, their leader \u201cSet had come forward and\ncried horribly, uttering curses upon the deed of Hor-Be\u1e25udet in slaying\nthe enemy. And Ra said to Thoth: \u2018The horrible one cries loudly on account\nof what Hor-Be\u1e25udet has done against him.\u2019 Thoth replied to Ra: \u2018Let the\ncries be called horrible from this day forward.\u2019 Hor-Be\u1e25udet fought long\nwith Set; he flung his iron at him, he smote him to the ground in the city\nwhich henceforward was called Pa-Re\u1e25e\u1e25ui (the House of the Twins).(178)\nWhen Hor-Be\u1e25udet returned, he brought Set with him; his spear stuck in his\nneck, his chain was on his hand; the mace of Horus had smitten him, and\nclosed his mouth. He brought him before his father Ra.\n\n\u201cThen Ra said to Thoth: \u2018Let the companions of Set be given to Isis and\nHorus her son, that they may deal with them as they will.\u2019... So Horus the\nson of Isis cut off the head of Set and his confederates before his father\nRa and all the great Ennead. He carried him under his feet through the\nland, with the axe on his head and in his back.\u201d\n\nSet, however, was not slain. He transformed himself into a serpent, and\nthe battles succeeded which ended with the victory at Shas-\u1e25er in the land\nof Uaua. After this \u201cHarmakhis came in his bark and landed at Thes-Hor\n(the Throne of Horus or Edfu). And Thoth said: \u2018The dispenser of rays who\ncometh forth from Ra has conquered the enemy in his form (of a winged\ndisc); let him be named henceforward the dispenser of rays who cometh\nforth from the horizon.\u2019 And Ra said to Thoth: \u2018Bring this sun (the winged\ndisk) to every place where I am, to the seats of the gods in Southern\nEgypt, to the seats of the gods in Northern Egypt, (to the seats of the\ngods) in the other world, that it may drive all evil from its\nneighbourhood.\u2019 Thoth brought it accordingly to all places, as many as\nexist where there are gods and goddesses. It is the winged solar disc\nwhich is placed over the sanctuaries of all gods and goddesses in Egypt,\nsince these sanctuaries are also that of Hor-Be\u1e25udet.\u201d(179)\n\nThe legend is a curious combination of the traditions relative to the\nconquest of the neolithic population by the Pharaonic Egyptians, of the\nmyth of Osiris, of etymological speculations about the meaning of certain\nproper names, and of an attempt to explain the origin of the winged solar\ndisc. We may gather from it that the disc was first used as an ornament at\nEdfu, and that it was believed, like the winged bulls of Assyria, to have\nthe power of preventing the demons of evil from passing the door over\nwhich it was placed. Whether, however, this was one of the superstitions\nof the older people, or whether it was brought by the conquerors from\ntheir Babylonian home, is doubtful; perhaps the fact that the disc was a\nsymbolic and architectural ornament, and was confined, so far as we know,\nto the temples of the official gods, points in the latter direction. It is\notherwise with the temple relics mentioned in a legend which has been\npreserved on a granite shrine of the Ptolemaic epoch, that long served as\na water-trough by the side of the well at El-Ar\u00eesh. The temple from which\nit originally came was that of At-Nebes, the sacred name of the city of\nQesem or Goshen, now Saft el-Henna. The legend begins by describing the\nreign of Shu, who fortified At-Nebes against \u201cthe children of Apophis,\u201d\nthe Semites of \u201cthe red desert,\u201d who came from the East \u201cat nightfall upon\nthe road of At-Nebes\u201d to invade Egypt. Here he dwelt in his palace, and\nfrom hence he \u201cascended into heaven,\u201d when he had grown old and the time\nhad come for him to die. He was succeeded by his son Seb, who \u201cdiscussed\nthe history of the city with the gods who attended him, (and they told\nhim) all that happened when the Majesty of Ra was in At-Nebes, the\nconflicts of the king Tum in this locality, the valour of the Majesty of\nShu in this city ... (and the wonders that) the serpent-goddess Ankhet had\ndone for Ra when he was with her; the victories of the Majesty of Shu,\nsmiting the evil ones, when he placed her upon his brow. Then said the\nMajesty of Seb: \u2018I also (will place) her upon my head, even as my father\nShu did.\u2019 Seb entered the temple of Aart (Lock of Hair) together with the\ngods that were with him; then he stretched forth his hand to take the\ncasket in which (Ankhet) was; the serpent came forth and breathed its\nvapour on the Majesty of Seb, confounding him greatly; those who followed\nhim fell dead, and his Majesty himself was burned in that day. When his\nMajesty had fled to the north of At-Nebes, with the fire of the cobra upon\nhim, behold, when he came to the fields of henna, the pain of his burn was\nnot yet assuaged, and the gods who followed him said unto him: \u2018Come, let\nthem take the lock (_aart_) of Ra which is there, when thy Majesty shall\ngo to see it and its mystery, and his Majesty shall be healed (as soon as\nit is placed) upon thee.\u2019 So the Majesty of Seb caused the magic lock of\nhair to be brought to Pa-Aart (the House of the Lock), for which was made\nthat reliquary of hard stone which is hidden in the secret place of\nPa-Aart, in the district of the divine lock of the god Ra; and behold the\nfire departed from the limbs of the Majesty of Seb. And many years\nafterwards, when this lock of hair was brought back to Pa-Aart in\nAt-Nebes, and cast into the great lake of Pa-Aart, whose name is the\nDwelling of Waves, in order that it might be purified, behold the lock\nbecame a crocodile; it flew to the water and became Sebek, the divine\ncrocodile of At-Nebes.\u201d(180)\n\nInside the shrine is a picture of the two relics, the cobra which adorned\nthe head-dress of the Pharaoh, and the _aart_ or lock of hair which was\nsupposed to give its name to the temple. They were doubtless preserved at\nAt-Nebes, and shown to the faithful as the veritable objects which had\nproved the bane and the antidote of the god Seb. They introduce us to a\nside of Egyptian religion which, though essentially characteristic of the\npopular faith, had also received the sanction of the official creed. The\nbelief in amulets and charms was too deeply engrained in the popular mind\nto be ignored; they were consequently taken under the patronage of the\ngods, and a theory was invented to explain their efficacy. Already the\nlater chapters of the Book of the Dead are concerned with the various\namulets which were necessary to the preservation or resuscitation of the\nbody; and even if the latter were regarded as symbolic, they were concrete\nsymbols\u2014symbols, that is to say, which actually possessed the virtues\nascribed to them. Just as the name was a concrete entity, expressive of\nthe very essence of the thing to which it was applied, so too the symbol\nwas an entity with a concrete existence of its own. The materialistic\ntendency of Egyptian thought, added to the fetishism of the earlier\nstratum of native religion, produced this result. The doctrine of the Ka\nfurnished a theory by which the educated classes could explain the\nefficacy of the amulet and the active virtues of the symbol. It was the\nKa, the spiritual and yet materialised double, of the amulet that worked\nthe charm\u2014that made the scarab, for instance, a substitute for the living\nheart, or the _dad_\u2014the symbol of stability\u2014a passport to the other\nworld.(181)\n\nThe amulets buried with the dead, the relics preserved in the temples, had\noriginally been the fetishes of the earlier population of Egypt. They\nhardly changed their character when they became symbols endowed with\nmysterious properties, or relics of the State gods which still possessed\nmiraculous powers. The peasant might be told in the ritual of Amon: in\n\u201cthe sanctuary of the god clamour is an abomination to him: pray for\nthyself with a loving heart, in which the words remain hidden; that he may\nsupply thy need, hear thy words and accept thine offering\u201d;(182) but it\nwas a teaching that was far above him. When he entered the sanctuary it\nwas to see the processions of the priests and the relics preserved in it,\nand it was in these relics that he still put his trust. It was not only in\nEthiopia that there were moving and speaking statues which elected the\nking by taking him by the hand; in Thebes itself, under the priestly kings\nof the Twentieth Dynasty, we find wonder-working statues whose reality was\nguaranteed by the priesthood. One of them, it was said, was sent to Asia,\nwhere it delivered a king\u2019s daughter from the demon that possessed her,\nand afterwards returned in a moment to Thebes of its own accord; while\nothers answered the questions addressed to them by nodding the head, or\neven pronounced prophecies regarding the future.(183) Indeed, as we have\nseen, the old theory of the ka implied that the statue of the dead man\ncould be reanimated in a sense by his spirit; and a text at Dendera speaks\nof the soul of Hathor descending from heaven as a human-headed hawk of\nlapis-lazuli, and uniting itself with her image. The peasant, therefore,\nmight be excused if he remained true to the superstitions and traditions\nof his ancestors, and left the official religion, with its one ineffable\ngod, to those who were cultured enough to understand it. Like the peasant\nof modern Italy, he was content with a divinity that he could see and\nhandle, and about whose wonder-working powers he had no doubt. Materialism\nis the basis of primitive religion; the horizon of primitive man is\nlimited, and he has not yet learnt to separate thought from the senses\nthrough which alone his narrow world is known to him. The simple faith of\na child often wears a very materialistic form.\n\n\n\n\nLecture X. The Place Of Egyptian Religion In The History Of Theology.\n\n\nIn the preceding lectures I have endeavoured to bring before you the more\nsalient points in the religion of the ancient Egyptians, in so far as they\nillustrate their conception of the divine. But we must remember that all\nsuch descriptions of ancient belief must be approximate only. We cannot\nput ourselves in the position of those who held it; our inherited\nexperiences, our racial tendencies, our education and religious ideas, all\nalike forbid it. If the Egyptians of the Theban period found it difficult\nto understand the ritual of their own earlier history, and misinterpreted\nthe expressions and allusions in it, how much more difficult must it be\nfor us to do so. The most ordinary religious terms do not bear for us the\nsame meaning that they bore for the Egyptians. The name of God calls up\nother associations and ideas; the very word \u201cdivine\u201d has a different\nsignification in the ancient and the modern world among Eastern and\nWestern peoples. In fact, the more literal is our translation of an old\nreligious text, the more likely we are to misunderstand it.\n\nAnd yet in one sense we are the religious heirs of the builders and\nfounders of the Egyptian temples. Many of the theories of Egyptian\nreligion, modified and transformed no doubt, have penetrated into the\ntheology of Christian Europe, and form, as it were, part of the woof in\nthe web of modern religious thought. Christian theology was largely\norganised and nurtured in the schools of Alexandria, and Alexandria was\nnot only the meeting-place of East and West, it was also the place where\nthe decrepit theology of Egypt was revivified by contact with the\nspeculative philosophy of Greece. The Egyptian, the Greek, and the Jew met\nthere on equal terms, and the result was a theological system in which\neach had his share. In Philo, we are told, we find Moses Platonising; but\nthe atmosphere in which he did so was that of the old Egyptian faith. And\nwhat was true of the philosophy of Philo was still more true of the\nphilosophy of Alexandrine Christianity.\n\nYou cannot but have been struck by the similarity of the ancient Egyptian\ntheory of the spiritual part of man to that which underlies so much\nChristian speculation on the subject, and which still pervades the popular\ntheology of to-day. There is the same distinction between soul and spirit,\nthe same belief in the resurrection of a material body, and in a heaven\nwhich is but a glorified counterpart of our own earth. Perhaps, however,\nthe indebtedness of Christian theological theory to ancient Egyptian dogma\nis nowhere more striking than in the doctrine of the Trinity. The very\nterms used of it by Christian theologians meet us again in the\ninscriptions and papyri of Egypt.\n\nProfessor Maspero has attempted to show that the Egyptian doctrine of the\nTrinity was posterior to that of the Ennead.(184) Whether this were so or\nnot, it makes its appearance at an early date in Egyptian theology, and\nwas already recognised in the Pyramid texts. Originally the trinity was a\ntriad like those we find in Babylonian mythology. Here and there the\nprimitive triads survived into historical times, like that of Khnum and\nthe two goddesses of the Cataract. But more frequently the trinity was an\nartificial creation, the formation of which can still be traced. Thus at\nThebes the female element in it was found in Mut, \u201cthe mother\u201d goddess, a\ntitle of the supreme goddess of Upper Egypt; while Khonsu, the moon-god,\nor Mentu, the old god of the nome, became the divine son, and so took a\nplace subordinate to that of the local god Amon. Sometimes recourse was\nhad to grammar, and the second person in the trinity was obtained by\nattaching the feminine suffix to the name of the chief god. In this way\nAmon-t was grammatically evolved from Amon, and even Ra-t from Ra.\nElsewhere an epithet of the god was transformed into his son; at Memphis,\nfor example, Imhotep, \u201che who comes in peace,\u201d a title of Pta\u1e25, became his\nson and the second person in the trinity. Other members of the trinity\nwere fetched from neighbouring cities and nomes; Nit of Sais had Osiris as\na husband, and Sekhet of Letopolis and Bast of Bubastis were successively\nregarded as the wives of Pta\u1e25.\n\nThe triad consisted of a divine father, wife, and son. It was thus a\ncounterpart of the human family, and belonged to the same order of ideas\nas that which explained the creation of the world by a process of\ngeneration. This was the cosmology of Heliopolis, and it is probable that\nto Heliopolis also we must ascribe the doctrine of the Trinity. At any\nrate the doctrine seems to have been solar in its origin. As Tum, the god\nof sunset, was identical with Khepera, the sun of the morning, and Ra, the\nsun of the noonday,\u2014all three being but one god under diverse forms,\u2014so\nthe divine father was believed to engender himself in the person of the\ndivine son, and the divine mother to be one with the divine father and\nson. The divine essence remained necessarily the same, whatever might be\nthe forms or names under which it displayed itself; and the name, it must\nbe remembered, had for the Egyptian a separate and real existence. The\nfather became the son and the son the father through all time, and of both\nalike the mother was but another form. It was eternal fatherhood, eternal\nmotherhood, and eternal generation. The development of the doctrine was\nassisted by that identification of the Egyptian deities with the sun-god\nwhich ended in solar pantheism, as well as by the old theory of the ka, of\na personality distinguishable from that to which it belonged, identical\nwith that of which it was the double, and yet at the same time enjoying an\nindependent existence of its own.\n\nWith the spread of the Osirian form of faith the doctrine of the Trinity\nbecame universal throughout Egypt. The organisation of the faith had\nincluded the reduction of the cycle of divinities connected with Osiris\ninto a trinity. Thoth and Anubis, Nebh\u00e2t and Set, were separated from him,\nand henceforth he was made the head of a triad, in which Isis was the\nsecond person, and Horus, the avenger of his father, was the third. How\ncompletely the father and son were merged together may be seen from a hymn\nto Horus which has been translated by Chabas(185)\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cThe gods are joyous at the arrival of Osiris,\n    the son of Horus, the intrepid,\n    the truth-speaking, the son of Isis, the heir of Osiris. The\n                divine chiefs join him,\n    the gods recognise the omnipotent child himself ...\n    the reign of justice belongs to him.\n    Horus has found his justification, to him is given the title of\n                his father;\n    he appears with the _atef_-crown by order of Seb. He takes the\n                royalty of the two worlds,\n    the crown of Upper Egypt is placed upon his head.\n    He judges the world as he likes,\n    heaven and earth are beneath his eye,\n    he commands mankind\u2014the intellectual beings, the race of the\n                Egyptians and the northern barbarians.\n    The circuit of the solar disc is under his control;\n    the winds, the waters, the wood of the plants, and all\n                vegetables....\n    Sanctifying, beneficent is his name ...\n    evil flies afar off, and the earth brings forth abundantly under\n                her lord.\n    Justice is confirmed by its lord, who chases away iniquity.\n    Mild is thy heart, O (Osiris) Un-nefer, son of Isis;\n    he has taken the crown of Upper Egypt; for him is acknowleged the\n                authority of his father in the great dwelling of Seb;\n    he is Ra when speaking, Thoth when writing; the divine chiefs are\n                at rest.\u201d\n\n\nHere Osiris is identified with Horus, and so becomes the son of his own\nwife.\n\nThe Egyptian trinity has thus grown out of the triad under the influence\nof the solar theology, and of the old conception of a personality which\npossessed a concrete form. Once introduced into the Osirian creed, it\nspread with it throughout Egypt, and became a distinguishing feature of\nEgyptian theology. Along with the doctrines of the resurrection of the\nbody and of a judgment to come, it passed into the schools of Alexandria,\nand was there thrown into the crucible of Greek philosophy. The Platonic\ndoctrine of ideas was adapted to the Egyptian doctrine of personality, and\nthe three persons of the trinity became Unity, Mind, and Soul\u2014absolute\nthought, absolute reason, and absolute energy.(186)\n\nBut while, on the one hand, there is continuity between the religious\nthought of ancient Egypt and the religious thought of the world of to-day,\nthere is also continuity, on the other hand, between the religion of Egypt\nand that of primitive Babylonia. In the course of these lectures I have\nmore than once pointed to the fact: the Pharaonic Egyptians were of\nAsiatic origin and they necessarily brought with them the religious ideas\nof their Eastern home. As we come to know more both of early Babylonian\ncivilisation and of the beginnings of Egyptian history, we shall doubtless\ndiscover that the links between them are closer than we at present\nimagine, and much that is now obscure will become clear and distinct.\nMeanwhile there is one link which I cannot pass over. Astro-theology once\nplayed a considerable part in the religion of the Egyptians. In the\nhistorical age it has lost its importance; the stars have been identified\nwith the official deities, who have accordingly absorbed their individual\nattributes; but echoes of the worship formerly paid to them are still\nheard in the Pyramid texts. Sa\u1e25u or Orion is still remembered as a mighty\nhunter, whose hunting-ground was the plain of heaven, and whose prey were\nthe gods themselves. When he rises, it is said in the Pyramid of Unas,\n\u201cthe stars fight together, and the archers patrol\u201d the sky which drops\nwith rain; the smaller stars which form his constellation pursue and lasso\nthe gods as the human hunter lassoes the wild bull; they slay and\ndisembowel their booty, and boil the flesh in glowing caldrons. The\n\u201cgreater gods\u201d are hunted \u201cin the morning,\u201d those of less account at\nmid-day, the \u201clesser gods\u201d \u201cat evening, and Sa\u1e25u refreshes himself with\nthe divine banquet,\u201d feeding on their bodies and absorbing \u201ctheir magic\nvirtues.\u201d \u201cThe great ones of the sky\u201d launch \u201cthe flames against the\ncaldrons wherein are the haunches of the followers\u201d of the gods; the\npole-star, \u201cwho causes the dwellers in the sky to march in procession\nround\u201d Orion, \u201cthrows into the caldron the legs of their wives.\u201d(187) We\nare transported to the cannibal\u2019s kitchen of some African chieftain, such\nas that represented on a curious stela found in Darf\u00fbr, and now in the\nmuseum of Constantinople. The whole description takes us back to a period\nin the history of Egypt long anterior to that of the Pyramids, when the\nPharaonic invaders were first beginning to mingle with the older\npopulation of the land and become acquainted with its practices. In the\ndays of Unas the real meaning of the expressions handed down by\ntheological conservatism had been forgotten, or was interpreted\nmetaphorically; but they remained to prove that the age when Orion was\nstill an object of worship superior to the gods of heaven was one which\nwent back to the very dawn of Pharaonic history. The cult of the stars\nmust have been brought by \u201cthe followers of Horus\u201d from their Asiatic\nhome.(188)\n\nThe fame of Orion was eclipsed in later days by that of Sopd or Sirius.\nBut this had its reason in the physio-graphical peculiarities of Egypt.\nThe heliacal rising of Sirius, the Dog Star, that is to say, its first\nappearance along with the sun, corresponded with the rise of the Nile in\nUpper Egypt, and accordingly became a mark of time, and the starting-point\nof the solar year. Its importance therefore was great, not only for the\ncalendar, but also for those agricultural operations upon which the very\nexistence of Egypt depended. We need not wonder, accordingly, if with the\nsettlement of the Pharaonic Egyptians in the valley of the Nile the\nworship and name of Orion fell more and more into the background, while\nthat of Sirius became pre-eminent. How far back the pre-eminence of Sirius\nreaches may be gathered from the fact that the twentieth nome of Northern\nEgypt\u2014that of Goshen\u2014derived its name from a combination of the mummified\nhawk of Horus and the cone which, as Brugsch first showed,(189) represents\nthe shaft of zodiacal light that accompanies the rising of Sirius before\nthe dawn of day. Sopd or Sirius is thus identified with the dead Horus who\npresided over Nekhen in Upper Egypt, and preceded Osiris as the god of the\ndead.(190)\n\nOf the other stars and constellations we do not know much. The Great Bear\nwas called \u201cthe haunch of beef,\u201d and was at times identified with Set, and\nmade the abode of the souls of the wicked. Not far off was the\nhippopotamus, which Brugsch would identify with Draco; while among other\nconstellations were to be found the Lion and the Horus-hawk, as well as a\nwarrior armed with a spear.\n\nAll over the world the more prominent stars and constellations have\nreceived names. But it is only the more prominent and brilliant among them\nof which this is true. So far as we know, the only people who have ever\nsystematically mapped out the heavens, dividing the stars into groups, and\ngiving to each group a name of its own, were the Babylonians; and it was\nfrom the Babylonians that the constellations as known to Greeks and\nRomans, to Hindus, or to Chinese, were ultimately derived. The inference,\ntherefore, is near at hand, that the primitive Egyptians also were\nindebted for their map of the sky to the same source. And the inference is\nsupported by more than one fact.\n\nOn the one side, the names of several of the constellations were the same\namong both Babylonians and Egyptians. Of this the Twins, Aquarius, or the\nFamily, are examples, while it can hardly be an accident that Orion in\nboth systems of astronomy is a giant and a hunter. \u201cThe Bull of heaven\u201d\nwas a Babylonian star, and Jupiter bore the Sumerian name of Gudi-bir,\n\u201cthe Bull of light\u201d; in the Pyramid texts also we have a \u201cBull of heaven,\u201d\nthe planet Saturn according to Brugsch, Jupiter according to Lepsius.\nStill more striking are the thirty-six Egyptian decans, the stars who\nwatched for ten days each over the 360 days of the ancient Egyptian year,\nand were divided into two classes or hemispheres, those of the day and\nthose of the night.(191) Not only did the early Chald\u00e6an year similarly\nconsist of 360 days; it too was presided over by thirty-six \u201ccouncillor\u201d\nstars, half of which were above the earth, while the other half were below\nit.(192) Such a coincidence cannot have been accidental; the Babylonian\nand Egyptian decans must have had the same origin.\n\nBut there was yet a further parallelism between the stellar theology of\nEgypt and that of Babylonia. In both countries the worship of the stars\npassed into an astro-theology. The official gods were identified with the\nplanets and fixed stars, and the stellar cult of the people was thus\nabsorbed into the State religion. But whereas this astro-theology was\ncharacteristic of Babylonia, it has done little more than leave its traces\non the historical religion of Egypt. Jupiter, Saturn, and Mars were\nidentified with Horus under different forms, and Mercury with Set, while\nVenus became \u201cthe bark (_za_)(193) of the ph\u0153nix\u201d or soul \u201cof Osiris.\u201d\nSirius was made the star of Isis, Orion the star of Osiris. But, like the\ncult of the stars itself, this astro-theology belongs to a far-off age in\nEgyptian history. It is the last faint reflection of a phase of religious\nthought which had passed away when the monumental records first begin.\n\nIt is the same with a curious echo of ancient Babylonian cosmology, to\nwhich Prof. Hommel has drawn our attention. The old Babylonian Epic of the\nCreation begins with the words\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cAt that time the heaven above was not known by name,\n    the earth beneath was not named,\n    in the beginning the deep was their generator,\n    the chaos of the sea was the mother of them all.\u201d\n\n\nThe lines are the introduction to a story of the Creation of which they\nform an integral part. On the walls of the Pyramid of Pepi I. we read\nagain almost the same words. Pepi, it is said, \u201cwas born of his father\nTum. At that time the heaven was not, the earth was not, men did not\nexist, the gods were not born, there was no death.\u201d(194) But here the\nwords have been introduced without connection with the context; they\ncohere neither with what precedes nor with what follows them, and are\nevidently nothing but an old formula torn from the cosmogony to which they\nonce belonged, and repeated without a clear understanding of what they\nreally meant. The phrases are found again in the later religious\nliterature of Egypt, embedded in it like flies in amber or the fossils in\nan old sea-beach.(195) To recover their original meaning we must betake\nourselves to the clay tablets of Assyria and Babylonia, and the\ncosmological theories of early Chald\u00e6a. They presuppose that story of a\ncreation out of the chaos of the deep which was indigenous in Babylonia\nalone.\n\nThis deep, which lay at the foundation of Babylonian cosmology, was\nsymbolised in the temples by a \u201csea\u201d across which the images of the gods\nwere carried in \u201cships\u201d on their days of festival. In Babylonia such\n\u201cseas\u201d had a reason for their existence. The Persian Gulf, it was\nbelieved, was the cradle of Babylonian culture; it was also the source of\nthat cosmogony which saw in the deep the \u201cmother\u201d of all things. That it\nshould have its mimic representatives in the temples of the country was\nbut natural; it was from the \u201cdeep\u201d that the gods had come, and the deep\nwas still the home of the culture-god Ea.(196)\n\nIn Egypt, on the other hand, the sea was out of place nay more, it was\naltogether unnatural. If water were needed, the sacred Nile flowed at the\nfoot of the temple or else there were canals which conducted the waters of\nthe river through the temple lands. There was no primeval deep to be\nsymbolised, no Persian Gulf out of which the culture-god had risen with\nthe gifts of civilisation. If the gods desired to sail in their barks, it\nwas reasonable to suppose that they would do so on the Nile or its\ntributary canals. And yet the supposition would be wrong. The gods had\nindeed their sacred \u201cships\u201d as in Babylonia; but, as in Babylonia, it was\non an artificially-constructed lake that they floated, and not, as a rule,\non the river Nile. Could anything indicate more clearly the origin of the\nreligious beliefs and practices of the Pharaonic Egyptians? Like the brick\ntombs of the Old Empire, with their recessed panels and pilasters, it\npoints to Babylonia and the cosmological theories which had their birth in\nthe Babylonian plain.(197)\n\nThe religion of ancient Egypt is thus no isolated fact. It links itself,\non the one hand, with the beliefs and religious conceptions of the\npresent, and, on the other hand, with those of a yet older past. But it is\na linking only; Egyptian religion is no more the religion of ancient\nBabylonia than it is modern Christianity. In Egypt it assumed a form\npeculiar to itself, adapting itself to the superstitions and habits of the\nearlier inhabitants of the land, and developing the ideas which lay latent\nwithin it. It was characterised by the inexorable logic with which each of\nthese ideas was followed to its minutest conclusions, and at the same time\nby the want of any attempt to harmonise these conclusions one with the\nother, however inconsistent they might be. It was also characterised by a\nspirit of creativeness; the Egyptian created new religious conceptions\nbecause he was not afraid to follow his premisses to their end.\n\nBut he was intensely practical. Abstractions as such had little attraction\nfor him, and he translated them into material form. The symbolism of his\nsystem of writing favoured the process: even such an abstract idea as that\nof \u201cbecoming\u201d became for him a \u201ctransformation\u201d or \u201cchange of outward\nshape.\u201d In spite, therefore, of the spirituality and profundity of much of\nhis theology, his religion remained essentially materialistic. The gods\nmight indeed pass one into the other and be but the manifold forms under\nwhich the ever-changing divine essence manifested itself, but this was\nbecause it was one with nature and the infinite variety which nature\ndisplays. Even the supreme god of Khu-n-Aten incorporated himself at it\nwere in the visible orb of the sun.\n\nThe incarnation of the deity accordingly presented no difficulty to the\nEgyptian mind. It followed necessarily from the fundamental principles of\nhis creed. The divinity which permeated the whole of nature revealed\nitself more clearly than elsewhere in that which possessed life. Egyptian\nreligious thought never quite shook itself free from the influences of the\nprimitive belief that life and motion were the same. Whatever moves\npossesses life, whatever lives must move;\u2014such was, and still is, one of\nthe axioms of primitive man. And since the deity manifested itself in\nmovement, it could be recognised in whatever was alive. Man on the one\nside became a god in the person of the Pharaoh, the gods on the other side\nbecame men who had lived and died like Osiris, or had ruled over Egypt in\nthe days of old. Even the ordinary man contained within him a particle or\neffluence of the divine essence which could never die; and the bodily husk\nin which it was incarnated could, under certain conditions, acquire the\nproperties of that divinity to which it had afforded a home. That the\ndivine essence could thus assume an individual form, was part of the\ndoctrine which saw, in the manifold varieties of nature, the\nmanifestations of a \u201csingle god.\u201d The belief in the incarnation of the\ndeity was a necessary consequence of a materialistic pantheism. And it\nmattered little whether the incarnation took place under a human or under\nan animal shape; the human and the animal god had alike been a heritage\nfrom elements which, diverse though they may have been in origin, combined\nto form the Egyptian people, and both the man and the beast were alike\nliving and therefore divine. The beast was more mysterious than the man,\nthat was all; the workings of its mind were more difficult to comprehend,\nand the language it spoke was more unintelligible. But on that very\naccount it was better adapted for the symbolism which literature and\neducation encouraged, and which became an essential part of the texture of\nEgyptian thought.\n\nIf, then, we would understand the conception of the divine formed by the\neducated Egyptian of the historical age, we must remember the\ncharacteristics of Egyptian thought which lay behind it. Materialism and\nsymbolism constituted the background of Egyptian religion. The one\npresupposed the other, for the symbol presented the abstract idea in a\nmaterial and visible shape, while the materialism of the Egyptian mind\ndemanded something concrete which the senses could apprehend. The\nconception of the ka, with which Egyptian religion begins, is\ncharacteristic of Egyptian religious thought up to the last. It is like\nthe \u201cmaterialised spirits\u201d of modern spiritualism, spirits which are\nmerely matter in an etherialised form. The Egyptian gave not only shape\nbut substance to his mental and spiritual creations; like the \u201cideas\u201d of\nPlato, they became sensuous realities like the written symbols which\nexpressed them. Not only were the name and the thing never dissociated\nfrom one another, the name was looked on as the essence of the thing, and\nthe name included its expression in both sound and writing. The bird which\nrepresented the idea of \u201csoul\u201d became in time the soul itself.\n\nThis very fact assisted in spiritualising Egyptian religion. Ideas and\ntheir symbols interchange one with the other; the ideas, moreover, develop\nand pass out of one form into another. The identification, therefore, of\nthe abstract and the concrete, of ideas and substantial existence, made a\npantheistic conception of the universe easy. The divinity clothed itself\nin as many forms as there were symbols to express it, and these forms\npassed one into the other like phases of thought. The Egyptian was the\nfirst discoverer of the term \u201cbecoming,\u201d and the keynote of his creed was\nthe doctrine of transformation.\n\nTransformation, it must be remembered, is not transmigration. There was no\npassage of an individual soul from body to body, from form to form; the\ndivine essence permeated all bodies and forms alike, though it manifested\nitself at a given moment only under certain ones. It was in this power of\nmanifestation that the transformation consisted. Had the Egyptian not been\nfettered by his materialistic symbolism, he would doubtless have gone\nfurther and concluded that the various manifestations of the divinity were\nsubjective only\u2014existing, that is to say, only in the mind of the\nobserver; as it was, he held them to be objective, and to possess the same\nsubstantial reality as the symbolic pictures by which they were denoted.\n\nWith all this, however, there was no severe literalism in the\ninterpretation of the symbol. Whatever may have been the case at the\noutset, the symbol was as much a metaphor in the historical ages of\nEgyptian history as are the metaphors of our own language. When the\nEgyptian spoke of \u201ceating\u201d his god, he meant no more than we do when we\nspeak of \u201cabsorbing\u201d a subject.(198) The Pyramid texts are full of such\nfaded and forgotten metaphors; the Egyptian was conservative above all\nother men, and the language of religion is conservative above all others.\nDoubtless, in some cases, he was the victim of the symbols and metaphors\nhe used; but in this respect he does not stand alone. Where he has no\nrival is in the magnitude of the part played in his religion by the symbol\nand its logical development.\n\nIt was just this symbolism which enabled him to retain, on the one hand,\nall the old formul\u00e6 with their gross materialism and childlike views of\nthe universe, and, on the other hand, to attain to a conception of the\ndivine being which was at once spiritual and sublime. For Egyptian\nreligion, as we find it in the monuments of the educated classes before\nthe decay of the monarchy, was, in spite of its outward show of symbols\nand amulets, full of high thoughts and deep emotions. I cannot do better\nthan quote the words in which it is described by one of its least\nprejudiced students, Professor Maspero:(199) \u201cWhen we put aside the\npopular superstitions and endeavour solely to ascertain its fundamental\ndoctrines, we soon recognise that few religions have been so exalted in\ntheir principles. The Egyptians adored a being who was unique, perfect,\nendowed with absolute knowledge and intelligence, and incomprehensible to\nsuch an extent that it passes man\u2019s powers to state in what he is\nincomprehensible. He is \u2018the one of one, he who exists essentially, the\nonly one who lives substantially, the sole generator in heaven and earth,\nwho is not himself generated.\u2019 Always the same, always immutable in his\nimmutable perfection, always present in the past as in the future, he\nfills the universe without any form in the world being able to give even a\nfeeble idea of his immensity; he is felt everywhere, he is perceived\nnowhere.\n\n\u201cUnique in essence, he is not unique in person. He is father because he\nexists, and the force of his nature is such that he is eternally\nbegetting, without ever growing weak or exhausted. He has no need to go\noutside himself for this act of generation; he finds in his own bosom the\nmaterial of his perpetual fatherhood. Alone in the plenitude of his being\nhe conceives his offspring; and as in him there can be no distinction\nbetween conception and birth, from all eternity \u2018he produces in himself\nanother self.\u2019 He is at once the divine father, mother, and son. Conceived\nof God, born of God, without separating from God, these three persons are\nGod in God, and, far from dividing the primitive unity of the divine\nnature, they all three combine to constitute his infinite perfection.\n\n\u201cDoubtless the mind of the uneducated classes could neither understand nor\nrise to such lofty heights. Human intelligence supports with difficulty so\npure an idea of an absolute being. All the attributes of divinity\u2014his\nimmensity, his eternity, his independence\u2014place him at an infinite\ndistance from ourselves; to comprehend and participate in them, we must\nmake him think as we think, we must lend him our passions and subject him\nto our laws. God must take upon him, with human nature, all the weaknesses\nthat accompany it, all the infirmities under which it labours; in a word,\nthe Word must become flesh. The immaterial god must incarnate himself,\nmust come to the land of Egypt and people it with the gods, his children.\nEach of the persons of the primitive trinity thus became independent and\nformed a new type, from which, in their turn, other lower types emanated.\nFrom trinity to trinity, from personification to personification, that\ntruly incredible number of divinities was soon reached, with forms\nsometimes grotesque and often monstrous, who descended by almost\ninsensible degrees from the highest to the lowest ranks of nature. The\nscribes, the priests, the officials, all the educated world, in fact, of\nEgyptian society, never professed that gross paganism which caused Egypt\nto be called with justice \u2018the mother of superstitions.\u2019 The various names\nand innumerable forms attributed by the multitude to as many distinct and\nindependent divinities, were for them merely names and forms of one and\nthe same being. \u2018God, when he comes as a generator, and brings to light\nthe latent forces of the hidden causes, is called Ammon; when he is the\nspirit who embodies all that is intelligent, he is Imhotep; when he is he\nwho accomplishes all things with art and verity, he is Phthah; when he is\nGod good and beneficent, he is Osiris.\u2019 What the scribe means by these\nwords is the mysterious infinite which animates the universe, the eternal,\nimpenetrable to eyes of flesh, but perceived vaguely by the eyes of the\nspirit. Behind the sensuous appearance, behind the manifestation of the\ndivine nature wherein the popular imagination fancied it saw that nature\nitself, he beheld confusedly a being obscure and sublime, a full\ncomprehension of whom is denied him, and the feeling of this\nincomprehensible presence lends to his prayer a deep and thrilling accent,\na sincerity of thought and emotion, a thousand times more touching than\nthat medley of amorous puerilities, of mystic languors and morbid\ncontrition, which is so often the substitute for religious poetry.\u201d\n\nThere were two deep-rooted conceptions in the Egyptian mind which had much\nto do with the purity and sublimity of his religious ideas. One of these\nwas the conception of a divine law which governed the universe, and to\nwhich the gods themselves had to submit. The other was that of a moral\nGod, of a \u201cgood being\u201d who rewarded\u2014not piety but\u2014uprightness, and\npunished iniquity. The world was ordered and controlled, not by chance or\ncaprice, but by a fixed law, which was, characteristically enough,\nimpersonated in the goddess M\u00e2t. And this law, unlike the blind destiny of\nthe Greek or Roman, was at once divine and moral; it not only represented\nthe order of the universe, against which there was no appeal, but it also\nrepresented an order which was in accordance with justice and truth. The\nlaw which all must obey under penalty of being cast into outer darkness,\nwas an intelligent and moral law; it commended itself necessarily and\ninstinctively to all intelligent beings whose thoughts, words, and deeds\nwere alike righteous. Only those who had conformed to it could be admitted\nafter death into the paradise of Osiris or into the company of the gods,\nand the seal of justification was the pronouncement that the dead man had\n\u201cspoken the truth,\u201d and that his confession in the judgment-hall of Osiris\nhad been in agreement with the truth and with the eternal order of the\nuniverse.\n\nOf the moral character of the Osirian creed I have already spoken. It is\nthe first official recognition by religion that what God requires is\nuprightness of conduct and not ceremonial orthodoxy, the first\nidentification of religion with morality. And the god who required this\nuprightness of conduct was not a \u201clord of hosts,\u201d who compelled adoration\nby the display of his power, but Un-nefer, \u201cthe good being,\u201d who existed\nin order to do good to men. In the conflict with evil he had apparently\nbeen worsted; but though he had died a shameful death, his disciples\nbelieved that it had been endured on their behalf, and that for those who\nfollowed in his footsteps, and whose lives resembled his, he had provided\na better and a happier Egypt in another world, into which sin and pain and\ndeath could not enter, and where he ruled eternally over the cities and\nfields of the blest.\n\nIn the Osirian creed, writer after writer has discovered \u201cfore-gleams\u201d of\nChristianity more striking even than the doctrine of the Trinity, which\nbelongs to the philosophy of faith. But there is nothing wonderful in the\ncontinuity of religious thought. One of the chief lessons impressed upon\nus by the science of the century which has just passed away, is that of\ncontinuity; throughout the world of nature there is no break, no isolated\nlink in the long chain of antecedent and consequent, and still less is\nthere any in the world of thought. Development is but another name for the\ncontinuity which binds the past to the present with stronger fetters than\nthose of destiny. It is not only the philosophy of Christianity, or the\nwider and more general doctrines of its creed, which find an echo in the\nreligion of ancient Egypt; in details also Egypt is linked with the modern\nworld. Long before the Hebrew prophets pictured the kingdom of the\nMessiah, an Egyptian poet, in the reign of Thothmes III., had said: \u201cA\nking shall come from the south, Ameni, the truth-declaring, by name. He\nshall be the son of a woman of Nubia, and will be born in [the south]....\nHe shall assume the crown of Upper Egypt, and lift up the red crown of the\nnorth. He shall unite the double crown.... The people of the age of the\nson of man shall rejoice and establish his name for all eternity. They\nshall be removed far from evil, and the wicked shall humble their mouths\nfor fear of him. The Asiatics shall fall before his blows, and the Libyans\nbefore his flame. The wicked shall wait on his judgments, the rebels on\nhis power. The royal serpent on his brow shall pacify the revolted. A wall\nshall be built, even that of the prince, that the Asiatics may no more\nenter into Egypt.\u201d(200)\n\nYet more striking is the belief in the virgin-birth of the god Pharaoh,\nwhich goes back at least to the time of the Eighteenth Dynasty. On the\nwestern wall of one of the chambers in the southern portion of the temple\nof Luxor, Champollion first noticed that the birth of Amon-hotep III. is\nportrayed. The inscriptions and scenes which describe it have since been\ncopied, and we learn from them that he had no human father; Amon himself\ndescended from heaven and became the father of the future king. His mother\nwas still a virgin when the god of Thebes \u201cincarnated himself,\u201d so that\nshe might \u201cbehold him in his divine form.\u201d And then the hieroglyphic\nrecord continues with words that are put into the mouth of the god.\n\u201cAmon-hotep,\u201d he is made to say, \u201cis the name of the son who is in thy\nwomb. He shall grow up according to the words that proceed out of thy\nmouth. He shall exercise sovereignty and righteousness in this land unto\nits very end. My soul is in him, (and) he shall wear the twofold crown of\nroyalty, ruling the two worlds like the sun for ever.\u201d(201)\n\nBut Amon-hotep III. was not the first of whom it had been said that his\nfather was a god. Fragments of a similar text have been found by Dr.\nNaville at D\u00ear el-B\u00e2har\u00ee, from which we may gather that queen Hatshepsu\nalso claimed to have been born of Amon. How much further back in Egyptian\nhistory the belief may go we do not know: the kings of the Fifth and Sixth\nDynasties called themselves sons of the sun-god, and the Theban monarchs\nwhose virgin-mothers were wedded to Amon, incarnate in the flesh, did but\nwork out the old conception in a more detailed and definite way.\n\nIt was given to the Egyptians to be one among the few inventive races of\nmankind. They were pioneers of civilisation; above all, they were the\ninventors of religious ideas. The ideas, it is true, were not\nself-evolved; they presupposed beliefs which had been bequeathed by the\npast; but their logical development and the forms which they assumed were\nthe work of the Egyptian people. We owe to them the chief moulds into\nwhich religious thought has since been thrown. The doctrines of emanation,\nof a trinity wherein one god manifests himself in three persons, of\nabsolute thought as the underlying and permanent substance of all things,\nall go back to the priestly philosophers of Egypt. Gnosticism and\nAlexandrianism, the speculations of Christian metaphysic and the\nphilosophy of Hegel, have their roots in the valley of the Nile. The\nEgyptian thinkers themselves, indeed, never enjoyed the full fruition of\nthe ideas they had created; their eyes were blinded by the symbolism which\nhad guided their first efforts, their sight was dulled by overmuch\nreverence for the past, and the materialism which came of a contentment\nwith this life. They ended in the scepticism of despair or the prosaic\nsuperstitions of a decadent age. But the task which dropped from their\nhands was taken up by others; the seeds which they had sown were not\nallowed to wither, and, like the elements of our culture and civilisation,\nthe elements also of our modes of religious thought may be traced back to\nthe \u201cdwellers on the Nile.\u201d We are heirs of the civilised past, and a\ngoodly portion of that civilised past was the creation of ancient Egypt.\n\n\n\n\n\nPART II. THE RELIGION OF THE BABYLONIANS.\n\n\n\n\nLecture I. Introductory.\n\n\nIt is now fourteen years ago since I delivered a course of lectures for\nthe Hibbert Trustees on the religion of the ancient Babylonians. The\nsubject at that time was almost untouched; even such materials as were\nthen accessible had been hardly noticed, and no attempt had been made to\nanalyse or reduce them to order, much less to draw up a systematic account\nof ancient Babylonian religion. It was necessary to lay the very\nfoundations of the study before it could be undertaken, to fix the\ncharacteristic features of the Babylonian faith and the lines along which\nit had developed, and, above all, to distinguish the different elements of\nwhich it was composed. The published texts did not suffice for such a\nwork; they needed to be supplemented from that great mass of unpublished\ncuneiform documents with which the rooms of our museums are filled. My\nlectures were necessarily provisional and preliminary only, and I had to\ncontent myself with erecting a scaffold on which others might build. The\ntime had not yet come for writing a systematic description of Babylonian\nreligion, and of the phases through which it passed during the long\ncenturies of its existence.\n\nNor has the time come yet. The best proof of this is the unsatisfactory\nnature of the attempts that have recently been made to accomplish the\ntask. Our evidence is still too scanty and imperfect, the gaps in it are\ntoo numerous, to make anything of the sort possible. Our knowledge of the\nreligious beliefs of Babylonia and Assyria is at best only piecemeal. Now\nand again we have inscriptions which illustrate the belief of a particular\nepoch or of a particular class, or which throw light on a particular side\nof the official or popular religions; but such rays of light are\nintermittent, and they penetrate the darkness only to be succeeded by a\ndeeper obscurity than before. All we can hope to do is to discover the\nleading conceptions which underlay the religion of Babylonia in its\nvarious forms, to determine and distinguish the chief elements that went\nto create it, and to picture those aspects of it on which our documentary\nmaterials cast the most light. But anything like a systematic description\nof Babylonian religion will for many years to come be altogether out of\nthe question; it must wait until the buried libraries of Chald\u00e6a have been\nexcavated, and all their contents studied. We are but at the beginning of\ndiscoveries, and the belief that our present conclusions are final is the\nbelief of ignorance.\n\nAs I pointed out in my Hibbert Lectures, the first endeavour of the\nstudent of ancient Babylonian religion must be to distinguish between the\nSemitic and non-Semitic elements embodied in it. And before we can do this\nwe must also distinguish between the Semitic and non-Semitic elements in\nour sources of information. This was the principal task to which I applied\nmyself, and the failure to recognise the necessity of it has been the main\ncause of the little progress that has been made in the study of the\nsubject. Since I wrote the means for undertaking the task with success\nhave been multiplied; thanks to the excavations of the French and American\nexplorers, the pre-Semitic world of Babylonia has been opened out to us in\na way of which we could not have dreamed; and numberless texts have been\nfound which belong to the early days of Sumerian or non-Semitic culture.\nWe are no longer confined to the editions of Sumerian texts made in later\ntimes by Semitic scribes; we now have before us the actual inscriptions\nwhich were engraved when Sumerian princes still ruled the land, and the\nSumerian language was still spoken by their subjects. We can read in them\nthe names of the gods they worshipped, and the prayers which they offered\nto the spirits of heaven. The materials are at last at hand for\ndetermining in some measure what is Sumerian and what is Semitic, and what\nagain may be regarded as a mixture or amalgamation of both.\n\nBut though the materials are at hand, it will be long before they can all\nbe examined, much less thoroughly criticised. I cannot emphasise too\nstrongly the provisional and imperfect character of our present knowledge\nof Babylonian literature. Thousands of tablets are lying in the museums of\nEurope and America, which it will take years of hard work on the part of\nmany students to copy and read. At Tello,(202) M. de Sarzec found a\nlibrary of more than 30,000 tablets, which go back to the days of the\npriest-king Gudea; and the great temple of Bel at Nippur in Northern\nBabylonia has yielded five times as many more to the American excavators.\nOther excavations by natives or Turkish officials have at the same time\nbrought to light multitudinous tablets from other ancient sites,\u2014from\nJokha, near the Shatt el-Hai, and from the ruins of the temple of Nebo at\nBorsippa. It is true that a large proportion of these tablets are\ncontracts and similar business documents, but they contain much that is of\nimportance not only for the social history of Babylonia, but for its\nreligious history as well. Meanwhile the vast number of texts which have\ncome from the mounds of Nineveh and Sippara is still but imperfectly\nknown; it is only within the last three years that the catalogue of the\nKouyunjik collection of tablets, which have been in the British Museum for\nalmost half a century, has been at last completed in five portly volumes;\nand there still remain the numberless tablets from Babylonia which line\nthe Museum shelves. And even of what has been catalogued there is much\nwhich has not yet been fully copied or examined. The British Museum,\nmoreover, is no longer the sole repository of Babylonian literature. The\nLouvre, the Berlin Museum, and the American University of Pennsylvania,\nare equally filled with the clay tablets of the Babylonian scribes; while\nthe collection in the Museum of Constantinople far exceeds those which\nhave been formed elsewhere. Even private individuals have their\ncollections of larger or less extent; that of Lord Amherst of Hackney, for\nexample, would have made the fortune of one of the great museums of the\nworld but a few years ago.\n\nIt is evident that it will be long before more than a fraction of this\nvast and ever-accumulating literature can be adequately studied. And what\nadds to the difficulty is that it is still increasing year by year. At\npresent there are as many as three exploring expeditions in Babylonia. M.\nde Sarzec\u2019s successor on behalf of the French Government is still carrying\non work at Tello, the ancient Lagas, which was begun as far back as 1877;\nthe Americans are continuing their excavations at Nippur, where, ever\nsince 1888, they have been excavating for the first time on a thoroughly\nsystematic and scientific plan; and now the Germans have commenced work at\nBabylon itself, and have already fixed the site of the temple of\nBel-Merodach and of that palace of Nebuchadrezzar in which Alexander the\nGreat died.(203) Even while I am writing, the news has come of the\ndiscovery of a great library at Nippur, which seems to have been buried\nunder the ruins of the building in which it was kept as far back as the\nAbrahamic age. The mounds in which it has been found lie to the south-west\nof the great temple of Bel. Already nearly 20,000 tablets have been\nrescued from it, and it is calculated that at least 130,000 are yet to be\ndisinterred. The tablets lie in order upon the clay shelves on which they\nwere arranged in the days of Khammurabi, the Amraphel of Genesis;(204)\nand, so far as they have been examined by Professor Hilprecht, it would\nappear that they relate to all the various branches of knowledge which\nwere known and studied at the time. History, chronology, religion and\nliterature, philology and law, are all alike represented in them. When we\nremember that the catastrophe which overwhelmed them occurred more than\ntwo thousand years before the Christian era, we may well ask what new and\nunexpected information the future has in store for us, and hesitate about\ncoming to conclusions which the discovery of to-morrow may overthrow. We\nknow but a tithe of what the monuments of Babylonia have yet to reveal to\nus, and much that we seem to know to-day will be profoundly modified by\nthe knowledge we shall hereafter possess.\n\nThe imperfection of his materials places the student of Babylonian\nreligion at a greater disadvantage than the student of Babylonian history\nor social life. The facts once obtained in the field of history or of\nsocial life remain permanently secured; the theories based upon them may\nhave to be changed, but the facts themselves have been acquired by science\nonce for all. But a religious fact is to a large extent a matter of\ninterpretation, and the interpretation depends upon the amount of the\nevidence at our disposal as well as upon the character of the evidence\nitself. Moreover, the history of religion is a history of spiritual and\nintellectual development; it deals with ideas and dogmas which shift and\nchange with the process of the ages, and take as it were the colour of\neach succeeding century. The history of religion transports us out of what\nGerman metaphysicians would call the \u201cobjective\u201d world into the\n\u201csubjective\u201d world of thought and belief; it is not sufficient to know the\nliteral meaning of its technical terms, or the mere order and arrangement\nof its rites and ceremonies; we have to discover what were the religious\nconceptions that were connected with the terms, and the dogmas that\nunderlay the performance of a particular rite. A mere barren list of\ndivine names and titles, or even the assurance that theology had\nidentified certain gods with one another, will not carry us very far; at\nmost they are but the dry bones of a theological system, which must be\nmade to live before they can tell us what that system actually was.\n\nThe study of ancient Babylonian religion is thus beset with many\ndifficulties. Our materials are imperfect, and yet at the same time are\nperpetually growing; the religious system to which they relate is a\ncombination of two widely different forms of faith, characteristic of two\nentirely different races; and before we can understand it properly, we\nmust separate the elements of which it consists, and assign to each their\nchronological position. The very fact, however, that religious texts are\nusually of immemorial antiquity, and that changes inevitably pass over\nthem as they are handed down in successive editions, makes such a task\npeculiarly difficult. Nevertheless it is a task which must be undertaken\nbefore we have the right to draw a conclusion from the texts with which we\ndeal. We must first know whether they are originally Sumerian or Semitic,\nor whether they belong to the age when Sumerian and Semitic were fused in\none; whether, again, they are composite or the products of a single author\nand epoch; whether, lastly, they have been glossed and interpolated, and\ntheir primitive meaning transformed. We must have a chronology for our\ndocuments as well as an ethnology, and beware of transforming Sumerian\ninto Semitic, or Semitic into Sumerian, or of interpreting the creations\nof one age as if they were the creations of another. The critical\nexamination of the texts must precede every attempt to write an account of\nBabylonian religion, if the account is to be of permanent value.\n\nUnfortunately we have nothing in Babylonia that corresponds with the\nPyramid texts of Egypt. We have no body of doctrine which, in its existing\nform, is coeval with the early days of the monarchy, and can accordingly\nbe compared with the religious belief and the religious books of a later\ntime. The Pyramid texts have enabled us to penetrate behind the classical\nage of Egyptian religion, and so trace the development of many of the\ndogmas which distinguished the faith of later epochs; it is possible that\nsimilarly early records of the official creed may yet be discovered in\nBabylonia; but up to the present nothing of the sort has been found. We\nare confined there to the texts which have passed through the hands of\ncountless editors and scribes, or else to such references to religious\nbeliefs and worship as can be extracted from the inscriptions of kings and\npriests. The sacred books of Babylonia are known to us only in the form\nwhich they finally assumed. The Babylonian religion with which we are\nacquainted is that official theology in which the older Sumerian and\nSemitic elements were combined together and worked into an elaborate\nsystem. To distinguish the elements one from the other, and discover the\nbeliefs and conceptions which underlie them, is a task of infinite labour\nand complexity. But it is a task which cannot be shirked if we would even\nbegin to understand the nature of Babylonian religion, and the fundamental\nideas upon which it rested. We must analyse and reconstruct, must compare\nand classify and piece together as best we may, the fragments of belief\nand practice that have come down to us. Above all, we must beware of\nconfusing the old with the new, of confounding Sumerian with Semitic, or\nof ascribing to an earlier epoch the conceptions of a later time.\n\nThe picture will be at most but a blurred and mutilated one. But its main\noutlines can be fixed, and with the progress of discovery and research\nthey will be more and more filled in. And the importance of the picture\nlies in the fact that Babylonian religion exercised a profound influence\nnot only over the lands immediately adjoining the Babylonian plain, but\nover the whole of Western Asia as well. Long before the days of Abraham,\nCanaan was a Babylonian province, obeying Babylonian law, reading\nBabylonian books, and writing in Babylonian characters. Along with\nBabylonian culture necessarily came also the religion of Babylonia and the\ntheological or cosmogonic dogmas which accompanied it. Abraham himself was\nborn in a Babylonian city, and the religion of his descendants was\nnurtured in an atmosphere of Babylonian thought. The Mosaic Law shows\nalmost as clear evidences of Babylonian influence as do the earlier\nchapters of Genesis.\n\nRecent discoveries have gone far towards lifting the veil that has\nhitherto covered the beginnings of Babylonian history. We have been\ncarried back to a time when the Edin or \u201cplain\u201d of Babylonia was still in\ngreat measure a marsh, and the waters of the Persian Gulf extended 120\nmiles farther inland than they do to-day. If we take the rate at which the\nland has grown since the days of Alexander the Great as a basis of\nmeasurement, this would have been from eight to nine thousand years ago.\nAt this time there were already two great sanctuaries in the country,\naround each of which a settlement or city had sprung up. One of these was\nNippur in the north, the modern Niffer; the other was Eridu, \u201cthe good\ncity,\u201d(205) now marked by the mounds of Now\u00e2wis or Abu-Shahrain, which\nstood on what was then the shore of the Persian Gulf. Now its site is more\nthan a hundred miles distant from the sea. But it was once the seaport of\nBabylonia, whose inhabitants caught fish in the waters of the Gulf or\ntraded with the populations of the Arabian coast. Nippur, on the other\nhand, was inland and agricultural. It was the primitive centre of those\nengineering works which gradually converted the pestiferous marshes of\nBabylonia into a fruitful plain, watered by canals and rivers, and\nprotected from inundation by lofty dykes. While Eridu looked seaward,\nNippur looked landward, and the influences that emanated from each were\naccordingly diverse from the very outset.\n\nAs I pointed out in my Hibbert Lectures, Babylon must have been a colony\nof Eridu. Its tutelary god was a son of Ea of Eridu, and had been\nworshipped at Eridu long before his cult was carried northward to Babylon.\nDr. Peters has since suggested that Ur was similarly a colony of Nippur.\nThe moon-god of Ur was the son of the god of Nippur, and though Ur lay but\na few miles from Eridu, it was an inland and not a maritime town. It stood\non the desert plateau to the west of the Euphrates, overlooking the\nBabylonian plain, which at the time of its foundation had doubtless not as\nyet been reclaimed. But its situation exposed it to Arabian influences.\nUnlike the other great cities of Babylonia, it was in Arabia rather than\nin Babylonia, and its population from the outset must have contained a\nconsiderable Arabian element. Semitic settlers from Southern Arabia and\nCanaan occupied it, and it was known to them as Uru, \u201cthe city\u201d _par\nexcellence_.(206)\n\nNippur and Eridu were already old when Ur first rose to fame. They were\nboth great sanctuaries rather than the capitals of secular kingdoms. The\ngod of Nippur was El-lil, \u201cthe lord of the ghost-world,\u201d(207) the ruler of\nthe spirits, whose abode was beneath the earth, or in the air by which we\nare surrounded. He was the master of spells and incantations, of the\nmagical formul\u00e6 which enabled those who knew them to keep the evil spirits\nat bay, or to turn their malice against an enemy. Nippur was peculiarly\nthe home of the darker side of Babylonian religion; the teaching and\ninfluences that emanated from it regarded the spirit-world as a world of\nnight and darkness, peopled by beings that were, for the most part,\nhostile to man. The _lil_ or ghost belonged to the realm of the dead\nrather than to that of the living, and the female _lil\u00eetu_ was the\nancestress of that Lilith whom the Jewish Rabbis made a vampire under the\nform of a beautiful woman, who lived on the blood of the children she slew\nat night.\n\nEridu, on the contrary, was the seat of the Chald\u00e6an god of culture. Ea,\nwhose home was in the deep, among the waters of the Persian Gulf, had\nthere his temple, and it was there that he had taught the first\ninhabitants of Babylonia all the elements of civilisation, writing down\nfor them the laws they should obey, the moral code they should follow, and\nthe healing spells that prevented disease and death. He was the author of\nall the arts of life, the all-wise god who knew the things that benefited\nman; and his son and minister Asari, who interpreted his will to his\nworshippers, received the title of him \u201cwho does good to mankind.\u201d While\nEl-lil of Nippur was the lord and creator of the spirit-world, Ea was the\nlord and creator of men. He had made man, like a potter, out of the clay,\nand to him, therefore, man continued to look for guidance and help.\n\nThe character of Ea was doubtless coloured by the position of his city.\nThe myth which spoke of him as rising each morning out of the Persian Gulf\nto bring the elements of culture to his people, clearly points to that\nmaritime intercourse with the coasts of Southern Arabia which seems to\nhave had a good deal to do with the early civilisation of Babylonia.\nForeign ideas made their way into the country, trade brought culture in\nits train, and it may be that the Semites, who exercised so profound an\ninfluence upon Babylonia, first entered it through the port of Eridu.\nHowever this may be, it was at Eridu that the garden of the Babylonian\nEden was placed; here was \u201cthe centre of the earth\u201d; here, too, the waters\nof the Tigris and Euphrates were poured out on either side from vases held\nby the god.(208)\n\nUntil Eridu, however, is excavated with the same systematic care as\nNippur, we must be content to derive our knowledge of it and of its\ninfluence upon the primitive culture and religion of Babylonia from the\nrecords which have been found elsewhere. That its sanctuary was at least\nas old as that of Nippur, we may gather from the fact that it was founded\nbefore the coast-line had receded from the spot on which it stood. Its\nearly relations to Nippur must be left to the future to disclose.\n\nThat neither Nippur nor Eridu should have been the seat of a secular\nkingdom, is not so strange as at first sight it appears to be. The\npriesthood of each must have been too numerous and powerful to surrender\nits rights to a single pontiff, or to allow such a pontiff to wrest from\nit its authority in civil affairs. It is difficult for a king to establish\nhimself where a theocratic oligarchy holds absolute sway, and the\nreverence in which the temples and worship of El-lil and Ea were held\nwould have prevented the success of any attempt of the kind. It was their\nsanctuaries which made Babylonia a holy land, wherein all who could were\nburied after death. Like Abydos in Egypt, Nippur or Eridu continued to be\na sanctuary, governed by its own hierarchy and enjoying its own\nindependent existence, while secular kingdoms grew up at its side.(209)\n\nLike Egypt, Babylonia was originally divided into several independent\nStates. From time to time one of these became predominant, and obliged the\nother States to acknowledge its supremacy. But the centre of power shifted\nfrequently, and it took many centuries before the government became\nthoroughly centralised. The earlier dynasties which claimed rule over the\nwhole country had at times to defend their claims by force of arms.\n\nLike Egypt, too, Babylonia fell naturally into two halves, Akkad in the\nnorth and Sumer in the south. The recollection of the fact was preserved\nin the imperial title of \u201cking of Akkad and Sumer,\u201d which thus corresponds\nwith the Egyptian title of \u201cking of Upper and Lower Egypt.\u201d But whereas in\nEgypt the conquering race moved from south to north, causing the name of\nUpper Egypt to come first in the royal title, in Babylonia it was the\nSemites of the northern half who imposed their yoke upon the south. Akkad\naccordingly takes precedence of Sumer.\n\nI have said that the veil which has so long covered the early history of\nthe country is beginning at last to be lifted. Rays of light are beginning\nto struggle through the darkness, and we can at last form some idea of the\nprocess which made Babylonia what it was in later historical times. When\nthe light first breaks upon it, the leading kingdom, at all events in the\nnorth, is Kis. Here a Semitic dynasty seems to have established itself at\nan early period, and we hear of wars carried on by it with its southern\nneighbours. Towards the south, Lagas, the modern Tello, became the chief\nState under its high priests, who made themselves kings. But Lagas, like\nall the other petty kingdoms of the country, had at length to submit to a\nSemitic power which grew up in the north, and, after unifying Babylonia,\ncreated an empire that extended to the shores of the Mediterranean. This\nwas the empire of Sargon of Akkad, and his son Naram-Sin, whose date is\nfixed by the native annalists at B.C. 3800, and whose importance for the\nhistory of religion and culture throughout Western Asia can hardly be\noverestimated.\n\nPalestine and Syria\u2014the land of the Amorites, as the Babylonians called\nthem\u2014became a Babylonian province; and a portion of a cadastral survey for\nthe purposes of taxation has come down to us, from which we learn that it\nhad been placed under a governor who bears the Canaanitish name of\nUru-Malik (Urimelech).(210) Naram-Sin carried his arms even into Magan,\nthe Sinaitic Peninsula, where he wrested from the Egyptians the coveted\nmines of copper and malachite. Susa had long been a Babylonian dependency;\nand as Mesopotamia, including the later Assyria, also obeyed Babylonian\nrule, the whole of Western Asia became Babylonian or, to use the words of\nSargon\u2019s Annals, \u201call countries were formed together into one (empire).\u201d\nIntercourse was kept up between one part of the empire and the other by\nmeans of high roads, along which the imperial post travelled frequently.\nSome of the letters carried by it, with the clay seals which served as\nstamps, are now in the museum of the Louvre.(211)\n\nHow long the empire of Sargon lasted is still uncertain. But from that day\nonward the kings who claimed supreme authority in Babylonia itself also\nclaimed authority in Syria; and from time to time they succeeded in\nenforcing their claim. Erech and Ur now appear upon the scene, and more\nthan one imperial dynasty had its capital at Ur. When the last of these\nfell, Babylonia passed for a while into a state of decay and anarchy, a\ndynasty of South Arabian or Canaanitish origin established itself at\nBabylon; while Elamite princes seized Larsa, and compelled the southern\nhalf of the country to pay them tribute. A deliverer finally arose, in the\nperson of Khammurabi or Ammurapi, of the Arabian dynasty; he drove the\nElamites out of Babylonia, defeated Arioch of Larsa, captured his capital,\nand once more united Babylonia under a single head, with its centre at\nBabylon. From henceforth Babylon remained the capital of the monarchy, and\nthe sacred city of Western Asia. The national revival was accompanied by a\nliterary revival as well. Poets and writers arose whose works became\nclassical; new copies and editions were made of ancient books, and the\ntheology of Babylonia was finally systematised. Under Khammurabi and his\nimmediate successors we may place the consummation of that gradual process\nof development which had reduced the discordant elements of Babylonian\nsociety and religion into a single harmonious system.\n\nThis theological system, however, cannot be understood, unless we bear in\nmind that, as in Egypt so too in Babylonia, there was originally a number\nof small independent principalities, each with its tutelary deity and\nspecial sanctuary. The head of the State was the _patesi_, or high priest\nof the god, his vicar and representative upon earth, and the interpreter\nof the divine commands to men. At the outset, therefore, Babylonian\ngovernment was essentially theocratic; and this theocratic character clung\nto it to the last. It was this which made Babylon a sacred city, whose\npriests had the power of conferring the right to rule upon whom they\nwould, like the Pope in the Middle Ages. Though the high priest became in\ntime a king, he never divested himself of his sacerdotal mantle, or forgot\nthat he was the adopted son of his god.(212)\n\nThe tutelary gods followed the fortunes of the cities over whose destinies\nthey watched. The rise of a city to power meant the supremacy also of the\ndivinity to whom it was dedicated; its decay involved his decline. The\ngods of the subject cities were the vassals of the deity of the dominant\nState; when the kings of Ur were supreme in Babylonia, the moon-god of Ur\nwas supreme as well. Similarly the rise of Babylon brought with it the\nsupremacy of Merodach, the god of Babylon, who henceforward became the Bel\nor \u201cLord\u201d of the whole pantheon.