History Of Egypt, Chaldea, Syria, Babylonia, and Assyria, Vol. 3 — 18 - Ch. 2: The Temples and the Gods of Chaldaea, pt. 5

The differences between the gods were all the more accentuated, for the reason that many who had a common origin were often separated from one another by, relatively speaking, considerable distances.

Having divided the earth’s surface between them, they formed, as in Egypt, a complete feudal system, whose chiefs severally took up their residence in a particular city.

Anu was worshipped in Uruk, Enlil-Bel reigned in Nipur, Eridu belonged to Ea, the lord of the waters.

The moon-god, Sin, alone governed two large fiefs, Uru in the extreme south, and Harran towards the extreme north-west; Shamash had Larsam and one of the Sipparas for his dominion, and the other sun-gods were not less well provided for, Nergal possessing Kutha, Zamama having Kish, Ninib side by side with Bel reigning in Nipur, while Merodach ruled at Babylon.

Each was absolute master in his own territory, and it is quite exceptional to find two of them co-regnant in one locality, as were Ninib and Bel at Nipur, or Ea and Ishtar in Uruk; not that they raised any opposition on principle to the presence of a stranger divinity in their dominions, but they welcomed them only under the titles of allies or subjects.

Each, moreover, had fair play, and Nebo or Shamash, after having filled the _role_ of sovereign at Borsippa or at Larsam, did not consider it derogatory to his dignity to accept a lower rank in Babylon or at Uru.

Hence all the feudal gods played a double part, and had, as it were, a double civil portion--that of suzerain in one or two localities, and that of vassals everywhere else--and this dual condition was the surest guarantee not only of their prosperity, but of their existence.

Sin would have run great risk of sinking into oblivion if his resources had been confined to the subventions from his domain temples of Harran and Uru.

Their impoverishment would in such case have brought about his complete failure: after having enjoyed an existence amid riches and splendour in the beginning of history, he would have ended his life in a condition of misery and obscurity.

But the sanctuaries erected to him in the majority of the other cities, the honours which these bestowed upon him, and the offerings which they made to him, compensated him for the poverty and neglect which he experienced in his own domains; and he was thus able to maintain his divine dignity on a suitable footing.

All the gods were, therefore, worshipped by the Chaldeans, and the only difference among them in this respect arose from the fact that some exalted one special deity above the others.

The gods of the richest and most ancient principalities naturally enjoyed the greatest popularity.

The greatness of Uru had been the source of Sin’s prestige, and Merodach owed his prosperity to the supremacy which Babylon had acquired over the districts of the north.

Merodach was regarded as the son of Ba, as the star which had risen from the abyss to illuminate the world, and to confer upon mankind the decrees of eternal wisdom.

He was proclaimed as lord--“bilu”--_par excellence_, in comparison with whom all other lords sank into insignificance, and this title soon procured for him a second, which was no less widely recognized than the first: he was spoken of everywhere as the Bel of Babylon, Bel-Merodach--before whom Bel of Nipur was gradually thrown into the shade.

The relations between these feudal deities were not always pacific: jealousies arose among them like those which disturbed the cities over which they ruled; they conspired against each other, and on occasions broke out into open warfare.

Instead of forming a coalition against the evil genii who threatened their rule, and as a consequence tended to bring everything into jeopardy, they sometimes made alliances with these malign powers and mutually betrayed each other.

Their history, if we could recover it in its entirety, would be marked by as violent deeds as those which distinguished the princes and kings who worshipped them.

Attempts were made, however, and that too from an early date, to establish among them a hierarchy like that which existed among the great ones of the earth.

The faithful, who, instead of praying to each one separately, preferred to address them all, invoked them always in the same order: they began with Anu, the heaven, and followed with Bel, Ea, Sin, Shamash, and Bamman.

They divided these six into two groups of three, one trio consisting of Anu, Bel, and Ea, the other of Sin, Shamash, and Bamman.

All these deities were associated with Southern Chaldoa, and the system which grouped them must have taken its rise in this region, probably at Uruk, whose patron Anu V occupied the first rank among them.

The theologians who classified them in this manner seem never to have dreamt of explaining, like the authors of the Heliopolitan Ennead, the successive steps in their creation: these triads were not, moreover, copies of the human family, consisting of a father and mother whose marriage brings into the world a new being.

Others had already given an account of the origin of things, and of Merodach’s struggles with chaos; these theologians accepted the universe as it was, already made, and contented themselves with summing up its elements by enumerating the gods which actuated them.

* They assigned the first place to those elements which make the most forcible impression upon man--beginning with Anu, for the heaven was the god of their city;

following with Bel of Nipur, the earth which from all antiquity has been associated with the heaven; and concluding with Ea of Eridu, the terrestrial waters and primordial Ocean whence Anu and Bel, together with all living creatures, had sprung--Ea being a god whom, had they not been guided by local vanity, they would have made sovereign lord of all.

Anu owed his supremacy to an historical accident rather than a religious conception: he held his high position, not by his own merits, but because the prevailing theology of an early period had been the work of his priesthood.

