It is just this phase in the history of Babylonian theology that we find reflected in the theology of Canaan. Baal has passed into the sun-god, and his characteristics are those of the sun-gods of Babylonia. The historical monuments have told us how long and deep was the influence of Babylonia upon the culture of Canaan, and it was exercised just at the time when the solar faith had triumphed in the Babylonian plain. It is not without significance that Sargon of Akkad, who first brought the civilisation and arts of Babylonia to the shores of the Mediterranean, should have had his capital in a city which adjoined Sippara, the special seat of solar worship. While Arabia drew its inspiration from Ur, the religion of Canaan was modified by contact with a culture and theology that were more purely Babylonian. Phœnician tradition stoutly maintained that the ancestors of the Canaanitish people had come from the Persian Gulf.
“Sabaism,” therefore, to use the old term, must really have been an early form of Babylonian belief. It was communicated to the Semites west of the Euphrates at different times and in different ways. To the Western Semites of Arabia and Mesopotamia it came through Ur, and consequently set the moon-god at the head of the divine hierarchy. To the Canaanite it was carried more [pg 484] directly, but at a later period, when the solar worship had become dominant in Babylonia. The influence of Nippur had waned before that of Eridu, and out of Eridu had risen a culture-god whose son and vicegerent was the sun.
The moon-god was addressed in Southern Arabia by different titles, one of which was that 'Ammi or 'Ammu which forms part of the name of Khammurabi. Professor Hommel hints that even the Hebrew Yahveh may once have been a title of the moon-god among the Western Semites of Babylonia. As I was the first to point out, the name of Yahveh actually occurs in a document of the age of Abraham, where it enters into the composition of the name Yahum-ilu, the Joel of the Old Testament. Professor Hommel has since found other examples of it in tablets of the same period, thus overthrowing the modern theory which derives it from the Kenites.[390] It was already known to “Abram the Hebrew” in Ur of the Chaldees.
The hymn to the moon-god of Ur, to which I have referred in an earlier lecture,[391] is almost monotheistic in tone. To the writer he “alone is supreme in heaven and earth.” He is the creator of the universe; he is also the universal “Father,” “long-suffering and full of forgiveness, whose hand upholds the life of all mankind.” More than that, he is “the omnipotent one, whose heart is immensity, and there is none that may fathom it.” Among the other gods he has no rival; he causes the herb to grow, and the cattle and flock to bring forth; and he established law and justice among mankind. The angels of heaven and the spirits of the earth alike do homage to him; there is no goddess even who appears at his side. The hymn formed part of the [pg 485] ritual of the great temple at Ur before the birth of Abraham, and the Hebrew patriarch may well have listened to its teaching.
From Ur and its mixed population we can trace the worship of the Babylonian moon-god along the coasts of Southern Arabia as far as Egypt. In Hadhramaut, as I have already said, the very name of Sin was retained, and even in North-western Arabia the name of the sacred mountain of Sinai bears witness to the cult of the Babylonian deity. Early seal-cylinders associate with the moon-god both an ape and a dwarf-like figure, called Nu-gidda, “the dwarf,” in Sumerian, who dances in honour of the god, like the Danga dwarf in Egypt, or the cynocephalous apes of Thoth. In Egypt, however, the dwarf assumes the shape of Bes, who is often represented with an ape on either side; and Bes with his crown of feathers, along with the apes (or monkeys) that accompany him, came from the south of Arabia to the valley of the Nile.
The monotheistic tendency of the hymn to the moon-god stands in marked contrast to the polytheism of the solar hymns. The solar ritual, in fact, was essentially polytheistic. But Nannar or Sin, the moon-god, was “the prince of the gods,” the ruler of the starry hosts of heaven. By the side of him the stars were but as the sheep of a flock in the presence of their shepherd, or as the people of a State in the presence of their deified king. Hence he was lord over his brother gods in a way that the sun-god could never be; they became the hosts that he marshalled in fight against the enemies of light and order, the multitude that obeyed his voice as the sheep follow their shepherd. The moon-god was emphatically “the lord of hosts”!
