The following facts contained in Prof. Morris Jastrow's admirable hand book on the “Religion of Babylonia and Assyria,” further establish the pervading influence of the number seven. “The two most famous zikkurats of seven stages were those in Babylon and Borsippa, opposite Babylon. The latter bears the significant name E-ur-imin-an-ki, i. e., ‘the house of seven divisions of heaven and earth.’ Two much older towers than those of Babylon and Borsippa bear names in which ‘seven’ is introduced. One of these is the zikkurat to Nin-girsu at Lagash, which Gudea describes as ‘the house of seven divisions of the world,’ the other the tower at Uruk, which bore the name ‘house of seven zones.’ The reference in both cases is, as Jensen has shown, to the seven concentric zones into which the earth was divided by the Babylonians.”
In a standard German book of reference (Spamer's Illustrierte Weltgeschichte I Theil, Alterthum, I Theil, s. 371), I find the statement that the zikkurat of the temple I-zidda at Borsippa, was called “the temple of the seven lights of heaven and earth,” which seem to have been symbolized also by the seven-branched candlestick of the Hebrews. Considering that other sacred symbols which were employed in Solomon's temple are believed by Professor Jastrow to be “imitations of Babylonian models,” it seems justifiable to endeavor to trace to the same source the origin of the Hebrew “seven-branched candlestick,” to which I shall revert later [pg 328] on. Prof. Morris Jastrow offers the suggestion that the name “seven directions of heaven and earth” may point to a conception of seven zones dividing the heavens as well as the earth, and states that the “seven divisions” and “seven zones” are merely terms equivalent to universe. He explains that the seven directions were interpreted by the Babylonian theologians as a reference to the seven great celestial bodies, the sun and moon, Ishtar, Marduk, Ninib, Nergal and Nabu. To each of these one story was supposed to be dedicated and the tower thus became a cosmological symbol. Moreover, from Herodotus' description of the seven concentric walls of Ecbatana, in which each wall was distinguished by a certain color, the conclusion has been drawn that the same colors—white, black, scarlet, blue, orange, silver and gold—were employed by the Babylonians for the stages of their towers.
Professor Jastrow draws attention to the fact that the division of the earth into seven zones is a “conception that we encounter in India and Persia, and that survives in the seven ‘climates’ into which the world was divided by Greek and Arabic geographers. It seems clear that this interpretation of the number seven is older than the one that identified each story with one of the planets. Both interpretations have a scholastic aspect, however, and the very fact that there are two interpretations justifies the suspicion that neither furnishes the real explanation why the number seven was chosen ... it is because seven was popularly sacred that the world was divided into seven zones and that the planets were fixed at seven, not vice versa” (p. 620).
The preceding statements lead to the conclusion that, among Assyriologists there is no current, generally-accepted view as to the origin of the “sacred seven” of the Babylonians. The following details concerning the zikkurat and the sanctuaries of Babylon will be found to furnish evidence that their builders were imbued with the identical primitive set of ideas or seven-fold division of the cosmos that is now so familiar to the reader and is traceable to the observation of Polaris and Septentriones.
The astronomical association and cosmological symbolism of the zikkurat become more and more evident when all evidence concerning it is carefully sifted. According to the cosmogony of the Babylonians the earth was pictured as a huge mountain. Khar-sag-gal-kurkura=the mountain of all lands, is a designation for the earth. E-kur=mountain house, another name for the earth, [pg 329] became one of the names for temple and, by extension, for the sacred precinct which enclosed the zikkurat and sacred edifices.[92]
A plural formed of the word E-kur,=Ekurrati, was used for divinities, and this association of the word mountain with the name for a god is particularly interesting when it is also remembered that the cuneiform character for god is a star and that therefore either a mountain, or a star, signified a god in Babylonian and Assyrian inscriptions. Bel, the supreme star god of the Babylonians, whose name literally signifies merely “lord or king,” and under the form Ah-baal became current throughout Asia Minor, was, as Professor Jastrow states (op. cit. p. 435), actually identified with the polar star, and sometimes addressed as the “great mountain.”[93]
The famous temple, the E-kur of Babylonian history, is described by Herodotus, Strabo and other pagan authorities, as consisting of seven stories and being surmounted by a sanctuary which was under the charge of a virgin priestess and contained a couch (resting-place) for the god.[94] It is amply demonstrated, moreover, that the central zikkurat was regarded as the permanent resting and dwelling place of the lord or god, par excellence, and in this connection it is significant that among the names of sanctuaries [pg 330] enumerated by Professor Jastrow there occur such as “the true or fixed house,” the house of the established seat, the sacred dwelling, the permanent dwelling, etc.
The Babylonian ideas connected with the supreme god and his temple are, moreover, sufficiently apparent in the prayers to Marduk, from which I extract the following detached passages: “Marduk, king of heaven and earth.... Look favorably upon the city, O lord of rest!... May the gods of heaven and earth speak to thee O lord of rest!... A resting-place for the lord of E-sagila is thy house, E-sagila, the house of thy sovereignty, is thy house....”
The sanctuary surmounting the zikkurat, is also termed “the high place par excellence, or the lofty house, the high edifice, the tower of the great dwelling, the great palace, the house of the glorious mountain [or god] the house of him who gives the sceptre of the world; also the house of light, the house of great splendor, the house without rival, the gate of widespread splendor, the light of Shamash, the heart of Shamash, the life of the world.”
The idea that the “mountain house” or “high place” was the consecrated centre where the union of heaven and earth took place, is apparent from the following names: “the house of heavenly construction, the heavenly house, the house reaching to heaven, the point of heaven and earth, the link of heaven and earth, the foundation stone of heaven and earth.”