The Babylonians also connect the serpent with Paradise. In the epic of Ninirod it is the serpent which snatches the plant of rejuvenescence from Gisdubar as he returns home. In a well-known picture on an old cylinder-seal, a serpent is twining itself behind a seated female (?) figure. In front of the figure stands a palm, and on the other side of the palm sits a personage whose ox-horns mark him out as a divinity. Both figures, however, are stretching out their hands to the fruit of the tree tliat stands between them. The Babylonian dragon of the primeval world is represented as a monster witli the head of a lion and the feet of an eagle; but after his defeat by Merodach he is transpoi-ted to Heaven in the form of a serpent. In connexion with this we may remember that the ' sei^pent-god,' who is regarded as masculine, is called the ' watcher (rCihisu) of the house of heaven.' Finally, Nebuchadrezzar set up, both at the gates of Babylon and on the threshold of the temple of Bel, colossal bulls and enormous serpents of metal as guardians.
Unfortunately, no direct parallel to the biblical account of the Fall and the expulsion of man from Paradise has been as yet found in Babylonian literature. Nevertheless, apart from the pictorial representati(m mentioned above, the legend of Adapa presents a parallel. Adapa, who is called the 'seed of mankinil,' forfeits for ever the immortality offered to liiiu by tlie god of heaven liy his refusal to take the bread and water of life. If, in addition to this, we note the prominent place occupied by the knowledge of sin and the yearning after forgive- ness amongst the Babylonian Semites, the exist- ence of a narrative of the Fall, .standing in intimate relation to I'aradise, can scarcely any longer be doubted. The same remark applies to the con- fasion of tongues at the building of the Tower. The Tower of Babel (Gn 11) is indeed a tower of
* Observe the wonting of Gn "28 'and God planted ft pardon in Eden,' i-e. according to tlie .above explanation, * out in tlie wa*.te.'
Steps, and, as such, a temple ; and, according to the Babylonian conception, men were created by God to build temples for the gods. At the same time the presumption of wishing to climb up to heaven comes out clearly in the Etana legend, where it is punished by a downfall.
Sacrijice.i and jiraijers played an important part among the Babylonians at all times. Besides the priests, there were also the magicians and sooth- sayers with their exorcisms. The laws and or- dinances (terlti .ni-i'n) of the gods are often men- tioned ; and we can see clearly, from the hymns and litanies that have come down to us, that the ritual of sacrifice and worship was a rich one. Liturgical forms, like so much else, had their home in Baby- lonia, as can be proved down even to the minutest details of expression. There are two chief kinds of sacrilices mentioned in tlie oldest inscriptions: the prescribed daily sacrifice ginu or sattukku (Sumer. sa-diifj, probably a word originally borrowed from the Arabian xadukat 'right'), and the freewill sacrifice nindabil ( ^^,',")t w-hich originally consisted of a gift of corn (Sumer. nidab) to the goddess Istar. Other expressions for sacrifice are: kurhatinu ('?1'^). properly ' presentation,' niku (properly ' liba- tion,' but used for sacrifice in general, since libations were always useil at the sacrifice of beasts), kutrinnn ' incense-offering,' zibu (from 2(6' ii = nT),sirku (■ drink-offering'), and .^7<rA-fn7(. It is worth remarking that the same word which is used in Hebrew of pardon and forgiveness, "^?, is used in Babylonian of sprinkling sick or unclean men. Sickness, howe%'er, is always treated by the Baby- lonians as a re.sult of sin, and hence sacrifice is ■always regarded as a propitiation for sin. Human sacrifice, up to the present, has been found por- trayed only upon ancient seal-cylinders,* and it is still open to question whether the victim does not represent a god rather than a man. In that case there would be an allusion to a myth unknown to us. Of the many expressions for 'prayer' and 'petition ' in use, siippii, a denominative from sijipu, a thresh- old, has a special interest, because the threshold of the house or the temple was the place at which prayer and sacrifice were offered in ancient times.
From the earliest times the temples were re- garded in Babylonia as the earthly dwelling- places of the gods (Bab. bttu, i.sirtn, and ekallu ■^:'r\, which u.sually, however, means palace:. They were generally in the form of a tower of steps (zikkui-atu), and were three storeys and sometimes seven storeys high, the latter being an earthly copy of the seven heavenly spheres, or circles, of the planets. Occasionally these temples contained also the graves of the kings ((/iyvmt), as in the case of a temple of Gudea. In the ' Holy of Holies ' there were special divisions, which were called by .several names, parakku, papahu, panpanu, di'u, uszikku, and stikkti (cf. ^r?, also used in a religious sense). It is remarkable that the oldest form of the ideogram for parakku clearly represents tapestry or a curtain (cf. 'P?).
The functions of the priests, seers or prophets, magicians and soothsayers, often overlap one another in the texts, though they were in reality always very carefidly differentiated. The most common expressions for priest are kaia and iangu (Sumerian snr/), the liigh priest being hence called sancin-maljttu (Srom sag 'priest' and mail 'high'), for "seer and prophet mahliU, from which the word magician is derived, asu (which also means ' physician,' Sumer. azu, originally signifying ' he who knows'), and barii ('the seer,' e.xactly = the Heb. ■"'?^). The Heb. word x'?' is also found, at any rate in the name of the god Xahi'u, Xnbli, Nebo ('proclaimer,' 'herald,' as a planet, Hermes). • Menant. Collection de Clercg, No. 170-182 ; pierrtt ffrorieit, i. fifjs. 94. 95, 97.