Abstract

© Dr M D Magee
Contents Updated: Tuesday, November 20, 2001

Babylonian Religion

The Sumerians were non-Semites of a fairly pure race of unknown probably Mongolian or Dravidian origin, reaching back many centuries before records. Equally uncertain is the date of the entry of the Semites, whose language ultimately displaced the non-Semitic Sumerian idioms. The Sumerians spoke a non-Semitic language unlike any other in which the grammatical forms are apparently often ambiguous, suggesting that the people who spoke it understood each other through using “tones” like the Chinese. With few exceptions, the names of the gods which the texts reveal to us are all derived from this non-Semitic language, which furnishes us with satisfactory etymologies for such names as Marduk, Nergal and Sin.

Each of the Sumerian city states had their own god, and the set of them became the Sumerian pantheon when the country was united. Anu was the sky and was the god of Erech (Uruk) and Der. Enlil (Bel) was the air and the god of Nippur. Enki (Aa or Ea) was the god of the fresh groundwater (apsu) and of the city of Eridu. The mother goddess was Ninhurshag, the goddess of Kish. Nanna (Sin) was the moon god of Ur, and father of the sun. The sun was Utu of the city of Larsam. Inanna was the mother, war and love goddess at Unug and Zabalam. Ishtar was goddess of love and of war at Agade, Nineveh and Arbela. Nina was another goddess like Ishtar at Nina. The god at Muri, Ennigi and Kakru was the storm god, Hadad or Rimmon. Nergal (Mars) was a plague and war god at Cuthah, but would respond to petitioners. Ninurta, the Sumerian war god remained important. Allatu (Erishkigal) was the goddess of the underworld. The celestial gods were never the celestial objects themselves, but the gods that moved them.

Anu, Bel and Ea were born of the “Host of Heaven and Earth”. Ea was the Creator. So, the religion of the Babylonians apparently had two phases of development before the god Marduk became chief of the pantheon, his predecessors having been, seemingly, Anu, the god of the heavens, and Ea or Aa, also called Enki, the god of the abyss and of wisdom. Aa is a variant of Ea, but is also a way of writing A’u or Ya’u without the ending of the nominative—Aa’u, Ya’u, Yau, and Ya—all Yehouah! Marduk is God’s son!

In the third millennium BC, people with Semitic names called Amorites, appeared, perhaps the last major influx of Semites. The Mesopotamian Semites or Akkadians were not white. They were spoken of as Adamatu or red-skins, as well as “blackheads” or “blackfaces” suggesting they were a deep copper colour. The Canaanites, whom the Greeks called Phœnicians, both were names that implied redness. The name Martu, the Sumerian equivalent of Amurru, Amorite, is of frequent occurrence even before this period. The eastern Mediterranean coast district, including Palestine and the neighbouring tracts, was known by the Babylonians and Assyrians as the land of the Amorites, a term which stood for the West in general even when these regions no longer bore that name. So, the invaders seem to have been Canaanites. The Babylonians maintained their claim to sovereignty over that part as long as they possessed the power to do so, and naturally exercised considerable influence there. Cults of many Babylonian divinities existed in Palestine, Syria, and the neighbouring states, and the presence of West Semitic divinities in the religion of the Babylonians is equally unsurprising.

With the Canaanites (Amorites) gradually moving in, the religion also began to change, the old Sumerian gods being replaced or renamed, though the original Sumerian triad was retained with special duties. Anu became the high god, and rose so high, he almost disappeared out of sight. Enlil became the god of kingship and the royal state, and Enki, renamed Ea, remained as the god of lifegiving water, and therefore of life, doubtless because potable water was so important in such a dry area. As Enlil was the god of kings, only Ea was left as an accessible god that ordinary people could identify with and value particularly for self-evident reasons. His name in Canaanite script was “Yh” (Yah) or “Yw” (Yeho).

Around 2400 BC, in Akkad, Ilum ( Il, El ) begins to appear as an element of the theophoric names popular in the region. After that the deities Suen (Sin), Shamash and Ishtar (Eshtar) begin to appear in names. When the Semitic Babylonian language came to be used for official documents, although the non-Semitic divine names are mainly preserved, some of them have been displaced by the Semitic equivalent names, such as Shamash (Shamash) for the sun-god, Bel and Beltu ( Beltis, “the lord” and “the lady” ). The new sun god Shamash, with Kittu and Mesaru ( “justice and righteousness” ) as his attendants was more important as the god of justice than his predescessor, Utu. The chief divinity of Sippar and Larsa was the sun god Shamash. The “sun god stone”, found at ancient Sippar shows Shamash, seated in his shrine, holding in his hand a staff and a ring, symbols of honour. The ancient near east always had an ubiquitous rain god, absent only in Arabia. Mostly he was Hadad ( Hadda, Addu, Adad, or Dadu ), or Rammanu, Ramimu, or Ragimu being Rimmon ( “the thunderer” ). Hadad has a small winged dragon as a symbol. Other widespread gods were the grain god, Dagan, the god of pestilence, Rashap or Reshaph, and Kamosh or Chemosh.

The original single mother goddess, spallated and became the consort of the different male gods whose job, just like the Virgin Mary of the Catholics, was to intercede for the petitioner with their heavenly husbands. Ningal was the consort of Nanna (Sin), Ayya the consort of Shamash. Tashmetu ( “the hearer” ) and Zerpanitum were the consorts of two new gods, Nabu ( “the teacher”, Nebo ) and Marduk respectively.

Anunitum, the goddess of one of the two Sippars, called Sippar of Anunitum, was also worshipped in the temple E-ulmas within the city of Akkad (Agade). Anunitum is coupled with Sinunutum, which are the stars of the Tigris and Euphrates, probably names of Venus as the morning and evening star. A fragment of a tablet published in 1870 says Venus was a female at sunset, but a male at sunrise—Ishtar of Akkad at sunrise, and Ishtar of Erech at sunset—Ishtar of the stars at sunrise, and the lady of the gods at sunset. It is because at first the two stars—the evening star and the morning star—were not known to be the same one, and had been given quite different attributes including their sex. Later the error was realized and Ishtar was given both sets of attributes, but eventually losing the masculine attributes. Even so the male deity seems to have been a war god, and Ishtar finshed up being simultaneously a goddess of love and of war. The name of this goddess, Amunitum, is remarkably like the Persian goddess, Anahita, who was also a river and a goddess of water, but is not considered to have been a Persian goddess originally. It seems the Persians identified a river yazata, and possibly an old goddess turned yazata, Aramaita, with Anunitum to create Anahita. She became a Persian Ishtar in the devotion offered her.

Nabu of Borsippa was associated with the planet Mercury and came to be considered as Marduk’s son. He was the god of scribes and scholars. The importance of Marduk rested on the growth of the power of his city Babylon in the time of Hammurabi, but from then on his popularity spread. Babylon was most often the dominant city, and so Marduk became the dominant god, and was called Lord, Bel, instead of Enlil. The Sumerian god, Asallubi of Eridu, was a son of Enki, and was the god of personal favours and “white magic”. Marduk was also a personal god, and he took the characteristics of Asallubi, thus becoming another son of Enki. Marduk became universally accepted in Babylonia as head of the pantheon, like Assur in Assyria.