* I know of Sayce only who has endeavoured to explain the historical formation of the triads.

They are considered by him as of Accadian origin, and probably began in an astronomical triad, composed of the moon-god, the sun-god, and the evening star, Sin, Shamash, and Ishtar; alongside this elementary trinity, “the only authentic one to be found in the religious faith of primitive Chaldaea,” the Semites may have placed the cosmogonical trinity of Anu, Bel, and Ea, formed by the reunion of the gods of Uruk, Nipur, and Eridu.

The characters of the three personages who formed the supreme triad can be readily deduced from the nature of the elements which they represent.

Anu is the heaven itself--“ana”--the immense vault which spreads itself above our heads, clear during the day when glorified by the sun, obscure and strewn with innumerable star clusters during the night.

Afterwards it becomes the spirit which animates the firmament, or the god which rules it: he resides in the north towards the pole, and the ordinary route chosen by him when inspecting his domain is that marked out by our ecliptic.

He occupies the high regions of the universe, sheltered from winds and tempests, in an atmosphere always serene, and a light always brilliant.

The terrestrial gods and those of middle-space take refuge in this “heaven of Anu,” when they are threatened by any great danger, but they dare not penetrate its depths, and stop, shortly after passing its boundary, on the ledge which supports the vault, where they loll and howl like dogs.

It is but rarely that it may be entered, and then only by the highly privileged--kings whose destiny marked them out for admittance, and heroes who have fallen valiantly on the field of battle.

In his remote position on unapproachable summits Anu seems to participate in the calm and immobility of his dwelling.

If he is quick in forming an opinion and coming to a conclusion, he himself never puts into execution the plans which he has matured or the judgments which he has pronounced: he relieves himself of the trouble of acting, by assigning the duty to Bel-Merodach, Ea, or Eamman, and he often employs inferior genii to execute his will.

“They are seven, the messengers of Anu their king; it is they who from town to town raise the stormy wind;

they are the south wind which drives mightily in the heavens; they are the destroying clouds which overturn the heavens; they are the rapid tempests which bring darkness in the midst of clear day, they roam here and there with the wicked wind and the ill-omened hurricane.

” Anu sends forth all the gods as he pleases, recalls them again, and then, to make them his pliant instruments, enfeebles their personality, reducing it to nothing by absorbing it into his own.

He blends himself with them, and their designations seem to be nothing more than doublets of his own: he is Anu the Lakhmu who appeared on the first days of creation; Ahu Urash or Ninib is the sun-warrior of Nipur; and Anu is also the eagle Alala whom Ishtar enfeebled by her caresses.

Anu regarded in this light ceases to be the god _par excellence_: he becomes the only chief god, and the idea of authority is so closely attached to his name that the latter alone is sufficient in common speech to render the idea of God.

Bel would have been entirely thrown into the shade by him, as the earth-gods generally are by the sky-gods, if it had not been that he was confounded with his namesake Bel-Merodach of Babylon: to this alliance he owed to the end the safety of his life, in presence of Anu.

Ea was the most active and energetic member of the triad.

* As he represented the bottomless abyss, the dark waters which had filled the universe until the day of the creation, there had been attributed to him a complete knowledge of the past, present, and future, whose germs had lain within him, as in a womb.

The attribute of supreme wisdom was revered in Ea, the lord of spells and charms, to which gods and men were alike subject: no strength could prevail against his strength, no voice against his voice: when once he opened his mouth to give a decision, his will became law, and no one might gainsay it.

If a peril should arise against which the other gods found themselves impotent, they resorted to him immediately for help, which was never refused.

He had saved Shamashnapishtirn from the Deluge; every day he freed his votaries from sickness and the thousand demons which were the causes of it.

He was a potter, and had modelled men out of the clay of the plains.

From him smiths and workers in gold obtained the art of rendering malleable and of fashioning the metals.

Weavers and stone-cutters, gardeners, husbandmen, and sailors hailed him as their teacher and patron.

From his incomparable knowledge the scribes derived theirs, and physicians and wizards invoked spirits in his name alone by the virtue of prayers which he had condescended to teach them.

* The name of this god was read “Nisrok” by Oppert, “Nouah” by Hincks and Lenormant.

The true reading is Ia, Ea, usually translated “house,” “water-house”; this is a popular interpretation which appears to have occurred to the Chaldaeans from the values of the signs entering into the name of the god.

From the outset H. Rawlinson recognized in Ea, which he read Hea, Hoa, the divinity presiding over the abyss of waters; he compared him with the serpent of Holy Scripture, in its relation to the Tree of Knowledge and the Tree of Life, and deduced therefrom his character of lord of wisdom.

His position as lord of the primordial waters, from which all things proceeded, clearly denned by Lenormant, is now fully recognized.

His name was transcribed Aos by Damascius, a form which is not easily explained; the most probable hypothesis is that of Hommel who considers Aos as a shortened form of Iaos = Ia, Ea.