\n\nA god who had once occupied so exalted a position could not, however, be\neasily deposed. Babylonian history preserved the memory of the ruling\ndynasties whose suzerainty had been acknowledged throughout the country,\nand Babylonian religion equally remembered the gods whose servants and\nrepresentatives they had been. A god who had once been supreme over\nBabylonia could not again occupy a lower seat; it was necessary to find a\nplace for him by the side of the younger deity, whose position was merely\nthat of a chief among his peers. When Babylon became the capital, the\nolder seats of empire still claimed equality with her, and the priestly\nhierarchies of Ur or Erech or Sippara still accounted themselves the\nequals of her priesthood. The ancient sanctuaries survived, with their\ncults unimpaired and their traditions still venerated; and the reverence\npaid to the sanctuary and its ministers was reflected back upon the god.\n\nHence it was that at the head of the official faith there stood a group of\nsupreme gods, each with his rank and powers definitely fixed, and each\nworshipped in some one of the great cities of the kingdom. But the system\nof which they formed part was necessarily of artificial origin. It was the\nwork of a theological school, such as was made possible by the existence\nof the primeval sanctuaries of Nippur and Eridu. Without these latter the\norganisation of Babylonian religion would have been imperfect or\nimpossible. But from the earliest days of Babylonian civilisation, Nippur\nand Eridu had alike exercised a unifying influence on the diverse and\ndiscordant elements of which the population was composed; they were\ncentres, not only of religion, but of culture as well, and this culture\nwas essentially religious. For unnumbered centuries the gods of Nippur and\nEridu were acknowledged as supreme by all the inhabitants of the country,\nwhatever might be their race or the particular local divinities they\nadored, and the religious teaching of the priests of Nippur and Eridu was\naccepted as the inspired utterances of heaven. When Babylon became at\nlength the capital of a united monarchy under an Arabian dynasty, the\nancient gods of Nippur and Eridu yielded to its _parvenu_ deity only under\nprotest; despite the fact that the city of Merodach had been the leader in\nthe national war of independence, Merodach himself had to be identified\nwith the son of Ea of Eridu, and the title of Bel which he wrested from\nEl-lil of Nippur was never acknowledged at Nippur itself. There at least\nthe old \u201cLord of the ghost-world\u201d still remained for his worshippers the\n\u201cLord\u201d of all the gods.\n\nThe title had been given him by the Semites, though the sanctuary in which\nhe was worshipped was of Sumerian or non-Semitic foundation. The fact\nintroduces us to the last point on which I wish to touch in the present\nlecture. The population of Babylonia was not homogeneous. The Chald\u00e6an\nhistorian Berossos tells us how, at the beginning of the world, races of\nvarious origin were gathered together in it; and the statement has been\nfully confirmed by the monuments. Two main races were represented in the\ncountry. One of these, usually termed Sumerian, spoke an agglutinative\nlanguage, and came, perhaps, from the mountainous regions of Elam; the\nother were the Semites, whose first home was, I believe, in Arabia. The\nSumerians were the first in the land. To them were due the elements of\nBabylonian civilisation; they were the first to drain the marshes and\ncultivate the soil, to build the temples and cities, and to invent\u2014or at\nall events to develop\u2014that system of pictorial writing out of which the\ncuneiform characters gradually arose. They were, too, the first to carry\nthe culture they had created among the neighbouring populations of Western\nAsia. The result was that their language and script spread far and wide;\nwherever proto-Chald\u00e6an civilisation extended, the proto-Chald\u00e6an language\nwent with it. And along with the language and literature there went also\nthe theology of primitive Babylonia. The names of the Sumerian divinities\nmade their way into other lands, and the dialects of the Semitic tribes\nwere profoundly affected by the forms of Sumerian speech. The earliest\ncivilisation of Western Asia was Sumerian.\n\nBut a time came when the Sumerian was supplanted by the Semite. It was in\nNorthern Babylonia that the Semite first predominated. Here the empire of\nSargon of Akkad grew up, and the cuneiform syllabary became an imperfect\nmeans for expressing the sounds of a Semitic language. From Northern\nBabylonia Semitic influences passed into the south, a mixed Semitic and\nSumerian population came into existence, and the Babylonians of history\nwere born. The mixed population necessarily had a mixed language, and a\ncomposite culture produced a composite theology. To disentangle the\nelements of this theology is the first and most pressing task of its\nhistorian; but it is a task full of difficulties, which the native\ntheologians themselves not unfrequently failed to overcome.\n\nThe union of Sumerian and Semite created the Babylonian with whom we have\nto deal, just as the union of Kelt and Teuton has created the Englishman\nof to-day. Other races, it is true, settled in his country in subsequent\nages, but their influence was comparatively slight and transitory. At one\ntime non-Semitic Elamites from the east overran both Babylonia and the\ndistrict of Susa, which up to that time had been a Babylonian province,\nand founded a dynasty at Babylon which lasted for nearly six hundred\nyears. But, like the Hyksos dynasties in Egypt, it made but little\npermanent impression upon the people; in character and religion they\nremained what they were before. Nor did the irruption of Bed\u00e2win tribes\nand other more pure-blooded representatives of the Semitic race have a\ngreater effect. They were rather influenced by the Babylonians than the\nBabylonians by them. Their own culture was inferior, and Babylonia was\ntheir teacher in the arts and comforts of life. The wild Bed\u00e2win, who\ntended the flocks of their Babylonian masters, the Amorite merchants from\nCanaan, who formed trading settlements in the Babylonian cities, even the\nSouth Arabian princes who headed the national revolt against Elamite\nsupremacy and made Babylon the capital of their kingdom, were all alike\nabsorbed into the Babylonian race. They became the children of Babylonian\ncivilisation, and, along with the culture, they adopted the language of\nthe Babylonian people. The mixed race which had produced the civilisation\nof Babylonia, was destined to retain its individuality unimpaired down to\nthe day when Europe took the place of Asia in the history of the civilised\nworld.\n\nBut the fact of the mixture must never be lost sight of. Without it,\nBabylonian religion, like the Babylonian system of writing, would be a\nhopeless puzzle. We could, indeed, draw up long lists of obscure deities\nwith unmeaning names, and enumerate the titles which the inscriptions give\nthem, but any attempt to trace their history or discover the religious\nideas of which they are the expression, would be impossible. We must know\nwhat is Semitic and what is Sumerian, or what is due to a combination of\nthe two elements, before we can penetrate to the heart of the old\nBabylonian theology, and ascertain the principles on which it rests. The\nnative writers themselves were aware of this, and fully realised the fact\nthat Sumerian conceptions of the godhead formed the background of the\nofficial faith. But their uncritical efforts to solve the problem of the\norigin of their religion have added only to the complication of it. Just\nas the English lexicographers of a past generation found a Greek or Latin\nderivation for the Teutonic words of our language, so the scholars of\nBabylonia discovered Sumerian etymologies for Semitic words and divine\nnames, or else assimilated them to other words of a different origin. Thus\nthe Semitic word _Sabattu_, \u201cSabbath,\u201d is derived from the Sumerian _sa_,\n\u201cheart,\u201d and _bat_, \u201cto cease\u201d or \u201crest,\u201d and interpreted as \u201ca day of\nrest for the heart\u201d; while _pard\u00ea\u1e61u_, \u201cparadise,\u201d is explained as the\n_par_ or \u201cdomain of the god E\u1e61u.\u201d(213) In many cases it is as yet\nimpossible to tell whether a native etymology really rests on a fact of\nhistory, or is the invention of learned pedantry or popular etymologising.\nMarduk or Merodach, for instance, is variously derived from the Sumerian\nAmar-utuki, \u201cthe heifer of the sun-spirit\u201d; and the Semitic Mar-Eridugga,\n\u201cthe son of the city Eridu.\u201d(214) The first etymology is certainly false;\nour present materials do not allow us to speak so positively in regard to\nthe second. All we can say about it is that it is unlikely in the extreme.\n\nAnd yet a good deal turns upon the true origin of the name of the patron\ngod of Babylon. If it is Semitic, the foundation of the city and of the\ntemple around which it was built would presumably belong to Semitic days,\nand the development of the cult of the god would be Semitic from the\nfirst. The identification of Merodach, moreover, with Asari the son of Ea\nof Eridu, would receive substantial support; the \u201cson of Eridu\u201d would\nnaturally be the son of the god of Eridu, and we should have to see in\nBabylon a colony from the old seaport of the Babylonian plain.\n\nThe divergent etymologies, however, assigned to the name of Merodach by\nthe theologians of Babylonia show that they were quite as much in the dark\nas we are in regard to its origin and significance. Its derivation had\nbeen already lost in the night of time; the worship of the god and the\nbuilding of his sanctuary went back to ages too remote for the memory of\nman. And yet Merodach was one of the youngest gods in the Babylonian\npantheon. By the side of Ea of Eridu or El-lil of Nippur he was but a\nchild, the offspring of a later day; and even when he became supreme in\nBabylonia, the fact that he was so was still remembered. If it is\ndifficult to trace the earliest lineaments of Merodach, how much more\ndifficult must it be to trace those of the older gods!\n\nThe theology of Babylonia, as it is known to us, is thus an artificial\nproduct. It combines two wholly different forms of faith and religious\nconception. One of these was overlaid by the other at a very early period\nin the history of the people, and the theological beliefs of Sumer\nreceived a Semitic interpretation. This natural process of combination and\nassimilation was followed by an artificial attempt to weld the whole into\na consistent and uniform shape. An artificial system took the place of\nnatural growth, and the punning etymologies which accompanied it were but\nan illustration of the principles that underlay its methods. If we would\nsuccessfully analyse the theology which has come down to us, we must, as\nit were, get behind it and discover the elements of which it was composed.\nWe must separate and distinguish Sumerian and Semitic, must trace the\ninfluences they exerted upon one another, and, above all, must detect and\ndiscard the misinterpretations and accretions of the later systematic\ntheology. For such an undertaking, it is true, our materials are still\nmiserably scanty, and, with imperfect materials, the results also can be\nimperfect only. But all pioneering work is necessarily imperfect, and for\nmany a day to come the history of Babylonian religion must be left to the\npioneer. Year by year, indeed, the materials are increasing, and it may be\nthat a discovery will yet be made, like that of the Pyramid texts in\nEgypt, which will reveal to us the inner religious thought and belief of\nBabylonia in those distant ages, when Nippur and Eridu, and not as yet\nBabylon, were the theological centres of the land. Even now we possess\ninscriptions of the Sumerian epoch, which tell us the names of the gods\nwho were worshipped by the kings of the pre-Semitic age, and throw light\non the religious ideas which animated them, and the religious ritual which\nthey observed. But such inscriptions are still comparatively few, their\ntranslation is full of difficulties, and the references contained in them\nto the theology of the time are scanty and unsatisfactory. And the most\nimportant of them\u2014those of the high priests of Tello\u2014belong to an epoch\nwhen the Semite had been for many centuries in the land, influencing and\nbeing influenced by his Sumerian neighbours. Though Lagas was still\nSumerian, its overlord was the Semitic king of Ur.(215)\n\nYou must not, therefore, expect either so complete or so detailed an\naccount of Babylonian religion as that which it is now possible to give of\nthe religion of Egypt. There are no pictures from the walls of tombs, no\nbas-reliefs from the temples, to help us; we have to depend almost wholly\non the literature that has come down to us, mutilated and only half\nexamined as it is. Our efforts to interpret it are without the assistance\nof pictorial representations such as are at the disposal of the\nEgyptologist; they rest upon philology alone, and the element of\nuncertainty in them is therefore considerable.\n\nThe advances made in our knowledge of Babylonian religion, since I\nlectured upon it some fifteen years ago, are consequently not so great as\nthe inexperienced student might be tempted to believe. There are some\nthings to be added, there is more to be corrected, but the main facts and\nprinciples which I then tried to place before the world of scholars remain\nintact. In some cases confirmation has come of suggestions which seemed\nonly possible or probable; in other cases others have worked with greater\nsuccess and better materials upon the foundations which I laid. If,\ntherefore, the progress made during the past few years may appear\ndisappointing, there is no reason for surprise; the fault lies not with\nthe Assyriologist, but with the materials with which he has to deal. The\nlabourer is ready, but the harvest is not yet ripe.\n\n\n\n\nLecture II. Primitive Animism.\n\n\nDeep down in the very core of Babylonian religion lay a belief in what\nProfessor Tylor has called animism. It belonged to the Sumerian element in\nthe faith of the people, and, as we shall see, was never really\nassimilated by the Semitic settlers. But in spite of Semitic influences\nand official attempts to explain it away, it was never eradicated from the\npopular creed, and it left a permanent impress upon the folk-lore and\nsuperstitions of the nation. As in Egypt, so too in Babylonia, animism was\nthe earliest shape assumed by religion, and it was through animism that\nthe Sumerian formed his conception of the divine.\n\nIn Egypt it was the _Ka_ which linked \u201cthe other world\u201d with that of\nliving men. In Babylonia the place of the _Ka_ was taken by the _Zi_. We\nmay translate Zi by \u201cspirit,\u201d but like the Ka it was rather a double than\na spirit in our sense of the term. Literally the word signified \u201clife,\u201d\nand was symbolised in the primitive picture-writing of the country by a\nflowering plant. Life, however, meant a great deal more to early man than\nit does to us. It was synonymous with motion, with force and energy. All\nthat moved was endowed with life; life was the only force known to man\nwhich explained motion, and, conversely, motion was the sign and\nmanifestation of life. The arrow which sped through the air or the rock\nwhich fell from the cliff did so in virtue of their possessing life, or\nbecause the motive force of life lay in some way or other behind them. The\nstars which slowly moved through the sky, and the sun which rose and set\nday by day, were living beings; it was life which gave them the power of\nmovement, as it gave the power of movement to man himself and the animals\nby whom he was surrounded. The power of movement, in fact, separated the\nanimate from the inanimate; all that moved possessed life; the motionless\nwas lifeless and dead. Man\u2019s experience was necessarily his measure of the\nuniverse; the only force he knew of was the force we call life, and his\nreason seemed to demand that what held true of himself must hold true also\nof the rest of the world.\n\nBut, like the Egyptian, the Sumerian could not conceive of life except\nunder visible and concrete form. The abstract was still embedded, as it\nwere, in the concrete; it could not be divorced from it in thought any\nmore than in those pictorial characters which were used by the scribes.\nWhat we mean by \u201cforce\u201d would have been unintelligible to the primitive\nBabylonian; for him life was something real and material, which had a\nshape of its own, even though this shape was but an unsubstantial shadow,\nseen indeed by the eye, but eluding the grasp. At the same time it was\nmore than a shadow, for it possessed all the qualities of the object or\nperson to whom it belonged. It was not life in the abstract, but the\ncounterpart of an individual object, which endowed that object with the\npower of motion, and gave it a place in the animate world.\n\nThe Sumerian Zi, therefore, closely resembled the Egyptian Ka. The human\nZi was the imperishable part of man; it made him a living soul while he\nwas in this world, and after death continued to represent him in the\nshadowy world below.(216) Unlike the _lilla_ or \u201cghost,\u201d it represented\nthe man himself in his personality; if that personality were destroyed, it\nalso ceased to exist. While on the one side it was the Zi which gave man\nlife and the power of movement, on the other side, without the individual\nman there could be no individual Zi. Food and drink were offered to the\nBabylonian dead as they were to the Egyptian, and the objects the dead man\nhad loved during his lifetime were deposited in his grave. His seal was\nattached to his wrist, his spear or staff was laid at his side, and at\ntimes even dates or fish or poultry were buried with him, lest he might\nfeel hungry in the darkness of the tomb. The child had his favourite toys\nto play with, the woman her necklace of beads. The water-jar was there,\nfilled with \u201cthe pure water\u201d for which the dead thirsted, along with the\nbowl of clay or bronze out of which it might be drunk. \u201cA garment to\nclothe him,\u201d says an old hymn, \u201cand shoes for his feet, a girdle for his\nloins and a water-skin for drinking, and food for his journey have I given\nhim.\u201d(217)\n\nLike men, the gods too had each his Zi. We hear of the Zi of Ea, the god\nof the deep;(218) and the primeval \u201cmother, who had begotten heaven and\nearth,\u201d was Zi-kum or Zi-kura, \u201cthe life of heaven\u201d and \u201cearth.\u201d(219)\n\nIn the early magical texts \u201cthe Zi of heaven\u201d and the \u201cZi of earth\u201d are\ninvoked to remove the spell that has been cast over the sick or the\ninsane. Even when Ea and his son Asari had taken the place of the demons\nof the older faith, the official religion was still compelled to recognise\ntheir existence and power. The formula of exorcism put into the mouth of\nEa himself ends with an appeal to the \u201clife\u201d of heaven and earth. It\nbegins, indeed, with \u201cthe charm of Ea,\u201d through the efficacy of which the\nevil spell is to be dissolved; but the charm of the god of wisdom is soon\nforgotten, and it is to the Zi of heaven and earth that the exorcist\nfinally has recourse. \u201cO life of heaven, mayest thou conjure it; O life of\nearth, mayest thou conjure it!\u201d thus, and thus only, could the exorcism\nend. The old associations were too strong to be overcome, and the\nworshippers of Ea had to allow a place at his side for the \u201cspirits\u201d of an\nearlier age.\n\nThe ancient conception of the Zi lingered long among the Babylonian\npopulation. But, as the Semitic element became predominant, it fell more\nand more into the background, and survived\u2014so far at least as the official\nreligion was concerned\u2014only in a few old formul\u00e6 and names. One of the\nfixed stars, for example, was called Sib-zi-Anna, \u201cthe Shepherd of the\nLife of Heaven,\u201d and a common form of oath was by \u201cthe life of the gods\u201d\nor \u201cking\u201d (_nis il\u00e2ni_, _nis sarri_). Even Sennacherib swears by \u201cthe life\nof Assur\u201d; but it is questionable whether either he or any of his\ncontemporaries remembered the original meaning and history of the phrase.\nThe Sumerian Zi had received a Semitic translation, and therewith a\nSemitic connotation. The ideas attached to the Semitic _n\u00easu_ were not\nthose which had once clustered around the Zi. On the lips of the Semite\neven the word Zi itself meant \u201clife\u201d and little more. When Pur-Sin II. of\nUr, a century or two before Abraham, addresses a dedication in Sumerian to\nthe moon-god, he calls himself \u201cthe divine _Zi_ of his country\u201d(220)\u2014in\nother words, a \u201cgod who gives life to his land.\u201d There is no question here\nof a vital force which is the counterpart of a man or god; we have, on the\ncontrary, the Semitic conception of a divine father from whom his people\nderive their life. The Semite has transferred his own ideas to the\nlanguage of his Sumerian predecessors, and \u201clife\u201d for him is no\nmaterialised reflection of an individual thing, but a principle which is\ndiffused, as it were, from a divine centre. The \u201cZi of heaven\u201d has become\nthe abstract life, which the god can communicate to those about him.\n\nIt is only in the dim background of history, therefore, that we find in\nBabylonia a belief analogous to that which created the Egyptian doctrine\nof the Ka. It was foreign to the Semitic mind, and with the rise of\nSemitic supremacy, accordingly, it disappeared from the religion of\nBabylonia. We have to look for its fossilised relics in the old magical\ntexts, which, like the spells and charms of modern folk-lore, have\npreserved so many of the beliefs and superstitions of an otherwise\nforgotten past, or else in divine names and epithets which go back to a\nremote antiquity. The animism of the Sumerian is difficult to discover and\ntrace, for it was already buried under Semitic modes of thought when the\nfirst libraries of Babylonia were being formed.\n\nIt was another Sumerian belief which exercised a greater influence upon\nthe Semitic mind. This was the belief in ghosts. The _lil_ or ghost was\ndistinct from the _Zi_; while the _Zi_ belonged to the world of the\nliving, the _lil_ belonged to the world of the dead. The _lil_\nconsequently was no counterpart or double of either man or god, but a\nbeing with an independent existence of its own. Its home was beneath the\nearth, where the dead had their dwelling; but it visited this upper world\nunder the shadow of night, or in desert places to which nothing living\ncame.(221) It was essentially a spirit of darkness, and one of the names\nby which it was known was that of \u201cthe light-despoiler.\u201d(222) It came in\nthe raging wind which darkens the heaven with clouds, or in the cloud of\ndust which betokens the approach of the storm. The _lil_, in fact, was\nessentially a demon, \u201cwithout husband or wife,\u201d one of those evil spirits\nwho tormented and perplexed mankind.\n\nThe sexless Lil was waited on by \u201ca maid,\u201d who under the cover of night\nenticed men to their destruction, or seduced them in their dreams. She was\na veritable vampire, providing the Lil she served with its human food.\nWhen the Semite succeeded to the heritage of the Sumerian, the sexless Lil\ndisappeared. Semitic grammar demanded that there should be a distinction\nbetween masculine and feminine, and Semitic modes of thought equally\ndemanded that a female Lil\u00eet should take her place by the side of a male\nLilu. The attributes of the \u201cserving-maid\u201d of the Sumerian Lil were\ntransferred to the new creation of the Semitic mind, and the siren who\nlured men to their destruction ceased to be a serving-maid, and became the\nfemale Lil\u00eet herself. But the origin of the powers she exercised was never\nforgotten. When the name and character of the Babylonian Lil\u00eet were\nborrowed by the Hebrews under the form of Lilith, she was conceived of as\na single individual spirit rather than as a class. Isaiah (xxxiv. 14)\ntells us how Lilith shall haunt the desolate ruins of Edom, and find among\nthem \u201ca place of rest\u201d; while, according to the Rabbis, Lilith had been\nthe first wife of man, in appearance the fairest of women, but in reality\na vampire demon who sucked at night the blood of her victims.\n\nThe lord and ruler of the Lils was the god who was worshipped at Nippur.\nHe bore, accordingly, the title of En-lil, \u201cthe lord of the ghost-world,\u201d\nand his temple was one of the oldest sanctuaries of Sumerian\nBabylonia.(223) It was a centre of primeval civilisation, and the source\nof the magical arts which gathered round the belief in the spirits of the\nunderworld. But the lordship of the underworld implied also a lordship\nover the earth, of which it formed a part. En-lil, \u201cthe lord of the\nghost-world,\u201d thus became in time the ruler, not only of the dead, but\nalso of the living. His empire ceased to be confined to the realms of\ndarkness, and was extended to this upper world of light and of mankind. Up\nto the last, however, his primitive character was never forgotten. In the\nstory of the Deluge he appears as the destroyer of men; Namtar, the\nplague-demon, is his minister; and like Kingu, the demon-god of chaos, he\nwore the tablets of destiny, which determine when men shall die.(224)\n\nEn-lil was accordingly the sovereign of the dead as well as of the spirits\nof the underworld. The Sumerian _lil_ must therefore have once included\nthe ghosts of men as well as other ghosts which never had a material\nexistence in the flesh. The _lil_ must once have meant that immaterial\npart of man which, after death, had its home in the underworld, from\nwhence it issued at night to satisfy its cravings for food with the\ngarbage of the streets. By the side of the Zi there must also have been\nthe Lil; but we must wait till more monuments of Sumerian antiquity are\ndiscovered before we can define the exact relationship between them.(225)\n\nIn the Epic of Gilgames it is said that when the shade of Ea-bani was\ncalled up from the dead, like that of the shade of Samuel by the Witch of\nEndor, \u201cit arose from the earth like a cloud of dust.\u201d(226) It was fitting\nthat the ghost should be likened to a dust-storm. Its home was in the\nground; and there, in the dark underworld, its food, we are told, was\ndust. But the word used by the poet for the ghost of Ea-bani is not _lil_.\nIt is another word, utukku, which occurs frequently in the magical texts.\nHere the _utukku_ is a general name for a demon, and we hear of the\n_utukku_ \u201cof the field,\u201d \u201cof the mountain,\u201d \u201cof the sea,\u201d and \u201cof the\ngrave.\u201d The \u201c_utukku_ of the grave\u201d must be the restless ghost of some\ndead man which has become a spirit of darkness, working evil to mankind.\nThe ordinary _utukku_, however, had no human ancestry; it was a demon pure\nand simple, which sat upon the neck of the sufferer and inflicted upon him\npain and death. It corresponded with the vampire of European folk-lore;\nand just as the ranks of the vampire might be recruited from the dead, so\ntoo might the class of demons whom the Babylonians termed _utukki_.\n\nIt was the same with another species of demon, the _ekimmu_, which hovered\naround the tomb and attacked the loins of those who fell in its way. But\nthe _ekimmu_ was a being whose origin was known. It was the spirit of an\nunburied corpse over whose unsanctified remains the funeral rites had\nnever been performed. The mystic ceremonies and magical words which\nconsigned the dead to their last resting-place had been neglected, and the\nhapless spirit was left unprovided with the talismans that would enable\nhim to cross the river of death, or join his comrades in the passive\ntranquillity of the lower world. Restlessly, therefore, it wandered about\nthe desert places of the earth, finding at times a shelter in the bodies\nof the living, whom it plagued with sore diseases, and seeking to satiate\nits hunger under the cover of night with the refuse it could pick up \u201cin\nthe street.\u201d The food and drink which pious hands laid in the tomb were\ndenied to the tombless ghost, and it had to search for them where it\ncould. The Epic of Gilgames concludes with a description of it, which\npaints in vivid colours the old Babylonian belief\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cHe whose body lies forsaken in the field,\n    As thou and I alike have seen,\n    His _ekimmu_ rests not in the earth.\n    He whose _ekimmu_ has none to care for him,\n    As thou and I alike have seen,\n    The garbage of the pot, the refuse of food,\n    Which is thrown into the street, must he eat.\u201d\n\n\nIt is no wonder that a Babylonian king prays that the body of his enemy\nmay be \u201ccast aside, and no grave allowed to him,\u201d(227) or that\nAssur-bani-pal should have torn the bodies of the Elamite kings from their\ntombs at Susa. Sennacherib similarly desecrated the burial-places of the\nancestors of Merodach-baladan; and one of the oldest of Babylonian\nmonuments, the so-called Stela of the Vultures, depicts the bodies of the\nslaughtered enemy exposed to the vultures that feed upon them, while the\nslain Babylonians themselves are buried by their companions under a\ntumulus of earth.\n\nThe _ekimmu_ was thus, properly speaking, the ghost of the unburied\ncorpse; whereas the _utukku_ was the ghost of a corpse which had obtained\nburial, but through some accident or other had escaped from the realms of\nthe dead. While, therefore, the _ekimmu_ necessarily had a human origin,\nthe _utukku_ was only accidentally a human ghost. The rites with which its\nbody had been laid in the grave, ought to have confined it to the\nunderground regions of the dead; and the \u201cpure water\u201d and food with which\nit had been provided were sufficient to sustain it in its existence below.\nIf it returned to the upper world it could only have been through the arts\nof the necromancer, and the sufferings it may have inflicted upon men were\nbut the revenge it took for being disturbed. The _utukku_, like the _lil_,\nbelonged to a class of supernatural beings who manifested their presence\nin a particular way, and it was only as it were accidentally that the\nghost of a dead man came to be included among them.\n\nBut it must be noticed that no distinction was drawn in the mind of the\nBabylonian between these supernatural beings and the ghosts of the dead,\nat all events so far as their nature and to a certain extent their powers\nwere concerned. The ghost might become an _ekimmu_ just as it might become\na _lil_; all were alike denizens of the underground world, and in primeval\ntimes obeyed the rule of the En-lil, \u201cthe lord of ghosts.\u201d\n\nThe same belief must once have prevailed in Palestine. When the spirit of\nSamuel was called up from the dead, the witch declared she saw Elohim\nrising up from the earth in the form of an old man clothed in a mantle.\nNow Elohim or \u201cgods\u201d was the general term under which the Canaanite\nincluded all the beings of the spiritual world in whom he believed; and in\ncalling the spirit of Samuel \u201cElohim,\u201d the witch was accordingly asserting\nthat the human ghost she had evoked had become thereby one of them. As the\nghost of Ea-bani when summoned from its resting-place became an _utukku_,\nso the ghost of Samuel for the same reason became one of the Elohim.\n\nThe ghost, like the body to which it had belonged, was dependent for its\nexistence upon food and drink. The legend of the descent of Istar into\nHades describes the ghosts of the dead as flitting like winged bats\nthrough their gloomy prison-house, drinking dust and eating clay. The\nbread and dates and water offered at the tombs of the dead were a welcome\nsubstitute for such nauseous food. Food, however, of some kind it was\nnecessary for the ghost to have, otherwise it would have suffered from the\npangs of hunger, or died the second death for want of nourishment.\n\nLike the Egyptian Ka, consequently, the Babylonian ghost was conceived of\nas a semi-material counterpart of the body, needing, like the body, drink\nand food; and if recalled to the upper world in the form of an _utukku_ or\nan _ekimmu_, resembling the body in every detail, even to the clothes it\nwore. Moreover, as in Egypt, the doctrine of the double must be extended\nto inanimate objects as well as to living things. The offerings deposited\nwith the dead included not only poultry and fish, but also dates and\ngrain, wine and water. The objects, too, which the dead had loved in his\nlife were laid in his grave\u2014toys for the child, mirrors and jewellery for\nthe woman, the staff and the seal for the man. It must have been the\ndoubles of the food and drink upon which the ghost fed in the world below,\nand the doubles of the other objects buried with the corpse, which it\nenjoyed in its new mode of existence. There must have been ghosts of\nthings as well as ghosts of men.\n\nThe overlaying of primitive Sumerian animism by Semitic conceptions and\nbeliefs naturally introduced new elements into the views held about the\nimperishable part of man, and profoundly modified the old theories\nregarding it. The Zi, as we have seen, became synonymous with the vital\nprinciple; the _lil_, the _utukku_, and the _ekimmu_ were banished to the\ndomain of the magician and witch. The words survived, like \u201cghost\u201d in\nEnglish, but the ideas connected with them insensibly changed. In place of\nEn-lil, \u201cthe lord of the ghost-world,\u201d a new conception arose, that of\nBilu or Baal, \u201cthe lord\u201d of mankind and the visible universe, whose symbol\nwas the flaming sun.(228) The ghosts had to make way for living men, the\nunderground world of darkness for the world of light. En-lil became a\nSemitic Baal, and man himself became \u201cthe son of his god.\u201d(229)\n\nWith the rise of Semitic influence came also the influence of the culture\nthat emanated from Eridu. The character of Ea of Eridu lent itself more\nreadily to Semitic conceptions than did the character of En-lil. There was\nno need for violent change; the old Sumerian god (or rather \u201cspirit\u201d)\nretained his name and therewith many of his ancient attributes. He\nremained the god of wisdom and culture, the father of A\u1e61ari, \u201cwho does\ngood to man.\u201d\n\nWhen Asari was identified with Merodach the sun-god of Babylon, Semitic\ninfluence was already in the ascendant. Merodach was already a Semitic\nBaal; the supremacy of his city made him the supreme Baal of Babylonia.\nThe older Baal of Nippur was absorbed by the younger Baal of Babylon, and\nthe official cult almost ceased to remember what his attributes and\ncharacter had originally been. Even the reciter of the magical texts\nprobably forgot that the god had once been a chief _lil_ or ghost and\nnothing more.\n\nThis altered conception of the god of Nippur was necessarily accompanied\nby an altered conception of the ghost-world over which he had ruled. It\nwas handed over to other gods in the State religion, or else passed into\nthe possession of the wizard and necromancer. Nergal of Cutha became the\nlord of Hades, which he shared with the goddess Eris-kigal or Allat.\nLegend told how at the command of the gods of light, Nergal had forced his\nway into the dark recesses of the underworld, and there compelled the\ngoddess to become his bride. From henceforward Hades was a realm under the\ncontrol of the gods of heaven, and part of that orderly universe which\nthey governed and directed.\n\nThe conquest of Hades by the gods of light implied the conquest by them of\ndeath. The dead was no longer a mere ghost, beyond the reach of the lords\nof heaven, and able to play havoc in their own sphere when darkness had\nswallowed up the light. The lords of heaven now claimed the power of\n\u201craising the dead to life.\u201d It is an epithet that is applied more\nespecially to Merodach, the minister and interpreter of his father Ea,\nthrough whose magic words and wise teaching he heals the diseases of\nmankind, and even brings them again from the world of the dead.\n\nIt is evident that we here have a new conception before us of the\nimperishable part of man. The gods are with man beyond the grave as they\nare on this side of it. There is no inexorable destiny forbidding them to\nbring him back to life. In other words, there is a life in the next world\nas well as in this. It may be a very inferior and shadowy kind of life,\nbut it is a life nevertheless, and not the existence of a bloodless ghost\nwhich would perish if it could not satisfy its cravings with food and\ndrink. The religious consciousness has passed beyond the stage when the\nfuture world is peopled with the doubles and counterparts of existing\nthings, and it has attained to the conception of a spiritual life which\nman can share with the immortal gods. Animism has made way for polytheism.\n\nHow close this connection between the gods and the souls of men became in\nlater days, may be seen from the fact that when Assur-bani-pal visited the\ntombs of his forefathers, he poured out a libation in their honour and\naddressed to them his prayers. They had, in short, become gods, like the\ngods of light to whom temples were erected and offerings made. The change\nin point of view had doubtless been quickened by that deification of the\nking of which I shall have to speak in a future lecture, and which seems\nto have been of Semitic origin. When the king became a god, to whom\npriests and temples were dedicated both in his lifetime and after his\ndeath, it was inevitable that new ideas should arise in regard to the\nnature of the soul. The spirit who was addressed as a god, and set on a\nlevel with the divine lords of heaven, was no powerless and starveling\nghost in the underworld of En-lil, but a spirit in the more modern sense\nof the word, who dwelt in the realms of light, where he could hear and\nanswer the prayers that were laid before him. The ghost had been\ntransformed into a soul, whose nature was the same as that of the gods\nthemselves, and which, like them accordingly, could move freely where it\nwould, listening to the petitions of those on earth, and interceding for\nthem.\n\nThis conception of the soul had already been arrived at in the age of\nSargon of Akkad, the earliest to which at present anything like full\ncontemporaneous records reach back. But it was an age in which Semitic\ninfluence was already dominant; Sargon was the founder of a Semitic empire\nwhich extended to the shores of the Mediterranean, and the Sumerian epoch\nof Babylonian civilisation had long since passed away. Remote as the age\nseems to us of to-day, it was comparatively late in the history of\nChald\u00e6an culture. And deification was not confined to the person of the\nking. The high priests of the Babylonian cities who owned allegiance to\nhim were similarly deified by their subjects. The daily offering was made,\nfor instance, to the deified Gudea, the Sumerian governor of Lagas; he who\nhad ruled on earth, whether Semite or Sumerian, was adjudged worthy of a\nplace among the gods of the official creed. King and noble alike could be\nraised to the rank of a divinity; and we even find Gimil-Sin, the king of\nUr, erecting a temple to his own godhead.(230) We are reminded of the\nshrines built by the later Pharaohs in honour of their own Kas.\n\nThe deification of man, and therewith a belief in the higher destinies of\nthe human soul, can thus be traced back to an early period of Semitic\nsupremacy in Babylonia. Unfortunately our evidences for this belief in the\nhigher destinies of the soul are still but scanty. In this respect\nBabylonia offers a striking contrast to Egypt. There the larger part of\nthe monumental records we possess are derived from tombs; and Egyptian\nbelief in regard to the future life is abundantly described not only on\nthe tombstones, but also on the inscribed and pictured walls of the\nsepulchre itself. We know almost more of what the Egyptian thought about\nthe imperishable part of man and its lot hereafter, than we do about any\nother portion of his creed. In Babylonia and Assyria, on the contrary,\nthere are no tombstones, no pictured and inscribed tombs. The literature\nwe possess tells us but little concerning the future life and the beliefs\nconnected with it. The ritual and the hymns to the gods are concerned with\nthis life, not with the next, and we have to grope our way, as it were,\nthrough obscure allusions and ambiguous phrases if we would find in them\nany references to the world beyond the grave. To fall back on mythological\npoems and heroic epics is dangerous and misleading. The literary myth will\ngive us as false an idea of the psychology of a people as it will of their\ntheology; at most it will express the beliefs of the individual writer, or\nenshrine old terms and phrases, the primitive meaning of which has passed\naway. To extract a psychology from literary legends is as difficult as to\nextract from them sober history. The poets who depicted Hades, with its\nbatlike ghosts that fed upon dust, were using the language of the past\nrather than of the age in which they lived. We might as well infer that\nthe Englishman of the eighteenth century believed in the Muses whom his\npoets invoked, as infer from the language of the poets of Babylonia that\nthe Hades they described was the Hades of popular belief. The cult of the\nkings and nobles is sufficient of itself to prove that such could not have\nbeen the case. And when primitive conceptions become the commonplaces of\nliterature, their true signification is lost or blurred.\n\nStill less help can be obtained from the magical texts. And by an\nunfortunate accident the magical texts constitute a very undue proportion\nof those which have hitherto been examined. Until recently we have been\ndependent for our knowledge of Babylonian literature on the relics of the\nlibrary of Nineveh, the greater part of which was collected by\nAssur-bani-pal, and Assur-bani-pal had a special predilection for charms\nand exorcisms, and the pseudo-science of the augur or astrologist. The\nworld of the magical texts was a world that stood apart by itself. Magic\nwas only half recognised by the orthodox faith; its beliefs and practices\nhad come down from an age when that orthodox faith did not as yet exist,\nand its professors were looked upon with suspicion by the official\npriesthood. The creed upon which it rested, therefore, was a creed of the\nremote past rather than of the present. Its gods and goddesses were not\nthose of the State religion except in name; the Istar who patronised the\nwitch and superintended the mixture of the poisonous philtre under the\ncloak of night, was a very different Istar from the goddess of love and\nwar who promised help and comfort to Esar-haddon in his need, and was\nknown to be \u201cthe mother\u201d of mankind. The State religion, indeed, wisely\ntemporising, had recognised magic so far as it could be regulated, and\nplaced, as it were, under the supervision of the priesthood; \u201cthe black\nart\u201d was never a heresy to be suppressed by force, as in ancient Israel;\nbut for all that it stood outside the official faith, and embodied\nprinciples and conceptions which could be harmonised but imperfectly with\nthe higher and more enlightened ideas of the historical period. We may\nfind in the magical texts survivals from the primeval age of animism, if\nonly we know how to interpret them rightly, for the religious conceptions\nof a later age we shall look in vain. They offer us magic and not\nreligion, the wizard or witch and not the priest.\n\nSuch, then, are the reasons why it is impossible for the present to\ndescribe the psychology of the Babylonians with the same accuracy and\nfulness as that of the Egyptians, or to trace its history with the same\ndetail. The materials are wanting, and probably we shall never have them\nin the same abundance as in Egypt. But one thing is clear. Behind the\npolytheistic view of the human spirit which prevailed in later times,\nthere lay an animistic view which closely resembled the primitive Egyptian\ndoctrine of the Ka. The animistic view passed away with the rise of\nSemitic supremacy and the deification of man, and to discover and define\nit must be largely a matter of inference. The doctrine of the double was\nsuperseded by the doctrine of the soul\u2014that is to say, of an immortal\nelement which after death was reunited with the gods. The Zi, with the Lil\nand the Ekimmu, had to make way for a higher and purer conception of the\nspirit of man. The old names, indeed, still remained, but more and more\nemptied of their earlier meaning, or banished to the outer darkness of the\nmagician and witch. The water and food that once served to nourish the\nghost in the world below, became offerings to the dead man, and to the\ngods under whose protection he continued to be. \u201cAll the furniture that\nbefitteth the grave,\u201d says an Assyrian king, \u201cthe due right of his\nsovereignty, I displayed before the sun-god, and beside the father who\nbegat me I set them in the grave. Gifts unto the princes, even the spirits\nof earth, and unto the gods who inhabit the grave, I then presented.\u201d(231)\nThe gifts, it will be noticed, are not only set by the side of the dead,\nbut are also presented to the sun-god, who is thus associated with the\ndeceased king. They are consecrated to the god of light, who judged\nmankind, before they can be claimed by the gods of the grave.\n\nBut with all this it must be allowed that a great contrast exists between\nthe Babylonian and the later Egyptian view of the imperishable part of man\nand its lot in the other world. And this difference of view results from a\nfurther difference in the view taken of this present life. To the Egyptian\nthe present life was but a preparation for the next; not only the\nspiritual elements of which he was composed, but, as he hoped, his body\nitself would survive beyond the grave. It was otherwise in Babylonia. No\ntraces of mummification are to be found there; at most we hear of the\ncorpse being anointed for death, as it were, with oil or honey; and\ncremation, partial or complete, seems to have been practised. The thoughts\nof the Babylonian were fixed rather on this world than on the next; his\nhorizon, speaking generally, was bounded by death. It was in this world\nthat he had relations with the gods and duties towards them, and it was\nhere that he was punished or rewarded for the deeds committed in the\nflesh. The practical character of the Babylonians did not lend itself to\ndreams and speculations about the future; the elaborate map of the other\nworld, which is drawn in the sacred books of Egypt, would have been\nimpossible for them. They were too much absorbed in commerce and trade and\nthe practical pursuit of wealth, to have leisure for theories that\nconcerned themselves with a doubtful future and an invisible world. The\nshadow of the old religion of Nippur, moreover, with its underground Hades\nof darkness and gloom, rested to the last on the mind of the Babylonian\npeople. The brighter views which had emanated from Eridu never succeeded\nin overcoming it altogether. The gods of light ruled, indeed, over a world\nthat had once belonged to the demons of night, but their victory never\nextended further. The land of Hades still continued to be a land of\ndarkness, even though the waters of life gushed up from below the golden\nthrone of the spirits who dwelt there. We find no conception in Babylonian\nliterature parallel to the Egyptian fields of Alu, no judgment-hall of\nHades before which the conscience of the dead man is arraigned. The\nBabylonian was judged in this life and not in the next, and the god who\njudged him was the sun-god of day, and not the dead sun-god of the other\nworld.\n\nIt is usually the fashion to ascribe this concentration of religion upon\nthe present world, with its repellent views of Hades and limitation of\ndivine rewards and punishments to this life, to the inherent peculiarities\nof the Semitic mind. But for this there is no justification. There is\nnothing in the Semitic mind which would necessitate such a theological\nsystem. It is true that the sun-god was the central object of the Semitic\nBabylonian faith, and that to the nomads of Arabia the satisfaction of\ntheir daily wants was the practical end of existence. But it is not among\nthe nomads of Arabia that we find anything corresponding with the\nBabylonian idea of Hades and the conceptions associated with it. The idea\nwas, in fact, of Babylonian origin. If the Hebrew Sheol resembles the\nHades of Babylonia, or the Hebrew conception of rewards and punishments is\nlike that of the Assyrians and Babylonians, it is because the Hebrew\nbeliefs were derived from the civilisation of the Euphrates. Historically\nwe know that the Israelites traced their origin from Ur of the Chaldees,\nand that in days long before Abraham, Canaan formed part of a Babylonian\nempire, and was permeated by Babylonian culture; on the theological side\nthe derivation of the Hebrew doctrines is equally clear. The Hebrew Sheol\nis too exactly a counterpart of the Babylonian world of the dead not to\nhave been borrowed from it, like Lilith and the other spirits whose home\nit was, and the theology which taught that the sun-god was the supreme\njudge of men, punishing in this life their sins or rewarding their good\ndeeds, was part of the culture which came from Babylonia to the West. It\nwas no inherent heritage of Semitic nature, but the product of a\ncivilisation whose roots went back to a non-Semitic race. The ruling caste\nin Egypt were of Semitic extraction, but their religion contains little or\nno trace of the ideas which underlay the Babylonian doctrines of divine\nretribution and the future life of the soul.\n\nIt is to Babylonia, therefore, that we must look for the origin of those\nviews of the future world and of the punishment of sin in this life which\nhave left so deep an impression on the pages of the Old Testament. They\nbelonged primarily to Babylonia, and were part of the price which the\nSemites of the West had to pay for the inestimable gift of culture that\ncame to them from the banks of the Euphrates. They were views from which\nthe Israelite was long in emancipating himself. The inner history of the\nOld Testament is, in fact, in large measure a history of the gradual\nwidening of the religious consciousness of Israel in regard to them, and\ntheir supersession by a higher and more spiritual form of faith. The old\nbelief, that misfortune implies sin and prosperity righteousness, is\nnever, indeed, entirely eradicated, and Sheol long continues to be a land\nof shadow and unsubstantiality, where good and bad share the same fate,\nand the things of this life are forgotten; but little by little newer and\npurer views make their way into the religion of the people, and the higher\nmessage which Israel was destined to receive takes the place of the\nteaching of the old culture of Babylonia. Babylonia had done its part; new\nforces were needed for the education of mankind.\n\n\n\n\nLecture III. The Gods Of Babylonia.\n\n\nI have already had occasion to refer to one of the gods of Babylonia,\nEn-lil or El-lil of Nippur.(232) His worship goes back to the earliest\nperiod of Babylonian history; his sanctuary at Nippur was one of the\noldest in the land. He belongs to the period when the Sumerian was still\nsupreme, and the name he bore was the Sumerian title of En-lil, \u201cthe lord\nof the ghost-world.\u201d But it was a title only; the \u201clord of the ghosts\u201d was\nhimself a ghost, albeit the chief among them.\n\nThe fact must be kept carefully in mind. As yet there was no god in the\nproper sense of the term. The superhuman powers that were dreaded and\npropitiated were ghosts only, like the ghosts of dead men; and, like the\nlatter, they were denizens of the grave and the underground world. It was\nonly at night that they emerged from their retreat, and terrified the\npasser-by. Primitive man fears the dark as much as does the child; it is\nthen that the powers of evil are active, and spiritual or supernatural\nfoes lurk behind every corner ready to injure or destroy him. The ghosts\nof the night are accordingly objects of terror, harmful beings from whom\nall forms of sickness and insanity are derived.\n\nBut even these ghosts can be controlled by those who know the magic words\nor the mystic rites which they are compelled to obey. Between the ghost\nand his victim the sorcerer or medicine-man can interpose, and by means of\nhis spells force the spirit to quit the body of the sufferer or enter the\nbody of an enemy. By the side of the ghost, therefore, stands the\nsorcerer, who is at once the master and the minister of the spirit-world.\n\nWith the progress of civilisation an organised body of sorcerers\nnecessarily grows up. But an organised body of sorcerers also implies an\norganised body of spirits, and an organised system of controlling them.\nThe spells and charms which have been handed down from the past are formed\ninto a system, and the spirits themselves are classified and defined,\nwhile special functions are assigned to them. The old unorganised animism\npasses into an organised shamanism, such as still prevails among certain\nSiberian tribes. The sorcerer is on the high road to becoming a priest.\n\nBetween the sorcerer and the priest, however, there is a gulf too wide to\nbe spanned. The religious conceptions presupposed by them differ in kind\nas well as in degree. The nature of the superhuman beings by whom man is\nsurrounded, and the relations which he bears to them, are essentially\ndifferent in the two cases. The priest may also be a sorcerer, but the\nsorcerer cannot be a priest.\n\nCan shamanism develop naturally into theism, and the sorcerer into the\npriest? Or is there need of foreign influences and of contact with other\nideas and religious beliefs? I should myself be inclined to adopt the\nsecond alternative. Theism may absorb shamanism, and the priest throw the\n\u00e6gis of his authority over the sorcerer, but the natural development of\nthe one into the other is contrary to the facts of psychology as well as\nto those of history. The evolution of a god out of the shaman\u2019s ghost may\nbe conceivable, but no evidence for it exists. The superstitions and\nbeliefs of shamanism linger, indeed, under a theistic religion, and the\npolytheism of Babylonia was no exception to the rule. Up to the last the\nmagician flourished there, and the spells he worked were recognised by the\nreligion of the State. But for all that they stood outside the religion of\nthe State, harmonising with it just as little as the superstitions of\npopular folk-lore harmonise with the religion we profess. No one would\nassert that the Christianity of to-day has grown out of beliefs like that\nin the vampire which still holds such sway in some of the Christian\ncountries of Europe; and there is just as little reason for asserting that\nthe vampire of the primitive Sumerian developed into a Babylonian deity.\nThey represent two diverse currents of belief, which may for a time run\nside by side, but never actually coalesce.\n\nBabylonian tradition itself bore witness to the fact. The Chald\u00e6an\nhistorian Berossos tells us that the elements of culture, and therewith of\nthe organised religion of a later day, were brought to Babylonia from\nabroad. Oannes or Ea, the culture-god, had risen morning by morning out of\nthe waters of the Persian Gulf, and instructed the savage races of the\nshore in the arts of life. It was not from Nippur and the worshippers of\nEn-lil, but from that mysterious deep which connected Babylonia with other\nlands, that its civilisation had come. It was Ea who had taught men \u201cto\nfound the temple\u201d in which the gods of aftertimes were to be adored. The\nculture-god of Babylonia was Ea, and the home of Ea was not in Babylonia,\nbut in the deep.\n\nThere is no mistaking the significance of the legend. The culture of\nBabylonia originated on the seacoast, and was brought to it across the\nsea. The elements of civilisation were due to intercourse with other\nlands. And this civilisation was associated with a god\u2014with a god, too,\nwho represented all the higher aspects of Babylonian religion, and was\nregarded as the author of its sacred books. The impulse which transformed\nthe \u201clord of the ghost-world\u201d into a god, and replaced the sorcerer by a\npriest, came not from within, but from without.\n\nThe impulse went back to that primitive age when Sumerian supremacy was\nstill unquestioned in the land. Other races, so the legend averred, were\nalready settled there, but they were all alike rude and savage \u201cas the\nbeasts of the field.\u201d How far distant it may have been in the night of\ntime we can but dimly conjecture. At the rate at which the northern coast\nof the Persian Gulf is being slowly silted up, it would be at least eight\nthousand years ago when the old seaport of Eridu and the sanctuary of its\ngod Ea stood on the shores of the sea. But the influence of the Semite was\nalready beginning to be felt, though indirectly, through maritime trade.\n\nNew ideas came from the south. Ea was a god, and like the gods of the\nSemitic race he had a wife and son. While he himself was lord of the deep,\nDam-kina, his wife, was the mistress of the land. His son was A\u1e61ari, \u201cthe\nprince who does good to man,\u201d(233) and who, in contradistinction to the\nnight-demons of Nippur, brought knowledge and healing to the men whom Ea\nhad created. The Sumerian might indeed speak of the \u201cZi\u201d\u2014\u201cthe spirit\u201d\u2014of\nEa, or rather of the deep, but to the Semite he was a veritable god.\n\nAt the same time it was the conception only of Ea and his family which we\nneed trace to a foreign source. Their names are purely Sumerian, and their\norigin consequently must be Sumerian too. Doubtless they had once been\nmere _lils_ or ghosts, belonging to the ghost-world of the god of Nippur,\nand the spells taught by Ea to mankind were survivals from the day when\nthe sorcerer was still his priest.(234) But under Semitic influence the\n_lil_ had been transformed into a god; the sacred book took the place of\nthe charm, and the priest of the magician. The charm and the magician were\nstill recognised, but it was on the condition that they adapted themselves\nto the new ideas. Sumerian shamanism was overlaid by Semitic polytheism,\nand in process of time was absorbed into it.\n\nThe culture of Eridu spread northward, along with the religious ideas\nwhich formed so integral a part of it. The worship of Ea was adopted in\nother cities of Babylonia, and the god of Babylon was identified with his\nson. The _lil_ which had been pictured under animal shape put on human\nform, and the Sumerian accepted the conviction of the Semite, that man was\nmade in the likeness of his god. En-lil of Nippur had to yield to the\ninfluence of the stranger. The antiquity of his worship, the sanctity of\nhis temple, could not save him from his fate. He too became a Semitic god;\nhis old name became an unmeaning title, which survived in literature but\nnot in the mouths of the people, and he was henceforth addressed as a\nSemitic Bilu or Baal. He ceased to be the chief of the ghosts of night,\nand was transformed into the divine \u201cLord\u201d of Semitic worship, who, like\nthe sun, watched over this nether earth. It was a transformation and not a\ndevelopment.\n\nAs the Semitic Bel, the god of Nippur continued for long centuries to\nretain the ancient veneration of the people. Unlike the Greek Kronos, he\nwas not as yet dethroned by the younger gods. The position occupied by the\ngreat sanctuary of Nippur and its priesthood long prevented this. But the\ndestiny of Kronos at last overtook him. Babylon became the capital of the\nkingdom, and its god accordingly claimed precedence over all others.\nMerodach of Babylon assumed the title of Bel, and little by little the old\ngod of Nippur was robbed of his ancient rank. For the Babylonia of later\nhistory Merodach and not En-lil was the supreme Baal, and even the legends\nthat had been told of the god of Nippur were transferred to his younger\nrival. The memories that still gathered round Nippur were too deeply\ntinged with the colours of a religion that had passed away, and the\nbeliefs of a darker and less civilised form of faith. Merodach was the\nchampion of the gods of light, En-lil had been the lord of the demons of\ndarkness. Theologically as well as politically it was needful that\nMerodach should supplant En-lil.\n\nThe spread of the worship of Ea, or rather of the religious conceptions\nwith which it was associated, brought with it the effacement of Dam-kina.\nDam-kina had once been the earth; just as En-lil at Nippur was \u201cthe lord\nof ghosts,\u201d of whom he was himself one, so at Eridu Dam-kina was the \u201clady\nof the earth,\u201d with which, as its Zi or \u201cspirit,\u201d she was herself\nidentified. Sumerian grammar knew no distinction of gender, and in the\nSumerian family the woman held a foremost place by the side of the man. It\nwas otherwise among the Semites. The distinction between the masculine and\nthe feminine is engrained in the Semitic languages, but the distinction is\nattained by forming the feminine out of the masculine. While a\nconsiderable part of Semitic flexion is the result of vowel changes within\nthe word itself, the feminine is created by attaching an affix to the\nmasculine form. The masculine presupposes the feminine, but the feminine\nis dependent on the masculine.\n\nSemitic grammar merely reflects the fundamental ideas of the Semitic mind.\nFor the Semite the woman is the lesser man, formed out of him and\ndependent upon him. Like the feminine of the noun, she is the colourless\nreflection of her husband, though without the reflection there can be no\nhusband. Wherever the Semitic spirit has prevailed, the woman has been\nsimply the helpmeet and shadow of the man; for the orthodox Mohammedan she\nhardly possesses a soul. It is only where the Semitic spirit has been met\nand checked by the influence of another race that this is not the case;\nthe high place retained by the woman in Babylonian society would of itself\nhave been a proof that Semitic culture had here been engrafted on that of\nan older people, even if the monuments had not revealed to us that such\nwas indeed the fact.\n\nIt is not surprising, therefore, that the goddesses or female spirits of\nSumerian faith faded away as the Semitic element in Babylonian religion\nbecame stronger. At first Semitic influence had done no more than\ntransform the \u201chandmaid of the _lil_\u201d into a goddess; then the goddesses\nthemselves became like the woman in Semitic thought, pale and colourless,\nexisting merely for the sake of the god. Dam-kina, the lady of the earth,\nwas remembered only by the antiquarian or by the compiler of a\ncosmological system. When she became the wife of Ea her fate was sealed.\n\nHer attributes and office, in fact, were transferred to him. At Eridu he\nhad necessarily been more than the lord of the deep; he was lord of the\ncity as well. He had as it were migrated from the deep; he had left his\npalace of the sea and come to dwell in a sanctuary on land. The ground on\nwhich Eridu stood was the gift of the sea, the soft silt which the\nretreating waves of the Persian Gulf had left behind them. It had once\nbeen part of the domain of Ea, if not Ea himself. Ea accordingly came to\nbe addressed as the \u201clord of the earth\u201d as well as of the sea, and Eridu,\nhis city, was the \u201ccity of the lord of the land.\u201d The men who inhabited it\nwere his creation: he had formed them like a potter out of the clay, and\nas the divine \u201cpotter\u201d he was therefore known unto them.(235) Like the\nEgyptian Khnum at the Cataract, he was the first artist in clay, and the\nmodels that he made were the first men.\n\nThe god of culture was thus also the creator of mankind. He brought\ncivilisation to them from his home beneath the waves, but it was because\nhe had already created them. They were not indeed his children, but the\ncreation of his hands, for the culture-god was necessarily an artist, and\nthe men he moulded were the highest products of his skill. Water and earth\nhad alike gone to their formation; Ea was master not only of the sea, but\nof the land of Eridu as well.\n\nThe heritage of Dam-kina was thus usurped by the god whom Semitic\ninfluence had given to her as husband. And therewith the heritage of\nanother goddess of the Sumerian cult was usurped as well. This was Bau,\nwhose native home was probably farther to the north, though she had been\nas it were domesticated at Eridu in early days. As Dam-kina was made the\nwife of Ea, so Bau was made his mother. For this there was a special\nreason. Bau was known as \u201cthe great mother,\u201d from whom mankind had\nreceived the herd and the flock as well as the crops of the field. She it\nwas who gave fertility to the soil, and protected those who tilled it. The\nheifer was her symbol, and she may have been originally the local spirit\nof some field in the neighbourhood of Eridu.(236) But in the days when she\nis first known to us by contemporaneous inscriptions, she is already a\ngoddess, and the Semitic conception of a divine mother is already attached\nto her.(237) She thus resembles another goddess, Aruru by name, whom an\nold cosmological poem associates with Merodach (or rather Ea) in creating\n\u201cthe seed of man,\u201d which springs forth from her bosom like the reed from\nthe marsh or \u201cthe wild cow with its young.\u201d In their origin Bau and Aruru\nare alike but Dam-kina under other names,\u2014the earth-spirits of the old\nSumerian religion, who beget or create all living things. The underground\nworld over which En-lil held rule was not only the home of the dead, it\nwas also the place where the seed must be buried before it can spring up\ninto the green herb. That same ghost-world, consequently, to which the\ndead must journey, is also the source of life. The _lil_ (or rather the\nZi) who inhabits it is the mother of mankind, even though it is also the\nhome of the demon who plagues them with disease.\n\nHence it was that when Bau assumed the dress of a Semitic goddess, she\nbecame first the creatress-mother, and then the mother of the creator. As\nsuch, however, she entered into rivalry with another deity who was\nsimilarly in process of development out of an earlier form. This was\nZi-Kum or Zi-Garum, \u201cthe spirit of the sky,\u201d who is called \u201cthe mother\nthat has begotten heaven and earth,\u201d and \u201cthe seeress of the spirit of the\nearth\u201d (_\u00ca-kur_), that is to say, of En-lil.(238) To the primitive\nseafarer of Babylonia the waters of the Persian Gulf seemed to descend\nfrom the vault of heaven which rested upon them; the streams which\nintersected the ground were fed by the rains, and it was therefore natural\nto suppose that the sea which blended with the sky was similarly derived\nfrom it. The deep was embosomed in the heavens, and the spirit of the deep\naccordingly must have been begotten by the spirit of the sky.\n\nBut this spirit of the sky necessarily owned obedience to the \u201clord of the\nghost-world,\u201d and the mother of Ea of Eridu was thus at the same time a\nministering handmaid of En-lil.(239) The Zi who was worshipped at Eridu\nwas also a Lil in the theology of Nippur, and the home of the Lil was\nbeneath the earth. In this way we must explain how it is that Zi-Kum, \u201cthe\nheaven,\u201d is also, under another aspect, Zi-Kura, \u201cthe earth,\u201d and as such\nidentical with Dam-kina and Bau.(240) That she should have coalesced with\nBau rather than with Dam-kina, was due to the fact that the one was made\nthe mother of Ea, while the other became his wife. But the lineaments of\nthe old \u201cspirit of the sky\u201d were soon obliterated. As the religion of\nBabylonia moved further and further away from the animism of the past, the\nspirit\u2019s existence faded into the background and Bau stepped into its\nplace. Zi-Kum, \u201cthe spirit of the sky,\u201d ended by becoming a symbol of that\nprimordial deep from which Ea had derived his wisdom, and whose waters\nwere above the visible firmament as well as below it.(241) Ea, the god of\nthe mixed Babylonian race, had absorbed the spirits and ghosts of the\nSumerian faith. Their attributes had been taken from them, and they had\nbeen transformed into goddesses whose sole end was to complete the family\nof the culture-god.\n\nThe old faith was avenged, however, when Babylon became the political head\nof Babylonia. Ea was supplanted by his son, and the honours he had\nreceived were transferred to the younger god. It was his son, too, under a\nnew and foreign name. Merodach was son of Ea only because he had been\nidentified with A\u1e61ari, who was son of Ea in the theology of Eridu.\nHenceforward Ea shines merely by reflected light. His wisdom is handed on\nto Merodach; even the creation of mankind is denied to him. It is not Ea,\nbut Merodach, who conquers the dragon of chaos and introduces law and\norder into the world, and it is equally not Ea but Merodach who is the\ncreator of all visible things. Ea is not robbed, like Bel of Nippur, of\nhis name and prerogatives, he is simply effaced.(242)\n\nMidway between Nippur and Eridu stood the city of Erech. Doubtless it was\nof Sumerian foundation, like the other great cities of Babylonia, but as\nfar back as we can trace its history it is already a seat of Semitic power\nand religious cult. Its god was Anu, the sky. It may be that Anu had been\nbrought from elsewhere, for a Babylonian inscription of the twelfth\ncentury B.C. calls D\u00ear rather than Erech his city; but if so, the Semitic\ninhabitants of Erech knew nothing of it. For them Anu was the protecting\ngod of their city, the father of Istar, whose habitation it was. From the\ndays when Erech first became a Semitic possession, Anu and Istar had been\nworshipped in it side by side. Indeed, it would seem from the inscription\nof Lugal-zaggi-\u1e61i, discovered at Nippur, that at the remote period to\nwhich it belongs Istar had not yet been associated with Anu in the divine\ngovernment of Erech. Lugal-zaggi-\u1e61i was king of Erech, and as a\nconsequence \u201cpriest of Ana,\u201d but not of Istar. So far as the evidence goes\nat present, it points to the fact that the divine patron of Erech was Anu,\nand that Istar was introduced by the Semites, perhaps from the town of\nDilbat (now Dillem).\n\nThe god and his name were alike borrowed by the Semite from his Sumerian\npredecessor. Ana was the Sumerian word for \u201csky,\u201d and it was doubtless a\nspirit of the sky which had been worshipped by the primitive population of\nthe country. But when the hieroglyphic pictures were first invented, out\nof which the cuneiform characters afterwards developed, the spirit was\nalready on the way to becoming a god. The eight-rayed star which denotes\nAna in the historical days of Babylonia also denotes a god. He thus became\na type of the god as distinguished from the spirit, and bears witness to\nthe evolution that was already taking place in the religion of Babylonia.\n\nThat there had been spirits of the sky, however, as well as spirits of the\nearth, was never forgotten. By the side of the Anunna-ki or \u201cspirits of\nthe earth\u201d the later theology continued to retain a memory of the Igigi or\nspirits of heaven.(243) As En-lil was the chief among the spirits of the\nearth, so it is probable that Ana was chief among the spirits of the sky.\nBut there was not the same difficulty in accommodating his name and\npersonality to the new conception of a god that there was in the case of\nEn-lil. His old Sumerian title brought with it no associations with\nanimism; there was no need to change it, and it could therefore, like the\nname of Ea, be retained even when the spirit of the sky had become the god\nof heaven. From the outset Ana had stood outside the sphere and dominion\nof En-lil; he was no ghost of the underworld to be degraded or renamed.\n\nWhile, therefore, in En-lil of Nippur, even under his new Semitic form of\nBel, the dominant element remained Sumerian, and in Ea of Eridu the\nSemitic and Sumerian elements were mingled together, Ana of Erech was\ndistinctively a Semitic god. It was only by main force, as it were, that\nEn-lil could be transformed into the semblance of a Semitic Baal; up to\nthe last he continued to be lord of the earth rather than of the sky,\nwhose dwelling-place was below rather than above.(244) It was this,\nperhaps, which facilitated his effacement by Merodach; the lineaments of a\nBaal were more easily traceable in the sun-god of Babylon than in the god\nof Nippur. But the sky-god was already a Baal. Between him and the Semitic\nBaal-shamain, \u201cthe lord of heaven,\u201d the distance was but slight, and it\nwas not difficult to clothe him with the attributes which the Semite\nascribed to his supreme deity. A consciousness of the fact may possibly be\ndetected in the readiness with which the name and worship of Anu were\naccepted in the Semitic West; when Babylonian culture made its way to\nCanaan, it was primarily Anu and the divinities most closely associated\nwith him\u2014Istar, Anat, and Dagon\u2014who found there a home.\n\nAna, the sky, thus became Anu, the god of a Semitised Babylonia. But a\nSemitised Babylonia could not conceive of a god without a goddess who\nstood to him in the relation of the feminine to the masculine gender. Out\nof Anu was formed Anat, the feminine counterpart of the god. The same\nprocess at Nippur had created a Belit or Beltis out of the masculine Bel.\nThe goddesses owed their existence to a grammatical necessity, and their\nunsubstantial and colourless character justified their origin. They fitly\nrepresented the relation in which, according to Semitic ideas, the woman\nstood to the man. She was formed out of him in nature as the feminine was\nout of the masculine in language, and her very existence thus depended on\nher \u201clord.\u201d\n\nThere was, indeed, a goddess, even in Erech, the centre of Semitic\ninfluence, who possessed a very strongly-marked and independent character\nof her own. This was Istar, of whom I shall have to speak at a future\ntime. But it was just because Istar possessed this independent character\nthat she could not be the wife of the god of the sky. The Semitic Baal\nbrooked the presence of no independent goddess in the divine family; the\nwife of the god could not claim rights of her own any more than the wife\nof the man. Anu, like Bel and Ea, stood alone.\n\nErech had been made the capital of a temporarily united Babylonia at an\nearly age in its Semitic history. Before the days of Sargon of Akkad,\nLugal-zaggi-\u1e61i\u2014we know him only by his Sumerian name\u2014had made himself\nsupreme over the smaller States of the country, and even carried his arms\nto the distant West. In an inscription he has left us he boasts that his\nempire extended \u201cfrom the lower sea of the Tigris and Euphrates to the\nupper sea,\u201d presumably the Mediterranean, as he further defines his power\nas stretching \u201cfrom the rising to the setting of the sun.\u201d Erech became\nthe capital of the kingdom, and it was perhaps at this time that it\nacquired the name which it bore ever afterwards of \u201cthe city\u201d _par\nexcellence_. Future ages were never allowed to forget that it had once\nbeen the premier city of Babylonia.