The religions of ancient Egypt and Babylonia

by A. H. Sayce

Before Babylonian theosophy could arrive thus far, two things were necessary. The gods had to be arranged in a divine hierarchy, and the identification of one with the other had to become possible. The hierarchical arrangement followed from the Semitic conception of divinity. If Baal were a counterpart of the human father, there would be a divine family and a divine court modelled on the pattern of those of his worshippers. The god would have not only his wife and children, but his slaves and ministers as well. The deities of heaven would thus fall into orderly groups of higher and lower rank; the higher gods would tend to separate themselves more and more from those of subordinate degree, and the latter to sink into the position of second-rate intelligences, who stood midway between the gods and men, and depended on “the great gods” for their offices and existence.

The conception of a divine messenger or angel who carried the orders of the higher god from heaven to earth and interpreted his will to men, goes back to an early period in the history of Babylonian religion. We can trace it to the time when the Sumerian first began to be affected by Semitic influence. The sukkal or “angel”-minister plays a prominent part in primitive Babylonian theology, but it is noticeable that he is usually a son of the god whose messages he conveys to gods and men. Asari or Merodach is at once the son and the minister of Ea; Nin-ip, of En-lil. The fact points to an age when Sumerian animism had already been succeeded by Semitic Baalism; the spirit or ghost had become a god in human shape, who begat children and required an envoy.

When Merodach became the god of Babylon, and [pg 362] with the rise of his city to political power entered the circle of the supreme gods, he in his turn needed a messenger. The latter was found in the god of the neighbouring city of Borsippa. The growth of Babylon was accompanied by the decay of Borsippa, which in time was reduced to a mere suburb of the rival town. The god of the suburb was necessarily annexed by the god of the city which had absorbed it, and as necessarily became his follower and servant. Khammurabi, to whom Babylon owed its position and influence, even transferred the ancient temple of the god of Borsippa to the god of Babylon, and included him among the inferior deities to whom chapels were erected in the great sanctuary of Merodach.[287] But the god of Borsippa had once been as independent and supreme in his own city as Merodach was at Babylon. He had been addressed as “the maker” of the universe and the irrigator of the fields, and the origin of the cuneiform system of writing was ascribed to him. The Semites called him the Nabium or “Prophet,” and it was under this title of Nabium or Nebo that he became the minister of Merodach. The name was appropriate in his twofold character of interpreter of the will of Bel and patron of literature, and was carried by Babylonian conquest into the distant West. There Moses died in Moab on the summit of Mount Nebo, and cities bearing the name stood within the borders of Reuben and Judah.

It was doubtless the association of Nebo with Merodach that caused him, like Thoth in Egypt, to become the patron of literature and the god of the scribes. The culture-god was as it were divided into two; while Merodach retained the functions peculiar to [pg 363] a Semitic Baal, Nebo watched over the library and school, and encouraged the study of the script which had been invented by him. The older claims of Ea fell into the background and were forgotten; it was no longer the god of Eridu, but Nebo, who had written the first book, and instructed mankind in the elements of culture. The marshal's staff, which Nebo had wielded as organiser of “the hosts of heaven and earth,” now became the rod of the scribe, and a consort was created for him in the person of Tasmit or “Hearing.” In Assyria, where the worship of Assur prevented any development of that of his rival Merodach, Nebo became a special favourite of the literary class, who derived their knowledge and inspiration from Babylon. Assur-bani-pal never wearies of telling us how Nebo and Tasmit had “made broad his ears and enlightened his eyes,” so that he had collected and republished the books and tablets of the kings who had gone before him.

As minister of Merodach, Nebo passed into the solar circle. In Egypt he would have been absorbed by the more influential god, but in Babylonia the Semitic conception of Merodach as a Baal who required his minister and envoy like an earthly king, stood in the way of any such identification. He consequently retained his personality, and it was another god who was identified with him. This was Nusku, once the fire which blazed up into flame and purified the sacrifice. With the spread of the solar cult Nusku became a local sun-god, and was regarded as the god of the burning sun of noon. In Sumerian days, however, while he was still the spirit of the fire, he had been necessarily the servant and associate of En-lil; and when En-lil became the Semitic Bel of Nippur, Nusku followed his fortunes and was made his messenger. After this his identification with Nebo was easy. Nebo, too, was the messenger and [pg 364] interpreter of Bel, though it was the younger Bel of Babylon who had supplanted the older Bel of Nippur. As Bel-Merodach took the place of En-lil, so too did Nebo take the place of Nusku. The priests of Babylon knew of one Bel only, and the minister of Bel must be one and the same whether his name were Nusku or Nebo. That Nusku had originally been an independent deity was, however, never forgotten. The past history and religion of the country could not be ignored, and the priesthood were forced to erect a separate shrine to Nusku within the precincts of the temple of Nebo itself. Only thus could they be certain that the god would not avenge himself for being defrauded of his dues.

