Yet it has been opposed, in limine, to M. L’Abbe Gainet’s valuable chapter on the “Monotheisme des Peuples primitifs,” “that he does not meet the specific assertions of historians such as Rawlinson, who finds idolatry prevalent among the Chaldæans on their first appearance on the stage of history.”
I must submit, however, that although the discovery of idolatry at this early period may appear to disturb the particular theory, yet on closer examination it will be found to sustain L’Abbe Gainet’s argument, on the whole, by sustaining the truth of tradition upon which his main argument reposes; for the idolatry which we find is intimately bound up with the worship of Belus, identified with Nimrod, whose rebellion against the Lord has always been in tradition, and is according to the more accepted interpretation of the sacred text. The discovery of idolatry, therefore, under the particular circumstances, is exactly what we should expect, and affords a remarkable confirmation of the fidelity of tradition.
Moreover, there are Chaldæans and Chaldæans, as we have just seen in Rawlinson (sup. [p. 184]), and as will be made more evident in the following passage from Gainet’s “Monotheisme,” &c.
“It is sufficiently agreed, says Lebatteux (Mem. Acad. t. xxvii. p. 172), that the Babylonians recognised a supreme being, the Father and Lord of all (Diod. Sic. l. ii.) St Justin Cohortat. ad gent. Eusebi. Prep. Evan., l. iii. Porphyry (Life of Pythagoras) cites an oracle of Zoroaster, in which the Chaldæans are coupled in encomium with the Hebrews for the sanctity of the worship which they paid to the Eternal King. These are the words of the oracles—The Chaldeans alone with the Hebrews have wisdom for their share, rendering a pure worship to God, who is the Eternal King.”—Gainet, iii. 408.
The pure monotheism here alluded to may have been preserved in Chaldæan families of Semitic origin, but the extract I have just given from Rawlinson seems to prove that the knowledge was preserved also, dimly and obscurely, among the predominant Chaldæans of Hamitic descent. This will be more apparent from the monotheistic epithets attached to the three next deities.
ANA.
“Ana is the head of the first triad which follows immediately after the obscure god Ra.” “Ana, like Il and Ra, is thought to have been a word originally signifying God in the highest sense.” “He corresponds in many respects to the classical Hades, who, like him, heads[146] the triad to which he belongs.” In so far he is undistinguishable from Il or Ra, and may only transmit the monotheistic tradition through a different channel. But Ana has human epithets applied to him very suggestive of hero-worship. “His epithets are chiefly such as mark priority and antiquity.” “He is the Old Ana,” “the original chief,” “the father of the gods” [inter alia, of Bil Nipru, i.e. Nimrod]. He is also called—which imports another association of ideas—“the lord of spirits and demons,” “the king of the lower world,”[147] “the lord of darkness or death,” “the ruler of the far-off city.”
Setting aside such titles as belong exclusively to the Deity, but assuming hero-worship—supposing man deified—who more appropriately placed in these primitive times at the head of the list, than their original progenitor Adam.[148] To whom would these titles, “the old Ana,”[149] “the original chief,” “the lord of darkness and death,” he who introduced death into the world, more exactly apply? Rawlinson also says—“His position is well marked by Damascius, who gives the three gods Anus, Illinus, and Aüs, as next in succession to the primeval pair, Assorus and Missara,” i. 145. Now, it will not be contested, I think, that Assorus is the same as Alorus, the first of the ten antediluvian (deluge of Xisuthrus) Assyrian kings enumerated by Berosus, and which correspond to the ten antediluvian patriarchs. Consequently Assorus = Alorus = Adam.[150]
Here, then, we have a reduplication, or else what I have above referred to, the tendency to place the head of the dynasty at the top of the list superior to gods and men. In any case, granting this juxtaposition, would there not have been the proximate risk and probability of the two running into one another and becoming confounded, on the supposition that Ana and Alorus were not originally identical?
This will become more evident when we have considered the next in the triad—