Let us now turn to his reduplication, as I conceive, in Nin, or Ninip, who is said to be “the true fish god.”
“His names, Bar and Nin, are respectively a Semitic and a Hamitic term, signifying ‘Lord,’ or ‘Master,’” (p. 166). Astronomically Nin “should be Saturn.” However, a set of epithets which seem to point to his stellar character are very difficult to reconcile with the notion that, as a celestial luminary, he was (the dark and distant) Saturn. We find him called, “the light of heaven and earth,” “he who, like the sun, the light of the gods, irradiates the nations.” All this is very difficult to reconcile with legends arising out of the simple worship of a celestial luminary, but perfectly consistent with the supposition of the patriarch Noah, after deification, being located in the planetary system. The phrase, “he who, like the sun, the light of the gods, irradiates the nations,” is perfectly applicable to him who, as Oannes, we have ever regarded as “the god of science and of knowledge” and who “taught astronomy and letters to the first settlers on the Euphrates and Tigris.” Let us glance at the other epithets applied to Nin in the inscriptions. He is the “lord of the brave,” “the champion,” “the warrior who subdues foes,” “he who strengthens the hearts of his followers.” [The Scripture mentions the repeated assurances of the Almighty to Noah, that there should not be another Deluge; and the above is in keeping with the tradition that the early inhabitants long hesitated to quit the mountains for the plains, and only did so incited by the example of the patriarch.] “The destroyer of enemies,” “the reducer of the disobedient,” “the exterminator of rebels,” “he whose sword is good.” Like Nergal, or Mars, he is a god of battle and the chase. (I shall refer later on to these warlike epithets as applied to Noah.) At the same time he has qualities which seem wholly unconnected with any that have been hitherto mentioned. He is the true “fish-god” of Berosus, and is figured as such in the Scriptures. (I hope I may persuade some reader, who may be interested in this inquiry, to compare the figure of Nin, in Rawlinson, i. 167, with figure 23, Dupaix’s “New Spain” in Lord Kingsborough’s “Mexico,” representing an emblematic figure with fish[160] (as in the representation of Nin) over a human head, which also has inverted tusks. Compare also with representations of Neph, associated with snake and ram’s head, and also with “History of the Fish,” supra, [p. 197.]) To continue—in this point of view he (Nin) is called the “god of the sea,” “he who dwells in the deep” and again, somewhat curiously, “the opener of the aqueducts.” Now, as applied to Noah, this is not at all strange, and corresponds to the Scriptural phrase, “He opened the fountains of the deeps.” Subsequently to deification we cannot be surprised to find all that was done by the Almighty attributed to the individual to whom it was done; as in Prometheus we have a double legend of the Creator, who created man with the vital spark, and of Prometheus, the man who was so created. “Besides these epithets he has many of a more general character, as ‘the powerful chief,’ ‘the supreme,’ ‘the favourite of the gods,’ ‘the chief of the spirits,’ and the like.”
I must, moreover, request attention to the following from Rawlinson, i. 168,—“Nin’s emblem in Assyria is the man-bull, the impersonation of strength and power. He guards the palaces of the Assyrian kings, who reckon him their tutelary god, and gives his name to their capital city. We may conjecture that in Babylonia his emblem was the sacred fish, which is often seen in different forms upon the cylinders.”[161]
I turn to Gainet, i. 198, and I find this legend concerning the man-bull from Bertrand’s “Dict. des Religions,” 38, i. ii.[162]
“D’après les livres Parsis, le souverain Créateur sut que le mauvais génie se disposait à tenter l’homme. Il ne jugea pas à propos de l’empêcher par lui-même; il se contenta d’envoyer des anges pour veiller sur l’homme. Cependant le mal augmenta; l’homme se perdit; Dieu envoya un Deluge, qui dura dix jours et dix nuits et détruisit le genre humain. L’apparition de Kaioumons (l’homme-taureau), le premier homme, y est aussi précédée de la creation d’une grande eau.” Here, in a confused tradition, with Adam—just as Nin is confused with Hercules and Saturn—the man-bull is apparently associated with a great flood.
In the curious Etruscan monument commemorative of the Deluge—discovered in 1696—and to which Cardinal Wiseman draws attention in his “Conferences” (vide Gainet, i. 190), being a vase supposed to represent the ark, and containing figures of twenty couples of (12) animals, (6) birds, (2) serpents, &c., and several human figures represented in the act of escaping from an inundation, there were also discovered certain signets and amulets. These consisted of hands joined, heads of oxen, and olives. Now the olive in connection with the Deluge will speak for itself,—the hands joined are the symbol of Janus (vide next chapter), and heads of oxen—here unmistakably connected with the Deluge—may also be conjectured to have allusion to the man-bull above referred to.
Thus Nin, through both his emblems (bull and fish), is brought into contact with the Noachic tradition.[163] It is also said (Rawlinson, i. 174) of Nergal, vide supra, who is clearly identified with Nimrod,—“Again, if Nergal is the man-lion, his association in the buildings with the man-bull would be exactly parallel with the conjunction which we so constantly find between him and Nin in the inscriptions.”
It is true that the majority of the inscriptions, p. 169, assert that Nin was the son of Bel-Nimrod. This may be referred to that tendency, previously noted in ancient nations, to place the ancestor with whom they were themselves identified at the head of every genealogy. One inscription, however, “makes Bel-Nimrod the son of Nin instead of his father.” Nin, in any case, is unquestionably brought into close historical relationship with Bel-Nimrod, an historical character, and we must, in fine, choose whether we shall admit him to be Noah—to whom all the epithets would apply—or whether, upon the more literal construction of the inscriptions, we shall believe him to be some nameless son or successor of Nimrod.
There is one god more in whom I fancy I see a counterpart of Noah, or at least a counterpart of Hoa and Nin—viz.