The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Part 63

Ea obeys the order, delivers up Adapa, and everything happens as was foretold.

Upon mounting to heaven and on his approach to the gate of Anu, Tammuz and Gishzida were stationed at the gate of Anu. They saw Adapa and cried 'Help,[1104] Lord! Why art thou thus attired?

For whom hast thou put on mourning?'[1105]

Adapa replies:

'Two G.o.ds have disappeared from the earth, therefore do I wear a mourning garment.'

'Who are the two G.o.ds who have disappeared from the earth?'

Tammuz and Gishzida looked at one another, broke out in lament.

'O Adapa! Step before King Anu.' As he approached, Anu saw him and cried out to him:

'Come, Adapa, why hast thou broken the wings of the south wind?'

Adapa answered Anu: 'My lord! For the house of my lord[1106] I was fis.h.i.+ng in the midst of the sea. The waters lay still around me, when the south wind began to blow and forced me underneath.

Into the dwelling of the fish it drove me. In the anger of my heart [I broke the wings of the south wind].'

Tammuz and Gishzida thereupon intercede with Anu on behalf of Adapa, and succeed in appeasing the G.o.d's wrath. If the story ended here, we would have a pure nature-myth--the same myth in a different form that we encountered in the Creation epic, in the Deluge story, and in the Zu legend. Adapa would be merely a designation of Marduk and nothing more.

The sun triumphs over the storms, and the only objectionable feature in the tale--to a Babylonian--would be the degradation involved in obliging Marduk to secure the intercession of other G.o.ds. But this feature of itself suggests that the nature-myth has been embodied in the legend, but does not const.i.tute the whole of it. A second element and one entirely independent in its character has been added to the myth.

Anu is appeased, but he is astonished at Ea's patronage of Adapa, as a result of which a mortal has actually appeared in a place set aside for the G.o.ds.

Why did Ea permit an impure mortal to see the interior of heaven and earth? He made him great and gave him fame.[1107]

The privilege accorded to Adapa appears to alarm the G.o.ds. As among the Greeks and other nations, so also the Babylonian deities were not free from jealousy at the power and achievements of humanity. Adapa, having viewed the secrets of heaven and earth, there was nothing left for the G.o.ds but to admit him into their circle. The narrative accordingly continues:

'Now what shall we grant him? Offer him food of life, that he may eat of it.' They brought it to him, but he did not eat.

Waters of life they brought him, but he did not drink. A garment they brought him. He put it on. Oil they brought him. He anointed himself.

Adapa follows the instructions of Ea, but the latter, it will be recalled, tells Adapa that food and water of _death_ will be offered him. It is Ea, therefore, who, although the G.o.d of humanity, and who, moreover, according to the tradition involved in the Adapa legend, is the creator of mankind, who prevents his creatures from gaining immortality. The situation is very much the same that we find in the third chapter of Genesis, when G.o.d, who creates man, takes precautions lest mortals eat of the tree of life and 'live forever.' The problem presented by the Hebrew and Babylonian stories is the same: why should not man, who is descended from the G.o.ds, who is created in the likeness of a G.o.d, who by virtue of his intellect can peer into the secrets of heaven and earth, who stands superior to the rest of creation, who, to use the psalmist's figure, is only 'a scale lower than G.o.d,' why should he not be like the G.o.ds and live forever? The Hebrew legend solves the problem in a franker way than does the Babylonian. G.o.d, while as anxious as Ea to keep man from eating of the tree of life, cautions Adam against the act, whereas Ea practises a deception in order to prevent man from eating. That in both tales eternal life is contained in food points again (as we have found to be the case with the Biblical narratives of Creation and of the Deluge) to a common source for the two traditions.

