If we are to assume that Babylonian astrology exerted so marked an influence on the Jews of the Exile, we should at least expect to find some traces of it in practical matters and in terminology. And in this connexion there are certain facts which have never been fairly met by the astral mycologists.[63] It is true that the returning exiles under Zerubbabel had adopted the Babylonian names of the months for civil use; but the idea of hours—that is to say, the division of the day into equal parts—does not seem to have occurred to the Jews till long after the Exile, and even then there is no trace of the Babylonian double hour.[64] The other fact is still more significant. With the exception of a single reference to the planet Saturn by the prophet Amos,[65] none of the Hebrew names for the stars and constellations, which occur in the Old Testament, correspond to those we know were in use in Babylon. Such a tact is surely decisive against any wholesale adoption of astral mythology from Babylon on the part of the writers or redactors of the Old Testament, whether in pre-Exilic or in post-Exilic times. But it is quite compatible with the view that some of the imagery, and even certain lines of thought, occurring in the poetical and prophetic books of the Hebrews, betray a Babylonian colouring and may find their explanation in the cuneiform literature. There can be no doubt that the Babylonian texts have afforded invaluable assistance in the effort to trace the working of the oriental mind in antiquity.
With regard to the suggested influence of Babylon on Greek religious thought, it is essential to realize that the temperaments of the Babylonian and the Hellene were totally distinct, the fanatic and self-abasing spirit of the East contrasting vividly with the coolness, civic sobriety, and self-confidence of the West. This has been pointed out by Dr. Farnell,[66] who lays special emphasis on the total absence of any trace in Mesopotamian cults of those religious mysteries, which, as he has shown elsewhere, formed so essential a feature in Hellenic and Ægean society.[67] Another fact in which he would see significance is that the use of incense, universal from immemorial times in Babylonia, was not introduced into Greece before the eighth century b.c. This little product, it will be readily admitted, was much easier to import than Babylonian theology. Few will disagree with him in regarding the suggestion, that for long centuries the Hittite empire was a barrier between Mesopotamia and the coast-lands of Asia Minor,[68] as a sufficient reason for this check in the direct spread of Babylonian influence westward. But no political barrier is effective against the tales that are remembered by travelling merchants and are retold around the camp-fires of the caravan. That Babylon should have contributed in some degree to the rich store of legends current in various forms throughout the region of the eastern Mediterranean is what one would expect.
The cultural influence of Babylonia had from the earliest period penetrated eastward, and the civilization of Elam, her nearest neighbour, had been to a great extent moulded by that of Sumer. But even at that time the trade-routes had been open to the west, and before the rise of Babylon both soldier and merchant had passed from the lower Euphrates into Syria. With the expansion of the Western Semites the two regions were drawn into more intimate relationship, and the political control of the middle Euphrates, first established in the age of Hammurabi, was followed by an increased commercial traffic, which continued with few interruptions into the Neo-Babylonian and later periods. Babylon's foreign policy was always dominated by the necessity of keeping her connexion open with the west: and it was mainly due to her commercial enterprise, and not to any territorial ambitions, that her culture reached the farther limits of Palestine and has left some traces in Greek mythology.
[1] The cult of Adonis travelled to Greece not later than the seventh century, b.c., and there is evidence that his rites were subsequently celebrated both in Argosand in Attica; see Frazer, "Adonis, Attis, Osiris," I., pp. 13 if., 226 f. For the Sumerian origin of the legend, see Zimmern, "Sumerisch-babylonische Tamûzlieder" (1907), and Langdon, "Tammuz and Ishtar" (1913).
[2] Though Actseon was changed into a stag by Artemis, the main features of the Babylonian myth, viz. the angry goddess, the changing of the hero into a beast, and his death due to his own hounds, persist in the various versions of the Greek story.
[3] Apart from other detailed resemblances, the labours and sufferings to which Heracles is exposed through Hera's hatred, a feature common to all forms of the Greek legend, find a close parallel in the persecution and trial of Gilgamesh by Ishtar. For the most recent discussion of the possible influence of the Gilgamesh legends on Hebrew traditions, see the additional note on "The mythical element in the Story of Samson," in Prof. Burney's forthcoming volume on "Judges," in the "Oxford Church Biblical Commentary."
[4] It is precisely this laxity of application, and the consequent temptation to abuse it, that have led many of their critics to deny all value to the researches of the late Hugo Winckler and his followers.
[5] For the chief literature in which their astral theory is expounded, see below, p. 292, n. 3.
[6] On this subject, cf. Cumont, "La plus ancienne géographie astrologique" in "Klio," IX. (1909), Hft. 3, pp. 263 ff.