Marduk became the senior god and flourished in the New Babylonian and Persian periods, attaining the ethical and monotheistic features of Ahuramazda and Mithras. A small lapis-lazuli relief shows Marduk carrying a staff and a ring, solar symbols of justice, and his robe is covered with circles, confirming, possibly, his solar nature. Elsewhere, Marduk is accompanied by a large two-horned dragon, doubtless the subdued chaos monster, Tiamat. At the abandonment of Babylon in the time of Seleucus Nicator, about 300 BC, the head of the pantheon seems not to have been Marduk, but Anu-Bel—unless this was simply his title by then. The height of the religion therefore seems to have been under the Persians, though its legendary base extends back to the start of the second millennium. According to Damascius, its philosophical ideas were held until the sixth century AD.

Whilst accepting the religion of Babylonia, Assyria kept distinct from her southern neighbour by placing at the head of the Assyrian pantheon the god Assur, who became for her the chief of the gods, and at the same time the emblem of her distinct national aspirations—for Assyria had no intention whatever of casting in her lot with Babylon. Everyone owed allegiance to Assur, who was also a personal god, but all worshippers could also have their own choice of gods from the Babylonian pantheon. After about 900, the role of Assur as imperial god, put him rather above the personal level for most ordinary Assyrians, and he became the token of loyalty, as is the American flag and pictures of Mrs Thatcher or the Queen in Britain, proving Christian hypocrisy and idolatry. Assur was necessarilty the top god in Assyria, and so he kept Marduk out of that job, but Marduk did slowly become popular in Assyria as a healing god. Assyria went to her downfall at the end of the seventh century BC worshipping her national god Assur, whose cult did not cease with the destruction of Assyrian national independence. The centre of that worship, the city of Assur, continued to exist.

The Sumerians had a concept of cosmic order that prevailed even over the gods, perhaps a necessity because the Sumerians had spawned so many gods they counted them up to 3,600. Since the Persians 1500 years later had a similar concept of cosmic order, it looks unlikely that it ever actually disappeared in the meantime. Babylonia remained unswervingly loyal to Marduk, with whom all the other gods were eventually to all appearance identified. The Canaanites were getting more and more influential, and with the myth of the creation by Marduk, they took the chance to identify their new king of the gods with fifty preceding gods, by claiming they were simply names of Marduk. Another device for simplifying the pantheon was to attribute many of the old gods to parts of the body of the new ones. In this way, the Babylonians reduced the Sumerian pantheon, into a bilingual list of 200 deities.

In fact, by the first millennium BC, von Soden ( The Ancient Orient ) assures us, there was a widespread tendency towards monotheism in which even the reduced pantheon was being regarded as being aspects of a single great god that most appealed to the concerns of different worshippers. Many prayers were interchangeable between the deities. This tendency to monotheism reached the culminating point in the Persian period. Babylonian legends, and teachings ultimately permeated the Semitic West, and even Europe, not only through Greece, but also through the early Christians. Perhaps the abstract cosmic order of the Sumerians suggested the notion of a transcendental force behind everything that eventually became God through Zoroaster.

The basis of this evolution was the original devotion of each city state to its own deity. Even when the cities formed into wider nations, the individual devotion was not lost but had to be melded with a respect for the gods of others under the national god—the king of the gods. The multiplicity of Sumerian gods and their idea that they were all subject to a divine order meant that Sumerians were tolerant of other gods and religions. The Babylonians also had this tolerance from their predecessors. They adopted some of the Kassite gods, and some became popular, but it was too much to expect them to love Ashur. The link of cities with individual gods continued right into the late period, and it seems likely that the totality of the divine entities—the cosmic order—was seen as a divine power behind them all.

The Sumerian notion of order was indispensible for the emergence of any kind of science.

Wolfram von Soden

In any event, in the first millennium, worshippers often spoke simply of God even when they favoured a particular god or goddess, simply taking their own preferred form of the deity as closest to the true nature of the abstract God. In 548 BC, Nabonidus buried his mother Hadda-hoppa, who had died at the age of 103. On a funerary inscription, the queen mother extols her piety for her god, Sin. If we were to believe the Jewish scriptures, the source of all this should have been the god of Moses, Yehouah, but evidently it was not. An eighth century Assyrian wrote:

Trust in Nabu. Trust not in another god.

This devotee considered that all the power of God manifested itself in Nabu. For him, Nabu was the one true god. The teaching of Moses had not reached him, and nor could it have because Moses had not yet been invented. At about the same time, however, Zoroaster was teaching that Ahuramazda was the one true god on the Iranian plateau, and the Iranian religion was soon to influence the whole western world in its religious beliefs from then until now.

The idea of all the different gods in the world being projections of one divine nature is all that the Romans begged the first gentile Christians to accept. The more foolish ones refused and were punished, but mostly they accepted to save their lives. A century or so later, the paraphernalia of other solar religions were taken up by the Christian bishops in quite the same way, proving that Christians had been eaten by lions for no reason. To have accepted all gods as being reflexions of a single divine nature would have been a proper acceptance of monotheism. To refuse meant that the other gods were wicked gods, or demons, as they came to be known, refuting monotheism. That is where the Christians remain till this day. They are “monotheists” who believe in countless gods, good and bad. The Christian God was never one god, he was just their god, a god with countless enemies called devils and demons, and countless helper gods called angels.

Though, from the evidence of the Babylonian syllabary, the Babylonian deities were not at first planets, other than the sun and the moon, soon they were associated with the heavenly bodies. The oldest Mesopotamian prefix for a god or a goddess is an eight-rayed star, apparently signifying “ana”, which is heaven. In later times, the divine prefix is found before the names of many a Babylonian ruler like Sargon of Agade and Rim-Sin (Eri-Aku, Arioch of Larsa). The gods were heavenly beings. Marduk arranged the sun, the moon, the planets, and the stars, assigning them their proper places and duties, suggesting that he was supreme as a consequence of his being the equivalent of Mithras, the force behind the heavens, originating in the discovery of the precession of the equinoxes in Babylon. Genesis 10 tells of Nimrod, who must equal Marduk. The deification of the kings of Babylonia and Assyria was because they were God’s offspring and agents on earth. They were also his chief priests. Personal names show children were considered the gifts of particular gods whom their father worshipped, and, for those of royal rank, their divine fatherhood could give them a claim to divine honours.

Babylonian Temples

Babylonians and Assyrians became a pious race, constantly rendering to their gods the glory for everything which they succeeded in bringing to a successful issue. Prayer, supplication, and self-abasement before their gods seem to have been with them a duty and a pleasure. Ludlul the sage, and all the people of his land sang:

The time for the worship of the gods was my heart’s delight
The time of the offering to Ishtar was profit and riches.

