iv. ORIGIN OF BABYLONIAN CULTURE.—A ques- tion that suggests itself at this point, and which must be considered before we advance to a con- sideration of some of the details of the religion of Babylonia and Assyria, involves the problem as to the origin of Babylonian culture. At the earliest period to which we can now trace back Babylonian history we already find this culture in an a vanced state, and it is safe to assume that its beginnings must be placed as early at least as 4000 B.c.— and it may turn out to be even considerably older, Scholarship is still divided on the question whether the culture is of Semitic or non-Semitic origin. The majority of scholars hold that the earliest settlers in the Valley were non-Semites, to whom the beginnings of the culture, including the invention and development of the earliest script —an essentially hieroglyphic system—are to be attributed. ‘To this people the name Sumerian (or Sumero-Akkadian) is given, and it is held that the Semites—the Babylonians in the later sense—upon entering the land from the south, adopted this culture, developed it still further, and adapted the script to the expression of ideas in their own Semitic
536 RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
tongue. This view, however, is opposed by a
- small but powerful minority, led by the distin- guished Prof. Joseph Halévy of Paris, which con- tends for the Semitic origin of the entire Baby- lonian culture, including, therefore, the script. The controversy which has raged for many years cannot be regarded as definitely settled,* nor is it likely to be uatil ethnology is in a position to reinforce or to controvert the arguments drawn by either side from the evidence of language and archeology. Meanwhile, it may be said that while, on the one hand, it seems tolerably certain that the Euphrates Valley, admirably adapted as a meeting-ground for races of various origin, actu- ally contained in early times a population of a mixed character ; on the other hand, it is no less clear that the traits of the culture, including the religion, are essentially the same in the latest days as in the earliest of which we have cogni- zance. The gods in the earliest texts are the same as those found in the latest; nor do the methods of invoking them, or the conceptions formed of them, undergo any other changes than those due tonatural development. Nowhere is there a violent break with the past, but only, and at the most, a gradual transition. If, therefore, the later culture is to be regarded as Semitic,—and on this point there is general agreement,—there is no substantial reason for denying this predicate to the earliest. Such a consideration naturally does not solve the question of origins, for it may properly be argued that the non-Semitic stratum was so thoroughly absorbed by the Semites at the period to which our material for the study of Babylonia belongs, as to obscure the original features. With this admission, those who oceupy an intermediate position between the opposing camps are for the present content, since it justifies the contention that the Babylonian culture, so far as known to us, is of one cast, and that therefore, in a treatment of the Religion of Babylonia and Assyria it is neither necessary nor justifiable to separate Semitic from supposedly non-Semitic features. If, therefore, there is a non- Semitic stratum to the culture which we encounter in the earliest period of Babylonian history, it belongs to a period which is, for the present at least, beyond our historical ken, and as little affects our views as to the general Semitic char- acter of the Babylono- Assyrian religion in its earliest and latest manifestations, as the probably non-Grecian elements existing in Greek culture affect the essential unity of what we have been taught to regard as Greek religion.
Moreover, the possibility of a non - Semitic stratum to Babylonian culture must not be con- fused with the question as to the existence of traces of a Sumerian language in the Babylonian seript and literature. Granting the existence of such a language as Sumerian, the position to which the advocates of the Sumerian theory are led in order to account for the continued use of the ‘Sumerian’ method of writing thousands of years after a far more suitable one had been evolved by the Semitic or Semitized Babylonians, justifies an attitude of reserve towards the far-reaching con- clusions that have been drawn from the supposed non-Semitic origin of the script employed by the Babylonians ; and the fact that these conclusions are brought forward in a spirit of consistency, derived by logical processes from a certain starting- point, only accentuates the difficulty of accepting the correctness of that starting - point. Besides, the advocates of the Sumerian theery have not yet fulfilled the obligation which obviously rests
* It will be sufficient to refer for details of this controversy to Weissbach’s monograph, Die Sumerische Frage (Leipzig, 1898), admirable as a summary, but which leaves the question pretty much where it was,
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upon them of defining the character of the Sumerian language in a manner acceptable to philologists, and of indicating its position in the group of languages to which it belongs.*
Under these circumstances, the attitude of re- serve is still further justified on the part of those who are content to wait for ‘more light’ before _ committing themselves to a position which involves such far-reaching consequences as the acceptance of the Sumerian theory in its present form carries with it. Without, therefore, encroaching upon doubtful territory, we are entitled in the treatment of our theme to assume a continued development of a religion which is to be regarded in its earliest form as Semitic, provided it be admitted that in its latest form it may be given this title.