She has lain on a glorious couch,
She has learned to love aright,
She has learned to kiss.”
The mutilation of this inscription renders the true interpretation doubtful, but it would seem to be exceedingly probable that there is in it some reference to the fate of our first mother, inherited by all her daughters to the end of time.
Ama-namtagga means “The Mother of Sin,” and her having eaten and done what is evil makes an interesting parallel with the case of Eve.[304]
The Cherubim.
Concerning the Cherubs something has been said in this book, pp. 80-82, and to this Prof. Delitzsch adds a few more instances. As others have done, he regards the cherubim of the Babylonians and Assyrians as being the winged bulls, with heads of men. As an angel he gives a picture of a winged female figure holding a necklace[305]; the demons he depicts are from the slabs in the Assyrian Saloon of the British Museum, where two of these beings are fighting with each other; and devils he regards as being typified by a small but mutilated statuette of a creature with an animal's head, long erect ears, and open mouth with threatening teeth. For the existence of guardian-angels he quotes the letter of Ablâ to the queen-mother: “Bel and Nebo's messenger of grace (âbil šipri ša dunqi ša Bêl u Nabû) will go with the king of the countries, my lord.” Of especial interest, however, is his reference to the inscription of Nabopolassar, in which that founder of the latest of the Babylonian empires states that Merodach “called him to rule over the land and the people, caused a guardian-god (cherub) to go by his side, and caused all the work which he undertook to succeed.” Besides the cherubs or guardian-angels, the Babylonians believed in numerous evil gods and devils, besides Tiamtu and the serpent-tempter of mankind.
Babylonian Monotheism.
The question of Babylonian monotheism, and of the antiquity of the name Yahweh (Jehovah) attracted a considerable amount of attention, and has been supplemented by Delitzsch very fully in the notes to his first lecture. Upon this point something was said in the present volume (pp. [47] and [58-61]), and the author is practically at one with Prof. Delitzsch. As the inscription translated on p. [58] shows, the Babylonians were monotheists, and yet they were not. They believed in all their various gods, and at the same time identified those gods with Merodach. Just as, in the beliefs of India, each soul may be regarded as emanating from, and returning to, the Creator, and forming one with Him at the final death of the body, so the gods of the Babylonians were apparently regarded as parts of, and emanations from, Merodach, the chief of the gods, who, [pg 534] when they conferred upon him their names, conferred upon him in like manner their being. It is in this way alone that Merodach, the last-born of the great gods, can be regarded as the father and begetter of the gods (see pp. [45], [46]).
Prof. Delitzsch has therefore done a service in bringing more prominently to the notice of students and scholars the text of which the obverse is printed on p. [58], and mentioning the paper where it first appeared.[306] The study of the religion of the Babylonians and Assyrians has been greatly furthered thereby.