“In spite of the skill and knowledge of the Babylonians, and their wonderful progress in arts and sciences, they had a religion of the lowest and most degrading kind. True insight into natural phenomena was prevented, and progress beyond the surface of things stopped by a religion which had a multitude of gods, which were supposed to bring about in an irregular and capricious manner all the changes in nature and all the misfortunes which happened to the people; thus foresight and medicine were neglected, and unavailing prayers and useless sacrifices offered to propitiate the deities, who were imagined to hold the destiny of the human race in their hands.”
The other estimate is quite different:
“The history of Babylonia has an interest of a wider kind than that of Egypt; from its more intimate connection with the general history of the human race, and from the remarkable influence which its religion, its science, and its civilisation have had on all subsequent human progress. Its religious traditions, carried away by the Israelites who came out from Ur of the Chaldees (Genesis xi. 31), have through this wonderful people become the heritage of all mankind, while its science and civilisation, through the medium of the Greeks and Romans, have become the basis of modern research and advancement.”
Now the curious thing is that these contradictory estimates occur in the same book, and only separated from one another by a few pages. They were probably not written by the same man, for the edition we are quoting is one published after the author’s death, and “edited and brought up to date” by another writer. George Smith was the author, A. H. Sayce the editor, and both alike have the highest rank as Assyriologists, and any quotation from either must be considered as having a high degree of authority. Which, then, is right? Had the Babylonians a “religion of the lowest and most degrading kind,” or was it a religion which has had a “remarkable influence upon all subsequent human progress” through having been adopted by the Hebrews, and through them becoming “the heritage of all mankind”?
Or, again, are the two citations less contradictory than they seem, each being a correct statement of a particular point of view? Did the Babylonian religion, which the Hebrews are said to have borrowed, really have elements both of greatness and of degradation, and was it, therefore, capable of being interpreted in one way or the other, according to the particular element for the moment considered? Perhaps this is the fairer view. Possibly these two phases might be found to pertain to every religion whatsoever. In any event, we shall have occasion often to quote contradictory views in attempting to get at the truth about the religions of the various peoples who come before us. And of a certainty we shall sometimes be left in doubt as to the real character of the religion in question. So long as the sects of Christendom cannot agree among themselves as to the correct interpretation of the particular records which form their common basis, we can hardly hope to interpret with full justice the religious contemplations of people of another genius.
The following account of Assyrian religion by Joachim Menant is based upon a study of documents from the library of Asshurbanapal, and, as will be seen, is an exposition of certain details of the subject, rather than an attempt at a comprehensive analysis. Nevertheless, its explicit depiction of these details will perhaps give the reader a clearer idea of the Assyrian religion than could be gained from a more general treatment. As already pointed out, any interpretation of the mysteries of an oriental religion must necessarily, in the present state of our knowledge, leave much to be desired.[a]
It is rather difficult nowadays to distinguish the link which united science to astrology and astrology to religion. The Assyrio-Chaldean dogma is not formulated in a text by which we may grasp the whole, and thus we are obliged to seek traces of it in fragments of different sources and of different times, without being able to give them the unity they must have had in their complete form; in other words, we cannot reconstruct the Assyrian pantheon as a whole.
The most superficial examination suffices to show that we are in the presence of a very complicated polytheism, but there is no text to explain the hierarchy which must have reigned in the celestial world. At the summit of this hierarchy one can perceive a divinity, one, and at the same time divisible. Dogma proclaims this divinity in certain passages, but when we wish to learn its exact individuality, it eludes us, so that we may only seize the abstraction. We are led to believe in a celestial hierarchy of beings inhabiting a superior world and subordinated to an all-powerful God, who governs gods, world, and men. He is enthroned in spaces inaccessible to us in our condition, and appears only in legends; his power intervenes only when the order of the universe is threatened, as we shall see in the legend of Ishtar, when the goddess of the dwellings of the dead wishes to keep the daughter of Sin in the dark dwelling, where she is so boldly detained.
This all-powerful God does not seem to be accessible to human beings; secondary divinities revolve about him and seem, like him, to be pure spirits. In the practice of the religion one has a glimpse of an assembly of divinities, whose relations with humanity are more tangible. These gods assume more definite form, as a general thing the human one often joined with that of various animals, fish, oxen, or birds. The wings seem to have but a single symbolical signification, to denote beings of a superior order.
These gods have a rather definite hierarchy, twelve of them being known as “great gods.” The one who appears to be the chief varies according to locality and time. The chances of political conquest seem to influence him, and he is changed according to the fortunes of war that give the upper hand to such and such locality where his cult is followed.