Similarly the phrase 'waters of life' is a figure of speech of frequent occurrence in Biblical literature in both the Old and the New Testaments. It is no argument against a common source for the Hebrew and Babylonian stories explaining how man came to forego immortality, that the waters of life should be found in the one and not in the other. If we a.s.sume with Gunkel[1108] that the stories embodied in the first chapters of Genesis were long current among the Hebrews before they were given a permanent form, the adaptation of old traditions to an entirely new order of beliefs involves a casting aside of features that could not be used and a discarding of such as seemed superfluous. The striking departures in the case of the Hebrew legends from their Babylonian counterparts are as full of significance as the striking agreements between the two. The departures and agreements must both be accounted for. For both there are reasons. So, to emphasize only one point, in a monotheistic solution of the problem under consideration, there was no place for any conflict among the G.o.ds. In Genesis G.o.d simply wills that man should not eat of the tree of life. In the Adapa legend the G.o.ds, including Anu, are willing to grant a mortal the food and water of life, simply because they believe that Ea, the creator of man, wishes him to have it. Accordingly, Anu and his a.s.sociates are represented at the close of the legend as being grieved that Adapa should have foregone the privilege.

Anu looked at him[1109] and lamented over him. 'Come, Adapa, why didst thou not eat and not drink? Now thou canst not live.'

Adapa replies, unconscious of the deception practised on him:

'Ea, my lord, commanded me not to eat and not to drink.'

Adapa returns to the earth. What his subsequent fate is we do not know, for the tablet here comes to an end. It is possible that he learns what Ea has done, and that the G.o.d gives him the reason for the deception practised. A scene of this kind could not find a place in the Hebrew version that emphasizes the supreme authority of a power besides whom none other was recognized. G.o.d acts alone.

Adam, it will be recalled, after eating of the fruit of the tree of knowledge, makes a garment for himself. There can be no doubt that there is a close connection between this tradition and the feature in the Adapa legend, where Adapa, who has been shown the 'secrets of heaven and earth,'--that is, has acquired knowledge,--is commanded by Ea to put on the garment that is offered him. The anointing oneself with oil, though an essential part of the toilet in the ancient and modern Orient, was discarded in the Hebrew tale as a superfluous feature. The idea conveyed by the use of oil was the same as the one indicated in clothing one's nakedness. Both are symbols of civilization which man is permitted to attain, but his development stops there. He cannot secure eternal life.

On the other hand, in comparing the Hebrew and Babylonian versions of the problem of knowledge and immortality, one cannot help being struck by the pessimistic tone of the former as against the more consolatory spirit of the latter. G.o.d does not want man to attain even knowledge.[1110] He secures it in disobedience to the divine will, whereas Ea willingly grants him the knowledge of all there is in heaven and earth. In this way the Hebrew and Babylonian mind, each developed the common tradition in its own way.

Leaving the comparison aside and coming back for a moment to the Adapa story, it is interesting to observe that as we have two tales, both intended to explain the position of Marduk at the head of the pantheon, the one by making him the conqueror of Tiamat and forcing from Kingu the tablets of fate, the other by representing him as recovering from Zu the tablets which En-lil, who originally held them, could not protect against the storm-bird, so we have two solutions offered for the problem of immortality. The one in the Gilgamesh epic, where the hero is told of the plant of life, succeeds in finding it, but as he is about to eat the 'food' loses his grasp upon it. The exertions of man are in vain. True, there is Parnapishtim, a mortal who with his wife has obtained immortal life. He is the exception that proves the rule. Moreover, it is Bel, and not Ea, who places Parnapishtim 'at the confluence of streams,' there to live forever, and Bel does this as a proof of his pacification, a kind of indemnity offered to Ea for having destroyed the offspring of the G.o.d of humanity. The Adapa legend attacks the problem more seriously. Ea, the same G.o.d who has created man, endowed him with wisdom, bestowed all manner of benefits upon him, Ea, who protects humanity against Anu, against Bel, and other G.o.ds, Ea himself deceives man. Evidently the lesson that the Babylonian theologians intended to teach through the Adapa legend was, that it was not good for man to 'live forever.' Ea himself prevents it. That is the point of the story. Anu and the other G.o.ds are satisfied, but Ea does not desire it, and Ea's decision cannot be to the disadvantage of mankind, so dearly beloved by him. With this conclusion humanity must be content--and be resigned to the inevitable.

Of the various legends that we have been considering, the story of Adapa is perhaps the most significant, and none the less so for the manner in which a philosophical problem has been grafted on to a nature-myth.

