Turning by way of illustration to the historical
RELIGION OF BABYLONIA = 5387
and votive inscriptions of the oldest period, one cannot help being impressed by the circumstance that, while the number of deities that may be re- garded as belonging to the really active pantheon is not extraordinarily large—between twenty and thirty,—if we add to these the deities paraded by rulers on occasions when they wish to emphasize the extent of their sway, or when they desire to assure themselves of the protection and favour of as large a number of Divine forces as possible, the number is more than doubled. If, again, we take into account deities entering as elements into proper names occurring in inscriptions belonging to this period, the list reaches close to one hundred. So in a text dating from the days of Manishtusu, a king of Kish, who appears to be as early as any ruler of southern Babylonia as yet known to us,* we encounter about fifty names of deities which enter as elements into the four hundred and more names of individuals enumerated. Comparing this list with the deities introduced into the historical and votive inscriptions, it will be found that, while the five or six most prominent gods of the period are represented,—notably Sin, Ea, Ishtar, Kn-lil, or Bel,—by far the larger majority are such as are not found in these inscriptions at all. This may be due in part to the still limited historical material that we possess for this earliest period ; and it is also true that a number of the gods in this text of Manishtusu, which was found at Susa, are foreign deities—notably such as were worshipped in Elam. But, making due allowance for the possible increase of the active Babylonian pantheon of the oldest period by further discoveries, it is still safe to assume that most of the gods that appear as elements of proper names in the text in question belong to a different category, and will not, with some possible exceptions, be encountered in his- torical inscriptions proper. It seems certain that the deities whom we thus encounter in proper names are the old local gods, who naturally survive in the designations of individuals hailing from places where their cult was carried on; and it is equally natural that the rulers in their inscriptions should ignore all these local deities, except such as had acquired a superior rank, rendering them worthy to be invoked by a powerful chief.
Tf we now turn to the incantation texts, of which several series are known, we encounter the same preponderance in the number of deities invoked, over those that play a part in the active pantheon, as revealed by the historical inscriptions of any period. To be sure, our copies of these incanta- tion series are very late; but it is quite safe to assume, as already pointed out, that the originals belong to the second millennium before our era, if not to the third ; and the circumstance that many of the deities enumerated are to be found in proper names of the earliest period, is an evidence of the antiquity of the substantial elements of the texts themselves. In the ‘Shurpu’ series, as published by Prof. Zimmern, about 150 deities are introduced, as compared with 20 or 30 in historical texts of the first period; and not only are a number of these identical with those occurring in_ proper names of Manishtusu’s obelisk, but, what is more, even the foreign gods in this text have also found their place in the incantations. These incantation rituals continue in use during the Assyrian period, when 11 great gods constitute pravtionlly the entire pantheon, and this makes the contrast to the conditions revealed by these rituals all the more striking. The explanation is again to be sought in the distinction between purely local cults and
* See the evidence on the basis of which Scheil (Teates Blamites-Sémitiques, i. p. 2) places this ruler before 4500 B.c.— a date which scholars like Winckler would now reduce by about one thousand years,
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538 RELIGION OF BABYLONIA
the gods who, in consequence of political and other factors, rise to a superior position. The conser- vatism attaching to religious texts, added to the natural desire in the case of incantations to appeal to as large a number of gods as possible, in the hope that one or the other will grant the desired help or relief, leads to the retention of the old local deities ; and this is done without reference to the selective process that has led to singling out a small number only of these deities as powers of first-rate importance.
In proper names, accordingly, and in incantation rituals, there are revealed to us some of the popular phases of the Babylono-Assyrian religion, and, as elsewhere, these phases stand in a certain contrast to the attempts at systematization of the pantheon which are naturally the work of the priests and of the theologians. We are thus prepared, in the historical and votive inscriptions of the earliest period and of the succeeding ones, to distinguish, on the one hand, deities of merely local significance, and those added from the desire to parade a long list of protecting powers; and, on the other hand, the really active pantheon, produced by a process of selection due in part to the natural prominence acquired by certain gods and by certain sanctuaries over others, and in part due to the attempts at systematization of the pantheon, begun by the priests in their capacity as theologians at an early period, and continued as political and social cir- cumstances demanded.