\n\nLugal-zaggi-\u1e61i calls himself \u201cthe priest of Anu,\u201d the god of the city\nwhich he had made the seat of his power. Anu for awhile was the god of the\nsupreme State in Babylonia, and therefore supreme god of the whole\ncountry. The king, it is true, had come from the north, and his authority\nhad been given him by Bel of Nippur; the old sanctuary of Nippur still\nclaimed the first place in the religion of Northern Babylonia, and the\ncult of its god retained its ancient hold on the veneration of the people.\nBut from henceforward he had to share his divine honours with another; Bel\nof Nippur, indeed, conferred the sovereignty, but the sovereign was priest\nand vicegerent of Anu. Bel and Anu were associated together at the head of\nthe pantheon of Northern Babylonia, and the position they occupied in it\nbecame more and more unique.\n\nSo firmly established was it before the reign of Sargon of Akkad, that\neven his victories and the empire he founded failed to give them a\ncolleague in the god of the new capital city. Bel and Anu remained\nsupreme; the sun-god of Akkad or Sippar had to content himself with a\nsubordinate rank. The theological system which put Bel and Anu at its head\nwas already formed, and the position assigned to them by the veneration\nand traditions of antiquity was too firmly fixed to be shaken. Northern\nBabylonia worshipped a dyad in the shape of two supreme gods.\n\nBut Babylonia itself was a dual State. It was probably on this account\nthat Lugal-zaggi-\u1e61i had fixed his capital at Erech in the centre of the\ncountry, midway between north and south. And the gods of Northern\nBabylonia were not necessarily those of the south. Here Ea was at the head\nof the divine host; for the south his city of Eridu was what Nippur was\nfor the north, and the same causes which made Bel the dispenser of power\nto the northern princes, made Ea the guardian and guide of the monarchy in\nthe south. For their worshippers Bel and Ea stood on the same level; the\ncult of each alike had descended from a remote antiquity, and their\npriests exercised a similar influence and power. As the Babylonians of the\nnorth were called the people of Bel whom Bel could grant to whom he would,\nso too the mixed races of the south were the creation of Ea to whom the\ngod of Eridu had taught the arts of life.\n\nThe union of north and south consequently brought with it the formation of\na divine triad. Ea joined himself to Bel and Anu, and the supreme triad of\nAnu, Bel, and Ea thus came into existence. The process of formation was\nfacilitated by the fact that the three gods were already distinguished\nfrom one another in their main features. Anu was the god of the sky; the\nearlier history of Bel had given him naturally the dominion of the earth;\nand though, in becoming a Semitic Baal, he had acquired the attributes of\na god of the upper sphere, these were allowed to fall into the background.\nEa was even easier to deal with; his home was in the deep, and his rule\nwas accordingly confined to the waters and the sea. That he had once been\na god of the land as well as of the sea, was dropped out of sight, and in\nthe later centuries of Babylonia it even began to be forgotten that he had\ncreated man out of the dust of the ground. He ceased to be the divine\npotter, and became instead the god of the waters, who pours out the Tigris\nand Euphrates from the vases in his hands. As god of the earth and the\nliving things upon it, his place was taken by his son. A\u1e61ari, transformed\ninto the Semitic sun-god Merodach, became the inheritor of his father\u2019s\nwisdom, and therewith of his father\u2019s power.\n\nThe formation of the Babylonian triad, and the differentiation of the\ndivine persons who composed it, must have been the work of a theological\nschool. It is an artificial scheme elaborated after the union of the\nnorthern and southern parts of the country. The universe is divided\nbetween the three divine representatives of Northern, Central, and\nSouthern Chald\u00e6a, whose sanctuaries were the oldest in the land, and whose\ncult had been handed down from time immemorial. The triad once formed\nbecame a model after which others could be created. The other great gods\nfollowed the example that had been set them, and were similarly resolved\ninto triads. As the orthodox theological system of Egypt rested on the\nEnnead, the corresponding Babylonian system rested on the triad. The\nprinciple in each case was much the same. The Ennead was but a multiple of\nthe triad, and presupposed the sacred number. Perhaps we may see in it the\nresult of a contact between Sumerian modes of thought and the Semitic\nconception of the divine family. Where the god had a wife and a son, the\ngodhead would naturally be regarded as a trinity.(245)\n\nUnder the first and supreme triad came the second triad of Sin, Samas, and\nHadad. Sin, the moon-god, was adored under many names and in many forms.\nBut his two chiefest temples were at Ur and at Harran. Ur, the modern\nMuqayyar, on the western bank of the Euphrates, had been dedicated to his\nservice from the earliest times. The ruins of his temple still rise in\nhuge mounds from the ground. The city stood outside the limits of the\nBabylonian plain, in the Semitic territory of the Arabian desert, and its\nSemitic population was therefore probably large. Harran, the other seat of\nthe moon-god, was equally beyond the limits of Babylonia, and guarded the\nhigh road of commerce and war that led from the East to the West. But the\nname Harran, \u201cthe road,\u201d is Babylonian, and, like its temple and god, the\ncity doubtless owed its origin to Babylonian colonists. They probably came\nfrom Ur.\n\nThe moon-god of Ur is called the son of En-lil of Nippur, and it may be\ntherefore that Nippur was the mother-city of Ur. But it must be remembered\nthat whereas Ur was built on the desert plateau of Arabia, Nippur stood\namong the marshes of the Babylonian plain. Its sanctuary could not have\nbeen founded before the marshes had been, at all events, partially\ndrained, and the inundating rivers been regulated by dykes and canals. A\nsettlement on the higher and drier ground would seem more naturally to\nprecede one in the pestiferous swamps below it, and the fact that Ur was\nthe neighbour of Eridu seems to point to its early foundation and\nconnection with the old seaport of the country. At the same time the\nworship of the moon-god is associated with the Semites of Arabia and the\nwest rather than with Eridu, whose god revealed himself to mankind by day\nand not in the shades of night.(246)\n\nIt was right and fitting, however, that the moon-god should be \u201cthe\nfirstborn\u201d of the god of Nippur. The realm of En-lil was in the\nunderground world of darkness, and the spirits over whom he had ruled\nplied their work at night. Naturally, therefore, it was from him and the\ndark world which originally belonged to him that the moon-god proceeded.\nIt may be that Sin had once been one of the spirits in the domain of\nEn-lil, a mere ghost whom the sorcerer could charm. But with his elevation\nto the rank of a god his attributes and character grew fixed and defined.\nIn the ancient hymns addressed to him he is far more than a mere god of\nthe moon. His worshipper at Ur, where he was known under the name of\nNannar, addressed him as not only \u201clord of the moon,\u201d but also \u201cprince of\nthe gods,\u201d \u201cthe begetter of gods and men.\u201d It is thus that we read in an\nold bilingual hymn\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cFather, long-suffering and full of forgiveness, whose hand\n                upholds the life of all mankind,\n    Lord, thy divinity, like the far-off heaven, fills the wide sea\n                with fear ...\n    Firstborn, omnipotent, whose heart is immensity, and there is none\n                who shall discern it ...\n    Lord, the ordainer of the laws of heaven and earth, whose command\n                may not be [broken] ...\n    In heaven, who is supreme? Thou alone, thou art supreme!\n    On earth, who is supreme? Thou alone, thou art supreme!\n    As for thee, thy will is made known in heaven, and the angels bow\n                their faces.\n    As for thee, thy will is made known on earth, and the spirits\n                below kiss the ground.\n    As for thee, thy will is blown on high like the wind; the stall\n                and the fold are quickened.\n    As for thee, thy will is done on the earth, and the herb grows\n                green.\u201d\n\n\nSuch language is fitter for a supreme Baal than for a local moon-god; and,\nin fact, it was as a supreme Baal rather than as a local moon-god that\nNannar was adored at Ur. His connection with the moon was, as it were, an\naccident; the essential point about him was that he was the guardian god\nof the city. Its temple had been dedicated to him in prehistoric days, and\nwith the rise of Semitic influence all the attributes associated with a\nSemitic Baal gathered round his person. He remained, it is true, a\nmoon-god, but he was also more than a moon-god. He was the chief deity of\na city whose kings had ruled throughout Babylonia, and carried their arms\nto the distant West.\n\nHis transformation into a supreme Baal was doubtless assisted by the\nimportant place filled by the moon in early Babylonian culture. The moon\nwas the measurer of time; the first calendar was a lunar one, and time was\nmarked by the movements of the moon and not by those of the sun. It was on\nthis account that the moon-god was called En-zu, \u201cthe lord of knowledge,\u201d\nby the Sumerians; through him they learned how to regulate the year and\nthe festivals of the gods. Astronomy had been cultivated in Babylonia from\nthe beginning of its history, and for a nation of astronomers the moon was\nnaturally an object of veneration and regard. It was the symbol of law and\norder as well as of the light that illuminated the darkness of the night.\n\nBut we must notice that it was only at Ur and Harran that Sin or Nannar\nwas thus elevated to the rank of a supreme Baal. The official theology\nrefused to include him among the three chief gods of the land. He was, in\nfact, as Professor Hommel has shown, rather the Baal of the Semitics of\nArabia and the West than of the Babylonians themselves, and the place\noccupied by his cult at Ur proves how completely this city lay outside the\nlimits of the true Babylonia, and was peopled by an Arabian population.\n\nThe sun-god was born of the moon. The lunar year preceded the solar, and\nto the primitive Babylonian the moon was a more important agent of culture\neven than the sun. Moreover, the sun seemed to rise from that world of\nnight over which the moon held sway; the day was begotten by the night,\nand was accordingly reckoned from evening to evening. It is not until we\ncome to the later age of Babylonian history that we find the old system\nmaking way for a new one, in which the day begins at midnight; and the 1st\nchapter of Genesis, with its \u201cevening and morning,\u201d perpetuates the\nancient system of Babylonian astronomy.\n\nThe sun-god was known under many names, and, like the moon-god, was\nworshipped in many of the Babylonian cities. But just as in historical\ntimes there were two chief seats of the worship of the moon-god,\u2014at Ur in\nthe south, and at Harran in the north,\u2014so too there were two chief seats\nof the worship of the sun-god, one in Southern and the other in Northern\nBabylonia. The southern seat was Larsa, the northern Zimbir or Sippara on\nthe borders of Mesopotamia. And as the moon-god of Ur was older than the\nmoon-god of Harran, so there are reasons for thinking that the sun-god of\nLarsa was older than his rival at Sippara. Babylonian culture moved from\nsouth to north.\n\nBoth at Larsa and at Sippara the temple of the sun-god was called\n\u00ca-Babbara,\u2014Bit-Uri in Semitic,\u2014\u201cthe house of light.\u201d At Sippara it had\nbeen founded or restored by Naram-Sin, the son of Sargon of Akkad, in the\nearly days of Semitic supremacy. The Sumerian Utu had already become the\nSemitic Samas, and clothed himself in the attributes of a Semitic Bel. And\ntherewith he had necessarily taken to himself a wife. This was \u00c2, who, in\nbecoming the consort of a Semitic Baal, was compelled to change her sex.\nFor the Sumerian \u00c2 was a male god, a local sun-god, in fact, whom\nProfessor Jastrow suggests may originally have been the sun-god of one of\nthe separate villages out of the amalgamation of which the city of Sippara\narose.(247) Sumerian grammar, however, did not recognise gender; so far as\noutward form was concerned, the same word, as in English, might be\nindifferently masculine or feminine, and there was therefore nothing in\nthe name of \u00c2 itself which would forbid the foreigner from dealing with it\nas he would. Samas of Sippara needed a wife, and \u00c2, despite her male\norigin, was accordingly given to him. But the gift was fatal to \u00c2 herself.\nShe lost her individuality, and became the mere double of her husband.\nSamas absorbed her attributes and worship, and gradually she sinks out of\nsight, or survives only in the works of theological antiquarians or in the\nliterature of the past.(248)\n\nHadad, the third in the second triad of the Babylonian State religion, had\nno city which he could peculiarly call his own. He had developed out of\nthe Sumerian spirits of the storm, who revealed themselves in the raging\nwind or the tempest of rain. More than one elemental spirit or demon had\ngone to his making and there was consequently no single sanctuary in which\nhis cult had been handed down from the beginning of time. Wherever the\nstorm raged or the deluge descended, Hadad was to be found, like the\nspirits from whom he had descended.\n\nUnder the influence of Semitic ideas he gradually became the god of the\nair. His old character, indeed never deserted him; up to the last he\nremained the divine power, who not only gave the fertilising rain in the\nthunder, and he carried the forked lightning in his hand. God of the air\nthough he was, he continued to be the storm-god as well.\n\nThe god of the storm was naturally the god of the mountains. When the\narmies of Babylonia first made their way to the West, they found\nthemselves in a land of mountains, where the storm burst suddenly upon\nthem, and the streams flowed swollen with rain into the sea. Here,\ntherefore, in the land of the Amorites the Babylonian seemed to have\ndiscovered the true home of the god he worshipped. Hadad was an Amorite\nrather than a Babylonian, and the title, accordingly, by which he was most\nfrequently addressed in early days was that of \u201cthe Amorite god.\u201d\n\nThe title is Sumerian in origin, and must therefore have been given while\nas yet the Sumerian was dominant. This raises the question whether the\nname by which the god was subsequently known in Semitic Babylonia was not\nrather of Amorite than of Babylonian derivation. And there is much in\nfavour of the view. Hadad, or Rimmon as he was also termed, was in a\nspecial way the god of Syria. His worship was spread along the whole\nlength of the Syrian seaboard, and we find him holding there the rank of a\nsupreme Baal. It is not as the god of storms, but as the sun-god himself,\nthat he was adored in Syria, and his very name there became synonymous\nwith deity. That the Semitised Sumerian of Babylonia should have\nidentified the supreme god of a land of mountains and storms with his own\nstorm-god, we can understand; that the Syrian should have transferred the\nname of a Babylonian god of storms to his own chief Baal, would be\ndifficult to explain. However this may be, the person of Hadad is\npeculiarly Semitic. The features which he inherited from his Sumerian\nancestry were obscured or dropped, and he became in all respects a Semitic\ngod. We need not be surprised, therefore, at finding that he was a special\nfavourite in Assyria. Assur-nazir-pal calls him \u201cthe mightiest of the\ngods,\u201d and the Assyrian troops in their onset are likened to him.(249)\n\nThe doctrine of the triad was not confined to the more prominent gods. It\nwas extended to others also who occupied a lower rank in the divine\nhierarchy or in the public cult. Thus Samas helps to form the subordinate\ntriad of Samas, Malik, and Bun\u00ean\u00ea, in which the local sun-gods, Malik and\nBun\u00ean\u00ea, are distinguished from Samas of Sippara, and Bun\u00ean\u00ea is transformed\ninto a female divinity, the consort of Malik. But in all cases the\nprinciple is the same. The Semitic conception of the divine family,\nhusband, wife, and son, is combined with the older ideas of genderless\nSumerian, which placed the goddess on the same level as the god, and the\nresult is a triad in which the Sumerian element has so far prevailed as to\nexclude the mother and son, and leave three gods of equal power and\nrank.(250)\n\nThe Babylonian triad is thus in no way a trinity. The divine persons who\ncompose it are coequal and independent one of the other, the sphere of\neach being limited by that of the other. But they divide the whole\nuniverse between them, or at all events that part of the universe over\nwhich their attributes and authority extend. They are partners with\ncarefully defined powers, arranged in groups of three. None of them is a\nsupreme Baal dominant over the other two. Nor, indeed, are they Baalim at\nall in the strict sense of the word. For the Semitic Baalim admitted of no\nsuch grouping; each was supreme god in his own locality, where his powers\nwere neither shared nor limited by another god. A triad like that of Anu,\nBel, and Ea could not exist where each local Baal claimed all the\nattributes that were divided between the three Babylonian deities, and its\nexistence in Babylonia is one of many proofs that, though Babylonian\nreligion in its later form was moulded by Semitic hands, the elements that\ncomposed it had come in large measure from an older faith.\n\n\n\n\nLecture IV. The Sun-God And Istar.\n\n\nIt is thus that Nebuchadrezzar addresses his god in the plenitude of his\nglory and power\u2014\n\n\u201cTo Merodach, my lord, I prayed; I began to him my petition; the word of\nmy heart sought him, and I said: \u2018O prince that art from everlasting, lord\nof all that exists, for the king whom thou lovest, whom thou callest by\nname, as it seems good unto thee thou guidest his name aright, thou\nwatchest over him in the path of righteousness! I, the prince who obeys\nthee, am the work of thy hands; thou hast created me, and hast intrusted\nto me the sovereignty over multitudes of men, according to thy goodness, O\nlord, which thou hast made to pass over them all. Let me love thy supreme\nlordship, let the fear of thy divinity exist in my heart, and give what\nseemeth good unto thee, since thou maintainest my life.\u2019 Then he, the\nfirstborn, the glorious, the leader of the gods, Merodach the prince,\nheard my prayer and accepted my petition.\u201d(251)\n\n\u201cTo Merodach, my lord, I prayed, and lifted up my hand: \u2018O Merodach, (my)\nlord, the wise one of the gods, the mighty prince, thou didst create me\nand hast intrusted to me the dominion over multitudes of men; as my own\ndear life do I love the height of thy court; among all mankind have I not\nbuilt a city of the earth fairer than thy city of Babylon. As I have loved\nthe fear of thy divinity and have sought after thy lordship, accept the\nlifting up of my hands, hearken to my petition, for I the king am the\nadorner (of the shrine) who rejoices thy heart, an instructed ruler, the\nadorner of all thy fortresses.\u2019 \u201d(252)\n\nThe god before whom the great Babylonian conqueror thus humbles himself in\npassionate devotion, was the divine guardian and lord of his capital city.\nEver since the days when Babylon had been but one of the many villages of\nBabylonia, Merodach had been its presiding god. It was to him that\n\u00ca-Saggil, its sanctuary, was dedicated, and from him and his priesthood\nthe kings of Babylon derived their right to rule. Merodach had given them\ntheir supremacy, first in Babylonia and then throughout Western Asia, and\nthe supremacy he bestowed upon them was reflected upon himself. The god\nfollowed the fortunes of his city, because through him his city had risen\nto power; and he became Bel, \u201cthe lord,\u201d not for the inhabitant of Babylon\nonly, but for all the civilised world. Like Amon of Thebes, Bel-Merodach\nof Babylon supplanted the older gods of the country because the city\nwherein he was worshipped supplanted the earlier seats of Babylonian\npower.\n\nLike Amon of Thebes, moreover, Merodach of Babylon owed much to his solar\ncharacter. Youngest of the gods though he might be, he was yet a form of\nthe sun-god,(253) and as such a representative and impersonation of the\nsupreme Baal. However much his solar features were overshadowed by other\nattributes in later days, they were never wholly obscured, and his solar\norigin was remembered to the last. It was never forgotten that before he\nbecame the supreme Bel or \u201clord\u201d of Babylonian theology he had been merely\na local sun-god, like Utu of Larsa or Samas of Sippara.\n\nWe can even trace his cult to Sumerian days. A punning etymology, proposed\nfor his name in an age when the true origin of it had been lost, made him\nthe _amar-utuki_ or \u201cheifer of the goblin\u201d; and the fact that the sun-god\nwas known to have once been an _utuk_ or \u201cgoblin\u201d seemed to lend\ncountenance to it. But when we first catch glimpses of his worship, he has\nalready ceased to belong to the goblins of the night. He has been\nidentified with Asari the son of Ea of Eridu, and has thus became the\nmessenger and interpreter of the culture-god.\n\nIn the language of Sumer, Asari signified \u201cthe strong one\u201d or\n\u201cprince.\u201d(254) His name was expressed by two ideographs which denoted\n\u201cplace\u201d and \u201ceye,\u201d and had precisely the same meaning and form as the two\nwhich expressed the name of the Egyptian Osiris.(255) Between the Sumerian\nAsari and the Egyptian Osiris, therefore, it seems probable that there was\na connection. And to my mind the probability is raised to practical\ncertainty by the fact that the character and attributes of both Asari and\nOsiris were the same. Osiris was Un-nefer, \u201cthe good being,\u201d whose life\nwas spent in benefiting and civilising mankind; Asari also was \u201cthe good\nheifer\u201d (_amar-dugga_), and his common title was that of \u201cthe prince who\ndoes good to men\u201d (_A\u1e61ari-galu-dugga_). He it was who conveyed to men the\nteaching of Ea, who healed their diseases by means of his father\u2019s spells,\nand who \u201craised the dead to life.\u201d Asari and Osiris are not only the same\nin name and pictorial representation, they play the same part in the\nhistory of religion and culture.\n\nBut there was one important difference between them. Osiris was a dead\ngod, whose kingdom was in the other world; Asari brought help to the\nliving, whom he restored from sickness and delivered from death. Even in\nEgypt, however, it was remembered that Osiris had been a god of the living\nbefore he was god of the dead. Tradition told how he had instructed men in\nthe arts of life, and done for primeval Egypt what Ea and Asari had done\nfor Chald\u00e6a. The difference between him and Asari is a difference that\nruns through the whole of Egyptian and Babylonian theology. The Egyptian\nof the historical period fixed his eyes on the future life, and the god he\nworshipped accordingly was the god who judged and saved him in the other\nworld; the religion of the Babylonian was confined to this world, and it\nwas in this world only that he was judged by the sun-god, and received his\nsentence of reward or punishment. The mummified sun-god did not exist for\nthe Babylonians, for the practice of mummification was unknown among them.\n\nIt is possible that A\u1e61ari, \u201cthe prince who does good to men,\u201d had been\noriginally a title of Ea. If so, the title and the god had been separated\nfrom one another at an early epoch, and the title had become itself a god\nwho owned Ea as his father. This relationship between Ea and his son\nbetrays Semitic\u2014or at all events foreign\u2014influence. The ghosts and spirits\nof primitive Sumerian belief were not bound together by any such family\nties; the demons of the night had little in common with the men they\nterrified and plagued. Asari had once been conceived of as a ram, Ea as an\nantelope; and between the ram and the antelope no genetic relationship was\npossible. They might be united together like the composite creatures which\nhad come down to the Babylonians from the old Sumerian days, but there\ncould be no birth of one from the other. Birth characterises the present\ncreation in which like springs from like; it was only in the time of chaos\nthat unlike forms could be mingled together in disorderly confusion.\n\nThat Asari was a sun-god follows from his identification with Merodach.\nHere and here only could have been the link which bound the two deities\ntogether.(256) But in passing into Merodach he lost his own personality.\nHenceforth the son of Ea and the god of Babylon are one and the same.\n\nIt was but gradually that he attained his high position in the Babylonian\npantheon. Ea and Asari were gods of the south; Babylon lay in the northern\nhalf of the country. There must therefore have been some special reason\nfor the close connection that grew up between them. I know of no other\nthat would account for it except the one I gave many years ago\u2014that\nBabylon was a colony from Eridu. In this case we could understand why its\nlocal deity should have been a son of Ea, and how accordingly it became\npossible to identify him with that particular son of the god of Eridu\nwhose attributes resembled his own.\n\nIt is difficult at present to trace the history of Merodach beyond the age\nof the dynasty of Khammurabi. It was then that Babylon became an imperial\ncity, and the power of its god grew with the power of its rulers. The\ndynasty was Semitic, though of foreign origin; and we may gather from the\nnames of the first two kings that the ancestral god of the family had been\n\u1e60amu(257) or Shem. But with the possession of Babylon the manners and\nreligion of Babylonia were adopted; the fourth king of the dynasty bears a\nBabylonian name,(258) and his grandson ascribes his victories to the god\nof Babylon.\n\nMerodach is invested by Khammurabi with all the attributes of a supreme\nSemitic Baal. His solar character falls into the background; he becomes\nthe lord of gods and men, who delivers the weak and punishes the proud.\nThe office of judge, which belonged to him as the sun-god, is amplified;\nthe wisdom he had derived from Ea is made part of his original nature; his\nquality of mercy is insisted on again and again. Like the Semitic Baal, he\nis the father of his people, the mighty king who rules the world and\noccupies the foremost place in the council of the gods. Already the son of\nKhammurabi declares that the older Bel of Nippur had transferred to\nMerodach the sovereignty of the civilised world; the power of Nippur and\nits priesthood had passed to Babylon, and its god had to make way for a\nyounger rival. As long as Babylon remained the capital of the kingdom, the\nBel or \u201clord\u201d of Babylonia was Merodach. The god followed the fortunes of\nhis State.\n\nThe sanctity that had lingered for so many centuries around the temple of\nNippur now passed to \u00ca-Saggil, the temple of Merodach. The priests of\nMerodach inherited the rights and functions of the priests of En-lil. From\nhenceforth it was Merodach and his priests who could make and unmake\nkings; it was only the prince who had \u201ctaken the hand of Bel\u201d of Babylon,\nand thereby been adopted as his son, that could claim legitimate rule. The\ndescendants of the conquerors who had carried Babylonian culture to the\nlands of the West, derived their title to dominion not from Nippur, but\nfrom Babylon, and it was forgotten that the title had ever had any other\nsource. The lordship of the world had indeed been transferred to a new god\nand a new city; Zeus had supplanted his father Kronos.\n\nA sort of p\u00e6an in praise of Merodach, which is supposed to form part of\nthe Epic of the Creation, describes how the god of Babylon received the\nnames, and therewith the attributes and powers, of the older deities. In\nthe great assembly of the gods he was greeted as their Zi or \u201cLife,\u201d(259)\nthen as Ea under his name of \u201cgod of divine life,\u201d then as Hadad or the\ngod of \u201cthe good wind,\u201d(260) and finally as Sin with \u201cthe divine crown,\u201d\nin whose name he became \u201cthe merciful one who brings back the dead to\nlife.\u201d The ceremony was not concluded until he had received all \u201cthe fifty\nnames of the great gods,\u201d whose virtues and essence had thus, as it were,\npassed into himself. Not only was he their heir, he also absorbed their\nwhole being, and so became one with his father, who is made to say: \u201cHe is\nbecome even as myself, for Ea is (now) his name.\u201d\n\nIn these words we are brought very near to the Egyptian doctrine which\ntransmuted one god into another, and saw in them only so many forms of the\nsame divinity. But the stage of pantheism was never reached in Babylonia.\nThe Semitic element in Babylonian religion was too strong to admit of it;\nthe attributes and character of each deity were too clearly cut and\ndefined, and the Semitic mind was incapable of transforming the human\nfigures of the gods into nebulous abstractions. The god was too much of a\nman, moving in too well marked a sphere, to be resolved into a mere form\nor manifestation. Merodach might receive from the other gods their\nattributes and the power to exercise them, but it was delegation and not\nabsorption. The other gods still retained the attributes that belonged to\nthem, and the right to use them if they would. Merodach was their\nvicegerent and successor rather than themselves under another form.\n\nHence it is that the human element in the Babylonian god predominated over\nthe abstract and divine. His solar attributes fell into the background,\nand he became more and more the representative of a human king who rules\nhis people justly, and whose orders all are bound to obey. He became, in\nfact, a Semitic Baal, made in human form, and consequently conceived of as\nan exaggerated or superhuman man. The other gods are his subjects, not\nforms under which he can reveal himself; they retain their\nindividualities, and constitute his court. There is no nebulosity, no\npantheism, in the religion of Semitic Babylonia; the formless divinity and\nthe animal worship of Egypt are alike unknown to it. As is the man, so is\nthe god, for the one has been made in the likeness of the other.\n\nNevertheless the solar origin of Merodach left its impress upon the\ntheology of the State. It had much to do with that process of identifying\none god with another, which, as we have seen, tended to approximate the\ndoctrines of Babylonia to those of Egypt. Though the individual gods were\ndistinguished and marked off from one another like individual men, it was\nyet possible to get as it were behind the individual traits, and find in\ncertain of them a common element in which their individual peculiarities\nwere lost. The name, so the Babylonian believed, was the essence of the\nperson or thing to which it was attached; that which had no name did not\nexist, and its existence commenced only when it received its name. A\nnameless god could not exist any more than a nameless man, and a knowledge\nof his name brought with it a knowledge of his real nature and powers. But\na name was transferable; it could be taken from one object and given to\nanother, and therewith the essential characteristics which had belonged to\nthe first would become the property of the other.\n\nWhen the name was changed, the person or thing was changed along with it.\nTo give Merodach another name, therefore, was equivalent to changing his\nessential characteristics, and endowing him with the nature and properties\nof another god. The solar character which belonged to him primitively gave\nthe first impulse to this transference and change of name. There were\nother solar deities in Babylonia, with distinct personalities of their\nown, for they were each called by an individual name. But the sun which\nthey typified and represented was the same everywhere, and the attributes\nof the solar divinity differed but little in the various States of Semitic\nBabylonia. It was easy, therefore, to assign to the one the name of\nanother, and the assignment brought with it a change of personality. With\nthe name came the personality of the god to whom it originally belonged,\nand who now, as it were, lost his individual existence. It passed into the\nperson of the other deity; the two gods were identified together; but it\nwas not by the absorption of the one into the other but by the loss of\nindividual existence on the part of one of them. It was no resolution of\ntwo independent beings into a common form, but rather the substitution of\none individual for another.\n\nThis process of assimilation was assisted by the Babylonian conception of\nthe goddess. By the side of the god, the goddess was little more than a\ncolourless abstraction which owed its origin to the necessities of\ngrammar. The individual element was absent; all that gave form and\nsubstance to the goddess was the particular name she happened to bear.\nWithout the name she had no existence, and the name itself was but an\nepithet which could be interchanged with another epithet at the will of\nthe worshipper. The goddesses of Babylonia were thus like the colours of a\nkaleidoscope, constantly shifting and passing one into another. As long as\nthe name existed, indeed, there was an individuality attached to it; but\nwith the change of name the individuality changed too. The individuality\ndepended more on the name in the case of the goddess than in the case of\nthe god; for the goddess possessed nothing but the name which she could\ncall her own, while the god was conceived of as a human lord and master\nwith definite powers and attributes. There was, it is true, one goddess,\nIstar, who resembled the god in this respect; but it was just the goddess\nIstar who retained her independent personality with as much tenacity as\nthe gods.\n\nWhen once the various sun-gods of Babylonia had been assimilated, or\nidentified, one with the other, it was not difficult to extend the process\nyet further. As the city of Merodach increased in power, lording it over\nthe other States of the country, and giving to their inhabitants its own\nname, so Merodach himself took precedence over the older gods of\nBabylonia, and claimed the authority and the attributes which had belonged\nto them. Their names, and therewith their powers, were transferred to him;\nthe supremacy of En-lil, the wisdom of Ea, the glory of Anu, alike became\nhis. The \u201ctablets of destiny,\u201d which conferred on their possessor the\ngovernment of the visible world, were taken from the older Bel and given\nto his younger rival; the wisdom of which Merodach had once been the\ninterpreter now became his own; and, like Anu, his rule extended to the\nfarthest regions of the sky. But in thus taking the place of the great\ngods of earth and heaven, Merodach was at the same time the inheritor and\nowner of their names. If the tablets of destiny had passed into his\npossession, it was because he had assumed along with them the name of Bel;\nif Ea and Anu had yielded to him their ancient prerogatives, it was\nbecause he had himself been transformed into the Ea and Anu of the new\nofficial theology. The Babylonian hymn in honour of Merodach, when it\ndeclares that the fifty names of the great gods had been conferred upon\nhim, only expresses in another form the conviction that he had entered\ninto the heritage of the older gods.\n\nAs time went on, and Babylon continued to be the sovereign city of the\nkingdom, the position of its god became at once more exalted and more\nsecure. The solar features in his character passed out of sight; he was\nnot only the giver of the empire of the world to his adopted son and\nvicegerent, the king of Babylon, he was also the divine counterpart and\nrepresentative of the king in heaven. The god had made man in his own\nimage, and he was now transformed into the likeness of men. Two ideas,\nconsequently, struggled for the mastery in Babylonian religion\u2014the\nanthropomorphic conception of the deity, and the belief in his\nidentification with other gods; and the result was an amalgamation of the\ntwo. Merodach was the divine man, freed from the limitations of our mortal\nexistence, and therefore able not only to rule over the other gods, but\nalso, like the magician, to make their natures his own. The other gods\ncontinued to exist indeed, but it was as his subjects who had yielded up\nto him their powers, and of whom, accordingly, he could dispose as seemed\nto him good. Originally the first among his peers, he ended\u2014at least in\nthe belief of the native of Babylon\u2014in becoming supreme over them, and\nabsorbing into himself all the attributes and prerogatives of divinity.\n\nIt was not, however, till the closing days of Babylonian independence that\nan attempt was made to give outward and visible expression to the fact.\nNabonidos, the last king of Babylon and the nominee of its priesthood,\ntook the images of the gods from their ancient shrines and carried them to\nBabylon. There, in the temple of Merodach, they formed as it were his\ncourt, bowing in reverence before him, when, on the festival of the New\nYear, he announced the destinies of the future. It was an effort to\ncentralise the religion of the country, and give public proof of the\nsupremacy of the god of Babylon. Like the parallel endeavour of Hezekiah\nin Judah, the attempt of Nabonidos naturally aroused the hostility of the\nlocal priesthoods; and, when Cyrus invaded the country, there was already\na party in it ready to welcome him as a deliverer, and to maintain that\nMerodach himself had been angered by the sacrilegious king. The attempt,\nindeed, came too late, and Nabonidos was too superstitious and full of\nrespect for the older sanctuaries and gods of Babylonia to carry it out in\nother than a half-hearted way. But it indicated the tendency of religious\nthought, and the direction in which the official worship of Merodach was\nirresistibly bearing its adherents. Merodach, like his city, was supreme,\nand the older gods were surely passing away.\n\nThe tendency was checked, however, by the long continuity of Babylonian\nhistory. Babylonian records went back far beyond the days when Babylon had\nbecome the capital of the kingdom. It was remembered that there had been\nother centres of power, in ages when as yet Babylon was but an obscure\nvillage. It was never forgotten that the god of Nippur had once made and\nunmade kings, that Akkad had been the seat of an empire, or that Ur had\npreceded Babylon as the capital of the ruling dynasty. Babylonian history\ndid not begin with the rise of Babylon to power, much as the priests of\nBabylon wished to make it do so; and the chronological schemes which made\na native of Babylon the first ruler of mankind, or traced to Babylon the\nfirst observations of astronomy, were but fictions which a little\nacquaintance with history could easily refute. The earlier cities of the\nland were proud of their traditions and their temples, and were not\ninclined to give them up in favour of the _parvenu_ city of Merodach;\ntheir religious corporations were still wealthy, and their sanctuaries\nstill commanded the reverence of the people. Wholly to displace and efface\nthem was impossible, as long as history continued to be written and the\npast to be remembered. The sun-god of Sippara, the moon-god of Ur or\nHarran, even En-lil of Nippur, all remained the rivals of Merodach down to\nthe latest days of Babylonian existence. Nabonidos himself was forced to\nconform to the prevailing sentiment; he bestowed almost as much care on\nthe temple of the moon-god at Harran, and the temple of the sun-god at\nSippara, as upon that of Merodach at Babylon, though, it is true, he tells\nus that it was Merodach who bade him restore the sanctuary of Sin, while\nthe sun-god of Sippara might be considered to be Merodach himself under\nanother name.(261)\n\nIt was thus history which prevented the rise of anything like monotheism\nin Babylonia. It was impossible to break with the past, and the past was\nbound up with polytheism and with the existence of great cities, each with\nits separate god and sanctuary and the minor divinities who revolved\naround them. At the same time the tendency to monotheism existed; and\ncould the Babylonian have blotted out the past, it might have ended in the\nworship of but one god. As it was, the language of the later inscriptions\nsometimes approaches very nearly that of the monotheist. When\nNebuchadrezzar prays to Merodach, his words might often have been those of\na Jew; and even at an earlier date the moon-god is called by his\nworshipper \u201csupreme\u201d in earth and heaven, omnipotent and creator of all\nthings; while an old religious poem refers, in the abstract, to \u201cthe god\u201d\nwho confers lordship on men. As was long ago pointed out by Sir H.\nRawlinson, Anu, whose written name became synonymous with \u201cgod,\u201d is\nidentified with various cosmic deities, both male and female, in a\ntheological list;(262) and Dr. Pinches has published a tablet in which the\nchief divinities of the Babylonian pantheon are resolved into forms of\nMerodach.(263) En-lil becomes \u201cthe Merodach of sovereignty,\u201d Nebo \u201cthe\nMerodach of earthly possessions,\u201d Nergal \u201cthe Merodach of war.\u201d This is\nbut another way of expressing that identification of the god of Babylon\nwith the other deities of Babylonian belief which, as we have seen, placed\nhim at the head of the divine hierarchy, and, by depriving them of their\nattributes and powers, tended to reduce them into mere angel-ministers of\na supreme god.\n\nThere was yet another cause which prevented the religion of Babylonia from\nassuming a monotheistic form. As we have seen, the majority of the\nBabylonian goddesses followed the usual Semitic type, and were little else\nthan reflections of the male divinity. But there was one goddess who\nretained her independence, and claimed equal rank with the gods. Against\nher power and prerogatives the influence of Semitic theology contended in\nvain. The Sumerian element continued to exist in the mixed Babylonian\nnation, and, like the woman who held a position in it which was denied her\nwhere the Semite was alone dominant, the goddess Istar remained the equal\nof the gods. Even her name never assumed the feminine termination which\ndenoted the Semitic goddess; Semitised though she might be, she continued\nto be essentially a Sumerian deity.\n\nMany years ago, in my Hibbert Lectures, I first drew attention to the fact\nthat Istar belonged to the non-Semitic part of the Babylonian population,\nand in both name and attributes was foreign to Semitic modes of thought.\nThe best proof of this is to be found in the transformations she underwent\nwhen her worship was carried by Babylonian culture to the more purely\nSemitic peoples of the West. In Arabia and Moab she became a male deity;\nthe ideas and functions connected with her were incompatible in the\nSemitic mind with the conception of a female divinity. Even in Babylonia\nitself there were those who believed in a male Istar;(264) and the\nofficial theology itself spoke of an androgynous deity, of an Istar who\nwas at once a goddess and a god.(265) In Canaan, where her female nature\nwas accepted, she was changed into a Semitic goddess; the feminine suffix\nwas attached to her name, and her attributes were assimilated to those of\nthe native goddess Ash\u00earah. In Assyria, too, we can see the same process\ngoing on. The name of Istar with the feminine termination of Semitic\ngrammar becomes a mere synonym of \u201cgoddess,\u201d and, as in Canaan, the\nIstars, or rather the Ashtoreths, mean merely the goddesses of the popular\ncult, the female counterparts of the Baalim or \u201cBaals.\u201d It was only the\nState religion, which had its roots in Babylonia, that prevented Istar of\nNineveh or Istar of Arbela from becoming a Canaanitish Ashtoreth.\n\nThis was the fate that had actually befallen some of the old Sumerian\ndeities. In the Sippara of Semitic days, for example, the wife of the\nsun-god was the goddess \u00c2. But \u00c2 had once been the sun-god himself, and\ntexts exist in which he is still regarded as a god. Sumerian grammar was\ngenderless; there was no distinction in it between masculine and feminine,\nand the divine names of the Sumerian pantheon could consequently be\nclassified by the Semite as he would. He had only to apply a feminine\nepithet to one of them, and it forthwith became the name of a goddess.\nSippara already had its sun-god Samas: there was no room for another, and\n\u00c2 accordingly became his wife. But in becoming his wife she lost her\nindividuality; her attributes and powers were absorbed by Samas, and in\nthe later Semitic theology she serves only to complete the divine family\nor triad.\n\nIstar succeeded in escaping any such effacement or degradation. Her\nworship was too deeply rooted in Babylonia, and too intimately associated\nwith the religious traditions of the past. The same historical reasons\nwhich prevented monotheism from developing out of Babylonian polytheism\nprevented Istar from degenerating into an Ashtoreth. At times she came\nperilously near to such a fate: in the penitential psalms we find the\nbeginnings of it; and, when Babylon became the head of the kingdom, the\nsupremacy of Merodach threatened the independence and authority of Istar\neven more than it threatened those of the other \u201cgreat gods.\u201d But the cult\nof Istar had been fixed and established long before Merodach was more than\na petty provincial god; she was the goddess and patroness of Erech, and\nErech had once been the capital of a Babylonian empire. It was needful\nthat that fact should be forgotten before Istar could be dethroned from\nthe position she held in the religion of Babylonia, whether official or\npopular.\n\nAll attempts to find a Semitic etymology for the name of Istar have been a\nfailure. We must be content to leave it unexplained, and to recognise the\nforeign character both of the name and of the goddess whom it represented.\nIn Babylonia the name was never Semitised; the character of the goddess,\non the other hand, was adapted, though imperfectly, to Semitic modes of\nthought. She took upon her the attributes of a Baal, and presided over war\nas well as over love. One result of this mingling of Semitic and Sumerian\nideas was the difficulty of fitting her into the family system of Semitic\ntheology. She could not have a wife, for she was a goddess; it was equally\ndifficult to assign to her her shadow and counterpart, which was contrary\nto all the preconceptions of the Semitic mind. Generally, therefore, if\nnot officially, she was conceived of as a virgin, or at all events as a\ngoddess who might indulge in amours so long as they did not lead to\nregular marriage. Even Tammuz was the bridegroom rather than the husband\nof her youth, and he too had been banished to the darkness of the\nunderground world long before Istar herself had interfered with the\naffairs of men. She has been described as the female principle\ncorresponding with the male principle in the world: but the description is\nincorrect; she was rather the male principle in female form.\n\nIstar at the outset was the spirit of the evening star. In days, however,\nwhen astronomy was as yet in its infancy, the evening and the morning\nstars were believed to be the same. It was only in aftertimes that an\nendeavour was made to distinguish between the Istar of the evening and the\nIstar of the morning. Originally they were one and the same, the herald at\nonce of night and day. It was on this account that Istar was associated\nwith Ana, the sky. The sky was her father, for she was born from it at\nsunset and dawn; and if other traditions or myths made her the daughter of\nthe moon-god, they were not accepted at Erech, the centre and source of\nher cult.\n\nIn virtue of her origin she formed a triad with Samas and Sin. The sun,\nthe moon, and the evening star divided, as it were, the heavens between\nthem, and presided over its destinies. They were the luminaries that\nregulated the seasons of the year and determined the orderly course of the\npresent creation. Istar represents \u201cthe stars \u201d of Genesis that were made\nwith the sun and moon. But in the Babylonian system the triad of Istar,\nSin, and Samas was not made, they were deities that were born. Before them\nwas the older and higher triad of Anu, Bel, and Ea,\u2014the sky, the earth,\nand the water,\u2014the three elements of which the whole universe was formed.\n\nHow the spirit of the evening star came in time to be the goddess of love,\nis not difficult to understand. Even modern poets have sung of the evening\nas the season of lovers, when the work and business of the day are over,\nand words of love can be whispered under the pale light of the evening\nstar. But this alone will not explain the licentious worship that was\ncarried on at Erech in the name of Istar. It was essentially Semitic in\nits character, and illustrates that intensity of belief which made the\nSemite sacrifice all he possessed to the deity whom he adored. The\nprostitution that was practised in the name of Istar had the same origin\nas the sacrifice of the firstborn, or the orgies that were celebrated in\nthe temples of the sun-god.\n\nAt Erech, Istar was served by organised bands of unmarried maidens who\nprostituted themselves in honour of the goddess. The prostitution was\nstrictly religious, as much so as the ceremonial cannibalism formerly\nprevalent among the South Sea Islanders. In return for the lives they led,\nthe \u201chandmaids of Istar\u201d were independent and free from the control of\nmen. They formed a religious community, the distinguishing feature of\nwhich was the power of indulging the passions of womanhood without the\ndisabilities which amongst a Semitic population these would otherwise have\nbrought. The \u201chandmaid of Istar\u201d owned allegiance only to the goddess she\nserved. Her freedom was dependent on her priesthood, but in return for\nthis freedom she had to give up all the pleasures of family life. It was a\nself-surrender which placed the priestess outside the restrictions of the\nfamily code, and was yet for the sake of a principle which made that\nfamily code possible. Baal, the lord of the Semitic family, claimed the\nfirstborn as his right, and Istar or Ashtoreth similarly demanded the\nservice of its daughters.\n\nIt was the same in Canaan as at Erech. Did the rites, and the beliefs on\nwhich the rites were based, migrate from Babylonia to the West along with\nBabylonian culture, or were they a common Semitic heritage in which Erech\nand Ph\u0153nicia shared alike? It is difficult to give a precise answer to the\nquestion. On the one hand, we know that the Ashtoreth of Canaan was of\nBabylonian birth, and that in days far remote the theology of the\nCanaanite was profoundly influenced by that of Babylonia; on the other\nhand, the rites with which Istar was worshipped were confined in Babylonia\nto Erech; it was there only that her \u201chandmaids\u201d and eunuch-priests were\norganised into communities, and that unspeakable abominations were\npractised in her name. The Istar who was adored elsewhere was a chaste and\npassionless goddess, the mother of her people whom she had begotten, or\ntheir stern leader in war. It does not seem likely that a cult which was\nunable to spread in Babylonia or Assyria should nevertheless have taken\ndeep root in Ph\u0153nicia, had there not already been there a soil prepared to\nreceive it. Erech was essentially a Semitic city; its supreme god Anu had\nall the features of the Semitic Baal, \u201cthe lord of heaven\u201d; and its\ngoddess Istar, Sumerian though she may have been in origin, like Anu\nhimself, had clothed herself in a Semitic dress.\n\nMoreover, there was another side to the worship of Istar which bears\nindirect testimony to the Semitic origin of her cult at Erech. By the side\nof the Istar of the official faith there was another Istar, who presided\nover magic and witchcraft. Her priestesses were the witches who plied\ntheir unholy calling under the shadow of night, and mixed the poisonous\nphiltres which drained away the strength of their hapless victims. The\nblack Istar, as we may call her, was a parody of the goddess of love; and\nthe rites with which she was adored, and the ministers by whom she was\nserved, were equally parodies of the cult that was carried on at Erech.\nBut the black Istar was not only a parody of the goddess of the State\nreligion, she was also the Istar of the popular creed, of the creed of\nthat part of the population, in fact, which was least intermixed with\nSemitic elements and least influenced by Semitic beliefs. It was amongst\nthis portion of the nation that the old Sumerian animism lingered longest\nand resisted the purer teaching of the educated class. The Semitic\nconceptions which underlay the worship of Istar at Erech were never\nthoroughly assimilated by it; all that it could do was to create a parody\nand caricature of the official cult, adapting it to those older beliefs\nand ideas which bad found their centre in the temple of En-lil. The black\nIstar was a Sumerian ghost masquerading in Semitic garb.\n\nAs Bel attracted to himself the other gods, appropriating their names and\ntherewith their essence and attributes, so Istar attracted the\nunsubstantial goddesses of the Babylonian pantheon. They became mere\nepithets of the one female divinity who maintained her independent\nexistence by the side of the male gods. One by one they were identified\nwith her person, and passed into the Istar\u00e2t, or Istars, of the later\ncreed. Like the Baalim, the Istar\u00e2t owed what separate individuality they\npossessed to geography. On the theological side the Istar of Nineveh was\nidentical with the Istar of Arbela; what distinguished them was the local\nsphere over which they held jurisdiction. The difference between them was\npurely geographical: the one was attached to a particular area over which\nher power extended, and where she was adored, while the other was the\ngoddess of another city\u2014that was all. It was the same goddess, but a\ndifferent local cult. The deity remained the same, but her relations, both\nto her worshippers and to the other gods, were changed. There is no\ntransmutation of form as in Egypt, but a change of relations, which have\ntheir origin in geographical variety.\n\nIn Babylonia, however, Istar was not so completely without a rival as she\nwas in Assyria. There was another city of ancient fame which, like Erech,\nwas under the protection of a goddess rather than of a god. This was one\nof the two Sipparas on the banks of the Euphrates, which is distinguished\nin the inscriptions from the Sippara of Samas as the Sippara of Anunit.\nThe feminine termination of the name of Anunit indicates that here again\nwe have a goddess who, in the form in which we know her, is essentially\nSemitic. But it is only in the form in which we know her that such is the\ncase. The origin of Anunit goes back to Sumerian times. She was in the\nbeginning merely an Anunna or \u201cspirit\u201d of the earth, as sexless as the\nother spirits of Sumerian belief, and lacking all the characteristics of a\nSemitic divinity.(266) It was not till Sippara became the seat of a\nSemitic empire that the Anunna or Sumerian \u201cspirit\u201d was transformed into\nAnunit the goddess. The transformation here was accompanied by the same\noutward change as that which turned the Babylonian Istar into the\nAshtoreth of Canaan. For a time it seemed as though Anunit rather than\nIstar would become the supreme goddess of Semitic cult; but the political\npredominance of Sippara passed away with the fall of the empire of Sargon\nof Akkad, and historical conservatism alone preserved the name and\ninfluence of its goddess. As time went on, Anunit tended more and more to\nsink into the common herd of Babylonian goddesses, or to be identified\nwith Istar. As long as the Sumerian element continued to be strong in the\nBabylonian people and their religion, Anunit retained the position which\nthe mixture of the Semite and Sumerian had created for her; with the\ngrowing dominance of the Semitic spirit, her independence and\nindividuality departed, and she became, like Beltis or Gula, merely the\nfemale complement of the god. Perhaps the process was hastened by the\ngrammatical termination that had been added to her name.\n\nWherever, in fact, Semitic influence prevailed, the goddess, as opposed to\nthe god, tended to disappear. It was but a step from the conception of a\ngod with a colourless counterpart, whose very existence seemed to be due\nto the necessities of grammar, to that of a deity who absorbed within\nhimself the female as well as the male principles of the universe, and who\nstood alone and unmated. A goddess who depended for her existence on a\ngrammatical accident could have no profound or permanent hold on the\nbelief of the people; she necessarily fell into the background, and the\nprerogatives which had belonged to her were transferred to the god. Istar\nherself, thanks to the masculine form of her name, became a god in\nSouthern Arabia, and was identified with Chemosh in Moab, while even in\nBabylonia and Assyria she assumed the attributes of a male divinity, and\nwas adored as the goddess of war as well as of love.(267) In Assyria,\nindeed, her warlike character predominated: she took the place of the\nwar-gods of Babylonia, and armed herself with the falchion and bow.\n\nI shall have hereafter to point out how this tendency on the part of the\ngoddess to vanish, as it were, out of sight, leaving the god alone in\npossession, resulted in Assyria in raising its supreme god Assur to\nsomething of the position occupied by Yahveh in Israel. Assur is wifeless;\nnow and again, it is true, a wife is assigned to him by the pedantry of\nthe scribes, but who it should be was never settled; and that he needed a\nwife at all, was never acknowledged generally. Like Chemosh in Moab, Assur\nreigns alone; and though the immemorial influence of Babylonia kept alive\nthe worship of Istar by the side of him, it was Assur and Assur only who\nled the Assyrian armies to victory, and in whose name they subdued the\ndisobedient. It was not until the kings of Assyria became kings also of\nBabylon that Istar encroached on the rights of Assur, or that an Assyrian\nmonarch betook himself to her rather than to the god of his fathers in the\nhour of his necessity. As long as the capital remained at the old city of\nAssur, none but the god Assur might direct the counsels and campaigns of\nits princes, or confer upon them the crown of sovereignty. When\nTiglath-pileser III. acknowledged himself the son of Bel-Merodach, and\nreceived from his hands the right to rule, it was a sign that the older\nAssyrian dynasty had passed away, that the kingdom had become a\ncosmopolitan empire, and that the venerable traditions of Babylon had\nsubjugated its conquerors from the north. The mixed races of Babylonia had\novercome the purer Semites of Assyria, Istar had prevailed against Assur,\nand Semitic monotheism sought a home in the further West.\n\n\n\n\nLecture V. Sumerian And Semitic Conceptions Of The Divine: Assur And\nMonotheism.\n\n\nIn the preceding lectures I have assumed that the conception of the deity\nwhich we find in the later historical monuments of Babylonia and Assyria\nwas of Semitic origin, differing radically from that formed of the godhead\nby the earlier Sumerian population. But it will doubtless be asked what\nbasis there is for such an assumption; why may we not suppose that the\nlater conception has developed naturally and without any violent break\nfrom older beliefs which were equally Semitic? Why, in short, must we\nregard the animism which underlay the religion of Babylonia as Sumerian,\nand not rather as the earliest form of Semitic faith?\n\nThe first and most obvious answer to the question would be, the fact that\nthe older names of the superhuman beings who became the gods of the later\ncreed are not Semitic, but Sumerian. En-lil of Nippur is the Sumerian\nEn-lila, \u201clord of the ghost(s)\u201d; when he becomes a Semitic god he receives\nthe Semitic title of Bilu, Baal, \u201cthe lord.\u201d And the further fact that in\nmany cases the Sumerian name continued to be used in Semitic times,\nsometimes slightly changed, sometimes adapted to the needs of Semitic\ngrammar, proves not only that the Sumerian preceded the Semitic, but also\nthat the Sumerian cult on its literary and philological side was\nassimilated by the Semitic settlers in Babylonia. The gods and goddesses\nof Babylonia were Sumerian before they were Semitic; though they wear a\nSemitic dress, we have to seek their ancestry outside the Semitic world of\nideas.\n\nAs we know them, they are clothed in human form. The deities whose figures\nare found on the seal-cylinders of Babylonia or engraved on the walls of\nthe Assyrian palaces are all alike in \u201cthe likeness of man.\u201d Bel-Merodach\nis as much a man as the king whom he adopted as his son; the sun-god who\nrises between the twin mountains of the dawn steps forth as a human giant\nto run his course; and Istar is a woman in mind and thought as well as in\noutward form. There are no animal gods in Babylonia, no monstrous\ncombinations of man and beast such as meet us in the theology of Egypt.\nNot but that such combinations were known to the Babylonians. But they\nbelonged to the primeval world of chaos; they were the brood of Tiam\u00e2t,\nthe dragon of lawlessness and night, the demons who had been banished into\nouter darkness beyond the world of light and of god-fearing men. Like the\ndevils of medieval belief, they were the divine beings of an alien faith\nwhich the gods of the new-comers had exiled to the limbo of a dead past.\nEven the subterranean Hades of Semitic Babylonia recognised them not. The\ngods worshipped by the Semite were Baalim or \u201cLords,\u201d like the men whom\nthey protected, and whose creators they were believed to be.\n\nWherever the pure Semite is found, this belief in the anthropomorphic\ncharacter of the deity is found also. Perhaps it is connected with that\ndistinguishing characteristic of his grammar which divides the world into\nthe masculine and the feminine, the male and the female. At any rate the\nSemite made his god in the likeness of men, and taught, conversely, that\nmen had been made in the likeness of the gods. The two beliefs are but the\ncounter sides of the same shield; the theomorphic man implies an\nanthropomorphic god. The god, in fact, was but an amplified man with\namplified human powers; his shape was human, so too were his passions and\nhis thoughts. Even the life that was in man was itself the breath of the\ngod. That man was not immortal like the gods, was but an accident; he had\nfailed to eat of the food of immortality or to drink of the waters of\nlife, and death therefore reigned in this lower world. The gods themselves\nmight die; Tammuz, the spouse of Istar, had been slain by the boar\u2019s tusk\nof angry summer, and carried into the realm of Hades,(268) and the temple\nof Merodach at Babylon was also known as his tomb. As the gods were born,\nso could they die; they could marry also and beget children, and they\nneeded meat and drink like the sons of men. Indeed, the world of the gods\nwas a duplicate and counterpart of the world of mankind. On \u201cthe mountain\nof the world,\u201d the Babylonian Olympos, the supreme god held his court;\naround him were ranged his subjects and servants, for there were servants\nin heaven as there were on earth; celestial armies went forth at his\nbidding, and there were wars among the gods as among men. Even theft was\nnot unknown among them; a legend tells us, for instance, how the god Zu\nstole the tablets of destiny which were hung like the Urim and Thummim on\nthe breast of \u201cfather Bel,\u201d and therewith acquired for awhile the right\nand power to control the fate of the universe. As far back as we can trace\nthe history of Semitic religion, whether in Babylonia, in Canaan, or in\nArabia, its fundamental conception is always the same; the gods are human,\nand men are divine.\n\nIt is not surprising, therefore, that as soon as the Semitic element\nbecomes paramount in Babylonia, the king becomes a god. At Babylon he was\nmade the adopted son of Bel-Merodach by taking the hand of the deity, and\nthereby became himself a Bel, a ruler of \u201cthe people of Bel\u201d over whom he\nwas henceforth to exercise undisputed lordship. In earlier days, Sargon of\nAkkad, the founder of the first Semitic empire in Western Asia, and his\nson Naram-Sin, were explicitly deified. Naram-Sin is even addressed as\n\u201cthe god of Akkad\u201d;(269) and a seal-cylinder found by Gen. di Cesnola in\nCyprus describes its owner as \u201cthe servant of the god Naram-Sin.\u201d(270) The\ntitle of \u201cgod\u201d is assumed by the Semitic successors of Sargon, to whatever\ncity or dynasty they belonged; even the Sumerian princes in Southern\nBabylonia followed the example of their Semitic suzerains, and Gudea, the\nhigh priest of Lagas, built temples to his own godhead, where for long\ncenturies his cult continued to be observed, and sacrifices and offerings\nto be made to him.(271) The occupation of Babylonia by the Arab or\nCanaanite dynasty to which Amraphel belonged, made no difference in the\ndivine honours paid to the king; he still assumed the title of \u201cgod,\u201d and\nhis subjects adored him by the side of Bel. But a change came with the\nconquest of Babylonia by Kassite hordes from the mountains of Elam; the\nforeign kings ceased to be divine, and the title of \u201cgod\u201d is given to them\nno more. As the doctrine of the divine right of kings passed away in\nEngland with the Stuarts, so too the belief in the divinity of the king\ndisappeared in Babylonia with the fall of the Semitic dynasties. Nothing\ncould show more plainly its essentially Semitic origin, and the little\nhold it possessed upon the non-Semitic part of the population. The king\nwas a god only so long as he was a Semite, or subject to Semitic influence\nand supremacy.\n\nThe apotheosis of the king is thus coeval with the rise of Semitic\ndomination in Babylonia. In the older Sumerian epoch we look in vain for\nany traces of it. Man was not yet divine, for the gods were not yet human.\nThere was as yet no Semitic Bel, and En-lil of Nippur was but a \u201clord of\nghost(s).\u201d\n\nBut we have better testimony to the fact than the ghosts of Nippur. Behind\nthe human figures of the Semitic gods the primitively pictorial character\nof the cuneiform signs enables us to discern the lineaments of figures\nthat belong to a wholly different sphere of religious thought. They are\nthe figures not of men, but of brute beasts. The name of En-lil was\ndenoted by a composite sign which represented the word _elim_, \u201ca\nram\u201d;(272) that of Ea by the ideograph which stood for _dara_, \u201cthe\nantelope.\u201d(273) En-lil, accordingly, was once a ram; Ea, an antelope.\nThere are other deities which reveal their first shapes in similar\nfashion. The wife of Hadad, for example, was Azaga-\u1e61uga, \u201cthe milch-goat\u201d\nof En-lil, from whom the primitive Sumerian shepherd derived his\nmilk.(274) Merodach himself, or rather his Sumerian prototype at Eridu,\nwas once Asari-elim, \u201cthe princely ram\u201d;(275) a striking title when we\nremember that Osiris, too, was addressed in Egypt as Ati, \u201cthe prince,\u201d\nand identified with the ram of Mendes. Even Zu, the divine thief who stole\nthe tablets of destiny, was the storm-bird, the forefather alike of the\nroc of the _Arabian Nights_ and of the Chinese storm-bird, \u201cwhich, in\nflying, obscures the sun, and of whose quills the water-tuns are made.\u201d\n\nIn many cases, however, the original forms of the Babylonian divinities\nsurvived only in the animals upon whose backs they were depicted as\nstanding, or with whom the gem-cutter associated them on seals.(276) Now\nand again an attempt was made to combine them with the human figure. Thus\nEa is at times represented as clothed in the skin of a fish, a fitting\nsymbol of the relation between the newer and older religions of Babylonia\nand the antagonistic views of the godhead entertained by the races that\ndwelt there. At other times the animal form is relegated to that great\ncompany of demons and inferior spirits amongst whom room was found for the\nmultitudinous ghosts of Sumerian belief. Where it is not altogether\nexcluded from the world of gods and men, it exists only as the humble\nretainer of one of the human gods. As Merodach was accompanied by his four\ndivine dogs, so Ea was attended by sacred bulls. They guarded the approach\nto the \u201cfield\u201d and \u201chouse of Eden,\u201d like the colossal figures, with\nbull-like bodies and the heads of men, that guarded the gates of the\npalace or temple. They were, in fact, the cherubim who forbade approach to\nthe tree of life (or knowledge),\u2014that sacred palm which an old Babylonian\nhymn tells us was planted beside the pathway of Ea in Eridu, where the god\nhad his house in the centre of the earth, pouring from his hands the\nwaters of fertility that flowed down in the twofold streams of the Tigris\nand Euphrates.(277) In later art, however, the bull-like form disappeared,\nand the guardians of the sacred tree were represented in human shape, but\nwith the heads of eagles. The change of form was due to the same striving\nto humanise the superhuman beings of Sumerian belief as that which had\ngiven a man\u2019s head to the colossal bulls; where the divine being had\nbecome a god in the Semitic sense of the word, all traces of his bestial\norigin were swept away; where he remained as it were only on the margin of\nthe divine world, the bestial element was thrust as far as possible out of\nsight, and combined with the features of a man. The cherub was allowed to\nretain his bull\u2019s body or his eagle\u2019s head, but it was on condition that\nhe never rose to the rank of a god, and that human members were combined\nwith his animal form.\n\nThe secondary creatures of the divine world of the Babylonians thus\nresembled, in outward form, the gods of Egypt. But whereas in Egypt it was\nthe gods themselves who joined the head of the beast to the body of the\nman, in Babylonia it was only the semi-divine spirits and monsters of the\npopular creed who were thus partly bestial and partly human. The official\ntheology could not banish them altogether; they became accordingly the\nservants and followers of the gods, or else the rabble-host of Tiam\u00e2t, the\nimpersonation of chaos and sin. Like the devils and angels of medieval\nbelief, they were included among the three hundred spirits of heaven and\nthe six hundred spirits of earth.(278) The spirits of heaven formed \u201cthe\nhosts\u201d of which the supreme deity was lord, and whom he led into battle\nagainst his foes; Nebo was the minister and lieutenant of Merodach and\n\u201cthe hosts of the heaven and earth,\u201d therefore it was his duty to muster\nand drill.(279) The Anunna-ki or \u201cspirits of earth\u201d had their habitation\nin the subterranean world of Hades, where they sat on a throne of gold\nguarding the waters of life, while the Igigi or angels dwelt rather with\nthe gods in the heaven of light and blissfulness. It was on this account\nthat Assur-nazir-pal calls Nin-ip \u201cthe champion of the Igigi,\u201d and that\nelsewhere the god receives the title of \u201cchief of the angels.\u201d But it was\nonly in the later ages of Babylonian religion, when the Semitic conception\nof divinity had become predominant, that a distinction was made between\nthe spirits of the earth and the air. It was only for the Semites that\nthere were spirits of the underworld and angels of heaven; the Sumerian\nhad known no difference between them; they were all alike Anunnas or\nspirits, and Nin-ip had been lord, not of the Igigi alone, but of the\nAnunna-ki as well.(280) He had, in fact, been one of them himself; he was\nthe minister and attendant of En-lil, and it was never forgotten that,\nlike the Anunna-ki, he was the \u201coffspring of \u00ca-kur,\u201d the name at once of\nthe temple of Nippur and of the underground world of Hades. Sometimes he\nis said to have sprung from \u00ca-sarra, \u201cthe house of the (spirit)-hosts.\u201d He\nhad been a ghost in Nippur before he was transformed into a Semitic god.\n\nBut he had been a ghost who was associated with the dawn, and he thus\nbecame identified in the early Semitic age with the rising sun. His solar\ncharacter raised him to the rank of a Baal, and, consequently, of a god.\nHis older attributes, however, still clung to him. He was a sun-god who\nhad risen out of the earth and of the darkness of night, and in him,\ntherefore, the darker and more violent side of the sun-god was\nreflected.(281) He became essentially a god of war, and as such a special\nfavourite of the Assyrian kings. He it was who carried destruction over\nthe earth at the time of the Deluge, while the Anunna-ki followed him with\ntheir blazing torches; and he is the brother of En-nugi, the god from\nwhose hands there is no escape. With the spread of solar worship, the\nsolar features of Nin-ip naturally grew more marked. At times he was the\ngod of the noonday as well as of the dawn, for it was at noon that the\nrays of the sun were fiercest and most deadly to man; at times he was\nassimilated to his fellow sun-god Merodach, and made a son of Ea. The\nsyncretic epoch of Babylonian religion had truly arrived when Ea and\nEn-lil were thus interchanged, and the teaching of Nippur and Eridu united\nin the solar cult!\n\nBut we have glimpses of a time when Nin-ip was not yet a god in human\nform, much less a solar Baal. His name is a title merely, and originally\ndenoted the sexless spirit, who was indifferently \u201clord\u201d and \u201clady of the\nveil.\u201d(282)\n\nThe veil was worn in sign of mourning, for the head was covered in sleep\nand death. Like the cloak which enfolded the shade of Samuel, it\nsymbolised the denizen of the underworld. At first it would seem to have\nbeen merely a veil that covered the head and face, like the _keff\u00eeya_ of\nthe modern Arab; in course of time it was extended to the cloak in which\nthe sleeper or the dead man could be wrapped. But in either case it was a\nsymbol of the world below, and as such became in the Semitic age the\ngarment of the mourner. The god who was \u201clord of the veil\u201d must once have\ndwelt beneath the earth, and been himself one of those spirits of darkness\nwhose faces were veiled from the sight of the living.