BIL OR ENU.
But the evidence, though it will more clearly establish the fact of hero-worship, will perhaps raise a doubt whether we have rightly regarded Adam as the object of hero-worship in Ana, a point which we will then consider.
Rawlinson says of this god—“He is the Illinus (Il-Enu) of Damascius.” “His name, which seems to mean merely lord” (again the primitive monotheistic appellation) “is usually followed by a qualificative adjunct possessing great interest. It is proposed to read this term as Nipru, or in the feminine Niprut, a word which cannot fail to recall the scriptural Nimrod, who is in the Septuagint Nebroth. The term nipru seems to be formed from the root napar, which is the Syriac “to pursue,” to “make to flee,” and which has in Assyrian nearly the same meaning. Thus Bil Nipru would be aptly translated as “the hunter lord” or the “god presiding over the chase,” while at the same time it might combine the meaning of the “conquering lord” or “the great conqueror.”
Here, at any rate, it must be admitted that “we have, in this instance, an admixture of hero-worship in the Chaldæan religion” (Rawlinson, i. 148). But if in one instance what à priori reason is there that it should not be so in others? Let us, then, examine further. The name of this deity, as Bel Nipru or Nimrod, has, I consider, been completely traced in the pages of Rawlinson (to which I must refer my readers). But what are we to say about the alternative name of Enu? And why, although no great stress can be laid upon the location of a deity in a genealogy or a system, yet why is Nimrod thus placed intermediate between Adam and the third of the triad Hoa, whom, on grounds quite irrespective of the similarity of name, I identify with Noah?[151]
If Ana is Adam, and Hoa Noah, why should not Enu, in another point of view, be Enoch? There is, I admit, an absence of direct evidence, but I think I discover a link of connection in a note in Rawlinson (i. p. 196). “Arab writers record a number of remarkable traditions, in which he (Nimrod) plays a conspicuous part.” “Yacut declares that Nimrod attempted to mount to heaven on the wings of an eagle, and makes Niffers (Calneh) the scene of this occurrence (Lex. Geograph. in voc. Niffer). It is supposed that we have here an allusion to the building of the Tower of Babel.” But I cannot help regarding it as much more certainly like an allusion to Enoch’s disappearance from the earth. At p. 187, Prof. Rawlinson notices the confusion of Xisuthrus with Enoch, which proves that the tradition of Enoch was amongst them, and would have been common also to the Hamitic Arabs.[152]
I will now return to my doubt as to Ana. For although I feel tolerably certain that Ana in his human attributes represents one or other of the antediluvian patriarchs, it may well be that he is only a reduplication of Enu = Enoch. If we are to seek in the translation of Enoch the clue to the origin of the deification of man, and its commencement in the person of Nimrod (vide supra, [p. 160]), it is likely, in the legend of the apotheosis of Nimrod, that all the analogies should have been sought for in the striking historical event which was in tradition. There is, moreover, the analogy of name with Annacus, Hannachus = Enoch.[153] If he is Enoch, he naturally also falls into his place as second to Assorus.
I retain, however, my original opinion, that Ana is Adam (though possibly with some confusion with Enoch), in addition to the arguments already urged, upon the following grounds:— Rawlinson mentions (i. 147) “Telane,” or the “Mound of Ana,” distinct from Kalneh or “Kalana.” We know that there has been a constant tradition that the bones of Adam were preserved in the ark, and this name of the “Mound of Ana” may be connected with it. If so, it will also account for Ana (Dis = Orcus) being the patron deity of Erech, “the great city of the dead, the necropolis of Lower Babylonia” (Rawlinson i. 146).
The son of Ana is Vul. If Vul could be identified with Vulcan, and Vulcan with Tubalcain, it would go far to decide the point that Ana was Adam.
But in the matter of etymology, I do not know that we can advance beyond the quaint phrase of old Sir Walter Raleigh in his “History of the World,” that “there is a certain likelihood of name between Tubalcain and Vulcan.” I rely more upon the wide-spread tradition of Tubalcain in the legends of Dædalus, Vulcan, Weland, Galant, Wielant, Wayland Smith, which approaches very nearly an identification. Vide Wilson’s “Archæologia of Scotland,” p. 210. Compare the Phœnician tradition, Bunsen’s “Egypt,” iv. 217, 219.
It is to be noted, however, that although Ana (vide Rawlinson) “like Adam had several sons, he had only two of any celebrity” (we can suppose that Abel had died out of the Cainite tradition), “Vul and another whose name represents ‘darkness’ or ‘the west,’” which might well be the view of Seth from a Cainite point of view (and it is traditional that the Cainite lore was preserved by Cham in the ark). Now it is remarkable that the Scripture (Gen. iv.) expressly says that Cain dwelt on the east side of Eden.
I now come to