All the great cities of Babylonia were sacred places, so that the whole of Babylonia was thought of as holy—notably after the legends of the creation and the rise of Marduk to the kingship of heaven had become elaborated into one homogeneous whole—possibly explaining why the Babylonians were also called the Chaldaeans, a name which probably meant the Holy or Pious People. The chief city in renown and importance was Babylon, where the prime temple was Esagila, “the temple of the high head”, with a shrine called “the temple of the foundation of heaven and earth”. This building was called by Nebuchadrezzar “the temple-tower of Babylon”, and is better known as the biblical “Tower of Babel”.

An alternative ziggurat was at nearby Borsippa (Birs Nimrud), called the “second Babylon”, which like all major Babylonian cities, had its own temple-tower “the supreme house of life”, Ezida, “the everlasting temple”. Borsippa was a most important religious centre, and its great temple might have disputed with “the house of the high head”, Esagila in Babylon, the honour of being the site so widely popular that the whole of human kind went there to worship in a confusion of tongues. Esagila had the better claim, it being the temple of the supreme god of the later Babylonian pantheon, Marduk. If the legendary explanation of the confusion of tongues was originally a Babylonian legend, Marduk rather than Nebo would have cammanded the confusion. Esagila is the temple of Belus which Alexander and Philip attempted to restore, according to Herodotus.

Herodotus says Esagila was a massive tower within an enclosure measuring 400 yards each way, and provided with gates of brass. The tower within consisted of a kind of step-pyramid, the stages being seven in number, omitting the lowest, which was the platform forming the foundation of the structure. A winding ascent gave access to the top, where was a chapel or shrine, containing no statue, but regarded by the Babylonians as the abode of the god. Lower down was another shrine, in which was placed a great statue of Zeus (Bel-Marduk) sitting, with a large table before it. Both statue and table are said to have been of gold, as were also the throne and the steps. Outside the sanctuary, on the ramp, apparently, were two altars, one small and made of gold, for sacrificing unweaned lambs, and the other bigger, for larger animals.

In 1876, the Assyriologist, George Smith, discovered a Babylonian description of this temple. Babylonian temples had many points of similarity with the description of Solomon’s temple, which was typical of Canaanitish temples. They had an outer and an inner court, and a shrine, to which only the priests had access. In this was a raised altar, reached by steps, and an ark or box which contained sacred objects such as two tablets of stone! Two such tablets were discovered at the temple of Balawat. The outer court had a large basin filled with water called “a sea”, and used for ritual washings and libations. At the entrance were colossal figures of winged bulls called “cherubs” which guarded the temple against evil spirits entering. Offerings were of two kinds, meal offerings and sacrifices, most often a bullock. Assyrians seem not to have offered human sacrifices. No traces of any such practices have been found.

Esagila had two large oblong courts, the smaller within the larger. Six gates admitted to the temple area surrounding the platform upon which the tower was built. The platform is stated to have been square and walled, with four gates facing the cardinal points. Within this wall was a building connected with the great ziggurat or tower, round which were chapels or temples to the principal gods, on all four sides, and facing the cardinal points—that to Nebo and Tasmit being on the east, to Aa or Ea and Nusku on the north, Anu and Bel on the south, and the series of buildings on the west, consisting of a double house—a small court between two wings, was evidently the shrine of Marduk (Belus). In these western chambers stood the couch of the god, and the golden throne mentioned by Herodotus, besides other furniture of great value. The couch was given as being nine cubits long by four broad, about fourteen feet by six.

The centre of these buildings was the great ziggurat, or temple-tower, square on its plan, and with the sides facing the cardinal points. The lowest stage was 300 feet by 110, and the wall, in accordance with the usual Babylonian custom, seems to have been ornamented with recessed groovings. The second stage was 260 by 60 feet. Stages three to five were each one 20 feet high, and respectively 200 feet, 170 feet, and 140 feet square. The dimensions of the sixth stage are omitted, probably by accident, but Smith conjectures that they were in proportion to those which precede. His description omits also the dimensions of the seventh stage, but he gives those of the sanctuary of Belus, which was built upon it. This was 80 feet long, 70 feet broad, and 50 feet high. The total height of this world-renowned building was more than 300 feet above the plains.

The temple at Ashur provided for the god, Ashur, with a ziggurat, the gods, Sin and Shamash, in a double temple, and also provided two smaller ziggurats for Anu and Adad.

As in Genesis 10, the desire in building these towers was to get nearer the gods, the divine inhabitants of the heavens. The god to whom the place was dedicated would come down to such a sanctuary, which thus became the stepping-stone between heaven and earth—a Jacob’s ladder. Sacrifices were also offered at these temple-towers, in imitation of the oldest ceremony perhaps recorded, that of Utnapishtim, the Chaldaean Noah. Tha Babylonian Flood story is very close to the biblical one except that the ark has a steersman and additional passengers, a swallow is sent out beside the raven and the dove, and the ship finishes on mount Rowandiz, the mountain in Kurdistan that the Sumerians thought supported the heavens. The change to Ararat in the Jewish scriptures must imply a connexion with Urartu. The Babylonian account has one close aggreement with the biblical one that makes the connexion certain, and that is in both accounts, but not in others, the Flood is a punishment of mankind for sin.

Coming out of the ark which had saved him from the Flood, Utnapishtim made an offering “ina ziggurat sade”, “on the peak of the mountain”, showing that the temples were meant to simulate a mountain:

I sent forth to the four winds, I poured out a libation I made an offering on the peak of the mountain: Seven and seven I set incense-vases there, Into their depths I poured cane, cedar, and scented wood(?). The gods smelled a savour, The gods smelled a sweet savour, The gods gathered like flies over the sacrificer.

The offering of the Chaldaean Noah was vegetable only. Many inscriptions speak of similar bloodless sacrifices, and their ritual. Sacrifices of animals, however, were also often made. Many a cylinder-seal has a representation of the owner bringing a young animal—a kid or a lamb—as an offering to the deity whom he worshipped, and in the inscriptions the sacrifice of animals is frequently referred to. One of the bilingual texts refers to the offering of a kid or some other young animal, apparently on behalf of a sick man. The text of this, where complete, runs as follows:

The fatling which is the “head-raiser” of mankind—He has given the fatling for his life. He has given the head of the fatling for his head, He has given the neck of the fatling for his neck, He has given the breast of the fatling for his breast.

Human sacrifices are not described although pictures show humans being killed. They were possibly shown as warnings of divine anger, rather than showing any real act. Von Soden says that animal sacrifices were burnt only in Assyria. In other places, the ritual killing was sufficient, and offerings of grain, incense, oil, butter and fat were also made.

In the cults themselves, much seems common. The god lived in its statue or symbol in its house, its temple. Gods were commonly addressed as father and mother. The worshippers did not think the statue was the god, merely that through consecration, it became a mutual focus for the god and the worshippers. The consecration which animated the statue was an “opening the mouth” ceremony. It was thought to need serving. The words in both Sumerian and Akkadian for a slave also denoted a servant, so the worshippers were the god’s slaves. When praying, free citizens spoke of themselves as the slaves of the gods. Clothes and sacrifices of food were among their requirements.