The title was applied to other gods in later days. Nebuchadrezzar calls Nebo “the marshaller of the hosts [pg 486] of heaven and earth,”[392] and Tiglath-pileser i. makes Assur “the director of the hosts of the gods.” The kings transferred the title to themselves, changing only “gods” into “men,” and so becoming “kings of the hosts of mankind.” But the first signification of the term was “the host of heaven,” the stars of El above whom the king of Babylon sought to erect his throne. One of the primeval divinities of the pantheon—a divinity, indeed, who scarcely emerged from his primitive condition of a primordial spirit—was En-me-sarra,[393] “the enchanter of the (heavenly and earthly) hosts,” to whom in some of the old Babylonian cities a feast of mourning was celebrated at the time of the winter solstice in the month Tebet. A hymn entitles him “the lord of the earth, the prince of Arallu, lord of the place and the land whence none return, even the mountain of the spirits of earth ... without whom Inguriṡa cannot produce prosperity in field or canal, cannot create the crop ... he who gives sceptre and reign to Anu and El-lil.”[394] He is invoked, like the moon-god, to establish firmly the foundation-stone that it may last for ever. But it is not only over the spirits of the underground world that he holds sway; he reigns also in heaven, in the close vicinity of the ecliptic, and “the seven great gods” who were his sons were stars in the sky. His attributes, therefore, closely resemble those of the moon-god of Ur: like the moon-god, he is at once lord of the sky and of the underworld, a father of the stars of night who makes the green herb grow in the earth below. In En-me-sarra, “the enchanter of the (spirit)-hosts,” the [pg 487] realm of the moon-god was united with that of En-lil; as lord of the night he ruled in Hades, and was supreme even in that “mountain” of the ghost-world from which En-lil derived one of his names.[395]
But I must leave to others the task of further pursuing the path of exploration which I have thus sketched in outline. That Yahveh was once identified with the moon-god of Babylonia in those distant days, when as yet Abraham had not been born in Ur of Chaldees, explains his title of “Lord of hosts” better than the far-fetched theories which have been invented to account for it. The explanation has at least the merit of being supported by the ancient texts of Babylonia. Adventurous spirits may even be inclined to see in Sinai, the mountain of Sin, a fitting place for the promulgation of the Law of the Lord of hosts; but such speculations lie beyond the reach of the present lecturer, and the lectures he has undertaken to give.
The name of En-me-sarra, “the enchanter of the (spirit)-hosts,” brings us back to that dark background of magic and sorcery which distinguished and disfigured the religion of Babylonia up to the last. The Sumerian element continued to survive in the Babylonian people, and the magic which was its primitive religion survived also. It was never eliminated; behind the priest lurked the sorcerer; the spell and the incantation were but partially hidden beneath the prayer and the penitential psalm. One result of this was the exaggerated importance attached to rites and ceremonies, and the small space occupied by the moral element in the official Babylonian faith. There was doubtless a certain amount of spirituality, more especially of an individualistic sort; the sinner bewails his transgressions, and appeals for help to his deity, but of morality as an integral part of [pg 488] religion there is little evidence. We look in vain for anything analogous to the judgment-hall of Osiris and the negative confession of the Egyptian dead; the Babylonian gods, it is true, preferred that a man should walk uprightly, but his future salvation did not depend on his conduct in this life. He was punished in this world for his sins and shortcomings, but the sins were not confined to sins against morality; they equally included ceremonial transgressions.
At the same time, a sort of catechism which forms part of the ritual of the seers shows that a recognition of the moral element in religion was not altogether wanting. The following is Professor Zimmern's translation of it: “Has he estranged the father from his son? Has he estranged the son from his father? Has he estranged the mother from her daughter? Has he estranged the daughter from her mother? Has he estranged the mother-in-law from her daughter-in-law? Has he estranged the brother from his brother? Has he estranged the friend from his friend? Has he estranged the companion from his companion? Has he refused to set a captive free, or has he refused to loose one who was bound? Has he excluded the prisoner from the light? Has he said of a captive, ‘Hold him fast,’ or of one who was bound, ‘Strengthen his bonds’? Has he committed sin against a god, or has he committed sin against a goddess? Has he offended a god, or has he held a goddess in light esteem? Is his sin against his own god, or is his sin against his own goddess? Has he done violence to one older than himself, or has he conceived hatred against an elder brother? Has he held his father and mother in contempt, or has he insulted his elder sister? Has he been generous in small things, but avaricious in great matters? Has he said ‘yea’ for ‘nay,’ and ‘nay’ for ‘yea’? Has he [pg 489] spoken of unclean things or [counselled] disobedience? Has he spoken wicked words?... Has he used false scales?... Has he accepted a wrong account, or has he refused a rightful sum? Has he disinherited a legitimate son, or has he recognised an illegitimate son? Has he set up a false landmark, or has he refused to set up a true landmark? Has he removed bound, border, or landmark? Has he broken into his neighbour's house? Has he drawn near his neighbour's wife? Has he shed his neighbour's blood? Has he stolen his neighbour's garment?”[396]