The history of Nebo is an instructive illustration of the successive changes that passed over the religion of Babylonia. We first have the ghost of Sumerian times, who becomes the god of a special city in the days when Semitic influence began to make itself felt. Then the god is transformed into a Semitic Baal, and with the political rise of the neighbouring city of Babylon is degraded into an attendant and retainer of the mightier god. As interpreter of the will of the culture-god he deprives Ea of his ancient prerogatives, and his title of “Prophet” becomes his name. Henceforth he is a purely Semitic divinity, and a wife is found for him in the shadowy abstraction “Hearing.” Under the influences of the solar cult, he is identified with the ancient Sumerian fire-spirit who had himself become a sun-god, and eventually he is adopted in Assyria as the patron of the learned class, and the divine representative of Babylonian learning.

But the history of Nebo also illustrates one of the directions in which the striving after a monotheistic faith displayed itself. Not only was a separate god, Nusku, amalgamated with Nebo, Nebo himself, while still [pg 365] keeping his independent personality, sank into a subordinate position which may be compared with that of an archangel in Christian belief. Babylonian religion came to distinguish between a limited number of “great gods” and the inferior deities who formed their court. Indeed, it went even further than this. From the days of Khammurabi onward there was a tendency to exalt Bel-Merodach at the expense of all his brother gods. The development of Babylonian religion, in fact, went hand in hand with that of the Babylonian State. The foundation of an empire had made the Babylonian familiar with the conception of a supreme sovereign, under whom there were vassal kings, and under them again a dependent nobility. The same conception was extended to the celestial hierarchy. Here, too, Bel-Merodach sat supreme, while the other gods “bowed reverently before him,” retaining, indeed, their ancestral rights and power within the limits of their respective sanctuaries, but acknowledging the supremacy of the one sovereign Bel. It was no longer in honour of En-lil that the inhabitants of Babylonia were called “the people of Bel,” but because they were all alike the children and adorers of Bel of Babylon.

But Babylonian religion never advanced further. It is true that the tablet published by Dr. Pinches, to which I have already alluded in the last lecture, identifies the chief gods of the pantheon with Merodach in his various phases and functions; it is also true that Nabonidos, the last Babylonian king, shocked the consciences and violated the rights of the local priesthoods by bringing the images of their gods into the central sanctuary; but such speculations and efforts remained isolated and without effect. It was otherwise, however, in Assyria. There the deities for the most part, like the culture and language, had been imported from the south; [pg 366] there were no time-honoured temples and venerable traditions to contend against; and, above all, there was a national god who represented the State rather than a Semitic Baal, and was therefore a symbol of the unity which bound the State together.

The supreme god of Assyria was Assur; the other gods were of Babylonian origin. And in the name of Assur we have the name of the country itself and its primitive capital. Assur, in short, was the deified city of Assur, the divine State which from the days of its successful revolt from Babylonia was predominantly military, with all the union and discipline of a military organisation. Such at least was the view taken of the god in the historical age of Assyria, though some modern scholars have doubted whether, like Nineveh, which derived its name from the goddess Ninâ, it was not originally rather the city that took its name from the god than the god from the city.

Such doubts, however, are set at rest by an examination of the proper names found in the Babylonian contracts of the early Semitic period, more especially in those of the age of Khammurabi. Many of them are compounded with the names of cities which are treated as deities, and are preceded by the prefix of divinity. Thus we have Sumu-Upi (Bu. 91-5-9. 2182. 16), like Ṡumu-Rakh or Sumu-Râ and Samuel, as well as Upi-rabi (Bu. 91-5-9. 377. 25), where the deified Upi or Opis plays exactly the same part as the deified rivers Euphrates and Tigris in other similarly compounded names. Between the deified city and the deified river no distinction was drawn. Both alike were impersonations of the god. So too in the second tablet of the Surpu series (WAI. iv. 59. 35, 38), Eridu and Babylon are invoked to deliver the sick man by the side of Ea and Merodach and various other gods, as well as certain [pg 367] of the stars. Between the ordinary gods of Babylonia and the deified city no distinction is made.[288]