When an agreement had been dishonoured, the guilty party had to place a penance on the knees of the god. The ultimate penance was a child to be burnt in sacrifice. It seems that this is the only text alluding to child sacrifice found in Assyria. Nothing like the Canaanite tophet has been revealed. Moreover, there is nothing to confirm that any such penance was carried out. Substitutive sacrifices are attested for illness, and even for the health and welfare of the king, so possibly a substitute for the child penance was always offered. It begins to take on a similarity to the story of Abraham and Isaac, where a lamb was substituted for the child.

Esarhaddon, who was sickly, had three substitute kings installed. One died naturally in his period as king but the other two had to be murdered as apotropaic sacrifices to remove the curse from the king. The dead substitute kings were buried with state ceremonial. Von Soden seems unable to understand why the gods could not see through the ruse of killing a substitute, showing that even great Assyriologists fail to try to see things the way the people they are studying saw them. He writes, this is…

…impressive evidence for the inner contradictions of the later ancient Oriental religions.

Not like the internal consistency of Christianity, eh? Assyrians were no doubt just as clever as modern biblical scholars, and it seems unlikely that the rational of this substitution was that the gods were tricked by it. They were simply happy to accept a substitute to take away the sins or curses that were causing the trouble. Von Soden perhaps included Judaism as a “later ancient Oriental religion”. The Jews did the same thing with their scapegoat ritual. Yehouah was just as easily fooled.

The Assyrians had categories of priests, albeit apparently no high priests. Some were purifiers, some cantors of laments, some cantors of carols, many were musicians, and some priests and priestesses specialised in the annual hierogamos ceremony, and so on. Many others were not priests but were temple servants, so here is the same distinction as the Jews had between the priesthood and the Levites. Some childless women were like the Roman Vestal Virgins and Christian nuns. They were called “naditum”, “those who lie fallow”. In the temples of Ishtar were both male and female temple prostitutes, the men called “kinnaidos” by the Greeks.

Assyria and Babylonia mainly had no prophets, the portents issued by the gods being astrological, meteorological or by reading entrails. In the seventh century, however, in the time of Esarhaddon, a few male and female “callers” seemed to serve a prophetic role in Assyria and Arbela. What is certain, from numerous texts, is that Assyrians employed propagandists, spies and agents, and it is likely to be men like these who were the origin of the stories of prophets in the bible, albeit Persian ones.

The concern with proper ritual, notably the proper offering of services at particular times, shows where the concern of the Essenes and thence Christianity, for this sort of thing came from. They had books of ritual, prayer books, containing suitable services for every occasion and hour of the day and night, with directions for the priests. So:

In the month of Nisan, on the second day, two hours after nightfall, the priest (of Bel at Babylon) must come and take of the waters of the river, must enter into the presence of Bel, and say this prayer: “O my lord, who in his strength has no equal, O my lord, blessed sovereign, lord of the world, speeding the peace of the great gods, the lord who in his might destroys the strong lord of kings, light of mankind, establisher of trust, O Bel, thy sceptre is Babylon, they crown is Borsippa, the wide heaven is the dwelling place of thy liver… O lord of the world, light of the spirits of heaven, utterer of blessings, who is there whose mouth murmurs not of thy righteousness, or speaks not of thy glory, and celebrates not thy dominion? O lord of the world, who dwellest in the temple of the sun, reject not the hands that are raised to thee, be merciful to thy city Babylon, to Esagil thy temple incline thy face, grant the prayers of thy people the sons of Babylon”.

Already before 1000 BC, a Babylonian tablet listed 200 ways of behaving that separated people from their gods. Among them were speaking what one did not think, causing discord in families, killing animals unnecessarily, and passing by someone naked in your path. Plainly these are undesirable behaviour for civilised society but, inasmuch as they are hated by gods, they are what became designated as sins. Babylonians were telling people they should not sin by the start of the first millennium. Moreover, Assyrians confessed their sins to the gods, as the following lines from a penitential prayer show:

God knoweth that I knew not.
May he be appeased.
May the heart of my God be appeased.
May God cease from anger.
May Ishtar, my mother cease from her anger.
That which was forbidden by my God I ate without knowing.
The forbidden thing did I eat.
I prayed and none takes my hand.
I wept and none takes my palm.
I cry aloud but there is none that will hear me.
I am in darkness and in hiding.
I dare not look up.
O my God, overthrow not thy servant.
In the waters of the raging flood take his hand.
The sin he has sinned turn into good.
Let the wind carry off the transgression I have committed.
Destroy my manifold wickedness like a garment.

The reference to forbidden food is interesting. The Jews were supposed to be peculiar in that they would not eat pig. Pigs were indeed consumed in Babylon in earlier times, though they were never as common as sheep, but, by the first millennium BC, hogs were hardly ever mentioned, suggesting they were not kept as food. Sayce concludes that “certain kinds of food, among which swine’s flesh may be mentioned, were not allowed to be consumed” by devout Babylonians.

There was a grave doubt about the justice of the gods. A poet in about 1000 BC wrote I will praise the Lord of Wisdom, a work declaring that humans simply can never get to know what gods want of them, and therefore necessarily suffer whatever they do. All they can do is worship nevertheless. Another text from about 800 BC has two friends arguing about suffering and justice, but, again, there is no resolution. The complainer against God gives up and resigns himself to the unknown will of the god, like the biblical Job. The priests were trying to forestall any growth of cynicism. Christians have no more knowledge today than these people 3000 years ago of what God’s will is. When He seems to be perverse, Christians love it all the more as a chance for them to prove their unquestioning devotion. They are like masochists. In reality, if it is impossible to know what the gods want of us then they might as well be ignored. It amounts to accepting there are no gods. Suffering cannot be relieved by gods, it has to be endured or relieved by human beings.

Babylonians and Assyrians believed in good and evil spirits, whom they considered as gods, as many texts show, but they had no word for a bad god—a demon. Spirits existed in categories, so some were malevolent, but Babylonians do not seem to have reached the stage of Zoroastrian dualism that still persists in Christianity. The Babylonians imagined that spirits resided everywhere, and some classes of spirits lay in wait to attack mankind. To each class was assigned a special province in bringing misfortune, or tormenting, or causing pain and sickness. All the spirits were not evil, even those whose names would suggest that their character was such—there were good “liers in wait” as well as evil ones, whose attitude towards mankind was beneficent.

Among the good ones were the “lamassu”, from the Sumerian “lama”, a winged man-headed bull or lion. These were the creatures which the kings placed at the sides of the doors of their palaces, to protect the king’s footsteps, and are the origins of the cherubim of the bible. In early Babylonian times a god named “Lama” was one of the most popular deities of the Babylonian pantheon.

But Lamashtu, a goddess with the head of a lioness and with pendulous breasts, killed baby infants. She was the later Lamia, strix or vampire. She had been cast out of heaven by her father, Anu, reminding us of the Christian myth of Satan and the fallen angels. A spell against the activities of malevolent gods like these was to chant a dialogue between Ea and his son, Marduk. Marduk asked Ea for help against the evil spirits, but Ea says the son can do just as the father! Then the prayers and rituals are recounted for the sick man.

