Ea was not only the god of the deep, but also "lord of life," king of the river and god of creation. Like Osiris "he fertilized parched and sunburnt wastes through rivers and irrigating canals, and conferred upon man the sustaining 'food of life'.... The goddess of the dead commanded her servant to 'sprinkle the Lady Ishtar with the water of life'" (op. cit., p. 44).
In Chapter III. of Mr. Mackenzie's book, from which I have just quoted, there is an interesting collection of quotations clearly showing that the conception of the vitalizing properties of the body moisture of gods is not restricted to Egypt, but is found also in Babylonia and India, in Western Asia and Greece, and also in Western Europe.
It has been suggested that the name Ishtar has been derived from Semitic roots implying "she who waters," "she who makes fruitful".[110]
Barton claims that: "The beginnings of Semitic religion as they were conceived by the Semites themselves go back to sexual relations ... the Semitic conception of deity ... embodies the truth—grossly indeed, but nevertheless embodies it—that 'God is love'" (op. cit. p. 107). [This statement, however, is very misleading—see Appendix C, p. 75.]
Throughout the countries where Semitic[111] influence spread the primitive Mother-Goddesses or some of their specialized variants are found. But in every case the goddess is associated with many distinctive traits which reveal her identity with her homologues in Cyprus, Babylonia, and Egypt.
Among the Sumerians "life comes on earth through the introduction of water and irrigation".[112] "Man also results from a union between the water-gods."
The Akkadians held views which were almost the direct antithesis of these. To them "the watery deep is disorder, and the cosmos, the order of the world, is due to the victory of a god of light and spring over the monster of winter and water; man is directly made by the gods".[113]
"The Sumerian account of Beginnings centres around the production by the gods of water, Enki and his consort Nin-ella (or Dangal), of a great number of canals bringing rain to the desolate fields of a dry continent. Life both of vegetables and animals follows the profusion of the vivifying waters.... In the process of life's production besides Enki, the personality of his consort is very conspicuous. She is called Nin-Ella, 'the pure Lady,' Damgal-Nunna, the 'great Lady of the Waters,' Nin-Tu, 'the Lady of Birth'" (p. 301). The child of Enki and Nin-ella was the ancestor of mankind.[114]
"In later traditions, the personality of that Great Lady seems to have been overshadowed by that of Ishtar, who absorbed several of her functions" (p. 301).
Professor Carnoy fully demonstrates the derivation of certain early so-called "Aryan" beliefs from Chaldea. In the Iranian account of the creation "the great spring Ardvī Sūra Anāhita is the life-increasing, the herd-increasing, the fold-increasing who makes prosperity for all countries (Yt. 5, 1) ... that precious spring is worshipped as a goddess ... and is personified as a handsome and stately woman. She is a fair maid, most strong, tall of form, high-girded. Her arms are white and thick as a horse's shoulder or still thicker. She is full of gracefulness" (Yt. 5, 7, 64, 78). "Professor Cumont thinks that Anāhita is Ishtar ... she is a goddess of fecundation and birth. Moreover in Achæmenian inscriptions Anāhita is associated with Ahura Mazdāh and Mithra, a triad corresponding to the Chaldean triad: Sin-Shamash-Ishtar. Ἀνάιτις in Strabo and other Greek writers is treated as Ἀφροδίτη" (p. 302).