Adapa is made to play the role of Marduk, and it is nothing short of remarkable that at so early a period as the one to which the existence of the story can be traced back, a nature-myth should have been diverted from its original purpose and adapted to the end that the Adapa story serves in its present form. The process involved in this adaptation is a complicated one. The story serves as an evidence of the intellectual activity displayed in the schools of theological thought that must have flourished for many centuries before a story like that of Adapa could have been produced out of a nature-myth. Hardly less remarkable is it that the theologians and scribes of later times no longer understood the story, for otherwise they would not have identified Adapa with Marduk through the superficial circ.u.mstance that he is introduced into the story instead of Marduk, or some other solar deity allied to Marduk.

The Adapa legend takes us back to the beginning of man's career--to the time when, as in the early chapters of Genesis, man stood closer to the G.o.ds than at a later time, the time when there was a constant intercourse between man and the G.o.ds, and more especially between man and his protector, Ea. The story forms part of a stock of traditions of which we have another specimen in the Eabani-Ukhat episode, incorporated in the Gilgamesh epic.[1111] No doubt when the treasures still existing in the British Museum shall have been thoroughly examined and as additional remains of the religious literature of the Babylonians will be brought to light, we will find further traces of these early traditions as well as of other myths. Those that we have discussed in this and in the preceding chapters ill.u.s.trate the system adopted by the priests in elaborating these traditions and myths and in adapting them to serve as ill.u.s.trations of certain doctrines and beliefs. We may also feel tolerably confident that the religious ideas conveyed through these various epics and legends and myths fairly represent both the popular and the advanced thought, as it unfolded itself in the course of time.

By the aid of these specimens of the religious literature, we have been enabled to a.n.a.lyze the views of the Babylonians regarding the creation of the world, its structure, and government. We have obtained an insight into the problems of life and death which engaged the Babylonian thinkers, and we have noted some of the solutions offered for these problems. In a consideration of the views held by the Babylonians and a.s.syrians of the life after death, to which we now turn, it will again be a specimen of the religious literature that will serve as our main guide.

FOOTNOTES:

[1011] Some of these were already indicated (but only indicated) by George Smith in his _Chaldaeische Genesis_ (German translation), pp.

136-142. It is the merit of Dr. E. J. Harper to have prepared an excellent publication of the material contained in Smith's work, pp.

103-120, under the t.i.tle "Die Babylonischen Legenden von Etana, Zu, Adapa und Dibbarra" (Delitzsch and Haupt's _Beitrage zur a.s.syriologie_, ii. 390-521). Additional material is furnished by two publications of mine: (_a_) a monograph, "A Fragment of the Dibbarra Epic" (Boston, 1891), and (_b_) "A New Fragment of the Babylonian Etana Legend"

(Delitzsch and Haupt's _Beitrage zur a.s.syriologie_, iii. 363-381). See also Friedrich Jeremias in Chantepie de la Saussaye's _Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte_ (2nd edition), i. 218-221.

[1012] See above, p. 511.

[1013] See my remarks in Delitzsch and Haupt's _Beitrage zur a.s.syriologie_, iii. 376.

[1014] I Kings, v. 11.

[1015] Harper in Delitzsch and Haupt's _Beitrage zur a.s.syriologie_, ii.

391-408.

[1016] _Ib._ pp. 405 _seq._

[1017] Lit., 'the Inquirers,' a designation of the priests in their capacity of oracle-seekers.

[1018] The matter is not certain because of the sad condition of the fragments.

[1019] K. 2606, Harper, _ib._ pp. 399, 400.

[1020] Only a part of the name, _I-si_, is preserved.

[1021] See pp. 108, 163.

[1022] _I.e._, an army's march of two hours.

[1023] The dwelling of Ea. See Meissner, _Alexander and Gilgamos_, p.

17.

[1024] _I.e._, still smaller.

[1025] See above, p. 458.

[1026] See p. 460.

[1027] See p. 511.

[1028] Harper, _ib._. p. 404, note.

[1029] See Harper, _ib._. pp. 406, 407.

[1030] See above, p. 469.