The Religion of Babylonia and Assyria Part 65

[1079] These two lines are repeated.

[1080] The thunderbolt.

[1081] Cities sacred to thee.

[1082] _I.e._, the sacred edifices in these cities.

[1083] The lofty dwelling of the G.o.ds is here meant. See chapter xxvii.

[1084] Ideographic reading--the ideograph signifies 'shrine.' The verbal stem _bararu_ means 'to s.h.i.+ne.'

[1085] See p. 414.

[1086] See p. 525.

[1087] See p. 400.

[1088] It is quite possible that the line in question declares that Zu is in collusion with the eagle, against whom the serpent seeks the a.s.sistance of Shamash.

[1089] See p. 417.

[1090] It is hardly possible that the ill.u.s.tration on seal cylinders mentioned by Ward, _ib._ pp. 13, 14, represents the Zu bird brought before a deity for punishment; and certainly not before Shamash, who only enters into the story in so far as Marduk is a solar deity.

[1091] Published by Winckler and Abel, _Der Thontafelfund von El-Amarna_, iii. 166a, b; translated also by Harper, _ib._ pp. 420, 421.

[1092] See above, p. 63.

[1093] My rendering is given in continuous lines. The legend is in narrative, not in poetic form.

[1094] Adapa.

[1095] Lit., 'house.'

[1096] Neither Delitzsch's suggestion 'G.o.d of dwellings' nor Harper's 'G.o.d thou art strong' is acceptable.

[1097] See p. 99.

[1098] See p. 462.

[1099] See the following chapter.

[1100] See pp. 139 _seq._

[1101] First suggested by Zimmern.

[1102] Of the eighth century. See Harper, _ib._ p. 424.

[1103] To Ea.

[1104] Anu, it will be recalled, utters the same cry. See p. 546.

[1105] Referring to his garments of mourning.

[1106] _I.e._, Ea.

[1107] I follow Zimmern's rendition of the line.

[1108] _Schopfung und Chaos_, pp. 168 _seq._

[1109] Adapa.

[1110] The phrase 'knowledge of good and evil' (Gen. ii. 17) is simply an expression equivalent to our 'everything,' or to the Babylonian 'secrets of heaven and earth.'

[1111] See pp. 476 _seq._ Sayce has even gone so far as to suggest an identification of Adapa (by reading Adawa) with the Biblical Adam, but this conjecture is untenable.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE VIEWS OF LIFE AFTER DEATH.

The problem of immortality, we have seen, engaged the serious attention of the Babylonian theologians. While the solutions they had to offer could hardly have been satisfactory either to themselves or to the ma.s.ses, it must not be supposed that the denial of immortality to man involved the total extinction of conscious vitality. Neither the people nor the leaders of religious thought ever faced the possibility of the total annihilation of what once was called into existence. Death was a pa.s.sage to another kind of life, and the denial of immortality merely emphasized the impossibility of escaping the change in existence brought about by death. The G.o.ds alone do not pa.s.s from one phase of existence to the other. Death was mysterious, but not more mysterious than life.

The Babylonian religion does not transcend the stage of belief, characteristic of primitive culture everywhere, which cannot conceive of the possibility of life coming to an absolute end. Life of some kind and in some form was always presupposed. So far as man was concerned, created by some G.o.d,--Bel, Ea, Aruru, or Ishtar, according to the various traditions that were current,[1112]--no divine fiat could wipe out what was endowed with life and the power of reproduction.

No doubt, the impossibility for the individual to conceive of himself as forever deprived of consciousness, was at the bottom of the primitive theory of the perpetuity of existence in some form. Among ancient religions, Buddhism alone frees itself from this theory and unfolds a bold doctrine of the possibility of a complete annihilation. The question, however, whether the continuity of existence was a blessing or a curse was raised by many ancient nations. The Babylonians are among these who are inclined to take a gloomy view of the pa.s.sage from this world to the existence in store for humanity after death, and the religious leaders were either powerless or disinclined to controvert this view.

Location and Names of the Gathering Place of the Dead.

