The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria

by Morris Jastrow

Anu [Bel and Ea were created].[692]

Anshar, Anu (?) ...

At this point the fragment breaks off.

Brief as it is, it affords a clear view of the manner in which the Babylonians regarded the beginning of things. Water was the primaeval element. 'Apsu' is the personified great 'ocean'—the 'Deep' that covers everything. With Apsu there is associated Tiâmat. Tiâmat is the equivalent of the Hebrew T'hôm,[693] which occurs in the second verse of the opening chapter of Genesis, and which is, like Apsu, the personification of the 'watery deep.' Apsu and Tiâmat are, accordingly, synonymous. The combination of the two may be regarded as due to the introduction of the theological doctrine which we have seen plays so prominent a part in the systematized pantheon, namely, the association of the male and female principle in everything connected with activity or with the life of the universe. Apsu represents the male and Tiâmat the female principle of the primaeval universe. It does not follow from this that the two conceptions are wholly dissociated from popular traditions. Theological systems, it will be found, are always attached at some point to popular and often to primitive beliefs.

Tiâmat was popularly pictured as a huge monster of a forbidding aspect. Traces of a similar conception connected with T'hôm are to be met with in the poetry of the Old and New Testament.[694] The 'Rahab' and 'Leviathan' and the 'Dragon' of the apocalypse belong to the same order of ideas that produced Tiâmat. All these monsters represent a popular attempt to picture the chaotic condition that prevailed before the great gods obtained control and established the order of heavenly and terrestrial phenomena. The belief that water was the original element existing in the universe and the 'source' of everything, may also have had its rise in the popular mind. It was suggested in the Euphrates Valley, in part, by the long-continued rainy season, as a result of which the entire region was annually flooded. The dry land and vegetation appeared, only after the waters had receded. The yearly phenomenon brought home to the minds of the Babylonians, a picture of primaeval chaos.

In the schools of theology that arose with the advance of culture, these two notions—water as the first element and a general conception of chaos—were worked out with the result that Apsu and Tiâmat became mythical beings whose dominion preceded that of the gods. Further than this the questionings of the schoolmen did not go. They conceived of a time when neither the upper firmament nor the dry land existed and when the gods were not yet placed in control, but they could not conceive of a time when there was 'nothing' at all. This cosmological theory which we may deduce from the fragment of the first tablet of the creation series is confirmed by the accounts that have come down to us—chiefly through Damascius—of the treatment of the subject by Berosus.[695] Damascius explicitly places the Babylonians among those nations who fail to carry back the universe to an ultimate single source. There is nothing earlier than the two beings—Apsu and Tiâmat.[696]

The massing together of the primaeval waters completes the picture of chaos in the cuneiform account. From the popular side, the commingling corresponds to the Tôhû wa Bôhû of the Book of Genesis, but for the Babylonian theologians, this embrace of Apsu and Tiâmat becomes a symbol of 'sexual' union.[697] As the outcome of this union, the gods are produced. This dependence of the gods upon Apsu and Tiâmat is but vaguely indicated. Another theory appears to have existed according to which the gods were contemporaneous with primaeval chaos. The vagueness may therefore be the result of a compromise between conflicting schools of thought. However this may be, the moment that the gods appear, a conflict ensues between them and Apsu-Tiâmat. This conflict represents the evolution from chaos to order. But before taking up this phase of the epic, a few words must be said as to the names of the gods mentioned, and as to the order in which they occur.

There are three classes of deities enumerated. The first two classes consist, each, of a pair of deities while the third is the well-known triad of the old Babylonian theology. Between the creation of each class a long period elapses—a circumstance that may be regarded as an evidence of the originally independent character of each class. Now it has recently been shown[698] that Lakhamu is the feminine of Lakhmu. The first class of deities is, therefore, an illustration again of the conventional male and female principles introduced into the current theology. While there are references to Lakhmu and Lakhamu in the religious texts,[699] particularly in incantations, these two deities play no part whatsoever in the active pantheon, as revealed by the historical texts. In popular tradition,[700] Lakhmu survived as a name of a mythical monster.

Alexander Polyhistor[701] quotes Berosus as saying in his book on Babylonia that the first result of the mixture of water and chaos—i.e., of Apsu and Tiâmat—was the production of monsters partly human, partly bestial. The winged bulls and lions that guarded the approaches to temples and palaces are illustrations of this old notion, and it is to this class of mythical beings that Lakhmu belongs. The schools of theology, seizing hold of this popular tradition, add again to Lakhmu a female mate and convert the tradition into a symbol of the first step in the evolution of order out of the original chaos. Lakhmu and Lakhamu are made to stand for an entire class of beings that are the offspring of Apsu and Tiâmat. This class does not differ essentially from Apsu and Tiâmat, nor from the 'Leviathan,' the 'Dragon,' the winged serpents, and the winged bulls that are all emanations of the same order of ideas. Accordingly, we find Lakhmu and Lakhamu associated with Tiâmat when the conflict with the gods begins. They are products of chaos and yet at the same time contemporary with chaos,—monsters not so fierce as Tiâmat, but withal monsters who had to be subdued before the planets and the stars, vegetation and man could appear.

The introduction of Anshar and Kishar as intermediate between the monsters and the triad of gods appears to be due entirely to the attempt at theological systematization that clearly stamps the creation epic as the conscious work of schoolmen, though shaped, as must always be borne in mind, out of the material furnished by popular tradition. In connection with the etymology and original form of the chief of the Assyrian pantheon,[702] the suggestion was made that the introduction of Anshar into the creation epic is a concession made to the prominence that Ashur acquired in the north. We are now able to put this suggestion in a more definite form. The pantheon of the north, as we have seen, was derived from the south. Not that all the gods of the south are worshipped in the north, but those that are worshipped in the north are also found in the south, and originate there. The distinctive features of Ashur are due to the political conditions that were developed in Assyria, but the unfolding of the conceptions connected with this god which make him the characteristic deity of Assyria, indeed, the only distinctive Assyrian figure in the Assyrian pantheon, does not preclude the possibility, of the southern origin of Ashur.