\n\nNin-ip, then, must have been one of the Anunna-ki, a spirit of the earth\nand the land of Hades, before he assumed the form of a Semitic Baal, and\nclothed himself with the attributes of the sun-god. And the shape in which\nhe appeared to his worshippers was that of a swine. We are told that\nNin-ip was one with Nin-sakh, \u201cthe lord of the swine\u201d(283) and the servant\nof El-lil, who was adored at Lagas in Sumerian days, and to whom a temple\nwas erected even at Erech. That the swine should be connected with the\nunderground world of the dead, is not surprising. We find the same\nconnection in Keltic mythology. There, too, the swine are the cattle of\nHades, and it was from the subterranean fields of Hades that they were\ntransported by Pryderi to the earth above.(284) The swine turns up the\nground in his search for food; even to-day he is used to hunt for\ntruffles, and primitive man saw in his action an attempt to communicate\nwith the spirits of the underworld.(285)\n\nFrom the earth-spirit with the veiled face, who incarnated himself in the\nswine, the distance is great to the solar hero and warrior god of the\nSemitic age. In fact, the distance is too great to be spanned by any\nnatural process of evolution. It is a distance in kind and not in degree.\nIt presupposes fundamentally different conceptions of religion, animism on\nthe one side and anthropomorphic gods on the other. If we are to listen to\nfashionable theories of the origin of religion, we start in the one case\nwith the fetish, in the other case with the worship of ancestors. The\ndifference is racial: wherever we find the Semite, in all periods of his\nhistory, his gods are human and not made in the form of the beast.\n\nBut the Semite, though he moulded the later religion of Babylonia, could\nnot transform it altogether. The Sumerian element in the population was\nnever extirpated, and it is probable that if we knew more of the religion\nof the people as opposed to the official theology, we should find that it\nremained comparatively little affected by Semitic influence. The\nwitchcraft and necromancy that flourished is a proof of this; even the\nState religion was compelled to recognise it, and, like Brahmanism in the\npresence of the native cults of India, to lend it its sanction and\ncontrol. It is instructive to observe what a contrast there was in this\nrespect between the official religion of Babylonia and that of the more\npurely Semitic Israelites. Witchcraft and necromancy were practised also\nin Israel, but there they were forbidden by the law and suppressed by the\nhead of the State. In Babylonia, however, the local deities were for the\nmost part of Sumerian origin, and in spite of their Semitic colouring and\ndress not unfrequently retained their old Sumerian names. Babylonian\nreligion could not wholly repudiate its origin and parentage; the\nsuperstructure might be Semitic, but its basis was Sumerian. Like the\nSumerian words which had been adopted into the language, the names of the\ngods remained to testify to the fact that the people and their religion\nwere alike mixed. And with the names went early beliefs and legends,\nfragments of folk-lore and ritual which had descended from a non-Semitic\npast. The official creed found a niche for each of them as best it could,\nbut the assimilation was never more than partial, and from time to time we\nmeet with practices and conceptions which are alien to the official faith.\n\nThere were many expedients for getting rid of the multitudinous spirits of\nthe ancient creed who had not been transmuted into Semitic deities. They\nmight, as we have seen, be herded together in the indistinguishable crowd\nof spirits of heaven and earth that formed the angel-hosts of the gods of\nlight, or else be transformed into demons in the train of Tiam\u00e2t, the\nimpersonation of chaos. Some of them might be set apart as the special\nservants and messengers of the gods, and occupy the place of archangels in\nthe celestial hierarchy. But it was also possible to call in the aid of\ncosmology, and turn them into elemental powers representing successive\nstages in the history of creation. They thus continued to belong to that\ninchoate period of Babylonian religion when as yet the Semitic gods had\nnot come into existence, and at the same time they could be identified\nwith those gods in the exercise of their creative power. In the language\nof later metaphysic, they thus became the successive thoughts of the\ncreator realising themselves in the successive acts of the creation, like\nthe \u00e6ons of Gnosticism which emanate one from the other as the realised\nthoughts of God. The idea is doubtless a late one, and belongs to an age\nof philosophy; but it represents an attempt to grapple with the\ndifficulties presented by the opposing Sumerian and Semitic elements in\nBabylonian religion, and to reconcile them together. It presupposes that\nidentification of one god with another which the solar cult and the\nSemitic conception of the goddess had made possible, and so takes us one\nstep further in the direction of monotheism. The divine or superhuman\nbeings of the Sumerian creed are not merely identified with a particular\ngod, but are even transformed into the male and female principles which\nhis government of the world or the act of creation compels him to exhibit\nin concrete form.(286)\n\nBefore Babylonian theosophy could arrive thus far, two things were\nnecessary. The gods had to be arranged in a divine hierarchy, and the\nidentification of one with the other had to become possible. The\nhierarchical arrangement followed from the Semitic conception of divinity.\nIf Baal were a counterpart of the human father, there would be a divine\nfamily and a divine court modelled on the pattern of those of his\nworshippers. The god would have not only his wife and children, but his\nslaves and ministers as well. The deities of heaven would thus fall into\norderly groups of higher and lower rank; the higher gods would tend to\nseparate themselves more and more from those of subordinate degree, and\nthe latter to sink into the position of second-rate intelligences, who\nstood midway between the gods and men, and depended on \u201cthe great gods\u201d\nfor their offices and existence.\n\nThe conception of a divine messenger or angel who carried the orders of\nthe higher god from heaven to earth and interpreted his will to men, goes\nback to an early period in the history of Babylonian religion. We can\ntrace it to the time when the Sumerian first began to be affected by\nSemitic influence. The _sukkal_ or \u201cangel\u201d-minister plays a prominent part\nin primitive Babylonian theology, but it is noticeable that he is usually\na son of the god whose messages he conveys to gods and men. Asari or\nMerodach is at once the son and the minister of Ea; Nin-ip, of En-lil. The\nfact points to an age when Sumerian animism had already been succeeded by\nSemitic Baalism; the spirit or ghost had become a god in human shape, who\nbegat children and required an envoy.\n\nWhen Merodach became the god of Babylon, and with the rise of his city to\npolitical power entered the circle of the supreme gods, he in his turn\nneeded a messenger. The latter was found in the god of the neighbouring\ncity of Borsippa. The growth of Babylon was accompanied by the decay of\nBorsippa, which in time was reduced to a mere suburb of the rival town.\nThe god of the suburb was necessarily annexed by the god of the city which\nhad absorbed it, and as necessarily became his follower and servant.\nKhammurabi, to whom Babylon owed its position and influence, even\ntransferred the ancient temple of the god of Borsippa to the god of\nBabylon, and included him among the inferior deities to whom chapels were\nerected in the great sanctuary of Merodach.(287) But the god of Borsippa\nhad once been as independent and supreme in his own city as Merodach was\nat Babylon. He had been addressed as \u201cthe maker\u201d of the universe and the\nirrigator of the fields, and the origin of the cuneiform system of writing\nwas ascribed to him. The Semites called him the Nabium or \u201cProphet,\u201d and\nit was under this title of Nabium or Nebo that he became the minister of\nMerodach. The name was appropriate in his twofold character of interpreter\nof the will of Bel and patron of literature, and was carried by Babylonian\nconquest into the distant West. There Moses died in Moab on the summit of\nMount Nebo, and cities bearing the name stood within the borders of Reuben\nand Judah.\n\nIt was doubtless the association of Nebo with Merodach that caused him,\nlike Thoth in Egypt, to become the patron of literature and the god of the\nscribes. The culture-god was as it were divided into two; while Merodach\nretained the functions peculiar to a Semitic Baal, Nebo watched over the\nlibrary and school, and encouraged the study of the script which had been\ninvented by him. The older claims of Ea fell into the background and were\nforgotten; it was no longer the god of Eridu, but Nebo, who had written\nthe first book, and instructed mankind in the elements of culture. The\nmarshal\u2019s staff, which Nebo had wielded as organiser of \u201cthe hosts of\nheaven and earth,\u201d now became the rod of the scribe, and a consort was\ncreated for him in the person of Tasmit or \u201cHearing.\u201d In Assyria, where\nthe worship of Assur prevented any development of that of his rival\nMerodach, Nebo became a special favourite of the literary class, who\nderived their knowledge and inspiration from Babylon. Assur-bani-pal never\nwearies of telling us how Nebo and Tasmit had \u201cmade broad his ears and\nenlightened his eyes,\u201d so that he had collected and republished the books\nand tablets of the kings who had gone before him.\n\nAs minister of Merodach, Nebo passed into the solar circle. In Egypt he\nwould have been absorbed by the more influential god, but in Babylonia the\nSemitic conception of Merodach as a Baal who required his minister and\nenvoy like an earthly king, stood in the way of any such identification.\nHe consequently retained his personality, and it was another god who was\nidentified with him. This was Nusku, once the fire which blazed up into\nflame and purified the sacrifice. With the spread of the solar cult Nusku\nbecame a local sun-god, and was regarded as the god of the burning sun of\nnoon. In Sumerian days, however, while he was still the spirit of the\nfire, he had been necessarily the servant and associate of En-lil; and\nwhen En-lil became the Semitic Bel of Nippur, Nusku followed his fortunes\nand was made his messenger. After this his identification with Nebo was\neasy. Nebo, too, was the messenger and interpreter of Bel, though it was\nthe younger Bel of Babylon who had supplanted the older Bel of Nippur. As\nBel-Merodach took the place of En-lil, so too did Nebo take the place of\nNusku. The priests of Babylon knew of one Bel only, and the minister of\nBel must be one and the same whether his name were Nusku or Nebo. That\nNusku had originally been an independent deity was, however, never\nforgotten. The past history and religion of the country could not be\nignored, and the priesthood were forced to erect a separate shrine to\nNusku within the precincts of the temple of Nebo itself. Only thus could\nthey be certain that the god would not avenge himself for being defrauded\nof his dues.\n\nThe history of Nebo is an instructive illustration of the successive\nchanges that passed over the religion of Babylonia. We first have the\nghost of Sumerian times, who becomes the god of a special city in the days\nwhen Semitic influence began to make itself felt. Then the god is\ntransformed into a Semitic Baal, and with the political rise of the\nneighbouring city of Babylon is degraded into an attendant and retainer of\nthe mightier god. As interpreter of the will of the culture-god he\ndeprives Ea of his ancient prerogatives, and his title of \u201cProphet\u201d\nbecomes his name. Henceforth he is a purely Semitic divinity, and a wife\nis found for him in the shadowy abstraction \u201cHearing.\u201d Under the\ninfluences of the solar cult, he is identified with the ancient Sumerian\nfire-spirit who had himself become a sun-god, and eventually he is adopted\nin Assyria as the patron of the learned class, and the divine\nrepresentative of Babylonian learning.\n\nBut the history of Nebo also illustrates one of the directions in which\nthe striving after a monotheistic faith displayed itself. Not only was a\nseparate god, Nusku, amalgamated with Nebo, Nebo himself, while still\nkeeping his independent personality, sank into a subordinate position\nwhich may be compared with that of an archangel in Christian belief.\nBabylonian religion came to distinguish between a limited number of \u201cgreat\ngods\u201d and the inferior deities who formed their court. Indeed, it went\neven further than this. From the days of Khammurabi onward there was a\ntendency to exalt Bel-Merodach at the expense of all his brother gods. The\ndevelopment of Babylonian religion, in fact, went hand in hand with that\nof the Babylonian State. The foundation of an empire had made the\nBabylonian familiar with the conception of a supreme sovereign, under whom\nthere were vassal kings, and under them again a dependent nobility. The\nsame conception was extended to the celestial hierarchy. Here, too,\nBel-Merodach sat supreme, while the other gods \u201cbowed reverently before\nhim,\u201d retaining, indeed, their ancestral rights and power within the\nlimits of their respective sanctuaries, but acknowledging the supremacy of\nthe one sovereign Bel. It was no longer in honour of En-lil that the\ninhabitants of Babylonia were called \u201cthe people of Bel,\u201d but because they\nwere all alike the children and adorers of Bel of Babylon.\n\nBut Babylonian religion never advanced further. It is true that the tablet\npublished by Dr. Pinches, to which I have already alluded in the last\nlecture, identifies the chief gods of the pantheon with Merodach in his\nvarious phases and functions; it is also true that Nabonidos, the last\nBabylonian king, shocked the consciences and violated the rights of the\nlocal priesthoods by bringing the images of their gods into the central\nsanctuary; but such speculations and efforts remained isolated and without\neffect. It was otherwise, however, in Assyria. There the deities for the\nmost part, like the culture and language, had been imported from the\nsouth; there were no time-honoured temples and venerable traditions to\ncontend against; and, above all, there was a national god who represented\nthe State rather than a Semitic Baal, and was therefore a symbol of the\nunity which bound the State together.\n\nThe supreme god of Assyria was Assur; the other gods were of Babylonian\norigin. And in the name of Assur we have the name of the country itself\nand its primitive capital. Assur, in short, was the deified city of Assur,\nthe divine State which from the days of its successful revolt from\nBabylonia was predominantly military, with all the union and discipline of\na military organisation. Such at least was the view taken of the god in\nthe historical age of Assyria, though some modern scholars have doubted\nwhether, like Nineveh, which derived its name from the goddess Nin\u00e2, it\nwas not originally rather the city that took its name from the god than\nthe god from the city.\n\nSuch doubts, however, are set at rest by an examination of the proper\nnames found in the Babylonian contracts of the early Semitic period, more\nespecially in those of the age of Khammurabi. Many of them are compounded\nwith the names of cities which are treated as deities, and are preceded by\nthe prefix of divinity. Thus we have Sumu-Upi (Bu. 91-5-9. 2182. 16), like\n\u1e60umu-Rakh or Sumu-R\u00e2 and Samuel, as well as Upi-rabi (Bu. 91-5-9. 377.\n25), where the deified Upi or Opis plays exactly the same part as the\ndeified rivers Euphrates and Tigris in other similarly compounded names.\nBetween the deified city and the deified river no distinction was drawn.\nBoth alike were impersonations of the god. So too in the second tablet of\nthe _Surpu_ series (_WAI._ iv. 59. 35, 38), Eridu and Babylon are invoked\nto deliver the sick man by the side of Ea and Merodach and various other\ngods, as well as certain of the stars. Between the ordinary gods of\nBabylonia and the deified city no distinction is made.(288)\n\nHad the city taken its name from the god, it would be difficult to find a\nsatisfactory etymology for it. The spelling of the name is against our\nconnecting it with the word _asiru_, \u201che who blesses\u201d or \u201cconsecrates,\u201d\nfrom which the Assyrian _asirtu_, \u201csanctuary,\u201d is derived, like the name\nof the Canaanitish goddess Ash\u00earah.(289) On the other hand, the native\nAssyrian etymology is as inadmissible as the endeavours of our eighteenth\ncentury lexicographers to find Greek or Latin derivations for Anglo-Saxon\nwords. The Assyrian scribes saw in Assur merely the old elemental deity\nAnsar, \u201cthe firmament,\u201d who was himself nothing more than the Sumerian\nspirit of the \u201cheavenly host.\u201d It is wisest not to imitate them, but, as\nin the case of Merodach and Istar, to leave the origin of the name Assur\nunexplained.\n\nThe kings of Assyria were originally high priests of Assur. In other parts\nof the Semitic world the high priest similarly preceded the king. The\nfather-in-law of Moses was high priest of Midian, and the high priests of\nSaba in Southern Arabia developed into kings.(290) There were high priests\nalso in Babylonia, who took their titles not only from the gods they\nserved, but also from the cities over which they ruled. The peculiarity in\nthe case of Assyria, however, was that there the god and the city were one\nand the same. When, therefore, the high priest of Assur assumed the title\nof king, he still retained his priestly functions under another title. He\nwas priest, but no longer high priest. Assyria was a monarchy, not a\ntheocracy; it was founded on military force, not on priestly influence.\nThe king accordingly was not a representative and vicegerent of the god,\nlike a Babylonian prince; he represented the god Assur only because he\nrepresented the city of Assur. It was through the city of Assur that the\ngod manifested himself as it were to men.\n\nOne of the consequences of this fact was that Assur was a national as\nopposed to a merely local god. Wherever the power of the city extended,\nthere the power of the god necessarily extended as well. When Assur became\nthe capital of a kingdom, the whole land which owned its authority\nreceived its name and accepted the supremacy of its god. The local cults\nmade way for the national cults; it was not only in Assur itself that the\ngod had his temple; wherever a city called itself Assyrian, the worship of\nAssur held the first place. There were no old sanctuaries and cults to\ndisplace, as in Babylonia; the deities who were adored in the cities of\nAssyria were of Babylonian origin, like Nin\u00e2 and Istar; and when once\nAssyria had achieved its independence, and realised that it had a national\nlife of its own, they were unable to maintain themselves against the\nnational god.\n\nThis national god had given his people their freedom and right to rule. He\nit was who had led their armies to victory, and had vanquished the hostile\ndeities of Babylonia. He was thus identified with the army to which\nAssyria owed its existence, and with the king who was its leader in war.\nWherever the army went or the king established himself, Assur went also.\nHe lost, therefore, the last relics of his association with a particular\nlocality, and became the god of the whole people. From every point of view\nhe was national and not local.\n\nFreed from the limitations of locality, he was consequently freed from the\nlimitations of form. Bel-Merodach was necessarily human in form, with all\nthe limitations of humanity; it was only where his image was that he could\nbe present in visible shape. But Assur was not confined to the human image\nthat represented him. He could also be represented by a symbol, and where\nthe symbol was he was too. The symbol was a standard, on which an archer\nwas depicted rising from a winged sun. It was carried with the armies of\nAssyria from place to place, like the ark in which the Israelites of the\nage of Samuel saw a symbol of the presence of their national God. The\nwinged sun refers us to Egypt; so too does the standard on which the\nemblem of Assur was borne. The Asiatic conquests of the Eighteenth Dynasty\nhad brought Egypt and Assyria into contact; the Assyrian king paid tribute\nto the Pharaoh, and doubtless depended on him for support against\nBabylonia. It was the period when Assyria was first feeling itself an\nindependent nation; the authority of Babylonia had been shaken off, and\nthe god of Babylon had been supplanted by Assur. We need not be surprised,\ntherefore, if Assur consented to borrow from Egypt the symbol which\nhenceforth distinguished him from the Babylonian gods, and with the symbol\nwent the theological ideas of which it was the expression.\n\nThese theological ideas were already deeply tinctured by the theories of\nthe solar cult. The winged solar disc is evidence that Assur was\nassimilated to Amon-Ra of Egypt. But the assimilation stopped there. The\nAssyrians were too purely Semitic even to comprehend the nebulous\npantheism of the Egyptian solar school; Assur remained an anthropomorphic\ngod, with very definite attributes and sharply-cut features. The archer\nwho rises above the disc of the sun significantly indicates the contrast\nbetween the theology of Egypt and Assyria. Above the sun-god is the human\nwarrior, the lord of hosts, the god of battles, the divine leader of the\narmies of Assur. There was no room in the practical Assyrian mind for a\nformless divinity, with its infinite transformations and elusive shape.\nThe Assyrian needed a soldier\u2019s god, at once human and clearly defined.\n\nNevertheless this human god was recognised as one with the sun-god. Or\nrather, perhaps, the sun was regarded as his visible manifestation, the\nmark or symbol under which he displayed himself. Assur was thus\nessentially a Semitic Baal, but a warlike Baal, who was the god of a\nnation and not of a particular place.\n\nWhere the nation and its army were, accordingly, their god was as well.\nAnd when Assyria claimed to rule the whole civilised world, the power and\nauthority of its god became world-wide. It was in his name that the\nAssyrian troops went forth to fight, and it was \u201cthrough trust in\u201d him\nthat they gained their victories. Those who resisted them were his\nenemies, those who submitted were incorporated into his empire, and became\nhis subjects and worshippers. All other gods had to yield to him; he was\nnot only paramount over them, but to worship them instead of him was an\nact of impiety. The sacrifice might continue to be made to them and the\nprayer offered, but it was on condition that the first-fruits of both\nsacrifice and prayer were given to Assur.\n\nThis, however, was not all. Assur was not only jealous of other gods,\nthere was no goddess who could share with him his power. In the eyes of\nthe Assyrian people he was wifeless, like Yahveh of Israel or Chemosh of\nMoab. It is true that some Assyriologists, with more zeal than knowledge,\nhave found for him a wife, but they are not agreed as to who she was.\nSometimes we have been told it was Serua, sometimes Istar, sometimes\nBelit. The very fact that such a difference of opinion exists is\nsufficient to condemn the whole supposition. It is based on the pedantry\nof certain of the Assyrian scribes, who, educated in the literature and\nreligion of Babylonia, were naturally anxious to fit their national god\ninto the Babylonian system of theology. The gods of Babylonia had each his\nwife; they were each the head of a divine family, and consequently the\nchief god of Assyria must be the same. But it was difficult to find for\nhim a female consort. Once or twice the help of the grammar is invoked,\nand the feminine Assurit is made to take her place by the side of Assur.\nBut she was too evidently an artificial creation, and accordingly Belit\nwas borrowed from Bel-Merodach, or Nin-lil from Bel of Nippur, and boldly\nclaimed as the wife of Assur. But this too was acceptable neither to\nBabylonians nor to Assyrians, and, as a last resource, Istar, the virgin\ngoddess, was transformed into a married wife. It might have been thought\nthat the idea, once started, would have met with ready acceptance; for\nIstar was the goddess of Nineveh, as Assur was of the older capital which\nwas superseded by Nineveh in the later days of the Assyrian empire. That\nit did not do so is a proof how firmly rooted was the wifelessness of\nAssur in the Assyrian mind; he was no Babylonian Bel who needed a\nhelpmeet, but a warrior\u2019s god, who entered the battle wifeless and alone.\n\nI can but repeat again of him what I said years ago in my Hibbert\nLectures: \u201cAssur consequently differs from the Babylonian gods, not only\nin the less narrowly local character that belongs to him, but also in his\nsolitary nature. He is \u2018king of all the gods\u2019 in a sense in which none of\nthe deities of Babylonia were. He is like the king of Assyria himself,\nbrooking no rival, allowing neither wife nor son to share in the honours\nwhich he claims for himself alone. He is essentially a jealous god, and as\nsuch sends forth his Assyrian adorers to destroy his unbelieving foes.\nWifeless, childless, he is mightier than the Babylonian Baalim; less\nkindly, perhaps, less near to his worshippers than they were, but more\nawe-inspiring and more powerful. We can, in fact, trace in him all the\nlineaments upon which, under other conditions, there might have been built\nup as pure a faith as that of the God of Israel.\u201d That none such was ever\nbuilt, may be accepted as a sign and token that between the Semites of\nAssyria and those of Israel there lay a difference which no theories of\nevolution are able to explain.\n\n\n\n\nLecture VI. Cosmologies.\n\n\nMan was made in the likeness of the gods, and, conversely, the gods are in\nthe likeness of man. This belief lies at the root of the theology of\nSemitic Babylonia, and characterises its conception of divinity. It\nfollows from it that the world which we see has come into existence like\nthe successive generations of mankind or the products of human art. It has\neither been begotten by the creator, or it has been formed out of\npre-existing materials. It did not come into being of itself; it is no\nfortuitous concurrence of atoms; no self-evolved product out of nothing,\nor the result of continuous development and evolution. The doctrines of\nspontaneous generation and of development are alike foreign to Babylonian\nreligious thought. That demanded a creator who was human in his attributes\nand mode of work, who could even make mistakes and experiments, and so\ncall into existence imperfect or monstrous forms which further experience\nwas needed to rectify. There was an earlier as well as a later creation,\nthe unshapely brood of chaos as well as the more perfect creations of the\ngods of light.\n\nAs we have seen, the culture of primitive Babylonia radiated from two main\ncentres, the sanctuary of Nippur in the north, and the seaport of Eridu in\nthe south. The one was inland, the other maritime; and what I may term the\ngeographical setting of the two streams of culture varied accordingly. The\ngreat temple of Nippur was known as \u00ca-kur, \u201cthe house of the\nmountain-land\u201d; it was a model of the earth, which those who built it\nbelieved to be similarly shaped, and to have the form of a mountain whose\npeak penetrated the clouds. Its supreme god was the lord of the nether\nearth, his subjects were the demons of the underworld, and the theology of\nhis priests was associated with sorcery and witchcraft, and with\ninvocations to the spirits who ruled over the world of the dead.\n\nEridu, on the contrary, was the dwelling-place of the god of the deep. Its\ntemple, \u00ca-Saggila, \u201cthe house of the high head,\u201d was, we are told, \u201cin the\nmidst\u201d of the encircling ocean on which the whole earth rested, and in it\nwas the home of Ea, \u201cthe lord of the holy mound.\u201d(291) Its god was the\nauthor of Babylonian writing and civilisation, and his son and interpreter\nwas A\u1e61ari, \u201cthe benefactor of man.\u201d While the theology of Nippur concerned\nitself with the dead, that of Eridu was pre-eminently occupied with the\nliving. Asari is invoked as the god who raised the dead to life, and the\narts which make life pleasant were the gifts of Ea himself. It is perhaps\nnot without reason that, while En-lil of Nippur appears as the destroyer\nof mankind, Ea is their creator and instructor. He not only created them,\nbut he taught them how to live, and provided for them the spells and\nremedies which could heal the sick and ward off death.\n\nLike Khnum of Egypt, he was called \u201cthe potter,\u201d for he had moulded\nmankind from the clay which his waters formed on the shores of the Persian\nGulf.(292) Nor was it mankind only that was thus made. The whole world of\ncreated things had been similarly moulded; the earth and all that dwelt\nupon it had risen out of the sea. The cosmology of Eridu thus made water\nthe origin of all things; the world we inhabit has sprung from the deep,\nwhich still encircles it like a serpent with its coils.\n\nBut the deep over which the creator-god presided was a deep which formed\npart of that orderly framework of nature wherein the gods of light bear\nrule, and which obeys laws that may not be broken. It is not the deep\nwhere the spirit of chaos held sway, and of which she was an\nimpersonation; that was a deep without limits or law, whose only progeny\nwas a brood of monsters. Between the deep of Ea and the chaos of Tiam\u00e2t\nthe cosmology of historical Babylonia drew a sharp line of distinction;\nthe one excluded the other, and it was not until the deep of Tiam\u00e2t had\nbeen, as it were, overcome and placed within bounds, that the deep wherein\nEa dwelt was able to take its place.\n\nThe two conceptions are antagonistic one to the other, and can hardly be\nexplained, except on the supposition that they belong to two different\nschools of thought. The brood of Tiam\u00e2t, it must be remembered, were once\nthe subjects of En-lil of Nippur, and the Anunna-ki, or \u201cspirits of the\nearth,\u201d though they became the orderly ministers of the gods of light,\nnevertheless continued to have their dwelling-place in the underground\nworld, and to serve its mistress Allat. The motley host that followed\nTiam\u00e2t in her contest with Bel-Merodach were essentially the ghosts and\ngoblins of the theology of Nippur; and it is with the latter, therefore,\nthat we must associate the theory of the divine world with which they are\nconnected. The world of Nippur was a world from which the sea was\nexcluded; it was a world of plain and mountain, and of the hollow depths\nwhich lay beneath the surface of the earth. The cosmology of Nippur would\nnaturally concern itself with the land rather than with the sea; the earth\nand not the water would have been the first in order of existence, and\nhabitation of the gods would be sought on the summit of a Mount Olympus\nrather than in the depths of an encircling ocean.(293)\n\nIn the chaos of Tiam\u00e2t, accordingly, I see the last relics of a cosmology\nwhich emanated from Nippur, and was accepted wherever the influence of\nNippur prevailed. It has been modified by the cosmological ideas of Eridu;\nand in the story of the struggle between Tiam\u00e2t and Merodach an attempt\nhas been made to harmonise the two conflicting conceptions of the\nuniverse, and to weld them into a compact whole. The world of Tiam\u00e2t has\nfirst been transformed into a watery abyss like that which the theologians\nof Eridu believed to be the origin of the universe, and then has been\nabsorbed by the deep over which Ea held sway. The creator Ea has taken the\nplace of the spirit of destruction, the culture-god of the dragon of\ndarkness.\n\nBut a curious legend, which has been much misunderstood, still preserves\ntraces of the old cosmology of the great sanctuary of Northern Babylonia.\nIt describes the war made against a king of Babylonia by the powers of\ndarkness, the gnome-like beings who dwelt \u201cin the ground,\u201d where Tiam\u00e2t\nhad suckled them, and where they had multiplied in the cavernous depths of\na mountain land. They were, we are told, composite monsters, \u201cwarriors\nwith the bodies of birds, men with the faces of ravens,\u201d over whom ruled a\nking and his wife and their seven sons.(294) Year after year the war\ncontinued, and, in spite of charms and incantations, host after host sent\nforth from Akkad was annihilated by the unclean and superhuman enemy. The\nBabylonian king was in despair; in vain he appealed to the gods, and\ndeclared how \u201cterror and night, death and plague, earthquake, fear and\nhorror, hunger, famine, and destruction,\u201d had come upon his unfortunate\npeople. \u201cThe plain of Akkad\u201d seemed about to become the prey of the demons\nof the night. How it was rescued from the danger that threatened it we do\nnot know; the story is unfortunately broken, and the end of it has not\nbeen found. But the origin and character of the superhuman enemy is not\ndifficult to discover; their dwelling-place is in the tomb-like recesses\nof the mountains, their mother was Tiam\u00e2t herself, and they have the\nmonstrous shapes of the ghosts and spirits of the ancient animism of\nNippur.(295)\n\nThe legend was fitly preserved in the sanctuary of Nergal, the god of the\ndead, at Kutha. It too has undergone the harmonising process of later\ntimes: the cosmologies of Nippur and Eridu are again set in antagonism,\none against the other, and there is a first creation as well as a second\nengaged in the same struggle as that which under a different form is\ndescribed in the legends of Eridu and Babylon. But the antagonists in it\nare alike the inhabitants of the dry land; there is no watery abyss from\nwhich they have sprung, whether it be the chaotic deep of Tiam\u00e2t or the\nocean home of the god of culture. The conceptions on which it rests belong\nto the inland plain of Babylonia rather than to the shores of the sea.\nInfluenced though it has been by the cosmology of Eridu, the elements of\nwhich it is composed go back to an inland and not to a maritime State.\n\nIt will be seen that our knowledge of the cosmology of Nippur is still\nscanty and uncertain. The world which it presupposed had the form of a\nmountain, on the peak of which the gods lived among the clouds of heaven,\nwhile the cavernous depths below it were peopled with hosts of spirits and\ndemons, the shades of the dead and the ghosts of a primitive animism.\nThere was no encircling ocean, no abysmal deep on which it floated, and\nfrom which it had been produced. What its origin, however, was believed to\nbe we do not yet know, or to what creative _Zi_ or _Lil_ it was held to\nowe its existence. For an answer to these questions we must wait until the\nancient libraries of Nippur have been thoroughly excavated and\nexplored.(296)\n\nIt is otherwise with the cosmology of Eridu. We know a good deal about it,\nthanks to the theologians of Babylon, whose god Merodach was the successor\nand representative of the god of Eridu. It is true that its form has been\nchanged and modified in part for the greater glory of Merodach and his\ncity, that Merodach has even taken the place of Ea as the creator, and\nthat the cosmology of Nippur\u2014or at all events of a similar school of\nthought\u2014has been combined with that of Eridu, with the result that there\nare two creations, the first chaotic, and the second that of the present\nworld. But it is still easy to disentangle the earlier from the later\nelements in the story, and to separate what is purely Babylonian from what\nbelongs to Eridu.\n\nOne of the versions of the story that have come down to us has been\npreserved in a spell, of which, like verses of the Bible in modern times,\nit has been used to form a part. Its antiquity is shown by the fact that\nit is written in the ancient language of Sumer. It is thus that it begins\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cNo holy house, no house of the gods in a holy place had as yet\n                been built,\n    no reed had grown, no tree been planted,\n    no bricks had been made, no structure formed,\n    no house had been built, no city founded,\n    no city built where living things could dwell.\n    Nippur was unbuilt, its temple of \u00ca-kur was unerected;\n    Erech was unbuilt, its temple of \u00ca-ana was unerected;(297)\n    the deep sea was uncreated, Eridu unbuilt.\n    The site of (its) holy house, the house of the gods, existed not,\n    all the earth was sea,\n    while in the midst of the sea was a water-course.\n    In those days was Eridu built and the temple of \u00ca-Saggil founded,\n    \u00ca-Saggil wherein dwells the divine king of the holy mound in the\n                midst of the deep;\u2014\n    Babylon was built, \u00ca-Saggil completed;\u2014\n    the spirits of the earth were created together,\n    they called it by the mighty name of the holy city, the seat of\n                their well-being.(298)\n    Merodach(299) tied (reeds) together to form a weir in the water,\n    he made dust and mixed it with the reeds of the weir,\n    that the gods might dwell in the seat of (their) well-being.(300)\n    Mankind he created,\u2014\n    the goddess Aruru created the seed of mankind with him,(301)\u2014\n    the cattle of the field, the living creatures in the field, he\n                created;\n    the Tigris and Euphrates he made, and set them in their place,\n    giving them good names.\n    Moss and seed-plant of the marsh, reed and rush he created,\n    he created the green herb of the field,\n    the earth, the marsh, the jungle,\n    the cow and its young, the calf, the sheep and its young, the lamb\n                of the fold,\n    the grove and the forest,\n    the goat, (and) the gazelle multiplied (?) for him.\n    Bel-Merodach(302) filled a space at the edge of the sea,\n    [there] he made an enclosure of reeds,\n    he constructed [a site?],\n    he created [the reeds], he created the trees,\n    he laid [a platform] in the place,\n    [he moulded bricks], the structure he formed;\n    [he built houses], he founded cities,\n    [cities he founded and] filled them with living things;\n    Nippur he built, \u00ca-kur he erected,\n    Erech he built, \u00ca-ana he erected,(303)\n    [the deep he created, Eridu he built].\u201d\n\n\nIt is evident that the poem was written by one who lived on the marshy\nshores of the Persian Gulf, and had watched how land could be formed by\ntying the reeds in bundles and building with them a weir. It was in this\nway that the first cultivators of Eridu protected their fields from the\ntide, or reclaimed the land from the sea. None but those who had actually\nseen the process could have devised a cosmology which thus applied it to\nthe creation of the world. To the question\u2014\u201cHow did this world come into\nexistence?\u201d the primitive inhabitant of Eridu seemed to have a ready\nanswer: he too was able to create new land, out of which the rush and the\nherb could grow, where the cattle could be pastured, and the house built.\nWhat he could do, the gods had doubtless done at the beginning of time;\nall things must have come from the primeval deep, and the earth itself was\nbut an islet rescued from the tides and created by obstructing their ebb\nand flow.\n\nBut it is also evident that the old poem has been revised and re-edited by\nthe priesthood of Babylon. \u00ca-Saggil, the temple of Bel-Merodach of\nBabylon, has been confounded with the earlier \u00ca-Saggil of Eridu, and the\ncreator-god Ea has been supplanted by Merodach. The supplanter, however,\ncannot conceal his foreign origin. The \u201cenclosure\u201d or \u201cdwelling-place,\u201d\n\u201cat the edge of the sea,\u201d must have been made in the first instance by the\ngod of the deep, not by the sun-god of Babylon. Merodach had nothing to do\nwith the sea and marshland, with cities that stood on the margin of the\nocean, or reeds that grew by its shores. He was the god of an inland city,\nand he symbolised the sun and not the sea.\n\nIt is possible that even before its alteration at the hands of the\ntheologians of Babylon, the old cosmological poem of Eridu had been\nmodified in accordance with the requirements of a theology which resulted\nfrom a fusion of Sumerian and Semitic ideas. The doctrine of the triad is\nalready presupposed by it; Nippur, Erech, and Eridu, with their\nsanctuaries of Bel, Anu, and Ea, already represent Babylonia, and the\ntemples of Bel and Anu even take precedence of that of Ea. At the same\ntime the parallelism between Nippur and Erech on the one side, and Eridu\non the other, is imperfect. The uncreated \u201cdeep,\u201d on the margin of which\nEridu stood, has nothing corresponding with it in the two preceding lines,\nwhile the place of the temples of Nippur and Erech is occupied by the name\nof the city of Eridu. It seems clear, that the reference to the two great\nsanctuary-cities of Northern and Central Babylonia is an interpolation,\nwhich breaks and injures the sense. Originally, we may conclude, the poem\nnamed Eridu only; its author knew nothing of the other shrines of\nBabylonia; for him the temple of Ea at Eridu was the house of all \u201cthe\ngods.\u201d\n\nEa, under the mask of Merodach, is the creator of mankind, as of all\nthings else. In this act of creation the goddess Aruru is coupled with\nhim; we have no materials at present for explaining why she should have\nbeen introduced, or whether the introduction formed part of the original\nlegend. It is not the only passage, however, in which she appears as a\ncreatress. According to the Epic of Gilgames, she had created the great\nhero of Babylonia, and it was she also who moulded Ea-bani, the companion\nof Gilgames, out of clay which she had kneaded with her hands. Like Ea,\ntherefore, she was a modeller in clay, and there was good reason for\nassociating her with the divine potter who had made man. Had she been a\ngod she would doubtless have been identified with him; as it was, she had\nto remain his companion and associate, whose name could not be forgotten\neven by a worshipper of Ea. Probably she was the goddess of some\nBabylonian city where she played the part that Ea played at Eridu; it may\nbe that her sanctuary was at Marad, which claimed, as it would seem, to be\nthe birthplace of Gilgames.\n\nThe name of the first man was Adapa, \u201cthe son of Eridu.\u201d Ea had created\nhim without a helpmeet; he had endowed him with wisdom and knowledge, but\nhad denied to him the gift of immortality. Each day he baked the bread and\npoured pure water into the bowl; at night he drew the bolts of the gates\nof Eridu, and at dawn he sailed forth in his bark to fish in the waters of\nthe Persian Gulf. Once, so the story ran, the south wind upset his skiff,\nand in revenge he broke its wings. But the south wind was a servant of\nAnu, and the god of the sky demanded the punishment of the daring mortal.\nEa, however, intervened to save the man he had created. He clad Adapa in a\nmourner\u2019s robe, and showed him the road to heaven, telling him what he was\nto do in the realm of Anu, but forbidding him to eat or drink there. The\ngate of heaven was guarded by the gods Tammuz and Nin-gis-zida, who asked\nhim the meaning of the mourner\u2019s garment which he wore.(304) When he\nanswered that it was for their own selves, because they had vanished from\nthe earth, their hearts were softened, and they became his intercessors\nwith Anu. Anu listened, and forgave; but that a mortal man should behold\nthe secrets of heaven and earth was so contrary to right, that he ordered\nthe food and water of life to be offered him. Adapa, however, remembered\nthe commands of Ea, and, unlike the biblical Adam, refused the food of\nimmortality. Man remained mortal, and it was never again in his power to\neat of the tree of life. But in return, sovereignty and dominion were\nbestowed upon him, and Adapa became the father of mankind.\n\nThe legend is a Babylonian attempt to explain the existence of death. It\nis like, and yet unlike, the story in Genesis. The biblical Adam lost the\ngift of immortality because his desire to become as God, knowing good and\nevil, had caused him to be driven from the Paradise in which grew the tree\nof life. Adapa, on the other hand, was already endowed with knowledge by\nhis creator Ea, and his loss of immortality was due, not to his\ndisobedience, but to his obedience to the commands of the god. Adam was\nbanished from the Garden of Eden, \u201clest he should put forth his hand and\ntake of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever\u201d; while in the\nBabylonian legend it was Anu himself who was reluctant that one who had\nentered the gate of heaven should remain a mere mortal man. Babylonian\npolytheism allowed the existence of divided counsels among the gods; the\nmonotheism of Israel made this impossible. There was no second Yahveh to\nact in contradiction to the first; Yahveh was at once the creator of man\nand the God of heaven, and there was none to dispute His will. There is no\nroom for Anu in the Book of Genesis; and as Ea, the creator of Adapa, was\nunwilling that the man he had created should become an immortal god, so\nYahveh, the creator of Adam, similarly denied to him the food of immortal\nlife.\n\nThat there is a connection between the Biblical story and the Babylonian\nlegend is, however, rendered certain by the geography of the Biblical\nParadise. It was a garden in the land of Eden, and Edin was the Sumerian\nname of the \u201cplain\u201d of Babylonia in which Eridu stood. Two of the rivers\nwhich watered it were the Tigris and Euphrates, the two streams, in fact,\nwhich we are specially told had been created and named by Ea at the\nbeginning of time. Indeed, the name that is given to the Tigris in the\nBook of Genesis is its old Sumerian title, which survived in later days\nonly in the religious literature. Even the strange statement that \u201ca river\nwent out of Eden,\u201d which \u201cwas parted and became into four heads,\u201d is\nexplained by the cuneiform texts. The Persian Gulf was called \u201cthe Salt\nRiver,\u201d and, thanks to its tides, was regarded as the source of the four\nstreams which flowed into it from their \u201cheads\u201d or springs in the north.\nOn early Babylonian seals, Ea, the god of the sea, is depicted as pouring\nsometimes the four rivers, sometimes only the Tigris and Euphrates, from a\nvase that he holds in his hands. Years ago I drew attention to a Sumerian\nhymn in which reference is made to the garden and sacred tree of Eridu,\nthe Babylonian Paradise in the plain of Eden. Dr. Pinches has since\ndiscovered the last line of the hymn, in which the picture is completed by\na mention of the rivers which watered the garden on either side. It is\nthus that the text reads\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cIn Eridu a vine(305) grew over-shadowing; in a holy place was it\n                brought forth;\n    its root was of bright lapis, set in the world beneath.\n    The path of Ea was in Eridu,(306) teeming with fertility.\n    His seat (there) is the centre of the earth;\n    his couch is the bed of the primeval mother.(307)\n    Into the heart of its holy house, which spreads its shade like a\n                forest, hath no man entered.\n    In its midst is Tammuz,\n    between the mouths of the rivers on both sides.\u201d(308)\n\n\nThe sacred tree of the garden of Eridu was, however, not the tree of life.\nIt was rather the tree of knowledge. This is shown by an inscription of\nEri-Aku or Arioch, in which he describes himself as \u201cthe executor of the\noracle of the sacred tree of Eridu.\u201d Perhaps it is to the same tree that\nreference is made in a magical text, in which a man possessed of \u201cthe\nseven evil spirits\u201d is healed with the help of \u201cthe tree which shatters\nthe power of the incubus, and upon whose core the name of Ea is\nrecorded.\u201d(309) But Ea was not only the god of wisdom, he was also the god\nof \u201clife,\u201d and the trees of both wisdom and life might therefore be fitly\nplaced under his protection.\n\nWhen Babylon became the supreme head of Babylonia under Khammurabi and his\nsuccessors, the creative functions of Ea were usurped by Merodach. A long\npoem celebrating the glories and power of Merodach, his struggle with\nchaos and creation of the world, and, finally, his formal investiture with\nthe names and prerogatives of Ea, has been preserved to us in part. Ever\nsince its discovery by Mr. George Smith it has been known as the Epic of\nthe Creation, and the parallelism between the first tablet composing it\nand the first chapter of Genesis has long attracted attention. But the\npoem is of late date. It belongs to an age of religious syncretism and\nmaterialistic philosophy; the mythological beings of popular belief are\nresolved into cosmological principles, and the mythological dress in which\nthey appear has a theatrical effect. The whole poem reminds us of the\nstilted and soulless productions of the eighteenth century, in which\ncommonplace ideas and a prosaic philosophy masquerade as Greek nymphs or\nRoman gods. It is only here and there, as in the description of the\ncontest with Tiam\u00e2t, or in the concluding lines,\u2014if, indeed, they belong\nto the poem at all,\u2014that it rises above the level of dull mediocrity.\n\nBut mediocre as it may be from a literary point of view, it is of\nconsiderable value to the student of Babylonian cosmology. The author is\nfortunately not original, and his materials, therefore, have been drawn\nfrom the folk-lore or the theology of the past. A welcome commentary on\nthe first tablet has been preserved, moreover, in the _Problems and\nSolutions of First Principles_, written by the philosopher Damascius, the\ncontemporary of Justinian, whose accuracy and acquaintance with Babylonian\nsources it proves. Unfortunately the tablet is broken, and the final lines\nof it are consequently lost\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cWhen above unnamed was the heaven,\n    the earth below by a name was uncalled,\n    the primeval deep was their begetter,\n    the chaos of Tiam\u00e2t was the mother of them all.\n    Their waters were embosomed in one place,\n    the corn-stalk was ungathered, the marsh-plant ungrown.\n    At that time the gods had not appeared, any one of them,\n    by no name were they called, no destiny [had they fixed].\n    Then were the [primeval] gods created,\n    Lakhmu and Lakhamu came forth [the first].\n    Until they grew up ...\n    Ansar and Kisar were created ...\n    Long were the days ...\n    Anu [Bel and Ea were made].\u201d\n\n\nTo the Babylonian, name and existence were one and the same. Nothing could\nexist unless it had a name, and whatever had a name necessarily existed.\nThat the heaven and earth were unnamed, therefore, was equivalent to\nsaying that they were not yet in being. The words with which the Book of\nGenesis begins are a curious contradiction of the statement of the\nBabylonian cosmologist. But the contradiction illustrates the difference\nbetween the Hebrew and the Babylonian points of view. The Hebrew was not\nonly a monotheist; he believed also that everything, even from the\nbeginning, had been made by the one supreme God; the Babylonian, on the\ncontrary, started with a materialistic philosophy. There are no gods at\nthe outset; the gods themselves have been created like other things; all\nthat existed at first was a chaos of waters. The Babylonian cosmology is\nthat of Genesis without the first verse.\n\nThe word I have rendered \u201cchaos\u201d is _mummu_. Damascius explains it as\n\u03bd\u03bf\u03b7\u03c4\u1f78\u03c2 \u03ba\u03cc\u03c3\u03bc\u03bf\u03c2, \u201cthe world of thought\u201d or \u201cideas.\u201d It is a world which has\nas yet no outward form or content, a world without matter, or perhaps more\nprobably a world in which matter is inseparable from thought. And for this\nreason it is formless; matter as yet had assumed no shape, there is no\nsingle part of it which is so defined and separated from the rest as to\nreceive a name and thereby to exist. There is nothing but a dark and\nformless deep, which can be imagined but not pictured or described.\n\nThe chaos, however, is a chaos of waters. Once more, therefore, we are\ntaken back to Eridu and the shores of the Persian Gulf, and to the\ncosmology which saw in the water the origin of all things. But the\ncosmology itself has been strangely changed. There is no longer a creator\ngod, no longer an Ea, who, like Yahveh, existed before creation, and to\nwhom the earth and its inhabitants owe their existence. He has been swept\naside, and an atheistic philosophy has taken his place. The mythological\ngarb of the larger part of the poem cannot disguise the materialism of its\npreface; in the later tablets of it Tiam\u00e2t may once more be the dragon of\npopular imagination, but the first tablet is careful to explain that this\nis but an adaptation to folk-lore and legend, and that Tiam\u00e2t is really\nwhat her name signifies, the chaos of waters.\n\nThe process of creation is conceived of under the Semitic form of\ngeneration. The Deep and the chaos of waters become male and female\nprinciples, from whom other pairs are generated. The process of generation\neasily passed into the emanation of the Gnostic systems of theosophy under\nthe influence of Greek metaphysics. But the poet of Babylon remained true\nto his Semitic point of view; for him creation is a process of generation\nrather than of emanation; and though the divine or superhuman beings of\nthe old mythology have become mere primordial elements, they are still\nmale and female, begetting children like men and gods.\n\nTo find the elemental deities or principles that could thus form links in\nthe chain of evolution, it was necessary to fall back on the spirits or\nghosts of the early Sumerian cult who were essentially material in their\nnature, and had nothing in common with the Semitic Baal. Lakhmu and his\nconsort were part of the monstrous brood of Tiam\u00e2t; they represented the\nfirst attempts to give form and substance to the universe. But the form\nwas still chaotic and immature, suitably symbolised by beings, half human\nand half bestial, which had descended to Semitic Babylonia from Sumerian\nanimism, and whose memory was kept alive by religious art.\n\nLakhmu and Lakhamu were followed by An-sar and Ki-sar, the upper and lower\nfirmament. The one originally denoted the spirit-world of the sky, the\nother the spirit-world of the earth.(310) They were not gods in the\nSemitic sense of the term. But the Babylonian theologians transformed them\ninto abstractions, or rather into Platonic archetypes of the heaven and\nearth. Their appearance meant that the world had at last taken form and\nsubstance; the reign of chaos was over, and limits had been set which\nshould never again be overpassed. The earth and the sky bounded and\ndefined one another; the age of formlessness was ended, and an orderly\nuniverse was being prepared fit to receive the present creation.\n\nBut the work of preparation was a long one, and not until it was finished\ncould the gods of Semitic Babylonia be born. But even they have ceased to\nbe gods for the philosophic cosmologist. They are replaced and represented\nby the triad of Anu, Bel, and Ea, who thus become mere symbols of the sky,\nthe earth, and the water, the elements which Babylonian philosophy\nregarded as constituting the present world. Doubtless, did we possess the\nrest of the tablet, we should read how the other \u201cgreat gods\u201d were sprung\nfrom them.\n\nThe later tablets of the Epic, which are devoted to the glorification of\nMerodach, are for the most part of little interest for the cosmologist.\nThey describe at wearisome length and with tedious reiteration the\nchallenge of Tiam\u00e2t to the gods, the arming of Merodach, and his victory\nover the dragon. Religions and mythological conceptions of all kinds have\nbeen laid under contribution, and confusedly mingled together. It was\nnecessary that Merodach, the supreme god of Babylon, should have been the\ncreator of the world; and it was therefore also necessary that the\ncreative acts of the other creator gods of Babylonia should be transferred\nto him, however diverse they may have been. Hence, in the course of the\npoem, Merodach is described as destroying and creating by his word\nalone,\u2014a cosmological conception which reminds us of that of the Egyptian\nschool of Hermopolis, while after the destruction of Tiam\u00e2t he is said to\nhave cut her in half like a flat fish, forming the canopy of heaven with\none half, above which the \u201cfountains of the great deep\u201d were kept firmly\nbarred. This is in flagrant contradiction with the cosmogony of the\nIntroduction, but it is probable that it was derived from Nippur, where\nEn-lil was perhaps described as creating the heavens and earth in a\nsimilar fashion. When the creative functions of En-lil were usurped by\nMerodach, the old myth was transferred to the god of Babylon; and\naccordingly, in the p\u00e6an which seems to form the end of the Epic, Bel of\nNippur is declared to have bestowed upon Merodach his name of \u201clord of the\nearth,\u201d and therewith the powers and functions which accompanied it.\n\nThe struggle between Tiam\u00e2t, the dragon of darkness, and Merodach, the god\nof light, must originally have symbolised the dispersion of the black\nrain-cloud and raging tempest by the rays of the sun. But the author of\nthe poem evidently regards it from a cosmological point of view. For him\nit is the victory of order over chaos, of the present creation over the\nformless world of the past, and of fixed law over anarchy and confusion.\nThe conception of a law, governing the universe and unable to be broken,\nlay deep in the Babylonian mind. Even the gods could not escape it; they\ntoo had to submit to that inexorable destiny which distinguished the world\nin which we live from the world of chaos. All they could do was to\ninterpret and reveal the decrees of fate; the decrees themselves were\nunalterable. It was not Bel who issued them; they were contained in the\ntablets of destiny which he wore on his breast as the symbol of his\nsupremacy, and which enabled him to predict the future. These were,\nindeed, the Urim and Thummim which, like the high priest of Israel, he was\nprivileged to consult.(311) What they did was not to make him the arbiter\nof fortune, but its interpreter and seer. He learned from them how the\nlaws of the universe were going to work, what destiny had in store for it,\nand how, therefore, it was needful to act. It does not even seem that his\nprevision extended beyond a year; at all events, when Bel of Nippur had\nyielded up his rights to Bel of Babylon, we are told that the latter had\nto sit each New Year\u2019s day in the mystic \u201cchamber of the fates,\u201d\ndetermining the destiny of mankind during the ensuing year.\n\nThe victory over Tiam\u00e2t was followed by the assignment of particular posts\nin the sky to Anu, Bel, and Ea. This again harmonises but ill with the\ncosmology of the preface to the poem; but the astronomers had long since\ndivided the heaven between the gods of the Babylonian triad, and the\nhonour of first doing so is accordingly assigned to Merodach. Then comes\nan account of the creation of the heavenly bodies\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cHe prepared the stations of the great gods;\n    the stars corresponding to them he established as constellations;\n    he made known the year, and marked out the signs of the zodiac.\n    Three stars he assigned to each of the 12 months,\n    from the beginning of the year till (its) close.\n    He established the station of Jupiter that they might know their\n                bounds,\n    that they should not sin, should not go astray, any one of them.\n    The stations of Bel and Ea he fixed along with it.\n    He opened gates on both sides,\n    he strengthened (their) bolts on the left hand and the right;\n    in the middle he set a staircase.(312)\n    He made the moon appear illuminating the night;\n    he established it as the luminary of night that the days might be\n                known.\u201d\n\n\nHere it will be noticed that, as in Genesis, the heavenly bodies are\nregarded as already in existence. What the creator did was to establish\nthem in their stations, and appoint them to mark and register time. In\nfact, as soon as Ansar\u2014the upper firmament\u2014appeared, they appeared also,\nthough in an embryonic form. Merodach is thus an arranger rather than a\ncreator, the founder of astronomy and the calendar rather than the maker\nof the stars. It is significant, however, that there is no reference to\nthe sun; the sun-god could hardly fix for himself the laws he had to obey.\n\nIt has usually been supposed that the account of the orderly arrangement\nof the stars was followed by that of the creation of animals. But the\ntablet on which the latter is found is a mere fragment, and Professor\nZimmern may be right in thinking that it belongs to a different story of\nthe creation. At any rate, the creation in it is assigned to \u201cthe gods\u201d\ngenerally \u201cin their assembly\u201d rather than to Merodach alone. On the other\nhand, as we have seen, the author of the Epic did not hesitate to\nintroduce into it cosmological myths and ideas which agreed but badly\ntogether, and it is not likely that he would have omitted to notice the\ncreation of animate things.\n\nBut a description of the creation of the world, or even of the great\nstruggle between the gods of light and the dragon of darkness, was not the\nmain purpose of the Babylonian poem. This was the glorification of the god\nof Babylon. The story of the creation was introduced into it because it\nwas necessary that the supreme god of the universe should also be its\ncreator, and it was for the same reason that the overthrow of the powers\nof darkness and anarchy was assigned to Merodach alone. He usurped and\nabsorbed the prerogatives and attributes of the older gods; their virtues,\nas it were, passed to him along with their sovereignty and kingdom. The\nfact is very plainly expressed in what appears to be the concluding tablet\nof the Epic. Here the names, and therewith the essential natures, of the\nother deities are formally handed over to Bel-Merodach of Babylon.\nHenceforward he is acknowledged in heaven as well as in earth, the supreme\nBel or Baal of Semitic faith, the father of gods and men. Ea, the lord of\nthe deep, and Bel of Nippur, \u201cthe lord of the earth,\u201d alike yield up to\nhim their powers; he assumes their names and titles; and, thanks to the\ncentralising influence of Babylon, Babylonian religion approaches\nmonotheism as nearly as its local character ever allowed it to do. The\ncreator alone could rightfully claim the worship of the creatures he had\nmade.\n\nBut it was an approach merely; the final step was never taken, even by the\nmore speculative theologians of Babylonia, which swept away the polytheism\nof the local cults, and left Merodach without a rival.\n\nHerein lies the great contrast between the Babylonian and the Hebrew\nconceptions of the creation. The Hebrew cosmology starts from the belief\nin one God, beside whom there is none else, whether in the orderly world\nof to-day or in the world of chaos that preceded it. On its forefront\nstand the words, \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.\u201d\nThere was chaos, it was true, but it was a chaos which had no existence\napart from God, who was its absolute master to carve and fashion as He\nwould. The deep, too, was there; but the deep was neither the\nimpersonation of Tiam\u00e2t nor the realm of Ea; the breath of the one God\nbrooded over it, awaiting the time when the creative word should be\nuttered, and the breath of God should become the life of the world. The\nelements, indeed, of the Hebrew cosmology are all Babylonian; even the\ncreative word itself was a Babylonian conception, as the story of Merodach\nhas shown us; but the spirit that inspires the cosmology is the antithesis\nof that which inspires the cosmologies of Babylonia. Between the\npolytheism of Babylonia and the monotheism of Israel a gulf is fixed which\ncannot be spanned.\n\nThe Babylonian Epic of the Creation, as we may continue to call it, sums\nup and incorporates the various cosmological systems and fancies that had\nbeen current in the country. They are thrown into a mythological form with\na philosophical introduction. We may therefore regard it as embodying the\nlatest and most fully elaborated attempt of the Babylonian mind to explain\nthe origin of things. It is probably not much older than the age of the\nSecond Assyrian empire, though the materials out of which it has been\ncomposed go back to the earliest days of Babylonian antiquity. But it\nexemplifies the three principles or fundamental ideas upon which\nBabylonian cosmology rested\u2014the belief that water is the primal element,\nthe belief in a lawless chaos from which the present world has, as it\nwere, been rescued after a long and fierce struggle between the powers of\ndarkness and light, and a belief in generation as the primary creative\nforce. The doctrine that in water we must see the source of all things\u2014a\ndoctrine that made its way through the cosmologies of Ph\u0153nicia and Israel\ninto that of the Greek philosopher Thales\u2014can be traced back to the days\nwhen Eridu was the seaport of Babylonia, and its inhabitants reclaimed the\nmarshlands from the sea, and speculated on the origin of the soil on which\nthey dwelt. The belief in the two creations of darkness and light, of\nconfusion and law, may have arisen from the first contact between the\nteaching of Nippur and that of Eridu, and the endeavour to reconcile the\nantagonistic conceptions that underlay them, and the contrary systems of\ncreation which they presupposed. The belief, finally, in generation as a\nmotive force was part of the religious heritage that was common to the\nSemitic race. Semitic religion centred in a divine family which\ncorresponded to the family of the worshipper on earth; the gods were\nfathers and mothers, and begat children like the human parents, after whom\nthey were modelled. In so far, therefore, as the universe was divine, it\ntoo must have been evolved in the same fashion; it was only when it ceased\nto partake of the divine nature, and to assume its present form, that the\ngod could deal with the materials of which it consisted, as the potter\ndealt with his clay; or could even create by the simple word of his mouth,\nlike the man who similarly created the names of things, and therewith the\nthings themselves which the names denoted. With the rise of philosophic\nspeculation the process of divine generation became a process of\nemanation. The gods passed into mere symbols, or rather cosmic principles\nand elements; they retained, indeed, their double nature as male and\nfemale; but that was all. The human element that once was in them\ndisappeared, the concrete became the abstract. Mummu Tiam\u00e2t was explained\nas the world of immature ideas,\u2014the simple \u201capprehension,\u201d we might almost\nsay, of the Hegelian philosophy,\u2014and the first of the \u201c\u00c6ons\u201d of the later\nGnosticism was thus started on its way. Babylonian religion had been\nnarrowly local and anthropomorphic; under the guidance of a cosmological\nphilosophy it tended to become an atheistic materialism. The poet who\nwrote the introduction to the Epic of the Creation could have had but\nlittle faith in the gods and goddesses he paraded on the scene; in the\nself-evolved universe of the schools there was hardly room even for the\ncreator Merodach himself.\n\n\n\n\nLecture VII. The Sacred Books.\n\n\nEvery organised religion has had its sacred books. They have been as\nindispensable to it as an organised priesthood; indeed, Mohammedanism is a\nproof that the sacred book is more necessary to its existence than even a\npriesthood. The sacred book binds a religion to its past; it is the\nultimate authority to which, in matters of controversy, appeal can be\nmade, for it enshrines those teachings of the past upon which the faith of\nthe present professes to rest. It remains fixed and permanent amid the\nperpetual flow and ebb of human things; the generations of men pass\nquickly away, rites and ceremonies change, the meaning of symbols is\nforgotten, and the human memory is weak and deceitful; but the written\nword endures, and the changes that pass over it are comparatively few and\nslight.\n\nBabylonia possessed an organised religion, a religion that was official,\nand to a large extent the result of an artificial combination of\nheterogeneous elements; and it too, therefore, necessarily possessed its\nsacred books. But they differed essentially from the sacred books of\nancient Egypt. The Egyptian lived for the future life rather than for the\npresent, and his sacred books were Books of the Dead, intended for the\nguidance of the disembodied soul in its journey through the other world.\nThe interest and cares of the Babylonian, on the contrary, were centred in\nthe present life. The other world was for him a land of shadow and\nforgetfulness; a dreary world of darkness and semi-conscious existence to\nwhich he willingly closed his eyes. It was in this world that he was\nrewarded or punished for his deeds, that he had intercourse with the gods\nof light, and that he was, as is often said in the hymns, \u201cthe son of his\ngod.\u201d What he needed, accordingly, from his sacred books was guidance in\nthis world, not in the world beyond the grave.\n\nThe sacred books of Babylonia thus fall into three classes. We have,\nfirst, the so-called magical texts or incantations, the object of which\nwas to preserve the faithful from disease and mischief, to ward off death,\nand to defeat the evil arts of the witch and the sorcerer. Secondly, there\nare the hymns to the gods; and, lastly, the penitential psalms, which\nresemble in many respects the psalms of the Old Testament, and were\nemployed not only by the individual, but also in seasons of public\ncalamity or dismay. We owe the first discovery of this sacred literature\nto the genius of Fran\u00e7ois Lenormant; he it was who first drew attention to\nit and characterised its several divisions. It was Fran\u00e7ois Lenormant,\nmoreover, who pointed out that its nearest analogue was the Hindu Veda, a\nbrilliant intuition which has been verified by subsequent research.\n\nUnfortunately our knowledge of it is still exceedingly imperfect. We are\ndependent on the fragmentary copies of it which have come from the library\nof Nineveh, and which resemble the torn leaves, mixed pell-mell together,\nthat alone remain in some Oriental library from vanished manuscripts of\nthe Bible and the Christian Fathers. Until the great libraries of\nBabylonia itself are thoroughly explored, our analysis and explanation of\nthe sacred literature of the country must be provisional only; the\nevidence is defective, and the conclusions we draw from it must needs be\ndefective as well.\n\nMoreover, the purely ritual texts, which stand to the hymns in the same\nrelation that the Atharva-Veda stands to the \u1e5aig-Veda, have as yet been\nbut little examined. Their translation is difficult and obscure, and the\nceremonies described in them are but half understood. The ritual,\nnevertheless, constituted an important part of the sacred literature, and\nits rubrics were regarded with at least as much reverence as the rubrics\nof the Anglican Prayer-book. Doubtless the actual words of which they\nconsisted did not possess the same magical or divine power as those of the\nincantations and hymns, they were not\u2014in modern language\u2014verbally\ninspired, but they prescribed rites and actions which had quite as divine\nand authoritative an origin as the hymns themselves. They were,\nfurthermore, the framework in which the hymns and spells were set; and\nthey all formed together a single act of divine worship, the several parts\nof which could not be separated without endangering the efficacy of the\nwhole.\n\nThat the incantations were the older portion of the sacred literature of\nChald\u00e6a, was perceived by Lenormant. They go back to the age of animism,\nto the days when, as yet, the multitudinous spirits and demons of Sumerian\nbelief had not made way for the gods of Semitic Babylonia, or the sorcerer\nand medicine-man for a hierarchy of priests. Their language as well as\ntheir spirit is Sumerian, and the _zi_ or \u201cspirit\u201d of heaven and earth is\ninvoked to repel the attack of the evil ghost, or to shower blessings on\nthe head of the worshipper. They transport us into a world that harmonises\nbut badly with the decorous and orderly realm of the gods of light; it is\na world in which the _lil_ and the _utuk_, the _galla_ and the _ekimmu_,\nreign supreme, and little room seems to be left for the deities of the\nSemitic faith. The gods themselves, when they are introduced into it, wear\na new aspect. Ea is no longer the creator and culture god, but a master of\nmagic spells; and his son Asari displays his goodness towards mankind by\ninstructing them how to remove the sorceries in which they have been\ninvolved, and the witcheries with which they are tormented.\n\nBut it must be borne in mind that the incantations do not all belong to\nthe same age. The description I have just given holds good only of the\noldest part of them. The Sumerian population continued to exist in\nBabylonia after the Semitic occupation of the country, and Sumerian\nanimism continued to exist as well. By the side of the higher Semitic\nfaith, with its gods and goddesses, its priesthood and its cult, the\nancient belief in sorcery and witchcraft, in spells and incantations, and\nin the ghost-world of En-lil, flourished among the people. And as in\nIndia, where Brahmanism has thrown its protection over the older cults and\nbeliefs of the native tribes, assimilating them as far as possible, or\nexplaining them in accordance with the orthodox creed; so too in ancient\nBabylonia, the primeval animism of the people was tacitly recognised by\nthe religion of the State, and given an official sanction. There was no\ndeclaration of hostility towards it such as was made by the religion of\nIsrael; on the contrary, the old incantations were preserved and\nmodernised, and the sanctity with which they had been invested allowed to\nremain unimpaired. At the same time, they were harmonised, so far as could\nbe, with the official creed. The gods of the State religion were\nintroduced into them, and to these gods appeal was made rather than to\n\u201cthe spirit of heaven\u201d and \u201cthe spirit of earth.\u201d The spirits and ghosts\nof the night existed, indeed, but from henceforth they had to be\nsubservient to the deities of the official faith. It was no longer the\nmedicine-man, but the priest of the Semitic deity, who recited the\nincantation for the suppliant and the sufferer.\n\nWe can almost trace the growth of what I will term the Book of\nIncantations down to the time when it assumed its final form. It was no\nBook, however, in the proper sense of the term, and it is doubtful whether\nall the collections which might have been comprised in it were ever\ncombined together. But it is convenient to speak of it in the singular, so\nlong as we remember that this is merely a mode of speech.