We have already had occasion[1113] to refer to the great cave underneath the earth in which the dead were supposed to dwell, and since the earth itself was regarded as a mountain, the cave is pictured as a hollow within, or rather underneath, a mountain. A conception of this kind must have arisen among a people that was once familiar with a mountainous district. The settlers of the Euphrates Valley brought the belief with them from an earlier mountain home. The cave, moreover, points to cave-dwelling and to cave-burial as conditions that prevailed at one time among the populace, precisely as the imitation of the mountain with its caves in the case of the Egyptian pyramids, is due to similar influences. To this cave various names are a.s.signed in the literature of the Babylonians,--some of popular origin, others reflecting scholastic views. The most common name is Aralu.[1114] We also find the term 'house of Aralu.'[1115] The etymology of the term is obscure. Aralu was pictured as a vast place, dark and gloomy. It is sometimes called a land, sometimes a great house. The approach to it was difficult. It lay in the lowest part of the mountain that represented the earth, not far from the hollow underneath the mountain into which the 'Apsu' flowed.

Surrounded by seven walls and strongly guarded, it was a place to which no living person could go and from which no mortal could ever depart after once entering it. To Aralu all went whose existence in this world had come to an end. Another name which specifies the relations.h.i.+p of Aralu to the world is Ekur or 'mountain house' of the dead. Ekur is one of the names for the earth,[1116] but is applied more particularly to that part of the mountain, also known as Kharsag[1117]-kurkura, _i.e._, 'the mountain of all lands' where the G.o.ds were born. Before the later speculative view was developed, according to which the G.o.ds, or most of them, have their seats in heaven,[1118] it was on this mountain also that the G.o.ds were supposed to dwell. Hence Ekur became also one of the names for temple,[1119] as the seat of a G.o.d. The dwelling of the dead was regarded as a part of the 'great mountain.' It belonged to Ekur, and the fact that it was designated simply as Ekur,[1120] is a valuable indication that the dead were brought into close a.s.sociation with the G.o.ds. This a.s.sociation is also indicated by the later use of Aralu as the designation of the mountain within which the district of the dead, Aralu proper, lay[1121]--synonymous, therefore, with Ekur. We shall see in the course of this chapter that the dead are placed even more than the living under the direct supervision of the G.o.ds.

A third name for the nether world which conveys an important addition to the views held regarding the dead, was Shualu. Jensen, it is true, following Bertin, questions the existence of this term in Babylonian,[1122] but one does not see how the evidence of the pa.s.sages in the lexicographical tablets can be set aside in the way that he proposes. Zimmern[1123] does not appear to be convinced by Jensen's arguments and regards the question as an open one. Jensen's method of disposing of Shualu, besides being open to serious objections, fails to account for the fact that Shualu is brought into a.s.sociation with various Babylonian terms and ideographs for the grave.[1124] This cannot be accidental. That the term has. .h.i.therto been found only in lexicographical tablets need not surprise us. Aralu, too, is of rare occurrence in the religious texts. The priests appear to avoid the names for the nether world, which were of ill omen, and preferred to describe the place by some epithet, as 'land without return,' or 'dark dwelling,'

or 'great city,' and the like. Of such descriptive terms we have a large number.[1125] The stem underlying Shualu signifies 'to ask.' Shualu is a place of inquiry,[1126] and the inquiry meant is of the nature of a religious oracle. The name, accordingly, is an indication of the power accorded to the dead, to aid the living by furnis.h.i.+ng them with answers to questions, just as the G.o.ds furnish oracles through the mediation of the priests.[1127] The Old Testament supplies us with an admirable ill.u.s.tration of the method of obtaining oracles through the dead. Saul, when he desires to know what the outcome of a battle is to be, seeks out a sorceress, and through her calls up the dead Samuel[1128] and puts the question to him. Similarly, in the Gilgamesh epic, the hero, with the aid of Nergal, obtains a sight of Eabani[1129] and plies him with questions. The belief, therefore, in this power of the dead was common to Babylonians and Hebrews, and, no doubt, was shared by other branches of the Semites. It is natural, therefore, to find the Babylonian term Shualu paralleled by the Hebrew Sheol, which is the common designation in the Old Testament for the dwelling-place of the dead.[1130] How widespread the custom was among Babylonians of inquiring 'through the living of the dead'[1131] it is difficult, in default of satisfactory evidence, to say. The growing power of the priests as mediators between men and G.o.ds must have acted as a check to such practices. The priests, as the inquirers,[1132] naturally proceeded direct to the particular G.o.d whose representative they claimed to be, and the development of an elaborate ceremonial in the temples in connection with the oracles[1133]