White and black yarn was spun, and fastened to the side and canopy of the afflicted person’s bed—the white to the side and the top or canopy, the black to the left hand—and then, a long ceremony of purification was followed. The god Asari-alim-nunna (Marduk), “eldest son of Eridu”, was asked to wash him in pure and bright water twice seven times, and then would the evil lier-in-wait depart, and stand aside, and propitious spirits would reside in his body. The gates right and left having been thus, so to say, shut close, the evil gods, demons, and spirits would be unable to approach him, wherever he might be. “Spirit of heaven, exorcise, spirit of earth, exorcise”. Then, after an invocation of Ereskigal and Isum, the final paragraph was pronounced:—

The afflicted man, by an offering of grace In health like shining bronze shall be made bright. As for that man, Shamash shall give him life. Marduk, first-born son of the Abyss, It is thine to purify and glorify. Spirit of heaven, mayest thou exorcise, spirit of earth, mayest thou exorcise.

The incantation priest who chanted these spells was also a physician, and after the ceremony would discuss the ailment with the afflicted worshipper, and prescribe a suitable treatment. Is it God or the physician who effects the cure?

Myths and Festivals

Even at the dawn of writing in Ur, great temples were being built, and elaborate ceremonies were being held, probably the new year celebrations. Some sort of cultic meal is illustrated even in these early times. The priest had to stand naked before the god, apparently as proof that he was pure and unblemished. Music, whether carols or laments, were a feature of these festivals.

Rejoicing and lamenting were associated with the god Dumuzi (Ama-usumgal-anna, or Tammuz) and his sister, Belili. The Sumerian myth of Dumuzi narrates that his sister Belili descended into the underworld for him. Dumuzi had died and was destined for the underworld, but his sister offered to stand in for him for half the year. Thus for half the year he was dead, then he was resurrected and lived for the remaining half, while his sister was dead on his behalf. Christian apologists hate this legend and have always tried to challenge it. One of the challenges is that the god did not die, and they claim there was no evidence he was lamented. Von Soden categorically refutes it:

Contrary to repeated assertions, there was in fact a mourning ceremony with extensive singing for Dumuzi on the day when the demons took him down into the underworld in place of his wife, Inanna.

In Inanna’s Descent into the Underworld, she passes through seven successive gates, having to lay aside a divine vestment at each one. At last she reaches her destination, and stands naked before her sister, Ereshkigal, ruler of the Underworld, who imprisons her. In the absence of the fertility mother, nothing can be born on earth and it begins to die. Inanna’s attendant Ninshubur, tries everything to have the goddess released, and eventually she succeeds, as long as Dumuzi takes her place. Later Nergal, the god of Mars, forced himself upon Ereshkigal and became with her joint ruler of the Underworld, while retaining his planet in heaven.

In fact, von Soden denies there is any evidence of a joyful occasion when Dumuzi returned, which seems curious. What is being missed is that the occasion of his return is celebrated as his hierogamos with Inanna, the fertilising of the earth by the winter sun, an ocasion of immense joy. Von Soden has no doubt that this is a fertility cycle, another thing the Christians, out of bigotry, have tried to deny.

The most important festival, of several days duration, was the Akitu, the new years’s festival. At first, it was celebrated at the autumn equinox, then it was moved to the spring. At Babylon, the image of Marduk was conveyed, partly by barge, then in a lavish procession to a ceremonial house outside the city wall. While the cult statue was away, the temple was ritually purified. Meanwhile, the king prepared to make atonement on behalf of the people. To do this, he had to be slapped in the face hard enough to draw tears. The tears expiated any wrongs. The creation epic was recounted, punctuated by hymns and prayers, rather as the Christian nativity is narrated as readings from the gospels, with carols and prayers in churches at Christmas. Then the image of Marduk’s son was brought from Borsippa on a divine visit to his father, then returned. Different cities had equivalent but variant ceremonies. What is certain is that large numbers of people joined this festivals of purification and expiatory rites.

Gilgamesh, ruler of Ishtar’s city Uruk, begins his epic by forcing the people to build a huge wall for the city. The gods were concerned for the welfare of the people and sent the wild man, Enkidu, to divert his attention. After struggling fiercely with each other the two become inseparable friends, and set off to defeat Khumbaba in the cedar forests, which they do with the help of Shamash. Ishtar offers Gilgamesh her love, but the hero rejects her, reproaching her with her crimes including causing bitter weeping to her husband, Tammuz. She had done other cruel things such as breaking the wings of the bright coloured Allala bird, cutting wounds “by sevens” in the lion perfect in strength, causing hardship and distress, and to his mother Silili bitter weeping to the horse glorious in war, changing the shepherd who provided things she liked into a jackal, trying to poison Isullanu, her father’s gardener, but failing and so changing him to a statue.

She appealed to her father, Anu, and her mother, Anatu, to send the heavenly bull to avange her. The two friends, however, despatched the bull, and Enkidu threw a portion of the animal at the goddess, saying, if he could only get hold of her, he would treat her similarly. For this insult, the gods condemned him to death as a punishment. The wild man slowly expired accompanied by many dreams with their interpretation, and the grief of Gilgamesh.

The experience of the death of his friend made Gilgamesh anquished about the prospect of dying and he sought out Utnapishtim (Atrahasis) in the west to learn the secret of eternal life. Travelling underground, he met scorpion people (depicted in Assyrian and Phœnician art) who were kind and helpful, not spiteful, as one might expect. One was the ferryman to the underworld, a myth plainly taken later by the Greeks where Charon was the ferryman on the Styx.

Utnapishtim relates the story of the flood to Gilgamesh, and sent the hero to get special life giving herbs from beneath the sea. He did so, and set off back home but carelessly allowed a snake to eat the herbs, whereupon it immediately sloughed off its skin and was reborn young. Nothing more could be done and the ferryman took him back to Uruk where Gilgamesh proudly showed him the mighty walls he had built, the best that humanity can achieve in immortality. The story ends on tablet XI, and another one has a different story of the death of Enkidu, attributing it to guilt, thus making up the magic number of twelve tablets, and impressing the inevitability of death through sin.

A genre of purely fictional or invented myths began to appear from about 765 BC. They can be dated from their contemporary references which show they are fiction but set in a real historical matrix, however slight. It was a sort of literary fiction because its style was unsuitable for recitation at a festival. A myth was deliberately composed for Sennacherib when he was campaigning against Babylonia, and plainly meant for performance in the new year ceremonies. In it Marduk is put on trial before the gods for some offence. As a trial of a god, an Italian scholar sees in it a source of the trial and execution of Jesus. It is a passion myth! It shows that the rulers of the Assyrians were actually quite cynical about religion, using it manifestly as an instrument of control and propaganda as early as the eighth century BC.

As long ago as Sumerian times, wise sayings, animal fables, and even humorous ones were being collected in cuneiform script. References are also made to riddles, although none have survived. A popular form was a dialogue between disputants, resolved most often by a judgement of a god or king.