\n\nAs a matter of fact, each great sanctuary seems to have had its own\ncollection. These were added to from time to time; some of them were\namalgamated together, or parts belonging to one collection were\nincorporated into another. Spells which had been found effective in\nwarding off disease or preventing evil, were introduced into a collection\nwhich related to the same subject, whatever may have been their source,\nand the list of gods invoked was continually being enlarged, in the hope\nthat some one at least among them might give the sufferer relief. The\nolder collections were modified in accordance with the requirements of the\nState religion, and the animism that inspired them accommodated to the\northodox belief; while new collections came into existence which breathed\nthe later Semitic spirit, and were drawn up under the supervision of the\nBabylonian priesthood. Hymns and even penitential psalms were embodied in\nthem, like the verses of the Bible or the Quran, which are still used as\ncharms in Christian and Mohammedan countries; and it is sometimes\ndifficult to distinguish between the hymn that served merely as an\nincantation and the hymn that was chanted in the service of the gods.\nIndeed, incantatory formul\u00e6 are not unfrequently intermixed with the words\nof the hymn or psalm, producing that grotesque and embarrassing medley of\nexalted spiritual thought and stupid superstition which so often meets us\nin the religious literature of Babylonia. How late some of the collections\nare in the history of Babylonian religion, may be judged from the fact\nthat a time came when the old Sumerian language was no longer considered\nnecessary to ensure the efficacy of the charm, and collections of\nincantations were made in the Semitic language of later Babylonia.\n\nCriticism will hereafter have to sift and distinguish these collections\none from the other, and, above all, determine the earlier and later\nelements contained in each. At present such a task is impossible. Few, if\nany, of the collections have come down to us in a perfect state; there are\nmany more, doubtless, which future research will hereafter bring to light;\nand as long as we are dependent solely on the copies made for the library\nof Nineveh, without being able to compare them with the older texts of the\nBabylonian libraries, the primary condition of scientific investigation is\nwanting. Nevertheless there are certain collections which stand out\nmarkedly from among the rest. They display features of greater antiquity,\nand the animism presupposed by them is but thinly disguised. It is\ncomparatively easy to separate in them the newer and older elements, which\nhave little in common with each other. Most of them point to Eridu as the\nsource from which they have been derived, though there are others the\norigin of which is probably to be sought at Nippur.\n\nIn these older incantations the gods of the official cult are absent,\nexcept where their names have been violently foisted in at a later date,\nand their place is taken by the spirits or ghosts of early Sumerian\nbelief. The _Zi_ or \u201cspirit of the sky,\u201d \u201cthe spirit of the earth,\u201d \u201cthe\nspirit of Ansar and Kisar,\u201d such are the superhuman powers that are\ninvoked, and to whom the worshipper turns in his extremity. Even when we\ncome across a name that is borne by one of the deities of the later\nBabylonian religion, we find that it is the name not of a god, but of a\ndenizen of the ghost-world. \u201cO spirit of Zikum, mother of Ea,\u201d we read in\none place; \u201cO spirit of Nina, daughter of Ea\u201d; \u201cO spirit, divine lord of\nthe mother-father of En-lil; O spirit, divine lady of the mother-father of\nNin-lil\u201d; \u201cO spirit of the moon, O spirit of the sun, O spirit of the\nevening star!\u201d There is as yet neither Bel of Nippur, nor Sin and Samas\nand Istar; the sorcerer knows only of the spirits that animate the\nuniverse, and bring good and evil upon mankind. Nothing can be more\nstriking than the enumeration of the divine powers to whom the prayer is\ndirected, in an incantation of which I have given the translation in my\nHibbert Lectures (p. 450 sqq.)\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cWhether it be the spirit of the divine lord of the earths;\n    or the spirit of the divine lady of the earths;\n    or the spirit of the divine lord of the stars;\n    or the spirit of the divine lady of the stars;\n    or the spirit of the divine lord of progenies;\n    or the spirit of the divine lady of progenies;\n    or the spirit of the divine lord of ...;\n    or the spirit of the divine lady of ...;\n    or the spirit of the divine lord of the holy mound (Ea);\n    or the spirit of the divine lady of the holy mound (Damkina);\n    or the spirit of the divine lord of the dayspring of life;\n    or the spirit of the divine lady of the dayspring of life;\n    or the spirit of the divine chanter of the spirit-hosts\n                (En-me-sarra);\n    or the spirit of the divine chantress of the spirit-hosts.\u201d(313)\n\n\nEven the word \u201cdivine,\u201d which I have used here in default of anything\nbetter, imports theological ideas into the texts which were really foreign\nto them. The original means nothing more than \u201csuperhuman\u201d or perhaps\n\u201cnon-human\u201d; the Sumerian term is _dimmer_, of which _dimme_, \u201ca ghost,\u201d\nand _dimmea_, \u201ca spectre,\u201d are but other forms; and the ideograph by which\nit is symbolised is an eight-rayed star.(314) \u201cThe divine lord\u201d and\n\u201cdivine lady\u201d of the incantation are but the _lil_ and its handmaid under\nanother guise; they are merely the ghost-like spirits who display\nthemselves at night in the points of light that twinkle and move through\nthe sky.\n\nThe theologians of a later day amused themselves by cataloguing the\nSumerian names of the spirits invoked in the ancient incantations, and\ntransforming them into titles of the deities of the official pantheon. The\nsame process had been followed in the Semitic translations which were\nadded to the incantatory texts. The spirit of the sun became Samas, the\nspirit of the evening star became Istar. En-lil of Nippur was transmuted\ninto Bel, and Nin-lil, the lady of the ghost-world, into Bilat or Beltis.\nThe process was facilitated by the changes undergone at Eridu by the\nmagical texts themselves, even before the days of Semitic influence.\nMaritime intercourse with other lands had already deeply affected the\ntheology of Eridu; the crude animism of an earlier epoch had made way for\nthe conception of a culture-god who taught men the elements of\ncivilisation, and wrote books for their instruction. He was still a\n\u201cspirit\u201d rather than a god in the Semitic sense of the word, but he was a\nspirit who had emerged above the rest, who had acquired those family ties\nwhich formed the very foundation of civilised life, and to whom the\ncreation of the world was due. Ea was not indeed a Baal, but he was\nalready on the way to become a god in human form.\n\nAt the same time, both Ea and his son Asari still appear in animal shape.\nAsari is, it is true, \u201cthe benefactor of man,\u201d but he is also \u201cthe mighty\none of the princely gazelle,\u201d and even \u201cthe gazelle\u201d himself; while Ea is\n\u201cthe antelope of the deep,\u201d or more simply \u201cthe antelope.\u201d(315) At other\ntimes he is the \u201clord of the earth\u201d which he has created, or the \u201cking\u201d of\nthat \u201choly mound\u201d of waters which rose up against the sky like a mountain,\nand behind which the sun appeared at dawn. The titles that he bears point\nunmistakably to Eridu. Here alone Ea was the creator of the earth, and\nhere too, in the temple of the god, was a likeness of that \u201choly mound\u201d\nwhereon the future destinies of mankind were declared. The oldest\nincantations which have come down to us must have been composed at Eridu\nin the days of its Sumerian animism.\n\nThere are other divine or semi-divine names in them which tell the same\ntale. The pure waters which heal the sick and destroy the power of\nwitchcraft are brought by the water-spirit Nin-akha-kudda, \u201cthe mistress\nof spells,\u201d whom the theologians of a later time transformed into a\ndaughter of Ea. Bau, too, the heifer of the city of Isin,(316) appears\nalong with the water-spirit. Like Zikum, she was the mother of Ea and \u201cthe\ngeneratress of mankind,\u201d and she shared with Asari the honours of the New\nYear\u2019s festival. But Bau, it would seem, was not originally from Eridu.\nShe had come there from a neighbouring city, and her presence in the\nincantations is a proof that even in these oldest monuments of a sacred\nliterature we are still far from the beginnings of Babylonian religion.\n\nAt Nippur it was the ghosts and vampires, who had their habitation beneath\nthe ground, that were objects of terror to the men who lived upon it. At\nEridu the demons were rather the raging winds and storm-clouds which\nlashed the waters of Ea into fury, and seemed for a time to transform his\nkingdom into a chaos of lawless destruction. The fisherman perished in his\nbark, while the salt waves inundated the land and ravaged the fields of\nthe husbandman. It was here, on the shores of the Persian Gulf, that the\nstory of the great flood was perhaps first thrown into literary form, and\nthat conception of the universe grew up which found its last expression in\nthe legend of the struggle between Merodach and the forces of anarchy. At\nany rate it was here that the spirits of evil were pictured as the seven\nevil demons in whom the tempest was, as it were, incarnated\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cSeven are they, seven are they,\n    in the hollow of the deep seven are they!\n    Gleams (?) of the sky are those seven.\n    In the hollow of the deep, in a palace, they grew up.\n    Male they are not, female they are not.\n    Destructive whirlwinds are they.\n    Wife they have not, child they beget not;\n    compassion and mercy they do not know.\n    Prayer and supplication hear they not.\n    Horses bred in the mountains are they.\n    Unto Ea are they hostile.\n    The throne-bearers of the gods are they.\n    To work mischief in the street they settle in the highway.\n    Evil are they, evil are they!\n    Seven are they, seven are they, seven twice again are they!\u201d\n\n\nThe seven evil spirits played an important part in the demonology of\nancient Eridu, and echoes of it survive in the later literature. They were\neven transmuted into a god, and unified in his person under the name of\n\u201cthe divine seven\u201d;(317) while the last month of the year, the stormy\nAdar, was dedicated to them. But in earlier days it needed all the wisdom\nof Ea to counteract their wicked devices. The fire-god himself was sent to\ndrive them from their victims, and to disclose their nature and origin\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cIn the mountain of the sunset, it is said, \u201cthose seven were\n                born;\u201d\n    in the mountain of the sunrise those seven grew up;\n    in the hollows of the earth they have their dwelling;\n    on the high-places of the earth their names are proclaimed.\n    As for them, in heaven and earth they have no dwelling, hidden is\n                their name.\n    Among the sentient gods they are not known.\n    Their name in heaven and earth exists not.\n    Those seven from the mountain of the sunset gallop forth,\n    those seven in the mountain of the sunrise are bound to rest.\n    In the hollows of the earth they set the foot;\n    on the high-places of the earth they lift the neck.\n    They by nought are known; in heaven and earth there is no\n                knowledge of them.\u201d\n\n\nThe hymn or incantation which thus describes them belongs to a late period\nin the history of Babylonian religion. The animism of primitive times has\nbeen replaced by the gods and goddesses of the later official faith. But\nthe belief in the seven evil spirits still lingered, not only in the\npopular mind, but also in the ranks of the official hierarchy; and it was\nstill remembered that they had been at the outset the spirits of the\ntempest, born in the clefts of the ravine or on the stormy mountain-top,\nfrom whence they issued like wild horses. The flame of sacrifice could\nalone avert their onset, and incantations were still composed under\nofficial sanction, with the help of which they might be driven away. The\nfact shows to how late an epoch the composition of spells and incantatory\nhymns may come down, even when the atmosphere they breathe is still that\nof Eridu, and the language in which they are written is still the sacred\nSumerian. But there are collections of magical hymns and formul\u00e6 which are\neven yet later in date. The eight books of the so-called Maql\u00fb or\n\u201cBurning\u201d collection are written throughout in Semitic Babylonian;(318)\nand though two out of the nine books of another collection\u2014that of the\nSurpu or \u201cConsuming Fever\u201d\u2014are bilingual, they have been clearly\ntranslated from the more original Babylonian into Sumerian, like the Latin\nexercises of to-day.(319) The official canon of the magical texts, in\nfact, was long in formation, and did not assume its final shape until the\nage of Khammurabi or later, even though its roots go back to the earliest\nperiod of Babylonia, to the age of animism and the medicine-man, when the\nSumerian was still dominant in the land, and the Semitic nomad or trader\nwas content to learn from him the elements of civilisation.\n\nThe official canon had been collected together from all sides. Most of the\ngreat sanctuaries of the country had probably contributed to it; in most,\nif not in all, of them there must have been magical rituals which had\ngrown up under the care and supervision of the priesthood, and in which\nthe old beliefs of the people were disciplined and harmonised with the\ndogmas of the State creed. Up to the last, one of the classes into which\nthe priesthood was divided was known as the \u00cani or \u201cChanters,\u201d whose name\nwas derived from the Sumerian _\u00ean_, \u201can incantation.\u201d It is this word\nwhich is prefixed to the charms and incantatory hymns that constitute so\nintegral a part of the magical texts; and though in course of time it came\nto denote little more than \u201crecitation,\u201d it was a recitation which\npossessed magical powers, and for which, therefore, a special training was\nnecessary. A single mistake in pronunciation or intonation, a single\nsubstitution of one word for another, was sufficient to destroy the charm\nand necessitate the repetition of the ceremony. Some of the incantations\nhad even to be recited in a whisper, like certain parts of the Roman\nmissal; and a whole series or collection is accordingly termed the ritual\nof \u201cthe whispered charm,\u201d reminding us of the passage in the Book of\nIsaiah where the prophet refers to \u201cthe wizards that peep and that\nmutter.\u201d(320)\n\nBy the side of the \u201cBook of Incantations\u201d\u2014whether it ever existed or\nnot\u2014there was another sacred book containing hymns to the gods. Here,\nagain, it is more than doubtful whether the various collections of hymns\ncompiled for use in the great sanctuaries of the country were ever\ncombined together and incorporated into a single volume. The tendency to\nreligious centralisation and unification in Babylonia was arrested before\nit could produce in religion what the seventy-two books of the\n\u201cIllumination of Bel\u201d were for astronomy and astrology, a compilation in\nwhich the observations of the past were collected and brought\ntogether.(321) Babylon, despite its political predominance, never\nsucceeded in absorbing the religious cults of the more venerable\nsanctuaries of the country; the historical conservatism of the people was\ntoo strong, and even Nabonidos was forced to lavish gifts on the shrine of\nthe sun-god at Sippara as well as upon that of Merodach at Babylon. The\npriesthood of Babylon were content to be chief among their peers; there\nwas no monotheistic zeal to sweep away the rival temples, and the\nintensely localised character of Babylonian religion prevented the rise of\nmonotheism. And without religious centralisation a common service-book and\ncanon are not very probable. Perhaps, moreover, the hymns to the gods were\ntoo long in detaching themselves from the magical ritual, and too late in\nacquiring a sacred character of their own, to attain the same degree of\ndivine authority as the incantations. Many of them are not only in Semitic\nAssyrian, but were composed as late as the reigns of the last Assyrian\nkings, while even those which are bilingual seem to have been in many\ncases the work of Semitic poets, the Sumerian text being a translation\nfrom the Semitic into the sacred language of theology.\n\nAt the same time, Lenormant was not far wrong in comparing the religious\nhymns of Chald\u00e6a with those of the Rig-Veda. Like the latter, they belong\nto different periods of time, and comprise poems as unlike one another as\nwar-songs and incantations and philosophic addresses to the gods.\nMoreover, as in the case of the incantations, there were collections of\nhymns addressed to the god or gods of the sanctuary in whose service they\nwere used. Thus many of them belong to a collection that must have been\nmade for the temple of the sun-god at Sippara or Larsa; all alike are\naddressed to the sun-god, the supreme judge of mankind; and the language\nthat is used of him is the same in each. Other hymns celebrate the\nmoon-god of Ur, while others belong to Nippur or to the sanctuary of\nMerodach at Babylon. The hymn to the god was as much a necessary portion\nof divine service as the incantation or the ceremonial rite.\n\nThe ritual texts tell us how and when it was employed. Thus on the\nfestival of the New Year the service in the temple of Bel-Merodach was\nopened by a hymn in honour of his ark; and on the second of Nisan the\npriest was ordered to go down to the Euphrates at the beginning of the\nfirst hour of the night, and then, after putting on the prescribed\nvestment, and taking the waters of the river in his hand, to \u201center into\nthe presence of Bel,\u201d and there recite a long hymn in praise of the god.\nThe hymn closed with a prayer\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cShow mercy to thy city of Babylon;\n    to \u00ca-Saggil thy temple incline thy face;\n    grant the prayers of thy people the sons of Babylon!\u201d\n\n\nBut there is yet another proof of the sacred character that attached\nitself to the hymns. Many of them were employed as incantations. Not only\nwere they introduced into the magical texts, like the verses of the Bible\nwhen used as charms, but the magical element was inserted in the hymn\nitself. The address to the deity was combined with spells and\nincantations, producing a confused medley of spiritual expressions and\ngrovelling superstition that is at once repellent and grotesque to our\nmodern notions. The hymn, moreover, is prefaced by the word _\u00ean_ or\n\u201cincantation,\u201d which makes its words as authoritative and unalterable as\nthe rest of the magical ritual. The same sacredness that invests the\nlatter invests also the hymn. The hymn, in short, is as much verbally\ninspired as the incantation or spell; indeed, between the hymn and the\nincantation no clear line of demarcation was drawn by the Babylonian, and\nit is questionable whether he would have recognised that there was any\nsuch line at all.\n\nIt was in the use that was made of them, and not in their essential\nnature, that the hymn to the god and the incantation differed from one\nanother. And as animism preceded the official religion of Babylonia, and\nthe belief in spirits preceded the worship of the gods, so too did the\nincantation precede the hymn. The sacredness that was acquired by the hymn\nwas originally reflected from the incantation; it was not the contents of\nthe hymn, but the actual words of which it was composed, that gave it its\nsacred and authoritative character, and consecrated its employment by the\npriestly caste.\n\nIt is accordingly with good reason that I have described the hymns, like\nthe incantations proper, as verbally inspired. The inspiration lay in the\nwords more than in the sense they conveyed; an error of pronunciation was\nmore fatal than a misunderstanding of their meaning. As long as the words\nwere recited correctly, it mattered little whether either priest or people\nunderstood precisely what they meant.\n\nI have already in an earlier lecture quoted some lines from the hymn to\nthe moon-god which was probably composed for the services in the great\ntemple of Ur. The hymns in honour of the sun-god are much more numerous,\nand formed part of a collection which seems to have been made by the\npriests of Bit-Uri, the temple of the sun-god at Sippara. The sun-god they\ncelebrate is the incorruptible \u201cjudge of mankind,\u201d the rewarder of the\ninnocent and the punisher of the guilty, who sees all that is done on\nearth, and acts towards those who call upon him with justice and mercy.\n\n\n    \u201cO lord, we read in one of them,(322) \u201cilluminator of the\n                darkness, opener of the sickly face,\u201d\n    merciful god, who setteth up the fallen, who helpeth the weak,\n    unto thy light look the great gods,\n    the spirits of earth all gaze upon thy face.\n    Tongues in unison like a single word thou directest,\n    smiting their heads they look to the light of the mid-day sun.\n    Like a wife thou standest, glad and gladdening.\n    Thou art their light in the vault of the far-off heaven.\n    Thou art the object of their gaze in the broad earth.\n    Men far and near behold thee and rejoice!\u201d\n\n\nThe language of another hymn is in a similar strain\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cDirect the law of the multitudes of mankind!\n    Thou art eternal righteousness in the heavens!\n    Thou art of faithful judgment towards all the world!\n    Thou knowest what is right, thou knowest what is wrong.\n    O sun-god, righteousness hath lifted up its foot!\n    O sun-god, wickedness hath been cut down as with a knife!\n    O sun-god, the minister of Anu and Bel art thou!\n    O sun-god, the judge supreme of heaven and earth art thou!\n\n    O lord of the living creation, the pitiful one (who directest) the\n                world!\n    O sun-god, on this day purify and illumine the king the son of his\n                god!\n    Whatever worketh evil in his body let it be taken away!\n    Cleanse him like the goblet of the Zoganes!\n    Illumine him like a cup of ghee;\n    like the copper of a polished tablet let him be made bright!\n    Release him from the ban!\u201d(323)\n\n\nThe last words illustrate that strange mixture of spiritual thought and\nthe arts of the sorcerer to which I have more than once alluded. The hymns\nto the sun-god were not yet emancipated from the magical beliefs and\nceremonies in which they had had their origin; they were still\nincantations rather than hymns in the modern sense of the word. The\ncollection to which they belonged must have been used by the class of\npriests known as \u201cChanters\u201d or \u201cEnchanters,\u201d who had succeeded to the\nsorcerers and medicine-men of the pre-Semitic past; and the fact explains\nhow it is that in many of them we have an alternating antiphonal service,\nportions of them being recited by the priest and other portions by the\nworshipper. In some instances, indeed, the verses seem to have been\nalternately intoned by the priest and the assistant ministers, like the\ncanticles or psalms in the Christian worship of to-day. The practice had\nits origin in the magical ritual, where the sorcerer first recited the\nincantation, and then called upon the individual to repeat it once or\noftener after him. It is another proof of the intimate connection that\nexisted between the hymns and the incantations out of which they had\nsprung; like the Veda or the Zend-Avesta, the sacred books of ancient\nChald\u00e6a mixed magic and the spiritual worship of the gods together in a\nconfusion which seems to us difficult to understand.\n\nIt was the same with the penitential psalms which constitute the third\ndivision of the sacred literature of Babylonia. In many respects they\nresemble the psalms of the Old Testament. Like them they are intended for\npublic use, in spite of their individualistic form; the individual\nrepresents the community, and at times it is the national calamity and the\nnational sin to which reference is made. After the revolt and reconquest\nof Babylon by Assur-bani-pal, when the city was still polluted by the\ncorpses of those who had perished by famine or the sword, the\nprophets(324) ordered that its shrines and temple-roads should be\npurified, that its \u201cwrathful gods and angry goddesses\u201d should be \u201cappeased\nby prayers and penitential psalms,\u201d and that then, and only then, the\ndaily sacrifices in the temples should be offered once more.(325)\nDoubtless the penitential psalms were in the first instance the\nspontaneous outpouring of the heart of the individual; it was his\nsufferings that they depicted, and his sins that they deplored; but as\nsoon as they had been introduced into the worship of the temple, and\nbecome part of the public cult, the individual element in them fell into\nthe background, and in the sins and sufferings of the individual both\npriest and laity saw those of the whole community.\n\nLike the Hebrew psalms, again, they express the belief that sin is the\ncause of suffering and calamity, and that it can be removed by penitence\nand prayer to the offended deity. But whereas the Hebrew monotheist knew\nof one God only who could inflict punishment and listen to the repentant\nwords of the sinner, the Babylonian polytheist was distracted by the\nuncertainty as to what particular divinity he had offended, and to whom,\ntherefore, his penitent appeal should be addressed. In the penitential\npsalms, accordingly, it is the vague and general \u201cgod\u201d and \u201cgoddess\u201d that\nare invoked, rather than a particular deity. It is only occasionally that\nthe names of special gods are introduced, and then a long list of them is\nsometimes given, in the hope that among them might be the divinity whose\nanger had been excited, and whose wrath the sufferer was eager to appease.\n\nSin, it must be remembered, in the eyes of the Babylonian included a good\ndeal more than moral wrong-doing. There were ritual sins as well as moral\nsins, offences against the ceremonial law as well as against the moral or\nspiritual code. The sin was not unfrequently involuntary, and the sufferer\ndid not even know in what particular respect he had offended against the\ndivine laws. It may have been the eating of forbidden food, such as that\nwhich drove Adam and Eve from the sinless garden of Paradise. Or, again,\nit may have been a real sin, a sin of thought and word committed in the\nsecrecy of the heart. \u201cWas he frank in speaking,\u201d it is asked in a\nconfession which is put into the mouth of a suppliant, \u201cbut false in\nheart? Was it \u2018yes\u2019 with his mouth, but \u2018no\u2019 in his heart?\u201d So far as the\npunishment was concerned, little distinction was made between moral and\nceremonial sin; both were visited alike, and the sin of ignorance was\npunished as severely as the sin that was committed with deliberate intent.\n\nThe recitation of the penitential psalms was accompanied by fasting. \u201cFood\nI have not eaten,\u201d the penitent is made to say, \u201cpure water I have not\ndrunk.\u201d And, as in the case of the incantations and hymns, the recitation\nwas antiphonal. Portions of the psalms were recited by the priest, who\nacted as the mediator between the penitent and the offended deity; other\nportions by the penitent himself, or a choir of attendant ministers. The\nideas which had been associated with the use of the incantations still\ndominated the public cult. Indeed, the penitential psalm sometimes very\nnearly approaches the incantation in character. On the one side, it is\ndifficult to distinguish from the psalm a confession like that from which\nI quoted just now, and which nevertheless forms part of a magical ritual;\non the other side, the psalm itself at times degenerates into the language\nof magic. Babylonia never shook off the influence of those collections of\nincantations which constituted its first sacred book, and gave it its\nfirst conception of a divinely-inspired literature; up to the last the\ndescendants of the old medicine-man occupied a recognised place in the\npriestly hierarchy, and the \u201cChanter\u201d and \u201cAugur\u201d stood on the same\nfooting as the \u201cprophet\u201d and the \u201cpriest.\u201d\n\nPerhaps it was the same influence which demanded that the language of the\npenitential psalm should be the extinct Sumerian. That some of the psalms\nwent back to Sumerian times and were composed by Sumerians in their own\ntongue, I have little doubt; but it seems also unquestionable that many of\nthe psalms which have come down to us were of Semitic origin, the Sumerian\nversion attached to them being really a translation of the original\nSemitic text. At all events, penitential psalms were written in later\ntimes in Assyria, whose authors either did not care or did not know how to\nprovide them with a Sumerian text. It may be that they did not possess the\nsame sacred authority as the older psalms, but, like the latter, they were\nused in the public services of the northern kingdom with the authorisation\nof the king. The king in Assyria, it must be remembered, exercised the\ninfluence that was wielded by the priesthood in the southern kingdom. The\nAssyrian psalms, in fact, were like our modern hymns; the sanctity that\nsurrounded the older penitential psalms of Babylonia was indeed denied\nthem, but they better suited the newer age and the character of the\nAssyrian people, and there was no omnipotent priesthood to forbid their\nintroduction into the public cult. They stood, it is true, outside the\nsacred canon of Babylonia, in the sense that no dogmas of religion could\nbe built on them, and it is probable that they never received the sanction\nof the Babylonian priests; but for all that the spirit they breathe is\nthat of the older psalms; and had the Assyrian empire lasted longer, it is\npossible that they too might have become a sacred book.\n\nI will conclude my lecture with one of the penitential psalms, which, we\nare told, might be addressed \u201cto any god\u201d\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cThe heart of my lord is wroth; may it be appeased!\n    May the god that I know not be pacified!\n    May the goddess whom I know not be pacified!\n    May the god I know and (the god) I know not be pacified!\n    May the goddess I know and (the goddess) I know not be pacified!\n    May the heart of my god be appeased!\n    May the heart of my goddess be appeased!\n    May the god and the goddess I know and I know not be pacified!\n    May the god (who has smitten me be pacified)!\n    May the goddess (who has smitten me be pacified)!\n    The sin that (I sinned) I knew not;\n    the sin (that I committed I knew not).\n    The word of blessing (may my god pronounce upon me);\n    a name of blessing (may the god I know and I know not) record for\n                me!\n    The word of blessing (may the goddess pronounce upon me)!\n    Food I have not eaten,\n    pure water I have not drunk.\n    An offence against my god unknowingly have I committed;\n    an offence against my goddess unknowingly I have wrought.\n    O lord, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!\n    O my god, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!\n    O my goddess, my sins are many, my transgressions are great!\n    O god whom I know and whom I know not, my sins are many, my\n                transgressions are great!\n    O goddess whom I know and whom I know not, my sins are many, my\n                transgressions are great!\n    The sin that I sinned I knew not,\n    the transgression I committed I knew not.\n    The offence I committed I knew not,\n    the offence that I wrought I knew not.\n    The lord in the wrath of his heart has regarded me;\n    god has visited me in the anger of his heart;\n    the goddess has been violent against me, and has put me to grief.\n    The god whom I know and whom I know not has oppressed me,\n    the goddess whom I know and whom I know not has brought sorrow\n                upon me.\n    I sought for help, and none took my hand;\n    I wept, and none stood at my side;\n    I cried aloud, and there was none that heard me.\n    I am in trouble and hiding, and dare not look up.\n    To my god, the merciful one, I turn myself, I utter my prayer,\n    the feet of my goddess I kiss and water with tears.\n    To the god whom I know and whom I know not I utter my prayer.\n    O lord, look upon (me; receive my prayer)!\n    O goddess, look upon (me; receive my prayer)!\n    O goddess whom I know (and whom I know not, receive my prayer)!\n    How long, O god, (must I suffer)?\n    How long, O goddess, (shall thy face be turned from me)?\n    How long, O god whom I know and whom I know not, shall the anger\n                (of thy heart continue)?\n    How long, O goddess whom I know and whom I know not, shall the\n                wrath of thy heart be unappeased?\n    Mankind is made to wander, and there is none that knoweth.\n    Mankind, as many as have a name, what do they know?\n    Whether he shall have good or ill, there is none that knoweth.\n    O lord, cast not away thy servant!\n    Overflowing with tears, take him by the hand!\n    The sins I have sinned, turn to a blessing;\n    the transgressions I have committed may the wind carry away!\n    Strip off my manifold transgressions as a garment.\n    O my god, seven times seven are my transgressions; forgive my\n                sins!\n    O my goddess, seven times seven are my transgressions; forgive my\n                sins!\n    O god whom I know and whom I know not, seven times seven are my\n                transgressions; forgive my sins!\n    O goddess whom I know and whom I know not, seven times seven are\n                my transgressions; forgive my sins!\n    Forgive my sins, and let me humble myself before thee.\n    May thy heart be appeased as the heart of a mother who has borne\n                children!\n    May it be appeased as that of a mother who has borne children, as\n                that of a father who has begotten them!\u201d\n\n\n\n\nLecture VIII. The Myths And Epics.\n\n\nA lecture on the myths of Babylonia may perhaps seem out of place in a\ncourse, the subject of which is Babylonian religion. But religion has its\nmythology as well as its theology, and sometimes the mythology has had a\ngood deal to do with moulding or even creating its theology. Moreover, the\nmyths of Babylonia were intimately connected with its worship of the gods.\nThey all related, so far as we know, to the gods and spirits, or else, to\nwhat Greek theology would have called heroes and demi-gods. They embody\nreligious beliefs and practices; they contain allusions to local cults;\nabove all, they not unfrequently reflect the popular conception of the\ndivine.\n\nOnly we must beware of basing theological conclusions on their unsupported\nevidence. They have come to us in a literary form, and students of\nfolk-lore know how little trustworthy, even for the purposes of the\nfolk-lorist, a tale is which has undergone literary remodelling. It is\ndifficult to distinguish in it what is peculiar to the individual author\nor the literary circle in which he moves, and what is really the belief of\nthe people or the traditional heritage of the past. In fact, all\nmythology, whether literary or otherwise, suffers from the mixture within\nit of old and modern ideas. The old ideas may be preserved in it like the\nfossils in a geological formation, or they may have been coloured and\nexplained away in accordance with the conceptions of a later age; but in\neither case they are mingled with the beliefs and notions of after\ngenerations, which our ignorance necessarily prevents us from separating\nwith the requisite care. In dealing with the history of religion,\ntherefore, we ought to treat the language of a literary myth with extreme\ncaution, and refrain from drawing any far-reaching inferences from the\nstatements we find in it.\n\nThis is more especially true of the literary epics of ancient Babylonia.\nThey seem to have been numerous; at all events fragments of a good many\nhave been saved for us out of the wreckage of the past. But they belong\nfor the most part to the same period, the age of national revival which\nbegan with the reign of Khammurabi, and continued for several centuries\nafter his death. It is possible that Sin-liqi-unnini, the author of the\ngreat Epic of Gilgames, was a contemporary of Abraham; the story of Adapa,\nthe first man, was already in existence, and had become a standard\nclassic, when the Tel el-Amarna letters were written in the fifteenth\ncentury B.C. Behind all these poems lay a long-preceding period in which\nthe myths and legends they embody had taken shape and formed the subject\nof numberless literary works. The Epic of Gilgames is, for instance, but\nthe final stage in the literary development of the tales and myths of\nwhich it is composed; older poems, or parts of poems, have been\nincorporated into it, and the elements of which it consists are multiform\nand of various origin. The story of the Deluge, which constitutes the\neleventh book, has been foisted into it by an almost violent artifice, and\nrepresents a combination of more than one of its many versions which were\nin circulation in Babylonia. When the early libraries of the country have\nbeen explored, we shall know better than we do now how far the story in\nthe form we have of it in the Epic is original, and how far the author has\nfreely borrowed from his predecessors, using their language or combining\ntheir work.\n\nAs a rule, the subject of a Babylonian poem is either some single god or\nsome single hero. When the god or hero is merely a central figure around\nwhose adventures those of other gods or heroes are made to revolve, the\npoem becomes an Epic. It still retains its mythological shape, and the\nworld in which it moves is a world of supernatural powers, a divine\nfairyland in which the gods play the part of men. But there is none of the\ndull and crass euhemerism which distinguishes the Egyptian tales of the\ngods. The gods do not become mere men with enlarged human powers; they\nremain divine, even though their actions are human and the stage on which\nthey move is human also. It was the pantheism of the Egyptian, in\nconjunction with the deification of the Pharaoh, that made him rationalise\nthe stories of his gods; in Babylonia there was no such temptation; each\ndeity retained his individual character, and from the outset he had worn\nthe likeness of a man. But it was a likeness only, behind which the\ndivinity revealed itself, though the likeness necessarily caused the\nrevelation to be made through individual features, clearly cut and sharply\ndefined. Bel was no human king possessed of magical powers, who had once\nsat on the throne of Babylon; he remained the god who could, it is true,\ndisplay himself at times to his faithful worshippers, but whose habitation\nwas in the far-off heavens, from which he surveyed and regulated the\nactions of mankind. The gods of Babylonian mythology still belonged to\nheaven and not to earth, and its heroes are men and not humanised gods.\n\nI have already referred to the story of the first man, Adapa, and his\nrefusal of the gift of immortality. The story, as we have it, has received\na theological colouring; like the narrative of the Fall in the Book of\nGenesis, it serves to explain why death has entered the world. Man was\nmade in the likeness of the gods, and the question therefore naturally\narose why, like them, he should not be immortal. The answer was given, at\nany rate by the priests of Eridu, in the legend of Adapa and his journey\nto the sky.\n\nThere was yet another story which illustrated the punishment of human\npresumption,\u2014the attempt of man to be as a god,\u2014and is thus a parallel to\nthe story of the tower of Babel. It is the legend of Etana and the eagle,\nwho tempts the hero to ascend with him to the highest heavens and there\nvisit the abodes of the gods. Borne accordingly on the breast of the bird,\nEtana mounts upwards. At the end of two hours the earth looks to them like\na mere mountain, the sea like a pool. Another four hours and \u201cthe sea has\nbecome like a gardener\u2019s ditch.\u201d At last they reach \u201cthe heaven of Anu\u201d;\nbut even there they refuse to stay. Higher still they ascend to the heaven\nof Istar, so that the sea appears to them \u201clike a small bread-basket.\u201d But\nbefore they can reach their destination the destined penalty overtakes the\npresumptuous pair. The eagle\u2019s wings fail him, and he falls through space,\nand both he and his burden are dashed to the ground.\n\nWith this story of Etana there has been coupled a legend, or rather fable,\nof the eagle itself, which the mutilated state of our copies of it renders\nextremely obscure. The eagle had devoured the young of the serpent, who\naccordingly appealed to the sun-god, the judge of all things, for justice.\nBy the sun-god\u2019s advice the serpent creeps into the carcase of a dead ox,\nand there, when the eagle comes to feed upon the putrifying flesh, seizes\nhis enemy, strips him of his feathers, and leaves him to die of hunger and\nthirst. This must have happened after the fall of the eagle from heaven;\nand we may therefore conjecture that, while his human companion was\nkilled, like Icarus, by the fall, the punishment of the eagle was\ndeferred. But it came finally; not even the most powerful of the winged\ncreation could venture with impunity into the heaven of the gods.\n\nWhile the celestial seat of Istar was beyond the reach of man, Istar\nherself sought Tammuz, the bridegroom of her youth, in the underground\nrealm of Hades, in the hope that she might give him to drink of the waters\nof life which gushed up under the throne of the spirits of the earth, and\nso bring him back once more to life and light. The poem which told of her\ndescent into Hades was sung at the yearly festival of Tammuz by the women,\nwho wept for his untimely death. Like Baldyr, the youngest and most\nbeautiful of the gods, he was cut off in the flower of his youth, and\ntaken from the earth to another world. But while the myth embodied in the\npoem, and illustrated by numberless engraved seals, makes him descend into\nHades, the older belief of Eridu, where he had once been a\nwater-spirit,\u2014\u201cthe son of the spirit of the deep,\u201d\u2014transferred him to the\nheaven above, where, along with Nin-gis-zida, \u201cthe lord of the upright\npost,\u201d he served as warder of the celestial gate. In my Hibbert Lectures I\nhave dealt so fully with the story of Tammuz in the various forms it\nassumed, as well as with the myth of Istar\u2019s pursuit of him in the world\nbelow, that I need not dwell upon it now. All I need do is to insist upon\nthe caution with which we should build upon it theories about the\nBabylonian\u2019s conception of the other world, and the existence he expected\nto lead after death.\n\nThe description of Hades with which the poem begins was borrowed from some\nolder work. We meet with it again almost word for word in what is probably\none of the books of the Epic of Gilgames. The fact illustrates the way in\nwhich the poets and epic-writers of Babylonia freely borrowed from older\nsources, and how the classical works of Chald\u00e6a were built up out of\nearlier materials. Perhaps if reproached with plagiarism, their authors\nwould have made the same answer as Vergil, that they had but picked out\nthe pearls from the dunghill of their predecessors. At all events the\ndescription of Hades is striking, though it must be remembered that it\nrepresents only one of the many ideas that were entertained of it in\nBabylonia\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cTo the land from which there is no return, the home of\n                [darkness],\n    Istar, the daughter of Sin, [turned] her mind,\n    yea, the daughter of Sin set her mind [to go];\n    to the house of gloom, the dwelling of Irkalla,\n    to the house from which those who enter depart not,\n    the road from whose path there is no return;\n    to the house where they who enter are deprived of light;\n    a place where dust is their nourishment, clay their food;\n    the light they behold not, in thick darkness they dwell;\n    they are clad like bats in a garb of wings;\n    on door and bolt the dust is laid.\u201d\n\n\nThrough the seven gates of the infernal regions did Istar descend, leaving\nat each some one of her adornments, until at last, stripped and helpless,\nshe stood before the goddess of the underworld. There no mercy was shown\nher; the plague-demon was bidden to smite her with manifold diseases, and\nshe was kept imprisoned in Hades like the ordinary dead. But while the\ngoddess of love thus lay bound and buried, things in this upper world fell\ninto confusion. Neither men nor cattle produced offspring, and the gods in\nheaven took counsel what should be done. Ea accordingly created an\nandrogyne, to whom the name was given \u201cBright is his light.\u201d Before him\nthe gates of Hades opened, and the darkness within them was lighted up.\nThe infernal goddess was forced to obey the orders of heaven; and though\nshe cursed the messenger with deadly imprecations, the spirits of the\nearth were seated on their golden throne while Istar was sprinkled with\nthe water of life, and she then returned once more to the world of light.\n\nEreskigal, the goddess of Hades, forms the subject of yet another poem,\nfragments of which were found at Tel el-Amarna in Egypt, where the poem\nhad been used as a text-book for the students of the Babylonian language\nand script. The poem recounts how she refused to come to a feast which the\ngods had prepared in heaven, and how Nergal invaded her dominions, broke\nthrough the gates that shut them in, and, seizing Ereskigal by the hair,\ndragged her from her throne. But she begged for mercy, and Nergal\nconsented to be her husband, and to rule with her over the realm of the\ndead. The \u201ctablet of wisdom\u201d was transferred to him, and she became a\nSemitic Baalat, the mere reflection of her \u201clord.\u201d The Sumerian \u201cqueen of\nHades\u201d gave place to a Semitic Bel.\n\nThe \u201ctablet of wisdom\u201d was distinct from the \u201ctablets of destiny,\u201d which\ngave their possessor a foreknowledge of the future course of events. The\npossession of the latter implied supreme rule over gods and men; it\nbrought with it the right to be \u201cBel\u201d in the fullest sense of the word.\nLike the Urim and Thummim, they were hung upon the breast; and in the Epic\nof the Creation, Tiam\u00e2t is described as delivering them to her demon\nhusband Kingu, who thereby became the acknowledged ruler of the world. The\nvictory of Merodach over the powers of darkness transferred to him the\nmystic tablets; from henceforth he was the Bel who had made, and who\ndirected, the existing universe; and once each year, at the New Year\u2019s\nfestival, he sat enthroned above the mercy-seat in his temple at Babylon,\ndeclaring the destinies of the coming year. But before the tablets were\ngiven to Bel-Merodach of Babylon, they had belonged to the older Bel of\nNippur and Dur-ili; and a myth told how Zu, the storm-bird, had stolen\nthem while Bel was \u201cpouring forth the pure water and mounting his throne\u201d\nat the beginning of day. \u201cI will take,\u201d he had said, \u201cthe divine tablets\nof destiny, even I; the laws(326) of all the gods will I decree; my throne\nwill I establish and issue my commands, and direct all the angels (of\nheaven).\u201d The thief flew with his spoil to Mount S\u00e2bu; and Anu called in\nvain upon his brother gods to pursue and smite him, and recover the stolen\ntreasure. It was only at last by the help of stratagem that the nest of Zu\nwas found, and the tablets restored to Bel.\n\nA myth of more transparent meaning is that which told of the ravages\nwrought in land after land by Urra, the Pestilence. The description of the\nplague-god reminds us of that angel of pestilence whom David saw with his\nhand stretched forth over Jerusalem. No moral considerations moved him;\njust and unjust, the sinner and the innocent, were alike involved in a\ncommon destruction. Babylon was the first to be smitten, then Erech; and\nMerodach and Istar mourned vainly over the ruin of their people. Then\nIsum, the angel-messenger of Urra, was sent on a longer mission. The\npestilence spread over the whole civilised world; Syria and Assyria,\nElamite and Bed\u00e2win, Kurd and Akkadian equally suffered. The vineyards of\nAmanus and the Lebanon were rooted up, and those who cultivated them\nperished from the earth. For \u201cunnumbered years\u201d the scourge lasted, for\nUrra had \u201cplanned evil because of former wickedness,\u201d and it was long\nbefore his rage was appeased, and the world returned to its normal state.\n\nSimilarly transparent is the story of the assault of the seven evil\nspirits upon the moon, resulting in its eclipse and threatened extinction.\nEn-lil in despair sends his messenger, the fire-god, to Ea for advice and\nhelp, which are accordingly given, and the moon-god is saved. The poem,\nhowever, is of a much older date than those we have hitherto been\nconsidering. It goes back to the time when magic still held a foremost\nplace in the official religion of Babylonia; when A\u1e61ari, the son of Ea,\nhad not as yet become Bel-Merodach of Babylon; and when the cult of Ea had\nnot been obscured by those of younger deities. In fact, it forms part of\none of the incantation texts, and is described as the sixteenth book of\nthe series on evil spirits. But the divine triads already make their\nappearance in it; Ea does not stand alone, but shares his powers with\nEn-lil and Anu, while below them is the triad of Sin, Samas, and Istar. We\nmay look upon the story as belonging to the age which saw the\ntransformation of Sumerian animism into the syncretic State religion of\nlater days; the Semitic gods are there, but they still retain in part the\nfunctions which distinguished them when they were \u201cspirits\u201d and nothing\nmore.\n\nBetween the legend of the assault upon the moon-god and the Epic of\nGilgames the distance is great. Centuries of thought and development\nintervene between them, and there is a difference not only in degree, but\nalso in kind. While one reminds us of the legends of Lapps or Samoyeds,\nthe other finds its parallel in the heroic tales of Greece. Gilgames is a\nhero in the Greek sense of the term; he is not a god, at least for the\npoet of the Epic, even though he lived like Achilles and Odysseus in days\nwhen the gods took part in visible form in the affairs of men. So far as\nwe know, it is the masterpiece of Babylonian epical literature,\u2014a proof\nthat however deficient the pure-blooded Semite may have been in epical and\nmythological genius, the mixed race of Babylonia was in this respect the\nrival of the Greek. Like the story of the Trojan War, the story of\nGilgames attracted to it epical and mythological elements from all sides,\nand became a veritable treasure-house of Babylonian mythology.\n\nIts author divided it into twelve books. Long ago it was noticed that the\narrangement has an astronomical basis, and that the adventures of the hero\ndescribed in some at least of the books are made to correspond with the\ncurrent names of the months of the year. Thus the love and revenge of\nIstar are the subject of the sixth book, answering to the name of the\nsixth month, that of \u201cthe mission of Istar\u201d; while the episode of the\nDeluge is introduced into the eleventh book, where it fitly corresponds\nwith the eleventh month Adar, \u201cthe month of the curse of rain.\u201d It is true\nthat the correspondence between the subject of the book and the name of\nthe month cannot be traced in all cases, but it must be remembered that\neach month had many names, especially in the age of Khammurabi, and that\nthe poet would have more especially in his mind the religious festivals\nwhich distinguished the months of the year. As was pointed out by Sir H.\nC. Rawlinson, he must have regarded Gilgames, if not as a solar hero, at\nall events as a representative of the sun-god. Not only is the Epic\ndivided into twelve books, but in the seventh, when the summer solstice is\npassed and the year begins to wane, the hero is smitten with a sore\ndisease. It is not until the twelfth and last book is reached, that, after\nbathing in the waters of the ocean which encircles the world, he is healed\nof his sickness, and restored once more to health and strength.\n\nBut the solar character of Gilgames did not originally belong to him. His\nname, like those of most of the Babylonian heroes, had come down from\nSumerian times, when as yet the gods did not exist, and the world of\nliving things was divided between \u201cspirits\u201d and men.(327) And Gilgames was\na man, the creation of the goddess Aruru, whose original birthplace seems\nto have been Marad, and of whom a tale was told which may be the prototype\nof that of Akrisios and Perseus.(328) He was the H\u00earakl\u00eas of Babylonia,\nthe embodiment of human strength, who saves his country from its foes, and\ndestroys the monstrous beasts that infest it,\u2014a mighty prince, though not\nan actual king. There is no reason why he should not have been like Cyrus,\na historical personage round whose name and deeds myths afterwards\ngathered; an early inscription recording the restoration of the wall of\nErech states that it had been originally built by the deified\nGilgames.(329)\n\nThe Epic begins with a description of his rule at Erech, \u201cthe seat\u201d of his\npower. Between him and the inhabitants of the city there seems to have\nbeen little goodwill. He had not left, they complained, the son to his\nfather or the wife to her husband. It may be that the legend contains a\ngerm of historical truth, and goes back to the days when Erech was still a\nbattleground between Sumerian and Semite.(330) At any rate the gods, we\nare told, heard the cry of the people, and Aruru was instructed to create\na rival to Gilgames, who might overcome him in the contest of strength.\nThe goddess accordingly kneaded clay with her hands, and made it in the\nform of Ea-bani, half-man and half-beast. His body was covered with hair;\n\u201che knew neither kin nor country\u201d; \u201cwith the gazelles he ate the grass\u201d of\nthe field, and \u201csatisfied his thirst with the cattle.\u201d On the seals he is\nrepresented as a satyr with a goat\u2019s legs and human head.\n\nVainly \u201cthe Huntsman\u201d endeavoured to capture him. Ea-bani broke through\nthe nets that were laid for him; and it was only when one of the\ncourtesans of Istar was sent to entice him that he yielded to the\ntemptation, and left his gazelles and cattle to lie with her seven nights.\nWhen once more he turned back to them, they fled from him in terror; he\nhad become a man, knowing good and evil, and between him and the brute\nbeasts there was nothing more in common. He listened accordingly to the\ncourtesan, and went with her to Erech, \u201cthe seat of Gilgames, the giant in\nstrength, who like a wild ox is stronger than the strongest men.\u201d There\nGilgames had dreamed three dreams relating to him; and Ea-bani, on hearing\nthe interpretation of them, gave up his design of wrestling with the hero,\nand became instead his fast friend and ally.\n\nThe third book of the Epic describes the expedition of the two heroes\nagainst the tyrant Khumbaba, whose home was in the cedar-forest of Elam.\nThey found a way into its magical depths, gazing in wonder at the height\nof the trees, and beholding the mountain of the cedars, \u201cthe mystic\u201d seat\nof the gods, the shrine of Irnini; \u201cbefore the mountain the cedars lifted\nup their luxuriant foliage; deep was their shadow and full of pleasaunce.\u201d\nKhumbaba was overcome and slain; but Gilgames once more dreamed a dream,\nwherein the heavens thundered, the lightning flashed, and the earth shook,\nand which portended disaster to Ea-bani and his friend.\n\nThe sixth and following books describe how the dream was fulfilled. Istar\nsaw and loved Gilgames in the strength of his manhood, and asked him to be\nher bridegroom. \u201cIf thou wilt be my husband,\u201d she declared\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cI will let thee ride in a chariot of lapis-lazuli and gold,\n    thou shalt harness each day great mules (to thy yoke);\n    the odours of cedar shall enter our house ...\n    Kings, lords, and princes [shall bow] at thy feet;\n    [the increase] of mountain and plain shall they bring thee in\n                tribute.\u201d\n\n\nGilgames, however, rejected the offer of the goddess in scorn, and taunted\nher with her fickleness and cruelty and the miserable end of all who had\nloved her in the past\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cTammuz, the spouse of thy youth,\n    thou ordainest weeping for him year by year.\n    The bright-coloured wood-pigeon didst thou love;\n    thou didst smite him and break his wings;\n    in the woods he sits and cries, \u2018O my wings!\u2019\n    Thou didst love a lion perfect in might;\n    seven times seven didst thou dig for him a pit.\n    Thou didst love a horse, glorious in battle;\n    whip and spur and bridle didst thou decree for him.\n    Fourteen hours didst thou make him gallop;\n    weariness and thirst didst thou lay upon him;\n    for his mother, the goddess Silili, thou ordainest weeping.\n    Thou didst love the shepherd Tabulu,\n    who poured out the salt continually for thee;\n    day by day did he slay for thee the sucklings.\n    Thou didst smite him, and change him into a wolf.\n    His own shepherd-boys drove him away,\n    and his own dogs bit his flesh.\n    Thou didst love Isullanu, the gardener of thy father,\n    who was ever bringing thee fruit;\n    day by day he made bright thy dish;\n    thou didst lift thine eyes to him, and speak softly to him:\n    \u2018Isullanu mine, let us eat the gourds together;\n    put forth thine hand and touch one ...\u2019\n    Isullanu answered her:\n    \u2018Of me what requirest thou?\n    Has my mother not baked, have I not eaten,\n    that I should eat such food?\n    Thorns and thistles are hidden therein\u2019 (?).\n    When thou didst hear these his words,\n    thou didst smite him, and change him into a column (?),\n    and didst plant him in the midst of [the garden?].\u201d\n\n\nIstar flew to her father Anu in heaven, and demanded from him vengeance\nupon Gilgames for the slight he had put upon her. Accordingly a monstrous\nbull was created, which ravaged the country, and threatened the life of\nGilgames himself. But Gilgames was more than a match for the monster. With\nthe help of Ea-bani the bull was slain, and its huge horns carried in\ntriumph through the streets of Erech; while Istar stood in impotent rage\non the walls of the city, lamenting the death of the bull, and calling on\nher harlot priestesses to weep over it with her.\n\nBut the death of \u201cthe divine bull\u201d had evil consequences for the two\nheroes. The curse of Istar falls upon them; Gilgames himself is smitten\nwith a grievous sickness, and Ea-bani dies after lingering in pain for\nfull twelve days. Gilgames is inconsolable; vainly he protests against the\nlaw of death which carries away the strong equally with the weak, the hero\nequally with the common man. The ninth book thus begins\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cGilgames for his friend Ea-bani\n    weeps bitterly and lies outstretched upon the ground.\n    \u201c\u2019Shall I not die like Ea-bani?\n    Grief has entered my body;\n    I fear death, and lie outstretched upon the ground.\u2019 \u201d\n\n\nAccordingly he determines to visit Xisuthros,(331) the hero of the Deluge,\nwho dwelt beyond the river of death, whither he had been translated\nwithout dying, and learn from him the secret of immortality.\n\nThe road was long and difficult; mortal man had never trodden it before.\nBut there was divine blood in Gilgames; and as the Greek H\u00earakl\u00eas forced\nhis way to Hades, so he too forced his way beyond the limits of our human\nworld. First he had to pass the twin mountains of Mas, in the northern\ndesert of Arabia, which guard the daily rising and setting of the sun,\nwhose summit touches the \u201czenith of heaven,\u201d while \u201ctheir breast reaches\ndownwards to Hades.\u201d Men with the bodies of scorpions guarded the gateway\nof the sun, the horror of whose aspect was \u201cawesome,\u201d and whose look \u201cwas\ndeath.\u201d But \u201cthe scorpion-man\u201d and his \u201cwife\u201d recognised that the stranger\nwas partly divine, and he was allowed to pass in safety through the open\ndoors. Once beyond them he entered a region of thick darkness. For the\nspace of twelve double hours he groped his way through this land without\nlight, when suddenly he emerged from it into the bright light of day. Here\ngrew a marvellous tree, whose fruit was the precious turquoise(332) and\nlapis-lazuli, which hung from it like clusters of grapes.\n\nAt last Gilgames reached the shore of the ocean, which, like a serpent,\nencircles the earth. Here \u1e60iduri, or \u1e60abitum \u201cthe lady of Saba,\u201d(333) sat\nupon \u201cthe throne of the sea.\u201d But she locked the gate of her palace, and\nforbade him to cross the ocean; none had ever passed over it except the\nsun-god in his nightly voyage from west to east. Once more, however, the\nelement of divinity that was in Gilgames prevailed; \u1e60abitum acknowledged\nthat he was more than a mere man, and allowed his right to seek his\nancestor beyond the river of death. Arad-Ea, the pilot of Xisuthros, was\nsummoned; trees were cut and fashioned into a boat, and for a month and\nfifteen days Gilgames and his pilot pursued their voyage over the sea.\nThen \u201con the third day\u201d they entered \u201cthe waters of death.\u201d The hero was\nbidden to cling to the rudder and to see that the deadly water did not\ntouch his hand. Twelve strokes of the oar were needed before the rapids\nwere safely passed, and the boat reached the shore that lay beyond the\nrealm of death. Here Gilgames beheld Xisuthros \u201cafar off\u201d \u201cat the mouth of\nthe rivers.\u201d At once he communicated to him the object of his journey: how\nand why had Xisuthros escaped the universal law of death? The answer is\ncontained in the eleventh book of the Epic, which recounts the story of\nthe great Deluge.\n\nEver since its discovery by George Smith in 1872, the Babylonian story of\nthe Deluge, which has thus been introduced into the Epic of Gilgames, has\nattracted the special attention of both scholars and the public. On the\none side it agrees with the story of the Deluge handed down to us by the\ncopyists of the Chald\u00e6an historian Berossos, and so is a witness to his\ntrustworthiness; on the other side, its parallelism with the account of\nthe Deluge in the Book of Genesis is at once striking and startling. But\nthe version of the story embodied by Sin-liqi-unnini in his Epic was but\none out of many that were current in Babylonia. We have a fragment of\nanother which so closely resembles that of the Epic, as to have been long\nbelieved to form part of it; indeed, it is possible that it comes from a\nvariant copy of the Epic itself. Fragments of another version have lately\nbeen found by Dr. Scheil in a Babylonian tablet which goes back to the\nreign of Ammi-zadok, the fourth successor of Khammurabi.(334) Even the\nversion contained in the Epic seems to be a combination of two earlier\nones, or rather to be based upon at least two different versions of the\nlegend. The story, in fact, must have been of immemorial antiquity in\nBabylonia; Xisuthros and his ship are depicted upon some of the earliest\nseals, and Babylonian chronology drew a sharp line of division between the\nkings who had reigned before and after the Flood. In the Epic Xisuthros is\na native of Surippak on the Euphrates, but the story must originally have\ngrown up at Eridu on the shores of the Persian Gulf. Like the story of the\nstruggle with Tiam\u00e2t, it typifies the contest between the anarchic\nelements of storm and flood and that peaceful expanse of water in which\nthe fishermen of Eridu plied their trade, and out of which the culture-god\nhad ascended. It is significant that up to the last it was En-lil of\nNippur who was represented as sending the Flood that destroyed mankind,\nwhile Xisuthros was saved by Ea.\n\nThe Babylonian story of the Deluge has been so often translated and is so\nwell known, that there is no need for me to repeat it here. It is\nsufficient to note that Xisuthros, like Noah, owed his preservation to his\npiety. In the final scene, when Bel (En-lil) is enraged that any one\nshould have escaped from the destruction he had brought upon mankind, Ea\npacifies him with the words: \u201cPunish the sinner for his sins, punish the\ntransgressor for his transgressions; be merciful that he be not [utterly]\ncut off, be long-suffering that he be not [rooted out].\u201d The Deluge was a\npunishment for sin, and it was only just, therefore, that the righteous\nman should be saved.\n\nThe translation of Xisuthros with his wife to the paradise beyond the\ngrave is evidently regarded by the author of the Epic as a further reward\nfor his piety. But we may suspect that this was not its original cause. In\nthe myth of Adapa, the first man, we find Anu laying down that the mortal\nwho has penetrated into the secrets of the gods must receive the gift of\nimmortality and become as one of the gods himself, and it would seem that\nthe same idea inspired the belief in the translation of the second father\nof mankind. Xisuthros too had learned the secret counsels of the gods;\nwith the help of Ea he had outwitted Bel, and it was therefore needful\nthat the gift of immortality should be conferred on him, and that he\nshould dwell like them in the land which death cannot reach.\n\nTrue to his primeval character, En-lil of Nippur was the author of the\nDeluge. His ministers, Nin-ip, Nusku, and En-nugi, carry out his commands,\nwhile \u201cthe spirits of the earth lift up their torches.\u201d But the poet of\nthe Epic has spoilt the primitive symmetry of the picture by introducing\nthe triad into it along with the storm-god Hadad of later times, and so\nmaking the destruction of mankind not the work of En-lil alone, but of the\ngods generally in common council. The result has been a want of coherence\nin the elements of the story; Istar(335) consents to the death of the\nchildren she has borne, only to repent of it subsequently when she sees\nthem filling the sea \u201clike fish,\u201d and to weep with the rest of the gods\nover the havoc that has been wrought. Perhaps Professor Jastrow is right\nin his suggestion that two separate versions of the story have been united\ntogether, in one of which it was the single city of Surippak and its\ninhabitants that were destroyed, while in the other the Deluge was\nuniversal. However that may be, Ea disclosed the determination of En-lil\nto his faithful servant, \u201cthe son of Ubara-Tutu.\u201d According to one part of\nthe story, the disclosure was made through a dream; according to another\npart, by a device similar to that which gave the Phrygian Midas his ass\u2019s\nears. The god whispered the meditated deed of Bel and the means of\nescaping it to one of those reed-huts which stood by the shore of the\nPersian Gulf, and in which Xisuthros\u2014despite the fact that he is called \u201ca\nman of Surippak\u201d\u2014was born. The rustling reeds communicated to him the\nsecret, and he in turn told his \u201clord Ea\u201d that he had understood the\nmessage.\n\nThe ship was built, and by the advice of Ea the too-inquisitive inquirers\nwere informed that the builder was transferring his allegiance from Bel,\nthe lord of the land, to Ea, the god of the sea.(336) All sorts of\nprovisions were stored in it, together with \u201cthe seed of life,\u201d each after\nits kind\u2014\u201ccattle of the field, wild beasts of the field, and the sons of\nthe craftsmen.\u201d Then the helm was placed in the hands of Buzur-Sadi-rabi,\nthe steersman, the door of the ark was closed, and the storm broke upon\nthe earth. For seven days and nights it raged; man and his works were\nswept away, and the ark alone survived with its living freight. When at\nlast Xisuthros opened his window and looked out, a desolate waste of\nwaters was all that could be seen. Above it the lofty peak of the mountain\nof Nizir(337) in the north-east finally appeared; here the ship grounded,\nand seven days afterwards Xisuthros sent forth a dove to see if the earth\nwere dry. But the dove \u201cwent to and fro, and returned.\u201d Next he sent forth\na swallow, which returned also to the ark; and lastly a raven, which \u201cate,\nwaded and croaked, and did not return.\u201d So the Chald\u00e6an Noah knew that the\nwaters of the Flood had subsided: and accordingly he opened the door of\nthe ark and let the animals within it depart towards \u201cthe four quarters of\nheaven.\u201d Then he offered sacrifice on the summit of the mountain, setting\nbeside it vases of smoking incense ranged \u201cseven by seven.\u201d The gods smelt\nthe sweet savour of the offering, and rejoiced that there were men still\nleft to prepare it for them. They gathered, we are told, \u201clike flies above\nthe offerer,\u201d while Beltis lifted up \u201cthe bow that Anu had made.\u201d\n\nEn-lil alone refused to be reconciled. He vented his wrath at the escape\nof Xisuthros and his family upon the Igigi or angels, who, as spirits,\nwere more under his control than the gods. But Ea took the blame upon\nhimself, and, after declaring that the righteous must not suffer with the\nguilty, persuaded Bel to promise that though he might send the wild beast,\nthe famine, and the pestilence upon mankind, the earth should never again\nbe visited by the waters of a flood. Then Bel entered the ship, blessed\nXisuthros and his wife, and translated them to the other world.\n\nAfter hearing the story, Gilgames fell into a deep sleep, which lasted six\ndays and seven nights, while the wife of Xisuthros prepared magic food,\nwhich she placed at the head of the sleeper. When he awoke he ate it, and\nhis sickness departed from him. But his skin was still covered with sores,\nand it was therefore necessary that he should bathe in the purifying\nwaters of the ocean before the full strength and beauty of his youth came\nback to him.\n\nXisuthros now tells him of the plant of immortality which grows, covered\nwith thorns, at the bottom of the ocean. The hero accordingly ties heavy\nstones to his feet, and dives for it; and though the thorns pierce his\nhands, he brings a branch of it to the surface, and prepares to carry it\nto the world of men. But the gift of immortality was not for men to\npossess. On his voyage home Gilgames stops awhile at a fountain of cool\nwater, and while he bathes in it a serpent perceives the odour of the\nplant, and steals it away. Vainly the hero laments its loss, the plant\nthat \u201cchanges age into youth \u201d could never be brought to a world the law\nof which is death.\n\nMan must die, but what is the lot of the dead? This is the question which\nforms the burden of the twelfth and last book of the Epic. Gilgames\nwanders from temple to temple, asking the god of each if the earth has\nseized hold of Ea-bani, and if so, what is his fate below. But the gods\nare silent; they give neither answer nor sign. At last, however, he\nreaches the shrine of Nergal, the god of the dead, and Nergal causes the\nearth to open and the spirit of Ea-bani to ascend out of it like a cloud\nof dust. And then the answer is given. He who has friends to care for him\nwill \u201clie on a couch and drink pure water\u201d; the hero too\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cwho is slain in battle, as you and I have seen,\n    his father and his mother support his head,\n    and his wife [weeps] over him.\n    But he whose body lies forsaken in the field, as thou and I have\n                seen,\n    his ghost rests not in the earth.\n    He whose ghost has none to care for him, as thou and I have seen,\n    the garbage of the pot, the refuse of food,\n    which is thrown into the street, must he devour.\u201d\n\n\nWith this dreary and materialistic picture of the other world the Epic\ncomes to an end. It is a curious contrast to the life in the fields of Alu\nto which the Egyptian worshipper of Osiris looked forward; and there is\nlittle need to wonder that the mind and religious cult of the Babylonian\nshould have been centred in the present life. The Hades in which he was\ncalled upon to believe was more dreary even than the Hades of the Homeric\nGreeks.\n\nThe Epic of Gilgames forces two questions upon our attention, both of\nwhich have been often discussed. The one is the relation of the story of\nthe Deluge contained in it to the Biblical narrative of the Flood, the\nother is the relation of Gilgames himself to the Greek H\u00earakl\u00eas. From the\noutset it has been perceived that the connection between the Babylonian\nand Hebrew stories is very close, and that the Babylonian is the older of\nthe two. The birds, for instance, sent out by Xisuthros are three instead\nof two, as in the Biblical narrative, though the number of times they were\ndespatched is the same in both cases; and the ship of the Babylonian\nversion has been replaced by an ark in the Old Testament account. In fact\nthe Babylonian story has been modified in Palestine and under Western\ninfluences. In an inland country an ark was naturally substituted for a\nship, more especially as the latter contained a house with window and\ndoor; even in Babylonia itself, in the processions of the gods, an ark\ncame to take the place of the ship of primitive Eridu. The olive branch,\nagain, with which the dove returned, according to the Book of Genesis,\npoints to Palestine, where the olive grew; while the period of the\nrainfall has been transferred from Sebet or January and February, when the\nwinter rains fall in Babylonia, to the \u201csecond month\u201d of the Hebrew civil\nyear, our October and November, when the \u201cformer rains\u201d began in Canaan.\nSimilarly, the subsidence of the waters is extended in the Hebrew\nnarrative to the middle of the \u201cseventh month,\u201d when the \u201clatter rains\u201d of\nthe Canaanitish spring are over.\n\nBut the most remarkable fact brought to light by a comparison of the\nBabylonian story with that of Genesis is, that the resemblances between\nthem are not confined to one only of the two documents into which modern\ncriticism has separated the Biblical narrative. It is not with the\nso-called Elohistic, or the so-called Yahvistic, account only that the\nagreement exists, but with both together as they are found at present\ncombined, or supposed to be combined, in the Hebrew text.