Human Origins

by S. Laing

"I am pure, I am pure."

It is evident that such an ideal of life, not imported from foreign sources, but the growth of an internal civilization, must be removed by an enormous time from the cannibal feasts and human sacrifices of the first glimpses of ideas of a future life in the stone ages.

It is to be observed also that the religion of ancient Egypt seems to be of native growth. No trace is to be found, either in record or tradition, of any importation from a foreign source, such as may be seen in the Chaldæan legend of Oannes and other religions of antiquity. On the contrary, all the Egyptian myths and traditions ascribe the invention of religion, arts, and literature, to Thoth, Osiris, Horus, and other native Egyptian gods.

The invention of the art of writing by hieroglyphics affords strong confirmation of this view. It is evidently a development on Egyptian soil, in prehistoric times, of the picture-writing of a primitive period. The symbols are taken from Egypt and not from foreign objects, and are essentially different from those of the Chaldæan cuneiform, which is the only other form of writing which might possibly compare in point of antiquity with the Egyptian hieroglyphics and hieratic. These were certainly known prior to the time of Menes, and they are the parents of the Phœnician, Hebrew, Greek, and all more modern alphabets.

In all other ancient systems of writing, such as Chaldæan and Chinese, we see the development from the original picture-writing into conventional signs, syllabaries, and finally into ideographs and phonetics; but in the case of Egyptian, when we first get sight of it in the earliest dynasties, it is already fully formed, and undergoes no essential changes during the next 5000 years. Even the hieratic, or cursive hieroglyphic for ordinary purposes, was current in the Old Empire, as is proved by the celebrated Prisse papyrus.

The Chaldæan religion is not so easily described as that of Egypt, for it started from a lower level, and went through more changes in the course of its evolution. In the case of Egypt, the earliest records show us a highly intellectual and moral religion, with only a few traces remaining of primitive barbarism in the form of animal worship, and this religion remained substantially unchanged until the conversion of the country to Christianity. The influences of Semitic and other foreign conquests and intercourse left few traces, and the only serious attempt at a radical religious revolution by the heretic king who endeavoured to dethrone the old Egyptian gods, and substitute a system more nearly monotheistic under the emblem of the winged solar-disc, produced no permanent effect, and disappeared in one or two generations. But in Chaldæa, Semitic influences prevailed from a very early period, and when we reach the historical periods of the great Babylonian and Assyrian empires, the kings, priests, and nobles were Semite, and the Accadian had become a dead language, which could only be read as we read Latin or Hebrew, by the aid of translations and of grammars and dictionaries. Still its records remained, as the Hebrew Bible does to us, and the sacred books of the old religion and its fundamental ideas were only developed and not changed.

In the background of this Accadian religion we seem to see a much nearer approach than we do in that of Egypt to the primitive superstitions peculiar to the Turanian race. To this day the religion of the semi-barbarous races of that stock is essentially what is called "Shamanism"; a fear of ghosts and goblins, a belief that the universe swarms with myriads of spirits, mostly evil, and that the only escape from them is by the aid of conjuror-priests, who know magical rites and formulas which can baffle their malevolent designs. These incantations, and the interpretation of omens and auguries, occupy a great part of the oldest sacred books, and more than 100 tablets have been already recovered from the great work on Astronomy and Astrology, compiled from them by the priests of Agade, for the royal library of Sargon I. They are for the most part of the most absurd and puerile character; as, for instance, "if a sheep give birth to a lion there will be war "; "if a mare give birth to a dog there will be disaster and famine"; "if a white dog enter a temple its foundation will subsist; if a gray dog, the temple will lose its possessions," and so on. This character of magicians and soothsayers clung to the Chaldæan priests even down to a later period, and under the Roman Empire Chaldæan rites were identified with sorcery and divination.

But out of this jungle of silly superstitions the elements of an enlightened and philosophical religion had evolved themselves in early Accadian times, and were continually developed as Semitic influences gradually fused themselves with Accadian, and formed the composite races and religions which came to be known in later times as Babylonian and Assyrian. The fundamental principle of this religion was the same as that of Egypt, and of most of the great religions of the East, viz. Pantheism. The great underlying First Cause, or Spirit of the universe, was considered as identical with his manifestations. The subtle metaphysical conceptions which still survive in the Creed of St. Athanasius, were invoked to make the incomprehensible comprehensible, by emanations, incarnations, and personified attributes. These again were attached to the striking phenomena of the universe, the sun, moon, and planets, the earth and sky, the winds, rains, and thunder. And ever as more phenomena were observed more gods were invented, who were thought to be symbols, or partial personifications, of the one great Spirit, and not more inconsistent with his unity than the "and yet there are not three Gods, but one God" of Athanasius.

But the Chaldæan, like the Egyptian priests, did not stop at one Trinity, but invented a whole hierarchy of Trinities, rising one above the other to form the twelve great gods, while below them were an indefinite number of minor gods and goddesses personifying different aspects of natural phenomena, and taken for the most part from astronomical myths of the sun, moon, planets, and seasons. For the religion of the Chaldees was, even more than that of the Egyptians, based on astronomy and astrology, as may be seen in their national epic of Izdubar, which is simply a solar myth of the passage of the sun through the twelve signs of the zodiac, the last chapter but one being a representation of the passage through the sign of Aquarius, in the fable of a universal deluge.

The first Accadian triad was composed of Anu, Mull-il, and Ea. Anu, or Ana, is the word for heaven, and the god is described as the "Lord of the starry heavens," and "the first-born, the oldest, the Father of the gods." It is the same idea in fact as that expressed by the Sanscrit Varuna, the Greek Ouranus. Mull-il, the next member of this triad, is the god of the abyss and nether world, while Ea is the god of the earth, seas, and rivers, "the Lord of the Deep," and personifies the wise and beneficent side of the Divine Intelligence, the maintainer of order and harmony, the friend of man. Very early with the introduction of Semitic influences Mull-il dropped out of his place in the Trinity, and was superseded by Bel, who was conceived as being the son of Ea, the personification of the active and combative energy which carries out the wise designs of Ea by reducing the chaos to order, creating the sun and heavenly bodies, and directing them in their courses, subduing evil spirits and slaying monsters. His name simply signifies "the Lord," and is applied to other inferior deities as a title of honour, as Bel-Marduk, the Lord Marduk or Merodach, the patron god of Babylon. In this capacity Bel is clearly associated with the midday sun, as the emblem of a terrible yet beneficent power, the enemy of evil spirits and dragons of darkness.