The shining one, lord of Nippur, mighty hand.
The lord, the life of the land, the massû of heaven and earth.”[22]
2. Sin
Next after Bêl, the moon-god is worthy of consideration, because of the age of his cult, and because of the greatness of its influence in Babylonia. The moon-god had two Sumerian names, two Assyrian names and two great temples. The Sumerian name most often applied to the moon-god is Šis-ki, the particular meaning of which in this case does not seem to be very patent. If the two syllables Šis and ki are taken as nouns, the one is the construct state and the other in the genitive relation, the name means “brother of the land”, that is, “protector of the land”, or “helper of the land”. The other Sumerian name is En-zu, lord of wisdom, the intellectual attribute of wisdom being closely related to the physical property of giving light. While therefore Šis-ki expresses the material relation of the moon to the earth, En-zu seems to state the intellectual relation of the moon-god to the affairs of the earth. The first Assyrian name of the moon-god to be considered is Nannar. The derivation of this name is still in doubt. It generally occurs in bilingual literature as the Assyrian equivalent of the Sumerian Šis-ki (see IV R. 9, 3-18). Jastrow thinks that the word Nannar is made by the reduplication of nar, “light”, and the assimilation of the first r, Nar + nar = Nannar (see RBA. p. 72). The other Assyrian name, connected with the moon-god more often at Harran than at Ur, is Sin, the sign being EŠ, used also for “thirty”, and is applied to the moon-god as the deity of the month of thirty days. As the cult of the moon-god traveled from Ur to Harran, so the name of Sin traveled even into the peninsula of Arabia and probably became a local name there in the wilderness. The Assyrian kings of the second empire seemed to prefer to call the moon-god by the name Sin, but the Semitic Babylonians called him Nannar.
Nannar had a temple at Ur, called E-gišširgal, and one at Harran, known as E-ḥulḥul. Ur was the oldest of the two temple cities. Its history may possibly reach back to 4000 B. C. Ur held a position in southern Babylonia similar to that held by Nippur in northern Babylonia, but was not so old as Nippur. Ur was the religious centre in the south with Nannar as the state god, as Nippur was the religious centre in the north with Bêl as the state god. When the states of the south and the north were united under Ḥammurabi, Babylon, becoming the religious capital of the south and the north combined, the state lustre of the god of Babylon naturally came to dim the glory of the god of Ur as well as that of Nippur. Harran, situated on the Euphrates in the northern part of Assyria, never figured in state power, and was prominent only because of the importance of the events that centered there, on the road between the east and the west.
Nabonidus, the last Semitic Babylonian king (555-538 B. C.) was an enthusiastic devotee of the moon-god. He tells us what Ašurbânipal did to the temple of the moon-god at Mugheir. In speaking of that temple, he calls it the house of Sin which Ašurbânipal, king of Assyria, son of Esarhaddon, king of Assyria had built. Nabonidus himself rebuilt both the temples of the moon-god, the temple of E-gišširgal at Ur and the temple of E-ḥulḥul at Harran, and he gives us a description of the rebuilding of both. We also have two prayers of Nabonidus addressed to the moon-god, one addressed to him at E-gišširgal, the other addressed to him at E-ḥulḥul (see I R. 68, Col. I, 6 ff. and V R. 64, Col. I, 8 ff.).
The temple ruins of E-gišširgal have been well uncovered. The temple is of rectangular form, the four corners turned towards the four cardinal points of the compass. The platform of the base is at the level of the roofs of the houses, made of solid masonry of bricks and reached by steps at the end. On the platform are two stagings, also of solid masonry reached by steps at one end. On the second staging is a shrine of the moon-god. In sculpture he appears as an old man with long beard and dressed in royal robes. He wears a hat and in the scene there is always a thin crescent (see Clercq, Vol. I, Plates X-XV). Loftus and Taylor both give drawings of the temple of E-gišširgal (see TR. p. 127 and JRAS. XV, p. 260.) The ruins of the temple of the moon-god at Harran have not yet been uncovered to the extent that the plan of the temple can be laid before us.
Theologically, Nannar stood at the head of the second triad of gods. The hierarchy of the universe consisted of the god Anu, the god Bêl and the god Ea. The hierarchy of heaven consisted of the god Nannar, the god Šamaš and the god Ištar; that is, the moon-god, the sun-god and the star-god. The reason for placing Nannar above Šamaš was that Nannar was the god of the ruling city, while Šamaš was the city god of the dependent state, though the sun which Šamaš represents is stronger than the moon which Nannar represents, and we should expect Šamaš, therefore, to receive the first place. The god of the city of Larsa was Šamaš. The god of the city of Ur was Nannar. When Larsa became subject to Ur, the god of Larsa; viz., Šamaš, became the child of the god of Ur; that is, of Nannar. The relation of the night to the calendar also shows that the rank of Nannar was superior to that of Šamaš. The day began at evening; not with the morning. The sun too was the son of the night; that is, it issued forth from the night, in the morning. Kings, thinking of this fact, that the sun was born of the night, often addressed Šamaš as the offspring of the god Sin. The rising of the moon in the night to send forth its light into the darkness also impressed the Babylonian with the power of the moon. The waxing and waning of the moon left the same impression on the Babylonian mind. The regularity of the phases of the moon and its effect upon the tides as well showed the moon to be an agent in marking time. Finally, the place of the moon among the stars also gave him the appearance of having royal sway.
Nannar’s national influence was much like that of Bêl. Geographically, he represented southern Babylonia, while Bêl was the chief deity of northern Babylonia. When Marduk became the patron god of Babylon, Bêl and Nannar still held their positions as patron gods, but in subordination to Marduk. Besides, they did not lose their influence as supreme deities, each in his peculiar sphere, Bêl as the god of the earth and Nannar as the god of the moon. Bêl was ruler of the earth while Nannar was, by his light, a producer in the earth. Bêl was the providential director of life on earth, Nannar was the originator of life on earth, as he formed the child in the womb. Both were superhuman in power and wisdom. Thus Ḥammurabi: “My words are mighty. If a man pay no attention to my words, may Bêl, the lord who determines destinies, whose command cannot be altered, who has enlarged my dominion, drive him out from his dwelling. May Sin, the lord of heaven, my divine creator, whose scimetar shines among the gods, take away from him the crown and throne of sovereignty.”[23]
No god in the mind of the Babylonian had reached the position of combining in himself all the qualities of divinity. So it did not seem inconsistent to the Babylonian to worship two gods like Bêl and Nannar, or more gods. There was a tolerance of all gods; each was considered as acting in his own circle, and these circles did not necessarily exclude the one the other. One god might be more important than another, according to the importance of the circle in which his virtue was effective, or according to the importance of the political power the circle of whose sway was under the special tutelage of some particular god. Babylonian worship cannot be said to be polytheistic in the grosser form, nor had it reached the higher ideal that lies in monotheism. It may properly be considered a henotheistic worship in which there is a pantheon of gods whose local and universal claims did not cause the gods or their devotees to war the one on the other.