(338) The fact\nthrows grave doubt on the reality of the critical analysis. As I have said\nelsewhere:(339) \u201cEither the Babylonian poet had before him the present\n\u2018redacted\u2019 text of Genesis, or else the Elohist and Yahvist must have\ncopied the Babylonian story upon the mutual understanding standing that\nthe one should insert what the other omitted. There is no third\nalternative.\u201d\n\nThe Palestinian colouring of the Biblical version of itself excludes the\nsupposition that the story was borrowed by the Jews in the age of the\nBabylonian exile. Such a supposition, indeed, would be little in\naccordance with the feelings of hatred felt by the captives towards their\nBabylonian conquerors and the religious beliefs and traditions of the\nlatter. But the discovery of the Tel el-Amarna tablets has shown that the\nculture and literature of Babylonia had made its way to Palestine and even\nto Egypt long before the Mosaic age. The great literary works of Chald\u00e6a\nwere already known and used as text-books in the West, and, like the story\nof the first man Adapa, a portion of which was found in Egypt, the story\nof the Deluge and the second founder of the human race must also have been\nknown there. Gunkel has made it clear(340) that the conceptions and\nbeliefs which underlie the history of the Flood, and find their expression\nin the statement that \u201cthe fountains of the great deep\u201d were broken up,\nare not only of Babylonian origin, but are also met with in the earliest\nfragments of Old Testament literature. Before the Israelites entered\nCanaan, the cosmological ideas of Babylonia had already made their way to\nit, and been adapted to the geographical conditions of \u201cthe land of the\nAmorites.\u201d\n\nThe story of a deluge was known to Greece as well as to Palestine. There,\ntoo, it had been sent by Zeus as a punishment for the impiety of mankind;\nand Deukalion, the Greek Noah, saved himself and his family in a\nship.(341) The peak of Parnassos played the same part in the Greek legend\nthat the mountain of Nizir played in the Babylonian; and the stones thrown\non the ground by Deukalion which became men, remind us of the images of\nclay moulded by the goddess Mami in the mutilated Babylonian myth of\nAtarpi, which similarly become men and women.\n\nBut it is not so much with the episode of the Deluge as with the whole\nstory of Gilgames and his adventures that Greek mythology claims\nconnection. The desire of finding the biblical Nimrod in the cuneiform\ntablets long seduced Assyriologists into the impossible attempt to\nidentify him with Gilgames; it is not, however, to the Biblical Nimrod,\nbut to the Greek H\u00earakl\u00eas, that the Babylonian hero is related. The\ncurious parallelism between the twelve labours of H\u00earakl\u00eas and the twelve\nadventures of Gilgames may be an accident; but it is no accident that\nGilgames and H\u00earakl\u00eas should alike be heroes who are not kings, and that\nboth alike should be tormented with a deadly distemper which destroyed the\nflesh. Khumbaba is the tyrant Geryon, the bull slain by Gilgames is the\nKretan bull slain by H\u00earakl\u00eas, and the Nem\u00e6an lion reappears in the lion\nwhich Gilgames is so often represented on the seals as strangling to\ndeath. As H\u00eara persecuted H\u00earakl\u00eas, so Istar persecuted Gilgames; the\njourney of the Greek hero into Hades is paralleled by the journey of\nGilgames beyond the waters of death; and the tree which he found on the\nshores of the sea with its fruit of precious stones is the magical tree of\nthe Hesperides with its golden apples which grew in the midst of the\nwestern ocean.\n\nIt is true that there are many elements in the legend of H\u00earakl\u00eas which\nare not derived from Babylonia. But it is also true that, like the\ncosmogonies of Hesiod or the cosmological philosophy of Thales, there are\nalso elements in it for which we must claim a Babylonian origin. Probably\nthey made their way to Greek lands at the same time as the Cyprian cult of\nAphrodit\u00ea or the myth of Ad\u00f4nis, whose name indicates the road along which\nthe culture of Babylonia had travelled. Recent arch\u00e6ological discoveries\nhave revealed the fact that in the days when Canaan was a Babylonian\nprovince, a civilisation already existed in the \u00c6gean, and that an active\nintercourse was carried on between Egypt and Asia on the one hand, and the\nislands and shores of the Mediterranean on the other, in which Krete took\na leading share. Light is only just dawning on what until lately was the\n\u201cprehistoric\u201d past of the European peoples; before long a new world will\ndoubtless be disclosed to us, such as that which the decipherment of the\ncuneiform texts has brought to light.\n\nIt is not only in the mythology of primitive Greece that we can trace the\ninfluence of the legends embodied in the Epic of Gilgames. The adventures\nof Gilgames in search of immortality form part of the story of that\nmythical Alexander who grew up in literature by the side of the Alexander\nof history. He too had to make his way through a land of thick darkness,\nand he too finally failed in his endeavour to secure the \u201cwaters of\nlife.\u201d(342) Man is and must remain mortal; this is alike the teaching of\nthe old poet of Chald\u00e6a and of the romance which the contact of Eastern\nand Western thought called into existence in classical days.\n\n\n\n\nLecture IX. The Ritual Of The Temple.\n\n\nThe temple of the god was the centre and glory of every great Babylonian\ncity. The Babylonian States had been at the outset essentially theocratic;\ntheir ruler had been a high priest before he became a king, and up to the\nlast he remained the vicegerent and adopted son of the god. It was round\nthe temple that the city had grown and its population clustered. The\nartisans worked for it, and the agricultural labourers tilled its fields.\nThe art of Babylonia originated within the temple precincts; it was for\nits adornment that the enamelled tiles were first made, and wood or stone\nor metal carved into artistic shapes, while the endowments which thus\nfostered the craftsman\u2019s art were derived from landed property or from the\ntithes paid to the priests upon the produce of the soil. The culture of\nBabylonia was with good reason traced back to the god Ea.\n\nThe place occupied in Assyria by the army was filled in Babylonia by the\npriesthood. The priests could make and unmake their kings. The last\nmonarch of Babylonia, Nabonidos, was a nominee of the priests of Babylon;\nit was from them, and not from the rights of heritage, that he had derived\nhis title to the throne. The great sanctuaries of the country influenced\nits destinies to the last. The influence of Nippur and Eridu, in fact, was\nwholly religious; we know of no royal dynasties that sprang from them.\nEven Nabonidos, with all his centralising zeal on behalf of Merodach of\nBabylon, was constrained to lavish gifts and honours on the sun-god of\nSippara, at all events in the early part of his reign.\n\nWe must therefore look upon the temple as the oldest unit in the\ncivilisation of Babylonia. Babylonian culture begins with the temple, with\nthe worship of a deity or a spirit, and with the ministers attached to the\ncult. Centuries before En-lil of Nippur had developed into a Semitic Bel,\nan earthly dwelling-house had been provided for him which became in time\nthe temple of a god. Its first name, \u00ca-kur, \u201cthe house of the earth\u201d or\n\u201cmountain,\u201d continued always to cling to it, even though the original\nmeaning of the name was forgotten, and it had come to signify a temple in\nthe later sense of the word.\n\nThe temple was the sign and token of the reclamation of the primitive\nBabylonian swamp. Before it could be erected, it was needful to construct\na platform of solid earth and brickwork, which should rise above the\npestiferous marsh, and serve as a foundation for the building. The\nSumerians called the platform the ki-gal or \u201cgreat place\u201d; it was the\nfirst place of human or divine habitation wrested from the waters of the\nswamp, and it marked the triumph of civilised man over nature.\nEmphatically, therefore, it was a \u201cgreat place,\u201d a solid resting-place in\na world of water and slime.\n\nOn the platform the temple buildings were piled. There was no stone in\nBabylonia; it was a land of mud, and of mud bricks, accordingly, baked in\nthe sun, the temple of the god was constructed. What was lost in beauty or\ndesign was gained in solidity. The Babylonian temples were huge masses of\nbrick, square for the most part, and with the four corners facing the four\ncardinal points. It was only exceptionally that the four sides, instead of\nthe four corners, were made to front the four \u201cwinds.\u201d\n\nThese masses of brick were continually growing in height. The crude bricks\nsoon disintegrated, and the heavy rains of a Babylonian winter quickly\nreduced them to their primeval mud. Constant restorations were therefore\nneeded, and the history of a Babylonian temple is that of perpetual\nrepairs. Efforts were made to keep the walls from crumbling away by\nbuilding buttresses against them, and the bricks were cemented together\nwith bitumen. But all precautions were in vain. A period of national decay\ninevitably brought with it the decay also of the temples, and a return of\nprosperity meant their restoration on the disintegrated ruins of the older\nedifice. The artificial platform became a _tel_ or mound.\n\nBut the growth in height was not displeasing to the priestly builders. The\nhigher the temple rose above the level of the plain, the better they were\npleased. A characteristic of the Babylonian temple, in fact, was the\n_ziggurat_ or \u201ctower\u201d attached to each, whose head it was designed should\n\u201creach to heaven.\u201d The word _ziggurat_ means a \u201clofty peak,\u201d and the royal\nbuilders of Babylonia vied with one another in making the temple towers\nthey erected as high as possible.\n\nThere was more than one reason for this characteristic feature of\nreligious Babylonian architecture. The first settlers in the plain of\nBabylonia must soon have discovered that the higher they could be above\nthe surface of the ground the better it was for them. The nearer they\nascended to the clouds of heaven, the freer they were from the miasmata\nand insects of the swamp. The same cause which led them to provide a\nplatform for their temples, would have also led them to raise the temple\nas high as they could above the level of the plain. This, however, will\nnot explain the origin of the tower itself. It would have been a reason\nfor building the temple as high as possible, not for attaching to it a\ntower. Nor was the tower suitable for defence against an enemy, like the\npylons of an Egyptian temple. At most it was a convenient watch-tower from\nwhich the movements of a hostile band could be observed. There must have\nbeen some other reason, more directly connected with religious beliefs or\npractices, which found its outward expression in the sacred tower.\n\nThe sanctuary of Nippur, it will be remembered, was the oldest in Northern\nBabylonia. And from time immemorial it had been known as \u00ca-kur, \u201cthe house\nof the mountain-land.\u201d It represented that underground world which was the\nhome of En-lil and his ghosts; and this underground world, we must\nobserve, was conceived of as a mountain. In fact, the cuneiform character\nwhich signifies \u201ccountry\u201d also signifies \u201cmountain,\u201d and the hieroglyphic\npicture out of which it developed is the picture of a mountain-range. The\nland in which it was first drawn and stereotyped in writing must, it would\nseem, have been a mountainous one, like the land in which the subterranean\nrealm of En-lil was regarded as a lofty hill. In other words, the\nSumerians must have been the inhabitants of a mountainous country before\nthey settled in the plain of Babylonia and laid the foundations of the\ntemple of Nippur.\n\nAnd this mountainous country lay to the north or east, where the mountains\nof Elam and Kurdistan border the Babylonian plain. In the story of the\nDeluge the ark is made to rest on the summit of the mountain of Nizir,\nwhich is probably the modern Rowandiz, to the north-east of Assyria; and\nthe gods were believed to have been born in \u201cthe mountain of the world,\u201d\nin the land of Arallu.(343) Here, too, they held their court; \u201cI will\nascend into heaven,\u201d the Babylonian monarch is made to say in the 14th\nchapter of Isaiah, \u201cI will exalt my throne above the stars of El; I will\nsit also upon the mount of the assembly (of the gods), in the extremities\nof the north;(344) I will ascend above the heights of the clouds; I will\nbe like the Most High.\u201d More than one temple in both Babylonia and Assyria\ntook its name from this \u201cmountain of the world\u201d; the _ziggurat_ at Kis was\nknown as \u201cthe house of the mountain of mankind,\u201d while a temple at Ur was\nentitled \u201cthe house of the mountain,\u201d and the shrine of Gula at Babylon\nwas \u201cthe house of the holy hill.\u201d(345)\n\nAll over Babylonia, accordingly, the mountain is brought into close\nconnection with the religious cult. Not at Nippur only, but in other\ncities as well, the home of the gods is on the summit of an Olympos,\nwithin whose subterranean recesses they were born when as yet the\nprimitive ghost or spirit had not become a god. Sumerian religion must\nhave grown up rather among the mountains than in the plain, and the memory\nof its birthplace was preserved by religious conservatism. The _ziggurat_\nof the temple goes back to the days when the gods were still gods of the\nmountain, and the builders of the temple sought to force a way into the\nheavenly Olympos by raising artificially an imitation of the mountain on\nthe alluvial plain. The tower was a mimic representation of the \u00ca-kur, or\nmountain of the earth itself, where En-lil, \u201cthe god of the great\nmountain\u201d (_sadu rabu_), had his seat. And the earth could have been\nfigured as a mountain only by the inhabitants of a mountainous land.\n\nBut this conception of the world of gods and men stands in glaring\ncontrast to the cosmology of Eridu. There the primeval earth was not a\nmountain peak, but the flat lands reclaimed from the sea. The gods and\nspirits had their home in the abysses of the ocean, not in the dark\nrecesses of a mountain of the north; the centre of the world was the\npalace of Ea beneath the waves, not \u201cthe mountain-house\u201d of En-lil, or the\ndark caverns of \u201cthe mountain of Arallu.\u201d Once more we are confronted by a\ntwofold element in Babylonian thought and religion, and a proof of its\ncompound nature. Like the contradictory elements in Egyptian religion,\nwhich can best be explained by the composite character of the people, the\ncontradictory elements in Babylonian religion imply that mixture of races\nwhich is described in the fragments of Berossos.\n\nIn the tower or _ziggurat_, accordingly, we must see a reflection of the\nbelief that this nether earth is a mountain whose highest peak supports\nthe vault of the sky. Around it float the stars and clouds, concealing the\nheaven of the gods from the eyes of man. But this Olympian heaven was\nreally an afterthought. It was not until the ghosts of the lower world had\ndeveloped into gods, and been transferred from the heart of the mountain\nto its summit, that it had any existence at all. It belongs to the age of\nastro-theology, to the time when the moon and sun and host of heaven\nbecame divine, and received the homage of mankind. This is an age to which\nI shall have to refer again in my next and concluding lecture. It was the\ntime when the _ziggurat_ began to consist of seven storeys, dedicated to\nthe seven planets, when the _ziggurat_ of Erech was called \u201cthe house of\nthe seven black stones,\u201d and that of Borsippa, \u201cof the seven zones of\nheaven and earth.\u201d(346)\n\nThe _ziggurat_ occupied but a small part of the temple area. What the\ntemple was like we know to a certain extent, not only from the American\nexcavations at Nippur, but more especially from the accounts given us by\nHerodotos and by a cuneiform tablet which describes the great temple of\nBel-Merodach at Babylon. The latter was called \u00ca-Saggila, \u201cthe house of\nthe exalted head\u201d; and though the account of Herodotos is probably quoted\nfrom an earlier author, while the cuneiform tablet, which was seen and\ntranslated by Mr. George Smith at Constantinople, has unfortunately been\nlost, there is nevertheless no ground in either case for mistrust. The\ndescription given by Herodotos fully agrees with that of the tablet.\n\nThe visitor to the temple first entered the \u201cGreat\u201d or Outer Court. It was\n900 feet in breadth, and more than 1150 in length. If we may judge from\nthe analogy of Nippur and Lagas, an arcade ran round its interior,\nsupported on columns, and two larger, but detached, columns of brick or\nstone stood on either side of the entrance. At Babylon a second court\nopened out of the first, devoted to the worship of the goddesses Istar and\nZam\u00e2m\u00e2. Six gates pierced the walls\u2014the Grand Gate, the Gate of the Rising\nSun, the Great Gate, the Gate of the Colossi, the Gate of the Canal, and\nthe Gate of the Tower-view.(347) Then came the _kigallu_, or platform, of\nthe original temple, the sides, and not the corners of which faced the\nfour cardinal points, and which possessed four gates, each in the centre\nof a side. In it was the _ziggurat_, \u201cthe house of the foundation of\nheaven and earth,\u201d as it was termed, with its seven stages, which rose one\nabove the other in gradually diminishing proportions to a height of 300\nfeet.(348) A winding ramp led upwards on the outside, connecting the\nstages with each other, and allowing a chariot to be driven along it to\nthe top. Here in the last of the seven stages was the chamber of the god.\nIt contained no image of the deity, only a couch of gold and a golden\ntable for the shewbread.(349) None but a woman into whom the god had\nbreathed the spirit of prophecy was allowed to enter it, and it was to her\nthat Bel revealed himself at night on his golden couch and delivered his\noracles. As in Greece, so too in Babylonia and Assyria, women were\ninspired prophetesses of the gods. It was from the priestesses and\nserving-women of Istar of Arbela that Esar-haddon received the oracles of\nthe goddess; and we are reminded that in Israel also it was the prophetess\nDeborah who roused her countrymen to battle, and Huldah, rather than\nJeremiah, to whom the high priest betook himself that he might hear \u201cthe\nword of the Lord.\u201d\n\nIt is significant that the place of the oracle was the topmost chamber of\nthe tower. The god is conceived as coming down from heaven;(350) it is\nthere that he lives, not in the underground recesses of the mountain of\nthe world or fathomless abysses of the sea. When the _ziggurat_ took its\nfinal shape, the deities of Babylonia had already been transported to the\nsky.\n\nIt is also significant that there was no image of the god. The spiritual\nhad been finally separated from the material, and where the god himself\ncame in spiritual form no material image of him was needed. Though none\nmight be able to see him with mortal eye save only his inspired priestess,\nhe was nevertheless as actually present as if he had embodied himself in\nsome statue of metal or stone. The denizen of heaven required no body or\nform of earthly make; the divine spirits who were worshipped in the sun or\nstars were seen only by the eye of faith.\n\nBut it was in the _ziggurat_ only that the deity thus came down from\nheaven in spiritual guise. In the chapels and shrines that stood at its\nfoot images were numerous; here the multitude, whether of priests or\nlaymen, served and worshipped, and the older traditions of religion\nremained intact. On the eastern side of the tower was the sanctuary of\nNebo, the \u201cangel\u201d or interpreter of the will of Merodach, with Tasmit, his\nwife. To the north were the chapels of Ea and Nusku, and to the south\nthose of Anu and En-lil, while westward was the temple of Merodach\nhimself. It consisted of a double building, with a court between the two\nwings. In the recesses of the inner sanctuary was the _papakhu_, or \u201cHoly\nof Holies,\u201d with its golden image of the god. Here too was the golden\ntable of shewbread and the _parakku_, or mercy-seat, which at times gave\nits name to the whole shrine.\n\nThe innermost sanctuary was known as the Du-azagga, or \u201cHoly Hill,\u201d after\nwhich the month Tisri received one of its names.(351) But the name had\nreally come from Eridu. It was the dwelling-place of Ea on the eastern\nhorizon of the sea, where the sun rises from the deep,(352) and Asari\naccordingly was entitled its \u201cson.\u201d When Asari became Merodach of Babylon,\nthe Holy Mound or Hill migrated with him, and the seat of the oracular\nwisdom of Ea was transformed into the shrine of Merodach, where he in his\nturn delivered his oracles on the festival of the New Year.(353)\nLehmann(354) has shown that originally it represented the mercy-seat, the\n\u201cgolden throne\u201d of the description of Herodotos, above which the deity\nseated himself when he descended to announce the future destinies of man.\nIt was only subsequently that it was extended to the \u201cHoly of Holies\u201d in\nwhich the mercy-seat stood.\n\nA golden altar seems to have been raised close to the mercy-seat of the\ngod. If Herodotos may be trusted, lambs only were allowed to be sacrificed\nupon it. But there was another and larger altar in the outer court. On\nthis whole sheep were offered, as well as frankincense.\n\nThe architectural arrangement of a Babylonian temple, however, was not\nalways the same. The orientation of the temple of Merodach, as we have\nseen, differed from that of the majority of the Babylonian sanctuaries.\nThe number of chapels included within the sacred precincts varied greatly,\nand even the position of the great tower was not uniform. But the general\nplan was alike everywhere. There was first the great court, open to the\nsky, and surrounded by cloisters and colonnades. Here were the houses of\nthe priests and other ministers of the temple, the library and school,\nshops for the manufacture and sale of votive objects, even the stalls\nwherein the animals were kept that were intended for sacrifice. In the\ncentre of the court stood an altar of sacrifice, with large vases for the\npurposes of ablution by the side of it, as well as a \u201csea,\u201d or basin of\nwater, which derived its name from the fact that it was a symbol of the\nprimeval \u201cdeep.\u201d The basin was of bronze or stone, and was at times\nsupported on the backs of twelve oxen, as we learn from an old hymn which\ndescribes the construction of one of them.(355) At other times, as at\nLagas, the basin was decorated with a frieze of female figures, who pour\nwater from the vases in their outstretched hands.(356) The purifying\neffects of the water of the \u201cdeep\u201d were transferred to that of the mimic\n\u201csea,\u201d and the worshipper who entered the temple after washing in it\nbecame ceremonially pure.\n\nThe great court, with its two isolated columns in front of the entrance,\nled into a second, from the floor of which rose the _ziggurat_ or tower.\nThe second court formed the approach to the temple proper, which again\nconsisted of an outer sanctuary and an inner shrine. Whether the laity\nwere admitted into its inner recesses is doubtful. No one, indeed, could\nappear before the god except through the mediation of a priest; and on the\nseal-cylinders a frequent representation is that of a worshipper whom the\npriest is leading by the hand and presenting to the image of a deity. But\nit is not certain that the image represented on them was that which stood\nin the Holy of Holies, or innermost shrine; it may have been a second\nimage, erected in another part of the temple. On the other hand, the\nnumerous chapels of the secondary gods who formed the court of the chief\ndeity of a city, can hardly have been furnished with more than one statue,\nand it is even questionable whether they consisted of more than one\nchamber. Perhaps it was only from the topmost room of the tower that the\nlayman was absolutely excluded.\n\nThe Babylonian temple, it will be seen, thus closely resembled the temple\nof Solomon. That, too, had its two courts, its chambers for the priests,\nits sanctuary, and its Holy of Holies. Both alike were externally mere\nrectangular boxes, without architectural beauty or variety of design. It\nwas only in the possession of a tower that the Babylonian temple differed\nfrom the Israelite. They agreed even in the details of their furniture.\nThe two altars of the Babylonian sanctuary are found again in the temple\nof Jerusalem; so too are the mercy-seat and the table of shewbread. Even\nthe bronze \u201csea\u201d of Solomon, with its twelve oxen, is at last accounted\nfor; it was modelled after a Babylonian original, and goes back to the\ncosmological ideas which had their source in Eridu. Yet more striking are\nthe twin pillars that flanked the gateway of the court, remains of which\nhave been found both at Nippur and at Tello. They are exactly parallel to\nthe twin pillars which Solomon set up \u201cin the porch of the temple,\u201d and\nwhich he named Yakin and Boaz. In these, again, we may find vestiges of a\nbelief which had its roots in the theology of Eridu. When Adapa, the first\nman, was sent by Ea to the heaven of Anu, he found on either side of the\ngate two gods clothed in mourning, and weeping for their untimely removal\nfrom the earth. Like the two cherubim who guarded the tree of life, they\nguarded the gate of heaven. One of them was Tammuz, the other\nNin-gis-zida, \u201cthe lord of the firmly planted stake.\u201d Each had perished,\nit would seem, in the prime of life, and hence were fitly set to guard the\ngates of heaven and prevent mortal man from forcing his way into the realm\nof immortality. Yakin, it should be noticed, is a very passable\ntranslation of the Sumerian Nin-gis-zida; perhaps Boaz preserves, under a\ncorrupted form, a reminiscence of Tammuz.\n\nThere was yet another parallelism between the temples of Babylonia and\nJerusalem. The Hebrew ark was replaced in Babylonia by a ship. The ship\nwas dedicated to the god or goddess whose image it contained, and was\noften of considerable size. Its sides were frequently inlaid with gems and\ngold, and it always bore a special name. One at least of the names\nindicates that the ship goes back to the days when as yet the gods had not\nassumed human forms; the ship of Bau is still that of \u201cthe holy cow.\u201d In\nearly times the ship was provided with captain and crew; later, it was\nreduced in size so that it could be carried like an ark on the shoulders\nof men. But its original object is clear. On days of festival the god was\nrowed in it on the sacred river, where he could enjoy the cool breeze, and\nreturn, as it were, to the \u201cpure\u201d waters of the primeval deep. Gradually\nit became merely his travelling home when he left his usual\ndwelling-place. In Assyria its place was even taken by a throne or\nplatform borne upon the shoulders in the religious processions. The ship,\nin fact, passed into an ark, the curtained palanquin or shrine wherein the\ndeity could conceal himself from the eyes of the profane when he left his\nown sanctuary.\n\nA discovery made by Mr. Hormuzd Rassam in the mounds of Balaw\u00e2t, some\nfifteen miles from Mossul, shows that in Assyria the development of the\nship into the ark was as complete as it was in Israel. Here he found a\nsmall chapel dedicated to the god of dreams. At the entrance of the\nsanctuary was a stone coffer, which contained two small alabaster slabs\nthickly covered with cuneiform writing. They proved to be records of the\nconquests of Assur-nazir-pal, the builder of the chapel, and each tablet\ncontained the same text. It was not surprising that the native workmen\nwhen they opened the coffer believed that they had discovered the\nveritable tables of the Mosaic Law! We are told in the Old Testament that\nthe latter were kept in the ark. Not far from the coffer in the north-west\ncorner of the shrine was a stone altar the ascent to which was by a flight\nof five steps.\n\nThe temples were served by an army of priests. At the head came the\n_patesi_ or \u201chigh priest,\u201d who in the early days of Babylonian history\nperformed the functions of a king. But the _patesi_ was essentially the\nvicegerent of the god. The god delegated his powers to him, and allowed\nhim to exercise them on earth. It was the doctrine of priestly mediation\ncarried to its logical conclusion. Only through the priest could the deity\nbe approached, and in the absence of the deity the high priest took his\nplace. At Babylon, as we have seen, the divine rights were conferred by an\nact of adoption; the vicegerent of Bel, by \u201ctaking the hand\u201d and becoming\nthe son of the god, acquired the right to exercise his sovereignty over\nmen. An early king of Erech calls himself the son of the goddess Nin-\u1e61un.\nFrom the outset the Babylonian monarchy was essentially theocratic; the\nking was simply the high priest in a new form.\n\nBut with the rise of Semitic supremacy the king himself became a god. The\nvicegerent had taken to himself all the attributes of the deity, the\nadopted son succeeded to the rights and powers of his divine father. The\n_patesi_ ceased to be the king himself, and became instead his viceroy and\nlieutenant. Wherever the supreme monarch had a governor who acted in his\nname, he had also a representative of his divine authority. There were\nhigh priests of the god on earth as well as of the gods in heaven.\n\nA new term was wanted to take the place of _patesi_, which had thus come\nto have a secular as well as a religious signification. It was found in\n_sangu_, which, more especially in the Assyrian period, meant a chief\npriest. Every great sanctuary had its chief priests who corresponded to\nthe Hebrew \u201csons of Aaron,\u201d with a \u201chigh priest\u201d or _sangam-makhu_ at\ntheir head.(357) Under them were a large number of subordinate priests and\ntemple ministers\u2014the _kali_ or \u201cgallos-priests,\u201d(358) the _ni\u1e61akki_ or\n\u201csacrificers,\u201d the _ramki_ or \u201cpourers of libations,\u201d and the _pasisi_ or\n\u201canointers with oil.\u201d There was even a special class of bakers who made\nthe sacred cakes that were used in the temple service, as well as\n\u201cchanters\u201d and \u201cwailers,\u201d \u201ccarriers of the axe\u201d and \u201cof the spear.\u201d Above\nall, there were the prophets and augurs, the soothsayers (_makhkhi_) and\nnecromancers (_mus\u00eali_), and those who \u201cinquired\u201d of the dead (_saili_).\n\nThe _asipi_ or \u201cprophets\u201d constituted a class apart. In some respects they\nresembled the prophets of Israel. It was \u201cby order of the college of\nprophets\u201d that Assur-bani-pal purified the shrines of Babylon after the\ncapture of the city, and the prophet accompanied even an army in the\nfield. At times they predicted the future; more often it was rather an\nannouncement of the will of Heaven which they delivered to mankind.(359)\nAs they prophesied they poured out libations; hence it is that the\npurification of the shrines of the Babylonian temples was their special\ncare, and that an old ritual text commands the prophet to pour out\nlibations \u201cfor three days at dawn and night during the middle watch.\u201d(360)\nThe word was borrowed by the writer of the Book of Daniel (ii. 10) under\nthe form of _ashsh\u00e2ph_, which the Authorised Version renders\n\u201castrologers.\u201d But the Babylonian _asip_ or \u201cprophet\u201d was not an\nastrologer; he left to others the interpretation of the stars, and\ncontented himself with counselling or foretelling the destinies of men.\nLike his master Bel-Merodach, he was the interpreter of the wisdom of Ea,\nand the revealer of his counsels. The Holy of Holies in the great temple\nof Babylon, where Bel uttered his oracles, was known as the \u201chouse of\nprophecy,\u201d like the ship also in which the image of the god was ferried\nacross the stream.(361) The prophet may have been part of the heritage\nbequeathed by Eridu to the Babylonian people.\n\nBy the side of the prophet stood the seer (_sabr\u00fb_).(362) The seer and the\nprophet were distinct from one another; there was no confusion between\ntheir offices, as seems to have been at one time the case in Israel. The\nseer was not the \u201cspeaker\u201d who declared the will of the gods or the fate\nthat was decreed for man; it was, on the contrary, through visions and\ntrances that the future was made known to him. Assur-bani-pal tells us\nhow, on the eve of the Elamite war, after he had invoked the aid and\nprotection of Istar, \u201ca seer slept and dreamed a prophetic dream; a vision\nof the night did Istar reveal unto him; he repeated it to me, saying:\n\u2018Istar, who dwelleth in Arbela, came down, and on the right hand and on\nthe left hung (her) quivers; in her hand she held the bow; she drew the\nsharp war-sword and held it before her. Like a mother she speaketh with\nthee, she calleth thee; Istar, the queen of the gods, appointeth for thee\na doom: ... \u201cEat food, drink wine, make music, exalt my divinity, until I\nmarch and this work of mine be accomplished. I will give thee thy heart\u2019s\ndesire; thy face shall not grow pale, thy feet shall not totter.\u201d \u2019 \u201d\n\nHere the message of the seer passes into a prophecy, and his office is\ndistinguished from that of the prophet only through the difference in the\nmode of revelation. The seer went back to the earliest ages of Semitic\nBabylonia. The \u201cseer\u201d of the palace of Sargon of Akkad is already\nmentioned on a contemporaneous tablet by the side of \u201cthe king\u201d and \u201cthe\nqueen.\u201d(363) Like the other priests among whom he was reckoned, it was\nnecessary that he should be without bodily blemish. The leper, the blind,\nand the maimed were excluded from the service of the gods.(364)\n\nHow far the Babylonian prophet resembled the Hebrew prophet it is at\npresent impossible to say. But there were certainly two important points\nin which they differed. The Babylonian prophet was, on the one side, a\nmember of the priestly body; the mere peasant could not become an\n\u201cutterer\u201d of the will of heaven without previous training and\nconsecration. There was, consequently, no such distinction between the\nprophet and the priest as prevailed in Israel; Babylonia was a theocratic,\nnot a democratic State. On the other side, the prophet was closely linked\nwith the magician and necromancer. Magic had been taken under the\nprotection of the State religion, not repudiated and persecuted as among\nthe Israelites. Hence, while the prophet was a priest to whom the rites of\npurification were specially entrusted, he was at the same time classed\nwith the _sailu_ who \u201cinquired\u201d of the dead, the _mus\u00ealu_ or necromancer,\nand the _makhkhu_ or \u201csoothsayer.\u201d\n\nOn the other hand, there were prophetesses as well as prophets in both\nBabylonia and Israel. The employment of women in the temple services\npeculiarly characterised Babylonia. As we have seen, it was a woman only\nwho was privileged to enter the secret shrine of Bel-Merodach at Babylon;\nwhile unmarried women were consecrated, not only to Istar, but also to the\nsun-god, and, like the priests, formed a corporate community. We are told\nthat in the lower world of Hades there were female as well as male\nsoothsayers; it was the home of the black art, and so reflected the\nconstitution of the professors of sorcery in the upper world.\n\nAlong with the seer and the soothsayer, the prophet was thus annexed by\nthe temple. A definite duty was assigned to him there; he was \u201cthe pourer\nout\u201d of libations. The libations were doubtless originally of \u201cpure\u201d\nwater, to which was subsequently added wine, whether made from the palm or\nthe vine. Along with the libations all the first-fruits of the cultivated\nland were offered to the gods. Milk and butter and oil, dates and\nvegetables, were given in abundance. So too were the spices and incense\nthat were brought from the southern coast of Arabia, the corn that was\ngrown in the fields, garlic and other herbs from the garden, and honey\nfrom the hive. But animal sacrifices were not forgotten. Oxen and calves,\nsheep and lambs, goats and kids, fish and certain kinds of birds, were\nslain upon the altar, and so presented to the gods. It is noticeable that\nit was only the cultivated plant and the domesticated beast that were thus\noffered to the deity. The dog and swine, or rather wild boar, are never\nmentioned in the sacrificial lists. What man gave to heaven was what he\nate himself, and reared or grew with the sweat of his brow. The gazelle,\nindeed, is named, but it is a scape-goat which is driven into the desert\nlike the Hebrew Azazel, carrying away with it the sins and sickness of\nthose who let it loose.(365) The gods of Semitic Babylonia were\nessentially human, and what man lived upon they too required. They had,\nmoreover, given their worshippers all they most needed and prized\u2014fruitful\nfields, fat cattle, rain in its season, and the blessings of the sunshine.\nIn return they demanded the first-fruits of what was in reality their own;\nthey could, if they so chose, deprive man of the whole, but they were\ngenerously satisfied with a part. The Semitic Baal was indeed like a\ndivine king; lord and master though he was of the cultivated soil and of\nall that it produced, he was content only with a share.\n\nWas the firstborn of man included among the sacrifices that were deemed\nacceptable to heaven? Years ago I published an early text which seemed to\nshow that such was the case. My interpretation of the text has been\ndisputed, but it still appears to me to be the sole legitimate one. The\ntext is bilingual in both Sumerian and Semitic, and therefore probably\ngoes back to Sumerian times. Literally rendered, it is as follows: \u201cLet\nthe _algal_ proclaim: the offspring who raises his head among men, the\noffspring for his life he must give; the head of the offspring for the\nhead of the man he must give, the neck of the offspring for the neck of\nthe man he must give, the breast of the offspring for the breast of the\nman he must give.\u201d(366) It is difficult to attach any other meaning to\nthis than that which makes it refer to the sacrifice of children.\n\nThe question, however, is really settled by the evidence of arch\u00e6ology. On\nthe famous stela of the Vultures, now in the Louvre, a sort of wicker-work\ncage is represented, filled with captives who are waiting to be put to\ndeath by the mace of the king.(367) On a certain class of seal-cylinders,\nmoreover, a scene is engraved which M\u00e9nant seems to me to have rightly\nexplained as depicting a human sacrifice. In later times, it is true,\nhuman sacrifice ceased to be practised; there are few, if any, references\nto it in the inscriptions, and the human victim is replaced by an ox or\nsheep. It was to the offended majesty of the Assyrian king rather than of\nthe god Assur that the Assyrian conqueror impaled or burnt the beaten foe;\nand among the lists of offerings that were made to the deified rulers of\nBabylonia, we look in vain for any mention of man or child. As in Israel,\nso too in the kingdoms of the Euphrates and Tigris, human sacrifice seems\nto have disappeared at an early date.\n\nSo, moreover, does another custom which has been revealed to us by the\narchaic sculptures of Tello. That was the custom of approaching the deity\nstripped of clothing;(368) and Professor Jastrow aptly compares with it\nnot only the scanty dress of the Mohammedan pilgrims on Mount Arafat, but\nalso Saul\u2019s conduct when the spirit of prophecy fell upon him. A similar\ncustom prevailed in Keltic Ireland, and the Hindu still strips himself\nwhen he sits down to eat.\n\nThe growth of culture, and it may be also the mixture of races, thus\ndeprived the gods of two of the prerogatives they had once enjoyed. They\ncould no longer claim the firstborn of men, nor require that the\nworshipper should enter their presence naked and defenceless. But they\nretained all their other kingly rights. A tithe of all that the land\nproduced was theirs, and it was rigorously exacted, for the support of the\ntemples and priests. Babylonia, in short, was the inventor of tithe.\n\nWhy it should have been a tenth we cannot say. The numerical system of the\nBabylonians was sexagesimal and duodecimal, not decimal, and the year\nconsisted of twelve months, not of ten. Perhaps the institution went back\nto a period when the year of twelve months had not yet been fixed, and,\nlike the lunar year of the modern Mohammedan, it still possessed but ten\nmonths. However this may be, the tithe became a marked characteristic of\nBabylonian religious life. It was paid by all classes; even the king and\nhis heir were not exempt from it. One of the last acts of the crown prince\nBelshazzar was to pay the tithe, forty-seven shekels in amount, due from\nhis sister to the temple of the sun-god at Sippara, at the very moment\nwhen Cyrus was knocking at the gates of Babylon.(369) It is probable that\nthe daily sacrifices were provided for in great measure out of the tithe;\nat all events, Assur-bani-pal tells us that after the suppression of the\nBabylonian revolt, he levied upon the people the provision needed for the\nsacrifices made to Assur and Beltis and the gods of Assyria. They were,\nhowever, often endowed specially; thus Nebuchadrezzar made special\nprovision for the daily sacrifice of eight lambs in the temple of Nergal\nat Cuthah; and an earlier king of Babylonia describes how he had increased\nthe endowment of the stated offerings at Sippara.\n\nThe daily sacrifice was called the _\u1e61attt\u00fbku_, a term which goes back to\nthe age when the Semite was first mingling with the older Sumerian.(370)\nThere were other terms in use to denote the various kinds of offering that\nwere presented to the gods. The animal sacrifice had the name of _z\u00eebu_,\nthe meal-offering being known as manitu.(371) The free-will offering was\n_nidbu_; the \u201cgift\u201d or \u201cbenevolence\u201d demanded by the god upon the produce\nof the field being _qurbannu_, the Hebrew _qorb\u00e2n_. Other terms also were\nemployed, the exact sense of which is still uncertain; among them is one\nwhich probably means \u201ctrespass-offering.\u201d\n\nIt is impossible not to be struck by the many points of similarity between\nthe Babylonian ritual and arrangement of the temples and that which\nexisted among the Israelites. The temple of Solomon, in fact, was little\nmore than a reproduction of a Babylonian sanctuary. And just as the palace\nof the Hebrew king adjoined the temple in which he claimed the right of\noffering sacrifice, so too at Babylon the palace of Nebuchadrezzar\u2014who, it\nmust be remembered, was a pontiff as well as a king\u2014stood close to the\ntemple of Merodach. Even the bronze serpent which Hezekiah destroyed finds\nits parallel in the bronze serpents erected in the gates of the Babylonian\ntemples.(372) The internal decoration of the sanctuary, moreover, was\nsimilar in both countries. The walls were made gorgeous with enamelled\nbricks, or with plaques of gold and bronze and inlaid stones. Sometimes\nthey were painted with vermilion, the monsters of the Epic of the Creation\nbeing pictured on the walls. But more often the painted or sculptured\nfigures were, as at Jerusalem, those of cherubim and the sacred tree or\nother vegetable devices. At Erech, bull-headed colossi guarded the doors.\n\nBut the resemblance between the Babylonian and Hebrew rituals extends\nbeyond the ceremonial of the temple of Solomon into the Levitical Law. In\nfact, the very term for law, the _tor\u00e2h_, as the Israelites called it, was\nborrowed from the Babylonian _tertu_, as was first pointed out by\nProfessor Haupt. It is even a question whether the word is not a\nderivative from the verb _ah\u00e2ru_, \u201cto send\u201d or \u201cdirect,\u201d from which the\nname of Aaron was also formed. However this may be, even the technical\nwords of the Mosaic Law recur in the ritual texts of early Babylonia. The\nbiblical _kipper_, \u201catonement,\u201d is the Assyrian _kuppuru_; and the\n_qorb\u00e2n_, as we have seen, is the Assyrian _qurbannu_. A distinction was\nmade between the offerings of the rich and of the poor (_musk\u00eenu_),(373)\nand the sacrificial animal was required to be \u201cwithout blemish\u201d (_salmu_).\nThe \u201cright\u201d thigh or shoulder of the victim was given to the priest, along\nwith the loins and hide, the rump and tendons, and part of the\nstomach.(374) Still more interesting is it to find in the ritual of the\nprophets instructions for the sacrifice of a lamb at the gate of the\nhouse, the blood of which is to be smeared on the lintels and doorposts,\nas well as on the colossal images that guarded the entrance.(375) To this\nday in Egypt the same rite is practised, and when my dahabiah was launched\nI had to conform to it. On this occasion the blood of the lamb was allowed\nto fall over the sides of the lower deck.\n\nThere are other parallels between Babylonia and Mosaic Israel which have\nbeen brought forward by Professor Zimmern. In the \u201cTabernacle of the\nCongregation,\u201d or \u201cTent of meeting,\u201d he sees the place where \u201cthe proper\ntime\u201d (_mo\u00ead_, Assyr. _adannu_) for an undertaking was determined by the\n_bar\u00fb_ or seer; at any rate, \u201cto determine the proper time\u201d (_sak\u00e2nu sa\nadanni_) was one of the functions of the Babylonian seer.(376) By the side\nof the rituals for the seers and prophets, moreover, there was another for\nthe _zamm\u00e2ri_ or \u201csingers.\u201d The hierarchy of a Babylonian temple was, in\nshort, the same as that of Israel.\n\nBut in addition to the architecture of the temple and the regulations of\nthe ritual, there were yet other resemblances between the religious law of\nBabylonia and that of the Israelites. They may be traced in the numerous\nfestivals of the calendar, and the time of year at which they were held.\nForemost among them was the festival of the New Year. Babylonia was\nprimarily an agricultural community, and the festivals of its gods, like\nthe names of the months, were determined by the necessities of\nagriculture. Spring and autumn were marked by the sowing of the seed and\nthe garnering of the harvest. But neither the one nor the other took place\nin all parts of the country at the same time of the year. In the south the\nharvest might be gathered in when the corn was sown in the north, or the\nseed sown when in colder regions the harvest was gathered in.\n\nHence it was that the same festival might commemorate either the beginning\nor the end of the agricultural year. But in either case it was a period of\nrejoicing and rest from labour, of thanking the gods for their benefits,\nand offering them the first-fruits of the field. In the old days of Gudea\nof Lagas the year commenced with the festival of the goddess Bau in the\nmiddle of October; in the later Babylon of Khammurabi the feast was\ntransferred to the spring, and the first month of the year began in March.\nBut the older calendar of Babylonia had been already carried to the West,\nand there preserved in a country to whose climatic and agricultural\nconditions it was really inapplicable. The ancient Canaanitish year began\nin the autumn in what the later calendar reckoned the seventh month. It\nwas not, however, till after the final unification of the country under\nKhammurabi that a fixed and uniform calendar was imposed upon all the\nsanctuaries of Babylonia. At an earlier epoch the great sanctuaries had\neach its own calendar; the months were variously named, and the deities to\nwhom the festivals were dedicated were not always the same.(377) At Lagas\nit was Bau to whom the festival of the New Year was sacred; at Babylon it\nwas Merodach.\n\nBesides the festivals of the spring and autumn, there was yet a third\nfestival belonging to the agricultural year. This was the feast of the\nsummer solstice, which fell in the month of June. It marked the drying up\nof the soil and the disappearance of the crops and vegetation of the\nspring. In some of the early States of Babylonia it was consecrated to a\ngod Bil-\u2019si;(378) in the calendar of Assyria, Tammuz took the place of the\nolder god. Tammuz had perished by an untimely death, and it was fitting\nthat the death of the god should be celebrated when nature also seemed to\ndie. There was a time, however, when the festival of Tammuz had been\nobserved, at all events in some parts of Babylonia, in October rather than\nin June. The same month that had witnessed the feast of the New Year\nwitnessed also that of Tammuz risen again from the dead.\n\nThe three great feasts of the Babylonian agriculturist are found again in\nCanaan. But it is noticeable that the third of them\u2014the feast of Weeks, as\nit was called by the Hebrews\u2014was there the correspondent of the spring\nfestival in Babylonia. It was, in fact, a repetition of the festival of\nspring. And the latter accordingly becomes a prelude and anticipation of\nit. On the 16th of Nisan the Levitical Law ordered a sheaf of the\nfirst-fruits of the harvest to be presented (Lev. xxiii. 10-14), and the\nunleavened bread eaten at the festival itself symbolised the ingathering\nof the corn which was thus dedicated to God in the form of consecrated\ncakes.\n\nThe three great agricultural festivals were supplemented by others. Many\nof these occurred at fixed times of the year, and commemorated the\ndivinities worshipped in one or other of the sanctuaries of Babylonia.\nSome of them were observed throughout the country; others only in a\nparticular city and district. With the deification of a new king came a\nnew festival in his honour; and if his cult lasted, the festival continued\nalso by the side of the established festivals of the older gods. But new\nfestivals might further be instituted for other reasons. The building or\nrestoration of a sanctuary, or even the dedication of a statue, was a\nquite sufficient pretext. When Gudea consecrated the temple of Inguri\u1e61a at\nLagas, he tells us how he had \u201cremitted penalties and given presents.\nDuring seven days no service was exacted. The female slave was made the\nequal of her mistress; the male slave was made the equal of his master;\nthe chief and his subject have been made equal in my city. All that is\nevil I removed from this temple.\u201d(379)\n\nThe temporary freedom thus granted to the slave seems to have been a\ncharacteristic of the Babylonian festival. Berossos stated that in the\nmonth of L\u00f4os or July, the feast of Sak\u00e6a was celebrated at Babylon for\nfive days, when it was \u201cthe custom that the masters should obey their\ndomestics, one of whom is led round the house clothed in a royal\ngarment.\u201d(380) The custom has often been compared with that which\nprevailed at the Roman Saturnalia, and a baseless theory has recently been\nput forward connecting with it the Hebrew feast of Purim.(381) But the\ncustom was really the exaggeration in the Greek age of Babylonian history\nof the old doctrine which underlay the Babylonian conception of a holy\nday. A holy day was essentially a holiday, a day when the whole people\nrested from work, and when, accordingly, even the slave recovered for\nawhile his freedom. The summer feast of Sak\u00e6a, at least in its original\nform, or the festival ordained by Gudea at the consecration of the temple\nof \u00ca-Ninnu, was thus a parallel to the Hebrew year of Jubilee. In the year\nof Jubilee we have the western reflection of beliefs and usages that were\nfamiliar to the ancestors of Abraham.\n\nThe Sabbath-rest was essentially of Babylonian origin. The word Sabbath\nitself was borrowed from Babylonia, where it had the form Sabattu, and was\nderived by the native lexicographers from the Sumerian _sa_, \u201cheart,\u201d and\n\u201c_bat_, to cease,\u201d and so explained as \u201ca day of rest for the heart.\u201d(382)\nThe derivation is, of course, absurd, but it indicates the antiquity of\nthe term. There was yet another name, _sulum_, or \u201cquiet day,\u201d which was\nmore especially used as a translation of the Sumerian _udu_ _khul-gal_,\n\u201cdies nefastus,\u201d on which it was unlawful or unlucky to perform certain\nkinds of work.(383) Thus, in a list of what we should call the Saints\u2019\ndays in the month of the Second Elul, we read that the 7th, 14th, 19th,\n21st, and 28th days of the month were all alike days of quiet and rest.\n\u201cThe 7th day,\u201d we are told, \u201cis a day dedicated to Merodach and Zarpanit.\nIt is a lucky day and a quiet day. The shepherd of mighty nations (_i.e._\nthe king) must not eat flesh cooked at the fire or in the smoke. His\nclothes he must not change. White garments he must not put on. He must not\noffer sacrifice. The king must not drive a chariot. He must not issue\nroyal decrees. In a secret place the seer must not prophesy. Medicine for\nthe sickness of his body he must not apply. For making a spell it is not\nfitting.\u201d(384) Here the Sabbath recurs, as among the Hebrews, every seven\ndays; and Professor Jensen has pointed out that the 19th of the month, on\nwhich there was also a Sabbath, was forty-nine days or seven weeks from\nthe beginning of the previous month. There was therefore not only a week\nof seven days, but a week of seven-day weeks as well. In fact, the chief\ndifference between the Babylonian and the Hebrew institution lay in the\nsubordination of the Sabbath to the festival of the \u201cnew moon\u201d among the\nBabylonians. There was no Sabbath on the first day of the month; its place\nwas taken by freewill offerings to the moon.\n\nThe Sabbath, it will be noticed, was not a fast-day. Fasts, however, were\nnot infrequent in Babylonia and Assyria, and in times of danger and\ndistress might be specially ordained. When Esar-haddon was hard pressed by\nhis northern enemies, he ordered prayers to be made and ceremonies to be\nperformed to the sun-god, lasting for one hundred days and nights. It was\na long period of public humiliation, and the god was asked to grant\nfavourable visions to the \u201cseers\u201d who implored his help. In the\npenitential psalms, fasting is alluded to more than once. \u201cInstead of\nfood,\u201d says the penitent, \u201cI eat bitter tears; instead of palm-wine, I\ndrink the waters of misery.\u201d Or, again: \u201cFood I have not eaten, weeping is\nmy nourishment; water I have not drunk, tears are my drink.\u201d(385)\n\nThe fast and the feast alternated as they did in Israel. As we come to\nknow more of the ritual of Babylonia, the resemblance it bears to that of\nthe Hebrews becomes at once more striking and extensive. They both start\nfrom the same principles, and agree in many of their details. Between\nthem, indeed, lies that deep gulf of difference which separates the\nreligions of Israel and Babylonia as a whole; the one is monotheistic, the\nother polytheistic. But, apart from this profound distinction, the cult\nand ritual have more than a family relationship. Customs and rites which\nhave lost their primitive meaning in the Levitical Law, find their\nexplanation in Babylonia; even the ecclesiastical calendar of the\nPentateuch looks back to the Babylonia of the age of Khammurabi. It cannot\nbe an accident that the Khammurabi or Ammurapi of the cuneiform\ninscriptions is the Amraphel of Genesis, the contemporary of Abram the\nHebrew, who was born in \u201cUr of the Chaldees.\u201d The Mosaic Law must have\ndrawn its first inspiration from the Abrahamic age, modified and developed\nthough it may have been in the later centuries of Israelitish history.\n\n\n\n\nLecture X. Astro-Theology And The Moral Element In Babylonian Religion.\n\n\nA hundred years ago, writers on the history or philosophy of religion had\nmuch to say about what they called Sabaism. The earliest form of idolatry\nwas supposed to have been a worship of the heavenly bodies. A passage in\nthe Book of Job was invoked in support of the fact, and beautifully\nexecuted drawings of Babylonian seal-cylinders were made for the sake of\nthe pictures of the sun and moon and stars that were upon them. Sir\nWilliam Drummond resolved the sons of Jacob into the signs of the\nZodiac;(386) Dupuis derived Christianity itself from a sort of allegorical\nastronomy.\n\n\u201cSabaism\u201d has long since fallen into disrepute. Anthropology has long\nsince taught us that primitive religion is not confined to a worship of\nthe stars. The cult of the heavenly bodies was not the source of\npolytheism; indeed, there are systems of polytheism in which it has never\nexisted at all. Of late the tendency has been to discount it altogether as\na factor in the history of religion.\n\nBut the tendency has gone too far. There was one religion, at all events,\nin which it played an important part. This was the religion of ancient\nBabylonia and of those other countries which were influenced by Babylonian\nculture. But even here the decipherment of the inscriptions seemed to show\nthat it belonged to a late age, and was an artificial product which never\naffected the people as a whole. When I delivered my Hibbert Lectures, I\nbelieved that I could dismiss it in a few words as merely a kind of\nsubsidiary chapter added to the religion of the State by pedants and\nscholars.\n\nCertain it is that the elaborate system of astro-theology which\ncharacterised Babylonian religion was an artificial creation. It was the\nresult of a combination of religion with astronomy which was elaborated in\nthe schools. Astronomy, like all other sciences, was under the control of\nthe priests, the observatory rose by the side of the school within the\nprecincts of the temple, and the dependence of the calendar on the\nobservations of the astronomer gave them a religious character. Moreover,\nthe astro-theology of Babylonia did not go back to primeval times. The\nidentification of the official gods with the heavenly bodies belongs to an\nage when the official religion had already been crystallised into shape,\nand a map of the heavens had been made. We can almost watch its rise and\ntrace its growth.\n\nNevertheless the rise and growth are of far earlier date than was formerly\nimagined. Astro-theology was not a mere learned scheme of allegorised\nscience, the plaything of a school of pedants; it exercised a considerable\ninfluence upon the religion of Babylonia and upon the history of its\ndevelopment. It had, moreover, a background in the faith of the people.\nLike the rivers and streams, the stars also were really worshipped,(387)\nand the symbols drawn on the seal-cylinders show that this worship must go\nback to the oldest period of Babylonia. Even the ideograph that denotes \u201ca\ngod\u201d represents an eight-rayed star. The fact is significant. At the time\nwhen the pictorial hieroglyphics were first being formed out of which the\ncuneiform characters were to grow, the star was already the symbol and\nrepresentative of the divine. It was not as yet the more general and\nabstract \u201csky,\u201d it was the particular star that was adored as a god.\nBabylonian religion, as far back as its written history leads us, really\nbegins with Sabaism.\n\nHow is this fact to be reconciled with the further fact that the gods of\nBabylonia were once spirits and ghosts, the _zi_\u2019s of Eridu and the\n_lil_\u2019s of Nippur? To this question no answer at present is possible; at\nmost we can only suggest that the _zi_, or spirit, was localised in the\nstar. A spirit of the sun was as conceivable as a spirit of Ea, and the\nson of Ea, it must be remembered, became a sun-god. \u201cThe _zi_ of the god\u201d\nmeant originally in the primitive picture-writing \u201cthe spirit of the\nstar,\u201d and the literal rendering of the invocation in the early spells\nwould be \u201cthe spirit of the star who is lord of Du-azagga,\u201d \u201cthe spirit of\nthe star who is mistress of the holy hill.\u201d In the Book of Isaiah the\nBabylonian king is made to say that he would enthrone himself among the\ngods on the summit of the Chald\u00e6an Olympos \u201cabove the stars of El\u201d; and\nNin-ip, the interpreter of En-lil, was at once the sun-god and the moon.\nIstar, it must not be forgotten, was primarily the evening star; and Istar\nwas not only supreme among the goddesses of Babylonia, she was the type\nand representative of them all. The signs of the Zodiac had once been the\nmonster allies of the dragon of chaos.\n\nWith all this, it may hereafter prove that the conception of the divine as\na star was introduced by a different race from that which saw in it a\nspirit or a ghost. At all events, it was a conception which the\ninscriptions of Southern Arabia have shown to have prevailed among the\nWestern Semites. Professor Hommel has made it clear(388) that the Semitic\ntribes to which the Arabs of the south, the Aram\u00e6ans, and the Hebrews\nalike belonged, worshipped four supreme deities\u2014Athtar, the evening and\nmorning star; the moon-god and its messenger or \u201cProphet\u201d; and the goddess\nof the sun. Athtar is the Babylonian Istar, who has become a male god in\nher passage to the Semites; and, while the people of Hadhramaut borrowed\nthe name of Sin from Babylonia, those of Qatab\u00e2n borrowed the name of Nebo\n(Anb\u00e2y). Samas, the sun, has become a goddess; the moon-god has taken the\nforemost place in the pantheon, and the sun has accordingly been\ntransformed into his colourless reflection. As in the case of Istar, so\ntoo in that of the sun-god, the genderless grammar of Sumerian facilitated\nthe change. \u00c2, the sun-god of Sippara, had become his wife under Semitic\ninfluence,(389) and from Sippara the conception of a solar goddess passed\nto the Semites on the western side of the Euphrates.\n\nThe supreme Baalim of the South Arabian inscriptions must thus have been\nof Babylonian origin. Name and character alike were derived from Sumerian\nBabylonia. And from this the further inference is obvious: Arabian and\nWest Semitic \u201cSabaism,\u201d with its worship of the heavenly bodies, was not\nindigenous. It must have been the result of contact with Babylonian\ncivilisation, a contact which gave Ur and Harran a mixed population, and\ncaused them to be the seats and centres of the worship of the moon-god.\nThe primitive Semitic Baal\u2014the \u201clord\u201d of a specific plot of earth or\ntribal territory\u2014became a moon-good or an evening star, while his wife was\nembodied in the sun.\n\nThis conclusion is confirmed by a study of the religion of Canaan. Here\nthe place occupied by the moon-god among Arabians and Hebrews is taken by\nthe sun. The supreme Baal is the sun-god, and the female Ashtoreth is\nidentified with the moon. As I endeavoured to show in an earlier lecture,\nthere was a period in the history of Babylonian religion when here also\nthe sun-god was supreme. The gods were resolved into solar deities, or\nrather were identified with the sun. The solar element in Merodach\nthreatened to absorb his human kingship; it was only his likeness to man\nthat saved him from the fate of the Egyptian gods.\n\nIt is just this phase in the history of Babylonian theology that we find\nreflected in the theology of Canaan. Baal has passed into the sun-god, and\nhis characteristics are those of the sun-gods of Babylonia. The historical\nmonuments have told us how long and deep was the influence of Babylonia\nupon the culture of Canaan, and it was exercised just at the time when the\nsolar faith had triumphed in the Babylonian plain. It is not without\nsignificance that Sargon of Akkad, who first brought the civilisation and\narts of Babylonia to the shores of the Mediterranean, should have had his\ncapital in a city which adjoined Sippara, the special seat of solar\nworship. While Arabia drew its inspiration from Ur, the religion of Canaan\nwas modified by contact with a culture and theology that were more purely\nBabylonian. Ph\u0153nician tradition stoutly maintained that the ancestors of\nthe Canaanitish people had come from the Persian Gulf.\n\n\u201cSabaism,\u201d therefore, to use the old term, must really have been an early\nform of Babylonian belief. It was communicated to the Semites west of the\nEuphrates at different times and in different ways. To the Western Semites\nof Arabia and Mesopotamia it came through Ur, and consequently set the\nmoon-god at the head of the divine hierarchy. To the Canaanite it was\ncarried more directly, but at a later period, when the solar worship had\nbecome dominant in Babylonia. The influence of Nippur had waned before\nthat of Eridu, and out of Eridu had risen a culture-god whose son and\nvicegerent was the sun.\n\nThe moon-god was addressed in Southern Arabia by different titles, one of\nwhich was that \u2019Ammi or \u2019Ammu which forms part of the name of Khammurabi.\nProfessor Hommel hints that even the Hebrew Yahveh may once have been a\ntitle of the moon-god among the Western Semites of Babylonia. As I was the\nfirst to point out, the name of Yahveh actually occurs in a document of\nthe age of Abraham, where it enters into the composition of the name\nYahum-ilu, the Joel of the Old Testament. Professor Hommel has since found\nother examples of it in tablets of the same period, thus overthrowing the\nmodern theory which derives it from the Kenites.(390) It was already known\nto \u201cAbram the Hebrew\u201d in Ur of the Chaldees.\n\nThe hymn to the moon-god of Ur, to which I have referred in an earlier\nlecture,(391) is almost monotheistic in tone. To the writer he \u201calone is\nsupreme in heaven and earth.\u201d He is the creator of the universe; he is\nalso the universal \u201cFather,\u201d \u201clong-suffering and full of forgiveness,\nwhose hand upholds the life of all mankind.\u201d More than that, he is \u201cthe\nomnipotent one, whose heart is immensity, and there is none that may\nfathom it.\u201d Among the other gods he has no rival; he causes the herb to\ngrow, and the cattle and flock to bring forth; and he established law and\njustice among mankind. The angels of heaven and the spirits of the earth\nalike do homage to him; there is no goddess even who appears at his side.\nThe hymn formed part of the ritual of the great temple at Ur before the\nbirth of Abraham, and the Hebrew patriarch may well have listened to its\nteaching.\n\nFrom Ur and its mixed population we can trace the worship of the\nBabylonian moon-god along the coasts of Southern Arabia as far as Egypt.\nIn Hadhramaut, as I have already said, the very name of Sin was retained,\nand even in North-western Arabia the name of the sacred mountain of Sinai\nbears witness to the cult of the Babylonian deity. Early seal-cylinders\nassociate with the moon-god both an ape and a dwarf-like figure, called\nNu-gidda, \u201cthe dwarf,\u201d in Sumerian, who dances in honour of the god, like\nthe Danga dwarf in Egypt, or the cynocephalous apes of Thoth. In Egypt,\nhowever, the dwarf assumes the shape of Bes, who is often represented with\nan ape on either side; and Bes with his crown of feathers, along with the\napes (or monkeys) that accompany him, came from the south of Arabia to the\nvalley of the Nile.\n\nThe monotheistic tendency of the hymn to the moon-god stands in marked\ncontrast to the polytheism of the solar hymns. The solar ritual, in fact,\nwas essentially polytheistic. But Nannar or Sin, the moon-god, was \u201cthe\nprince of the gods,\u201d the ruler of the starry hosts of heaven. By the side\nof him the stars were but as the sheep of a flock in the presence of their\nshepherd, or as the people of a State in the presence of their deified\nking. Hence he was lord over his brother gods in a way that the sun-god\ncould never be; they became the hosts that he marshalled in fight against\nthe enemies of light and order, the multitude that obeyed his voice as the\nsheep follow their shepherd. The moon-god was emphatically \u201cthe lord of\nhosts\u201d!\n\nThe title was applied to other gods in later days. Nebuchadrezzar calls\nNebo \u201cthe marshaller of the hosts of heaven and earth,\u201d(392) and\nTiglath-pileser I. makes Assur \u201cthe director of the hosts of the gods.\u201d\nThe kings transferred the title to themselves, changing only \u201cgods\u201d into\n\u201cmen,\u201d and so becoming \u201ckings of the hosts of mankind.\u201d But the first\nsignification of the term was \u201cthe host of heaven,\u201d the stars of El above\nwhom the king of Babylon sought to erect his throne. One of the primeval\ndivinities of the pantheon\u2014a divinity, indeed, who scarcely emerged from\nhis primitive condition of a primordial spirit\u2014was En-me-sarra,(393) \u201cthe\nenchanter of the (heavenly and earthly) hosts,\u201d to whom in some of the old\nBabylonian cities a feast of mourning was celebrated at the time of the\nwinter solstice in the month Tebet. A hymn entitles him \u201cthe lord of the\nearth, the prince of Arallu, lord of the place and the land whence none\nreturn, even the mountain of the spirits of earth ... without whom\nInguri\u1e61a cannot produce prosperity in field or canal, cannot create the\ncrop ... he who gives sceptre and reign to Anu and El-lil.\u201d(394) He is\ninvoked, like the moon-god, to establish firmly the foundation-stone that\nit may last for ever. But it is not only over the spirits of the\nunderground world that he holds sway; he reigns also in heaven, in the\nclose vicinity of the ecliptic, and \u201cthe seven great gods\u201d who were his\nsons were stars in the sky. His attributes, therefore, closely resemble\nthose of the moon-god of Ur: like the moon-god, he is at once lord of the\nsky and of the underworld, a father of the stars of night who makes the\ngreen herb grow in the earth below. In En-me-sarra, \u201cthe enchanter of the\n(spirit)-hosts,\u201d the realm of the moon-god was united with that of En-lil;\nas lord of the night he ruled in Hades, and was supreme even in that\n\u201cmountain\u201d of the ghost-world from which En-lil derived one of his\nnames.(395)\n\nBut I must leave to others the task of further pursuing the path of\nexploration which I have thus sketched in outline. That Yahveh was once\nidentified with the moon-god of Babylonia in those distant days, when as\nyet Abraham had not been born in Ur of Chaldees, explains his title of\n\u201cLord of hosts\u201d better than the far-fetched theories which have been\ninvented to account for it. The explanation has at least the merit of\nbeing supported by the ancient texts of Babylonia. Adventurous spirits may\neven be inclined to see in Sinai, the mountain of Sin, a fitting place for\nthe promulgation of the Law of the Lord of hosts; but such speculations\nlie beyond the reach of the present lecturer, and the lectures he has\nundertaken to give.\n\nThe name of En-me-sarra, \u201cthe enchanter of the (spirit)-hosts,\u201d brings us\nback to that dark background of magic and sorcery which distinguished and\ndisfigured the religion of Babylonia up to the last. The Sumerian element\ncontinued to survive in the Babylonian people, and the magic which was its\nprimitive religion survived also. It was never eliminated; behind the\npriest lurked the sorcerer; the spell and the incantation were but\npartially hidden beneath the prayer and the penitential psalm. One result\nof this was the exaggerated importance attached to rites and ceremonies,\nand the small space occupied by the moral element in the official\nBabylonian faith. There was doubtless a certain amount of spirituality,\nmore especially of an individualistic sort; the sinner bewails his\ntransgressions, and appeals for help to his deity, but of morality as an\nintegral part of religion there is little evidence. We look in vain for\nanything analogous to the judgment-hall of Osiris and the negative\nconfession of the Egyptian dead; the Babylonian gods, it is true,\npreferred that a man should walk uprightly, but his future salvation did\nnot depend on his conduct in this life. He was punished in this world for\nhis sins and shortcomings, but the sins were not confined to sins against\nmorality; they equally included ceremonial transgressions.\n\nAt the same time, a sort of catechism which forms part of the ritual of\nthe seers shows that a recognition of the moral element in religion was\nnot altogether wanting. The following is Professor Zimmern\u2019s translation\nof it: \u201cHas he estranged the father from his son? Has he estranged the son\nfrom his father? Has he estranged the mother from her daughter? Has he\nestranged the daughter from her mother? Has he estranged the mother-in-law\nfrom her daughter-in-law? Has he estranged the brother from his brother?\nHas he estranged the friend from his friend? Has he estranged the\ncompanion from his companion? Has he refused to set a captive free, or has\nhe refused to loose one who was bound? Has he excluded the prisoner from\nthe light? Has he said of a captive, \u2018Hold him fast,\u2019 or of one who was\nbound, \u2018Strengthen his bonds\u2019? Has he committed sin against a god, or has\nhe committed sin against a goddess? Has he offended a god, or has he held\na goddess in light esteem? Is his sin against his own god, or is his sin\nagainst his own goddess? Has he done violence to one older than himself,\nor has he conceived hatred against an elder brother? Has he held his\nfather and mother in contempt, or has he insulted his elder sister? Has he\nbeen generous in small things, but avaricious in great matters? Has he\nsaid \u2018yea\u2019 for \u2018nay,\u2019 and \u2018nay\u2019 for \u2018yea\u2019? Has he spoken of unclean things\nor [counselled] disobedience? Has he spoken wicked words?... Has he used\nfalse scales?... Has he accepted a wrong account, or has he refused a\nrightful sum? Has he disinherited a legitimate son, or has he recognised\nan illegitimate son? Has he set up a false landmark, or has he refused to\nset up a true landmark? Has he removed bound, border, or landmark? Has he\nbroken into his neighbour\u2019s house? Has he drawn near his neighbour\u2019s wife?\nHas he shed his neighbour\u2019s blood? Has he stolen his neighbour\u2019s\ngarment?\u201d(396)\n\nThe list of questions reminds us of the negative confession of the Osirian\ncreed, but the end and purpose of it is different. They are the questions\nput to the penitent in order that the priest may discover why the wrath of\nthe gods has fallen upon him. They relate to this life only, not to the\nnext; conformity to the moral code they imply brings with it no assurance\nof eternal happiness, it is a guarantee only against suffering and\nmisfortune in the present world. The point of view of the Babylonian was\nthat of the friends of Job.\n\nMorality, in fact, was left in large measure to the legislator. An old\ncode, which seems to have been ascribed to the god Ea, asserts explicitly\nthe responsibility of the ruler, and his amenability to divine punishment\nfor unrighteous dealing.\n\n\u201cIf the king does not give heed to justice,\u201d it begins, \u201chis people will\nperish and his land be enfeebled.(397)\n\n\u201cIf he gives no heed to the law of the land, Ea, the king of destinies,\nwill change his destiny, and visit him with misfortune.