The Babylonian Creation Myth

Von Soden says that although no full texts of the Sumerian creation myth are extant, parts of it are cited in other contexts. Even in these very early myths, among the first acts of creation is the separation of heaven and earth. Differences follow. In one, animals are created before humans and humans were a type of animal picked out for special duties! An attempt is made in another version to account for disability and infirmity through a disagreement between Enki and the goddess, Ninmah, leaving some people incomplete.

The Babylonians further differentiated and modified the myths. In the beginning of the Atrahasis version of the flood myth, gods had the role of humans in the world, the lower ranks of gods having to do the labouring. They went on strike because of the burdens on them. Enki and the goddess agreed to make a new creation to do the labouring for all the gods, and the first human is made from clay mixed with the blood of a god. Just as the Israelites in Egypt, the humans were too successful and multiplied greatly. After 1200 years, the gods decided there were too many and tried to control them with pestilence and plagues.

The afflicted humans prayed to Ea who instructed them not to pray to gods who were ignoring them and to offer them no sacrifices. Instead they should serve the god who responded to their supplications and checked the plagues. In a typical threefold story, the plot repeats itself another twice, each after 1200 years. Finally, the gods, under the leadership of Enlil, decided to send the flood, a story already known in Sumerian myth. The Atrahasis story also matches, in parts word for word, the story from 500 years later told as part of the Gilgamesh saga. Here then is an extemely long-lived story.

Atrahasis (later Utnapishtim) is hiding inside a reed hut when Ea tells him the plan to flood the world. He sets about building a large cube shaped ark for himself, his family and the animals, but could not explain his actions to other human beings. The waters eventually break through the earth and team out of the heavens drowning everything except for the occupants of the ark which comes to rest on Mount Nisir. Atrahasis offers a sacrifice on the mountains to which the gods are drawn in astonishment. Enlil is enraged that his will has been foiled, but then agrees to take Atrahasis and his wife to an island in the west where they will enjoy eternal life. Meanwhile their children are the founders of the new humanity, promised by the gods they would never again have to face a worldwide flood. In future, only the guilty would be punished, and thus the gods introduced justice into the world.

The library of Assurbanipal had a creation myth that must have been the original of several stories in Genesis. It is the Babylonian creation epic, Enuma Elish, When Above, a poem in praise of Marduk to establish him as the king of gods, and shaper of the universe. It was written about 1400 BC after Marduk had replaced the earlier gods, and its language is archaic Akkadian and it seems to be the older myth updated. The original hero was probably Bel (Enlil). The legend is the story of the fight between Bel and the Dragon, with the account of the creation prefixed. Much of the poem is the direct speech of Marduk, probably incorporated from older works. It was in regular use during the Neo-Assyrian and Neo-Babylonian periods, when it was read as part of the New Year Festival. In Assyria the hero was Assur.

It opens before the beginning of time, when the heavens and the earth were unnamed. Since the heavens and earth had not yet been created, and the name was the thing named, their names had not as yet been pronounced. Only a watery chaos existed, Mummu Tiamat, “the chaos of the deep”. The waters of the primaeval ocean and of the sea were one, and neither plains nor marshes were to be seen. Nor did the gods exist, even in name, and nothing had been decided as to the future of things. Tiamat and Apsu were differentiated, being the deities respectively of salt water (the sea) and of fresh water, the ocean beneath the earth thought to support the land. Then arose the great gods. Lahmu and Lahame first, then much later Ansar and Kisar, the “host of heaven” and the “host of earth”. Anu, the god of the heavens, was the great grandson of Tiamat and Apsu, and became the father of the gods. After Anu come Enlil or Bel “the lord”. Nudimmud (Aa, Ae, or Ea) followed, and his consort Damkina. Of Aa and Damkina was born a son called Bel-Marduk (Belos), fabricator of the world.

Apsu was angered by the new generation of gods complaining that he had no peace by day nor rest by night because of their activities. He planned to destroy them, but, using magic, Ea killed him and took charge of the fresh water ocean himself, building a palace on it. Ea then begat Marduk, and this new god aroused Tiamat in anger. The powers of chaos raged and toiled ready for the fight. “Mother Hubur”, a name for Tiamat, raised an army of monsters, giant serpents, sharp of tooth, bearing stings, and with poison filling their bodies like blood, terrible dragons endowed with brilliance, and of enormous stature, reared on high, raging dogs, scorpion-men, fish-men, and many other terrible beings to sort out the brat pack of new gods. She gave them frightful weapons, and placed the whole under the command of Kingu, whom she called her “only husband”. She delivered to him the tablets of fate, which conferred upon him the godhead of Anu (the heavens), and enabled their possessor to determine the gates among the gods her sons.

As Tiamat means “the sea”, and Apsu “the deep”, the story reflects the fear of the people of a low lying country subject to disastrous floods of the chaos brought by water, and so symbolical of chaos and confusion in general.

The young gods appealed for help to the older gods but Tiamat was too formidable and they declined to help, so Marduk stepped forward offering to lead them, so long as they recognized him as their king. He asked that an “unchangeable command” might be given to him, that whatever he ordained should without fail come to pass, so that he might destroy the common enemy. Invitations were sent to the gods asking them to a festival, where, having met together, they ate and drank, and “decided the fate” for Marduk their avenger, apparently meaning that he was decreed their defender in the conflict with Tiamat, and that the power of creating and annihilating, by the word of his mouth, was his. Honours were then conferred upon him, princely chambers were erected for him, wherein he sat as judge “in the presence of his fathers”, and the rule over the whole universe was given to him. The testing of his newly acquired power followed. A garment was placed in their midst:

He spake with his mouth, and the garment was destroyed, He spake to it again, and the garment was reproduced.

On this proof of the reality of the powers conferred on him, all the gods shouted “Marduk is king!” and handed to him sceptre, throne, and insignia of royalty. An irresistible weapon, which should shatter all his enemies, was then given to him, and he armed himself also with spear or dart, bow, and quiver. Lightning flashed before him, and flaming fire filled his body. Anu, the god of the heavens, had given him a great net, and this he set at the four cardinal points, in order that nothing of the dragon, when he had defeated her, should escape. Seven winds he then created to accompany him, and the great weapon called Abubu, “the Flood”, completed his equipment. All being ready, he mounted his dreadful, irresistible chariot, to which four steeds were yoked—steeds unsparing, rushing forward, rapid in flight, their teeth full of venom, foam-covered, experienced in galloping, schooled in overthrowing. Being now ready for the fray, Marduk fared forth to meet Tiamat, accompanied by the fervent good wishes of “the gods, his fathers”.

As he advanced, the sight of Tiamat was so menacing that even Marduk hesitated, but he rallied and stood before Tiamat, who, on her side, remained firm and undaunted. He reproached Tiamat for her rebellion, he challenged her to battle. They met in the fiercest fight. Her incantations and charms failed. Tiamat found herself in Marduk’s net, and on opening her mouth to resist and free herself, the wind, which Marduk had sent on before him, entered, so that she could not close her lips, and thus inflated, her heart was overpowered. Having cut her asunder and taken out her heart, destroying her life, he threw her body down and stood on it. Marduk, with his special weapons, had killed the chaos monster, Tiamat.

