One of the most curious of the Babylonian myths was that which told how the seven evil-spirits or storm-demons had once warred against the moon and threatened to devour it. Samas and Istar fled from the lower sky, and the Moon-god would have been blotted out from heaven had not Bel and Ea sent Merodach in his 'glistening armour' to rescue him. The myth is really a primitive attempt to explain a lunar eclipse, and finds its illustration in the dragon of the Chinese, who is still popularly believed by them to devour the sun or moon when an eclipse takes place.
The primæval victory of light and order over darkness and chaos, which seems to be repeated whenever the sun bursts through a storm-cloud, was similarly expressed in a mythical form. It was the victory of Merodach over Tiamat,'the deep,' the personification of chaos and elemental anarchy. The myth was embodied in a poem, the greater part of which has been preserved to us. We are told how Merodach was armed by the gods with bow and scimetar, how alone he faced and fought the dragon Tiamat, driving the winds into her throat when she opened her mouth to swallow him, and how, finally, he cut open her body, scattering in flight 'the rebellious deities' who had stood at her side. Tiamat, or the watery chaos, is usually represented with wings, claws, tail, and horns, but she is also identified with 'the wicked serpent' of 'night and darkness,' 'the monstrous serpent of seven heads,' 'which beats the sea.'
The most interesting of the old myths and traditions of Babylonia are those in which we can trace, more or less clearly, the lineaments of the accounts of the creation of the world and the early history of man, given us in the early chapters of Genesis. There was more than one legend of the creation. In a text which came from the library of Cuthah, it was described as taking place on evolutionary principles, the first created beings being the brood of chaos, men with 'the bodies of birds' and 'the faces of ravens,' who were succeeded by the more perfect forms of the existing world. But the library of Assur-bani-pal also contained an account of the creation, which bears a remarkable resemblance to that in the first chapter of Genesis. Unfortunately, however, it seems to have been of Assyrian and not Babylonian origin, and, therefore, not to have been of early date. In this account the creation appears to be described as having been accomplished in six days. It begins in these words:
'At that time the heavens above named not a name, nor did the earth below record one; yea, the ocean was their first creator, the flood of the deep (Tiamat) was she who bore them all. Their waters were embosomed in one place, and the clouds (?) were not collected, the plant was still ungrown. At that time the gods had not issued forth, any one of them; by no name were they recorded, no destiny (had they fixed). Then the (great) gods were made; Lakhmu and Lakhamu issued forth the first. They grew up.... Next were made the host of heaven and earth. The time was long, (and then) the gods Anu, (Bel, and Ea were born of) the host of heaven and earth.' The rest of the account is lost, and it is not until we come to the fifth tablet of the series, which describes the appointment of the heavenly bodies, that the narrative is again preserved. Here we are told that the creator, who seems to have been Ea, 'made the stations of the great gods, even the stars, fixing the places of the principal stars like ... He ordered the year, setting over it the decans; yea, he established three stars for each of the twelve months.' It will be remembered that, according to Genesis, the appointment of the heavenly bodies to guide and govern the seasons was the work of the fourth day, and since the work is described in the fifth tablet or book of the Assyrian account, while the first tablet describes the condition of the universe before the creation was begun, it becomes probable that the Assyrians also knew that the work was performed on the fourth day. The next tablet states that 'at that time the gods in their assembly created (the living creatures). They made the mighty (animals). They caused the living beings to come forth, the cattle of the field, the beast of the field, and the creeping thing.' Unfortunately the rest of the narrative is in too mutilated a condition for a translation to be possible, and the part which describes the creation of man has not yet been recovered among the ruins of the library of Nineveh.