\n\n\u201cIf he gives no heed to his nobles, his days shall [not] be long.\n\n\u201cIf he gives no heed to the wise, his land will revolt against him.\n\n\u201cIf he gives heed to the (law-)book, the king will behold the\nstrengthening of his land.\n\n\u201cIf he gives heed to the writing (_sipir_) of Ea, the great gods will\nestablish him in counsel and knowledge of justice.\n\n\u201cIf he smites a man of Sippara and gives a wrong decision, the sun-god,\nwho judges heaven and earth, will appoint another judge in his land, and a\njust prince and a just judge instead of unjust ones.\n\n\u201cIf the sons of Nippur come to him for judgment, and he accepts bribes and\ntreats them harshly, Bel, the lord of the world, will bring a foreign\nenemy against him and destroy his army; the prince and his general will be\nhunted like outcasts through the streets.\n\n\u201cIf the sons of Babylon bring silver and offer bribes, and he favours the\nBabylonians and turns himself to their entreaty, Merodach, the lord of\nheaven and earth, will set his foes over him, and give his goods and his\ntreasure to his enemy. The sons of Nippur, or Sippar, or Babylon who act\nthus shall be cast into prison.\u201d(398)\n\nThe dissociation of ethics and religion in Babylonia was due to a\nconsiderable extent to the practical character of Babylonian theology and\nthe limitation of the doctrine of rewards and punishments to this life. In\ncontrast to the Egyptian, who may be said to have lived for the next\nworld, the Babylonian lived for this. It was here that he was rewarded for\nhis piety or punished for his sins. The world beyond the grave was a place\nof unspeakable dreariness. I have already described it in a previous\nlecture. It was a prison-house of darkness and unsubstantiality; a land\nwhere all things were forgotten, and those who inhabited it were\nthemselves forgotten of men. It resembled the Hebrew Sheol; indeed, it is\nprobable that the name of Sheol is borrowed from Babylonia,(399) and\nborrowed names are apt to indicate that the ideas connected with them were\nborrowed too. In the gloom of that underworld, where the ghosts of the\ndead fed on dust and refuse, the hideous monsters of chaos still moved and\ndimly showed themselves, while \u201cthe kings of the nations\u201d sat on their\nshadowy thrones, welcoming the slaughtered king of Babylon with the words:\n\u201cArt thou also become weak as we? Art thou become like unto us?\u201d The dead\nman never again saw the light of the sun. There was no Osirian paradise to\nreceive him, with its sunshine and happy meadows; even the brief period of\nlight which the solar creed of Egypt allowed the bark of the sun-god to\nbring to the denizens of the other world, was denied to the dead\nBabylonian. Over the gates of the world beyond the grave the words were\nwritten: \u201cAbandon hope, all ye that enter here.\u201d There was no return;\nnone, even with the help of Merodach, could come back to the home he had\nleft on earth; the sevenfold gates of Hades opened only to admit those\nthat entered it. Death meant the extinction of light and hope, even of the\ncapacity for feeling either pleasure or pain.\n\nIt was on this life, therefore, that the religious thoughts of the\nBabylonian were centred. And his view of his relation to the gods was a\ncurious mixture of spirituality and the commercial instinct. On the one\nhand, it was a question of barter; if the man was generous in his gifts to\nthe gods, if he did what they approved and abstained from what they\ncondemned, above all, if the rites and ceremonies of religion were\ncorrectly fulfilled, the gods were bound to grant him all that his heart\ndesired. On the other hand, if misfortune fell upon him, it was a proof\nthat he had sinned against them. And as the centuries passed the\nconsciousness of sin sank more and more deeply into the heart of the\nBabylonian. At first, indeed, the sins were offences against the ritual\nrather than against the moral and spiritual code. The ghosts and spirits\nof the old Sumerian faith were non-moral; if some of them inflicted pain\nand disease upon man, it was because it was their nature to do so, and the\nonly defence against them was in the charms of the sorcerer. But with the\narrival of the Semite, and the consequent transformation of the goblin\ninto a god and of the sorcerer into a priest, a new conception was\nintroduced of the divine nature. The gods became human, and the humanity\nthey put on was that of civilised man. They became moral agents, hating\niniquity and loving righteousness, ready to help the creatures they had\nmade, but chastising them for their offences as the father would his son.\n\u201cFather,\u201d in fact, is one of the commonest titles given to the god in the\nnew age of Babylonian religion. It was only in the conception of Hades\nthat the old ideas still maintained their influence, that the powers who\nruled there still continued to be the malignant or non-moral monsters of\nan earlier belief, and that a common lot was believed to await in it all\nmankind, whatever might have been their conduct on this side of the grave.\n\nIn this world, on the contrary, the conviction that sin brought punishment\nwith it became more and more pronounced. And with the conviction came an\nincreasing belief in the efficacy of prayer and repentance, and the\nnecessity for purity of heart. The words supposed to have been put into\nthe mouth of Merodach after his creation of man, late in date though they\nmay be, testify clearly to the fact. I give them in Mr. King\u2019s\ntranslation(400)\u2014\n\n\n    \u201cTowards thy god shalt thou be pure of heart, for that is the\n                glory of the godhead;\n    Prayer and supplication and bowing low to the earth, early in the\n                morning shalt thou offer unto him....\n    The fear of god begets mercy, offerings increase life, and prayer\n                absolves from sin.\n    He that fears the gods shall not cry aloud [in grief],\n    he that fears the spirits of earth shall have a long [life].\n    Against friend and neighbour thou shalt not speak [evil].\n    Speak not of things that are hidden, [practise] mercy,\n    When thou makest a promise (to give), give and [hold] not [back].\u201d\n\n\nAlready, in the age of Khammurabi, the author of the story of the Deluge\nmakes it the punishment inflicted on mankind for their misdeeds, and the\nChald\u00e6an Noah is rescued from it by Ea on account of his piety. The\npenitential psalms and ritual texts are full of illustrations of the same\nfact. It is true that the misdeeds are often merely involuntary violations\nof the ceremonial law or offences against the ritual, but the sense of\nguilt attaching to them is already profound. It required centuries before\nthe Babylonian was able to distinguish between moral and ceremonial\nsin,\u2014if, indeed, he ever succeeded in doing so,\u2014but at an early period a\nconsciousness of the heinousness of sin already lay heavily upon him, as\nwell as of the need of repentance. A profound sense of his transgressions,\nand of the punishment they deserved, had grown up within him long before\nhe had learnt to confine it to moral guilt. In this respect, again, he\ndiffered from the Egyptian: penitence and the consciousness of sin\nbelonged to Babylonia; we look in vain for them in the valley of the Nile.\nThe light-hearted Egyptian was too contented to feel them; the gods he\nworshipped were, like himself, kindly and easy-going, and the pantheism of\nthe upper classes offered no place to a reproachful conscience.\n\nBut the gods of Babylonia, in the days when the Sumerian and the Semite\nhad become one people, were stern judges. The theology of Eridu was\ncoloured and darkened by that of Nippur; Ea might save Xisuthros from the\nwaters of the Flood, but En-lil had doomed all men to destruction. And\nwhether it was the sun-god who was worshipped, or the moon-god of Ur, it\nwas still a judge who beheld and visited all the deeds of living men. In\nthe sun-god the judge predominated, in the moon-god the father, but that\nwas all. The father was also a judge, the judge was also a father, and the\nsame word might be used to denote both.\n\nBut it must be remembered that the judgeship of the son-god and the\nfatherhood of the moon-god were confined to the present world. They were\nnot dead gods like Osiris, whose tribunal was in another world. There was\nno postponing the evil day, therefore; a man\u2019s sins were visited upon him\nin this life, just as it was also in this life that his righteousness was\nrewarded. A death-bed repentance was useless; penitence, to be effective,\nmust be manifested on this side of the grave.\n\nHence came the penitential ritual which forms so striking a feature in the\nservice-books of Babylonia. It was reduced to a system, like the\nconfessional in later days. The penitent was instructed by the priest what\nto say, and the priest pronounced his absolution. For the exercise of\npriestly absolution was another essential feature of Babylonian religion.\n\nBesides the consciousness of sin and the conception of repentance, the\nidea of mediation must also be traced to Babylonia. On the earliest seals\nthe priest is represented as acting as a mediator between the worshipper\nand his god. It is only through the priest that the layman can approach\nthe deity and be led into the presence of the god. This idea of mediation\nhas a twofold origin. On the one side, it goes back to the beliefs which\nsaw in the magician\u2014the predecessor of the priest\u2014the possessor of\nknowledge and powers that were hidden from the rest of mankind; on the\nother side, it has grown out of the doctrine that the priest was the\nvicegerent of the god. It was thus the result of the union of two\nconceptions which I believe to have been respectively Sumerian and\nSemitic. The deified king or pontiff necessarily took the place of the god\non earth; Gudea, for instance, at Lagas was the representative of the god\nInguri\u1e61a, and therefore himself divine. The fact that the gods were\nrepresented in human forms facilitated this conversion of the minister of\nthe deity into his adopted son and representative; the powers and\nfunctions of the god were transferred to him, and, like the vassal-prince\nin the absence of the supreme king, he acted in the god\u2019s place.\n\nThe Semitic Baal was a lord or king of human shape and passions. He thus\nstood in marked contrast to the Sumerian ghost or spirit; and, as we have\nseen, the gulf between them is too deep and broad to be spanned by the\ndoctrine of evolution. For the Sumerian the world outside man was peopled\nwith spirits and demons; for the Semite it was a human world, since man\nwas made in the image of the gods. The triumph of the gods of light and\norder over the monsters of chaos symbolised not only the birth of the\npresent creation, but also the theological victory of the Semite over the\nSumerian. And with the victory came a conception of the divine which was\nmodelled on that of the organised State. As the human head of the State\nwas himself a god, delegating his authority from time to time to his human\nministers, so too in the world of gods there was a supreme Baal or lord\nwho was surrounded by his court and ministers. Foremost among these were\nthe _sukkalli_ or \u201cangels,\u201d the messengers who conveyed the will of their\nlord to the dwellers upon earth. Some of them were more than messengers;\nthey were the interpreters and vicegerents of the supreme deity, like Nebo\n\u201cthe prophet\u201d of Borsippa. And as vicegerents they naturally became the\nsons by adoption of Bel; Asari of Eridu first takes the place of Ea, whose\ndouble he originally was, and then in the person of Merodach becomes his\nson; Nin-ip of Nippur, the messenger of En-lil, is finally transformed\ninto his son, and addressed, like Horus in Egypt, as \u201cthe avenger of his\nfather.\u201d(401) The hierarchy of the gods is modelled upon that of\nBabylonia, and the ideas of mediation and vicegerency are transferred to\nheaven.\n\nRepentance, the consciousness of sin, and mediation are thus conceptions\nall of which may be traced back to Babylonia. And each of them leads\nnaturally, if not inevitably, to other and cognate conceptions. Mediation,\nas I have pointed out, is partly dependent on a belief in a doctrine of\nvicegerency, which, in combination with a profound sense of sin, leads in\nturn to the doctrine of absolution. And mediation itself is given a wide\nmeaning. The priest mediates between the layman and his deity; the lesser\ngods between mankind and the supreme Baalim. M. Martin aptly compares the\nintercession of Abraham for the doomed cities of the plain, and the\ndoctrine of the intercession of the Saints in the Christian Church.(402)\n\nThe consciousness of sin, again, is similarly far-reaching. It extends to\nsins of ignorance and omission as well as to sins of commission. Time\nafter time the penitential psalms ask forgiveness for sins the very nature\nof which was unknown to the penitent. \u201cThe sin that I have done I know\nnot,\u201d he is made to say, \u201cThe transgression that I have committed I know\nnot.\u201d\n\n\n    \u201cAn offence I have committed unwillingly against my god.\n    A sin against my goddess unwillingly have I wrought:\n    O lord, my transgressions are many, manifold are my sins!\u201d\n\n\nThe disease or misfortune that had overtaken him was a proof of the sin,\neven though it had been committed involuntarily or in ignorance that it\nwas wrong. \u201cWhen I was little I sinned,\u201d says another psalm, \u201cyea, I\ntransgressed the commandments of my god.\u201d(403)\n\nRepentance has its corollary confession, whether public or private. And\nthe ritual texts show that both public and private confession was\npractised in Babylonia. Indeed, private confession seems to have been the\nolder and more usual method. The penitential psalms are in the first\nperson singular, like the Hebrew psalms; in public confession the\nBabylonian probably believed that a man was more likely to think about the\nsins of others than about his own.\n\nPenitence implies a need of absolution. It also implies a belief in the\nsinfulness of human nature and the purity of the divine. The purity, it is\ntrue, may be ceremonial rather than moral, and in the early days of\nBabylonian religion the ceremonial element almost obscured the moral. But\nas time went on the moral element grew ever stronger, and the ritual texts\nbegan to be superseded by prayers of a more spiritual character. The\nprayers addressed by Nebuchadrezzar to Merodach rise almost to the height\nof a passionate faith in the absolute goodness and mercy of the god.\n\nSpeaking generally, then, we may say that the religion of Babylonia was\nessentially anthropomorphic, with all the faults and virtues of an\nanthropomorphic conception of the divine. But it was grafted on a primeval\nstock of Sumerian shamanism from the influences of which it never wholly\nshook itself free. It thus differed from Hebrew anthropomorphism, with\nwhich in other respects it had so much in common. Behind the lineaments of\nHebrew anthropomorphism ghost or goblin are not to be found.\n\nAnd yet between the religion of Babylonia and that of Israel there was\nmuch that was alike. It was natural, indeed, that it should be so. The\nBabylonians of history were Semitic, and Abraham the Hebrew had sprung\nfrom a Babylonian city. In the last lecture I drew attention to the\nsimilarity that existed between the temples of Babylonia and that of\nJerusalem, a similarity that extended even to details. There was the same\nsimilarity between the Babylonian rituals and the Mosaic Law; the\npriesthood, moreover, was established on the same lines, and the prophets\nand seers of Israel have their analogues in those of Chald\u00e6a. The\nreligious law and ritual of the Hebrews looks back like their calendar to\nthe banks of the Euphrates.\n\nThe same lesson is taught by the literary traditions of the Hebrew people.\nThe cosmology of Genesis has its roots in the cosmology of Eridu, and the\nfirst home of mankind is placed by the Old Testament in Eden, \u201cthe plain\u201d\nof Babylonia, which was watered by the Tigris and Euphrates. The\nBabylonian story of the Deluge is the parent of that which is recounted in\nthe Hebrew Scriptures, while it was at Babylon that the dispersal of\nmankind took place. The background of Hebrew history is as purely\nBabylonian as the background of Hebrew ritual.\n\nAnd, as Gunkel has shown,(404) the old Babylonian traditions embodied in\nthe Book of Genesis must have made their way to the West at the very\nbeginning of Hebrew history. They enter into the web of the earliest\nHebrew thought, and are presupposed by Hebrew literature. The cosmology\nwhich saw the primordial element in the watery deep, and told of the\nvictory that had been won over Tiam\u00e2t, the dragon of chaos, must have been\nalready known in Canaan when the language and script of Babylonia were\ntaught in its schools, and Babylonian literature studied in its libraries.\nLong before the Mosaic age, the literary culture of Babylonia had\nprofoundly affected the peoples of Syria, and had penetrated even to the\nbanks of the Nile. Need we be surprised, then, if we find a \u201csea\u201d in the\ntemple of Solomon, the symbol of beliefs which had their origin on the\nshores of the Persian Gulf, or priestly ordinances which recall those of\nancient Chald\u00e6a?\n\nThe ordinances and temples were but the outward symbols of the ideas that\nhad created them. The anthropomorphism of Semitic Babylonia is reflected\nin the anthropomorphism of the Israelites. The sense of sin and of the\noverwhelming power of the deity, the efficacy of penitence and the\nnecessity of a mediator, are common to both Babylonia and Israel. Hence it\nis that the penitential psalms of the Babylonian ritual bear so striking a\nresemblance to the psalms of the Old Testament; hence, too, the individual\nelement and deep spirituality that characterise them. Israel was indebted\nto Babylonia for something more than the seeds of a merely material\ncivilisation.\n\nIt is true that there is a gulf, wide and impassable, between the\nBabylonian religion as we decipher it in the cuneiform tablets, and the\nreligion of Israel as it is presented to us in the Old Testament. On the\none side, we have a gross and grotesque polytheism; on the other, an\nuncompromising monotheism. Babylonian religion made terms with magic and\nsorcery, and admitted them in a certain degree to its privileges; they\nwere not incompatible with polytheism; but between them and the worship of\nthe one God there could be no reconciliation. It was the same with the\nsensualities that masqueraded at Erech in the garb of a religious cult;\nthey belonged to a system in which the sun-god was Baal, and a goddess\nclaimed the divided adoration of man. To Israel they were forbidden, like\nthe necromancy and witchcraft with which they were allied.\n\nBut deep and impassable as may be the gulf which separated the Mosaic Law\nfrom the official religion of Babylonia, different as may have been the\ndevelopment of prophecy in Babylonia and Israel, the primordial ideas from\nwhich they started were strangely alike. The same relation that is borne\nby the religion of ancient Egypt to Christianity is borne by the religion\nof Babylonia to Judaism. The Babylonian conception of the divine,\nimperfect though it was, underlay the faith of the Hebrew, and tinctured\nit up to the end. The Jew never wholly freed himself from the dominion of\nbeliefs which had their first starting-point in the \u201cplain\u201d of Babylonia;\nhis religious horizon remained bounded by death, and the God of Abraham,\nIsaac, and Jacob continued to be the God of the living and not of the\ndead. It was in this world that the righteous were rewarded and the wicked\npunished; the world to come was the dreary shadow-land of Babylonian\nteaching, a land of darkness where all things are forgotten, but also a\nland where \u201cthe wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n\nINDEX.\n\n\n\u00c2, 318, 338, 482.\n\nAbraham, 497, 498.\n\nabsolution, Babylonian doctrine of, 497.\n\nAbusir. _See_ Busiris.\n\nAbydos, 104, 119, 159, 166.\n\nAdam, 384, 417.\n\nAdapa the first man, 383, 423, 424, 439, 445.\n\nAdonis, 447.\n\n\u00c6ons, Gnostic, 397.\n\nAkhem, 161. _See_ Horus of Nekhen.\n\nAkkad, 264, 270.\n\nAlexander, 45, 447.\n\nAllat, 288.\n\nAlu, fields of, 37, 156, 161, 168, 184, 191, 200.\n\nAm Duat. _See_ Book of.\n\nAmherst, Lord, of Hackney, 255.\n\n\u2019Ammi, 484.\n\nAmon, 89, 90, 94, 148 sq., 249.\n\nAmon-hotep III., born of a virgin, 45, 249.\n\nAmon-hotep IV. (Khu-n-Aten), 11, 35, 92, 195.\n\nAmon-t, 231.\n\nAmorites, 265, 271, 320.\n\nAmraphel. _See_ Khammurabi.\n\namulets, 226, 227.\n\nAnak, 136.\n\nAnat, 310.\n\nancestor-worship, 122.\n\nangel, 315, 361, 456, 496.\n\nAnhur, 44, 87, 89, 160, 163.\n\nanimal gods of Babylonia, 406.\n\nanimal worship, 100 sq., 242.\n\nAnsar, 367, 390, 404.\n\nanthropomorphism, 107, 349, 498.\n\nAnu, 308 sq., 342, 384, 435, 456.\n  \" identified with other gods, 336.\n\nAnubis, 90, 103, 104, 158.\n\nAnunit, 344.\n\nAnunna, 344, 356.\n\nAnunna-ki, 309, 335, 376.\n\nAnuqet, 135.\n\n_\u00e2nz_, 156.\n\napes of Thoth, 132.\n\nApis, 110, 115, 206.\n\nApophis, 162, 187, 199, 212, 225.\n\nArabia, 261, 315, 317, 321, 481, 483, 485.\n\nArad-Ea, 437.\n\nArallu, 451, 452, 486.\n\nArarat, 441.\n\nark, 369, 460.\n\nArum, 305, 383, 432, 433, 440.\n\nA\u1e61ari, 131, 147, 164 sq., 272, 288, 300, 313, 325, 401, 406, 457, 496.\n\nAshel, 144.\n\nAsherah, 321, 338, 367.\n\nAshtoreth, 338, 339, 342, 483.\n\nAssur, 85, 346, 366 sq., 486.\n\nAssur-bani-pal, 289, 292, 416, 464, 470.\n\nAssurit, 371.\n\nastronomy, Babylonian, 236, 411, 480.\n\nastro-theology, 234, 438.\n\nAtarpi, 438, 446.\n\nAten-Ra, 94.\n  \" hymn to, 96.\n  \" universal father, 98.\n\nAthtar (Istar), 147, 321, 482.\n\nAtmu. _See_ Tum.\n\nAt-Nebes, 225.\n\naxe, double-headed, 128.\n\nAzaga-suga, 353.\n\n_ba._ _See_ Soul.\n\nBaal, 98, 287, 310, 314, 315, 317, 328, 330, 349, 364, 370, 395, 467, 482.\n\nBabylon, colony of Eridu, 261, 327, 335, 367, 394.\n\nBabylonia and Egypt, 234.\n  \" divided into States, 264.\n\nBabylonian theology artificial, 273.\n\nBabylonians, mixed race, 270.\n\nB\u00e2khu, 146.\n\nBakis, 111.\n\nBalaw\u00e2t, 461.\n\nBall, Mr., 164.\n\n\u201cbanner-name,\u201d 53.\n\nBast, 144, 231.\n\nBau, 304 sq., 407, 460, 473.\n\nbeast-worship, 37.\n\nBel, 118, 267, 301, 312, 348.\n\nBel-Merodach, 256. _See_ Merodach.\n\nBelshazzar, 469.\n\nBeltis (Bilat), 310.\n\n_bennu._ _See_ ph\u0153nix.\n\nBerenik\u00ea, city of, 223.\n\nBerossos, 264, 269, 299, 307, 377, 411, 436, 453, 475.\n\nBes, 139, 485.\n\nBilu. _See_ Bel.\n\nBook Am Duat, 195 sq.\n\nBook of Respirations, 194.\n\nBook of the Dead, 173, 182 sq.\n\nBorsippa, 255, 453.\n\nBrahmanism, 103.\n\nBreasted, Professor, 96.\n\nBubastis, 112, 144, 145.\n\nbulls, winged, 118, 224, 354.\n\nBusiris, 156, 160.\n\nButo, 154, 162.\n\nCain, 307, 308.\n\ncalendar, Babylonian and Hebrew, 472.\n\nCanaan, 259, 261, 287, 310, 483.\n\ncannibalism, 16, 234.\n\ncats, 144, 208.\n\nChabas, 232.\n\nChampollion, 187, 249.\n\nchaos, 375, 376, 388, 389.\n\nChemosh, 85, 345, 346.\n\ncherubim, 118, 354, 471.\n\nChristian theology, 230.\n\nChristianity and Osirian creed, 248.\n\nClement, St., 100, 120, 181.\n\nconfession in Babylonia, 418, 488 sq., 497.\n\nconfession, the negative, 174, 489.\n\ncow of Istar, 148.\n\ncreation, epic of, 238, 387 sq.\n  \" of heavenly bodies, 393.\n  \" of man, 304.\n  \" Sumerian story of, 380.\n\ncreator-potter, 375.\n\n_dad_, 227.\n\nDaddu, 156, 157.\n\nDamascius, 367, 387.\n\nDam-kina, 300 sq.\n\ndances, sacred, 134.\n\nDanga dwarf, 133, 139, 485.\n\ndeath, origin of, 384, 425.\n\ndecans, 237.\n\ndeep, the, 239, 375, 389.\n\ndeification of Babylonian kings, 290, 351.\n\ndeluge, Babylonian story of, 437 sq., 443 sq., 493.\n\ndeluge in Genesis, 443, 444.\n\nde Morgan, M., 59, 105.\n\nDendera, 87, 145.\n\nDep. _See_ Buto.\n\nde Sarzec, M., 254.\n\nDeukalion, 445.\n\ndevelopment, 248.\n\n_dimmer_, 405.\n\nDiodorus, 237.\n\ndisc, solar, 76, 89, 94 sq., 224, 369.\n  \" legend of, 226.\n\ndismemberment of corpse, 25.\n\ndouble. _See_ Ka and Zi.\n\nDu-azagga, 327, 374, 456.\n\nDungi, 41.\n\nEa, 86, 131, 137, 164, 239, 262, 269, 279, 287, 299, 304, 307, 326, 353,\n            354, 374, 386, 401, 439.\n\nEa, code of, 489.\n\nEa-bani, 283, 433 sq.\n\nEden or Edin, 260, 263, 281, 385.\n\nEdfu, 221.\n\nEgypt, earliest races of, 23.\n  \" early kingdoms of, 37 sq., 43.\n  \" origin of name, 55, 58.\n  \" Pharaonic conquest of, 224.\n\nEgyptian conception of God, 34.\n\nEgyptians, conservative, 30, 36.\n  \" disinclined for the abstract, 30, 36.\n\nEgyptians, origin of, 22.\n\n_ekimmu_, 284, 285, 287.\n\nE-kur(a), 306, 356, 374, 376, 449, 451, 457.\n\nElamites, 266, 270, 434.\n\nEl-Kab (Nekheb), 39, 135, 168.\n\nEl-lil. _See_ En-lil.\n\nElohim, 286.\n\nemanation, doctrine of, 91, 250.\n\nembalming, 23, 68.\n\n_\u00ean_, 413.\n\nEndor, witch of, 286.\n\nEn-lil, 261, 262, 269, 282, 285, 297, 309, 315, 348, 352, 353, 376, 379,\n            405, 406, 439, 452.\n\nEn-me-sarra, 408, 486.\n\nEnnead, the, 33, 82, 314.\n\nEnos, 308.\n\n_\u00eanu_, 404, 410, 415.\n\nErech, 308, 311, 312, 340, 341, 432, 433, 453, 461.\n\nEreskigal, 428.\n\nEridu, 138, 164, 260, 262, 268, 301, 304, 327, 367, 373, 381, 386, 407.\n\nErman, Professor, 125.\n\nErment, 86, 111.\n\n\u00ca-Saggil, 324, 328, 374, 382, 413, 454.\n\n\u00ca-Sarra, 356.\n\nEsau, 272.\n\nEtana, story of, 425.\n\neuhemerism, 123.\n\nEvans, Dr. A. J., 128.\n\nfasting, 418, 477.\n\nFeast of Weeks, 474.\n\nfeather cap, 136.\n\nfestivals, 472 sq.\n\nfetishism in primitive Egypt, 103, 205, 227.\n\nfolk-lore, limitations of, 18.\n\nfrog, the, 136.\n\nGenesis, Book of, 340.\n  \" cosmology of, 388, 395.\n  \" deluge in, 443, 444.\n\ngenii of the dead, 65.\n\nghost of unburied dead, 284.\n\nGilgames, 79, 191, 283, 284, 383, 423, 426, 430 sq.\n\nGnostics, 91, 202, 250, 397.\n\nGod, Egyptian conception of, 34, 244 sq., 396.\n\nGod, Sumerian conception of, 405.\n\ngoddess, Babylonian, 332.\n\ngods, Babylonian, identified with each other, 330.\n\ngods, Babylonian, human, 349.\n\nGoshen, 225, 236.\n\nGreat Bear, the, 236.\n\nGr\u00e9baut, M., 164.\n\ngreen paint, 155.\n\nGudea, 41, 43, 124, 254, 274, 290, 352, 473, 475.\n\nGunkel, 445, 499.\n\nHadad, 319 sq., 329, 440.\n\nHades, Babylonian, 286, 288, 294, 349, 426, 427, 443, 491.\n\nH\u00e2pi. _See_ Nile.\n\nHarmakhis, 76, 78, 89, 220.\n\nHarper, song of the, 13, 125.\n\nHarran, 314, 315, 335, 482.\n\nHathor, 36, 143, 145 sq., 228.\n\nHathor-headed column, 119.\n\nHaupt, Prof., 433, 455, 464, 465, 471.\n\nhawk of Horus, 71, 103, 104.\n\nheart, 66.\n\nHeliopolis. _See_ On.\n  \" school of, 33, 131.\n\nhell, Egyptian, 179, 197.\n\nH\u00earakl\u00eas, 432, 436, 443, 446.\n\nHerkhuf, 133.\n\nHermetic books, 68, 101, 181.\n\nHermopolis, school of, 33, 114, 130, 132.\n\nHerodotos, 110, 112, 139, 144, 454, 457.\n\nHesperides, 446.\n\nHeuzey, M., 119.\n\nHezekiah, 334, 471.\n\nHierakonpolis. _See_ Nekhen.\n\nhieroglyphics, 32.\n\nhigh priest, 267, 367, 461, 462. _See_ patesi.\n\nHoly of Holies, 456, 457, 459, 464.\n\nHommel, Professor, 59, 130, 238, 256, 267, 287, 315, 317, 321, 437, 482,\n            484, 491.\n\nHor-Behudet, 220.\n\nHor-pes, 207.\n\nHorus, the elder, 71.\n\nHorus, the younger, son of Isis, 89, 154, 161, 163, 232, 496.\n\nHorus, 39, 42, 54, 61, 162, 165, 238.\n  \" followers of, 23, 43, 73, 81, 128.\n\nHorus, the golden, 74.\n  \" the mummified, of Nekhen (_see_ Akhem), 68, 75, 78, 163, 236.\n\nHorus, two eyes of, 78.\n\nhosts, divine, 355.\n  \" lord of, 487.\n\nhymns, Babylonian, 411 sq.\n\nIgigi (angels), 309, 355.\n\nImhotep, 140, 231.\n\nIncantations, book of, 402.\n\nincarnation, doctrine of, 242.\n\ninspiration, verbal, 414.\n\nIsaiah, 452, 457, 477, 481.\n\nIsis, 84, 135, 146.\n  \" as witch, 219.\n\nIskhara, 374.\n\nIsraelitish religion, 498.\n\nIstar, 144, 146, 292, 311, 332, 337 sq., 349, 431, 434, 440, 464.\n\nIstar, descent of, to Hades, 426 sq.\n\nIsum, 429.\n\nJachin (Yakin), 350, 459.\n\nJacob\u2019s ladder, 393.\n\nJastrow, Professor, 440, 464, 469.\n\nJensen, Professor, 457, 477.\n\nJokha, 254.\n\nJubilee, year of, 476.\n\njudgment, future, 173 sq., 191, 295.\n\nJuvenal, 101.\n\nKa, 48 sq., 185, 192, 198, 227, 228, 276, 280, 286, 293.\n\nKa-name. _See_ banner-name.\n\nKhammurabi (Amraphel), 79, 256, 266, 352, 362, 365, 410, 423, 438, 473.\n\nKhar, 79.\n\nKhent-Amentit, 161.\n\nKhepera, 218, 231.\n\nkher-heb, 140, 405.\n\nKhonsu, 130, 151.\n\n_khu_, 59, 60 sq., 120, 199.\n\nKhumbaba, 433.\n\nKhu-n-Aten. _See_ Amon-hotep IV.\n\n_kigal_, 449, 455.\n\nKingu, 282, 428.\n\nKisar, 390.\n\nKutha (Cuthah), 378.\n\nLagas. _See_ Tello.\n\nLarsa, 266, 318.\n\nlaw, Egyptian conception of, 247.\n\nLaw, Mosaic, 52, 57, 99, 471, 474, 498.\n\nLehmann, Dr., 457.\n\nLenormant, Fr., 300, 399, 400.\n\nlil, 261, 278, 280 sq., 285, 287, 301, 306, 379, 481.\n\nLilith, 261, 281, 306.\n\nLindl, Dr., 256.\n\nLogos, 132.\n\nLucas, Paul, 213.\n\nLugal-zaggisi, 308, 311.\n\nMagan (Sinaitic Peninsula), 265.\n\nmagic in Israel, 292, 401.\n  \" in Babylonia, 466, 500.\n\nmagical texts, 291.\n  \" \" Babylonian, 399 sq.\n\nMalik, 321.\n\nMami, 446.\n\nman, deification of, in Egypt, 37, 41, 42.\n\nman, deification of, in Babylonia, 41.\n\nManes, 61.\n\nManetho, 61.\n\nmaql\u00fb, collection, 410.\n\nMas, 79, 436.\n\nMaspero, Professor, 33, 51, 59, 60, 63, 72, 77, 83, 87, 107, 132, 156,\n            161, 179, 183, 186, 189, 198, 207, 210, 244.\n\nM\u00e2t, 174, 247.\n\nmaterialism, 242.\n\nmediation, Babylonian idea of, 495 sq.\n\nMemphis, 51, 55, 58, 90, 139.\n  \" origin of name of, 138.\n\nM\u00e9nant, M., 468.\n\nMendes, 113, 115, 157, 206.\n\nMeneptah, 141.\n\nMenes, 44, 60, 103, 121, 160, 162.\n\nMentiu, the, 149.\n\nMentu, 89, 111, 149, 151.\n\nmercy-seat, 456.\n\nMermer, 321.\n\nMerodach (Asari), 256, 267, 269, 288, 302, 307, 323 sq., 351, 353, 354,\n            365, 382, 391, 428, 483.\n\nMerodach identified with other gods, 336.\n\nMerodach, etymology of name of, 272, 273.\n\nMert-seger, 210.\n\n_mesen_, 222.\n\nMessiah, the Egyptian, 248.\n\nmetaphors, 15.\n\nmetempsychosis, 102, 108.\n\nMin, 104.\n\n_mitra_, 357.\n\nMnevis, 111, 115, 206.\n\nmonotheism in Babylonia, 336, 484.\n\nmoon, 130.\n  \" eclipse of, 430.\n\nMoon-god, 261.\n  \" Babylonian, 314, 322, 340, 353, 482, 484.\n\nmoral test of righteousness, 173, 178, 247.\n\nmorality not religion, 6.\n\nmountain of the world, 376, 452.\n\nMummu (chaos), 85, 130.\n\nmummy, 26, 63, 67, 154, 198.\n\nMut, 80, 81, 89, 135, 144, 151.\n\nNabonidos, 334, 365, 411, 448.\n\nname, identical with thing, 331.\n  \" virtue of, 219.\n\nNamtar, 282.\n\nNannar. _See_ Moon-god.\n\nNaram-Sin, 41, 45, 125, 265, 318, 351.\n\nNaville, Dr., 72, 145, 192, 250.\n\nNebh\u00e2t, 84, 90, 157, 162.\n\nNebo, 166, 255, 322, 355, 362 sq., 374, 390, 456, 482, 485, 496.\n\nNebuchadrezzar, 323, 457, 485, 498.\n  \" palace of, 256.\n\nNefer-Tum, 90, 140.\n\nNekheb. _See_ El-Kab.\n  \" goddess, 39, 40, 42, 68, 80, 135.\n\nNekhen (Hierakonpolis), 39, 72, 75, 119, 135, 166, 168.\n\nNergal, 288, 378, 428, 470.\n\n_neter_, 127.\n\nNew year, 473.\n\nNile, 140 sq.\n  \" sources of, 137.\n\nNimrod, 446.\n\nNin\u00e2, 366.\n\nNin-gis-zida, 350, 384, 460.\n\nNin-ip, 80, 356 sq., 439, 474, 496.\n\nNin-lil, 405.\n\nNippur, 254, 260, 268, 269, 297, 328, 356, 373, 407.\n\nNit, 89, 143, 321.\n\nNizir, 441, 451.\n\nnomes, origin of, 38.\n  \" standards of, 105.\n\nNorden, 214.\n\nNu, 83, 129.\n\nNu-gidda, 139, 353, 485.\n\nNusku, 363, 439, 456.\n\nNut, 83, 84, 129.\n\nNu-Urru, 191.\n\nOannes, 264, 299.\n\nofferings, Babylonian, 466, 470.\n\nOn (Heliopolis), 40, 51, 61, 82, 86, 91, 114, 120, 161, 190, 231.\n\nOpis, 366.\n\nOppert, Professor, 464.\n\nOrion, 234, 238.\n\nOsiris, 84, 87, 90, 123, 131, 139, 147, 153 sq., 199, 200, 232, 247, 325,\n            353, 494.\n\nOsiris, judgment-hall of, 66.\n  \" the, 169.\n\nPalestine, 42.\n\n_paradise_, etymology of, 272.\n\nPat\u00e6ki, 139.\n\n_patesi_. _See_ high priest.\n\nPe, 162.\n\npenitence, Babylonian idea of, 493 sq.\n\nPepi, 73, 145, 146, 238.\n\nPestilence-god, 429.\n\nPeters, Dr., 261.\n\nPetrie, Professor, 53, 64, 144, 184.\n\nPharaoh as god, 42, 44, 107.\n  \" son of the Sun, 88.\n\nPharaonic Egyptians, 22, 40, 43, 73, 74, 76.\n\nPhil\u00e6, 135.\n\nPhilo, 230.\n\nph\u0153nix, 117, 121, 207, 238.\n\nPhrygia, 111.\n\nPiehl, Professor, 184.\n\nPierret, M., 193.\n\nPinches, Dr., 263, 336, 365, 385.\n\nplanets, 235.\n\nPlato, 233.\n\nPlatonic ideas, 49, 242.\n\nPlutarch, 101.\n\npolytheism, 289.\n\nPorphyry, 64, 71, 102.\n\npostal service in Babylonia, 266.\n\npriestly colleges, 32.\n\npriests, 461 sq.\n\nprophetess, 455, 466.\n\nprophets, Babylonian college of, 416, 463 sq.\n\npsalms, penitential, 416 sq., 500.\n  \" Assyrian, 419.\n\nPtah, 44, 55, 87, 90, 110, 138, 151, 167, 190.\n\nPtiris, 111.\n\nPunt, 146.\n\nPurim, feast of, 476.\n\nPyramid texts, 15, 37, 59, 61, 64, 77, 86, 92, 144, 157, 161, 178, 183,\n            184, 191, 234, 244, 258.\n\nQuibell, Mr., 39, 175.\n\nRa, 51, 182, 231.\n  \" followers of, 196.\n  \" legend of, 216.\n\nRahab, 309.\n\nram, 149, 157, 353, 406.\n\nRassam, Hormuzd, 461.\n\nRawlinson, Sir H. C., 336, 431.\n\nRawnsley, Canon, 125.\n\nReisner, Dr., 188.\n\nrelics, 226.\n\nreligion, ancient, difficult to realise, 46.\n\nreligion, earliest forms of, 7.\n  \" individual in origin, 8.\n\nRenouf, Sir P. L., 51, 60, 127.\n\nresurrection, 24, 167, 170.\n\nritual, Babylonian, 400, 412.\n\n_rp\u00e2_, 129.\n\nSaba, 437.\n\nSabaism, 479, 481, 482, 483.\n\nSabbath, Babylonian, 476.\n  \" etymology of, 272.\n\nsacrifice, Babylonian, 466, 470, 472.\n  \" daily, 470.\n  \" of firstborn, 467.\n  \" of lamb, 472.\n\nSahu. _See_ Orion.\n\n_sahu._ _See_ mummy.\n\nSahu-Ra, 104, 223.\n\nSak\u00e6a, 475.\n\nSamas. _See_ Sun-god.\n\nSamuel, 366.\n\nSargon of Akkad, 41, 265, 290, 351, 465, 483.\n\nSati, 80.\n\nSati or Sutu, 135, 163, 166.\n\nsavage man, 17.\n\nscape-goat, 467.\n\nscarabs, 65, 66, 188, 227.\n\nscepticism, Egyptian, 13, 202.\n\nScheil, Dr., 139, 148, 378, 438.\n\nSchweinfurth, Dr., 215.\n\nscorpion-man, 436.\n\n\u201csea,\u201d artificial, 458, 459.\n\nSeb, 84, 129.\n  \" legend of, 225.\n\nSebek, 114, 226.\n\nSebennytos, 160.\n\nseer, Babylonian, 464 sq.\n\nSeh\u00eal, 135.\n\nSekhet, 90, 106, 140, 144, 145, 231.\n\nSelk, 104, 106.\n\nSemitic supremacy, 270.\n\nSerapis, 113.\n\nserpent, bronze, 471.\n  \" guardian, 212.\n  \" with seven heads, 240.\n  \" worship, 208 sq.\n\nSet, 74, 90, 104, 112, 114, 117, 135, 153, 162, 165, 223, 224, 238.\n\nSeth, 307.\n\nShamanism, 298.\n\nSharu, 73.\n\nSh\u00eakh Her\u00eed\u00ee, 213.\n\nShem, 328.\n\nSheol, 295, 491.\n\nshewbread, 455.\n\nships of the gods, 239.\n\nShu, 83, 89, 160, 225.\n\nSin. _See_ Moon-god.\n\nsin, Babylonian conception of, 417, 492 sq.\n\nSinai, 485.\n\nSinaitic Peninsula, 146.\n\nSin-liqi-unnini, 423, 438.\n\nSippara, 318, 344, 414, 482.\n\nSirius (Sopd), 148, 235, 238.\n\nSmith, George, 387, 436, 437, 454.\n\nsmiths, 73, 128.\n\nSokaris, 138, 198, 199.\n\nsolar cult, 185.\n\nSopd. _See_ Sirius.\n\nsorcerer, 298.\n\nsoul, Egyptian doctrine of, 26, 62 sq., 108.\n\nsphinx, 76, 117.\n\nspirits, seven evil, 408, 430.\n\nstars, 367, 480.\n\nstatues, wonder-working, 228.\n  \" Memphite, 51.\n  \" why made, 50.\n\nSumer, 264.\n\nSumerian, 254.\n\nSumerians, 269.\n\nSun-god, 88, 293.\n  \" Babylonian, 317 sq., 321, 338, 340, 370, 414.\n\nSurippak, 264, 440.\n\n_surpu_, the collection, 410.\n\nSusa, 265, 270.\n\nSutu, 166.\n\nSutu-sar, 166.\n\nswine, 358, 467.\n\nsycamore worshipped, 206.\n  \" of Matar\u00eeya, 207.\n\nsymbolism in Egypt, 35, 49, 242.\n\nTabernacle of Congregation, 472.\n\nTables of the Law, 461.\n\ntablets of destiny, 282, 333, 392, 428.\n\nTammuz, 340, 350, 384, 386, 426, 434, 460, 474.\n\nTanen, 140.\n\nTasmit, 363, 456.\n\nTefnut, 83.\n\nTel el-Amarna, 95, 428, 445.\n\nTello (Lagas), 254, 265, 274.\n\ntemple of Solomon, 459, 470.\n\ntemples, open in Egypt, 110.\n  \" Babylonian, 449, 454 sq.\n\nThis, 160.\n\nThoth, 36, 37, 104, 114, 130, 154, 191.\n\nTiam\u00e2t, 118, 349, 355, 377, 392.\n\ntithes, 469.\n\ntotemism, 116.\n\ntransformation, 243.\n\ntree of life, 240, 384.\n  \" knowledge, 354, 386.\n\ntrees, sacred, 215.\n\ntriad, 231.\n  \" Babylonian, 313, 314, 321, 322, 341, 382, 390.\n\ntrinity, Egyptian, 90, 143, 230 sq.\n  \" Theban, 151, 231.\n\nTum (Atmu), 81, 83, 85, 87, 225, 231.\n\nTyphon, 153, 179.\n\nUazit, 40, 42, 81, 144.\n\nUn-nefer, 168, 247, 325.\n\nUr, 261, 266, 267, 274, 295, 314, 482, 484.\n\nUrim and Thummim, 282, 351, 392, 428.\n\nUr-nes, 196.\n\nushebti, 52, 58, 112, 171.\n\nutukku, 283, 285, 287.\n\nvampire, 282, 283.\n\nVenus, 238.\n\nvirgin-birth, the, 249.\n\nWiedemann, Professor, 149, 173, 208.\n\nWilkinson, Sir G., 207.\n\nwitchcraft, 359.\n\nword, the creative, 131, 391.\n\nXisuthros, 436 sq.\n\nYahum-ilu, 484.\n\nYahveh, 99, 131, 346, 371, 385, 484, 487.\n\n_zaqiqu_, 262, 283.\n\nZenjirli, 346.\n\nZi, the, 58, 276 sq., 283, 287, 301, 306, 329, 379, 400, 403, 404, 481.\n\nziggurat, 450, 453, 456, 458.\n\nZi-kum, 278, 305, 386, 407.\n\nZimbabwe, 72.\n\nZimmern, Professor, 392, 394, 438, 472, 488.\n\nZodiac, 481.\n\nZu, 351, 353, 429.\n\n\n\n\n\n\nFOOTNOTES\n\n\n_    1 Notes for the Nile_, pp. 188, 189.\n\n    2 R\u00e9villout in the _Revue \u00e9gyptologique_, i. 4, ii. 3.\n\n    3 For the extraordinary variety of senses in which the verb _ye_, \u201cto\n      eat,\u201d has come to be used in the African language of Akra, see Pott,\n      _Ueber die Verschiedenheit des menschlichen Sprachbaues von Wilhelm\n      von Humboldt_, ii. pp. 495-498 (1876). Thus _ye no_, \u201cto be master,\u201d\n      is literally \u201cto eat the upper side\u201d; _ye gb\u00ee_, \u201cto live\u201d or\n      \u201cexist,\u201d is literally \u201cto eat a day\u201d; _fe\u00ee ye_, \u201cto be cold,\u201d is \u201cto\n      eat cold.\u201d\n\n    4 See Schweinfurth, \u201cUeber den Ursprung der Aegypter,\u201d in the\n      _Verhandlungen der Berliner anthropologischen Gesellschaft_, June\n      1897.\n\n    5 See W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Religion and Conscience in Ancient\n      Egypt_, 1898.\n\n    6 \u201cThe custom of dismembering the body or stripping it of its flesh is\n      widely spread: the neolithic tombs of Italy contain skulls and bones\n      which have been painted red; Baron de Baye has found in the tombs of\n      Champagne skeletons stripped of their flesh, and the Patagonians and\n      Andamanners as well as the New Zealanders still practise the custom\u201d\n      (De Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de l\u2019Egypte_, ii. p. 142).\n      Secondary burial is met with in India among the Kullens, the\n      K\u00e2thkaris, and the Agariya, as well as in Motu, Melanesia, Sarawak,\n      the Luchu Islands, Torres Straits, and Ashanti, while \u201cin some of\n      the English long barrows the bones appear to have been flung in\n      pell-mell\u201d (Crooke in _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_,\n      xxix. pp. 284-286 (1899)).\n\n    7 See Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_,\n      ii. p. 372 sqq.\n\n    8 See Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et l\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, i.\n      p. 85 sqq.\n\n    9 Mariette, _Dend\u00e9rah, Texte_, p. 156.\n\n   10 In the Pyramid texts the dead are described as being carried across\n      the lake which separates this world from the fields of Alu, on the\n      wings of Thoth.\n\n   11 See Sethe in the _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Aegyptischer Sprache_, 1897, 1.\n\n   12 Similarly the \u201cchief _Kher-heb_\u201d of the Pharaoh, in the age of the\n      Old Empire, bore the title of \u201cChief of the city of Nekheb\u201d (Ebers,\n      _Life in Ancient Egypt_, Eng. tr., p. 90). The Pyramid texts speak\n      of the White Crown of Southern Egypt as well as of the royal ur\u00e6us\n      \u201cin the city of Nekheb\u201d (_Pepi_ 167); and the goddess of the city is\n      described as \u201cthe cow Samet-urt\u201d who was crowned with the two\n      feathers (_Teta_ 359). Elsewhere mention is made of \u201cthe souls of\n      On, Nekhen, and Pe\u201d (_Pepi_ 168, 182; see also _Teta_ 272). By the\n      \u201csouls of On\u201d Ra or rather Tum was meant; Pe and Dep constituted the\n      twin-city of the Delta called Buto by the Greeks, over a part of\n      which (Dep) Uazit the serpent-goddess of the north presided, while\n      the other half (Pe) acknowledged Horus as its chief deity. In _Teta_\n      88 \u201cthe doubles in Pe\u201d are said to be \u201cthe double of Horus.\u201d\n\n   13 Wiedemann, in the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical\n      Arch\u00e6ology_, iv. p. 332.\n\n   14 The title of \u201cgood god\u201d went back to a very early date, and stands\n      in contrast to that of _nefer m\u00e2t-kher_, \u201cgood and true of voice,\u201d\n      applied to the ordinary individual on early seal-cylinders.\n\n   15 See the illustration from the temple of Amon-hotep III. at Luxor, in\n      Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_, p. 111.\n\n   16 The Westcar Papyrus, which was written in the time of the Middle\n      Empire, already describes the first three kings of the Fifth Dynasty\n      as born of Ruddadt (the wife of a priest of the sun-god) and the god\n      Ra of Sakhab (Erman, \u201cDie M\u00e4rchen des Papyrus Westcar,\u201d i. p. 55, in\n      the _Mittheilungen aus den orientalischen Sammlungen zu Berlin_,\n      1890).\n\n   17 Callaway, _Unkulunkulu; or, the Tradition of the Creation as\n      existing among the Amazulu and other Tribes of South Africa_, pt. i.\n      pp. 2, 7, 8.\n\n   18 Professor Maspero, to whom, along with Sir P. Le Page Renouf, we owe\n      the explanation of what the Egyptians meant by the Ka, first pointed\n      out the meaning of the portrait statues which were buried in the\n      tomb (_Recueil de Travaux_, i. pp. 152-160).\n\n   19 Renouf, _TSBA._ vi. p. 504 sqq.; Lepsius, _Denkm\u00e4ler_, iii. 194. 13;\n      D\u00fcmichen, _Tempelinschriften_, i. pl. 29.\n\n_   20 A Season in Egypt_, 1887, pp. 21, 22.\n\n   21 Cf. the illustrations in Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_, p. 259;\n      and Lepsius, _Denkm\u00e4ler_, iii. 87. In Bonomi and Arundale, _Gallery\n      of Antiquities_, pt. i. pi. 31, is a picture of Thothmes II. with\n      his Ka standing behind him.\n\n   22 Baring Could, _Curiosities of Olden Times_, 2nd ed., p. 57 sqq.\n\n   23 It is noticeable that while the Tel el-Amarna letters show that the\n      actual pronunciation of the word Ka was Ku, _Ha-ka-Ptah_, the sacred\n      name of Memphis, being written _Khi-ku-Ptakh_ (_Aiguptos_), _ku_ was\n      \u201cfood\u201d in the Sumerian of primitive Babylonia.\n\n   24 In his _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, i. p.\n      61, Professor Maspero gives \u201ccake\u201d as the original sense of _Ka_,\n      which, however, he explains as \u201ca cake of earth,\u201d and hence\n      \u201csubstance.\u201d\n\n   25 Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_, p. 114. The Ka, however, is here\n      identified with the Khu, and it is questionable whether the passages\n      referred to in the Pyramid texts really embody old ideas which are\n      to be interpreted literally, or whether they are not rather to be\n      taken metaphorically.\n\n   26 Maspero, _Comptes rendus du Congr\u00e9s provincial des Orientalistes \u00e0\n      Lyon_, 1878, pp. 235-263; Renouf, _Transactions of the Society of\n      Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_ (1879), vi. pp. 494-508.\n\n   27 This particular bird was chosen because its name was similar in\n      sound to that of the Khu. For the same reason the plover (_ba_)\n      denoted the Ba or soul. On objects found by de Morgan in the tomb of\n      Menes at Negada, the \u201csoul\u201d is represented by an ostrich.\n\n   28 See Chassinat, _Recueil_, xix. p. 23 sqq.\n\n   29 From the fifteenth to the eleventh century B.C., it was fashionable\n      to substitute for the bird a beetle with a ram\u2019s head, the phonetic\n      value of the hieroglyph of ram being _ba_, and that of the beetle\n      _kheper_, \u201cto become.\u201d\n\n   30 Hermes Trismeg., _P\u0153mandres_, ed. Parthey, chs. i. and x.\n\n_   31 \u00c9tudes de Mythologie_, i. p. 166.\n\n_   32 De Abst._ iv. 10.\n\n   33 Cf. also Plutarch, _De Esu carnium Or._ ii. p. 996, and _Sept.\n      Sapient. Conviv._ p. 159 B.\n\n   34 The four vases were dedicated to the man-headed Amset (or Smet), the\n      jackal-headed Dua-mut-ef, the ape-headed H\u00e2pi, and the hawk-headed\n      Qeb\u1e25-sonu-f, who are identified with the planets in the Pyramid\n      texts (Maspero, \u201cPyramide du roi Ounas\u201d in the _Recueil de Travaux_,\n      iii. p. 205).\n\n   35 See the Book of the Dead, chs. xxvi. and sqq.\n\n   36 It is still a moot question whether any scarabs go back to the age\n      of the Old Empire. Personally, I am inclined to agree with Prof.\n      Flinders Petrie in thinking that they do so.\n\n   37 Or, according to Renouf\u2019s translation: \u201cPleasant unto us, pleasant\n      unto the listener, is the joy of the weighing of the words.\u201d\n\n   38 Three grains of the natron of the city of Nekheb had to be used,\n      while only two grains of that of the north were required (Maspero,\n      \u201cPyramide du roi Ounas\u201d in the _Recueil de Travaux_, iii. p. 182).\n      The Horus of Nekhen, opposite El-Kab, was represented by a mummified\n      hawk (_akhem_).\n\n   39 De Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte_, ii. pl. iii.\n      line 2.\n\n_   40 Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Aegyptische Sprache_, xxxvi. pls. xii. and xiii.;\n      Quibell, _Hierakonpolis_, pt. i. pl. xxix.\n\n   41 Professor Maspero, however, proposes to see in them a symbol of the\n      king of Upper Egypt destroying a hostile city.\n\n_   42 Recueil de Travaux_, xxi. pp. 116, 117. Dr. Naville points out that\n      on the Palermo Stela the festival of the Shesh-Hor, with the\n      determinative of a sacred bark, occurs repeatedly in that part of\n      the inscription which relates to the festivals of the kings of the\n      first two dynasties. Professor Petrie has found the same festival\n      mentioned on two ivory tablets from the tomb of a king of the First\n      Dynasty at Abydos (Petrie, _The Royal Tombs of the First Dynasty_,\n      pt, i. pl. xvii.); and it may be added that in the Pyramid texts\n      (_Pepi_ 670; _Recueil de Travaux_, viii. p. 105) the M\u00e2t or M\u00e2dit\n      bark of the sun-god is identified with the bark of the Shesh-Hor,\n      while the Semkett or bark in which the sun-god voyages at night\n      becomes a bark in which the place of the hawk is taken by a picture\n      of the ben or tomb of Osiris\u2014here identified with that of Akhem the\n      mummified hawk, which forms part of the symbol for the Thinite nome.\n      Elsewhere it is the Semkett or day-bark of the sun which is\n      identified with the festival of the Shesh-Hor (_Recueil de Travaux_,\n      iii. p. 205).\n\n   43 On the _mesnitiu_ or \u201cblacksmiths\u201d of Horus, see Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de\n      Mythologie_, ii. p. 313 and sqq. The _Mesnit_ or \u201cForge\u201d was the\n      name given to the passage opening into the shrine of the temple of\n      Edfu.\n\n   44 Quibell, _Hierakonpolis_, pt. i. pl. ii.\n\n   45 See de Roug\u00e9, _Recherches sur les Monuments qu\u2019on peut attribuer aux\n      six premi\u00e8res dynasties_, pp. 44, 45.\n\n   46 Mr. Quibell found a large bronze hawk with a head of solid gold and\n      eyes of obsidian along with two bronze figures of Pepi, in the\n      foundation of the temple of Nekhen (Kom el-A\u1e25mar); see Quibell,\n      _Hierakonpolis_, pt. i. pl. xlii. Hor-nubi, \u201cthe golden Horus,\u201d was\n      the god of the Ant\u00e6opolite nome.\n\n   47 The 1st (Ombite) and 2nd (Apollinopolite) nomes, the 3rd nome\n      (originally) with its capital Nekhen, the nomes of the \u201cEastern and\n      Western Horus\u201d (Tuphium and Asphynis), Qus \u201cthe city of Horus the\n      elder,\u201d the 5th (Coptite) nome, the 6th nome of Dendera in so far as\n      Hathor was daughter and husband of Horus, the 10th (Ant\u00e6opolite) and\n      12th (Hierakopolite) nomes, and finally the 15th, 18th, and 20th\n      (Herakleopolite) nomes. In the Delta also Horus was god of the 3rd,\n      5th, 7th, 8th, 11th, 19th, 25th, 27th, and 30th nomes, of which the\n      7th and 8th were close to the Asiatic frontier.\n\n   48 When this emblem was first invented we do not know; it probably goes\n      back to the pr\u00e6-Menic period, like the composite animals on the\n      early monuments of Nekhen and Abydos. Its first dateable occurrence\n      is on a boulder of granite in the island of Elephantin\u00ea above the\n      name and figure of Unas of the Fifth Dynasty. It is also engraved\n      above the double figure of an Old Empire king on a great isolated\n      rock near El-Kab, which is probably of the same date. The tablet on\n      which it is engraved faces south-east.\n\n   49 Hor-merti, \u201cHorus of the two eyes,\u201d was worshipped at Shedennu in\n      the Pharb\u00e6thite nome of the Delta. Gr\u00e9baut\u2019s view, that the two eyes\n      originally represented the light, seems to me too abstract a\n      conception for an early period (_Recueil de Travaux_, pp. 72-87,\n      112-131). In the Pyramid texts (_Rec._ iv. p. 42), mention is made\n      of Horus with \u201cthe blue eyes.\u201d\n\n   50 Cf. Sayce, _TSBA._, Nov. 1898. In one case the name of the god is\n      written _Kha-ar_. In _WAI._ ii. 55. 36, Khur-galzu, \u201cHorus, thou art\n      great!\u201d is given as the name of a Sumerian goddess.\n\n   51 Nin-ip was identified with the planet Saturn, like \u201cHorus the bull.\u201d\n\n   52 It was then that the two obelisks were erected in front of the\n      temple by Usertesen I., which caused it to be known as H\u00e2t-Benbeni,\n      \u201cthe house of the two obelisks.\u201d\n\n   53 The members of the Ennead of Heliopolis or On are named in the\n      Pyramid texts (_Pepi_ ii. 666) Tum, Shu, Tefnut, Seb, Nut, Osiris,\n      Isis, Set, and Nebh\u00e2t.\n\n   54 See his _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, ii. p.\n      337 sqq.\n\n   55 Similarly, on early Babylonian seal-cylinders the leaves of the\n      folding doors through which the sun-god comes forth at daybreak are\n      surmounted by lions. See the illustration in King, _Babylonian\n      Religion and Mythologie_, p. 32. (The genuineness of this cylinder\n      has been questioned without good reason.)\n\n   56 The wife occasionally provided for Asshur by the scribes was a mere\n      grammatical abstraction, like Tumt, the feminine of Tum, whose name\n      is now and then met with in late Egyptian texts.\n\n   57 One of the old formul\u00e6 embedded in the Pyramid texts (_Teta_ 86)\n      reads like a passage from a Sumerian hymn: \u201cHail to thee, great deep\n      (_ageb_), moulder of the gods, creator of men.\u201d It belongs to\n      Babylonia rather than to Egypt, where the \u201cgreat deep\u201d could have\n      been a matter only of tradition.\n\n   58 See Petrie, _Medum_, p. 30.\n\n   59 The existence of other cities of the name in Upper Egypt, \u201cOn of the\n      south,\u201d now Erment, and On, now Dendera, shows that it must go back\n      to the earliest epoch of Pharaonic Egypt. I believe that it is the\n      Sumerian _unu_, \u201ccity,\u201d and that the column which represented it\n      hieroglyphically denoted \u201ca foundation\u201d or \u201csettlement.\u201d\n\n   60 It will be shown in a future lecture that Osiris was the mummified\n      Anher. One is tempted to ask whether Pta\u1e25 is not similarly the\n      mummified Tum?\n\n_   61 \u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, ii. p. 270 sqq.\n\n   62 This has been proved by a stela of Antef IV. of the Eleventh\n      Dynasty, discovered by M. Legrain in 1900, in the temple of Pta\u1e25.\n      Khonsu was a mere epithet of the moon-god, meaning \u201cwanderer.\u201d In a\n      later age Khonsu was himself superseded by Mentu.\n\n   63 For the architectural plan of the temple, see Erman, _Life in\n      Ancient Egypt_, Eng. tr., p. 287.\n\n   64 Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, Eng. tr., p. 262.\n\n   65 Another strophe of the Hymn to Aten, as translated by Professor\n      Breasted (_De Hymnis in Solem sub rege Amenophide __IV.__\n      conceptis_, p. 47), is equally explicit: \u201cThou hast created the\n      earth according to thy pleasure, when thou wast alone, both all men\n      and the cattle great and small; all who walk upon the earth, those\n      on high who fly with wings; the foreign lands of Syria (_Khar_) and\n      Cush as well as the land of Egypt; each in its place thou\n      appointest, thou providest them with all that they need; each has\n      his granary, his stores of grain are counted. Diverse are the\n      languages of men, more different than their shape is the colour of\n      their skin, (for) thou hast distinguished the nations of the world\n      (one from the other).\u201d In the succeeding strophe the monotheism of\n      the worshipper of Aten, in whose eyes even the sacred Nile was the\n      creature of the one true God, appears in striking contrast to the\n      ordinary polytheism of Egypt (Breasted, _l.c._ p. 53): \u201cThou\n      createst the Nile in the other world, thou bringest it at thy\n      pleasure to give life to mankind; for thou hast made them for\n      thyself, O lord of them all who art ever with them, O lord of all\n      the earth who risest for them, O sun of day (the mighty one in?) the\n      remotest lands, thou givest them their life, thou sendest forth the\n      Nile in heaven, that it may descend for them; it raises its waves\n      mountain high like the sea, it waters the fields of their cities.\n      How glorious are thy counsels! O lord of eternity, thou art a Nile\n      in heaven for foreign men and cattle throughout all the earth! They\n      walk on their feet, (and) the Nile cometh to Egypt from the other\n      world.\u201d\n\n   66 Diod. Sic. i. 83.\n\n   67 Except in the case of Osiris at Abydos; Petrie, _The Royal Tombs of\n      the First Dynasty_, pt. i. pl. xv. 16; comp. also at Kom el-A\u1e25mar,\n      _Hierakonpolis_, pt. i. pl. xxvi. B, though here it seems to be the\n      Pharaoh who is represented.\n\n   68 Quibell in the _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Aegyptische Sprache_, xxxvi. pls.\n      xii., xiii.; _Hierakonpolis_, pt. i. pl. xxix.\n\n   69 On a stela in the Wadi Maghara, in the Sinaitic Peninsula, Sahu-Ra\n      of the Fifth Dynasty, divided into two figures, one with the crown\n      of Lower Egypt the other with that of Upper Egypt, is standing\n      before a standard on which are the two emblems of Southern and\n      Northern Egypt, Set and Horus. Set is represented by his usual\n      animal, but Horus by an ur\u00e6us serpent and the same symbol as that on\n      the plaque (de Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte_, i.\n      p. 233). As we learn from the legend of Seb recounted at At-Nebes\n      (Saft el-Henna), the two relics preserved there were the ur\u00e6us and\n      lock of hair of Ra. The lock of hair has practically the same form\n      as the symbol we are considering here, and long before the legend\n      had been concocted, Ra and Horus had been identified together (see\n      Griffith, _Antiquities of Tell el-Yahudiyeh, Seventh Memoir of the\n      Egypt Exploration Fund_, pl. xxiii.).\n\n   70 De Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte_, ii. pls. ii.\n      and iii.; Sayce in the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical\n      Arch\u00e6ology_, Feb. 1898. It will be noticed that Thoth is represented\n      by the ibis and not by the ape.\n\n   71 De Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte_, p. 93.\n\n   72 For late examples of the worship of animals like the cat, ram,\n      swallow, or goose, as animals and not as incarnations of an official\n      god, see Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie\n      \u00e9gyptiennes_, ii. p. 395 sqq. The rarity of them is due to their\n      representing private and domestic cults not recognised by the\n      religion of the State. \u201cThe worship of the swallow, cat, and goose,\n      which had commenced as the pure and simple adoration of these\n      creatures in themselves, always remained so for the multitude. We\n      must not forget that Orientals regard beasts somewhat differently\n      from ourselves. They ascribe to them a language, a knowledge of the\n      future, an extreme acuteness of the senses which allows them to\n      perceive objects and beings invisible to man. It was not, indeed,\n      all Egypt that worshipped in the beast the beast itself; but a\n      considerable part of it which belonged almost entirely to the same\n      social condition, and represented pretty much the same moral and\n      intellectual ideas.\u201d\n\n   73 See Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Aegypten_, pp. 108, 109.\n\n   74 Late inscriptions call Bakh or Bakis \u201cthe living soul of Ra,\u201d but\n      this was when Mentu and Ra had been identified together. Stel\u00e6 of\n      the Roman period, however, from Erment represent the sacred bull\n      without any solar emblem, while by the side of it stands a\n      hawk-headed crocodile crowned with the orb of the sun. It is\n      possible that the latter may be connected with the hawk-headed\n      crocodile, with the orb of the sun on its head and an ur\u00e6us serpent\n      at the end of its tail, which in Greek _graffiti_ at Phil\u00e6 is called\n      Ptiris.\n\n   75 Nicolaus Damascen., _Fr._ 128, ed. M\u00fcller.\n\n   76 De Roug\u00e9, _Monnaies de nomes_, p. 46.\n\n   77 Griffith (_Proc. of Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, xxi. p. 278)\n      has recently proposed to see in De\u1e25uti a derivative from the name of\n      the nome De\u1e25ut, like Anzti, the title of Osiris at Busiris, from the\n      name of the nome Anzet. But this is \u201cputting the cart before the\n      horse.\u201d It was not the nomes that were birds or men, but the deities\n      worshipped in them. Anz (perhaps from the Semitic _\u2019az_, \u201cthe strong\n      one\u201d) meant \u201cking,\u201d and represented the human Osiris.\n\n   78 Plutarch, _De Iside et Osiride_, ed. Leemans, lxxii. p. 126.\n\n_   79 Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Aegyptische Sprache_ (1880) p. 50.\n\n_   80 Rev. Arch\u00e9ologique_, xxxiv. p. 291. On the seal-cylinder they are\n      accompanied by the lion-headed eagle of primitive Babylonian art.\n      The Egyptian figures are given in the _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Aegyptische\n      Sprache_, xxxvi. pl. xii.\n\n_   81 Ep. ad Cor._ 25.\n\n   82 See also Herodotos, ii. 73; Pliny, _N. H._ x. 2; Tertullian, _De\n      Resurr._ 13.\n\n   83 De Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte_, ii. p. 165.\n\n   84 Sayce, _Proc. SBA._, Feb. 1898, No. 8. On a monument discovered at\n      S\u00e2n (Petrie, _Tanis_, pt. ii. pl. x. 170), we read of \u201cHorus in the\n      _bennu_ as a black bull,\u201d \u201cHorus in the _bennu_ as a horned bull.\u201d\n      The cemetery of Tanis was called \u201cthe city of the ph\u0153nix\u201d (_bennu_).\n      At Edfu it is said that the ph\u0153nix (_bennu_) \u201ccomes forth from the\n      holy heart\u201d of Osiris.\n\n   85 On a stela in the Louvre a certain Psamtik, son of Uza-Hor, calls\n      himself prophet of Khufu, Khaf-Ra, and Dadef-Ra, as well as of\n      Tanen, Isis, and Harmakhis.\n\n   86 The versification is Canon Rawnsley\u2019s, _Notes for the Nile_, pp.\n      188, 189. Professor Erman\u2019s literal translation is as follows (_Life\n      in Ancient Egypt_, Eng. tr., pp. 386, 387)\u2014\n\n      \u201cI heard the words of Imhotep and Har-dad-ef,\n      Who both speak thus in their sayings:\n      \u2018Behold the dwellings of those men, their walls fall down,\n      Their place is no more,\n      They are as though they had never existed.\u2019\n      No one comes from thence to tell us what is become of them,\n      Who tells us how it goes with them, who nerves our hearts,\n      Until you yourselves approach the place whither they are gone.\n      With joyful heart forget not to glorify thyself\n      And follow thy heart\u2019s desire, so long as thou livest.\n      Put myrrh on thy head, clothe thyself in fine linen,\n      Anointing thyself with the marvellous things of God.\n      Adorn thyself as beautifully as thou canst,\n      And let not thy heart be discouraged.\n      Follow thy heart\u2019s desire and thy pleasures\n      As long as thou livest on earth.\n      Follow thy heart\u2019s desire and thy pleasures\n      Till there comes to thee the day of mourning.\n      Yet he, whose heart is at rest, hears not their complaint,\n      And he who lies in the tomb understands not their mourning.\n      With beaming face keep holiday to-day,\n      And rest not therein.\n      For none carries his goods away with him,\n      Yea, none returns again, who has journeyed thither.\u201d\n\n   87 Brugsch\u2019s translation (_Die Aegyptologie_, i. p. 163).\n\n   88 Hibbert Lectures on the _Religion of Ancient Egypt_ (1879), pp.\n      93-100.\n\n   89 Brugsch, _Die Aegyptologie_, p. 167.\n\n   90 See _Beni-Hasan_, pt. iii. (_Arch\u00e6ological Survey of Egypt_), pl. v.\n      fig. 75.\n\n   91 The double-headed axe is carved repeatedly on the walls of the\n      \u201cpalace of Minos,\u201d discovered by Dr. A. J. Evans at Knossos, and\n      seems to have been the divine symbol which was believed to protect\n      the building from injury. On the coins of Tarsus the sun-god Sandan\n      carries an axe.\n\n   92 See above, p. 83.\n\n_   93 De Isid._ 12.\n\n   94 As Thoth writes the name of the king upon the sacred sycamore in\n      order to ensure him everlasting life, so the name of Ea is written\n      upon the core of the sacred cedar-tree (_WAI._ iv. 15, _Rev._\n      10-13); Sayce, Hibbert Lectures on the _Religion of the Ancient\n      Babylonians_, p. 240.\n\n_   95 \u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, ii. pp.\n      381-385.\n\n   96 This is Brugsch\u2019s translation (_Religion und Mythologie der alten\n      Aegypter_, p. 123 sqq.); but the meaning of the last name is\n      doubtful, and the first is rather \u201ctime\u201d than \u201ceternity.\u201d\n\n   97 See Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_, ii. pp. 257\n      sqq. and 375 sqq. In an inscription discovered by Professor Petrie\n      in the tombs of the first two dynasties at Abydos, Thoth is\n      represented as a seated ape (_The Royal Tombs of Abydos_, pt. i. pl.\n      xvii. 26). On the other hand, on the broken Abydos slate figured in\n      de Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte_, pl. ii., which\n      is probably prehistoric, Thoth appears as an ibis.\n\n_   98 Recherches sur les Origines de l\u2019\u00c9gypte_, p. 65.\n\n   99 Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_, p. 429 sqq.\n\n  100 The same cap is worn by the god who sits behind a scorpion-man on a\n      stone containing a grant of land by the Babylonian king\n      Nebuchadrezzar I. (B.C. 1100). The stone was found at Abu-Habba, and\n      is now in the British Museum (_WAI._ v. 57).\n\n  101 Maspero (_Dawn of Civilisation_, p. 157) reproduces a picture in the\n      temple of Luxor representing Khnum moulding Amon-hotep III. and his\n      _Ka_ on a potter\u2019s table.\n\n  102 See Scheil, _Recueil de Travaux_, xx. p. 124 sqq.\n\n  103 The _khnum_ or \u201cpot\u201d is often used to express the name of Khnum in\n      the hieroglyphics. It reminds us of the vase on early Babylonian\n      seal-cylinders from the two sides of which flow the rivers Tigris\n      and Euphrates, and which is often held in the hands of the water-god\n      Ea. The design is reproduced with modifications on early Syrian\n      cylinders, and the name of the zodiacal sign Aquarius shows to what\n      an antiquity it must reach back. The primitive Egyptians believed\n      that the Nile issued from a grotto to which the _qerti_ or \u201ctwo\n      gulfs\u201d of the Cataract gave access (Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_,\n      pp. 19, 38, 39), and Khnum was the god of the Cataract. Perhaps the\n      classical representation of the Tiber and other rivers holding urns\n      from which a stream of water flows is derived from Egypt.\n\n  104 Men-nofer (Memphis), \u201cthe good place,\u201d is the equivalent of the name\n      of the ancient seaport of Babylonia, Eridu, the Sumerian Eri-duga or\n      \u201cgood city.\u201d Ea, the culture-god and creator, was the god of Eridu.\n      In the Deluge tablet (l. 9) Ea says that he had not \u201copened (_pat\u00fb_)\n      the oracle of the great gods.\u201d It is hardly worth while to mention\n      that the antiquity of Memphis has been disputed by some\n      philologists.\n\n  105 Pta\u1e25 is stated in the Book of the Dead to have been the original\n      author of the ceremony which he first performed on the dead gods.\n\n  106 This is Maspero\u2019s view (_\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_, ii.\n      pp. 21, 22). Wiedemann (_Religion der alten Aegypter_, p. 75) makes\n      Sokaris a sun-god; but his solar attributes belong to the time when\n      he was identified with Ra of Heliopolis.\n\n  107 It was only when the sun-god had absorbed the other deities that\n      they became the children of Ra.\n\n_  108 Recueil de Travaux_, xix. pp. 50, 54.\n\n  109 To \u201ccome in peace\u201d is still a common expression in Egyptian Arabic,\n      and means \u201cto return safely.\u201d The name seems to be taken from the\n      office of Im-hotep, which was to conduct the dead safely back to a\n      second life.\n\n  110 Nofer-Tum and Im-hotep had human forms like their father. The first\n      is a man with a lotus flower on the head, the second a youth with a\n      papyrus roll on the knee.\n\n  111 There was a difference only in the vowel of the first syllable.\n\n  112 The Nile-gods, representing the Nile and the canals, are depicted as\n      stout men with large breasts, crowned with flowers, and wearing only\n      the narrow girdle of prehistoric Egypt. The human form agrees well\n      with the fact that the Nile was first engineered, and so made a\n      source of life for Egypt, by the Pharaonic Egyptians. Babylonia was\n      the country, it must be remembered, where river engineering and\n      irrigation were originally developed.\n\n  113 \u201cHymn to the Nile,\u201d translated by P. Guieysse, _Records of the\n      Past_, new series, iii. p. 46 sqq. The hymn was composed by Anna or\n      Annana in the time of Meneptah II.\n\n  114 Brugsch, _Religion und Mythologie_, pp. 3, 248, 348.\n\n  115 Her name is already mentioned in the Pyramid texts, and in _Pepi_\n      ii. 131 she is described as the eye of Horus and \u201cthe opener of the\n      paths,\u201d the ordinary title of Anubis as god of the dead.\n\n  116 In the Speos Artermidos near Beni-Hassan, where a large cemetery of\n      mummified cats has been found, she is called Pakht, an older form of\n      Bast.\n\n  117 On a slab discovered by Professor Petrie at Koptos, Usertesen I. of\n      the Twelfth Dynasty already appears standing before a cat-headed\n      goddess who is called \u201cBast, the lady of Shel.\u201d Shel is perhaps\n      Ashel at Karnak, where the temple of Mut stood, in which so many\n      figures of Bast or Sekhet have been found (Petrie, _Koptos_, pl. x.\n      2). The name of Bast also occurs in the Pyramid texts (_Pepi_ 290);\n      but here it is an epithet of Uazit, the goddess of Dep or Buto, once\n      the capital of the kingdom of Northern Egypt, who is contrasted with\n      the goddess of Nekheb.\n\n  118 Naville, _Bubastis_ (_Egypt Exploration Fund_), i. pp. 44, 47, 48.\n\n  119 Horus Ahi. The meaning of Ahi, the local title assigned to Horus the\n      younger, is doubtful.\n\n  120 Thus at Dendera we read: \u201cAncestral mother of the gods, thou unitest\n      thyself with thy father Ra in thy festal chamber.\u201d\n\n  121 The so-called Hathor head with the horns of a cow is already found\n      on the slate plaque of Kom el-A\u1e25mar, which is either of the time of\n      the First Dynasty or pre-Menic (_Zeits. f. Aegypt. Spr._ xxxvi. pl.\n      xii.). A head of similar type is engraved under the name of Pepi\n      II., discovered at Koptos (Petrie, _Koptos_, pl. v. 7).\n\n  122 Horus and Hathor, that is to say, Baal and Ashtoreth, were,\n      according to the Egyptians, the deities of Mafket, the Sinaitic\n      Peninsula.\n\n  123 It must be remembered that in Egypt the place occupied by the\n      morning star in the astronomy and myths of other peoples was taken\n      by Sirius on account of its importance for the rising of the Nile.\n      And Sirius was identified with Isis.\n\n_  124 Recueil de Travaux_, xx. p. 62. Dr. Scheil further points out that\n      the sacred bark of Bau, with whom Istar is identified, was called\n      \u201cthe ship of the holy cow.\u201d At Dendera also, Isis, in her bark as\n      goddess of the star Sirius, becomes Hathor under the form of a cow.\n\n  125 Professor Wiedemann has suggested that the name of Men-tu or Mon-tu\n      is connected with that of A-mon. It is, however, more reasonable to\n      associate it with that of the Mentiu or Semitic nomads of the\n      Sinaitic Peninsula.\n\n  126 Hence the ram-headed sphinxes that lined the roads leading to the\n      temple of Karnak. The flesh of the ram was tabooed at Thebes, an\n      indication that the animal was originally a totem (cf. Herod. ii.\n      42).\n\n  127 A stela of Antef IV., found by M. Legrain in 1900, shows that Khonsu\n      was preceded by Pta\u1e25 as the third member of the trinity. See above,\n      p. 90.\n\n  128 So Lauth, _Aus Aegypten\u2019s Vorzeit_, p. 61; Brugsch, _Dictionnaire\n      g\u00e9ographique_, pp. 61, 62; Maspero, _The Dawn of Civilisation_, p.\n      180. The evidence, however, is not quite clear.\n\n  129 The bronze figures of the ibis found at Tel el-Baql\u00eeya, on the east\n      bank of the Damietta branch of the Nile, opposite Abusir or Busiris,\n      have shown that it is the site of the capital of the Hermopolite\n      nome.\n\n  130 At Be\u1e25b\u00eat near Mans\u00fbra.\n\n  131 This, at least, is how the name is usually written. But on an early\n      seal-cylinder which I have published in the _Proc. SBA._, Feb. 1898,\n      No. 2, where we read, \u201cThe city of the ram, the city which is called\n      Dad,\u201d the name is written _D-d_, and on a libation-table of the\n      Sixth Dynasty from El-Kab we find _Dad-d-u_ (Quibell, _El-Kab_, pl.\n      iv. 1). The earlier pronunciation of the name as found in the\n      Pyramid texts is Zaddu or Zadu.\n\n  132 As early as the age of the Pyramid texts the column Dad had come to\n      be explained as a picture of the spine, or rather spinal column\n      (_zad_), of Osiris, which was supposed to be preserved at Daddu or\n      Pi-Asar-neb-Daddu or Abusir. See _Unas_ 7.\n\n  133 Not unfrequently a rich Egyptian who was buried at Saqq\u00e2ra had a\n      cenotaph at Abydos. I believe that the fashion had been set by the\n      founder of the united monarchy himself, and that besides the tomb of\n      Menes at Negada there was also a cenotaph of the king at Abydos. At\n      all events clay impressions of his Ka-name A\u1e25a have been found there\n      in the Omm el-Ga\u2019ab.\n\n  134 The title borne by Osiris at Abydos was Khent-amentit, \u201cthe ruler of\n      the west.\u201d There is no need of turning the title into a separate god\n      who was afterwards identified with Osiris: he was as much Osiris as\n      was Neb-Daddu, \u201cthe lord of Daddu.\u201d Professor Maspero says with\n      truth that \u201cKhent-amentit was the dead Anher, a sun which had set in\n      the west\u201d (_\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, ii.\n      p. 24)\u2014or rather, perhaps, a sun that was setting in the west, as\n      his domain was the necropolis of Omm el-Ga\u2019ab, immediately eastward\n      of the western boundary of hills. When \u201cOsiris of Daddu\u201d is\n      distinguished from \u201cKhent-Amentit of Abydos,\u201d as on a stela of the\n      Eleventh Dynasty (Daressy in the _Recueil de Travaux_, xiv. p. 23),\n      this is only in accordance with the Egyptian habit of transforming a\n      divine epithet into a separate deity.\n\n  135 Already in the Pyramid texts Horus is said to have assisted in the\n      burial of Osiris, who goes to the plains of Alu with \u201cthe great gods\n      that proceed from On\u201d (_Pepi_ ii. 864-872); and we have perhaps a\n      reminiscence of the spread of the Osirian cult to the south and the\n      identification of Osiris with Akhem, the mummified Horus of Nekhen,\n      in _Pepi_ ii. 849, where we read: \u201cSeb installs by his rites Osiris\n      as god, to whom the watchers in Pe make offering, and the watchers\n      in Nekhen venerate him\u201d (Maspero in the _Recueil de Travaux_, xii.\n      p. 168). Pe and Nekhen were the capitals of the two pre-Menic\n      kingdoms of Northern and Southern Egypt, and on a stela from Nekhen\n      (Kom el-A\u1e25mar) in the Cairo Museum, \u201cHorus of Nekhen\u201d is identified\n      with Osiris (_Recueil de Travaux_, xiv. p. 22, No. xx.). In the\n      inscriptions of the Pyramid of Pepi II., lines 864-5, it is said\n      that Isis and Nebh\u00e2t wept for Osiris at Pe along with \u201cthe souls of\n      Pe.\u201d Pe with its temple of the younger Horus, and Dep with its\n      temple of Uazit the goddess of the north, together formed the city\n      called Buto by the Greeks.\n\n  136 So in the Pyramid texts (_e.g._ _Teta_ 171, 172).\n\n  137 The origin of the name of Set had already been forgotten in the age\n      of the Pyramid texts, where it is explained by the determinative\n      _set_, \u201ca stone.\u201d\n\n  138 When the hieroglyphic name of the Busirite nome was first invented,\n      Osiris was still the living \u201clord of Daddu\u201d rather than the\n      mummified patron of its necropolis, since it represents him as a\n      living Pharaoh with the title of _\u00e2nz_ or \u201cchieftain.\u201d\n\n_  139 Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, xii. 8, pp.\n      401-402.\n\n  140 The origin of the name of Osiris had been forgotten by the Egyptians\n      long before the age of the Pyramid texts, where we find (_Unas_ 229)\n      the grammatical goddess User-t invented to explain Osiris, as if the\n      latter were the adjective _user_, \u201cstrong\u201d! M. Gr\u00e9baut long ago\n      expressed his belief that Osiris was of foreign origin (_Recueil de\n      Travaux_, i. p. 120).\n\n  141 Nebo or Nabium (Nabu), \u201cthe prophet,\u201d was the interpreter of the\n      will of Merodach, just as Merodach was the interpreter of the will\n      of Ea.\n\n  142 The constellation of Osiris was called \u201cthe soul of Osiris,\u201d and\n      Professor Maspero notes that the Pyramid texts place his kingdom\n      near the Great Bear (_\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_, ii. p.