K.—ASSYRIAN AND EGYPTIAN TEXTS.
Progress is continually being made in the decipherment and publication of these, and new facts are coming to light in consequence as to the religions of the early postdiluvian period.
According to the late George Smith and to Mr. Sayce, in their contributions to Bagster's "Records of the Past," the earliest monumental history of Babylonia reveals two races, the Akkadian or Urdu, a Turanian race, with an agglutinate language of the Finnish or Tartar type, and the Sumir or Keen-gi, believed to be Shemitic. The race of Akkad seems to have invented the cuneiform writing at a very early period, and it no doubt represents the primitive Cushites of the Bible, to whom is attributed the empire of Nimrod, whose first cities were Babel and Erech and Akkad and Calneh. Very ancient inscriptions of this early Chaldean or Cushite race exist, probably earlier than the time of Abraham. That of king Urukh, who is called "a very ancient king," on an inscription of Nabonadius, 555 B.C., represents himself as building temples to several gods and goddesses, so that in his time there was already a developed polytheism, unless, indeed, he was himself the inventor or introducer of much of it. Yet one can gather from the probably contemporary Creation and Deluge tablets translated by Mr. Smith, that a Supreme God was still recognized, and that the subordinate deities, though their worship was probably gaining in importance, were still only local and created beings. Yet it was undoubtedly from this embryo idolatry that Abraham dissented, and was thus led to leave his native land.
In like manner, in the early Egyptian Hymn to Amen Ra, translated by Mr. Goodwin, though we have the gods mentioned, they are inferior beings, and not higher in position than the angels of the Old Testament, while Ra himself is "Lord of Eternity, Maker Everlasting," and is praised as
"Chief creator of the whole earth,
Supporter of affairs above every god,
In whose goodness the gods rejoice."
Thus, although there can be little doubt that Ra was a sun-god, there can be as little that he is the Il or El of the Shemitic peoples, and that his worship represents that of the one God, the Creator. It seems probable also that there was an esoteric doctrine of this kind among the priests and the educated, however gross the polytheism of the vulgar. In short, the state of things in Assyria and Egypt was not dissimilar from that prevailing at this day in India, where learned men may fall back upon the ancient Vedas, and maintain that their religion is monotheistic, while the common people worship innumerable gods. All this points to a primitive monotheism, just as the peculiar forms of adoration given to saints and the Virgin Mary in the Greek and Roman churches historically imply a primitive Christianity on which these newer beliefs and rites have been engrafted.