The Chaldean account of the Deluge was discovered by Mr. George Smith, and its close resemblance to the account in Genesis is well known. Those who wish to see a translation of it, according to the latest researches, will find one in the pages of 'Fresh Light from the Ancient Monuments.' The account was introduced as an episode into the eleventh book of the great Babylonian epic of Gisdhubar, and appears to be the amalgamation of two older poems on the subject. The story of the Deluge, in fact, was a favourite theme among the Babylonians, and we have fragments of at least two other versions of it, neither of which, however, agree so remarkably with the Biblical narrative as does the version discovered by Mr. Smith. Apart from the profound difference caused by the polytheistic character of the Chaldean account, and the monotheism of the Scriptural narrative, it is only in details that the two accounts vary from one another. Thus, the vessel in which Xisuthros, the Chaldean Noah, sails, is a ship, guided by a steersman, and not an ark, and others besides his own family are described as being admitted into it. So, too, the period of time during which the flood was at its height is said to have been seven days only, while, beside the raven and the dove, Xisuthros is stated to have sent out a third bird, the swallow, in order to determine how far the waters had subsided. The Chaldean ark rested, moreover, on Rowandiz, the highest of the mountains of Eastern Kurdistan, and the peak whereon Accadian mythology imagined the heavens to be supported, and not on the northern or Armenian continuation of the range. Babylonian tradition, too, had fused into one Noah and Enoch, Xisuthros being represented as translated to the land of immortality immediately after his descent from the ark and his sacrifice to the gods. It is noticeable that the Chaldean account agrees with that of the Bible in one remarkable respect, in which it differs from almost all the other traditions of the Deluge found throughout the world. This is in its ascribing the cause of the Deluge to the wickedness of mankind. It was sent as a punishment for sin.
As might have been expected, the Babylonians and Assyrians knew of the building of the Tower of Babel, and the dispersion of mankind. Men had 'turned against the father of all the gods,' under a leader the thoughts of whose heart 'were evil.' At Babylon they began to erect 'a mound,' or hill-like tower, but the winds destroyed it in the night, and Anu 'confounded great and small on the mound,' as well as their 'speech,' and 'made strange their counsel.' All this was supposed to have taken place at the time of the autumnal equinox, and it is possible that the name of the rebel leader, which is lost, was Etána. At all events the demi-god Etána played a conspicuous part in the early historical mythology of Babylonia, like two other famous divine kings, Ner and Dun, and a fragment describes him as having built a city of brick. However this may be, Etána is the Babylonian Titan of Greek writers, who, with Promêtheus and Ogygos, made war against the gods.
If we sum up the character of Assyrian religion, we shall find it characterised by curious contrasts. On the one hand we shall find it grossly polytheistic, believing in 'lords many and gods many,' and admitting not only gods and demi-gods, and even deified men, but the multitudinous spirits, 'the host of heaven and earth,' who were classed together as the '300 spirits of heaven and the 600 spirits of earth.' Some of these were beneficent, others hostile, to man. In addition to this vast army of divine powers, the Assyrian offered worship also to the heavenly bodies, and to the spirits of rivers and mountains. He even set up stones or 'Beth-els,' so called because they were imagined to be veritable 'houses of god,' wherein the godhead dwelt, and over these he poured out libations of oil and wine. Yet, on the other hand, with all this gross polytheism, there was a strong tendency to monotheism. The supreme god, Assur, is often spoken of in language which at first sight seems monotheistic: to him the Assyrian monarchs ascribe their victories, and in his name they make war against the unbeliever. A similar inconsistency prevailed in the character of Assyrian worship itself. There was much in it which commands our admiration: the Assyrian confessed his sins to his gods, he begged for their pardon and help, he allowed nothing to interfere with what he conceived to be his religious duties. With all this, his worship of Istar was stained with the foulest excesses—excesses, too, indulged in, like those of the Phœnicians, in the name and for the sake of religion.
Much of this inconsistency may be explained by the history of his religious ideas. As we have seen, a large part of them was derived from a non-Semitic population, the primitive inhabitants of Babylonia, under whose influence the Semitic Babylonians had come at a time when they still lacked nearly all the elements of culture. The result was a form of creed in which the old Accadian faith was bodily taken over by an alien race, but at the same time profoundly modified. It was Accadian religion interpreted by the Semitic mind and belief. Baal-worship, which saw the Sun-god everywhere under an infinite variety of manifestations, waged a constant struggle with the conceptions of the borrowed creed, but never overcame them altogether. The gods and spirits of the Accadians remained to the last, although permeated and overlaid with the worship of the Semitic Sun-god. As time went on, new religious elements were introduced, and Assyro-Babylonian religion underwent new phases, while in Assyria itself the deified state in the person of the god Assur tended to absorb the religious cult and aspirations of the people. The higher minds of the nation struggled now and again towards the conception of one supreme God and of a purer form of faith, but the dead weight of polytheistic beliefs and practices prevented them from ever really reaching it. In the best examples of their religious literature we constantly fall across expressions and ideas which show how wide was the gulf that separated them from that kindred people of Israel to whom the oracles of God were revealed.