\n      20). Isis became Sirius, and Horus the morning star.\n\n_  143 The Ancient Egyptian Doctrine of Immortality_, p. 48.\n\n  144 Renouf\u2019s translation of the 125th chapter of the Book of the Dead\n      (_Papyrus of Ani_) is as follows:\u2014\u201cI am not a doer of what is wrong.\n      I am not a plunderer. I am not a robber. I am not a slayer of men. I\n      do not stint the measure of corn. I am not a niggard. I do not\n      desire the property of the gods. I am not a teller of lies. I am not\n      a monopoliser of food. I am no extortioner. I am not unchaste. I am\n      not the cause of others\u2019 tears. I am not a dissembler. I am not a\n      doer of violence. I am not a domineering character. I do not pillage\n      cultivated land. I am not an eavesdropper. I am not a chatterer. I\n      do not dismiss a case through self-interest. I am not unchaste with\n      women or men. I am not obscene. I am not an exciter of alarms. I am\n      not hot in speech. I do not turn a deaf ear to the words of\n      righteousness. I am not foul-mouthed. I am not a striker. I am not a\n      quarreller. I do not revoke my words. I do not multiply clamour in\n      reply to words. I am not evil-minded or a doer of evil. I am not a\n      reviler of the king. I put no obstruction on (the use of the Nile)\n      water. I am not a bawler. I am not a reviler of the god. I am not\n      fraudulent. I am not sparing in offerings to the gods. I do not\n      deprive the dead of the funeral cakes. I take not away the cakes of\n      the child, or profane the god of my locality. I do not kill sacred\n      animals.\u201d\n\n  145 Wiedemann, _Die Religion der alten Aegypter_, pp. 132, 133; and\n      Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_, pp. 188-190.\n\n  146 Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_, p. 190.\n\n  147 Maspero, _Dawn of Civilisation_, p. 191.\n\n  148 So on a stela translated by Professor Maspero (_Recueil de Travaux_,\n      iv. p. 128) the deceased says: \u201cNever has one said of me, What is\n      that he hath done? I have not injured, I have not committed evil;\n      none has suffered through my fault, the lie has never entered into\n      me since I was born, but I have always done that which was true in\n      the sight of the lord of the two worlds. I have been united in heart\n      to the god; I have walked in the good paths of justice, love, and\n      all the virtues. Ah, let my soul live ... for behold I am come to\n      this land, O souls, to be with you in the tomb, I am become one of\n      you who detest sin.\u201d\n\n  149 Clem. Alex. _Strom._ vi. p. 260, ed. Sylb. See Lepsius, _Einleitung\n      zur Chronologie der Aegypter_, pp. 45, 46. The remains ascribed to\n      Hermes Trismegistos, including the Dialogue called _P\u0153mandres_, have\n      been translated into English by J. D. Chambers (1882). The Dialogue\n      is already quoted by Justin Martyr (_Exhort. ad Gr\u00e6cos_, xxxviii.).\n\n  150 The extraordinary care with which the sacred texts were handed down\n      through long periods of time is illustrated by certain of the\n      Pyramid texts, which are reproduced word for word down to the close\n      of the Egyptian monarchy. Thus passages at the beginning of the\n      inscriptions in the Pyramid of Unas are repeated in the Ritual of\n      Abydos, and another portion of the same text is found on a stela of\n      the Thirteenth Dynasty, as well as in one of the courts of the\n      temple of queen Hatshepsu at D\u00ear el-B\u00e2hari, where, as Professor\n      Maspero remarks, \u201cwe have three identical versions of different\n      epochs and localities.\u201d The invocations against serpents (_Unas_\n      300-339) recur in the tomb of Bak-n-ren-ef of the Twenty-sixth\n      Dynasty. See Maspero, _Recueil de Travaux_, iii. pp. 182, 195, 220.\n      The fact gives us confidence in the statements of the Egyptian\n      scribes, that such and such chapters of the Book of the Dead had\n      been \u201cfound\u201d or written in the reigns of certain early kings.\n\n  151 There is much to be said for the view of Professor Piehl, that we\n      have in it an amalgamation of the rituals and formul\u00e6 of the various\n      chief sanctuaries of Egypt, which have been thrown side by side\n      without any attempt at arrangement or harmony. One of such rituals\n      would be that mentioned on the sarcophagus of Nes-Shu-Tefnut, where\n      we read of \u201cthe sacred writings of Horus in the city of Huren\u201d in\n      the Busirite nome (_Recueil de Travaux_, vi. p. 134). On the\n      sarcophagus of Beb, discovered by Professor Petrie at Dendera, and\n      belonging to the period between the Sixth and the Eleventh\n      Dynasties, we have not only \u201cearly versions\u201d of parts of the Book of\n      the Dead, but also chapters which do not occur in the standard text\n      (Petrie, _Dendereh_, 1898, pp. 56-58).\n\n  152 We even read in them of Ra being \u201cpurified in the fields of Alu\u201d\n      (_Unas_ 411).\n\n  153 Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, pp.\n      367-370.\n\n  154 Various interpretations have been given of the phrase _per m hru_. I\n      have adopted that which seems to me most consonant with both grammar\n      and logical probability.\n\n  155 The inscribed scarab does not seem to be older than the age of the\n      Eleventh Dynasty, when it began to take the place of the cylinder as\n      a seal. At all events there is no authentic record of the discovery\n      of one in any tomb of an earlier date, and the scarabs with the\n      names of Neb-ka-ra, Khufu, and other early kings, were for the most\n      part made in the time of the Twenty-sixth Dynasty. It is possible,\n      however, that some at least of the scarabs which bear the name of\n      Ra-n-ka of the Eighth Dynasty are contemporaneous with the Pharaoh\n      whose name is written upon them. If so, they are the oldest\n      inscribed scarabs with which we are acquainted. Uninscribed scarabs,\n      however, go back to the prehistoric age. The use of the scarab as an\n      amulet is already referred to in the Pyramid texts. And Dr. Reisner\n      has discovered green porcelain beetles in the prehistoric graves of\n      Negadiy\u00e2, along with other green porcelain amulets, such as turtles,\n      etc.\n\n  156 As is also the case in the Pyramid texts.\n\n  157 Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_, p. 369.\n\n  158 Maspero, \u201cLa Pyramide de Pepi 1er\u201d in _Recueil de Travaux_, vii. pp.\n      161, 162. In the Babylonian Epic of Gilgames the place of Nu-Urru is\n      taken by Ur-Ninnu.\n\n  159 The Book of the Dead has been analysed by Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de\n      Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, i. pp. 325-387.\n\n  160 Translated by P. J. de Horrack.\n\n  161 For a translation and analysis of the Book of Am Duat, see Maspero,\n      _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_ ii. pp. 1-163.\n\n_  162 Revue \u00e9gyptologique_, i. 4, ii. 3 (1880, 1881), where an account of\n      the demotic story is given by E. R\u00e9villout.\n\n  163 Scheil, \u201cTombeaux th\u00e9bains\u201d in _M\u00e9moires de la Mission arch\u00e9ologique\n      fran\u00e7aise du Caire_, v. 4, pl. 4.\n\n  164 So in the Pyramid texts (_Unas_ 170) reference is made to \u201cthe\n      _baqt_,\u201d or \u201cben-nut tree which is in On.\u201d The tree is the _Moringa\n      aptera G\u00e6rtner_, from the fruit of which the myrobalanum oil was\n      extracted (Joret, _Les Plantes dans l\u2019Antiquit\u00e9 et au Moyen Age_, i.\n      pp. 133, 134).\n\n_  165 Ancient Egyptians_, iii. p. 349. The _bennu_ is described as \u201cthe\n      soul of Osiris.\u201d\n\n_  166 \u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_, ii. p. 395 sqq.\n\n  167 The influence of the State religion is visible in the picture, as\n      the cow has the solar disc between its horns, and the cobra is\n      crowned not only with horns, but also with the solar disc. Behind\n      the cobra is the leafy branch of a tree. There is no reason for\n      supposing with Wiedemann (_Mus\u00e9on_, 1884) that the monument is\n      Ethiopian: what is decipherable in the inscription is purely\n      Egyptian. Professor Wiedemann calls the animal on the left a ram,\n      but my drawing made it a cow. At the feet of the cow, which has a\n      garland round the neck, are two vases.\n\n  168 See the very interesting study of Maspero on \u201cLa D\u00e9esse Miritskro et\n      ses gu\u00e9risons miraculeuses\u201d in _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et\n      d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie_, ii. pp. 402-419; _Recueil de Travaux_, ii. p. 109\n      sqq.\n\n  169 The Belmore collection of Egyptian antiquities contains several\n      stel\u00e6 which commemorate the popular worship of the serpent; see\n      _Belmore Collection_, pls. 7, 8, and 12. In one of them the ur\u00e6us\n      has the human head of the official deity; in another it stands on\n      the top of a shrine; but on one (given in pl. 7) the worshipper is\n      kneeling before a coluber of great length, which has none of the\n      attributes of the State gods, and whose numerous coils remind us of\n      Apophis.\n\n  170 Herodotos, i. 78.\n\n  171 Sayce, \u201cSerpent Worship in Ancient and Modern Egypt,\u201d in the\n      _Contemporary Review_, Oct. 1893.\n\n_  172 Voyage du Sieur Paul Lucas, fait en mdccxiv etc., par Ordre de\n      Louis XIV._, ii. pp. 83-86.\n\n_  173 Voyage d\u2019\u00c9gypte et de Nubie_, nouv. \u00e9dit. par L. Langl\u00e9s, ii. pp.\n      64-69.\n\n  174 See my article on \u201cSerpent Worship in Ancient and Modern Egypt,\u201d in\n      the _Contemporary Review_, Oct. 1893. On a rock called Hagar\n      el-Ghor\u00e2b, a few miles north of Assuan, I have found _graffiti_ of\n      the age of the Twelfth Dynasty, which show that a chapel of \u201cthe\n      living serpent\u201d stood on the spot; and a native informed me that the\n      rock is still haunted by a monstrous serpent, \u201cas long as an oar and\n      as thick as a man,\u201d which appears at night and destroys, with the\n      fire that blazes from its eyes, whoever is unfortunate enough to\n      fall in its way. See _Recueil de Travaux_, xvi. p. 174.\n\n  175 In the _Verhandlungen der Gesellschaft f\u00fcr Erdkunde zu Berlin_,\n      1889, No. 7.\n\n  176 The legend was first published by Pleyte and Rossi, \u201cLes Papyrus\n      hi\u00e9ratiques de Turin,\u201d pls. 31, 77, 131-8. It was translated by\n      Lef\u00e9bure in the _Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Aegyptische Sprache_, 1883, pp.\n      27-33.\n\n  177 The shrine of Horus, whom the legend here identifies with the son of\n      Osiris, was called Mesen at Edfu. The winged solar disc, which seems\n      to have originated there, is called sometimes \u201cthe lord of the city\n      of Be\u1e25udet,\u201d sometimes \u201cthe lord of the city of Mesen.\u201d Be\u1e25udet was\n      formerly read Hud, and it is possible that this was really the\n      pronunciation of the name in later days. At all events it seems to\n      be the origin of the modern Edfu, which, of course, has nothing to\n      do with the verb _deb_, \u201cto pierce.\u201d\n\n  178 \u201cThe City of the Twins\u201d seems to be the same as \u1e24a-Zaui, \u201cthe House\n      of the Twins,\u201d which D\u00fcmichen identifies with the Greek Khnubis,\n      close to Esna. An inscription at Esna says that it was also termed\n      Pa-Sa\u1e25ura, \u201cthe House of Sa\u1e25ura\u201d (of the Fifth Dynasty), a name\n      which D\u00fcmichen finds in that of the modern village of Sahera, south\n      of Esna. On a prehistoric slate found at Abydos the name of the city\n      appears to be indicated by the figures of two twins inside the\n      cartouche of a town (de Morgan, _Recherches sur les Origines de\n      l\u2019\u00c9gypte_, i. pl. iii., first register).\n\n  179 Naville, _Mythe d\u2019Horus_, pls. 12-18; Brugsch, _Abhandlungen der\n      G\u00f6tting. gelehrt. Akademie_, xiv.\n\n  180 Griffith, \u201cMinor Explorations,\u201d in the _Seventh Memoir of the Egypt\n      Exploration Fund_ (1890), pp. 71-73; Maspero, _Dawn of\n      Civilisation_, pp. 169-171.\n\n  181 Cf. the 155th chapter of the Book of the Dead: \u201cThese words must be\n      spoken over a gilded _dad_, which is made from the heart of a\n      sycamore and hung round the neck of the dead. Then shall he pass\n      through the gates of the other world.\u201d When this chapter was\n      written, however, the real origin of the _dad_\u2014a row of four\n      columns\u2014had been forgotten, and it was imagined to represent the\n      backbone of Osiris. We are transported by it into the full bloom of\n      religious symbolism.\n\n  182 Erman, _Life in Ancient Egypt_, Eng. tr., p. 273.\n\n  183 See Maspero, _\u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, i.\n      pp. 82-89.\n\n  184 See above, p. 90.\n\n_  185 Records of the Past_, first series, ii.\n\n  186 See Cudworth\u2019s translation of Iamblichus.\n\n  187 Maspero, \u201cLa Pyramide du Roi Ounas,\u201d in the _Recueil de Travaux_,\n      iv. pp. 59-61.\n\n  188 Elsewhere in the Pyramid texts the Akhimu-seku or planets of the\n      northern hemisphere are identified with the gods (_Unas_ 218-220);\n      Unas himself rises as a star (_Unas_ 391); Sirius is the sister of\n      Pepi (_Pepi_ 172); while the Kh\u00fb or luminous spirits are identified\n      with the planets (_Teta_ 289). We hear of the \u201cfields of the stars\u201d\n      (_Unas_ 419), of the morning star in the fields of Alu (_Pepi_ 80),\n      and of Akhimt, the grammatically-formed wife of Akhim \u201cplanet,\u201d who\n      is associated with \u201cBab\u00ee, the lord of night\u201d (_Unas_ 645, 646). One\n      of the constellations frequently mentioned in the Pyramid texts is\n      \u201cthe Bull of heaven,\u201d which was also an important constellation in\n      early Babylonian astronomy, where the name formed part of an\n      astronomical system; in _Unas_ 421 the \u201cBull of heaven\u201d is called\n      the _An_ or \u201ccolumn\u201d of Heliopolis. We hear also of \u201cthe fresh water\n      of the stars\u201d (_Unas_ 210). With the latter may be compared the\n      goddess Qeb\u1e25u, or \u201cFresh Water,\u201d the daughter of Anubis, the\n      primitive god of the dead, who poured forth the liquid from four\n      vases (_Pepi_ 393). With the name of the goddess the symbol of the\n      Ant\u00e6opolite nome of Upper Egypt is associated.\n\n  189 In the _Proc. SBA._ xv. p. 233.\n\n  190 Or rather, perhaps, was the Osiris of primeval Egypt.\n\n  191 Lepsius, _Chronologie der Aegypter_, pp. 78, 79. See Brugsch, _Die\n      Aegyptologie_, ii. pp. 339-342.\n\n  192 Hommel, _Ausland_, 1892, p. 102; Ginzel, _Beitr\u00e4ge zur alten\n      Geschichte_, i. pp. 12-15. Diodorus (ii. 30) states that the\n      \u201ccouncillor gods\u201d were only thirty in number; but the list of\n      planetary stations discovered by Hommel in _WAI._ v. 46, shows that\n      the text must be corrected into thirty-six. Indeed, Diodorus himself\n      adds that every ten days there was a change of constellation, so\n      that in a year of 360 days there must have been thirty-six\n      constellations in all.\n\n  193 The Egyptian _za_ is the Semitic _\u1e93i_, \u201cship,\u201d from which it seems\n      to have been borrowed.\n\n  194 Maspero, \u201cLa Pyramide du Roi Pepi 1er\u201d in _Recueil de Travaux_,\n      viii. p. 103.\n\n  195 For instance, in the Rhind Papyrus: Wiedemann, \u201cEin alt\u00e4gyptischer\n      Weltsch\u00f6pfungsmythus,\u201d in the _Urquell_, new ser., ii. p. 64,\n      \u201cHeaven was not, earth was not, the good and evil serpents did not\n      exist.\u201d\n\n  196 See above, p. 86.\n\n  197 The serpent with the seven necks (_Unas_ 630, _Teta_ 305) is the\n      Babylonian \u201cserpent with the seven heads,\u201d and points to Babylonia,\n      where alone seven was a sacred number. Other coincidences between\n      Egyptian and Babylonian mythology that may be noted are \u201cthe tree of\n      life\u201d (_khet n \u00e2nkh_) which grew in Alu, and was given by the stars\n      to the dead that they might live for ever (_Pepi_ 431); and the\n      \u201cgreat house,\u201d the Babylonian _\u00ea-gal_, which is several times\n      referred to in the Pyramid texts.\n\n  198 Thus in the Pyramid texts (_Unas_ 518) Unas is described as \u201ceating\u201d\n      the crowns of Upper and Lower Egypt.\n\n_  199 \u00c9tudes de Mythologie et d\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes_, ii. pp. 446,\n      447.\n\n  200 Gol\u00e9nischeff, in the _Recueil de Travaux_, xv. pp. 88, 89. The\n      passage is found in Papyrus 1116 of the Hermitage at St. Petersburg.\n      The words \u201cson of man\u201d are a literal translation of the original\n      _si-n-sa_.\n\n  201 For the scenes accompanying the text, see Gayet, \u201cLe Temple de\n      Louxor,\u201d in the _M\u00e9moires de la Mission arch\u00e9ologique fran\u00e7aise au\n      Caire_, xv. 1, pl. lxxi., where, however, the copy of the\n      inscriptions is very incorrect. My translation is made from a copy\n      of my own. The whole inscription is as follows: \u201cSaid by Amon-Ra,\n      etc.: He (the god) has incarnated himself in the royal person of\n      this husband, Thothmes IV., etc.; he found her lying in her beauty;\n      he stood beside her as a god. She has fed upon sweet odours\n      emanating from his majesty. He has gone to her that he may be a\n      father through her. He caused her to behold him in his divine form\n      when he had gone upon her that she might bear a child at the sight\n      of his beauty. His lovableness penetrated her flesh, filling it with\n      the odour of all his perfumes of Punt.\n\n      \u201cSaid by Mut-em-ua before the majesty of this august god Amon, etc.,\n      the twofold divinity: How great is thy twofold will, how [glorious\n      thy] designs in making thy heart repose upon me! Thy dew is upon all\n      my flesh in ... This royal god has done all that is pleasing to him\n      with her.\n\n      \u201cSaid by Amon before her majesty: Amon-hotep is the name of the son\n      which is in thy womb. This child shall grow up according to the\n      words which proceed out of thy mouth. He shall exercise sovereignty\n      and righteousness in this land unto its very end. My soul is in him:\n      he shall wear the twofold crown of royalty, ruling the two lands\n      like the sun for ever.\u201d\n\n  202 Also written Tello\u1e25, on the assumption that the second syllable\n      represents _lo\u1e25_, \u201ca tablet.\u201d But the native pronunciation is Tello.\n\n  203 The palace is represented by the mound called El-Qasr, the temple by\n      that called Tell \u2019Amr\u00e2n ibn \u2019Ali.\n\n  204 The name of Khammu-rabi or Ammu-rabi is written Ammu-rapi in Harper,\n      _Letters_, iii. p. 257, No. 255 (K 552), as was first noticed by Dr.\n      Pinches (see the _Proc. of the Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, May\n      1901, p. 191); Dr. Lindl suggests that the final -_l_ of the Hebrew\n      form is derived from the title _ilu_, \u201cgod,\u201d so often given to the\n      king. Professor Hommel further points out that the character _be_\n      with which the final syllable of the royal name is sometimes written\n      also had the value of _pil_.\n\n  205 Erid\u00fb is a Semitised abbreviation of the Sumerian Eri-dugga, \u201cgood\n      city.\u201d\n\n  206 Years ago I pointed out that _uru_ was one of the words which (along\n      with what it signified) was borrowed by the Semites from their\n      Sumerian neighbours or predecessors (_Transactions of Society of\n      Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, i. 2, pp. 304, 305).\n\n  207 Literally, \u201cthe lord of the ghost(s),\u201d \u201cthe ghost-lord.\u201d The name\n      has been so misunderstood and misinterpreted, that it is necessary\n      to enter into some details in regard to it, though the facts ought\n      to be known even to the beginner in Assyriology. The Sumerian\n      _lilla_ or _lil_ meant a \u201cghost,\u201d \u201cspirit,\u201d or \u201cspook,\u201d and was\n      borrowed by the Semites under the form of _lil\u00fb_, from which the\n      feminine _lil\u00eetu_ was formed in order to represent the female _lil_\n      whom the Sumerians called _kiel lilla_, \u201chandmaid of (the male)\n      _lil_.\u201d _Lil\u00eetu_ is the Hebrew _L\u00eel\u00eeth_ (Isa. xxxiv. 14). In the\n      lexical tablets the _lil_ is explained as \u201ca breath of wind\u201d\n      (_saru_), or more exactly as a _zaqiqu_, or \u201cdust-cloud\u201d (not, of\n      course, \u201ca fog,\u201d as it has sometimes been translated, in defiance\n      alike of common sense and of modern Arab beliefs). When the spirit\n      of Ea-bani rose from the ground, it naturally took the form of a\n      \u201cdust-cloud\u201d; at other times, when the spirits appeared in the air,\n      they revealed their presence by a draught of cold \u201cwind.\u201d\n\n  208 See Pinches, \u201cCertain Inscriptions and Records referring to\n      Babylonia and Elam,\u201d in the _Journal of the Victoria Institute_,\n      xxix. p. 44: \u201cbetween the mouths of the rivers on both sides.\u201d\n\n  209 It is significant that although the antediluvian kings enumerated by\n      Berossos must have belonged to Eridu, as is shown by their\n      connection with the Oannes-gods who rose from the Persian Gulf, they\n      are not kings of Eridu, but of Pantibibla and Larankha (which seems\n      to have been the Surippak of the cuneiform texts).\n\n  210 Thureau-Dangin, in the _Revue S\u00e9mitique_.\n\n  211 Heuzey, \u201cSceaux in\u00e9dits des rois d\u2019Agad\u00e9,\u201d in the _Revue\n      d\u2019Assyriologie_, iv. 1, pp. 1-12.\n\n  212 It is to this adoption by the god that the phrase met with in early\n      Sumerian texts\u2014\u201cthe king (or the man) the son of his god\u201d\u2014probably\n      refers, though it may possibly have eventually come to be synonymous\n      with \u201cpious man.\u201d Professor Hommel compares Hebrew names like\n      Ben-Ammi, \u201cthe son of (the god) Ammi.\u201d\n\n  213 A. H. 83-1-18, 1866, _Rev._ v., published by Pinches in the\n      _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, xviii. 8\n      (1896), and explained by him, p. 255. I should myself prefer to\n      render Par-E\u1e61u \u201cthe land of the offspring of the god E\u1e61u\u201d (or Esau).\n\n  214 See my Hibbert Lectures, p. 107, note.\n\n  215 This at least was the ease in the time of Gudea, to whom we owe all\n      the more important theological references found in the Tello texts.\n\n  216 Thus we have the phrase \u201cto swear by the _Zi_ of the king\u201d (see\n      Delitzsch, _Assyrisches Handw\u00f6rterbuch_, s.v. _nisu_). The Zi\n      included the _ekim_ or specific ghost, whose prominence belongs\n      rather to post-Sumerian days than to the early ages of Babylonian\n      history.\n\n  217 King, _Babylonian Religion_, p. 46.\n\n_  218 WAI._ ii. 36. 54, 56. 33-38.\n\n  219 See my Hibbert Lectures on _Babylonian Religion_, p. 375. A common\n      phrase is \u201cthe Zi (Assyr. _nis_) of the great gods\u201d (Delitzsch,\n      _Assyrisches Handw\u00f6rterbuch_, s.v. _nisu_). In the incantation text,\n      _WAI._ iv. 1, 2, the gods of later times are still _Zi_s. A\n      translation of part of the text will be given in a future chapter.\n      For the possibility that the Zi and the Lil originally had much the\n      same meaning, the one being used at Eridu and the other at Nippur,\n      see the next lecture.\n\n  220 Scheil in _Recueil de Travaux_, xxii. p. 38.\n\n  221 See Sm. 1981. 3, where the _edinna_ or \u201cdesert\u201d is called the home\n      of the _lilla_.\n\n  222 Uda-k\u00e1ra.\n\n  223 By assimilation En-lil became El-lil. The name is literally\n      \u201cghost-lord,\u201d where the singular _lil_ represents a class. Hence\n      En-lil is \u201clord of the ghosts\u201d in general, conceived of as \u201cthe\n      devil\u201d is often conceived of in Christian literature, or as Hades\n      sometimes meant all the denizens of the underworld in Greek.\n      Dialectic forms of the name are Mul-lil and U-lil.\n\n  224 Under Semitic influence these \u201ctablets of destiny\u201d lost their\n      primitive signification, and became, like the Urim and Thummim of\n      the Old Testament, simply a means of predicting the future.\n\n  225 At Eridu the Zi seems to have taken the place occupied by the Lil at\n      Nippur; at all events, just as En-lil was the chief Lil or Lilla at\n      Nippur, so Ea seems to have been the chief Zi at Eridu. On this see\n      the next lecture.\n\n_  226 Zaqiqu_ is of course a \u201ccloud of dust,\u201d not \u201ca wind,\u201d as some\n      scholars have translated it. A wind does not rise up out of the\n      earth, but comes from the air or sky. In _WAI._ v. 6, vi. 64, the\n      meaning of _zaqiqi_ can be \u201cdust\u201d and nothing else: _il\u00e2ni-su\n      istar\u00e2ti-su amn\u00e2 ana zakiki_, \u201cits gods and goddesses I reduced to\n      dust.\u201d\n\n_  227 WAI._ v. 61, vi. 54, 55, where we must read _kibira_.\n\n  228 Professor Hommel has shown that among the Arabian and Western\n      Semites (the Canaanites excepted) the original Baal was rather the\n      moon-god than the sun-god. The supremacy of the sun-god belongs to\n      Semitic Babylonia (_Aufs\u00e4tze und Abhandlungen_, ii. pp. 149-165).\n\n  229 With this phrase, which is so frequent in the Babylonian texts,\n      Hommel compares names like Ben-Ammi, \u201cthe son of (the god) Ammi.\u201d\n\n  230 Thureau-Dangin in the _Recueil de Travaux_, xix. p. 186.\n\n  231 Quoted by King, _Babylonian Religion_, p. 49.\n\n  232 By assimilation En-lil became El-lil (and Ul-lil) in one of the\n      Sumerian dialects (_WAI._ v. 37. 21). Hence the Illinos (for which\n      Illillos must be read) of Damascius.\n\n  233 A\u1e61ari-galu-dugga. We owe the interpretation of the name to the\n      insight and learning of Fr. Lenormant, from whose untimely death the\n      investigation of Babylonian religion has suffered grievously.\n\n  234 Is it possible that the original difference between the Zi and the\n      Lil was that the one term was used at Eridu the other at Nippur, the\n      meaning being pretty much the same in both cases? Unfortunately we\n      have no materials at present for answering the question.\n\n_  235 WAI._ ii. 55. 43, 58. 57; iii. 67. 156.\n\n  236 Her assignment as a wife to the sun-god of Kis or to Nin-ip of\n      Nippur belongs to a later period; see my Hibbert Lectures, p. 263.\n\n  237 Originally, however, she had been merely a spirit in the form of a\n      heifer; _WAI._ ii. 62. 45, where \u201cthe ship of Bau\u201d is called \u201cthe\n      ship of the holy cow.\u201d The name is doubtless Sumerian, and it seems\n      to be the origin of the Baau of Ph\u0153nician cosmology, which asserted\n      that the first men, \u00c6\u00f4n and Protogonos, were born of \u201cthe wind\n      Kolpia and his wife Baau, which is interpreted Night\u201d (Eusebius,\n      _Pr\u0153par. Evang._ i. 10). Baau is probably the Hebrew _Bohu_.\n\n  238 See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 262, 374, 375. \u00ca-kur, \u201cthe house of the\n      earth,\u201d was the name of the temple of En-lil at Nippur. It was the\n      abode of the \u201clord of the spirits\u201d of the earth and the underworld.\n\n  239 She is called \u201cthe handmaid of the spirit of E-kura\u201d (_WAI._ ii. 54.\n      18). The \u201cspirit of E-kura\u201d is En-lil, whose temple E-kura was, and\n      consequently the title identifies her with the _kiel lilla_ or\n      \u201chandmaid of the Lil,\u201d who eventually became the Lilith of Jewish\n      folk-lore.\n\n  240 Hence in the hymn which describes the oraculur tree of Eridu (_WAI._\n      v. 15) the \u201ccouch\u201d of Ea is called \u201cthe bed of Zi-Kum\u201d in \u201cthe\n      central place of the earth.\u201d\n\n  241 See my Hibbert Lectures on the _Religion of the Ancient\n      Babylonians_, pp. 374, 375.\n\n  242 Similarly, as I first indicated in my Hibbert Lectures (p. 132), the\n      first two antediluvian kings of Babylonia given by Berossos do not\n      belong to the original list, but have been prefixed to it when\n      Babylon became the leading city of the country, and it was\n      accordingly necessary to make it the capital of the kingdom from the\n      very beginning of time. It is worth notice that, just as the first\n      two antediluvian Babylonian kings are a later addition to the\n      original list, so the first two antediluvian patriarchs in the Book\n      of Genesis seem to have been added to the original eight. Adam and\n      Enos are synonyms like Cainan and Cain, for whom Seth, the Sutu or\n      Bed\u00e2win (Num. xxiv. 17), was substituted. In the Babylonian list,\n      Amelon or Amilu, \u201cman,\u201d corresponds with Enos, just as Ammenon\n      (Ummanu, \u201cthe craftsman\u201d) corresponds with Cainan or Cain, \u201cthe\n      smith.\u201d For both the Babylonian and the Hebrew, man in the abstract\n      was followed immediately by civilised man.\n\n  243 The Igigi are represented ideographically by v+ii (the ideograph of\n      plurality). Perhaps, therefore, they were originally the spirits of\n      the five planets duplicated according to their appearance in the\n      evening and morning. If the opinion of Pognon (_L\u2019Inscription de\n      Bavian_, i. p. 25) could be sustained that the original ideograph\n      was really vii and not v+ii, we should have a better explanation of\n      them as the seven planets which, in Chald\u00e6an astronomy, included the\n      sun and moon. The meaning of the name is unknown. Guyard\u2019s\n      supposition, that it is derived from the Assyrian _ag\u00e2gu_, \u201cto be\n      angry\u201d (not \u201cto be strong,\u201d as he imagined), is devoid of\n      probability. In K 2100, col. iv., it is also written Ig\u00e2g\u00e2, and\n      explained by _isartum_, \u201cjustice,\u201d or \u201cstraight direction.\u201d In\n      _WAI._ ii. 35. 37, the NUN-GAL (pronounced _Kisagal_) is called the\n      _R\u00eebu_ which Jensen would connect with the Hebrew Rahab.\n\n  244 The divine \u201clord\u201d of a place or territory, such as is met with in a\n      South Arabian or Ph\u0153nician inscription, is totally different from\n      the lord of the ghost-world at Nippur. The one was master of a\n      definite territory on the surface of the earth, the other was a\n      spirit ruling over other spirits in an underground world. The two\n      conceptions have nothing in common with one another.\n\n  245 The evidence that has since come to light shows that I was wrong in\n      my Hibbert Lectures (pp. 110, 193) in supposing that the origin of\n      the triad was purely Sumerian. It was really due to the fusion of\n      the Sumerian and Semitic elements in the official Babylonian\n      religion. Possibly the astronomical triad of the sun, moon, and\n      evening star may have suggested the artificial grouping of the gods\n      of the three great seats of religious culture, but that was all. The\n      origin of the triad must be sought in geography, or rather in the\n      fact that Ana, En-lil, and Ea represented the three chief\n      sanctuaries and centres of religious influence in Babylonia. I have\n      already pointed out (_Hibbert Lectures_, p. 192) that from the fact\n      that Ana is the first of the triad we may infer that the whole\n      doctrine originated in the theological school of Erech. Erech, in\n      fact, was the meeting-place of the Semite and Sumerian, where the\n      Semitic influence first found itself supreme. The Baal of historical\n      Semitic religion was a sky-god, despite Robertson Smith\u2019s ingenious\n      philological attempts to find a terrestrial source for him.\n\n  246 Cf. Hommel, _Aufs\u00e4tze und Abhandlungen_, ii. pp. 149-165. Hommel has\n      proved, with the help of the Min\u00e6an inscriptions, that primitive\n      Semitic religion consisted of moon and star worship, the moon-god\n      Athtar and an \u201cangel\u201d god standing at the head of the pantheon,\n      while the sun-goddess was attached to them as daughter or wife. The\n      supreme Baal of the Western Semites was thus originally the\n      moon-god, a fact that throws light on his cult at Ur and Harran,\n      which lay outside Babylonia proper, and were inhabited by a large\n      West Semitic population.\n\n_  247 Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, p. 74.\n\n  248 The name of the Edomite king \u00c2-rammu in the time of Sennacherib\n      shows that the name and worship of \u00c2 had been carried to the West.\n      Compare also the name of Ehud (Judg. iii. 15). \u00c2 seems to have been\n      a title signifying \u201cthe father,\u201d the actual Sumerian name of the\n      deity being Sirrigam (see my Hibbert Lectures, p. 178).\n\n  249 For the absorption by Hadad of the Sumerian god of the air, Meri or\n      Mermer, the divine patron of the city of Muru, my Hibbert Lectures,\n      p. 202 sqq., may be consulted. Gub\u00e1ra, \u201cthe lady of the plain,\u201d was\n      apparently originally the wife of Meri; when Meri passed into Hadad,\n      Gub\u00e1ra necessarily became the wife of the latter, \u201cthe lord of the\n      mountain,\u201d as he was called. As Hadad was already provided with a\n      wife, Sala, the next step was to identify Sala and Gub\u00e1ra. Properly\n      speaking, Gub\u00e1ra represented the Canaanitish goddess Ash\u00earah,\n      Asirtum in Babylonian: see Reisner, \u201cSumerisch-babylonische Hymnen\n      nach Thontafeln griechischer Zeit,\u201d in the _Mittheilungen aus den\n      orientalischen Sammlungen zu Berlin_, x. p. 139, where the Sumerian\n      _Martue mulu kharsagga-ga Gubarra gasan gu-edin_ is translated\n      _Amurru bel sad\u00ee Asratum belit tseri_, \u201cthe Amorite god (Hadad), the\n      lord of the mountain; Asratum (Ash\u00earah), the lady of the plain.\u201d\n\n  250 The triad of Athtar, the moon-god and the \u201cangel-messenger,\u201d which\n      Hommel has shown to be presupposed in the South Arabian\n      inscriptions, was due to the influence of Babylonian culture. This\n      is made clear by the Babylonian name of the moon-god, Sin, in the\n      inscriptions of Hadhramaut, and of Aub\u00e2y, _i.e._ Nebo, in those of\n      Katab\u00e2n. On the other hand, the addition of the sun-goddess to the\n      triad is purely Semitic.\n\n_  251 East India House Inscription_, i. 52-ii. 5.\n\n_  252 East India House Inscription_, ix. 45-x. 5.\n\n  253 The solar character of Merodach was first pointed out by myself\n      (_Trans. SBA._ (1873) ii. p. 246), and the proofs of it were given\n      in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 100 sqq. The Sumerian poem in which the\n      creation is ascribed to Ea makes \u00ca-Saggil originally the name of the\n      temple of Ea at Eridu, from whence it must have been transferred to\n      Babylon when Ea was supplanted by Merodach. From the list of\n      Babylonian kings in which their names are explained, we may perhaps\n      infer that the proper title of the temple at Babylon was E(s)-Guzi.\n      Guzi had the same meaning in Sumerian as \u00ca-Saggil, \u201cthe house of the\n      high head\u201d (_WAI._ ii. 30. 4, 26. 58).\n\n  254 Compare _Ati_, \u201cprince,\u201d the title of Osiris.\n\n  255 This was first pointed out by Ball, _Proceedings of the Society of\n      Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, xii. 8, pp. 401, 402.\n\n  256 We may compare the statement in a hymn (_WAI._ v. 50. i. 5) that the\n      sun-god \u201crises from the Du-azagga, the place of destinies,\u201d where\n      the Assyrian translation has \u201cmountain of destinies.\u201d The Du-azagga\n      was on the horizon of Ea\u2019s domain, the deep.\n\n  257 More commonly written \u1e60umu.\n\n  258 Abil-Sin, \u201cthe son of the moon-god,\u201d the god of the city of Ur, to\n      which the preceding dynasty had belonged.\n\n  259 Though Zi is used here in its Semitic sense of \u201clife\u201d in the\n      abstract, the position given to it as the first of the divine names\n      and qualities bestowed on Merodach is significant. Before he can be\n      identified with any of the gods of the official pantheon, he must\n      become a Zi or \u201cspirit,\u201d or more strictly \u201c_the_ spirit\u201d of heaven.\n      Similarly the divine essence of Ea is still called his Zi or\n      \u201cspirit,\u201d a survival from a time when Ea was not yet a god.\n\n  260 It is probable that the word \u201cwind\u201d here, though its original sense\n      was obscured or forgotten, goes back to an age when it signified the\n      _lil_ of which in the lexical tablets it is given as an equivalent.\n\n  261 It must also be remembered that the attentions lavished by Nabonidos\n      upon the older sanctuaries of Babylonia outside the walls of Babylon\n      belonged to the earlier part of his reign.\n\n_  262 WAI._ ii. 54, No. 4; iii. 69, No. 1. In ii. 54, No. 3, the cosmic\n      deities are made \u201cthe mother(s) and father(s) of Anu\u201d instead of\n      being identified with him. But the identification is doubtless\n      really due to the fact that _ana_ meant \u201cgod\u201d as well as \u201cAnu.\u201d\n\n_  263 Journal of the Victoria Institute_, xxviii. 8-10.\n\n  264 Thus the god Tispak (the Susinak of Susa, K 92691, _Rev._ ii. 35) is\n      identified with Istar in _WAI._ 35. 18, comp. ii. 57. 35; and\n      Iskhara, another name of Istar, is called a male deity with a wife,\n      Alman\u00e2ti (_Strassmaier_, 3901). Professor Barton notices (_Journal\n      of American Oriental Society_, 21, pp. 186-188) that an inscription\n      of Lugal-kha\u1e61\u1e61i, an early king of Kis, is dedicated to \u201cthe king\n      Nana and the lady Nana.\u201d\n\n_  265 WAI._ iii. 53. 30-9.\n\n  266 I can suggest no better etymology for the word Anunna than that\n      proposed in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 182. It is supported by K 2100,\n      col. iv., where the Sumerian pronunciation of Anunna-ki is given as\n      Enu-kki, \u201cthe lord of the earth.\u201d When the \u201cspirits of the earth\u201d\n      came to be distinguished from \u201cthe angels\u201d or \u201cspirits\u201d of the air,\n      the form Anunna-ki or Anunna-ge, \u201cthe spirit of the earth\u201d or \u201clower\n      world,\u201d became more usual than the simple Anunna. The latter is used\n      of the Igigi or \u201cangels\u201d in K 4629, _Rev._, and of the Anunna-ki in\n      _WAI._ iv. 1, 2, col. iv. 3.\n\n  267 Hoffmann remarks in regard to the Aramaic inscriptions of Zenjirli\n      (_Zeitschrift f\u00fcr Assyriologie_, xi. p. 253): \u201cThe most interesting\n      fact is that even the theological Hadad-stela makes no mention of a\n      female goddess.\u201d\n\n  268 The origin and nature of Tammuz have been investigated in my Hibbert\n      Lectures, pp. 220-245, and need not be repeated here. He was\n      primarily a Zi or spirit worshipped at Eridu, where he was known as\n      \u201cthe Son of the Spirit of the Deep,\u201d _i.e._ Ea. He was, in fact, the\n      primitive sun-god of Eridu, though his character underwent strange\n      transformations in the course of his identification with Nin-gir\u1e61u\n      (Inguri\u1e61a) and other gods. But Tammuz was a sun-god who spent half\n      his annual life in the underworld, or, according to another view, as\n      fellow-warder with Nin-gis-zida of the gates of heaven. Hence he\n      pastures his cattle in the fields beyond the river Khubur, the\n      ocean-stream that encircles the earth, on the road to the land of\n      the dead (Craig, _Religious Texts_, i. p. 17). On the other hand, he\n      was also said to dwell in the midst of the cosmic temple of Ea at\n      Eridu, between the Tigris and Euphrates (_WAI._ iv. 15. 58-59). It\n      is possible, though not yet proved, that in Tammuz two deities have\n      been combined together, the sun-god and the vegetation of the spring\n      which the young sun of the year brings into existence. However this\n      may be, in Tammuz and Nin-gis-zida I see the Babylonian prototypes\n      of the two pillars Jachin and Boaz erected by Solomon in front of\n      the temple (1 Kings vii. 21). Nin-gis-zida means \u201cthe lord of the\n      upright post\u201d (_bil itsi k\u00eani_ in Semitic Babylonian), and thus\n      corresponds with Jachin.\n\n  269 Thureau-Dangin in the _Recueil de Travaux relatifs \u00e0 la Philologie\n      et \u00e0 l\u2019Arch\u00e9ologie \u00e9gyptiennes et assyriennes_, xix. pp. 185-187.\n\n  270 Published and translated by me in the _Transactions of the Society\n      of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, v. (1877) p. 441, where I pointed out for\n      the first time that the early Babylonian kings were deified.\n\n  271 Scheil in the _Recueil de Travaux_, xviii. p. 71, xxi. p. 27.\n\n  272 See Br\u00fcnnow, _Classified List_, No. 8883.\n\n_  273 WAI._ ii. 55. 27, iv. 25. 40. _Dara_, Semitic _turakhu_, is shown\n      to be \u201can antelope\u201d by the figure of an antelope, ending in a fish,\n      which is stated to represent Ea on a boundary-stone from Susa\n      published in de Morgan\u2019s _D\u00e9l\u00e9gation en Perse_, vol. i., and\n      explained by Scheil in the _Recueil de Travaux_, xxiii. pp. 96, 97.\n      The figure is accompanied by the symbol of Ea, a weapon which\n      terminates in the head of a ram.\n\n_  274 WAI._ iii. 68. 12-14. See my Hibbert Lectures, p. 286. For \u201cthe\n      cow\u201d Bau, see above, p. 148. Nergal or Allamu was originally the\n      gazelle (Br\u00fcnnow, _Classified List_, Nos. 1906, 1907).\n\n_  275 WAI._ ii. 18. 57, 55. 69, iv. 3. 25.\n\n  276 Thus the monkey is associated with Nu-gidda, \u201cthe dwarf,\u201d who in his\n      turn accompanies the moon-god.\n\n  277 The last line of this hymn (_WAI._ iv. 15. 52 sqq.), of which I have\n      given a translation in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 238, has been\n      discovered by Dr. Pinches, and published by him in the _Journal of\n      Transactions of the Victoria Institute_, xxix. p. 44.\n\n  278 In Reisner, \u201cSumerisch-babylonische Hymnen nach Thontafeln\n      griechischer Zeit,\u201d in the _Mittheilungen aus den orientalischen\n      Sammlungen_, x. p. 135, 25-32, and p. 139, 151-158, we read, \u201cthe\n      great gods are 50; the gods of destiny are 7; the Anunnaki of heaven\n      are 300; the Anunnaki of earth are 600.\u201d\n\n  279 Hence he is called by Nebuchadrezzar _pakid kissat sam\u00ea u irtsitim_,\n      \u201cmarshaller of the hosts of heaven and earth\u201d (_WAI._ i. 51. 13).\n\n  280 For the Anunna-ki and Igigi, see above, p. 344.\n\n  281 The solar character of Nin-ip was first pointed out by myself in the\n      _Transactions of the Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_, ii. (1873) p.\n      246, and again in my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 152, 153. He was probably\n      called B\u00ear in Assyrian, but the Cilician Nineps shows that he was\n      also known by his Sumerian title of Nin-ip. See my paper in the\n      _Proc. SBA._ xx. 7, pp. 261, 262.\n\n  282 The ideograph denotes the _keff\u00eeya_, corresponding both to the veil\n      and to the turban. In its earliest pictorial form it represents a\n      veil covering both the head and face, and leaving only the hair at\n      the back of the head visible. It was usually termed _uras_, a word\n      borrowed by Semitic Babylonian under the form of _urasu_, which in\n      its turn created the verb _ar\u00e2su_, \u201cto veil,\u201d and the word _aristu_,\n      \u201ca cloak.\u201d The _keff\u00eeya_ was also known in Sumerian as _mutra_,\n      Semitic _mutru_, from which the Greek \u03bc\u03af\u03c4\u03c1\u03b1 was borrowed. The\n      _mitra_ properly signified the Oriental turban; but as no such\n      head-dress was worn by the Greeks, it is already used by Homer for\n      the girdle of the waist. Besides the value of _uras_, the ideograph\n      also had the value of _dara_ (in Assyrian _nibittu_ and _i\u1e61khu_, \u201ca\n      veil\u201d). It is possible that the actual pronunciation of the name\n      Nin-ip was In-dar.\n\n_  283 WAI._ ii. 57. 39.\n\n  284 Gwydion induced Pryderi by stratagem to give some of them to him,\n      and so carried them from Dyved to North Wales; Rhys, Hibbert\n      Lectures on _Celtic Heathendom_, pp. 242-244.\n\n  285 Cf. _WAI._ ii. 19. 49_b_, \u201cthe spirits of the earth I made grope\n      like swine in the hollows.\u201d\n\n  286 See, for example, _WAI._ ii. 54. 3 _Obv._ 4-14, 4. 37-45.\n\n  287 There is no reason for holding that the temple of \u00ca-Zida rebuilt by\n      Khammurabi at Borsippa, was any other than the old \u00ca-Zida which was\n      dedicated to Nebo.\n\n  288 For names like Sippar-sad\u00ee, Sippar-saduni, Up\u00ea-semi, and Up\u00ea-natsir,\n      see Pinches, _Revue de l\u2019Histoire des Religions_, xliii. p. 277.\n\n  289 Support may be found for this etymology in the common title of Assur\n      as \u201cthe good god,\u201d which is written ideographically _an-dugga_. But\n      even if the Assyrians believed that this was the proper\n      signification of the name of their god, it does not follow that they\n      were right; and since the characters representing the title could be\n      read AN-SAR, it is possibly only a play on the supposed connection\n      of the name with the Sumerian Ansar. The latter appears as Assoros\n      in Damascius. Perhaps Assur (originally Asur) is merely _asurru_, \u201ca\n      wall.\u201d\n\n  290 Glaser, _Skizze der Geschichte Arabiens_ (1889), pp. 64-74.\n\n  291 Du-azagga. As the \u201choly mound\u201d was the home of Ea, it follows that\n      it was originally part of the Persian Gulf; on the other hand, the\n      name given to it implies that it resembled a mountain lifting itself\n      up into the sky. The sun rose from it (_WAI._ v. 50. 5_a_); hence it\n      must have been the eastern horizon, which, to an inhabitant of\n      Eridu, would have been the horizon of the sea, that ascended towards\n      the heavens like a great mound. A model was made of it, which became\n      the _parakku_ or mercy-seat of Ea in his temple at Eridu. When Eridu\n      and its god were supplanted by Babylon and Bel-Merodach, the\n      Du-azagga was transferred to the latter city and became \u201cthe seat of\n      the oracles\u201d in the shrine of Bel-Merodach, \u201cwhereon,\u201d according to\n      Nebuchadrezzar, \u201cat the festival of Zagmuku, at the beginning of the\n      year, on the 8th and 11th days, the king of the gods of heaven and\n      earth, Bel, the god, seats himself, while the gods of heaven and\n      earth reverently regard him, standing before him with bowed heads.\u201d\n      When Nebo became the minister of Merodach, he too was addressed as\n      \u201cthe god of the holy mound\u201d (_WAI._ ii. 54. 71), and one of \u201cthe\n      three great names of Anu\u201d was said to be \u201cthe king who comes forth\n      from the holy mound,\u201d another of the names being \u201cthe creator of the\n      heavenly hosts\u201d (_WAI._ iii. 68. 19, 20). Even Istar, or rather\n      Iskhara, is called \u201cthe goddess of the holy mound\u201d (_WAI._ iii. 68.\n      27). It may be added that a lexical tablet makes the \u201choly mound\u201d a\n      synonym of the deep (_WAI._ v. 41, No. 1).\n\n_  292 WAI._ ii. 58. 57. His Sumerian title as the divine potter was\n      Nunurra, which is explained as \u201cgod of the pot,\u201d or more literally\n      \u201clord of the pot\u201d (Br\u00fcnnow, _Classified List_, 5895). See Scheil,\n      _Recueil de Travaux_, xx. p. 125.\n\n  293 El-lil, it should be noted, was called \u201cthe great mountain\u201d\n      (Kur-gal, Sadu-rabu in Semitic), and the name of his temple was\n      \u00ca-kur, \u201cthe house of the mountain.\u201d It is probable that the belief\n      in the Kharsag-kurkurra, or \u201cmountain of the world,\u201d on which the\n      gods lived, originated at Nippur. From Isa. xiv. 13 we gather that\n      it was placed in the north. Nin-lil, the wife of En-lil, is called\n      Nin-kharsag, \u201cthe lady of the mountain,\u201d by Samsu-iluna, who\n      describes her as \u201cthe mother who created me\u201d (_Brit. Mus._, pl. 199,\n      1. 41).\n\n  294 These are the creatures described by Berossos as sprung from the\n      bosom of Tiam\u00e2t\u2014winged men, with four or two faces, or with the feet\n      of horses and goats; human-headed bulls; dog-headed horses, and the\n      like\u2014which were depicted on the walls of the temple of Bel-Merodach,\n      the successor of Bel of Nippur (Syncell. p. 29; Euseb. _Chron.\n      Armen._ p. 10, ed. Mai).\n\n  295 A variant fragment of the legend, as was first recognised by myself\n      in the _Proc. SBA._ xx. pp. 187-189, was published by Dr. Scheil\n      from an early Babylonian tablet in the _Recueil de Travaux_, xx. pp.\n      66, 67.\n\n  296 An indication may, however, be found in the statement that the\n      Lillum or \u201cLil\u201d was the \u201cmother-father\u201d of En-lil (_WAI._ iv. 27.\n      5), and the further reference to the Zi or \u201cspirit\u201d who was the\n      \u201cmother-father\u201d of En-lil and Nin-lil (_WAI._ iv. 1. Col. ii.\n      25-28). The genderless Sumerian knew of no distinction of sex; the\n      creative principle was at once female and male. It will be noticed\n      that the female element takes precedence of the male in\n      contradistinction to Semitic ideas.\n\n  297 These two lines are an interpolation.\n\n  298 These three lines have been interpolated.\n\n  299 The name of Merodach has been substituted for that of Ea.\n\n  300 A play on the name of Eri-dugga, \u201cthe good city.\u201d\n\n  301 Probably an interpolation.\n\n  302 Originally Ea.\n\n  303 These two lines do not belong to the original poem.\n\n  304 For Tammuz and Nin-gis-zida, see above, p. 350, note. It may be\n      added that in the Maql\u00fb collection of incantation texts,\n      Nin-gis-zida seems to be regarded as a goddess and the consort of\n      Nusku, the fire-god. Nin, in Sumerian, more often signified \u201clady\u201d\n      than \u201clord.\u201d It is possible that at Eridu she was held to be the\n      wife of Tammuz.\n\n  305 Perhaps Hommel is right in translating \u201cpalm.\u201d\n\n  306 Cp. Gen. iii. 8.\n\n  307 Zikum or Nammu, the abyss, who is called the mother of Ea. Nammu is\n      given as the Sumerian name or title of Zikum in _Cuneiform Texts_,\n      xii. p. 26, 1. 20.\n\n  308 See my Hibbert Lectures, p. 238, and Pinches, _Journal of the\n      Victoria Institute_, xxix. p. 44.\n\n_  309 WAI._ iv. 15, Col. ii. 5, 6.\n\n  310 So in _WAI._ iv. 25. 49, _an-sar ki-sar_ is translated \u201cthe hosts of\n      heaven and earth.\u201d In _WAI._ v. 43. 27, the Sumerian \u201cthe divine\n      scribe, the creator of the hosts of earth,\u201d is paraphrased by the\n      Semitic translator _Nab\u00fb pakid kissat sam\u00ea u irtsiti_, \u201cNebo, the\n      captain of the hosts of heaven and earth.\u201d For the Semite, the god\n      he worshipped was lord of the hosts of heaven as well as of the\n      spirits of the earth.\n\n  311 It is possible that the Hebrew Urim and Thummim were really\n      connected with the Babylonian \u201ctablets of destiny.\u201d The latter were\n      fastened \u201con the breast,\u201d according to the Epic of the Creation,\n      like the Urim and Thummim of the Israelitish high priest. In _WAI._\n      iv. 18, No. 3, Ea describes a sort of magical breastplate, made of\n      gold, which was to be set with precious stones and fastened to the\n      breast. Nine stones are named, which seem to have been carved into\n      figures of the gods, like Egyptian amulets, since they are said to\n      be \u201cthe flesh of the gods.\u201d Professor Zimmern even suggests\n      (_Beitr\u00e4ge zur Kenntniss der babylonischen Religion_, p. 91) that\n      Urim is to be identified with the Assyrian _urtu_, a synonym of\n      _tertu_ (_t\u00f4r\u00e2h_), \u201cinstruction\u201d or \u201claw.\u201d\n\n  312 Compare the \u201cladder\u201d of Jacob (Gen. xxviii. 12). A similar staircase\n      or ladder is represented on the conical or egg-shaped stone which\n      symbolised the moon-god of Harran (_e.g._ Lajard, _Culte de Mithra_,\n      54, 4).\n\n_  313 En-me_, literally, \u201clord of the voice,\u201d appears to have been\n      pronounced _\u00ean_ in Sumerian, since the Semitic _\u00eanu_ was borrowed\n      from it. The word has the same root as _\u00ean_, \u201can incantation,\u201d and\n      the _\u00eanu_ denoted the priest who \u201crecited\u201d the incantatory ritual.\n      He may thus be compared with the Egyptian _kher-heb_. There was an\n      _\u00eanu_ or \u201cchanter of Istar,\u201d whose technical name was _ukurrim_, and\n      another of Ea, \u201cthe holy father,\u201d who was called the _sennu_. The\n      incantatory formul\u00e6, it must be remembered, relate for the most part\n      to Ea and Istar. Another class of the _\u00eanu_ was called _sailu_, \u201cthe\n      magian,\u201d in Assyrian (literally, \u201cthe questioner\u201d of the spirits who\n      may have practised ventriloquism); in Sumerian the name may be read\n      _\u00ean-lil_, \u201cthe chanter of the _lil_.\u201d\n\n  314 I can still see no better etymology for _dimmer_, _dingir_, \u201cgod,\u201d\n      than the one I proposed in my Hibbert Lectures (p. 143), viz. _dim_,\n      \u201cto create\u201d or \u201cmake.\u201d From the same root we have _dim_ or _dimma_,\n      \u201coffspring\u201d (_WAI._ v. 29. 71), which illustrates the antithesis\n      between the Sumerian who regarded generation as an act of creation,\n      and the Semite who regarded creation as an act of generation. In\n      _WAI._ ii. 47. 29, _dim_ takes the place of _dumu_, \u201cson.\u201d _Dimme_\n      and _dimmea_ show that in _dimmer_ the final consonant is a suffix.\n\n_  315 WAI._ ii. 55. 27, iv. 25. 40. I have retained here the ordinary\n      rendering of \u201cgazelle\u201d for the Assyrian _ditanu_, though it is more\n      probable that its Sumerian equivalent _elim_ (perhaps the Heb.\n      _\u00e2y\u00eel_) means \u201cram.\u201d At all events _elim_ is given as _ku\u1e61arikku_ or\n      \u201cram\u201d in Sc. 315. But there is a difficulty about the god to whom\n      the name was originally applied. In _WAI._ ii. 55. 31-33, \u201cthe\n      princely _elim_,\u201d \u201cthe mighty _elim_,\u201d and \u201cthe earth-creating\n      _elim_\u201d are given as names of Ea; whereas in _WAI._ v. 21. 11,\n      _elim_ is a synonym of the god A\u1e61ari, and in Sc. 312 it is the\n      equivalent of El-lil. As \u201cthe ship\u201d or ark of Ea was \u201cthe ship of\n      the antelope of the deep,\u201d Ea must have been the antelope\n      (_turakhu_) rather than the ram or gazelle; and I believe,\n      therefore, that the transference of what was properly the name of\n      El-lil to Asari and Ea was due to the confusion that grew up between\n      El-lil after his transformation into the Semitic Bel and Asari after\n      his transformation into the Semitic Bel-Merodach. The ideograph\n      which denotes _elim_ represents a quadruped, sometimes with an eye,\n      sometimes with the ideograph of sheep, attached to it.\n\n_  316 WAI._ v. 52, Col. iv. 8.\n\n  317 Perhaps, however, the \u201cdivine seven\u201d was descended from the seven\n      gods who were sons of En-me-sarra, according to _WAI._ iv. 23, No.\n      1. En-me-sarra means \u201cthe incantation-priest of the (heavenly)\n      hosts\u201d (_\u00eanu sa kissati_), and his \u201csons\u201d therefore remind us of Job\n      xxxviii. 7. It will not be forgotten that Philo Byblius made \u201cthe\n      seven sons of Sydyk, the Kabeiri, with their eighth brother\n      Askl\u00eapios (Ashm\u00fbn),\u201d the first writers of history (Euseb. _Pr\u0153p.\n      evang._ i. 10).\n\n  318 It has been edited and translated by Tallqvist, _Die Assyrische\n      Beschw\u00f6rungsserie Maql\u00fb_ (1894), who calculates that it contained\n      1550 lines, or more than 9000 words.\n\n  319 The whole work is in the metrical form characteristic of Semitic\n      Babylonian. It has been edited by Zimmern, _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Kenntniss\n      der babylonischen Religion; Die Beschw\u00f6rungstafeln Shurpu_ (1896).\n\n  320 Isa. viii. 19. The beginning, for instance, of the second book of\n      the Maql\u00fb collection had to be recited in a whisper before a wax\n      image.\n\n  321 As the title of the latter work is sometimes written UD-MA AN EN-LIL\n      as well as UD AN EN-LIL, the real translation may be \u201cwhen\n      (_enu-ma_) Bel,\u201d rather than \u201cIllumination (_namaru_) of Bel,\u201d these\n      having been the opening words of the first tablet. Since, however,\n      it was translated into Greek by Berossos as a work of \u201cBel\u201d (Seneca,\n      _Qu\u00e6st. Nat._ iii. 29), the name assigned to it in the text is on\n      the whole to be preferred.\n\n_  322 WAI._ iv. 19, No. 2.\n\n_  323 WAI._ iv. 28, No. 1.\n\n  324 Literally, \u201cthe prophetdom\u201d or \u201ccollege of prophets\u201d (_isipputi_).\n\n_  325 WAI._ v. 4. 86-91.\n\n_  326 Ter\u00eati_, the Heb. _th\u00f4r\u00e2h_. The laws which the gods have to obey\n      are meant.\n\n  327 Gilgames seems to mean \u201cgreat father,\u201d from _gilga_, \u201cfather,\u201d and\n      _mes_, _i.e._ _mas_, \u201cgreat.\u201d\n\n_  328 Hist. Anim._ xii. 21. Sokkaros, king of Babylonia, fearing that his\n      daughter\u2019s son would dethrone and slay him, imprisoned her in a\n      tower. Gilgamos, however, was born to her. By his grandfather\u2019s\n      orders he was thrown from the tower, but saved by an eagle, which\n      caught him upon its wings. Philologically it is possible to identify\n      Sokkaros and Akris-ios.\n\n  329 Hilprecht, _The Babylonian Expedition of the University of\n      Pennsylvania_, i. 15. 26; Hommel in the _Proc. SBA._ xvi. pp. 13-15.\n      The inscription is as follows: \u201cThe deified Abil-ili(?), father of\n      the army of Erech, the son of Bel-semea, has restored the walls of\n      Erech, which were built in old times by the deified Gilgames.\u201d\n\n  330 Professor Haupt, however, to whom we owe the \u201ceditio princeps\u201d of\n      the Epic of Gilgames, believes that the description of the siege of\n      Erech does not belong to the Epic at all. He finds the beginning of\n      it in the fragment K 2756 c, generally assigned to the third book of\n      the poem. See his article on \u201cThe Beginning of the Babylonian Nimrod\n      Epic\u201d in the \u201cJohns Hopkins Semitic Papers\u201d (_Journal of the\n      American Oriental Society_, xxii. 1 (1901)).\n\n  331 As Berossos has told us what was the pronunciation of the name of\n      the hero of the Chaldean Deluge, the disputes of modern\n      Assyriologists as to whether it was Pir-napistim or the like are but\n      labour lost. The true analysis of the name Xisuthros is still\n      unknown, though it is possible, but not probable, that George Smith\n      was right in seeing in it a metathesis of the title Adra-khasis\n      applied to several of the early Babylonian heroes. Adra-khasis means\n      \u201cthe very clever,\u201d reminding us of \u201cMohammed the clever\u201d in modern\n      Egyptian folk-lore.\n\n_  332 \u00b4Samtu_, Heb. _shohem_ (Gen. ii. 12).\n\n  333 So Hommel, who is probably right in seeing in the word the name of\n      Saba in Southern Arabia.\n\n  334 Zimmern, indeed, has suggested that this latter text belongs to the\n      legend of Atarpi, which, however, has unfortunately come down to us\n      in so mutilated a condition that no certain interpretation of it is\n      possible. The discoverer of the tablet is more probably right in\n      connecting it with the story of the Flood.\n\n  335 Who here takes the place of Aruru.\n\n  336 The words \u201cI will no longer dwell in your city, and turn my face\n      toward the ground of En-lil,\u201d imply that Surippak was not far from\n      Nippur.\n\n  337 The mountain of Nizir was in the country called Lulubi or Luluwi by\n      the Assyrians, Lulu in the Vannic inscriptions. In the bilingual\n      inscription of Topzawa, Lulu is made the equivalent of the Assyrian\n      Urardhu, the Hebrew Ararat.\n\n  338 See my _Early History of the Hebrews_, p. 122 sqq.\n\n_  339 Loc. cit._, p. 126.\n\n_  340 Sch\u00f6pfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit_ (1895).\n\n  341 It should be noticed that, as the voyage of Xisuthros lasted for a\n      Babylonian week of seven nights, so the voyage of Deukalion lasted\n      for a Greek week of nine days. Ogyges is but a local variant of\n      Deukalion.\n\n  342 See Meissner, _Alexander und Gilgamos_ (1894).\n\n  343 See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 360-363, where the various passages\n      relating to the Babylonian Olympos are quoted.\n\n  344 The land of Arallu or Hades.\n\n  345 This, however, is rather the \u201choly mound\u201d of waters, in which Ea had\n      his home, than the inland mountain of En-lil.\n\n_  346 Ur_ is the Sumerian word for \u201czone.\u201d It is translated by _ar\u00e2ru_,\n      \u201cto bind\u201d; _ets\u00eadu_, \u201cto bind the sheaves\u201d for harvest; and\n      _kham\u00e2mu_, \u201cto bind\u201d or \u201cfix\u201d laws.\n\n  347 From Mr. Smith\u2019s words it is difficult to determine whether the\n      gates were in the first or second court, or whether (as seems the\n      more probable) the tablet intended us to understand that the gates\n      belonged to both courts.\n\n  348 The first stage was 300 feet square and 110 feet high, while the\n      topmost was 80 feet long by 70 broad and 50 high.\n\n  349 For the shewbread, see Zimmern, _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Kenntniss der\n      babylonischen Religion_, pp. 94, 95; and Haupt, \u201cBabylonian Elements\n      in the Levitic Ritual,\u201d p. 59 (_Journal of Biblical Literature_,\n      1900). Sometimes six dozen cakes were laid before the god, sometimes\n      three dozen, more often only one dozen, as among the Israelites. The\n      shewbread is called _akal pani_, which is the exact equivalent of\n      the Hebrew _lekhem happ\u00e2n\u00eem_; and Professor Haupt has pointed out\n      that it was required to be unleavened (_mutqu_).\n\n  350 Cp. Gen. xi. 5.\n\n  351 The Sumerian _du_ has, of course, nothing to do with the Semitic\n      Babylonian _d\u00fb_, \u201ca chapel\u201d (unless, indeed, the latter is borrowed\n      from the Sumerian word). It is properly the equivalent of _tilu_, \u201ca\n      mound\u201d or \u201chill\u201d; but as the _tilu_ or _tel_ was generally\n      inhabited, it came further to acquire the signification of _subtu_,\n      \u201ca dwelling-place.\u201d\n\n_  352 WAI._ v. 50. i. 5; 41. 1, _Rev._ 18.\n\n  353 See above, p. 374, note 1.\n\n_  354 Samassumukin_, ii. pp. 47-51. Nebuchadrezzar calls the Du-azagga,\n      \u201cthe place of the oracles of the Ubsu-ginna, the mercy-seat of\n      destinies, which on the festival of the New Year (Zag-muku), on the\n      eighth and eleventh days,\u201d Bel announces before the assembled gods.\n      Jensen (_Kosmologie der Babylonier_, pp. 239-242) first pointed out\n      that the Ubsu-ginna was \u201cthe assembly-place\u201d of the gods, which was\n      located in or upon \u00ca-kur, \u201cthe Mountain of the World\u201d (_WAI._ iv.\n      63. 17.). It thus corresponds with \u201cthe mount of the Assembly\u201d of\n      Isa. xiv. 13, and illustrates the combination of the theology of\n      Eridu with that of Nippur.\n\n_  355 WAI._ iv. 23, No. 1, translated in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 495.\n\n  356 De Sarzec, _D\u00e9couvertes en Chald\u00e9e_, pp. 216, 217.\n\n  357 The _sangu_ was called _\u00eabar_ in Sumerian, with which the name of\n      Eber in Gen. xi. 15 may possibly be compared.\n\n  358 Not \u201castrologers,\u201d as has sometimes been supposed. _Kal\u00fb_ is\n      borrowed from the Sumerian _kal_, as _makhkh\u00fb_ is from _makh_. At\n      their head was the _abba-kalla_, _aba-kul_, or _ab-gal_, a word\n      which under the first form is used as a proper name in early\n      Babylonian texts. Assyrian colonists carried it to Kappadokia, and\n      Strabo accordingly tells us that the high priest of Komana was\n      called Abakl\u00eas. A Hellenised form of the title, Bak\u00ealos, is given by\n      Hesychius, who renders it by \u201cthe grandee\u201d and \u201cthe gallos-priest\u201d\n      (see my note in the _Proc. SBA._ xxiii. p. 106). _Abgal_ is stated\n      to be the equivalent not only of the borrowed Assyrian _abkallu_,\n      but also of _bil terti_, \u201cmaster of the law\u201d; _khassu_ and _imqu_,\n      \u201cthe learned one\u201d (like the Arabic _\u2019alim_); and _mar ummani_, \u201cthe\n      craftsman\u201d or \u201cprofessional\u201d (_WAI._ v. 13. 37-42). The relation of\n      _kal\u00fb_ to _gallu_ (Sumerian _kal_ and _galla_), \u201ca servant,\u201d is not\n      yet clear, though it must be remembered that the _gallos_ was the\n      \u201cservant\u201d of Kybel\u00ea. On the use of _kal_, \u201cservant\u201d in the Sumerian\n      texts, see Reisner, _Tempelurkunden aus Telloh_, pp. 20, 21.\n\n  359 So in a text quoted in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 81, \u201clike Bel on the\n      mercy-seat of the destinies the prophecy shall be uttered, this\n      shall be said: \u2018Bel has come forth, the king has looked after me.\u2019 \u201d\n      A special class of \u201cprophets\u201d bore the name of _masmas_ (whence\n      _masmasu_ in Assyrian), which is translated _mullilu_, \u201cthe praiser\u201d\n      of the gods (Heb. _hill\u00eal_).\n\n  360 See my Hibbert Lectures, p. 79.\n\n  361 \u00ca-kua and M\u00e2-Kua, _bit-assaputi_ and _elip-assaputi_ in Semitic.\n      Jastrow mistranslates \u201cdwelling-house\u201d instead of \u201coracle\u201d or\n      \u201cprophecy\u201d; the true meaning of the word was already discovered by\n      Oppert in the early days of cuneiform decipherment.\n\n  362 The _sabr\u00fb_ was distinct from the _bar\u00fb_, whose name seems to have a\n      more general signification, and Professor Haupt is probably right in\n      regarding it as the _shaphel_ form of the latter. He gives _bar\u00fb_,\n      however, too wide a meaning when he makes it denote a \u201cdiviner\u201d of\n      every kind and sort. It is true that magic was taken under the \u00e6gis\n      of Babylonian theology, and that just as the _asipi_ or \u201cprophets\u201d\n      might be made to include the \u201cenchanters\u201d and \u201cpronouncers\u201d of\n      spells, so the _bari_ might include those who sought to divine the\n      future by examining the entrails of victims or by means of a cup\n      (cp. Gen. xliv. 5). But, properly speaking, the _bar\u00fb_, like the\n      _sabr\u00fb_, \u201crevealed\u201d the future by means of dreams. Haupt\u2019s\n      correction of _badd\u00eem_ into _b\u00e2r\u00eem_, \u201cdiviners,\u201d in Isa. xliv. 25\n      and Jer. l. 36, is brilliant (_Babylonian Elements in the Levitic\n      Ritual_, p. 57). The Sumerian equivalent of _bar\u00fb_ is KHAL (or more\n      correctly _\u00e2khal_); that of _sabr\u00fb_, PA-AL, where PA means \u201cthe\n      official.\u201d\n\n  363 Thureau-Dangin, \u201cTablettes chald\u00e9ennes in\u00e9dites,\u201d in the _Revue\n      d\u2019Assyriologie_, iv. 3, pl. xiii. 40, _Obv._\n\n  364 So too was a person of illegitimate birth, as has been pointed out\n      by Haupt (_Journal of Biblical Literature_ (1900), p. 57).\n\n  365 J. D. Price in the _Journal of the American Oriental Society_, xxi.\n      2, pp. 1-22. In the hemerology published in _WAI._ iv. 32, the\n      animal mentioned in col. 1, line 3, is not a gazelle, as I have\n      supposed in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 70, but a \u201cgoat\u201d (Sumerian\n      _sikku_, Assyrian _sapparu_).\n\n  366 There is no question here of a scape-goat or anything similar. The\n      word \u201coffspring\u201d is _uritsu_, which is the regular equivalent of Bir\n      \u201csuboles.\u201d The addition of the words _sa amiluti_, \u201cof mankind,\u201d\n      confines it in this case to man. Already, in 1875, in my _Elementary\n      Assyrian Grammar_ (p. 123), I pointed out that it was connected with\n      the Arabic warats, which I see (like many other things of the same\n      sort) has recently been announced as a new discovery. The verb\n      _ittadin_, by the way, is an Iphteal, not a Niphal, and therefore\n      cannot be translated as a passive.\n\n  367 De Sarzec, _D\u00e9couvertes en Chald\u00e9e_, iv. 1, pl. 4 _bis_. This was in\n      the time of king E-anna-du. A bas-relief of the time of Entemena on\n      the same plate, 5 _bis_ (_3b_), represents what may also be a human\n      sacrifice, one naked captive lying on the ground already slain,\n      while another is being led to execution.\n\n  368 References are given in Jastrow, _Religion of Babylonia and\n      Assyria_, p. 666.\n\n  369 The tithe was paid on the 5th of Ab; on the 16th of Tammuz, nineteen\n      days earlier, Gobryas had entered Babylon with the soldiers of\n      Cyrus.\n\n  370 A more comprehensive term was _gin\u00fb_, \u201cthe fixed offering,\u201d which\n      included not only the daily sacrifices, but all other stated\n      sacrifices as well.\n\n  371 See my Hibbert Lectures, p. 72, note 2.\n\n_  372 WAI._ i. 65, ii. 19-21; 54. iii. 48-50. See Trumbull, _The\n      Threshold Covenant_, pp. 110, 116.\n\n  373 Cp. Lev. v. 7, 11.\n\n  374 Haupt, _Babylonian Elements in the Levitic Ritual_, pp. 60, 61.\n\n  375 Zimmern, _Beitr\u00e4ge zur Kenntniss der Babylonischen Religion_, p.\n      127.\n\n_  376 L.c._, p. 88, note 2.\n\n  377 On the early Babylonian calendar, see Radau, _Early Babylonian\n      History_, pp. 287-307.\n\n  378 The real reading of the god\u2019s name is unknown. He was identified\n      with Nin-ip (_WAI._ ii. 57. 68), the sun of the south (_WAI._ ii.\n      57. 51), and therefore the midday sun\u2014not the morning sun, as has\n      recently been maintained. Nin-ip was the messenger or \u201cangel\u201d of\n      El-lil of Nippur, and consequently Bil-\u2019si is further identified\n      with \u201cthe moon of Nippur\u201d (_WAI._ 57. 56), the angel of the lord of\n      the ghost-world being more properly the moon than the sun. When\n      Bel-Merodach of Babylon usurped the functions of El-lil, Bel-\u2019si\n      naturally became Nebo, \u201cthe power of strength\u201d (_WAI._ v. 43. 37),\n      who stood in the same relation to Merodach that Nin-ip did to\n      El-lil. Bil-\u2019si was also the seventh of the _tikpi_-stars (_WAI._\n      ii. 49. 10-13, iii. 50-52).\n\n  379 Amiaud\u2019s translation in _Records of the Past_, new ser., ii. pp. 83,\n      84.\n\n  380 Athen\u00e6us, _Deipnosophist_, 14.\n\n  381 The most obvious derivation of the Hebrew Purim is that which I have\n      proposed in the _Proceedings of the Society of Biblical Arch\u00e6ology_,\n      xix. 7, pp. 280, 281, little as it may suit certain fashionable\n      hypotheses. On the Black Obelisk (175), Shalmaneser says: \u201cFor the\n      second time the P\u00fbr-festival of Assur and Hadad I celebrated\u201d; and a\n      deed of sale (Rm. 2. 19) is dated in the eponymy of Bel-danan, B.C.\n      734, \u201cin the year of his P\u00fbr-office\u201d (_ina san\u00ea puri-su_). Pur,\n      which is interpreted \u201ca lot,\u201d has naturally no connection with the\n      Assyrian _bur_, which is stated to mean \u201ca stone.\u201d That we must read\n      _bur_ and not _pur_, is shown by the variant spelling _ba-ar_ (Sa 5.\n      iv. 10).\n\n_  382 WAI._ ii. 32. 16. The reading of Delitzsch and myself has been\n      called in question, the tablet having apparently been damaged since\n      we examined it, but all doubts have now been set at rest by K 93037,\n      _Obv._ 24 (published in _Cuneiform Texts_, xii. 6), where _sabattum_\n      is the equivalent of a Sumerian \u201c_the_ day\u201d _par excellence_.\n      Babylonia was the home of astronomy and of the sacredness of the\n      number seven, due to the fact that there were seven planets, so that\n      a seventh-day Sabbath was natural there.\n\n  383 Compare the Rabbinical phrase, \u201csoiling the hands,\u201d applied to the\n      inspired books of Scripture.\n\n  384 A translation of the whole text is given in my Hibbert Lectures, pp.\n      70-76. With the last prohibition, compare Isa. lviii. 13, \u201cnot\n      speaking thine own words\u201d on the Sabbath-day.\n\n  385 Jastrow, _The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria_, pp. 322, 323.\n\n_  386 \u00c6dipus Judaicus_ (London, 1811).\n\n  387 So in the second book of the _Surpu_ series (_WAI._ iv. 59, Col. ii.\n      106, Col. iv. 7-9, translated in my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 508, 509);\n      _WAI._ iii. 66. _a_ 9, 13.\n\n_  388 Aufs\u00e4tze und Abhandlungen_, ii. pp. 149-165.\n\n  389 See my Hibbert Lectures, pp. 177, 178.\n\n_  390 Expository Times_, ix. (1898) p. 522; March 1900, p. 270.\n\n  391 P. 316.\n\n_  392 WAI._ i. 51. 1, 13.\n\n  393 Pronounced \u00can-sarra, \u00canu-sa-kissati in Semitic.\n\n  394 See the translation of the hymn in my Hibbert Lectures, p. 301. The\n      text has been commented on by Fr. Martin, _Textes r\u00e9ligieux\n      assyriens et babyloniens_, pp. 77-80.\n\n  395 The god of the \u201cgreat mountain,\u201d see above, pp. 376, 452.\n\n  396 Zimmern, _Die Beschw\u00f6rungstafeln Shurpu_, p. 3 sqq.\n\n  397 We may notice that it is the people, and not the king, who will\n      suffer for the misdeeds of the latter; cp. 2 Sam. xxiv. 17, and\n      Horace, _Ep._ i. 12, 20: \u201cquicquid delirant reges, plec tuntur\n      Achivi.\u201d\n\n_  398 WAI._ iv. 55. The inscription was first translated by George Smith,\n      _Assyrian Discoveries_ (1875), pp. 409-411, and by myself in the\n      _Records of the Past_, first ser., vii. (1876), pp. 119-122. Mr.\n      King has recently given the first part of the text in his\n      _Babylonian Religion_, pp. 217, 218.\n\n  399 Hommel suggests that _sil\u00e2n_, \u201cthe hollow place underneath the\n      earth,\u201d is derived from _sa\u2019\u00fbl\u00e2nu_, \u201csheol\u201d (_Aufs\u00e4tze_ und\n      _Abhandlungen_, iii. p. 347).\n\n_  400 Babylonian Religion and Mythology_, p. 83. See George Smith,\n      _Chald\u00e6an Account of Genesis_, pp. 78-80 (II. 10-13, 16-23).\n\n  401 K 255, _Obv._ i. 19, _Ablu dannu mutir gimilli Bili abi-su_, \u201cthe\n      mighty son, the avenger of Bel his father.\u201d\n\n_  402 Textes religieux assyriens et babyloniens_, p. xvi.\n\n  403 Martin, _l.c._, p. 14.\n\n  404 H. Gunkel, _Sch\u00f6pfung und Chaos in Urzeit und Endzeit_ (1895).\n\n\n\n\n\n<pre id=\"pg-footer\">","title":"The religions of ancient Egypt and Babylonia","tradition":"scripture-revelation","translated_text":null,"word_count":166853}