Chaldea: From the Earliest Times to the Rise of Assyria

by Zénaïde A. Ragozin

2. Of all such books that have become known to us, there are none of greater interest and importance than the sacred books of Ancient Babylonia. Not merely because they are the oldest known, having been treasured in the priestly libraries of Agadê, Sippar, Cutha, etc., at an incredibly early date, but principally because the ancestors of the Hebrews, during their long station in the land of Shinar, learned the legends and stories they contained, and working them over after their own superior religious lights, remodelled them into the narrative which was written down many centuries later as part of the Book of Genesis.

3. The original sacred books were attributed to the god Êa himself, the impersonation of the Divine Intelligence, and the teacher of mankind in the shape of the first Man-Fish, Oannes—(the name being only a Greek corruption of the Accadian Êa-han, "Êa the Fish")[AW] So Berosus informs us. After describing Oannes and his proceedings (see p. [185]), he adds that "he wrote a Book on the Origin of things and the beginnings of civilization, and gave it to men." The "origin of things" is the history of the Creation of the world, Cosmogony. Accordingly, this is what Berosus proceeds to expound, quoting directly from the Book, for he begins:—"There was a time, says he, (meaning Oannes) when all was darkness and water." Then follows a very valuable fragment, but unfortunately only a fragment, one of the few preserved by later Greek writers who quoted the old priest of Babylon for their own purposes, while the work itself was, in some way, destroyed and lost. True, these fragments contain short sketches of several of the most important legends; still, precious as they are, they convey only second-hand information, compiled, indeed, from original sources by a learned and conscientious writer, but for the use of a foreign race, extremely compressed, and, besides, with the names all altered to suit that race's language. So long as the "original sources" were missing, there was a gap in the study both of the Bible and the religion of Babylon, which no ingenuity could fill. Great, therefore, were the delight and excitement, both of Assyriologists and Bible scholars, when George Smith, while sorting the thousands of tablet-fragments which for years had littered the floor of certain remote chambers of the British Museum, accidentally stumbled on some which were evidently portions of the original sacred legends partly rendered by Berosus. To search for all available fragments of the precious documents and piece them together became the task of Smith's life. And as nearly all that he found belonged to copies from the Royal Library at Nineveh, it was chiefly in order to enlarge the collection that he undertook his first expedition to the Assyrian mounds, from which he had the good fortune to bring back many missing fragments, belonging also to different copies, so that one frequently completes the other. Thus the oldest Chaldean legends were in a great measure restored to us, though unfortunately very few tablets are in a sufficiently well preserved condition to allow of making out an entirely intelligible and uninterrupted narrative. Not only are many parts still missing altogether, but of those which have been found, pieced and collected, there is not one of which one or more columns have not been injured in such a way that either the beginning or the end of all the lines are gone, or whole lines broken out or erased, with only a few words left here and there. How hopeless the task must sometimes have seemed to the patient workers may be judged from the foregoing specimen pieced together of sixteen bits, which Geo. Smith gives in his book. This is one of the so-called "Deluge-tablets," i.e., of those which contain the Chaldean version of the story of the Deluge. Luckily more copies have been found of this story than of any of the others, or we should have had to be content still with the short sketch of it given by Berosus.

61.—BACK OF TABLET WITH ACCOUNT OF FLOOD.

(Smith's "Chaldean Genesis.")

4. If, therefore, the ancient Babylonian legends of the beginnings of the world will be given here in a connected form, for the sake of convenience and plainness, it must be clearly understood that they were not preserved for us in such a form, but are the result of a long and patient work of research and restoration, a work which still continues; and every year, almost every month, brings to light some new materials, some addition, some correction to the old ones. Yet even as the work now stands, it justifies us in asserting that our knowledge of this marvellous antiquity is fuller and more authentic than that we have of many a period and people not half so remote from us in point of place and distance.

5. The cosmogonic narrative which forms the first part of what Geo. Smith has very aptly called "the Chaldean Genesis" is contained in a number of tablets. As it begins by the words "When above," they are all numbered as No. 1, or 3, or 5 "of the series When above. The property of Asshurbanipal, king of nations, king of Assyria." The first lines are intact:—"When the heaven above and the earth below were as yet unnamed,"—(i.e., according to Semitic ideas, did not exist)—Apsu (the "Abyss") and Mummu-Tiamat (the "billowy Sea") were the beginning of all things; their waters mingled and flowed together; that was the Primeval Chaos; it contained the germs of life but "the darkness was not lifted" from the waters, and therefore nothing sprouted or grew—(for no growth or life is possible without light). The gods also were not; "they were as yet unnamed and did not rule the destinies." Then the great gods came into being, and the divine hosts of heaven and earth (the Spirits of Heaven and Earth). "And the days stretched themselves out, and the god Anu (Heaven.) ..." Here the text breaks off abruptly; it is probable, however, that it told how, after a long lapse of time, the gods Anu, Êa and Bel, the first and supreme triad, came into being. The next fragment, which is sufficiently well preserved to allow of a connected translation, tells of the establishment of the heavenly bodies: "He" (Anu, whose particular dominion the highest heavens were, hence frequently called "the heaven of Anu") "he appointed the mansions of the great gods" (signs of the Zodiac), established the stars, ordered the months and the year, and limited the beginning and end thereof; established the planets, so that none should swerve from its allotted track; "he appointed the mansions of Bel and Êa with his own; he also opened the great gates of heaven, fastening their bolts firmly to the right and to the left" (east and west); he made Nannar (the Moon) to shine and allotted the night to him, determining the time of his quarters which measure the days, and saying to him "rise and set, and be subject to this law." Another tablet, of which only the beginning is intelligible, tells how the gods (in the plural this time) created the living beings which people the earth, the cattle of the field and the city, and the wild beasts of the field, and the things that creep in the field and in the city, in short all the living creatures.

62.—BABYLONIAN CYLINDER, SUPPOSED TO REPRESENT THE TEMPTATION AND FALL.

6. There are some tablets which have been supposed to treat of the creation of man and perhaps to give a story of his disobedience and fall, answering to that in Genesis; but unfortunately they are in too mutilated a condition to admit of certainty, and no other copies have as yet come to light. However, the probability that such was really the case is very great, and is much enhanced by a cylinder of very ancient Babylonian workmanship, now in the British Museum, and too important not to be reproduced here. The tree in the middle, the human couple stretching out their hands for the fruit, the serpent standing behind the woman in—one might almost say—a whispering attitude, all this tells its own tale. And the authority of this artistic presentation, which so strangely fits in to fill the blank in the written narrative, is doubled by the fact that the engravings on the cylinders are invariably taken from subjects connected with religion, or at least religious beliefs and traditions. As to the creation of man, we may partly eke out the missing details from the fragment of Berosus already quoted. He there tells us—and so well-informed a writer must have spoken on good authority—that Bel gave his own blood to be kneaded with the clay out of which men were formed, and that is why they are endowed with reason and have a share of the divine nature in them—certainly a most ingenious way of expressing the blending of the earthly and the divine elements which has made human nature so deep and puzzling a problem to the profounder thinkers of all ages.