Then follows Sin to whom, as the first-born of Bel,[830] the third month, Siwan, is devoted.
The four succeeding months are parceled out among deities closely connected with one another,—Ninib, Nin-gishzida, Ishtar, and Shamash. Of these, Ninib and Nin-gishzida are solar deities. Ninib, as the morning sun, symbolizes the approach of the summer season, while Nin-gishzida, another solar deity,[831] represents an advance in this season. To them, therefore, the fourth and fifth months, Tammuz (or Du'zu) and Ab respectively, are sacred. Ishtar is the goddess of fertility, and the sixth month, which represents the culmination of the summer season, is accordingly devoted to her. As the last of the group comes Shamash himself, to whom the seventh month, Tishri (or Tashritum), is sacred. Marduk and Nergal come next, the eighth month, Marcheshwan,[832] being sacred to the former, the ninth Kislev to the great warrior Nergal. The factors here involved are not clear, nor do we know why the tenth month is sacred to Papsukal—perhaps here used as an epithet of Nabu—to Anu, and to Ishtar. The eleventh month, the height of the rainy season and known as the "month of the course of rainstorms," is appropriately made sacred to Ramman, 'the god of storms.' The last month, Adar, falling within the rainy season is presided over by the seven evil spirits. Lastly, an interesting trace of Assyrian influence is to be seen in devoting to Ashur, "the father of the gods," the intercalated month, the second Adar. This introduction of Ashur points to the late addition of this intercalated month, and makes it probable also that the intercalation is the work of astronomers standing under Assyrian authority. A second intercalated month is Elul the second. This month is sacred to Anu and Bel, just like Nisan, the first month. The list, therefore, begins anew with the intercalated month. Such a procedure is natural, and one is inclined to conclude that the intercalated Elul is of Babylonian origin and older than the intercalated Adar.
It does not appear that the female consorts of the gods shared in the honors thus bestowed upon the male deities. Variations from the list as given also occur. So Ashurbanabal calls the seventh month, Elul, the month of 'the king of gods Ashur,'[833] while Sargon[834] assigns the fourth month to the 'servant of Gibil,' the fire-god, by which Nin-gishzida is meant, and the third month he calls the month of "the god of brick structures."[835]
In fact, the assigning of the months to the gods appears to partake more or less of an arbitrary character. Absolute uniformity probably did not prevail throughout Babylonia until a comparatively late period. Nor does it appear that any popular significance was attached to the sacred character thus given to the months. It was the work of the schools, as are most of the features involved in the elaboration of the calendar.
In somewhat closer touch with popular notions and popular observances were the names of the months. Confining ourselves to the later names,—the forms in which they were transmitted during the period of the Babylonian exile to the Jews,[836]—we find that the first month which, as we shall see, was marked by sacred observances in the temples of Marduk and Nabu at Babylon and Borsippa was designated ideographically as 'the month of the sanctuary,' the third as the period of 'brick-making,' the fifth as the 'fiery' month, the sixth as the month of the 'mission of Ishtar'—a reference to the goddess' descent into the region of darkness. Designations like 'taking (i.e., scattering) seed' for the fourth month, 'copious fertility' for the ninth month, 'grain-cutting' period for the twelfth, and 'opening of dams'[837] for the eighth contain distinct references to agriculture. The name 'destructive rain' for the eleventh month is suggested by climatic conditions. Still obscure is the designation of the seventh month as the month of the 'resplendent mound,'[838] and so also is the designation of the second month.[839]
The calendar is thus shown to be the product of the same general order of religious ideas that we have detected in the zodiacal and planetary systems. Its growth must have been gradual, for its composite character is one of its most striking features. The task was no easy one to bring the lunar year into proper conjunction with the solar year, and there are grounds for believing that prior to the division of the year into twelve parts, there was a year of ten months corresponding to a simpler, perhaps a decimal, system, which appears to have preceded the elaborate sexagesimal system.[840]
However this may be, the point of importance for our purposes is to detect the extension of religious ideas into the domain of science, and, on the other hand, to note the reaction of scientific theories on the development of religious thought. The cosmology of the Babylonians results from the continued play of these two factors. Hence the strange mixture of popular notions and fancies with comparatively advanced theological speculations and still more advanced scientific theories that is found in the cosmological system. Even mysticism is given a scientific aspect in Babylonia. The identification of the gods with the stars arises, as we have seen, from a scientific impulse, and it is a scientific spirit again that leads to the introduction of the gods into the mathematics of the day.[841] A number is assigned to each of the chief gods. And, though such a procedure has its natural outcome in Cabbalistic tendencies, we can still discern in the ideas that lead to this association of numbers with gods, influences at work that emanated from the astronomical schools. Thus the moon-god Sin is identified with the number thirty, suggested by the days of the ordinary month. Ishtar, the daughter of Sin, is number fifteen, the half of thirty. The unit in the sexagesimal—the number sixty—is assigned to Anu, the chief of the triad, while the other two members, Bel and Ea, follow as fifty and forty respectively. The dependence of this species of identification upon the calendrical system is made manifest by the inferior rank given to the sun, which receives the number twenty, the decimal next to that assigned to Sin, while Ramman, the third member of the second triad,[842] is identified with ten.[843] Absolute consistency in this process is, of course, as little to be expected as in other semi-mystical aspects of the science of the Babylonians; nor is it necessary for our purposes to enter upon the further consequences resulting from this combination of gods with numbers. The association of ideas involved in the combination furnishes another and rather striking illustration of the close contact between science and religion in the remarkable culture of the Euphrates Valley.
There was no conflict between science and religion in ancient Babylonia. Each reacted on the other, but the two factors were at all times closely united in perfect harmony,—a harmony so perfect, indeed, as to be impressive despite its naïveté.
FOOTNOTES:
[808] E.g., IR. 52, no. 3, col. ii. l. 2; IIR. 38, 27b.