The religions of ancient Egypt and Babylonia

The Religions of
Ancient Egypt and Babylonia
The Gifford Lectures on the Ancient Egyptian and Babylonian Conception of the Divine
Delivered in Aberdeen
Archibald Henry Sayce, D.D., LL.D.
Professor of Assyriology, Oxford
Edinburgh
T. & T. Clark, 38 George Street
1903

The subject of the following Lectures was “The Conception of the Divine among the ancient Egyptians and Babylonians,” and in writing them I have kept this aspect of them constantly in view. The time has not yet come for a systematic history of Babylonian religion, whatever may be the case as regards ancient Egypt, and, for reasons stated in the text, we must be content with general principles and fragmentary details.
It is on this account that so little advance has been made in grasping the real nature and characteristics of Babylonian religion, and that a sort of natural history description of it has been supposed to be all that is needed by the student of religion. While reading over again my Hibbert Lectures, as well as later works on the subject, I have been gratified at finding how largely they have borrowed from me, even though it be without acknowledgment. But my Hibbert Lectures were necessarily a pioneering work, and we must now attempt to build on the materials which were there brought together. In the present volume, therefore, the materials are presupposed; they will be found for the most part either in my Hibbert Lectures or in the cuneiform texts which have since been published.