Her followers tried to escape, but found themselves surrounded. They too were thrown into the net, and sat in bonds, being afterwards shut up in prison. As for Kingu, he was raised up, bound, and delivered to be with Ugga, the god of death. The tablets of fate, which Tiamat had delivered to Kingu, were taken from him by Marduk, who pressed his seal upon them, and placed them in his breast. The deity Ansar, who had been, as it would seem, deprived of his rightful power by Tiamat, received that power again on the death of the common foe, and Ea (Nudimmud) “saw his desire upon his enemy”.

When Marduk split Tiamat’s body down the middle, the two halves formed heaven and earth. Her veins having been cut through, the north wind was caused by the deity to carry her blood away into secret places, perhaps a reference to preventing salination in the irrigated fields. Then came the ordering of the universe anew. Having made a covering for the heavens with half the body of the defeated Dragon of Chaos, Marduk set the Abyss, the abode of Ea, in front, and made a corresponding edifice above—the heavens—where he founded stations for the gods Anu, Bel, and Ea. Stations for the great gods in the likeness of constellations, together with the Zodiac, were his next work. In the sixth tablet of the Creation-series, Marduk, after creating the heavens and the stations for Anu, Bel, and Ea…

…built firmly the stations of the great gods—Stars their likeness—he set up the Lumali, He designated the year, he outlined the (heavenly) forms. He set for the twelve months three stars each, From the day when the year begins, …for signs.

He then designated the year, setting three constellations for each month, and made a station for Nibiru—Marduk’s own star, Jupiter—as the overseer of all the lights in the firmament. The constellations are identified with many gods and divine beings. The bow of Marduk was placed in the heavens as a constellation. The signs of the Zodiac, given on a tablet, are the originals of those which are in use at the present time:

1. Nisan (Mar-Apr), The Labourer, The Ram;
2. Iyyar (Apr-May), Mulmula and the Bull of heaven, The Bull;
3. Sivan (May-June), The Faithful Shepherd of Heaven and the Great Twins, The Twins;
4. Tammuz (June-July), Allul or Nagar, The Crab;
5. Ab (July-Aug), The Lion (or dog), The Lion;
6. Elul (Aug-Sep), The Ear of corn(?), The ear of Corn (Virgo);
7. Tisri (Sep-Oct), The Scales, The Scales;
8. Marcheswan (Oct-Nov), The Scorpion, The Scorpion;
9. Chisleu (Nov-Dec), Pa-bil-sag, The Archer;
10. Tebet (Dec-Jan), ahar-mas, the Fish-kid, The Goat;
11. Sebat (Jan-Feb), Gula, The Water-bearer;
12. Adar (Feb-Mar), The Water Channel and the Tails, The Fishes.

He then caused the new moon, Nannaru (Sin), to shine, and made him the ruler of the night, indicating his phases, one of which was on the seventh day, and the other, a “sabattu, a day of rest for the heart”, in the middle of the month. So, the idea of the sabbath was also instituted in Assyria and Babylonia, although the days were aligned with the new moon, so that intercalary days must have been necessry. Even so, it was like the Jewish sabbath:

Flesh cooked on the fire may not be eaten, the clothing of the body may not be changed, white garments may not be put on, a scarifice may not be offered, the king may not ride in his chariot, nor speak in public, the augur may not mutter in a secret place, medicine to the body may not be applied, nor may a plan be executed.

Directions with regard to the moon’s movements seem to follow, but the record is mutilated, and their real nature consequently doubtful. Here is a gap in the myth. Something seems to have been done with Marduk’s net—probably it was placed in the heavens as a constellation, as was his bow, to which several names were given. Later on, the winds were bound and assigned to their places, but the account of the arrangement of other things is mutilated and obscure, though the details in this place were of considerable interest.

Thus Marduk or Belus, “who is called Zeus”, divided the darkness, separated the heavens from the earth, and reduced the universe to order. He also formed the stars, the sun, the moon, and the five planets. Lastly plants and animals wre made, and human beings were made from a god’s blood, some say Marduk’s own, others say Kingu’s. The one idea gives men the gnostic spark of divinity, the other the idea of original sin. So in one tale, Marduk told his father, Ea, his plan for the creation of man with his own blood, to serve the gods. Eusebius says the god cut off his own head to make humanity from the blood that flowed, mixed with earth, thus giving them partial divinity as intelligence. Some say the first plan failed because the first animals were killed by light, and Belus ordered another god to cut off his head—or used Kingu’s—to mix the blood with soil, forming men and animals which could bear the light. The double creation sounds like a garbling of the Zoroastrian idea of a wicked and a good creation, a later addition apparently, that only the full texts of the ancient tablets will clarify.

The Babylonian idea of the origin of things is monistic—in the universe there is only a single element or principle from which everything is developed, this single principle being either matter (materialistic monism) being the ocean, or mind (idealistic monism) been knowledge. In Genesis 1:2,6-7, water is also the first thing existing, and Ea is identified with Yehouah.

Dishonest scholars say Enuma Elish is not actually about creation “ex nihilo” as in Genesis, but about how a pre-existing universe was put into its present shape and organization. Yet Genesis has nothing about a creation ex nihilo. It announces that God created the heaven and the earth, then explains how he did it. The earth was waste, void, watery and dark. God created light and then, on the second day, the firmament, to separate the waters of the deep from the waters in the sky, calling it heaven. God is ordering chaos, just as he does in the Enuma Elish, which begins with a description of primal chaos.

Then Babylon was founded with its temple to Marduk at Esagila, and in the seventh and last tablet of the series, the gods celebrated by singing the praises of Marduk calling him by the fifty titles of all the other gods, thus identifying him with them all, making the Babylonian religion monotheistic. Marduk is repeatedly called “Tutu”, meaning “creator”, or “begetter”. We read in this tablet of the names:

Tutu, the lord of the glorious incantation bringing the dead to life, He who had mercy on the gods who had been overpowered, Made heavy the yoke which he had laid on the gods who were his enemies, (And) to redeem(?) them, created mankind. “The merciful one”, “he with whom is salvation”, May his word be established, and not forgotten, In the mouth of the black-headed ones (human beings) whom his hands have made.

This implies that humanity was created to redeem (padu, set free) the wicked gods, being punished by Marduk, by their constant service and righteousness! The only alternative seems to imply a future redemtion for humanity, implying an eschatology not yet discovered. Another hint at Zoroastrian influence is that the “Ilu Limnu”, “evil god”, one of Tiamat’s brood, refused Marduk’s redemption. Thus he was the Babylonian Satan.

In another version, the gods are no longer spoken of as Marduk’s “fathers”, but he is the creator of the gods, as well as of mankind. In making humans, Marduk was aided by the goddess Aruru, who made their seed. Then, plants, trees, and the animals, were produced, and finally Marduk constructed bricks, beams, houses, and cities, including Nippur and Erech with their renowned temples.

Marduk might have had a name for each week of the year, with the remaining fortnight reserved for the new year ceremonies. This became the epic related each year at the new year ceremony. In Assyria, the myth was the same except that Ashur was Marduk.