was a further factor that must have influenced the gradual abandonment of the custom, at least as an element of the _official_ cult. Moreover, the belief itself belongs in the domain of ancestor wors.h.i.+p, and in historical times we find but little trace of such wors.h.i.+p among the Babylonians. We may, therefore, a.s.sociate the custom with the earliest period of the Babylonian religion. This view carries with it the antiquity of the term Shualu. Like Aralu and the designation Ekur, it embodies the close a.s.sociation of the dead with the G.o.ds. The dead not only dwell near the G.o.ds, but, like the G.o.ds, they can direct the affairs of mankind. Their answers to questions put to them have divine justification. From this view of the dead to the deification of the latter is but a short step. It does not, of course, follow, from the fact that Shualu or Sheol is the place of 'oracles,' that all the dead have the power to furnish oracles or can be invoked for this purpose.

Correspondingly, if we find that the Babylonians did deify their dead, it does not mean that at one time all the dead were regarded as G.o.ds.

Popular legends are concerned only with the heroes, with the popular favorites--not with the great ma.s.ses. Eabani, who appears to Gilgamesh, is a hero, and so is Samuel. As a matter of fact, we have so far only found evidence that the ancient rulers whose memory lingered in the minds of the people were regarded by later generations as G.o.ds. So the names of Dungi and Gudea[1134] are written on tablets that belong to the centuries immediately following their reign, with the determinative that is placed before the names of G.o.ds. Festivals were celebrated in honor of these kings, sacrifices were offered to them, and their images were placed in temples.[1135] Again, Gimil-Sin (c. 2500 B.C.), of the second dynasty of Ur, appears to have been deified during his lifetime, and there was a temple in Lagash which was named after him.[1136] No doubt other kings will be found who were similarly honored. We may expect to come across a G.o.d Hammurabi some day. Gilgamesh is, as we have seen, a historical personage whose career has been so thoroughly amalgamated with nature-myths that he ends by becoming a solar deity who is invoked in incantations.

The tendency to connect legendary and mythical incidents with ancient rulers is part and parcel of this process of deification. Of an ancient king, Sargon,[1137] a story was related how he was exposed in a boat, and, 'knowing neither father nor mother,' was found by a ferryman. The exploits of this king and of his successor, Naram-Sin, were incorporated in an omen text[1138]--a circ.u.mstance that again ill.u.s.trates how the popular fancy connected the heroes of the past with its religious interests. Still, there is no more reason to question the historical reality of Sargon[1139] than to question the existence of Moses, because a story of his early youth is narrated in Exodus[1140] which forms a curious parallel to the Sargon legend, or to question the existence of a personage by the name of Abraham, because an Abrahamitic cult arose that continues to the present day.[1141]

This close a.s.sociation of the dead with the G.o.ds, upon which the deification of the dead rests, may be regarded as a legacy of the earliest period of the Babylonian religion, of the time when the intercourse between the G.o.ds and the living was also direct. The belief and rites connected with the dead const.i.tute the most conservative elements in the religion of a people. The organized cult affects the living chiefly. So far as the latter are concerned, the rise of a priesthood to whom the religious needs of the people are entrusted, removes the living from that immediate contact with the G.o.ds which we note in the traditions of every people regarding the beginnings of mankind. The priests have no power over the dead. The dead require no 'mediator.' Hence, those who dwell in Aralu return to the early state of mankind when G.o.ds and mankind 'walked together.'

Another name that is of frequent occurrence in religious texts is Kigallu, which describes the nether world as a district of great extent, situated within the earth.[1142] The chief G.o.ddess of the nether world is commonly known as the 'queen of Kigallu.' Furthermore, Irkalla, which was interpreted by the Babylonian theologians as 'great city' (or 'district'), is used both as a designation for the dwelling-place of the dead and for the consort of the queen of Aralu.[1143]

Beside the names for the nether world above discussed, a large number of epithets and metaphors are found in the religious texts. The place to which the dead go is called the 'dark dwelling,' 'the land from which there is no return,' 'house of death,' 'the great city,' 'the deep land,' and, since Nergal, the ruler of the lower world, was the patron of the city Cuthah[1144] (or Kutu), the name Cuthah was also used as a designation for Aralu. Lastly, it is interesting to note that in poetical usage the words for 'grave'[1145] were also employed to describe the nether world. The question raised by this metaphor as to the relations.h.i.+p between the grave and the lower world can best be discussed when we come to consider the funeral rites.[1146]