I base my conclusion upon the epithets applied to him in common with Hoa and Nin, and inconsistently applied if, according to the evidence, p. 177, “mythologically he was a deity of no very great eminence,” but in no way conflicting with the supposition that he represented the tradition of Noah, the counterpart to the tradition of Hoa and Nin, among some subordinate nationality, and such appears to be the fact. “When Nebo first appears in Assyria, it is as a foreign god, whose worship is brought thither from Babylonia,” p. 178.
Of Nebo it is said, “his name is the same or nearly so, both in Babylonian and Assyrian, and we may perhaps assign it a Semitic derivation, from the root ‘nibbah,’ to prophesy. It is his special function to preside over knowledge and learning. He is called ‘the god who possesses intelligence’—‘he who hears from afar’—‘he who teaches,’ or ‘he who teaches and instructs.’ In this point of view he of course approximates to Hoa, whose son he is called in some inscriptions, and to whom he bears a general resemblance. Like Hoa, he is symbolised by the simple wedge or arrow-head, the primary and essential element of cuneiform writing, to mark his joint presidency with that god over writing and literature. At the same time Nebo has, like so many of the Chaldæan gods, a number of general titles, implying divine powers, which, if they had belonged to him only, would have seemed to prove him the supreme deity. He is ‘the lord of lords, who has no equal in power,’ ‘the supreme chief,’ ‘the sustainer,’ ‘the supporter,’ the ‘ever ready,’ ‘the guardian over the heavens and the earth,’ ‘the lord of the constellations,’ ‘the holder of the sceptre of power,’ ‘he who grants to kings the sceptre of royalty for the governance of their people’” (Rawlinson, i. 177).
There is just a possibility, however, that Nebo may be Sem or Shem. He would be the son of Hoa as Nebo was stated to be.
I think, moreover, a striking resemblance will be seen between the above epithets and the traditions concerning Shem, collected by Calmet (Dict. “Sem.”)
“The Jews attribute to Sem the theological tradition of the things which Noah taught to the first men.... They say that he is the same as Melchisedek.... In fine, the Hebrews believe that he taught men the law of justice, the manner of counting the months and years, and the intercalations of the months. They pretend that God gave him the spirit of prophecy one hundred years after the Deluge, and that he continued to prophesy during four hundred years, with little fruit among mankind, who had become very corrupt. Methodius says that he remained in the isle of the sun, that he invented astronomy, and that he was the first king who ruled over the earth.”[164]
The difficulty, however, is in understanding how the worship of Shem came to Assyria from Babylonia. I can only reconcile it upon a theory that all idolatry came from Babylonia, i.e. from the Hamitic race.
There remains a difficulty which will doubtless occur to every one who has read the chapter in Rawlinson to which I must acknowledge myself so much indebted, and it is a difficulty which I ought, perhaps, to have dealt with before; and that is, that there is in the pages of Rawlinson (I. vii. 184) the most distinct identification of Noah with Xisuthrus. Of this there can be no doubt, from his direct connection with the Deluge, the circumstances of which are perfectly recorded in the Babylonian tradition.[165] This establishes the fact that the tradition of Noah and the Deluge was still among them when Berosus wrote. But if Xisuthrus is Noah, then it may be said Hoa, Oannes, and Nin cannot be Noah. It is a non sequitur, but will still, I fear, be very influential with many. It is difficult to understand the tendency to reduplication, and still more difficult to realise how a tradition so clear and decided could be contemporaneous with other identical traditions so entangled and confused. I believe this explanation to be that the account of Xisuthrus was part of the esoteric tradition to which Rawlinson refers, and which was also the tradition of their learned men—“Vixere fortes ante Agamemnon”;—and we cannot suppose that Berosus (of whom we should have known nothing if his works had not been preserved to us at third or fourth hand) was the first chronicler of his nation.[166]
I shall pursue this inquiry into the classical mythology in the next chapter, and then recapitulate the results as regards this inquiry.