An important confirmation of the tablet of the fifty-one names is a text in which at least thirteen of the Babylonian deities are identified with Marduk, and that in such a way as to make them merely forms in which he manifested himself to men.

[..]…is Marduk of planting. Lugal-aki-… is Marduk of the water-course. Nirig is Marduk of strength. Nergal is Marduk of war. Zagaga is Marduk of battle. Bel is Marduk of lordship and domination. Nebo is Marduk of trading(?). Sin is Marduk the illuminator of the night. Shamash is Marduk of righteous things. Addu is Marduk of rain. Tispak is Marduk of frost(?). Sig is Marduk of green things(?). Suqamunu is Marduk of the irrigation-channel.

Giving the names of “the gods his fathers” to Marduk practically identified them with him, introducing an effective monotheism, hinted at in a letter of Assur-bani-apli to the Babylonians, in which he frequently mentions the Deity, but in doing so, uses either the word “ilu”, God, Marduk, the god’s specific name, or Bel, which is Lord. The attitude to Marduk therefore is just that of Jews and Christians to the Hebrew god, who is God, Yehouah or Lord.

The date of this document is uncertain, but the colophon describes it as a copy of an older inscription. It might be a forgery, a text altered by the Persian ministry of religions to foster Babylonian monotheism from the sixth century, but if it is genuinely ancient, then it shows that monotheism already existed in Mesopotamia at a date before the putative Jewish prophets, perhaps before the migration of Abraham. Either view shows that the bible had no monopoly on monotheism as modern believers force themselves to think.

Life After Death

Non-religious people who suffered injustice in life had no consoling thought in life that they might have justice after death. There was no post mortem rewards for them. The underworld was the same as the Sheol of the Jewish scriptures, a dark and dingy underground world of shades of people out of touch with God. This dreary place could be made worse by the judges of the underworld punishing the dead, but it could only be made better for certain people, heroes like Gilgamesh, and pious people chosen by their god for their devotion, but not for the average person.

The underworld is described in the account of Ishtar’s descent into it, and in the seventh tablet of the Gilgamesh series—the latter differing somewhat:

Upon the land of No-return, the region of [..], [set] Ishtar, daughter of Sin, her ear. The daughter of Sin set then her ear [..] Upon the house of gloom, the seat of Irkalla (Nergal), Upon the house whose entrance hath no exit, (or, whose enterer goeth not forth.) Upon the path whose way hath no return, Upon the house whose enterers are deprived of light, Where dust is their nourishment, their food mud, Light they see not, in darkness they dwell, Clothed also, like a bird, in a dress of feathers. Upon the door and bolt the dust hath blown.

Seven gates gave access to this place of gloom, and the porter, as he let the visitor in, took from the goddess at each an article of clothing, until, at the last, she entered quite naked, apparently typifying the fact that humans can take nothing with them when they die, not even their good deeds to clothe themselves, for had they been pious, they would not have found themselves in that dread abode.

Gilgamesh set out to find his friend and counsellor, Enkidu, when he died, and to bring him back from the underworld. His death had not been like that of an ordinary man. It was not Namtaru, the spirit of fate, who had taken him, nor a misfortune such as befalls ordinary men, but Nergal’s unsparing lier-in-wait. Yet though Nergal was the god of war, Enkidu had not fallen on the battlefield, but had been seized by the earth, in consequence of some trick or trap laid for him at the will of the gods. So, he dwelt in the underworld where the unpious dead dwelt.

No gods listened to Gilgamesh’s prayers to bring him back except Ea, who begged him of Nergal, lord of the underworld, whereupon the latter opened the entrance to the place where he was—the hole of the earth—and brought forth “the spirit of Enkidu like mist”. Then came the words:

Tell, my friend, tell, my friend—the law of the land which thou sawest, tell…”

and the answer:

I will not tell thee, friend, I will not tell thee. If I tell thee the law of the land which I saw… sit down, weep”.

Ultimately, the person appealed to—apparently the disembodied Enkidu—reveals something concerning the condition of the souls in the place of his sojourn after death:

Whom thou sawest [die] the death [I see] in the resting-place of [..] reposing, pure waters he drinketh. Whom in the battle thou sawest killed, I see [..] His father and his mother raise his head, And his wife upon [him leaneth?]. Whose corpse thou hast seen thrown down in the plain, I see {..] His edimmu in the earth reposeth not. Whose edimmu thou sawest without a caretaker, I see—The leavings of the dish, the remains of the food, Which in the street is thrown, he eateth.

In a passage like this is the difference between a man’s utukku and his edimmu, with the former his spiritual essence reposing peacefully, whilst the latter stands for the ghost of his body, like the ka of the Egyptians, the corrupting man living off discarded morsals. The first abode described is the dwelling of the brave or devout, who, if lucky in the manner of their death, and the disposal of their bodies, enjoyed the highest happiness in the habitation of the blest.

Part of the creed of the Babylonians, Assyrians, and many of the surrounding nations consisted in hero-worship, which pre-supposes that the heroes in question continued to exist, in a state of power and glory, after the conclusion of their life here upon earth. “The Blessed” went on to a place like heaven or the Elysian Fields of western heroes—the Fields of the Blessed. An Assyrian poem written for the king goes:

The land of the silver sky, oil unceasing, the benefits of blessedness may he obtain among the feasts of the gods, and a happy cycle among their light, even life everlasting and bliss. Such is my prayer to the gods who dwell in the land of Assur.

Kings were eligible for it. Gilgamesh sought the Babylonian Noah, Utnapishtim (Xisuthros) who dwelt in the Babylonian Elysium. Advised by Ea (Aa), Utnapishtim explained to those who questioned him the reason why he was building the ship or ark which was to save his family from the Flood.

The god Bel hates me—I cannot dwell in this land, and in the territory of Bel I cannot set my face. I shall descend then to the Abyss, with Aa my lord shall I constantly dwell.

He announced thereby his approaching death, or his departure to dwell with his god. This belief in the life beyond the grave seems to have been that which was current during the final centuries of the third millennium BC—when a man died, it was said that his god took him to himself, and we may therefore suppose, that there were as many heavens—places of contentment and bliss—as there were gods, and that every good man was regarded as going and dwelling evermore with the deity which he had worshipped and served faithfully during his lifetime.

The epic of Gilgamesh was written in twelve books, each corresponding to a constellation, so Gilgamesh was a Sumerian Herakles, a sun god. The Greeks, who were immensely influenced by the Phœnicians, received their inspiration for Herakles from Gilgamesh, through the Phœnicians who had already adopted Gilgamesh as the prototype of their own sun god. In the fifth book, Gilgamesh kills a lion—Leo. In the sixth book, he is wooed by Ishtar—Virgo. The Flood is the eleventh book—Aquarius. The winged bull of Crete, is the winged bull of Anu—Taurus. The tyrant cattle herding Geryon is the tyrant Khumbaba. The Apples of the Hesperides are the gems of the trees of the forest beyond the gateway of the sun. The mortal sickness of Gilgamesh translates into the fever cause Herakles by the poisoned tunic of Nessos.

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